The Examined Life

I've spent the last few months watching a truly obscene amount of political and philosophical documentaries in what is probably a subconscious attempt at avoiding 'real' preparation for my PhD. One of the things I've noticed is that the documentary scene in the UK, and particularly in the form of programmes featuring 'public' intellectuals and philosophers, would appear to be in rude health. This is particularly true with the BBC, which seems to be broadcasting a brilliant number of insightful documentaries that sit anywhere between conceptions of justice and the approaches of impressionist painters.

One of the more obvious manifestations of this is the increasing number of documentaries and programmes that consider various subjects under the more general label of 'popular science', an occurrence that to me seems stimulated by the public debate encouraged by the 'New Atheists' such as Dawkins and Hitchens. For me, these merely scratch the surface, much less manage to engage with the philosophical issues surrounding the basis of our moral systems in religious and scripturally based worldviews.

 Examined Life (full video link) is a 2008 film that takes on the form of a Walk-and-Talk in New York with various contemporary philosophical figures, including Martha Nussbaum, Slavoj Zizek and Peter Singer. I found the film fascinating in that it operates without a final end point or narrative conclusion, instead treating each 10 minute dialogue as inclusive of itself. There is, in fact, little debate present in the film, instead with each individual presenting, effectively, a 10 minute manifesto on their worldview and way of operating both inside and outside of the Ivory Tower.

While the film has it's downfalls (particularly in the lack of direct challenge to each conversant), the documentary format interests me greatly as, perhaps, the perfect way to promote critical thinking and audience reflection on specific issues. Furthermore, a more political and less abstract set of discussions could be made, in various similar settings around the UK, with regards to various critiques of capitalism and the global political order - a set of interviews with various academics, graduate students and activists to various appropriate soundtracks.

The inclusion of graduate students or other figures above isn't just to appeal to my own ego, but rather to demonstrate and put across the ideas, as opposed to the charismatic force of the person being interviewed. While, for instance, Zizek delivers often mesmerising performances in his interviews and documentaries (check out 'Living in the End Times' available on the same website as linked above), it is his ideas and worldview we should be engaging with, rather than his personality. The background aesthetic (e.g. New York above) can be seen as a way of focussing and contextualising the imagination of the viewer, as would the use of archive footage.

This film idea strikes me as pretty exciting, even if it just fulfils the function of allowing myself, or a group, to interrogate various intellectuals in a way we are unable to purely through journal articles or books. Time to start planning, I think.

Barman, Sophist.

Despite the necessity that forced me into this line of work, it is fairly safe to assume that I'm not particularly well cut out to be a barman. While I am, for the present, content enough with my job, and even sometimes enjoy the limits of minimum-wage slavery, I have a few tendencies that, while often suppressed, can come to the fore at the most inconvenient moments. To put it simply, the prospect of a quiet lunchtime pint is not supposed to be faced by a bemused barman commenting that he is not particularly happy with the state of modern capitalism, and is unlikely to be any time soon. While I have no doubts that a dose of both luck and hard work have led to these outcomes and their impact on my education, this way of seeing things has led to some thoughts on how our thinking and philosophy affects our lives as individuals and as communities.

In educational terms, I stand on the imposing doorstep of what (I hope) will become a distinguished career as an academic and whatever else. While this might lead toward this kind of attitude regarding my day job, I don't think it is a necessary step, particularly given the fact that, occasionally, one of the regulars sees fit to engage me in debate, a prospect I relish. The idea that people on such a large scale are able to accept particular commitments, whether religious, economic or otherwise, without consideration or at least healthy curiosity, is one that scares me witless.

This disengagement of debate (whether philosophical, political or otherwise), much to my disappointment, appears to have strayed into academia as well. In defending the importance of a particular field as a profession, I've repeatedly run into academics who have disregarded insights from other fields because of a perceived threat to their legitimacy. My most recent personal experiences include feeling a definite outsider while attending a seminar in the history dept. as a politics graduate, as well as confusion as to my PhD proposal, which deliberately sets out to use both qualitative and empirical methods in it's methodology.

However, I'm hardly alone in this. Here's a few tasty morsels for those who have the habit of applying the five W's of who, what, when, where, and why, to their daily lives as well as to their GCSE English essay. I take solace in these people, places and events, and hope you will too.

1. How the Light Gets in Festival 2011 – This festival at Hay on Wye looks absolutely fascinating, and over 10 days is attempting to mix many of my loves – philosophy, politics, literature and music – in a huge melting pot of amazing people and more amazing words. Not least among these is Dr. Angie Hobbs, a professor at Warwick who I find absolutely fascinating, and who has an incredible collection of floppy hats. Also, Polly Toynbee. You can find out more about the festival here: http://www.howthelightgetsin.org/
   
   

2. TED – Standing for Technology, Entertainment, Design, this annual event and it's subsidiaries (TEDx is organised annually at Warwick University), has spilled over into debates on philosophy and art as well as the obvious scientific element. Twenty minute talks by people who have the courage of their convictions, and above all, the will to share them and engage in the debate that ensues. Days worth of physically lazy but mentally athletic viewing available at www.ted.com, and the Warwick version's videos available at http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDxTalks, along with others.

3. Michael Sandel Being a Pro – I have no illusions that my interest in philosophy is informed by my education, and so was extremely happy when Michael Sandel, a professor of philosophy at Harvard, started doing these programmes and live debates on the BBC that follow the themes of his latest book, 'Justice'. Accessible, insightful, and inviting towards criticism, you can watch them here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00xz0pv/Justice_The_Moral_Side_of_Murder/

4. The BBC Radio 4/World Service Archives: Days worth of documentaries here. I normally get four a day of the World service documentaries, all of which manage to fit a fantastic amount of information into 25 minutes or so, meaning that I can fit two each into my walk to and from work each day. For more engaging and longer winded debates, check out In Our Time, hosted by Melvyn Bragg, or Start the Week with Andrew Marr, both on BBC Radio 4. While some people think this is a pretty heavy way to start the day, I find them the perfect way to wake up and get the brain going before clocking into another uneventful day. Check them out at www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer, or the archives on the World Service and Radio 4 sites.
   
   
   
   
   

5. Turning up to random seminars and debates: At least once a week, I do a loop around the social sciences and humanities department of Warwick University to see what's going on. This takes some bravery, but I get a certain amount of pleasure in aiming unexpected questions at unsuspecting academics, as well as enjoying the debate my self appointed role of agent-provocateur sometimes causes. They're public forums for a reason, and if that reason is for me to question the role of history as a profession, then so be it.

There's a few there, all of which I engage with regularly, and would love to hear what you think of them. In vino veritas.

H.

New Guitar Day - The Jangly One

It just wasn't quite right. Baby Blue, the Tanglewood 335 copy that was my first electric guitar, just didn't fit. Don't get me wrong, she was lovely, just not quite right. We never really bonded, and the combination of a slim neck profile and humbuckers never quite did it for me. It took me a while to figure it out past the fact that I bought it while in the middle of a BB King phase – Baby Blue, well, she took herself too seriously.

