When Obama visited Ireland last week and spoke movingly about the impact the Irish immigrant community had made in America, he knew how to get the crowd onside. Irish people get emotional about their diaspora in a way the British don’t. Historically, whenever the British moved abroad they were either inspired by the spirit of opportunity and adventure or off to expand the Empire. When The Irish left their homeland it was usually because something depressing was happening.
Even now, Irish people still feel a twinge of guilt and responsibility for those forced to make their home aboard. That’s nothing compared to the guilt felt by the people who actually emigrated. If Ireland could somehow channel this guilt into a form of fuel, George Bush would have invaded us years ago.
I had an auntie and uncle that moved to America during the last big recession in the 80s. The heartbreak of their leaving was matched only by the awkwardness and stress of their visits home. Every two years or so, they’d return with suitcases full of strange sweets, accents warped like old records and speech studded with strange Americanisms like “soda” that we’d all sneer at behind their back. For the length of the visit they tried to slip back into the family roles they abandoned years ago, with siblings they didn’t really know anymore, before returning exhausted back to their real life.
My family never asked questions about their new home; it was as if for those two weeks everyone wanted to forget they were ever away. America was the other woman they wouldn’t speak of. The day they flew back was always the worst. Like a wake the family reunited to say goodbye, bottles of whiskey were gruffly given, neighbours called and hands were shaken. We were ordered to kiss our departing uncle and aunt goodbye, a strange intimacy we treated with giddy embarrassment. Nanny always cried and there was always confusion over she whether going to the airport would be too much for her. Years later, when it was my turn to move abroad, out of choice rather than necessity and only as far away as London, she sobbed as keenly as if I were off to deepest darkest Alaska. Don’t forget me she’d whisper as I hugged her goodbye and guilt sagged like a wet leaden raincoat.
It’s not helped by the fact most of the Londoners I met had gaps in their knowledge of Ireland whole conversations could fall into. I didn’t want to be the clichéd Irish person trotting out Famine statistics and sobbing to Christy Moore, so I didn’t know whether to explain that “southern Ireland” wasn’t a country that Britain isn’t “the mainland” and the Irish language isn’t just pronouncing film as “filum”. Britain seemed clueless about Ireland; it was like discovering your best friend has no idea how old you were and the countries seemed separated by much more than the Irish Sea.
Even now, every trip home, I dread the car journey with my dad back from the airport, where I always get paranoid I’m getting an English accent. As I talk I can feel the strange London vowels in my mouth and my voice sounds awkward and clumsy like listening to a message I left on an answering machine. Now I’m the one bringing home sweets for my nephews and flinching when I accidently say “cupboard” instead of “press”.
Even something as innocuous as watching the Royal Wedding in Trafalgar Square brought a rush of guilt no other European Royal event would bring. Had my head been turned by London with its fancy Palladium architecture and transport system. The Queen wasn’t just the head of a crazy family; she was the head of the British State. What was I doing waving her flag?
So watching the Queens visit to Ireland I wasn’t expecting much. I certainly wasn’t expecting, all the way in Archway London, to feel a lump in my throat and a flush of relief, when she bowed her head before the memorial to the men who had died for Irish independence. The Queen of England, the head of the British army wasn’t just publically acknowledging my past, my history, my version of events she was honouring everything that mattered to my family, my Dad, my Nanny. Britain and Ireland were finally on the same page: London and home feel slightly nearer and I felt slightly less far away.
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Friday, 13 May 2011
Oi! You SLAG!
In London next month women will be march to reclaim the word “slut”. I’m shocked by this; I thought we lost that word to the gays years ago. I assumed that like a battered wife determined on a new start, it had moved to Brighton, got a makeover and was now happily describing the shenanigans of gay sexual culture with a jauntiness straight women never quite managed.
But apparently not, a Canadian cop was censured for suggesting women could prevent sexual attacks if they stopped dressing like one. Who knew rapists were so picky? I‘ve never heard of a woman on the brink of being assaulted before her assailant realised skinny jeans were doing nothing for her.
Sluts like the poor have always been with us. Ever since there was property to be passed down the family line, patriarchal society needed to ensure that their male heirs were all Wills and not Harrys. Whenever women have enjoyed any level of sexual freedom, and only the rich of course, it was usually followed by a period of balancing repression. The relative independence of 18th century women was in hindsight blamed as a progressive imbalance that led to the French revolution and resulted in an even stricter Victorian attitude. Ideas such as the medical theory that STDs were spread by the female orgasm made female sexual innocence more important than ever. Since the idea of female sexual independence is barely fifty years old, it’s not surprising a cultural myth as potent as the wanton woman has survived into the modern age.
I’ve only ever heard the word used by a male friend once, a vinegary wash of anger, frustration and spitefulness spreading across his face like lights going up at the end of a night club. It always reveals much more about the man than the woman he’s describing. They are usually describing a woman they’re sure is having lots of sex just not with them. Or if they have slept with them, this proves in their wonderland of self hatred, that they’re soiled nasty goods.
For women, the word “slut” has nothing to do with clothes. Yes we don’t, in general, really appreciate it when other women dress excessively provocatively but that’s more to do with the sober reality that, no matter how sharp your banter is, a flash of flesh will distract the most thoughtful of men. It’s irritating at worst; easy, obvious and equivalent to undercutting in business or crossing a picket line, but it’s not a hate crime.
Slut is a word not really used against women who sleep around a lot either. Most women feel a mixture of concern and rueful recognition for any sister going through that period of her life. Just as the scary witches were often lonely herbalists, the tear stained reality of the woman who will gladly have sex with strangers is usually less glamorous than men’s magazines suggest. They are, by and large, vulnerable, insecure and clumsily working through dormant issues with sole aid of their genitals and vodka. The rule of thumb being, if you don’t really like, respect, or even know the majority of the people you’re sleeping with, then maybe you’re not as happy as you think are. It’s a sentiment equally true for men too.
Women only bring out the S bomb to describe someone who has messed around with someone they care about. The women that steal boyfriends, cheat on their mates or sleep with someone to get an opportunity they didn’t deserve. These women never lose control, self respect and never ever sleep around.
