the glittering burn

Juno: On Watching Again

2010-07-17T11:53:00.000+01:00

I love the dynamic between Juno and Bleeker in this film. She woos him by festooning his front lawn with oodles of his favourite tic-tacs, serenades him in a deleted scene and it is she who marches to his territory of the running track and declares her love for him.

He is not emasculated by any of this and is happy for her to come and get him. He also gives her a proper telling off when her jealousy over his prom date prompts some sulky needling.

And they sing together!!!!

Tove Jansson Delights

2010-07-14T21:09:00.001+01:00

After reading this lovely profile of Tove Jansson's granddaughter Sophie, I popped over to Amazon to buy my first Moomin's book and saw that a new book of short stories, Travelling Light, was being published this month. Wonderful! Both books have now arrived and, as with all Jansson's books are beautifully designed.

I didn't like the Moomins television cartoons when I was a child as I found them creepy but I have loved Jansson's work for adults so much, and read so much about her dedication to her hippo-like creations that I simply must give them another try.

As with all Sortof book's editions of Jansson's work, this collection is preceded by a glowing review by Ali Smith and a is emblazoned by a ringing endorsement from Philip Pullman. Jansson's writing is very quiet and subtle but it digs deep and stays with you long after the book has been closed. I look forward to reading both immensely.

I also love that translators of Jansson's works have such excellent names; Thomas Teal translated her novels and these stories have been brought to us by Silvester Mazzarella. Awesome.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

2010-07-13T19:46:00.002+01:00

After reading the mammoth non-fiction tome Homocide, I thought that I'd stay with fiction for a while, but Zeitoun will be due back at the library soon and Dave Eggers wrote the last two films I watched so this account of one family's experience of Hurricane Katrina came next.

Abdulraham Zeitoun (known by his last name) is a Syrian Muslim who runs a successful contracting and decorating business in New Orleans with his wife Kathy. They are bright, honest, extremely hard working people who have built up a lot of goodwill in their adopted town with their hard graft and kind natures.

When reports of the incoming hurricane become more unnerving, Kathy begs her husband to evacuate with her and their four children but he refuses, determined to ride out the storm and look after their home, office and various rental properties across the town. He has sat out many a storm in this way before and Kathy ends up leaving for Baton Rouge without him.

We know what happens next.

This is non-fiction and all dates and events have been verified where possible, but Eggers does not write Zeitoun's story in an objective journalist's style. The book is very even handed and fair to all involved (Eggers even tracked down law enforcement officers who arrested Zeitoun to get their side of the story) but the tale reads like a novel with character backstory, beautiful imagery and pacy plot.

Obviously some of the events that take place are horrifying and there are glimpses of humanity at it's most base and stupid but there is also a lot of unexpected hope, beauty and faith in the essential goodness that total strangers can show each other.

My favourite section is where Zeitoun ventures out in his aluminium canoe to explore the new world that the flooding had created:

" He was conflicted about what he was seeing, a refracted version of his city, one where homes and trees were bisected and mirrored in this oddly calm body of water. The novelty of the new world brought forth the adventurer in him - he wanted to see it all, the whole city, what had become of it."

A lot of issues are covered in this compact book, the American government's reaction to Hurricane Katrina, the opacity of modern bureaucracy, Islamaphobia, the hysteria of tabloid media and the gaping holes in supposedly civilised justice systems. Although obviously dystopian in setting and full of infuriating and terrifying moments, Zeitoun is also a deeply humane book which gave my misanthropic heart a little lift.

Author proceeds of the book go to the Zeitoun Foundation.

Where The Wild Things Are by Spike Jonze

2010-07-12T20:37:00.002+01:00

Is this a children's film? It is a movie about childhood, but it is perhaps too slow and subtle to capture the imagination of a younger audience. Perhaps I am underestimating our young friends, however.

The film takes the ten lines of Maurice Sendak's book and spreads the slim tale of Max who is made King of the Wild Things over 104 minutes.

The story begins in Max's neighbourhood and the first few scenes reminded me very strongly of 2008's vampire movie 'Let The Right One In' with it's wintry suburban setting and a lonely boy given to acting out violent assaults on imaginary enemies who is tormented by neighbourhood kids.

Max is from a broken home and is given to volatile outbursts against his disinterested teenage sister and his sympathetic mother (Catherine Keener). A tea-time confrontation with his mother sends the boy on a tearing escape out into the streets which ends with the discovery of a boat, a long voyage, and the discovery of the home of the Wild Things.

The Wild Things are called things like Carol, Ira and Judith and are voiced by familiar voices from Six Feet Under, The Sopranos and Little Miss Sunshine. They have relationship problems and are insecure with low self esteem. They are a bunch of hairy, woodland dwelling Woody Allens, wringing their hands and looking for guidance. Therefore, Max is able to persuade them not to eat him and to make him their King instead.

There is a melancholy woven throughout the film and it is a gentle and unusual creation. I was unsure how I felt about it after watching it and it is difficult to know who it is aimed at. Too slow for kids, too weird for mainstream, perhaps not arty enough for the art-house crowd. It is haunting nonetheless and I shall probably watch it again soon to make up my mind. It is sweet and it is tender and I felt quiet and pensive when it had finished.

World Cup Woe

2010-07-11T19:44:00.002+01:00

Are any other bookish sorts trapped into watching the World Cup final tonight?

I don't hate football at all, I find the punditry and politics quite interesting and I enjoy the face of Alan Hansen. I also feel a maternal lump rise in my throat as small children are led out onto the pitch, a stirring national anthem swells and tone deaf players mumble along to words they blatantly don't know.

Penalties destroy me.

Football has a lot going for it, but matches are 90 minutes long and I don't understand the rules so I shall be perusing yesterday's collection of sporting poems in yesterday's Guardian as collated by our Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy who contributes this gem:

The Shirt

Afterwards, I found him alone at the bar
and asked him what went wrong. It's the shirt,
he said. When I pull it on it hangs on my back

like a shroud, or a poisoned jerkin from Grimm

seeping its curse onto my skin, the worst tattoo.

I shower and shave before I shrug on the shirt,

smell like a dream; but the shirt sours my scent

with the sweat and stink of fear. It's got my number.
I poured him another shot. Speak on, my son. He did.
I've wanted to sport the shirt since I was a kid,

but now when I do it makes me sick, weak, paranoid.

All night above the team hotel, the moon is the ball

in a penalty kick. Tens of thousands of fierce stars

are booing me. A screech owl is the referee.

The wind's a crowd, forty years long, bawling a filthy song

about my Wag. It's the bloody shirt! He started to blub
like a big girl's blouse and I felt a fleeting pity.
Don't cry, I said, at the end of the day you'll be back

on 100K a week and playing for City.

The Stars In The Bright Sky by Alan Warner

2010-07-08T20:03:00.000+01:00

Alan Warner is one of my favourite authors. I love art that makes you look at the mundane everyday details of life and fall in love with them, books and films which take the stranger than fiction, messy, hilarious life that we all know and hand it back to us as a beautiful, precious gift.

The Stars In The Bright Sky is a sequel to Warner's third novel The Sopranos which followed a group of schoolgirls from Our Lady of Perpetual Succour on their choir's daytrip to Edinburgh from 'the port', a small town in the West Coast of Scotland which is based on Oban where the author grew up.

The book takes up with the girls about four years after the events of The Sopranos as the group prepare to go on a last minute holiday together. Kay and Finn have gone to university, flatmates Chell and Kylah are working jobs in the port and Manda has given birth to two year old 'turnip with an earing' Sean. The sixth character from the Sopranos, Orla, has died and Finn's London flatmate, Ava, has joined the girls on their jaunt.

'Life is what happens when you're making plans' sums up the plot of this book. For various reasons, the girls do not just hop onto a plane booked on Kay's laptop the night before and instead spend time in various hotels, bars and Heathrow airport talking, laughing, fighting and figuring each other out. Warner's first heroine, Movern Callar, despises people wishing their lives away and lives very firmly in the moment and this insistence that it is the present that counts runs through this novel like a neon thread.

Even the girls' entrance of the interior of an airport is made to feel like an expedition to a magical world.

"Above them was the cathedral height of roof cables and the realisation that most of the volume was just circulating air space - its own atmosphere - above the unseen, dust-filthy roofs of airline counters and shops."

Manda is the chief proponent of the joys of intemperence with her determination to have fun wherever she is and a lovely way of instantly forgetting slights and wrongs from other people towards herself if they lead to laughter and a good time. When posh, sophisticated Ava finally tires of Manda's constant jibes, innuendo and thoughtless, braying behaviour and shoves her over, Manda slides arse over tit down a muddy slope and ends up in a heap at the bottom, control knickers clearly displayed. When she sees that the other girls are laughing, she laughs too and she holds no grudge.

"Well I didn't mean for you to slide away in the mud",
"Aye I know, but I was dead brilliant wasn't I?"

Manda is one of the three girls who has been left behind in the port by friends who have gone to university to study Philosophy and Architecture. Although the group of six is ostensibly divided in this manner, no group is elevated above the other. The port girls sometimes seem a little crass and naive but at others times they are earthy and wise (even Manda). The uni girls can seem a little precious on occasion but at the same time they are down to earth girls at heart who care deeply for their friends.

Equally, no one girl is the heroine of the book. Manda gets the most attention but can be an absolute monster and the others all have fully rounded, real personalities. The deepness of the girls' friendships are clear but very lightly dealt with. The book is a perfect balance of lairy, comedic debauchery and pure love for the world around us. The prosaic everydayness of life buts up against intense personal feeling.

" Now a series of yellow-and-black signs in light boxes, illuminated from within and suspended at roof level from vertical, chrome bars, gave orientation; the young women obediently lifted their chins, to obey the information upon these signs, as -apart from Ava- they had once lifted their faces together to the bright stained glass of their school chapel where a turquoise-and-rose light would fall upon their foreheads.

Caution. You are approaching a moving walkway."

Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets by David Simon

2010-07-01T23:24:00.003+01:00

I felt like I needed a shower after finishing this. I read about decomposing bodies, vile apartments being searched for rusty knives and guns, overweight men drowning themselves in coffee and booze and obsessive, desperate hours spent pouring over old case files just hoping to get a break in that elusive case.

Yet I loved this book. The grimness of the subject matter, (and it is grim, the violence is all completely nonsensical and often completely avoidable) is lifted by the humanity of those who seek to avenge it.

You are probably envisaging a noble group of men who kneel beside murder victims and mutter "why? why?" but they are too busy doing their job to be noble about it. Solving murders is not a calling to many of them, it is a job that they do every single day, aspects of which soon become rote, like in any job.

David Simon shadowed a shift of Baltimore homicide detectives from the 1st of January until the 31st of December 1988. He followed them to their call outs, listened into interrogations and perused all the detectives cold case files. In the epilogue, the author expresses bemusement twenty years later that he was allowed such unstinting access.

It actually feels like he did more, that Simon is omniscient throughout the book. He describes the thoughts, motivations and frustrations of his detectives. We see it all.

There is the gore, the squeamishness of even some of the veterans in the morgue and the bureaucratic insistence on keeping the statistics up to scratch even if it means neglecting to follow up cases. We see the petty office frictions, the acres of paperwork that seems to overshadow the actual 'police work' and the sheer, mindless stupidity of many Baltimore criminals.

The detectives all feel differently about their jobs. Some, like McLarney and Worden are born cops who relish the day to day work of putting cases to bed. McLarney, in particular, is wedded to the force with fond memories of "racing up Pennsylvania Avenue with that blue strobe light show on top of the car and 'Theme from Shaft' blasting from a tape player on the front seat."

Others, like Pellegrini, whose year long battle to solve the murder of an eleven year old girl almost wipes him out, are decent detectives but don't seem to derive much satisfaction from the job.

I knew that this book was the source material for the TV series Homicide: Life on the Streets, but I didn't realise just how much the show drew from this book. The characters are loosely based on the real life detectives but the cases, techniques, banter, conversations with suspects and office politics appear almost intact until at least the fifth series of the show. It's that rich.

This is why the show is great. It is real and it is how it all actually happened and truth is stranger than fiction. Sometimes the producers, to please the networks, would throw in a love affair or an evil twin killer or a sniper attack on Baltimore, but the best scenes are taken from the book:

The female medical examiner is asked by a detective visiting the morgue "what's a lady like you doing in a place like this?" "Looking for Mr Right" she drawls as she sharpens a huge knife.

A dumb yet stubborn suspect is tricked into believing that a photocopier is a lie detector.

A detective is shocked out of his contempt for a filthy house full of murder suspects when a little boy who lives there tugs on the cop's sleeve and asks if he can go and get his spelling homework from his room.

An interrogator refers to himself as "a salesman selling a product that his client has no genuine use for. A life term jail sentence."

The one problem with all of this versimilitude is that everyone seems to have the same name. The real life contains far more coincidences than a fictional author would allow himself. Nearly every other policeman is called Donald, two of the detectives in the same small squad have the same last name, two suspects for high-profile murders have the same name, murder victims share Christian names and surnames and the father of a murder suspect is accidentally exhumed in the course of a completely unrelated case. It can get a little confusing.

The most striking thing about the book, however, is that, although these investigators of death have to numb themselves enough just to get through the job, it is the detective who can still retain his humanity and relate to people on the street who seems to be the most successful.

Pellegrini, who catches himself referring to eleven year old Latonya Wallace as "that broad" after too long reducing her brutal rape and murder to a bulging case file of photographs and reports, struggles with his case. In contrast, lone wolf Edgerton is not afraid to go out alone and talk to witnesses one on one instead of intimidating them with a trio of armed cops, and he has friendly relationships with informants, witnesses and street kids. Veteran of the department Worden, has a fatherly way of speaking to drug dealers and the inhabitants of white trash 'billytown'. He treats suspects with calm respect. Both close cases.

