The Night of the Matador - draft 1

The pavement suffers the night's signature
Scrawled equal parts in haste and red,

A nocturnal incursion into the daytime

Where something had dripped, been left

Behind, from a portion of violence

Encased in leather or polystyrene,

Night's actions are some kind of theft

Leaving traces here, and there, and here
Signifying that something has been taken,

Claw marks on the doorstep,

Strands of hair on the chicken wire,

A marooned shoe, adrift in juices,

As I walk on, striding through the crimescene

Turning up the volume to drown out shadows

I am walking along the line of the punch
Traced like a sky-scarring vapour trail.
Night steals from us

All those hours and all that flesh

And I just don't know what's become of it all

And night steals that too,

Reasons and ideas and hopes and beginnings,

Night occupies these and reclaims them for itself

In the rhetoric of the bullfight,

Violent night, wholly night,

Has no qualms who it bites,

And in its cloak and with its dagger
Night reduces dreams to stains.

People I'd Most Like To Be Chart

As of 10/08/13:

1. Reece Shearsmith (up)
2. Howlin' Pelle Almqvist (up)
3. Amanda Palmer (up)
4. Nick Cave (down)
5. Alex Kapranos (down)

Here Comes Your Band

At the end of a June I got a very big surprise; out of nowhere Pixies had put out a brand new track, and more than that, it was really good!

Unmistakably them, with all of their calling cards present; soft-loud verse chorus dynamic, wailing whining lead, acerbic menace from Frank Black, simple plaintive backing vocals from Kim Deal (sadly now departed from the band). It was all there, albeit with a slightly different electronic feel to the rhythm section. I was incredibly excited, incredibly intrigued, and incredibly happy.

Pixies are definitely one of my favourite bands, and seem to be a favourite of many other bands I enjoy greatly. Considering their influence, it is a shame that they don't receive the recognition that perhaps they deserve. I consider them much more exciting than Nirvana, for example, yet Cobain et al are the ones whose name was emblazoned on all of the hooded tops at secondary school at the turn of the century. I guess for many they're a bit too out there. Quite often you don't know what to expect, their music at times delivering savage violence and esoteric lyrics. Many listeners no doubt would find these factors abrasive in different ways, and bands such as Nirvana, whilst no less artful, tended to push the limits less, singing with and about more accessible human angst, apathy, and depression.

Without Pixies, a lot of my favourite songs and bands would have probably not come to be. Here's a small selection of those things that are heavily indebted to them.

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

This is well documented, and there's not much more I can really add about this. For many, sentiments such as, "I found it hard, it's hard to find, oh well, whatever, never mind," will strike more of a chord than, "There was a guy, an underwater guy who controlled the sea..." The difference between a chart hit and a cult classic? The respective highest UK chart placings are as follows: 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' - no. 7. 'Monkey Gone To Heaven' - no. 60.

Kings of Leon - Charmer

This was the last thing they released before I lost all interest in them, the final single before album no. 4, 'Sex On Fire', global arena domination, MOR radio and mundanity. This is probably my favourite song by them, basically because they've just decided to rip off the Pixies, but they've made a great fist of it. Not only aping the music style, Caleb Followill has decided to emulate Black's trademark squeals AND delivers lyrics that offer a Deep South take on the obscure and precise pain that often presides in a Pixies song.

British Sea Power - Apologies to Insect Life

Another one that takes the Pixies formula and runs with it. What this one does is also find the space that exists between the instruments, where the guitars can drop out letting the song run on with the percussion, with just spiky wisps of feedback to cover its naked body. This becomes more apparent when both Pixies and BSP are playing live ('Vamos' is a great example of this) and it creates a space that allows the audience into the song more, whilst at the same time giving more weight to that soft/hard quiet/loud dynamic.

Feeder - Buck Rogers

This song was a massive part of my growing up, and made Echo Park the joint first album I bought. Here marks the application of Pixies' rock dynamic to create a track with the charts in mind. Grant Nicholas has publically described the song as a "throwaway pop song" when originally he'd "been trying to write a song that sounded like the Pixies." I'd like to think that subliminally it was the reason I went to uni in Exeter, driving me towards getting a house in Devon. Still to drink cider from a lemon though.

