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.

Fuck Fashion

As I mentioned in my previous post, it has been a while since I have taken this blogging thing as seriously as I perhaps should. I will continue to slap myself and say stop being so lazy and write something! But I will forget about it again the next day, and only bring myself back to being productive after much self-persuasion. Once again, I find myself vowing to keep up with writing, and once again, I can only wait and see.

I also mentioned in my post yesterday (as another flimsy excuse for my writerly laziness), that I started interning at a fashion design studio, and I have been venting my feelings about this to my boyfriend for the past couple of weeks now, but generally receive no response. As with most venting, you may as well do it to a wall, because the most I seem to get in response is an "mhmm" to show that the other person can hear the noises coming from my mouth. Now I am aware that I am not the most articulate person verbally. I get nervous when I have something to say, and when I have something to say that is actually important I stutter and stumble over my tongue so much that I usually avoid saying anything at all. Which is why I channel my feelings into written words rather than spoken ones. So I feel that I should take any opportunity to express my feelings, however tedious.

So fashion, huh? What's that all about? When I got a call informing me that I had in interview to begin interning at a fashion label in London my first thought was "ugh". I'm not sure I can describe that much better. Just, "ugh". All the negative stereotypes of the fashion industry quickly popped into my head, and I was given no time to prepare for the interview, which made me dread it even more. I never look forward to interviews. I think anyone who does is a complete freak of nature. But this was worse than most because I hadn't prepared for it, so I arrived with a somewhat careless attitude. When asked to describe myself, I blanked, laughed nervously, and said that I wasn't aware this was going to be a formal interview. Luckily, it wasn't. We eventually got talking more freely, and I started work right then, which is the only successful interview I have ever had. And it wasn't even a success because its an unpaid 2 month voluntary job.

It turns out that it is a very small design studio, with just me and the designer working there, which dispelled images of arrogant fashionistas prancing around like tossers (they came later). The first week was great. I worked on the project briefs, wrote emails, things for the website, and some outlines of the company. I was in my comfort zone at least. But in the second week, the fashion side began to creep up on me, and make me feel clueless. Then last week, I joined the designer at a couple of fashion expos in Earl's Court and Chelsea, and the reason I dreaded the interview in the first place came flooding back.

It was safe to say last week that I hated fashion. I spent 6 hours wandering around huge makeshift shopping centres, where every stall we passed had someone trying to drag us in and sell their stuff. I was in Hell. There is no other word for it. Shopping itself is one of the most tedious, draining experiences that people put themselves through. Walking along Oxford Street is a fun day out for most women. Personally, I'd rather jump into the Thames. And to have to shop, but not even shop: just look at clothes, and repeat "I'm just looking thank you" on a loop, all day, almost drove me to commit suicide in the toilets with the plastic cup that I had just drained of vodka. This sparked my dislike of fashion, and since then, I have been reminded of the numerous other reasons that I loathe it.

Arrogance: The designer that I work for has said this himself on a few occasions: people in the fashion industry are arseholes. They walk around with their noses turned up at everyone else around them, like they live in some sort of caste system, and would spit at you for not recognising a Gucci bag or a Chanel suit. Ugly Betty put this cliche to good use as humour, but in reality it is just irritating. And it makes me question why anyone would want to work around people that are constantly picking fault with everyone over appearances. It would be like going to primary school all over again, where the poor kid gets laughed at for wearing cheap knock-off trainers. Arrogance is unattractive, even when it's wearing a Chanel suit.

Fashionspeak: As much as this doesn't particularly piss me off, it does bore the hell out of me. I'm pretty sure that I have ADHD, or something that makes my attention span very short, so when people start talking to me about hemlines, or chiffon, or freaking cashmere, my mind is almost definitely going to switch off. I can write about them to an extent, but when people start asking me questions which include fashionspeak and expect a response, I wonder when I ever gave the impression that these terms would stick in my mind. Kind of like throwing cushions at the ceiling and looking surprised when they don't stay there, It's just not going to happen.

Frivolity: I suppose this is somewhat arrogant, but I just don't get it. I can appreciate certain Haute Couture fashion shows, when the clothes are more like an art form than anything a person would wear in reality. I can appreciate this because I appreciate art. But unfortunately, the vast majority of fashion is not art. It's just a strip of material stitched together, and no amount of jargon is going to make me see a maxi dress as anything other than a sheet with a hole in it. I like books, I like art, I like art-house cinema. I like discussing philosophy and politics, because they actually matter. Discussing high street fashion, to me, is like watching reality TV: frivolous, mind-numbing, and ultimately meaningless. Now I know many fashionistas would beg to differ: I recall the scene in the Devil Wears Prada involving the two blue belts all too well. But those belts did look exactly the same, and a pretentious spiel about the history of that certain shade of blue didn't really change anything.

