XCity arts and culture - issue 1 - the firsts issue

XCITY

arts and culture

XCITY presents

Michael Palin

The comedy legend on his latest tropical adventure

the first issue

Dark Tourism

arts and culture the first issue

Why are we drawn to sites of atrocities

Paloma Faith

The popstar raised on protest marches

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editor’s note

editor Jen Bowden

contents news 2 news trends comics, communes and tweets 5 film festivals can cuts breed creativity?

6 bright things up and coming British talent 8 Michael Palin on his father, his travels and the cause closest to his heart

art 10 the art of unrest the artists of Occupy 12 cover story designs to make you judge books by their covers 13 the fempire strikes back the rise of female screen writers 14 turn and face the strange performers’ creative alter egos 16 record breaking experts’ first music moments

Visit our website at www.xcityarts.com for more features and news

21 the new blondes Manic Pixie Dream Girls, the new fantasy female 22 lifting the curtain Shakespeare’s first theatre rediscovered 24 Paloma Faith on Tories, Red Ken and Forties fashions

43 first experience of Britain what British culture means to immigrants

lifestyle 48 fashion in the digital age how the internet is changing the fashion calendar

managing editor Emma Featherstone art editor Oli Stratford deputy art editor Eleanor Griggs production editor Laurie Tuffrey picture editor James Waldron chief sub Tom Shepherd deputy sub Tom Allsop news editor Madlen Davies

26 rise of the biopic fictionalising the famous

50 siege of the power stylist designers eclipsed by those who dress the stars

arts editor Sophie Haslett

28 hidden art works that will never be seen

52 between the lines fashion shoot - Forties tailoring

culture editor Madeleine Cuff

58 fashion and film ten films that have changed what we wear

lifestyle editor Emma Spedding

culture 30 meat the future can lab-grown meat feed the world?

34 women on top the female sexual revolution 36 Obama on trial yes we can, or can we?

38 she who dares women who need to come first

60 read my lips the enduring power of red lips 62 sex on tapp Grindr, Blendr, and modern relationships 64 the style council purpose-built flats become palaces 67 Sebastian Foucan the founder of freerunning

17 a life in pop milestones in a fictional life

40 the revolution will be 3D what new technology means for medicine

68 eating our way out restaurants defying the recession

18 literature unbound publishing revolutionised

41 dark tourism are we drawn to sites of atrocity?

70 first places favourite spots in the UK

20 Kate Mosse the Labyrinth author on selfpublishing

42 George Carlin a celebration of the life of a comedy legend

72 the last word Harry Potter’s Neville on life after Hogwarts

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deputy editor Sophie Tighe

online editor Hugh Langley deputy online editor Elli Donajgrodzki multimedia editor Hannah Bass writers Erica Buist Jessica Lambert Krystena Petrakas Anna Reynolds publisher Barbara Rowlands illustrator Patrick Savile

sincere thanks to Malvin Van Gelderen, Roger Tooth at The Guardian and Julian Linley at Bauer Media

Some things in life stand out. First memory, first love, first regret - all waiting in the wings to be retold, relished and returned to.

XCity Arts and Culture is the first of its kind. Our first issue is the creative sibling of XCity, the annual alumni magazine produced by magazine journalism students at City University London.

It’s already an original, but in this issue we bring you a world of innovation that spans first-time novelists, lab-grown meat and human skeletons printed to order. Even old becomes new with tales of familiar faces reborn on the big screen and old theatres with an enduring legacy.

We discovered many new things when making our First Issue and hope you enjoy reading it.

Jen Bowden, Editor

23/03/2012 14:02:37

NEWS

XCITY arts and culture

I tweet, therefore I am...?

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eeking into the private lives of famous people has long been one of Twitter’s main attractions. But a recent string of imposters posing as celebrities on the social networking site seem out to spoil everyone’s fun. What are we to believe? How do you know for certain that’s Stephen Fry tweeting about TOWIE? Is that really Kanye West telling you he’s bought new oven gloves? Are you sure Joey Barton’s quoting Nietzsche at you? (We didn’t make that one up.)

Maybe it’s too early to turn Twitter into a witch-hunt just yet. But with Wendi Deng, wife of Rupert Murdoch; author Cormac McCarthy; and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel all having digital cuckoos in the nest, at what point does the practice of fake profiles change from being a parody to something that is not just unethical, but illegal?

Twitter has always been admired for laying the foundations for creative expression and it’s for that reason that parody accounts have thrived on the site.

