Tag: postaday2011

Five Horror Films You’ll Never See In A Horror Festival

An interesting discussion on the Frightfest forums about the nature of the genre – and more specifically, when is a horror film not a horror film – led me into a bit of a muse last night. Frightfest was one of the first venues in the country to show The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. A strange but somehow logical place to show a film about a woman-hating serial killer. The curators have frequently shown movies that stretch the bounds of what you or I would call horror.

Which films, I thought, would be out of bounds to most horror festivals? I’ve come up with a list of five films that I reckon really wouldn’t fit the bill. You might not agree, but that’s part of the exercise. I’d love to know if you think I’m wrong, or which films you’d put on instead.

Continue reading Five Horror Films You’ll Never See In A Horror Festival

Dyngus Day

Easter Monday. Traditionally in England, the last day of a four day jolly-off-work, in which people can no longer stand being indoors with their relatives and rush to the shops for a dose of that old-tyme retail therapy.

In Poland and some other Central European countries, it’s called Dyngus Day. It’s a commingling of Christian tradition with other, more ancient pagan rites, especially relating to fertility. Think for a minute about the eggs and rabbit imagery plastered all over our Easter celebrations. This time of year is about birth and growth – and the happy funtime activities involved in getting that process started.

Dyngus Day seems to have that idea a little mixed up, though. Traditionally, it mashes up aspects of purification and baptism – the splashing of water, scouring with reeds – with a courting ritual. Therefore, on Dyngus day, young male Poles and Czechs sneak into the bedroom of the girl they wish to wed, sling buckets of water over her, and thrash her about the legs with reeds. Often with the parents’ consent. Throughout the day, girls find themselves targets of soakings and reed-beatings. To be spared this fate labels a young woman as unmarryable or unattractive. I wish I was making this up.

Imagine trying this on someone you have your heart set on. How well do you think it would work? I’m pleased to note that in these enlightened times the practice has become co-ed, and girls will attack their paramours with equal viciousness. Somehow, though, I can’t see a bucket of water to the face and a thrashing taking over from a nice Hotel Chocolat egg any time soon. Or maybe I’m just an old softy.

The Sunday Lao Tzu: Worship

I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.

For a large proportion of the world’s population, today is a day of special significance, of worship and celebration. For many, it’s an excuse to eat chocolate. For everyone else, it’s just another day. I, like master Lao, choose not to ally myself to any deity or higher ruling power (prayers to the Gods of the London Orbital for safe passage not withstanding). This makes me no more or less right than those of you who will be in church today, or facing east, or lighting insence.

Faith is an essential part of the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the planet, and it would be churlish of me to sneer at them for their beliefs. If worship gives your life structure, a sense of significance and meaning, then so be it. Religion can give explanation, community, and comfort. I fully understand that. All I would ask is that you treat my worldset with the same respect. It’s an unfortunate fact that the simple inability of one religious group to respect the bounds and traditions of another has caused more strife and bloodshed then any other factor in the history of conflict on our angry little planet. That should not be the case.

The right to choose how you worship should never be subject to another’s opprobrium. If you choose not to be bound to any particular god, that too is a choice that is yours, yours alone, and one that should be universally respected. We live in a world too filled with wonders to be bogged down in petty disputes over liturgy, ritual or methods of prayer.

However you’re spending this glorious April day, may your gods be with you.

Free Fallin’ – Spotify And The End Of The Free Era

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Spotify changed my life. I listen to more music now, from a wider range of artists than at any other point in my life. Everything from brand new releases to obscure back catalogue jazz and spookytronica, Norwegian death metal to Arvo Part. I even use it to play my iTunes library – the clean, simple interface is quicker to load and easier to use than Apple’s own bloated monster. I’m not alone. Over a million people across Europe use the service. It’s a serious alternative to piracy, and one that puts a pay-to-play model in place that is of direct (if, as some would have it, limited) benefit to the artists.

But clearly, Spotify need to expand. America is the place to be for this expansion, and in order to do that Spotify needs to play nice with the big American labels. This is always a bad move. The big American labels think nice is a type of biscuit. Compromises have had to be made, and Spotify have ended up honking off a significant chunk of their core audience – the listeners that use Spotify Free, the ad-supported service.

Continue reading Free Fallin’ – Spotify And The End Of The Free Era

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)