The Horror of Fandom

I recently came across something horrifying. Something so discomfiting that I am once again questioning my existence. An event so mortifying, I felt nauseous, as if a close family member had just been brutally bludgeoned to death in front of me... Whilst pottering around my Goodreads account, I noticed a tab at the side asking me to vote on what I thought were The Best Books Ever. I thought, go on, why not, a bit of harmless fun. But upon clicking, I was faced with the horrifying scene just mentioned. Number 1 on this list was Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.

My first reaction was to look around me, and check my apartment for hidden cameras, a part of me knowing that this was some kind of Truman Show style set up. When I couldn't find any, and I once more sat down at the computer, the reality began to sink in. 7500 people did actually believe that Twilight was the best book ever written. My stomach made an uncomfortable movement. I realised simultaneously both that, contrary to my presumption that I had absolutely zero faith in the human race, I had actually retained some, and that had just lost it. All of it. And I don't know if it will ever return.

Once this had passed, it gave way to frustration. I am aware of Twilight's fandom, but I had never thought that people actually consider it good. I thought that it's basically like McDonald's: thousands of people get some sick pleasure from it, but they know deep down that it is rotting their insides. Apparently, I was horribly mistaken. Although I have never actually read this book-shaped piece of excrement, I feel I am perfectly justified in condemning it so vehemently. Here's why. Despite the advice of friends, I sat through the first three films of my own accord, and I've read a few pages of the book, enough to come to the conclusion that it is artistically, stylistically, theoretically bad. As I looked at that image sat at the number 1 spot, I began to get angry. Why such an impassioned reaction? Well...

I believe writers have a duty to make a difference, to write about things which will change the way people think. I like Virginia Woolf. I like Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. I like Thomas Hardy and Leo Tolstoy. Why? Because they all had progressive attitudes towards the plight of women and feminism. They used their writing to promote much-needed change at a time when women faces objectification and inequality as a part of daily existence. In the 1800s women couldn't work, at least not in the way men worked. Marriage was often the only available option to them: Women couldn't inherit, and when they were married any money they had was instantly transferred to their husbands. Essentially, they needed a man to be a part of society, and once they were married, they were property.

So it makes me writhe in my skin to think that now, in the 21st Century, now that we have achieved what those writers wished for, what the Suffragettes fought for, what the women at the Ford manufacturing plant went on strike for, is being pissed all over by some backwards mormon moron with a major case of penis-envy. And the worst part of it is that Stephanie Meyer has made a difference. Somehow, this sexually repressed cretin has thousands of young girls wanting nothing more than an abusing boyfriend to serve. Not exactly what I had in mind.

Indeed, I said I haven't read Twilight, because the idea that such an anachronistic emblem of regression even achieved publication is nauseating, and I would like nothing more than to see Stephanie Meyer and her atavistic omnibus thrown into a time machine and shipped back to the 1800s where they belong. Or lynched.

I guess the most frustrating part about this craze is the debate (or lack of) surrounding it. Ask a person why they don't like Twilight, and they can give you a list of reasons. Ask a person why they do like Twilight and you can hope for a response along the lines of "It's just amazing" or "Because Edward is sexy". It's all good to open up a discussion about something, but when the people on the opposing side have only a handful of braincells between them and feel the need to giggle and cover their mouths like coquettish invalids every few seconds, it loses much of its appeal.

Wuthering Heights

A couple of weeks ago I got around to buying Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, after a friend recommended it. It was on my enormous to-read list, but never very high up, since I didn't really know anything about it. Two weeks later I have been to see the new film adaption by Andrea Arnold and even listened to the song by Kate Bush. In a word, I have become slightly obsessed with it.

Right now I am reading Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and after reading Wuthering Heights it is a bit of an effort, given that Austen is arguably a much more stereotypical 19th Century/Victorian novelist, concerned with class, inheritance, romance, marriage and aristocracy (more on this in my next entry). But Wuthering Heights isn't stereotypical by any sense of the word. I'm never really sure what to expect from the books I read at the moment, because I rarely know very much about them. I'm just going through a list of the 100 greatest novels of all time because the BBC and the Guardian, amongst other places, have told me I should. So Wuthering Heights was a surprise...

One of the first parallels I drew, despite the 200 year difference between them, was Wuthering Heights and Shameless (or, to an extent, British drama in general). Essentially, a couple of families entangled in love, sex, arguments and violence. One of the most frustrating things about reading classic literature (particularly Austen) is the concern with propriety and appearances. Pages and pages of interior monologue regarding one of the female characters debating whether or not to say hello to one of the male characters, and running through all the repercussions that it could lead to. Seriously? Was life in 19th Century England really this frivolous? This can be portrayed with hilarity, but it is still a huge relief to read something from the same era which doesn't place so much (if any) focus on propriety.

Wuthering Heights revolves around the connection between the two main characters, Heathcliff and Catherine. I won't go into any great detail retelling the story, because anyone who is interested can get a much better account from Wikipedia. Primarily, the narrative focuses on their emotions; passion, love, jealousy, betrayal, hatred, most specifically the betrayal Heathcliff feels when Catherine marries their wealthy neighbour, Edgar Linton. The majority of the novel focuses on Heathcliff's ongoing search for revenge against Linton as well as Hindley, the abusive eldest son of the man who adopted him. Heathcliff is one of the most remarkable anti-heroes ever created. Almost every decision he makes, every action he takes, every sentence spoken, is violent, aggressive and manipulative. And yet I felt a huge amount of empathy towards him because of the way he had been treated. His suffering is portrayed as such that no matter how despicable his actions, they seem justified. He's even kind of sexy.

It has been apparent for some time now that one of the things I look for in film and literature is a certain level of bleak. It is why I like Charles Dickens, and it is why I like a lot of art-house and independent films. Wuthering Heights is bleak. Oppressively so, as the turmoil, grief and ongoing war of the characters never really wanes. Almost all of them die. Some of them are simply left to wither away because no-one cares about them enough to help. And this is further embellished by the setting, which is one of the most iconic and unforgettable aspects of the book, and one which Andrea Arnold really develops in the new film adaption. Rough cliffs, desolate moors, windswept trees; rain, snow, storm clouds. Unlike the characters in Austen's novels, there are no balls for the characters to attend, no society to consider, no expectations of others to suppress their feelings.

I see that I have digressed into a book review, which wasn't my intent...

When I saw the poster for the new film adaption of Wuthering Heights, it spurred me on to buy and read the book before going to see the film. Reading the original first just makes more sense to me. If you watch the film first then all those hours spent reading the book later won't be as enjoyable, because you know most of what's going to happen (I have recently read Jane Eyre, but I watched the new film first so I knew exactly what was about to happen all the way through it). Anyway... After already establishing a love for the book, I was now even more excited about the film. I'd seen Fish Tank by Andrea Arnold, so the idea of her doing a period adaption was intriguing to say the least. But the fact is, Arnold's style of directing is exactly what was needed.

Raw, passionate, powerfully atmospheric, and unforgivably gritty, it remains completely faithful to the novel, yet so far removed from traditional costume drama that it feels completely new and original. I cannot recall the last time I saw a film with such cutting attention to detail. The hand-held camera drags you down into the mud and zooms in on every blade of grass, every drop of rain, every hair. The focus blurs in and out, now on the characters faces, now on a beetle crawling through the grass. The only soundtrack is the wind howling into the microphone, a tree branch rapping against a window, a horse breathing, or the constant drip of water. Mist, rain, moors. Every aesthetic wonder of the book is pulled into focus and studied in detail.

