Sunday 30 January 2011

We Have Band

We Have Band hail from England but I heard them whilst studying in America. My friend used to play them a great deal in his car and I was hooked straight away. I think it could have something to do with the fact that I have great deal of respect for any band that uses the lyrics, 'You went home and turkey basted'.


They have a number of superb songs but this is my favourite of their's so give it a listen!



Friday 28 January 2011

'That's my King'

I am a Christian. There I said it. I am sometimes ashamed to admit to people that I am as people get this look in their eyes as if to say, 'Wow there goes the fun from any conversation'. I am a very very lax Christian. I have no problems with gay relationships, I think people should be able to have sex before marriage, I think people should treat their body as a temple but if they want to smoke/drink/take drugs then that's fine.

When I do admit to people that I am a Christian (albeit a Christian who doesn't like going to church), people are suprised. I do think sometimes people still have a preconception that Christians are all still in sandals, walking round in polyester skirts and horrible ill fitting jumpers. I used to think that. I went to an inter-church school, Catholic and Protestant mixed together, and we had Christianity shoved down our throats on a daily basis, something which at the time I absolutely resented. I refused point blank to believe in God, Jesus or any of those other people from The Bible who have long fancy names.

I don't even know where the turning point came. I suddenly became interested in looking into passages from The Bible. I started exploring the words and meanings of Bible passages and using them in my everyday life. I really am a very poor representation of Christianity, but the way I see it is if I am happy then God is happy that I'm happy. If I am sad then I am probably doing something wrong and I need to re-evaluate what I'm doing.

This is by no means a blog post to make people believe in God. I don't think people should have to believe in anything. I hate street preachers with a passion. I do not think they have the right to tell me that I'm going to hell. They have no prior knowledge of me and have no idea how I have lived my life. In my world they would all happily be banned.

This is my favourite thing to listen to when I feel like I am taking wrong turns. It is a powerful speech made by a preacher in America and has become famous throughout churches and popular with Christians throughout the world.

Thursday 27 January 2011

'Del, let's go'

The other day as I had a little daydream, I begun to have a little think about my favourite comedy moments. The first one that sprung into my mind was from Only Fools and Horses. I remember the first time I ever saw this episode, and especially this moment from the episode, I laughed so hard I genuinely thought I was going to have a heart attack and die.

Only Fools is one of those programmes that just never fails to deliver. I have watched it since I was a young child and I still find it as funny now as I did then. There are still so many episodes that I am yet to see. I think one day I want to buy all the box sets, sit down on my sofa and watch them all in one big go. The writers and actors are able to portray pure comedy as well as heart wrenching scenes, such as when Rodney's talking to Del about the loss of his baby, but they do both so perfectly.

It really is British comedy at its best.


Tuesday 25 January 2011

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

On a random impulse the other day I decided to listen to Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. For me it is just one of the most beautiful songs ever written, and listening to it affects me in ways I cannot describe.

As the song of the England rugby team however, in recent years the song has become a bit of a 'I love England, fuck immigrants, fuck the government' lovers song. Everyone has a right to their own opinion, and yes as the song is used by the English rugby team it is seen as a song for England. The thing I dislike though, is the comments you see on youtube on the various versions of the song, 'Proud to be English' mixed with 'I'm a black guy saying this..'. It has become common in recent years for these lovely old songs to get banded in with a bit of over patriotic mentality. I love England, I am very pleased to be an English woman, but I do not like when people get over patriotic, it then can border a bit on racism.

It is odd then that the song, before it became the English rugby teams song, was used in by the Civil Rights struggles in America, and was written by a freed slave. Used as a sign of hope and making people believe that things will be better in the future the song provided people with a sense of faith.

So here is my favourite version of the song. Beautiful.

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Pressure Drop

Pressure Drop by The Toots and Maytals is such a brilliant song. It makes me both happy but sad all at the same time, and I have no idea why. The simple guitar on it, the simple lyrics all add up to a lovely but very short song (I always wish it was at least a minute longer). I could probably listen to this song everyday for the rest of my life and never tire of it.


Monday 17 January 2011

Straight Outta Surrey

Youtube is a bit of an addiction of mine. I could spend ages looking up funny videos, but parody songs are normally a favourite. As a viewer you already have the familiarity of the original, but the creator gives it to you from a different angle. I also am rather partial to Autotune the News. They have produced some videos that have genuinely left me aching from laughing, and although it hurts I'll watch it over and over again.

