Photography

So it has occurred for me for some time now that I have been seriously lacking in the blog department, having been in utterly care-free mode in the most negative sense. Additionally, topics of conversation to ebb and flow, with many coming at once. After weeks of debating very little of anything, with anyone, this week many things have been on my mind. The Royal Wedding, the Monarchy in general, the Olympics, Victorian literature, Horror films, and that old favourite, how much we all hate the government. Another thing which has come to mind recently, is that I take a lot of photographs, and although I've never studied photography in any way, or have ever used a real camera, I still like to take arty photographs, almost exclusively of architecture. As I do this practically every week, I feel that even when I am once again feeling a sense of writer's block, at the very least I will be able to keep up with something image related.

Whereas writing about public events, world news, politics or whatever else I blog about (I'm finding it a little ironic right now that "blog" is underscored red as a spelling mistake, on blogger.com of all sites) can take a back seat (or be completely disregarded) when feeling emotionally shit (which is quite a common occurrence at the moment given the circumstances), one thing I do almost without fail is walk around London for hours and hours at a time. And take many, many photographs in the process. Yesterday I went into the City of London, being a favourite weekend haunt of mine when the streets and alleys are empty of bankers and businessmen, and are instead lonely and quiet, almost completely uninhabited.

Although I am excited about the new skyscrapers that are planned and being built around London, I still appreciate the older ones. As I was the only person in the alley near the entrance to Tower 42 I managed to take quite a few photographs from below, where it hangs over the core, like this one.

A long absence

It has been a very long time since I have written anything. Here, or anywhere else really. Three months, in fact. And not wholly without reason. I hope this stint of writer's block, or whatever you want to call it, is coming to an end, and I figure I may as well start writing again by addressing what caused me to stop in the first place. In truth, it feels a little alien, since it has been so long, and I haven't even looked at my blog in this time, but it's a start.

I've never really had the best opinion of doctors. I don't mean surgeons and paediatricians, I mean standard GPs. The only time I have ever been to a doctor out of necessity was to have stitches removed from my leg, and even that I could have done myself. The other couple of times I have consulted my GP were for minor ailments, and consisted of waiting for a very long time in a room full of trashy magazines, to then be told by a very bored looking doctor that "it's probably stress, come back if it doesn't get better on its own." This advice, invaluable though it is, is widely available online. There are hundreds of websites dedicated to telling you that all the problems you have are stress related, and that you should just chill out. Taking heed, I didn't even bother registering with a doctor for several years. 

Now, I've suffered from bouts of depression for as long as I can remember. But then again, who hasn't? Who doesn't feel like shit sometimes? I'm sure I'm perfectly normal, and there's no need to hear a doctor say it. The truth is, I'm not normal, at all. I'm well aware that I have OCD and anxiety issues. That being around people is sometimes just too much to handle. But I've learnt to live with it. Most of the time. A few months ago however, I realised that this particular "bout" of depression, this fog (for want of a more inspired metaphor) wasn't clearing, and actually seemed to be getting worse. As much as I enjoy spending entire days in bed watching DVDs, when it becomes routine, and the simple act of getting out of bed is exhausting and just not worth the effort, because, after all, there is no point to anything, it's probably time to consult a professional. So I finally dragged myself over to the surgery opposite my flat, registered (peed in a pot, answered uncomfortable questions), and eventually booked an appointment with the doctor.

Having studied diagnosis and treatment online beforehand, I was aware that a patient's level of depression is based on a short questionnaire, which essentially asks you the same thing in several different ways. I feel as though this is probably the least effective way to determine a patient's state of mind, but who am I to judge the medical profession? I was diagnosed with depression, and once I had gotten over this unexpected shock, I took the prescription and collected the medication.

I was started on 20mg of Citalopram, which several of my friends and family take and have had good results with. I was therefore also aware of the infamous list of side effects in the beginning, but this is a small price to pay if it makes me feel better, right? After a few days of constant nausea, loss of appetite, weight loss, tremors, headaches, feeling drunk and exhausted and a complete lack of sex drive, I was questioning this small price, and updating my blog was the last thing on my mind. You have to wonder, when antidepressants have warnings on the packet reading, may increase suicidal thoughts, just what the purpose of them is. But I don't like giving up, so I continued feeling like complete shit for a fortnight, before the side effects disappeared. But then I felt even more exhausted than before, which is essentially how I have felt for the last two months. 