But Twitter rules state that parodies must be obvious. To try to genuinely impersonate somebody is not allowed.

In 2009, Twitter introduced the “blue tick” verification – an icon that appears next to a celebrity’s name to authenticate that they are who they say they are. However,

this system has come under scrutiny after a mishap saw a fake Wendi Deng account given the blue tick, causing embarrassment for Twitter and Wendi Deng’s management alike. (Not to mention her husband...)

With or without the blue tick, the antics of these internet imposters have left several celebs with digital eggs on their faces. Former Spice Girl, Mel B, was unceremoniously caught out when a fake Geri Halliwell asked if she’d like to reform the girl group. Mel B responded, ‘whoop whoop hands up for another spice tour!!!! count me in’, before promptly realising her mistake.

So who’s making these fake accounts?

And do they see anything wrong with it? Michael Crossan, an writer from Renfrewshire, Scotland, created a fake Twitter profile impersonating reclusive author Cormac McCarthy. It subsequently fooled fellow author Margaret Atwood, Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey, and gathered more than 6000 followers in three days. “I was surprised how easy it was to open a celebrity account,” says Crossan.

“There was no security check. Within five minutes I had signed up, and I was Cormac McCarthy on Twitter.”

Luckily for Twitter, Crossan had only set up the account out of curiosity, but believes that there is nothing wrong with

impersonating an admired celebrity. He says: “As long as fake celebrity accounts aren’t abusive or detrimental then I personally don’t see the harm. “There are agencies that employ actor and musician lookalikes to perform at ceremonies and functions all over the world, what’s the difference? I haven’t seen a single lawsuit.”

While there have so far been no legal implications for the setting up of a fake account on Twitter, questions do loom around the legality of the practice. John Battle, head of compliance at ITN and a lecturer of media law, says: “It goes back to what is known as personality rights, which state that an individual has a right to protect their own personality and they’re not to be passed off as someone else. So if you were suggesting that a celebrity was making assertions when it wasn’t them, I think there would be a case for cause of action for passing off.”

There are also concerns that if it’s simple enough to fake being a celebrity, what’s stopping someone from impersonating us normal folk? Perhaps, for the meantime, the best course of action is to follow the golden online rule – don’t believe everything you read on the internet. No matter how much you want what the Queen’s tweeting to be true.

Tom Shepherd

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2. Tate transformation

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ummer 2012 will see the unveiling of a new extension to the Tate Modern.

The first phase of the £215m expansion, set to land in time for the London Festival, will see the opening of the former power station’s three giant oil tanks. The spaces, seven metres high and over 30 metres across, will be used to house new exhibitions, performance theatre and interactive displays.

Designed by architects Herzog and de Meuron, who converted the original building, the new addition will go in hand with the rest of the Tate’s on-going developments, set to be completed by 2016.

The use of old space is a continuing trend in the art world. Newcastle’s Baltic Flour Mill was famously transformed into an international centre for contemporary art in 2002. Recently, plans were also put forward to convert the Leeds Tetley’s brewery site into a new art gallery, following its closure in 2011.

Hugh Langley

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n January, Polish artist, Agata Olek, showcased her first UK solo exhibition made entirely out of brightly coloured crotchet. Best known for her street art one of her largest pieces was a crocheted London black cab – Olek has brought the craft to the contemporary art world. The replica of her bedroom, entitled “I do not expect to be a mother but I do expect to die alone” was displayed at Tony’s Gallery in Shoreditch, London.

Olek has had an enthusiastic reception which is not surprising. The UK Hand Knitting Association (UKHKA) has estimated that there are between 4 - 7 million knitters in the UK, with knitting being brought back onto the school curriculum.

Those not enrolled on the hundreds of classes up and down the country could turn their idle needles to “yarnstorming” - also known as “yarnbombing”. This is the art of enhancing a public place or object with knitting. Knit the City is a group of graffiti knitters who cover some of London’s landmarks in wool. Waterloo station, The Royal Opera House and Piccadilly Circus are just a few of the places that have been attacked by Yarn Corps members “Deadly Knitshade” and “Lady Loop”.

And it’s not just happening in London.

A graffiti artist dubbed “the Midnight Knitter” is stitching up a town in New Jersey, US. Police are still on the hunt for the mystery crafter who is covering trees and lampposts in knitted patterns.

In Lille, France, knitting fan Anna launched a blog called “Delit Maille”.