Goodbye Baby Blue...

So the search began. I'm not a brand hunter as such, but the feel of what I wanted was present in my mind. Something a little brighter. Something I could hit without feeling bad. Something fun to play outside of the niche that historical stereotypes force a lot of particular instruments into.

I've always been a fan of custom gear, but this isn't unusual. Most amateur guitarists search for that guitar that is based on their own, exacting specification, and that is engineered in every way to fit like a glove. I prefer a more DIY aspect though, one that has led to a shopping list of equipment that I was able to build, modify and love with my own hands. Instant turn offs when it comes to guitar, for me, include gloss finishes, perfect cleans and tight gain sounds, and over-engineering in general. After deciding Baby Blue wasn't fitting the bill anymore, and funds being limited to the extent that I was only able to trade her, I surfed the forums and adverts of internet-land before coming across the website of Mark, who frequents the MusicRadar forums under the name of 'mrerikryman'.

Mark's website, the Jooky Guitar Emporium, found at http://jookyguitaremporium.blogspot.com/ , is a treasure trove for his loving creations, which happen to fit my own needs perfectly. Rough finished, off the wall, and heavily modified, the guitars he turned out are as much found art as they are player's machines. No museum required – sure they're pretty in a way, but they are also played in and feel very much alive. They also go brilliantly well with my collection of paisley ties.

To cut a long story (and a longer train journey) short, I met Mark in Bristol, Baby Blue on my back, in order to trade her for 'The Jangly One', a rebuilt, refinished, re-everything interpretation of the Danelectro DC '59 reissue. I fell in love, and drank in the acid paisley finish far quicker than the cups of steaming black coffee that were holding me awake. I was so caffeined up that the nitro and cloth finish seemed to move. Giving it only the most casual of acoustic strums, I took it and got on the bus home.

That's the story of how The Jangly One became mine. However, this was intended to be a review, so on with it.

In a slightly unusual turn of events, I was due to play a gig the night I got back from Bristol, meaning that the first time I plugged in and tuned up was on stage in front of 100 or so people with a band that had had 20 minutes practice just beforehand. On the upside, she plays as good as she looks.

By comparison with Baby Blue, The Jangly One is far more brash. Most of the hardware is similar to the DC '59 that you can read about online, with a few changes. The tuners are Grovers, and the pickups are the slightly hotter Ken Armstrong lipstick single coils that are a step up from the standard. They're far brighter than the humbuckers on the 335, and the quirks that make a Danelectro, including the hollow construction, aluminium nut, and pickup location mean that all the twang that you could hope for is there, as well as the airiness that made me fall in love with hollow guitars in the first place. The guitar also has a hand enamelled copper scratchplate which is, like everything, rough finished, but looks gorgeous.

The pickups are definitely a strange experience if you're used to more conventional options, having a huge dose of single coil snap and zing, while still sounding chunky enough for driving rhythmn work. They're very trebly, something I dialled down a little, while leaving enough there to keep things interesting. If you're after compressed high gain or jazzy neck pickup work, this is the wrong place, with loose old-school blues, rock 'n roll, and the lighter side of garage rock probably being the best place to direct your playing. The scale is shorter than I was used to at 25 inches, which caused a few problems at the gig, but nothing too difficult to get used to. The brash edge of the sound also sounds fantastic when attacked with some vigorous slide work, and has a Tele-ish character when playing in this style.

 

It's easy to get heavy with elaborate adjectives, but it comes down to this. Compared to Baby Blue, this is like taking the leash off a schizophrenic springer spaniel. It's fun to play. The rough finish, while not to everyone's tastes, looks fantastic to my eyes, and definitely sticks out if exhibitionism is your thing. If the 'found' aesthetic is something you enjoy, Mark is definitely a maker whose work you should take a look at, as well as being a nice guy and a pleasure to do business with. If groove is your thing, something along the lines of the Jangly One may be right up your street.

Emailing Chris White MP... Again

Chris White, Conservative MP for Warwick and Leamington didn't see fit to respond to my previous email (which you can read below). What a dastardly fellow. My genuine concerns as a member of the big society have been shot down by a middle aged white man with an MBA, to my infinite surprise. As such, the only way forward that I can see is to annoy him as much as possible until I get a response. My second email is below - maybe this will be more successful.

Alex

*******

Dear Mr. White,

Despite my concern that you have not yet replied to my previous email, I appreciate that you are indeed a busy man, especially with what appears to be a peaceful revolution scheduled on the streets of our glorious metropolis this coming Thursday. I hope and imagine your preparatory time is being spent staring contemplatively at the education funding motion, and considering a) the importance of the bill, b) how it will affect your responsibility to your constituents and c) the three line whip which is surely attached to your free and public voting behaviour. Your rather romanticised choice, then, lies somewhere between going down in history in Hansard as the guy that rebelled, or taking your career and isolated interests as having priority.

On the off-chance that you choose to address the concern of your constituents, I must how it is, exactly, that you intend to represent your constituency despite a lack of contact with its residents?

As I noted before, I have little knowledge of your private affairs, but thought you may be interested in hearing about the situation of one member of the big society who, I am proud to say, has done relatively well despite adverse circumstances.

Indeed, despite the lack of priority placed on funding the social sciences, I have been lucky and persistent enough to reach the level of PhD researcher in politics, as I hope was obvious given the content of my previous email. However, in order to fund this, I have resorted to working part time, detracting from my research, on a wage which is not considered by the government to be high enough to live on over any great period of time. Given the number of people in my situation - particularly in a town with a high student population - I am concerned as to the measures you are taken to combat the widely acknowledged tax evasion of large companies such as the Arcadia group and Vodafone.

As we are now all members of the big society, I am of course not considering this in the light of my own personal financial interests, but rather those of the children I don't have yet. Indeed, it is possible that your children, if you have them, may find themselves in a similar situation, as will the children of the policeman that will probably give me a jolly good rap on the head with whatever weapon he sees fit to use on Thursday afternoon.

Of course, my expectation that you will choose to represent the people, as opposed to the party whip, is not high, particularly given your record of representation on proportional representation voting systems. However, I hope you at least find the time to reply, as the current electoral system is liable to see you returned to Parliament for as long as you see fit, giving you more than enough time to occasionally address the concerns of the society you represent.

Mr. White, I look forward to your reply. Should you see fit to meet me personally, you will in all likelihood see me in the middle of a police kettle on Thursday wearing a T-shirt outlining my right of Habeas Corpus and generally making a little bit of an inconvenient racket. I hope your hearing has not degraded the way your political foresight evidently has.

Yours concernedly,

Alexander Hoseason

Bringing the Noise - DIY Microphone

So after chasing around for that down and dirty blues sound a la Jack White, and seeing some of the interesting microphones he used, I decided to make my own out of an old telephone, a guitar cable and a 'choc block' (in the absence of a soldering iron). An hour later and I ended up with this:

It's capable of some pretty epic feedback, and I haven't tried singing with it yet, but it has that lo-fi easy to drive sound that should be absolutely primo for some desperate sounding blues or old-school punk. Let me know what you think.