As much as I have kicked myself for spending days laid around trying to summon the energy to do something, anything, it hasn't been very successful. But without anything to get out of the flat for, I knew that a sudden uplift wasn't forthcoming. This was made all the more obvious when I went away for a few days to Paris (which I have every intention of writing something about shortly), where I found I had all the energy and enthusiasm in the world. But on returning to the monotony of my life in London, it disappeared. This only leads me to question how effective medication really is? Does it really have any effect at all? Or does it simply give people the illusion of feeling better through a placebo effect? After suffering the side effects aforementioned, I am led to the conclusion that it does something, perhaps just not what it is supposed to. I saw my doctor again a couple of days ago and told him that I wasn't feeling any different. I filled in the questionnaire again, he put me on 40mg, and told me to return in a month. 

I knew from the start that medication is not a magic potion for curing depression. But then I've also heard from people taking Citalopram that it is a case of finding the right dosage for you. Since I am now on the maximum, if I don't feel any different in a month then there doesn't seem a whole lot of point in continuing with it. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I am taking this motivation to update my blog for the first time in months as a sign that it may finally be starting to work. Here's hoping. 

A polite request

Just a short one here. But I feel the need to ask a question. What the fuck? Why is formatting on this website such an impossible task? Why does one paragraph have a different line-spacing than the next? I did not change any settings or add any HDML in between those two paragraphs, so I am at a loss as to why this is happening. I have managed to overcome the double spaces between paragraphs in the HDML, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to overcome this new anoyance. The last entry I wrote, and the last but one were both written in the same way, namely, just by tapping keys and then publishing. So why the fuck do they have different line-spacing? I do not want to resort to another website to write, but I will be left with no choice if this complete ineptitude continues to make me want to knife my own computer. It's not the computer's fault, that I know, and yet Blogger is driving me to misplaced aggression. This cannot go on. I'm begging, please, can some employee fix this problem. It has persisted for months and nothing has changed. Surely a company the size of Google has skilled technicians that can overcome such a trivial error. Sadly, I am not one of them, so I cannot do it myself. I politely entreat you once more to fix the fucking thing. 

You may enter, but only if you're rich

Whilst scanning The Guardian this week in search of something to peruse with interest, I found an article about how the new changes to housing benefit are going to affect people in London. Although it did not rile me up enough to provoke me into an online debate, it did raise a number of concerns. The article, to be found here, is focused rather specifically on how the new restrictions will affect people living in Westminster. Firstly, this came as somewhat of a surprise to me. Considering the expense of renting in Westminster, that people could live there entirely on housing benefit was a rather foreign idea. But this is a very modern outlook. Surely it has not always been the case that the entire City of Westminster, like any other London borough, contained both rich and poor living side my side? Evidently, this is a fantasy notion that is nearing extinction.

The article revolves around mothers who live in Westminster being forced from their homes due to new caps on housing benefit and, most importantly, how this affects the children who will have to suffer moving home and changing schools. My reaction to news is often either fury or complete apathy. But this article left me on the fence. Firstly, why are low income families living in Westminster in the first place? As many people have responded in the comments beneath the article, there are huge numbers of people who earn a respectable wage who cannot afford to live in Westminster. £30,000 per annum is very well paid by many people's standards, including my own, but it is not enough to live in Westminster, where you look at paying upwards of £2000 a month for a studio flat. So how are women working part-time or who are unemployed managing it? The answer must surely be enormous housing benefit payments.

Is this fair? Many people say that it is not. That single unemployed mothers being subsidised by the state to live in central London is unjustified and unfair to the rest of the people who work full-time and have to commute to central London. My housing benefit is capped at £85 per week, which is nowhere near enough to fund my own flat anywhere near central London. So why on earth are these women receiving several times that amount to pay for central London homes? The answer is again an obvious one; because they have children. Which raises even more questions about the fairness of paying millions in benefits to mothers who cannot afford their own children in order that they may live in the most sought after areas in the country, at the expense of taxpayers for whom living in Westminster remains a dream. Simply put, it isn't fair at all.

But a more appropriate response would take into account their individual circumstances and how they have come to live in Westminster, and central London on the whole, in the first place. To return to my original question, clearly there was a time when such class restrictions were not in place, when affordable (council) housing was available in these areas. One notion which is rolling around my head as I write this is the contradictory nature of such acts as these changes to housing benefit. It is the Conservative party who are implementing this wave of what can arguably be called social cleansing. To say that they want rid of the unwashed poor from the Conservative mecca of Westminster is not so farfetched. But it must be taken into account that they are claiming to be solving a problem; a problem which they created in the first place.