So if, in reality, these larky sex mad “sluts” of the popular imagination don’t really exist how on earth did that Canadian cop feel confident that he could not only recognise one but practically knew where she shopped?
It’s because she is everywhere. You only have to log onto the internet, turn on a music channel or walk into a news agents to see this mystical slag, this chimera of fear and loathing, She Who Must be Laid, staring downing at you, watching your every move, like a humourless sexually available Big Brother. She has no personality, no sense of humour and no clothes on. Her sexiness taken rather than shared, her own pleasure irrelevant, completely defined by her yearning, panting, unquenchable desire for casual sex, especially with the fifteen year old boys the magazines advertisers are targeting. The bitter irony that most women are at their flirtiest, filthiest and most experimental with men they trust, like and respect tragically lost on them for the next twenty years at least.
Call me crazy, call me naïve but wouldn’t it be lovely if the term “slut” gradually fell out of use? If it could quietly slip unnoticed out of modern parlance and join “spinster” “crone” and “witch” as an outdated silly cartoon from the past. Maybe then, if we are very lucky, and fight really hard, many years from now, women would feel free to dress up as one every year for Hallowe’en. I know, I can’t imagine it either…
But apparently not, a Canadian cop was censured for suggesting women could prevent sexual attacks if they stopped dressing like one. Who knew rapists were so picky? I‘ve never heard of a woman on the brink of being assaulted before her assailant realised skinny jeans were doing nothing for her.
Sluts like the poor have always been with us. Ever since there was property to be passed down the family line, patriarchal society needed to ensure that their male heirs were all Wills and not Harrys. Whenever women have enjoyed any level of sexual freedom, and only the rich of course, it was usually followed by a period of balancing repression. The relative independence of 18th century women was in hindsight blamed as a progressive imbalance that led to the French revolution and resulted in an even stricter Victorian attitude. Ideas such as the medical theory that STDs were spread by the female orgasm made female sexual innocence more important than ever. Since the idea of female sexual independence is barely fifty years old, it’s not surprising a cultural myth as potent as the wanton woman has survived into the modern age.
I’ve only ever heard the word used by a male friend once, a vinegary wash of anger, frustration and spitefulness spreading across his face like lights going up at the end of a night club. It always reveals much more about the man than the woman he’s describing. They are usually describing a woman they’re sure is having lots of sex just not with them. Or if they have slept with them, this proves in their wonderland of self hatred, that they’re soiled nasty goods.
For women, the word “slut” has nothing to do with clothes. Yes we don’t, in general, really appreciate it when other women dress excessively provocatively but that’s more to do with the sober reality that, no matter how sharp your banter is, a flash of flesh will distract the most thoughtful of men. It’s irritating at worst; easy, obvious and equivalent to undercutting in business or crossing a picket line, but it’s not a hate crime.
Slut is a word not really used against women who sleep around a lot either. Most women feel a mixture of concern and rueful recognition for any sister going through that period of her life. Just as the scary witches were often lonely herbalists, the tear stained reality of the woman who will gladly have sex with strangers is usually less glamorous than men’s magazines suggest. They are, by and large, vulnerable, insecure and clumsily working through dormant issues with sole aid of their genitals and vodka. The rule of thumb being, if you don’t really like, respect, or even know the majority of the people you’re sleeping with, then maybe you’re not as happy as you think are. It’s a sentiment equally true for men too.
Women only bring out the S bomb to describe someone who has messed around with someone they care about. The women that steal boyfriends, cheat on their mates or sleep with someone to get an opportunity they didn’t deserve. These women never lose control, self respect and never ever sleep around.
So if, in reality, these larky sex mad “sluts” of the popular imagination don’t really exist how on earth did that Canadian cop feel confident that he could not only recognise one but practically knew where she shopped?
It’s because she is everywhere. You only have to log onto the internet, turn on a music channel or walk into a news agents to see this mystical slag, this chimera of fear and loathing, She Who Must be Laid, staring downing at you, watching your every move, like a humourless sexually available Big Brother. She has no personality, no sense of humour and no clothes on. Her sexiness taken rather than shared, her own pleasure irrelevant, completely defined by her yearning, panting, unquenchable desire for casual sex, especially with the fifteen year old boys the magazines advertisers are targeting. The bitter irony that most women are at their flirtiest, filthiest and most experimental with men they trust, like and respect tragically lost on them for the next twenty years at least.
Call me crazy, call me naïve but wouldn’t it be lovely if the term “slut” gradually fell out of use? If it could quietly slip unnoticed out of modern parlance and join “spinster” “crone” and “witch” as an outdated silly cartoon from the past. Maybe then, if we are very lucky, and fight really hard, many years from now, women would feel free to dress up as one every year for Hallowe’en. I know, I can’t imagine it either…
Friday, 6 May 2011
I'm sorry if this is horribly sentimental but we all know how I feel about the subject
With the death of the last surviving WWI soldier, memory of the first military conflict of modern times fades from the horror of personal experience to the safe sepia of historical fact. For those who fought in it, it was an experience so harrowing that, out of respect for those that died and to protect those spared the experience, they simply refused to speak about it. Now as that generation leaves us, their silence finally becomes complete, a permanent memorial their lost friends.
Although it seems a long time ago, to have experienced the Great War, you only need to have been born about one hundred and ten years ago, which is barely three generations ago. It's only the soldiers todays great grandparents. They’re the same people that bobbed their hair, drove the first cars and wore the clothes still hanging in forgotten wardrobes. They went to cinemas, cheered the present Queen, they were around for The Beatles, it’s not ancient history; their scent still lingers in the air. And yet, psychologically, their generation’s world view had more in common with the ancient past than our own.
Politics was then still the preserve of the aristocracy, women didn’t have the vote and Europe was a family firm run by Queen Victoria’s grand children. In the early days of recruitment before the horrors of the trenches became widely reported the war was sold as an invigorating noble crusade and death at worst an awfully big adventure. If they were to die, it would be as Wendy had insisted in J.M. Barrie’s popular play of the time – as brave Englishmen. Training still involved bayonets and horseback riding. Men were recruited from villages that barely had electricity and fought in battles against automatic weaponry, armoured tanks, gas attacks and mortar attacks. Instead of heroically riding into battle most soldiers waited for nerve shredding weeks in trenches slowly losing their mind. The condition of “shell shock” was coined for the first times and sufferers treated with suspicion bordering on out right aggression. The most common symptoms were either severe stuttering or selective mutism, the English language unable to catch up with what they had experienced.