By the way, the total cost of this was £1 (I was given the phone and the cable was lying around the house). Not bad, all told. As it stands, this is pretty much the extent of my electrical 'knowledge', as opposed to my brother, who to my eternal pride is now a fully qualified helicopter-fixer-guy. He probably would've made this video with less feedback, anyway :)

In other news, apologies for the beard. It was a dare.

Homemade upright bass - The Diddley Bass

Every time a new instrument falls into my hands, I always wonder why I never got round to learning bass guitar. From where I'm looking, there's no better instrument for when you gotta get groovin'.

Over the last few days, I've been listening a lot to Seasick Steve and various other players of the 'Diddley Bow', a simple form of guitar that most often has one or two strings. It looks and sounds something like this:



I figured that surely it was possible to make a bass version, and so took a trip to the nearest Homebase (a hardware store) to pick up the parts for mine. The hardest bit, apart from screwing in the bolts without a drill, was probably drinking the 3 bottles of beer required to make it. It ended up looking like this:

I currently use a screwdriver and a bottle of Peroni as a beater and a slide, respectively. It's a bit quiet, so I'm going to try and fit a pickup when I get a chance. The 'bridge' is a bottle of Old Speckled Hen, and the 'nut' another bottle of Peroni. I'll upgrade to other bottles to experiment later - rumour has it that Jack Daniels offers the best 'tone' ;-)

It's 'tuned' to F#, but hopefully when I get something that isn't 'borrowed' fence wire, it'll be easier to adjust. I might get a bass machine head to make that particular pain in the arse easier.

This machine kills any pretense at skill :)

Education Funding Concerns

Good afternoon :-)

This afternoon, following the concerning announcement of changes to school funding, I took the liberty of penning this brief letter to Leamington Spa Conservative MP, Chris White. Please let me know if you can think of anyone else that might be interested in it's content.

*************

To whom it may concern,

Please find, below, a brief illustration of the marriage problem, one of the foremost thought experiments in political theory, as originally found in Robert Nozick's famous libertarian account Anarchy State and Utopia. The experiment was originally intended to demonstrate how choices and opportunities can be distributed fairly, despite appearances to the contrary. It is also the first problem that came to my mind regarding the proposed changes in school funding, as appeared on BBC News today (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11748765).

While I fully acknowledge the possibility that there are significant problems with education funding, reducing the level of Local Authority involvement in the process seems to me a proposal of such profound idiocy that it falls to me, as part of this great society, to comment on the fact. But firstly, the illustration I mentioned:

The marriage problem might arise if one is to line up two sets of people, ranked in order of (some objective measure) of attractiveness, and labelled in descending order from A to Z. Despite the luck-based attribute of attractiveness, it is clear that those ranked 'A' are likely to take the first opportunity to marry, and so on. So A1 marries A2, D1 marries D2, and so on. Now, despite having no opportunity to change the fact, Z1 has no choice other than to marry Z2, regardless of the effort he might put in. Is this fair?

Robert Nozick argues that it is, as it preserves the element of choice that is at the heart of a fair society. However, in examining the problem, we can see several issues. The initial one is that the number of choices offered to those at the 'lower' end of the alphabet are limited. It's possible to say, however, that this may be overcome if only Z had tried harder. However, a far more troubling issue is the fact that at no point (due to the objective character of attractiveness in this case), was Z ever able to change his life chances. While the process might appear to be fair, the outcome, intuitively is not.

According to the work of several of the worlds most prominent theorists of justice, it falls to the state to address these unfair outcomes, particularly if they are decided by luck or accidents of birth. While it appears that many of the brains behind the government might intuitively stand with thinkers such as Nozick and Ayn Rand, I can only suggest the possibility that this is through a lack of consideration regarding the alternatives. I am more than happy to provide a reading list, but in the meantime might I suggest you start with the eminent works of John Rawls' Theory of Justice and Ronald Dworkin's Sovereign Virtue.

The relevance of the illustration may seem fleeting, however when combined with the economic idea of diminishing marginal utility, it's relevance to education funding is far more accessible. Put simply, how does reducing the participation of democratically elected local authorities increase the fairness of locally based education? While the word 'change' was repeated during the election period to the point of semantic dilution (I hope your spin doctors have read Wittgenstein), the impression I got was that the key change to take place was an increasing level of participation in local services. We do care about the education of our children, and want to take part in it. Meanwhile, a more equitable and less targeted form of local education funding can only be seen as a colossal waste of money in the event that the funds are channelled in the direction of schools that would like, but do not necessarily need them.

Mr. or Mrs. ambiguous bureaucrat, I have no idea of knowing your wealth, social status or family background, but, having grown up in two of the more deprived areas of the country – Southern Wales and Coventry, where, I can assure you, a difference in funding between schools made a huge difference to those, including myself, who may not have otherwise been able to develop the aspirations that led to my high level of education, and furthermore developed the sense of citizenship and faith in society that leads me to pen this letter.

While this letter may have appeared to be a long way to reach the point, I can only emphasise the level of feeling, emotion and empathy that has prompted me to write it. I hope you are able to address some of my concerns, particularly by further elaborating on the form that the great society is to take in the final instance. As this government, particularly with regard to education, appears to be hell-bent on a combination of centralisation and semantic word-games with regard to very serious promises, I can only assure you, through the veil of civil service anonymity, that the irony between what is said, and what is done, will continue to attract more and more attention in the media and the universities. Throughout history, our society ultimately has always developed a desire to reclaim it's own future when the words of politicians fail us.

Man is born free, but everywhere is in chains,

Alexander Hoseason

This Connected Life...

Over the last year or so (and far after I finished the compulsory part of my full-time education), I've been acquiring a confusing mass of electronic devices that are intended to make my life and study more *shudder* integrated. The central gadgets consist of one of these:

One of these:

and one of these:

So from the top, that's a Sony e-Reader, an Asus netbook, and an HTC Desire Smartphone. I've long been an advocate of keeping my various electronic devices separate, on the basis that hardware failure spells disaster and I'd rather not lose all of my important files/data etc. However, the growth of cloud computing and data storage means that I'm more willing to invest in these little bits of technical wizardry.

As a student, I hope that these will make my life easier, particularly given the huge amount of books and photocopies that I used to carry around. This isn't an advocation of any one particular product, but rather the approach as a whole. While the past 5-6 years of studenthood have left me with a dodgy back after carrying one too many textbooks around with me, I'm now able to ditch my previous reliance on printouts of .pdf files and hard copies for a satchel loaded with snazzy (and significantly lighter) electronic gadgets.

Even more important is that documents now synchronize themselves across the devices - My essays are automatically converted and loaded onto all 3 devices at the touch of a button, and monitor-induced headaches are avoided by the use of the reader's paper-like screen. Even more exciting is the fact that at 8am every morning, my bedroom becomes a firework display of electronic life, as my phone downloads any new emails or text messages, and the laptop updates the reader with various rss feeds from news sources across the world. The essays on the laptop automatically synch with those in my dropbox account, and the radio kicks in to wake me up.

