Ashes of roses

I was reading Ditch Monkey: Ferrero Roche, and the phrase "ashes of roses" cought my eye:

Last night was a bit of a contrast to the normal Wood living antics, it started off at the a Fashion show at the Argentinean Ambassador’s residence, lots of clothes, lots of models wearing stuff like this http://www.ashesofroses.com/ lots of champagne and a whole bunch of mischief. From there I managed to find my way to Brick Lane, somehow loosing my friends and wallet on the way. When I got there I discovered another fashion show going on, this time all the clothes had been created from recycled clothes. ...

I was thinking Ashes of roses might be something goth-romantic, and maybe it is; but a look on the web suggested a possible source for the phrase in a novel, Ashes of Roses by Mary Jane Auch, page 52:

I carefully unpacked my good dress and smoothed out the creases. Ma had made it for me just a few months before we left. In Limerick she was a seamstress for a fancy shop on O'Connell Street, and they paid her only a small fraction of what they sold the dresses for. The shop owner must have felt guilty about that, because every now and then he'd let Ma have some fabric, usually something that was damaged. The piece she made my dress of was silk taffeta in a new color called "ashes of roses." It had some water stains on it, but Ma cut the pattern so none of them showed. I'd never had anything quite so grand. Though I tried not to be prideful, I couldn't help but notice in the mirror how the soft rose colour brought out the blush in my cheeks.

There is also a poem by Elaine Goodale Eastman:

Ashes of Roses

Soft on the sunset sky
   Bright daylight closes,
Leaving, when light doth die,
Pale hues that mingling lie —
   Ashes of roses.

When love’s warm sun is set,
   Love’s brightness closes;
Eyes with hot tears are wet,
In hearts there linger yet
   Ashes of roses.

Only women read

In Hello, would you like a free book?, The Guardian Tuesday September 20, 2005, Ian McEwan reports what happened when he tried to give away novels:

Every young woman we approached - in central London practically everyone seems young - was eager and grateful to take a book. Some riffled through the pile murmuring, "Read that, read that, read that ..." before making a choice. Others asked for two, or even three.

The guys were a different proposition. They frowned in suspicion, or distaste. When they were assured they would not have to part with their money, they still could not be persuaded. "Nah, nah. Not for me. Thanks mate, but no." Only one sensitive male soul was tempted.

As in the 18th century, so in the 21st. Cognitive psychologists with their innatist views tell us that women work with a finer mesh of emotional understanding than men. The novel - by that view the most feminine of forms - answers to their biologically ordained skills. From other rooms in the teeming mansion of the social sciences, there are others who insist that it is all down to conditioning. But perhaps the causes are less interesting than the facts themselves. Reading groups, readings, breakdowns of book sales all tell the same story: when women stop reading, the novel will be dead.

Not only that. Only women watch television. Here's Charlie Brooker on why men are portrayed as morons in shows such as He's Having a Baby (men fumble tasks regularly managed by moms) and Bring Your Husband To Heel (a dog trainer teaches men to behave) even though most network controllers are men amd "ultimately men are nodding these through":

Well, since the ... study of demographics became a number one priority in TV land, it's been noted that men are a tough audience to snare. So perhaps it's an act of revenge. Here's a quote in which Nick Elliot, ITV's controller of drama, explains why most of his output is aimed at women:

"You can bash your head against a brick wall trying to make dramas for 16- to 34-year-old males, but if they only want to watch football or videos and PlayStation, there's no point ... I'm not sure what a very male drama is. Maybe it's about business or something. We do guns and violence for boys occasionally... We actually thought Footballers' Wives would appeal to men, but it doesn't very much ... they soon suss out it isn't about football."

Jesus! He hates men! And no wonder: from the sounds of it, they're morons! Because that's what you see when you study any demographic: a hateful, ignorant, unthinking mass. And in this case, a mass which doesn't watch much telly.

Everyone in telly studies demographics. And I think that's why they hate us.

"Screen burn: Surface male", The Guardian, Saturday September 17, 2005.

Talk like a pirate day

September 19th is Talk Like a Pirate Day.

But how does one talk like a pirate beyond saying "Arrr", or "Ahoy!", or "Jim lad"?

(Talking like a pirate's parrot might be easier. "Arrawk!", "pieces of eight!", "dead man's chest!". Priate's parrots can be random and ironic.)