Electric Six - Naked Pictures (Of Your Mother)

Electric Six's Pixies influence is more subtle than the others. I think it comes across most in their song structure, though the second verse in this particular song is textbook. Frontman Dick Valentine regularly plays 'Hey' as part of his acoustic sets, and early on in E6's career, where his songwriting was most dominant, the verse-chorus-verse-chorus, quiet/loud, power chord dynamics were frequent, and there was definitely a whole lot of Pixies underneath the disco rock. They've reached out and widened their output now, but at the core of Electric Six there still lies that alt. rock nugget that owes so much to Boston's finest.

Hopefully 'Bagboy' will be joined in the future with further new material. I've been lucky enough to get a ticket to see them play at Hammersmith Apollo in November. Even without Kim Deal it's going to be gigantic.

Postmen like doctors go from house to house

"The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things. A single idea keeps stirring."

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962), trans, Ralph Parker. (St. Ives: Clays Ltd, 2000), p36.

I'm currently making my way through the above book, which is proving to be a surprisingly pleasant read. Solzhenitsyn's short novel is (so far) a very human portrayal of extreme stoicism, and of defiant resourcefulness in the face of brutal authoritarianism.

The above quotation is a great reminder of how systems define the conditions of the lives within them. It immediately made think of Virginia Woolf's superb essay, A Room of One's Own, where she set out to argue that, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction;" the system which they inhabit is one that is so stacked against them that they need a space outside of it in order to be write. Systems have a knack of moulding individuals into a particular way of doing and thinking, be they political dictatorship or patriarchy, and it takes a great effort to be able to break free from this ideological domination.

You can see this at a mundane, possibly bathetic level, in how people often react to full time work. Their employment results in an incredible drain on their time and energies, leaving them to spend their free time outside of work either recovering from their physical and mental exertions or attempting to forget about them. In this respect the free time isn't free at all. The solution to this problem is to either work less, or take a great effort and break free from the mind forged manacles.

I've just stumbled across the poem 'Aubade' by Philip Larkin whilst trying to find my copy of Woolf's text, and the first stanza really encapsulates these feelings. The speaker is able to look at his life from a critical distance only at 4am, a time that belongs neither to his working hours, nor to those hours where he tries to forget about them. I think I may need to start waking up earlier, in the soundless dark, in order to get back onto the creative writing trail.

"I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify."

 Larkin, Philip. 'Aubade' (1977), in The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Twentieth Century and After, Volume F, ed. Stephen Greenblatt. (USA, 2006), p.2573.

Free Writing, or, How to Become a Bloody Great Sailor

A few weeks back, The Red Diamond Dragon Club played at the launch of the Free University of Brighton; a community project providing free educational opportunities for all. The launch event consisted of several speeches from important figures, live music (that's where we came in), but most interestingly a speed learning session. Several individuals were spread across the venue, each with their own specialist subject, ranging from traditional academic fields such as physics and anthropology, to more quirky things like playing the ukelele and hypnosis. You would spend three minutes at each learning station, during which the expert would try to explain a facet of their chosen field, and after which a drum would be hit and you would shuffle off the next person. It proved to be both fun and informative. Educational and entertaining. Edutainment.

One of these learning stations was entitled creative writing, and I decided to mosey along to see what wisdom could be bestowed during the three minutes. What was in store was the classic creative writing technique, free writing. Regularly used as a warm-up session for creative workshops, the aim of the game is to loosen up the mind (as well as your writing hand) and just let the words flow. For a designated amount of time you have to just write, constantly, allowing whatever words pop into your head to pop out onto the page. Sometimes you have a theme or sentence to start you off, but ultimately the end product is not the important bit. The act of writing, of making creativity happen, is the aim.