I think this is a lesson in how to make a great adaption. And proof that an art-house approach works surprisingly well with a genre that usually takes the big-budget, star cast approach. Atmosphere and imagery are two of my primary concerns with films, and not the computer generated type (fuck CGI of all kinds). Many people find an elaborately designed rendering of spaceships, cities of the future, and imaginary worlds displayed on the big screen as the height of aesthetic capability. But if I'm honest, I'd much rather watch films that take a unique look at the things which already exist: fields, woods, and even urban landscapes (but one's that haven't been looked at before, because I'm sure I'm not the only one who is bored to death of seeing the New York skyline). And as the cast, unknown or TV actors, couldn't have been better really. Usually, films which use an all-star cast (the types where the trailers spend more time listing the big names than actually showing a preview of the film) are going to be narratively shite. And films that use unknown actors tend to have a much higher quality concept. If you are making a film set in Yorkshire, for God's sake use actors from there. Don't hire a big name like Anne Hathaway to completely fuck it up.

Since I read a lot, I see a lot of adaptions of the books I've read, and unfortunately, this is usually a disillusioning experience. There is nothing more frustrating than going to the cinema to see the film adaption of one of your favourite books completely ruin it (A primary example being Harry Potter) through bad acting, a bad script, changing things, or omitting them completely. It was about 30 minutes into Wuthering Heights when I realised that it was already one of the best adaptions I'd seen, and there was a flood of relief that for once, they got it right.

Impressions of Classical Art

When you are happy, or sad, or just generally pissed off, you have a lot to write about. But when you feel numb, you don't have a lot to work with. In fact, even picking up the computer to try to write something, anything, feels daunting. For at least the past month, I have had an overpowering feeling of "What the fuck is the point?" Other than occasionally going out and getting hammered, I haven't done much of anything, and the weeks have seemingly blurred into one long stretch of disillusioning not-much-of-anythingness. At some point I realised that getting drunk and sleeping until midday was making it worse, so I stopped drinking. And a few days ago I got bored of sitting in the apartment doing absolutely fuck all, so yesterday I decided to take a very long walk into the West End, and ended up in the National Gallery for the second time this week. I spent over 2 hours in the 1250-1500 section, and finally found something to write about.

A rather shaming confession of mine is that, up until this week, I'd never actually stepped inside the National Gallery. Even though it is right there in Trafalgar Square, and I have passed it more times than I can count, I've just never had the urge to go in. This is probably because my opinion of art is almost the exact opposite of my opinion of literature: namely, that modern art is far more interesting than classic or archaic art. And this was somewhat perpetuated by my long perusal of the pre-16th Century section of the gallery. Essentially, this is what I saw:

Jacopo Di Cione - The Crucifixion

Countless depictions of the Virgin and Child or Christ crucified, many of which were altarpieces like this one. Whilst walking around I had a distinctive sense of deja vu. It seemed as if every one of the 16 rooms contained at least 2 Virgins and at least 1 Crucified Jesus. 32 virgin portraits and 16 dead men nailed to crosses. Simply put, too many. It seems to me that life in these times was an extremely depressing ordeal indeed. Spending most days looking at graphic portrayals of a man dying on a cross, and being shamed if you've lost your virginity? I'll take sinful modern culture any day. It did get me questioning the idea that religion has been a huge comfort to people in centuries past however. Notice the little angels collecting the blood that pours from Christ's wounds in that picture above? Yeah, comforting, okay...

Religious criticism aside, it seems that my opinion of literature and art are not that dissimilar after all. It is hard to deny that classical art, like classical literature, required a lot more skill than the stuff around nowadays. For one thing, it's not even imperative that you use a brush to paint anymore. Hell, just throw the paint at the canvas and call it an abstract self-portrait. I certainly do not agree that modern art requires no skill (for the most part). But I do agree that when it comes to classical or traditional art, for want of a less cliched phrase, "they don't paint like that anymore". One example of this is the Arnolfini Portrait (1434), which caught my attention for quite some time. And no, not because it is featured in the intro sequence to Desperate Housewives.

The Arnolfini Portrait - Jan van Eyck

Admittedly, that is where I recognised it from. But that is not what kept me stood there looking at it. Like many of the paintings I saw yesterday (despite the depressingly repetitive themes), the skill of the artist and the minuscule details in the painting are awe-inspiring. Whether it be this, or that it stood out as unique amongst the majority of overt religious paintings and altarpieces, this is one of the paintings that I remember, and which I will go back to see again.

Probably one of the reasons I have put off going to the National Gallery for so long was because I wasn't really expecting to like anything in there very much. Van Gogh? Overrated. Cezanne? Crap. Or so my conception was before actually going inside. The majesty of traditional art galleries can be discouraging to people like me, who are used to the cold white rooms and industrial spaces of galleries like the Tate Modern. But once you realise that you are not the youngest, or the most uncultured person in there (by a long way), the feeling that you are out of place wears off, and you can actually enjoy the art. Okay, so pictures of ugly virgins holding wrinkled little goblin Jesus babies aren't really my cup of tea, but there's definitely enough variety to work around those unfortunates.

I'm often accused of being a traditionalist, albeit jokingly. And I find this rather laughable because I always considered myself one of the least traditional people I know. When I decided to finally visit the National Gallery, it was with a mixture of apprehension that I would hate everything, and with curiosity regarding whether I would prove to have more traditional tastes than I first thought. Well, since I have only explored one section of the National gallery (and this being the section that I will probably appreciate the least), that is still up for debate. For now, I would say yes, some of the paintings I saw in the National Gallery were absolutely brilliant. But I still think Van Gogh is overrated crap.

Summer is over. Thank God.

Usually by the time September comes around, I have put the shorts and sandals back into boxes and pulled out the jumpers and scarves. Not this year though. No, this year, towards the end of September, we had a 30 degree heatwave lasting into October. This got me thinking about personal preferences and, more specifically, why I loathe summer.

By mid-September, when the weather seemed to be cooling down a bit and I was actually able to close my windows on a night, I started looking forward to the six months ahead. I think it's safe to say that the majority of people appreciate the change in seasons, and by spring I usually welcome a bit of sun to warm things up again, but the novelty of Summer wears thin extremely quickly.

I can see the positive aspects: there is the sun (which is great, to an extent); drinking outside in beer gardens; festivals and garden parties. But that's about as far as the pros stretch. Because alongside these you get heat so oppressive that you can't sleep (not to mention the sauna temperatures on the London Underground, making travelling akin to torture); swarms of insects; and huge crowds of people, everywhere! Frankly, I just don't get it. At the first sign of sun in spring, people strip naked, cover themselves in oil, and spend all day sprawled out in a field like some sort of desert lizard. Do they like cooking themselves? Or hearing their skin crackle? Where does this obsession with baking oneself stem from? Vanity? Self-harm? Thirty minutes in the summer sun is enough to scorch my deathly pale English complexion and leave my skin itching and uncomfortable, so when people talk of laying out in the baking heat in a bikini, I have to wonder why they hate their bodies so much.

We almost lucked out on it this year. Save the one day in June when the heat in London was around 33 degrees, it has been pretty mild all Summer. So when September came around, I felt a sense of relief, but also the feeling that I had been cheated. Surely that's not it? But that was pleasant, and even enjoyable. So what is going on? Summer isn't supposed to be like that... Just when I started to become accustomed to the earlier nights, and the cold mornings, the bitch came back with a record-breaking Autumn heatwave.

