The Rape Epidemic

I often wonder if as a species we will be ok. There is a very telling line in Terminator 2: Judgement Day in which John Connor watches two kids argue over who shot who first, he comments, “We're not going to make it are we? It's in our nature to destroy ourselves.” I often find myself thinking of this when I look at the horrors we unleash upon each other in our day to day lives. For me, the greatest horror of all is rape, which betrays a fundamental and persistent misunderstanding of what it means to be human.

Rape is certainly the most heinous epidemic to tar the civilised world, reportedly there are an average of 200 rapes per day in the UK. This is a figure largely accepted by critics and proponents alike as it is compiled using both government statistics and analysis by crisis centres who take a closer look at the number of unreported rapes. This is a grotesque number, because whilst one rape is a devastation 80,000 is a full blown epidemic. A 6% conviction rate on the 5% of rapes which are actually reported amounts to a very small handful of women who may receive some form of closure and mental relief knowing that their attacker is behind bars.

So we have to ask ourselves; what is the problem here? Whilst there are many grey areas in sexual harassment and rape cases it is undeniable that an enormous problem exists. However, for the sexually sane amongst us we often make the grey area greyer. There is a level of plausible deniability that we find ourselves affording to friends when we know they might have been a bit heavy with a very drunk girl, but we must question where they draw a line and if it is before something quite acceptable becomes far more sinister and disturbing. The notion that if a girl goes home with a guy she is automatically up for it is a fallacy, a girl is never asking for it unless she is actually asking for it.

Because of these misguided attitudes and shocking statistics, I am more than certain that the majority of us will know someone, knowingly or unknowingly for our part, who has crossed a boundary that they shouldn't have crossed. For that very reason we all have a responsibility to the women in our lives, a collective responsibility and culpability to our sisters, wives, mothers and friends to educate one another.

Our society must question and then actively address why rape is seemingly taken so seriously and at the same time so vastly overlooked? Women have long spoken of a climate of distrust amongst the establishment when reporting rapes which is a culturally entrenched problem in the police. We all know that the police look at crime from a very alienated perspective, almost running mechanically through sets of pre-determined questions and forms. However, rape is not a crime, it is an attack on a fundamental aspect of personal mental security and physical space, an attack on the female body is an attack on our mothers, sisters and lovers. I really do implore all men to watch the below video and share it with as many people as possible whilst simultaneously attempting to fathom some form of empathy for what it must be like for any woman to go through such a harrowing mental and physical ordeal.

The Havens is attempting to change attitudes towards rape with their new campaign, 'Where is Your Line?', its aim is to make young men question where they 'draw the line' and to reassess where they consider themselves or others to be taking advantage.

The Havens offers care and support for both men and women who have experienced rape and other forms of sexual violence. They also compile and analyse statistics relating to sexual assaults.

www.thehavens.co.uk

Article originally published at:

http://www.mintmagazine.co.uk/general/the-rape-epidemic/

The Rape Epidemic

Eye Lie

As many of you readers know I went to America over the summer and it was all very interesting, lots of alcohol was consumed and lots of photos were taken. This blog being a place for words means that I have created a new blog in which to house these photos for your vicarious enjoyment. Be warned however, if you are looking for cheesey holiday snaps you are right out of luck.

All photos will be displayed as God intended them, that is un-photoshopped and unedited.

Enjoy!

http://eyelie.blogspot.com/

Eye Lie

So long and thanks for all the CCTV

Its been five days since the demise of Big Brother and everyone is still reeling with the loss of fictional reality. The British public have been readjusting, albeit painfully, to the prospect of an endless void unpopulated by caricatures from the very worst corners of British banality and celebrity.

The first notable reaction to the public loss was an idle euphoria in the form of gleaming television reviews, this was closely followed by historical appraisals of the show, replaying the nation their favourite moments that somehow defined millions of moments of pure nothingness.

Later, attentions turned to the tragic nature of the loss; what will Davina do? What would Jade do? What will WE do!? Well, Davina should have diversified her talents a little further afield than just hollow observations of the contestants time and subsequent failure at life in the house. And, of course, Jade, poor misunderstood Jade, the real people's princess. She, who showed that a lifeless and unintelligible entity could somehow become a household name, a by-word for pliability and devolving any self-empowerment to the powers that be.

Now is the task of moving forward, moving on with our lives, finding real people to hate, real people to love, real people to share all those manipulated emotions with. We will learn how to read one another again without the auto-cues of well edited television. We are all back in the grey area where the villains, the dunces and the losers all dwell side by side and all around us, even within us.

Most importantly we must, even will, learn to understand ourselves again, learn to cope with that hole, that void that needs filling without thought or effort. That hole, ironically, only exists when your mind is in the 'on' position and is looking for something to do, some form of stimulus and instead we will all look for escape; constant masturbation, drinking and war will fight for dominance of the void. All the while we will gradually remember that the real world is just a simulacrum of the big brother house and then, all of that pent up prejudice and bias will find another more organic release in those we find thrust into our empty lives.

So long and thanks for all the CCTV

Final Descent

We walked into the park after stealing her mum's painkillers, she had broken her back and was unable to stop us, overpowering her was the path of least resistance. The pills were green but her back was black and her face was red with the thousands of burst capillaries from the strain of merely breathing. With a fist full of these incredible green pills Nadia and I stopped in the first shop we came across for water, these were not a prescription for dry swallowing. They were the size of those big, cheap aspirin tabs, only 150mg but packed full of shit to keep them in a circular form. The pills were bitter, far from the refreshing tang which their green colour suggested, a musty yellow would have been a more appropriate colour, like the inner ear of some feral dog or the dim mid-morning sun. I imagined Nadia's mother straining to swallow these brutal little pieces of heaven, her now useless body dependent on the foul taste in order to make life bearable. We sipped and swallowed.

