Brexit and Me: The Divorce

Since starting an MA in Creative Writing last September, I’ve felt, week-by-week, much calmer and, dare I say it, more sane than I have in a long time.  Personal woes aside (minimum wage job, debt, home falling to bits, loneliness, etc), over the last few years, I have felt an acute deepening of my existential angst and an ire in my misanthropy that was beginning to make me ill(er).

I have mental health issues as it stands but this was something else.  I felt permanently irate and more worried, sad, weepy, anxious and… suicidal… than I had in years.  AT and ABOUT everything and everyone.  Had the happy prescription pills stopped working?

A holiday to France in September, just before beginning university, woke me up to some of what was going on, though I already had my suspicions.  A break away from my life helped me notice a few things and one of them was that I’d become Brexit weary.  I had Brexitisis, was Brexitphobic.

As a passionate Remainer in the Brexit debacle, I realised I’d spent about three years concentrating on Brexit, debating Brexit, reading about Brexit, listening to friend’s rant about Brexit, arguing with strangers on Social Media over Brexit, watching rolling news and generally being weighed down by Brexit, Brexit, Brexit.  I’d felt I had to be involved.  It felt, IT IS, important.

I over invested.

As soon as I met up with certain friends for fun they’d be straight into it, had I seen the news, what about this speech, the legalities, how the BBC is now left-biased, how the BBC is now right-biased, how people are SO STUPID, on and on and on.  I was worn out by it all.  I’d spent years of my life being frustrated and focusing my brain and my energy on something I hate.  I hated Brexit back then and I hate it now (for very different reasons).  Of course, I STILL hate that we were lied to, that Cameron’s ‘advisory’ referendum is now constantly referred to as the Will of the People (when only about a third of the populace voted for it) and by a woman who vigorously campaigned for Remain.  I STILL hate that poor people have been conned by the über rich into thinking they’re men of people.  I hate it all.  The lies, the hypocrisy, the decimation of our democracy but more than all of that… I hate what it’s done to US.  I saw it happening in myself and I see it still happening to friends.  An insidious, angry, all-consuming arrogance that WE are right and everyone else is just stupid, not just of a different opinion, STUPID, no matter what side of the debate we’re on.  I’ve seen sides to people I’ve know for years that are incongruous with who I thought they were at their core.  Brexit lifted veils I wish it hadn’t.  As the shroud slowly rose we saw the racist underbelly of our nation crawl out from its hideout.  The rise of the alt-right, suddenly given oxygen by the hateful nationalist rhetoric and isolationist propaganda vomited out by The Daily Mail and it’s siblings.  Conversely, another lifted veil showed usually rational, calm, progressive, kind people as frothing-at-the-mouth, opinionated, prejudice-spewing, fiends, as uncomfortable to be around as the xenophobes.

I have two friends, a Remainer and a Brexiteer.  Both insist they’re never watching the BBC again (except for the good drama’s, of course).  Both claim that its news reporting is biased, one to the right and the other to the left (you guess which thinks what).  All I, in all humility, can surmise from this is that both are so blinded and blinkered by their own beliefs (a symptom of Brexitisis) that they can’t see straight and that the Beeb must indeed be reasonably balanced.  How can two people claim it promotes an opposing bias?  I’m sure, having gawped at BBC rolling news for the best part of three years (since Brexit and Trump started rearing their terrifying heads) that the BBC does its best in what we all know are the most confusing and complex times in generations.  I haven’t had my opinions changed by its apparent bias, either way.  Yes, irrelevant Farage is interviewed a lot considering he’s no longer leader of any party but there are often Remainers on too.  The Papers and Dateline London, I find, are two particularly well-balanced slots.  And, anybody with reasonable intellect can tell which BBC presenters lean which way and, like those who bothered to vote in the referendum, about half ooze a Remain bent and the other half a Brexiteer slant.  I suppose, if you’re furiously staunch in your opinion, you might notice the ‘enemy’ more than the ‘ally’.

Anyway, to the MA.  Having had something other than Brexit on which to focus my brain, I feel so much better.  I don't miss obsessively watching the rolling news, scrolling through Social Media, or hearing the everyone-is-stupid-except-me attitude I'd started noticing in myself and my friends. I'm now focused on something I really love rather than something I hate and, am healthier for it.  I’m not ignoring Brexit, I still sometimes watch the news, retweet the odd Brexit related item and sign the occasional petition but I’m not obsessing.  I’ve come off Facebook completely and have had a break from friendships that were affecting my mood and personhood adversely.  I’ve read more books and done more writing than I have in YEARS and, it’s paid off.  I got my first grade back last month, 75%.  I was hoping for anything above 60% so was over-the-moon.

