While I was away, I was taking video of some of our adventures in Norfolk, and I’d like to share some of them with you, oh Readership.
First up, a record of a day spent at Pensthorpe Nature Reserve. It’s best known as the home of BBC Springwatch, but it’s a cracking day out at any time of year. We were lucky and timed our visit with the arrival of the 2010 batch of chicks. This led to an amusing standoff between us and a particularly protective goose on a narrow stretch of path. The goose won, that’s all I’m saying.
Nice plumage
We were also lucky enough to spot Packham and Humble in the wild!
Replace "Ron Paul" with "Fabio Capello", and you have a large majority of British male Twitterers
Fandom is an ugly, messy, partisan, tribal business. Pledging allegiance to a team, sport, film, TV show, actor or band is tantamount to drawing a magic circle around oneself, and becoming involved in the fan network wrapped about your chosen totem of desire can invoke all kinds of trouble.
I’m no football fan, as readers of my most recent posts should now be well aware. But I know fandom in all it’s perverse glory, and observers of human behaviour have a petri dish seething with activity to enjoy. I’ve become interested in the way the fans, most specifically the England fans, are acting during the World Cup – or rather, how they’re being told to behave and how they’re taking that advice.
The flags are everywhere. That simple red cross on white has become a unifying banner under which lesser tribes can unite for a few weeks. Notice how a lot of the England flags in the stadiums of South Africa will have local team names emblazoned across the middle (I saw a Reading one the other day, which gave me a bright shock of recognition) making the point that there are many tribes gathering under the one flag. Old enemies will set aside their grievances for a while in order to do all they can to aid the common good. It all starts to look almost medieval – the face paint, the battle horns, the war-chants. It’s the old SF saw of war being subsumed into sport, with corporations as the only true winner. Makes me want to watch Rollerball again. (The good one. The James Caan one.)
And then there’s the whole ENGLAND EXPECTS bit. Churchill, Shakespeare and Blake all have their finest words and phrases mashed up as rancid headline fodder. Wayne Rooney is wrapped in a flag and plastered over the front page of the Sun on the day of the England-Algeria game. The headline declares “OUR FINEST HOUR.” The fans are given to EXPECT GREAT THINGS, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The sad fact that our team has not lived up to expectations for forty-four years is glossed-over, hand-waved away. This time, it’ll be different.
Which is, to my mind, a lot like the Star Trek franchise. Endlessly fussed and fossicked over, each new iteration and re-invention held up as the one, the return to greatness, forget all that other rubbish, remember 1966, here we go, make it so. The fans dress like their idols, wear all the shirts, put on the face-paint (admittedly, for Star Trek fans this is a bit more complex than two red slashes on a white ground) and, somewhere in the back of their minds, get ready for disappointment.
Ah, the '66 kit. CLASSIC.
I guess the JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot is then akin to England winning the World Cup. People didn’t quite know how to react when it turned out to be quite good. It was almost a shock to be confronted with something that didn’t look tired and old. Delight was mixed in with genuine surprise.
We can therefore compare the reaction to England’s performance against Algeria to a crowd who, instead of seeing the Abrams Trek, were confronted with an episode of season three of Voyager. Lame, uncertain, confused and above all BORING.
Rooney’s reaction to the boos that rang out around the pitch at the end of the nil-nil draw say a lot about the England Expects attitude, and how easy it is for an exalted figure to face the wrath of his foes. England Expects cuts both ways. We are couched to see our team as conquering heroes, incapable of defeat. When we are instead presented with a fumbling and inadequate display, we are unlikely to be in the mood to listen to excuses about climate, the kind of ball that’s being used, or the distractions of thousands of trumpets honking in B-flat. These are all actually perfectly legitimate reasons for poor performance, and for all they get paid, the England players are not superhuman. However they have been led to expect unwavering and above all uncritical support, especially during international matches. The press, the management, the PR, all geared towards making them feel unbeatable. They are not here to empathise with fans who have sacrificed an awful lot to be with their team in South Africa this summer. As far as the team is concerned, the fans are simply there, as they are always there, and their role in the game is to cheer. If they don’t – well, things start to fall apart.