I tried to make the most of it, I really did. The first Saturday in October, when the temperature was still around 30, I decided to go for a pleasant walk around Hampstead Heath. There was a walk, but the pleasant part never happened. Instead of peaceful open space, there was swarms of people; naked, half-naked, drunk, smoking, generally ruining my plans (as usual). We managed to climb to the top of Parliament Hill but the views were somewhat marred by the crowds. When the sun is shining and the weather is hot, sitting in a park and enjoying a bottle of wine or a couple of beers is a lovely idea. But it's practically impossible: there is bound to be some tossers who decide to play football next to you, making that glass of wine suddenly look very precarious; or a screaming child destroying your plans to relax with a book; or just the amount of people, making Brighton Beach and Hyde Park look like battery farms. No, Summer can go fuck itself.

It's now October. The leaves have started falling from the trees, the weather is cooler, there is that smell of Autumn in the air. I have felt pretty shit recently (hence the lack of posts), but one thing that has made me feel better is the change in seasons. I somewhat idolise Winter, probably in some sort of mental protestation against Summer. But last Winter was awful. Apart from one week in November/December, it didn't snow. It just drizzled for 3 months. And the poor insulation and heating in my flat (along with the fact that I was unemployed and spent most days sat at home freezing to death), made it an overall crappy experience.

Despite this, I love Autumn and Winter. I love seeing the trees change colour and shed their leaves, I love bonfires and fireworks (even though I don't necessarily agree with the celebrations on the 5th November), the frosty mornings and the crisp winter air, wrapping up in gloves and scarves, drinking mulled wine at the markets, ice-skating, coming in out of the cold and getting warm by a fire. And not forgetting, snow. I suppose it comes down to aesthetics; everyone has their own idea of what is beautiful. Some people think fake tan is beautiful (Lord only knows why). Some people think the vibrant greens of summer are beautiful (and I don't necessarily disagree with this particular aspect). Personally, I don't think there are many things better than snow, ice, and winter landscapes. I just become 5 years old when it snows, and have this irresistible urge to go and run around in it. And on top of the aesthetic aspect, seeing the country grind to a halt, acting as though this bizarre occurrence was completely unexpected, has a comedy value all it's own. But it rarely snows, so winter can be disappointing.

I am determined to enjoy this Winter. I can't see myself suddenly enjoying all the Christmas tack, but I can make the most of the markets and the booze. I don't like being cold all the time, but I can probably afford to heat my flat this year. I am always hoping it will snow, but even when it doesn't, I still enjoy the dry, sunny, extremely cold days spent outside. Summer is overrated. You can have your wasps, your sweaty heat, your annoying crowds, and your disgusting barbeques. I'll take this over Summer any day:

No, I'm really not loving it.

A while ago, as I was walking home from work, I passed the McDonald's on Old Kent Road, and with a feeling of disgust, intended to go home and write something about it. As it happened, I got distracted and forgot about it, but I'm sure I can remember the gist of what I wanted to say...

I don't understand McDonald's. Or rather, I understand it, I just don't understand the popularity. It really is a disgusting place. And yet hordes of people cram themselves into the tiny little buildings for a box filled with some sort of decomposing substance, which I certainly wouldn't consider food, any more than I would consider polystyrene food. The only real difference between the two being that polystyrene is probably healthier.

Everything, every single thing about McDonald's is oppressive. The minute you step through the door, you inhale the toxic stench of the place, and develop a layer of grease on your skin. Stay in their for longer than 30 minutes and you break out in acne. Wade through the crowds of fat people, screaming children with ice cream (or whatever it is that McDonald's passes for ice cream) smeared over their faces, and mouthy tracksuit wearing teenagers. Once you get to the tills, you are asked "can I take your order" by someone who looks as though they are about to die, which is no surprise given the fact that they work week long shifts for about 50p an hour. You choose something from the menu which, when it arrives, looks kind of like the picture, if the burger in the picture had been run over by a truck.

And the punchline is that McDonald's now calls itself a restaurant. Either the definition of restaurant is, or has become seriously lax, or not enough people are questioning this status. In restaurants, you don't stand in a queue for ten minutes and receive your meal from a conveyor belt. In restaurants, the staff are polite and take your order once you are seated. In restaurants, you can buy liquor (though I'm not sure a liquor license would be a welcome addition to McDonald's)

Other than the staff salaries, all of these criticisms are on a cosmetic level. So I am yet to mention McDonald's human and animal rights notoriety, but I think everyone is aware of this so it needs no explanation. When I was unemployed a friend said to me, "you can't want a job that badly, because you haven't tried McDonald's". My response to this would be that I haven't tried prostitution or drug-dealing either, because I'm not quite ready to take all of the ethics I have accumulated since I was 12, and throw them out of the window. I understand that in this economy many people are willing to take anything for a wage (good for them I guess). But to work at McDonald's I would be like Faust, only instead of selling my soul for knowledge and wordly pleasures, I would be getting minimum wage and humiliation. The primary figure in this simile being the devil.

I think the only perk of working at McDonald's is a discount on the food, but I would sooner eat a brick. Returning to the products themselves, like almost everything exported from America, they are unhealthy, unethical and I am going to have to assume, addictive. Unless people enjoy eating burger-shaped slabs of fat, and subsequently gaining weight, I'm going to assume that there is some other factor involved here (I'm going to point out here that McDonald's does have a healthy option; brown salads which went out of date about 2 weeks ago, essentially only on sale to make the mentioned slabs of fat look more appealing). Most people have seen, or at least heard about, the documentary Supersize Me, so everyone knows to some degree what goes into a McDonald's burger, and the fact that the fries do not decompose (so when I said it wasn't real food it wasn't actually hyperbole). People know about the ethical violations. But they still eat there. So I am forced to the conclusion that McDonald's contains small amounts of heroin. Like the heroin addict, McDonald's consumers know that they are wreaking havoc on their insides, but this is outweighed by the fix; those minutes of grotesque bliss in a dingy doorway. The harsh truth is that McDonald's is a drug, and Ronald McDonald is its kingpin.

Karma

I have noticed that my blog posts have been rather... eclectic lately. In other words, they deteriorated into aggressive rants for a period. I'm not sure if this is a bad thing, but either way, I'll try writing something more lighthearted today. If not in subject matter at least in tone...

I mentioned a while ago that I was currently in the process of taking legal action against the landlord of my previous apartment. This has gone on for some months now. But I received an email yesterday informing me that a decision had been made, the decision was final, and that neither party could take the matter further. This was perfectly fine by me, as the decision was that I should receive my deposit back in full, as opposed to having £915 deducted from it, as my landlord proposed for "damages". This was a much better result than I was expecting. I thought the deposit protection company would probably meet the demands of each halfway, and deduct about £400 from the deposit. But evidently, my cynicism has been proven wrong. At least on that front. This rarely happens, so I still stand by my cynical outlook fully.

As a friend pointed out, the reason that such compulsory deposit protection companies exist in the first place is due to the number of landlords who attempt to extort huge amounts from the deposits of their tenants. I like to call this financial rape (though this doesn't sound too catchy so maybe I'll think of something better). The way I see it, this is so they don't have to use their own money to pay for the upkeep of their shitty properties. Double glazing and a new boiler would have been a start, since not many people are half-reptile.

To revert back to my cynicism for a while, I pose the question: why do people have to be such wankers? Why do people insist on justifying my misanthropy. This isn't how it happens in films. In films people like me have a wondrous experience with a purely altruistic bunch of people which changes their whole personality. But this is reality I guess...