Although this is a process I was already familiar with, what the learning station manager (this probably wasn't their title, but it will do for now) emphasised was the importance of constantly writing. Even if you can't think of words to follow, she said, just keep repeating things until new words come. This wasn't something I usually do, and so to have the importance of constant writing stressed was very useful. Sometimes you've got to be strict with yourself, and forcing movement is the best way to get through a mental block. One of the best things about writing is how easy it is to go back over what you've written at a later time and edit it. The hardest part is getting it down in the first place. If anyone has even a passing interest in writing, I would certainly recommend that they give free writing a go. Even if it doesn't lead on to anything, it can be great fun.

This is what I came up with during the session. The theme we were all given was 'what I want'.


*     *     *     *     *


What I want is to keep this going all the way to the end so that my ink runs from hemisphere to hemisphere like a great Walter Scott or Walter Raleigh or any wall to wall superhero that has ever existed! I want this more than anything, I want it all, I want it all AND I WANT IT. NOW! And if I was to tweet that then that would have been bad "letteriquette" as it would be deemed aggressive, but this is an entirely different format and it's good to be aggressive and WANT TO REACH THE END, because when we're writing it is important to have goals because goals are what keep us going, going to the end, but also to be disciplined. The discipline of free writing is incredibly important because so many 'writers' never get the ink flowing because they don't understand that the best way to channel this want is to break free of channeling factors. Break free from the walls and turn the channel into a bloody great sea. I WANT TO BE A BLOODY GREAT SAILOR.

Bow Down To The King (RDDC)

Tie me up with that extension cord
Nail my hands and my feet to the floorboards
I just want you to know that I'm a martyr to the cause
Let me give you all my money, and then
Let me give you just a little bit more
I don't care if I'm overdrawn
Isn't this what an overdraft is for?

Knock me up
Set me down
Insert your drill
Into my ground
Spin it round
Spin it round
And around again
You can take what you want
I'll bow down to the king

Do you need someone to waterboard?
Think we're ready to buy what you've got in store?
I just want you to know that you've been sorely misinformed
You might find this kind of funny, but
We've got our scissors, making sure you've got the shortest straw
The pen is mightier than the sword
But when the ink runs out I've got a pretty fucking massive sword

Eyebrows raised
Faces frown
On your knees
Respect me now
Kiss the ground
Kiss the ground
Kiss the ground
Kiss the ground
And while you're down there could you please
Bow down to the king

If you bow down the king
Then you bow down to my queen
And the name of my queen is Madame Guillotine
I've got your just deserts
So bow down to the king

quickly consulting the shopping list

The deeper my browsing takes me into the supermarket, the more abhorrent the products become, and the bigger the savings are with multi-buy offers.

Supermarket - Aisle 3

Does the label tell you to simmer down
And reduce yourself into hostile husk?
Did they paint you a drastic alias
Upon the bold, lunatic zeitgeist's mask?

Isobutylpropanoicphenolic acid
I'll take your pain away
I'll take your pain away

You poor lost manufactured manticore,
Subjected to an umbral cautery,
Stone cicatrix on a matryoshka,
Synecdoche flag for farmed cockatrice

Isobutylpropanoicphenolic acid
I'll take your pain away
I'll take your pain away

I'll pour you out into a fluted glass
And laugh at all the things that come to pass,
It's better this way than a shaking vase
Adorned with misnomers and snaking grass.

I know you, truly I do
And I'll take the pain away

What becomes of the broken hearted?

* warning - the following probably contains spoilers. Possibly not, but one can't be too careful *

I've been racking up the hours on Ni No Kuni for the past month or two now and it's proving to be a joy to play. The fantasy world is beautiful and immersive, the gameplay mechanics are simple but have great scope, the story being told is rich and engrossing. In short, it's got most of the things I look for in a video game.

