Officially a proper grown-up (or at least pretending to be)

As per, a lot as happened since my last post.

I was invited to interview for several high-profile grad schemes and jobs in journalism, which was flattering in itself given the fierce competition from my colleagues at City and other journalism schools. But I’m a strong, if unlikely, believer in the idea of ‘fate’ (please don’t throw up over your screen as you read that), and although I haven’t ended up where I thought I might, I’m now thrilled to be working at The Independent as a freelancer. The music writing has slowed down a bit asides from the odd Time Out review but I’m hoping that it’ll pick up soon, as I haven’t been to a live gig in ages (three weeks).

Work on the second book took a fairly long hiatus what with work being so full-on, but I’m in a creative mood that means I should be able to churn out at least a few more chapters in the next month or so. I also have another, top secret project that I’ve started plotting out. Alright, I give in. It’s a novella. But that’s all I’m saying for now.

So work life is good. On the more pesonal side of things – my parents have sold the family home where I was born and grew up in. It should probably be more emotional, but I think I’m just happy that they’ve finally made the decision to move out of London and head for the coast. The most daunting thing is now to find somewhere of my own to live that’s near work but doesn’t cost the earth. *Gulp*

I am also now 22-years-old, which feels significant but also irritating, because I don’t like even numbers. So bring on #23. The birthday celebrations themselves were fab: cocktails at one of the best bars in London (Simmons, Camden – see also Simmons, King’s Cross) and good music, and inappropriate cards, and then over to the Borderline for cheap drinks and more good music and inappropriate dancing.

I felt very lucky to be surrounded by friends and family, especially since it’s been a year, almost to the day, since my grandma passed away. It surprises me just how much I think about her: when I’m talking to a guy at a bar and imagine her gleefully cheering me on, or reviewing a play and wondering how many of the actors and audience knew her.

Yesterday I went for drinks with a friend in Pall Mall and walked past the Wolseley, and the door opened and a faint smell of perfume wafted out. That was all that was needed for me to be thrown back to us sitting outside her favourite cafe one time I visited after school – her waving to people who recognised her as though she was the Queen – drinking wine and eating rich, Italian food while she encouraged (read: forced*) me to have a third shot of limoncello. I don’t think many people can say they did their first shot with their grandma, let along their third.

Anyway, I think I’ve covered most of the important stuff. Posting a sneak peek of the new book in the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out.

Much love x

Michael Gove, John Steinbeck, and inspiration

“A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hill-side bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool. On one side of the river the golden foot-hill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees – willows fresh and green with every spring, carrying in their lower leaf junctures the débris of the winter’s flooding; and sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool. On the sandy bank under the trees the leaves lie deep and so crisp that a lizard makes a great skittering if he runs among them. Rabbits come out of the brush to sit on the sand in the evening, and the damp flats are covered with the night tracks of ‘coons, and with the spread pads of dogs from the ranches, and with the split-wedge tracks of deer that come to drink in the dark. There is a path through the willows and among the sycamores, a path beaten hard by boys coming down from the ranches to swim in the deep pool, and beaten hard by tramps who come wearily in the evening to jungle-up near water. In front of the low horizontal limb of a giant sycamore there is an ash pile made by many fires; the limb is worn smooth by men who have sat on it.” – John Steinbeck 

Today I read that education secretary Michael Gove has made yet another decision that will have a devastating impact on the way literature is taught in the UK.

Classic American novels including To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men are set to be dropped from the GCSE curriculum because of Gove’s insistence on students studying more British literature.

A quote in The Guardian from OCR attributed the change directly to the education secretary:

“Of Mice and Men, which Michael Gove really dislikes, will not be included. It was studied by 90% of teenagers taking English literature GCSE in the past. Michael Gove said that was a really disappointing statistic.”

Instead, the list will be dominated by pre-20th century British authors, such as Charles Dickens or Jane Austen, poetry and a Shakespeare play.

Actor Mark Gatiss (who is also a brilliant writer), of Dr Who and Sherlock fame, tweeted:

“Since when was the wretched Michael Gove allowed to dictate what children read? This man is a dangerous philistine.