So why is every person on the planet in some way out to swindle, extort, or otherwise abuse everyone else? I know people are crap and annoying and everything most of the time. But I still understand that treating other people like idiots, or otherwise generally abusing them, is frowned upon by general society. So you don't do it.

But apparently, you do. When I think about it, everywhere I look everyone is out to screw everyone else as much as they possibly can without being reprimanded for it. The food you need to buy to survive is priced ridiculously high to profit the supermarket chains. The energy companies, the water companies, the music and entertainment companies, are all in business purely to draw as much profit from you, the consumer, who is forced to pay their ludicrous prices. This is a piece of plastic, inside another piece of plastic, with a 5 page booklet inside, and it costs £12 fucking 99? And you people who make those stupid piracy adverts actually wonder why we download things illegally? Then there are the banks where you have to keep that tiny amount of money, who charge you £50 for using a reserve that you never even asked for. And more than that, who caused the financial crisis which we are all paying for in the first place! But do the banks take responsibility and admit they were wrong? What a ridiculous fantasy that would be. If sexual rape is is punished severely, why isn't financial rape (I can't come up with anything catchier)? Just because you aren't physically slapping someone in the face, doesn't mean you should do it metaphorically.

It's not even a case of human beings being inherent arseholes. It all comes down to money. As Tony Soprano so perfectly states, "That's what is comes down to isn't it? Motherfucking, cocksucking money" (forgive me if this quote is slightly incorrect). The thing that everyone wants, but few people have. The thing that a few have masses of, but which the majority have very little of. It's not a modern philosophy. The French Revolution happened for this very reason. But whenever those little hiccups known as recessions occur, attention is drawn to the fact that most of us have no fucking money. The fact of the matter is, most of us are adhering to these austerity meausures so a few greedy wankers can go on holiday with their bonuses.

So it must be said that it genuinely comes as a surprise to me when something happens to contradict this opinion. The decision of the deposit protection agency surprised me. I was expecting a bad result, as I always do. But instead I received the best result I could have hoped for. This hasn't happened for a very long time. It's almost like karma, if you believe in that crap. But it didn't exactly contradict my opinion... My theory is that my landlord's mortgage was riding on the rent from that apartment, but they couldn't find a tenant to move in after us, so the deposit deductions (coincidentally just short of a month's rent) were an attempt to cover their mortgage (or otherwise pay for the overdue refurbishments in order to get a new tenant). I guess that would mean that they are in a bit of a jam right now. Maybe I could buy into this karma stuff after all...

However, as my friend rightly pointed out, the only reason for these compulsory protection agencies to exist, is the fact that everyone, if left to their own means and decisions, is an untrustworthy arsehole.

I probably should have been a Victorian

Walking down one of London's silent, cobbled streets after dark is one of the most atmospheric experiences of living or visiting this city. Away from the crowds of Oxford Street, the alleys and backstreets of London are like a step back in time to another era, and the history of London is one of the things that really attracts me to a city, and influenced my decision to move here. Anyone who has experienced London in the night-time knows the feeling, almost entirely different from that of the day-time. Everything feels more alive, more electric. This atmosphere is captured every now and again in art and in literature. Never more brilliantly than by Charles Dickens. A few months after I moved to London, after I had got to know the place a little, I decided to set myself a challenge: To read all (or most) of Dickens' novels and experience London in a different era. This started sometime in March this year, when I bought Oliver Twist, which was followed by almost the entire cannon and ending with Great Expectations, which I have just recently finished. Almost six months of nothing else, which allowed me to really get lost in that age of pre-Victorian London.

I don't want this to be some boring book review, so I will try to avoid falling into that trap, but since I tend to discuss recent experiences and opinions in my blog, Dickens seems an appropriate subject. As I have powered on through this catalogue of (mostly) enormous novels, it became more and more evident that I had found exactly what I look for in an author. I have recently had this huge sense of disillusionment with modern literature. The majority of it is bland, petulant and devoid of any meaningful ideas. I know there are exceptions, but I avoid looking at the bestseller list in book stores because frankly, it depresses me. The autobiography of some vapid, plastic celebrity like Katie Price is always somewhere on there, as is the most recent Twilight turd (or other vamprom shit), along with a handful of materialistic, brainless drivel along the lines of Confessions of a Shopoholic, or Heels, Bags, and Boyfriends. Around the time I finished university, my taste in literature became firmly planted in the Classics. Before university I hadn't really a great interest in them, but then I fell in love with the books that I was studying: To The Lighthouse, Paradise Lost, Dorian Grey... They all had something which modern literature rarely had. Arguably they are far better written, but perhaps it was because they were philosophical. Let's face it, there is nothing philosophical about teenage romcoms or celebrity biographies, but they sell thousands of copies. This is highly frustrating, snob as I am, which is why I retreat back to times when I felt literature was valuable; challenging the status quo rather than perpetuating it.

It still remains somewhat of a mystery to me how and why I lived my entire life up until the age of 22 without reading anything by Charles Dickens, other than extracts from Hard Times and Great Expectations in Secondary School. At that time, they seemed overly descriptive, bleak and boring, which I suppose is the natural feelings of a 15 year old towards classics. Education does seem to be intent on putting young people off. Tom Brown's Schooldays, Of Mice and Men, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare is what I remember from school. The first two are shit, and although Shakespeare is great, I don't see why it needs to be forced down our throats every single year from around birth to age 16. It's enough to put anyone off reading the classics. Back to the point, I had a bad impression of Dickens which stuck with me for many years. Once I graduated, I felt that reading more classics was something that I should have being doing for years, and chose Dickens as the place to start.

Now that I have completed the challenge that I set myself, I think it is safe to say that Charles Dickens has become one of, if not my favourite writer of all time. His best books are brilliantly written, almost making other pre-Victorian writers seem ineloquent. But that is not to say that there were no disappointments. Oliver Twist was a perfect introduction, and one which matched my expectations precisely: atmospheric, full of memorable characters, vivid descriptions and social criticism. But this wasn't the case with all of them. (It seems I have fallen into my favourite cliche of best of/worst of listings):

The Pickwick Papers, which I read after Oliver, was so far removed from my expectations that it could have been written by a different auther. No social criticism, no atmosphere, no plot. Just a set of vacuous toffs parading around and living their irritating toff lifestyles. Reading novels about characters who are a part of the aristocracy is only enjoyable when portrayed satirically, or otherwise in small doses, and since Pickwick is not small by any sense of the word, it was a trial. And I spent most of it trying to remember each of the 500 characters who are introduced with every chapter, only to disappear completely a couple of pages later. Dickens is known for his immense casts of characters, but usually they have some bearing on the narrative, which they didn't appear to here. Perhaps the random escapades of a group of rich idiots was popular subject matter in the 19th Century, but to a 21st Century reader it was, amongst other things, immensely irritating.

The Christmas Books were never going to be favourites of mine, but I wasn't expecting to hate them as much as I did. A Christmas Carol remains the best, but as I am not really a fan of Christmas indoctrination, I disagree with the concept. And really, there isn't much need to read it because the film adaptions are identical (I am shocked at myself for saying that but there it is). The character problem was even more evident here than inPickwick. Each time I thought I had finally remembered the horde of characters in one of the stories, it would end, and the process would start all over again. When short stories have the same amount of characters as a full length novel, it's tortuous to read, so eventually I gave up and skipped a few dozen pages. Needless to say, I don't regret it.