In terms of narrative, the way in which the story is slowly unveiled with new levels of intrigue being added is artfully done and is continuously exciting. In a similar way to a novel that me and several friends are currently reading, Dracula, we (the player/reader) are shown glimpses of who appears to be the lead antagonist of the tale, the eponymous White Witch, early on. The characters, however, have no apparent knowledge of her and are concerned with Shadar, a malevolent force who is portrayed as the reason for all the disharmony and imbalance in the world, but one who is clearly in thrall to the White Witch. As a result there is this dramatic layer of mystery surrounding her, and one that makes me want to put off stag do preparation, job hunting and domestic tasks in order to get to the bottom of it.

Would have done the laundry but this cuddly toy came to life and started yapping at me in a Welsh accent

The most intriguing parts of the game though are two of the core themes; the existence of dual worlds, and broken hearts. This is a great article that sets out cogently what I've been finding exciting about these game mechanics - http://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/03/03/ni-no-kuni-and-coping-with-depression

The broken heart idea in the game has resonated with me quite a bit, especially after beginning with my breakfast project. It's become evident to me that everyone suffers from some form of anxiety, with this being more prominent in some people than others. It's important that people who are suffering from a lack of enthusiasm, belief, confidence or whatever, are helped out by those who have a surplus of these traits. It's common sense, but it's nice to be reminded of this and have it reinforced by a video game; something that people lacking in enthusiasm, belief, confidence or whatever might turn to as a form of solace or escapism.

This guy was a right pain

An extra level of intrigue is provided by the incursion of Shadar into the 'real world' that Ollie is from. As pointed out by the article above, an early encounter sees Ollie returning to his world in order to mend the heart of someone who is the soul mate of a character in the fantasy world. Doing this helps to heal them of malaise in the fantasy world, so that they can then help Ollie out in his battle with Shadar over there. The person in question that needs helping out turns about to be an abusive father and husband who is suffering from a lack of kindness. So far, so reasonable for the real world setting, but this is all exacerbated by the fact that a demon known as a Nightmare has instilled itself in the void of kindness and transformed the victim into the abusive monster he has become rather than just a mean spirit. Ollie must defeat the demon in battle in order to restore the individual. Here, a monster from the fantasy world has invaded the 'real world' and this incursion has far-reaching consequences for the inhabitants. With such an incursion, the question is raised as to how real the fantasy world is? Could it all be an imaginary escape, with the real battle being fought in Ollie's head in the real world? This reading is something I am looking forward to exploring further as the story progresses. Thrown into the mix is a character that doesn't seem to belong to either Ollie's world or Shadar's world, and I have a feeling that she could be a key player in taking the story to another dimension, both figuratively and literally.

So far then, Ni No Kuni is living up to expectations and proving to be a fun and inspiring game to play. The fantasy world setting has just opened up for me as I have just acquired a dragon to fly. Next time I will focus on the world itself as a fantasy setting, and perhaps compare it to other fantasy worlds. Top 10 fantasy settings? Why not.

Commuting made easy

The Real EDL

Get involved.

www.edl.me

Disco disco disco!

SmokeSignal

If you burned down an orchard
One hundred miles away
I'd see doves and butterflies
In all the smoke you'd make

Sorry Lana, maybe later

For the past couple of months I have been living in a house without a video games console. It must have been the first time in around twenty years that this had been the case, having cohabited with consoles since the McIntosh family owned a ZX Spectrum back in t' day. Since my housemate Tim's PS3 died of old age I can't say I had really been missing video games, despite them taking up quite a big part of most of my teenage life (who needs girls, right). They'd just not really fitted into the dynamic of our new house, with the living room much less prominent than before.

That was before Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch showed up.

It's like Studio Ghibli decided to mash up Pokemon and Final Fantasy!

Due to the existence of this game, Tim and I decided to club together to purchase a new PS3. Since acquiring the game on Saturday I have managed to play it for a few hours, and I know that this game poses a great threat to my ambitions of doing productive grown-up things like job hunting and regular cycles of laundry. It's like Studio Ghibli decided to mash up Pokemon and Final Fantasy. If you were asked to describe what the ultimate JRPG (Japanese Role Playing Game, yo) would be like, responding with saying, "something like Studio Ghibli deciding to mash up Pokemon and Final Fantasy," would undoubtedly gain you some sage nods of approval.