As we entered the park an overwhelming sense of warmth took hold of me, and everything was surrounded by a palpable yellow mist that both blurred and focussed the eye. The overwhelming pain matched by this intense pleasure must have felt like a god awful joke, a bitter sweet irony for Nadia's mother. There was no way for these pills, a compound of satisfaction and beauty, to exist without the violence and humiliation of pain that accompany them. Perhaps a perpetually beaten wife would, right now, be experiencing some mild relief from her fractured existence. Everywhere, broken men, women and children would be experiencing this same sense of relief, joy and safety within enclosed clinical walls. The dingy blue curtains surrounding them, stained with blood, faeces and even the matter of human existence, would finally come alive at this one intense moment.

We, on the other hand, were the fortunate ones. The vomit was replaced by lush green fields, slightly dampened by the cool humid air. Droplets of water glistened and refracted light in an infinite number of different directions. The dull oppressive curtains were in fact a limitless blue sky, encapsulating an awe inspiring, living whole, energized by an ever peaking flame in the sky. The smell of putrid rotting matter was the sweet scent of the breathing earth that gave life to the nasal airwaves. As the dying toiled and suffered in their enclaves, only escaping the torture of life for seconds at a time, an entire living spectacle flourished in their decline. We were its epicentre and we saw the whole spectacle of life and death for the first and last time through unique eyes.

My attentions turned to Nadia's mother, I was overwhelmed by the pain she would be feeling in order for us to see beauty of this intensity, I relished in her pain. This sensation was not unlike that of the disclosure by my own mother that I had been a twin in her womb, I had relished in the knowledge that I was the stronger of the two, I had destroyed something that had threatened to undermine my own existence, something that was essentially myself, identical in every fibre and hair on its dying body. I had consumed its weakness and my life was lived in the shadow of its pain, its failed existence. The pleasure I was taking in the pain of Nadia's mother was akin to my entire life, every pleasure, every sight, smell and sound was a stolen luxury paid for by the death of that failed life. My brotherly fetus, consumed by my body only weeks after our conception was a victim of my joy, my celebration and love of pleasure however, so was I.

The full understanding of what I had done to my fetal brother brought me to a sense of realisation that I had never before experienced, I knew what I had to do in order to salvage any form of basic humanity. I was convinced that I had to impregnate the young, fertile body of Nadia. With my seed nestled within her womb I could recreate my fetal brethren, albeit twenty years too late. This act of human creation would satisfy my own mother's need for closure and allay the sense of loss she had felt due to what she believed was her own maternal failure. My mother always thanked her God, in the irrational way that only a mother can understand, for my survival. In such a manner that suggested a miracle and not murder. If she knew the truth of my entire existence, the chimera ripping at the life chord that held my brother within her body and within the realms of life, my hand consuming all that was rightly his. A murder of providence that her God should give me life and that I take it away. Her entire belief would be destroyed, that God could turn his cheek on such a transgression.

I reached my hand out to Nadia, touching only the tips of her fingers, she was startled by my unprecedented show of affection; I had rarely even looked at her in recent years, our friendship was one of habit than of genuine enjoyment of each other's company. The euphoria we were sharing was slowly fading into a catatonic sense of guilt on my part for what was about to occur. I was about to impregnate her with the redemption of my crimes and it would change the entire fabric of our acquaintance, habit would become necessity and I would nurture her womb with loving hands, not with any affection for her but for the ultimate forgiver of my sins, my brother.

She looked into my eyes, I could see the recognition on her face for a lost friendship, a direct continuation from where I had left it following the car crash which had resulted in a severe trauma to my brain. My personality proceeded to collapse into itself and for five years I had been left with no emotional liability, only rarely would I relapse into my former self. For now I was within a relapse and was overtaken by an extreme feeling of loss, I knew that the reciprocity we were sharing would not last and I would once again withdraw as soon as I had withdrawn from her body.

The sensation of touch sent impulses throughout my body, neurones confused and tangled in my spinal chord, thus distorting my peripheral nervous system and sending feeling to every extremity of my body. These sensations confused my movements and made me far clumsier than I cared to be, but with the movement of my hand across her body Nadia contorted with the same confused pleasure as I did. Her lips trembling not with anxiety but with the faint murmur of her heavily beating heart. I leaned over to kiss her and in this moment I knew that my brother had been destroyed by my malice, but must be recreated in love. This act of re-creation was an act of love and for that moment I was in love with her, really and truly. We embraced one another and reacted intensely to one another's touch, her womb slowly opened up to me and allowed me to enter her, breathing sharply and hesitantly but inviting and embracing my sex. The holy motives for my actions were forgotten and my desires took hold, the fertile body of this young woman controlled my every move, directing us both into a climatic unison, the reason for which was but a distant and confused memory.

As we lay naked on the damp, cooling grass, my penis flaccid between my legs, I felt vulnerable to my impending withdrawal, the luxuriance of the world around me was beginning to fade. The greenery of the grass and the intensity of the colours around me were beginning to dull, even the brightness of the sun had lost its powerful white glare and was reduced to a mere gold. I was aware of how cold I had become on my left side as I watched the sun peaking in the sky, peaking and bathing our naked bodies in its warmth and glow. The only intensive display left was the silver outline that marked the contours of Nadia's body cast by the now falling sun as it fell away behind her and left me cold and exposed to its counterpart.