Hard Times was not so much bad, as woefully disappointing. I expected this to be the book in which industrialisation is attacked the most severely, in which the criticism is perhaps the most refined, in which descriptions and the atmosphere are vivid. But it fell rather flat. Industrialisation, though criticised, was more of a backdrop than a primary theme. The social criticism is refined, but somewhat overshadowed by other themes, and the descriptions are minimal compared to the descriptions in the other books. I didn't engage with the characters as much as I anticipated, and although this is the shortest of Dickens' novels, it seemed to drag on for much longer than some of the larger ones. I don't dislike Hard Times, but if I had to pick one of the well-known of his novels to advise people to avoid, this would have to be it.

With these three aside (and really, Hard Times was a push as it is still quite good), I can mention a few of the things that have shaped my opinion. Returning to my original point, Dickens is a part of London, and vice versa. The borough of Southwark in which I live, is full of streets named after characters from his novels, and in the course of his writing, there are descriptions of almost every part of the city. This in itself is a huge plus given my feelings towards London, especially the contrast between now and the time that Dickens was writing. Although there are still similarities, these are outweighed by the enormous differences. I don't consider 150 years a huge length of time, and yet London is so changed that it is almost unrecognisable from the images painted in 19th Century novels. Only the river, the tower, and the dome of St Paul's Cathedral as reminders that this is still the same place. Fog and smoke, which are fixtures of Victorian London, are now a rarity. The chimneys and wooden inns of the slums which made up the cityscape have been replaced by terraces and skyscrapers. As I mentioned before, the history of these books is one of their most valuable features, because so much has changed, and the London of the Victorian ages is almost completely gone. As well as the setting and the descriptions, there are the characters. Fagin, Lady Dedlock and Miss Havisham (and I couldn't think of a more appropriate actress to play this character than Helena Bonham Carter) are some of the most memorable in English Literature, and just three of the hundreds Dickens created in the course of his writing. And arguably most importantly of all is the social criticism of the times. The harsh and cutting critique of Victorian England; the living conditions of the poor, the ridiculousness of class divisions is perhaps what admire the most. Like every great writer, Dickens used his abilities to bring about change, draw attention to the massive social problems and injustices of the time, and one of the ways he did this was through vivid descriptions of the horror of industrialisation and the living conditions of the poor. And here I feel the need to quote one of my favourite extracts from The Old Curiosity Shop:

Advancing more and more into the shadow of this mournful place, its dark depressing influence stole upon their spirits, and filled them with a dismal gloom. On every side, and as far as the eye could see into the heavy distance, tall chimneys, crowding on each other, and presenting that endless repetition of the same dull ugly form, which is the horror of oppressive dreams, poured out their plague of smoke, obscured the light, and made foul the melancholy air. On mounds of ashes by the wayside, sheltered only by a few rough boards, or rotten pent-house roofs, strange engines spun and writhed like tortured creatures; clanking their iron chains, shrieking in their rapid whirl from time to time as though in torment unendurable, and making the ground tremble with their agonies. Dismantled houses here and there appeared, tottering to the earth, propped up by fragments of others that had fallen down, unroofed, windowless, blackened, desolate, but yet inhabited. Men, women, children, wan in their looks and ragged in attire, tended the engines, fed the tributary fires, begged upon the road, or scowled half naked from the doorless houses. Then came more of the wrathful monsters, whose like they almost seemed to be in their wildness and their untamed air, screeching and turning round and round again; and still, before, behind, and to the right and left, was the same interminable perspective of brick towers, never ceasing in their black vomit, blasting all things living or inanimate, shutting out the face of day, and closing in on all these horrors with a dense dark cloud.

Unfortunately, this is a chance which most writers today throw out the window to appease these idiotic tendencies of consumer/celebrity culture. Forget about war, and government oppression, and the rise in unemployment, I'm going to write a book about losing my virginity. Or better yet, shoes! Because there just aren't enough authors writing books about shoes!

Since I have listed my three least favourite Dickens books, I should now list the three I consider to be the best. Although my favourite is unswerving, I am a bit unsure of the third, though I have come to the decision of David Copperfield, one reason being that it is far broader in scale than Great Expectations. Ever since I started reading Dickens, there were a few that I was most looking forward to. I read all the books in chronological order, so David Copperfield was the first one I reached of the few that I most anticipated. Leo Tolstoy said of David Copperfield, "The greatest achievement of the greatest of all novelists", and Dickens himself said of the book, "Like so many fond parents, I have in my heart a favourite child". So it is superfluous to mention that I had high aspirations. This was my first experience of Dickens as a first person narrator, and thus it was very different to the previous novels. It seemed to mark a transition in style from the more haphazard plots of the early novels to a much more structured and mature style of writing. And it is brilliant in it's fluidity. At the end, it leaves you feeling as though you have been on some great journey, which is exactly what a great novel should do.

A Tale of Two Cities is one of the only two historical novels that Dickens wrote, the other being Barnaby Rudge. This meant that many of the characteristics present in the rest of his novels were changed to present a more realistic picture. The humourous caricatures are replaced by a more serious cast, and the use of dialogue as character development is replaced somewhat by long descriptive extracts. As much as I enjoy the comical portraits that are present in most of Dickens' works, I was intrigued to see how he approached a much more serious plot. He definitely succeeded in doing so. This book stands out amongst all the others because it is so completely different. Darker, more chilling, more disturbing in that the massacres described were reality and not just fiction. Snow, blood, fog, love and hatred, London and Paris, the clash of two opposing classes; the events play out to make it the most gripping of Dickens' narratives. He has a knack for portraying the capabilities of human nature, both good and evil; the capability to love as well as the capability to torture and murder. The last few chapters are possibly the most emotional chapters in the entire Dickens catalogue, and by the end I wasn't sure whether I was uplifted or distraught, which is what makes it so brilliant.

This is the book that I was looking forward to the most from the moment I started reading Dickens. The magnum opus (IMHO). Bleak House is definitely, without a doubt, my favourite. From the first first sentence: "London." And from the first mesmerising description of London fog, I fell in love with it, and it never slipped throughout the 1000+ pages. It was much more complex than the previous books, with a new angle of the haunting Jarndyce and Jarndye court case. The pace of Bleak House was definitely unexpected. Being the longest books, I anticipated it being slow, but from the minute Esther steps off the coach in London, into the fog, the crowds, the noise, the oppressively fast-paced atmosphere never slips. More threads, more characters, more tragedies are introduced, travelling deeper into the depths of the narrative. Questions are raised which remain a mystery for hundreds of pages, characters are introduced and then disappear for ages... Like the Bleak House in the book, it is easy to get lost in the maze of rooms and corridors (thank God for Sparknotes). The bleak, foggy London cityscape, the cold, hollow court rooms, the rain and quagmire of Chesney Wold in the early chapters, the brightness and vibrancy of Chesney Wold in later chapters, the chaos of the Jellyby house and the comfortable tidiness of Bleak House, the harsh winter countryside and the industrial wastes of Yorkshire certainly don't disappoint my soft spot for atmospheric imagery. By the time I reached Bleak House, I had become accustomed to Dickens' social criticism, but the satire of this is quite different. It is focused more on institutions themselves rather than society: The greed and immorality of lawyers, the inefficiency and bureaucracy of the law system, the needless expense of court cases. I still find this very relevant today, and this focused critique of the law system is one of the factors that I admire the most. Beautifully written, expertly woven, one of the best books ever written.

