Author: Rob

Writer. Film-maker. Cartoonist. Cook. Lover.

A Sort Of Anniversary, I Suppose

I don’t know what drew me back to Blogger last night. I changed this place over to WordPress in 2007, pulling over most of the archive over in the process, and have had little cause for complaint. I barely even consider the early years. Nonetheless, I logged in, to find a surprise.

According to the Dashboard, I joined Blogger back in April 2001. Which makes this my tenth year of writing and publishing online. Good grief.

The problem is, I have no way of proving it. In a dick move that I could only ever pull on myself, The Ugly Truth is open to invited readers only. I am not on that select list. I’ve somehow managed to lock myself out of my own blog.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that I joined Blogger and began writing straight away. I have vague recollections of a couple of false starts, vague entreaties of impressive future content followed by months of silence. The Ugly Truth (named after a Matthew Sweet song, not the godawful Katherine Heigl/Gerard Butler romcom) was my first serious attempt at a blog, and was closer to a Tumblr than the polished new-content machine you enjoy today. There were a lot of links, and the occasional stab at something heartfelt. It was intermittently updated at best, and no different to a thousand other sites out there. It was, of all things, a post by Warren Ellis on the need for original content that inspired me to ditch that approach and, once Blogger no longer suited my needs, the move to WordPress under a new name.

I have no record of any of this. The earliest post in my archives dates to December 2004, which means my early attempts are lost to the aether. I’m content in this. It’s no great loss to the world of blogs.

But the Blogger years were a start, and they led me here. I think all I can say with any certainty is that April 2011 marks the ten-year anniversary of my intention to blog. And that’s got to be worth something. I suppose. Hasn’t it?

The Sunday Lao Tzu: Travel

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.

I’ve thought a lot over the last few days about Gimpo, Iain Sinclair and the M25. By viewing the London Orbital less as a way to get from one place to the other, and more as a space in which you can explore other, less defined territories, it can lead you on a journey where the destination becomes a sense of inner understanding.

Gimpo has often said that he wants to find out where the M25 goes. It’s a less foolish question than it sounds. His trips around the road can be very clearly seen as a vision quest, as a route into the dreamtime. Once you ignore the exits, once you shrug off the distractions, then your true path can become much clearer.

Just A Kiss, or My Gaff, My Rules: The John Snow Falls Out Of Love

No, honestly, I've seen this sign at the JS. I just never realised it was the house rules. The facts, as far as we can ascertain, are plain. Two people, out on a first date in Soho, allow the moment to take them and have their first kiss. The landlord of the pub they have chosen for this sweet little moment, The John Snow, tells them to stop. Later that evening, they kiss again, and at this point they are told to leave by the landlady. One of the pair, Jonathan Williams, chose to vent his anger about the event on Twitter. Which is when the whole thing exploded. Because Jonathon and his date, James Bull, are gay.

The John Snow closed on Friday night, as a 400-strong protest snogathon took place outside. Another one is scheduled for next Thursday, and it’ll be interesting to see if the pub shuts again. Frankly, I doubt it. The point’s already been made, and the damage has been done. The management of The John Snow have managed to make themselves notorious in one night. Any arguments about whether Thomas Paget and his staff are homophobic are supplementary to one simple fact. A pub is a place to have fun. If the staff of said pub stop you having fun, then there’s a big problem.

Should Jonathon and his date, James Bull, have simply taken their business elsewhere? Perhaps, but I personally think they were right to stick to their guns and stay put. They weren’t doing anything wrong. Posting about it on Twitter was also fair enough. Jonathon was right to point out that the staff of The John Snow are anti-fun. Caitlin Moran made an excellent point:

http://twitter.com/caitlinmoran/status/58925915819872256

Everything else that happened was a result of people on Twitter, Facebook and the press picking up on the story and organising. It’s not fair to say that Jonathan and James overstated the issue or portrayed themselves as victims. In the same position (I know I can’t be, but indulge me for the sake of argument) I probably would have run away – but I also would have boycotted the pub and bitched about the incident on every social network to which I belong.