Sometimes, important things overshadow the REALLY important things like, mental health, peace of mind, personal growth and friendships.

Brexit has already broken so much of my country and will probably rupture the fabric of what we, the UK, are even more in the coming years.  However, I won’t let it break me.  Not anymore.

Mind The Age Gap

Saw the latest Jack Reacher film yesterday. Nice that once again they didn't resort to a Central Romance Plot, but there was still heavy flirtation between Cruise (54) and Cobie Smulders, who at 34 is a cool twenty years younger than Mr Scientology. Rosamund Pike, who was the female interest in the first instalment, is 37.  It's 2016 for goodness sake.  When will Hollywood allow men in their fifties and sixties to act opposite women of the same age?  It's not only deeply sexist, it's now... well... boring and dated and just plain silly.

Liam Neeson, now 64, planting his wrinkly lips on women in their thirties just makes me squirm.  Is it just me?  The odd role would be fair enough, representative even, cuz obviously there are relationships out in the world with big age gaps, some of which, dear Hollywood, include older woman with younger men, a concept Hollywood is obviously still very uncomfortable with.  However, these old geezers are all at it with women sometimes half their age in almost every role and it's pervasive.

These box-office 'stars' are powerful men within the film industry, Reeves, Cruise, Neeson and the rest could think, hey, I'm the bankable lead in this film (and sometimes also the producer), so let's stop this charade, stop making me look like an awld perv and cast me opposite one of the many great actresses in my age range please! Robin Wright (50), Sarah Jessica Parker (51), Sandra Bullock (52), Demi Moore (53), Julianne Moore (55), Emma Thompson (56), Sharon Stone (58), Michelle Pfeiffer (58), Geena Davis (60), Meryl Streep (67), Sigourney Weaver (67), Susan Sarandon (70) to name but a few.  But... they don't.  They perpetuate the sexism by playing this old-fashioned Hollywood game, when really, they could break the cycle with the waft of a hand.  I'm losing respect for these guys and the choices they're making.  Hollywood doesn't force these powerful men into these roles anymore... they CHOOSE them and they have power.  It's about time they started wielding it for more than just their own wallets.  Get on it guys, remember what century we're in.

Found an old Guardian article on this very subject: https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/may/21/hollywoods-love-affair-with-old-dudes-romancing-young-women  It's worth a read.

And another from Vulture: http://www.vulture.com/2013/04/leading-men-age-but-their-love-interests-dont.html

The Loneliness Of The Long Time Facebook Loather

This post has been moved to a more private space. Chaz like. x

Inside Juliet

This is a re-post of a blog I posted on Saturday 14th of November 2009.  I accidentally deleted it yesterday and the lovely Blogger Team rescued the cached copy for me. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KOvmRvwMiyUJ:sandy-watson.blogspot.com/2009/11/inside-juliet.html&hl=en&gl=us&strip=0&vwsrc=0

INSIDE JULIET

It's difficult, isn't it, to understand why men are so crazy in love with lesbians? Sexually fantasising over them, whilst at the same time seeing them as something dangerous, something 'other'. They are at once desired and derided. Their sexual desire for other women and not men, must mean there’s something wrong with them, right? Sharon Stone's fanny-flashing murderess in Basic Instinct, a notorious and prime example of the stereotype. A beautiful woman (who probably really wants a man) but because she sticks with women, goes a bit bonkers and kills people. In the 1994 Peter Jackson film, Heavenly Creatures, a young Kate Winslet plays the stereotype again. Juliet Hulme, a pretty teenager is sexually 'confused' and by the end of the film, after falling in-love with another girl, becomes psychotic and kills someone (in this case, her girlfriends mother). The chilling factor in all of this, is that in this film, it's all true. Hulme was real, was lesbian, or at least bisexual and was a killer. Or so we were led to believe.

The new documentary film Anne Perry: Interiors is a study of the girl, now a seventy-one-year-old woman, who was at the centre of this horrific tale. A woman, whom after release from prison for the crime, changed her name and became a best-selling author and managed to keep her gruesome past a secret. Jackson's film, however, changed all that. Interest in the real people behind the 'true story' re-emerged. Hulme, now Perry, was sought out and her long kept secret and new identity were uncovered.

