Canongate Lates: Manchester Literature Festival 2014

Young Digital Reporter Alexandra Sutton reviews our Canongate Lates event with authors Emma Jane Unsworth, Zoe Pilger, Anneliese Mackintosh and singer-songwriter Karima Francis…

Upon arrival at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, I bought my self a large glass of wine. I then nursed that glass of wine for the following hour – I was so excited to be in a room with four great, great women, that I had arrived comically early. Fortunately, I was not to be disappointed. Canongate Lates, featuring three groundbreaking writers and one strikingly original musician, was the type of event I’ll still talk about in years to come.

There was a lovely feeling of camaraderie – I got the sense that everyone was as geekily excited as I was to be there, including our tip-top host, Katie Popperwell. She welcomed us with a wise and witty speech about common depictions of women writers (let’s all stop using the phrase ‘chick lit’, please) and how the writing presented at the event felt like a ‘shift in the literary landscape.’

First up was Zoe Pilger, art critic for The Independent, PHD student and author, reading an excerpt from her debut novel, Eat My Heart Out. A tale of ‘modern hipsterdom’ and second wave feminism, her novel explores what it is to be a young woman caught between a hardcore feminist mentor and a love of Queen Bey (amongst other things, of course). Pilger noted how she and her fellow women writers are often referred to as ‘literary bad girls’, and questioned whether this was at all appropriate. I’m with Zoe on this one – these women are not ‘bad girls’, they are just women, honest, open women writers whose works are not close to the bone, rather they hack through the bone altogether.

After Zoe came Anneliese Mackintosh. Annaliese read from her collection of short stories, Any Other Mouth, and her reading was for me the most beautifully intimate and poignant of the night. She reads like a seasoned performance poet – her writing is epigrammatic, enticing and endearing, and is perfectly suited to a night of live literature. She carried us all with her through a list of funeral requests – a Roald Dahl revolting rhyme to be read, her 6 most recent lovers to attend, how she above all wants her mum – and it was just superb. ‘Each little one a howl’, said Annaliese of her stories. For me this one was a beautiful, painful swan-song.

Our final reading of the night came from Manchester’s own Emma Jane Unsworth. At risk of sounding like a complete fan-girl – I love, love, love her book. After the gentleness of Mackintosh’s reading, peppered with moments of hilarity, Unsworth’s reading was the perfect follow up. After listening to her read from Animals, my face was actually aching with laughter. I could whip out all sorts of deep, intellectual comments on her work, but surely that has to be the biggest compliment. Unsworth’s fabulously familiar accent, self-deprecating delivery and assertion that she really did meet a man in the Village named ‘Chicken Sandwich’, had us all hooked. Animals is the story of an aspiring writer and her manic-pixie-nightmare best mate, tearing through the streets of Manchester and through each other. Her novel is messy, methy, Mancunian magical realism – read and be amazed.

In a lovely end to the evening, Karima Francis played a very special acoustic set. She came straight from the studio and belted out several never-before-played songs like a complete dream. Her voice is simultaneously powerful and vulnerable – it doesn’t tug at the heartstrings, it positively tears them out. I sat back and let it all wash over me – she was the perfect counterpoint to an evening of laughter, intensity and personal insight. Ultimately, that’s what live literature should be all about – connecting with an audience who usually only feel you through the pages of your writing.  As Katie Popperwell noted, these writers offer us ‘political portraits’ that are often shattering, powerful and entertaining, but above all they are intimate and personal – these qualities shone through at this cracking event.

ANIMALS, by Emma Jane Unsworth

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild,

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping

than you can understand.

W.B Yeats, The Stolen Child

Laura Joyce is an occasional writer, a regular drinker, a lover of Yeats and unfortunately she isn’t related to James. Tyler is her best friend, her housemate, a bon viveur and Laura’s enabler. Together they tear through relationships, Manchester, each other, and the pages of Emma Jane Unsworth’s Animals, and we are invited to act as both the intrigued voyeur and the potential participant. What liberty! What liability.

Unsworth’s novel is an exercise in narrative seduction. We meet Laura during a particularly ginny hangover, which is to my mind the peak of human vulnerability. We know the colour of her piss – ‘white piss good, amber piss bad’ - before we know much else – and a bizarrely familiar bond is established. She’s engaged to a teetotal concert pianist, she’s writing a novel about a priest who’s in love with a pig and she’s desperately trying to balance a life of hedonism with an impending life of fine home furnishings. She is every bad hangover we’ve ever experienced and now we’re friends, we’re witnesses, already we are in on something. However, the beauty of Unsworth’s second novel is that the ‘something’, the secret, turns out to be nothing at all. We are all aspiring writers, we are all stuck in dead-end jobs, we are all disappointed and we all of us want to pretend that we are otherwise. And so, we meet Laura and we see ourselves, from the drinking habits, to the Mail on Sunday reading parents, to the secret love for Take Me Out.