As much as I could go one about how much I love Dickens for reams, I fear I have fallen into boring review territory which I was hoping to avoid. However, as I stated at the beginning, since I write entries about things that I feel strongly about, these books definitely fit that category. Perhaps my distaste of modern culture is what makes me retreat back to past eras. Perhaps I seek a knowledge of history. Perhaps I am just a snob. Whatever the reason, I really do love the classics. I'm not saying that I can only appreciate books written over 100 years ago. Some of my favourite books of all time are modern: Lord of the Rings, Trainspotting, Brave New World, 1984 (Okay most of them aren't that modern). But there is still the common factor that these books are political. I like the classics because over 100 years ago writing as political and social commentary was the norm. Now it is a rarity.

Feelings of Displacement

I wrote my last blog entry in the midst of a very negative few days, in which I locked myself inside my safe hateful place. I would say that it's over now, but it's never really over. I just feel like I can deal with the world again . For a start, I have changed my route to and from work, to avoid East Street and its noisome atmosphere and claustrophobic crowds. I do still find it unfortunate that no matter which route I take to walk to work there will be large crowds of people. This is unavoidable. It isn't something that tends to bother me a great deal under ordinary circumstances, but it did get me thinking the other day about the pros and cons of living in central(ish) London.

In July, as I have mentioned (I think), I moved much closer to central London. I now live on Old Kent Road, at the end bordering Borough and Bermondsey, 10 minutes from City Hall. Last year I lived in Streatham, much further south, and over an hour's bus journey from central London. Although I can now within walking distance of the centre, the noise and crowds are a constant. Whereas last year, although it was over an hour's bus journey into the city, I lived in a quiet court, off a relatively quiet street.

As I was watching Happy-Go-Lucky a couple of days ago, there was a conversation between the characters about when Poppy, the main character, was going to "grow up", move away from central London, get a mortgage, start a family, and "take life seriously". Not that I put any value into this opinion, but it did get me thinking about ideals. I am extremely indecisive, and more than this, I have a thirst for experiencing new places, which means that I don't see myself living in any one place for a huge period of time. But it got me thinking, maybe this want to experience living in so many different places is just to find the right one. In fact, I'm almost certain this is the case.

It is highly doubtful that I will ever want a mortgage. And being gay, I will never have children. I don't like sharing a bed because I like having my own space. These three things alone put the idea of "settling down to a responsible life" into questionable territory. But the idea of a responsible life as the consensus sees it is not something a find appealing. A mortgage on some semi/detached in suburbia, or some village, with some kids, a few pets, and a wedding ring on your finger? Who wants that? And more importantly, why do people want that? My ideals haven't changed in this respect. I think if I ever reached that place I would be in constant mid-life crisis, or constant depression.

So I have this list of places that I'd like to live, glamourising each of them, hoping to live in them all at some point. I din't want to move every few years, but I get bored easily. I don't want to live far from central London, but I like peace and quiet. With these impossible standards I'm sure to be looking for a very long time, and I guess I will never find out what I want until I actually get there. Or maybe I never will. One factor standing in my way at the present time is money. 80% of the neighbourhoods I would like to live in are out of my reach because of average rent prices. And my ideal home is 100% out of my reach because I can't afford my own place, and I can't afford to decorate. One certainty is that living on a road with constant traffic, sirens and crowds will probably get tiring eventually. So in respect to this, I can see why people choose to leave the city and start a family. I just don't understand why the only goal people aim for in life is a family and a mortgage.

Misanthropic Tendencies

Okay, it's been two weeks since I last wrote a post. But as I stated in the last one, I went to Infest two weeks ago, and as I should have anticipated, it took an age to recover. It seems that 3 solid days of heavy drinking is just too much for my frail old body to handle these days. So the week after was spent mostly in bed, in pain, ashamed of the ludicrous amounts of intoxicants consumed in one weekend. Thankfully, I had the week off work, so I was allowed to fully wallow in self-pity until my stepmother arrived last Friday. This being only the second time in her life that she had been in London, this obviously led to more drinking, clubbing and general stupidity.

(This rambling really is leading somewhere, I promise...)

When it came around to work on Monday, needless to say, I still didn't feel as though I had recovered sufficiently to function on a professional level. I wrote a blog entry a few weeks ago about all the things that I hate about fashion, and these seemed to be highlighted last week, perfectly coinciding with my body's decision to sink into depression. Now, I'm not saying that being at work triggered a depressive episode, and I'm not saying I would have been depressed even if I didn't have to work... Let's just say that it was a mixture of both, but one thing which certainly made it a hell of a lot worse, was the office being decked out in fur for the new collection. I think a vegan's opinions on fur should be pretty obvious, but apparently my boss still thought it would be a good idea to throw it at me. To make my opinion perfectly clear: fur is fucking disgusting, and anyone who wears it is fucking disgusting. I went home on Tuesday feeling nauseated. This was made worse by my route home through a South London market street, full of litter, stinking of fish and meat, and teeming with clueless idiots, many of which carrying bibles or pushing prams. To summarise: fur, meat, fish, litter, religion, children and stupid people in one day. I think it's pretty obvious that I was in an extremely misanthropic mood by the time I opened my front door.

I managed to drag myself to work for a couple of hours on Wednesday, but by Thursday I couldn't stand the thought of leaving the house, so I called in sick (which I don't feel is completely untrue). Sat in my apartment, hating humanity, wanting to quit my job and leave the country to go and live on a desert island away from the painful exercise of human interaction, I decided to download a few films in an attempt to hasten away my bout of nihilistic depression and self-righteousness. I downloaded something called The Release Lounge Extreme Horror Pack, which contained these films:

A Serbian Film

Antichrist

I Spit On Your Grave

The Human Centipede

Perfect! Just what I needed; a bunch of movies so sickeningly barbaric I would probably only ever enjoy them in the mood that I was in. Or at least as close to "enjoy" as it was possible to get. (Except The Human Centipede. I have been meaning to watch it all week but the more I think about it, the more it seems to be just pure fetishist vileness, and I haven't got around to it.)

I am not a fan of horror films in the slightest. I find most of them ridiculous, sexed-up, dumbed-down adventures in imbecility, as I have stated in previous posts. However, as A Serbian Film had been much discussed amongst my friends as the sickest film ever made, I watched this first. It wasn't what I was expecting, and maybe it was because I was somewhat numb to the world at the time of watching, or maybe I am just a sick fuck, but it wasn't as shocking as all the controversy led me to believe. Okay, yes, the Newborn Scene is disgusting. But it's unclear, blatantly fake, and lasts a whole of 5 seconds. I'm not saying I wish it had lasted longer; quite the opposite. I believe it was as long as it needed to be. But this is when it occurred to me that people's reactions often shape the way you view films. A Serbian Film was twisted, but for the most part I didn't find it uncomfortable to watch. I still feel that once a person has sat through Irreversible in a cinematic atmosphere, and endured the full 90 minutes of extreme discomfort, you become somewhat immune to films which strive to be disturbing. Irreversible still remains the one and only time I have been close to leaving the room. I think my primary defence against violent or controversial films is their basis in reality. A Serbian Film just didn't seem to have much basis in reality (at least by way of plot), but was instead a brilliant metaphor. As a gore fest, or boundary pusher, I didn't find it as disturbing as some other films, but as a political commentary, I thought it worked very well. The question is, did it need the extreme violence to do it?

Sickest scene: Newborn Porn...

