March 2011 in Films, Books and Music

It's only looking back on this month that I realise how busy it's been. I thought it was going to be a bit dull, a bit lifeless and a bit too work-oriented, but it's actually been pretty hectic. I've hosted my first proper house party, watched one of my best friends rock the stage in a production of Les Miserables, passed my driving test, come one step closer to having a dream fulfilled, been through my third run-through of the TV God that is Firefly, attended a Masquerade Ball and spent FAR too much money. But, of course, I've still made time for the cinema, soundtracking my life and bathtime reading.

Films

Easy A - I am only slightly ashamed to admit that I am seasoned in the watching of trashy American high-school movies. Generally speaking they're simply mindless tat to sit through with the girls on ice-cream-and-wine nights before everybody starts crying about their love lives. There are a few exceptions to this - the geuinely witty films that you don't have to be a teenage girl to enjoy (examples include '10 Things I Hate About You' and 'Clueless'), and 'Easy A' is one of these. It hasn't escaped my notice that all three of these films are modern adaptations of old-fashioned stories ('10 Things...' is based on Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, 'Clueless' on Austen's Emma and Easy A on The Scarlet Letter).

A Beautiful Mind - I was well prepared to rant about crappy endings when it came to this film. Renowned tearjerker, Oscar-winning, based on a true story, involving mental illness - all of these things usually result in lobotomies, early deaths and me getting through a pack of tissues (or four). This, however, took me by surprise, and was simply wonderful. Superbly acted (I love me a bit o' Paul Bettany) by all the leads, poignantly written and sensitively filmed. Brilliant film.

Invictus - not quite as groundbreaking and poignant as I was expecting, but still a cracking movie with a perfectly cast Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. Matt Damon is always good value, and this film reinforced my belief that rugby is simply a better sport than football. The

Adjustment Bureau - took me most of the month to organise my friends into seeing this with me, but it was bloody worth it. Not at all what I was expecting (a vaguely political action/adventure/thriller), but more of a romantic drama with a sci-fi edge and some wicked acting from Emily Blunt and Matt Damon (who gets more and more fanciable with each film I see him in...).

Music

Tim Minchin 'Ready For This' - I have a habit of making abrupt about-turns with my opinions on certain matters. Basically I see/listen to/read a snippet of something and make an immediate negative judgement, then promptly forget it exists. Some months later I'll learn a bit more about whatever 'it' is, give it another chance and end up in love. Examples include the programme 'Misfits', the band Bon Jovi and the comedian Tim Minchin. I watched the DVD to this back in January, but this month a friend leant me the CD, and it's every bit as hysterical as I hoped it would be. Favourite tracks: 'The Good Book', 'Song For Phil Daost' and 'If I Didn't Have You'.

Songs To Listen To In The Rain (Mixtape) - my friend Lewis made a mixtape of 'sad songs' and a mixtape of 'happy songs' for myself and my best friend Roz, the theory being that since she's a perpetually happy person and I'm a generally angry one, we could listen to our own kinds of music, then swap. Lewis' taste in music leans heavily on the Kate Bush/Bjork/Tori Amos spectrum and is generally too weird for me, but this mixtape was yet another example of him taking me by surprise. Favourite tracks: 'The Sound of Silence' - Simon and Garfunkel, 'Obsessions' - Marina and the Diamonds, 'Bully' - Lissie and 'Turning Tables' - Adele.

Blue Skies 'Blue Skies Covers' - another YouTube musician, but these were songs I downloaded for free (legally, I might add) because he covered several of my all-time favourites, he's rather beautiful and I gave up internet shopping for Lent, so I had to improvise. Bearing in mind I usually hate covers of my favourites, Blue Skies did a superb job of acoustifying (not technically a word, but sounds authentic...) some classics. Favourite tracks: 'I Will Follow You Into The Dark' (originally Deathcab For Cutie), 'Iris' (originally Goo Goo Dolls) and 'Land's End' (originally Patrick Wolf).

Books

An Abundance of Katherines, John Green - I read this in about a day right at the beginning of the month, so I don't remember many specifics, but it was wonderful. Simply wonderful. Possibly my favourite John Green novel - though it's the least talked about - largely because it had the least bittersweet ending, but also because I found Lindsey, the female protagonist in this, much easier to relate to than Looking For Alaska's Alaska, or Paper Town's Margo.

The Rachel Papers, Martin Amis - leant to me by my posh friend, Oliver. Witty, well-written but deeply weird, hard to get through and with a thoroughly dislikeable protagonist. I'm interested enough to get to the end, but probably wouldn't recommend it and won't read it again.

(I had to have about six goes at the layout of this post -- for some inexpicable reason my losing streak with technology decided to flare up and it just refused to publish properly, so sorry. *sigh*. I tried.)

Most. Exciting. Thing. Ever.

Right, there's a little bit of backstory needed before I reach the climax of excitement here (no innuendo intended...), so bear with me before the FULL OVERREACTION FREAKOUT happens.