I recently stumbled upon this gem, I'm a bit late to the game it seems though as it was made in 2008. It is a parody of Straight Outta Compton, but with a distinctly English tinge, filled with jokes about cricket and other English habits such as drinking tea. Mr B produces a highly addictive song, detailing how he's Straight Outta Surrey.

I have watched a few of his other videos but this is definitely my favourite by a long shot.

Sunday 16 January 2011

Joan Crawford

Sometimes I wish everything was in black and white and I looked like Joan Crawford, a bit of a big wish I know. She was so incredibly beautiful and such a fantastic actress, especially in Mildred Pierce which is one of my favourite films, a true film noir classic. 
Joan, I love you (even if you were a bit of a bitch) 





I Love Johnny Weir

Ever since I dislocated my knee doing it when I was 14, I have had a massive fear of ice skating. The fear is in reality more of a nightmare, one that involves someone forcing me to don a pair of ice skates and pushing me out on to a frozen lake, but you don't need to know that..

Although I am terrified myself of ice skating, it doesn't mean I don't appreciate other peoples attempts at it. Since Dancing On Ice started on ITV a few years ago ice skating has become all the rage. It is no longer a boring sport, with top class skaters performing amazing routines to great contemporary songs. One of my favourite ice skaters (OK, the only one I actually know of..) is Johnny Weir from America. Johnny Weir doesn't give a shit, that is probably why I love him. He dances to whatever he wants, he wears ridiculous outfits - even more ridiculous than normal ones - and wears make up. He's like an ice skating GaGa.

I don't even know how I first found out about him, but I could honestly sit and watch him skate around in his tight Lycra jewel embellished outfits all day. The man is crazy, but crazy in a good way. I have a huge amount of respect for any man who can wear outfits as tight as he does and still look like the most masculine manly man in the world. He does moves I couldn't even imagine doing in a million years. I fucking love the guy.

So here is Johnny Weir, in his make up and tight black outfit dancing to Poker Face by Lady GaGa. Maybe one day men of the world you could be this cool...

Post Secret

Saturday 15 January 2011

Anti-Semitism In France

Whilst on the BBC News website the other day I was reading through the world news and saw a story from France that caught my attention. The headline read, 'French prison head Goncalves suspended over Halimi girl'. Interested as to what Halimi meant I read the article. It detailed how a girl who had been used as a honeytrap in a murder of a young French man, Ilan Halimi, was now having a relationship with a prison guard whose care she was under.

Intrigued as to the story of Ilan Halimi, I googled it and uncovered a truly horrific story. Ilan was a French Jew of Moroccan descent living in Paris. He was lured via a honeytrap to an apartment in Paris where he was held and tortured for 3 weeks until his body was dumped, and although he was still alive when he was found he died on the way to hospital.

France was up in arms at the horrific crime and it garnered national attention. One of the main focuses of the case was that Ilan was Jewish. A number of the people who had been arrested for the crime had stated they put cigarettes out on him because they 'didn't like Jews'. Ilan's parents tried to push police to consider it as an anti-semitic murder, but the police just saw it as an extortion case. Eventually as the case progressed the police took up the anti-semitic angle and used it in the court case.

A few years previously there had been another high profile murder of a French Jewish man named Sébastien Selam. He had been murdered by a neighbour, someone who had previously been his friend, who after murdering Selam with a knife and fork went home and said to his mother, 'I killed my Jew'. Again when the case was being investigated the police did not state the basis for the murder was anti-semitism, but rather of jealousy between the two men. 


Two cases, both where people involved have admitted that they were aware that the victim was Jewish, and have shown reason for murdering them because they were Jewish. The French police are dealing with more and more of these cases, sometimes murders, sometimes assaults and muggings. The French authorities do not want to admit that anti-semitism is a problem in France even though there have been a number of cases of it, and the number of Jewish people leaving France is on the rise. 


It has been said that there is a link in the rise of anti-semitic violence and the ongoing problems in Israel and Palestine. It's not clear if this is just a phase in French history, or if this is an ongoing problem that will only continue to get worse. Only time will tell..

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Stephen Fry

Whilst studying in America I got very homesick and very depressed. I hated everything, and I mean pretty much every single thing a normal person would find enjoyable.


One day I read a letter that Stephen Fry had written to a lady suffering from depression and it changed my life and my whole perspective. Everything he said stopped me from wanting to throw myself from a tall building, and when I feel a bit bad now I just re-read it and take in what he is saying. 


So here it is, the words that saved me. Thank you Stephen Fry, really.



