04.04.03

They say that life imitates art, but it seems that somewhere along the line recently someone deemed it inappropriate for art to imitate life. When 09-11 occured, a frightening number of Hollywood movies were put on hold due to their subject matter allegedly - films about terrorist attacks, mass destruction and violence in general were shelved until it was deemed palatable for the public once more. In some ways, this was a wise decision. Of course people are going to feel uncomfortabel watching fils where families are torn apart by the threat of violence and death. It is the most ancient of enemies. However, there seems to be a pattern emerging since then of censorship in really bizzare ways - The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers was a film that certain Hollywood big wigs wanted to change the name of, because of their belief that the public would start equating it with 09-11. These kind of executives clearly have a strange opinion on the public's sensitivities. LOTR, when it was originally released as the novels, was released in 1954 - a decade after the end of World War II. On it's release, the book was seen by somne critics as a metaphor for war and politics, and the effects they have on the world. Tolkien denied this, claiming it was a work of pure fantasy only, not a political stance. Regardless, LOTR is very much a book about war and politics, but takes from the most basic of comparisons with good and evil. It's not just World War II - it's ancient Rome. Now, for this very story to be made into a film some 40-odd years later, and some out of touch Hollywood executive to attempt rather publically to change the title of it just because of a flimsy link between the amount of towers in the film and the amount of towers that were destroyed on 09-11, it just goes to prove that priorities have shifted to a very strange level really, because there is no solid sensitive issue here for anyone to get upset about. I mean, why doesn't anyone get upset about LOTR because of the fact that, if you7 want to look it it 'metaphorically', America could be seen as Sauron's shadow, sweeping the globe, not with axes and shields (well.. ) but with financial muscle and powerful, forced alliances. This sounds more like a comparison to LOTR - not just three words at the beginning of the film.

The Hours was a film that caused a bit of a stir in recent times too, with Nicole Kidman playing the acclaimed author Virginia Woolf. Woof commited suicide by drowning herself in a river near her home, and that death is acted out here in a chilling fashion. Even though this film is about the immense pressues of life, people still saw the film as too morbid and unneccesarily downbeat. Does that really matter? Since when has downbeat realism been an issue that should be wiped-out of art? With America rallying for morale and a positive public menatl state after the 09-11, it seems that people can only be fed mindless, happy-go-lucky nonesense in an attempt to keep them on a permanenet prozac high. This has been quite a couple of years for brainless rom-coms, pop bands and more and more naff sitcoms than ever before. Oh, and lots more films about personal revenge, guns and how to join the armed forces as well. Rally everyone around, bomb some country or other, and pretend it's all in the name of avenging your people. I bet there will be no problems with any of the current state of world affairs being made into films in the next few years.

07.02.03

At night time, outside the cinema where I work, you often get kids hanging around, looking hard, spouting profanities, trying to act like they've smoked since they were teething, and discussing topics of the day like copulation, financial deprivation, and how much they would like to smash that guys face in who wouldn't let them in to see Final Destination 2 because they didn't look fifteen. To be fair, they can be quite intimidating at times - standing there, staring at anyone and everybody as if to say.. as if to say.. oh, I don't know, 'Twat', or something. I'll be waiting for my cab, and I'll try and stick to the shadows if I can so I don't get hassled for a fag or a quick fight ('You haven't got time for a quick fight, have you, mate? It's just that I reckon I can fuck that fifteen year old over there with a subtle combination of cheap cider and me looking hard by kicking you in the guts'). Most of the time I get no trouble, but once in a while everyone has to get some lip. The thing is, this town (or any town at the moment) is teeming with kids with nothing to do - Charvers, as they're affectionately known as. Some of the older ones have cars (usually beat-up old red Fiestas or Novas), some have skatebaords (far from beat-up and never, ever used), and some just travel on foot, searching the land for battle or just someone that will pop in the offy and buy them a bottle of cheap booze. Their uniform is pretty standard: lads - baseball cap (preferably Burberry, or some other truly hideous fashion wear), checked shirt, sweater (Kickers, et al), jeans and Kickers shoes. Girls - 'Tracky Bottoms', tiny tops, or basically anything that they think makes them look older than twelve. It's a realised culture. A culture swarming with aggression and nihilistic tension. But where does it come from?