In terms of culture, video games are still a long way behind the rest of the pack in the prestige stakes. Although the games industry is now able to boast higher earnings through sales than cinema, as this Guardian article rightly points out, it still has some way to go to compete in terms of the amount of people accessing its products. This will be mainly down to the relatively high cost per unit (Ni No Kuni, a new game, cost £45, whereas an adult cinema ticket will usually come in somewhere under a tenner at the moment), although in terms of how many hours of enjoyment you should be able to get out of a game the game should win every time. Now, working out how cost effective games are is a long road that I don't wish to go down right now. My position is that I think, in terms of enjoyment, they are more cost effective than films, but the fact that they reach out to a much smaller section of the population hampers their cultural impact severely. This is a great shame, as in my experience they have the potential to offer so much more than films can and generally do.

The line between films and games is blurring all the time. The game Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is renowned for the length of its cinematic cut scenes. The average length of these, where the player watches passively as events pan out, is 9 minutes, with the epilogue at the end of the game clocking in at around 1 hour 9 minutes. The film adaptation of Coraline was structured incredibly like a computer game (well, both myself and Tim thought so); level, boss encounter, level, boss encounter etc. There have always been game adaptations of films, but film adaptations of games are becoming more prevalent. This illustrates that the ideas and patterns of creativity within both industries are mutually relevant, giving the relationship between the two a feeling of parity. Thus for me it seems as though both industries deserve an equal respect.

The strength of games for me comes with the agency that the consumer has with the act of playing. This is what sets film and game apart. The role of consumer is no longer a passive one but an active one; the gamer has a degree of control over the story. The extent of this agency varies from game to game, but as the best films are often those that deliver characterisation with subtlety so to are the best games those that do not restrict the gamer to a linear playing experience. When this agency is combined with interesting ideas, plot devices, philosophy, social commentary, you feel as though you are actively engaging with these concepts and the experience is heightened stratospherically. You are, in a sense, living them, in the same way that you would if reading a book for example. Reading is also a more active role than watching a film as you are having to create the scenes within the confines of your own self, rather than having them delivered to you. Sure, there is always some level of interpretation going on with watching a film, but this is dwarfed by the amount of world creation you get to do as a reader or gamer.

I also think that games (good ones in any case) tend to get the fun and intelligence factors balanced much easier than films do, which makes that intelligence more accessible. When it comes to writing, I have definitely been inspired more by games than by films. My MA dissertation piece, for example, as seen elsewhere on this blog, was inspired in parts by the ideas of cause and effect that are present in the masterpiece, Braid. I would compare it in many ways to the film Memento, which is currently ranked at number 33 in imdb.com's Top 250 Movies of All Time (tied on points with films such as Citizen Kane, Apocalypse Now, Dr. Strangelove..., Alien and Spirited Away to name a few), and it is a sad thought that such a small percentage of the people that enjoyed that film will have even heard of this game, let alone experienced playing it.

As a result of my renewed zeal for video games, I shall endeavour to write about anything particularly exciting that may come up whilst I rediscover playing them. One of my favourite blogs in the past was that of Angelo Comet. I got reading his thoughts through his superb journal that followed the TV series Lost. He was able to write with an impressive amount of intelligence and knowledge and was basically producing one exciting mini-essay a week about the latest episode to air. Then I noticed he had other blogs going for games and films. It's a nice idea for charting one's progress, so if anything inspiring or interesting arises, I'll try and clear the floor for it on here.

 Now that I've finished splurging these thoughts out it's time for job-hunting and a laundry cycle.

Pissing In The Tiger's Mouth (RDDC)

There marches a company of wolves
The host emerges from the pines
Heralded by scarlet howls
Whispering up my spine
My father came down south
All because he heard you were a-pissing
Pissing in the tiger's mouth

Listen to the foxes shrieking
They're marauding up the street
I can hear the creaking of cradles
They can smell fresh meat
My father came down south
All because he heard you were a-pissing
Pissing in the tiger's mouth

There's a crocodile in the marital bed
I can see jagged tears down the side of yon head
You need to change the sheets, dear, they've all run red
And then I heard a voice from the other room, and this is what it said
My father came down south
All because he heard you were a-pissing
Pissing in the tiger's mouth

With their voices soft as thunder
And their eyes as wild as lightning
Would ye piss on a man in a suit
Or high-vis jacket?

