Tipping Point

"Five pounds," said my mother, pressing a note into my eight-year-old hand. "The haircut is four pounds fifty, so you'll get 50p back. You give the 50p to the hairdresser as a tip, because she doesn't get paid very much, and may have to live off her tips."

Thus I learnt about tipping. Ten per cent, because I'm English, but always. Hairdressers, wait staff, cabbies.

Twice during recent times have stories of leaving a written substitute for a monetary tip popped up in my media stream.

The first was Pastor Alois Bell protesting that God gets 10%, where the server was supposed to get 18%. It should be obvious to anybody that God's needs for money are pretty limited, what with being omnipotent and also an Eternal Spirit and all. I seem to remember Christ advising "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" and perhaps the Pastor could have reflected on this, and maybe cut God's gratuity.

The more recent incident involves Ntokozo Qwabe - one of the voices of Rhodes Must Fall - gloating over his friend refusing to tip on the grounds that the white waitress had stolen black people's land. (There did not appear to be any evidence for this.) He posted an account of the incident on Facebook. As usual, I find the Spectator's conclusion - that Oxford should kick him out - hilarious; it'll be astonishing to see the day any University puts virtue above revenue or column inches; but it does seem a particularly misogynistic and classist piece of meanness to aim at a woman whose only known offence was to bring your coffee and your bill, and to try and pass off your own cheap and petty spite - because this was not a bold attempt at righting a wrong, or making a principled stand - as a grand acte politique cheapens you and your politics to the point of bathos.

Also interesting is that he identifies the friend as a "radical non-binary trans activist". Since the waitress appears to have been identified as cis-female, this activist missed an excellent opportunity to write a side-note about tipping her when she stopped oppressing said RNBTA with her gender fixity. It would have been every bit as relevant, after all.

However, in the end, I merely thought I would set out some things I think about tipping:

1. If you have enough money to tip, you should do it.

2. If you have enough money to tip, and don't, I hope you are actively involved in living wage campaigning, for the sake of your soul. Remember, oppression of the poor is a sin crying to heaven for vengeance, and you may get stuck next to David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt in hell FOR ETERNITY. Hey, it's your risk.

3. If you can't afford to tip, just don't tip. Maybe when you are older, wiser, and a better person richer, you will start to tip. We will wait for you.

4. However, attacking your waitress because you are a cheap and chippy type of person is bad form (see notes on oppression of the poor above.) Using God, or accusations of racism, or transphobia or anything else, exactly like speaking down to them, is exploiting the vulnerability of their working life, exhibiting your own vindictive spiteful nature and makes you a bully.

5. Also - gloating? Like Wesley Wyndham Price, what you are mainly showing is the emotional maturity of a blueberry scone. 

Covering Your Arse

Thousands of clothings everywhere, and not a stitch to wear.

Look, I don't understand it.  I don't quite say I'd be happy in navy blue and black and white and grey for the rest of my life without any technicolour relief, but the amount of time I spend trying to source really simple things that don't cost a million pounds is ridiculous.  

After many years of searching, I have to spend the millions of pounds to buy something I don't really like that much.  So here it is: the definitive list to What Women Want (Dr Freud, pay attention):

A black cardigan.  This should be available in both a V and a turtle neck.  It should be available in a choice of materials at least a choice of cashmere, wool, cotton, silk: linen is an altogether more complex material and linen cardigans frequently want for heft.  It should be permanently available, not seasonally.  It should be available with certain variations in length and it should be available with a really deep welt at waist and cuffs for nutters like me who never got over the seventies.  Or have boobs the size of absurdist drama.  Delete as applicable.

A pair of leggings.  This is far more complex, as they should be available in many lengths (you know, like legs) from below knee to so long they have to be shuffled up your feet to form a delightfulness of  ruching around your ankles.  They should have a flat waistband and You Know Why.  They should be snaptastically stretchy and - here's a Kicker - they should be available in several materials including that which is the Trend Du Jour.  I am currently very annoyed at the lack of these leggings in faux suede.  On other occasions I am annoyed by the lack of them in silk or linen knit.  I like to be flexible in my irritation.

A shirt.  Again, cotton, silk, linen.  Dipped hem because curves are better whatever men would have you believe.  Well cut, available in three shades of grey, as well as black, navy, and off-white.  I suppose if you wanted to get really into it, you could research white with a tint for a thousand different skin tones, because true white's a brutal colour.  The absolute furthest design froufrou otherwise would be one crazy pattern or floral per season.  

You would think that capitalism would be able to meet these fairly simple needs, but you would think jolly wrong.   

Seriously, try finding a decent black cardigan in your size and choice of material that will wash and wear for a year without felting or holing or being so useless at keeping you warm that you have to shove a hoodie over it.   Needle in a haystack.

The Fandom is Gay. Get Over It.

Why do women - straight or gay, I don't know and I don't judge - write fan fiction that is so firmly anchored in gay male relationships?  I want to know.

My theories include:

They take what there is - fan fiction draws on mainstream culture and adapts it for its own pleasures and purposes.  Since women are at best marginalised and at worst excluded from mainstream culture, this is what there is.  Lots and lots of men.  Bringing me to -

They write about what is erased in cultural representation.  Homosexual relationships are ghettoised and treated as exotic in most mainstream culture - film and tv, specifically - but fact is that if you are a superhero there are hardly any women available to you.  This is an awful extension of sex class - all men are superheroes, therefore their mate must be Special to raise her from the ranks of the inferior gender.  Ow.  Since women are underrepresented in the writing and production of superhero films, they are under represented in them, and qualities perceived as feminine are sidelined or assimilated or erased.  The hyper-masculine culture of superheroes means the only available sexual partners for them are unworthy, or physically challenging (not being immortal or physically unbreakable; at best normal women would be an Achilles heel to blackmailers), so they have to go to each other.  The Incredibles had some fun with this trope - think of Frozone's sensible wife - but The Avengers draws the line at Pepper Potts.  Fan fiction just picks up what's likely - and puts together the boys in various combinations.

They Feminise pornography - three decades after Angela Carter suggested the possibility of moral pornography, much of fan fiction remains merrily dedicated to PWP (Plot What Plot or Porn Without Plot) and people use fanfic to get a lot of stuff off their chests.  Or other bits of them.