Closing a case or turning a name on the white board from red to black is the main goal, regardless of whether one investigator has had a "stone whodunnit" of a drug murder and the other has had a "dunker" like a domestic dispute. The one that turns his name to black is, in the eyes of his superiors, the better cop. Numbers matter to the Captains, Majors, Commanders etc and police politics makes more of an appearance in the account than existential angst and grieving parents.

This seems wrong and is distressing. But it's the way that it happened.

Away We Go by Sam Mendes

2010-06-28T21:48:00.002+01:00

A lot of bloggers really didn't like this film calling it 'smug', bourgeois' and 'conventional'. True, nearly everyone in it is middle class and (except the main two characters, Burt and Verona) live in exquisite homes but I found it pretty radical in that the couple who find they are expecting a baby, ACTUALLY LIKE EACH OTHER.

The film is not about their whirlwind fall into love, they have already been together for years. At no point do they seem to question their feelings for each other; they bicker a bit and there is some eye-rolling when Burt does a stupid phone voice but, although Verona doesn't want to marry, they seem sure that they are spending the rest of their lives together. There is no question that they want their baby either. This film is about them searching for somewhere to put down roots, where they will both be happy and can live together, forever, with their expected daughter.

I find it sad that this cosy and comfortable dynamic between a lead couple so surprised me. I am used to watching films when the men are constantly sneaking off to strip clubs, bemoaning their attached status and saying things like "just give 'em what they want man, I just say 'yes' without even listenin' any more."

Likewise, attached women in films and television are always talking about how awful men are. I could never fully enjoy Sex and the City for instance because, although the women in it spent a lot of time discussing men, they didn't seem to enjoy their company terribly much.

Verona and Bert are always together in this movie and are each other's best friend. They make each other laugh and compromise to make the other one happy. There are other couples in this film, Burt's parents and several friends of the couple and again, they are presented as individuals who are also a part of couples.

Even the awful characters played by Maggie Gylenhaal and Josh Hamilton are a united front with their condescending view of Burt and Verona's child rearing plans. Maybe this is because the screenplay was written by a married couple, Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida who also, (presumably) actually like each other. Surely this is to be celebrated? It is not a perfect film, but in its treatment of relationships, it is certainly not 'conventional.'

Carol Ann Duffy, Yeah!

2010-06-27T16:09:00.000+01:00

I am still reading bloody Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets which is great, but so very, very long. So today, I shall post the first poem which really blew me away; Small Female Skull by Carol Ann Duffy.

With some surprise, I balance my small female skull in my hands.
What is it like? An ocarina? Blow in its eye.
It cannot cry, holds its breath only as long as I exhale,
mildly alarmed now, into the hole where the nose was,
press my ear to its grin. A vanishing sigh.

For some time, I sit on the lavatory seat with my head
in my hands, appalled. It feels much lighter than I'd thought;
the weight of a deck of cards, a slim volume of verse,
but with something else, as though it could levitate. Disturbing.
So why do I kiss it on the brow, my warm lips to its papery bone,

and take it to the mirror to ask for a gottle of geer?
I rinse it under the tap, watch dust run away, like sand
from a swimming cap, then dry it - firstborn - gently
with a towel. I see the scar where I fell for sheer love
down treacherous stairs, and read that shattering day like braille.

Love, I murmur to my skull, then, louder, other grand words,
shouting the hollow nouns in a white-tiled room.
Downstairs they will think I have lost my mind. No. I only weep
into these two holes here, or I'm grinning back at the joke, this is
a friend of mine. See, I hold her face in trembling, passionate hands

I was seventeen and didn't really 'get' poetry but this was intriguing and scary and mournful. I could hear sounds and see images and feel what the protagonist is touching.

I wondered if the shower cap image was meant to represent a caul and I loved the fact that the rhymes bounced about the poem instead of being parked at the end of each line "Blow in it's eye... it cannot cry... a vanishing sigh." I picked the entire thing apart and examined it's glistening components with wonder.

I was overjoyed when Carol Ann Duffy was announced as Poet Laureate and I am delighted that she has been so productive and relevant in the role.

Although this was my first Duffy poem, my favourite is Little Red-Cap from her wonderful collection The World's Wife.

... But then I was young - and it took ten years

in the woods to tell that a mushroom

stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds

are the uttered thoughts of trees, that a greying wolf

howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out,

season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe...

What Next?

2010-06-24T21:56:00.000+01:00

How do you decide what to read next?

A lot of bloggers out there seem to be reading through shortlists for awards, or broadening their horizons by purposefully seeking out non Western authors, for instance, or works from an author they've never tried before.

I am also amazed at the number of people who seem to have these TBR (to be read) piles which some are methodically working their way through. I have no IDEA how many books I own which haven't been read and I certainly do not know the order in which they will be read. I actually hate the idea of having read every book on my shelves as I love having the lure of many undiscovered tomes lining my living room wall. (Am I the only one who sits and gazes at my bookshelves with a happy, dreamy expression on my face? Seriously, I do this a lot.)

When I am finishing a book, I start to get a feeling of the type of book I would like to read next, an itch that will need to be scratched. For instance, if I have been reading some magical realism or gentle romance, then I become thirsty for non-fiction; if I'm coming to the end of a novel set in the Victorian age then I will suddenly feel the need to read about contemporary characters whose daily, outer lives reflect my own. The feeling is sometimes vague but at other times, it is highly specific.

I am still reading the enormous Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets, and this procedural, journalist's document filled with statistics, personal histories and grim realities has led to a yearning for something frothy and a little more superficial.

I want to read something set in New York in the mid 20th century. No earlier than the 20s and no later than the early 1980s. I have an image in my mind of a sophisticated drinks party attended by authors, playwrights and a couple of movie stars. The women are wearing cocktail dresses and the men sport ties. Glasses clink and slightly posh laughter rings in my ears. There is delightfully acerbic banter and there will probably be a couple of affairs. If there is a book which crosses Nora Ephron's New York nostalgia with Truman Capote's social life and Elaine Dundy's razor-sharp lust for life, then it is what I wish to read next.

I want it to have descriptions of delicious food stuffs too.

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

2010-06-22T20:55:00.000+01:00

I basically read whatever Ali Smith tells me to, so this is how I came to The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington.

I was already aware of Carrington's work as a surrealist painter and knew a bit about her life story. Born into English wealth in 1917, she was a rebellious scholar who mirror-wrote with both hands, got expelled by the nuns who taught her and spent her debut at court reading an Aldous Huxley novel in the corner.

After deciding to study art, she met the surrealist painter, Max Ernst at the age of 19 and eloped with him to Paris. Carrington was accepted into the surrealist world with open arms and, although very young and inexperienced, her work as a writer and artist was greatly respected by her older peers.

A period in a Madrid mental asylum was cut short when her nanny came to rescue her in a submarine (awesome) and she lived and worked for a long time in Mexico before relocating to New York. She now lives in Mexico again and is 93.

Le Bon Roi Dagobert 1948

The Memory Tower 1995

The Giantess 1947

(All three images taken from Artnet)

The Hearing Trumpet's plot has been described as "a 92-year-old English feminist held captive in a medieval Spanish castle turned into a nursing home." (in Susan Aberth's wonderful Leonora Carrington:Surrealism, Alchemy and Art) and the protagonist is indeed 92, toothless, deaf and be-whiskered Marion Leatherby who spends her time combing her cats, spinning their fur into wool and trying to "make herself useful" without getting under the feet of her young and impatient relations with whom she lives.

The story begins when Marion's best friend Carmella gives her a hearing trumpet which Marion uses later that night to eavesdrop on the after dinner conversation of her family. She discovers that a plan to send her to a retirement home named the Well of Light Brotherhood is afoot.

Marion listens to the plans of her family.

If the heroine of this tale was young and sprightly, then she would escape this fate which terrifies her, but Marion is old and frail and so does indeed go to live at the institution where old ladies live in houses shaped like toadstools, chalets, train carriages and an Egyptian mummy. Dr Gambit is in charge and the ladies eat their dinner under the watchful eye of an Abbess depicted in paint.

This all sounds completely weird, of course and the accompanying illustrations by Carrington are unnerving but this book is not just a freaky-deaky tale of the occult, but a very funny, exhilarating and sensitive story of mystery, friendship and the helplessness that comes when you are old enough to be thought of as irrelevant.

My favourite scene is when Marion confusedly sifts through the memories of a man she once knew, "The man with white flannels" that arrive unbidden as she sits in the garden:

Are you going somewhere Darling?

Yes, going to the woods.

Then why do you say you will remember them all your life?

Because you are part of their memory and you are going to disappear, the anemones are going to blossom eternally, we are not.

Darling stop being philosophical it doesn't suit you, it makes your nose red.

Since I discovered that I am really beautiful I don't care about having a red nose it is such a beautiful shape.

You are hatefully vain.

No Darling, not really because I have a frightful foreboding that it will disappear before I know what to do with it. I am so horribly afraid I don't have time to enjoy being vain...

...You may not believe in magic but something very strange is happening at this very moment. Your head has dissolved into thin air and I can see the rhododendrons through your stomach. It's not that you are dead or anything dramatic like that, it is simply that you are fading away and I can't even remember your name. I remember your white flannels better than I can remember you. I remember all the things I felt about the white flannels but whoever made them walk about has totally disappeared."

The cover illustration is just perfect and is by my new favourite artist, a Belgian illustrator Emilie Seron. You can see more of her work here and I absolutely love this image of hers called L'Attente:

She's A Berry! (As In Nick, Non-Eastenders Obsessives.)

2010-06-20T11:45:00.000+01:00

Well somebody looks like they're going to be ace in their cameo of Being Human, don't they Lacey Turner? Damn you, Turner why do I have the feeling that your post-Eastenders career is going to be brilliant?

Is it wrong that I want all my favourite Eastenders characters to live in the BBC studios for the rest of their natural lives, subsisting on BBC canteen pies and forced to act out increasingly out-of-character plot lines for my viewing pleasure?

I suppose that I shall now have to switch my Favourite Character anointment from Stacey to Tamwar, whose maturity and intelligence during the recent Gaysian storyline attracted my stalkerish admiration. I had originally lined up his father, Masood, for the role, but I don't like the new direction of the character and prefer it when Masood and his wife Zainab are delightfully in love.

Amazing Haul

2010-06-19T18:11:00.002+01:00

I seem to be obtaining more books than I am actually reading, but I am sure that one of my antisocial, book-gorging periods is coming up when I shall be reading books one-straight-after-the-other whilst cooking, eating, walking and peeing and, although it will do my relationship no favours, it will surely bring things up to speed.

I went to my local charity shop today and bought three classic books and a great LP for SEVENTY PENCE. I wouldn't be that bothered if I dropped that paltry amount down a drain and yet I get all this great stuff:

I know that a lot of bloggers were bored to tears by A S Byatt's The Children's Book but, although I agree that her research was far to copiously apparent, I did really enjoy the story and thought that it was a very deserving Booker nominee. Possession is the novel that she is best known for and so I look forward to lots more great storytelling and, I hope, a little less extensive historical exposition.

I have not yet read Zadie Smith but have heard many great things about White Teeth and even if it turns out to be rubbish (which I am certain it won't) it only cost 20 flippin' pence.

I adored The House of the Spirits and enjoyed the first two books in Isabelle Allende's trilogy for children, The City of Beasts and Kingdom of the Golden Dragon. I also love the cover design for this book.

Now here is a question. I lost my mind a little today when I saw all the great stuff but I usually do not like to buy books from still living authors second hand as it seems to me to be the same as downloading music illegally or pirating DVDs. Someone, whose work you respect, is being done out of money. I know that authors get some royalties from library loans but they surely get nothing for second hand sales of their books. What are your views on this?

There are previous posts declaring my deep, abiding love for the fantastic series Homicide: Life On The Streets and the source material, Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets by eventual The Wire creator David Simon, was eventually returned to the library.

At 650-odd pages, this is a lot of murder-based reading but I have already begun and it is as gripping as the show. A journalistic record of David Simon's year of shadowing the homicide unit of the Baltimore Police Department, it details the exact processes followed by over-time hungry detectives who view a dead body as a tool in the day to day grind of solving crimes. It is not a noble calling, just a necessary, pain in the arse job.

"For each body, he gives what he can afford to give and no more. He carefully measures out the required amount of energy and emotion, closes the file and moves on to the next call. And even after years of calls and bodies and crime scenes and interrogations, a good detective still answers the phone with the stubborn, unyielding belief that if he does his job, the truth is always knowable.

A homicide detective endures."

Fans of the show will recognize the gallows humour, squadroom banter and some aspects of the fictional characters who were based upon real life detectives. Cases from the show also appear as they actually were investigated. The grim subject matter is off set by humour, sensitive writing and Simon's respect for humanity.

I had heard nothing of Zeitoun by Dave Eggers but I spotted it in a new fiction display in the library when looking for Homicide and snapped it up, believing it to be a graphic novel. Instead, it is an unillustrated novel about a resident of New Orleans who canoed down flooded streets in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, "feeding trapped dogs and rescuing survivors as New Orleans becomes a disaster zone." I am expecting something very bitter-sweet but will not be perusing any reviews before reading as I want to come to it fresh.

I have never read Rebecca. It has become one of those books of which I know quotes, characters and the plot but have never actually read. I realised this about Wuthering Heights last year and put that situation right and so it is now the turn of this classic.