I’m so sorry to hear that life is getting you down at the moment. Goodness knows, it can be so tough when nothing seems to fit and little seems to be fulfilling. I’m not sure there’s any specific advice I can give that will help bring life back its savour. Although they mean well, it’s sometimes quite galling to be reminded how much people love you when you don’t love yourself that much.
I’ve found that it’s of some help to think of one’s moods and feelings about the world as being similar to weather:
Here are some obvious things about the weather:
It’s real.
You can’t change it by wishing it away.
If it’s dark and rainy it really is dark and rainy and you can’t alter it.
It might be dark and rainy for two weeks in a row.
BUT
It will be sunny one day.
It isn’t under one’s control as to when the sun comes out, but come out it will.
One day.
It really is the same with one’s moods, I think. The wrong approach is to believe that they are illusions. They are real. Depression, anxiety, listlessness - these are as real as the weather - AND EQUALLY NOT UNDER ONE’s CONTROL. Not one’s fault.
BUT
They will pass: they really will.
In the same way that one has to accept the weather, so one has to accept how one feels about life sometimes.
‘Today’s a crap day,’ is a perfectly realistic approach. It’s all about finding a kind of mental umbrella.
‘Hey-ho, it’s raining inside: it isn’t my fault and there’s nothing I can do about it, but sit it out. But the sun may well come out tomorrow and when it does, I shall take full advantage.’
I don’t know if any of that is of any use: it may not seem it, and if so, I’m sorry. I just thought I’d drop you a line to wish you well in your search to find a little more pleasure and purpose in life.

Monday 10 January 2011

I Am In Need Of Music

I have previously posted my two favourite poems, one of which was by Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop has written a number of poems and this is my other favourite by her.


I think the words are lovely and heads some way towards explaining peoples love of music, and how sometimes music is all you need. Elizabeth Bishop writes beautiful poems so check them out.


I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep. 

Not For All The Tea In China

The Magnetic Fields first came to my attention two years ago, and ever since then I've been hooked.

Their music is always slightly depressing but ultimately great. The first time I ever heard this song I stopped everything I was doing to be able to give it my full attention, then listened to it another fifty times after. It is both a depressing song but also one that completely speaks the truth about when someone breaks up with you/tells you they can't be with you.

The album it is from is called 69 Love Songs and features on it, well, 69 love songs that discuss both loving and losing somebody.

So here is my favourite song by them

All My Little Words 



Saturday 8 January 2011

Topshop, January

In another dimension, the one where I have a lot of money, I would buy all my clothes from Topshop. As a poor student though this will always just be a dream.

This season Topshop have produced some beautiful dresses with a very fifties and sixties theme. These style of dresses suit my body shape (very small waist), so I like anything that pulls it in further. I have finally in the last few years worked out how to dress for my body shape, it just appears that these styles always seem to be the most expensive.

I fear once my student loan comes in I will be straight down to Topshop to buy one of these ever so lovely dresses. The question now is, which one?






Try and Catch the Wind

"For me to love you now, would be the sweetest thing, 'twould make me sing"


Donovan's song 'Catch the Wind' is one of my favourite random discoveries over the past few years. I have to admit a guilty secret here, I only heard it because they played it on an episode of Casualty. I guess it's not where you find the song that matters though..

It has beautiful lyrics and very simple guitar, but this just makes it what it is - a fantastic song.

Donovan was always billed as the British Bob Dylan, and although I can hear the similarities I think I actually may prefer Donovan to Dylan. Once I heard 'Catch the Wind' I went on to listen to some of Donovan's other work and thought it was brilliant. The simplicity of his lyrics, but also the depth to which he goes is amazing.

So here it is, 2.13 seconds of beauty



This is a Declaration of War

“Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.” - Abbie Hoffman

In the coming months I will probably be talking about my dissertation a great deal. It is going to consume a vast amount of my brain space and time.

My question is: How did the tactics used by the antiwar New Left cause their collapse?
This is an interesting but ultimately complex question. No one has ever written anything that combines the three main groups I will be looking at; The Weather Underground, SDS and The Yippes.

The Weather Underground have fascinated me from the first time I studied them last year. Essentially a terrorist group, they set about trying to 'bring the war home' by blowing up government and other public sector buildings in response to the Vietnam War. They were originally called The Weathermen, but changed their name once they were forced to go underground when the FBI started hunting them.

SDS or Students for a Democratic Society were a campus based organisation that also protested the Vietnam War, but were eventually overtaken by the organisers of The Weathermen. Originally a peaceful organisation, they begun involving themselves in more confrontational methods of protest.

The Yippes were co-formed by Abbie Hoffman, a man who was partly insane (not literally), and partly genius. He once claimed if everyone focused enough they could levitate the Pentagon, yeah, you see what I mean. He was arrested for drug possession on many occasions and had numerous run ins with the police and FBI. He is awesome, I love him.