They represent gender-fluidity- concepts of transgender and gender fluidity or gender queering are fondly supposed by the latest generation to be new; it certainly normalises women identifying as or with men.  It suggests a retreat from moving society forward to a place of equal opportunity to a space where women control what goes on.  This may be a step backward, leaving individuals to carry responsibility for their non-conformist identity (black, female, queer) instead of engaging with above-the-line struggle - or maybe it's imagining a new world; a blueprint of erewhon for tomorrow.  Here's hoping.

Identifying with either gender isn't new - plenty of Victorian novelists wrote from the point of view of genders which didn't necessarily correlate with their own, and readers are liberated into reading by identifying with the protagonist without worrying about the ramifications thereof; though fan fiction as usual raises the bar with a whole Alpha/Beta/Omega 'verse dedicated to re-aligning gender without females, which is like the Frankenstein Future for Furries.  

Horses for Courses - women have historically been supposed to prefer their pornography written rather than photographed; maybe they just re-write what they like in the medium they prefer.

And Finally - the relation to the means of production - writing fan fiction is free. Once you possess the starting kit, and requires little organisation or teamwork - you can do it alone, without the assistance of willing peers or expensive and extensive kit.  It requires literacy but not social acceptance - indeed, the world of fan fiction has merrily re-invented social acceptance online, so you can have it with a side of mental illness while the world outside reviles you and your hideous girly hobby.  You can be socially accepted and even celebrated while nobody in your real life knows the truth or maybe even likes you a little bit.

To my great joy, places like Comic Con seem to be flummoxed when not horrified by the existence of Fan Fiction.  I suspect because it's really gay.

Anyway, if anybody has an answer to my initial question let me know.  I think it's a combination of the above, but what do I know?  I am still looking for stories of Bucky Barnes in a gender reversed verse, preferably at the seaside.  xxx

Game of Moans

Apparently many persons are not going to watch Game of Thrones any more because the rape of Sansa Stark was a "rape too far".  I'm intrigued by the idea of a "rape too far" - is that not a single rape?  Are we now hierarchizing sexual violence for entertainment purposes?  Is the rape of minor characters less important to our understanding of the crime or our support of the victim?

It seems that seeing a major character's violation is worse than the multiple gang rapes that took place earlier in the series.  I have to reference Tiger Beatdown here, because her objections to the ideology of the show are largely what I take issue with.  Her argument is that GRR Martin is "creepy".  And my argument is, so what?

The violation of a major character would clearly be more effective a representation of rape than that of a minor character - the audience is more shocked by it, particularly as this one is not technically a rape; Sansa is married to its perpetrator and - however manipulated - she has given her permission to that marriage; in an age or culture where marital rape does not exist, this is a done deal.  People don't want to see what women's lives were like - are still like, in much of the world - if it's too icky.  I wonder if they would feel comfortable suggesting that the representation of slavery or of violence towards Jewish people in the second world war should not be permitted on screen.

Ah, but only when the author's intentions are serious.  When did entertainment stop being serious?  Greek tragedy dealt with the noble and their tribulations not just so the commoners could point at them, but so they could purge their feelings in those of their Kings.  This was drama akin to religious experience;  Game of Thrones offers a similar - though admittedly more gory - dramatic trajectory, presumably so we can enjoy a similar dose of catharsis.

As for the art required to engage an audience - Brideshead Revisited is a biliously unctuous book, so thick with snobbery and sucking up that the religious themes are hard to pick out - but Waugh's deeper lore - the love of the rambling sentences that evoke loss - have remained with me all my life.  In Lolita, the deep horror that lies at the heart of the novel is underscored by the contrast of the singing beauty of the prose; just because art deals with vileness does not mean it should not exist. When you look away, don't you deny?  How will we deal with what we refuse to see?

It is a trope of much trash tv that Really Bad Things do not happen to major characters - they do not die, they are not mutilated or violated.  The skilful inversion of this trope is what first Joss Whedon and now GoT have made work for them, because it is daring and artistically difficult; you have to be able to get the audience to really really care before you injure a character, and if you wish to kill one, you have to have enough other relationships or stories of real emotional investment to keep the audience hooked.  This many dramas cannot do, because they are made by mountebanks who do not know their craft.  To condemn drama that succeeds is more reactionary than the questionable ideology of said drama.  It exposes only the negativity of the viewer, and to suggest a moral superiority by refusing to engage is childish at best.  

Is there a debate to be had about the ways art interacts with culture and whether it endorses and reinforces the ideology it reflects?  Indubitably.  But this doesn't seem to me to be it.

As fan fiction tags say - don't like, don't read.  But if you want to contribute to culture, stop whingeing about somebody else's contribution and make your own.

EuroTizzy

If I have to look at somebody explaining why the Finnish Education system works so much better than the UK's one more time, I may scream.

Here is the skinny; nobody wants the UK system to "work".

Because it is used to control wayward teens without having either the training or the support to do so.

That's all.

It's the cheapest way to control a problematic part of the population and keep them off the unemployment rolls.  The alternative is to allow permanent exclusion, or expulsion, as it used to be called; and then those kids will be causing nuisance to the police and the neighbours, who won't even have the convenience of being able to identify them by their uniform.  Unthinkable.

The political convenience is backed up by ideological foolishness of believing that a child who is excluded from school is excluded from society.  This may or may not be true - surely everybody of my generation has at least one mate who was repeatedly expelled and has made out just fine - but one case is not necessarily caused or affected by the other.

For example, a seven year old sexually harassing another seven year old of opposite sex and bullying/hitting/fighting many more of his own, who has been PExed twice and is currently permitted to carry on this behaviour because he is a POC and at danger of exclusion sends a clear message, which is that his right to hurt, frighten and bully others outweighs the rights of the other children not to be hurt, frightened or bullied.  This is very disruptive to teaching and learning, funnily enough; so his right to act out is also being protected above the right of the other children to learn.  The ideology here is acting as a sop to the powerlessness of the staff, however, as actually there is nowhere else for him to go, and if he does, the school has to meet the costs.

So the left and the right meet in perfect harmony, to destroy any working education.  Discuss.

If We're Supposed To, Why The Hell Aren't You?