The second that I watched from the pack was Antichrist, and this was probably the one that I knew the least about. I had heard about it when it was first released, again with the cliche label of "most controversial film ever made", but the only scene I knew about was the one in which the fox says "Chaos Reigns". Taken completely out of context, and at the height of my horror film hatred, this sounded completely ridiculous, tired, lame, and I waived downloading it. However, I put it on with an open mind, and by the time the Intro sequence was over, it came across as a film that was vastly underrated. The black and white introduction reminded me of French Art-house, and was so completely removed from what I was expecting that it threw me off guard. This led on to some amazing performances, a brilliant storyline, and some of the most breathtakingly beautiful scenes I had ever seen in a movie. I will admit that I began to question the labels that this film had been burdened with. It did become more and more disturbing as it progressed however, and where this film differed to ASF was that it was believable, which disturbed me a lot more. The gore is limited, but extremely graphic, which is I assume is what led to the controversy (along with the title). But genuinely, Antichrist is one of the best films I have watched this year. Whereas ASF conveys a sense of extreme cynicism towards the world, Antichrist is much more personal. Self-hatred and self-mutilation instead of the inflicted violence that is the motif of most horror films. It wasn't what I expected or what I was looking for, but it was extremely good.

Sickest scene: The extremely realistic snip scene.

Thirdly, I watched I Spit On Your Grave, because after Antichrist I felt as though I should watch something purely sadistic, and I knew exactly what ISOYG included. The rape scene aside, the violence in this one(excepting the rape scene) is deserved. Revenge. It's enjoyable to watch. Because who doesn't want to see a rapist getting exactly what they deserve? It isn't good exactly. It has all the same horror movie cliches and stereotypes as any other, but I couldn't deny a sense of twisted pleasure at watching a group of gang rapists being tortured by the person that they raped. Pure, simple, animalistic revenge fantasies displayed on screen: the perfect cure (or dilution) for a bout of sociopathic and misanthropic thoughts.

Sickest scene: The ringleader of the gang having his teeth pulled out and being force-fed his own dismembered cock.

Whenever I watch films like these, I am often left questioning the violence, or whatever it is that makes them so offensive or controversial. More specifically, I question why mainstream horror such as Saw and Hostel is now acceptable, but films such as Antichrist or A Serbian Film are still denounced and utterly rejected by wider society. Why is one portrayal of extreme violence okay where another is not? Running on a philosophical note, I believe it to be linked with the truth. How close does a movie come to the truth? Mainstream horror is not truthful. The situations aren't truthful, the characters aren't truthful, the events aren't truthful. It's just fantasy like any Hollywood movie. It would never happen like that in a real life situation. The victim wouldn't be a blonde, topless, double D. They wouldn't walk outside into the woods alone to see what the noise was. And they wouldn't tell complete strangers where they live. So audiences can accept it, because it's stupid. But when movies like Irreversible, or A Serbian Film are released, people are offended and sickened, because they are truthful. Irreversible was controversial because it doesn't glamourise rape; it shows it how it really happens. A Serbian Film is controversial because it portrays prostitution and paedophilia; sickening as the newborn scene is, people do commit acts like that. And audiences can't stand it. Which is no surprise considering the bubble of censorship that we all live in. Did the rape scene in Irreversible need to be over 10 minutes long? Yes. Because rape is horrible and drawn out, and nothing like the 30 second rapes seen in mainstream films. Did A Serbian Film need a scene involving a baby being raped? Well yes, because of the concept of the film.

The graphic violence depicted in horror films still pales in comparison to the real violence committed by governments, and by real people, in wars and in everyday incidents. The public can't stand to hear about real horror, but they will happily pay to watch portrayals of it on the big screen. Stop for a second and think how fucked up that is. Maybe I am just a bit too cynical. Maybe people are more misanthropic than they really know. But I am painfully aware of what happens in the real world, which is probably why fictional portrayals of violence don't shock me in the same way that they do some people, because they rarely come close to the violence of reality. So instead of watching ridiculous Hollywood slashers and then complaining about the rare instances where films actually try to portray horror truthfully, I suggest people pick up a newspaper, because there is far more violence and far more atrocities happening in reality than there are in film studios.

[EDIT] I have now watched the Human Centipede, and I believe that actually being one of the victims in that film would have been less tortuous than watching it.

I don't want to be a Telletubby

I am a crap employee. There is just no escaping this fact. It has become more and more evident over the past week or two that I am extremely bad at, well practically anything involved in being a good employee. Such as having an attention span longer than 2 seconds. And actually listening to instructions without arguing. But this may be due to the fact that I feel as though I am smarter than everyone. This is not arrogance. I'm sure it's not true a lot of the time. It's just more of an, "I'm sure I can work out how to do it myself" kind of stance. And this came to a head at work today, when I insisted, point blank, that what my boss was saying was completely and totally wrong.

Luckily, I was right. It turned out to be a misunderstanding over me rewriting a couple of documents, which I continued to state looked exactly the same, and couldn't possibly be rewritten to look completely different. Because in absolute honesty they were almost identical. Frustration and tension ensued when I couldn't make them sound different, which led to me placing them flat down on the table and saying "No! Look at them! They are exactly the same!", and it did in fact turn out that someone had printed the wrong documents or otherwise written the wrong thing... The bottom line is, I was right. But this was only proved by yelling at my boss.

This has got me thinking: don't people get fired for yelling at their boss? I didn't even yell exactly, but don't people get fired just for disagreeing with their boss? Or not taking their boss's word as fact, whether it's wrong or not? This has come up more than once in seminars about successfully finding and keeping a job: Agree with your boss, even if they are wrong. Well, this just seems silly. What if your boss being wrong could jeopardise the company, or on a smaller level, efficiency, as was the case with me today. I had been rewriting the damn thing for 2 days, and receiving the same response: that's not right, you're not doing it properly. If I hadn't got pissed off and said "Maybe you're not explaining it properly!" I could have been rewriting it for another two days.

I'm pretty sure that I have already done countless things in the short space of time that I have been interning that could have risked me getting fired in a paid job. But I am feigning ignorance of the ridiculous rules and regulations, the traditions and criterions of everyday employment. Simply because they are silly. And because I don't like being told how to do things which I can do perfectly well on my own. Never disagree with your boss. Well what if they are spectacularly wrong? Be jovial and always have a smile on your face. Well what if I'm in a shitty mood because my friend just died? Am I not allowed to be upset? Make conversations with the clients. Why not just do what they ask as quickly as possible? Because I'm sure they have better things to do than sit in a bank or an embassy and chat about the weather. Always try and sell a more profitable product. What if they don't want it? I'll feel like a twat if I keep asking them:

I think you should take out a credit card.

Oh, no I really don't want one.

But then you can spend whatever you want.

I can't afford one.

They have very reasonable APR.

I don't want to pay interest when I could just save my own money.

Ah, but then you'd have to wait.

I'm fine with waiting.

But wouldn't it be better to get what you want RIGHT NOW!

No, because I'd have to pay triple in the end.

It's really not that high, I can show -

Look, I just don't want a credit card.

Maybe I haven't explained to pros and cons very well.

You have, I just don't want one.

But there are many benefits -

I DON'T WANT A FUCKING CREDIT CARD!

Then that customer would hate the bank and change banks as soon as they could. I know this, because I have sold TalkTalk broadband before, and it is surprising just how many times I received the response, "Well, we were considering TalkTalk, but you are being very pushy so I think we'll go with BT now". The bottom line is, people don't like being told what to do. People don't like not being able to just walk around a shop in peace without a salesperson latching onto them until they feel uncomfortable and leave. And many people don't like having pointless conversations when they don't need to.