Once again Nadia looked me in the eye, but there was no recognition in her gaze. I looked through her, my retreating mind only seeing her now as a necessity for my redemption. Her eyes teared, she sat up, looking away from me as she did so, and covered her breasts from my dormant stare. She hastily redressed herself, but her movements were still contorted by the synaptic confusion that her brain was offering her. Whilst my euphoria was slowly fading into a dull enclave, hers had turned to anxiety and mourning. I imagine she felt somewhat cheated by today's events, tricked into the situation I had created for her, but with what ounce of enlightenment I had left I wanted her to know that what we had felt was real, and not just the necessity that was once again creeping over me. But it was impossible, my ability or even desire to take liability for my actions and emotions had passed. I was cold, the sun was rapidly descending towards the horizon, some thousands of miles in front of us. I stood up, satisfied and arrogant by the creation of my own redemption I placed a firm hand around Nadia's stomach, marking out the contours of her womb, illogically mapping a passage of safety for the embryo we had created.

With an even firmer and far more vexed movement Nadia threw my hand away and pushed me backwards.

“Can you understand me Blake? Is there anyone in there?”

Her soft breath released a harsh and unloving tone.

“What we did was wrong, it wasn't okay. I know you are fully aware of what I'm saying, I can see it in you, I can see you calculating.”

The effort of creating the sounds to reflect my thinking may well be dilapidated, but she was right, I had full understanding of what she was saying. However, I found it far easier to just stare blankly at her.

“Blake, I fucking hate you, I hope you can understand this. Because it is more important to me than anything that you never see or speak to me again.”

The vacancy overwhelmed me. I was momentarily aware of my actions and my lack or care for this beautiful but now psychologically damaged young woman. She was clearly deranged by our act of recreation. That it took place with a mentally damaged friend, with little capability for emotion probably exasperated her situation. It was clear that treating me like a child was her only way of dealing with our actions, it dissolved her of responsibility. She could excuse her actions with some misguided maternal instinct towards me. Oddly, she was far closer to her own instincts in this immediate moment than she was probably aware. Yet she continued to scram, her voice clogged with the confused contractions of her tears. The sun continued its slow descent into the horizon. The hysteria continued. I made out vague passages of her demented prose

“...fucking inside me... I want to get it the fuck out... crippled... can you hear me...”

Vacantly, I stared at the beauty of the setting sun, I was in the final stages of my withdrawal and was only passively aware of her cries for help.

A rude awakening became me. A numbness beseeched my entire sinus; eyes watered, a dense and heavy drought lay within my nose, followed by the coarse scent of blood in my throat. My eyes swelled.

“HELLO!? IS ANYONE FUCKING THERE?”

I looked up to find Nadia looming over me, her lip trembling in a manner devoid of any sexual ambition.

“IS ANYONE LISTENING TO ME”

She rapped on my skull three times. I was still gazing up at her in a deafened sense of complete confusion, she was perfectly still but the rich blue sky seemed to spin behind her..

“...morning after pill.. ”

In those three words and singular action I knew my salvation would be ruined, all that I had created, so fragile but with such a sense of promise. The numbness began to settle into a dry feeling of calm, my peripheral vision was blinded, I was staring dumbly at her feet.

In a slight of hand I grasped at her foot, pulling her forward. She fell heavily. Within that one fall all of my redemption fell to pieces, our embryo became detached and perished and I was contaminated once again with the guilt of my in uterine murder. Her head hit the grass, a soft thud echoing into to my knee as I made my way upon her. Her eyes closed then squinted into the setting sun as I placed my hands around her neck forcing my thumbs into her trachea. My fingers struggled to make their way around the back of her neck, instead grappling with the soft humid grass, exhuming the soil in preparation for some crude grave that would provide the final resting place for my fetal brother. Dribbling, I pushed harder into her throat. Deranged by some instinct of recovery the tension of her trachea was unbearable, a resistance to death had taken hold of her body and every muscle contorted. Limp and exasperated she failed.

Unable to stop the vomit from leaving my mouth I ran into a bush to relieve my stomach. I was sickened by my own actions, everything was entirely still, immobile and present. There is nothing outside of this scene. Nadia's contorted body lies in the grass to my right devoid of all life, my brother lies within the eternal confines of her womb, entombed. I feel entirely self reflexive for the final time, entirely culpable for my emotions and my actions. As a child I had acted upon the need for immediacy with little regard for consequence, following my accident at the age of fifteen I had acted autonomously from any moral agenda. Now for the first time I am entirely aware of my actions and feel a palpable sense of consequence. Vomit trickles from my chin as I look over her body, the putrid dense smell now indelibly associated with death. My nose runs, I retort. The taste burns the back of my throat.

Laying down next to her I take her head in my arm, nurturing her stomach as I had promised. The peripheral of my vision is beginning to close in and I am almost blind. At ease now, I once again mark out her womb and nurture its imaginary contours, as if skin, muscle and diaphragm were removed. Gradually slowing, I am falling into sleep, once again removed from my situation, I had nurtured my brother into death. Nadia's body is cold.

Final Descent

Doppelgänger

A doppelgänger is a double of another person. Further, it is also referred to as the sensation of seeing yourself in a position where it is impossible that it could have been a reflection.