As a teacher, I know it is my duty - as well as my pleasure and my destiny -  to move EVERY CHILD who ever crosses my path, let alone sits in my classroom, up to a C grade at GCSE.   This holy grail  is a constantly moving target which (in the subject I teach, English) now has remarkably little similarity to what it was when I took the O level, what it was in the generation who first took the GCSE after that, or the one after that, or what it will be in five or ten years' time.  Whether a qualification so widely varied in its requirements is truly a gold standard, I leave it to my readers to decide for themselves.  The frequent changes certainly serve the purpose of keeping both teachers and students in a ferment of confusion and hopelessness, which may be its very aim, or just a lucky by-product; again, I leave it to my readers.

But what the exam is designed to do, clearly, is to create hierarchy.  If the standard is the same, and the teachers know it, they can teach to it.  This is highly likely to lead to "grade inflation" because if you can teach something and do so, outcomes improve.  If the standard is obscure and constantly changed, it cannot be taught for, and will thus by default favour those who are - well, socially advantaged by having native English speaking parents with big vocabularies.  Socially advantaged by being sent to schools who don't teach any children with learning difficulties or a disproportionate number of other special (social) needs.  The children of people like our governing elite.  Education must fail to close that gap, or how will the governing elite justify - or indeed maintain - its advantages, particularly while pretending we live in a meritocracy.

Meanwhile, teachers are supposed to "prove" they are worthwhile by ensuring every student exceeds the average result, because the performance of the mathematically impossible is the only proof anyone should ever accept that they are adequate.

Interestingly, teachers have accepted this narrative as a condition of their jobs (whether or not they believe it in private) and lo, they spend a huge amount of time and energy and resources on "coaching" (or cramming, or intervening, or whatever you wish it called) Year 11 in a headache inducing frenzy around this time of year.  This involves using and applying endless reams of data to calculate which students might conceivably gain a C grade and breaking down their individual strengths and weaknesses in each part of the exam and coaching them into it.  A treadmill of past papers, analysis of answers, modelling and re-doing and re-marking.  History, of course, does not provide negative proof, but I am personally a little wary of believing that kids who were never going to get a C grade increased at the last minute after eleven years of not having the potential.  Into such dark and hideous paths does the accepting of the narrative lead us, however.

Accepting the narrative was also a key part of the election.  Many and various have been the economists who have spoken out against the Austerity Will Solve Everything narrative; not the Labour party, however.  

They also rejected the horrible truth that to get an MP elected a decent candidate helps.  The harsh truth is that Jacob Rees Mogg writes long chatty letters to my Dad when he complains about every condition of the human lot, because he is his MP., and on one occasion caused the tax office to call my Dad after a particularly annoying refusal on their part to answer the telephone.  Dawn Primarolo never responded in a human way to any of my requests or lobbies over the many many years she held the position of my MP, because she was a shockingly lazy one.  

Also not present was the belief that they should, like the tragic teachers, Crunch The Data.  Labour lost marginal seats by mere hundreds of votes - seats it should have been making sure of by asking the local questions, when the last majority was equally small.  And failing that, it should look to what highly successful schools have been doing to alter their achievement profiles over the last decade - the sweep of kids who are removed from the roll over the year before the GCSEs, one way or another.  They are small numbers, but - as we are all supposed to know - every voter counts.

Hating on Hans

Admiral Hans Westergard, Prince (13) of the Southern Isles has possibly drawn the shortest straw of all time in Fanficland.  His fatal mistake was probably not dying - at least at the end of the film.

It has given Fanficland license to put him through hells he couldn't have imagined.  For every fanfic in which he is redeemed - including one in which he becomes a baker and falls in love with a girl whose only wealth lies in bun skills - there seems to be another in which he is horribly, horribly doomed.  Descent into madness is a popular fate, with or without an ice statue of Anna to keep him company, though nearly often accompanied by a guilt-plagued Elsa, who has her fair share of portrayals as a raving lunatic.  

He frequently features only to behave appallingly - often by being the archetypal teenage boy, I notice - and get his butt kicked. In the modern AUs he is usually a jock and the butt-kicking is often by Elsa, which is very satisfying and frequently funny.  It leads to my supposition that the reason the Prince in the Arendelle AUs is wandering about burnt by his own fire powers, destroyed by absorbing Elsa's ice powers, scarred beyond recognition, tortured to dementia/death or with limbs missing - name a limb, the Prince has lost it somewhere -  is to do with his being both the archetypal suave villain and the boy you just couldn't go out with - because they are pretty much the same thing.

Dan in Bridget Jones' diary may survive, but the original - George Wickham - gets the fate worse than death - married to an empty-headed girl with no means of support in a world of perpetual debt.  The writers about Hans are simply doing the same thing.  Except for the ones with literal castration.  I think that's pure revenge. 

A Glimpse of Something Gorgeous

So what with all the time hanging out in hospital I have become a fan of fanfic.  Yeah. What I like about it is that it's kind of the opposite of writing - and by extension reading.

Because fan fiction starts from a common, "canon" idea, which is not the same as most writing.  Usually your attitude as a reader is "I've paid for this, I don't know what you're on about, impress me."  With fanfic, it's "ok I picked this but you did it for fun, I'm doing it for fun, we both know what the rules are, let's go".  More like dating than an arranged marriage.  Much less room for recrimination.

Also, the vast majority of fanfic is about "shipping" - i.e. relationships you jolly well wished had happened in the book/film/tv series BUT SOMEHOW DIDN'T.  You will be thrilled to know that in various fanfic universes, Sherlock Holmes is going out with Molly, not realising he's in love with Molly, or married to Molly with children (idk how.  I think those stories must be wildly OOC.   Snobbish sniff).  In the more likely universes, he is with John.  It is possible that somewhere he is alone, solving mysteries, but usually he isn't.

I adore the fact that fanfic world is a chandelier reflection of the fiction that it sprang from; anybody can do anything - can wake up in a world where they are a graffiti artist instead of a lost princess, or a hockey player instead of a salesperson.  Thought you got married at the end of the film, babe?  Guess again.

What's fun about it is that it can be wholly without proper story, or bizarrely accurately detailed - you can always spot the people who are writing from their own experience of the navy or military or European history degrees - that it can be a one-off, or a multi-chapter fic which offers the pleasure of weekly updates - and the corresponding pleasure of cliff-hangers.  There aren't actually very many places you can get that.  And with fanfic it's thrillingly secret; sometimes somebody gets well known, but usually - it's just you and the fan base.  All twenty seven of them.