Ethics: Moving on to a more serious reason; there is everything that fashion stands for. It has become obvious over the past three weeks that my work associates and I have completely opposing views when it comes to production. I used to take an interest in fashion, when I was at university. But it occurred to me that there are certain aspects of the industry that don't look as though they are set to die any time soon: one of these, is fur. I won't begin to describe just how much I utterly despise fur. And since it is included in almost every single fashion show, thanks to a certain nazi fuck named Anna Wintour, who brought it back from the grave, I cut my interest in fashion shortly after it started. There is just no possible way that I could be involved and interested in an industry that is driving in the opposite direction to myself by way of ideologies. Just hearing the people I work with talk about how beautiful fur coats are turned my stomach last week. I'll do my best to look past it for the time being, along with the people working in sweatshops in India and China, to produce this overpriced crap for next to nothing. But I'd never last in a world where fur is seen as anything other than sickening.

Personality: Perhaps my biggest problem, in the forefront of it all, is that fashion doesn't seem to allow for personal style. All this talk of fads, trends, and the latest colours and prints from the latest lines, gives me the impression that there is a rulebook somewhere. And that if you deviate from it, it results in complete disgrace at the hands of the vampiric fashionistas who feed on the shame of other people's bad clothing choices (Very much like a gossip magazine, another thing I absolutely loathe). But why should people follow the path designated by the fashion elite exactly? What does it matter? I just can't be arsed to think about what I'm wearing every single day. Usually I just wear running shoes, shorts and a teeshirt. Why? Because they are comfortable! I don't care that they look kind of stupid. Those dogs that look like bath mats look stupid, but they deal with it and move on. I have nothing against people with the motto "fashion over comfort", but don't expect every person on the planet to give a fuck about it. Even when I do wear expensive clothes and make an effort when I go to clubs, I'm sure that I'm still breaking about a dozen fashion faux pas', but it is far too much effort to consult the rulebook whenever I buy a pair of tousers, and more importantly, I think personal style should be just that; personal. We haven't started genetically modifying everyone to have the same personality yet, so why is there still such disdain towards people who dress alternatively? I have seen plenty of examples in fashion shows, and at the fashion expos last week, of clothes that I thought were absolutely disgusting. The only difference is, that my point of view doesn't have its own magazines telling the world that they should agree with my taste.

Aftermath

It has been quite a long time since I last wrote anything here. This is primarily down to laziness, but a lot has changed in this time as well, and I will continue to use this as an excuse for the laziness: My computer died, and then our other computer died (meaning that the hard-drives on both of them ceased to exist, within a few weeks of one another, which was just perfect); I moved house (and had no computer or internet for a few weeks); and I started interning at a small fashion studio in Kennington (later blog entry on this to come). Losing my computer after 5 years was quite sad. Having to sell it because I'm so poor was sadder. Only getting £30 for it was the saddest thing of all. Moving house in London was far more stressful than I first anticipated, and I cannot possibly endure it every July, without fail, anymore. I only started interning about 3 weeks ago, but having spent my days prior to this doing very little of anything, having a job has tired me sufficiently to make me not want to do much of anything when I get home. Thus, blogging has been off my mind for quite a while.

However, I can safely say the transitional stage is over now. I have settled into my new place, settled into my job (even though it may only be until the end of September with no room for a full-time position after that), and bought myself a new computer. The latter is somewhat entangled in another matter which has been going on for the past two weeks and caused me further stress (and again I am using this as an excuse for being too lazy to write anything). This matter would be the deposit from my previous apartment. I bought this computer on finance (6 months interest free, 10% paid up-front), hoping that when I get my deposit back, I will be able to pay it off fully. I have since learnt the lesson that landlords in London (or maybe I was just extremely unlucky) are greedy, extortionist arse-holes, and I am currently taking legal action against my previous gem of a landlord who is trying to pry £915 from us. Now I am just hoping that this is settled within 6 months, so that I can pay for my laptop, otherwise I will once again be considering prostitution to pay the remaining £900. I would like to take this opportunity to further express my opinion that you cannot trust anyone, because everyone is in fact, a cunt.

There have been other, more widely recognised and important occurrences than my deposit that have happened since I last wrote anything though. Amy Winehouse met an untimely death, and good music was dealt a double blow when this was followed by Cher Lloyd's single reaching number 1 in the singles chart. And the event that I feel I should spend the rest of this entry addressing; watching my city burn last week.