The first-person narration superbly draws out this powerful, painful sense of familiarity, whilst the quick-fire dialogue, dirty humour and the assumption of an accomplice-reader keeps us on side through the messiest moments. It’s an obvious statement, but Laura Joyce is a fundamentally enjoyable character to act as a confessional for – not always the case when you’re in someone else’s head for a novel. In Laura, Unsworth has created a character that is part Holden Caulfield, part Bridget Jones, with a twist of Plath, spiked with stolen meth. She is ‘one part optimism, two parts masochism, like all the best cocktails.’ I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a bit of Unsworth too, There was certainly a bit of me in there, and probably every other reader who’s downed a bottle of rose because they couldn’t decide between white or red, or told someone to royally toss off for assuming they have a say in your lifestyle choices.

Tyler, on the other hand, is pure legend. Whilst Laura reaches out of the novel, Tyler explodes it. She is a mythological demon-goddess luring in the human child (me, you, Laura, everyone) like one of Yeats’ goblins. She doesn’t belong in this novel, in anyone’s life, in this plane of reality, which is precisely why she is such a perfect foil to Laura. A manic-pixie-nightmare-girl, and make no mistake. Tyler turns a gritty and realistic novel about the (societally-inflicted/bullshit) perils of being thirty and unsettled, into a tale of messy, meth-y, Mancunian magical realism. Well, almost. There’s vomit, sex, drugs and decisions, peppered with literary allusion and classical tragedy - Laura’s love of Yeats is very apt indeed. You need a bottle of something to soften the assault.

Animals explores tricks, trips (both sorts), bad habits, and what-happens when-you-leave-uni-without-a-publishing-deal, but for me it boils down to a sense of disillusion, even down to the reified setting of city famed for it’s 20 year old cultural wealth. What do we do now? Why didn’t my degree get me anywhere? Why should I care? Why shouldn’t I tell you about the time I had a tick in my groin, why shouldn’t I keep my ‘wreckhead friend’, why should I give up drinking, why should I behave, why should I have kids, why should I have you, why should I give a fuck?

I do give a fuck, especially about this book, but I don’t have the answers, and that’s fine. None of Unsworth’s characters do, nor does Unsworth profess to. We’ve all been given a bit of a shit deal at one point or another, and how you make do is your own business, whether it’s ploughing on with that novel you’re writing or easing yourself in with a quick bev or five at the pub. There’s hope at the end of the hangover, o human child. This is a brilliant, prescient piece of writing, and will need to be read twice – you’ll spend the first time texting your mates all the best lines.

         Be sure to read with wine, especially on trains.

Valparaíso - how absurd you are...

Valparaíso, 'how absurd you are, you haven't combed your hair, you've never had time to get dressed. life has always surprised you…'


Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and Valpo-lover, wrote these words about the port city which became his home. Friend of poets, painters and philosophers, Valpo is a curious little place which sits in a rather haphazard fashion on the hills of the Chilean coast. Over the last century, half-undressed with tangled hair, it went from being the richest city in Latin America to one of the most dilapidated, and has now settled into the architectural and cultural equivalent of distressed leather - run down, but unashamedly, and increasingly intentionally, cool. It's the haunt of bohemian Chileños, or people who want to be bohemian Chileños, of muralists and graffiti artists, and of enamoured travellers who stumble across it all, like myself. 


I'm not really a travel writer so I won't be writing about all the places we visited in South American over the last summer, but this one really stood out. The city consists of several cerros - hill villages - each with their own identity, culture, and pack of stray dogs. Each hill is connected by narrow passageways and staircases - which some crazy kids bike down - and century old ascensors. In fact, the whole city feels like a pedestrian adventure playground. There's even a slide next to one set of stairs on Cerro Alegre, just in case you're not a stairs-kind-of-commuter. Read; hipster. 

It's a city that has been furiously claimed, reclaimed, and claimed again. First the giant, colonial houses which were home to the wealthiest expats in the land. Then, when the opening of the Panama Canal diverted the monies away, came the city's darker years, with civil disruption and gang control in many parts of the city. Meanwhile, Chilean hazards such as earthquakes and fires in the hills destroyed much of the architecture. But, then came the most recent claim on the city - a joint bid from the city's artists and the city's elders. In reaction to a (really very bulky) glass building in the port's main square, Valpo was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. The Historic Quarter is now caught between its past and present - a memorial of the fantastic pastel-coloured architecture of the colonial period, and the run down building which now, due to the tricky UNESCO rules, cannot be restored. 

However, the art-filled streets are what make Valpo such a gem. These houses do not house art - they are art. Brightly-coloured murals of all shapes and sizes plaster the houses on the hills - art fights art as the home-owners invite muralists to paint their homes in an attempt to deter the more common and far less attractive 'tags' found on some buildings. Local legends such as the muralist INTI have displayed their work all over the city, and its as though the porteños (people of the port) have finally been able to reclaim their city as they wish it. 

From a culinary perspective, it's all about seafood and chorrillanas. The former takes its best form in empanadas filled with sizzling shrimp washed down with an ice-cold beer, the latter in a dingy port bar, where one is confronted with a mountain of fries, onions, pork and cheese. For the sake of your cholesterol - share.

Of the five South American countries we visited, and of the countless places, Valpo was the one which really got to me. I felt for its unsettled history, I wanted to know its people, and I am fairly sure that we will be returning in the not too distant future. Like many South American cities it is one of many juxtapositions; cosmopolitan with a bit of an edge, wearing its heart and its history on its sleeve, inviting you to simply wander around and see for yourself. Pablo Neruda said it better than I ever could, but for my part, it's just bloody lovely. 