You can also leave hopeful hints for what you hope will happen next, because that's part of the culture - read and review.

The weaknesses are that some stories are awful, and many are pretty derivative; you can draw the comfort of familiarity from this or you can go and find something else.  There's plenty.  A worse conundrum is that PEOPLE DON'T FINISH.  Or update slowly, or irregularly.  This is the biggest annoyance.

The only defence of paying for reading matter is that it is - well, it should be - better.  The weakness here is that my reading this summer has included We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (unattractive first person narrator),  After the Fall (worthy - all right in a glum sort of way), Sunshine (Robin McKinley - info dumping, emotionally shallow) and Queen of the Damned (oh my LIFE would it ever finish?)  I'm really looking for something to read.  David Mitchell and Marian Keyes have new novels out in the autumn; it's a long wait.

References for YO MOMMA

IN RESPONSE TO REFERENCE REQUEST FOR MRS L H PARKER

Dear Sir/ Madam

I can wholeheartedly recommend my Mummy for this post.  She tends upon my every whim, waking at night, gazing dotingly upon my beauteous chubby face when same is smeared with pureed carrot making me resemble a pumpkin with human or perhaps demon purpose, and literally cleaning up my poop whenever the opportunity occurs.

No task is beyond her - she carries me about like a Rajah, takes full responsibility for doling out helpings of Pink Medicine when I shout at her about my sore gums and has shown great initiative in planning a full and varied agenda of two or three entertainments per day with full hostessing and food preparation - a schedule which would stagger any party-planner.

Truly, she would be the best person for any job you can imagine.  No pride, no ability to negotiate, slavish devotion and 24 hour call.  The best.

I am not planning to let her go, but thank you for your interest.

Raspberries

George Smithson
Aged 1


IN RESPONSE TO SIMILAR REFERENCE REQUEST FOR MRS L H PARKER
16 YEARS LATER

Dear Sir

Whaddup? Why for you want my momma?  She no good.

Recommend her for WHAT now? You want da biiii-atch, you help yo'self, only you be helpin yo'sef better if you don tek her.  She leave mi clothes inna hamper for two days when I be needin' them, she dis my bevs and she raggin' on mi girl when she got sick in her hair.  What she be raggin' on mi girl for wid de offers of water?  Mi girl Caroline Sophie she done drunk a whole bottle of voddy, she got no call to be gettin' up in mi girl's face which she need for her puking up of da bevs.

She dis my banter and she be all "clean yo' room, now, 'fore you go out" when mi room don't need no cleanin.  Da Bitch so lazy she got a CLEANER fi clean the bathrooms!  SHE don't clean hessef, but MA room, I'm sposed to clean?  Nah, dat's no the way it gonna go down.  No respect.  You take her....


Yours faithfully

George Hamilton Parker
Aged 17
Wimbledon SW17

Disney Democracy

Hasn't the Disney Princess thing always been about democracy?  True Love, ballroom dancing and tassels and sequins for all?  Well, except the Bad Guys, because hey, if you want a story, somebody's got to be a bad guy and they can't get those things or what would the be point ... although come to think of it that sociopathic prince in Frozen gets all of them, moreorless... eh?  

Wanna hear a secret?  Drama and democracy aren't compatible.  And the jury's out on whether Hans is either a Prince Charming or a proper antagonist.  

Disney must surely have selected the princess fairy tales as the most compatible with the Horatio Alger rags to riches "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" - an archetype often expressed in coming of age stories.  All Disney Princesses must be abuse survivors - they usually survive domestic slavery, though occasionally coma (Sleeping Beauty, Snow White) or being sold into slavery to somebody with no particular agenda (Belle).  The horror of their backgrounds is exceeded only by the horror of their eligible princes - two necrophiliacs, a Monumental Sulk, a Foot Fetishist - the list goes on - and for these features one must hold the selected source material responsible.  Fairy tales are famously terrifying - and famously moralising, functioning as a how-to guide to survival and thriving in the middle ages (and earlier).

They are also so very old - Cinderella goes back over 2000 years at least - embodying numerous variations of the coming of age story  and adapting across cultures while retaining their archetypes: the poor girl rescued by marriage to a rich man, the neglected child who grows up to be belle of the ball.  Not so American, but totally archetypal, and socially controlling of women.  Kindness and intelligence are often as important in fairy tales as beauty because these girls are locked into patriarchal power structures, which are dependent on the moral as well as practical qualities that women bring to unpaid work; the span of the film encompasses a princess's whole butterfly-lifespan of freedom, and in those patriarchal structures lie first their hell and then their happiness.  And most importantly, the bridge from one of those to the other is a Glittery Dress. It's a vital merchandising part of the Disney machine.  And fair enough, because glittery dresses are fun and pretty and what small child doesn't want one?

In the case of Frozen, the demand for the glittery dresses (Elsa's snow one, of course) has been so intense that Disney has come under fire for its inadequate stock of dolls and costumes.  Apparently the market for these has been double that of merchandising for Tangled.  

Holy crap, what have Disney done so right?  Is it the plunky music?  Judging by the success of many shouty ballad singers on talent shows, Let It Go really should be a sure fire hit, and indeed you probably don't know a child who hasn't heard it.  Is it the fact that there are as many main male characters as female?  Disney has been trying to extend its Princess Appeal to the small boy demographic, and my three nephews certainly watched bug eyed and muttery with interpretation throughout, and then told me it wasn't a "girly" film.  Or is it the demise of the Prince?

Poorly parented, the Frozen heroines grow up neglected and isolated, one by fear of her own abilities (which she has been taught are solely destructive by her muggle parents), and the other by the withdrawal of her terrified sister and early death of their parents.  So far, so Disney.  But then Elsa pops out of her Howard Hughes room and forbids her sister to marry "a man you just met", even though he is a Prince.  Previously, remember, a Disney Princess marries a man she just met when she was unconscious. In the case of Snow White, he wasn't even picky about her waking up.  Bossy sisters, eh?

After Elsa's social anxiety and annoyance with her affection-demanding sister result in a huge Winter Incident, she flees, pursued by Anna the redheaded optimist goes after her and meets an ice harvester, to whom she decides only to give a sledge and some innocuously Disney kissing at the end of the film.  Because the Prince has turned out to be a Complete and Utter Git.  Is it the death of patriarchy in Disneyland?  Is the Prince too undemocratic, does even a humble worker deserve a princess?  Are men not entitled to own women any more?