The news has upset a lot of people, myself included, who were inspired – and still are – by the books they read when they were younger. Shakespeare, Dickens, and Austen, as much as I admire and enjoy their work, are not on my list. At a time when my self-esteem was low and I wondered if I was good enough to pursue a writing career, Steinbeck and my English teacher were the ones who encouraged me to keep going.

Not to knock Mr Dickens or Ms Austen, but those authors, renowned as they are, just aren’t accessible for your average distracted teenager. It’s hard enough to get a class of kids to concentrate for an hour without forcing them to try and understand why a ball at Mr Bingley’s mansion is so important to the Bennett family. Most of the pupils at my school weren’t lucky enough to be brought up in a house filled with books, where their parents read to them every night and took them to the library every weekend until they were old enough to do it themselves.

The English curriculum at my secondary school – a pretty rough comprehensive in north London blessed with some truly outstanding teachers and more than a few kids from troubled backgrounds – was unusually well thought-out. We studied at least one different Shakespeare play each year: Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, etc., as well as Cary Churchill (Top Girls), Trevor Griffiths (Comedians), Daphne DuMaurier (Rebecca), Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Named Desire), D.H Lawrence (Women in Love), Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), Virginia Woolf (To the Lighthouse) (and of course, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. We were given a copy of the book and told to read the first chapter. By the next class, I’d read the entire thing three times over.

 

A beautiful 1940 copy of Of Mice and Men I found in a charity shop when I was at university.

Reading Of Mice and Men in Year 10 was the first time I saw more than three or four people in my class raise their hands to answer a question about John Steinbeck’s exquisite introduction. A girl almost perpetually in detention, and who had most recently asked why Seamus Heaney’s name wasn’t pronounced “See-mus”, made a comparison of Steinbeck’s style to that of the Bible. We all turned round to stare at her. She flushed bright red: “What?”

Why does Michael Gove hate Of Mice And Men so much? Maybe it scares him; an advocate of that well-worn mantra that if you work hard, and are honest and pay your taxes, you will succeed. There is so much futility to be found in the sweat and toil of the broken characters in Steinbeck’s masterpiece. Perhaps Gove is worried that teenagers will see too much of their own lives in the dreams of Lenny and George – the sense of hopelessness, uncertainty and doubt that haunts you into your early twenties, and might never really go away. Those characters don’t fit into Gove’s neat and ordered little world of uniformed, disciplined academies. He wants to flush all that creativity out.

 

“What the Dickens is wrong with you, boy? Austen is awesome, innit.” Gove’s down with the kids. (Illustration by Amanda Wood)

Those young writers who trod the roads in America searching for something – truth, money, the next bar – are more inspiring to a 15 year-old than an old guy with a funny collar could ever be. They are the ones who inspire, whose language springs from the page and forces those bitter, frustrated teenagers to use their imaginations. They know the language, because it’s theirs, but it’s also new, and exciting, and filled with potential. It makes them ask questions. It makes them want to turn the page.

Sarastro

One of my university assignments was to describe a favourite restaurant in London. Some artistic licence has been used, but this is a real place that’s well worth a visit.

Sarastro

Restaurants that fight so desperately to be near London’s Theatreland are more often than not the ones that Londoners do not want to eat at. Frankie and Benny’s, TGI Fridays, Angus Steakhouse, and more gastro pubs than Big Issue sellers; they all cluster around the gaudy, flashing sign of St Martin’s and the quietly understated charm of the Harold Pinter.

Unlike Paris, where you will still find the most glorious little bistro tucked away just outside the Moulin Rouge, or in Firenze, where the trattoria wins the hearts of savvy tourists choosing to shun the larger, brighter restaurants with their idiotic notions of kitsch. London has long since fallen foul of the food chain that requires restaurants to be American diner chic; overpriced, overcooked Italian, or the formidable, faux-French restaurant with its puffed up ego and deflated soufflé au chocolat. 

Theatreland requires gross overstatement, drama, and more eccentricity than you can shake a cigar at. Which is why the building tucked away on a quiet corner of Drury Lane, resplendent with its stained glass windows and bursting flower boxes, is so important. It seems to suggest a stubborn refusal to conform to the clean, modern, glass-fronted coldness of its neighbours.

