ramblin’ – Page 33 – EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

The Friday Foto: Rules Of The Library

“I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, nor to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.”

All sounds fair enough to me. This is the Radcliffe Camera, part of the Bodleian Library. One of the oldest in Europe, the main depository for the University Of Oxford, and one of those buildings that gives Oxford it’s Harry Potter vibe. The quote above is the formal declaration for new readers, which has to be recited out loud in a ceremony at Michelmas before they’ll let you near the books.

And people wonder why I get swoony about libraries. I’d happily swear an oath of fealty to mine!

The Fursday Photo: Palace

The Regent Palace Hotel, just off London’s bustling Piccadilly Circus, was a place that was part of my early life in Soho. Sadly, three years ago it was discovered to be riddled with asbestos, and the venerable building was condemned.

The land is now part of the new Quadrant development that’s in the final stages of completion. The tangle of streets and shops that tuck in behind Regent Street and Piccadilly have always been something of a hidden treasure, so it’s nice to see a new attraction to draw people in. I’m also pleased to see that the old facade has survived, and it’s scrubbed up well, doncha think?

And yes, it has been cropped and framed to look as much like a Victorian spaceship firing up it’s main engine as possible. Couldn’t help myself.

The Limits Of Science

Sometimes you just have to take the opportunities that are offered to you. Thus, I found myself escorting TLC and MadamWDW to the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, to hear Lord Rees of Ludlow deliver the annual Romanes Lecture. I am, apparently, cultured.

Continue reading The Limits Of Science

Joy Unconfined

I love a wedding. Any excuse to get dressed up and drink too much and dance like a fool. Friday saw us at a lovely hotel in the heartlands of the country, at the nuptials of TLC’s mum and her long-time beau.

It was one of the most joyful occasions I’ve ever been to, and I’ve not laughed so hard or so freely at a social occasion in a long time. The bride was consumed in fits of giggles through the ceremony, and I’m still not convinced that she repeated all the vows. Once the papers were signed, the bride and groom danced back down the aisle (I’m taking the blame for that; I did, after all, show them the JK Wedding Dance). The first dance was livened up by the bride going a-over-t during an attempt at a pirhouette. And I don’t even think she’d been drinking that much up to that point.
And yes we danced and yes we drank and yes we laughed. And yes we chased off a bunch of wedding crashers and yes we all had headaches the next morning. But oh my word, you want something like that to be memorable, and this is a wedding that will live on for quite some time. You sometimes forget that a solemn occasion doesn’t have to be without joy.

Pam, Joe, the future is yours. That’s one hell of a way to kick it off.

Paint Under Skin: On Becoming A Graffiti Artist

Making graffiti is like playing the guitar. It’s very easy to pick up and do very, very badly. Getting it right and creating something that people might find pleasant to the eye takes a lot of skill and practice. I discovered this for myself when that damned elusive DocoBanksy lured me down to the free-spray zone at Leake Street, near Waterloo, to do a bit of promo work for his film.

Turns out he had a much more realistic idea of his skill level and the likely end result than I did.

Continue reading Paint Under Skin: On Becoming A Graffiti Artist

Tales Of The Beeranauts: Very Merry Men

The Beeranauts have been pretty quiet this year. The Great British Beer Festival had to manage without us, and it was a minor contingent that made it to the London Drinker gathering back in the spring. Apart from that, nish since Battersea. A bit of a poor show, frankly.

We made up for that on Friday, with a trip up to Nottingham for the Robin Hood Festival. Held in the grounds of lovely Nottingham Castle, it’s perhaps the biggest British Beer Festival after the Earl’s Court spectacular. And it’s far and away the best.

Continue reading Tales Of The Beeranauts: Very Merry Men

Legacy

I’m really not sure how I should be feeling today. I’m sad, of course, as anyone should be where they hear of a life cut too short, when there was still so much left to do. But at the same time, I have to say the sadness is tinged with admiration. The legacy that he has left is one of the most influential on the planet. Even if you don’t own one of the products that made the company that he founded, left and then resurrected, you’re pretty likely to have used devices that he had a major hand in popularising. He didn’t invent the Graphical User Interface, the mouse, or the tablet computer, or the hard drive music player. All he did was make them easier and more intuitive to use. And in doing so, he changed the technological landscape of the late 20th and early 21st century.

His influence is everywhere – in the design, colours and finish of hundreds and thousands of products that he had nothing to do with. In the way we consume music, TV and films. He is the driving force behind one of the most innovative and consistently surprising film studios on the planet. His company could make headlines not just by launching a product, but by allowing rumours of those products to circulate.

I find it impossible to write about him in the past tense, because he’s still around – when I lift the lid of my laptop, when I pick up my phone. He’s part of the technological, social and artistic landscape, and always will be. That’s a legacy that we should all wish for.

The point is, I can write this piece without mentioning his name once, and you all know who I’m talking about.

