Those of you who know me may have noticed I have over the last year become rather besotted with stage musicals, namely Phantom and Les Miz. Watching both film and stage (albeit on DVD) versions of both has also coincided with my eldest daughter, and now eldest son joining the local youth theatre group, so I've very much grown to love them in parallel with the kids. You might think it odd that at the age of thirty something, a child of the eighties would only now be getting on board with musical theatre, and frankly so do I. I pretty much ignored the phenomenon during childhood, and speaking as a father (what a dreadfully arrogant phrase, I am shamed) I'm surprised I was never exposed to it by my own parents. However, in a break with tradition, I am categorically not going to lay the blame at their door. I am, however going to blame someone. One person.
Miss Hilton.
Mention of her name once solicited little more than a giggle at a private joke, but now, having had my heart ripped open by the Phantom's anguish at a love that cannot be, by the young idealists who would never live to see the social justice they fought for, the mere thought of her fills me with burning, passionate rage. Poor woman.
I'm sure she's a lovely person. Certainly, as a pupil at high school, she was one of the less unpleasant teachers. She could have a laugh, but knew where to draw the line. I bet she was a riot down the pub. But her lessons were pap. We learned the basics of musical theory. We were able to try our hand at a small range of instruments. We learned a collection of simple chords and melodies on the piano, but to be honest none of it stuck with me. In itself, that doesn't seem sufficient after three years of tutelage, but I can to a certain extent put that down to me having little to no natural aptitude, and while I wouldn't say I was tone deaf, I certainly could have considered myself...tonally impaired, shall we say?
The crux of the matter has only arisen recently. See, I watched, for the first time in my life, the Phantom of the Opera (Live at Royal Albert Hall), and unashamedly fell in love with it. I recognised a good 50% of the songs, who wouldn't? They are culturally pervasive for those of us who grew up in the eighties, and i realised that most of these songs I had sung during music lessons at school. More recently I watched the Les Miserable film (my word that's a good 'un) and again, I found myself humming and at times singing along - I knew these songs, I have sung these songs before! What's going on? How has it taken me this long to appreciate them?
There's a wonderful song by the genius Tim Minchin, called 'Cont'. You may know it, and if you don't you should rectify that immediately. Really, now, I can wait. I'm sure it's on YouTube or some such.
Done? Good. Couldn't be arsed? Sample lyrics:
I don't like Jews
Neither should you
They're ethically and spiritually poor
That's a fact
After singing his way through a highly offensive and discriminatory rant at all colours and creeds, he realises half the words of the song were covered up, and sings the song in full, hence the above verse becomes:
I don't like Jews
Who make and distribute kiddy porn
Neither should you
They're ethically and spiritually poor
That's a fact
The real title of the song is, of course, 'Context', and that is one hundred and three million percent what was missing from my music lessons. We sang songs, lots of songs, but at no point were we ever told what the songs were about, who they were by, where were they from. How can you appreciate The Music of the Night without ever having watched Phantom, without even having explained to you what the heck it's all about? If you don't know who Fantine is and why exactly she was dreaming a dream, what's the point, other than a pretty melody? We sang Beatles songs, without ever knowing they were by the Beatles, even (and i confess to a crime here) who the Beatles really were (I was 13, I knew the Beatles had existed once, and didn't now) or why they were important.
It just seems very odd to me now. Like the equivalent of turning up for PE and being shown how to kick the ball in the net, but never actually learning the rules of football. Surely the reason people go into teaching, particularly in 'The Arts', is to plant the seeds and nurture a love and a passion for the subject? Growing up I was a MASSIVE fan of The Lord Of The Rings, and so when my kids got into it (albeit through the admittedly magnificent films, and the LEGO video game) I was genuinely bursting with pride. I can't imagine why you wouldn't want to replicate that a hundred-fold in the classroom.