What's interesting is that, in the documentary, Perry denies any lesbian relationship with Pauline Parker (the other girl involved in the killing). She claims it as an obsessive friendship, but not a sexual or romantic one. On one level, that's almost a relief. Having another true-life, mad-lesbian-murderess case dug up to support the stereotype, unsettles and bothers me. But then there's a tinge of disappointment that the huge, passionate, other-worldly, love that led to the killing in the film version of the story, was 'made-up'.

The film now works better for me if I just think of it as total fiction. The 'true-story' element that can so often make a film more compelling, now fails in this case. In reality, Juliet and Pauline were just two severely unhinged friends and the obsessive, murderous, love is once more left to fiction... where it so rightly belongs.

Saturday 14th November 2009

Comments:

• sinead 17/11/2009, 22:38
• Heehee you've changed i to "occasional" not "daily"!!!!
• 
  
• PiggBox 19/11/2009, 13:10
• what about the film "Monster" about Arlene (was that her name?) a real life lesbian man killer.
• I am possibly a rare sample of the male species in being neither turned on by nor afraid of lesbians. That could be due to the fact that I have known many of them in my lifetime.
• 
  
• Sandy 19/11/2009, 14:56
• Sinead: Yeah, I changed it to occasional. :o) I'm like the lamps.
• Dido: Close... she was called Aileen Wuornos.
• 
  
• There are many more fictional and 'based-on-a-true-story' films that I could list here, in which the lesbian or bisexual woman is mentally unhinged, psychotic and/or murderous...
• The killers or 'monsters' in many films are gay, lesbian or bisexual.
• 
  
• Butterfly Kiss
• Silence of the Lambs
• Monster
• Heavenly Creatures
• Basic Instinct
• Bound
• Psycho
• Interview with a Vampire
• Wild Things
• My Summer Of Love
• Girlfriends
• Poisoned Ivy
• Fun
• 
  
• ...to name but a few, but I'm sure a little Google search or a gander around wikipedia will garner more realistic lists.
• 
  
• Here's an essay on the subject too:
• http://www.stanford.edu/~njbuff/conference_fall05/papers/brett_hammon1.htm
• 
  
• And, typing the words "lesbian" and "murder" into the IMDB site garners 290 results:
• http://www.imdb.com/keyword/lesbian/murder/?title_type=feature&sort=release_date
• 
  
• sinead 27/11/2009, 16:42
• *drums fingers*
• *hums*
• *looks about*
• 
  
• Maulleigh 30/04/2010, 13:35
• I'm not a lesbian but I've had total "girlcrushes" on women. When girlfriends have stopped calling me, etc., I've been destroyed. It happens! I totally understand having an obsessive relationship with another woman.

Carol

I accidentally came across the novel Carol [Originally titled The Price of Salt] by Patricia Highsmith only a few months ago, not even realising that a film had been made of it, let alone that one was imminently due for release.  Recently [16/11/15], and again quite accidentally, I found myself suddenly in possession of free tickets to a preview of the film.  Carol, it seemed, was quite determined to meet me, in all of her various guises.

I say that, yes, because a novel is always a different experience to a film but also because the two Carol’s I’ve met recently seemed quite different people.  The story and characters in the book and the film are the same, the skeleton of it is all there but the flesh, the body shape of each, give quite a different impression.

I enjoyed the book.  I must say, at this point, as I think it has a bearing on things, that I LISTENED to the book rather than actually read it.  I have a two hour commute to and then from work, five days a week.  Four hours of my day sat on my rapidly fattening bum.  TWENTY HOURS A WEEK.  So… I find it hard to read when being jostled about on a double decker bus.  Additionally, the majority of my commute is through some rather spectacular Northumbrian countryside, hence, I’m often distracted from my Kindle by the daily changes in the landscape as the seasons slowly turn.  Enter Audible.  I’m now an addict.*  I can ‘read’ a book and still watch the changing scenery (which, often actually adds to the listening experience).  The only ‘downfall’, if I can call it that, of an audiobook, is that a narrator can instantly ‘read’ the tone and colour of a novel and it’s characters very differently than you would yourself.**

So, although both Carol’s were beautiful, well-off, society women with a guarded, repressed, nature, the filmic Carol, played by Cate Blanchett, has a warmth I didn't get from the novel.  I still liked the Carol in the book despite this seeming lack of warmth because, in the end, she loves... absolutely.  Still, Blanchett makes her infinitely more likeable than my Audible narrator did.  It’s a subtle but simmering performance.  The beautifully structured dresses almost bursting at their silky, hand-sewn, seams with hemmed-in passion, firmly state her class and social standing from the outset.  Blanchett is elegant, intense and taut.  The chemistry between her and Rooney Mara’s Therese bubbles just under the boil throughout and is utterly believable.