The discovery that the object of your adoration is not only human, but not a very nice human is one that most fans will encounter at some point. Whether it be a brusque refusal for an autograph, or acting counter to the way the fan thinks that you should, the actors, sportspersons and musicians on which so much adulation is stacked are in constant danger of royally pissing off a chunk of their following. When they do, they seem surprised and a little hurt. It simply isn’t done for the fans to show disappointment. This comes out of a profound misunderstanding of the whole relationship. The fans do not know the star. The star cannot know the fans. They are involved in a parasitic relationship, fulfilling a need rather than entering into any kind of deeper understanding of each other. Not that either side would encourage it. That would defeat the object of the agreement. The gods need their worshippers as much as the worshippers need their gods.
Aaaany excuse.
The internet has, of course, intensified the whole scenario. Fans can now talk to each other, organising and gathering into communities as rich and diverse as their focus is narrow and intense. Many tribes and viewpoints under one banner, each putting aside their individual differences. For a while, at least, until someone says something they shouldn’t and the battle lines get drawn up. Occasionally the object of devotion will appear. This would be akin to royalty strolling into a tavern for a tankard with the proles. It’s all very exciting, but doesn’t feel llke a genuine gesture of kinship. It’s like drinking with the Prince Of Wales. It would get real uncomfortable real fast. It’s a rare celebrity that has the ability to communicate with their fans directly and without corporate bullshit. Amanda Palmer springs to mind, and probably Wil Wheaton (although he’s carved out a name for hisself above and beyond the whole Star Trek thing, becoming a bona fide geek celeb). But these guys use the connection as much as it uses them, building a fan base and therefore cashflow out of this open relationship. Amanda especially works ferociously hard at this, building a career out of guerilla gigs and selling her records online.
The mainstream, and footballers in particular, don’t do it at all. They have no need. The huge online footie communities rage and conspire as usual, but have the ability to vent their frustrations in a direct and vocal means at their objects of devotion, every Saturday at grounds around the country. Football chants are the most immediate and to-the-minute way for fans to communicate how they feel straight at the players, at full volume. Any gaffe, affair or poor run of play will be met with incisive commentary and vicious humour. You simply won’t get any of that on the Twilight boards. Whether the footballers get a lot of what’s being said is another question.
Fandom, then, is an abusive relationship in which both sides are using each other, lashing out and making up in equal part, yelling at each other without really understanding what the other side has to say. At the same time it’s a focus for kinship, friendship, creativity and community. The boards are places where you can be unafraid of your likes, your urges. They are places where you can discover that you are not only not alone, but there are thousands if not millions of people around the world who think like you, like the same bands, and have the same picture on their wall or as a computer desktop. Fandom is, was, and always shall be, regardless of the figure that is praised.
I’ve used a lot of phrases like “worship”, “devotion” and “idol”, and it’s deliberate. The parallels between religion and fandom are strong. They both focus on unknowable, fantastic creatures who move in rarified circles beyond and above those of the people that follow them. They promise much, and rarely deliver. But no matter how badly or indifferently they are treated, the fans will always be there, always loyal, always devoted.
Up until England get knocked out tomorrow, anyway…
(And look, while we’re on the subject. The phrase Come On, England has a comma in it. Otherwise, it’s an exhortation to ejaculate on a field in Kent. It’s the LANGUAGE, people! Let’s use it like we know it!)
I’ve heard a lot about “The World Cup” over the last few weeks, and it sounds like a bit of a hoot, so I thought I’d give it a go last night, especially as our national team were playing. They seem like a fine bunch of lads according to the papers, upstanding, moral and intelligent.