On a similar note, my love for Tolkein had me convinced I was going to be just like him when i grew up. I would create stories, characters, worlds, with nothing more than a pen, and they would be my gift to my children, and who knows, maybe I could make a bit of money out of it. I aced every year in English, I read day and night until blinking became a chore, I wrote and wrote and I loved it. Then GCSEs happened. My new teacher, Mrs Button, sucked my love for the subject right out of my heart. It was horrible. All I remember was reading through Pride and Prejudice, one chapter per lesson, making staid notes on every character of what they did, what they said, and why. And not 'why' as in "Why do you think Elizabeth said that" but 'why' as in "This is why Elizabeth said that, so write it down". Basically, 2 years of "This is how you're going to pass your exams".
Fuck that shit. At A-Level I dropped English like a stone. Worst mistake I ever made in hindsight, but at the time I just couldn't bear another two years of the same.
I don't think I picked up a book to read for pleasure for the whole two years. And it's only recently that I've rediscovered any real fire to do what i always wanted to do. So, yeah, Teaching. It matters, dudes. Everyone remembers their favourite teachers fondly, but a bad teacher can make an impact that lasts far, far longer than you'd think. And I always enjoyed school, and was what most would call a 'model pupil'. It makes me frightfully sad to think of those who had not nearly the same level of support, interest or ability, and just how much of a struggle school can be for so many.
On that sombre note, i leave you . I should probably use all this as some sort of segue into Gove's education reforms, but I don't have the time, energy, or enough rope to hang myself. All I will say is this: it's no different to what they are doing to the NHS. Fuck it up and make it unacceptable to the public, in order to make it into what you want.
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Tuesday, 28 May 2013
Feel the Fear blah blah blah
When I was sixteen, my best friend at the time had a little brother. Roo was 6 years old, and he scared me more than anyone in the world at the time. He was - properly - nuts. His entire life seemed a whirlwind of bounding energy and extreme violence, more often than not directed at one or other or our testicles. He would regularly throw himself from great heights, start fights with his Alsatian and shout hysterical abuse at passing gangs of gnarly teenagers, all before breakfast.
His favourite video game at the time was Resident Evil 2 for the original Playstation. You may have heard of it. For the uninitiated, it involved a generic rookie cop with impossibly perfect hair - Leon - and a generic college student - Claire - complete with impractical shorts and a ballsy attitude. They shuffled through the aftermath of a biological weapon test, avoiding shambling zombies, spitting spiders and grotesque mutant man-things, looking for survivors, with all the dramatic conviction of a primary school play. Limbs are severed, heads go boom, and scary things lurk silently in the dark, yet still the protagonists like the Virgin Mary (who wet herself just before she had to come on stage) and the Angel Gabriel (the one with the squint and one permanently blocked nostril) - stilted, and loud, wanting mum to hear because she turned up late after her sunbed session ran over due to a faulty hinge, so had to stand at the back behind all the other parents, crippled by the crab-in-a-wine-bottle posture of sitting in a chair meant for one a quarter of their size.
(nb. This was not my own experience. My biggest ever nativity role was Mary's donkey's hooves. I was not meant for the stage)
ANYWAY. The point. The point was, Resident Evil, for all its clunky dialogue and giroscope-on-a-shaggy-carpet controls, was at times, fucking scary, even then as a sixteen year old. And i find myself now, at the practically geriatric age of 32, playing the 6th installment of the series. Well I say sixth. That's not true. There have been new RE games every year, with reimaginings, reboots, Christmas specials, compilation games, not to mention the re-releases, spin-offs, Happy Meal versions and ultra-rare diamond editions with Genuine Rotting Flesh VR gloves. By my estimation the last fourteen years have provided us with, ballpark figure, one billion Resident Evil games. But apparently, this one is Number Six.
It's not scary. You all know that. The series has been heading from 'survival horror' to 'fuck it, guns and muscles sell games, man' for some time now, and I experience more trepidation collecting my 2 year old from nursery than barging my way through groaning, directionless, hungry bodies to collect my 2 year old form nur - ah you get the lame joke I'm trying to make. But it got me thinking - what IS scary anymore? I don't remember being scared by a game since Silent Hill back in '99, and the last film that had me quietly wibbling in a corner was Blair Witch. Since then I've had my stomach turned and my patience flayed by the likes of Saw's eternal sequels, Hostel and The Human Centipede (I mean, really). I've jumped at Paranormal Activity and Final Destination (but then I've had to immediately apply a hot water bottle to the crick in my neck. I'm getting old, y'see) but I've not experienced genuine, exciting fear since childhood.