The tortured scarecrows are a-waking up
They're wishing to curtail your stay
The great wood is marching up the hill
The statues are coming to take you away
My father came down south
All because he heard you were a-pissing
Pissing in the tiger's mouth

Fry me in butter and gobble me up

In an attempt to increase my knowledge, friendships and BMI, I have finally begun my breakfast project. You can read about my exploits at http://vegebreakfastclub.blogspot.co.uk/.

Here's one for autumn

"The crumbling castle, looming among the mists, exhaled the season, and every cold stone breathed it out. The tortured trees by the dark lake burned and dripped, and their leaves snatched by the wind were whirled in wild circles through the towers. The clouds mouldered as they lay coiled, or shifted themselves uneasily upon the stone skyfield, sending up wreaths that drifted through the turrets and swarmed up the hidden walls."

Peake, Mervyn. Titus Groan (1946) in The Gormenghast Trilogy. (St. Ives: Clays Ltd, 1994), p140.


(I'm currently wading through the first book in Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy, Titus Groan. His use of language is impressive; the text is constantly rich and dripping with poetry. It is like a thick, succulent gravy, which means that it has taken me a while to make any significant in-roads into it. If Joseph Conrad had written in this style he'd probably be my favourite author.)

Literary Resolutions

There was once a small village at the foot of a great mountain. The folk dwelling there were strong-willed and worked well together, happily farming the surrounding land successfully and bringing great prosperity to the village. One day, a wandering god came to the village and offered his patronage on seeing their fine produce. The villagers were content with their lot however, and politely declined the god's offer, preferring to focus their attention on their farming instead of worship. This angered the god. In revenge he created a great monster; a gigantic mis-shapen beast with the body of a bear and the head of a donkey, representing the god's rage and the stubbornness of the villagers. The god proclaimed that every month when the moon was full the beast would descend from the mountain to destroy the labours of the village, unless an offering of a human child was made. Upon seeing the beast roaming the mountain and hearing its terrifying braying on the wind, the villagers took to tying up a child to a tree at the foot of the mountain every month in order to protect their farming. And, just as the god declared, every month the beast would come at full moon and tear the poor child to pieces. The villagers were able to continue their work without further disturbance, but from then on the joy was removed from their labour, and their produce never tasted quite the same again.

This afternoon I began one of my major projects for 2013; going for a cooked breakfast with a friend once a week. This is something I will document more in depth at a different time, but one of the many interesting things that cropped up in conversation with Stu was thinking about a literary analysis of social history, and taking that through and developing ideas around conflict resolution. This lead towards thinking about mythology, as this is generally the earliest form of story-telling within societies. Stu began thinking about recent events in Egypt, and how current Egyptian leader Mohamed Morsi had been referred to by some quarters as having 'given himself the power of the pharaoh', in a manner not dissimilar to Akhenaten; this pharaoh being the one that steered Egyptian society away from polytheism towards the monotheistic worship of the Aten, or disk of the sun. The pharaohs were intrinsically linked up with Egyptian mythology, and so there is a line that can be traced back from the present to the past. This is something that I believe Stu is going to be meditating upon in the future.

When thinking of mythology, my mind automatically leaps to Greek mythology. These were the stories that captivated me the most when growing up, mainly due to the myriad of exciting monsters that roamed about the ancient lands of the Mediterranean. In thinking about being able to trace a link from Egypt's present to its historical mythologies, I began to wonder if the same could be done with Greece, and in particular with its current state of economic trouble. My knowledge of global politics is, I must admit, relatively poor, so apologies for any inaccuracies or naivete from this point onwards. In any case, the Greek myth that most readily springs to mind from what I've read other people write about it is that of Daedalus and Icarus; the father and son who attempted to escape captivity with home-made wings,with the son flying too close to the sun and inadvertently destroying his wings as a result, and plummeting to his doom. The myth is usually interpreted as a cautionary tale warning against over-ambition, with pride coming before a fall, which one could, if they chose to do so, equate with Greece's spending when it switched to the Euro near the start of the last decade.