The Right to Buy scheme which Thatcher enforced in the 80s sounds like a great idea. Giving council tenants a right to buy their properties at a discounted price. But what does that lead to? To those tenants then selling on their properties to private landlords who hike up rental prices and charge double, triple or more what the original tenants were paying the council. I speak from experience, since both of my parents lived in council properties which they then went on to buy and sell at a profit. And there are countless instances of this happening accross London. Trellick Tower (see image) in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea was built in the 60s and consisted entirely of council flats, but due to redevlopment and gentrification schemes many of these are now private flats costing upwards of £1500 a month, which is likely significantly higher than what your neighbour is paying the council for the same apartment. Giving council tenants the choice to buy their homes is a nice idea, but realistically the only thing it serves to achieve is a decline in council housing and a rise in private rentals, which are far more expensive.

The Conservative philosophy is apparently to privatise everything, regardless of the consequences and repercussions (those can be dealt with later). But privatising council properties has led to private landlords charging exorbitant rents which will subsequently lead to the gradual rise in both the number of housing benefit claimants and the amount that they are claiming. And now it is poor tenants who are suffering for the Tories' lack of judgement. Whether or not it is fair that single mothers should enjoy the benefits of living in central London is almost irrelevant when you consider that the properties which they rent are most likely situated in ex-council blocks. Meaning that the rent that they now pay is probably many times what it was originally. How can a flat in Westminster rented out at £200 a week by the council be sold to a private landlord and then rented out at quadruple that price without any changes being made to the property itself? How is that justifiable? When landlords can charge just under £40,000 a year for a tiny damp flat in an ex-council tower block filled with broken furniture, the problem is clear: privatisation. The question of why single mothers are living in central London is no longer the most important.

The article almost makes out that this is only the case in Westminster. That any other London borough would offer an abundance of affordable housing. But this is simply not the case. My current flat is located in Southwark, close to central London, and costs £1000 a month. I would not consider this affordable, but I do live near central London. However, my last flat was in Lambeth, close to the border of Croydon, where inner London becomes outer London, a 90 minute bus journey into the city centre, and yet it cost the same price as my current flat. To say then, that this problem is restricted to Westminster, or even to central London, and that these families could move to another borough and choose from any number of affordable options is overly simplifying the matter, and has little credibility. 

Rent in central London is extortionate, that much is true. But council housing is almost non-existant, meaning that affordable housing in any part of London, or indeed any part of the country, is becoming increasingly difficult to find. There was a Dispatches episode on the affordable housing debate which showed that Manchaster and other large cities in the UK have this problem; masses of private high-end apartments being built but little or no affordable ones. There is very little demand for high-end property at the moment. The new developments being built often remain unfilled for months or years following their completion. And yet continue to be built. On the other hand, the waiting list for council properties getting longer and longer, and yet there doesn't seem to be any inclination to build more of these. Gentrification is nothing more than social cleansing; forcing low-income families out of the cities towards the outskirts. The Conservatives are benefiting twofold from this; saving expense through cuts to housing benefit, and moving the undesirables out of London to make way for the rich. This affinity for wealth and disgust for poverty belongs to the 19th Century and not modern day liberal (supposedly) Britain. But rather than getting better, the situation seems to be worsening. The government should be taking measures to alleviate this dissonance between the classes, but instead they are further widening the gap.

The cause of the problem is being wholeheartedly ignored. What is needed is not a cap on benefits but a cap on rents, as well as the creation of affordable homes. As long as there is such a high demand for council properties, and as long as landlords are free to charge such ludicrously high rents, there is a need for housing benefit. Slashing this will save some money, but it will not fix the problem in the long term.

Saving money is what this is all working towards. The Conservatives say that we must take austerity measures to decrease the deficit, but how much are we hearing about rich families who are struggling to cut down their spending? That's right, zero. The opposite in fact, since bankers are still receiving thousands in bonuses. While the rest of the country is forced to live frugally, the rich are somehow exempt. Every household which is feeling the squeeze of the cuts right now is a poor one. Poor to begin with, and now struggling even more. But how much money is this benefit cap really saving? Skimming off a little from housing benefit payments will not save very much comparatively. But it will ruin people's lives. Greater taxes on the rich could save twice as much, and they would not even notice it.