And the LP? Get Happy by Elvis Costello and the Attractions including 'I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down' 'New Amsterdam' and 'High Fidelity'. For 10 pence. 10 pence!

Is Music The Most Affecting Art Form?

2010-06-17T20:18:00.002+01:00

I love to read, I'd do it all day if I could; I adore a good film and watch my favourite TV box sets over and over; some pieces of visual art have actually made me feel faint with emotion, but the effect that music has upon my mood and feelings is, I think, generally more powerful.

Baba in Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls makes me seethe with rage, I always cry with great heaving sobs at the end of The Railway Children, the squadroom banter in Homocide: Life On The Streets delights me greatly and I once had to sit down whilst looking at a Howard Hodgkin painting (see above) but none of these experiences compare to the thrill of Tim Buckley's howled "ne-ver think of meeeeee" at the end of Dolphins, the poignancy of River by Joni Mitchell, the pure, ridiculous joy of dancing to Patti LaBelle's New Attitude, the first bit of Sam Cooke's A Change Is Gonna Come, the bit in Wake Me Up where Nadine sings "Dressed up and put on my make-up", the intro of Love Will Tear Us Apart, the harmonies in Eternal Flame etc. etc. ad infinitum....

I know from bitter experience that many people do not feel this way about art, a lot of people have never read a book for pleasure (or at all... I know! I've met some!) and many people are not that bothered by films but if somebody says "I don't like music" then a glass smashes to the floor, the jukebox is unplugged and the whole room stares in disbelieving silence (like in Eastenders when someone says something shocking in the Vic.). I have met people who said they didn't like music. Two people. And one of them meant that he didn't like pop music, just classical. So that is one person I have met in my entire life who did not like to listen to music, saying it was "just noise."

Why is this? why does pretty much every human being enjoy listening to, singing, humming and possibly dancing to tunes? They maybe do not obsess about music or listen to much more than the charts, but if you asked them "do you like music?", then they would look at you like they thought you were weird and say "well, yeah."

Is this universal appeal why mainstream, lowest denominator music is not as bad as its counterparts in other art forms? I do not buy or greatly esteem the music of Westlife, The Saturdays (apart from the ludicrously catchy Work) or ballad-mode Pixie Lott but I cannot deny that there are pleasant sounds and some accomplished songwriting to be found beneath the layers of lazy production, troublingly marketed young women and/or emotionless singing.

I cannot afford the same good humoured acceptance towards misery memoirs, sequels to gross-out frat boy misogynistic comedies or that crappy 'modern art' that is sold in department stores and makes me want to put my foot through the canvas. Even Jedward are better than all those things. (I'm serious, I laughed so hard during their performance of 'Oops I Did It Again' I was worried that I'd burst a blood vessel in my eye. Joy is joy.)

Does the fact that most people have a reasonably strong opinion about music drive up the standards of pop? While you ponder this question, why not listen to old Patti singing about her attitude which is new. Point to your clothes when she sings "new dress!", frame your head with your hands when she sings "new hat!", point with your index finger at "point of view" and wiggle your arms side to side for the "ooh ooh ooh-ooh-oooohs". I can't promise you'll feel better, but I defy you to feel worse:

Behold: I Spoke Of This...

2010-06-15T22:08:00.001+01:00

Here is the Sonnet Scene from My So Called Life.

Coralie Bickford Smith

2010-06-15T09:00:00.009+01:00

This woman not only has the coolest and poshest name ever to have been conceived, but she also designs incredibly beautiful books. My favourites are her hard backed editions of Penguin classics. A set of 10 appeared at the end of 2008...

...and last Christmas, more beauties arrived in Waterstones (as these editions are exclusive to the store):

I have a few from each series (I was not allowing myself to buy books that I already had more than one edition of, so no Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility) and picked up the edition of William Shakespeare's Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint last week. I do have the sonnets in a collected works of Shakespeare and my Norton anthology but I seemed to conveniently forget that when faced with such a lovely crimson and peach coloured confection.

The sonnet I know best is still number 130:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

This sonnet played a pivotal role in the episode of My So Called Life when Jordan discovered that he did love Angela. The English teacher Mr Katimski reads out the entire sonnet and, with the help of boffin Brian, helps to tease out it's meaning for a passive class. I have said it already, but that was such a great programme. What other teen drama would leave you with a Shakespeare sonnet memorised and explained?

Bloomin' Brilliant

2010-06-14T16:12:00.001+01:00

I have had a very culturally bereft week, I am afraid. We went away for a city break and I mainly shopped and quaffed wine which, although delightful pursuits both, caused me to neglect my book reading, film watching and pop medleys on the hairbrush microphone.

After the lovely 'smush' of loads of mail behind the door when you first open it, the best thing about returning home after a holiday is the change in your garden. When I left, it was a vale of bluebells, but now it is studded with cheery yellow poppies. Every thing is a little higher, fuller and greener and the sparrows have hatched another nestful of chicks in the bird box. When I stand underneath it, I can hear their tiny squeaks and see the nest material which includes grasses, hairs from our heads and threads from our house and garden, poking through the corners and seams.

The thought of people deriving joy from bird watching used to make me weak with mirth. I once went over to some one's house and his parents had special high chairs which they placed by the window especially for the purpose of spying on blue tits and thrushes. Ha! I thought that this was the saddest, most ludicrous thing that I had ever seen and my friend was extremely embarrassed about these, the uncoolest chairs in the world. Now I quite want them. Birds are great and we have a tame blackbird who we spy on like a couple of creeps as he leaps over our flowers and pecks at crumbs and worms.

Musing upon gardens has led me to look out Weeds and Wild Flowers, a collaboration between poet Alice Oswald and printmaker Jessica Greenman. The poems and etchings are all about flowers with titles such as Stinking Goose Foot, Narcissus, Bastard Toadflax and Rambling Rose complemented by etchings of orchids, wildflowers, foxgloves, nettles and snowdrops.

The etchings are incredible and represent what must have been months of work. Etching is a slow and exacting process. The copper or zinc plate is coated with a thick wax which is then scratched into with a metal implement. As with most printing methods, the image on the plate must be a reverse of the desired finished print.

The worked plate is placed into a bath of acid and the exposed sections are corroded by the acid while the wax coating protects the rest of the plate. Some printmakers use feathers to brush the bubbles of fizzing acid away from the plate so that they can judge how far the plate has been bitten into.

This resulting positive image, when the plate is cleaned, is recessed from the surface of the plate and therfore, ink needs to be rubbed into the deep grooves before damp paper is placed over the plate and the whole thing is rolled through a printing press and squeezed between blankets and a roller. It is only when the paper is removed on the other side that the artist can see if their labour has been worth it and the image works.

I am particularly impressed by the etchings that Jessica Greenman has made which contain only hand-lettered versions of Oswald's poems as it is very difficult to get an entire page of lettering right when you are scratching its mirror image into a black surface revealing silver letters. I have spotted one mistake but that is pretty good going.

The poems are anthropomorphic. Bastard Toadflax is a 'Ponderous, obstinate, cold skinned person', Narcissus relates her own tale ( 'yes once I was half frail, half glittering...I was half skin half breath') and Hairy Bittercress is described as a drunk who sits in watching TV who 'when she pulls off her tights ... sits with her white feet bare and her legs a-prickle with hair'.)

All About Eve

2010-06-11T12:41:00.000+01:00

When reading the chapter on the making of the film All About Eve in the wonderful Vanity Fair book, Tales of Hollywood, I remembered that someone had given me the DVD a couple of Christmases ago. I dug it out and watched it, worrying that my knowledge of the plot and behind the scenes rivalries and shooting methods would spoil the experience a little.

I was also wary as, quite often, when watching older films that have been praised and lauded over the years, I have been distinctly underwhelmed. This is usually because the ground-breaking technical aspects of these gilded movies have been copied so many times over the years that they no longer seem so special to modern movie audiences. I needn't have worried on either account.

The quality of All About Eve, however, is in the script and acting, both of which are often sadly lacking in many high-profile films today. Based on a short story by Mary Orr, which was in its turn based on the real-life experience of one of Orr's acquaintances, the film follows the fortunes of Eve Harrington,(Anne Baxter) a shy backstage Jenny who reveres Bette Davis' Broadway actress Margo Channing. Eve is befriended by Margo and kind Karen Richards (Celeste Holm) who is the wife of a playwright and the film follows the gradual revelation of the true, manipulative and madly ambitious nature of this supposedly timid fan

This film held the record for the most academy award nominations for a single film until Titanic's 1998 Oscar sweep. These nominations included four for the actresses involved. Davis and Baxter were in the running for best actress and Holm and the wonderful Thelma Ritter were both nominated for best supporting actress (none of them won.) You can appreciate the quality of the acting even more when you know that Davis and Holm loathed each other off set. They play best friends and manage to convey an easy and fond familiarity despite the seething tensions off-camera.

The stand-out performance must be Baxter's Eve, however. Her first scenes show a quiet, dowdy young woman who is simply happy to be in the company of talented people. Eve's character slowly and almost imperceptibly reveals darker depths as the film goes on, slowly wresting control of Margo's life from her faithful assistant Birdie (Ritter), showing more and more interest in the plays that are being offered to her mentor, putting herself forward as an understudy and grimly clawing her way to the place where she wants to be: in Margo's shoes.

Image: Hulton Archive

The pivotal scene is a Ladies Room conversation between Karen and Eve. It begins with both women suspicious and tense, relaxes into a kind, comforting meeting between old friends and then ignites as Eve finally shows her true colours. Eve's hitherto warm, throaty and measured tones become harsh, hard and nasal as she spits out the line "I'd do much more for a part that good!" Even though I knew the plot, I was still shocked at the absolute and yet believably portrayed change in Eve's personality.

Eve's use of the tabloid press to promote herself and denigrate her rivals means that this film still feels relevant and the lovely direction pleased my eyes greatly. Favourite images were Margo's lover Bill walking down a snow-covered country road in silhouette, brightly lit taxis streaming along Broadway at night-time and Eve-obsessed fan Phoebe trying on her idol's glittering cloak in front of a three-way mirror which reflects her satisfied expression back to her a hundred times.

On Re-reading

2010-06-09T11:14:00.001+01:00

Edward Ardizzone illustration taken from The Little Book Room byEleanor Farjeon

I was talking to someone about books once, and was stunned when they airily declared that they had never re-read a book in their lives. "What's the point?" they asked as I reeled backwards in horror, calling weakly for the smelling salts "I already know what happens in the end."

This declaration shocked me far more than friends who admit that they have never finished a book, ever. I always understood that there were people who just were not readers, for whom the concept of reading for pleasure makes no sense. I can respect this, some derive great enjoyment from playing sports or doing exercise, for instance, two healthy and undeniably popular ways of spending time but the sight of a rounders bat or a treadmill make me feel queasy and incredibly bored in equal measure.

However, I thought that those of us who are 'readers' would be similar in our enjoyment of books. I assumed that every one who has read and loved a book would eventually return at least once to spend more time with favoured characters, re-live the thrilling highlights and examine the tale from a different perspective. Whenever one visits a book again, it is with different experiences and opinions, we are older and have read more in the interim, which will colour our view and change the reading experience.

When we love a song we play it again and again until our neighbours are crying and begging us to stop and it is not considered odd to want to look at a painting more than once even though you already "know what happens in it."

I suppose it depends on what kind of books you like to read. A beautifully wrought novel examining the inner lives of the characters may reward a re-reader more than a plot-driven detective novel but I still think that a mystery is still worth re-reading when you know the culprit, motive and weapon because you are reading the book with new knowledge which will change your attitude to characters and allow you to appreciate the cleverness of the writing.

There is of course one big fat con for re-reading and that is the massive amount of books that all voracious readers want to read, feel that we should read and yet know that we will have less time to read if we keep wallowing in beloved tomes that we have already read several times over. It is a dilemma, I do admit. But never re-reading a book? Madness...

Whatever Happened to Unklejam?

2010-06-06T13:06:00.007+01:00

...I wondered to myself as I boogyed around to their hit 'What Am I Fighting For?' yesterday afternoon. They also had a cracking single called 'Stereo', but I've not heard from them in three years, what gives? They were the British Outkast!

WAIFF? is ace. It starts off with doom-laden 'ooooohs' and a great bass-line with synthesisers whining and then one of them sneers 'yeeeah, yeeaah' and then they sing the brilliant:

Take my love I dont need, take my mouth, I cant breathe.
Take my balls, organs too. All I ever wanted was to love you

Ha, 'take my balls...'

The video is great too, but embedding is disabled, so direct your delightful eyes here.

The dancing, videos, singing and lyrics were all very pleasing so WHERE IS MY NEW UNKLEJAM SINGLE?!!

Here is Stereo. And here is Love Ya, with it's big scream at the start and ridikulus dancing. It only got to number 55 or something.

Perhaps the problem is my tainted, career-killing love. I am beginning to worry that I am the kiss of death for pop acts. I blogged about Mini Viva's One Touch and it went into the charts at number 124. Sorry Unklejam, sorry Mini Viva.

Multi-tasking...

2010-06-04T22:31:00.002+01:00

I wonder how many people read three or four books at a time? I used to be constantly hopping from book to book but don't seem to have the ability anymore. Perhaps you need a young, springy brain to keep all those plots sorted out.

At the moment I have a few books on the go but, as they are all episodic in nature, it feels quite natural. I rarely read a book of short stories all in one go, as I like to give thought to each story after I've finished it and I don't want to taint the next.