All images my own. 

Show and Tell: the ethical issues behind documentary films

Originally published in The Oxonian Globalist

Alexandra Sutton explores the ethical issues behind humanitarian documentaries, and questions their ability to facilitate change

Whose voice are we hearing? Photo by Jonathan Smith.

The humanitarian documentary is a double-edged sword of communication and narrative. It serves both to inform and to raise awareness, but it does so through a medium which is necessarily subjective, emotionally manipulative and most importantly, aesthetically produced. So, when it comes to documentaries which focus on human rights issues and campaigns, there appears to be a serious ethical problem in their nature. This problem then forces the question – what do these documentaries actually achieve?

The dichotomy between communication and narrative can be broadly broken down into the idea of “show and tell”. Do these documentaries show us problems, or do they tell us about them? The answer is almost inevitably “tell” – the most powerful documentaries tend to be ideological in their foundations, not only alerting people to serious human rights issues, but exploring the reasons behind them and positing the possibilities for change. This is by no means a bad thing – whether a documentary is led by one strong voice, or features a panel of insightful talking heads, it is often enlightening to have problems which may seem initially very alien relayed to you by those who know the subject.

Although it is arguable that ideology should be the motivating force behind documentary, that argument is contigent upon what we believe the documentary can and should achieve. For example, the basic concept of a documentary would be “to document”, to simply chronicle information and then relay it, leaving room for personal interpretation and reflection. However, humanitarian documentaries, which are heavily stylised and persuasively emotive, aim to create food for thought without actually leaving any room to taste it. A notorious exemplar of this is Invisible Children’s much debated Kony 2012 short film. With its heartbreaking images and moving soundtrack, it struck a chord with the public (not unlike charity adverts) and immediately went viral, before being quickly denounced as flawed, partially false and worryingly evocative of militant propaganda.

Why then were so many people taken in by it? Perhaps it was the aesthetic qualities of the video, perhaps it was the rush of virtual activism (or “slacktivism”, if you will), or the extremely simplified message of Good vs. Evil. However, the most revealing form of persuasion was actually the most unsettling: Kony 2012 made people feel good. Much of the appeal is inherently self-centred – it told us that we could achieve great things by doing very little, that we were an empowered generation of connected social media activists, and crucially, that we in the liberal West had the power to solve the problems of everyone else. It was all about us.

The assumption that documentaries are actually all about the viewer isn’t necessarily wholly negative; learning about and attempting to understand human rights issues requires empathy as well as sympathy. It’s just that the documentaries rarely present situations that we can even attempt to empathise with. As soon as we start trying to, the films risk becoming ethically flawed, and frequently Western-centric – both in terms of moral values and presentation.

For example, recent documentaries such as Girl Rising and Half the Sky – both about women’s rights in India, Pakistan and Africa, amongst other countries – relay personal, first person narratives through the medium of celebrity monologues or interviews. Girl Rising calls for female education and empowerment, but good intentions are dampened by the film’s execution – liberties are taken with the girl’s stories, and their voices are essentially drowned out by a Western imposition of morality, and the famous faces we implicitly trust to deliver said moral judgment. The difficulty with this imposition is that it requires us place a value judgement on cultural norms. In these documentaries, the general solutions are wound up with Westernisation, suggesting that countries should not only assimilate our societal structures, but assimilate the cultural values that go along with them. The question is, where does this end? What happens in countries where religion and state are one and the same? In this respect, the documentary can become overtly political, and once again lose sight of the nuances in these issues, and in each nation. Obviously, there are elements of Western society that are objectively beneficial, and among these education is chief. However, human rights issues cannot be diluted into abstract “pillars of society”; these ideals are fundamentally subjective as culture and morality are not easily separated.

Half the Sky is similarly concerning, in which several Hollywood women meet female victims of persecution and attempt to relate to them. The actresses epitomise the flaws in these kinds of films – the interviews blur into psuedo-docu-drama, and in the attempt to connect with the women, the film ends up alienating them even further. Their very real histories of oppression and trauma are glossed into a simplified story female troubles the world over.

However, idealistic though it may be, behind the majority of these films are people who are intending to achieve something positive. In many cases this goes beyond raising awareness, to actually facilitating change. For example, They Go to Die, a film about the links between tuberculosis and the South African mining industry, led to an All Party Parliamentary meeting in the UK to discuss the issue, and the film received a Global Health Award. The person behind the documentary, Jonathan Smith, was not a filmmaker, but rather a student of the Yale School of Public Health. Smith approached the issue by using his academic background of health and social policy, but rather than letting social theory dominate the film, he let the victims of the mining industry explain the issues themselves. Equally, the award-winning documentary on sexual assault in the US military, The Invisible War, led to an almost immediate directive ordering all sexual harassment cases to be handled by senior officers, issued by Secretary of Defence, Leon Panetta. According to the New York Times, the film has been credited with both encouraging victims to come forward, and galvanising procedural changes within the military itself.