However, looking a bit closer at the myth can lead us to look a bit closer at the crisis. In the myth the individual that suffers most is Icarus. In the crisis, the suffering is done largely by the Greek public. Why was Icarus put in this precarious position? Ultimately, others were responsible for him finding himself up in the air. It was King Minos who had decreed that Daedalus and his family were not to leave Crete for fear of losing the secret of the Labyrinth. It was Daedalus who had fled to Crete after murdering his gifted nephew in an act of jealousy. Poor Icarus was placed in this situation as a consequence of these two individual's actions, amongst others. If we can expand the scope of inquiry with the myth, equally it can be done with the economic crisis, to take in the actions of the Greek government, private creditors, fellow Eurozone member states and the IMF and assess their responsibility here.

Again, my knowledge of Greece's economic situation is relatively limited and so I do not wish to fumble around clumsily with such an intricate and delicate subject, but I believe that the literary interrogation of mythology is something that can be applied to contemporary events. Mythology has long been utilised in areas such as psychology, where its reliance on archetypes comes in useful for both explaining particular tendencies and syndromes and exploring ways of dealing with them. If they can be used successfully within this sphere then why not successfully in others, such as conflict resolution?

The story of how Iceland dealt with its own economic crisis had a very mythical edge to it. When a monster is laying waste to a village the solution is more often than not for a hero to be sent out to slay it, rather than trying to ween the beast off humans and onto vegetables. And so, instead of austerely removing food from their own table to feed the monster, the Icelanders worked together to take up their swords and chop the beast up where possible. And they'll all probably live happily ever after.

Many years passed, and the village sent many of its children off to their death at the foot of the mountain. One day though, a parent had had enough. Angered by this way of living in fear, she began confronting the mayor of the village and ordering him to organise for a party to climb the mountain and kill the beast. Eventually, after weeks of protestation, the mayor relented and decreed that a group of armed villagers be sent up the mountain to the monster's lair. The climb was treacherous; harsh winds lashed against the brave souls who had volunteered to make the climb, and icy rain raked fiercely across their faces. All the while they could hear the braying of the beast getting louder as they drew closer and closer to where it had made its home. Finally, the party reached a vast opening in the mountainside around which was scattered the skeletal remains of dismembered limbs. It was the lair of the beast. Waiting until night-fall, when the monster was slumbering, the party rushed into the cave bearing torches and swords, hacking the creature to pieces. The god witnessed this, and being impressed by the villagers' bravery, decided to leave them be. Peace and prosperity finally returned to the village, and from that day onwards the produce of the village became famed as the most delicious in all the land.

Ciao 2012

Well, following a bout of insomnia I have found myself with a couple of 'Best of...' lists. 2012 was similar to 2011 for me in many ways, only with higher highs and lower lows. Let's start off with the resolutions I made last year and whether I followed them up or not:

- write more, try and do something creative at least once a day an' shit
- take more photos, events should be documented more thoroughly an' shit
- keep a more comprehensive record of books and films read and watched an' shit
- be brave an' shit
- maintain correspondances an' shit
- review a cooked veggie breakfast once a week

Eloquently put. I did write more, though certainly not to the extent of doing something creative once a day. I did take more photos; nowhere near as in the past but certainly more than last year. I am proud of the record I have kept of films and music, though I need to step this up again in terms of books. I might have been brave in some respects but certainly wasn't in others. Still room for improvement there. Probably failed on the correspondences (though I can spell it correctly now). Failed miserably on the veggie breakfast one. This is definitely the most important thing for me this year, and I shall be putting up a manifesto as my next blog post.