I was talking to a cab driver on my way home recently, and the subject came up because he said that he had lived in the same area for eighteen years anow, and he had never had any trouble with Charvers until the last twelve months, when he's had abuse thrown at hime leaving his own driveway and he's in fear of his house being broken into. This is obviously quite distressing, and anyone who feels this way obviously shouldn't because it's intimidation, and if you can't feel comfortable in your own home, where can you? Different areas of the town obviously have different stigmas, for example, areas like The Grange, or Harlescott have a reputation for gangs and trouble caused by young 'uns. Where I live, Gains Park, is a perfect split between middle-class, picket-fence semi-detatchment, and hanging-round-the-local-shop-war-zone. Gains Park has a weird stigma because of this. A lot of folks think that it's a rough area because of the shops and how they look and the kids that hang around there ("probably doing drugs"), and the oddly silent middle-class, wealthy looking parts ("where they probably deal drugs"). Personally, I like it here. Our kids are a much different style of drug-taking youth. None of your heroin round here! Juts honest to goodness crack. But the thing that must be taken into account is that these kids are probably coming from the lovely middle-class homes and seeking youthful release through being all hard and abusive and cigarette smoke-y about eveything. These are kids that aren't mentally stimulated like they should be, but perhaps they're not being guided correctly either. Just being allowed to go out at night is great, but if kids have nothing to go out to, like events or clubs perhaps, then surely they're going out and getting bored and restless and do stupid things because it's all that's going. If their frighteningly high daily in-take of TV and media is to blame, then it's because of things like displaying how important it is to be fashionable, to look this way, to speak like this. The complete lack of intelligence in things like pop music and kids TV just breeds a stale mind. Our TV presenters are dumb and patronising, as are our commercial radio presenters and celebrities. With young people having children and attempting to be parents at alarmingly early ages, it's a culture of kids thinking they're adults, when really they haven't even been shown how to grow-up yet. I think it must be hard for young people to find a good way to exorcise their views about things like their culture, seeing as there isn't really a specific manner in which they can be heard other than, perhaps, throuhg schooling. Then again, maybe some young folks like doing fuck all and getting into trouble for it. But if they don't, they don't really have much say in it one way or another, anyway. It's the same with most things in this country - until you're old enought to vote, you might as well not exist.

31.01.03

The coffee shops in my local town probably contain what any coffee shops do in any town in the UK at the moment - people who dress fashionably. This is acceptable, of course, because if there's one thing that springs to mind when you think of a decade in the history of this country (especially the last four or five) it's fashions, and what people are wearing. I was in a queue (strangely enough), and I couldn't help but cast my eyes over the crowds, not just wearing their clothes, but almost being part of them as well. The importance of what you look like cannot be understressed these days - you've got to be striking, a similar style (but not identical) to what the rest of your group wear. If it's that 'worn' look in your trousers, it's still got to be expensive-just-off-the-hanger worn. Effort spent, result achieved: fashionably estute children of middle-class smugness. The thing is, you will get exactly the same level of superficial glamour in almost anything today - music has to be cheery, remotely catchy and ultimately disposable (this has always been the case, but never to such a degree of absolute commercialism. Just see how quickly the number one spot is changed in the charts), television has to be simple, colourful, loud and compliment the fashion guru lifestyle. Shows about fashionable, shallow, hedonistic youngsters going on dates, going to clubs, going to bars, running bars abroad, and being locked-up together in a house for several weeks for everyone to gawp at and copy the fashions of. But even just living arrangements aren't enough to keep us amused now - it's got to be jobs too. I can't imagine anything more boring than watching someone do their job for hours. It's not as if you won't know what they will be talking about. It will be the same as your workplace: money, how shit the managment is, cars, what's in the latest issue of Heat, and fashion. Great! I really want to come home and watch a recorded version of my workplace. Movies are also something diluted for the fashion-minded audience. There hasn't been a decent 'action hero' type actor to appear in Hollywood for some time. I don't like action movies much myself, but I will admit that they used to be better made than they are today. Again, the superficiality of the film must win over - you can't grab their attention with subtlety, plot, drama, etc. It has to be loud action with a popular music soundtrack, and preferably a big car with guns. And Vin Diesel. This type of film has also been the case for some time I admit, but there is still something fundamentally worse about nowadays.

There seems to be a really quite high percentage of young people who cannot bring themselves to deal with intellectual stimulation, who see money as no object, whether this is because it is given to them by parents, or they work for it. It's seen as being cool to be rich these days, and it's flaunted in so many ways. There is a culture of rich-kids, especially annoying college types, who believe that their expensive pseudo-surf/skate wear is a genuine statement about an alternative lifestyle. Since when has it been cool to live off mommy and daddy? Independence has been cast aside for proof that you can have anything if you ask for it, and people are smug about it too. The drugs fashion has reached new heights of cool, and I think a lot of folks need to discuss how cool it is to be under the influence because not being under the influence is just so predictable and tedious - where is the variety in a world where you are given everything? I've always had a problem with spoilt middle-class kids doing drugs anyway, because I've always seen drugs as an escape hatch rather than a spiritual doorway (metaphors - don't you just love 'em?). I'm sure lots of folks would disagree, but I think a lot of teenage consumers getting stoned on cheap, nasty pot on their fifteen minute break at college aren't doing it because they want to go to some spiritual, enlightened plane. I'd say they're probably doing it because firstly it seems relatively cool to be seen as doing it, and secondly because you get a kick out of a being a little bit of a 'criminal'. Hell, who am I to pass judjement here anyway? Lots of famous people display how cool it is to be wealthy and spoilt - rap stars (P Diddy spring to mind), pop stars (Mariah Carey springs to mind with her pathetically shallow rich princess mindset), Posh N' Becks (I'm sure those kids will grow up learning the value of money), Premiership footballers that complain about their fee (even though not one of the ones that complain is under several thousand a week), and others. Come to think of it, I might just give up coffee.