The riots that broke out last weekend in London, and which quickly spread across the country, were no surprise, even though I was woken in the middle of the night by my boyfriend showing me a live feed of the fires in Tottenham. At the time I couldn't have cared less. I just wanted to sleep, and wouldn't appreciate being woken from my slumber even if a bomb had just been dropped on the city. But in the light of the next day, and the front page of every newspaper showing images of Tottenham, completely destroyed, I realised that something quite serious was taking place.

Far from being surprised, I accepted that this was going to happen at some point. With the Conservatives raping the country the way they are, fucking the economy; pushing the poor, underprivileged class of society further towards breaking point through brutal and archaic austerity measures, it was only a matter of time (as one youth in Tottenham said himself 2 weeks before the riots actually did break out). Over the next 2 days, I watched as numerous locations of my city were attacked, looted, and burnt to the ground. On Monday I saw all the shops on my street shut up early, and their owners stand around the street looking as though they expected trouble. One or two broken windows and a boarded up Tesco is the only thing I experienced first hand, but elsewhere there were far more serious events and consequences.

Perhaps the most surprising factor that I noticed during these riots, were not the riots themselves, but the responses from almost everyone I know: That these riots are completely meaningless, opportunist violence, from underclass scum who want nothing but to wreak havoc. It wasn't the fires, it wasn't the charred and blackened streets that shocked me the most. It was this over-generalised and frankly ignorant outlook of events. The fact that people refused, point blank, to accept the idea that maybe, just maybe, there could be a larger picture, that maybe there was a reason behind the anger.

The shooting of Mark Duggan aside, it couldn't be perhaps because of the means by which these people have to survive? It couldn't be because they are oppressed and ghettoised by the government, into areas with the highest unemployment rates in the country? Because they have no money for education (now that the EMA has been scrapped and university fees have tripled)? Because their benefits; their only means of survival in a world of no education and no job prospects, have been slashed (and I know first hand just what it is like to live on £20 a week)? Because three quarters of their youth centres were just closed? Because they are completely ostracised by a government formed entirely of people who were born into privilege, and have never had to worry about finding a job, or paying for their education, or just paying the bills? It couldn't possibly be because their lives were pretty shit to begin with, and are even worse now that the Conservatives are in power? No. It must all be down to the way their parents raised them.

Now I am not condoning the riots (cliche of the week), or saying that the above reasons are a good enough motive to destroy local shops and burn down people's homes. All I am saying is, that perhaps there is a larger picture, and to deny that there are a multitude of reasons and catalysts for rioting, is extremely naive. Either that or just plain ignorant. It is exactly what David Cameron wants: for society to agree with him, to deny any reasons behind the riots, to denounce then as pure criminality without any motive other than just violent impulses and bad parenting. Of course he couldn't possibly have his own agenda.

I guess it's easy for people in comfortable £20,000+ jobs to do so. And it's easy to jump on the bandwagon of Facebook pages that popped up such as "Not rioting, because you have a job to go to in the morning". And it's easy to ignore the real reasons, because "pure criminality" is a much simpler one. And it's what Theresa May, that pinnacle of good values said, after all. Unfortunately, not everyone is lucky enough to have such luxuries as an education and a well paid job.

I don't possibly see how we will ever reach an age where riots are a thing of the past, until we accept and analyse the reasons behind them. But as the vast majority of people proved last week, we are very far from that point. It wasn't the anger at the rioters that I fundamentally opposed; obviously, when people start trashing your city; your home, you get pissed off. That's totally understandable. What really bothered me was that it seemed like an extremely small minority of people who actually accepted that there must be some causality between the riots, and the events which preceded them. What really bothered me was that people could be so utterly detached, and ignorant of the class that these people come from; of the way that they are forced to live; of the frustration and anger that they must feel from just trying to get by. This was what really upset me, and frankly, I was more disgusted at some of the labels that the rioters were given than at their actions.

I believe that the last week has been a very sad one. Not only because we saw our society collapsing in on itself, but because the vast majority of people agreed with David Cameron, the man whose actions and decisions led to rioting in the first place. It's never good when your country erupts in mass social unrest, but when the country seems to unanimously agree with a Tory, it is an extremely sad day indeed.

Where the Wild Things Are

I feel that I am definitely part of a majority in saying that as a teenager, one of my favourite film genres was the horror slasher. And it's probably no surprise to anyone to say that I grew out of it. I don't know exactly when it was that my opinion changed. But as it stands, horror films are now only surpassed on my hate-list by the nauseating and ever-worsening RomCom. So why the change?