Adjusting to the dull red glow of the chandeliers and art deco lamps is the first challenge. Next is the task of navigating a path through the tables clustered together in the centre of the room. Under your feet are creaky wooden floorboards, threadbare rugs and, bizarrely, square indents cut out of the wood filled with old copper and verdigris coins, that clink as you step over them. Velvet drapes conceal visitors seeking a little more intimacy in the balconies: Gothic, Rococo, Ottoman, Byzantine. Faces peer out, flushed, sweating, to watch the musicians dance in the aisles below, paying tribute to those rich or famous enough to enjoy the Royal Box at the far end.

Clay bowls filled with hummus blessed with whole chick peas and pools of silky gold-green olive oil arrive with fresh warm pita bread. More featuring cacik, kisir and taramasalata are laid out on the tables while the audience – more audience than customers – waits for the main course. Seafood linguine is a spicy mess of steamed mussels, prawns and tender, juicy squid; just the right level of acidity added from a squeeze of lemon. Lamb that falls apart in the mouth is a dream with stuffed aubergine, sweet red peppers and bulgar pilaf.

Rest rooms at Sarastro are tributes to sex. fauns and dryads dance across the walls, clutching at one another in an erotic, painted orgy while Bacchus leers at visitors from his stone plinth. Pictures from magazines featuring women of all shapes and chest sizes are pasted across the stall doors, and lipstick kisses in shades of cherry, plum, blackcurrant adorn the mirrors. It is decadence at its finest, all very Dorian Gray. 

Dessert is served on silver platters: fresh pineapple, grapes, watermelon, apples; Turkish Delight dusted with thick icing sugar; baklava – the lightest pastry – soaked in sugar syrup and topped with chopped pistachios; scoops of sorbet held snugly in coconut shells. Belts strain, waistbands stretch, hands try vainly to push away yet more food from the table: “Try this, taste that.”

A live python – muscles sliding beneath the scales – arrives on the shoulders of a handsome Turkish waiter, to be draped over those of  a woman at the nearest table. She squeals softly, shuddering at the weight of the thing and the coolness of its skin at the back of her neck. And all the while the musicians play their songs, violin notes drifting sweetly through those stained glass windows and out into the night.

My week on Tinder

I signed up to Tinder two weeks ago, after much persuasion from friends and with the view that it might give me some good material for a feature. I pitched to a few publications, unfortunately to no avail. However, that week was filled with so much dating/hook up app hilarity that I decided to write it anyway. So here it is:

My week on Tinder

Despite having what I like to think of as modern views towards dating and sex, I’m extremely reluctant to try out the (relatively) new and controversial app Tinder – basically like Grindr but for everyone. In case you’ve been living under a rock and don’t understand how it works: Tinder lets you swipe through hundreds of pictures of men and women, informing you of their location in kilometers so you can see if there’s any point talking to them. Swipe left for “nope” and right for “yes”. Once the other person has “liked” you, Tinder will then decide if it thinks you’re a match. Tinder’s line is “Tinder is how people meet. It’s like real life, but better”. This in itself makes me a bit dubious.

I tend to be fairly old fashioned when it comes to meeting new people. Most of my socialising happens in bars, clubs and pubs – I don’t really dig the “can I buy you a drink” line but I think there’s a lot to be said for being able to introduce yourself to a total stranger and not making a twat of yourself. It takes good social skills and a strong level of confidence/gin. So that whole “one in four relationships begin online” for me isn’t that convincing, especially when you consider that the definition of “relationship” could potentially also include one night stands.

However I still find myself writing a brief Tinder profile, choosing a few pictures, and deciding what my age limit either way is (I put 22 – 34).

First thing’s first: my friends weren’t lying when they said there are tigers on Tinder. I’m not talking about the male equivalent to a cougar either, I mean literal, orange and black, sharp teeth sharp claw big cats. There are SO many tigers that are clearly miserable and sedated, and I fail to see how a guy could be so deluded that they would think that their picture of them crouching by one of those poor things would ever be an attractive trait. As if “supports animal cruelty” is my number one priority when it comes to picking out a prospective partner.

Even worse are the lads posing in the middle of a field with a shotgun crooked over their elbow and a bored-looking Labrador by their side. You would not believe how many of these I’ve come across. If anything they’re more frequent than the fucking tigers. Every other swipe seems to bring another Barbour-jacketed, flatcap-sporting moron with a dead pheasant draped over his arm like a feather boa.