23.01.03

We are a nation of queuers. Everybody queues. Post office, bank, fast food restaurant, job centre, bus station. Ah yes, the bus station. My favourite. There really is no other better way of exercising your tolerance than putting up with people at the bus station. Your standing in line, queueing like eveyone else - it's cold, noisy, stinks of fumes, the minutes waiting for the driver take so long to pass. You keep yourself to yourself, even though there's probably only about four inches of space between the person in front of you and the person behind you (personal space feeling violated? Better get used to it, it's another queue). Then you notice someone coming slowly, casually past the queue to the front, pretending to look at the bus' number and destination. They see it, confirm it with their watch (has their watch got a geographical name function?) But then, instead of wandering to the back of the queue, they loiter there until the bus driver arrives, then nip on ahead of you before you've even had time to pick up your bags containing your nice expensive designer clothes that you feel truly cheated over parting money for once you get home and look at them under non-glamorous home lighting. These people are never children or teenagers, which is what you would expect. Oh no. They're middle aged or senior citizens. There really is no more honest a form of childishness than that of the mentality of a middle aged man jumping a long, tired queue at a bus depot. To have the audacity to think that they can just walk past a substantial line of people and have the pick of the seating. The people at the back of the queue already know thy're probably going to have to stand anyway, but they wait there and then shuffle along in silent acceptance. You, as a member of a queue, are providing an important function in the day-to-day activities of society. You are showing that you can be tolerant, and that you can be fair. If you're in a shopping queue with a load of shopping, and the guy behind you just has a carton of milk and two cans of deoderant he's joyfully plucked from the 2 for 1 offer, it's not your duty to let him through first, but your doing so is proof a travelled road of generosity and maturity made public and admired by queuers the world over. Some will copy your lesson, others will not. Probably the same folks who would glady jump the queue had they not a a trolley full of cat food, out of date crisps for 10p a bag brimming over a crusty old shelf near the til, washing powder, children's sweets, toilet roll, and alcohol. Lots of alcohol.

With Matthew Kelly and Pete Townsend being accused of pedophilia this month, it seems to hammer home a great number of celebrity figures being outed as demons in the public eye. A couple of years ago we had Gary Glitter, Johnathan King and for a short period, Michael Jackson accused of child asbuse as well. Whether they are true accusations or not, the media had more than it's fill of public hangings and character asassinations. The cult Channel 4 comedy show Brass Eye was slammed because of it's tongue-in-cheek satire of the media's attitude toward pedophilia, even though victims themselves had praised the show as being honest and factual. With so much emphasis being on stopping pedophilia, people seem to be missing the point that in a lot of ways, young people have been portrayed in some odd ways in the showbiz world for some time. Take, for example, S Club Juniors. What the hell is all that about? Now, the 'adult' version of S Club is full of sexy men and women, dressed up sexily to appeal to young men and women alike to go out and buy their records and go to concerts to see them 'in the flesh'. Why the hell are S Club Juniors wearing 'childrens' versions of the same outfits? What kind of market is that supposed to be appealing to? School children? I though school children would be the only people buying S Club 'seniors' anyway, so why do they need an even younger version? Weird. Also, Tiffany was in Playboy last month. You remember Tiffany, don't you? 'I think we're alone now' and other sugar-coated mall music. Well, if you were to hear about some young star from your pre-teenhood appearing nude in a magazine, you wouldn't be looking to see some 35 year old woman, would you? The advertising would be 'Tiffany - Remember That Girl You Liked When You Were Ten?' So what's the catch here? I think it's a bit strange personally. If they had photo's illegally taken from the time she was famous (say 1989), they wouldn't use them, so why have her now? She must need the money. But it's still strange.

21.01.03

There's a lesson to be learned from watching too much TV. I suppose anything is excess isn't too good, but TV is a little different. It's never quite real is it? A true escape from the norm, without being asleep or unconscious. Also explains why there are a lot of stupid people around (including myself,I hasten to add. I'll stick it on as default to my indecisiveness). If only we could have ariels directly into our brain. The lesson, I think, to learn from too much TV is to stop watching it so much. That's it really. However, as lessons go, it's a tough one. At least with DVD and video you can independently watch what you want. Independently get fat from no exercise, independently allow your eyesight to deteriorate. The stuff sent to us through the air is evil. That's Them making us unhealthy and conditioned. I say to hell with them - you can do a great job of being an idiot all by yourself. Went van hunting today with Dan and Craig from Hilkah. Need one for ther show in Stafford (see news). That was actually nice and easy, I must say. You expect places like that to be farty with young lads looking all dodgy and metal. We got talking about who would be truly entertaining to have in the Big Brother house. Big Brother, to me, is the ultimate idiot's TV show - you really have to be long gone to Sadsville to actually enjoy it. It's like soap operas - why do so many folks feel so passionate about someone else's fictional life four times a week when they don't even have a tenth of that passion for their own? My prefered residents would be Rosemary West and Sarah Payne's mother and father. I'd definitely watch that .