From Here To Hilversum

I try not to talk about work on X&HT, which is in general a solid rule for most bloggers. But this is too cool not to share.

That cool chunk of Lego is the Beeld & Geluid (Sound and Vision) building, in a leafy town called Hilversum about a twenty minute train ride from Amsterdam. It’s the home of Dutch radio and television, and contains all the archives of getting on for 100 years of broadcast history.

The building is just as remarkable on the inside – five stories high and five deep. As well as the archive, it’s home to a huge multimedia museum. The glass wall here has imprinted pictures of Dutch stars of stage and both big and small screen.

These pods contain the contestants of Last Man Watching, a competition where you watch TV until your brains leak out of your ears. It had been running for about 30 hours when I visited. Loads of people had dropped out at the 24 hour mark. Not a sign of the limits of human endurance – if you make it that far you get a free TV.

It’s a fascinating place, and well worth a trip out if only to marvel at a building that’s like a supervillain’s lair if only they were really into Dutch film and TV.

Of course, it was important to find time for a spot of refreshment before we headed back…

Two Mornings

In the South of France, docoDomsy sets up a time-lapse shot before a day on his promo project for Mas De Calage, a local winery.

Meanwhile, I take my place amongst the flood of people pouring through London Paddington, facing another day at work.

The Women: Genre And Gender

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Horror, SF and fantasy, according to common knowledge, are not female friendly genres. Bad enough that the prototypical image of the genre fan is the sweaty overweight dysfunctional geek – that’s hardly representative. By making that image male, the picture is distorted even further away from the true. As a regular visitor to Frightfest, I’m happy to confirm the large number of women that attend that are just as vocal in their enjoyment of the movies as the men. The authors of the two biggest fantasy franchises on the planet are women – JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer. Common knowledge is, as is usually the case, bass ackwards from the truth.

However, the depiction of women in SF, fantasy and horror needs a refresh. There are still far too many victims out there, female analogues waiting to be rescued or assaulted. When kickass women do appear, they’re frequently Buffy clones or, in the case of Hitgirl, children. It’s either that or the avenging angel of I Spit On Your Grave or Ms. 45. The wronged as killing machine, using their femininity as a weapon or a cloak from which to strike out at their abusers. It’s an old, tired tale.

I’ve seen a couple of movies lately that change that sorry state of affairs. Both films feature strong, uncompromising central performances from their lead actors, and both explicitly reject the myth of the female as victim in genre films.

Pedro Almadovar’s The Skin I Live In has a cool, controlled surface. Underneath that, lunacy boils and writhes. I need to be careful here. The central conceit on which the plot pivots is not one that should be easily spoiled, and it’s one that threatens to derail my whole argument before I even get started (feel free to give me a kicking in the comments).The film is part Pygmalion, part Frankenstein, part Eyes Without A Face. It tells a common genre tale – the mad scientist attempting to cheat God and death by resurrecting a lost love. Antonio Banderas is suitably driven and remorseless as the plastic surgeon, rebuilding a burn victim in the image of his dead wife. But all is not as it seems with the beautiful Vera. Played by Elena Amaya (pictured left) with a mix of vulnerability and shocking power, she seems at first barely human. A mannequin, meek before her master’s demands. As we discover her past, and all she has lost at the hands of Banderas, Vera shrugs off the weakness, becoming something fierce and strong. Her own creation, transcending the scientist’s plans, remade by sheer force of will. She ends the film as her own woman.

Lucky Mckee’s The Woman, which had it’s UK premiere at Frightfest, tells a similar tale, then rebuilds it from the bones up. A feral woman is discovered and captured by a suburban lawyer, who plans to “civilise” her. He locks her in an outhouse, hoses her off and dresses her in clothes with easy release fastenings. It’s clear what his intentions are from the beginning. Yet the Woman of the title, played with ferocious magnetism by Pollyanna Mackintosh, is no victim. She will never succumb to him, and is content to wait as the lawyer’s family collapses under the weight of revelation that her arrival sparks. Her release, and her revenge, are inevitable. Part monster, part hero, the Woman is never less than the mistress of her own destiny.

Frightfest was a bit of a showcase for this cliche-busting approach this year, with films like Susan Jacobson’s The Holding (with yet another fine central performance from Keirston Wareing) showing how genre doesn’t have to mean generic when it comes to gender. This is a good start, but we shouldn’t be complacent. Although I started this post in a bullish mood about equality in the realm of the fantastick, we’ve had a summer where DC Comics’ big relaunch was marred by the realisation that there were hardly any female creators on board, and a call from author Juliet Mckenna to promote equality in genre writing. There’s a way to go before we can get the balance right, but as Juliet points out, SF, fantasy and horror have always questioned unthinking prejudice and the status quo. Films like The Woman and The Holding are encouraging indeed, pointing the way to new, strong voices and bold, uncompromising stories.