One alarmingly hairy individual appears to be going through a shirt-shortage, and who features a grand total of four pictures with his bare belly for the world to see. His profile explains that he’s in an open relationship and would love to meet a girl who might be “up for a threesome”. I wonder if there are any women out there brave enough.

Profiles are where you’re supposed to be able to find out a bit more about a guy you like the look of. The following lines are some of my favourites*:

“Here for a good time, not a long time (lol)”

“If you don’t look like your photos, drinks are on you until you do!!”

“Livin’ live [sic] to the full”

And I’m already bored of the inane Tinder convos, which all seem to go like this:

Bloke: “Hi, you alright? You’re gorgeous xx”

Me: “Hi, thanks! I’m good thanks, how are you?”

Bloke: “Yeah good. You up to much? x”

Me *sensing a guy who’s only looking for a hook up*: “Yep, doing…” (Follows with a few spare details of busy life). “What have you been up to?”

Bloke: “Cool. Work. Might go to the pub tonight x”

Me:  …

Perhaps I’m partly to blame for how shit some of these conversations are. I just can’t bring myself to go along with the “you alright” slog for more than three guys in a row. And annoyingly the only way you can get rid of men from your list of prospects on Tinder is to block them, which to me feels a bit extreme if all they’ve done is make you want to punch yourself in the head a few times.

I do, however, have a few dates lined up which may or may not prove my suspicion that no one interesting actually uses Tinder as a dating site. The majority appear to be 18-21 year old “lads” crouching with tigers, or 30-somethings with a love of fine wine.

Oh, and the gym. Everyone on Tinder LOVES the gym. Maybe that should be the app’s new slogan.

“Tinder is where you lie about going to the gym. It’s like real gym, but better.”

Music, art, shoes

What with the last post I wrote here being just a tad melancholic, I think it’s time for something a bit more upbeat.

Things are going well at City. We’re back on to newspaper production, only this time it’s a 16 page monster – news, business, features, arts and sport. I was on the team for last week’s Hackney Post and the result was fantastic – everyone had their own role or contribution to make and the feedback we got from lecturers was very positive.

In between that I’ve been pushing on with the music writing. I got asked to write a few album reviews for a well-known magazine, so hopefully I can post links to them here soon. Today I’m applying for a job that would be PERFECT but there’s obviously going to be a ton of competition so I’m a bit nervous, particularly because the end of the MA is in sight and more and more of us are getting snapped up for jobs and grad trainee schemes.

Also I got some new shoes (pic below) which are beyond the realm of fabulous. We shall not speak of cost. Nope. SO PRETTY.

My wonderful mother, who is an artist and illustrator (now with her own website, thanks to yours truly) has designed me my very own logo! It’s the same as my tattoo: Athena’s owl from the ancient Greek coin, which symbolizes wisdom, music, poetry, literature, art, and the intelligent/strategic side of war. Pretty appropriate, yeah? So I’ve made some swanky cards to hand out at gigs and stuff, and will hopefully work out how to have it as a logo for this website as well.

If you’re too lazy to click on the link (you should, just to see her raving about the last episode of The Archers) you can see a few examples of her work below. She does pet portraits (and is currently working on a gorgeous painting of our Jack Russell, Flo), plus children’s illustrations, watercolours, wood carving, life drawing, occasion cards, etc. That’s my plug over, her work can speak for itself:

Tribute to Nigel Jenkins

Today, someone very dear to me passed away.

Nigel Jenkins was a highly respected and brilliant poet, writer, editor and broadcaster. He was a lecturer on the creative writing course I studied at Swansea University and also my personal tutor for three years. Throughout this time, he was always around if I needed to come by and talk.

It could be anything – from writer’s block to a problem at home – he would sit in his chair and listen patiently until I’d finished venting, ready to provide advice and thoughts. He had the most wonderful voice: deep, gruff, and very Welsh.

A favourite with students, he agreed to make an appearance at a Christmas dinner/dance I helped to organise with societies at Swansea University, although he warned: “You are as likely to catch me dancing, Roisin, as to see a flotilla of pink elephants flying across the moon above Mumbles Head”.