Documentaries such as these appear to operate on both a deeply personal level, whilst effectively working to make definitive change. Although they may be a rarity, it is certainly encouraging. Despite the fact that humanitarian documentaries can be extremely flawed in their composition, the argument ultimately boils down to the way we perceive change. Is change restricted to formal, legislative action, or can it also refer to a change in attitude? Raising awareness is the germ of change, even if that change is a gradated one, beginning with a person who watches a documentary at home, and is inspired to seek out answers by themselves. However simplistic it may seem, any narrative that at least raises a few questions, or sparks interest in a previously unknown topic, can only be a positive thing. When the glossy veil of film is stripped away, the human rights issues at their core still remain – as long as we become aware of that, the documentary may still have the power to make a difference.

Singers who can't sing and cultural (s)expectations

Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Joe Strummer, and Shane McGowan have something in common. They are the distinctive voices 20th century music: raspy, gravelly, soulful, familiar, they can each be recognised after a only a few notes, and we love them for it. They have interesting voices. But, interesting covers all manner of sins, doesn't it? In this case, it's a sort of euphemism. It means, amazing and wonderful and striking, but let's face it, it also highlights the fact that none of these singers are exactly pitch perfect.

Now, I'm not saying that every musician must be tuneful - singing is a very personal thing, voices can be loved or hated, and many of the chaps I just listed are bluesy storytellers, whose voices preach like performance poets, much like modern hip-hop artists. However, there does seem to be a bit of a double standard when it comes to female artists and the quality of their voices.

We have our soul singers, Dusty Springfield, Etta James and the gang, we have pop princesses like young Miley and Taylor Swift, or folksy alternatives such as Laura Marling, amongst many, many others. The difference is, the majority of successful, mainstream female artists are just, well, in tune - at least to my untrained ear. They may have unusual styles and be distinctive, they may not all sound like Disney princesses, some of them may be autotuned (Britney, I'm looking at you here) but it's extremely rare to find a famous female singer who corresponds with the rough and ready boys club. 

Perhaps its a self-perpetuating thing. Liam Gallagher loved The Beatles, and teenage busker-boys the world over love to play Wonderwall in return for spare change and the hearts of teenage gals. If I had a pound for every indie boy I've seen mumble gruffly into a microphone, I'd be able to buy myself an auto-tune machine. 

Obviously, this isn't a catch all theory. Every now and again we get a lady-singer with a weird and wonderful anti-voice. Janis Joplin sounded like sandpaper, steel and whisky, Patti Smith like an ethereal-but-angry-Cate-Blanchett-as-Galadriel-style-wonder-woman, and Karen O, well, she takes the stage like some kind of amplified banshee goddess. These women are iconic and they are interesting, but most notably, they are marginal. You're far less likely to see a young girl take the stage at a local music night professing herself to be the new Bjork, than you are to see a gangly four-piece lad-band attempt to harmonise the latest Arctic Monkey's track. NB: A strong accent does not necessarily a solid performance make. 

An exception to this rule, as ever, is the punk scene. Bands such as Los Campesinos!, Sonic Boom 6 and the US noise-group Sleigh Bells feature female singers whose voices are completely tuneless, and it completely doesn't matter. Their voices texture the music - it just wouldn't be the same with a sickly sweet pitch perfect voice. 

However, the double standard still remains in prominent solo artists - women are expected to have either powerful voices, or sweet voices - anything less and they'll edit yo' tuneless ass. Maybe it's a relic of an angelic-voice ideal, maybe people believe that girls really can charm birds from trees with their vocal chords, or maybe, just maybe, it is yet another example of cultural (s)expectation. It's a shame really - I quite like my dulcet tones. 

Top 5 Singers Who Can't Sing

1) Bob Dylan

2) Janis Joplin

3) Los Campesinos! 

4) Tom Waits

5) And finally, Phoebe Buffay. The bad singers' singer. 

Writing obituaries - a strange old part time job.

Recently I've been writing obituaries for The Times. Odd, but ridiculously exciting. I got into it after doing an internship in which I landed on the lovely Register desk, home of interest pieces, society announcements and obituaries, not exciting in an obvious way, like, say, Home News, but interesting nonetheless. After a week I was proven completely wrong. Obituaries are amazing. You take the life of a person who, though not always hugely famous, has achieved something wonderful, or quirky, or lasting. They made a mark, and you get a chance to honour that in a 600 word celebration of their life. I am hooked - I get to write creatively, and at the same time it feels like I am doing a nice thing. Plus, continuing it (for a fee) after the (unpaid) internship is helping me save for an adventure.

As The Times have an online subscription fee, I cannot reproduce the obituaries on here, but I'll put the links up in case any of you have forked for out the online edition. I have. Reluctantly. If not, then have a google of some of the people - they really are a pleasure to read about! Currently writing on Sushmita Banerjee and Sunila Abeysekera - both important, influential and inspiring women.


Jim Buck, the first professional dog walker 

Dixie Evans, Marilyn Monroe burlesque dancer 

Margaret Pellegrini, actress 

Leslie Land, garden writer and locavore 

Sathima Bea Benjamin, jazz singer 

Wu Dengming, environmentalist and activist 

Thoughts on Festivals

Festivals are weird, aren't they? On the one hand, they are a beautiful concept; people coming together to share music, take a break from day to day life, meet people and experience a different outlook on things. On the other hand, they are completely bloody stupid; 15,000 people chucked together in a field, laced with an increasing variety of intoxicating substances, poor sanitation and insufficient wet wipes. It's like paying £150, not to mention shaving a few months off your life expectancy, to be kettled.