Mara’s performance is a master-class in innocent but confident understatement.  Whilst Blanchett floats around gracefully in her architectural dresses, Mara dashes about in much looser, freer, clothing.  Her youthful sexuality less corseted.  The costume design plays a huge role in the storytelling of this film.  We see Therese blossom from a pretty but dowdy shop-girl into a stunning New York press photographer, modern, independent and sassy in style.  By the end of the film she embodies Audrey Hepburn in all of her most iconic roles.

Todd Haynes’ telling of this story of forbidden love in the 1960’s is just gorgeous.  Every single scene is beautiful and authentic.  His direction of the leads shows a deft lightness of touch, letting what is not said say so much more than what is.  The music and editing seamlessly float us through this story, slipping and sliding us dreamily through this sixties lovescape.

I came out of the cinema longing for that kind of intense, wordless, love.

Carol is just a beautiful, beautiful, film.  See it.

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NB: I have one teeny tiny nit-pick… I just wish we saw a little more fun in lesbian love stories.  That’s it.  That’s the only ‘negative’ I can think of.

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* My faves are autobiographies read by the author’s themselves.  Stephen Fry, Tina Fey, Jennifer Saunders, Clare Balding, Malala Yousafzai, Miranda Hart, Amy Poehler, Celia Imrie,

** I started reading The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed… about a third of the way through I upgraded my Kindle version to an Audible version.  When reading the book myself I kept giggling out loud and thought it had a Wes Anderson sensibility about it.  I could see the quirky film in my head.  Upon changing to the Audible version… the more I listened the less I giggled out loud and the less I liked the book.  The narrator, to me, sounded like a primary school teacher reading a book to a bunch of 7-year-olds.  Patronising.  He made the writing seem childish rather than quirky.  Awful.  I reverted back to my Kindle for the final third of the book.  (Always play a sample on Audible before buying.  A bad narrator can kill a good book dead).

Office Politics: Small P & Big P

So, I’ve been in my office job for over 15 months now and I have to say that the novelty of it has, in recent months, most definitely lost it’s lustre.  Of course, weekends, bank holidays and chimbletide off will never get dull and a guaranteed monthly salary is also very nice but I’ve become more and more depressed by the duplicitous bitching and snitching.  Of course, there’s no job in existence that's entirely free of those things but the small office environment, where you essentially ‘live’ with the same small handful of people for the majority of your week (more waking hours than with your friends and family) well, this is a particularly fertile space in which these most cynical of human qualities thrive.

I’ve tried to clownishly, avoid, even ignore that sort of thing with silly, cheeky, banter.  Steering potentially explosive conversations into lighter realms.  Recently, however, rather than have a sense that the bitching and snitching might be going on... I’ve actually been on the receiving end of the duplicity a few times and it has really soured my daily experience of work (and hurt my feelings).  I no longer jump up at the morning alarm… I wish I could sleep for a week.

Other than the aforementioned issues, spending the majority of your days with people who have ‘questionable’ politics is bloody hard work too.  I hear casual racism, sexism, bigotry and xenophobia on a daily basis.  It is, I imagine, rather like living in Rupert Murdoch’s mind.  I’ve begun to picture my working day in a very surreal way… a bit like the film Being John Malkovich... whereby the door into work is a portal into Murdochland.  It’s crappy and demoralizing.