There are limits to how far I'm willing to take this, of course. For instance, I sold my digital photography equipment in an attempt to use film more, and I still record music on an isolated machine. But still, it should be an interesting experiment, and there's always the snooze button if I decided 8am is too early...

Controversial Words: Why You Should Read The Satanic Verses

A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure to take part in an event at the University of Warwick's annual Warwick Student Arts Festival in which the goal was to take a book and convince the audience that they should read it – the winner being voted on by the participants of the competition. While most of the books have drifted into memory now, I remember snatching second place to a friend of mine who was attempting to sell Conan the Barbarian, by Robert E. Howard. What I do remember vividly are the reasons for choosing the book I attempted to sell, which was 'The Satanic Verses' by Salman Rushdie. Furthermore, I found the book incredibly difficult to sell on the basis that many people were put off by the controversy surrounding it.

The book, hopefully, is familiar, but unfortunately the numbers that have read it are dwarfed by those who are aware of the huge controversy that surrounded the book, leading to the Ayatollah Khomeini's issuing of a fatwa for the death of Rushdie, and his subsequent disapearance from public life. The issue surrounded Rushdie's portrayal of a character in the book, who resembled Mohammed, as a secular and base character, quite apart from the privileges bestowed upon him by Islam as a whole. It is far from the only controversy that Rushdie has courted, the second most memorable being his portrayal of Indira Gandhi in his (to my mind) opus, Midnight's Children.

My choice of book was guided largely by my belief that many who had criticised and discussed the book, in much the same way as the discussion that surrounded the infamous Danish cartoons of Mohammed, had not read the book, much less have a grip upon the substantive ideas that it presented.

I will admit to being a huge fan of magic realism, from Marquez and Llosa through to Bulgakov and Kundera, and believe that Rushdie is a master of the form. His novel inverts the usual relationship of the spiritual and magical to the mundane, with key religious events approached with a secular, human sobriety, and everyday life examined through a lens seemingly smothered in fairy dust. Indeed, the twist that facilitates the interlocking narratives of the Satanic Verses is nothing if not an entirely human foible, drawing attention to the strange mix of lofty ambition and day to day struggle that puts humans somewhere between angels and insects.

This, quite apart from the offence caused, is a topic of great pertinence at the moment, with the Christian equivalents perhaps being portrayed in the 2005 film Son of Man, that depicted Jesus as a political figure, and the recent novel The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Phillip Pullman, that demonstrated the fundamental weaknesses of whatever is human. However, it should not be the existence of such works that provokes controversy – religions have never had a problem finding suitable heretics – but rather the content of the ideas themselves. The debate surrounding the Satanic Verses seemed to contain little debate as to the ideas, but rather the political issue of the fatwa, when the opposite should have been the case.

While The Satanic Verses is hardly a textbook on Islamic thought, it is most definitely worth a read as a way of approaching the debate concerning the representation of Mohammed and Allah in Islam – a debate which goes back to the Ottoman Empire and before (for another fantastic book on the subject, set in Istanbul, check out My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk). Indeed, not reading it because of the controversy is doing the spirit of public debate a disservice. Above that, though, it is a masterful piece of fiction, and shouldn't that be reason enough?

Acceptable Language and the Expulsion of the Roma

I realise that this topic involves taking some risks – particularly given my potential academic future in the study of politics, but the following question came up when I was chatting to a friend about the expulsion of the Roma from France, in all its repugnant glory:

“Is the expulsion of the Roma comparable to the Holocaust?”

Bang. There we go. If you're still reading, then it means you probably have a fairly strong stomach, and this debate is going to need it. Quite apart from the collective sense of guilt that is often felt, particularly in Germany, concerning the Holocaust, my argument will be that it is possible to compare the two. Furthermore, my claim is that not comparing the two due to the unparalleled extent of the Holocaust may be doing the Roma expulsion a disservice, if not encouraging the escalation of the othering practices used against them.

For those relatively familiar with the more language-based and critical political theories surrounding the issue, it should be apparent while there isn't necessarily an ethical imperative to not discuss this comparison (in fact I will argue the opposite), acceptable language defines it as something that is not to be discussed, at least explicitly. This is based in the linking of specific emotions to the terms 'Holocaust' or 'genocide'.

However, on the assumption that the connotations of verbal acts are negotiated and developed over time, this link does not stand ex-ante (before the utterance), but has a history of its own. In the case of the Holocaust, the very real link between the word holocaust and a particular historical circumstance – the genocide of the Jews by the Nazi government in Germany – demonstrates this. In particular, it is interesting to note that up until this point I have not expanded my particular definition of Holocaust, but the capital letter 'H' that denotes a proper noun rather than its abstract is likely to have already made that link in your mind. While there are many debates around this, this short piece takes the above assumption as a given.

So somewhere along the line, the undeniable link between the term Holocaust and emotions of guilt, anger or fear have been forged and submitted to the public consciousness, and while the occurrence is undeniable, it also stands that it is one of many possible definitions that may have occurred. It is also worth noting that there is a great deal of historical specificity to the term Holocaust, and herein lies the problem.

For many, if not most people, the term Holocaaust denotes the genocide committed against the Jews. My assertion here though, is that the Holocaust thus mentioned can only be discussed in light of the many processes that led up to the final event, including the legislation etc. that was passed in order to facilitate it. One of these measures included the expulsion of Jews from particular areas of public or private life, which is where the comparison with the expulsion of the Roma comes in.

Again, it is not my aim to compare the Holocaust, fully drawn out, with the expulsion of the Roma. But in comparing the processes that led up to it, it is far more likely that we are able to acknowledge the danger of certain paths without proclaiming their imminent eventuality. The expulsion of the Roma, repugnant as it is, has not, and does not need, to lead to another Holocaust, purely by virtue of the lessons we learnt from that event – itself a form of comparison. If we are not to speak of the Holocaust with reference to current events, what lessons have we learnt? The construction of acceptable language to shut down discussion in this light, I believe, is something that constricts public debate in a way that cannot be positive. Furthermore, it acts against the moral imperative that we learn from our mistakes in order to avoid making them again.

Fairground Photography - Part 1

Some photographs taken at a (closed) fairground, around 10 at night. The next set will have the photographs from when it was open and full of people. Enjoy:

Some Thoughts on Art, Video Games and GOG.com

It is not particularly unusual to hear a particular piece of art mentioned as 'timeless'. Normally, this refers to either an aspect or the totality of a piece that transcends the borders of time to be considered as the pinnacle of achievement in a given discipline, and moreover one that is unlikely to be forgotten any time soon. However, the title 'timeless' is normally confined to generally accepted 'high' art or design – Rembrandt's Night Watch, or the Fender Telecaster.

Part of the reason for this is quite probably due to the speed at which design and creativity operate at now, and the rapid incremental improvement upon particular objects. But what about digital entertainment, and more specifically, video games? While a few breakthrough titles, such as Doom or Everquest, are acknowledged by gamers as truly inspirational, video games have not yet received the widespread nod that denotes a work of art as being timeless.

