It’s the end of the world as we know it...

Decade

The scanner bleeped as I walked through the doorway. The security guard beckoned me over and looked through my handbag. Then the questions began:

“Are you religious ma’am?”

“Are you patriotic?”

“Did you vote in the last election? How did you vote?”

I felt my hackles rising, as I snapped “That’s private!”

No, I wasn’t going through US Immigration (just as well) but entering into a theatrical experience. Decade , the National Theatre/Headlong production that reflects on the events of September 11 2001 and their consequences, is a piece of site specific theatre that takes place in a former trading room near the Tower of London. On entering, the audience has to pass through a simulation of a security check point, which is a brilliant device for encouraging you to suspend disbelief. It’s an extraordinary position to be in; you become part of the action of the play, but you’re an actor without a script, and there’s an uneasy feeling as you don’t really know what to expect.

Once safely through security, you descend into a large room, echoing with piped easy-listening music, to be greeted by actors/waiters who take you to your table. The room is styled after the famous restaurant in the World Trade Centre, Windows on the World. At each end are windows the full height of the wall, each with a copy of the view over New York that would have been seen from the genuine restaurant. The tables even have replica menus on them.

This is immensely disorienting, and the mundaneity of the background music only adds to this feeling. The production is a patchwork quilt of pieces by different writers, all remembering 9/11. Some of them work better than others. Although the main point of action is a circular stage in the centre of the room, the whole of the space is used, most spectacularly the glass windowed mezzanine floor running the length of the room. At one point, this was chillingly used to represent the windows of the Twin Towers, behind which the doomed workers watched in disbelief as their world ended.

One of the best pieces took place on the central stage, which represented a New York newsagent/general store, run by a Muslim family, in the vicinity of the World Trade Centre. We’re shown them as a key part of their community, before the atrocities, and then how their position shifts afterwards. It’s a brilliant depiction of how the formless, unfocused anger at such events seems bound to take shape and find the nearest target, however inappropriate that may be.

For me, the one piece that really did not work was a dialogue between a journalist and a the soldier who killed Osama Bin Laden. This tried to mimic genuine conversation, with the two actors interrupting each other and finishing each others sentences. This is easy to do by accident in real conversation, but hard to pull off when done deliberately (try it and see!) so it came across as stilted and artificial. For the most part, the actors were astonishingly good, and the staging was mesmerising. At various points, thunderous noise broke, and the lights went out, simulating the effects of the ‘planes landing. Genuinely scary.

I can’t say it made me think in a new way about the events of that blue skied September day, but it did bring it all back. I remembered with piercing clarity that feeling of shock at seeing the events unfurl on the tv screen, and how, for many weeks afterwards, I was unable to see a plane flying across the London sky without a shiver of fear.

Melancholia

A connection could be drawn between the two subjects of this blog post; both feature depictions of apocalyptic events. But if the end of the world is as beautiful as this film, at least it will be nice to look at. The opening sequence is a series of stunning, surreally beautiful tableaux, so as not to spoil it for you I’ll only mention one; the sight of Kirsten Dunst, against a stormy sky, with lightning shooting from her finger tips and the telegraph poles in the background. All this to a background of desperately romantic music from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.

Ms Dunst is a revelation in this film, especially to those most familiar with her work from the Spiderman movies. The first half of the movie features her wedding to Alexander Skarsgård, familiar to True Blood fans as Eric Northman. Her character, Justine, is whimsical and reckless. Her family treat her as a child, particularly her older sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). In the second part of the film, Justine is deep in the throes of a depressive episode, being carted off to her sister’s beautiful mansion. This is one face of melancholia. But the other face is far more devastating.

Turns out that a hitherto unknown planet, called, wait for it, Melancholia, is on a trajectory towards Earth. Claire and her husband John (Kiefer Sutherland) represent the two opinions about this; John believes the scientific community who claim the planet will pass by and leave Earth unharmed. Claire is filled with an almost superstitious dread that the end is nigh. You feel pulled into this, as the movie progresses; pinned in place by a terrible inescapable event.

The film plays with the idea beloved of astrologers, that the planets affect our moods. It shows how the depressive Justine, who is completely unable to cope with the normal course of events, comes into her own when facing disaster, in complete reversal to those around her. The action all takes place on Claire and John’s lovely estate; the first scene is the bridal car returning from the wedding, struggling to negotiate the steeply winding road. The characters seem trapped in this place; when Justine tries to leave on horseback, the animal refuses to cross the stone bridge which forms a boundary to the estate.

The photography is astounding; from the shot of naked Justine moonbathing on a river bank, to the images of the encroaching planet in the sky. I reeled out of the cinema in a state of shock. I literally couldn’t speak for about half an hour (an uncommon event). I am going to see this film again (and probably again, and again). If you want to be truly taken out of yourself, then you should do the same. 

Review of One Day, and The BlackBerry Trajectory

I'm not usually averse to Americans being given a hard time; they live in the world's wealthiest and most powerful democracy, they can take a few digs. But I must admit to feeling slightly sorry for Anne Hathaway, whose version of aYorkshire accent in One Day has had a bit of a trashing lately. Being a Lancastrian, I'm less entitled than most to comment on the accuracy of an imitation accent from t'other side of the pennines, but her attempt doesn't seem that bad...Admittedly, it does veer about from posh, generic Northern to fairly standard RP, but this befits the character, Emma's, move to London, which does tend to soften the edges of most regional accents, whether by gradual assimilation, or design.
We Brits do seem to get quite upset by non Brits attempting any variety of British accent. I tend to make a personal distinction between:
i) accents that are ludicrous but don't feature that heavily in a film, and are regarded eventually as something of a classic (Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins).
ii) accents that are slightly rubbish, thus allowing us a smirk of superiority, but don't ruin a movie (Russell Crowe in Robin Hood)
iii) accents that are utterly silly, and so heavily featured that the film is almost impossible to watch (Brad Pitt as an IRA man in The Devil's Own)
and I'd argue that Hathaway's probably comes into the second category.

Besides, it's not the least of this film's problems. I read the book on holiday this summer, and enjoyed it. Mainly because it seemed to me to be an attempt at a portrait of my generation, and so many elements of it rang true. The move down to London post graduation (or at some point later); the inability to decide how to spend ones life; the romance with chemicals in the early 90s, partying, partying and yet more partying; the endless weekends spent at weddings in ones 30s etc etc. There were some keen moments of observation, as when the two central characters are at the start of their friendship, and Dexter analyses Emma's character on the basis of the contents of her student bedroom, and sums up with the devastating sentence ' The problem with these fiercely individualistic girls was that they were all exactly the same'. Ouch.

The episodic nature of the structure works in the book. For those who haven't read it, the action starts on 15July, and focuses each chapter on that same date in each of the subsequent years, looking at where the characters are in their separate stories, and in the one they share. But in the film, there isn't time to dwell on these occasions, and time passes like a series of snap shots, and we don't really see how their lives/personalities are developing. There are parts that have been elided, eg Emma's affair with a colleague.

The film's main problem is that it straddles various genres, as if it can't really decide what it is. It isn't a romcom, the story's ending is too sad for that. There are comedy moments, but somehow they don't quite take off. It isn't in depth enough to be a drama. Emma in the novel is mischievous, she has a twinkle in her eye that makes her one liners and put downs witty and droll rather than whingy. Hathaway delivers these in a flat monotone that kills them stone dead.

One my friend Celia said, when I asked if she wanted to see the film, that she found the book the 'smuggest vomitfest' ever, and although the book didn't strike me that way, the film kind of made me see what I think she meant. It's true to say that all works of fiction take place in a bubble, that's the job of the author, to create a believable universe in which the events take place. But I think realist novels, which One Day is, need to have some kind of connection with the wider world. The novel takes place during interesting times; the fall of Thatcher, the rise of New Labour, both Gulf Wars, 9/11, the London bombings are just a few of the events that fall within this time frame. But none of them are referred to. Alright, one could argue that the novel's focus on just one day each year, means they could be ommitted. But all these events resonated on for years, and someone like Emma, who is a political activist at the start of the book, would certainly have reflected on them/been affected by them.

The film shockingly portrays the ending of the story. The film starts with this scene, Emma cycling through the London streets, and returns to it near the end. Even though, if you know what's coming you're waiting for it, because of the camera angle, it hits you like a sledge hammer. I involuntarily covered my face with my hands. This ending rips apart the smug little universe of Emma and Dexter, and shoves home the story's theme of 'what really matters?' with a sickening thud. But when you leave the cinema, sadly, you don't feel any more able to answer that question than when you went in.

The BlackBerry Trajectory

I updated my mobile in June, and having decided I wanted easy access to my email, without having to pay more each month, I went for a BlackBerry. Of course, the cachet of using a BlackBerry had not passed me by. I had a vague idea that they were popular with business people and city types. Turned out, I was a little behind the times, just one of the things I learnt from the coverage of the recent riots.

Back in 2003, Blackberry released the first smartphone set up to optimize using email wirelessly. Basically, it was always connected so new email was notified to the user automatically. Back then it was all about the business community, being able to respond to emails quickly while on the go. So addictive was this ability to answer emails, and gallivant around on the web whilst commuting etc, that the device quickly earned the soubriquet ‘Crackberry’.