In the Crimean war, the last major military conflict before The Great War, the most controversial battle of the conflict at Balaclava resulted in the death of 110 men. 19,240 died on the first day of the Somme on the British side alone. There were only sixty years between those two events, less than between now and the dropping of the nuclear bombs in Japan. It’s comparable to our children finding it quant and old fashioned that we find the idea of millions killed in single second strange hard to understand.
At home there was a hysterical craze for mysticism, bereaved families flocked to mediums, scientists attempted to use the newly mastered electricity to try to proof the existence of the soul, serious newspapers reported angels on the battle fields and the latest in photographic equipment captured fairies at the bottom of gardens. Communities that had lost their sons to the industrial weaponry of the 20th century were trying to use dying ancient myths to reclaim them.
Literature imploded; either into the escapism of Tolkien’s “Lord of The Rings” fantasises where homesick confused hobbits battled against faceless industrial death or fragmented into the emptiness of Elliot’s “Wasteland” and Joyce’s streams of consciousness. The safety of Victorian plots abandoned, that A would follow B, the reassurance that everything could be resolved no longer seemed possible. It wasn’t just the demise of literary happy endings; it was the death in the belief of proper endings at all.
The soldiers fighting today have one hundred years worth of vocabulary to make sense of their experiences. Phrases like Pre emptive strikes, collateral damage and Post traumatic stress help to numb the horror, normalise the bloodshed and legitimise the casualties. They have the language but they don’t have the narrative anymore. The reassurance that there is point to it, that order will be restored ,that it will all eventually be worth it. Humans haven’t evolved beyond needing and yearning for those stories but they’re now as ancient and archaic as Edwardian uniforms. With the passing of the last First World War veteran we’ve lost the last person who remembered a world that looked like that.
Now with the old battalions finally reunited, the regiments at last complete, I wonder what the lost boys of the trenches will make of the final aged Tommy returned. If they ask him how the rest of the century worked out, what their war solved and what we learnt from and did with their sacrifice; I hope he’ s able to keep his silence.
Although it seems a long time ago, to have experienced the Great War, you only need to have been born about one hundred and ten years ago, which is barely three generations ago. It's only the soldiers todays great grandparents. They’re the same people that bobbed their hair, drove the first cars and wore the clothes still hanging in forgotten wardrobes. They went to cinemas, cheered the present Queen, they were around for The Beatles, it’s not ancient history; their scent still lingers in the air. And yet, psychologically, their generation’s world view had more in common with the ancient past than our own.
Politics was then still the preserve of the aristocracy, women didn’t have the vote and Europe was a family firm run by Queen Victoria’s grand children. In the early days of recruitment before the horrors of the trenches became widely reported the war was sold as an invigorating noble crusade and death at worst an awfully big adventure. If they were to die, it would be as Wendy had insisted in J.M. Barrie’s popular play of the time – as brave Englishmen. Training still involved bayonets and horseback riding. Men were recruited from villages that barely had electricity and fought in battles against automatic weaponry, armoured tanks, gas attacks and mortar attacks. Instead of heroically riding into battle most soldiers waited for nerve shredding weeks in trenches slowly losing their mind. The condition of “shell shock” was coined for the first times and sufferers treated with suspicion bordering on out right aggression. The most common symptoms were either severe stuttering or selective mutism, the English language unable to catch up with what they had experienced.
In the Crimean war, the last major military conflict before The Great War, the most controversial battle of the conflict at Balaclava resulted in the death of 110 men. 19,240 died on the first day of the Somme on the British side alone. There were only sixty years between those two events, less than between now and the dropping of the nuclear bombs in Japan. It’s comparable to our children finding it quant and old fashioned that we find the idea of millions killed in single second strange hard to understand.
At home there was a hysterical craze for mysticism, bereaved families flocked to mediums, scientists attempted to use the newly mastered electricity to try to proof the existence of the soul, serious newspapers reported angels on the battle fields and the latest in photographic equipment captured fairies at the bottom of gardens. Communities that had lost their sons to the industrial weaponry of the 20th century were trying to use dying ancient myths to reclaim them.
Literature imploded; either into the escapism of Tolkien’s “Lord of The Rings” fantasises where homesick confused hobbits battled against faceless industrial death or fragmented into the emptiness of Elliot’s “Wasteland” and Joyce’s streams of consciousness. The safety of Victorian plots abandoned, that A would follow B, the reassurance that everything could be resolved no longer seemed possible. It wasn’t just the demise of literary happy endings; it was the death in the belief of proper endings at all.
The soldiers fighting today have one hundred years worth of vocabulary to make sense of their experiences. Phrases like Pre emptive strikes, collateral damage and Post traumatic stress help to numb the horror, normalise the bloodshed and legitimise the casualties. They have the language but they don’t have the narrative anymore. The reassurance that there is point to it, that order will be restored ,that it will all eventually be worth it. Humans haven’t evolved beyond needing and yearning for those stories but they’re now as ancient and archaic as Edwardian uniforms. With the passing of the last First World War veteran we’ve lost the last person who remembered a world that looked like that.
Now with the old battalions finally reunited, the regiments at last complete, I wonder what the lost boys of the trenches will make of the final aged Tommy returned. If they ask him how the rest of the century worked out, what their war solved and what we learnt from and did with their sacrifice; I hope he’ s able to keep his silence.
Sunday, 17 April 2011
What I learnt at school
The only thought that got me through school assemblies as our head mistress droned about the importance of representing St. Michaels Loreto Convent Navan in a respectable lady like manner was the certainty, curled like an angry fist in my teenage dirt bag heart, that as soon as school was finally out, I would escape this stuffy white bread sandwich town, move to the big city and hang out exclusively with gays, freaks and drag queens.
This week I was a bridesmaid at a Pirate themed civil partnership where my dates were a gay comic and a lesbian cabaret singer. I felt about this the way, I assume, some people feel about finally owning their first house.
