Because I just can’t seem to write during term-time.

It’s twenty past one on a Monday morning. Can’t you tell I’m a student?

The title of this blog isn’t strictly true, I’ve written far too much about some things this autumn, but it is extremely factual when it comes to Obfuscatory Nonsense. You see it seems that whenever I get the urge to write something it’s 4am and I’m mid-essay and it’s the most counterproductive thing in the world.

So now I have a bit of respite from the essays, I have decided to just type away, and see which strange avenues I explore.

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It’s easy to lose yourself to being busy. Balancing mobile phone alarms has become my trade. The snooze function is akin to the big boss on an old video game. Spotify has found a new use as a timepiece – for time is now judged in songs, not minutes. Bikes are miraculous inventions, but they overestimate the effort required in your legs. And then a late night walk home can be a wonderful way to switch off – even as you are simultaneously wishing to not have to walk anywhere.

What I am trying to convey, I suppose, is simply how hectic my life seems to have been this term. I don’t think it has been, really. It is not as if life has ever seriously threatened to not fit into the minutes as they fly by. It does seem that the contrast between how ‘on the go’ and purposeful I’ve felt during term, and the bizarre lull which seemed to settle around Oxford as night fell on Friday of 8th week, must be telling. I have been able to go food shopping with more than just the current evening in mind, aimless walking is allowed again, and writing for pleasure seems somewhat palatable.

…which bring us to now. Let’s rewind a little;  it is getting towards that mythical two o’clock moment –  mythical because I tend to think that 0200hours is the line between late-night, and early morning – and I’m doing what I end up doing every term break: Watching film after film and being inspired by at least every other offering, potentially every other scene.

I spent two hours earlier in the week watching one about drinking – it felt appropriate for this, the fag-end of term. It was a film I had actually never heard of until about 25 minutes before I began to watch. Called ‘Drinking Buddies’, and starring Olivia Wilde, Jake Johnson – of New Girl fame – and Anna Kendrick, it was a lo-fi quite romantic comedy. But that undersells it slightly, because in reality it was a film about how a preponderance of alcohol, fuzzes the way we feel about things, and people of course. The main thing I admired about it was definitely Johnson’s beard, but otherwise a film which decides to actually be a bit interesting with the whole ‘rom-com’ genre was a nice change.

Since then I have watched the first Hunger Games movie, Anchorman, half of Annie Hall, the third Harry Potter film, Johnny English, and Adventureland – it has been a fun and varied week all told.

All of those are good films, a couple might even be great. The first in that list explained to me quite why everyone thought Jennifer Lawrence was ace before Silver Linings Playbook. The second reminded me why I’m terrified about the sequel (no way can they match the original…). The third, although it remained unfinished thanks to the vagaries of my sleeping pattern, made me smile an awful lot and led me to spend too long browsing Woody Allen-style glasses. Numbers four and five both took me back a little: Harry Potter, as is discussed elsewhere on this blog, is simply the biggest touchstone in my childhood, whilst Rowan Atkinson taking on the John Malkovich’s fabulous French accent did what it always does and made me giggle and really want to watch an old Bond film.The final film pointed out something quite pertinent to me (in addition to the fact that Kristen Stewart can actually sort-of act): it suggestively hinted that daft things happen when you go in search of a plot.

On a related note, the real lesson that each of those films has taught me is thus: The world in which they take place is ever so slightly misaligned with our – actual – world. The way in which Drinking Buddies subverts a couple of conventions (I won’t say how) is probably as close as any recent film has got to fitting the metaphorical tracing paper on top of dodgy sketch that is reality. Films shouldn’t be about reality though, at least not as a rule (because who in their right mind would watch a film about me writing this, at two o’clock in the morning and wearing a stupid hat?), but that doesn’t stop the self-reflexive way in which reality tries to be like films.

(If the person alluded to in the brackets directly above is you, please let me know, you either need some serious help, or you’re perfect; it really could go either way.)

So, I think I have worked out that that is what I love about films, and all the other forms of fiction we have – there’s this bizarre relationship going on which makes us watch things, and read things, and care about those things.

Raise your glass to fantasy then, the subtle kind, just as much as the kind which has dragons.

Limbo with Alcohol

Re; the title, it’s always a good idea, isn’t it?