Anna makes knitted dolls of politicians and celebrities, to recreate stories in the news for her blog, which has become an international hit.

A spokesperson from the UKHKA says: “From small villages to big cities, communities are coming together to knit and socialise. Knitting is the perfect antidote for the fast paced, stressful lives we lead and it also offers huge scope for originality. The craze for “yarnbombing” makes it clear that knitting is art as well as craft. It is totally contemporary and above all, fun.”

Anna Reynolds

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1. dawn of the thread

3. brew’s company

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eal ale may be the bevvy of choice for balding, beer-bellied Northern blokes, but it’s becoming a popular drink among young people across the UK thanks to a recent trend for matching food with beer.

Rather than just offering a wine list, many restaurants and pubs are now offering a beer menu. It’s not just hand-pulled cask ale; the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) say there is now a greater demand for bottled ale too.

Venues such as Holyrood 9A in Edinburgh give their diners a beer menu, and Pub Du Vin in Brighton hosts regular sessions on matching ale with food. Once only traditional pub food accompanied a pint, but now more unusual combinations such as curries, puddings and cheese boards are matched with appropriate ales.

Iain Loe of CAMRA says: “A lot of places now offer a beers menu as well as the usual wine list. Plus the shelf life of a bottle of beer is far longer than a cask ale.”

The profile of the average ale drinker is changing. CAMRA reported in its Cask Ale Report for 2011 that 1.6 million real ale drinkers are under 35 years old. They state that 27 per cent of real ale drinkers live in the north of England, while 38 per cent live in London and the south east. The number of women drinking ale has doubled in recent years.

A greater demand for “boutique” or “craft” beer, such as those created

by Aberdeen-based microbrewery BrewDog, has helped to draw in a younger demographic. Loe says: “People have fallen out of love with the big global brands and are looking for something different.”

Jen Bowden

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ondoners were introduced to Peruvian food with the opening of Soho restaurant Ceviche in February.

The signature dish is ceviche - fresh fish marinated in citrus juices and seasoned with chilli and salt. Spicy ají sauce and four varieties of chillies flavour the cuisine, from the anticuchos (marinated skewers) to the spiced lamb and blue potatoes. Peruvian food is best accompanied by pisco drinks traditional grape brandy-based cocktails.

Lima-born Londoner Martin Morales is a pioneer in Peruvian food. He sold his house and left his job at Disney to open Ceviche. “Peruvian food is all about what we call salsón - flavouring. The timing of when you add the salt, the lime juice and the chilli to the fresh fish is important. It’s a balance between technique and feeling,” he says.

IMAGE: THE GUARDIAN

Peru’s the menu The UK is also home to Rico Picante (delicious spicy), producers of chilli sauces founded by an ex-pat Peruvian brother and sister. Using the four varieties of home-grown Peruvian chillies and family recipes, they create the flavourful chilli sauces of their youth, now sold at Fortnum & Mason.

Neil Nugent, executive chef at Morrisons, described Peru as “the gastronomic equivalent of France in South America” last year and proclaimed “Peru is one to watch”.

“It’s happening slowly,” he said, “they have a great understanding of cooking techniques. Watch out for Lima which opens this spring in London with Peruvian Chef Virgilio Martinez.”

Erica Buist

graphic classics

choose thy neighbour

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nyone who’s more familiar with Spiderman than Shakespeare will be pleased to learn that some of the greatest works of literature are being translated into comic-book form.

Inspired by a graphic adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Flea, American editor Russ Kick has commissioned The Graphic Canon, a three volume collection in which 189 literary works are adapted over a bookshelf-breaking 1,344 pages.

Western classics by Homer, Shakespeare and Hemingway will rub shoulders with adaptations of Gilgamesh, Arabian Nights and The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Artists that will appear include fan favourites like Robert Crumb, founder of the satirical Underground Commix movement, and Will Eisner, one of originators of the graphic novel who died in 2005.

Kick also used lesser-known talent such as Rebecca Dart, who will “interpret” Milton’s Paradise Lost. “I knew Rebecca would turn in something visually stunning, but I was expecting standard versions of angels and demons,” says Kick. “Instead, she shows them as these abstracted geometric shapes, and it totally works.”

James Waldron

ottages cluster around a stone farmhouse set in the Dorset countryside. An acre of orchard and vegetable patches are tended by close-knit neighbours. It sounds like a nostalgic rural idyll. But in fact, the Threshold Centre is a thoroughly modern model for living.