As part of my application for my Masters degree I had to do an interview with someone interesting in my local area, and I immediately thought of him. Sitting in a squashy armchair tucked next to a shelf crammed with books of all sorts, with him at his desk, we talked about his life, or as much as we could fit into a twenty minute interview. I remember how his voice would rise and fall, lingering over certain words for effect. He was an outstanding story-teller.

At my graduation in July last year, he read a poem he’d written for the occasion, which put more than a few tears in the eyes of students, their parents, and lecturers alike, myself included.

The last time I saw him was in September, when I came to Swansea for a visit before my MA began. He was very much his usual self; jealous of mine and my friend Natalie’s visit to Laugharne to see where Dylan Thomas used to hang out. When I wrote to him to say we’d be coming by his office to say hello, I mentioned that I’d had a whiskey in Dylan’s honour.

Nigel wrote back: “Getting pissed in Laugharne – my idea of heaven, or used to be”.

We bought him a bottle of Penderyn so he didn’t feel too left out, which he was delighted by.

His guidance in the few short but wonderful years that I knew him is probably why I felt confident enough to pursue projects that I otherwise would have given up on. I owe him more than I can put into words.

Below is the interview I did with Nigel last year. I’ve transcribed it all, because everything he told me was important. I’ll miss him deeply, and know that everyone who knew him will feel the same.

So cheers Nigel. The glass of whiskey I raise tonight will be for you.

Nigel Jenkins: 1949 – 2014 

Nigel Jenkins was born on a farm in Gower in 1949 (“an awful long time ago”).

“I had an idyllic childhood, but all went to pot when my parents sent me away to a boarding school in Cheltenham when I was nine,” he said. “I was there for the rest of my school years, which was a useful experience in totalitarianism.

“I think poetry took off when I was about 16. I fell in love with an older woman, who was 21, and got swept away by that and the poetry of Dylan Thomas, which I found in the school library.

“I remember my grandmother and her sisters talking about him and his sister. They were friendly with her, but they didn’t like him. They used to gossip about him over cups of tea on Sunday afternoons, and I saw his book in the school library and thought ‘I remember this guy’s name – he sounded interesting’. And I didn’t understand most of it… I still don’t understand most of it. But I was swept away by the exuberance of the language in his poetry.

“Swept away by that… and rock music at the time, the 1960s. It was the Rolling Stones who introduced me to the blues, and then I discovered the black originators of the blues – groups like the Pretty Things, who played in Swansea last night and are now forgotten. I liked the Kinks very much. What I liked very much about the Kinks was that they were not trying to be Americans. They were Londoners.”

[Here we were interrupted briefly by a phone call (“I’ll have to switch this bloody thing off”), after which I chased after his story about the older woman he’d fallen in love with.]

“I thought you might come after that,” he said with a chuckle. “She gave me the blues! She lived across the fields from our farm so I could drive across to see her – those were the days when we didn’t worry about having a driving licence.

“The usual thing happened. When you are that crazy about somebody… there are not many poems about being happily in love or in lust, because you’re too busy doing it, and enjoying it. But then when it collapses, then come the great poems. So when she went off, wisely I think, with an older man, I wrote a great long howl of despair, which was terrible, and published in the school magazine.”

I asked him what happened after that.

“I found other women,” he told me. “I moved on, and I have occasionally written poems about women. Usually when they leave me.

“I really can’t say that I have any particular subject that I write about. I’m known I suppose for my political poems, some of which have caused a bit of a stir. There was one in 1997 which appeared on the front page of the Guardian which was to do with the death of a man called George Thomas, who was a Speaker of the House of Commons. He divided Welsh opinion; some people loved him, some people loathed him. I fell into the latter category. But when he died, every page of the Western Mail had a black borderline like old-fashioned Victorian newspapers and I thought: ‘this is over the top! Somebody better say something about his negative side.’

“So I wrote this short poem which was extremely nasty… maybe not even a poem. But it struck a chord and it ended up on the front page of the Guardian.

“It was an outrageous thing to do, dance on somebody’s grave. It’s just not polite behaviour.”

“Do you regret doing it?” I asked.

“No,” he replied.

We moved on to his education.