At the start of the summer I had it in my had that I was going to update this blog with a fine piece of original writing at least every week. Needless to say that didn’t last very long, although I’m not entirely sure why. I’d blame it on being incredibly busy, rushed off my feet, in fact, but that’d be rather untrue. It’s not as if I’ve been short of topics to write about either, there’s a veritable stable of half-begun post-horses that have fallen by the wayside, for one reason or another. And anyone who’s spotted the little Hillsborough rant below, I’m not counting that; a spur of the moment, unchecked blur of injustice! 

So, I assume you’re all (yes I realise all is a slight exaggeration here) absolutely desperate to hear what I would have written? Of course you are, as much as this is akin to that awful moment during Who Wants To Be a Millionaire when Chris Tarrant rips up a check for sixty-four thousand pounds in front of your eyes.

I was very close to being very repetitive, actually, my next-to-last post had been about performance-enhancing drugs, and then the Lance Armstrong story broke. A tad cruel of the US Anti-doping Authority, I’d thought… Nonetheless it just occurred to me how much fall-out from the early part of the last decade still remains, when it comes to professional cycling. There is an endemic lack of trust in what you see before your eyes, and simply as a sports fan, that’s pretty painful to sit through. It’s certainly not over either, as much as it seemed like a rather perfectly plotted tragedy when the prototypical fighter, Armstrong, delivered his statement. There was no admission of guilt, simply an admission that he was backed into a corner, a last desperate attempt by the consumate may-aswell-have-been-a-statesman to prolong the siege of so many hearts and minds that he’d held for so long. In the end though, I think he simply chose to be tried by proxy, because his former manager and friend being found guilty, as may well happen (and although Armstrong’s climb-down suggests otherwise, it’s not impossible that Johan Bruyneel could be acquitted, I suppose), would mean very much the same as Lance going down himself.

Away from sport (yes I can hear the gasps), local events reignited a rather morbid curiosity of mine in Michael Gove’s ‘free schools’. Although of course it’s wrong to absolve the previous Labour government of any blame here. (Just this week Lord Adonis, the Labour peer and involved in education policy, described them as the future.) My thoughts are pretty succinct, I disagree with the idea of the British private education system on principle: Your wealth should not determine the quality of education you are given. (An episode of the BBC’s genealogy programme ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ with the comedian Hugh Dennis illustrated this quite articulately, actually, as he finds out about the scholarship which allowed his grandfather to escape going down the mine in favour of  a secondary education, well worth checking out if you like that sort of thing.) The ‘sponsored’ system is however, if better for it’s more comprehensive and less selective nature, symptomatic of the growing trend seen in this government (predictably) to privatise things which ought not to be controlled by the whims of capitalism. The quality of an education should not depend on the ‘autonomy’ (a buzzword which all of the ‘delighted’ academy heads seemed scripted to parrot at regular intervals in the videos which are on the DfES website) of a governing body. I’m not entirely as au fait with this subject as I’d like, so I’m going to avoid parroting any ridiculous clichés at this moment in time, but when the government is talking about a single exam board and cosying up to the Pearson company, it becomes clear that there’s a worrying trend in education policy. Socially selective education isn’t the answer, but neither is commercialised education, and that’s the scary prospect.

The last real thing I’d half-heartedly written concerned, well, me. I was wondering why exactly I write such ludicrously pointless things as this, and still haven’t really hit upon an answer, to be blunt. But it sparked me thinking about being at a delicate little crossroads in life. I’m about to be off to university, and I’ve spent the last month or so cocooned in some bizarre form of limbo where there is a lot of alcohol, some fairly large sub-woofers, and a few gorillas playing chess in the Student Finance HQ (I think they’ve had me at checkmate for ages, although maybe they’ve just started toying with my pawns.) It’s been, to be glib, pretty damn cool, as is the thought of all the people I like to think of as friends crawling all over a map of the UK. (Although, there must be something attractive in Durham, god knows what, but they’re like moths to a flame, I swear I can slip a few more insect metaphors past you, too.) It’s an odd one, but being able to plot a penniless course through the next three years is fun, even if the aftermath promises to be ever more uncertain.

Oh, and I’m forgetting the dirty Harry Potter pick-up lines, they were the highlight, really. (Will try them on you on request and pending a sense of humour audit.)

Finally, I’m going to revive the Pretentious Poetry Corner in order to show you one last thing: Carol Ann Duffy writes on Hillsborough.