Naturally, the web has the answer. Or an answer. Here it is:

• Double up on all your adjectives... Pirates never speak of "a big ship", they call it a "great, grand ship!" They never say never, they say "No nay ne'er!"
• Drop all your "g"'s when you speak and you'll get words like "rowin'", "sailin'" and "fightin'". Dropping all of your "v"'s will get you words like "ne'er", "e'er" and "o'er".
• Instead of saying "I am", sailors say, "I be". Instead of saying "You are", sailors say, "You be". Instead of saying, "They are", sailors say, "They be". Ne'er speak in anythin' but the present tense!

Thanks to The Talk Like a Pirate Day UK HQ, which also provides a clue as to how it all started:

International Talk Like A Pirate Day began in the mists of the 1990s, when two Yankees, John Baur (Ol' Chum Bucket) and Mark Summers (Cap'n Slappy), be talkin' like pirates all o'a sudden. They decided that, to further the noble causes of the sweet trade of piracy, September 19 each year be the day when all souls over the world should be talkin' like pirates. For years, their valiant efforts were wasted, until they contacted a man by the name of Dave Barry, who be writin' a humour column for the great masses o' landlubbers out yonder. ...

Of course, on this site Pirate Day calls for pictures of Sam from the Big Brother 6 Pirate Task. Sam was the most loyal member of Captain Science's crew (mutinous, scurvy dogs, who failed the task on its first day), but I think only Science tried to talk in-character.

Indeed, it took the lubbers only an hour and a half to fail.

Stop Press: This Ship Has Sunk
Day 19, 22:30

The Housemates can swashbuckle all they want but it won't change the fact that they have already failed the pirate task.

Incredibly, their chances were scuppered just an hour and a half into their voyage on the high seas.

Thanks to shoddy shipmates Anthony, Saskia and Maxwell forgetting to don their hats, the crew incurred three fails. Big Beard ordered only two a day would be acceptable.
...

The soundtrack of this site: Transvision Vamp

Why Transvision Vamp?

Because it's a revolution, baby, and I don't care; because Wendy James was the perfect bleached blonde trash-pop goddess; and because they did a cover of Holly Beth Vincent's "Tell that girl to shut up".

Wendy James has recently reappeared as Racine, writing, producing, and playing all the instruments.

Links:
We Are Transvision Vamp!
The Racine World

Hated Heroine: Katie Leung

Scottish actress Katie Leung, who plays Harry Potter's Goblet of Fire love interest Cho Chang, became the subject of hate sites when she got the part. In a widely reported item in the UK October issue of Good Housekeeping, she said

"Looking different from most of the people at school never caused me any problems. Still, I never expected the hate sites that popped up on the internet after I got the part in the film. I couldn’t understand why people were so angry - a lot of the messages were from jealous girls who didn’t like the fact that I play Harry’s love interest in the film and some of them did bring my ethnicity into it."

The September 11, 2005 Sunday Mail provides more detail:

Comments printed on the "Hate Katie" sites include: "I hate her because she is stupid, dumb, an idiot and gets to play Cho Chang.

"And, oh... she gets to kiss Daniel Radcliffe."

Other comments attack her looks as 'ugly' and 'bizarrely too Eastern', poke fun at her Scottish background and mock her soft Scottish accent.

But there have been others even more coarse and explicitly racist.

However, the story goes back to an article, "Harry Potter and the Poisoned Chalice", that appeared in the Mail on Sunday on April 10, 2005. This being a Harry Potter story, it was bound to be possible to find the complete article somewhere, and somewhere tuned out to be a page at Veritaserum. Here's part:

Despite being deliberately kept under wraps by Warner - without public appearances, interviews, or official pictures - the slender and shy student has become a hate figure for obsessive Potter fans.

Scores of fake websites have sprung up, some apparently giving her thoughts and feelings in diary form. ...

Most disturbing are several 'hate Katie' sites where youngsters are encouraged to explain in graphic detail why they loathe the dark-haired beauty. One site has e-mails with statements such as: 'I hate Katie Leung till the end of time.'
...
There are racist comments too crude to print, many using the coarsest language. Some come from angry fans of established Korean and Chinese actresses who failed to get an audition. This is because Potter creator J.K. Rowling insisted that the girl whose caress transforms the bespectacled Harry from boy to love-struck adolescent has to be a complete unknown.