I didn’t have the best start at Secondary school. First years were assigned final year “buddies” whose job it was help new girls settle into the new school. In my first week I managed to lose my school bag; along with all my books for the year, twice. The second time it happened I was so worried about telling my Mam, I ran away on my bike and tried to persuade my granny to let me move in with her instead. When I sheepishly returned to school I found out my “buddy” had asked to be swapped to a less high maintenance student.
The other girls in my class didn’t seem to have a problem keeping hold of basic belongings. They were popular, had rugby boyfriends, played hockey and could see the teachers point. They smelled of Body Shop vanilla musk, had sensible career plans and lives as organised as their red pen and ruler lined exercise books. I hated them almost as much as I wanted to be them. I actually took pleasure in annoying and irritating them. I pretended to be hungover in class, bragged about how messed up my real friends outside school were and had eating disorders that lasted until lunchtime or until I forgot, like a creepy teenage Geri Halliwell.
On the day before our Junior Cert exams, and our last before the class was split up into new groups for our final years, a well intentioned teacher decided to pass pages around with each student’s name at the top and asked everyone to write their favourite memories of that person anonymously underneath. I was the only one to have a page of pretty much unanimous negative sarcastic comments. In front of everyone I coolly read them, smirked, crumbled up the page and sashayed out giving everyone what I hoped was my best “Later losers, you’ve just made me feel even more like Madonna” expression. I then went home and memorised every single line.
Surprisingly, fame didn’t beckon, my drama teacher hadn’t contacted Steven Spielberg about me, as in my secret heart I genuinely thought he would. I didn’t get to take year off to work in Hollywood and become friends with Danny Devito, so come September I was back in my maroon school uniform. But to my unexpected delight, something magical called streaming had twinkled its magic wand over the summer holidays, skimmed the smug girls away and poured me into as fresh new class.
I was still with the clever ones, but just not the ones that necessarily did their home work every day.
These were a different group entirely. One’s that understood the importance of throwing school bags out a second floor window, that you should interrupt the geography teacher every time she described any large landmass, be it iceberg, volcano or ox bow lake to earnestly ask if it was as big as the ship Titanic. That instead of doing carols it was just funnier in our final year to do a nativity play so I could finally play Mary. Yes we were all seventeen, yes it quickly descended into “Carry on Bethlehem” and yes we got into massive trouble, but no one ever questioned our choice. That rather than maturely seeing her side, the only way of responding to your homophobic religion teacher as she lectured a roomful of teenage girls on the inherent evilness of abortions was by making a frog noise throughout her class, even if it meant having to write out “ I will not say ribbit in class” one hundred times. That we were probably never ever going to use a quote from “To Kill a Mockingbird” in our adult life.
I’m friends with some of those perfect, popular, punch myself in the face out of boredom girls on Facebook now, but they don’t annoy me anymore; I find them fascinating. I press my nose up against their lives, and skip through the pictures; the sensible nights out, the houses bought, husbands wed and it’s like speeding in a train through a place that looks OK but you know you never have to worry about living there anymore.
Like the astronauts that flew to the moon thinking that they were making important scientific breakthroughs when what turned out to be most important were those images of playing golf and skipping on the lunar surface I don’t really remember anything that I learnt academically at school. French verbs, periodic tables or features of coastal erosion haven’t really come up in my life since. It’s the other stuff that’s important and beautiful. In an adult world of deadening days, bored tired people going through the motions and life trying to get you old, what is really useful to know? That jokes matter; they last longer than facts, erupt in your memory like a firework, singing egos and soldering true friendships.There's more honesty, integrity and compassion in one shared office in joke that a lifetime of following the rules. They won’t get you mortgages but they will get you through the day and invites to Pirate weddings.
As we swung back on our chairs, ignoring the teacher and drawing moustaches on each other’s faces, I thought I would finally get grown but maybe there wasn't much else left for me to learn, except possibly algebra.
This week I was a bridesmaid at a Pirate themed civil partnership where my dates were a gay comic and a lesbian cabaret singer. I felt about this the way, I assume, some people feel about finally owning their first house.
I didn’t have the best start at Secondary school. First years were assigned final year “buddies” whose job it was help new girls settle into the new school. In my first week I managed to lose my school bag; along with all my books for the year, twice. The second time it happened I was so worried about telling my Mam, I ran away on my bike and tried to persuade my granny to let me move in with her instead. When I sheepishly returned to school I found out my “buddy” had asked to be swapped to a less high maintenance student.
The other girls in my class didn’t seem to have a problem keeping hold of basic belongings. They were popular, had rugby boyfriends, played hockey and could see the teachers point. They smelled of Body Shop vanilla musk, had sensible career plans and lives as organised as their red pen and ruler lined exercise books. I hated them almost as much as I wanted to be them. I actually took pleasure in annoying and irritating them. I pretended to be hungover in class, bragged about how messed up my real friends outside school were and had eating disorders that lasted until lunchtime or until I forgot, like a creepy teenage Geri Halliwell.
On the day before our Junior Cert exams, and our last before the class was split up into new groups for our final years, a well intentioned teacher decided to pass pages around with each student’s name at the top and asked everyone to write their favourite memories of that person anonymously underneath. I was the only one to have a page of pretty much unanimous negative sarcastic comments. In front of everyone I coolly read them, smirked, crumbled up the page and sashayed out giving everyone what I hoped was my best “Later losers, you’ve just made me feel even more like Madonna” expression. I then went home and memorised every single line.
Surprisingly, fame didn’t beckon, my drama teacher hadn’t contacted Steven Spielberg about me, as in my secret heart I genuinely thought he would. I didn’t get to take year off to work in Hollywood and become friends with Danny Devito, so come September I was back in my maroon school uniform. But to my unexpected delight, something magical called streaming had twinkled its magic wand over the summer holidays, skimmed the smug girls away and poured me into as fresh new class.
I was still with the clever ones, but just not the ones that necessarily did their home work every day.