I've been lucky enough to grow up in Britain, in relative comfort and peace. As I've grown older, 'fear' is about the mundane - money, work, relationships, family. My childhood had no such worries, and therefore the things that scared me were almost exclusively defined by culture and media. I was reading horror stories at the age of 7, watching Poltergeist at 11. I went to a primary school fancy dress party as Freddie Krueger. I loved it all, loved being scared witless. It's a far more real fear, to me, than wondering where next week's hopping is going to come from. Visceral, that's what it is. And it's a fear that makes you feel so alive. It is inextricably linked to all those childhood emotions that are so much more raw, before they have those years of maturing, because apparently when you age you have to see and react to the world in a much more rational way. Emotions like separation anxiety, guilt, shame, sexual curiosity, all of which are either satiated, or abandoned or have simply become a natural part of our lives by the time we reach adulthood. Certainly Stephen King's 'It', possibly my favourite 'horror' movie from my youth, explored all those themes, and more, and to this day I find it less of a scary movie and more (in conjunction with the book) an interesting look at the nature of fear, how it can define us and betray us, restrict us and yet spur us on to do great things. Are things less scary than they used to be? No, but the way we perceive and react to fear does change, and this is not necessarily a good thing. Childhood innocence is easily lost and near impossible to replace.
And I guess, in a roundabout way, that is what this blog is about. I want to write. I love to write. I'm writing a book at the moment, it's all there in my head, and a good chunk of it comes in the form of real words, on a page and everything. But I know I'll never finish it, because I'll always be scared of what other people think of it and what they'll say. Or maybe more scared that I'll spend years writing the bastarding thing and then for nobody to read it except my mum and my wife (I'm kidding - my mum wouldn't bother to finish it). So I need to get used to writing not just for pleasure, but for other people to see it, and (hopefully) enjoy it, or at the very least not hate it and spit on my face. I'd be quite happy for people just to read and go "oh" and then have a cup
of tea. I'm not your go-to for controversy or strong opinions, I'm just someone who want to write about things that interest me. I'm not particularly well-informed, and I argue poorly. I'm a nice bloke, who is sometimes wrong about stuff. If you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best. No, wait, that's someone else.
Cod philosophy at its worst then. Up there with 'Keep Calm and Carry On', 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway' is the rather excruciating mantra i must now live by. Write, write and write again, to improve, to maintain, and just because much like hiding under my covers from Pennywise the Clown, it's something all the years of budgeting, nappy-changing and slaving for a wage have made me forget how to really enjoy. And all the while, I will keep searching for things that properly scare me. .Because I'd rather be bitten by a drooling zombie than another bloody gas bill.
His favourite video game at the time was Resident Evil 2 for the original Playstation. You may have heard of it. For the uninitiated, it involved a generic rookie cop with impossibly perfect hair - Leon - and a generic college student - Claire - complete with impractical shorts and a ballsy attitude. They shuffled through the aftermath of a biological weapon test, avoiding shambling zombies, spitting spiders and grotesque mutant man-things, looking for survivors, with all the dramatic conviction of a primary school play. Limbs are severed, heads go boom, and scary things lurk silently in the dark, yet still the protagonists like the Virgin Mary (who wet herself just before she had to come on stage) and the Angel Gabriel (the one with the squint and one permanently blocked nostril) - stilted, and loud, wanting mum to hear because she turned up late after her sunbed session ran over due to a faulty hinge, so had to stand at the back behind all the other parents, crippled by the crab-in-a-wine-bottle posture of sitting in a chair meant for one a quarter of their size.