And do you, know, I enjoyed it. It’s a much more subtle game than I had anticipated, and it took me a while to figure out the gameplay and scoring. Here’s my understanding of it – please do let me know if I’ve got anything wrong.
There are two teams of ten men, and two stewards or “goal keepers”, whose job is to tend to a wooden frame with a net strung across it. The purpose of the game is to get a ball close to the net without it going in – if there is a danger of this happening, then the “goal keepers” are on hand to save the day. These two gentlemen, resplendent in purple and yellow, did sterling service, and the unqualified disaster of the ball touching the net remained unfulfilled.
To make the job more difficult for the players, the ball itself seems to be under some form of radio control, perhaps directed by the flag-wielding opposition lined up around the arena. Certainly, the players seemed to have problems in controlling the ball, and seemed to be forever tripping over it or missing it entirely.
The game ended in a perfect nothing to nothing score, with which everyone must have been very pleased. The game seems to be an enactment of the quest for nirvana, or nothingness, a struggle that ends with a greater understanding of the void in which we all must toil. The ongoing musical accompaniment by a troupe of trumpeters added a further meditative air to proceedings.
It was, on the whole, a most relaxing and thoughtful way to spend a couple of hours. It makes a refreshing change from the game it most resembled, “foot ball”, with much less emphasis on the Western bias towards competitiveness and “winning”.
I’m in a little cottage in the middle of nowhere. It’s just me, TLC, lotsa beer and food and books and a thin whisper of a phone signal. Barely enough to let me blog on the phone. So updates will be short and intermittent until we can get back onto a wi-fi network at the weekend. Meantime, I’m using the time usefully, working on the third draft of a script, starting to dig into a rewrite of Pirates, and making another of my minute-long shorts. Keep an eye on the Twitter feed for up-to-the-minute word on my doings, including my attempt to work through every Norfolk-brewed beer. Which believe me, is going to be a tough prospect as there are at least sixty available. Craft brewing up here is undergoing a renaissance, which is good news for me and bad news for my liver.
See you when I get back.
Me, every single time I'm confronted with a football.
In 2006, I made my position absolutely clear about the World Cup. I wasn’t interested. I was aggressively uninterested. I actually walked away from a couple of conversations when they started to vector in towards discussions of Beckham’s metatarsals. I posted a big sign on the door of my suite at work, a long screed in florid prose. I considered myself the geek equivalent of Martin Luther, birthing a new and radical third way through my protest.
The end result was pretty much what you’d expect. People thought that I’d either flipped out, or that this was the first sign of a new anti-football policy at the lab. My sign seemed a little too official for it’s own good. I was approached by several colleagues, concerned that this was the thin edge of a wedge that would cut internet privileges and outside phone calls. I tried to explain that this was my way of protesting about the pervasive nature of the game, and the way it just got into everything. I was told to get a grip, find a spine and stop whining. This was for one month every four years, after all.
My arguments withered on dry ground. I gave up, took down my sign, and in a gesture of goodwill donated a pound to the office sweepstakes. Taking myself down a peg. A little monetary sacrifice.
I drew Italy, and won £50.
A lesser person would have crowed and flaunted this, celebrating the victory of the geek over the footy-loving majority. But I’d made enough of an arsehole of myself by then. I quietly donated the cash to Sport Relief, and walked away from the whole experience, treating it as a lesson learnt. I had been a passive-aggressive jerk, and I got what I deserved.
Consequently, I’m staying quiet this year. I nod and smile at the work conversations on the state of the teams before gently steering them back towards a subject in which I have an opinion. I embrace the cheap beer and grub offers, and remember to stay away from the pubs with the big screen tellys (actually, this is a rule of thumb that works well at all times of year for me).
The World Cup becomes a month-long retreat for people like me. It’s a time to catch up on your reading, on those DVDs you always meant to watch but are still on the shelf in their cellophane. It’s a time to write, to think, to keep the telly off. The choices offered by the mainstream media seem to be either the footie or the chick-flick/reality show equivalent. I do not identify as a World Cup Widow, I’m afraid.