Any pub that has rules against PDA (the illustration above is indeed on display in the JS) is not worth the bother. If the “house rules” prohibit snogging on the premises, that’s bad enough. If those rules prohibit gay snogging, then there’s legislation in place that makes that stance not just unacceptable but illegal, and in a worst case scenario, Paget could be up on charges. That’s unlikely to happen, but I bloody hope it’s front and centre in his thoughts at the moment.

I wonder if the reputation of the John Snow has been badly damaged now. It’s not as if they’re the only pub in Soho, and there is much talk on the Twitters of boycott. Meanwhile, Paget and the owners of the chain to which the pub belongs are silent on the issue. That’s as silly as the initial stance. Soho is not the place to allow an anti-gay rep to fester.

I’ve always seen the John Snow as a bit of a dump, and haven’t been through the doors of the place in years. That’s not likely to change after the dramas of the last few days. There are plenty of other places to get a drink within a two-minute walk, and the last time I looked, none of them were chucking people out for showing a little affection.

(pub sign via David Schneider)

A Ring, A Tree and Yuan Fen: How We Interviewed Iain Sinclair

The second filmed interview in a week led docoDom and I to Hackney. This one would be a big deal. As part of the M25 Spin documentation, Dom had somehow snagged a chat with Iain Sinclair, acclaimed author and, for our purposes, writer of probably the best book about the ring around the capital, London Orbital. It would be a long, tense, but massively rewarding day.

Continue reading A Ring, A Tree and Yuan Fen: How We Interviewed Iain Sinclair

The Wednesday Photo: Age Of Steam

Not the sort of thing you normally see at commuter o’ clock on a Wednesday morning. This old beauty huffed through Reading Station, her Pullman carriages full to the gunwales with people eating breakfast and looking very satisfied with themselves. It was all very pretty, and something of a good omen for the day that was to follow. Of which more tomorrow.

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Further notes from our transport correspondent, Richard Betts:

“Clan Line is an ex British Railways “Pacific” Class (4-6-2) steam locomotive owned and maintained to mainline standard by the Merchant Navy Locomotive Preservation Society. She is based in London at Stewarts Lane Depot, and she returned to steam in November 2006 after a major overhaul which took five and a half years to complete.”

See, you learn stuff reading X&HT, whether you want to or not.

Blood In The Gutter: A Comics Noir Primer

If you’re a fan of noir, if you like your crime tales bleak and nihilistic, if you like your movies to be in black and white, and your morals to be all shades of grey, then there are some comics that you should know about. See, crime stories were a news-stand staple long before the capes and masks came over the rooftops and camped up the joint. You could get your fix of guns, broads and hard-faced men making bad decisions in the newspapers. The true crime comics vied with Warren and EC’s horror titles for pure visceral, authority-baiting thrills. And that tradition carries on today with writers and artists across the planet giving us stories that hit hard and stay put.
Continue reading Blood In The Gutter: A Comics Noir Primer

Monday Fiction: Margaret’s God

Dredged up from the archives. I wrote this a while back, as a response to some of the tired old arguments about immigration. It’s an alternative history that takes some of the history of Catholic oppression around the Elizabethan era, tied in with a worst-case scenario exploration of what might have happened if Margaret Thatcher had stayed in power. Bit of a mishmash, and there are holes big enough to sail a barge through, but the passion of the piece is genuine, and remains so.

Contains swears and intimations of concentration camp nastiness. NSFW.

 

Continue reading Monday Fiction: Margaret’s God

The Sunday Lao Tzu: Creative

Great indeed is the sublimity of the Creative, to which all beings owe their beginning and which permeates all heaven.

I choose to misinterpret the koan above, which might also be subject to a mistranslation. The Creative, to my mind, is the urge to create. If you tap into The Creative, then your life is irrevocably changed for the better. You access something greater than you know, and become capable of feats that are frankly astonishing. The Creative is the reason I write every day, and feel tetchy and nervous if I somehow skip the task. I am guided towards friendships and relationships with people who have also tasted the Creative: film-makers, artists, musicians. Being one with the Creative opens your eyes and heart to a bigger, brighter world.

Maybe I didn’t misinterpret master Lao after all.