These were a different group entirely. One’s that understood the importance of throwing school bags out a second floor window, that you should interrupt the geography teacher every time she described any large landmass, be it iceberg, volcano or ox bow lake to earnestly ask if it was as big as the ship Titanic. That instead of doing carols it was just funnier in our final year to do a nativity play so I could finally play Mary. Yes we were all seventeen, yes it quickly descended into “Carry on Bethlehem” and yes we got into massive trouble, but no one ever questioned our choice. That rather than maturely seeing her side, the only way of responding to your homophobic religion teacher as she lectured a roomful of teenage girls on the inherent evilness of abortions was by making a frog noise throughout her class, even if it meant having to write out “ I will not say ribbit in class” one hundred times. That we were probably never ever going to use a quote from “To Kill a Mockingbird” in our adult life.
I’m friends with some of those perfect, popular, punch myself in the face out of boredom girls on Facebook now, but they don’t annoy me anymore; I find them fascinating. I press my nose up against their lives, and skip through the pictures; the sensible nights out, the houses bought, husbands wed and it’s like speeding in a train through a place that looks OK but you know you never have to worry about living there anymore.
Like the astronauts that flew to the moon thinking that they were making important scientific breakthroughs when what turned out to be most important were those images of playing golf and skipping on the lunar surface I don’t really remember anything that I learnt academically at school. French verbs, periodic tables or features of coastal erosion haven’t really come up in my life since. It’s the other stuff that’s important and beautiful. In an adult world of deadening days, bored tired people going through the motions and life trying to get you old, what is really useful to know? That jokes matter; they last longer than facts, erupt in your memory like a firework, singing egos and soldering true friendships.There's more honesty, integrity and compassion in one shared office in joke that a lifetime of following the rules. They won’t get you mortgages but they will get you through the day and invites to Pirate weddings.
As we swung back on our chairs, ignoring the teacher and drawing moustaches on each other’s faces, I thought I would finally get grown but maybe there wasn't much else left for me to learn, except possibly algebra.
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
“Darrin Stephens; Bewitched Nights”.
With “Mad Men” off air till 2012, broadcasters have announced they may fill the gap left by the smash hit sixties series by showing the little seen “Bewitched” spin off series “Darrin Stephens; Bewitched Nights”.
While the popular 1960s sitcom focussed on the adventures of a beautiful young witch living in an upstate New York suburb with her handsome young Madison Avenue advertising executive husband, the spin off series had a darker tone.
Instead of magical high jinks, it focused on Darrin’s life at a Manhattan advertising firm. He is presented as a conflicted troubled man, torn between life at a cut throat Madison Avenue ad agency and his idyllic existance in the suburbs married to a witch. Viewers were however surprised and turned off by chain smoking Darrin’s affairs with secretaries, use of prostitutes and battles with booze.
Attempts to retain some of the parent shows lighter whimsical feel were unsuccessful. Episodes included a hilarious trip to a New York strip club where Darrin, unaware his mother in law has accidently turned him into a unicorn, fails to impress clients, the controversial mermaid forced abortion story arch and the clients dinner almost ruined by Darrin’s secret brother from his past life reappearing.
Audiences also rejected the new focus put on wife Samantha’s soulless existence in suburban America, her inability to reconcile inner demons with the barrenness of the American dream; all while being a witch. Memorably, her famous twitch was used to suggest substance abuse. The couple’s daughter Tabitha also became a more rebellious character, memorably rebelling against her mother’s coldness by masturbating on a couch during a during a goblin sleepover. There were also complaints that Darrin’s long suffering best friend Larry’s descent into heroin addiction in Greenwich village was sensationalistic. The series was axed after one season, with actor Dick York resigning in protest
While the popular 1960s sitcom focussed on the adventures of a beautiful young witch living in an upstate New York suburb with her handsome young Madison Avenue advertising executive husband, the spin off series had a darker tone.
Instead of magical high jinks, it focused on Darrin’s life at a Manhattan advertising firm. He is presented as a conflicted troubled man, torn between life at a cut throat Madison Avenue ad agency and his idyllic existance in the suburbs married to a witch. Viewers were however surprised and turned off by chain smoking Darrin’s affairs with secretaries, use of prostitutes and battles with booze.
Attempts to retain some of the parent shows lighter whimsical feel were unsuccessful. Episodes included a hilarious trip to a New York strip club where Darrin, unaware his mother in law has accidently turned him into a unicorn, fails to impress clients, the controversial mermaid forced abortion story arch and the clients dinner almost ruined by Darrin’s secret brother from his past life reappearing.
Audiences also rejected the new focus put on wife Samantha’s soulless existence in suburban America, her inability to reconcile inner demons with the barrenness of the American dream; all while being a witch. Memorably, her famous twitch was used to suggest substance abuse. The couple’s daughter Tabitha also became a more rebellious character, memorably rebelling against her mother’s coldness by masturbating on a couch during a during a goblin sleepover. There were also complaints that Darrin’s long suffering best friend Larry’s descent into heroin addiction in Greenwich village was sensationalistic. The series was axed after one season, with actor Dick York resigning in protest
Movie Pitch: Morrissey and Me.
hey guys! I don't really know a lot about the film industry but I have an amazing pitch for a romantic comedy. Is there anybody who can get it seen by the relevant people?! Grrrr!! LOL!!
Movie Pitch: Morrissey and Me.
Gráinne (Gráinne Maguire/Ann Hathaway?), a cocksure young comic decides that in order to write her musical “Girlfriend in Coma” A retelling of the African American feminist movement using songs of The Smiths she must go to extraordinary efforts to insure that notoriously recalcitrant musician grants permission to use his back catalogue. Determined to see her dream come true, she disguises herself as a young gay man and faints in front of his abandoned reclusive manor.
Next scene we see her awakening in a gargantuan living room to find Morrissey (Morrissey/Gordon Brown/Colin Firth?), awkwardly soothing her brow with a damp towel. She claims to have no memory of anything at all apart from being a gay man and a vegetarian. Morrissey, who lives alone with only a loyal retinue of browbeaten servants, agrees to look after his new guest until his (her!) health returns and the two begin a tentative friendship.