That is the inspiration for this:

The overwhelmingly malign presence haunted Blake Pictin, there was no explanation for its presence, it hung about him almost festering but without tangible existence. He was momentarily certain that the presence was in fact himself. He knew that it bore all of his characteristics, he knew that the presence was an intangible representation of himself. He felt his flaccid arms at his side wrap themselves around his upper torso, placing a huge amount of pressure on his thorax, his breathing became heavy and restricted and the power required to overcome the intensity of the pressure was immense. His head became weary and intoxicated from the lack of oxygen but as he leaned backwards to balance himself he felt the distinct feeling of abandonment, his chest was released and he inhaled rapidly. Now aware, with certainty, of the individual behind him, he knew it to be of similar build, he could vaguely make out the strong defined jaw line and the steep harsh nose of his profile. Yet he was unable to move, it was as if he knew everything about the individual behind him and that it had always been there, he knew he did not need to turn around yet he knew at the same moment that he would not be able to even if he had wanted. He was again affirmed by its presence, he knew it down to the most intimate detail but somehow now its face eluded him, the vision of its face was now collapsing into a dark void, the only thing of which Blake was certain was the profile, beyond that it was a stranger, a complete unknown. Intoxicated by this merging of reassurance and vulnerability Blake was now certain that it was a gentleman standing behind him. He was certain that if were to turn his head there was a possibility that he would see the face and the familiarity that it overwhelmingly exerted, but he knew that time was escaping him, he knew this person could leave him at any second and he felt that second approaching.

Intoxicated by this sense of inevitability Blake fell, he fell with complete reassurance that in only a moment he would be within the company of a great friend and companion. He fell backwards, the entire world moving forward behind his eyes, his arms were still by his side, he made no attempt to break his own fall and at the same time knew nothing would stop him other than the arid ground to which he was fast approaching. He caught a glimpse of the sun which burned into his retinas blinding all recognition he had for this old friend, his mind was now boiling with a flurry of intense colours all overlapping one another but at the same time all individually and distinctively visible. His eyes were screaming out in pain as the image of this great friend was wiped by the arches, sprays and polygons of colours. His head hit the sandy plain and through the dusty mist which surrounded his lifeless body his eyes rolled back into his head. Blake saw, entangled and encompassed by the hallucinations of his sun-burned gaze, the image which he had known all along. The instant familiarity was not a shock, nor was it an expectation, it was neither the reassuring friend nor the menacing stranger. In that momentary glimpse Blake knew for certain that he had seen his own image, the omnipotent and ever present image of himself since birth, an image of himself which he had never seen before and knew not to exist but ultimately understood to be himself. He knew not to look at himself any longer. He was terrorized by the fact that he had stepped beyond the realms of his own understanding, this expansion of his mind had turned the vast open sands upon which he lay into a minuscule part of his body. His eyes fluttered as the hot midday sun burned into his retinas, offering him its final and most dramatic display of light which softly faded into a grey mist far colder than his burning face.

Doppelgänger

The Empire Strikes Back

What the Iraq war enquiry highlights is a country in a state of desperation, desperate to define an international character amid the emergence of a new international landscape and the decline of empire. Britain is still living in the shadow of the grandeur of empire, there is still a tangible sense that we as a nation are unwilling to be bandied along with the rest of Europe when only sixty years ago we possessed a worlds upon which the sun never set. This unwillingness to be defined as European is manifesting itself in a sort of neo-imperialism, an attempt to re-assert ourselves as a global player.

But it cant go on for ever, at the moment we are aligning ourselves politically with America and economically with Europe. However, to have any economic power within Europe we are going to have to become more politically involved and that is going to mean less hanging around with the USA, because they get us into a lot trouble with the European bigwigs, like the court of human rights and NATO, all that lot. But, as Europe becomes a more cohesive whole we will inevitably lose clout, the problem is that as a nation we still have the impression that we are an international power, and refuse to let go of those memories of exotic riches.

Now, I don't personally think it is a bad thing seeing ourselves as superior and separate from the other EU member states, lets face it we have a rich and iconic history, we have produced some of the finest minds and greatest technologies the world had to offer and the only thing we lost to the Germans in World War Two were the Channel Islands. See, even I'm doing it.

The problem is that post WW2 mainland Europe underwent drastic and revolutionary changes, the countries that had been occupied became liberated and many became instantly re-occupied. Europe had to reorganise into a solid power block in order to avoid a repeat performance of the the previous 50 years of instability and war and to battle the bigger and badder threat of the USSR. The UK was somewhat removed from this, we hadn't been occupied, we had actually liberated Europe, fighting side by side with the Americans. As a result we didn't undergo big democratic and political changes so couldn't share in that fraternity. On top of all of that we still had a large empire that was intact although fraying at the edges, so were effectively still a world power.

This is where national pride was most deeply rooted, but colonialism was not chic any more, the total destruction of Europe in the name of imperialism and the brutality that the soviet regime was unleashing on the eastern bloc threw Britain's empire into question. So as the heroic liberators of Europe we slowly liberated the colonies with all the pomp and pretension with which we ruled them. However, this cost the nation its power and prestige and its a problem we are still addressing to this day.

There have been three specific occasions where Britain's desire for empire has crocked up and bucked the trend of decolonisation since the second world war, the first was the Suez crisis in 1956 which was a humiliating debacle and highlighted the decline in international prestige that the country was facing. However, a gift horse in the form of the Argentine invasion of the Falkland islands in 1982 gave us a chance to shine once again and showed the world that although we had very little left to fight for we would still fight for it. The publicity and popularity this bought to an ailing thatcher meant that every PM has sought their own Falklands to unite the country through militaristic and imperial pride in an overwhelming atmosphere of deline.

Iraq was the third occasion and what may colourfully be referred to as 'a complete fuck up'. Iraq was Blair's Falklands, except it didn't make him more popular, it wasn't an example of fine British military tactics, it definitely wasn't a success and rather than improving the flagging reputation of a once great nation is has actually made us look like the United States lap dog. These are indeed unfortunate times.