(nb. This was not my own experience. My biggest ever nativity role was Mary's donkey's hooves. I was not meant for the stage)
ANYWAY. The point. The point was, Resident Evil, for all its clunky dialogue and giroscope-on-a-shaggy-carpet controls, was at times, fucking scary, even then as a sixteen year old. And i find myself now, at the practically geriatric age of 32, playing the 6th installment of the series. Well I say sixth. That's not true. There have been new RE games every year, with reimaginings, reboots, Christmas specials, compilation games, not to mention the re-releases, spin-offs, Happy Meal versions and ultra-rare diamond editions with Genuine Rotting Flesh VR gloves. By my estimation the last fourteen years have provided us with, ballpark figure, one billion Resident Evil games. But apparently, this one is Number Six.
It's not scary. You all know that. The series has been heading from 'survival horror' to 'fuck it, guns and muscles sell games, man' for some time now, and I experience more trepidation collecting my 2 year old from nursery than barging my way through groaning, directionless, hungry bodies to collect my 2 year old form nur - ah you get the lame joke I'm trying to make. But it got me thinking - what IS scary anymore? I don't remember being scared by a game since Silent Hill back in '99, and the last film that had me quietly wibbling in a corner was Blair Witch. Since then I've had my stomach turned and my patience flayed by the likes of Saw's eternal sequels, Hostel and The Human Centipede (I mean, really). I've jumped at Paranormal Activity and Final Destination (but then I've had to immediately apply a hot water bottle to the crick in my neck. I'm getting old, y'see) but I've not experienced genuine, exciting fear since childhood.
I've been lucky enough to grow up in Britain, in relative comfort and peace. As I've grown older, 'fear' is about the mundane - money, work, relationships, family. My childhood had no such worries, and therefore the things that scared me were almost exclusively defined by culture and media. I was reading horror stories at the age of 7, watching Poltergeist at 11. I went to a primary school fancy dress party as Freddie Krueger. I loved it all, loved being scared witless. It's a far more real fear, to me, than wondering where next week's hopping is going to come from. Visceral, that's what it is. And it's a fear that makes you feel so alive. It is inextricably linked to all those childhood emotions that are so much more raw, before they have those years of maturing, because apparently when you age you have to see and react to the world in a much more rational way. Emotions like separation anxiety, guilt, shame, sexual curiosity, all of which are either satiated, or abandoned or have simply become a natural part of our lives by the time we reach adulthood. Certainly Stephen King's 'It', possibly my favourite 'horror' movie from my youth, explored all those themes, and more, and to this day I find it less of a scary movie and more (in conjunction with the book) an interesting look at the nature of fear, how it can define us and betray us, restrict us and yet spur us on to do great things. Are things less scary than they used to be? No, but the way we perceive and react to fear does change, and this is not necessarily a good thing. Childhood innocence is easily lost and near impossible to replace.
And I guess, in a roundabout way, that is what this blog is about. I want to write. I love to write. I'm writing a book at the moment, it's all there in my head, and a good chunk of it comes in the form of real words, on a page and everything. But I know I'll never finish it, because I'll always be scared of what other people think of it and what they'll say. Or maybe more scared that I'll spend years writing the bastarding thing and then for nobody to read it except my mum and my wife (I'm kidding - my mum wouldn't bother to finish it). So I need to get used to writing not just for pleasure, but for other people to see it, and (hopefully) enjoy it, or at the very least not hate it and spit on my face. I'd be quite happy for people just to read and go "oh" and then have a cup
of tea. I'm not your go-to for controversy or strong opinions, I'm just someone who want to write about things that interest me. I'm not particularly well-informed, and I argue poorly. I'm a nice bloke, who is sometimes wrong about stuff. If you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best. No, wait, that's someone else.
Cod philosophy at its worst then. Up there with 'Keep Calm and Carry On', 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway' is the rather excruciating mantra i must now live by. Write, write and write again, to improve, to maintain, and just because much like hiding under my covers from Pennywise the Clown, it's something all the years of budgeting, nappy-changing and slaving for a wage have made me forget how to really enjoy. And all the while, I will keep searching for things that properly scare me. .Because I'd rather be bitten by a drooling zombie than another bloody gas bill.
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