Between the ages of 13 and 15, I wrote a fantasy trilogy, which (at 16) I sent off to numerous agencies and eventually received a letter from an agent saying that whilst my story didn't grab her, my writing style did. I met with this lady, and during the lunch it became apparent (to me, if not my mum) that what this agent wanted from me was girly teenage fiction. You can see her point - the marketable factors would have been irresistable (girly teenage troubles written by a teenage girl etc etc) - but I hate reading that kind of crap, nevermind writing it, and I made no secret of this. That being the case, she politely explained that maybe I should try writing 'something else'. Which I did.

I spent my 16th year writing another novel; more original, more mature and (hopefully) more sellable (a word? maybe...I'm not convinced). I sent this back to the same agent, got - this time - a fairly resounding 'no' and started sending it off again. By now I was 17, didn't have time to start a new writing project properly (A-Levels, social life, occasional bit of sleeping etc) and becoming increasingly disillusioned with the whole publishing industry. Seriously. You know how angry you get when someone less skilled beats you at the thing you're best at (be it a sport, creative talent, career opportunity or whatever); imagine how infuriated I used to get on reading those unbelievably popular books (mentioning no specific vampir- sorry, I meant examples) that I knew I could have written - or indeed, anyone could have written.

So about a month ago, I received my eighteenth rejection. Yep. Eighteenth. And I thought, 'maybe I should finally take this as a hint', and I very nearly gave up. There's no real reason why I didn't give up. I just opened my drawer, saw that I still had a couple of copies to send and thought 'sod it, it's not like I'm still liable to burst into tears at every rejection'. And I am practiced at this, now. You spend an hour researching the agent, package up a letter, a synopsis and the first three chapters, nip down to the post office, send it off and do your best to forget about it for six weeks (apart from the daily spasm when the post arrives).

And so last night, I checked my email for the sixth or seventh time that day (I'm waiting for university offers, agency replies and YouTube notifications. Six or seven is pretty restrained; twenty is standard), and saw that I had a reply from an agent. I heaved a heavy sigh. Eight months on, I'd grown pretty used to glazing over the words 'thank you for your submission...very interesting...unfortunately we don't think it's quite right for us...' or some variant thereof.

So I opened the email and let my eyes skim over the typically short message. 'Thank you for your submission...great potential...send your full typescript...'

Wait, what?

I'll admit, that was the point at which my heart started trying to beat it's way out of my ribcage. I forced myself to take a deep breath, look carefully, read it word-for-word (and then another eight or so times, for clarification). 'We have received you submission and feel it has great potential so would like to see more material. Could you submit the full typescript to us, preferably by post.' I stared blankly at the computer screen for about a minute. Then I leapt up, half-jumped across my bedroom floor, tried to yank open the door (nearly fell out of it) and sprinted down the stairs screaming "MUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMM!!!"

And to be honest, this isn't a guarantee, or anything approaching one. This agency hasn't offered to represent me. To put it in more understandable terms, it's like sending your CV out to a bunch of companies and - at long last - getting an interview. The chances of getting the job are still slim but I have, finally, after months - years, really - of failed attempts, I've finally jumped that first hurdle. For the first time in years, I've received some encouragement, after months and months of failures. And it feels bloody brilliant.

Love and Loss

Another serious one, I'm afraid. Yesterday, one of my best friends lost their Grandmother, and I didn't know how to reach out to her in a sensitive, subtle way: face-to-face risks tears, phone risks tears, letters are a bit corny and facebook/email seems slightly tacky, so I'm going for a blog post, mainly because it's the only other outlet I could think of.

I've always felt an affinity towards Amy with regards to our grandparents, because both of us had grandmas cursed with dementia. Dementia is one of those diseases that has no cure, no treatment and no real understanding, and as such it's one of the scariest prospects I think it's possible to be faced with. It's almost impossible to get through it with dignity, it must be terrifying to know it's happening to you, and it's immensely painful for the ones around you that love you. The only real way to get through a loved one's dementia, I think, is to find what humour you can and treat it as lightly as is possible. That might sound crass, but to be honest, when you've been asked for the eighth time in five minutes what day it is, your options are to laugh or to cry, and bearing in mind how frequently these situations occur, I would always go for laughter.

Amy always handled her grandma's illness with humour, grace, good spirits and as little bitterness as it's possible to feel. I've always admired her for that. But one of the worst things about dementia - worst, almost, than your Nan forgetting who you are, accidentally dropping forgotten cigarettes on the carpet and being too scared to even visit the doctor's - is the feeling left behind when they have gone. Because of course you feel grief, loss, emptiness, but at the same time there is an undeniable but shameful streak of relief. Admitting to it will inevitably make you feel guilty beyond compare, but there's no point in lying: when a loved one has reached the stage where they are no longer safe to be left alone, when everything they cared for has either been taken from them or forgotten and when their family's every waking thought is haunted by the worries and concerns dementia brings, death feels like a kind of escape.