I have mentioned before my vehement dislike of all things sequel and franchise related for the most part (there are exceptions). This crutch of the mainstream film industry flourishes in the horror genre, perhaps more than any other (Halloween 1 to 7,860 for example), even more so now with the discovery of Hollywood's latest obsession: 3D. What is on offer now seems to be countless 70s/80s/90s horror film franchises rising from the dead (pun intended), and bringing out a new installment or a remake, in "ground-breaking" Hollywood 3D. Halloween I've mentioned, along with Scream and the other classic slashers, coming back with worthwhile to add to franchises long dead. Even in a genre famous for bringing dead things back to life, "sometimes dead is better".

To focus on specifics for a second, the use of the word "horror" is a pet peeve of mine, since modern horror films rarely fit the definition of this word in being frightening in the slightest. In all honesty, they don't even try. I'm pretty sure the scariest part of Scream 4 will be watching Courtney Cox try to move her face. The term slasher is generally much more applicable.

When the genre itself is little different to the satire which spawns from it, there is clearly something off point. Scary Movie from example, is a "piss-take" as it were, of these films, but the dumb American girls in skimpy outfits being killed in showers or swimming pools, the telephone calls by faux-threatening voices, the chases and the comic screaming, the blatant stupidity, are present in both; the originals, and the satires. So what constitutes a horror film any more? They seem to be, for the most part, comedies with fake blood and a spooky soundtrack.

Despite my general avoidance of this genre nowadays, occasionally I do stumble across films which remind me what it was that I liked about them in the first place. The opinion of horror mocumentaries seems to be greatly polarised, but I have always been quite a fan of them. Granted, I was only about 12 years old when I saw The Blair Witch Project for the first time, but I loved it then, and I still appreciate it now. It was the first film that I genuinely considered frightening: So far removed from the over production and absurdity of Hollywood blockbusters. And any film that can actually fool Americans into believing it really did happen deserves some level of respect.

As happens with practically everything, this gimmick spawned many more films of the same mould, and it's hard to deny that it has been a little overdone in recent years. Paranormal Activity has got to be the apex of atrocious horror mocumentaries (and yet predictably, they are making sequel after sequel). They are growing in popularity, but at the same time, the originality is declining (Paranormal Activity just felt like a rehashed version of The St. Francisville Experiment), and they are becoming increasingly indistinguishable.

Troljegeren (Troll Hunter) is Norway's take on this growing obsession with horror film mocumentaries, and it avoids the trap of banality that so many American takes fell into. It employs Nordic folklore to intense advantages, perhaps most importantly because it doesn't take itself, or the legends, too seriously. And above all else, it injects a burst of originality into a sub-genre very much in need of it.

The film follows a group of young documentary makers who take it upon themselves to get to the bottom of a number of mysterious bear-killings by following one "Troll Hunter", Hans. Despite his insistence that they leave him alone, they follow him into a forest in the middle of the night and stand around chatting and laughing, until some distant rumbling, flashes of light, and shaking of the earth, followed by Hans reappearing and screaming "TROLL!" quickly transports us into a chase through the woods, thus beginning the film's intensity in earnest.

Despite at first being opposed to their filming, Hans gives in to their pursuit, and eventually explains what he is doing (but not before a full sized Troll is introduced to us). Now I am completely unaware of such matters, but according to numerous film websites Troll Hunter is very concordant with traditional Norwegian Troll myths, and a whole display of weird and abstract theories are presented to us, such as the Trolls being able to smell the blood of a Christian, which I found extremely amusing. Hans also informs the film makers of the various "breeds" of Troll, and the film certainly doesn't hold anything back in displaying them all.

Troll Hunter is unceasing in its silliness and bizarre humour, and thus avoids the pretension that is the downfall of so many mocumentaries. It doesn't try too hard, or take itself seriously, and has major what-the-fuck factor. All this things combined mean that it is incredibly entertaining. But behind this guise, the film still manages to be relevant and important: Hans eventually informs the film-makers that he is employed by the government to kill, and cover up, the existence of the Trolls, and various other government employees enter the narrative with much less friendly attitudes. The theory of governmental cover-ups is one that I find particularly applicable given the rising popularity in conspiracy theories and governmental deceit.

As with all these films based around the idea of found-footage, Troll Hunter ends ambiguously, with the film-makers being chased by the government employees and the camera falling to the ground. And it leaves you agreeably entertained, as well as raising some questions about modern society. Simply, it is what a horror film should be.

It seems then, that Norway is quickly replacing America as the leader in modern horror. On par with Let The Right One In, this is the second case in the argument that Norwegian horror outstrips American slashers by a long way, not only in terms of plot, but in production, cinematography, and the characters themselves. In essence, Norway puts America to shame for a second time, and now I decisively endeavour to watch Rare Exports and make it three.