Barack Obama was probably the most famous addict, his dependence on his BlackBerry was revealed during his 2008 presidential campaign. Although warned about security issues, he carried on using it for some time after his inauguration. This ‘endorsement’ is estimated to have been worth more than $25 million.

So how did the Blackberry smartphone go from being the must have accessory of the modern business person, to tool of civil unrest, as witnessed in the UK riots?

Well, there were comments on the net back in 2006 that business people were starting to shun BlackBerry because carrying one was thought to signify low status in the corporate heirarchy, and the need to be always at the mercy of email and ones superiors.

Dr. Paul Coulton, Senior Lecturer in communication systems at the University of Lancaster said that teenagers started to use the BlackBerry as they inherited their parents’ cast off phones, and quickly cottoned onto the BlackBerry Messenger service as a way of keeping in touch for free. I spoke to some Merseyside teenagers (ok, my nephew and niece but that doesn’t make them any less reliable sources!) who confirmed this. My niece told me that not all of her friends have free texts in their contract, and those on pay-as-you-go often are too skint to top up their credit. My nephew reckons he was the first in his circle to get a BlackBerry, after seeing them in use by hip hop stars such as Jay-Z, who compares himself to a BlackBerry in his track Venus Vs Mars, and Ghostface Killah (formerly of the Wu Tang Clan) who lauded the BlackBerry in his track Drama. BlackBerries are also relatively cheap now to get on contract from phone companies, for example Carphone Warehouse offer the BlackBerry Curve free from £10.50 per month.

Although it’s well known that the police can surveil email and other web traffic when necessary, the riots were the first occasion when they have demonstrated wholesale their ability to break into mobile communications. This must have come as a shock to the BlackBerrying rioters, given you have to use a PIN to access the messenger service, which gives an illusion of security. The messages instigating rioting were sent in real time, and couldn’t be accessed quickly enough to stop this activity, but the police confiscated phones from those they arrested, and accessed messages planning looting etc. The Met even managed to use details from the seized phones to monitor BBM in realtime, which allowed them to turn up and disrupt further planned events.

So what does this all mean for Research in Motion, the company who makes the devices? I imagine they don’t care all that much, as long as their product is being bought and used, it probably doesn’t matter to them just who is picking their BlackBerries. 

A personal tribute to Amy Winehouse; and a review of Beginners

Last Saturday, a friend texted me about this and that, and at the end of her text she wrote 'Have you heard about Amy Winehouse?', then I got another text from another friend, then even my dad 'phoned to tell me what he'd heard on the news. Nobody could believe she'd actually done it. Which is surprising given that ending her life prematurely had seemed to be exactly where she was heading.

I remember putting on the tv one day, about to commence channel hopping but stopping mid reach for the remote control as the video for Rehab started up on the screen. I was drawn in by that extraordinary voice, the jaunty lyrics and the compelling beat. I had to find out who it was, once I did I bought Back to Black and Frank immediately. I've even bought the sheet music for both albums and learned the songs. Often with other music I've added to my singing repertoire, particularly some of the old jazz tunes, I've enjoyed the feel of the music in my voice, but the lyrics drove me nuts. For example, from Black Coffee 'A man is born to go a loving/a woman's born to weep and fret/ to stay at home and tend the oven'...it was such a joy to sing lyrics, while if not exactly feminist, that did reflect some aspects of contemporary sexual politics.

Being born with a huge talent doesn't necessarily mean being born able to cope with the emotional and psychological demands of that talent, and of fame. Talented she was without doubt. At the height of the reaction to her second album, some critics (as often seems to happen with young female artists) claimed that the real force behind the album was the producer,  in this case, Mark Ronson. But those witty, sometimes sad, sometimes bawdy lyrics seemed so to be so infused with details from her life that it was hard to imagine them being written by anyone else. And the music was so married to those lyrics that it was hard to imagine them being written by anyone other than the writer of the lyrics. I loved the 60s girl pop feel of the melodies and their arrangements, combined with that smokey, croaky drawl.

But I always thought of her as a woman who did not seem to like herself much. The beehive, the tattoos and the startling eye makeup combined to form an effective shield. She looked like a woman you wouldn't want to pick a fight with, despite her tiny stature. But it seemed like a big act. I remember seeing a film clip which showed the after effects of a self-harming episode, her midriff scored with tiny cuts. She was known to have had an eating disorder, and struggled with body issues. The drugs, alcohol and partying were maybe escapes from that relentless voice in her head telling her how ugly she was, how stupid, what a loser, speaking much louder than the voices outside who loved her. I remember reading a Guardian article about a reporter who spent a day with the paparazzi as they pursued their victims around London. One of these was Winehouse, the writer wrote, amazed, at how the paps yelled abuse and insults at the tiny singer constantly, in the hope of provoking a reaction. It would be hard for even the most self-confident person to retain their self-esteem with that ringing in their ears whenever they stepped outside their door.

I was one of those lucky enough to see her perform, at Brixton Academy November 2007. And I do feel lucky. This was the tour that was labelled such a disaster in the press. Winehouse was at the height of her coke addiction (remember the photos of her apparently removing drugs from a stash in her beehive?) and her then husband was on bail facing serious charges. In later gigs, she was obviously off her face and incoherent on stage, unable to finish songs or to deal with heckling from the crowd. But at the Brixton gig, maybe cos she was virtually on home territory, she was fabulous. Yes, she fluffed her entry and skittered onto stage halfway through 'Addicted', tripping over her guitar cable on route. Yes, the tempo of many of the songs seemed off, and accelerated erratically as they coursed along, but she delivered. She sang her own music, and some excellent Specials cover versions, with skill and energy, adlibbing some new vocal lines in place of already familiar ones. We had a fantastic time, and it felt like a privilege to be there even then, let alone with the benefit of hindsight.

In our world today, talent and mega fame so often go hand in hand. Perhaps we are all fascinated with the lives of beings who seem as near magical as it's possible to be, how it feels to be them and to live their lives. We rarely question the relationship between talent and fame, assuming that the famous are asking for it, enjoying our 24/7 obsession with their lives. It is as if we consume those whose work we love, we use them and burn them up. Maybe all Winehouse wanted to do was make music, and to sing, as she had done all her life, but her talent inevitably drew so much attention. I read in the paper various quotes from the regulars in her local, The Hawley Arms, where she apparently would often get behind the bar and pull pints .and one said
" She was such a lovely person, and to be honest, I don't think fame agreed with her, she was an ordinary girl at heart."
But whatever we think of her addiction, alcoholism, self-harming etc, it's so sad to see a life ended at such a relatively young age, and to know that voice isn't going to be singing any more.

Beginners
It seems appropriate, following my eulogy for Amy Winehouse, to write about a film that is a meditation on the end of life. But a life ending at what could be seen as the end of its natural span.

From the start, as we see Ewan McGregor clearing out a room, emptying no longer needed medicines down the toilet, the viewer knows that this is a film about moving on. Using flashbacks, we see Oliver and his father Hal (the thoroughly lovely Christopher Plummer), living in the wake of Hal's revelation that he is gay, and has always been so, despite his marriage to Hal's mother. Through flashbacks to Hal's childhood, we see Hal's mother, Georgia, bringing up Oliver. We never see her husband in these scenes, who is always at work, or who knows where.

Hal and Georgia married in 1955, at a time when homosexuality was taboo. Hal renounced his identity as a gay man, Georgia hers as a Jewish woman, living in an anti-Semitic America. To her son (and I expect also to the director, Mike Mills who based this story on events from his own life) this voluntary renunciation of identity is so bizarre as to rate being described in a tone of wonder, complete with illustrations to show how long ago and far away this was. Oliver is of a generation so familiar with identity politics and the individual's right to self-determination, that he can barely conceive of a life lived without fidelity to something as basic as ones sexuality. Sadly Hal only has a short time to live his life as an out gay man, before cancer claims him in much the way it did Georgia several years earlier.

As well as being a film about identity, this film is also about the difficulties of communication. Hal couldn't communicate with his son until late in his life, and Oliver struggles to communicate his grief, as is highlighted by the graffiti slogans he puts on buildings, when introduced to this past time by his friend Eliot. It's easier to spray stuff than say it. This struggle with communication is also played out in Oliver's nascent relationship with a girl he meets at a party in the present time sections of the film; when they meet she has laryngitis and can only communicate through writing. They speak to each other in half sentences and jokes, and their voices are muted during the depiction of their most vigorous conversation.

Georgia's voice is the least present in this film. Hal relates that when they married, she knew about his sexuality, but assumed she could 'cure' him. I wondered how she would have felt, when she failed to do so, and, one assumes, had to live without a full blooded sexual relationship in her life. In terms of the treatment of similar material, I prefer David Leavitt's novel, The Lost Language of Cranes, which doesn't privilege one person's viewpoint over another.