So, what the Iraq inquiry will unearth more than anything else is that whilst Blair made some bad decisions he did so in the pursuit of international stature, much like Churchill of the 1950s, Churchill mark-two. Blair managed to badly mix two elements of British political history, imperialism and the 'special relationship' and has come out with a bastard child world where Alistair Campbell still thinks Blair is the Prime Minister and a Britain is hated by Europe, not for being too British but for being too American.

The Empire Strikes Back

Happy new year!!! LOLZ, etc.

My new years resolutions are as follows:

1. Eat less junk.
2. Write 500 words a day on anything, specifically fiction.
3. Attempt more than one blog post per month.

So far I am failing miserably on all fronts, last night I had fried chicken and chips for dinner followed by a 4am burger and chips. I have thus far written zero fiction since the fictitious people in my head seemed to have jumped ship on me. I suppose I am keeping up with the blog, but that was tacked on about two minutes ago to make me feel better about myself and to be fair the last post, whilst a legitimate entry, was pretty weak since it only contained about eight words and the picture had already been whored pretty heavily on facebook.

Other aims for this year include:

1. Making some lame short films about nothing.
2. Spending more time outside, literally.
3. Get back into reading.

Since starting my degree I have learned that it is never good to mix work with something you actually enjoy. I can say this with 100% conviction since this is attempt number two in the higher education system. Whilst I do thoroughly enjoy what I am learning, the joy of reading has been totally demolished by the amount of course reading I have to do, the last time I optionally read a book was about a year ago and I am yet to finish it. Sadface. FYI it was The Unlimited Dream Company by J. G. Ballard and whilst I think he is one of the finest authors this country has ever produced it is depressing how repetitive and unimaginative (by his standards) the novel actually is.

Anyway, enough of being emo about myself, it is now time to get on with the importance that is nothing whilst listening to pop-punk and pretending it's summer even though it's snowing and apparently minus ten degrees outside.

Peace out (that's a 90s expression and now officially vintage).

Happy new year!!! LOLZ, etc.

It's snowing, we are all going to die...

It's like the Day after Tomorrow and everything is at a standstill as per usual. Happy days...

It's snowing, we are all going to die...

Dead C'lebs

This year has been a particularly bad year for real people dying, real people are the people that you or I personally knew, unless you know a celebrity personally then they do not fall into this category. Real deaths are tragic, personal and intimate occasions, celebrity deaths are not.

Every now and again a celebrity dies and the press go into overdrive on a feeding frenzy, suckling on every little piece of dirt and sensation they can find. In a way

you can't really blame them for this because the state of the publishing industries is DIRE at the moment and every paper they can sell just pushes the demise of the published word a little further back. So the joyous thing that this desperate situation brings is a feast of gory details portaining to the deaths and grizzly lives of these much lauded but always deeply flawed individuals.

There were two equally enormous feeding frenzies this year, the first came with the death of Jade Goody which essentially became a national event occupying hours of valuable prime time TV space, thousands of pages of print and saw a bizarre outpouring of public grief. A couple of months later this was somewhat eclipsed by the goliath event that was the death of everyones favourite pop star Michael Jackson. Now, I say eclipsed because by anyones standards the slow demise of Jade was a media feast of epic proportions but anything us Brits can do the Yanks can do bigger and better and as everyone is well aware Jacko's death trip was utterly unbelievable. The unveiling of his children alone was just beyond acceptable...

The British offering to the memory of the king, and this is really unbelievable because we pulled something extra special out of the bag, was a live séance where Jackson was contacted in the other world! "No shit!" I hear you cry! Afraid so, some dick off the TV "contacted" Jackson and lame little fan boys and look-alikes got to ask meanial questions, declare their love for him and break down LIVE on national TV. Oh, I forgot to mention David Guest and June Sarpong were there too, so all the people he would want to talk to right?

Back to Jade TV. The Jade death trip was a highly surreal experience, she announced her cancer on live TV and was then followed by cameras almost until the moment she died, when she was too ill to speak to the press "family" and "friends" were more than obliging to divulge all the gory details. As things slowly got worse and worse for poor old Jade we just kept getting closer and closer to her. Essentially that box of light and sound in the corner became a sentient and suffering human being that we had to deal with all day every day.

Then came the wedding! A happy occasion, no? Nope, not when the bride is terminal and only doing it to sell the coverage rights to OK magazine, she said it was for the children which was most probably true but all involved parties would have made a killing too (bad pun). Consequently, while I'm having a pop at OK magazine I think it should be remembered that their "Jade tribute issue" was actually released before she died, the final macabre act of a sinister media circus. And in another of their heart felt tribute issues, this time for Jackson, they remembered him with a lovely picture of him dying, or, according to some, already dead, on a stretcher.

At least this was in keeping with the whole Jade concept and product, she was a creation of reality tv, a ready to go caricature of everything trashy and stupid about the modern world so she fit perfectly into the new reality documentary mould which dictates that mindless morons doing inane activites make for good quality television. She was created by the media for the media and the media always had full control over her, from the second she entered the Big Brother house to the moment she died, she never really left that house.

Honourable mention goes to foxy Brittany Murphy for really ramming home that the media don't even need any evidence to pass judgement on a celebrity death. You see, tabloid journalists dont even need a coroners report to confirm the cause of her death, they already decided it was a concoction of prescription medicine. Yes, that old bastion of truth and balanced writing the Daily Mail paid tribute to Murphy with this:

"Despite the official statement Brittany Murphy died of natural causes following a heart attack, it has been reported she was hooked on Vicodin (the same painkiller Michael Jackson relied on before his death) as well as other prescription drugs, following a series of plastic surgery operations."