As a twenty-something year old in the UK, I was pretty much bought up around computers and games as part of my childhood. Years later however, I play games, albeit less, for the artistic value over the childish desire to blow up queuing hordes of zombies, nazis or aliens. An interesting point to mention, and one that is underestimated, is the way in which I play these games as one way of many to entertain myself – whether that be reading, playing guitar, or writing. As a form of escapism then, gaming is able to capture my imagination in a way comparable to that of playing music or reading. Ultimately, it is the presence of a compelling narrative that drives my interest in games (and puts me off multiplayer games), as well as classic novels or classic albums.

It is also clear that gaming has developed from the earliest days to the hyper-realistic graphics and feedback of the current. Not being a student anymore, I've had a little time to investigate the past 'classics' on gog.com, a polish website that aims to provide the 'good old games' with a new audience, at a discounted price. And what an investigation it has turned out to be. Despite a risky publicity stunt which involved closing the website for a few days, CD Projekt (the owners of gog.com) are reporting record traffic at 20 times previous levels, spurred by the release of classic games such as Baldur's Gate, Total Annihilation and Planescape: Torment.

The many other interesting aspects of the site, including community participation and an innovative method to fight piracy, lie outside of this essay, but are worth looking into if you have time. For now, it suffices to say that in examining the roots of various genres, from strategy to shooter, the games on gog.com provide a fascinating insight into the development of gaming as entertainment, as well as drawing attention to the artistic value of the category. Many of the games present are little available elsewhere, unless one was to resort to more shady methods, and there is some satisfaction in gaining completely legal and DRM free copies of classic games. This means that the games that I am newly appreciating are gaining a fresh new audience, who are largely fascinated by the depth and scope of many of these 'old' titles. Planescape is perhaps the most pressing case here – the text of the game (often described as 'wordy but beautiful') comprises over 5000 standard pages, far exceeding the length of many of the most ambitious novels.

The impact of gaming upon various attributes, from hand-eye coordination to imagination in daily life, remains heavily debated – not least concerning the ridiculous idea that certain games encourage crime and anti-social behaviour. However, the efforts of CD Projekt and GOG.com demonstrate an interesting response to the accusations – dropping all the sinister developments and rumours surrounding a form of art, and opening it to the world to understand. After all, Ulysses by James Joyce followed a path to publication encompassing obscenity trials and potential bans. Maybe gaming, before it is considered a legitimate form of art and creativity, will follow the same path.

Progress(ion): Conceptual Sketch

Now I have relatively little to do with my time, I sat down and sketched out a rough mindmap of the structure and themes of Progress(ion), as well as an idea of what I want each narrative to consist of. Comments, queries, moans and groans are always welcome :)

Symbols and the Blues: Who is BB King?

As is probably reasonably clear by now, I listen to a lot of Blues music. In fact, since I started playing guitar a few years ago, it's become a major part of my life. As such, it was probably only so long before a drunken conversation about music led me to make the following, rather audacious statement: “After BB King is gone, there will be noone that is able to play like he was.”

Sweeping, perhaps, but even after my hangover has cleared, I'm pretty ready to attempt to back it up. For lovers of the blues, even those that don't consider BB King 'up there', he is considered a physical and metaphorical monument to both blues music, and its traditional subject matter. Moreover, he is perhaps blues music's No.1 ambassador, still performing innumerable dates as he reaches the ripe old age of 85 or so. In terms of recognisability, many will have a familiarity that at least extends to his name and his famous guitar, Lucille, if not the depths of the music itself.

So who, or just as importantly what, is BB King? To back up such a statement makes it necessary that there is some unique quality that is BB King, that makes him unlike others before or since. It is this quality, rather than the name, that makes the venerable Mr. King inimitable, and although I can only attempt to back this up on my own terms, it'd be interesting to see how others perceive the other great icons of music and stage – Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra etc., to understand what makes that particular person a monument, a symbol in lives across the world.

Personally, I'm inclined to argue that it is, above all, his persistence that has made its mark on my understanding of blues music. While blues has remained a relatively static form over the years, young 'uns such as myself approaching the guitar for the first time might still be overwhelmed by the variety on offer, from Robert Johnson through to Joe Bonnamassa. Moreover, it is unlikely to be an original choice, with many fledgling players being pushed toward the blues as a basis for further development. King's persistence, from the post Muddy Waters days through to the present, combined with his undenied authority over the form, present a kind of anchor in a calm, but vast sea of opportunities.

The persistence occurs in other forms too. While it is increasingly popular to name particular chords or styles after artists, such as the famous Hendrix Chord, King was one of the earliest to receive the accolade, with people dubbing the upper registers of the second-position minor pentatonic 'the BB King box'. With 5 notes, it's both easy to navigate, to experiment with, and to expand. Upon picking up my first electric guitar (a 335 style archtop, of course), my acoustic-trained fingers skipped straight to the BB King box as a way of trying out that style as soon as possible. It isn't uncommon to hear the claim that you can tell BB King from other blues artists by an average playing length of 3 or 4 notes, and while this may be true for others, such as Clapton's 'woman tone', the BB King sound has been drilled into us far more thoroughly. It's also relatively easy to reach, using a minimum of effects wizardry. All of these things should, technically, make BB King's music easier to play. Nothing could be further from the truth.

While searching for ways to start absorbing blues music, I came across several mentions of a BB King album named 'Live at the Regal'. The recommendation wasn't a low level one either – both John Mayer and Eric Clapton claim to listen to 'Live...' before performances in order to set the atmosphere of their own stagework. Perhaps as expected, 'Live...' is a masterclass of blues guitar, incorporating the fluid bends and impossibly nuanced vibrato one has come to expect. More than that though, it demonstrates King's rapport with the audience, demonstrating the way that he clicks with their worldview through conversations between songs, as well as the music's subject matter. His presence on stage may have transformed between 'Live...' and his current status as Blues' elder statesman, but that rapport hasn't disappeared just yet, and I very much doubt it will disappear over the course of his latter years.

It may be possible, some day, that someone comes along who can play like BB King. Indeed, enough guitarists have taken and perfected his technique, and it is probably only the purists that can claim to hear the difference. But in claiming that someone can be BB King, we are overstating the importance of the music, and ignoring the fact that to many blues players across the last 50 or so years, including myself, he remains a person who in his manner rather than his performance, has developed a form of Grandfather relationship that extends far beyond the music.

While this is a brief piece, I hope it explains my reasoning, and I hope you go and buy a copy of 'Live at the Regal' for yourself. Listen to it on a good pair of headphones in the dark before taking to the stage yourself, and if I'm in the audience, you can come up to me afterwards and tell me that noone, in the past or present, will ever replace BB King.

Long Live the King.