However, it is this bizarre juxtaposition that makes the festival such a fascinating human ritual. Rarely do you experience a totally heavenly, or a totally hellish weekend. There are glimpses of both, from the euphoria of seeing your favourite band play against the back drop of a sentimental sunset, to watching a stranger be put into the recovery position and left, alone and vulnerable, at the side of the stage. It's unnerving. It's also exhilarating. 

This unique feeling of exhilaration found at certain festivals is also what fuels (and perpetuates) a lot of the madness. At this point I should say that I have been to several smaller, family friendly folk festivals (Shrewsbury and Cropredy, you paragons of goodness) but here I am referring to the larger and slightly wilder institutions such as Leeds, Reading, Latitude, Boomtown and the like. Everyone has their own festival nightmare tale, be it tents on fire, belongings stolen, or in some very sad cases, serious illness and even death. The majority of these incidents, alongside the wonderful experiences, are the results of a series of choices. So, just what is it that makes festival behaviour and the choices we make at them such a seemingly idiosyncratic phenomenon?

Well firstly, it isn't that idiosyncratic. In any large group of people there can be hints of the old mob mentality model - in a highly concentrated festival environment this can either lead to a pseudo-dystopian every-camper-for-themselves nature, or, rather more cheerfully, an inflated sense of camaraderie, company and body glitter all over everything. The way people behave at a festival can usually be traced to everyday human traits, it's just that in an enclosed space, a short time period and an extremely stimulating environment, everything becomes heightened. For example, when I attended Boomtown Fair this year, I was aware of its reputation at "The UK's Maddest City", but I was surprised to realise that the catchy tagline was, if anything, an understatement. It was bloody mental - anarchy exemplified, tucked away in a pleasant Winchester field. Waiting beyond the sniffer-dog-guarded gates was a sensory assault; too much colour, too much noise, too much alcohol and, if the citizens of this festival town were anything to go by, too many drugs, but it sucked you in within seconds and spat you out in an alternate reality.

I think for many people, that's what the modern festival is; a disordered, alternate reality, free of the constraints of everyday society - a diluted 21st century answer to Bacchanalian revelry. It's about more than music, it is about the character you can be come when you're there, and the boundaries you can push that just wouldn't be acceptable anywhere else. Or at least, that is the romanticised ideal. Often there are darker aspects. Amidst the colour and the music and the realm of the "free-spirit" (a part-time role that can be discarded come the next working Monday), you'll find a few people staggering about, a few people lost, and occasionally a few lay on the floor that won't be able to get up again. During this year's Boomtown Fair, me and my pals saw a man collapse during a gig, and though people stood around and helped as much as they could, there was a sense that, well, there was no sense - people had become totally desensitised to some of the more disturbing sights. Half an hour later and the gig was cancelled, the crowds were herded away and an ambulance had carted the man off. I felt a bit weird, but I carried on into the night and had a great old time. I'd gotten over seeing someone have a potentially life-threatening collapse in an hour or two because the rest of the festival was still so exciting. The next day rumours spread, two, three, possibly four dead, bad batch of ketamine, etc. It was an eye-opener to say the least.

It turned out that not all the rumours were false, and that one girl did die at the festival. Obviously, it could have happened in a variety of other situations, but it gets you thinking. Are more risks taken? Do people behave differently? On the whole, I would say yes. From opportunistic theft, to risk of injury, to dressing more outlandishly, people are affected by the environment. There are seemingly less consequences and almost no visible authority, and people thrive off it. Now, this isn't a morality tale and I'm not suggesting that festivals are completely unsafe. In many ways the change in character can often be liberating, exciting and above has the appeal of being temporary. Indeed for many people the festival experience genuinely is a way of life, and catching a glimpse of that every summer is a wonderful thing.

For me, the festival will always be an intoxicating vignette; vibrant, immersive, but above all fleeting. I have had some of my most important experiences, conversations and memories at festivals, and I genuinely don't think they would have happened were it not for the particular chemistry of that environment. For better or worse, it is something to see, so for all the behavioural analysis one can muster, I think the best thing to do is take a step back now and then, talk about it, think about it, then get back in the mud and the music and the dirty, glorious nature of it all. On reflection, I'll be doing just that. 

It's not just a TV show, it's a project!

Despite the amazing availability of television online, at locations both legal and illegal, the box set is making a comeback. The Guardian recently launched a ‘Box Set Club’, and sales keep rising: from the nostalgia of rewatching old Frasier seasons to the excitement of a spanky American drama you’d otherwise have to track down on an obscure Sky channel, we can’t get enough. We want TV on our own terms, and we’re bored of squinting into our undersized laptop screens. Enter the DVD.

In my mind, television is the purest form of procrastination. It is the truest, harking back to an age when we didn’t even know what procrastination was, we just knew that the natural thing to do when returning from school was switch on the kids channel and be sucked in to that unnaturally shiny world.Now, with the advent of iPlayer, 4oD and other on-demand resources, we can watch snippets of television whenever we like. A Peep Show here, an episode of Africa there; it all add sup. However, there is an alternative to procrastaTV which feels oddly guiltless, and that my friends, is the box set.