The natural reaction is sympathy for the actress, combined with disgust at what is being said, but sometimes there is something else that will be familiar to many who have followed internet discussions of Big Brother housemates: a curious admixture of "What did she expect?". For example, a forum thread, "Katie Leung - the price of fame", at SnitchSneeker.com, where one post by DramaticJourno includes:

The recent Katie issue is the most perfect example of fame's cost. The truth is, quite a lot of young people who dream of becoming a successful actor or actress want the job in order to become 'famous'.
...
It's all part of the celebrity obsession. ... Teenagers aspire to be the stars of tomorrow, ... youngsters ... assume that they can rise to fame overnight.

However, Katie Leung's rise to fame practically did appear overnight. The once-unknown student is now the envy of thousands of girls across the globe, who have become so bitter that they are taking to internet abuse to let out their anger. It's a huge step for Katie, and even though I personally pity her, my main thought is, 'Well what did she expect?'

Having a sought-after part in a huge movie is bound to spark fury somewhere along the line. hoever you are, not everyone is going to like you. Hatelistings and nasty webpages are upsetting, but it really is all part of being a rising star, and should really be expected. Everyone gets bad press; it's a fact of being famous. ...

Yet being just seventeen, it is understandable why such negativity could be worrying Katie.

But alas...she wanted to be Cho, and should have realised in the first place that bad aspects were obviously going to be experienced as well as good. Though it is simply astonishing what things can be said about a girl nobody knows; who is not due to make her screen debut until later this year.

On the whole, the article is sympathetic, and it makes some well-observed points. However, on this one issue, the reasoning takes a slightly odd turn. What's being said about her is "simply astonishing", but ... she should have expected it.

One thing missing from all of the articles I've seen so far is any sense that the internet has brought out something new. Yet whatever nasty things rising stars had to face in the past, webpages containing comments "too crude to print" were not among them. Yes, a few people might write hate-filled letters, but they couldn't so easily find, and be encouraged by, others with similar opinions.

Overrated Heroine: Kate Moss

From coolest woman in the world to raddled druggie in just a few days.

Or: in no days at all. For here is Jess Cartner-Morley in The Guardian on Thursday September 15, 2005, the very day in which the Daily Mirror published the fateful photos, explaining Why Kate Moss is the coolest woman on earth:

The power politics of fashion's inner sanctum are opaque to all outside it, and so riven with Chinese whispers that most of those on the inside are only pretending to know what's going on. ... Elsewhere, the dynamics of style are fairly self-evident: a pretty girl - Sienna Miller, for instance - wears nice clothes, gets film-star boyfriend, so we all copy her for a bit. After a while we get bored of her look and start slagging her off instead. Often, this happens at about the same point the film star boyfriend gets bored and starts slagging around, which is a bit brutal, but there you go.

But fashion's top tier has a pecking order all its own. At this level, such mundane considerations as pretty dresses and It handbags will get you precisely nowhere. ... Anna Wintour sits with her arms and legs crossed, with no handbag, just a tiny mobile phone in a tiny hand. Carine Roitfeld, the editor of French Vogue, has fine, raven hair with no extensions or highlights, is sinewy-thin but without fake breasts, and has a lopsided-sexy smile that is likened to either Mick Jagger or Iggy Pop, depending on whether she turned you down for a job. She is unlikely to grace the cover of Heat. Within the industry, however, the influence of her look is so great that Tom Ford considered her his muse while designing for Gucci.

Roitfeld - and this is the news that seems to have prompted the article - is letting Kate guest edit the December issue of French Vogue.

"There is something magical about Kate," said Roitfeld. Of course, this statement only confirms what Heat readers have known for years, but therein lies the impact: the greatest mass fashion icon is being given the ultimate seal of critical approval.
...
Moss's influence over fashion grows by the minute. She stalks the catwalks and corridors of fashion power looking mischievous and haughty at the same time, like Madame de Pompadour, only slightly less chaste. By the simple technique of almost never uttering a word to the press, she has perfected a public persona that makes Anna Wintour - probably her only remaining rival for the title of fashion's most influential woman - look cuddly and approachable. Moss, who as a model understands full well that even icons have to keep up, currently has two public looks. One is accessorised with a waistcoat, Pete Doherty, a bottle of beer and sunglasses which hint at late, late nights; the other is elegant and decadent, in an F Scott Fitzgerald kind of way, all expensive evening gowns and gin and tonics. The theme for Moss's 30th birthday party at Claridges, after all, was "the beautiful and the damned".
...