So there we are, a very short run down of something that will take up my life for the next six months. Here is the documentary that sparked my idea for the project. A frank look at The Weather Underground that uses old footage and modern days interviews with the members. It is ace. Everyone should watch it to see direct action in, well, action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV7GSff4fIA

Thursday 6 January 2011

Vous aimez le hip hop Français?

Avez-vous déjà écouté du hip-hop français? Didn't think so.

I have been a fan of French hip hop for a little while now. I have no clue what they are saying as my French is lets say médiocre. Sometimes though with music I do not think it is necessarily the words themselves that draw my attention to a song, but the melody or just the general feel. I feel that in mainland Europe people are much more open to another countries music. Here the only time we may ever have a foreign language song making it big is when it is a novelty song.


French hip hop can provide some of the most interesting and beautiful songs, case in point being Le Belle et le Bad Boy by Mc Solaar. The instrumental in itself is so melodic and different from anything I had ever heard before. 


The artist La Caution gained a worldwide audience when his song 'Thé à la Menthe' was used in Oceans 12. The song has a very interesting use of the accordion, a very under rated instrument may I say.


Other interesting bands include Hocus Pocus who French people go MENTAL for as I discovered whilst at a festival in Hungary where they were playing. I have never been asked if I like a band so much in my life, and never that much in a comical French accent ('Ocus pocas').


Profitez!


Mc Solaar - Le Belle et le Bad Boy




La Caution Thé à la Menthe




Hocus Pocus - Hip Hop



I Heart Playsuits

Playsuits, rompersuits or jumpsuits, whatever you want to call them, over the last year they have been huge.

I had never even worn one in my entire life until I stepped foot in a vintage shop in Georgia, but from that moment a love affair blossomed, one that would be hard to stop.

So far my total count is five playsuits, and in the coming months I plan to expand on this. I have long ones, sleeveless ones, bright ones, plain ones. I basically have them all.

In a dream world, I would wear a playsuit every single day of my life. I have an addiction, I really do. I can happily spend hours of my life fawning over them on websites, looking at them in shops, checking them out on other people. Will I one day fall out of love with them? This is hard to tell. What I do know however, is that for the foreseeable future they will be my fixation, my drug, a habit that I am perfectly happy to feed.

Here are some playsuits I would like to buy but cannot afford. Sigh.





Myers-Briggs Test

I recently did a Myers-Briggs test to see what type of personality I have. Developed during World War 2, it helped women who were entering the industrial workforce for the first time to identify the sort of war-time jobs where they would be "most comfortable and effective".


Understanding how you process information, deal with people and work through problems is an important part of life. Once you understand why you do these things, it can help you in you in your everyday business.


I have done a number of these tests and have discovered I am ENFP:

Extraverted

Intuitive

Feeling

Perceiving

People who are the type ENFP are apparently: initiators of change, keenly perceptive of possibilities. They energise and stimulate others through their contagious enthusiasm. They prefer the start-up phase of a project or relationship, and are tireless in the pursuit of new-found interests. ENFPs are able to anticipate the needs of others and to offer them needed help and appreciation. They bring zest, joy, liveliness, and fun to all aspects of their lives. They are at their best in fluid situations that allow them to express their creativity and use their charisma. They tend to idealize people, and can be disappointed when reality fails to fulfill their expectations. They are easily frustrated if a project requires a great deal of follow-up or attention to detail.

Although most of this is true of me, I obviously do not fit rigorously into all of these, but knowing how and why I react to certain situations in certain ways has helped bring more reason to my life. Some of these are good traits, some of these are bad. Being sympathetic to others is good, but being overly emotional is not, and I am learning to strike a balance between the two. 

I would advise everyone to take a Myers-Briggs test to help understand themselves better.

Art Against Knives

Art Against Knives is a charity that was set up after the unprovoked stabbing of Oliver Hemsley in London in 2008. Oliver was meant to start a course at Central Saint Martin's College a few months after, but due to the attack could not attend. Oliver was left in a wheelchair, but since the attack has strived to work against knife crime.

Oliver, along with several of his friends set up the charity to try and combat knife crime, and use art as a way of helping to tackle the problem. The charity has also previously held auctions to raise money, and put on events in London.

I knew Oliver from sixth form, and although I have not seen him for a few years I still think what he is doing is absolutely fantastic. Turning a tragic event into something positive is one of the most inspirational things, and hopefully what they are doing as a charity will encourage people to stop their involvement in knife crime.