Today, the ‘Migrant Crisis’ was mentioned in passing.  A few people agreed it was awful and added a little comment or two, “Well, most people only have issue cuz they’re fleeing to countries with benefit systems!”  (So, the entire Western World then?)  “We need to sort this country out first!”  That kind of thing.  I’m not sure many people actually understand the difference between an economic migrant and a refugee.  Anyway, I kept my lip tightly bit but one colleague, even after the conversation had quickly reverted back to a work issue, kept repeating, “It’s disgusting!  We shouldn’t let ANY of them in!  I think it’s disgusting!  Send them back to their own country.  Our country’s in debt!  There’s no room!  What about British families queuing at food banks?  What about OUR homeless people?  Why can’t they help them first?”  You get the gist.  Eventually, I said, “So, we just let them die then?  Stay where they are and be bombed or try to escape and drown?”  Given the impact that the recent heartbreaking images of a toddler lying dead on a beach has had on most people, I was shocked at her response.  It’s been all over the news, she must KNOW that he drowned along with his mother and brother whilst trying to escape their war-torn homeland to safety in Canada (where relatives now live). NOT so that his dad could sign-on.  Yet, quite flatly and with no shame, the reply came, “Yes! They should be sent back!  Charity begins at home!  They come over here and they don’t even live by OUR RULES!  We have to live by theirs!”  Now, I remember a guy saying stuff like this once… oh… what was his name again?  Hitler!  That’s it!  Didn't the Jews ‘swarm’ into Germany and take all the jobs? Weren't they forcing 'their ways' onto Germany?  That age-old them-and-us mentality and the language of hate.  Cameron and Farage use similar wording.  Haven't we learned anything from the Holocaust?  Just imagine if, back then, we’d turned away the Jews fleeing certain death if they stayed in their homelands???

As for "charity begins at home"... the poor families going to food banks and the homeless she seems so concerned about now are usually called chav scum and dirty tramps or beggers. Oh, the irony!

“We can’t even say Christmas anymore.” She continued, “Our prime minister had to call it Winterfest last year in a speech!”  (A BIG and important issue, eh?  The word Christmas!)  Now, I’ve heard this ‘story’, for it IS a story, bandied around a lot by the xenophobes in the right-wing press.  I’ve searched the Internet since getting home tonight and have found absolutely NO evidence to back up this claim.  How people are comfortable repeating stuff like that without facts to back it up is beyond me.  They just regurgitate Murdoch propaganda like crazed automatons.  It just makes them look un-informed, small-minded and more than a bit silly.  Anyhooo, I couldn't find anything anywhere about our Prime Minister not being able to say Christmas.  I did, however, find an article printed in the Guardian last December in which, it was stated that David Cameron mentioned Christmas, Christianity and Christians several times in his CHRISTMAS speech.  Here it is: theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/24/david-cameron-christmas-message-ed-miliband Though, if anyone can provide me with evidence that we “can’t say Christmas anymore” please do.

I asked if she was a Christian, to try and get a fix on why the word Christmas seemed so important to her. She isn’t but, “...why should we change the name?  It’s always been Christmas but now apparently people find it offensive”.  Now, I’m a passionate atheist myself and I don’t find the word offensive.  I choose not to use the word, not least because I’m an atheist and so it'd feel hypocritical but because that time of year now has SO little to do with Christ or Mass that I’m actually shocked that Christians aren’t trying to change the name themselves!!!  The precious anniversary of the death of their deity, reduced to a maniacal shopping and gluttony festival which plummets many families into year-long debt.  I mean, if I were a believer, I’d want to disassociate myself from the the Xmas Circus post-haste.  Anyway, I quite like Winterfest as an alternative.  I think it’s cute.  There are some more apt ones we could use, such as; Consumerfest, Capitalismfest, Spendfest, Greedfest, Mallfest, but I doubt they’d catch on.  I, myself, call it Chimble or Chimbletide.  No mass for Christ in sight.

The colleague then angrily mentioned that her home town no longer has Christmas Lights cuz people find them offensive too.  (Another HUGELY important issue, eh? Forget the drowning babies just give me my Christmas Lights!!!)  Again, I scoured the internet for some FACTS.  I couldn’t find ANY stories or articles relating to her claim but, if true, it’s most odd.  Last November and December I visited a few towns and cities (London, Leeds, York, Edinburgh, Sunderland and Newcastle) and all most definitely HAD Christmas Lights. One has to wonder then... why should her town be any different?  Apart from being a bizarre tale, it’s also a hugely daft point to make, as, the very lights that she seems so fond and protective of, actually cost each local council (and thereby the taxpayer) hundreds of thousands of pounds to commission, install and keep alight.  Money that could very easily help some of the hungry and the homeless she seemed so worried about earlier in her rantings.

Ah well.  Another bad day at the office.

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Great Pisstake: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/we-need-to-look-after-our-own-first-say-people-who-would-never-help-anyone-20150907101741

Some Interesting Points: https://johnny3wishbone.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/refugee-crisis-factsheet-a-brief-summary-of-the-blog-entry

Good Day Bad Day

On a good day, when autumnal, six-o'clock sunshine reaches through tree limbs to touch my face, life can feel too beautiful for me to bear.