I received a wonderful book at Christmas, Vanity Fair's Hollywood Tales: Rebels, Reds and Graduates and the Wild Stories Behind the Making of 13 Iconic Films. I absolutely love reading about behind the scenes on Hollywood films and I particularly like when you hear about how films were originally conceived. Quite often, the main players are the fifth or sixth actors on the directors' lists. In the case of 'All About Eve', Bette Davis' signature film, she was turned to "as a last resort".

Claudette Colbert had signed up to play the queenly stage actress Margot Channing but suffered a ruptured disc. The only actress available and capable enough to fill in the role at short notice was Davis. The last time she and producer Daryl Zanuck had met, he had screamed at her "You'll never work in Hollywood again!" She nailed the role of Margot Channing, and it is one of the classic movie performances in a film which received 14 Oscar nominations, an unbeaten record until Titanic.

Other chapters cover Rebel Without A Cause, The Graduate (which was originally to star Robert Redford), Cleopatra, The Producers and Saturday Night Fever. The book is written with the typical Vanity Fair tone, well researched, respectable reportage which is deliciously gossipy at the same time. The best bits in the 'All About Eve' chapter are when you get to hear what everyone thought of each other and how George Sanders got on flying to San Franciso with his wife Zsa Zsa Gabor on one side of him and a flirty young Marilyn Monroe on the other.

I have already told of this lovely book's unexpected arrival and it was worth it for the first story alone. I have never read any Katherine Mansfield but have heard many good things about her. Her First Ball is about country girl Leila attending her first formal dance with her four cousins. Leila's girlish excitement and the assaults upon her senses are incredibly vivid and, although there is little traditional 'plot' to this tale, its waters run deep. The story is a polished pearl, light, sparkling and precious.

"Meg's tuberoses, Jose's long loop of amber, Laura's little dark head, pushing above her white fur like a flower through snow. She would remember forever."

A couple of years ago I bought the Christmas Stories in this series and it is actually one of the few short story collections which I have read all in one go. The quality and range is magnificent and I enjoyed it so much.

Love Stories contains works by Collete, Dorothy Parker, D. H. Lawrence,Vladimir Nabokov and F. Scott Fitzgerald to name a few. Yeah the standard's pretty high! My favourite so far has been 'Blood Sea' by Italo Calvino which ostensibly takes place in a car containing four people but the real story is in the blood, under the fingertips of two lovers on the back seat.

"The underwater depths were red like the colour we see now only inside our eyelids, and the sun's rays penetrated to brighten them in flashes or else in sprays. We undulated with no sense of direction, drawn by an obscure current so light that it seemed downright impalpable and yet strong enough to drag us up in very high waves and down in their troughs. Zylphia would plunge headlong beneath me in a violet, almost black whirlpool, then soar over me rising toward the more scarlet stripes that ran beneath the luminous vault."

My new edition of Slightly Foxed arrived today! I've not started it yet, but I'm certainly not going to finish the above three books before I do. This quarterly is beautifully produced on cream paper with a new watercolour illustration on the cover each month. The publishers also make a point of mentioning that the size of the editions means that it can be slipped easily into a handbag or a coat pocket, which makes me want to hug them.

There is a Slightly Foxed book shop(selling their own editions as well as second hand books) and look at the map they provide to it, it is the perfect illustration of the feeling of this publication, sweet, whimsical and a little eccentric.

They also produce stocking fillers!

Book Anticipation

2010-06-02T20:20:00.000+01:00

Stories to Get You Through the Night is described as an anthology of "stories that will brighten and inspire, move and delight, soothe and restore in equal measure", and includes work by Chekov, Elisabeth Gaskell, Katherine Mansfield, Haruki Murakami, John Cheever, Virginia Woolf, Richard Yates, Angela Carter....

I pre-ordered this as soon as I saw the description a few months ago and then completely forgot about it, so I was delighted to receive my dispatch email this afternoon. I just did a big amazon binge and so was trying to be good about buying books. Ha! in your face, restraint!

It was like finding a fiver in my pocket that I thought I had spent or chocolate in the cupboard that I was sure I had eaten.

Bodacious!

2010-06-01T18:56:00.001+01:00

Chelle from Time Out blog has very kindly bestowed this Bodacious Blogging Book reviewer award upon me and, I'm not going to lie, I am dee-lighted. The 'pass it on to 5 others' part reminds me of scary chain letters from the 80s (thanks a lot, Swedish pen-pal) but I think it's safe... anything called 'bodacious' can never be wrong.

If you are given this award you can accept it by leaving a comment on the post you were nominated on. Then copy and paste the post and add it to your own blog. Make a list of the last 5 books you read and pass the award on to 5 other bloggers (but not to the person who nominated you).

My last five books were: A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh, Tusk Tusk by Polly Stenham (do plays count?), The Night Watch by Sarah Waters, Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple and The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield - Fisher.

My nominations are...

Lydia at The Literary Lollipop. Lydia reads faster than any other blogger out there and provides an interesting mix of Young Adult fiction, Classic literature, Short Stories, Croatian Literature and more. She is currently ploughing her way through Middlemarch so the rest of us don't have to.

Any blog which hops from L.A. Candy by Lauren Conrad to The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf to Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino is definitely worth keeping an eye on. Lila at BabyGotBooks gives everything attention and writes some great reviews.

Irish playwright Rosalind at The Vanishing Lake not only shows impeccable taste by naming her blog after a magical body of water, but she blogs about writing, reading, current affairs, dresses, all sorts. She also provides links to really interesting articles.

Number four is Desperate Reader. This Shetlander's blog is packed with gorgeous pictures and never fails to relax me when I am reading it. She also likes a dram and George Mackay Brown, like any sane person.

Claire from Kiss A Cloud's blog is also very lovely to look at. I really look forward to her beautiful, thought provoking posts. Her celebration of the film Bright Star was wonderful.

RIP Louise Bourgeois, 1911-2010

2010-05-31T22:55:00.002+01:00

Look at this cheery old lady with the big willy under her arm that she made herself!

Her work was so rude and scary. She made terrifying, huge spider sculptures and her first work was an image of her father made out of dough and spit, right in front of his eyes.

She really freaked him out, as well as countless others, but her sculptures and installations had a fascinating, dreamy quality to them which fused nightmare and childish imagination so perfectly.

This is a big miss for the art world.

Portrait by Robert Mapplethorpe, Room installation by Peter Bellamy and Maman spider at Capodimante Museum Bourgeois retrospective.

A Handful Of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

2010-05-30T13:16:00.001+01:00

I had been meaning to read some Waugh for some time and, as this was published in 1934, I thought that it would kill two birds and contribute to Nymeth at Things Mean A Lot's mini 1930s challenge which I signed up for a wee while ago.

This book was surprisingly easy to read and for some reason this surprised me. I think that Waugh has been looming over me for a while.

Although highly readable, this novel is quite disjointed. The first chapter reminded me of Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love and Love In a Cold Climate. The social setting and tone are initially very similar; waspy and witty with a wry authorial eye. Mrs Beaver (mumsy) and her son gossip about the socialites of their acquaintance and idly wait around between luncheon invitations.

" I should say it was time she began to be bored. They've been married five or six years."

"Mumsy you are wonderful. I believe you know about everyone."

"It's a great help. All a matter of paying attention when people are talking."

The characters of Brenda and Tony Last are introduced and Tony Last is described by one man as "one of the happiest men I know."

Chapter two changes the tone with the sentence "all over England people were waking up feeling queasy and despondent."

The tone becomes a lot less arch and more realistic. Brenda and Tony's relationship is described naturalistically and seems to be fond, playful and close.

By the end of the chapter, however, Brenda is preparing to embark on an affair with John Beaver almost out of boredom and with the amused and detached help of her sister.

" Oh he's pathetic all right, d'you fancy him?"

Evelyn Waugh's first wife had left him for another man, an event which apparently changed him forever, so it is not difficult to see the impetus behind this novel about a heartless woman casually tossing a devoted husband aside.

He is so very fair to Brenda though, she is shown to be a cold and careless woman but there is no vindictive twist of the knife and this is definitely not a misogynistic book. None of the women end up looking particularly good but then, neither do the men. Even Tony, who is kind and decent, is not held up as a misunderstood and badly-treated cuckold, but a bit foolish, dull and naive.

A Handful of Dust is a weary sigh of a book which shrugs its shoulders at a shallow and broken world. This weary tone is leavened by Tatler-esque gossip and farcical trips to the sea-side but there is no real redemption for any of the characters. These people may be silly and fey but Waugh does not shy away from following the consequences of their actions realistically.

This despair at modern life reminds me of another famous novel from the 30s, Brave New World. There is no mention of WW1, apart from a few sentences about a character being too young to have fought, but there is a feeling of the shock and numbness that often follows catastrophe. People are determined to enjoy themselves and yet have forgotten how.

Reading Women by Stefan Bollmann

2010-05-27T22:31:00.000+01:00

Anyone who enjoyed the images of women with books posted by Persephone last week in honour of the publication Forbidden Fruit may also be delighted by this book which was bought on impulse a couple of years ago. It was useless to resist.

It has recently been repackaged and renamed Women Who Read Are Dangerous:

The foreword by Karen Joy Fowler begins "We women who read should take a moment, put down the book, this or any other, look around us. We are experiencing a rare period of triumph."

Fowler goes on to explain that the idea of reading silently, especially if you were a woman, was once seen as a threat. It was idle, it was secretive, independent and even unchaste. People worried about their daughters reading in the same way that modern day parents fret about hours spent on the games console.

"She might while the book lasts, be a completely different person from the one we are seeing. She might be a man; this is all too likely. She might be a horse and at the very moment we look at her, she might despair, finding herself sold at auction, sent to the glue factory. She might be a rabbit. She might be a hobbit."

Several images follow, some spread across two pages of, yes, women reading. There are images from the Middle Ages:

Photographs: (this one is of Alice Liddell, namesake of Alice in Wonderland.)

We are shown women who are young...

...and those older:

Women indulge themselves in books leisurely and with lazy pleasure...

... but some have to sneak a few moments from a working day:

Illustrations also appear:

Paintings by Van Gogh, Hugo Van Der Goes and the wonderful Carl Larsson are included as well as photographs of Lee Miller (she's reading the paper whilst having breakfast in bed!) and Marilyn Monroe.

This volume can be read as a book or dipped into whenever the mood dictates. Buy it, buy it, buy it.

Whip It by Drew Barrymore

2010-05-25T12:47:00.000+01:00

Ah Drew...

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

You made the child to adult actor transition after being written off by everyone as a messed up Hollywood wild child.

You used to turn up to premieres wearing not 'vintage' dresses, but charity shop finds with your grungy boyfriend in tow.

You used to talk about your best friends and how much you loved them in interviews.

You introduced me to glitter spray.

You have done lots of very rude photo shoots but you never looked like a potential rape victim/Barnardos child, you were having a laugh and didn't care what people thought.

Boys On The Side and Donnie Darko.

You have just directed a film which, had I seen it at age 14, would have a) blown my tiny little heart up and b) shunted Empire Records into a very distant second place.

Bliss (Ellen Page) is a 17 year old from a tiny town in Texas who is a reluctant beauty pageant contestant at the behest of her mother. While buying some second hand boots to complete her mid-nineties grunge look, she picks up a leaflet for a roller derby in Austin.

Bliss soon joins the Hurl Scouts, an unambitious roller derby team who, despite their inability to win, are the best of friends and filled with joie de vivre. There is a cute boy and there are great parties, a climatic sports event and tears between friends and family.

In some ways this film has the ingredients of every teen movie but it is so great because it is actually a girl's film. The main character does not have massive boobs and the person she cannot beat is not a nubile cheerleader but a hard as nails 36 year old played by Juliette Lewis. One element of the story is Bliss lying about her age so that she can hang out with these super-cool 30 somethings.

There is a relationship with a boy but the passion that Bliss (AKA Babe Ruthless) has for Roller Derby is the focus of this film.

At the end of this movie I wanted to buy all of the soundtrack on LP, dig out my old 90s Seattle clobber, strap on a pair of roller skates, make best friends with Bliss's best buddy Pash and watch the film all over again.

Like I say, if I had been 14, I would be typing this whilst already wearing roller skates, a Mother Love Bone t-shirt, listening to The Breeders and arranging a pre-order of the DVD.

Polly Stenham's Plays

2010-05-21T19:54:00.000+01:00

I first became aware of Polly Stenham when I read this Lynn Barber interview. I have been a fan of Lynn Barber's interviews for years but my love for her was fully cemented when she revealed her hatred of theatre.

As anyone who read this post will know, I fear live performances almost as much as I fear skinny jeans and have not really enjoyed any plays that I have seen. To be fair, I've seen less than ten and most of them were amateur productions. I don't like the thought of audience participation though, even when I've been assured that it will not happen.

And yet I ended up in the front row of a comedy gig recently and was speaking to the comic during the show (it was for work) and I didn't have a stroke or die of embarrassment. (Although all hearing was lost in my right ear for the duration. Probably something to do with the blood pounding in my head). So I may return to the theatre because I love the idea of, and the reading of plays.

So. The interview begins with Lynn Barber saying that if anyone could tempt her back to theatre, it would be Polly Stenham. So, That Face, and later Tusk Tusk, were purchased.

There are similar themes running through both plays; sibling love, unstable mother figures, absent fathers and children trying to negotiate the adult world with no support.

That Face starts with a ritual, Tusk Tusk starts with a scream but both end with a reality check for Stenham's characters that hurts your heart.

That Face revolves mainly around three characters. Martha is mother to Henry and Mia, but really, they are the adults. Henry has devoted his life to caring for his mother and, while Mia can see that Martha is falling into the abyss, her brother cannot bear to let go.