These Big Questions have led various commentators to suggest that, along with Elsa's refusal to end up with a man at all, in spite of having to rule a kingdom (sic) by herself, this is a feminist realignment of Disney Princesses.  For my money, possibly the strongest realignment of values is the fact that the antagonist/villain is actually young, attractive and male.  This is modern morality with some punch; "don't trust the boy who looks too good to be true", as opposed to "don't trust the old woman who is plainly an evil sorceress".  It suggests a girl should be jolly careful about whom she shags (rather than recognising wickedness in the parental figures on whom she depends) and that posh isn't necessarily trustworthy.

Kristoff is not the first democratic parti, however; Rapunzel in Tangled - for my money a better film, with infinitely better music, more charm and a sweeter relationship at its heart - is rescued by a thief, who changes his ways and whom she subsequently marries.  Much of the fan fiction for Tangled deals with her managing the transition from prisoner to princess, as well as Flynn/Eugene becoming less of a narcissistic criminal and more of a prince (or adult).

The role of drama, according to both Aristotle and modern Hollywood, is to catch the audience up in an impossible, unattainable world, where their betters live out to the fullest extent mankind's deepest fears and horrors, shock them by reversals, and allow them, by living out these feelings without danger, to walk out relaxed and revived.  Fan fiction is perhaps a measure of how successfully these films achieve this.  The tighter and more satisfactory the structure, the more inescapably believable the closure, the less the fan fictioneers have to work with.  The reversal in Frozen is stunning.  Anna turns away from her own salvation and thereby saves her own life, her sister's life, and the problem of Elsa's powers.  But it doesn't involve either of the male leads, or destroy the antagonist (compare this to Rapunzel's hair reversal, which kills and saves Flynn and destroys Gothel while never compromising her opposition to violence) and leaves a lot of unanswered questions.  Hans is still alive.  Kristoff is still an ice-harvester.  Both women are still single.

There is a huge amount of fan fiction for Frozen.  I think it's because the structure of the film leaves so many loose ends.  Fan fiction is like a chandelier, reflecting back a thousand different possibilities. Elsa has imprisoned Hans behind an ice door in her dressing room; Hans has been cast off by his country and become a vagabond; Hans has gone to another country and staged a coup there; Hans has had a sami remove a piece of the mirror from his eye and heart and become a different person.  Sometimes Anna is dating Kristoff, sometimes Hans, sometimes Elsa as her sister, sometimes Elsa in an alternative universe where they aren't related, sometimes in a version of Arendelle where they aren't related.  Anybody could be with anybody, even though it is a badge of honour for fanfic to keep their characters as "canon" - faithful to those in the film - as possible.

There's an inherent appeal to both Elsa and Hans, whose characters don't fit.  Handsome princes aren't supposed to be wicked; beautiful princesses aren't supposed to be so anxious they can barely leave their room or so powerful that they can change the world.  Hans at least knows what he wants; Elsa only knows what she can do.  She is near to a tragic character; flawed by her inability to control her magic, she seems only to want not to do harm, and this, like her voluntary isolation, perhaps speaks to girls and women, not as a function of feminism, but as a fact of their existence.  Elsa is essentially a terrified mess, and this is familiar territory to women frightened of their bodies, their destinies, their ability to control their lives.  She is silenced by her unfeminine power, by the fear of rejection that that power brings; again a horribly familiar experience for girls who are expected to sit quietly and not to shout out or be bossy.  She also functions largely as antagonist; she nearly destroys a country, she denies her responsibility as a ruler and hurts her land, and her reversal is a function of Anna's, not her own.  

The vast variation of relationships alone is indicative of some lack of fixedness in the Frozen universe; there are very few Tangled fics which deal with relationships or major character changes in the same way.  Rapunzel does not generally date the Captain of the Guard, or Mother Gothel, or either of the Stabbingtons.  Her character is strikingly intelligent and clear minded and determined.  Rapunzel appeals more straightforwardly to feminists, but her character is maybe less expressive of the attempts women make to deal with their own power, because she deals with it so well.  She has been warned about men and if anybody tries to hurt her she does not scruple to whack them unconscious with a frying pan.  Anna is violent towards both her potential suitors, but always in a depressingly passive aggressive, "accidental" and in Kristoff's case also unfair manner.  She knows nothing and shows no intelligent caution that might help her learn.

However, both Anna and Elsa end up happily anti-snobbery, welcoming men into their lives who have shown moral qualities - loyalty, kindness, friendship, tolerance, self-sacrifice - rather than those who have status, breeding or power, or place too high a value on these things.  Maybe a tiny step towards democracy, even though no story can be democratic - because what about Elsa, the nearly wicked queen and Hans the traitor prince?  The film leaves them unsolved, free to roam the wilds of FanFicLand and the upper echelons of 1820s society, with even rumours of an echt Disney sequel ... so thankfully democracy isn't safe for Disneyland yet.

Going Loco Incognito and Other Tales of Madness

There is much to be said for madness; my own belief is that most people are pretty heavily quirky and that this can tip over quickly and easily into very difficult behaviour should circumstances facilitate this.  And also that difficulty  is the key characteristic of madness.  You can be as mad as you like, if your behaviour inconveniences nobody else - hence the vast superiority of being immensely rich and powerful if you wander over the borders.  If you are poor, woe is your lot, for society does not easily tolerate annoyance from the poor, because society can't avoid it.  Proximity is everything.

With this in mind, I have been watching Ruby Wax and Jon Richardson this week on C4 Goes Mad and I am interested by Ms Wax's selection of people who are high achievers - these seemed the people most unlikely to be sacked if they disclosed their mental instability.  While they have economic value and have competently disguised their frailty to date, they would seem to me to have every good chance of surviving mental illness and indeed retaining their jobs.  It was a charming watch, but it didn't seem to actually examine what it claimed - it examined the people who can dodge the consequences of their condition, not those who are defined by it.

Cue Jon Richardson's programme on OCD, which was perhaps more realistic, with less of an agenda.  It showed the cost of mental illness - and a form of mental illness, unlike depression, for which there seems remarkably little treatment available - to people in terms of their ability to work, and worse, their relationships with others.  The guilt and sadness of having a child to whom a condition has been passed down was shown very clearly, and it was far clearer that these were people unable to control their condition.