The average age of first time buyers is set to rise to 40 within the decade. There are also more single adults than ever, but living alone costs on average £3,500 more per year.

Cohousing sites like the Threshold Centre provide an alternative solution.

Amanda Pearson helped establish the Threshold Centre seven years ago and it has been fully operational since 2010. Amanda and her partner Peter are among 20 adults – a mix of couples and singles ranging from 41 to 75 years old – who live in the 14 selfcontained houses. The old farmhouse is now their common house where the community gathers for meetings, weekly meals and uses shared basic facilities such as laundry.

“I lived in London for 10 years and barely knew the person who lived in the flat above me,” Amanda says. “Here, I have a whole life on my doorstep. It’s a much more supportive community – almost like an extended family. We also live a greener life and keep costs down by sharing resources.”

Co-operatives UK estimate that about 500 people in Britain live in cohousing.

According to the organisation, women are overrepresented. Indeed, the cohousing model as we know it originates from a group of single mothers in Denmark in the 1980s.

Maria Brenton is a research fellow at the University of Bristol who has helped to set up several housing co-operatives in London. She believes the model is especially positive for older women. Sixty per cent of British women over 70 live alone, compared to only 34 per cent of men in the same age range.

British housing associations and planning authorities are starting to recognise this new model for communal living. Faced with an ageing population, cohousing is a sustainable and selfsufficient alternative to oversubscribed care homes and expensive retirement villages.

“This is a self-help model for people who are thinking about their future based on a commitment to mutual support,” says Brenton. “Cohousing gives you the best of both worlds - your own self-contained space and a group of people whom you choose to live with. You create a mini neighbourhood for yourself.”

Hannah Bass

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beyond the big screen Britain’s film festivals are using the recession and the resulting arts cuts as an excuse to be creative Words: James Waldron

18-month world tour. There are also plans for a series of workshops and screenings aimed at families and children.

Another way that festivals are adapting is through their choice of venue. Traditionally film festivals would take place in local cinemas, but in recent years this has become impossible in many areas because all but a handful of independent cinemas have been swallowed up by the major chains. This has

people come to watch short films and there’s a live performance going on at the same time, they want to see more,” he says.

A benefit of these alternative venues is that people are free to walk around during the events. “That model works really well because people don’t want to sit in front of a screen for five hours,” he says. “They seem to enjoy a more informal event.” Forget squirming in your seats for hours, the new breed of film

led to “a burgeoning of film festivals” says Des Forges. “That’s the only place you can watch foreign or experimental films. Even though the economic climate might seem more difficult than ever, people still want to see those things.”

This exodus away from the cinemas has produced some intriguing results. The Hackney Film Festival is thriving despite the recession. Set up in 2010 by film editor Steven McInerney to celebrate filmmakers in the east London borough, it has already doubled in size and now involves events at a range of venues.

“The venue is almost always the focus of our events, because different venues attract different types of people,” says McInerney.

“For some events we use Cafe Oto, a world class performance venue in Hackney, so we attract people interested in experimental art who might not normally attend a film festival. We also found a warehouse space that’s perfect for more casual type screenings.”

Previous events have included film screenings, live music and performance art.

McInerney believes this attracts a broader audience, beyond the typical film buff. “If

festivals are as much about meeting likeminded people as staring at screens.

Even lack of cash can be overcome with some creative thinking. The Hackney Film Festival recoups around 60 per cent of its funding through community participation, where everything from poster designs to door staff are provided by friends for free.

They receive “in-kind sponsorship”, where equipment and manpower is loaned by similar organisations as a goodwill gesture.

McInerney stresses the importance of fundraising events, as well as making donations voluntary. “We don’t charge entrants when they submit a film, we just ask for a donation of whatever they can afford.

To have their film screened without having to pay has a community feel.”

Rather than rolling the end credits for film festivals, economic restrictions have forced organisers to push the boundaries further. Whether experimenting with venues, funding models or the nature of the events themselves, this new breed of recessionproof festivals looks set to thrive in the coming years. Just don’t expect to see them at your local multiplex any time soon.

The story continues at www.xcityarts.com

ith the closure of the UK Film Council in 2011 and cuts to funding from Arts Council England, it looked like Britain’s flourishing film culture might be stopped in its tracks. But rather than stifle festival organisers, economic hardship has bred a new sense of entrepreneurship.