Tusk Tusk explores this theme of children being adults further by removing parents altogether. Eliot, Maggie and Finn, all under 16, are waiting for their mother who has disappeared from their new home. They watch their phones hopefully but one of them doesn't expect to see her ever again.

Both plays are very upsetting reads but apparently draw tremendous laughs from the crowd so seeing them live is obviously ideal. The writing is so good, however, that they are great as books in themselves; like novellas written in dramatic form.

That Face was a big hit, but I think that I was moved by Tusk Tusk even more. Apparently Polly Stenham is adapting That Face into a film so I will definitely be seeing that and, maybe one day, I shall experience both plays live. They seem worth it.

A Box Full of Lovely Books Arrived Today...

2010-05-20T21:09:00.001+01:00

Eh... the picture's shaky because I'm so excited about my new books and definitely not because I was too lazy to take another.

Working from the bottom up:

The Norton Anthology of English Literature

I first became aware of this when my friend had to buy it for her English Literature degree almost ten years ago. It's basically an overview of notable works in English from the middle ages to the end of the seventeenth century. It includes works by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Donne, Swift, Pope, letters written by Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, excerpts from the Bible and a description of a trip to the arctic in 1576. And much, much more, hooray!

It looks to be a cornucopia of delights and I look forward to dipping into this treasury.

For Coloured Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange

I ordered this as soon as I read this post at Paperback Reader and it is part of my effort to read more drama.

Little Women and Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott

A classic, that all should own. I do have a copy at my mother's house, but that's not my house and the vintage cover is so very delightful:

Plays by Chekhov

These were read and loved at school but have never been owned. Again, the cover is by Maurice Denis, so it's great lit and great art, my favourite combination.

Tusk Tusk, Polly Stenham

I am going to read plays this year and started with This Face which was Polly Stenham's highly acclaimed debut. This is her second play. She is still only 23, which makes me sick.

Enron by Lucy Prebble

Yet another acclaimed play by a young English woman. Enron is what it sounds like, a play about the collapse of Enron, the Texan energy company. This is Lucy Prebble's second play and she is also the creator of ITV2's Secret Diary of A Call Girl.

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

2010-05-17T21:39:00.000+01:00

I'm late to the Sarah Waters fan club but shall be sending away for my badge and password as soon as I've posted tonight.

I had heard increasing amounts about her on blogs/in papers and had heard from her in various forewords and articles on writing so when I spotted two copies of Night Watch in my local library, side by side, I picked one up, took it home and let the unwashed dishes and piles of laundry sit as I lost myself in 1940s London.

This novel is quite exhausting to read as it veers from scenes of almost unbearable tenderness to visceral, horrific blood-filled tableaux without ever missing a beat. The structure of the novel is also a three part step back through time, so that we meet the characters near the end of the decade and pick our way back through their tangled, interwoven pasts.

The main theme seem to be relationships that have run out of steam or never had any steam in the first place; relationships which are based on the premise that "we could be blown to bits tomorrow", (so let's ignore the sensible voices in our heads and the gnawing doubts.)

I finished this book wanting to read it again, and determined to read more Sarah Waters.

Alan Warner: New Book

2010-05-16T21:14:00.002+01:00

Alan Warner's new book, The Stars In The Bright Sky, is out and the reviews I read yesterday were very enticing. Warner is the author of one of my favourite books, Morvern Caller, and this book is a sequel to another 'Port' ( town based on Oban) book, The Sopranos.

I have just done an expensive amazon binge and money is tight but there is a grim inevitability about the fact that I will be buying this book very soon. Who needs food anyway?

It is sad that the cover looks so hideous as his books are generally very attractive. 'It's what's inside that counts though', yeah yeah yeah.

Kylie. All The Lovers

2010-05-16T11:18:00.000+01:00

There has been a lot of gushing love for Kylie's new single All The Lovers. I am waiting for the remix, however as this song, although pleasant, sounds bereft of something, the same way that Work by Kelly Rowlands or Standing In The Way Of Control by The Gossip now sound without Freemasons and Soulwax respectively. It will sound AMAZING remixed with that Donna Summer I Feel Love-esque beat underneath it strengthened and some crashy electric guitars. In my humble opinion.

Or am I being foolish?

What is with trousers at the moment???!!!

2010-05-15T21:19:00.003+01:00

I cannot wear these because, like most women, I have buttocks. They are not large buttocks, I am not chased down the street by jeering mobs, they are normal, average sized butt cheeks. Skinny jeans, however, are my enemy.

And yet, I am not so large as to require these extremely large trews which are also, apparently in fashion.

As for these monstrosities... if I wanted to dress like MC Hammer, I would wear a short, gold jacket, not these. I cannot believe that these are in fashion... who do they suit?

Don't get me started on the whole 'it's okay to wear joggers when you're not exercising' thing.

Leggings are okay under tunics or long jumpers but I am seeing a lot of bums, clad only in lycra, being flaunted on the street. This does not look good.

I thought that tapered trousers were a thing of the past, like using lard for cooking. It seemed obsolete and something that everyone now believed to be unflattering.

There is a reason that hipster boot-cut jeans were in fashion for over ten years... they were flattering!!! Women who have buttocks are going to have to wear skirts for the foreseeable future it appears. Hello double layers of tights if these last two years of winter are anything to go by. I'm mad!!!!

It is literally impossible at the moment to buy trousers that are not completely LUDICROUS!!!!!!

Yeah! New Stuff!

2010-05-13T20:59:00.001+01:00

Mr Tea Lady was away recently and came back with some truly excellent stuff. First of all these:

I had said to look out for old Virago Modern Classics but had not held out much hope as books are Mr Tea Lady's nemesis. But he does love a charity shop... The only author I have heard of here is Vita Sackville-West. The cover of her book is beautiful and the Daughter of Earth image is striking but the other two are a little rank-looking.

I am shallow, so will read those two losers last.

Yes, I agree, this is the suavest LP cover that has ever been created. Champagne, brandy, a coffee with biscotti, tiddly cigarette and a single red rose. Looks like a special lady is in for a smoochy night.

This album is not Lionel's greatest work (I have all those already), but he always gives good LP interior:

No Lionel, thank you.

My So Called Life

2010-05-12T23:30:00.000+01:00

This was such a wonderful show and it is either a travesty or an absolute blessing that it was cancelled after one series. I can't decide which.

It remains one of the most accurate depictions of teenage life that I have ever seen on television. There was no rigid hierarchy, like in most teen movies or tv series. Yes, there were cheerleaders and jocks, but they were not depicted as demi-gods or mini all-powerful adults. They were just kids.

The dialogue was not a series of polished, post-graduate standard soliloquies, but the language of actual teenagers. Sometimes it was overblown melodrama; Angela: "School is a battlefield... for your heart.." and sometimes it was just completely inarticulate; Brian: "So maybe this is what people mean. When they talk about... you know ... life."

Whole episodes revolved around events like dances, gigs, a note passed around class or just a rumour. These small, yet enormous topics were explored fully in a wry yet completely unpatronising way. These characters were real people, not just ciphers.

Angela, the protagonist, begins the series defecting from her usual group of friends to hang out with the troublesome yet fun Rayanne and the sweet, sexually confused Ricky. Her ex best friend, Sharon, and her neighbour Brian are irritants because they know her so well and are therefore preventing her from being cool. Angela is in love with Jordan Catalano who is somewhat unaware, but not uninterested.

The character of Sharon is very interesting and is perhaps a key indicator of why this show is so good. She is very conservative in dress and ambition, close to her mother, active in school groups and hurt when she is rejected by her best friend Angela. But she is not a nerd. Sharon is one of the most confident and competent characters in the show. She is the one who ends up dating a popular boy openly, not Angela, and it is her who is sexually experienced and ends up giving the other girls advice. There is no convenient high school movie label for her.

Parents and family were just as important in this show as the friends and boyfriends. Sometimes, Angela was not allowed to go out and sometimes she stayed in with her parents to avoid facing her peers. The parents were not comedy characters, nor empty adult figures, they were real too! They were just as confused, frightened and inarticulate as their kids and often had no idea whether or not they were doing the right thing. The same goes for the teachers.

It was released on DVD a couple of years ago and is worth every penny.

I Wept Into My Tea...

2010-05-11T20:37:00.007+01:00

Oh Gordon Brown leaving was almost as sad as Danielle being run over in Eastenders. One of the few politicians of recent times to combine talent, intellect and morality (along with middle-aged hotness), kicked out in favour of a man who can in no way represent the majority of the British public. And who has a face like a foot.

If only Tony Blair had joined a rock band and pretended to be Mick Jagger there instead of at 10 Downing Street. What an arse.

Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire

2010-05-10T19:55:00.003+01:00

The Harry Potter films are not as good as the books, but this one is probably the best. Behold my excellent reasons:

1. Interesting direction by Mike Newall, see above and below for example of little details/juxtapositions that most directors of a franchise would not bother with.

2. Best party/dance scene in a film; stupid dancing, girls crying on the stairs and it actually looks like people are having a good time.

3. The brilliant Clemence Poesy who was also great as Mary Queen of Scots in BBC drama Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.

4. The structure of the book, with three tri-wizard tasks is quite convenient for a film and the events round off each act. Indeed, the pace drags slightly after the third task in the maze.

5. David Tennant's face is in it. (Although the fact that he should clearly have played Lupin mars things slightly.)

Someone At A Distance by Dorothy Whipple

2010-05-09T13:24:00.005+01:00

I had only intended to read two Persephones as part of the Persephone week run by Paperback Reader and the BFiles, but I enjoyed them so much that I picked up Someone At A Distance by Dorothy Whipple from the library.

I was wary of this writer because of Virago's vow to "never go beneath the Whipple line" but then I read a short story of hers "A Lovely Time " in the Autumn/Winter 2009/2010 Persephone biannually which broke my heart with it's unflinching honesty and vulnerable main protagonist and still makes me want to cry whenever I think of it.

I knew as soon as I started this book that I was going to enjoy it and so decided not to rush to finish it by the end of the week and instead to savour it. Impossible! The pages whirred between my hands like a flip-book.

For those who have read it (most Persephone converts), I shall not retread old ground and for those who haven't I do not want to give away too much of the plot. I actually skipped Nina Bawden's preface when I realised that she outlined the main plot points and read it last.

This is a very deeply felt, yet gentle book and is basically about the ephemeral nature of our life circumstances versus the enduring bonds of love. Some of the characters do things that are incredibly selfish, vindictive, craven even but Whipple presents each case in the same way, explaining the motives and feelings of each person in turn. She is a very moral writer, so these acts do not go unpunished, and this is perhaps why she lost her early popularity in the middle of the twentieth century.

It is perhaps also her readability, the 'easiness' of her novels, that began to make her less relevant in the era of angry young men and rebellious contraceptive-toting girls. I must admit that, although Someone At A Distance is very emotional and indeed desolating in parts, it is still a warm bath of a book with it's delightful descriptions of country gardens and quaint towns and the knowledge that all these characters with their inheritances, servants and people eager to help them out are going to be alright really.

This is a book which is a cosy 'cup of tea' read but is well-written enough to be more than just a guilty pleasure. Even the beautiful cover with a painting by Sir James Gunn is a joy. So, a perfect book really.

Loie Fuller - Serpentine Dance

2010-05-07T19:56:00.006+01:00

Loie Fuller was an American modern dancer whose career was mainly in France where she introduced Isadora Duncan.

This is an 1896 film made by the Lumiere brothers and it is not, as I first presumed, hand-tinted. The beautiful colour effects are apparently lighting innovations invented and patented by Fuller and projected onto a silk dress. (It is not Fuller herself in this film, but it is her dance.)

Fuller was painted by Toulouse-Lautrec and was close with Queen Marie of Romania. Eh... incredible!!

It's Only Alternative if Gross Misogyny Isn't the Norm

2010-05-06T21:09:00.006+01:00

Why was Lauren Laverne not advertised as a presenter for Channel 4's Alternative Election Night?

Why has there already been two sexual jokes about the opposition leaders' wives when only 6 minutes of the programme has elapsed?

Mention of pornography being an enjoyable pass-time? Check!

Arse-covering 'ironic' mention of Emmeline Pankhurst to show that they are being misogynistic in a post modern way? Check!

Congratulations Channel 4, only 16 minutes in and you have already disgusted me more than David Cameron ever has.

The Curse Of The Golden Flower

2010-05-05T21:40:00.004+01:00

This is supposedly the most expensive Chinese movie that has ever been made and it certainly looked like it. I have never seen a more sumptuous, visually engorged film in my life! Trays of golden filigree jewels, oceans of yellow chrysanthemums, suits of armour made of gold and silver, gossamer gowns in sweetie colours and brightly lit glass pillars in a palace that looked like a fluorescent tie-dyed t-shirt.

And the Ninjas! Proper knee high booted, all-in-black ninjas flying through the air on wires and doing a flying fox manoeuvre across a valley wall covered in thick green moss.

The storyline was like an incredibly bloody and violent episode of Eastenders. Family loyalty, a worn out marriage and sibling rivalry were all played out to their fullest conclusions.

There were potions too.

The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

2010-05-04T13:09:00.005+01:00

The Home-Maker of this novel is first of all, domestic machine and mother of three, Evangeline (Eva) Knapp, a fierce, grafter of a woman who rules her home with a rod of iron and keeps it not only clean and tidy but stylish, respectable and completely stifling. Her husband reflects to himself that she is "like a Titan forced to tend a miniature garden ."

By the middle of the novel it is Eva's husband, Lester Knapp, who is home-maker when he is unable to continue working at the town drapers and homeware emporium.

It is not really a spoiler to say that Eva takes on her husband's position as the family breadwinner by working in said store and taking the eye for detail and relentless energy that was suffocated by housework and childcare and applying it to business with great success.