So, let's be positive and award 2012 a silver star. Good effort. Room for improvement, but certainly progress made from 2011.

Now let's hit some lists. As part of my comprehensive record keeping I have noted down what I deemed to be my 'New(ish) Musical Discovery of the Month' and 'Food of the Month'. So, here is what tickled my varying tastebuds in 2012:

January:      Francois and the Atlas Mountains & Colman's Mustard
February:    Belle and Sebastian & Cider Vinegar
March:        The National & Cookies
April:          Of Montreal & Aubergine
May:           Misteur Valaire & Linda McCartney Sausages
June:           Fleetwood Mac & Black Olives
July:            Lykke Li & Boiled Eggs
August:       PSY & Roast Vegetables
September: Django Django & Avocado
October:     The Proclaimers & Honey
November:  Grandaddy & Roast Potatoes
December:  Suede & Sausages-in-Croissants

See the pattern? Look hard enough, you will see the pattern. This leads seamlessly into my top songs of the year.

Music:
1. PSY - Gangnam Style
2. Robbie Williams - Candy
3. Frànçois & the Atlas Mountains - Les Plus Beaux
4. Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra - Want It Back
5. Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine?
6. Of Monsters And Men - Little Talks
7. Django Django - Default
8. Foals - Inhaler
9. British Sea Power - Machineries of Joy
10. Blur - Under the Westway

Here marks an obvious improvement on last year; a list that only contains one track from MOR radio! And even then, Robbie's comeback was deemed too irrelevant for Radio 1. If that's not a glowing recommendation, I don't know what is. These 10 tracks are so strong that there's not even room for Engelbert Humperdinck's masterful Eurovision ballad. Good year for music then, I'd say.



Film:
1. The Muppets
2. The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists!
3. Life of Pi
4. Chronicle
5. The Artist

I managed to watch more films this year than last, but due to an aversion to the Duke of York's cinema that developed midway through the year I tended to favour the bigger, less exciting venues to watch films. I'll try and rectify this this year. The top 2 films here are two wonderfully inventive and hilarious family films that I would recommend to anyone. In fact, those top 4 I would venture were criminally underwatched (so much so that I had to go see Chronicle on my own). The Artist was criminally overwatched, though still a decent and warming enough flick. Dishonourable mentions go to A Dangerous Method and The Woman in Black, for both taking great source material and creating two very dull pieces of cinema.



Gigs:
1. Electric Six @ O2 Empire
2. Frànçois & the Atlas Mountains @ Green Door Store
3. Misteur Valaire @ Blind Tiger Club (Great Escape)
4. British Sea Power @ The Haunt (either Krankenhaus 1 or 6)
5. The Proclaimers @ G Live

I've mentioned a couple of these gigs previously. It was a year of discovery new bands in the live setting, and also seeing a couple of long-term favourites stepping it up big time.



Books:
1. Patrick Ness - Chaos Walking trilogy
2. Dave Gorman - Vs. The World
3. James Herriott - The Lord God Made Them All
4. Clarice Lispector - The Hour of the Star
5. Margaret Attwood - The Year of the Flood

Again, I was lax at recording my book reading, so much so that I almost forgot that I read Ness' Chaos Walking trilogy in rapid fashion midway through the year. One of the most compelling series I have ever read, it improves book by book and climaxes with an ending that affected me on an emotional level far more than any ending I can remember reading. For fans of young adult literature (an awkward but convenient genre), with particular biases towards science fiction and fantasy, I would suggest you find yourself a couple of free hours and get going on this, so that when they eventually come out with a film adaptation you'll be able to moan about how inadequate it is quite happily.



Achievements:
Shitloads of achievements, yo, but all over-shadowed by the fact that I didn't get started on my veggie breakfast blog.



New Year's Resolutions:
1. Just keep swimming.
2. Start on that bloody breakfast eating next week.

“Of course what I felt then as an ape I can represent now only in human terms, and therefore I misrepresent it, but although I cannot reach back to the truth of the old ape life, there is no doubt that it lies somewhere in the direction I have indicated.”