“I went to Essex University as a journalist, and I was there for three or four years then I left to do some rough travelling: grape-picking, waiting tables, and hanging around in bars,” he said. “Then I came back to Britain and got a place at Essex University, and after I finished that I went to work on a circus in America, as what they call ‘roustabout and butcher’.

“It’s a very banal job: a roustabout is a person who puts up the tent and takes it down, and butcher is the person who flogs junk food during the show. You see the sellers of ice cream in British circuses – they stand there very politely and wait for you to go and get your ice cream – not in America. You got your tray of popcorn and snowcones and you thrust them into the faces of people, screaming and shouting ‘snowcones popcorn, get your snowcones!’. And you couldn’t avoid selling a lot. 1976 was a particularly hot summer and the policy was ‘sell nothing but dry stuff in the first half: popcorn especially’. That makes them as thirsty as holy Hell. So by the time you appear after the break they’d pay anything for these cones of flavoured ice.

“We would travel every day in the North Eastern states. Everybody was driven to the absolute limit. If you got a break you’d just crawl under a truck for some sleep in the shade or try and find somewhere to have a beer.

“On one occasion – they had a slant wire which is very difficult for an acrobat to climb – and it broke. And it went ‘woosh, woosh, WOOSH’ over the heads of the audience, and if it’d been any lower there would have been decapitations.”

“The circus conjurer was not much liked because he was also the circus bursar, in charge of handing out our meagre wages, so revenge was got against him by one of the clowns. He [the conjurer] was a dapper little fellow in his tuxedo and top hat, and at a certain point he would tap a box and out would flutter some white doves. So one time he tapped his box and out flopped… a rubber chicken.”

[We laughed at this story, before Nigel began to describe the end of his time at the circus]

“You slept in a windowless truck with four sets of three bunks and your clothes in a mass on the floor, mosquitoes and flies everywhere and also… a python,” he said, deepening his voice like he was narrating a horror flick.

“I heard this shuffling about at night and I couldn’t work out what was going on. And my colleague told me after a few days that it was his job to sleep with the python! The snake would be in a sack beside him and it had to be kept warm. But I don’t like snakes, so I left soon after that. My friend arrived from Essex University and said ‘do you realise they sell Guinness in Boston?’ so I said ‘take me there!’.

Returning to England in the late 70s, Nigel flunked his PHD in literature.

“I didn’t see why I was doing it, what use it was,” he said. “It would have been quite useful now, because sometimes it’s suggested I should have a Doctorate to have this job… I don’t even have an MA. But I don’t want to bother with all that – it’s all form-filling really.

“I taught in Trinity College in Camarthen from 1979 onwards as a part time job, teaching undergrads initially and then the MA in Creative Writing started there, which I did for a few years. And then I was offered the editorship of the Encyclopedia of Wales, so I said to Wynn Thomas at Swansea ‘can you get me a room at the university?’ because I wanted to get away from home and work somewhere else. Then round about 2003 the university decided to start the creative writing MA programme. It took me about ten years to put the encyclopedia together but as work wound down I had to think of ways of supporting a family, and this job opened up, which is why I’m here.”

“So you’re technically not qualified to teach?” I asked him.

“Apart from being a poet. That’s all you need though, I don’t need a bloody teaching certificate.

“I love the teaching. I really enjoy teaching poetry, especially with students who want to be taught poetry. What I don’t enjoy is the whole managerial culture which is everywhere in Britain, it’s getting worse and worse. It’s the kind of thing that can put you off your job. The need to attend meetings, to fill in forms… it takes you away from what you are really paid for. Initially I started to think that I’m not getting enough time for my own writing. Then after a year or two I started to think I’m not getting nearly enough time as I’d like for my teaching.”

For my last question, I asked Nigel what made Swansea such an attraction for creative types.

“I think in Dylan Thomas’ time it was partly to do with them kind of chafing against bourgeois expectations. The poets and artists of his generation came from very bourgeois backgrounds. Their sort of background was like the grit that cultivates the pearl.

“Another thing is Swansea’s ‘borderness’. There’s a sense of frontiers here – you’ve got the sea and the land, you’ve got the hills. You’ve got limestone meeting the coal measures and the sandstone… the deep geological level. And you’ve got this port atmosphere that until the 60s was very busy.

“So you get energy, you get different people coming together, and there lies the creative conflict.”