The sadness of the movie's events is leavened by light touches of humour, particularly through the vehicle of Arthur, Hal's Jack Russell terrier, who cannot speak but communicates with Oliver through subtitles. It's a quirky and interesting film (albeit one which drags in places), and kudos to Mike Mills for daring to make such a human film about mourning and loss. And well played to the distribution company, for giving us alternative fare to this summer's endless superhero movies...

Pulp at the Wireless festival: the normal world seems very very very far away

I heard Jarvis Cocker on the radio recently, on his regular 6music Sunday show, claiming to be bricking it about performing again with Pulp after such a gap. Bless him, he needn't have worried. That man was born to strut and fret his hour upon the stage. Or perhaps that anxiety turned into the energy that fuelled his stellar performance at the Wireless Festival on Sunday. I knew it was going to be great when they started with my my joint favourite Pulp song, Do you remember the first time? Oh how we jumped up and down, and sang along. Throughout the show, in fact. I've never been to a gig where so many people were singing along, completely familiar with the lyrics. I reckon it says something about the appeal of those lyrics, and they way they conjure up such familiar adolescent feelings.
Deep in the crush of the crowd it was difficult to make out the figures on the distant stage, so the massive screens on either side were a real blessing. I could easily make out Jarvis jumping and gyrating. There's something of Mick Jagger in his posture and the way he moves. He seemed entirely comfortable in the between song chats with the crowd, reminiscing about moving to London, talking about the band's early days.  I never saw Pulp back in the day, I'd hoped to see them when I went to Glastonbury in 1995, but missed their set- that's an entirely different (and quite long) story. So I don't know what the band's live musicianship was like back in the day, but certainly today they're complete masters of their instruments, whether that be Russell Senior on violin, Candida Doyle on keyboards...oh, I could go on. I didn't know Jarvis played the guitar, but he showed himself no mean strummer on Something's Changed. The intro to Sorted for Es and Whizz got a massive cheer, and the crowd didn't miss joining in with a word of this classic of the chemical generation.
From the upbeat beginning to the set, Pulp slid into the sleaziness of Hardcore and Ispy, complete with writhing and heavy breathing from Jarvis. But they picked up the tempo again to end with the classic social commentary of Common People, my other favourite. That was a superb ending, with ticker tape exploding from giant party poppers and raining down on us, lights and lasers swirling about.
I always swore I wouldn't go to a reunion of any band, nostalgia usually just makes me feel sad and pathetic. But I was more of a triphop girl than a Britpop one, so I don't feel that nostalgic about Pulp, despite the inherently nostalgic tone of many of their songs, with their evocation of teenage crushes, lust and partying. I've grown to love them over the last few years more than I ever did back then. I can't believe that they're only back for a few gigs. I read somewhere that Pulp wound down their work in the early noughties because they thought no one was interested in what they were doing any more. I hope that the sight (and sound) of 45 thousand folk singing every word of their songs will convince them that they were wrong about that.
Grace Jones
I read that Pulp chose all the acts that were on at Wireless this day, and I was trying to think what link there could be between such diverse acts as Grace Jones, the Hives, TV on the Radio etc. And I think it was that they're all great at putting on a show. Especially her royal Graceness, the penultimate act. She burst onto the stage in a kind of velvet bodice, over footloose fishnets, and vertiginous platform shoes . There were gasps and whistles from the crowd when she turned around to reveal her naked butt cheeks. And then there was the pole dancing...which occurred whilst she sang La Vie En Rose, in a sweet and wistful fashion. I loved her version of Roxy Music's Love is the Drug, and the excellent Slave to the Rhythm. And there was bumping and grinding a plenty during Pull up to the Bumper. It's great to see an older woman enjoying, and flaunting her sexuality, proving that lust isn't just for adolescents.
Metronomy
I'm not going to review all the bands, there was a lot of guitary stuff going on which I quite like, but it did get a bit samey after 6 hours (we got there early). But I'm having a musical crush on Metronomy at the moment so wanted to mention them. For those of you who haven't heard their stuff, do check them out on YouTube, especially their song The Look. I was delighted to hear them play this in their set, it's such a perfectly constructed pop song. First you get a catchy keyboard riff, then the drums and guitar take it in turns to join the tune, and finally a really strong bass line comes crashing in. This artful construction is reflected in the band itself, which is a really tight four piece, of strong musicians.
Metronomy's music feels like some of the most interesting stuff around at the moment, a blending of synths and guitars in some wonky electropop that reminds me of jazz at some points. There are influences ranging from Prince to Sparks and Kraftwerk, combined in a way that sounds like nothing else. Their fans made me chuckle though, we got right to the front for this set and the people near us seemed to be real aficionados. They were all so young: sporting that geek chic look and making those jerky, robotic dance moves that look like someone having a fit. Funny to think in 20 years or so, they'll probably be going to a Metronomy reunion gig at a festival somewhere...

Pharoah Sanders at Ronnie Scott's

There are so many places in London I mean to go to, but haven't got round to yet. Ronnie Scott's was one such place. But I was was keen to go there to see someone I really liked, not just any old band. The long awaited opportunity came recently when US jazz legend Pharoah Sanders did three nights there with his quartet.

A word about me and jazz before I get into describing the gig. Somehow with jazz, it feels as though you have to prove your credentials. My dad likes jazz (although he prefers swing) so I grew up hearing stories about his visits to Manchester's jazz clubs in the 50s. I discovered recently he even played drums in a band, such a shame I didn't inherit his sense of rhythm.

My friend, Alistair, who's an explorer of the wilder regions of jazz, introduced me to John Coltrane, and of course the Pharoah himself. Like Coltrane, Sanders is known for imbuing his music with a spiritual dimension. Although I usually prefer my jazz with a shot of  female vocals, his track, The Creator has a Master Plan has become one of my all time favourites. Check it out on Youtube.

Ronnie Scott's itself is a very slick operation. We were welcomed at the door, and shown to our table. A waitress brought us, without our asking, glasses of iced water. Another waitress came over and introduced herself as our waitress for the evening. I loved the table service but realized later how practical it is. In a small club, the last thing you want is most of the audience ambling to the bar during the artists' sets. And it's all about respect for the artists. Recorded announcements asked us not to take photos, and to keep conversation to a minimum during peformances.

As I walked in, I said 'Wow', sotto voce, and the waitress turned, smiling and asked 'Your first time?', so I gathered it wasn't an uncommon response from the first time visitor. If I'd been asked to describe my ideal of a jazz club beforehand it would've been something like this. Darkened room, with red shaded wall and table lights, banquettes along the sides and intimate tables for twos and fours dotted around. The walls are covered in black and white pictures of jazz performers, usually unlabelled (I guess you're meant to know who they all are, but I didn't). The prices aren't jaw dropping for Soho, with cocktails starting at £9. My favourite was the Green Bison- Bison Grass vodka, kiwi liqueur, fresh kiwi and lime juice stirred with apple juice and fresh lemon grass, served long. The most expensive item on the drinks list, by a long long way, was a bottle of Dom Perignon  (1975) at £1300. I wonder how much they charge to let you sniff the cork?

The performance space is tiny, and but manages to accommodate a gorgeous Yamaha grand piano. It's close enough to the seating for the audience to see the way the musicians communicate non verbally with each other. And what of the music? Well, the support band were the Leon Greening Trio. They were all immensely skilled musicians, particularly the pianist, Greening himself. But they played what I think of as Charlie Brown jazz, after the background music that always used to be in those feature length Snoopy cartoons on tv when I was a kid. Pleasant enough in the background but not particularly inspiring, to me at least.

The main act came on at 8.30 and proceeded to hold us spell bound. Forgive me for not knowing the names of all the tracks, but they didn't announce them, just got on with delivering them.I feel I'm not worthy to describe Pharoah Sanders shoes, let alone his music, but I'll give it a go.  First up was a galloping, free form number that was like a musical whirlwind. The speed and virtuosity of the playing was awe-inspiring. The second song was even more my cup of darjeeling...you don't realize how much you're enjoying this kind of music until you notice that your body is responding despite you, toes tapping, fingers drumming on the table. My mouth dropped open in awe as Sanders made the most extraordinary variety of sounds on his saxophone; long rippling runs of notes, squeaks and squawks, even a bubbling sound like when you fart in the bath. He played the whole instrument, tapping on the keys and funnel of the sax to end the song.

 My Favourite Things came next, delivered in the style of John Coltrane, with whom Sanders often used to play. It was a thrill to hear it live, and such a pleasure to watch Sanders wandering about the tiny performance space. Often, when the sax wasn't required, he would wander off to the side and lean on a table, nodding approvingly as the rest of the band did their solos, like a benevolent father watching his kids play. To lead into the break, they did a  truncated version of The Creator has a Master Plan (well the full version is about half an hour long) over which Sanders finally spoke, introducing his colleagues on drums, double bass and piano.

First song back after the short interval was a straight rendition of a jazz standard, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, probably as a nod to their London audience. The pianist sang the lyric, at first a little scratchily but he'd warmed up nicely by the second verse, revealing the richness of his tone. Next up, a tune I don't know the name of, but was in an arabic sounding scale. This was nocturnal, bedtime jazz. The audience was hushed and still, apart from the band there were no sounds other than the whispers of waitresses taking orders. The deep notes of the bass thrummed through the table into my arms, and the long slow notes of the sax seduced us all. To finish, the quartet returned to The Creator has a Master Plan, this time Sanders' deep gravelly voice added in the simple, repeating lyric.