THE Cathedral bell, tolled, could never tell;

nor the Liver Birds, mute in their stone spell;

or the Mersey, though seagulls wailed, cursed, overhead,

in no language for the slandered dead…

not the raw, red throat of the Kop, keening,

or the cops’ words, censored of meaning;

not the clock, slow handclapping the coroner’s deadline,

or the memo to Thatcher, or the tabloid headline…

but fathers told of their daughters; the names of sons

on the lips of their mothers like prayers; lost ones

honoured for bitter years by orphan, cousin, wife –

not a matter of football, but of life.

Over this great city, light after long dark;

truth, the sweet silver song of the lark.

They aren’t what they used to be?

Before I begin, I think this, perhaps by its nature, perhaps because of its timing, is going to be one of the more personal things I’ve written. If you don’t want to read that, feel free not to. 🙂

So, dreams.

They, or at least ‘some things’, slide by so carelessly, or so the Killers sang in a song that always got to me. From when I was about twelve, there was something meaningful in the driving melancholy of ‘Smile Like You Mean It’, perhaps it was as simple as it just thoroughly fitted with some of the things that were going on when I was that age, or maybe I just like the nostalgia of the song, but when I think about hopes and dreams and that sort of thing, that’s what tends to be the soundtrack to the thought-process in my head. The other thing which immediately springs to mind though, when I think of dreams, is, well this quote from the very first Harry Potter novel:

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

It’s a bit of advice that’s always had an effect on me, from when I was very little, and still harboured that tragic little hope that perhaps I’d be somewhat magical, I guess it was the moment I fell in love with the idea of wisdom, and it’s definitely the first reason I could name for the adoration I’ll admit to having for Mr. Dumbledore. It’s all quite ironic really, given that fact, and also given that I always tend to remind myself of those words on the very occasions when I’ve perhaps forgotten the advice they hold!

The thing is, dreams fascinate me, not in an astrology/divining the future way, but simply in a ‘why’ way. Why do our bodies do such counterproductive things to us at night? What is *with* the simple conjuring trick performed by our synapses? And why do I always love them so, despite this? What is so intoxicating?

The way I see it, a good dream is the pinnacle of frustrating. Of course you can see it as inspiring perhaps, but the fact remains that you’ve just experienced something good, maybe something you wanted to happen, yet it didn’t occur in any meaningful place. I didn’t actually just save the world and get the girl, if you will. The sort of thing that could be unendingly depressing if it was allowed to be. Although, and this is just occurred to me, perhaps this is the reason why we so often find our dreams teasingly, tantalisingly beyond recollection, our bodies and our brains make the executive decision for us, maybe we should be grateful…

Logically, then we come to bad dreams; the idea of a nightmare. How terrible is it that our own brains invent such torments? It’s as if we don’t have enough worry or terror in our everyday lives. As if the daily tremors of our worlds aren’t high enough on the Richter scale… Still though, maybe it’s that a nightmare makes you feel alive, reminds us of our true fears, of our true anxieties, and I suppose this is good for us, although it’s certainly in the manner of that proverbial ‘bitter pill to swallow’.

Then, I guess, we arrive at the issue of those ever so deadly metaphorical dreams. This is where I’m probably especially guilty, it almost seems human nature to look at things and hypothesise the best way things’ll go, as a recent example, I made this mistake with my latest driving test, and well, it’s a bit naff when you realise how ahead of yourself you were.  The problem is, it seems, that we don’t have this self-regulating safety system when we’re not actually dreaming, we’re free to have the most insane hopes, or the most dreadful fears, without any shut-off, or instant memory loss. It’s the sort of thing that I imagine could be the most dangerous thing in the world if you let it. If you dwelt on the issue, to put it one way.

In the end though, these extra-ordinary, by the very definition of the world, phenomena seem beyond any real quantification. They depend on so many different things, it’s part of that scientific minefield of a debate about what is ‘consciousness’, and I’m going to avoid that, but, it’s always something that makes me think. We set ourselves up for such falls, and I can’t help but think there must be some reason, some great evolutionary decision, somewhere, made to keep us from some primal danger. But really, I guess it’s probably good to admit: I just don’t know.

And maybe that’s the absolutely wonderful thing about dreams. Just maybe. Cross all your fingers and all your toes, then you’ve done all you can. Just maybe.

Hope this hasn’t been too flighty, or too rambling, or too anything really. No pretentious poetry on today’s horizon. Sweet dreams!

Harry

I’ve made it to the other side.

I’ll admit that I was extremely tempted to put something a little more bombastic or melodramatic as a title for this piece, but then it occurred to me, “everyone will already know”. That name that sits above the text, you see it, is all that’s needed isn’t it? It means such a great deal, “Harry Potter” is so much more than a name, and right now, is there really another ‘Harry’ that I could possibly be writing about?