I am not one to take the side of people with children, and I would mostly agree that people should not have children which they cannot afford. To an extent I disagree with the concept of child benefit, because I think that people should make a responsible decision on whether they can afford to raise a family before they do, rather than relying on the state to support them later.  But however I may feel about people's lifestyle choices is besides the point. "To live in Westminster is a privilege, not a right" is a statement which both angers and saddens me, because I do not believe that any city in the UK should be completely off-limits to anybody but the uber-rich. This is a complacent and conceited remark that condones class segregation.

The women mentioned in the article have the luxury of living in Westminster, and I, like many, am rather envious of that fact. But do I think that they should be forced to move miles away to the outer boroughs? No. They are being treated unfairly by the government, and that is the brunt of the matter. Regardless of circumstances, they are not to blame, and yet they are being punished. It is a cruel irony that the families being forced out of their homes right now are paying the price of Thatcher's failed privatisation schemes of the 80s. The money being saved by these changes does not justify such social cleansing. What we are seeing is a complete denial of the issue at hand; affordable housing. Inevitably, competition between private landlords will always lead to rises in rents, and more people will need to resort to housing benefit, it is that simple. Not to mention the links with rising unemployment and wage cuts and freezes. It would make more sense to buy back these buildings to be used once again as council properties which do not require such heavy subsidies. The benefit cap is merely a placebo. Unless affordable housing is created, the problem will not go away.

Minimum wage reaches a new low of £1.36

On Friday night whilst I was in my favourite London metal bar, The Intrepid Fox, I received a call from someone I (vaguely) work with. Due to high decibel levels, and the fact that it was Friday night, I let it ring through to voicemail. The voicemail said something along the lines of "I need to speak with you urgently, call me back as soon as possible". Not knowing what could possibly be important enough to interrupt normal Friday night drinking, and not keen on standing in the -5 temperatures outside to call back, I totally forgot about it until last night, when I returned the call...

And so (somewhat inevitably) I am once again jobless. The call was in fact to inform me that due to company changes my employer can no longer find a position for me. It seems that I am just not suitable for a role in a fashion company. Which, to be honest, I knew from the start. The news itself wasn't particularly disheartening. My opinions on working for a fashion company with completely different ethics and opinions to myself have been brought up several times (I hate fashion), not to mention the ongoing feeling that the ad hoc nature of part-time work there was generally fucking me around. So in many respects, it is a relief to be free from an uneasy and uncommitted job which has caused more grief and frustration than enjoyment or satisfaction. The only downside would be the timing...

In December (I think), Milo, my boyfriend, got a job which he had been hoping for immensely, and which came with a huge wage increase. He immediately started planning holidays and events which he could now afford us to do. A weekend in Paris and a festival in Germany have already been booked. Two weeks ago, my employer said that in all likelihood, after a few things had been sorted, they would be able to employ me full time. Everything looked great. 2012 might not be so bad after all! That is until Milo's enthusiasm ended with a severely overdrawn account and a number of bank charges which he couldn't afford. And I, from the prospect of progressing from part-time work to full-time work, suddenly have no work at all. How life has a way of baking you a cake, only to take it back, beat the shit out of it, and then throw it at your face. 

To add insult to injury, the Jobcentre informed me at my last meeting that they were looking to put me onto another work placement scheme. Since I was just waiting to hear back from my employer with a start date for full-time work, I managed to postpone this. Ironically, it turns out that the Jobcentre are the very reason my employer couldn't employ me full time. He was looking into getting funding from them to start an apprenticeship of sorts, but due to a number of bureaucratic restrictions, I was not eligible for it. I have now been unemployed long enough to see that not only do the Jobcentre not help people look for work, they actively hinder it.

So now I expect that I will be put on another work placement scheme, which, since my cynicism has been ever increased by the last failed work placement, is sure to be a huge fucking waste of time. Not to mention how completely unfounded and hypocritical are the claims that these work placement schemes are helping people back into work. Not that I am stupid enough to believe anything that the Tories say is actually true, but upon first mention, the idea of work placements does seem like a great idea of getting people back into work. The only problem is, the number of jobs available is going down, as the number unemployed is going up. This discordance  of strategies on the part of the government; to slash the number of jobs whilst forcing the unemployed into unpaid work placements, is simply a way of justifying the former with the latter. And predictably, this is being abused by huge companies to receive free labour. 