Sue Reid goes on to talk a load of crap about Elvis, Heath Ledger and Tiger Woods and gives zero mention of Murphy's career. Nice. I will mostly miss her as the ditsy Luanne in King of the Hill. Sad times.

Lots of other people died this year, some were old, some were young, some were illustrious and some were a plain old waste of space, many deserve to be written about for years to come because of what they bought to culture but, unfortunately it is those that we really shouldn't remember that we will remember the most and until the day comes that vile speculation really can't be printed and then quietly retracted these ridiculous death spectacles will continue.

In the words of the late great Keith Floyd, "Food is life, life is food. If you don't like my approach you are welcome to go down to McDonalds"

Dead C'lebs

Sweet dreams or a beautiful nightmare?

The Barbican is my idea of what living is all about. It fulfills every notion of what I think a home should be. It is a complex with history, density, supreme architectural design, dead central location and most importantly skyline dominance.

Looking at the building today its brutalist domineering style seems somewhat aged but not out of place in London's skyline. The three towers sit comfortably at the beginning of the river skyline, followed by St Pauls, the Natwest Tower and the Gherkin. The steep concrete faces create an imposing glare over the square mile and are reminiscent of the mass produced social housing structures typical of the artichectural modernism 60s and 70s. The Brutalist style of the barbican was a response to this, a movement away from internationally styled housing to that of a more monumental emphasis, a literal domination of the skyline. It is this domination of

London's skyline that earned the complex its Grade II listed status in 2001.

Historically the real inspiration behind the barbican lies solely with one man, Le Corbusier. The Frenchman rejected all forms of ancient architecture, deciding the modern man needed his own form of artichecture to represent his place in the modern world. In 1922 he envisaged a group of buildings of magnificent proportions, Ville Contemporaine, numerous sixty-floor structures linked by circular walkways, included within and around the structures would be airports, office bulidings, shops and any other amenity you can imagine. Man would quite simply give himself over to the dominance of the architecture, three million of those men. Le Corbusier's plan was to build standardised, mass-produced structures that would end urban deprivation in Paris, his vision would become an international standard by the mid 1960s.

Conceived in 1953 and completed in 1969 the Barbican has at its heart the idea of a completely contained living experience. In 1959 artichetcts Chamberlin, Powell & Bon mapped out their vision for the Barbican "The intention underlying our design is to create a coherent residential precinct in which people can live both conveniently and with pleasure. Despite its high density the layout is spacious: the buildings and the space between them are composed in such a way as to create a clear sense of order without monotony. Uninterrupted by road traffic (which is kept separate from pedestrian circulation through and about the neighbourhood) a quiet precinct will be created in which people will be able to move about freely enjoying constantly changing perspectives or terraces, lawns, trees and flowers seen against the background or the new buildings or reflected in the ornamental lake." The notion of meeting tranquil beauty within this dominating structure seems to represent a marriage of the modern with traditional Britain, and until this day the lawns of the complex are amongst its most favoured aspect with residents.

One of the most depressing aspects of the complex has become part of its zeal, the failure of the shopping complex paved the way for the arts centre, and the arts centre is now one of the defining features of the Barbican. Additionally, in 1984 the conservatory was opened and this was an absolute feat containing exotic flora, tropical and domestic plants, pools and fountains, an aivairy and the largest cacti in Europe. The pools used to house terrapins and fish and amazingly the pest control is not chemical but a delicate balance of predators and pathogens (that's basically biological germs).

All in all the Barbican is an incredible project that continues to live on forty years after its unveiling and over half a century after its inception, that it is one of the only complexes of its kind is a tragedy but I am lead to believe that the Pan Peninsula in the Docklands is somewhat similar with its self contained amenities and now stands as the tallest residential building in London. I would do anything to be a part of the Barbican and its beautiful and unmatched existence, my one and only true aim in life is to wake up each morning and view my amazing city from its dizzying heights.

Sweet dreams or a beautiful nightmare?

The nuclear power followup

It seems that big Ed Miliband (brother of little David, the foreign secretary) has conceeded defeat on the nuclear issue and the UK is going to get ten brand spanking new nuclear power plants! This means that by 2025 a quarter of all energy produced in the UK will be nuclear sourced.

Also packed into the deal is a removal of previous planning rules which could hold up build plans for up to six years, this means that a plant can go from proposal to approval in little under a year, fantastic news for the likes of me and shit news for the hippies who hate nuclear power and think that the wind, waves, the sun and Russia can power the UK's growing energy needs.

However, I probably didn't properly address the downsides of nuclear power and that was very wrong of me. It is very VERY expensive, some estimates suggest as much as £5bn per plant and there are a number of issues regarding whether or not this bill will have to be subsidised by the tax payer, although Miliband has consistently stated that no subsidies will be handed out to the energy companies. This draws into doubt if energy companies will be willing to foot the entirety of the bill and thus whether or not all of the proposed plants will actually be built. The problem with this is that the energy gap needs to be bridged and if not it is more than likely the government will have to step in to stop blackouts from occuring (think about 2017).

So a likely increase in energy bills is what is going to stop the blackouts, that or we can all make the small changes to our day to day lives that will help to reduce our national power consumption. You know, things like turning lights off, not boiling a full kettle, using the TV a bit less, all that crap that everyone is unwilling to do because it constitutes a mild inconvenience, because I am telling you now that every politician, researcher, journalist, economist and academic with even half a brain is well aware that blackouts are more than a possibility in the next decade, they are a dead cert.