Buying a box set is like the procrastinator’s version of putting a downpayment on a Ford Focus. It is a commitment, you have made an investment, and sitting watching 40 hours ofWest Wing suddenly has a greater meaning. You have a project, much like taking up a new hobby or completing your degree.It is pre-meditated viewing, designed for those who missed something the first time round, those who’ve read an insightful article about the moral integrity of [insert-gritty-drama-here] or for those who insist on blogging a review of every single episode.

It is no coincidence that their popularity is on the up during a time of Big Important Dramas. They are often American, extremely well crafted and they just look bloody cool. As do their boxes. Whoever thought of spreading out the logo of a show across several DVDs was a genius. It means I have to complete the set. I have to have every series of House.

American drama in particular has dominated in recent years, and its continued success can be seen in the recent revival of shows such as The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and The West Wing on Sky Atlantic. They are still being talked about, compared to, sourced from, and thus people continue to buy them years after their airing. One of the reasons shiny American drama like The Wire is so engaging is that it’s completely alienating. With highly paced colloquial language, grit-cop jargon and no flashbacks or catch-ups, you’re required be completely engaged for five whole series. These slow-burning, novelistic dramas require a satisfying sort of dedication, meaning the payoff is far greater at the end. It takes a while, but on the upside my inner voice is now that of a Baltimore drug dealer.

It’s not just the old favourites that are having a boxy renaissance; semirecent shows that you might have missed by a whisker are everywhere at the minute. Super-meta-sitcomCommunity has a huge cult following, appealing to those who like TV and those who are very aware of the fact that they like TV. Equally, shows that haven't even finished, such asBreaking Bad, are being snapped up quicker than crystal  meth on a street corner. 

For me, buying box sets is part of my television-enthusiast vanity complex, the part that knows every character history of House and watches The Wire without subtitles. I’ll be out of a loan before Student Finance can send me one of those annoying texts.

Retrospective: Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight

Trilogies are an important part of the film lover's repertoire. They become a feature length blur of ideas and feelings; each installment influences the way the others are interpreted. and together they almost form a cinematic personality. This personality is what generates the bizarre sense of loyalty and connection people have with films - we invest in them and care for them, in exchange for a glimpse of something escapist and idealistic. Culty art-house type trilogies include Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours series or Satyajit Ray’s Apu films, but for me, the finest of them all has just been decided by the release of the final installment in Richard Linklater's 'Before' trilogy.

In 1995, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Richard Linklater began what would be a 18 year project, spanning three countries, three films, and influencing countless young romantics with a taste for introspection and a fondness of talking about it. Jesse is your typical young American, full of ideas and brimming with bravado, Celine is a flighty Parisian student, a classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl with a melancholy twist. They meet on a train, engage in pseudo-philosophical verbal acrobatics and spend a day and a night getting lost in Vienna. Their meet-cute is whimsical, their characters seemingly clichéd, and in any other context their patter could be vastly irritating. But somehow, Linklater, Delpy and Hawke have created an environment in which the characters can soulfully filibuster the big questions in life whilst outwardly attempting to answer them, in a way that is charming, tender, and most importantly, interactive.

The intricacy and wonder of the series lies in this attempt at an interactive viewing process. It begins simply; they are young and in love - you want to be young and in love. They wander around Europe spouting extremely interesting and insightful nonsense about the world under a canopy of consistently good weather - you also want this. It is romantic, it is dreamlike, but it is not wholly unrealistic. Who wouldn't want this? On a superficial level, the films allow you to superimpose yourself into the dream. However, it is the acknowledgment of flaw, condition and sheer bloody humanity that make the characters seem so real, so tangible. The characters are a Gatsby-like embodiment of self-performativity - they let you understand them exactly as you want to; each person is moved in a different way, and each viewing inspires different emotion. As the series progresses, the characters grow a little older and a little more weary, with a middle installment of 30-something cynicism, until we reach Before Midnight, which as Linklater suggests is a "harder pill to swallow", where love has become a "brutal kind of beast." The very nature of the films, produced over such a long period of time, necessitates the growth of the characters and the growth of the audience. Equally, the production cultivates the type of obsessive analysis that Jesse and Celine are inclined to themselves - nine years is a long time to wait for the next film, and to attempt to predict its outcome.

I don't want to reveal that outcome, as you should all sit down and watch the trilogy immediately, but I'll happily say that Before Midnight is a beautiful piece of cinema. Like its predecessors it is talky and indulgent, and so appeals to those, like myself, who often feel like talking makes them indulgent, which is something one should probably talk about. What makes them so magical is the way one can go on interpreting them, understanding them, obsessing over them. Shameless attempts to draw out similarities between yourself and the characters are inevitable, but they also inspire some of the best conversation and the best experiences, once you get past the semi-pretension of it all. Linklater has created something intensely personal, and his love of story and talk of all kinds (small, big, poetic...) has spawned a fan-base who have experience their own versions of the tale as a result of that intimacy. I for one can't wait to weep over Before Sunset in my thirties, and re-experience Before Midnight as a gin soaked forty year old. Both create visions of a potential future that for Jesse and Celine began 18 years ago in a serene 80-second unbroken shot, and for us lowly mortals began the first time we peeped at their intimacy.

Dear Dr Status Update...