Progress(ion): A 12 Bar Blues

This piece of fiction is intended to be the start of a meta-narrative that unifies part of a larger writing project I've got going at the moment - a series of 12 short stories (plus the narrative sections), based on the music and lives of 12 of the great blues musicians, from Robert Johnson through BB King and Eric Clapton. Conceived as a way to describe my own interest in playing blues music. It'll take a while, but I hope you enjoy the beginning, at least:

You can Always Trust the Blues

You can always trust the blues. Although it's got a family – the rebellious child that the new invention of 'teenager' dubbed rock 'n roll, all leather jackets and spiky hair, the anarchic sibling of jazz, tall, leggy and wearing the milliner's equivalent of Lewis Carroll's Jaberwock at a rakish angle over a pale complexion – the blues has its own structure. Rarely sticks its guitar through unimaginably expensive audio equipment in fits of rage, has no urge to delve into the realms of chaos theory and obscure musical modes. One, four, five, and the music that the songwriter loved so much rarely, if ever, reached beyond the numbers of 12 or 16 in its attempts to interpret, explain and justify the actions, thoughts and motives of individuals, communities, the world.

The more confusing thing is how this has stayed the same throughout the form's long and varied history. The old silent films hid all kinds of little tricks. Perhaps Charlie Chaplin was colourblind, we just have no way of telling because the filmreels we see in retrospective documentaries aren't telling the difference in shade or tone or fashion between his suit and tie. Spots and stripes were still probably a no-go, though. You listen to Robert Johnson, you listen to the Blues' interpretation of the nativity, all three kings and the divinely inspired child Stevie Ray Vaughan, united around the same rhythmns, the same notes. Unlike Chaplin, you listen and you see, hear, feel one colour. Blue.

So when the songwriter sat down and felt ebony and rosewood, lightly grained under his calloused fingers, he knew what was coming...

Falling in Love

Online games are strange beasts, and I was never quite sure what the point was to World of Warcraft and Team Fortress 2. That and they are, in many cases, populated by complete bastards. In a peculiar way, it appears that many of the people that embrace the social nature of the internet through these games do so out of a fairly vicious competitive streak. After you've levelled up and got the best gear, or perfected a map strategy, you exist largely for either competition or bragging rights, deriving pleasure from the ability to deny the same feeling to others (BOOM, HEADSHOT!)

It is fairly safe to say that LOVE, Eskil Steenberg's one man mission against all that is continuous and rigid in modern online gaming, is different. That's hard to get used to at times. But it is, and it'll take you to places that you can't possibly imagine after spending years gulping down the victory gin that other games send your way. When I first came across LOVE, about 6 months ago, I saw it described, derisively, as 'Communism: The Game'. Being a politics student doesn't leave me automatically hostile to the idea, and in fact intrigued me further. Discovering that the game would be free to play for a time, I decided to give it a try.

So, is it Communism in digital entertainment form? Yes, no and maybe. The basic elements of LOVE consist of cooperating with other players (!!!) to build a settlement that can survive against several tribes of artificial intelligence that are doing roughly the same thing. You can move, shoot, and use various tools acquired from around the world to build, smooth, retexture, reroute, create power grids and defences, artillery and other means to facilitate your colonisation. The world is procedurally generated and persistent – seas rise and fall, settlements are wiped out and rebuilt, and hills rise toward the sky over time, ensuring that returning to the game world is both familiar and strange. Your base, if you're lucky, may still be there, but forests may have advanced or retreated, and glaciers may have grown or shrunk. Indeed, there was recently some server downtime as Eskil updated the tectonics system. Tectonics?! This is a far cry from the comfortable consistency that allows the players of other games to put down roots and stake their claim to greatness in one or more digital realms.

The biggest fascination for me, though, was the fact that the game hasn't been beaten yet. I was always put off by the knowledge that in online gaming, someone would always be ready to hand my arse to me at the tip of a hat. In LOVE, that doesn't happen. You build together and fight, not against a specific enemy, but against nature itself. This is where the communism analogy breaks down. Allowing for some politics geekery, Marx claimed that communism could emerge properly once man had conquered nature. On any of the LOVE servers or worlds, this hasn't happened yet. Even the AI, with its varying aggression toward the player settlements, is easier to understand as a force of nature, and a horribly efficient one at that. The world wants back what has changed, and this reclaimation happens with horrifying efficiency, leading to the saying on LOVE forums that 'home is where the artillery hits'. The survival of a base for more than a 24 hour period is considered an achievement here, and when it starts raining, its time to get to higher ground because without the right tools, the water is deadly. A settlement I joined once was unable to get hold of the essential configuration tool, leaving us powerless and struggling to survive, frantically shouting over a teamspeak server to coordinate some kind of plan that would save us from being swallowed up by a stormy armageddon.

As it happens, the lack of a configuration tool was a bug, which LOVE still holds in spades. This is perhaps unsurprising given the one man nature of the project, but it was at times like that the geographically disparate group of people I was playing with came together as a unit, and even moreso, my respect to Eskil went through the roof. Even the intimidating graphics, a fair impression of the LSD loaded bastard love-child of Escher, Monet and Van Gogh, create an atmosphere more comparable to a work of traditional art than electronic entertainment, and are a far cry from many of the games that independent designers consistently compromise on to push the project out.

While the free weekend won't last forever, LOVE remains well worth the 10 Euro/month cost of entry, warts and all. It definitely won't be for everyone, but it is worth a shot for at least a month, just for the fact that your ideas of digital entertainment might be blown out of the metaphorical water. Communism: The Game might just give you a glimpse of utopia. It can be found at www.quelsolaar.com.

A Frame In Time - Annie Leibovitz at the National Portrait Gallery

Whether she likes it or not, Annie Lei­bovitz is very much a celebri­ty. A celebri­ty’s celebri­ty in fact – the rich, fa­mous and pow­er­ful queue up to be pho­tographed by her, and her more per­son­al pro­jects are sim­ply cher­ry-​picked, safe in the knowl­edge that any­one she wants to shoot will be more than oblig­ing. Since her work on a fledgling Rolling Stone, Lei­bovitz has been pre­sent at the growth of the mod­ern celebri­ty as a com­mod­i­ty, grow­ing with­in that cli­mate to be­come a part of the en­vi­ron­ment, grant­ed un­par­al­leled ac­cess and free­dom in her work.



A Pho­tog­ra­pher’s Life at the Na­tion­al Por­trait Gallery charts her work, for the most part, from the early nineties through to the pre­sent day, a dis­ap­point­ment for those who may have jus­ti­fi­ably want­ed to see the pho­tog­ra­pher’s ear­li­er work. How­ev­er, rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle is made of the mas­sive scale com­mer­cial and ad­ver­tis­ing work she has be­come fa­mous for, in­stead stick­ing to more per­son­al por­traits, such as those taken for Van­i­ty Fair and var­i­ous small­er scale com­mis­sions. There are a fair few stan­dard stu­dio por­traits among these, which is some­what of a dis­ap­point­ment for those fa­mil­iar with the vi­su­al flair usu­al­ly demon­strat­ed. By her own ad­mis­sion, Lei­bovitz is far from a great stu­dio pho­tog­ra­pher – the light­ing is well done, but un­o­rig­i­nal, and the stu­dio lim­its her ge­nius for on-​lo­ca­tion com­po­si­tion, but those who have come for the fa­mous faces rather than the qual­i­ty of the im­ages will be suit­ably im­pressed by the pletho­ra of names and faces on dis­play.