Writing this, I realize how few tracks this seems, but each one seemed to last for many minutes, as these accomplished musicians soloed, improvised and played around the different themes of each song. It was music that touched on the transcendent, the numinous. Spirituality is such a loaded word these days, that I'm almost embarrassed to use it. To me, it describes that which is about the mystery of life; that spirit that quickens all our flesh, what it means to be alive. This music undercut my rational, analytical mind (which is why it's so hard to describe) and spoke to straight to that spirit. Purely and simply, it made me feel thrilled to just be alive.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and Submarine

I remember when 3D films were those at the tackier end of the cinema market, Jaws 3D to name one such product. But now everyone seems to be getting in on the 3D act, most recently revered director Werner Herzog. His Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a documentary about the Chauvet caves in southern France. These caves, named after their discoverer, Jean-Marie Chauvet, the explorer who stumbled across them in 1994, are a prehistoric wonderland of cave paintings dating back almost 35,000 years.

Herzog was given privileged access to the caves in order to make this film, but could only use a camera crew of four and minimal lighting rig. The film's stars are as much the archaeologists, art historians and paleontologists who are researching the cave as the paintings themselves. The 3D effect is a bit of a distraction at first, especially since the paintings themselves are two dimensional. All that really looms out from the screen are the scientists as they poke around in the caves.

The floor of the cave are littered with the bones of animals, but strangely none of humans. The theory is that people did not live out their lives there, but used the walls to record their impressions of their world, perhaps as part of religious rituals. All that remains to identify any single artist are the myriad red palm prints which dot one of the walls. It's possible to trace the path of this artist through the cave, his print is unmistakable due  to a slight deformity in his little finger.

The palette of the documentary is a sombre one, of muted autumn shades (or perhaps there's a flaw with my 3D glasses). The paintings themselves are ochre and charcoal, beautiful images of horses, lions and rhinos. The best part of the film is the section near the end where the camera roams lovingly across the images to the haunting accompanying music.

There are some lovely light comic moments, courtesy of the scientists, particularly the one, clad head to toe in animal skins, who plays the Star Spangled Banner on the remains of an old bone flute found at the site, and his colleague who demonstrates his ineptitude at spear throwing. They make archaeology look such fun.

Herzog's output has been remarkably diverse over the years, from remakes such as Nosferatu, through narratives such as Aguirre Wrath of God, to documentaries such as his latest offering. Amidst this diversity it is possible to discern repeated ideas that preoccupy the film maker though, primarily the question, what does it mean to be human? Sometimes he explores this question by examining those who live at the fringes of, or who are completely alienated from, human society. For me, sometimes his explorations work, as in The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and sometimes they don't ( The Enigma of Kasper Hauser). But I'm glad that he keeps on asking the question.


Submarine
The thing about rites-of-passage/coming of age movies is that the audience has to empathise in some way with the protagonist in order for them to work. Their dilemmas have to have some degree of universality to make us understand their struggles with life. I had considerable difficulty relating to the the problems of the teenage boy, Oliver Tate, whose story is the stuff of this movie. It made me realise how seldom these movies are about girls/young women (please do let me know any you can think of).

But his grandiose, narcissistic fantasies are amusing to watch, most memorably the opening scenes of the imaginary outpourings of grief that would attend the hero's tragic demise. Weeping teenage girls, flower and candle filled shrines and all night vigils, are the kinds of tributes Oliver imagines as his due.

Oliver is a literary genius in training, and records his life in obsessive detail. His every act is one of consequence. He's obsessed with a girl, and trying to prevent his parents' marriage imploding due to the malign attraction of their next door neighbour, a former boyfriend of his mother.

The film is beautifully realised, particularly the fantasy sequences such as the freeze frame effect as an unfortunate, bullied girl is pushed into a pond. There are apocalyptic images of rubbish dumps and deserted rail tracks that make the Swansea setting look like a waste land. Interestingly, the time period the film is set in is not obvious, there are no popular songs of the era to underline when this is set. It only struck me near the end when I realised there were no computers only type writers, and Oliver's dad had given him a souvenir cassette tape rather than a CD. The young actors are also extraordinarily watchable, and the lead, Craig Roberts is certainly no one trick pony, given the difference between this and his role as a horny teenage vampire in Being Human/Becoming Human.

But one last disparaging word about the music. Alex Turner, what were you thinking? I heard on the radio that Turner wrote the music without actually seeing the film, and I can well believe it. Such maudlin drivel you've never heard in your life. Get back to the Arctic Monkeys where you belong, and stop trying to be John Denver.

Frankenstein at the National Theatre

This week I had the privilege to see Danny Boyle's new prouction of Frankenstein at the National Theatre, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller. Although the production is sold out until the end of this run (April, but I'm sure it'll be back again, and two performances are to be shown live in cinemas during March), I'd had the good fortune to score a couple of seats, two rows back snuggled into the curve of the stage, within spitting distance of the action. Which proved to be spell binding, particularly the shocking opening section. At the start, the stage is empty, save for a large, upright oval covered in what looks like parchment, or the skin of a drum. It was possible to discern a shape inside this oval, soon revealed to be the monster, as he burst through it into life, as if leaving a womb. Previous versions of Frankenstein that I've seen have shown the monster on a surgical table, animated into life by a surge of electricity. But this monster, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, emerged into his life alone, writhing and gasping as he learnt how to use his body. Our proximity to this scene made this so intimate, the actor was stark naked, with scars and blood all over his body. It made me think about how shocking it would be to be so suddenly human; the skills and physical awareness babies learn gradually, would have to be grasped all at once. Cumberbatch is astonishing, in total contrast to his fast talking portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, he showed himself to be a masterful physical actor, as first of all his monster learnt he had hands, arms and then legs, stumbling in pain as he discovered how to use his body.

The two stars of the production, Cumberbatch and Lee Miller, are taking it turns in the two lead roles, one night being the monster, the next, Victor Frankenstein. For most performances, it's possible to choose who you see playing which part, but because this was a preview, we didn't know beforehand which would be which. Over pizza prior to the show, my friend and I had agreed that we hoped that Cumberbatch would be Frankenstein, assuming that would be the role with the most dialogue. In fact, once the monster has learned to talk, he gets most of the lines, staying more faithful to Mary Shelley's novel than adaptations usually do. He certainly gets the best lines, shouting "Now I am a man!" as he takes dreadful revenge on his creator. Frankenstein is hardly present in the first scenes, which depict the monster's education into humanity. Truth be told, Lee Miller was a bit of a let down as Frankenstein, even fluffing his lines at one point, but I have read that he makes a superb job of portraying the monster.

The staging of the play is worth the entrance fee alone. It's as if Boyle, more used these days to the wider canvas of film, has to use every inch of the stage, plus the auditorium and the ceiling. Flames flare up from a grill at the front of the stage to simulate a campfire (I thought my eyebrows were in danger of singeing), the sun shines and rain falls on the astonished monster as he encounters nature for the first time. At one point, an enormous train (symbolising the achievements of science and the advent of the industrial revolution) rides onto the stage with carousing villagers hanging off it. It's on stage for all of 30 seconds and then goes off again, having added little to the overall production, but still being a lot of fun. The only point at which I regretted our closeness to the action, was when clouds of dry ice flowed across the stage, and threatened to suffocate us.

The play does have its weaker points. Some of the supporting performances were less than stellar, particularly the role of Elizabeth, Frankenstein's fiancee. The actor in this role belongs to the school of actors that express emotion only by nodding and shaking their heads vigorously, in contrast to the intense physicality of the monster. The writing of this new play by Nick Dear is strong, except for a couple of places where overly modern idiom creeps in. The soundtrack, by Underworld, didn't work for me, it sounded too recorded, like someone had just put a cd on, and didn't work with the intensity of the live action.

The story of Frankenstein really makes you think about what it is to be human, what it is to be in this world. The newnesss of it all to the monster makes you see the absurdity of life through his eyes. When the monster cries out to demand of his creator why he was brought into the world and then abandoned, it's the cry any human could make at times about their own life. It's been filmed and played in so many versions over the last few hundred years, but by taking this production back to its origins, and focusing on the monster's story, we see it still has much to say that is relevant to our age, where science can do unspeakable things, and seldom pauses to ask why it shouldn't.

Black Swan, Blue Valentine and Faithless at the O2

After a v extended winter break, the brew is back...thought I'd offer a longer post than usual to make up for my absence.

There seems to be a heap of good movies doing the rounds in these pre Oscar days. I took in a couple this week, Black Swan and Blue Valentine, of which the former made the greater impact on me. When I was a kid, I used to adore books about ballet. I gave the art itself a try but quickly gave it up when I realised the teacher was never going to let me be Thumbelina. In one of my favourite ballet stories, the heroine gets her big break dancing the Odette/Odile (White Swan/Black Swan) role in Swan Lake. But while the story made much of the technical difficulties of dancing the Black Swan role, particularly the exacting 32 fouettes across the stage during the seduction of the Prince, the book did not refer to the danger to the dancer's mental health.