2014 – The job hunt begins

Happy 2014!

It’s been a good start to the new year. After my hard drive crashed last summer I went through a mini nervous breakdown thinking that I’d lost half a novel I was working on (it turned out that I had most it saved on USB, but I still lost around 15,000 words and a lot of character notes). It’s hardly a masterpiece, but I’d put a lot of time and energy into creating something I knew I could be proud of once it was finished. So losing so much work put me off writing anything new for a while. Note to reader and self: ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR WORK

The reason things are looking up is because something clicked while I was in France. My parents took advangtage of the house market over there at the start of the new millennium. They bought a crumbling wreck of a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere for 11,000 francs (that’s about £5000 in today’s money) and spent ten years adding bits and pieces. Nothing extravagant, just the essential stuff, like a roof, and floors, and a working shower.

Et voila, la maison!

The point is it’s the perfect place if you’re at all creative, or if you just need peace and quiet. There’s a farm at the bottom of the road and not much else. On average you’ll see/hear about one car every five hours passing by. The village is a ten minute walk and has all of fifty houses, a boulangerie, post office, village hall, bar, grocers, and a library that opens once a month. There was a butcher that opened every Wednesday, but they’ve since moved on to bigger and better things. It’s the sort of place where you hear scandal like the baker’s wife having an affair with the postman, followed by a nervous breakdown, a pregnancy, and a suspicious death. I love it.

So I knocked out over 8,000 words while I was over there, and went over some ideas for character development. The goal for finishing the whole thing has changed slightly. I don’t want to feel so pressured because that’d take the fun out of it. The general idea now is to have written a first draft by April. That way I can proof it, get it edited, then hopefully shove it on Amazon by June – the same deadline as my Masters degree.

Asides from the book and my degree, this year is largely going to be about finding a job. In between writing this blog I’m honing my CV, adding bits and taking away, trying to make myself sound as employable as possible. The grad scheme deadlines are all looming, and I think a lot of people on the course, myself included, are realising that you just can’t afford to be picky when it comes to applying for work. When alumni from the university come in and talk to us, a lot of them tend to stress just how important it is not to get wrapped up in landing your dream job straight away. Many of them were surprised by where they ended up, but none of them seem to regret it.

I’ve posted the rest of the photos I took in France and a few more of the coast in Britain during the storms. Have a look and let me know what you think, and keep an eye out for a Sherlock post I’m using as serious procrastination from these grad scheme apps.

The last post of 2013

Such a ridiculously long time since I wrote anything, but that’s because I’ve been SO BUSY. The last time I posted here was that piece on pole dancing that invoked the wrath of several angry readers. But it was good practice, because you’re not going to get anywhere in journalism if you can’t handle criticism. 

I spent last week on the Telegraph news desk which was amazing. Everyone was lovely, despite deadline pressure and Christmas looming, and I got a few bylines. (Buy the paper tomorrow and you might see me in there again!) 

Christmas day was lovely and my family managed to get through an entire day without any major disaster. The dog wore the festive antlers I got her last year and actually seemed to enjoy them. 

I made a list (because of course) of my favourite things that happened this year:

– I got accepted at City

– I graduated from Swansea University with a 2:1 

– Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock and Martin Freeman as Watson

– Broadchurch happened, and so did The Fall

– Eddie Mair interviewed Boris Johnson

– I met loads of outstanding individuals, and despite the workload, managed to keep in touch with my old favourites

– Mojo at the Harold Pinter theatre

– VIsiting Swansea

– The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Anchorman 2, Gravity, Rush, etc.

– I got paid to do journalism, so I can officially call myself a freelancer

– My cousin gave birth to a gorgeous baby girl

– So much music: Arctic Monkeys, Mogwai, Haim, Arcade Fire, Sin Fang, The 1975, Bastille, Clean Bandit, Brother and Bones, CHVRCHES, Kate Boy, The National, Frank Turner, Sampha, John Grant, Agnes Obel, Vance Joy, Kings of Leon, Tove Lo, Daft Punk, Warpaint, Pearl Jam, etc.

– So much more, but I’m still recovering from my Christmas food coma and it’s hard to list everything good that happened over the course of a year. You get the general idea anyway.