Lester, on the other hand, who has always hated his job, settles down into domestic bliss with Saturday morning cooking-bees, stories and time to get to know the children who were hitherto little strangers to him.

I expected to finish this book all fired up with feminist outrage and it is depressing how little some things have changed. I'm ashamed to say that it still surprises me to see a man out by himself with a pram (why should I feel so proud of him, he should take his baby for a walk!) and although we now know such creatures exist, how many fully fledged house husbands do we know in 2010?

I did not feel this inequality to be the central message of the book, however, more an outside event that helped to shape the plot. At the centre of the book is the idea that to be happy, you cannot fight against your nature and must be allowed to be yourself. Eva is too exacting and impatient to spend all day long with a preschooler, however much she loves her youngest son Stephen and Lester is too dreamy and uninterested in material gain to be a competent accountant and "If honestly, that was the sort of nature he had, why rebel against it?"

This idea is exemplified by the Willings who own the store and are first Lester's and then Eva's employers. Both are very happy with their lot because they are allowed to work with their natures. Mr Willing loves business ("it fitted him! It was his work!")and is perfectly happy to put in a 36 hour shift and then go home and talk to his wife about the store. Mrs Willing is a happier homemaker than Eva and was glad to stay at home with pre-school aged children, but is still eager to exercise her brain through the writing of advertising copy for the business; something which she is very good at.

This idea of being able to be yourself is continued when Canfield looks at the characters of the children. Never have I read a book in which the motivations and desires of a child have been so thoroughly examined as those of Stephen, the troublesome 5 year old. He is treated to the same analysis and respect as the adult protagonists and shown to be just as much of a prisoner of circumstance as his mother and father.

The issues that are explored in this 1924 novel are still prevalent today. Women may go out to work more frequently but there is still the shadow of unequal pay and the fact that most women, working or not are still doing the majority of the housework. This is muddied by the growing feeling that some women still enjoy domestic tasks and would be happy to stay at home and keep house. The issue is not who does what, but who, man or woman , is being forced into a life which does not suit them, purely because of their sex?

Before reading this book, I wondered if the title was a snide aside, that I would find a militant feminist scream of rage, but that is not it. The character of 'Aunt' Mattie Farnham is a home-maker; not as competent as Eva, but infinitely happier in the role. It fits her. It is Mattie who recognizes that it fits Lester too. It would not fit Mr Willing, it did not suit Eva Knapp.

What this book cries out is that we must be allowed choice in life, to find the roles that suit our temperaments and talents. Money can buy choice, like in the case of Mrs Willing who can afford servants to take the edge off the drudgery of childcare, but it is the breaking down of prejudice and "complacent unquestioned generalisation" that is the real goal.

This is a wonderful book that made me laugh, cry, think and rage. It lightly leaps from the depths of great tragedy to the sunny joys of human interaction. My only complaint is that I am not too struck on the endpapers but I can find it in my heart to forgive that very slight flaw...

GA Getts perform 'Telephone'.

2010-05-03T12:17:00.005+01:00

I know it is really late and lame to be still talking about this, but is the Lady Gaga video not pretty boring in the bits without music? 9 minute videos mean 6 minutes of 'acting' which is not what I require from popstrels. I keep fast forwarding through all the tongue-twiddling and sandwich eating (and that come from someone who has included sandwiches as one of her interests, see right.) The song is obviously amazing and my neighbours have been forced to listen to it about one million times. You're welcome neighbours.

I much prefer this video made by Anthony BB Kaye and the GA Getts who I believe dance with Girls Aloud when they go on tour. (?) It was filmed on a shoestring in one night and is just so joyful! The dancing is incredible...

The Runaway by Elizabeth Anna Hart

2010-05-02T15:30:00.010+01:00

The Runaway is a children's story which was first published in 1872 and was then re released in 1935 with a series of wood cut illustrations by the artist Gwen Raverat.

I had chosen The Runaway as my first Persephone mainly because of the beautiful pictures and on that front, I was not disappointed. There are 60 woodcuts interspersed with the text of this book and they range from tiny images of each character as he or she is introduced, larger full page illustrations or extensive two-page wide images which stretch above and below the text.

There is a particularly lovely one which shows Olga, the eponymous character in a tree which stretches its branches across two pages and Clarice, Olga's accomplice standing on a path below which fades into the distance.

Woodcut is an extremely unforgiving discipline; one cut out of place and you can ruin hours of work. Each cut that has been made in the wooden printing block avoids being inked up, so the artist is creating his or her lights and shades in reverse. The image itself must also be reversed. It requires incredible amounts of skill, concentration and physical stamina, as the tools are tiny and cramped, blistered fingers are inevitable. I point all this out only to make clear the incredible achievement of Gwen Raverat. This book is an artistic masterpiece.

She is capable of carving solid wooden furniture, draperies, faces, shadows and gossamer thin imaginary spirits with an equal amount of skill. The pictures not only support and illustrate the text, but also show scenes in the book that are only mentioned in retrospect (Olga being spotted on the roof by policemen, for example.)

The eagle-eyed reader may have noticed that I do not yet mention the story. This is because I was not very impressed. Apparently this work was a labour of love for Gwen R. as she had adored The Runaway as a child and pushed for it to be republished twice in her life time. I cannot see why, but then we all have beloved children's books that don't really stand up to much scrutiny (Hi Malory Towers!).

Olga, the runaway child is obviously supposed to delight the reader with her mischievous, devil-may-care ways but, quite frankly, I found her to be a complete arse and have never wanted to punch a fictional character in the face more keenly than when reading this book. Selfish, snobbish and completely ungrateful, Olga comes close to causing her supposedly dear friend and protector Clarice to have a nervous break down.

I was fond of Clarice. A painfully conscientious and lonely girl, she undertakes to keep Olga hidden from her father, servants and eventually policemen. She is wise and kind, anxious to be good and to protect the feelings of those she loves

"Olga opened her blue eyes wide, and stared about her. 'I don't know what you are talking about,' said she; 'it sounds like gibberish.'

' Never mind' said Clarice. 'We all speak gibberish to others, I think, when we say what we really feel'

'I feel very sleepy,' said Olga, 'but that is not gibberish is it?'

'No', said Clarice smiling, 'because I am getting sleepy too; when people feel alike they don't talk gibberish'"

There are some quite amusing moments in the book, like when Olga dresses up as a policeman and is outraged when Clarice derides her efforts and another occasion when Clarice worries to herself that Olga may actually be 'deficient' rather than just jolly and careless.

It is not a great book and I can see why the rather patronising overview of Elizabeth Anna Hart's works was put in as an after word rather than a fore word. At one point, the story looks like it is going to take an interesting turn which would make the character of Olga far more interesting and sympathetic, but it soon returns to its snobby and predictable path. It is an easy read, however, a book very much of its time and is eccentric and event-filled enough to carry you to the end.

At points, the friendship between the two girls seems like an intense love affair, with Olga teasing and flirting and pouting her way out of trouble with Clarice who takes the younger girl on her knee where Olga "began kissing her with dainty little kisses, as a bird might with it's beak peck sugar from her lips."

Olga's pouting lips and dainty white body are described again and again and Clarice is a slave to the younger girl's whims. "She (Clarice) thought of the money, and the jewels, and her heart sank within her, and she felt as if it must break... oh that she had never seen her! Oh that she had never listened to her!" At one point, Olga declares that she and Clarice will both go and live in an old cottage together "like those two old creatures in North Wales." where they will keep geraniums and "wear men's hats."

I was not sure if this aspect of the book was a heavily disguised reference to homosexuality. It is hard to find details about author Elizabeth Anna Hart's life despite her prolific output and she and her husband never had children. Homosexuality could not be openly discussed in the late 1800s but it has a pervasive yet subdued presence in the literature of the time. It is this, and the feminist moments, "It's girls that are kept under and kept down..." that most intrigued me about this book.

To sum up, this book is definitely worth buying for the gorgeous illustrations alone but the story, although original and lively, is not of the same quality.

This book was read as part of Persephone reading week, hosted by Paperback Reader and the B Files.

KoKo Pop

2010-05-01T17:36:00.004+01:00

I watched my first edition of KoKo Pop today, the new Pop Music show fronted by Jameela Jamil on T4 for Channel 4.

I was really hoping that it would be a worthy replacement for Top of The Pops, but that dream was not realised. To be fair though, I do not think that I am in their key demographic.

The show takes place in a frenzied studio full of kids who must all be under 16. The general feeling is of a Smash Hits Poll Winners Party of yester year but one where you are actually afraid that some of the girls at the front are slowly asphyxiating during the performance. There is also an in-house pre-adolescent dance troup called 'The Popsicles.' That's weird.

Jameela's presenting style is in the T4 trad style of possibly sincere, (but probably not) over enthusiasm. She does look lovely though and there is no snootiness, which is refreshing.

The show does not do chart count down. Boo. It is great to have a pop music performance show back on terrestrial telly, however, and, as with all music shows, your enjoyment will entirely depend on the featured acts.

Performing this week were NDubz, who played twice and were interviewed by Jameela. The group were on a catwalk that went right into the audience and the audience were touching them!

Mini Viva were on too, wearing fantastical rainbow, winged eyeshadow and singing their soon to be released single 'One Touch' which is growing on me like a splendid, glittery, magenta and turquoise back-rug.

Lee Ryan performed his new song, Secret Love in the manner of someone who has picked a song to perform at Karaoke before realising that he only really knows the chorus. The song itself starts off with on-trend Gary Numan synths, rave klaxons and a frenetic dance beat, so all bases are covered. His vocals on the studio version sound kind of Shakira-ish at the start. I like ballad Lee! Let's all go and listen to 'Army of Lovers!' Actually let's listen to THIS which was great:

Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau

2010-04-29T17:21:00.007+01:00

Paul loves Dargelos, Gerard loves Paul, and so does Elisabeth. Elisabeth and Paul are brother and sister.

Jean Cocteau once claimed that everything he made, be it poem, book, play, drawing or film, they were all poems really. This makes sense, as this book is not a plotty, observational saga, but a dream.

The book begins during a boys' snowball fight which is taking place at dusk in a Parisian street. War has been declared and the combatants are determined to win for their chosen side. The game is referred to only as 'the battle' and as Paul, warm with love, searches the icy battleground for Dargelos, soldiers fall and missiles fly.

The reader is drawn into the boys' world which, already insular, is made further otherworldly by the snow.

'The snow had gone on falling steadily since yesterday, thereby radically altering the original design. The Cite had withdrawn in Time; the snow seemed no longer to be impartially distributed over the whole warm living earth, but to be dropping, piling only upon this one isolated spot.'

This feeling of claustrophobic isolation is carried on when Paul, hit in the heart by Dargelos' rock centred snowball is taken home by Gerard. Paul and Elisabeth's mother is ill and the siblings share a room, 'The Room', which is their own private world with treasures, stories and 'The Game'. This Game seems to be ultimate escapism, the ability to retreat into your mind and enjoy a swooning reverie which Elisabeth thinks of as 'their private legend.' (Cocteau wrote this book during a week of drug withdrawal.)

These children are utterly immune to the realities of life. When their mother dies, they are looked after by Gerard, a maid and a kind family friend. They exist in a private netherworld of barley sugars, crayfish, shoplifting, dares and dens.

It is apparent to the reader from the first few chapters, that these two innocents are not going to thrive, but it is the arrival of Agatha, a spitting image of Paul's lost love Dargelos, that precipitates the end of The Room and of The Game.

The book is illustrated by Cocteau's pen and ink drawings and these help to contribute to the dreamlike feeling that pervades the text. Simple line drawings show Paul in battle, Elisabeth as a spider caught in the web of her own making, and a group of ghostly school boys pressing their noses against a snowy window.

The translation is by Rosamund Lehmann and was said by The Times to have 'the rare merit of reading as though it were an English original.' The prose does seem fresh and uncontrived. Translations can often be stilted, but this highly specific book seems to flow straight from Cocteau's pen into English.

'The street lamps shed a feeble light upon what looked like a deserted battlefield. Frost-flayed, the ground had split, was broken up into fissured blocks, like crazy pavement. In front of every gully-hole, a stack of grimy snow stood ominous, a potential ambush; the gas-jets flickered in a villainous north-easter; and the dark holes and corners already hid their dead.'

If you enjoy pacy, plot-driven reads, then do not bother opening this book. If, however, you enjoy beautiful writing that you can dwell on, rather than be pulled along by, then this poem of a book will haunt you for ever.

Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter

2010-04-27T23:43:00.009+01:00

Was this the kind of book that wraps me up and refuses to put me down until I have finished it? In parts. Was it one of those books that, even when I am half way through, I brandish in the faces of my friends and say 'you must read this, I'm just loving it!' ?

No. It is better than that. It was not a struggle, but neither was it an easy read. This is a good thing, by the way; this book challenged my lazy preconceptions every step of the way.

It was impossible for me to just go with the flow of this book because every time I thought I had the hang of it, ' oh it's a Gothic fairytale...', 'no, it's a feminist manifesto...'...' oh hang on it's a love story'... each and every time I tried to settle myself down into a well-worn reading groove, the narrative turned a sharp corner and turfed me out of the cart.

Fevvers, 'Cockney Venus' trapeze artist who may or may not be half woman, half avian, is one part winking, peroxide haired, busty pin-up and one part flatulent, gluttonous slattern. It is my squeamishness as a reader that always put me off Carter's books and I was duly assaulted by a very full description of every smell, stain and encrustation that could be found in the dressing room of Fevvers, chapter one.