MONTAGE: (music-Someone Like You- Van Morrison/Leona Lewis cover?) Gráinne discovers his library- sees different side to him? Eating at long formal table; changing to informal snacks in kitchen; changing to food fights? Gráinne stands up to him/ argues back? Gráinne shows Morrissey how to feed birds? The two play fighting? Wide shot of the two sitting by open fire. Close up of Morrissey looking tentatively happy/ Gráinne looking guilty.
Eventually, haven fallen in love in a paternal way with his house guest, he arranges a surprise slumber party where he plans to officially sign over his fortune, including back catalogue to his young ward. Unfortunately as he excitedly prepares the guestroom with popcorn and a Clueless DVD, his accidentally knocks open her diary and discovers Gráinne’s secret plot in numbered bullet points. He also comes across earlier diary entries where she’s written that she actually thinks Oscar Wilde is over rated. Heartbroken, angry and distraught, in an emotional scene outside in the rain Morrissey reveals he knows her secret. Gráinne tries to explain that her earlier mendacity has blossomed into real friendship but, with a tear stained face; the former Smiths front man banishes her from his life. Shot of Gráinne falling in mud. (Coldplay/ Keane music?)
Gráinne stumbles through abandoned streets. More Rain/ Possible wind machine? There she bumps into Sebastian (Owen Wilson/Jack Whitehall?) her identical twin brother whom she always thought was dead.
INTR: cafe: Gráinne is amazed to discover that Sebastian has also been working on his own Smiths based musical “You’re the One for Me Fatty” A retelling Margaret Thatcher’s dealing with IRA hunger strikers also using the songs of the Smiths. He had disguised himself as an amnesiac young woman and had been staying at Johnny Marr’s (Ian Hart/Hugh Grant?) house. He had also been rumbled, but thanks to an unlogged out gmail account rather than diary. Both shake their heads, ruefully wishing that their mother was alive to see her twins finally reunited. Shot of waitress clearing table- hint that she is actually ghost of their mother?
INTR: West End Theatre. Following the advice of an eccentric old lady, who had both a degree in performers law and also, sadly, terminal cancer, the twins have discovered a loophole allowing them to perform their Smiths musical re-titled “Everyday is like a Sunday” about a young man’s struggle with long term memory loss. At the end of the final number as the smoke clears and the canons slowly roll off stage, we reveal Morrissey and Johnny sitting at opposite ends of the packed auditorium. They both spontaneously give a standing ovation, in doing so become aware of each other’s presence for the first time. A hush falls over the packed theatre and after a heart breaking pause, they embrace weeping. Gráinne and Sebastian (matching outfits?) look at each other, roll eyes and laugh (Lily Allen track?)
Final scene: Morrissey; Johnny, Gráinne and Sebastian all in Morrissey’s living room. His house is no longer cold and menacing; his loyal butler (Antony Hopkins/Miranda Hart?) looks on approvingly as they all happily watch a DVD of Clueless. Johnny suggests that they go out somewhere afterwards; Morrissey says he’d love to but he hasn’t got a stitch to wear. Johnny, Gráinne and Sebastian start to laugh and throw popcorn at the former Smiths front man, who frowns and then begins to laugh himself. Cut to bird flying out of window into the night sky (symbolic?)
END
Possible Sequel Opportunities: The gang discover a baby abandoned on their door step? Morrissey opens a Private detective Agency?
Movie Pitch: Morrissey and Me.
Gráinne (Gráinne Maguire/Ann Hathaway?), a cocksure young comic decides that in order to write her musical “Girlfriend in Coma” A retelling of the African American feminist movement using songs of The Smiths she must go to extraordinary efforts to insure that notoriously recalcitrant musician grants permission to use his back catalogue. Determined to see her dream come true, she disguises herself as a young gay man and faints in front of his abandoned reclusive manor.
Next scene we see her awakening in a gargantuan living room to find Morrissey (Morrissey/Gordon Brown/Colin Firth?), awkwardly soothing her brow with a damp towel. She claims to have no memory of anything at all apart from being a gay man and a vegetarian. Morrissey, who lives alone with only a loyal retinue of browbeaten servants, agrees to look after his new guest until his (her!) health returns and the two begin a tentative friendship.
MONTAGE: (music-Someone Like You- Van Morrison/Leona Lewis cover?) Gráinne discovers his library- sees different side to him? Eating at long formal table; changing to informal snacks in kitchen; changing to food fights? Gráinne stands up to him/ argues back? Gráinne shows Morrissey how to feed birds? The two play fighting? Wide shot of the two sitting by open fire. Close up of Morrissey looking tentatively happy/ Gráinne looking guilty.
Eventually, haven fallen in love in a paternal way with his house guest, he arranges a surprise slumber party where he plans to officially sign over his fortune, including back catalogue to his young ward. Unfortunately as he excitedly prepares the guestroom with popcorn and a Clueless DVD, his accidentally knocks open her diary and discovers Gráinne’s secret plot in numbered bullet points. He also comes across earlier diary entries where she’s written that she actually thinks Oscar Wilde is over rated. Heartbroken, angry and distraught, in an emotional scene outside in the rain Morrissey reveals he knows her secret. Gráinne tries to explain that her earlier mendacity has blossomed into real friendship but, with a tear stained face; the former Smiths front man banishes her from his life. Shot of Gráinne falling in mud. (Coldplay/ Keane music?)
Gráinne stumbles through abandoned streets. More Rain/ Possible wind machine? There she bumps into Sebastian (Owen Wilson/Jack Whitehall?) her identical twin brother whom she always thought was dead.
INTR: cafe: Gráinne is amazed to discover that Sebastian has also been working on his own Smiths based musical “You’re the One for Me Fatty” A retelling Margaret Thatcher’s dealing with IRA hunger strikers also using the songs of the Smiths. He had disguised himself as an amnesiac young woman and had been staying at Johnny Marr’s (Ian Hart/Hugh Grant?) house. He had also been rumbled, but thanks to an unlogged out gmail account rather than diary. Both shake their heads, ruefully wishing that their mother was alive to see her twins finally reunited. Shot of waitress clearing table- hint that she is actually ghost of their mother?