So that's enough on nuclear power, all the image searches are probably flagging me up all over the intelligence community and that can never end well.

The nuclear power followup

my giant american Cliché

Dr. Pepper's all round!

Lately I have become obsessed with the idea and reality of America. I'm not sure what has really got me on this road but I suppose two things are mostly to blame, firstly my notion of music seems only to fit in with a narrative concerned with sleazy 1980s NYC block parties and the emergence of studio 54 (I found an insane picture of my mum and dad hanging out there!) and the other reason seems to be the emergence of the American nation bullshit I am studying at the moment.

Basically myself and my camera are itching to get across the pond ASAP but I have a problem with leaving London for anything longer than a week. I'm certain I will figure it out because I really can feel those plantations in Louisiana calling me to get lost in their woodland goodness, so me thinks me need to plan now for a summer excursion, I have to find the REAL AMERICA as my textbooks show it, the vast voids and the lush landscapes that a nation so enormous affords, as well as the MEDIAMERICA that has basically taught me all that I know. I guess this will take something like six weeks, maybe more, but I have to factor in my need for civilisation and metropolis, so all that shit wondering around the middle needs to be offset by equal time in big cities like NYC, LA and AOL. That gives me three weeks coast and about three weeks centre, but I could be tempted to more inland shenanigans if I successfully locate some pioneer communities. We are talking about a HUGE country here and I feel the need to tread the soil of every state.

Money will be tight. I could die but I bet I wont. Im not sure about skinny jeans in the middle of America. Summer emo vibes coast to coast.

my giant american Cliché

The case for nuclear power

Welly welly welly welly well, unfortunately the hippies have scuppered the chances of Britain having a sizable amount of our power needs met by nuclear means, this means we are left with one impossible choice. We can forget our pledges to reduce carbon emissions and rely on the unreliable coal and gas resources. But do these costs outweigh the dangers of going nuclear.

Like me, most people reading this will not remember the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear meltdown because we were all but glimmers in our then fancy free parents eyes (some possibly potent embryos nestled snugly in the womb). Suffice to say, it was a big disaster and a lot of people died from radiation poisoning and lead their lives with a higher propensity to develop thyroid cancers (ie. now, twenty-three years later). The entire city of Chernobyl had to be abandoned and the neighbouring town of Pripyat had to be evacuated, the fallout from the explosion has lead to a 17mile exclusion zone around the city with experts suggesting up to 200 years before the land would be safe for re-use and 20,000 years for the area housing one of the nuclear reactors. I think this probably outlines the catastrophic dangers of nuclear power, but in the interests of integrity I shall go a step further. Radioactive material was first detected the following day as far away as Sweeden when Sweedish nuclear workers arrived to work and were found to have radioactive particles on their clothes, it was at this point that the outside world became aware that a large scale nuclear disaster had occurred somewhere within the Soviet Union. Although "nuclear rain" was detected as far away as Ireland, some 60% of the nuclear contamination fell on Belarus due to weather conditions, again leaving some areas uninhabitable.

Presently, 15% of our power needs are met by nuclear sources (compared with gas 45% and coal 35%) from ten nuclear stations, however four of these stations will be out of action by 2015 and the rest by approximately 2020 unless they are given brief life extensions.

Gas is the favoured source of energy for the UK, plants are cheap and relatively fast to build however they have one glaring drawback; they are wholly reliable on gas to operate and we are about to run out of that, which makes us entirely reliable on foreign sources. North sea gas production peaked in 1999 so from then on we have been officially running out, therefore garnering more unreliable Russian sources, this reliability on gas leads to unstable energy prices as gas is often linked to the cost of oil. One of the main sources of European gas is Russia and they are notoriously unreliable and often use gas supply as a political tool, they often reduce supply to countries that make unfriendly decisions, by 2015 we could be importing up to three quarters of our gas as the North sea runs dry.

Coal is our next option but the carbon emissions it produces are contrary to our climate change agreements, it also upsets the same groups that disapprove of nuclear power. Failure to meet our carbon reduction targets could unsettle international agreements on carbon reduction most notably with developing countries that we are trying to discourage from fuelling their growth with the same power sources that we fuel ours.

As our power needs grow so must our energy production, by 2016 we will inevitably have gaps between these two points and a gap between these two points can mean only one thing, lights will start to go off. We are currently running so close to capacity that in 2008 when two power stations failed at the same time (one gas and one coal) the country experienced nationwide blackouts, experts say this unequivocly points to a system under stress.

The choices are undeniably simple, gas or nuclear. Both have drawbacks but for me the political issues raised by Russian gas make the choice an easy one, Britain needs a long term, carbon friendly and reliable solution to our energy needs and nuclear meets this criteria, whilst the redevelopment of our nuclear system will be slow it will ensure that the lights stay on once the infrastructure is there.

The case for nuclear power

The Bvalgari

Robert Anthony Fischer left his house on Tuesday the 20th October 2009 in Knightsbridge, he followed the same route he had undertaken the past 15 years of his life, he passed the same gleaming white houses that used to remind him of his success but now fade into the day to day narrative that facilities his opulent façade. He turned the corner of Chesham Place onto Belgrave square where he was greeted, as he had been for the past 5,568 days that he had made this same journey, by a large Proctor & Gamble billboard, not just any Proctor & Gamble billboard, this was the heart of London's elite, people that bought their car insurance from exclusive clubs did not appreciate billboards emblazoned with nodding dogs, the billboards of Kensington carried items of sophistication, the height of elegance and fashion.