Some of the oddities of Britain's celebrity obsession can be glimpsed in that article. The "dynamics of style" are treated as something that just happens. We just "start slagging her off", for no particular reason, when we "get bored of her look", rather than just ... getting bored, and moving on to someone else. And that has supposedly happened with Sienna Miller? "At about the same point the film star boyfriend gets bored"? I wonder if it has, in any lasting way. She still seems popular enough to me.

Heat is mentioned, without anything about its role in style / slagging dynamics; and although Carine Roitfeld is "unlikely to grace the cover", Heat readers were supposedly years ahead of her in knowing "there is something magical about Kate."

Now a dynamic has many slagging Kate off instead, led by the press; but will the public follow?

In more innocent times, just two days before, Marina Hyde's chosen criticism in her gently mocking So you couldn't quite get your head around A Brief History of Time? was merely distress at Kate's voice:

Profoundly troubling as it is to learn that Kate Moss is considering quitting Britain, one has to agree she has no choice if she is to preserve her myth.

For years, the supermodel has turned down all requests for interviews and refused to comment on any story. So many photographs coupled with so few words have contrived to surround her with an air of beautiful, fascinating mystery. ...

But Who the F*** is Pete Doherty?, the recent BBC3 documentary about her on-off Babyshambles singer boyfriend, changed all that irrevocably. Initially all seemed well. There was footage of Kate laughing silently, lounging silently, and dancing silently. Then there was footage of her arriving at Glastonbury (silently) while music, always incidental music, swirled round her heavenly form.

At which point there was a sound akin to the needle being abruptly scraped off a record. "Oh my God!" she screeched at some acquaintance in gratingly strident tones. "You've no idea what a facking nightmare we've had getting here ..."

Mossy. It's over. Bon voyage.

Born to be sold

All you hot shot, big buck
Sweet talking, side walking
Foot tapping, tail wagging
Back stabbing, money grabbing
Slaves of gold
I'm telling you, I don't need to be told
I cross my heart, rock my soul
Baby I was born to be sold
I was born to be sold
- Transvision Vamp

This is just a reminder (I need one somewhere) that television and radio are different from everything else in that the people who would normally be the customers - the viewers and listeners - don't pay. Instead, they're sold. Advertisers pay for access to the audience, which is why broadcasters care so much about audience demographics.

(Of course, newspapers and magazines do the same, but in a less pure form.)

Living in a ditch, living in an Oxford ditch

Hugh Sawyer, 32, Oxford law graduate, Sotheby's bids department by day, ... ditch in the woods by night.

"I want to make people think about how much they consume that is not necessary," he told The Observer. "I am trying to prove it is possible to do everything you normally do, maintaining a full existence, while cutting back. I have realised I can lead my life without television, carpets, sofa, electricity, chairs, tables, a fridge and a freezer."

He's also trying to raise money for the Woodland Trust. (There's a link in his blog to a site where you can make donations.)

He has clothes, books, and photographs in a rucksack, a cooking stove, a sleeping bad, and a tarp for rain. A hammock also seems to be involved. This seems totally inadequate to me. What? Not even a tent? Nor, it seems, a torch. When it's dark, he just has trouble finding things. He started with six weeks, found that "quite easy", and now aims for a year.

It's not clear that he literally lives in a ditch (is there something wrong with flat ground?), though The Observer has a picture of him bedding down "in his Oxfordshire ditch", with a small radio in his hand and what looks like a suit jacket and tie hanging over a fence wire.

A quote from the blog:

I believe that I thought the hammock to be the most comfortable thing in the world last week when I tried it for the first time after three months of sleeping on the ground. Having just spent a week in a hotel sleeping in bed wider that I am tall I think that I might have been a little hasty with my previous beliefs. However, it was certainly nice to sleep out in the fresh air again and to hear the owls, deer and badgers. I wasn’t so sure about the Owl that woke me at about 3 am by screeching from just above my head, or the deer that woke me up by barking or even the badger that woke me up by scratching about under the hammock but other than that it was fine.