On a bad day, when our capacity for cruelty screams at me from the news pages, I feel too beautiful for this life.

Either way, you see, I'm uncomfortable here. I understand why Hedgey got off. The world is too much and not enough all at once. For those of us who feel life more keenly, those of us with our dials turned up to eleven, even outstanding, magnificent, nature can feel unbearable and pointless.

We've lost our connection with our own home. We don't know what it's for. We're scared of it. We prefer our air 'conditioned' our food 'processed', our fun 'structured', everything natural is somehow 'dirty'.

14/10/13

Bridges and Ledges

There are flashes, momentary slices of time when I can understand, utterly, the urge to jump into death. If I were somehow standing atop the steely curve of a bridge or on the ledge of a tall building when that quick burn in my core fires up all of my doubts and pains, I’d easily step into the air and drop, float and fall into oblivion. Luckily, those brief moments usually occur, like last night, when I’m curled up in a fetal position in my safe bed. All panda eyed, my red pillow scarred with the day's black lashes wept into them. They are dark, intense, hours when I have only my weak ego to keep me company. She isn’t very helpful.

I’m sat here writing about my own darkness while I watch a small privileged girl play with paper, crayons and Lego bricks. She makes me smile. Surrounded by every expensive toy, gadget and games console available, she consistently chooses instead to draw and build colourful things, spreading her imagination all over the playroom, and, this small girl, lost in wonder, draws my mind away from bridges and ledges. She's very helpful.

-Written Saturday 21st April, 2012

Soul Sleep

Whilst commuting home from work on the bus a song came on in my headphones and brought on the first real, soul-deep, heart-fired, smile in months. I almost cried. I had, perhaps a minute of pure, unadulterated, bliss. Something inside woke up, stretching and yawning, coming out of hibernation.

Since the fire, my life has just been six months of stress, work, hotels, stress, work, couch-surfing, stress, work, home, stress, work. An endless hamster wheel of drudgery. I've become the nightmare I've tried to avoid for most of adult my life... a minimum wage-slave for a soulless mega-corporation. I've forgotten who I am and all the things that make me really happy are so absolutely missing from my daily life that my soul has been asleep... dormant... dying. A simple, beautiful, song distracted me from all the... bullshit... made my spirit stir and made me realise why I've been feeling so cheerless and dejected recently.

I miss mountains, cuddles, sunshine on my face, kisses, wind in my hair, horizon-wide vistas, late night heart-talks, hill-top sunsets, butterflies (both real and stomach-churning), the sound of hiking boots on gravel, friends, impromptu road-trips, drunken conversations, holding hands, trees, pins in maps, cloud and star-gazing, ‘singing’ along in the car, sore thighs from the climb, heart-melting smiles. Freedom. Nature. Love.

My 'life' feels vaccuous, shallow, soulless and empty without those things.

My body is rebelling. Screaming at me to stop giving in to the windowless world where I work with it’s cheap distractions and temptations. It's growing and expanding at an alarming rate, stuffed full of sugary, addictive, poisons. An attempt to pad itself in protection from the unnatural world I've made it inhabit... for money. Artificial light and air, plastic plants, mass produced 'food'. Not a nourishing environment for the mind or the body. We become our mood. I am unhealthy. I want my me back. I miss her. I miss her humour and her gladness and I suspect my friends do too.

Old Pine by Ben Howard

Bensham

My damp footfalls are all that can be heard amidst the low moaning winter wind. Orange street-lights prick the darkness. The pavement is amber-speckled and glowing in the earlier fallen rain. A car whispers past, slow in the narrow street. Though it's late January many of the Orthodox have their windows open and their hospital-bright, plainly-furnished, rooms glare out into the night like stark beacons of righteousness. I couldn't feel further away from home. Even the street-lights seem alien. In my neighbourhood they glow white. Yet, I am only living four miles from home. Just across the River Tyne. Yesterday, I walked a different route and wondered at all the families sat behind the curtained windows around the glow of a 40" TV and all the lovers sat cosied up together on countless couches. I felt like the only solitary soul in the world. All those lives being lived. All the love and cuddles. A violent yell broke the hush. "Fuck off man! Yi neva visit ya fuckin kids an yi think am ganni let yi in tonight coz ya tanked-up an fancy a shag. Fuck off yi daft cunt!" A door was slammed and a thin, track-suited, figure stepped back into the street still staring at the door. Broken. Lost. I was instantly unburdened of any sense of envy or solitude. For now, there's nobody to hurt me. Nobody to slam a door in my face. I smiled and walked on. Soon I will be returned to my home. Soon I will be sat alone on my own couch and I will feel free.