This particular advertisement carried the image of a tall slender man, hair slicked back in the typical yuppie style, a strong defined jaw line, clean shaven, wearing a black handmade suit (most probably Saville Row due to the cut Robert decided), a crisp white shirt with a large open collar. At the bottom of his left arm a Louis Moinet Magistralis rested comfortably, the defining piece of the picture, the exquisite time piece rested effortlessly promising to count the hours and minutes of a lifetime lived to the greatest excess, the watch was less of a time piece than it was symbol of who one was and who one would always be. Robert's attentions now the Bvlgari his wife had bought him, he felt somewhat embarrassed at the piece, it was brash and loud, it was jewellery, had no culture, no esoteric value and therefore had no place on a man of his stature, a piece he deemed barely suitable for the counterfeiters on the southern coast of Spain and the northern shores of Africa.

The weight of the watch now bore down on Robert and he was unable to concentrate on much else, how abrasive he felt, as if he had offended the culture of this elite neighbourhood, if anyone was to ask him the time... Disaster. He often asked the time of strangers, he would examine their response and what their wrists carried, a great feeling of satisfaction would arise when he saw some of the pieces displayed, how could a man truly look himself in the mirror with a digital wristwatch on, the embarrassment of it, the embarrassment of looking like an illiterate child in a world of educated and competent men.

Robert now began to compare himself to the man in the advert, the tall, strong willed gentleman, timeless in his appearance but the height of modernity in his essence, a staple of effortless perfection that Robert could never achieve. "What had the woman been thinking when she picked this out?" Robert muttered under his breath. He contemplated that it in no way fit his appearance, the image of the timepiece against his fair skin burned onto his mind, bore away at his self consciousness, the size of the face almost seemed to be increasing in his head, the dominant Bvlgari logo was relentless in its testament to all who beheld its image and the open chrome mechanics constantly in a state of movement almost gave the piece an unstoppable life force.

Robert thought back to his father and the wristwatch he had worn his whole life. A low key affair. It was a brown Seiko that mechanically displayed the day and time. He specifically remembered the broken wrist strap that had split into three parts, the leather exteriors and the material frame that lay in the middle. More importantly he focussed on the coppering that occurred on the strap hinges because they were not only cheap but mass produced, a generic piece that captured his fathers heart and seemed now to define his person, a person in stark contrast with Robert's own mentality that success is an external issue. He was a man that could afford any watch he wanted, any artefact he fancied but was contented with this singular and ever reliable glass faced Seiko. When all else had failed for him the Seiko was an ever present and enduring reminder of who he was, nay, is, that stood the tides of wealth and even defeat. The weight and implications of the hideous Bvlgari bore into Robert's mind, its increasing presence was beginning to unstitch the character he had created of himself, a blot on the narrative of what he deemed to have been an otherwise spotless existence.

Out of habit Robert reached his left arm out to collect, from the same vendor as he had always done, the early morning edition of the day's Daily Telegraph as he left Wilton Crescent and made his way up Wilton Place. Instinctively he reached forward as he left the thoughts of his father behind him, at the same time he felt the icy brush of his cuff against his left wrist and immediately thought of the horror that lay beneath, his inadequacy would be exposed to all if he were to reach forward. Robert pulled his arm to his side and placed his hand into his left trouser pocket ensuring it was deep enough to entirely cover the the bottom of his arm. Robert had now stopped and was violently and repeatedly depressing the power button of the mobile phone that sat in his trouser pocket, the seeming weightlessness of the phone only made him think deeper about the magnitude of the Bvlgari, the sheer size, weight and power compared to its function. He stepped forward and with his right hand placed a two pound coin at the vendors till then picked up his newspaper, he briskly moved forwards with the paper tucked under his right arm to avoid any possibility that the vendor could offer him any change and thus force him to reveal his unoccupied left arm and possibly behold the Bvlgari on the stark November morning.

Robert looked down at the paper he now held in his right arm, he was unable to concentrate on the images in front of him, the dense black fonts that depicted the atrocities of the world and the failings of his own country contorted across the page, the thin paper became dampened from his fingers as he tried to make sense of what held in his hand. The Bvlgari swarmed with the images of violence and the Prime Minister's contorted face, his heartbeat was intrinsically matched to the mechanical movements occurring on his wrist, all were now in unison, each second his eyes flicked past another line of the text, "workers to cope in the pre-Christmas period but is... crippling services in the weeks leading up to Christmas... One military official told CNN troops had seized control of... The army is up against 10,000 battle-hardened ... backed by "elements linked to the global arrogance" – a euphemism for the United States and Britain... Many members are furious about the “retrospective” limits... 15,000... 85,000... 120,00 members... 60 million items..."

In his sense of frustration and alienation Robert looked down at his wrist to see how much time had passed during this episode, his wrist was bare, only wisps of blonde hair faced him, the time of his age. His watch quietly and eternally ticked on his dresser.

The Bvalgari

110 LIFE

110 was a type of film made popular in the 1970s and 80s with the rise of pocket cameras, 110 is a subminiature cartridge with the images 13x17mm in size. This small size means that when images are enlarged they develop a "grain" effect, as you can see below. Furthermore, the difficulty in obtaining 110 film means that you are often left with no choice but to use out of date film which causes some of the discolouring.

The mass production, lack of technical control and use of cheap materials, such as plastic lenses also leads to blur, light leaks and film jamming. Which is all good because you never know what you're going to get. In my case I developed 144 pictures, 75 frames were blank but I was really happy with what I got.

Camera's used:

Minolta zoom 110 SLR

Agfa agfamatic 1000

Halina 110 flashmatic

These are some examples of frame jams, accidental double exposures, light leaks, blurs and film decay...

110 LIFE