INTR: West End Theatre. Following the advice of an eccentric old lady, who had both a degree in performers law and also, sadly, terminal cancer, the twins have discovered a loophole allowing them to perform their Smiths musical re-titled “Everyday is like a Sunday” about a young man’s struggle with long term memory loss. At the end of the final number as the smoke clears and the canons slowly roll off stage, we reveal Morrissey and Johnny sitting at opposite ends of the packed auditorium. They both spontaneously give a standing ovation, in doing so become aware of each other’s presence for the first time. A hush falls over the packed theatre and after a heart breaking pause, they embrace weeping. Gráinne and Sebastian (matching outfits?) look at each other, roll eyes and laugh (Lily Allen track?)
Final scene: Morrissey; Johnny, Gráinne and Sebastian all in Morrissey’s living room. His house is no longer cold and menacing; his loyal butler (Antony Hopkins/Miranda Hart?) looks on approvingly as they all happily watch a DVD of Clueless. Johnny suggests that they go out somewhere afterwards; Morrissey says he’d love to but he hasn’t got a stitch to wear.
END
Possible Sequel Opportunities: The gang discover a baby abandoned on their door step? Morrissey opens a Private detective Agency?
Monday, 28 March 2011
wooh! It's behind you.....
Do you think ghosts find Hallowe’en patronising? Do they roll their eyes and complain that actually there’s a lot more to their culture than that, it’s just patronising.
They must also get very fed up with how their community is portrayed in the media. They’re either predatory, aggressive ghouls moving into a home and dragging down the property value or bland, sexless Uncle Toms, Casper the sell out ghost, happy to be the living person’s token dead best friend. Whatever their personality or ability, always steroptypically defined by their lack of mortality. How they must yearn for the day that a TV series or mainstream movie is brave enough to cast a ghost in lead role or indeed any part where being dead isn’t their entire storyline and personality point; where they just happen to be not living but also have other stuff going on in their lives as well.
Ghosts don’t do themselves any favours though. Whenever you bump into them they prattle on and on about the same things, repeating the same actions, retracing the same steps. “I was a Victorian ladies maid, oohhh!” Yes, but you’ve been dead for over one hundred and fifty years, what have you been doing in the mean time? Why are you defining yourself by the ten or so years that you happened to be alive when by now that must be a diminishing fraction of your time on this planet? They are the ultimate child stars who have never moved on from their first burst of fame, touring the highways and byways of Britain with their one and only hit. They should say, yes, I was married to Henry the VIII for a few years but to be honest, that was a long time ago, now I’d much rather be known for my oil painting.
In their defence, it must be disappointing to discover that once dead, the only human beings interested in contacting you are drunk students, clingy relatives and Living TV. Imagine; you’re the ghost of a Norman soldier, think of all action, the excitement, the sex you could have had in your day and now the only one showing any interest in you is Yvette Fielding, and you’re supposed to be grateful for the attention? That has got to hurt.
I feel I can comment on this because I once nearly accidentally had sex with a ghost. I was furious. I have always made it very clear that the only dead person I would consider doing the deed with is a WWI soldier and only if I bore a striking resemblance to his long dead sweetheart, whose tragically unconsummated relationship helped him through his final weeks in the trenches and only if having sex with me helped him finally pass over to that great no man’s land in the sky and only if he looked like Jonny Lee Miller in “Regeneration”. Yet there I was, having a nap and minding my own business and there was the universe was setting me up on some sort of cosmic blind date with a spectral chancer. Luckily I woke up before things got out of control otherwise I could have literally had a phantom pregnancy on my hands. How could I have explained that to my parents? I could just see my mother rolling her eyes and sighing “Oh Gráinne, you have to be different don’t you?” I mean having a ghost baby would make me stand out from all the other young mums but what about schools?
My friends weren’t sympathetic either, when I groggily told them on the phone about nearly getting bumped in the night, there was just a nervous laugh, followed by a long pause and a swift change in the conversation. Later three of them independently emailed me links to Guardian Soul Mates; no pun, I hope intended.
I’m non-plussed my the supernatural, even as a child ghosts, banshees, the devil himself were as familiar to me as second cousins my parents got Christmas cards from every year. Satan and his constant attempts to steal my soul were just another problem to be faced and I developed the habit of saying out loud , whenever I saw something I really liked “I wouldn’t give my soul for it” just in case I accidently, subconsciously, made a barter I would later regret. It was like a form on insurance policy should I unwittingly promise my entire afterlife in hell in exchange for a chemistry set. I could just see myself, in my sweaty subterranean cell, stuck for all eternity with Hitler, the shark from Jaws and all the English soldiers my granny told me about, explaining that I was doing time for getting carried away before Christmas in Toys R Us.
At Secondary school, out of sheer boredom, my friends and I did the Ouija board at lunchtime for an entire week and I became convinced that I was communicating with the ghosts of three dead former students who had all died mysteriously in a locked storage room at the back of the lunch hall. The story unravelled itself in my mind’s eye, three girls killed one after the other after dabbling in the occult, a haunted room covered in crucifixes by the nuns in a vain attempt to exorcise the evil history that dripped from its walls, trapped souls only I could release.
It took our religion teacher arranging a special class to formerly deny that any students had ever died from falling downstairs, been run over by a driverless car or been found dead staring into a mirror, for my visions to end. The doomed cupboard of death was later found to contain old geography books.
Ghosts are everywhere after all, even if it’s just our hopes and expectations that though long dead, still stumble about with us, tapping us on our shoulder when we least expect it and rattling our graves. The ancient mistakes that send shivers down our spine, the bad choices that chatter our teeth and the lingering habits that lead up down the same dead ends like will o the wisps.
The missed opportunites that return in the dark of the night with a spectral grin and the new person or fresh opportunity that grotesquely decays to reveal the same old stupidities we thought we’d staked years ago.
With that in mind, I’d like to create my own scary ghost tour. It would involve drama students popping out from behind cobbled archways dressed as your teenage dreams, your weird depressed aunt popping up and whispering “You always reminded me of myself at your age” and at the end you meet your eight your old self who, blinking in horror, touches your face and whispers “Who are you sad old lady?” Then when you turn to your boyfriend for reassurance, he pulls off his face and he’s revealed to be every man you’ve ever gone out with ever. And it’s all done in Victorian outfits; terrifying.