What intrigued me most was that both conditions seemed to have a strong relationship with anxiety, though the illnesses that manifested were quite different in their symptoms.  I hope to see more exploration of the questions of how anxiety can be dealt with on a social level - it was salutary to see JR working out his own salvation in terms of needing to live with people, even if they annoy him, and I would be interested to see other pro-social solutions. Although he clearly is quirky rather than ill, this, and the compounded success of employment for those who can maintain it, seem to indicate some de-medicalization and re-socialization of the treatment of mental illness is long overdue.

So I look forward to the World's Maddest Interview tonight.   

a surprising conclusion

When the commentators at Wimbledon burble about how it is THE BEST grand slam I have always assumed that this is because they are English and they like to think so.  But now I am beginning to think it maybe is.

Firstly, it is lovely and green.  Roland Garros is okay looking but it is like looking at an oompah loompah/jumblie design day out.  Very orange courts, very navy uniforms, and some dangerously funky coloured outfits.  Wimbledon - soothing on the eye, with players in crisp white clothes that look like a persil advert and are uniformly easy to see.

Our ballboys and ballgirls - dressed in Ralph Lauren - are also the best.  Very seldom, if ever, do they trundle out onto court in mid-play.  See their fitness, dedication, and accuracy.  They are a credit to us.  If we cannot produce a player, look what brilliant factotums we can train.

There is also the fact that for two weeks of the year only, we watch tennis.  Passionately, as though we know about it, as though we love it with the same passion as football, suddenly, like love, we are in again.  Sometimes you look at other tournaments and the non-attendance on the show courts is woeful. Nobody expects the outside courts to be heaving with spectators during the early stages, but not to fill centre and number 1 courts seems amazing.  And it fills my hard mad heart with pity for the players.  It is wretched to be a gladiator without an audience.  They may save you, or condemn you, hiss or whistle or shout for the opponent, but without them, what a sad thing sport is.

And tennis commentators are also the flower of the profession.  Do they whinge and gloom like the ex-pros on the footie?  No, they are intellectually spry and witty, with a lively variety of accents and intelligent commentary, and they know amazing amounts of stuff.  In football it seems a law that if anyone knows anything, it must be solemnly repeated by all the commentators before it has been finished with.  It is like cows have been given suits and the power of speech.  Contrast with the cut and thrust of commentary on the tennis.  Although I still don't entirely understand how John McEnroe has come to have such a shining, dedicated hope that Andy Murray to win Wimbledon, I want the world to know how much I appreciate it.

Lastly there is our loony aspiration to win ANYTHING SPORTING AT ALL EVER.  It is in such full, desperate flower at Wimbledon.  For a week we shriek and wring our hands and agonise.  And then our Only Hope is knocked out, and there is our cheery insouciant acceptance of foreign substitutes - our fondness for Federer and Nadal, as though they are English on the inside.  As if, once you have won Wimbledon a few times, really we own you now, and actually, you really are secretly English, and just in denial.

So it is the best, not because of the prize money, but because it is taken so seriously and done so well.  Because even if English Tennis cannot produce the best players, it has strangely managed to produce an excellent - maybe the best - of the tournaments.  So maybe we should be glad, because really we are winning the tennis every year.

X Factor Bingo!

1. Take a piece of paper or card and divide it up into 9 squares (3 x 3. Like noughts and crosses.)

2. Choose nine of the following Judges' Comments:

"You could have a hit single with that."

"I just love you."

"You rocked it out."

"You are the heart and soul of the X Factor"

"Everybody loves you."

"You're so great to work with."

"Vote for Katie."

"You made it your own."

"This is where the competition gets interesting."

"You just became a popstar."

"You are the perfect package."

"I don't know what to say."

"That blew me away."

"You are what this competition is about."

"...to all those people who say competitions like this don't produce stars..."

"You are what the public want."

"... a little bit pitchy..."

"...you've had some bad press..."

"... you look uncomfortable..."

"... that was a risk..."

"... there were some tuning issues ..."

"... you've had some bad mentoring ..."

"... that was the wrong song for you ..."

"I think you've captured the theme really well."

"You are back in the competition."

"You need something a bit more contemporary."

"Don't listen to Simon."

3. Write each of your choices into each of your nine squares.

4. Watch, agog, to see which of your choices comes up, then cross it off.

5. First one to a line gets the Inside Soap magazine - first one to a full house gets the entire Quality Street Supply and control of the remote for the night.

Another two hours well spent. XOXO

GUILTY

Katie Waissel stands accused.

She is accused of being egotistical and self-promoting. Yes, yes, she is guilty, cries the chorus of self-righteousness from the Mail.

She is accused of lying about sleeping with Matt Cardle. She has not been quoted, but she is undoubtedly guilty because she has been accused by no less an authority than the News of the World, commonly known on Fleet Street of the Scourge of the Evil-Breasted-Womankind. (All women are evil, and the fact that they have STOLEN THE WORLD'S SUPPLY OF BREASTS can only confirm this in the mind of any right-minded person) and the Flame of Righteousness. When the News of the World says something, you can be sure in your own mind it is Incontrovertibly True.

She has been accused of being a drama queen, of having pictures of herself naked on her phone, of being "unpopular in the X Factor House" and is probably the Untidy One there, too.

Well, this is ALL TRUE. And here is the proof: she has worn feathery eyelashes. She has shown frequently that she idolises Etta James. And most damning of all, she did not sit on her bumcakes at a till, or in a callcentre, or at home, waiting for Simon Cowell to elevate her to stardom. She has worked her bony arse off trying to be a popstar. She has auditioned, and sung, and learnt the piano and the guitar, and written songs and sung them. She has gone to America to make a dodgy online series. She has written and recorded an anti-bullying "anthem". She has worked at making her dotty drama queen dream come true. For this, she is guilty, Guilty, GUILTY. And may never be forgiven.

Who Knew?

A week of revelation on the gogglebox.

Lady Mary, whom I hugely enjoy hating, has finally got some comeuppance. This youngest and prettiest of all the Evil Cows on Downton Abbey permitted a Foreigner first into her bedroom and then into her back bottom, and was hideously punished for this crime against her class - and her arse - by his prompt and irreversible death.