That’s fine, though. I’m happy to be ignored. It just gives me more time to watch, and think, and write.
Coming up: football, fandom and why sports geeks are still geeks.
There are some bands who I will never miss whenever they play the UK. It becomes something of a duty. There are exceptions to the rule, of course. Some of the bands I really love have become so huge that they will only play either tiny fan club gigs that only the message board fanatic has a chance of getting into, or bloated ugly stadium gigs. Which explains how I missed REM’s appearances last year. Glastonbury? No, thanks.
Crowded House still manage to get the balance right. They’re doing Hyde Park later this summer, supporting Thumbs-Aloft McCartney, but are ramping up for that enormo-gig with a romp through the sort of comfortably sized venues that really suit their approach to the material and the fan base.
To Oxford, then, and the charming New Theatre. TLC and I had seen the Finn Brothers here a few years back, and missed the encore to catch the last train. This time round, we drove. Well, TLC drove. I enjoyed the ride. We didn’t want to miss a minute of this one.
Support came from Connan Mockasin, a quirky New Zealander with a blonde mop (mirrored cutely by his band, which included Neil’s youngest son Elroy, all wearing Deirdre Barlow wigs), a Strat cut down to look like a Vox Teardrop and a great line in angular surrealist psych-pop. It was a brave choice of support, and could have gone down like a cup of cold sick. I’m reminded of Goldfrapp in full horse-headed dancer mode opening for Duran Duran on their last stadium tour, a move that lead to much consternation amidst the Lambrini brigade that had come along for nostalgia and ended up with songs about sex on ghost trains. But Connan’s wit and charm, as well as the skill of everyone concerned in switching between squalls and whoops of noise and locked-in motorik groove, won the day. I recommend checking out Forever Dolphin Love if nothing else.
Crowded House are on a roll at the moment. Neil Finn reformed the band in 2006 with the clear intention of writing and playing new songs. This is no greatest hits package. They’re in the UK touring Intriguer, the second album of new material, and to my mind they’ve never sounded better. Even though Intriguer isn’t out till next week (clearly a fubar by the record company, and a bit of a sore subject for Neil, who made the point that you could buy the support act’s record at the merch stand, but not the headliners) the new songs have a warmth and instant familiarity to them. There’s no radical change in direction here, but thought and care has been taken to update the sound while hanging onto the hooks and harmonies that make you smile. Intriguer is full of songs that will sneak into your thoughts and curl up, purring gently.
Sure, with a back catalouge of such range and quality there’s going to be a lot of sing-along moments. That is kind of the point to a Crowdie gig. Calling it audience participation doesn’t really do the feeling justice. There’s a real sense of communication between the band and the room, and the moments of polka, the banter (what happened to the goose?) and the point where Neil had the whole audience humming a perfect E minor are par for the course. The balance of new to familiar material was perfectly judged, and even the oldies were played around with enough to keep them interesting without doing the Dylan thing of rendering them unrecognisable. But the most important thing about a Crowded House gig is a sense of community, of communion. I know fans of any band will say the same, but I can’t think of any big names connecting with an audience in the same way that Crowded House manage so effortlessly. An audience united in a love of songs set in a private universe where dreams and reality blur and merge, and where sex is a primary, almost religious force.
We drove back from Oxford through dark and winding roads, voices hoarse from an evening of hollering along with some of our favourite songs. The skies ahead of us glowed, matching our contentment.
Crowded House are touring the UK through June. The new album Intriguer is out on June 11th, and is available for preorder now through all the usual outlets. Go get.
Busy week, is all. Tell you what, let me tell you a little story.
A guy saves up a small fortune to fulfill his girlfriend’s desire to go on a long cruise. The day before they’re supposed to set sail, she tells him that she’s been cheating on him for the last six months and it’s over between them and she’s moving out.