2010: My Small Year

In a year when, amongst all the other good and bad news, all of this stuff made the headlines...

-Earthquake in Haiti
-Grecian fiscal collapse/Austerity strike in Athens
-Thai riots
-Icelandic volcanic eruptions
-BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico
-Historic UK election debates on TV
-Con/Demnation
-Derek Bird shooting rampage
-Vuvuzela World Cup
-Raoul Moat stand-off
-Papal UK visit/Child abuse scandal
-Ed Miliband beating Dave Miliband
-The Chilean mine rescue
-Aung San Suu Kyi released
-The Chandler's released
-The Royal engagement
-Mega amounts of snow in UK
-UK student protests

...my 'stuff' seems so teeny and inconsequential in the big scheme of things. I mean, some of those headlines seem almost biblical, but really, all of our 'stuff' has impact. I'd bet Derek Bird woke up last New Years Day utterly unaware that his small life would impact so many others so devastatingly. Nor did any of those Chilean miners realise last January how many people, the world over, would be brought to tears the following October, by the sheer force of human resourcefulness and innate goodness in the effort to rescue them.

Not all of us will have that sort of impact, but in our own microcosmic worlds we are all the stars of our own news. The small stuff makes the big stuff. It's Chaos Theory (more prettily known as The Butterfly Effect).

To sum up my year, I'd say it's been about small steps, me flapping my butterfly wings and seeing what happens.

My year began in Madrid, seeing out 2009 with lovely people and being there on New Years Day for my brothers 40th was just lush (apart from the hangover).

There was also a rush of romance at the beginning of the year and though, by spring it had quickly waned, I met some amazing people because of it.

Summer, as ever, was all about hiking, hiking, hiking. A small thing. Just a walk in the country really but the effect on my psyche is immense. Every winter I forget how important getting out and about amongst the greenery is to me. I need it. I'm a better, more energetic, happier soul when I've had a fix of sun, fresh air and a stunning country vista.

In August someone stole my brand new bank account details and took every penny I had, including a brand new and much needed overdraft. I was devastated. Luckily, I was staying with an amazing friend when it happened but it felt like a right kick in the teeth and left me feeling down for weeks. But... I learned that I have to stop letting money and a lack of material stuff upset me so much. (Did I learn nothing form Guru Karl in Guatemala? Lol.) It's people who count and, when I was literally penniless, my brother and friends have been supreme and generous in ways I can't even begin to thank them for. They made me feel less alone in the world and that is the hugest thing any human can give another.

Whilst I've gained new friends I've also lost others. It's sad, but I've forgiven old hurts only to have the perpetrator do the same shit again. So, bye-bye. I have been patient and understanding at multiple cancellations and let-downs when someone said they were scared only to be attacked by that same person when feeling upset, vulnerable and scared myself. So, bye-bye.

Autumn brought a new job and with it... fear. I knew instantly I was double the age of most everyone I worked with. So, I thought it'd be like university all over again but, for the most part, they're a warm bunch of nuts who've welcomed me with open tentacles and made me feel likeable again.

It's a small succinct round-up but the people who my small experiences have brought to me have each had massive impact. They're *my* news stories. I can't wait to see what 2011 has in store... just gotta keep making those small steps cuz they make big journey's. I think my headline story of next year will be flying out to Madrid to meet my little Madrileño nephew when he's born in February. Can't wait to meet you Nico. :o)

To all my long-term chumbles, some of whom I met on my first day of infant school, aged four, thanks for still being in my gang... for sticking with me despite my foibles, eccentricities and stubbornness. You're all amazing and... ah luv yiz... loads like.

Hope 2011 is amazing... for all of us.

xxx

There it is, a world of hope...

Talent Telly

I'm an avid X Factor watcher. For those who know me well that seems to sit incongrously with my other TV habits. I do tend to avoid 'trash TV', love Question Time, Late Review, Newsnight, documentaries and independant films. But, once a week, as the nights close in and the heating's turned up, I turn my brain off and immerse myself deep within the SyCo soap opera.