Her underwear is compared to worms writhing around on the floor, her champagne ice stinks of fish and the description of the state of her satin robe caused me to shudder delicately. Her language is coarse and her manner rough, but she is a vivacious and hilarious host who clearly has a loving relationship with her diminutive gnome of a foster-mother Lizzy. 'Ah', I thought , 'a tart with a heart.' Not quite. Fevvers is 'the only fully feathered intacta in the world'. A virgin who grew up in a brothel.

All of this rough, bawdiness is offset by exquisitely beautiful descriptions. One page starts with Fevvers complaining about a henchman trying to 'get a good feel of my titties' and then 'shrugging the buggers off' before describing an ivied mansion where , 'above the turrets, floated a fingernail moon with a star in it's arms'. Later on, she encounters the brute again, ''e's the one groped my right tit', before explaining how her malevolent host, Mr Rosencreutz 'upends the claret into the jug of white roses, which blush.'

This is a feminist book but Lizzie's strident politics is softened by Fevvers the non-avenging angel who, although determined to remain single and in charge of her own image, is incapable of hurting another human being. The creed of this book is definitely of the post-feminist variety, with militant feeling replaced by gentle, mocking humour 'there must be something useful this young man could do for them, if only she could think of it.' Natural objects are rendered male (old father Thames) and cultural concepts are female (Mother Parliament.)

Love is the main catalyst for change in this novel as it inspires culture in an unloved orphan, drags Fevvers through an icy wasteland and destroys an all-female prison. Fevvers does fall in love, but, unusually, this does not become the main focus of the novel, merely an accepted fact, one of many.

Reading this book reminded me of reading Nabokov. Firstly, for its placing of the narrative in a highly specific yet non-authentic historical setting. I also recognized the feeling that I was getting just a small fraction of the various references and illusions but being thrilled at the thought of revisiting the book to wring out further meaning at a later date.

Sometimes the best books are the ones that you struggled with the first time you read, just as some are discarded as soon as you have gobbled them up, never to be opened again. Nights at the Circus falls firmly in the former camp. It is back on the shelf, but still in my mind.

Bright Star

2010-04-25T23:16:00.010+01:00

Oh Bright Star, you were such a beautiful film: Fanny in a field of blue flowers behind a floating screen of green leaves; Keats, Brown and Fanny as two brown dots and one pink one, running across a field and the two lovers, pink and turquoise against a copse of light grey trees.

You started with a needle being threaded and poking in and out of fabric. I took this to be a heavy handed sexual metaphor but there was to be no consummation. Keats said to Brown 'There is a holiness to the heart's affections that you know nothing about.'

There was no sex, in film or real life, but the scene where Fanny moves her bed against the wall that adjoins her bedroom with Keats' was swiftly followed by a study of a bee seeking pollen outside, amongst the blooms. Fanny collected butterflies, letting them take over her room.

The attraction between the lovers was immediate and acknowledged by all and anyone with a passing acquaintance with the biography of Keats could guess the plot. And yet. The time flew and one's heart was gripped as this well known tale spun out. Jane Campion is the master of scenes in which nothing, and yet everything happens. A slow shot of somebody's hands, through her lens, can break your heart.

The lush cinematography which highlighted a red haired child against a bank of evergreen trees, was off set by quotidian family exchange: 'I've let this happen', moaned Fanny's mother, sounding like a soap opera mum who realises that her teenage daughter is pregnant by a family friend. Siblings grumbled at each other and people sat about on couches and beds, staring into space or looking at one another.

The film was so quiet, we had to set the volume high enough that we were deafened when the channel changed. The images spoke loudest in this film about a poet. Tears were experienced.

On The Character of Amy Pond

2010-04-24T20:25:00.004+01:00

I am not a 'proper' Dr Who fan as I have only watched the new incarnation of the series from Christopher Ecclestone onwards. Still, it is one of the better things on British television at the moment and the only Saturday night program that doesn't make me want to rip out my eyes so that they can weep from both ends.

Therefore, I was keen to not hate the new Doctor and his assistant. I had already seen Matt Smith in BBC's Party Animals, a drama about political researchers at Westminster, and thought that he was great, so episode one was all about Amy Pond.

In her first episode, we found out that Amy was a strippogram. Dr Who is a 'family show' and no one has hired a strippogram since 1983 so we can assume that she is really a stripper. According to press releases, this means that Steven Moffat is an 'edgy' writer and that Amy is a strong and confident woman. 'How worrying', I thought, 'that a children's show is perpetuating the ludicrous myth that beautiful, intelligent, solvent women pay club owner's for the privilege of dancing about in front of random, half-cut strangers because it makes them feel really confident.'

It seems like this plot turn may have just been a controversial hook for the press, however, as it has not been referred to since.

Tonight's episode, The Time of Angels, was such a refreshing take on the Doctor and assistant's relationship (again, I'm referring to new-era episodes) and it was Amy's character that made the difference.

When Rose met Sarah-Jane Smith she was openly bitter and sullen and both women made disparaging comments about the others' age. When Martha Jones and the Doctor were trapped in pre-Great War Britain, she wallowed in miserable jealousy as he romanced Nurse Redfern. All the while, the Doctor was blissfully oblivious of all the crazed female lusting, doing lots of important thinking whilst stroking his sonic screwdriver.

So far, so BORING. Tonight, when Alex Kingston's archaeologist, River Song launched herself into open space and into the Tardis, instantly taking charge and flying the Doctor's machine better than he can; Amy did not curl her lip and sulk in a corner. She seemed delighted by this cool, smart woman and, if she had had a speech bubble above her head, it would have said 'You are awesome, let us be buds.'

Take note Rose. This is the mature reaction. Amy is an orphan who seems to have been neglected by her carers growing up. She is engaged to be married at a very young age. She must have insecurities as well as trust and abandonment issues, but she can still handle not being the only pretty, clever women in the room.

Yeah!!

Eastenders: Last Tango in Walford

2010-04-23T13:29:00.004+01:00

This has just arrived. I have not watched it yet but, from the packaging I already know that: It contains exclusive new footage. It contains flashbacks; '25 Classic moments' (always the best). Ricky and Bianca do a Tango. THE CAST OF EASTENDERS PERFORM 'LOVE MACHINE' BY GIRLS ALOUD.

It will probably be the best DVD I ever own, or the worst.

Do you think that anyone involved with making this has actually seen 'Last Tango In Paris?' Should I expect a graphic sex scene between the happy couple involving Pat's kitchen floor and a tub of Stork?

This DVD is the best kind of present; one which delights you but that you could never openly buy for yourself. Other recent gifts to have fitted this description have been a copy of Heat Annual 2009 and a bottle of Cherry Lambrini.

The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson

2010-04-22T22:11:00.005+01:00

Tove Jansson was originally known in Britain for her Moomin books, but her fiction for adults has gradually been introduced by Sort Of Books, a great publishing company who produce really beautiful editions.

2003 saw the publication of The Summer Book, a story about a young girl , her grandmother and their summer together on a Finnish Island. In 2006 a collection of short stories called The Winter Tales arrived and Fair Play, a novel about two women artists and their partnership followed in 2009.

I had no idea that The True Deceiver, Jansson's last novel had been published at the end of last year, and so was delighted to unwrap it on Christmas morning.

It is very difficult to dissect a Tove Jansson novel, as her prose is so subtle and yet solid. It is no surprise that Ali Smith, the novelist who said 'I want to make a book so strong that you can hit it with a hammer and it doesn't fall apart. That's all.', is a fan.

The True Deceiver is set in a Scandanavian village which is experiencing a long, cold winter. Katri Kling wants the house and money of the local artist, Anna Aemelin, so that she can provide for her slow, younger brother, Mats.

Katri is cold, smart and uncompromising and Anna is a rabbit-faced hermit who is vague about everyday details. The two women strike up an uneasy acquaintance that is part professional, part friendly and almost familial. It is never clear who has the upper hand.

Jannson's writing is like a polished pebble, fished from the bottom of an icy river. There are no extraneous descriptions and there is so much unsaid in this novel. There is almost an entire shadow novel hidden behind the actual book. The writing is so clever and delicately wrought that it is impossible to gain a firm grip on the plot. It is a block of exquisitely carved ice, the cold burn of which is felt long after the reader had finished.

'In the morning, an invisible Katri had put a breakfast tray beside Anna's bed. Fires in the tile stoves, a bowl of periwinkles, the hem of her dressing gown mended. The right book opened to the bookmark beside Anna's plate. A lot of small things, everywhere, all day. But Katri continued to be invisible. Anna grew more and more uneasy, it was like having a spirit in the house, one of those magically enslaved and obedient pixies that frequent the castles in fairy tales, diligent creatures, ever-present but always just vanishing. You catch a glimpse of movement and turn around - but there's nothing there, a door closing silently.'

There is no neat wrapping up of loose ends at the close of this novel neither does it stop abruptly at a pivotal scene. The final chapters are so quiet, yet filled with raw emotion. It is a story that I fully expect to live with for quite some time.

On Mini Viva's 'One Touch'

2010-04-21T19:01:00.003+01:00

Mini Viva's new single One Touch is due to be released on May 10th and it is pretty good. Like most Xenomania tracks you don't think much of it the first time you hear it but then it works its way into your brain and you are humming it in Tesco's like a senile old woman (or an oblivious 5 year old).

The band don't seem to have done as well as you would expect considering that a) Xenomania write their songs and b) they have the perfect pop star names of Britt Love and Frankee Connolly (I KNOW). There was even a television advert urging listeners to pre-order their last single 'I Wish' which shot into the charts at number... 73?

This song is better, but it does remind me of others. The 'hips, lips, fashion status, I get my kick....' sounds like the 'Walk, walk, fashion baby, Work it, move that bitch cer-azy' section in Lady Gaga's Bad Romance and the chorus is similar to that of 'Girl Overboard' by Girls Aloud.

It's like the song is a pie made from the left over fillings of other pop songs. It's still a tasty, tasty pie, however, and one that I shall purchase and boogy to incessantly I should imagine.

The video is not great. What is the premise behind these weird vids that have a lamp and a sofa to approximate a living space and then just have the group standing in various parts of the 'room' whilst kind of dancing but also kind of not?

It cannot be budget restrictions as an idea costs nothing. Some of the most celebrated videos have also been the cheapest (Verve's Bittersweet Symphony, Sinead O'Conner's Nothing Compares To You, Fatboy Slim's Praise You or OK Go's Here It Comes Again, for example) You have a catchy tune and two photogenic young women, it should be easy.

Anyway, sounds good:

Life Does Not Get Much Better, It Would Be Churlish To Complain.

2010-04-20T18:01:00.007+01:00

What a brilliant homecoming! As I opened the front door, I felt the delightful squidge of packages. The Iceland ash cloud must have affected the post as everything is late, but has all come at once.

First of all, Bright Star, the Jane Campion film about the love affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne. I like films that are visually exciting and innovative and would take lush cinematography over pithy dialogue any day of the week. (Although both together is obviously preferable.) Everyone I know who has seen it describes it as 'a beautiful film' and I can't wait to watch it.

I also received series two of Homicide: Life on the Streets, one of the greatest American tv shows of the 90s. Pacy, funny, scary and visually inventive, it never disappoints.

The remaining packages were possibly the most exciting of all. I first heard about Persephone books a few years ago and was thrilled by their remit of re-publishing over looked books, written mainly by women; coupled with a commitment to good design. Each smooth, grey tome carries coloured inlay pages inspired by fabrics relevant to the content of the book.

I have perused their website countless times, read many articles and blog posts extolling their virtues and bought catalogues and tokens for their shop as Christmas and birthday presents. Yet I have never bought one for myself. Partly this was due to price, a £10 book seems a stretch when you are paying off loans and buying ridiculously priced driving lessons for what seems like YOUR ENTIRE LIFE (whoops, breathe) and partly due to the impossibility of choosing where to start.

Every time I read the catalogue (a great read in itself), I was torn. The Persephone reading week hosted by Paperback Reader and The B Files moved my hand, however.Finally I have chosen The Runaway and The Home-maker. I am particularly excited by the Runaway which contains exquisite wood-cut illustrations which dance in and out of the text, sometimes framing it, instead of just being restricted to staid, full pages.

I knew that the books were lovely to behold but did not realise how lovely until now. The grey covers have DUST COVERS and the books come with matching book marks. My squeal of joy when I realised this was similar to the noise I made when a chocolate bar fell out of our coal merchant's Christmas bill. (Thanks guys!)

I have a pile of lovely books and dvds, there is tea in the pot, soup bubbling on the hob, it's snowing outside and there's a fire to be lit. Bliss. It seems to be snowing and sunny at the same time too. AMAZING...

Granta No.110, Spring 2010, S*x

2010-04-20T10:33:00.002+01:00

The asterisk in the title of this post about Spring 2010's issue of Granta Magazine is not due to prudery, but because I do not wish to attract pesky, porny spam to this blog any earlier than its inevitable arrival. This ploy will probably not work.

Granta has always been a great place to find new writing from authors both established and up-and-coming.

Under the editorship of Ian Jack, a journalist by trade (and a great writer), the magazine seemed to consist mainly of reportage and memoir but it has recently begun to include more poetry, illustration and art photography.

S*x is a beautifully designed book with provocative cover photo by Billie Segal, gold lettering on the front and hot pink lettering on the spine and back.

The writing ranges from poignant memoir,( The Unwritable by Mark Doty); a fictional story about Kiyoko, the only female on a desert island populated by castaways, (Tokyo Island by Natsuo Kirino) and straight up erotica ( This is For You by Emmanuel Carrere).