On the one hand, this is most pleasing. Lady Mary was thoroughly taken down a peg or two. On the other, it points to buttocks of amazing, not to say supernatural, power. Who may attempt to make Lady Mary next his sex toy and yet " a virgin for her husband" and what will become of them? Does her fatal bottom employ its mighty power only against foreigners, as her family's perky xenophobia might lead one to suspect? Or is it against all comers? And is it only her back bottom, or must Lady Mary's husband take on a virginity which must surely end his bridal night in Death? It is all a very jolly speculation. Matthew, the drippy heir apparent, looks like the likely next suitor, but he is too wringing a wet blanket to attempt either extra marital or anal activities with anybody, and may thus bury them all...

And then, in the Apprentice, somebody with a proper London accent survived the Boardroom. Lord Sugar picked on somebody a bit quiet for the boot, and over on "You're Fired" the delightful Dara O'Brain more than made up for Adrian Chiles, and Jack Whitehall restrained himself from being a complete nobdollop and was really quite amusing. A week of wonders, indeed.

Excluded

... was the title of the BBC's drama offering for the "Education" season last night. It was called this because, obviously, it was not what it was about. Why, you gasp, what was it about? Having sat through the whole everlasting hour, I can proudly report that I know the answer. It was about NOTHING.

It was a confused and confused piece of failed agit-prop where a group of cardboard cut-outs mouthed unlikely dialogue to communicate dated, ideologically charged, ill-thought out claptrap. It was about the BBC having no earthly idea what might be going on in their chosen "topic", and refusing to use its considerable clout to find out. It was about throwing together a ragbag of ridiculous, outmoded cliches equally lacking in drama and information. It was a grimly tedious hour of shit tv.

There are obvious and immediate conflicts in a piece like this: on the one hand it is intended as a state-of-education piece; its aim to communicate a recognisable portrait of secondary school is a challenging one in itself, and it's also in conflict with the basic demands of drama, which require focus on characters, rather than types, and change, in both situation and character. A portrait must be very skilfully drawn to incorporate dynamism.

But it seemed to me - and as a teacher for seven years and a screenwriting graduate of the NFTS before that, I feel qualified to judge - that it failed on both counts.

I found it a hideously inaccurate portrayal of school. It's inconceivable that a newly trained teacher would set up his very first lesson as badly as did the lead character. Lesson planning over the last ten years has become fiercely structured; few teachers set up a first lesson without a planned starter activity, a seating plan, greeting the kids, taking a register or sorting out books. If you want an accurate picture, the devil is in the details. If you don't want to deal with all that palaver - don't set your scene at the start of a lesson.

Nearly all teaching nowadays involves a storm of photocopies that kids can cut up or colour in or stick together; it is vastly unlikely that an NQT - who would have spent a term and a half teaching by then - would go in to a GCSE class so unprepared that he would still be muttering "I have a background in electronic engineering", unless he were absolutely hopeless.

I have experienced plenty of unprofessional behaviour in schools, but it's stopped short at making faces behind a colleague's back - apart from anything else, it would destroy that member of staff with the kids, because he'd be behaving like one of them, which they consistently despise.

To address the question of drama; drama requires conflict, characters, a story. What was the story here? Everybody was a bit annoyed. That was about it. It was supposed to focus on exclusion, from the naive point of view that exclusion is a hideous experience which is rare and terrifying, traumatising for the child and onerous for the school, a product of poor teaching and school indifference or active persecution of the poor misunderstood child.

It takes a lot more than refusing to leave a classroom to get excluded. Throwing a chair? One of my Year Tens greeted me by throwing a chair in my first week; recorded, reproached, apologised, over. Throwing a brick at my class through a window? No consequence at all. Admittedly the time one of my year sevens went mentaltastic and danced over the desks hurling flour at his classmates and resisting deportation to the point of lying on the floor and holding onto the doorjamb, he did get excluded. For a Whole Day. But it was not the heinous behaviour heretofore described that did it; it was swearing at the deputy head who was finally called to take him out. A combination of vandalism, uncontrollably dangerous behaviour, and extensive disruption to other pupils is required to get a child put onto the "Stages" of exclusion, let alone actually sent home. If the child has a good excuse - being ADHD and refusing medication counts - you can try a lunchtime detention.

So poor misunderstood children are not really the ones who are excluded. This would be pointless in an era when a lot of kids carry weapons. This programme's worldview would appear anachronistic to a jaw-slackening degree.

I struggled to find a story. If it had been a story about a child terrorising other kids and not being excluded, it would have resonated with me. If it had been about a child who was excluded for being a victim of bullying, that, too would have resonated with me. If it had been a child who self-excluded as a consequence of bullying, I would have bought it. But excluded for throwing a chair? Grow up.

The Truth About Twilight

Sylvia Plath wrote that every woman loves a fascist. Maybe an exaggeration, but there's a lot of evidence that every teenage girl fantasises about a stalker. Sorry, romantic lover. There is no difference. Look at Edward Collin. Indeed, look at him for some time, for he is quite beautiful, having the look of a young Brando at times, and the most sympathetic of Gothick lighting - at least in Twiglet sorry Twilight - all the time. Feast your mincers. Then worry about the character he is playing.

Judging by the teen scream queen team reaction, Edward Collin is every girl's dream. As beautiful as he is repellent, he wanders about, chalky complexioned and designer clad, sporting reddened lips and so much hairspray his scalp must snow flakes of fixative. He pouts and sulks and is stupefyingly rude for the first part of their acquaintance. When I was a teenage girl I found it is hard to like somebody who is apparently going to upchuck on me, but I am out of date. Perhaps this is why so many girls fare so much better in the pursuit of boys than I did. It doesn't seem a recommendation.

Things really don't improve when he declares his Undying Love for her as of course he must. He comes out to her as a vampire, and she skips after him hooting "I'm not afraid". Well of course not, he is a voluntary vegetarian vampire. He doesn't drink human blood. How crap is this? If blood-sucking is a metaphor for sex, this makes the Collins a celibate community. How disappointing to find yourself involved with the only undead anti-necrophilia society possibly ever to exist. Edward is so right; liking disappointment for this heroine is key. Worse is yet to come. Because it would also seem that, if bloodsucking stands for sex, the monkish Collins clan are no better than fawn fuckers. Surely there are places no girl wants to go - possibly where Bambi has been before her. Whether being eaten by the Collins was a let-down for Bambi history does not record.