Nina (Natalie Portman), the protagonist of the film, is desperate for the role of Odette/Odile, in her New York based company's production of Swan Lake. But at the start of the film, while she is the archetypal White Swan (pure, demure, and technically perfect) she lacks the cruel power and brilliance necessary for the Black Swan. The film follows her as she develops into the perfect Odette/Odile. It's also the story of her breakdown, as she leaves behind her state of arrested development, and becomes a woman.

Nina is pulled between the demands of her mother, who wants to keep her as a little girl, and those of the ballet company's director, who wants her to let go, unleash her sexuality, both for his benefit and the role of the Black Swan. The film wonderfully depicts the two worlds that Nina inhabits, the claustrophobic apartment with her suffocating mother, the girlish colours of pink and white adorn Nina's room, and many of her clothes. Whilst her Svengali, Thomas, has a black and white office, and his appartment is also black and white, with an inkblot painting evocative of a Rorshach test prominently displayed on the walls. The camera is often in close up, on Nina's face, and we see increasingly fragmented images of her in reflections in mirrors etc. In the final performance scenes, the close up dizzying whirl of the camera draws us into Nina's disintegrating state of mind.

I used to think of ballet as an ethereal, floaty kind of art form, but when I saw Swan Lake at Covent Garden about a year ago, I realised what a physical experience it really is. We were up in the gods, and could hear the thud of the dancers' feet as they landed on the stage, and the rustling movements of their bodies as they imitated swans. This film is very true to that, we see the blood, sweat and tears that dance requires. We also see the gritty everyday reality of a dancer's life, sewing ballet ribbons on shoes, and worrying about weight.

Interestingly, it is the desire/envy relationships she has with two other dancers in the company the push Nina into the state where she can become the Black Swan, and that state is related directly to her sexuality. Several times in the movie we see her attempt to reach a sexual climax, only to fail at the last moment (once memorably to discover her mother had come into her bedroom...). But is through letting go, during an evening with one of those other dancers, that Nina finally manages to have her orgasm. It's interesting that it seems to be this experience that gives her the power to be the wicked and seductive Odile, and also propels her into the final stage of her meltdown. I wonder what that says about women's sexuality?

Comparisons between this film and Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes are inevitable, if only because there aren't that many films about dancers having mental breakdowns brought about by their absorption in their art. But although it's a close call, I still prefer The Red Shoes, mainly cos the dance/fantasy sequences are so mesmerising.

Blue Valentine is a very different film. It's not set in the city world of high culture New York, but in the everyday lives of people in what seems to be the same state, but could be a million miles away. Told partly in the present, and partly in flashback, the film shows the relationship of a couple, Cindy and Dean, at its start, and as it ends. But strangely, the middle part is missing. I wanted to know at what point things start to deteriorate, and what made them miss the importance of that key moment at the time.

The film is shot mainly in extreme close up, and is very intimate. The nadir for me being the bathroom scene where Cindy takes a pee (really that's all that happens). I don't need to see Michelle Williams pretending to be an ordinary woman having a leak to know that this is a naturalistic film, and an intimate insight into a couple's relationship. It's quite an intense experience as a viewer, to effectively become the third, silent partner in a marriage. I kept wondering what it was like for the actors to have a camera so close to them during such intimate moments.

The cleverness of the film lies in the way it makes it difficult for the viewer to take sides. We see an incident early on that makes Dean look an utter git, but then the flashbacks show that he did have some reason for his utter gitness. Before I saw the movie, I thought it would make me cry, but somehow it didn't move me as much as I'd expected (although one of my companions found it 'gut wrenching'). Maybe it was because I didn't actually like either of the characters very much. Also, in reality people's relationships break down all the time, and if you felt for those couples too much, you would be perpetually in tears.

Faithless at the O2
Cast your minds back to December and those icy cold days before Christmas. I'd had tickets for this gig for ages and had been looking forward to it. But I'd been not well and didn't know if I was up to going. I saw Faithless many years ago at a festival, and while they were great, it wasn't the right time and place. It was a sunny afternoon, and nobody felt like dancing. Faithless are a night time band, just not right for sleepy summer afternoons. Subsequently, it'd been a recurring desire to see them again, in a more suitable environment, so I went for it.

I've heard mixed views about the O2 as a venue; it is a vast space, very commercialised and well managed. Some have said soulless. But I did appreciate the fact that unlike the old days when I used to go to Wembley, the location and the transport links mean you aren't in an overwhelming crowd of people on entering and leaving. There's lots of other stuff to do there too, so people arrive and leave at different times. It seemed so easy, just get off the Jubilee line and walk a few hundred metres and you're there.

In my yoof, going to gigs was one of my favourite past times. I loved losing myself in the music, jumping up and down and singing (shouting) along seemed to be a safe outlet for my wilder tendencies. I thought this occasion would be a way of discharging some of the energies that had been building up in side of me. And at first it did feel cathartic. Faithless did a couple of my old faves, God is a DJ, and Insomnia, early on in the set and I took the opportunity to throw myself about with some vigour.

But I'm not sure about the stuff from their most recent album, The Dance, it just seems like retreading old ground. They had a guest singer on for some of those tracks, but I have no idea who it was, I couldn't make it out. He looked and sounded a little like Bono, which is/isn't a good thing, depending on your point of view.

Lead singer Maxi Jazz has an amazing energy and stage presence. But at one point he said 'There's so much love in this room', and I looked around, at the many drunk and knobbish blokes nearby, who seemed to be spoiling for a fight, and thought that was a fairly deluded thing to say. I went out to the loos shortly after, and when I came back, the band were playing I want more, but all the energy and atmosphere seemed to have gone completely flat. We left at this point, as my friend felt the same. I was left feeling like I too wanted more. It had been something of an empty experience.

Uncle Boonmee

Sometimes, when travelling, I've visited cultures that were so different to anything I've experienced before, that I've felt an uneasy dislocation from myself. It's almost like I've just woken up and don't know who I am, and the business of being alive is strange and absurd. Usually this feeling wears off after a couple of days in a new place, but I remember feeling it when I got lost in Bangkok, and I had it again watching Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. This is far from being a criticism of the movie; I think, although it's discomforting, this feeling of alienation serves to pull me out of the rut we all fall into of being absorbed in the day to day stuff we do, and makes me really THINK about my life and who I am.

This film set in Northern Thailand, is about a man, Uncle Boonmee, who goes back to his farm to die. It starts with a long, brooding sequence at dusk, when an ox (or maybe it's a buffalo, I'm not well up on different types of bovines) becomes restless and escapes into the jungle, where it is watched, but by exactly what the viewer doesn't know, at this point it's just a pair of glowing red eyes in the nightscape. Later, this scene, along with others, makes more sense, it seems to be an image from a former incarnation of Boonmee, although the film never explains this, just interposes these images in between the scenes depicting the central character with the people in his life, going about the ordinary stuff of everyday. By not following a more traditional narrative arc, but at the same time having a slow and gentle pace, the film seems to make the out of the ordinary events seem unthreatening, and I felt less concerned about trying to make sense of them

By day, Boonmee potters around his farm. His sister-in-law has come to visit him, and he shows her his bee hives, and introduces her to the workers who tend his trees. But at night events take place which may seem strange to Western eyes, but probably because they are rooted in traditional Thai spiritual beliefs, after their initial surprise, they seem to be easily accepted by the film's characters. On the first night, sitting at the table with two of his relatives, they are suddenly visited by the ghost of Boonmee's late wife, Huay, who has been drawn to visit him because she is aware of his sickness. Then a simian figure, with glowing red eyes is also drawn to their table. This turns out to be Boonmee's son, who disappeared many years ago, and became one of the monkey ghosts who dwell in the jungle. This strange group sit around the table, eating leftovers and looking at photos of family events the visiting spirits missed out on. I loved the silences, and the acceptance of events. If such creatures appeared at my table, I'd bombard them with questions about what had happened to them, but Boonmee and his guests relate to each other just as they did when they were all alive, and human.

The film follows Boonmee's last days and nights. Near death, he seems to be in a place, both spiritual and geographical, where the metaphysical becomes everyday. It reminded me of those times, after the loss of someone close, when everything seems charged with meaning and significance, and I've felt more aware than ever of life outside myself. The farm is on the edge of a jungle, which seems a mysterious, magical place, with resonances for me of the way William Blake, and much medieval literature, depicts forests, as places where one can, and will, meet creatures of dreams and imagination. My favourite scene is where Boonmee and his two living relatives go out into the night, and stumble through the forest to a womblike cave. But suddenly, the roof of the cave is lit by dots of phosporescence, or maybe even glow worms, and it looks just like a star lit sky.

I don't know if I liked the film or not, I can only say the time passed without me being aware of it, and the world seemed different when I left the cinema. Looking down at Brixton market from the heights of the train platform, even that familiar scene seemed magical and special. Maybe that's how the world really is all the time, when we care to take notice.