I really love that Granta is more visual now. Dave Eggars provides four hilarious illustrations entitled Four Animals Contemplating S*x; there are photographs of deserted adult film sets by Jo Broughton and a strange, dreamy collection of images by Yann Faucher called Body.

I have not read the whole magazine yet as I prefer to dip in and out of it, giving each piece its own time and space. I am particularly looking forward to the Jeanette Winterson short story at the end; The Agony of Intimacy. She is an author who I have always been interested in reading but have not yet properly sampled.

Siobhan Donaghy

2010-04-19T19:09:00.003+01:00

Siobhan was one of the original Sugababes. She left and made a decent solo album called Revolution In Me. Then, in 2007, she released a second album, Ghosts, which was BRILLIANT. It didn't do very well in the charts despite good reviews and an appearance on Loose Women (she must feel so bitter), and there have been no releases since.

I hope to hear more from her soon. As you can hear, Ghosts is laden with studio effects and some of the vocals seem to be played backwards. A pretty hard track to sing live then? Nope, nailed it (see below). AMAZING. Especially when you consider that many pop stars struggle to sing songs that are not backwards, live.

Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor

2010-04-19T13:27:00.008+01:00

My name is Tea Lady and I judge books by their covers. I know that it is wrong but I cannot help but refuse to buy ugly books; especially if I know that they have alternative editions bearing more attractive covers.

This is why I love the original Virago Modern Classics more than the new. The cover illustrations were taken from paintings that related to the content of each novel and make the books gorgeous objects as well as great reads.

My edition of Palladian has a section of a Stanley Spencer painting called Interior of Cookham With Flowers on it's cover. It depicts a vase full of spring flowers in front of a fire-place. There are Grecian urns and curling photographs upon the mantelpiece. The delicate jug holding fresh greens could refer to the leading lovers in the novel and the urns and photographs to the dark secrets and memories which surround them.

The book is the story of Cassandra, a 20 year old orphan, who has recently been engaged as governess to a girl of about 10, Sophy Vanburgh, at Cropthorne Manor.

The manor is a dilapidated and forlorn sort of building with several extensions from various time periods and an extremely rickety conservatory that threatens to come crashing down at any minute.

This conservatory is clearly a symbol, and there are many symbols, clues and portents in this book.

The idea of mould and decay is painted in very heavy strokes for the reader and especially in the first few chapters. The book that Cassandra reads on the train "has a strange, fungus smell", and she passes by "a mouldering lodge" on her journey. Tinty, her employer's old aunt is sitting with a Ryvita and a pot of old, stewed tea when she arrives and Sophy, Cassandra's charge is warned by her aunt, Margaret that if she does not eat her glucose then mushrooms will grow inside of her, "thick shelves of fungus branching out of her ribs...".

It soon becomes clear that certain cliches are being employed and that the events take place within the framework of a traditional, romantic novel (Cassandra's surname is Dashwood and Greer Garson's Pride and Predjudice is showing in town.) This is particularly apparent when Cassandra and her new employer, Marion Vanburgh, inspect the dark library with the use of a large candelabra and then kiss during a storm (this is not a spoiler, don't worry.)

"Marion you say?" Yes, his name is Marion and it is this character who initially relieves and makes it clear that this is not just a straightforward, dull romance. Marion Vanburgh is delicate, frequently referred to as effeminate by nearly all the characters and, as he puts it "reading himself to death."

His and Cassandra's love affair revolves around books and learning. He gives her Greek lessons and first kisses her in a library. When he chases after her and asks her to marry him, he finds her in a bookshop. Unlike a conventional leading man who would hurl the book she was holding over his shoulder, sweeping her up into a passionate embrace, Marion contents himself with taking the book from her hands, paying for it at the counter and taking her to a hotel for... a cup of tea.

All of the above is honestly not a spoiler, however it may seem. The story is not really about these two, you see. They are just ciphers; bland, almost non-characters, who merely serve as foils for the other, richer, much more subtly drawn personalities of Tom, Tinty, Margaret and Sophy.

These characters' story lines do not run the same smooth, fateful path of Marion and Cassandra's. Even calm and confident Margaret is unnerved and derailed by the close of the novel.

When Marion and Cassandra are described, they are compared to flowers or glass snow globes.

Tom does not shower and,as Sophy points out, always stinks of alcohol. Margaret is constantly eating and is described as having moisture in her hair from the drizzle, or static in it from tugging dresses on and off. They are physical, real beings.

Marion and Cassandra's story practically ends with "they lived happily ever after", but the others are afforded no such tidy conclusion.

A beautifully written novel that is self conscious and slyly deceptive at the same time.

On Live Performances

2010-04-18T22:32:00.006+01:00

My other half and I were visiting a friend in London. Said friend said "There's some really good shows on at the moment, you should try and catch one while you're down." We both nodded enthusiastically; "Yeah, yeah, we'll certainly do that..."

When the friend left the room, other half whispered "I never want to go and see a show in the West End... EVER." It was then that I knew we were meant to be together.

I hate going to the theatre. I hate going to 'gigs' and the thought of seeing a stand-up comic makes my blood run cold. Observe my reasons with your eyes:

a)There is always the risk of audience participation, the thought of which makes me want to tear off all my skin.

b) I always stand next to people who spend the entire performance either singing tunelessly in my ear or screaming the name of the band/performer over and over and over : "S-IGUR ROOOOS! SIGUR-ROOOOS! SIIIIIIGUUUUR ROOOOOOOOS!", "GRAHAM FROM BLUR! GRAHAM FROM BLUR! GRAHAM FROM BLUUUUUUUUUUUR!", " GOLDIE! LOOKING! CHAAAAIIIINNN!!!" (I was at a festival ok, don't judge me.)

c) Knowing that I cannot really choose when to go to the toilet without causing hassle makes me want to pee immediately and constantly.

d) This is the worst one. Music sounds crap live. Yes, I said it. Even a live CD is better than a live performance.

e) Theatre acting is just embarrassing.

f) I feel like everyone thinks I'm a perv when people kiss in a play. Even though everyone else is watching too. I once went to a play in a tiny 5 row theatre to support a friend who was starring alongside his girlfriend. Apart from me, there were four other people in the audience and the two stars snogged pretty much the whole way through. This is not my idea of entertainment.

Miyazaki Knows His Tea

2010-04-17T22:47:00.005+01:00

We watched Spirited Away again tonight. Hayao Miyazaki's films are obviously known for their fantastical elements of old lady-head birds, fish that turn into little girls and forest spirits, but it is their simple, everyday, sensual details that both ground the fantasy and make it more persuasive.

Haku the dragon informs Chihiro, the heroine of Spirited Away, that she has stumbled into a world of Gods where her parents are transformed into pigs whilst she stands in front of an exquisitely realised blue hydrangea bush that the viewer can almost smell.

When she crosses the sea to visit the evil Yubaba's twin sister, Zeniba, Chihiro is served spongy cake and a cup of tea, the surface of which ripples gently as she wriggles in her seat. We can see that she takes it without milk.

We are just getting used to the idea of the title character of Kiki's Delivery Service being a witch, when she moves into a bakery packed high with warm loaves which have visible flour dustings and look delicious yet wholesome.

In Ponyo, Sousuke's mother is raging at his father's overtime whilst preparing a delicious looking stir fry full of recognizable vegetables. She later serves Ponyo and Sousuke cook-in-the-bowl noodles and we watch as the water is poured over, the lids are placed on the bowls and then the children pack their faces with the soft, stringy bundles.

The Miyazaki world is so comprehensively realised that Chihiro, clad in trainers, lime striped t-shirt and polyester shorts can travel in an ornate lift with a whiskery, man-boobed, walrus-moustached radish ghost to the damask curtained, gilt mirrored and shag pile carpeted lair of Yubaba without any of these visuals jarring.

Stylised figures painted with flat colours run through hyper-realistic foliage and it all looks so right.

Everything is exactly and completely what it is, with no compromise.

Miyazaki's ACE.

Private: My Secret Lover

2010-04-16T20:26:00.004+01:00

Okay, it is with some reservations that I direct your attention to this video as viewing it may cause you to download the song , which will then lead to you wasting HOURS OF YOUR LIFE dancing about to it in your room.

It was brought to my attention by the mighty popjustice, God bless their toe-tappin' souls.

It is just a simple video of simple dance routines to an insanely catchy song; that's all. Big red lips singing 'Bullet's in the gun'? Check. Line of little animated men boogying along the bottom of the screen? Check. Trio of dancers with comically mismatched heights performing a choreographed routine? CHECK!!

Behold:

Eastenders:The 'Grim Myth'

2010-04-15T17:23:00.006+01:00

I heart Eastenders. There are no other soaps in my life now that Hollyoaks has been phased out. These days, there is only Walford and her inhabitants to occupy my soap dish, dip a doughnut in my tea and provide heart-rending material for regular sofa sobbing.

Every time that I give voice to my love,however, there is but one retort;"Eastenders? But it's so depressing!" Wrong, wrong, wrong and I'm about to tell you why:

1. It is before the water shed, so there can be no swearing. Shouting arguments are forced into trailing silences or quaint euphemism.

2. They all still do their shopping in the market; supporting local commerce and sticking two fingers up to the conglomerates.

3. Even though they all hate each other, they all turn up for each others weddings, funerals, engagement parties, birthday parties, coming home from jail parties, etc...

4. They cover each others' shifts all the time! If I visited my friend who works in a pub and she said "Hey, Tea Lady, I'm going across the road to punch my boyfriend in the face for sleeping with my mum, can you look after the bar?" I would say "But I don't know how to work the till, where is the stock? What if a barrel needs changing?"

The people of Walford do no such thing, they just slip on that Minute Mart or Laundrette tabard or tie on a market change-apron and just get on with the covering; leaving said friend to punch to her heart's content.

5. Even people who have only been living in the square for five minutes have a best friend, a job and a torrid affair. Things that take most of us weeks, months or years to obtain.

You see? Heartwarming. Walford is like a sleepy little village where all dreams come true and they just happen to talk in Cockney accents.

Homicide: Life on The Streets

2010-04-15T17:20:00.001+01:00

My sentiments exactly, an amazing show from the creators of the Wire, a show which apparently everyone in the world has seen apart from me.

Based on the book by David Simon (creator of the Wire), Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets, which chronicled Simon's year shadowing the Homicide detectives of Baltimore City Police, this show is gritty and procedural but a far cry from glossy, thrills-packed cop shows like Without a Trace (which I also love).

The detectives wrestle; not only with their many cases, but their relationships with each other, the superiors in the department and, sometimes, their faith. The show is really about how a person deals with a job that exposes them to the worst side of people, where their belief in goodness is constantly tested and our mortality is always at the forefront of their mind.

Some of the detectives are cynical, some idealistic, some religious, some superstitious. They are all explored and exposed, with none of them appearing to be heroes or villains; they're just people doing their job.

It is also a shock after watching a show like Without A Trace to see balding, overweight, badly-dressed and, frequently, very sweaty cops. You need to tune into the first few series to see this, however, as the TV Network put a stop to all this ugly crime-solving half-way though the show's life.

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

2010-04-14T21:11:00.001+01:00

Francie, the young protagonist of Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, is a wonderful character because she is a real little girl. Her circumstances may not be the same as the readers' (unless of course you live in turn of the 20th century Brooklyn), but her inner life and fears are so easy to relate to.

She is not an orphan, nor do her parents seem to be mere shadowy background figures in their child's thrilling, magical adventures. She has a very vividly painted home life.

We know what she eats, (stale bread dumplings),exactly what her house looks like,( a corridor) and we see her being scolded by her mother and comforted by her beloved yet useless father. We also see clearly that she is her father's favourite, but that her mother prefers her brother, Neely.

Instead of travelling through time, Francie looks at an old man's toe sticking out of a broken shoe and is hit by the idea of mortality. She does not find treasure, but knows the joys of peeling open a lychee and making a 'potsy' for hopscotch with a run-over tin can. She peers down the ventilation shaft in her bedroom and imagines that it's Purgatory and knows no greater felicity than sitting out on her fire escape on a sunny day with five cents worth of pink and white wafers and a brand new library book.

'As she read, at peace with the world and happy as only a little girl could be with a fine book and a little bowl of candy, and all alone in the house, the leaf shadows shifted and the afternoon passed. About four o'clock, the flats in the tenement across from Francie's yard came to life. Through the leaves, she looked into the uncurtained windows and saw growlers being rushed out and returned overflowing with cool foaming beer. Kids ran in and out, going to and returning from the butchers, the grocer's and the baker's. Women came in with bulky hock-shop bundles. The man's Sunday suit was home again. On Monday, it would go back to the pawnbroker's for another week.'

Francie does not encounter any evil witches or monsters, just cruel neighbourhood kids, bitter teachers and the terrifying child killer who made my blood run cold 17 years ago, when I first read the book, and now, still.

This is a book that can be revisited countless times as the reader ages and there is always more to find and enjoy. This is partly because Francie's story is traced from before her conception until her early adulthood and partly because this book is not only a coming of age story, but an excellent social history of immigrant life in early 20th century New York. The adult characters are just as complex and sympathetic as Francie's and they swim into a clearer focus as the reader ages. It is rich and therefore endlessly rewarding.

It is a pity that the old Heinemann edition seems not only to be out of print but off the face of the planet. It's cover image was this Julia Margaret Cameron image (see below) which led me to her photographic work. The image above is taken from the film poster. Unusually for a book so beloved, the film adaptation is very satisfying and heartbreaking.

Where did I first hear about this profoundly moving life companion of a book? A character from the series 1990s hit series The Babysitter's Club had to do a book report on it. The glittering burn of culture is a wonderful thing!

2010-04-01T22:41:00.003+01:00