It isn't just the milk-and-water vampires who don't drink human blood (who are therefore NOT VAMPIRES, but just weirdos), though. Edward - even while being stunningly rude to her - follows her about in his car and lurks about in her room when she is asleep, watching her. The word for this in modern times is stalking. Or being Father Christmas, but since he is an employee of the Coca Cola Corporation one hardly expects a high standard of behaviour from him. Edward Cullen has no such excuse. He is an idle slackademic, retaking his High School Cert for the umpteenth time, so without any need to be the puppet of a evil corporation. Particularly after he has passed up the chance to be a handmaidenboy of the Ultimate Evil.

Edward is unable to control his fascination with Our Heroine, partly because he cannot read her mind, thus reducing him to the horrors of conversation. He proves a bit of a blunderer at this, soon running out of things to say and falling back on telling her of his mind-reading abilities. Which she buys, in spite of the fact that his line is "I can read every mind in this room except yours." Does she respond like a normal person, "How suspiciously convenient"? No, she swallows it whole - even when he gives a brilliant demo of his Mind-Reading Talent, by telling her that everyone in the restaurant is thinking about sex and money. Not only unable to read minds, a normal sentient life-form would conclude, but REALLY UNIMAGINATIVE. Does she think this? No, for she is too besotted. Or, indeed, stupid, which suggests an alternative reason for his inability to read her - there is nothing in her cranium to read. He wouldn't be the first man to fall for the illusion of depth created by mental vacuity.

It is a great puzzle. Clearly they are both hopelessly daft, but in terms of Uselessness the Vegetarian Vampire or the Wannabe Undead? Go figure. It's what every girl longs to be.

INTOLERABLE

Amy Winehouse's husband has been granted a divorce on the grounds that she is intolerable to live with.

This points to lots of stuff rotten in the state of Everything. In the first place, I take strong exception to the implication that anybody is less of a picnic to live with than a drug-soupified psycho-thugster such as his imprisonments indicate Mr Fielder-Civil to be. And anyway, how does he even know? Can he even remember that far back, given that he has spent the last year banged up? And even if he can, is it possible that she is more intolerable to live with than the kind of people he must have had to share a cell with in Wormwood Scrubs? People he didn't even choose. The idea that you choose somebody less congenial than cellmates for a soulmate indicates that you are probably too much of an idiot to make a big decision like getting married. Perhaps you need to be stuck in an Institution for your own safety. I doubt anyone would miss ex-Mr-Winehouse.

Another thing that is rather ridiculous is that you can get a divorce just because somebody is intolerable to live with. All people are intolerable to live with in smaller or larger doses, and married people just learn to carve out a niche of insanity so repellent that it serves to throw a cordon sanitaire around their own sanity by keeping out their Significant Other for Significant Tranches of Time. If you can get divorced just because your partner is intolerable a) what is the point in marriage even existing? and b) you shouldn't have done it to yourself or them; clearly you don't understand the rules.

Older married people are saved the necessity of divorce by increasing deafness and absence of mind alone. Until that happy day, surely you are just supposed to put up with the intolerability for the sake of the society?

Now I have to return to "The Woman in White". Laura has been horribly done away with and her former lover has found her ghost at the graveyard. My curiosity must be satisfied. Wilkie Collins would say this is because I am a woman. Because he is a sexist. XXX

Tracy Update Stardate Sunday 14th June 2009

There are many, many times when waving one's legs in the air is a jolly good idea. But none of these situations are when you are standing up. Until Tracy learns this - or I unlearn it - I fear our relationship will not be one of Mutual Respect.

Teeny Weeny Tracy and the Pins of Pain

Since Ben Ben's birthday (nearly 4 weeks ago), the Good Auntie of Windmill Hill has been in the thrall of Madonna-and -Gwynnie's personal trainer. She is an American who is obsessed with the idea that anybody can have a "teeny weeny New York City Ball-ay type body", which is obviously what Tracy herself has. Tracy is five foot nothing and works out several hours a day, it should be noted, and probably has no idea what a normal run-of-the-mill chubster like me looks like - partly because I think people who look like me and venture into Kensington are probably Removed by the Police. The other feature of Tracy is that if you freeze the DVD at any point she is in mid air, making me suspect that she can fly; an unfair advantage any way you look at it.

I have had many DVDs before - some featuring skinny people acting, and some featuring Rosemary Conley and her incredible Real People Chorus. Rosemary Conley's Chorus consists of women all slightly taller and chubbier than her sylph-likeness, each one GUARANTEED to have lost TWO AND A HALF STONE. I don't know why this is the amount, but it invariably is , apart from Shimay on the "Ultimate Workout" "who has lost four and a half stone and can't believe how much energy she has". Shimay is like Tracy, in that she always seems to be in danger of taking off and floating away, whereas the dominant ethos of Rosemary's DVDs is always that of sturdy determination, like plugging up the Brecon Beacons with a map in a plastic filing wallet on a neck-string. Shimay is too enthusiastic to exactly fit in. She might do better with Tracy - whose DVD is not at all like the Brecon Beacons.

Tracy's DVD is like being on Bootcamp with Tinkerbell. She has a dulcet American accent - crooning her "ow"s into "oh"s like a proper porn princess - and looks like - well, you know how men look at women they want to shag, as if the woman at issue is a Belgian bun? She looks like a Belgian bun. But when it comes to the Workout, she is professional in every inch of her teeny weeny body right the way down to her tippy toes (yes, both those phrases are True Tracy.) She hurls proper ballet moves at you until you feel like the target in a beanbag throw. I can do none of them, and fall over my feet shrieking with hysterical laughter (for after 20 mins with Tracy, the endorphins kick in and I giggle until I stop.) Tracy skips and springs through them like a teeny tiny elf with wings full of caffeine.

Even the warm-up is brutal. It takes four and a half minutes and at the end of it your thighs hum with pain - well, okay, what really happened was I did it twice by accident, and then couldn't walk properly for 3 days. Seriously - I was Too Hurt to Tracy for Three Days following the re-moulding of my thighs. I looked it up on the internet, and found out that the pain was because I was improving my muscle tone. Hm. When shown my knees and asked what she thought of them, my sister said "Same as usual," - a bit of a let-down considering I'd been hoping for the Gwynnie encomium about "the results you never believed possible". Still better than Ben-Ben's contribution, shrieked from round the playroom corner - "Rubbish!" Little toad.