Well, figures the guy, the tickets are non-refundable. Even though I hate cruises, I might as well go, maybe I’ll meet someone.
About three days into the cruise, the vessel strikes a piece of giant coral which somehow knocks a hole in the hull. Everyone drowns but the guy, who manages to wash ashore on a deserted island.
Months go by. Day by day he learns more about the island: what to eat, which plants are poisonous and which plants are useful, when the best time to catch the fish is, etc. He spends his evenings on the beach watching the sunset, and if it’s an ultimately lonely life, he feels like, for the first time ever, he’s been given the opportunity for honest self-reflection, and he finds that somewhat rewarding.
One night, as he’s watching the sun set, he sees a ship in the distance. Using the tools he’s constructed while on the island, he fires off a flare. As the boat comes closer he starts to think about how much he’s changed in his time alone, and how difficult it might be to return to society. As all this goes through his head, the boat strikes the same piece of giant coral that his own boat struck so many months ago. Every passenger drowns, except one who washes ashore on the island.
Amazingly, it’s Scarlett Johannsen.
She’s beat up as hell, but the guy already knows all the healing properties of the fauna on the island. Slowly but steadily he nurses her back to health, until she’s fully recovered. As the months go by, nature takes its course, and they become intimate with each other. The first flush of new love is so strong that they often talk about how lucky they are to be all alone in this beautiful remote paradise.
One night, as they’re sitting by fire, finishing dinner, the guy looks up at Scarlett, somewhat sheepishly.
“Red,” he says, “I’m going to ask you to do something for me. It’s very important to me, but I understand if it might make you feel strange or uncomfortable and you don’t want to do it.”
“Are you kidding?” she responds. “You saved my life. Everything I’ve done since I’ve been here has been completely of my own volition. I love the life we’ve built together. There’s nothing you could ask me that I’d say no to.”
The guy pulls out a fake moustache he’s fashioned from palm fronds and the fur of one of the island’s rodents.
“Could you every now and then put this moustache on?” he asks shyly.
Scarlett’s a little apprehensive, but after everything she’s just said, she feels like she owes it to him. She takes it and sticks it on her upper lip.
“One other thing,” says the guy.
“Okay…” says Scarlett.
“Could I every now and then call you Dave?”
Now she’s starting to get a little freaked out, but it’s just the two of them on the island, and what’s she going to do? She grudgingly nods.
The guy lets out a huge sigh of satisfaction, and looks straight at her.
“Dave,” he says, “you’re not gonna believe who I’m fucking.”
via Alex Balk, who did all the heavy lifting. Normal service will be resumed yaddayaddayadda.
After last night’s debacle, I was going to post a long rant about what the UK is doing wrong with Eurovision, and how we can fix it. And then I dug back through my archives, and found a post I wrote back in 2008 which addresses the self same points.
Apart from the names, nothing has changed. We don’t bloody learn, do we?
Another in my series of short-short films about – well, whatever I’m doing at the time. This one focusses on that strange, fuzzy mood that descends on the train trip home after a long day at work. Sometimes, that journey can seem to take no time at all. Flashes of sunlight punctuate the time. Moments blur into each other. I drop into a fugue state, and the world spins past the train window.
I did the soundtrack for this too. I wouldn’t say I wrote it. It formed itself out of a similar fog of unfocussed activity, and took about an hour in Garageband. Overmodulation is my FRIEND.
I have a review of Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time up at MovieBrit, in which I am not entirely complimentary. Not at all complimentary, in fact. As WDW, who runs the site, is a massive Gyllenhaalic, it’s good of her to run it uncut (although she couldn’t resist the temptation to adorn it with lots of pics of the man with his shirt off. I guess that’s what you call editorial input). Anyhow, go read. It’s one of your five-a-day of snark, bile, angst, over-reaction and humbug.
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 