The Observer quotes psychologist John Collins saying "if he sticks it out for a year, it will be difficult for him to return to the noise of the city." Yet he works in the city, and it's not exactly noiseless where he sleeps.

"The woods are not a quiet place at night as all the animals go about their business so it takes a bit of time to get used to all the movements I guess," he writes in another blog entry; and in one for Thursday, September 08, 2005, he complains about being kept awake by police helicopters!

There's something appealing about having fewer things, but I wouldn't want to lose books, or music. (I've just turned on a radio.) Still, I think I could do without television, that "drug of the nation". Television is often unsatisfying, disposable, or just plain irritating. Is there any other area where so many people are paid so much to produce rubbish?

His blog: Ditch Monkey
Observer article, Sunday 4 September, 2005.
Guardian article, Friday 9 September, 2005.

No happy ending

Charlie Courtauld reviewing Children of Beslan in The Independent on Sunday, 4 September 2005:

One year on from the siege of School No 1 - the three-day terrorist attack which left 371 dead - the surviving youngsters relived the nightmare in their own words. Stripped of voice-over, the film was stark in it's simplicity: just children speaking, with translation via subtitles. A few years ago - before The Second Russian Revolution - programme-makers might have shied from the prospect of an all-subtitle show. No longer, thank goodness: for programmes like this - where cadence counts for so much - subtitles are infinitely preferable to voiced translation. Those left in Beslan displayed dreadful survivors' guilt: "We're serious now," one boy asserted. "We don't fight. We're gorwn-ups." I guess he was eight.

There was no mawkish happy ending either. These children won't forgive or forget. One girl, Laima, draws endless pictures of the terrorists -- and then burns them: "It's impossible to get enough revenge," she insists.

Learning films by heart, aiming for perfection

In the Saturday September 3, 2005 Guardian, Mark Lawson considered the implications of the increasing popularity of DVDs. Most of it was about whether the "old-fashioned picture house experience" would survive; but towards the end was something more interesting:

But DVD's greatest achievement has been to transform the nature of the memory of entertainment. In the past, the viewer of cinema or television was subject both to short-term amnesia (the misunderstood plot-twist, the punchline obliterated by a laugh or cough) and to long-term memory-loss: you were lucky to see a classic twice in your lifetime. It's true that video began to intensify recollection, but DVD, with its chapter selection and commentaries, has permitted total recall. If someone likes a film or TV show now, they can know it as well as poems learned by rote at school.

DVD was much praised on this account at last weekend's Edinburgh International Television Festival. The dramatist Stephen Poliakoff, who left the BBC for cinema in the 80s after his play Soft Targets was screened only once, now knows that his work can be repeated at the viewer's private pleasure.

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant revealed that the knowledge that The Office and Extras would be chapter-selected, frozen and rewound encouraged them to aim for perfectionism.

For more, see the full article, "Movie revolution: The popcorn gang can no longer hold back the march of the DVD."

The way people watch, and understand, reality shows must also be affected by the widespread use of video, DVD, and hard disk recorders; and this will include the aspects that would normally be the most ephemeral, such as the Big Brother live stream. (Yet so far this has not caused BB housemates to "aim for perfection".)

Hated Heroines: teenage moms

“I might be a teenage mom, but it does not mean you have to be a failure.

Hannah White managed ten GCSEs, seven at A or A*, despite giving birth part way through Here's The Observer, on Sunday, August 28, 2005:

Teenage mother Hannah White is celebrating GCSE success despite going into labour half way through her exams. The 16-year-old from Bisham, near Blackpool, got 10 GCSEs - seven at A* and A - and wants to become a doctor. She had sat six subjects before going into labour just hours after an English Literature exam. She gave birth to 7lb 15oz Ebony at 5am the next morning. She then sat a 90-minute Religious Studies exam in a hospital side room the following day.

The Sun takes up the story:

“An exam invigilator came to the hospital with a copy of the paper.

“We had to go into a special room where she held Ebony on her knee while I did the exam.

“I wasn’t tired — all I remember is being on a massive high. I wanted to run about after the birth.

“All I wanted to do was cuddle my baby girl but I knew I had worked so hard so I thought I might as well give it a go.”

In The Guardian, Laura Barton's "Sidelines" wrapped it in heroine spin:

Gymslip mums, they're only in it for the council flat, right? No siree bob. And certainly not Hannah White ... My, the Daily Mail must be fuming.