But mov­ing be­yond these im­ages re­veals a Lei­bovitz that is as as orig­i­nal and ex­cit­ing as she ever was in the drug and al­co­hol fu­elled early days of Rolling Stone. The shots of mul­ti­ple peo­ple in par­tic­u­lar are a tour-​de-​force of every way a pho­to­graph can re­veal the re­la­tion­ships be­tween peo­ple - John­ny Depp, dressed in dark cloth­ing, lies be­tween the legs of a naked Kate Moss on rum­pled sheets in a mo­ment of per­fect in­ti­ma­cy. Patti Smith shares a del­i­cate, but melan­choly mo­ment with her chil­dren. Even a photo of the late pho­tog­ra­pher Richard Ave­don with his own com­pan­ion – a 10x8 field cam­era - is lov­ing­ly craft­ed in every way to bring out the con­nec­tion he shared with his great­est tool.



How­ev­er, the great­est mo­ments in this ex­hi­bi­tion are the per­son­al por­traits that dot the walls. Often not big­ger than 6x4 inch­es, they seemed to be large­ly ig­nored by the celebri­ty hunt­ing mass­es in the gallery – who grav­i­tat­ed to­ward the 20x16 (and larg­er) im­ages of stars. It seems easy to for­give a vis­i­tor for miss­ing a tiny black and white print when it is placed be­side an in­finite­ly en­thralling shot of Nic­hole Kid­man, but these shots are the mas­sive­ly im­por­tant (and un­seen, up to this point) snaps of fam­i­ly and friends, and com­prise ev­ery­thing from a grin­ning por­trait of her dad and broth­er to the final mo­ments of her dad’s and com­pan­ion Susan Son­tag’s life. While being small, they are just as re­veal­ing of the real Annie Lei­bovitz, and prove that re­gard­less of her sta­tus as per­haps the top por­trait pho­tog­ra­pher of our time, she never lost the eye for in­ti­ma­cy and re­la­tion­ships that marked her as great from the early days of her ca­reer. Fur­ther­more, they offer a great and com­pelling in­sight into the pho­tog­ra­pher’s pri­vate life and not just her pub­li­cised work, al­low­ing those who had be­come jaded with the over-​elab­o­rate com­mer­cial im­ages that de­fined her pub­lic image in the last ten years a sigh of re­lief in the knowl­edge that she has not been over­tak­en by them.

Newspaper Article - Paris

An early (and unknowing) contact with New Journalism - attempting to portray Paris by putting 'myself' into the report. Wanted to make this an extended piece, but I ended up working to quite a strict word limit because of the paper's small travel section. Published with a collection of photographs I took whilst there, but I haven't figured out how to limit the size or watermark them on here. I hate copyright thieves.

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Two days after one of my Erasmus friends told me something like “Oui Alex, you should come and take pictures this summer, Pah-ree is tres beautiful”, and I’m on a flight. I’m in full on photographer mode, heading to the home of street photography, to streets trodden by the cutting edge of photojournalism – Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Martine Franck. 20 rolls of film rattle optimistically in the side pocket of my overpacked rucksack. 18 would remain disappointed and be returned to my film fridge at the end of the trip. I had been naïve in thinking my photographers eye would last a week without being sucked into the atmosphere of the city of lights.

This wasn’t to be a week of photography at all, but rather a week of high culture, low culture and everything in between. Parties every night, galleries every day. Coffee until 5pm, and wine until 6am. And conversations throughout all this – sat in the cafes around the Louvre, in dark corners in underground bars, and in the gardens of the Sacre Coeur after jumping the fence at 3 in the morning.

I stayed at the Peace and Love hostel in the Stalingrad area of town, and 2 hours after arriving, rather than my initial plan of heading toward the Bastille to take some pictures, I’m drunk and singing on a table with an Irish guy who would leave the next day with a hangover to remember. “You know, taff!” He shouts at me, “Paris is the city of, of, love and stuff. Waaaaaay!”

An incredible fusion of culture and the party lifestyle is a feature of many of the great European capitals – London, Berlin, among others. However, there is something special about it in Paris. It suits backpackers perfectly, with a great range of hostels (my recommendation is to find one with a bar, great for meeting people). Being a solo backpacker, I had the advantage of having no plans in particular, and so could go where I like, when I liked, and do what I liked. Brief encounters with people who I’d never see again added colour to a city which lends itself perfectly to a trip that ends up being somewhere between scenes from Before Sunrise and Lost in Translation.

Sitting in the hostel bar for 20 minutes each day, I’d end up in a random conversation with a mixture of locals and fellow travellers, before sauntering over to the Louvre, Pere le Chaise, or the Arc de Triomphe. It’s easy to see why Parisisan cafes and parks became the backdrop for innumerable conversations between Sartre and his fellow philosophers, and which form the background of the photographs I admired so much while at home. The atmosphere is all consuming, as the gentle music of cafes and the large windows invite you to look out onto the street, give up on that copy of Nausea, and just watch the world go by.

Ultimately, Paris is a city that has to be felt, rather than seen. Ok, so it has some of the greatest art galleries in the world, some of the most iconic landmarks, and the grave of Jim Morrison. It’s impossible to avoid the clichés of the romantic city, they’re in the air along the Seine, and in the breezes that batter the top of the Eiffel tower. But after spending a night under the Eiffel tower, I kissed a girl I’d never see again goodbye on the train platform, and had no problem with that. It’s a feeling to be embraced and let go, with the acceptance that it will sit comfortably in your memory for a long time to follow.

- Published in the Warwick Boar, 2007

Newspaper Article - Spillers' Records

A short photo-essay on the oldest record shop in the world - handily located in Cardiff. I love this place, and tried to capture it in all it's analogue glory, while still maintaining a gloss of journalistic objectivity. Again, photos will follow when I've worked them out.

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Cardiff isn’t a city that hides its landmarks away. As you come in to the city by train, it’s easy to see the Millennium Stadium, its contemporary design standing as a motif for the modern city of the future – a mass of identical chain-fashion stores, easy-access entertainment and overpriced city centre nightclubs. However, hidden opposite the massive building site of a new, ‘exciting’, shopping experience on the Hayes, lies a true gem of Cardiff culture – Spillers Records, the oldest record shop in the world.

Established over 100 years ago, in 1894 by a certain Henry Spiller, Spillers remains largely untouched by the clinical, hospital-like atmospheres of larger chain stores such as HMV. Remaining independent throughout its history, the store, owned by the enthusiastic Nick Todd, hides the dream of any true music aficionado behind its simple red façade. Wallpapered in posters for gigs large and small, past and future, the racks hold row upon row of CDs, catering from a wide variety of music tastes, but leaning toward those who are as enthusiastic about music as Spillers employees – and that is, to put it bluntly, very. Enquiring about whether or not they had an album by instrumental rockers Mogwai, Nick’s daughter greeted me with genuine enthusiasm, apologising first about disturbed stock deliveries due to the band’s record label moving base, before telling me that if I was a fan I should check out a gig at Cardiff’s Clwb Ifor Bach that night for a band that had a similar sound. A similar depth of information was thrown the way of the wide and varied clientele, from a suited gentleman asking about Nina Simone recordings to a fluorescent-vested workman inquiring after Iron Maiden DVDs. In Spillers, everything from local scene gossip to the tectonic movements of worldwide rock superstars flows between enthusiasts with a keenness that leaves the homogenous consumer mass miles behind, preferably somewhere they can purchase their soulless aural novacaine from a pre-pubescent teenager in a Zavvi T-shirt. I don’t want to be greeted with (at worst) a grunt, or (at best) a semi-enthusiastic offer of a storecard. I want to ask for a recommendation, be handed a disc, and be told ‘you need this album in your life’.