To say that the government is adding to the pressure and discontent of a generation of young people unable to find work would be putting it lightly. To say that they are oppressively forcing people to work for their right to receive benefits is more accurate. And the idea that this is actually helping people is uninformed at best and a cruel mockery at worst. How can it possibly help young people, who are looking for work, frustrated at the continual headlines in the news that more job cuts are on the way, to push them into unpaid work, surrounded by people doing exactly the same job for a wage? How can it possibly motivate people when the job they are doing is, for all intents and purposes, unnecessary (and it must be, otherwise a paid position would be in its place)? How is it justified to not only allow, but to actually coerce people into working for £1.35 an hour when the minimum wage (for over 21) is £6.08?

Speaking from experience, this forced labour does not help people into full time work, since employers taking part in it are under no obligation to employ people at the end of their placements, and companies such as Tesco are simply using it as an opportunity to hire extra staff without it affecting their profits. Which means that after the end of the placement, people return to job-seeking, having gained nothing more than 3 months experience stacking shelves, which is hardly an invaluable CV addition. It should be obvious to anyone then that this scheme is not a great motivational tool either. And perhaps worst of all, is the way that it is making young unemployed people feel exploited, constrained and worthless: it is nothing less than draconian.

The disillusionment that I have felt, not only towards the government, but also towards the supposed support that I am due to receive from the Jobcentre, is nothing new. The longer a person is unemployed, the more dejected and apathetic they are bound to feel towards their situation. The situation is bad enough as it is; not having a job is shit, as anyone who has ever been unemployed knows. To be told by some Eton educated toff, who was born into wealth and never had to look for a job in his life, how to find a job, is adding salt to the wound. And the huge government cuts to the benefit system are a slap in the face to go with it. The feeling of disillusionment is nothing new, but now added to it are feelings of persecution. I will most likely be placed on a second work-placement scheme in the coming weeks, at the end of which I will not be guaranteed a full-time job. And what then? The government claims that this is helping me back into full-time employment. But if nothing is guaranteed, if the employers enlisted are under no obligations, if the people on these placements have absolutely no incentive (which they don't, since they are unpaid), if no real, full-time, paid positions are being created, then how can this possibly solve the unemployment problem which this government created?

Reflections on a terrible year

I am not one for tradition. Marriage, mortgages and Christmas cheer are all foreign concepts to me. But for some reason, when it comes to New Year, I do feel some need to follow the custom of reflection and resolution in an attempt to somehow better myself. There's no harm in trying to break bad habits, even if it is in vain. So following this mod of reflection, let's face it, 2011 was fucking terrible. It started with the worst Winter months in living memory: absolutely no sunlight paired with continual rain and damp for eight long weeks. I have never really considered myself prone to seasonal affective disorder, but two months of grey, wet weather is bound to make even people on Prozac feel shit. Not least because one illness seemed to follow another through the entire period. By the time March came around I was certain that this was going to be the worst year ever. The weather had persuaded me that nothing good could come of 2011, that the sun was never going to reappear, that it was utterly impossible to find a job, that 2011 was going to be one extremely long rainy day spent indoors watching DVDd and drinking Lemsip, occasionally glancing hopefully over the window but seeing nothing but this:

Thankfully, this wasn't the case. Eventually the weather changed and we were blessed with some glorious Spring weather. This made me jump at the opportunity to emerge from my hole and venture further outside than just to the corner shop to buy tea and biscuits. It was also around this time I began the BBC Book Challenge, essentially a "100 books to read before you die" thing. At the very least, this could distract me from the ongoing disappointment of jobhunting: applying for countless positions, attending various interviews, and then ultimately hearing nothing back from any. This did not help my motivation at the beginning of what was sure to be one of the worst years of my life. So I replaced disappointment and frustration with books, which cost more but gave my pointless existence some semblance of purpose.

After the amazing Spring weather, we entered a typically English Summer. It rained, and it rained... and then it rained some more. Torrential rain, thunderstorms, water literally cascading from the roof. With the exception of a couple of days in June, the temperature never got very high. I'm not really sure how I feel about heatwaves. I mean, there is a strange novelty in stepping outside one morning and feeling as though you have been transported to the Mediterranean. But I suppose the novelty of being inside an oven wears off after a short while and I am left praying (obviously not actually praying) for storms. And there were lots of storms...