And if Amy does feel that way, I hope she knows that it's understandable, forgivable and completely ordinary. Dementia is a horrible disease to live with, and if passing away is the only way of providing freedom from it, I think most people would take it.

Amy's been one of my closest friends for years now, and I know her well enough to be aware that her concern will be for her Mum, not herself, and I know that there are three things that are always there and will get her through this. Her family, her music, and her friends. And I know that she knows it will be alright; it always is, in the end.

My Second Home

As mentioned in previous posts, I am currently undergoing the riot of fun and excitement that is University applications. This being the case, I wanted to revisit my top choices for Unis to make sure I had the right choices for first and insurance in mind. If you aren't aware of the British University system, it's unnecessarily complicated, but the basics are that you apply to five universities and if (in an ideal world) they all accept you, you pick two -- a first choice, where you really want to go, and an insurance choice, where you'll go if you don't get the grades for your first choice. I decided on my first choice many months ago, and a visit day last month simply reconfirmed that it is the place I want to be. Having said that, on Wednesday I was up in Lancaster - theoretically my insurance choice - to have another poke around the Uni, take a shifty at the course and just generally gauge the atmosphere of the place. And whilst I really enjoyed the open day, what the trip really did was reignite my love of Lancashire.

Lancashire is kind of a second home to me -- though I was born in Yorkshire and raised in Derbyshire, my mum is Lancastrian, and my Grandma lived there up until a couple of years ago, meaning that it's where I spent most of my half terms throughout my childhood. Because we don't visit it as often anymore, I always forget how much I love it, and how at home I feel there. I know my mum feels similarly -- though she hasn't lived in Lancashire for nearly twenty years, she always relaxes back into it (her accent slips a bit too -- 'tour' ends up being pronounced 'too-ur' rather than 'tor' and 'look' gets elongated into a proper 'oooo' sound).

Anyway, on the way home we needed to stop somewhere for tea, and my mum chose a pub that used to be her 'local', before I was born. The pub was something that's become increasingly rare in England -- it still had that old-world, wooden-beams and open-fireplace feel, but it wasn't full of chavvy football hooligans knocking pints down to their apparently indestructible livers. Largely it was occupied by friendly old codgers -- the kind of men who wear tweed and smoke pipes and say 'aye' a lot.

But it's not just the regulars -- everybody there just has so much time for you, and it would be weird for you to have left a pub without talking to a stranger. My mum once told me how shocked she was the first time she got on a London tube, because nobody was speaking to each other. They just sat there, heads down, noses in books, phones out and warily keeping themselves to themselves. Even in my own experience of trains around South Yorkshire/North Derbyshire, it's not unusual to end up chatting on a train but it's not a given either. But in Lancashire, it would have been a weird train journey if the old lady on your left hadn't discussed her sister's best friend's hip replacement.

And it makes you feel so welcome. At every pub I've ever been to at home it's been an stick-to-your-own kind arrangement, but not in Lancashire. As soon as I walked in, the barman came over, leant over my shoulder and talked me through the deals on offer tonight - whilst we were eating he came back about six times to check we were okay, and asked if we were regulars, where were we from, what were we up for, had I liked the University. Granted, my mum thinks he was flirting with me, but I sure as hell wasn't complaining...

But even then, we got chatting to two waitresses, somebody else who'd been to the open day, a couple of the old regulars and a remarkably drunk woman who repeatedly told my mum how young she looked (Mother Dearest wasn't complaining, either). All over one meal, in one night, at one pub. I've never encountered another place where that happens, and it never fails to make me feel at home. And it doesn't matter wherever I end up in the world, I know I'll never not love Lancashire.

50th Post!

This is another one of those, I've-just-finished-today's-jobs-and-now-don't-know-what-to-do-oh-I'll-write-a-random-blog blogs. Yes, that did make sense. Rest of this post might not though; I've just written 1,500 words worth of drivel about the Spanish Church in the 16th century, I'm listening to Hugh Grant singing and my first attempt at typing the word 'century' came out 'cvrntiati', so I think it's safe to say that my mind isn't quite on full throttle right now.

It's very weird to think that this is my fiftieth blog post...even though I've been at this blog post for what I THINK is nearly 18 months now, fifty random scraps of writing seems like a hell of a lot...if you've read all fifty, congratulations (and get some friends), if you've read two or three, you should waste your life and read the other fifty, if you've never read any then.....you can't be reading this. Well, that's awkward.

Anyway I'm not gonna ramble on because I want to drool over Jake Gyllenhaal in 'Prince of Persia' as soon as possible, so this was just a quick note to say - if you are reading - thanks. :)

(Now don't you think you should go and tell all of your friends about my wonderfully witty, ever-so eloquent and irreverently intelligent waffling? Mm? Off you go then...)