Here is a link to their website. Also, people in London keep an eye open for exhibitions and events that Art Against Knives will be putting on and help donate to a very worthy cause.



               http://www.artagainstknives.com/

Eastenders

As someone who has watched Eastenders since they were five years old, I have grown used to the far fetched and sometimes ludicrous plots over the years. Nothing though could have prepared me for the recent cot death/baby swap story.

Cot death is a horrible and tragic part of life, something that does need to have attention drawn to it. I think it is right for a soap opera to cover stories such as these as it happens to people everyday, and it needs to not be forgotten about. However, the baby swap part of the story is one of the most absurd things I have ever had to watch. Apart from the technicalities (how can no one not notice it is a different baby!?), there was just no need for this part of the story to be brought in. Cot death on its own would have been controversial enough without the baby swapping part, and Eastenders should have just stopped at that.

Samantha Womack who plays Ronnie Mitchell is apparently leaving the soap in the coming months, I am hoping this means that the whole stupid plot will be resolved and we no longer have to put up with a story that there really was no need for.

I will file this under Eastenders most stupid plots, this and Phil Mitchell's very quick, and then very fast recovery from crack addiction... You can't make someone a crack addict just by making him say the word 'crack' out loud a lot.

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Revenge of the Nerds

Last year, mainly through boredom, I watched the film Revenge of the Nerds. I wasn't expecting much, but right from the beginning I was laughing. The plot is pretty weak (nerds vs. jocks), but the acting is superb and there are just some absurd but ace scenes. For some reason I can't find the DVD for it in England, the day I do find it I think might be the happiest day of my life. So here is the trailer, and the most famous scene from the film (so good it was spoofed on Family Guy - a reference no one but me seems to get). They have made Revenge of the Nerds 2 and 3, but I refuse to watch them as they look like they'd taint my otherwise great view of this film.




Fashion Inspiration - Molly Ringwald

Sometimes I wish I was Molly Ringwald in the eighties






Tuesday 4 January 2011

Away We Go

Whilst studying in America, I had the pleasure of watching the film Away We Go. Prior to watching it I had never even heard of it, and was eventually forced to the student union cinema to see it with my friend. Seeing as I would only be paying $1, I figured if it was bad at least I hadn't spent a lot of money on it.

It turned out to be one of the best and most uplifting films that I have ever seen. The story centres around two main characters, a couple named Verona and Burt. They discover that they are having a baby and this spurs them on to make a decision about where their life is headed. After discovering that Burt's parents are moving away, the couple no longer see why they have to live in their current location as once his parents go they no longer have any ties there.

The rest of the film focuses on the two travelling around America and Canada visiting various people they have met throughout their lives and try and decide if they could settle there or not.

The relationship between the two is amazing to watch. I came out of the film wishing that I could meet and marry a man like Burt, a man who so dearly loves his partner and just wants to make her happy (even though she's got fat). I think most women who watch this film end up leaving the cinema wishing they could meet a Burt, hopefully they exist in the real world...

Monday 3 January 2011

Have you ever seen the rain?

Music from the sixties and seventies has always played a big part in my life, maybe more so than other people of my age.  I have been into music from this era since I was a child when my dad used to play it to me on tapes in the car. In the last few months I have been exploring bands that I have failed to listen to before, and discovered Creedance Clearwater Revival. John Fogerty's voice is so raw and powerful and brings a real meaning to the lyrics he sings. I have a feeling that as I write my dissertation during the next few months, I will be listening to a lot more Creedance to spur me along in my writings on the sixties student movement..

I lost two cities, lovely ones

The two poems I like are very different. One is about love, the other is about loss. The words of the poem 'One Art' by Elizabeth Bishop teaches the reader an important lesson about loss. Losing things is good, if you never lose anything you will never learn how much you love the things you retain such as love itself. I truly treasure the words in this poem.


The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
 
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
 
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant 
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
 
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
 
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
 
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows..


I will happily admit to anyone that I don't really like poetry. I'm never quite sure why, but it just doesn't ever grab me in a way it seems to with other people. I do however like two poems, and 'I carry your heart with me' by E. E. Cummings is one of them. I discovered the poem through a film, and had never been so grabbed by the words of a poem before. It is lovely, but many people have never heard it. So here it is, quite simply one of my favourite collections of words in the world.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Sunday 2 January 2011

Beautiful England

My lovely American friend Ethan sent me this song the other day which I was yet to hear. I have never been a huge PJ Harvey fan, but this song is just beautiful. Having lived away from England before I have learnt that however many faults I find with England I will always love it.