Friends and Fireworks

I haven't been feeling myself of late. The temptation is to withdraw, stay at home and have as little to do with the rest of the human race as possible. I think it may have been Sartre who said "Hell is other people". Whoever it was that said it was not a happy bunny.

But last Saturday, Nov 6th, we had arranged to have a group of our friends over for bonfire night celebrations, that is, food, bonfire and fireworks. We've done this for the last 4 years or so, ever since we moved into this house. It's becoming an annual tradition. It was very much a tradition of my childhood, that we would have the family over on bonfire night, and feed them Lancashire hot pot, with pickled red cabbage, followed by parkin (a tea bread not unlike ginger cake, but much stodgier). My strongest memory of those nights was actually staying indoors, comforting our several cats and dogs who were terrified of the fireworks. My collie, Shep, used to hide, shaking, under my bed, which I couldn't bear to see. He also used to do this whenever there was a thunder storm. Besides, I was quite a serious child and I could never quite see the point of fireworks. I did like making a guy though, which we we would plonk out on the street to collect money from passersby. One year, too lazy to make a guy, we put my little brother, Damian, out there instead. People got quite a shock when our guy moved.

But I seem to be going through a second childhood. Just as playing games with my young nieces and nephews is much more fun now than it was when I was their age, nowadays fireworks seem to be a thing of awe and wonder. Maybe they're just better quality fireworks. So we decided not cancel our party. I also thought that seeing friends, spending time with people who I knew cared about me, might prove somewhat restorative.

I felt I was noticeably quieter than usual, but no one commented on this. In any case, the noise of explosions was so overwhelming as to preclude much conversation. Our garden is not overlooked by buildings at the back, so we could see, and hear, fireworks going off all around. It was a bit like that trippy scene in Apocalypse Now, where one of the soldiers has just dropped some acid, and is trying to make his way overland during a bombardment. The noise was incredible, there were a series of booms, presumably from an organised display, that were so loud it felt like we were under attack by mortars. Actually, when I was a kid, I was convinced that this date was spelt 'bombfire night', which I still think makes more sense than bonfire. What the hell is a bonfire, anyway?

But I digress. We did the fireworks in two bouts, one early on, then the rest later, after my friend Ella had arrived. Bless her, it took her twice as long as it should have done to get to our house, due to packed buses on the way to the displays around London. Martin lit most of the fireworks, which made me quite anxious until I realised that as soon as he'd lit the fuse he scurried for cover into the garage at the bottom of the garden. My favourites are the ones that rise high into the air, then explode into a shower of colours, way up in the night sky. I've never been fond of the ones that sit on the ground and spew out colours, fountains I think they're called. They do seem a bit lack lustre.

We bought a fire pit this summer, and it was lovely, sitting around it, waving sparklers and listening to various people play guitar and sing (yes, we are a bunch of hippies at heart). I felt buoyed up by good company, free from my worries into the moment. A friend of ours, Mike, took some excellent photos. I was a bit puzzled at first as he had this peculiar gadget, with three bendy legs, which I thought was some kind of device for doing Indian head massage, until he attached it to his camera where it functioned as a very adaptable tripod. As he said, it's especially cool as it's a gadget that makes another gadget work even better.

That was over a week ago now, and I'm still not feeling myself. But I try to remind myself that other people, especially ones who know you well, and understand you, are not hell at all, but can be more like the other place.

Feminism in London 2010 Conference

Attending the Feminism in London 2010 conference, on Saturday October 23, was like returning to a country I once lived in but haven't visited for some time. Feminism has been an important part of my life. If you'd asked me, age 10, if I was a feminist, I would've probably asked what a feminist was, and on finding out, I would have claimed to be one. But my feminism, until my mid 20s, was really about being able to do what I wanted to do, without other people's ideas about gender limiting me. My political action took other forms. It wasn't until I did my teacher training course at the University of Nottingham in 1991-2, that I became aware of feminist theory, different types of feminism and feminism as a political force. Doing an MA in Women's Studies and Educational Research, and a gender related PhD, added to my knowledge and encouraged me to get involved in feminist activity.

My activism included being Women's Officer for Graduate College, at Lancaster Uni and volunteering in services for women victims of violence, and for a project supporting young women when I moved to London. But at the same time, the movement seemed to be fragmenting, into theorists (caught up analysing different types of feminism, and pontificating on very high level theory) and activists, who knew there was still a need to campaign, in a world of unequal pay, where up to 2 women every week died as a result of domestic violence. Meanwhile younger women, as I discovered doing my PhD research, seemed alienated from the word feminism as a consequence of its depiction as being solely about man hating. This situation was not helped by the lack of leadership from feminist writers such as Natasha Walter (a conference speaker, see below), who argued that the gains we'd made were such that there would be a natural trickle down through our society, ending gender stereotypes, sexism and so on. But we seemed to forget that gains that have been made can be taken away, or undermined.

But the rallying cry at the conference, attended by over a thousand women, was that feminism is back and a force to be reckoned with. The savage budget cuts, which disproportionately affect women, combined with the hypersexualisation of western culture, and the increasingly extreme use of women as sexual objects, seems to have fired a new generation of women to get involved, and invigorated the desire of older feminist for social change.

Re the conference itself, the morning's panel was on Women in Public Life, chaired by Ceri Goddard, Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk. Fawcett is one of the oldest organisations for women's equality, started in 1866 to fight for the vote, the right to own property and so on. So unfair did the Society find the June 2010 budget, that they launched a bid to get a Judicial Review of the budget, under equality legislation, on the grounds that the government is legally obliged to conduct an Equality Impact Assessment, to ensure that its policies don't impact unfairly. The Guardian reported this week that the government admitted that this assessment was not carried out, and they were said to be "stunned" at this first ever legal challenge to a budget, which have always previously been seen as sacrosanct. Fawcett is still absorbing the impact of this week's Comprehensive Spending Review, but Goddard highlighted a few points, among them: 65% of public sector workers are women, so the 490,000 public sector job cuts will inevitably impact more on women. Women are more often users of public services, as overall, we earn less and own less. According to Fawcett, women face a triple jeopardy, of benefit cuts, job losses and the increasing care gap. Since women undertake 89% of home care, who do you think will be expected to fill the gap in care that will result in cuts to services? For more on how the CSR affects women, see the website of the Women's Budget Group, a hub of economics and social science professors, at www.wbg.org.uk

Other speakers on this panel included the inspirational Helena Kennedy, Rahila Gupta, and Lindsey Hills. Kennedy, famous for her outstanding work in the legal profession, encouraged other women to get involved in public life, put themselves forward to be leaders, despite the glass ceiling which prevents many women from getting to the top of their professions, and the tokenism of institutions that seem to feel that as long as they have one female employee at a high level, that particular box is ticked. This was a message I heard throughout the day, but I have to say I wish that some of the women who have already 'got there', would pass on concrete advice on how to do just that, or perhaps set up mentoring opportunities to encourage women in moving upwards. This is just not about the politics of representation, having equal numbers of women MPs (still a far off dream), or Supreme Court judges (at the moment, there's just one!), but aslso being aware that having women in office can be a lever for change. As Vera Baird QC (appointed Solicitor General in 2007) said in a later workshop, when she joined parliament in 2001, following on from the influx of women into parliament in 2007, there were all party parliamentary groups on issues such as beer, and whisky, but none on violence against women.

BUT these new women MPs set up such a group, which has been instrumental in the previous government's response to violence against women. Kennedy acknowledged that, when in power, Labour failed to sufficiently regulate the banks and financial markets and caused much of the country's debt by bailing out the banks, but women such as the much derided Harriet Harman were instrumental in pushing through legal changes such as making criminals out of the men who pick up prostitutes, rather than the prostitutes themselves.

Usually on panels such as this, only the great and the good are represented. But this conference gave a nod to feminism's need to include all women, such as Lindsay Hills, who spoke very movingly about the stigmatisation she faced when she became a mother in her teens, and how very hard it was to get training and suitable employment, and adequate housing. She powerfully dismantled the myths around young mothers, and demonstrated, (through talking about her own achievement in holding down a job, single handedly raising two children, and still finding time to campaign through YWCA, and mentor other young mums) how woefully our society underestimates and stigmatises such women. You may argue that she's an exception, but I know from my own voluntary work at a young mum's project, that there are many like her, equally talented, strong, and determined to build better lives for themselves and their children.

I've written at some length already, and could write much more, but will confine myself to briefly mentioning the two workshops I went to. The first was on Violence against women as a hate crime, and featured speakers who included content on how feminist activism has brought about changes in legislation, from first making domestic violence an offence back in the 70s, rather than as previously seen a private matter between husband and wife, to making it possible for women to either take up an injunction privately through the courts, against a violent partner, more easily than was previously possible, or to have partners charged with an offence by the police. There's much more to say about this, and I'm happy to correspond with any reader who wants more information. But the message from all speakers was that there is still more to do, especially in a society where some estimates claim that one in four women has been raped, yet only one in 20 of reported rapes result in a conviction.