Before I go any further, it’s probably necessary to explain that although it’s a reaction to the film, this shall not be a particularly critical piece, as, where Harry Potter is concerned, I have always doggedly reserved the right to remain hopelessly melodramatic, desperately lovestruck and perhaps, as my sister would attest, more than a little sad. Simply, the tales of Harry Potter have always not so much struck a chord as hammered one.

The release of the final film created a slightly awkward, difficult to quantify milestone; it’s been an end of sorts, but also another reminder that somehow, we’re now coming exceptionally close to four whole years since Joanne Rowling placed that ribbon upon the top of her sprawling story. Surely we should have moved on by now? A book’s a book. Words on paper. They weren’t even uniformly successful with the critics. English teachers tend to hate the books. Why did we ever even bother?

I wonder if you could sense the self-delusion there? Alas I know I haven’t moved on much, not really. Harry remains the most fluffy of comfort blankets. Yes it is only a book, but Ms. Rowling’s world was carelessly, yet perfectly, attuned to the of reading desires of a generation. Our generation. We were able to truly grow up with these characters, to spend years harbouring their secrets and dreaming their dreams. You just need to do a quick search of the internet to see how affected we’ve been by a specky prat with a ‘saving people thing’. Discussion forums, fan-fiction, fan-art, shipping wars, wizard rock, the Harry Potter phenomenon was perfectly timed to take advantage of the cyber-revolution, to send some of these things into the public consciousness, and to invent whole new terms of its own, ‘submariner’ being a personal favourite. On the other hand though, the closeted obsessive isn’t the typical HP fan, simply because it’s almost impossible to define quite what a typical fan ever was. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was supposedly a children’s book, yet never has the phrase seemed quite so narrow or inadequate, Bloomsbury felt compelled to realise an adult cover for each novel after all! Clearly the travails of Harry Potter have appealed to every kind of person, and that says an awful lot.

After all that, this film only had to offer a little closure, a little reassurance that Harry was only in a different room, still around, still meaning something. To be blunt, it did that and so much more. As with the sixth film, DH2 worked on a cinematic level, even if the 3D seemed extraneous, there were some startlingly good performances, especially from the British acting royalty who’ve long garnished HP. The likes of Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith and Julie Walters were subtly excellent, but Ralph Fiennes’ brutal Lord Voldemort stole the show with a brooding anger which cast a definitely pall over proceedings.

However, the scene I fell in love with was the unnerving, ethereal ‘King’s Cross’. Michael Gambon finally comes to inhabit Albus Dumbledore’s tainted wisdom, and Rowling’s seven wonderful books were encapsulated by that one, oft-repeated line. “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

It’s well and truly over now, the madness is passing, the sudden upsurge in Potterism down to this release will soon wane, but in a beautifully diverse diaspora of places, Harry will live on, from children’s bedrooms to the murkiest corners of the internet to Ms. Rowling’s latest ‘Pottermore’ project, there’ll always be someone who’ll never forget.

And surely that makes all the difference in the world.

I’m out the other side, but it’s been obvious for a while that we aren’t in a tunnel.

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Purely for entertainment value, here are the tweets I sent straight after I left the cinema, melodramatic definitely, but perhaps true, and a good deal more concise….

samuelevolpe Sam Volpe

Harry Potter. not just the film, Harry Potter, full stop, has been the most uniting, the most wonderful force in my life.

I think by that, I meant that it beats y’know friction and gravity… I did warn you about the melodrama, but when you think about it, it works. How many different people from so many different worlds have fallen in love with reading thanks to Harry?

samuelevolpe Sam Volpe

 It taught me to fall in love with my imagination, it taught me to wholly and forever give myself over to hope

I guess that by this I’m trying to get at why I’ve kept reading, and why the act of reading is so important to me.

samuelevolpe Sam Volpe

 I feel comfortable saying it is and has been the best children’s book ever written, and it has been so so much more for those of us who….

I’m not being in any way derogatory by calling it a children’s book, just to be clear, that is what I see it has always been, or at least something aimed at the mythical ‘Young Adult’.

samuelevolpe Sam Volpe

 ….have been lucky enough to grow up with it. I probably sound melodramatic, and maybe a little sad, but sometimes things mean rather alot.

As, no doubt, this blog has proved.

Raise a glass to the Boy-Who-Lived eh?