A few days ago the BBC ran a news story about Facebook's latest technical glitch. "Millions exposed" as "personal details" were made available on the site, officials apologise, damage limitation, will never happen again, all that jazz. In the grand scheme of things the problem was a minor one, but there's something inescapably ironic (and really quite revealing) about the BBC's choice of words. Exposure of details. Personal exposure. Isn't that exactly what Facebook is? Isn't every newsfeed or timeline a systematic exposure of personal details? You say where you're going, what you're doing and who you're with. More than that, you say what you feel and what you think. By its very nature, even as a basic mode of communication, Facebook necessitates the exposure of personal details.

Before this gets a bit too dramatic/despairing/downright depressing, I should make a confession. A disclaimer, if you will. I have absolutely no control over my Facebook habits, I'm aware that I don't particularly like them but they exist nonetheless. However, Facebook and other social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram are asking  more and more of their users. The world is a increasingly public one and we are inevitably becoming a more public people. Much has been written on the way social media influences our interactions with others, but what does the personal exposure mean for the ways in which we view ourselves?

Social media has moved far beyond communicative purposes. Blogs such as Tumblr, Myspace and somewhat embarrassingly, this Blogspot, offer a chance to create a whole identity and a space where that identity can be projected and its voice can be heard. Status updates have become the modern equivalent of diary entries - a digital record of our activities and opinions, not unlike a written journal. These snippets and fragments of life can seem fairly innocuous; nothing much can be read into "On my way to Nandos", or "BEST NIGHT EVER LAST NIGHT!". However, it's not exactly what is said, but the fact that anything is said at all. To be hyper-cynical/go all Stewart Lee about it, recording your every move in a public forum is akin to creating a kind of contained celebrity - in the mini-world of your Facebook friends, your actions and thoughts are valuable and worthy of record. Even if you have just nipped down the pub with your mates. #nothingspecial.

To avoid this sounding like an ill-advised bout of self-righteousness, I have an example that both encapsulates the idea of a life lived on Facebook, and reveals how easily one can be sucked into it. In a case of mistaken identity, I once added a complete stranger as a 'friend'. She accepted (which itself was weird) and I never got round to deleting her (probably weirder). Three years later and she's become a bizarre stock figure in my cyber-life. I've witnessed the birth of her two children, her relationship woes, her day to day activities and her plans for the future, all of it posted online like a personal scrapbook. It is sheer voyeurism and nosiness; the modern day version of peeping over your neighbours fence, but with far more juicy results. The uncomfortable truth is that a good proportion of us probably have someone like the poor woman who accepted my friend request, or maybe we actually are that person.

An extension of Diary-Facebook is Therapist-Facebook. We're not just asked where we are and what we're doing, but how do we feel and why? If you're having trouble expressing it to Dr Status Update, there are even handy little Myspace relics which depict a variety of emotions.

This attempt to concretise the whole range of human emotion is pretty grim, and symptomatic of the whole problem with Facebook therapy and Facebook diary entries - it forces a complete removal of complexity, subtlety and nuance. More than that, it manufactures introspection whilst paradoxically removing any sort of personal insight, as this most personal process is laid bare for the world to see. And, of course, for them to comment on.

Whatever your opinion on social media, there is surely an undeniable loneliness, even poignancy in the system. It's not a perfect diagnosis, but there are definitely hints of it in even the most normative status updates. Wishing the world "Goodnight.xxx", or letting people know exactly where you are ("Home sweet home!") is like an attempted affirmation of one's place within a network of human connection. It says, "I am here and so are you". There seems to be some value in that, even if it's just a basic indication of the human desire to interact, to take interest, even to be nosy. However, the online attempt to reveal all generally reveals that there isn't in fact that much to reveal in the first place  - such is the hermeneutic circle-jerk produced by any attempt to analyse  Facebook. Ah, so it is.

Articles which influenced this attempt at one- 

"From memory to sexuality, the digital age is changing us completely."

"Internet anonymity is the height of chic."

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: Fashion, Fun and Play

In her seminal work A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), Mary Wollstonecraft (feminist, philosopher, all around great gal) states:

“My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.” 

Just over two hundred years later , one would expect that a  woman who was one of the founding feminist philosophers, a social activist and a political radical, would be remembered exactly how she desired women to be treated - rationally. Her work has influenced hundreds of key political and feminist thinkers, from George Eliot, to Virginia Woolf, to Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, who references Wollstonecraft frequently in his theory of Asia's missing girls. As with many renowned writers, Wollstonecraft's life came with its fair share of excitement, and as well as being remembered for her work she is also known for her tempestuous love life, her unorthodox marriage to anarchist William Godwin and her bouts of depression. Fascination with these particular 'graces' is inevitable, but on the whole her legacy is as it should be - influential and necessarily respected.

Imagine then how surprised / bemused / reluctantly entertained I was to discover that the children's website 'Stardoll' has also tapped into Wollstonecraft's legacy. Stardoll is an online dress up site, and have very kindly honoured the world's first feminist with her own page. Just look at those bloomers:

Yes, there she is, staring at her interactive wardrobe with a fabulously ironic expression of distaste. Dollstonecraft comes with several outfits and a whole range of accessories - with brains, beauty and a clothing line like this, this really is 'have it all' all feminism. I should at this point admit that I stumbled across the site in a desperate bid to dress up as Mary Wollstonecraft (long and pretentious story), and that my initial reaction was unbridled laughter, but her presence on the website is really very curious. Sandwiched between MIA and 'McFly Tom', and across from Camilla Parker-Bowles we have an 18th century political writer in nought but her underwear.