Unfortunately, the shop hasn’t enjoyed plain sailing over the last few years. With the threat of rent increases, and unfortunate placement facing the new St. Davids 2 development, there have been multiple instances of this fantastic monument to music being permanently closed. However, support from both the local area (particularly students), and from the upper echelons of rock stardom have, so far, managed to keep Spillers in business. The Manic Street Preachers have registered their support, as well as Columbia Records, and closer to home, politicians in the Welsh Assembly have encouraged support from the wider community for the store. For the moment, rent increases have been held, and so Spillers remains in business. As the name of the highly successful facebook group states, ‘justice for music, innit.’

The wide scale regeneration efforts in Cardiff have been largely successful on a commercial level over the last few years, turning the city from one that was declining into a bustling multicultural city of the future. However, while walking around it’s easy to believe that in the process, it may have already started to lose its identity. To many people the city doesn’t show any level of uniqueness through its main shopping street, or the millionth Oceana. However, along with the fantastic undercover market, the beautiful gardens of the university, and the castle, there’s Spillers. There has always been Spillers. And hopefully there will always be Spillers, fighting the impersonality of the internet age with a charm and charisma that isn’t available in .mp3.

- Published in the Warwick Boar, 2008

Newspaper Article - Travelling in India

Again, an attempt at a magazine style story cut short by word limits and my wanting to show off my photos on the same page. No chance to even mildly give justice to the 2 and a half months I spent in the country, which I fell in love with.

*********

“Very nice place, very good,” says one of my pupils matter-of-factly, resorting to one of the innumerable catch-phrases that Indian people love so much. I was slightly wary, remembering that I had been told something similar about Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, a Bollywood blockbuster that had proved to be the most painful 3 hours of my life. Nonetheless, I rush over to the bus station with a friend, and get the next state bus out of town, onwards to one of the many spontaneous adventures of my time in India.

I claim it was spontaneous, but in many ways these odd weekend trips out of the city to random exciting locations were entirely predictable. Spend hours on a packed state bus with fascinated Indian people staring and mumbling in Gujarati or Hindi, stumble off to be assaulted by rickshaw drivers, and spend a couple of days getting hopelessly lost in one of the most overwhelming cultural experiences of my life.

This particular trip, to a ruined Muslim city about 50 kilometres northeast of where I was staying at Baroda, was yet another masterclass in unwitting cultural immersion. After reaching the town late at night, we didn’t stand a chance finding the only hotel, but found ourselves accidentally staying overnight in an incredible Jain temple after following an enthusiastic stranger down too many dark alleys. The next day was spent getting lost on a mist-covered mountain as ruined places of worship slowly revealed themselves through the cloud. And in the evening we bumbled our way back to Baroda, a feeling of travelling catharsis ensuring that I would sleep soundly despite the heat that I never quite got used to.

I had ended up in India after taking up an AIESEC internship on a whim. During the weekdays, I spent my time working on a cultural education project called Project One World in a school at Baroda, and while my work at the school was less than I expected, it proved a useful platform for travelling around the subcontinent. I always knew that I could return to free accommodation and food for a minimum of work, meaning I could spend my afternoons, weekends and occasional weeks off to explore to my hearts content.

Developing familiarity with one city also had definite upsides – shopkeepers got to know me and my workmates, rickshaw drivers didn’t try to rip me off as much after I told them that I lived there a few times, and I always had someone to show me something new in the crazy world of extremes that is a modern Indian city. I ate meals in luxurious all-you-can-eat restaurants, and had coffee with Islamic cloth merchants in the old town’s market, just after bombings had rocked the nearby city of Ahmedabad. “This is not Islam”, they repeated after bomb scares had been called in other cities around India. I’d been told not to visit the largely Muslim section of town following the blasts, but went anyway, and rather than militant clerics had found a community that was scaring itself into a self-imposed segregation.

This immersion was one of the most valuable parts of my trip. After the relatively sheltered and chaperoned couple of weeks, I picked up a smattering of Hindi, Gujarati and Arabic, allowing me to venture out and have broken conversations with any number of locals, many of whom seemed absolutely fascinated by my blonde hair and blue eyes. It also helped me understand the absolutely religious nature of India – after almost getting hit by an oncoming elephant following a dodgy overtake in a rickshaw, my driver turned round and grinned at me. “Al hamdu lill’ah”, he shouted back, somehow avoiding the hordes of traffic ahead while looking back at me – “If God wills it”. Every week there seemed to be another Hindu festival, from letting off firecrackers on the beaches of Goa to parading down the streets with giant statues of the elephant God Ganesh. In fact, it is easier to get around in India by temporarily adopting whatever religion you choose, than to attempt to explain that you don’t hold any God at all.

A word of warning though. Things in India don’t happen on time. They happen in time. I spent a significant amount of time in India wondering how anything got done in a country where trains were quite regularly 2 or 3 hours late. This obviously doesn’t lend itself to the well planned and regimented traveller – and any attempt to plan things in advance and to-the-minute were duly decimated by a rickshaw driver who had no idea where the destination was (but remained jovial and willing regardless). However, this can be a rewarding experience in itself, as it is in pressured conditions where the essential resourcefulness of the Indian people comes out. One of the most impressive spectacles I saw was the flooding of an entire city that seemed to carry on regardless. Indian businessmen would lean over the handlebars of the prolific 125cc Honda, and hit the throttle in an attempt to plough through miniature lakes 2 or 3 feet deep. Meanwhile, barely clothed street children sailed down temporary rivers on home-made rafts, and corn sellers on the major roads suddenly switch their commodity of choice to umbrellas. Contrast this with the panic in the UK when we have a couple of inches of snow, and you’ll know what I mean.

Any visit to India is likely to bring out a little of this resourcefulness in yourself. In fact, it’ll demand it. On the upside, when things finally figure themselves out, it always seems completely worth the effort. The key word for travelling in India is ‘yes’. Invited for tea? You might just end up reassuring a spear-toting Sikh that the Large Hadron Collider probably isn’t going to destroy the world when it’s switched on. Watching the fishermen bring in the catch? Give them a hand, and you’ll have friends for life. This way, it’s possible to begin peeling back the layers of tourism that cover India, discovering a culture and way of life that is absolutely dazzling in it’s depth and sophistication, far more than a day at the Taj Mahal could hope to reveal.

- Published in the Warwick Boar, 2008