I know how I’m going to die anyway. I’m going to either accidentally strangle myself with a curtain cord, electrocute myself with a toaster or mistake a French window for a sliding door and fall out a sixtieth floor window. My last thought will most definitly be – I cannot believe I just did that. I will meet my maker in one of those accidents electrical goods instructions warn you sarcastically about and people with too much time post on Darwin Award websites. My death will be so ridiculous and bizarre that my family will be too embarrassed to go into specific details at the funeral; my friends will have to avoid eye contact in case they laugh and strangers will assume I must have died in an erotic self asphyxiation act that went wrong. I shall die as I lived; absolutely bloody ridiculous.
They must also get very fed up with how their community is portrayed in the media. They’re either predatory, aggressive ghouls moving into a home and dragging down the property value or bland, sexless Uncle Toms, Casper the sell out ghost, happy to be the living person’s token dead best friend. Whatever their personality or ability, always steroptypically defined by their lack of mortality. How they must yearn for the day that a TV series or mainstream movie is brave enough to cast a ghost in lead role or indeed any part where being dead isn’t their entire storyline and personality point; where they just happen to be not living but also have other stuff going on in their lives as well.
Ghosts don’t do themselves any favours though. Whenever you bump into them they prattle on and on about the same things, repeating the same actions, retracing the same steps. “I was a Victorian ladies maid, oohhh!” Yes, but you’ve been dead for over one hundred and fifty years, what have you been doing in the mean time? Why are you defining yourself by the ten or so years that you happened to be alive when by now that must be a diminishing fraction of your time on this planet? They are the ultimate child stars who have never moved on from their first burst of fame, touring the highways and byways of Britain with their one and only hit. They should say, yes, I was married to Henry the VIII for a few years but to be honest, that was a long time ago, now I’d much rather be known for my oil painting.
In their defence, it must be disappointing to discover that once dead, the only human beings interested in contacting you are drunk students, clingy relatives and Living TV. Imagine; you’re the ghost of a Norman soldier, think of all action, the excitement, the sex you could have had in your day and now the only one showing any interest in you is Yvette Fielding, and you’re supposed to be grateful for the attention? That has got to hurt.
I feel I can comment on this because I once nearly accidentally had sex with a ghost. I was furious. I have always made it very clear that the only dead person I would consider doing the deed with is a WWI soldier and only if I bore a striking resemblance to his long dead sweetheart, whose tragically unconsummated relationship helped him through his final weeks in the trenches and only if having sex with me helped him finally pass over to that great no man’s land in the sky and only if he looked like Jonny Lee Miller in “Regeneration”. Yet there I was, having a nap and minding my own business and there was the universe was setting me up on some sort of cosmic blind date with a spectral chancer. Luckily I woke up before things got out of control otherwise I could have literally had a phantom pregnancy on my hands. How could I have explained that to my parents? I could just see my mother rolling her eyes and sighing “Oh Gráinne, you have to be different don’t you?” I mean having a ghost baby would make me stand out from all the other young mums but what about schools?
My friends weren’t sympathetic either, when I groggily told them on the phone about nearly getting bumped in the night, there was just a nervous laugh, followed by a long pause and a swift change in the conversation. Later three of them independently emailed me links to Guardian Soul Mates; no pun, I hope intended.
I’m non-plussed my the supernatural, even as a child ghosts, banshees, the devil himself were as familiar to me as second cousins my parents got Christmas cards from every year. Satan and his constant attempts to steal my soul were just another problem to be faced and I developed the habit of saying out loud , whenever I saw something I really liked “I wouldn’t give my soul for it” just in case I accidently, subconsciously, made a barter I would later regret. It was like a form on insurance policy should I unwittingly promise my entire afterlife in hell in exchange for a chemistry set. I could just see myself, in my sweaty subterranean cell, stuck for all eternity with Hitler, the shark from Jaws and all the English soldiers my granny told me about, explaining that I was doing time for getting carried away before Christmas in Toys R Us.
At Secondary school, out of sheer boredom, my friends and I did the Ouija board at lunchtime for an entire week and I became convinced that I was communicating with the ghosts of three dead former students who had all died mysteriously in a locked storage room at the back of the lunch hall. The story unravelled itself in my mind’s eye, three girls killed one after the other after dabbling in the occult, a haunted room covered in crucifixes by the nuns in a vain attempt to exorcise the evil history that dripped from its walls, trapped souls only I could release.
It took our religion teacher arranging a special class to formerly deny that any students had ever died from falling downstairs, been run over by a driverless car or been found dead staring into a mirror, for my visions to end. The doomed cupboard of death was later found to contain old geography books.
Ghosts are everywhere after all, even if it’s just our hopes and expectations that though long dead, still stumble about with us, tapping us on our shoulder when we least expect it and rattling our graves. The ancient mistakes that send shivers down our spine, the bad choices that chatter our teeth and the lingering habits that lead up down the same dead ends like will o the wisps.
The missed opportunites that return in the dark of the night with a spectral grin and the new person or fresh opportunity that grotesquely decays to reveal the same old stupidities we thought we’d staked years ago.
With that in mind, I’d like to create my own scary ghost tour. It would involve drama students popping out from behind cobbled archways dressed as your teenage dreams, your weird depressed aunt popping up and whispering “You always reminded me of myself at your age” and at the end you meet your eight your old self who, blinking in horror, touches your face and whispers “Who are you sad old lady?” Then when you turn to your boyfriend for reassurance, he pulls off his face and he’s revealed to be every man you’ve ever gone out with ever. And it’s all done in Victorian outfits; terrifying.
I know how I’m going to die anyway. I’m going to either accidentally strangle myself with a curtain cord, electrocute myself with a toaster or mistake a French window for a sliding door and fall out a sixtieth floor window. My last thought will most definitly be – I cannot believe I just did that. I will meet my maker in one of those accidents electrical goods instructions warn you sarcastically about and people with too much time post on Darwin Award websites. My death will be so ridiculous and bizarre that my family will be too embarrassed to go into specific details at the funeral; my friends will have to avoid eye contact in case they laugh and strangers will assume I must have died in an erotic self asphyxiation act that went wrong. I shall die as I lived; absolutely bloody ridiculous.
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