Everybody know these things. Everybody, it seems, except people who work in Human Resources. Apparently, people in Human Resources are always happy, and smiling, and having conversations with every single person that they meet. Which would explain why they never respond to emails or call you back. Apparently people from HR aren't actually people. Apparently, they are some other race who are always smiling, and always positive, like the Teletubbies. So whenever anyone gets pissed off because HR have sent down complaints from up on high about staff not stapling their mouths into permanent grins of absolute euphoria, or not forcing that mother of 6 who was just evicted to take out a credit card to pay for the cardboard box that will now be her home, or not having an hour's conversation with that person who just came in to change their address, just turn around and tell them that you don't want to be a fucking Teletubby.

I'm all about efficiency. I'm all about productivity. But I'm also all about independence. I accept that everyone has their own way of doing things. Why must employment become such a tedious, painfully trying experience by HR and management continually breathing down your neck about what you are doing wrong, and how you should be doing it? FYI, when you stand behind me or otherwise stand and watch everything I do, I am probably going to mess it up, under the pressure of observation. But I suppose this is what you want isn't it? For me to trip up so you can say "AHA! I knew you weren't being 100% productive!" and justify your ridiculous methods. Thankfully, I'm rather lucky. My boss prefers a more relaxed, amicable attitude at work, so the people there can work comfortably. There's no uniform (which, I am sure, is hugely damaging the efficiency of the staff because everybody knows that being incredibly uncomfortable all day makes people work much harder); we play music to the lighten the atmosphere (unfortunately this is often Hip-Hop, but I have been told I can play my own if I get more than one album to play); and I can get away with yelling at my boss, and pointing out when they are wrong, or late. I'm well aware that in any other job I would probably veer towards getting fired most of the time. And this is why when I was unemployed I comforted myself by thinking, well, at least I don't have to wear a suit and actually talk to people, and only speak in sports metaphors. For the time being, I'm very happy being a bad employee, because frankly, I think everyone should be able to yell at their boss when necessary.

Am I missing something here?

I honestly do try to be open-minded. But if there is one thing that I just cannot abhor, it is the genre of music known as Hip-Hop, or more specifically, "Gansta Rap". Even though I'm told whenever I turn down another Hollywood blockbuster or animated Disney/Pixar film with a smirk, that I'm stuck-up, and too closed-minded to just enjoy films as they are meant to be enjoyed, I protest! This is not the case! I have watched plenty of Hollywood blockbusters and animated Disney/Pixar films. I even paid to see 2012 at the cinema. Granted, I have regretted that ever since, but I do still enjoy these type of films occasionally. Okay, very rarely. But the point of the matter is, that they really don't have much variation. There's some invasion, there's some adventure, there's a big battle of some kind, the good guys (almost always America) save the day, hooray! The end. And I refer to the wise old saying: "If you've seen one, you've seen em all".

Likewise, I have heard enough Hip-Hop to make a generalised and frank decision that it is fucking awful. I'm not particularly aware of the intricacies of different sub-genres here. It's all just Hip-Hop to me, one way or the other. Just like Death Metal, Symphonic Metal, Gothic Metal, Industrial and a bunch of others would all just be Metal to someone who dislikes Metal. So wherever my real hatred may lie in this instance; Hip-Hop, Gangsta Rap, R&B, whatever, I'm just going to refer to it as Hip-Hop to simplify things. To be honest, I have reservations about using the term Gangsta-Rap as it sounds ridiculous. Kind of like Chef-Rock or Librarian-Pop.

I usually try to come up with a logical conclusion as to why people like the things that they do, but when it comes to Hip-Hop, I am at a loss. The reason that this subject has come to my mind is that the fashion designer whom I work for, is quite a fan of the said genre. So much so, that today was dedicated almost entirely to it. At one point he apologised (albeit somewhat jokingly) for the profuse swearing that was to follow in the song that was playing. Now, I don't have any problem with swearing. I swear a lot myself. But when its included in music or writing, it should have a place. And it just didn't. Fuck, cunt, and the word I hate the most, Nigger; all repeated, on a loop, verse after verse, with no discernible narrative behind the swearing. When you feel the need to apologise to two people in their 20s for swearing in a song, however jestingly, there's probably something lacking in the song besides basic literacy.

As far as I can grasp, the back-story of a Hip-Hop song seems to be something like this:

There is a pimp, or some sort of gang member, who is usually the male vocalist (aka rapper), whose monologue includes one or all of the following: Driving a Hummer or other such pimped-out tractor; Rollin' up to the club (which seems to be more important than actually being at the club, so much so that certain Hip-Hop songs focus entirely on reliving this wonderful experience of arriving at the club, in a Hummer, through every chorus); Having some sort of bitch, or otherwise incredibly attractively named hooker, who often has sex with the lead vocalist; which leads on to Sex, which happens frequently, and graphically (my favourite line in this field today was "sliding down my pole like a certified stripper" - everyone can relax, romance is clearly still going strong); Tits, pussy, and other such references to naked women; Drugs, and if they can somehow be snorted from a stripper's back as the rapper fucks her, bonus points for artistic license and ticking all the boxes on the Hip-Hop check list.

If a woman is involved in the song, she seems to either perpetuate the sexist egocentricity of the male vocalist by wailing along in the background and occasionally saying something along the lines of "yeah baby", which must be applauded for sheer ingenuity. When female Hip-Hop vocalists aren't living up to their assigned gender-roles, they are completely reversing them, as in the case of Nicki Minaj, who sings about shitting on people. It seems that there is no end to the aesthetic achievements of this wonderful genre.

The really disheartening part of Hip-Hop, is that the artists seem to put so much time, and so much energy into channeling their talent, that all of it is spent on the vocals. The music seems to be rather irrelevant. At least, I'm assuming that it's irrelevant, because it appears to me that Hip-Hop artists complete the vocals, and then just press whichever button on the keyboard will play a simplistic, monotonous "bum-tsh, bum-tsh, bum-tsh", with a fitting bpm. After the first verse of any given track is over, I already feel as though the track has been repeated far too many times than should be allowed and have the urge to either switch it off violently, or begin stabbing myself in the ears with a pen in time with the never-ending "bum-tsh"!

I think I have justified my opinion enough to pose my initial question once more: why on earth do people actually like this drivel? Why would anyone want to listen to song after song detailing the lives of a pimp and his hookers? It is repetitive, offensive, mindless diarrhoea that almost everyone seems to take a liking to except me. It's even played in gay bars, which is about as confusing as a gay Christian. I was under the impression that the gay scene was supposed to be about expressing equality and individuality. And yet look; everyone is dancing to the song about that poor hooker who is objectified and abused by her pimp. It almost creates a black hole of sheer paradoxical confusion in my mind, which is further intensified by the fact that Hip-Hop fans are under the impression that these people possess actual talent.

I don't usually have any real desire to discuss musical taste. I like what I like, you like what you like, it really doesn't need questioning. Unless we work in the same office where music is played all day at your discretion. And when forced to listen to Hip-Hop for 6 hours a day, it's funny how all of a sudden I do find myself questioning why people listen to fucking Hip-Hop! I can go so far as to admit that there is some level of skill involved in rapping, sometimes, on rare occasions (like when the songs actually have a subject matter beyond fucking or rollin' up to a club). But the majority of the time, it's a string of words put together at random, a few made-up words thrown in to make sure it rhymes, a female solo to make sure the picture of sexist idiocy is well and truly reinforced, a load of imagery to really project the perfectly avaricious pimp lifestyle, certain words or phrases repeated over and over again to give it some length, along with a bunch of swearing to make it suitably intimidating, or rebellious, or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Have I just about got the gist of it?

P.S. I'm pretty sure Hip-Hop was invented in America, so thanks once again America. You are a country that just keeps on giving.