I'll admit I get suckered in to the sacharin back-stories, "I want a better life for my kids", "This is all I've dreamed of since the day I was born" (What? Before you had consciousness and knew what singing and fame were?) And, my eyes get glassy when the cheesey boyband song plays in the background, swelling to an emotional peak just as the contestant becomes overwhelmed and wipes a slow-mo tear from their cheek.

Outside of the actual show, my brain switches back on and I'm aware instantly what an utter pile of drivel it all is. Posh karaoke at best, and I LAOTHE karaoke, with a passion. If it's on in a pub I'll walk out. So, I don't undersand my love of the show. And, I don't need to. It's just pure escapism. A bit of cheap glam beamed into my home just as the chill of winter looms outside. X Factor got their scheduling of the show just right. A couch and a cuppa watching X Factor is far more appealing than trudging around amongst the weekend pub throng in rain or snow. Would it be as successful in the summer months I wonder? Hmmm...

Anyway, despite absolutely knowing that X Factor is trash TV, I intensely dislike the elitist, snobbery, that surrounds it sometimes. People on Facebook and Twitter whinging about others interupting their feeds and timelines talking about it. As if, somehow, the minutia of THEIR day (Woke up, had coffee, walked dog, etc) is so much more fascinating and cerebral. I'm fully aware that it's mindless telly but I'm not an elitist snob about it.

One main insult levelled at the show is that it's 'just' a pop singer factory, churning out crooners to sing other peoples songs. They say this like it's a really bad thing. Yet, I'd put money on those people loving Motown artists. Just saying like. I'm not sure Frank Sinatra ever wrote a song either, nor Elvis. I'm not exactly putting Leon Jackson in the same class as those people but you get my gist.

This year though, I'm annoyed with X Factor. First the autotune 'scandal' and now the Katie Waissel and Mary Byrne 'scandals'. Katie Waissell can be found all over the internet in various guises or 'stage names'. Katies Waissel is actually Katie Vogel and Lola Fontaine. And according to this article: http://www.anorak.co.uk/256750/tv/how-the-x-factor-and-sony-bmg-fixed-it-for-katie-waissel-aka-katie-vogel.html Katie has already been singed with Sony BMG, a company which has 'associations' with Cowell. Here also is a YouTube channel for a reality show, Green Eyed World, in which she starred:



As for Mary Byrne, "Tesco Mary" as she's now being 'affectionately' dubbed. Well, she's also all over YouTube under another name. Mary Lee. Under which, she won Nollaig No.1 a sort of Irish X Factor type show.

Tesco's in Ireland is certainly different to Tesco's in England that's for sure Mary!





I have no problem with the fact that both Katie and Mary have had previous tastes of 'fame' nor that, for whatever reason, it didn't work our for them. What makes it all so sinister, to me, is the lack of any mention of it on X Factor. Why the secrecy? Why hide it? Why lie? Why the name changes? Instead of being honest, young Katie 'just needs a shot, a chance' (She's had one already, a big one) and humble checkout lady Mary has 'never had anything like this happen to her before' (bullshit). Why are we being fed this garbage? We're being led to believe that this is all so new to them both!

SyCo are insulting the intelligence of their audience and that is a dangerous thing to do. I doubt any of this will affect the show nor the prospects of Katie and Mary but for some viewers... trust in 'the brand' is dwindling.

Now, I loathe Rupert Murdoch and all that he and his companies stand for. Sky telly for starters. Y'all PAY to have telly in your home which is already heavily commercialised. It's like double-dipping. If ITV or Channel 4, TV companies paid for by advertisers, started charging us there'd be riots. Besides that, politically Murdoch is a rightist, power hungry and corrupt man. I refuse to contribute a single penny to a man/company that uses that money to gain the power to corrupt and manipulate our police, our media and our government.

That heavy stuff aside, I have to say Sky's Must Be The Music seemed a more genuine 'talent show' (along the lines of Fame Academy). Looking for people who could write and perform their own material. It wasn't about who could belt out someone elses song the best, rather who could express themselves in their own unique way. Much more to my taste, though, I only saw snippits on YouTube. Emma's Imagination won that show this year and I'd actually consider buying her album.



I've NEVER considered buying an X Factor winners single or album. As I say, it's fun to watch but I don't take it seriously as a talent contest.

Anyway, talent show rant over.

On with Sunday.

*Edit* Oh, and up pops another one: http://www.theblueroom.me.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=29512