Tomorrow I’m heading over to Normandy for a week, which will be my first proper holiday in over two years. And I know I’m going to be on edge the whole time due to lack of internet access. But I’ll get to write, which is important, since I definitely won’t have any time to work on my book from January, what with placements and term number two. 

It’s been a strange few months. After ages of not being able to think about anything else apart from shorthand and media law and news production and subbing and where we’re all going for drinks in the evening, it’s all suddenly come to a halt, and all I can think about now is what’s going to happen when the course finishes, and where I’ll end up. 

Happy new year everybody x 

Politics on the pole

There’s been an uproar/outrage/scandal – use whichever media buzzword you want – over the “banning” of a pole fitness society at my old university, and the story has made it into the nationals.

It’s a difficult issue because of a few weird technicalities that meant the club was never really an “official” part of the Union, which has caused confusion for many who have been misled by unreliable sources. It’s also caused problems for those directly involved with the decision to completely disaffiliate the SU from the club.

We keep hearing the same, tired old argument: that by banning something which is inherently sexist you deprive someone (in this case women students) of their freedom to make their own choices, and that this in itself is a form of disempowerment. It’s patronising, people have argued, to suggest that women can’t make their own decisions.

I find it depressing that many commentators on this debate have missed the screamingly obvious. Sexism is still so deeply ingrained in our society that it can be near-impossible to notice when you become a victim of it. To suggest that women having the choice to pole dance is “empowering” comes from the same twisted sense of logic that concludes that the woman with her tits out on the third page of a national newspaper is empowered because she wants to be there. Choosing to objectify yourself rather than having men do it for you is hardly progressive.

“But surely it’s patronising to try and assume control over what a woman can and can’t do?”

Of course it’s patronising. No one should ever tell you what to do or what not to do with your own body. But by choosing to pole dance, you willingly throw yourself back into the dark ages, into an activity that was born out of a male desire to turn women into sexual objects and nothing more.

In a statement from one of the uni trustees, a link was drawn between pole dancing and violence towards women which was denounced as “completely wrong” and “very dangerous”. Actually it’s neither, although it could have been phrased better.

When a room full of men watches a woman gyrate around a metal pole, they don’t see her as a person, they see her as an object. A piece of meat to be drooled over. And when men see women as objects, it becomes considerably easier for men to treat them as such, violently or otherwise. If a woman tells a man, or anyone for that matter, that they are a member of a pole dancing club, the listener will draw automatic conclusions about her because of the implications that pole dancing has in our society. It is impossible for us to disengage from the connection that pole dancing has with sex entertainment and the male gaze, because that’s where its roots lie in Western culture, and that is why the university chose to disaffiliate.

Dance as much as you like, but don’t try to paint the pole as something it’s not.

Weeks in, weeks to go

I started the journalism MA a couple of weeks ago. It’s been manic but excellent, and there are plenty of fab people around to keep me happy and entertained during two hour shorthand sessions (actually not as bad as it sounds). Also luckily for me – my new housemate works at a coffee shop so we have coffee and almond croissants galore. Definitely handy when it comes to getting up for the morning commute. I’ve also started bringing in cake for the newspaper group – someone came up with the hashtag #bakingnews so you can keep an eye out for what I’ve made if you like. First week was chocolate brownies, this week was an apple cake recipe I borrowed from loveable radio show The Archers.

Slightly pissed off today because I’ve been struck down with some sort of lurgy. It’s like a cold crossed with a stomach bug, and it’s kept me at home for the last two days. I’m upset about missing lectures/course stuff so early into the term, but more because everyone’s going out tonight, to one of the few London clubs that has decent music and cheap drinks. Not fair. I am, however, seeking out a few cocktail bars (suggestions welcome) to do some research (honest) for my next column. More on that another time.

Living back in London is excellent. At the moment I’m still a bit out of touch with the things that really make a true Londoner see red. For instance, I fail to understand why a grown man has a full-on nervy b when he misses the tube. Do the three minutes it takes for the next one to arrive really matter that much? Other things I get – like the twats who stop at the top of the escalator to pull the handle up on their wheelie suitcases, or the ones who try and push in front of me when I’m trying to get my third coffee fix. I’m sure that’d enrage even the most good-natured of folk.