I also (completely by accident as I wandered into the room thinking the workshop was on something else, and was so gripped by the excellent presentation that I stayed) attended an anti porn presentation. The gist of this was that our culture is now hypersexualised, via the plethora of images and communication media that surround us. Sex is everywhere, but not a healthy version of sex based on equality between partners, but a representation of sex that increasingly uses imagery drawn from pornography, and depicts women as prostitutes (or alarmingly, as childwomen) and men as punters and pimps. This was demonstrated by an analysis of the images of women used in advertising and culture in the 70s, compared to contemporary images which depict women as always sexually available, and whose bodies are their only worthwhile assets. Even powerful women is such disparate fields as movies and sport, are depicted in this way. Meanwhile pornography itself is booming business of 75 billion a year, and the growth of websites offering images of brutalised and dominated women is increasing.

The speaker put forward the idea that our culture is grooming young children for sex, through the omnipresence of such images, also by targeting younger and younger girls and boys. For example, the Bratz dolls have an accompanying website which encourages its young consumers to look 'hot', and dress themselves in a way that is deemed sexually alluring. There were many more examples than I can include here, and also mention of studies that have attempted to measure the effects of objectifying women's bodies on consumers, such as the American Psychological Association report in 2007, that apparently found that this objectification can lead (surprise surprise) to low self esteem, obsession with body image, and is implicated in eating disorders. There are organisations researching and campaigning on this issue however, such as www.object.org.uk, and the pink stinks campaign.

Following on from this, Natasha Walter was one of the speakers in the final session. Discussing her latest book Living Dolls, the return of sexism, which explores the issues mentioned in the last paragraph, said that in her earlier writing (see beginning of this post), was overly optimistic, and did not appreciate how regressive policies and attitudes towards gender, would impact on gender relations. She said that much of the press coverage of the book had focused on how she didn't, apparently, look like an angry feminist. But, "Guess what?" she told us, " I am angry", at the current state of affairs. However, she did say she had found a sense of hope, in meeting so many young women who are committed to activism, and campaigning for change, and how important it is to hold that hope in balance with the awareness of the tremendous challenges that face us.

The conference ended with a rousing call to arms from Finn Mackay, the young founder of the London Feminist Network (http://www.ldnfeministnetwork.ik.com/home.ikml), the group who organised this conference. She urged us to action, and not only women. She stressed the importance of men in becoming involved in this action for social change, and thanked those men present for attending. Finn quoted Andrea Dworkin's assertion (incidentally a women much vilified as a man hater) that she wasn't a feminist because she hated men, but rather because she believed in the humanity of men, despite the evidence to the contrary. Finn also emphasised the importance of our own coalition of groups aligning with others such as the TUC, that have important roles in the current struggle.

As for me, all week I've been feeling like we were on the way back to the 80s, most of you will know what that means. But the conference helped me to remember that the 80s were also a time of tremendous social activism, that brought about (some) change. So this time, maybe we need to not only campaign for change, but try and figure out how to embed the changes we will surely achieve, so thoroughly in our world, that we move onwards to a more equal future, rather endlessly being thrust back into a less equal past.

Jammin' at Cafe Crema

One of my favourite nights out is the piano jam at Cafe Crema New Cross (www.cafecremaevents.co.uk). I first went there for a lovely veggie lunch, and discovered that it's open occasionally at night, showing films on Thursdays and hosting a monthly jam. It's a cosy place, painted a warm red, and filled with odds and ends of furniture.

I've been a regular jammer for some time now, although my attendance has slipped of late due to the voice problems I mentioned in my last post. This Saturday, I went along with my friend Mia. Neither of us intended to sing, merely to shake and bang the various percussion instruments that Mia brings along.

The piano at the cafe has seen better days, but it is in tune, and gives that honky tonk sound so evocative of New Orleans jazz. Anyone can get up and sing or play, but there's a group of regular musicians who get the party started. The guy who co runs the cafe plays piano, accordion, guitar and harmonica. He has a band called The Reverend Jim Casey, with a mate of his who's also a regular guitar player at the jam, they have a kind of rockabilly thing going on. Usually in attendance is a white haired, bespectacled saxophonist, whose instrument has a "For Sale" sign wonkily sellotaped across it. There's another regular who plays guitar, bongos and kazoo, occasionally all at the same time. He does a wicked version of Sit down (by James). I don't really know anyone's name who goes, nor do they know mine, but that's fine. It's not about making friends, it's about making music.

There's a host of songs the regulars all know, this weekend the selection included Bankrobber, Message to you Rudy, and a song about a holey bucket that I'm told is by the Alabama 3. This has a rousing chorus that is so simple, even the most musically illiterate person could pick it up straight away. The surprise ingredients are provided by different folks who come along each time. You never know what you'll be privileged to hear. This week there were a couple of talented pianists, and a young guitarist who came in near the end, asking if he had time to nip home for his banjo and his fiddle.

Every time I go to the jam, I fully intend to leave on the last train, at five past midnight. But once the music gets going, I don't want to be anywhere else. Closing time seems to vary according to how lively it is, this week the last of us stumbled out at around 1.30 am. And I did sing... Around midnight one of my favourite musicians turned up and took the piano for a spin. He plays by ear and can play pretty much anything. He seems to like my voice, so we muddled our way through Natural Woman, Second that Emotion (of which I know about one word in four), and The First Cut is the Deepest. The other musicians joined in, with percussion, sax, guitars, voices, you name it. Being at the centre of this musical storm is exhilarating; I jigged around like a woman possessed.

Communal music making can be a spiritual experience, it's uplifting. Human beings have gathered together to create in this way since the earliest days of our species. It's the deepest kind of sharing with each other (or just a fun thing to do when pissed, however you want to take it). Wouldn't it be great if, instead of watching the X factor, people got together, and made music themselves? At home, in the pub, knocking back a few ales and belting out the classics.

Last week a Rasta saved my life

Ok, that's not quite as cool a title as Last night a dj saved my life, but it's not bad. And it's true. I was on my way to meet friends at the Hootanany (sic) in Brixton, for their Rockoke night. (That's like karaoke but with a live band instead of a karaoke machine).

Anyhow, I was just about to cross a side road, when my attention was caught by a couple on the other side of the main road I was walking down, who seemed to be having a bit of a domestic. I should have paid more attention to where I was going, however, as at that moment, a BMW screeched around the corner and would have sent me flying, had not the Rastafarian standing next to me, also waiting to cross, grabbed my arm and pulled me back, saying "Careful sister, careful."

I didn't get chance to thank him as he legged after the BMW and jumped in. I wondered at first if he was actually some kind of guardian angel, but he turned up at the Hoot, working the door, and you don't get many angels moonlighting as security. Or maybe you do, who's to know? So I introduced myself, and bought him a drink (an orange juice, to my surprise, don't Rastas drink?) and went back to my friends. I did hesitate to go over, worried that he might have thought I was trying to chat him up, but felt that saying a simple thank you was the least I could do.

It was odd having my life saved by a complete stranger, I've only ever had my life saved by surgeons before, and it's kind of their job, so less surprising. There's an old, allegedly ancient Chinese proverb (I say allegedly as it's funny how often proverbs are claimed as ancient Chinese, I'm sure China can't have been the font of all folk wisdom). This proverb says if you save someone's life, you're responsible for them ever after. I don't know about that, but it did feel as if there's now a connection between me and this man. Spookily, when my train was cancelled and I went for the bus home, he was also standing at the bus stop, chatting with a friend, and even though it was dark and dodgy where I was waiting, I felt quite safe with him there.

And what of the Rockoke? Well, I didn't sing, as some of you will know I've been struggling with hoarseness due to my asthma inhalers, and I sound like Kermit the frog at the moment, only minus the American accent. But my friend Claire sang, and did a fine job with Valerie, despite the loudness of the backing band that made it very hard for her to hear herself. As for me, I just felt deeply envious that I couldn't get up and strut my stuff on the stage. Believe me, if/when I get my voice back, they'll know about it....

Wild Swimming

Apologies for the long gap since my last post, I've been dealing with the autumn blues. There's something about this time of year, the long crawl into winter, that tips me into melancholy. I've lived through enough of them now to recognise the pattern, if not the reasons why. But I'm now seeing signs of recovery, one of them the desire to write this blog again.

I've been meaning to blog since the August Bank Holiday, about wild swimming. For those unacquainted with this term, wild swimming is the art of swimming outdoors, basically in any body of water that isn't a swimming pool. It seems to be an increasingly popular past time, there are books about it (of which more later), and tv shows.

Of course, as my mate Ursy pointed out, wild swimming is nothing new. Indeed said friend and I, along with a couple of other mates, spent a holiday in the lake district the summer we left school. My best memory of that camping trip was swimming in a small lake below a waterfall, splashing around in one of nature's jacuzzis, feeling completely happy, if freezing cold.

I tend to jump into the sea whenever there's an opportunity, there's little to compare with floating on your back in a warm ocean, as the waves rock you gently like a baby in its cradle. But I've seldom swum in rivers. The first time I did this was in the river near Hornby in Lancashire, a beautiful spot bypassed by tourists as they head for the lakes. It was a gloriously hot day, and several of us headed out there from Lancaster, to a spot somebody or other knew about, where there was a little shingle beach at the side of the river, perfect for launching oneself on the water. I can still remember how amazing it felt to pootle up and down the river, listening to the birds and other critters, and getting close to a couple of stately swans.