Perhaps this is a strategic move by the website. Perhaps somewhere a child got bored of styling members of JLS and decided to Google this Mary lass. For all I know Stardoll could be starting an educational phenomenon of nine year old girls burning their Barbies and trading in their Unofficial Harry Styles biographies for some straight up feminist discourse. We can hope, but the more likely outcome is that, like me, they'll sit and ponder whether the mustard skirt, fan and headdress combo is a bit too much for afternoon tea with Mr Godwin. 

For all its light-heartedness, there is something truly unsettling about a website that quite literally dolls up the woman who called for the end of femininity being treated like domestic ornamentation. Reducing any figure to a silent 2D image and a series of dresses is surely a bad thing - it is a literal representation of style over substance. Wollstonecraft may be remembered rationally by most, but Stardoll have certainly restricted her to the "perpetual state of childhood" that she sought to defy. I wonder what she'd have made of it?

Social Networking

This is a piece I wrote for the Cherwell Student Newspaper in the days of yore. It's old, noisy and a bit rudimentary, but I loved writing it and am reassured by the fact that still I agree with my self of 8 months ago. 

I remember a golden time when a dinner was just a dinner, having coffee was exactly that, and employability meant running around town desperately shoving C.V's into Topshop employees' faces. However, after one and a bit years in Oxford, these seemingly innocent pastimes strike the fear of Alan Sugar into me. What will I do when I graduate? How do I make the right impression at a function? Will Topshop take me back?! It appears that university life, academic life, is inextricably caught up in that most sleazy of grown up business words: networking.

Yes, I am being dramatic, and yes, I am well aware that I cannot run around Oxford waxing lyrical about the nice pointy rooftops forever, but still, there is something about the idea of socialising with intent which I fundamentally cannot get my head around. According to Wikipedia, it is a 'socioeconomic activity by which groups of likeminded business people recognise, create or act upon business opportunities.' This probably covers the finance and law events we all too often receive emails about, which are inevitably slightly uncomfortable parades of fixed smiles and fixed interest rates. At least the business events, those which favour the Randolph Hotel and seduce you with promises of canapés and an office with a view, accept what they are. They unashamedly market themselves as 'networking' events, they unashamedly say 'FEMALE OXFORD GRADS, WE WANT YOU TO DIVERSIFY OUR COMPANY', and they unashamedly bribe you with wine to attend. It is not this type of networking that we should approach with caution. It is the networking that filters down through university, from society recruitment events to desperately trying to befriend the latest treasurer of OUDS in order to get funding.* When does it all end? At what point does a drink with a friend become collecting a potential contact for the future? 

Becoming 'employable' is obviously an important part of being at university, but it's not the only reason we are here, nor should it be our main motivation for getting involved in university life. Just consider the sense of ego that comes with running for a Union position. Are you there because you feel you can contribute to the running of the university and the welfare of its students, or are you there because striding down those panelled corridors makes you feel pretty darn good. Most likely the answer is neither. More likely is the answer; it will look good on my C.V. Cynical and a bit grumpy, maybe, but a recent Cherwell article did show that on average 1 in 3 ex-Union Presidents could network themselves all the way to Parliament. However, the Union is just one example, Oxford another, and this isn't a discussion about career politicians and Old Boys’ Clubs. All universities are judged by how employable their grads are, and I am extremely grateful for the opportunities that this particular establishment affords. It's just that the idealist in me wants to get by with good honest graft, rather than a purse full of beautifully embossed business cards.

The fact is, the whole concept of networking seems a little contrived. Everyone knows that it is a part of university life, but we are reluctant to acknowledge that we do it, and even more reluctant to acknowledge that some of us consider it to be quite a skill. Sadly, I am not one of those people, but as much as I dislike the concept of networking, I find myself doing it almost unconsciously. One of my worst habits is a tendency to blend into the given situation, to become a 'likeminded business person.' Drinks with tutors equates to passing comment on the wine and name dropping a few articles, finance events involve dressing sharply and having a quick glance at the FT website beforehand, and somewhat humiliatingly, Cherwell Drinks meant hovering around whilst loudly discussing potential article ideas. It's as if we are playing at professionalism in our safe little university circle, and we are most certainly playing characters. Today, in my head, I am a journalist. I may as well be drinking black coffee, chewing a cigar and hammering away at a typewriter. (If only).

The question is, do we really believe it? Do we believe ourselves in these roles? Those who do are probably far more likely to fall into a job than the few, like myself, who sit angrily in a corner and complain about 'connections' instead of making them. The strange thing is, I respect people who are natural networkers. They fascinate me because they have a goal, and they go for it, their pockets brimming with canapés and business cards. Good for them. I hope they are very happy in their job that neither I nor they fully understand. That said, I think I prefer my shamefully comfortable seat on the networking bench, where the contacts are in reach, but my soul ostensibly remains my own.

 *Hypothetical example. Probably.

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