2011 was also the 5th consecutive year of moving house. Worse than ever before, the stress of it all made me feel like a masochist. Why do you do this to yourself, every single year? The district we had pinned our hopes on, despite being affordable in Spring, was suddenly way out of our price range, along with the extortionate cost of deposits, and that properties stay on the market for an average of about 36 seconds in London, made it all a pain in the arse before it even began. And then, we tried to move by public transport. I hear you, why the fuck would anyone do that? It seemed like a sensible idea at the time, but how, I have absolutely no idea.

Shortly after moving six miles closer to central London, my work placement started. This had its highs and lows as I have mentioned previously. The placement itself lasted two months, but I continued volunteering there on an ad hoc basic rather exasperatedly. Officially, I resumed weekly meetings with the condescending club at the Jobcentre, which began what was sure to be a steady decline towards the end of the year. The debate over whether to continue working very few irregular hours or call it quits and return to job-hunting in earnest has been my main concern these past three months, and I never did come to a decision. Since I am now being paid, I figure working irregularly is better than not working at all. 

When the lights and decorations go up and December comes round, I think about this:

The Three Disappointments of December

• My birthday
• Christmas
• New Year's Eve

December is an all-round messy month, for a number of reasons. It starts with my birthday, which this year consisted of 6 of my friends staying in my rather small 1-bed apartment for 4 days. Literally climbing over one another to reach the fridge and having to join a queue whenever you need to pee is not an enjoyable way to spend a weekend. I planned the weekend that we would spend as much time out of the house as possible, but this did not go down well. It seems that most of my friends, instead of spending their weekend in London actually doing things in London, would prefer to just sit in front of the TV. I did not foresee this, I did not understand this, and after much complaining and bickering I pledged never to try organising anything ever again. It was meant as a threat but it was probably considered a relief. I spent the next week in bed sulking over what a failure the whole thing had been. But the one thing that did succeed, as always, was being drunk from Thursday through to Monday, which was a taste of the rest of December.

After two weeks usually spent in bed recovering comes Christmas. I have learnt from 2010 to avoid the West End as much as possible in December (and mostly November as well), because it is sure to raise the natural levels of rage in one's blood, be it through hordes of stupid people with 65 bags on each arm, the tacky, kitschy Christmas decor, or the horrible Christmas music, which is played everywhere, 24 hours a day, and haunts my dreams. After much deliberation, I crawled back to stay with my family in York, remaining completely sceptical on the way there. On the 25th I stayed in bed reading until early afternoon so as to avoid the explosion of consumerism happening in the living room. This avoided the general feeling of disdain that Christmas morning brings. The wonderful books which I received, and never being without an alcoholic drink, actually made it enjoyable. So the Christmas of 2011 will be remembered as one of the better ones, but again, being drunk for an entire week has severe negative effects.

New Year's Eve has definitely gained a bad reputation. Last year, due a public transport fail, we were still stood shivering in a bus stop at midnight, and ended up spending £40 on a taxi to finally get to the club, which itself, costs something like £30 a ticket and a further £5 per drink. The club was just good enough to outweigh these failings, but spending £50+ on one night out is something I will never feel okay with. The year before that I went to a house party, in which everyone fell asleep by 10pm, and the year before that I don't even remember. So this year we took a "no frills" approach; we'll go to the club that we always go to. Being members, it cost a mere £10, and thankfully, the bring-your-own-booze policy and drinks prices at the bar did not change because of the date. This meant that at midnight we were on the dance floor with a bottle of champagne listening to the countdown, rather than sat in a bus stop. I would consider this a success.

No matter how successful or unsuccessful these events turn out to be however, December is just one long binge. And when it's over I feel like shit. It's inevitable, as is January being crowned "most depressing month of the year". For the first few days I barely got out of bed, so acute was my sense of shame as I recovered from a very prolonged hangover. Because of this severe hangover following the disgraceful behaviour of December, it is no surprise that people make a desperate attempt to change their ways. There is always something we could quit, or do more of, or do less of. Especially after a year as shit as 2011. The only resolution that I have come up with so far is to drink less, but since I go various festivals every year; 3 days of drinking, getting drunk, and getting completely wasted, this could be a difficult one to keep. But (and this can ultimately summarise my entire outlook for 2012) we'll see how it goes.

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.