It's interesting to speculate why the sudden increase in the popularity of wild swimming, maybe it's the word 'wild' itself, that appeals so strongly to those of us living urban lives, of whom there are far more than those fortunate enough to live in the countryside. There is wildness in the urban environment, if you are open to it. Squirrels, urban foxes on the prowl, wild flowers colonising derelict buildings. But are these glimpses of wildness enough for human beings? I don't think so.

To me, the wild is where you can be alone with the natural world, away from all the clamour and fuss of what we choose to call civilisation. So I decided to pursue wild swimming in a more regular way. I got a book for Christmas, Wild Swimming by Daniel Start, which is crammed with gorgeous pictures of ponds, lakes, rivers and the like, all just waiting to be jumped into.

But first, I had to buy a wetsuit. This took me some time to get around to, as there don't seem to be any wetsuit shops in my area of London. Anyhow, I finally bought one from a surf shop in Aberystwyth, and it had its first outing on August BH, when I took a dip in the river Medway. This is a spot mentioned in my wild swimming book, in between Penshurst and Leigh, at Ensfield Bridge.

To get there, we got off the train at Penshurst, had a delicious pub lunch at a great place called the Little Brown Jug, then walked for a few miles through a magical country park to the swimming spot. It was the perfect day, golden and warm(ish), and the walk alone would have been worth the trip.

Arriving by the bridge we searched for a spot to get down into the water. The banks are steep, but we found a place where they'd worn down enough to scramble in. I donned my wetsuit, and feeling as if I was about to undergo a sacred ritual, I edged gingerly into the peaty brown water.

It was bloody freezing! I'd worn a wetsuit before, but that was in the tropical waters near the Great Barrier Reef when we went snorkelling. I hadn't realised that wetsuits don't actually keep you that warm...but of course, as soon as I started swimming about, I felt much better. I can't say it was the most beautiful place I've ever swum, but I did enjoy it, I felt zingy and full of life.

I haven't been out again yet, I'm not that impressed by most of the nearest locations in the wild swimming book, and I'm looking forward to having the opportunity to swim somewhere truly wild. I'm longing to go to the lakes, or Wales, which is unlikely to be possible for some time. But I'd love to hear about any other wild swimming spots readers could recommend, as obviously my book won't have them all.

BTW, I did wonder whether I should included a photo of me in my wetsuit, but really, I don't think my ego could take it!

A tale of two seaside towns

We've been away for a week or so on our annual summer round of the relatives. Both Martin and I are from small, seaside towns, where our families still live. First of all we went to Southport, to visit all my lot. The place has changed immensely since I lived there. There's so much more to do now. I visit the town every few months, but for some reason the changes only sunk in during this visit. I took some of my nephews and nieces (there should be a collective noun for those!) out for the day, and most of the activities were new since my day. We went ten pin bowling, on the tram along the pier, on a boat on the marine lake, and had a rousing game of crazy golf. But it also struck me how expensive all these activities are, and how unlikely my nephews and nieces would be to take advantage of these regularly, given the cost. There should be some reduction for local people especially in the low season when the town is far from swarming with tourists.

Yet the increase in activities also means an increase in lowly paid seasonal jobs for young people; taking care of the boats, making hotdogs, waiting on tables, and even driving the tram down the pier. Hopefully, these opportunities will be available to my family when they're a little older.

The biggest change I've observed has been to the beach. Southport is known for it's long stretch of golden sand, upon which the sea seldom encroaches. It takes so long to wade out to it for a paddle that it's really not worth the effort. But now the shoreline is being transformed by clumps of grass taking root and turning the beach into land. It's distressing to see the beach disappear. I'd be somewhat consoled if I knew whether these developments are good for the environment, but I fear that they're not good for the town.

Aberystwyth, next stop on our summer tour, is a very different town. It's been immortalised in a series of comic books by Malcolm Pryce (Last Tango in Aberystwyth, The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth and so on). Despite its beauty, it does feel like an end of the line sort of place. The highlight of our summer visit is going to the summer show at the University's art centre. This year it was to see Chicago. The last few years the show has been directed by Michael Bogdanov, a well known director, but although he didn't work on this year's show, it was still a fun night out.

I've seen the show in the West End, and also the film, and while the dancing in Aber's version was not nearly so spectacular, the staging and costumes were excellent and the singing pretty good. Most fun was the casting of transvestite Elizabeth Diamond as Mama Morton, the go to person for any goodies to make a stay in prison more tolerable. Lawyer Billy Flynn was played by a real live American, which meant at least one of the accents in the show was relatively good.

We are currently all agog to see what the show will be next year, my bet is Grease. Will keep you posted.

No Shit Sherlock

Turn off your 'phones and your computers, ignore your loved ones, do whatever you have to do to ensure yourself an uninterrupted hour's viewing of BBC1's Sherlock Holmes on Sunday. It's the best tv drama I've seen in ages, aeons, and any other word you can think of that means a very long time indeed.

The brains behind the modernistation of Jekyll and Hyde last year have scored another winner with their modern day version of the classic Conan Doyle character, and unlike any other version I've seen, it actually makes me want to go back and read the original novels.

It's stuffed full of marvellous actors, the wonderfully named Benedict Cumberbatch (I know, sounds like a vicar from a Jane Austen novel, doesn't he?), Martin Freeman, and the woefully underused Una Stubbs does a comic turn as the duo's landlady. Not to mention Rupert Graves as the clueless Inspector Le Strade, and last week's villain, the lovely Phil Davis.

All the cast, but especially Freeman and Cumberbatch, play with an energy that shows they know this is the good shit. It's good to see Freeman play an everyman with a bit of an edge for a change, with his portrayal of the grumpy, post traumatic stress suffering Dr. Watson, and Cumberbatch is a revelation. I last saw him as a nerdy IT genius in some nonsense about government surveillance and a rampant man made virus, on BBC1 last year. But his sociopathic Sherlock, with flowing Byronesque coiffure, is knee weakeningly hot stuff. He could show Luther a thing or two about deduction...

The pace is fast and assured, with fantastic hurdy gurdy accompanying music that evokes Victorian London. There are new televisual touches too, with text messages and Holmes' deductive reasoning displayed on the screen for the viewer to share. There's even a website, www.thescienceofdeduction.co.uk which is worth a look.

My only concern (a minor one after just one episode) is that all the flash and swagger overtakes the plots, this Sherlock needs a challenge, and stories that unfurl over two or three episodes, not the detective story equivalent of a Guardian quick crossword.

But all in all, my brain fizzed with ideas and energy after watching this show, the way it does when inspired by television/cinematic fabulousness (so not too often then...). As I said at the start, don't miss it, you'll be amply rewarded. It's elementary, my dears.

Corsica

It's surprising how much French you can learn watching a footy match with a French commentary. Our arrival in Corsica for our summer holiday coincided with the World Cup final, in front of which we collapsed with a bottle of local plonk. Additions to my vocab included 'contre attaque' (counter attack), 'un frappe' (a shot on goal) and 'hors jeu' (offside). Unfortunately none of these proved particularly useful during the rest of the week.

Corsica is a gorgeous island, with masses of lovely sandy beaches, clear seas and stunning mountains, all of which we thoroughly enjoyed. It was surprisingly green, with trees and flowers everywhere. Meadows are covered with what is known as the Maquis, a pungent mixture of wild herbs including rosemary and oregano. Corsica also the birth place of Napoleon Bonaparte, but apart from a few plastic statues at the airport and a Rue Bonaparte in a town we visited, this didn't seem to be particularly celebrated.

Highlights of the hol included a boat trip to a blue grotto, a welcome refuge from the heat of the day, and a walk in the Col de Bavela, a mountain pass with awe inspiring views, including the Bavela Needles, granite formations which do indeed look like needles. I was also dragged around the Corsican version of Stonehenge, at place called Filitosa where prehistoric menhirs have been excavated and are now on display. They are alleged to have faces but they looked more like giant phalluses to me. But the place did have an eerie vibe, enhanced by the orchestral music piped out around the site.

We were there for Bastille day, and joined the locals of Porte Vecchio in celebrating, by wandering around the pavement cafes and bars, listening to bad live music and not watching fireworks (scroll right to the bottom of this page to see a photo) . We joined hundreds of others waiting down by the harbour for the firework display, which despite much tooting of boat horns, did not materialise. We learned later that there'd been a fire nearby which had demanded the services of the local fire engines, which presumably resulted in the fireworks being called off.

And what was my holiday reading? Well, I entertained myself on the beach with Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry, which has been out a while in hardback but has only recently been issued in paperback. It was an ok holiday read, despite being 400 and odd pages I whizzed through it due to the very large print. It's undemanding enough, if depressing, featuring as its main location Highgate cemetery, and various ghosts, including one of a kitten which I found very upsetting. I don't think it's a patch on The Time Traveler's Wife, either in terms of the plot or the depth of the characterisation. Must be hard to follow up such a world wide best selling smash though, let's hope I get to find that out for myself one day...