Catherine Des Forges, director of the Independent Cinema Office, which supports independent film exhibition across the UK, points to “more competition for funds” and a difficulty in accessing traditional arts venues as some of the obstacles organisers now have to overcome.

However, these same obstacles have forced festivals to re-think their approach.

“In difficult times, people become more adventurous,” says Des Forges. “They are using different kinds of spaces, partnerships and social media to find new audiences.”

Her optimistic outlook is shared by Philip Ilson, director of the London Short Film Festival, who says funding cuts have forced organisers to become more focused.

“When you’ve got less money you can apply for, people feel more passionate about it.

Whether it’s putting on a festival or making short films, you can just go and do that. If something’s good, people will support it.”

One example of this theory in practice is digital film festival Onedotzero, which had to scale back its events due to cuts in Arts Council funding. Director, Shane Walter, saw these cuts as an opportunity to re-invent the organisation. “Rather than being just a festival, we will be seen more for what we actually are - a digital cultural agency that can curate, produce and commission,” he says.

While the festival won’t be taking place in London this year, it will be embarking on an

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XCITY arts and culture

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Bright things Tipped for the top in their industries, these four young people are the faces of the future IMAGE: ANNA REYNOLDS

Who was the first person to inspire you?

Hussein Chalayan because he doesn’t design from a purely fashion standpoint; there’s always a political or cultural message behind his work. He says this should be second to the desire of the consumer but for him it’s the primary motive for designing. I also admire Raf Simons; he didn’t have a fashion background but is now one of the most respected designers in the industry.

What are you working on right now?

As part of my MA we are working on a project with the Italian tailoring brand

Nominated for a BAFTA New Talent Award in Original Music and a 4Talent Award in Production Music. Blair has scored 45 films, as well as theatre productions and concert works. He is composer in residence for experimental theatre company Captain Theatre.

What was the first score you worked on?

My first ever score was for a school play called The Three Estates. I begged the musical director to allow me to write the music. I was 16 and I’d only been composing for a few years.

I played it on my harp, with some violinists, a guitarist and some drums.

Felix Chabluk Smith, 23, menswear designer Winner of The British Fashion Council Burberry Award 2010 and the Menswear Award at Graduate Fashion Week 2011. After completing a BA at the Edinburgh College of Art, Felix is now studying for an MA in fashion at the Royal College of Art (RCA).

Blair Mowat, 25, film scorer

Brioni. I have designed an eight-piece collection from which one item will be chosen by the designers to make up. They have invited our class to Penne, where their factory is based, for a week. Every morning we go to their tailoring school to learn hand stitching techniques.

What was the most challenging score you’ve worked on?

My first feature, 7 Welcome To London, was intimidating because it was a British Bollywood thriller. I was no expert on Indian music so it wasn’t until I’d visited India and done some research on the country and its film industry that I could work out how to approach the style of the score.

Fashion is a highly competitive industry - what gives you an edge?

My work usually has a historical aspect to it; a project I’m working on is inspired by a brief fashion in the 1820s, where men wore two waistcoats as a sign of wealth. I’m really inspired by the global history of menswear; it has quite rigid boundaries which you can exploit. You can put anything on a woman’s body, but menswear is more of a challenge in terms of what people will actually buy.

What projects are you working on at the moment?

I’m working on two feature films.

One is Magpie, a road trip film about a grieving couple by director Mark Price. The other is The Manual, a parallel universe philosophical romance. It’s lucky they’re so different - I never get confused which is which.

Anna Reynolds

Erica Buist

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Winner of The Times Young Photographer Award 2009 and the Young Photographer of the Year Award at the Picture Editors Guild for the past two years. Matthew is now a freelance photographer for Getty, Bloomberg and The Times.

Did you have a lucky break?

Winning The Times award two years ago gave me the break into London that I needed. I’m from Leeds and without that opportunity I wouldn’t have the main clients that I am working for now. If you are motivated and obsessive enough you can make your own breaks, but the competition is really tough.

What piece of work are you most proud of ?

I went to Syria last year with a journalist before the trouble erupted. We spent a week travelling around trying to gauge the atmosphere. It was a very difficult place to work, and photographically frustrating, since we were undercover and had to be careful about what we were seen to be doing.

Who or what was the most challenging picture you had to take?

Tony Blair. I went to Jerusalem to photograph him, waited the whole day and ended up with about two minutes. I watched as the sun disappeared on the beautiful hotel exterior and had to photograph him inside the foyer. So I was extremely happy when it made the front cover of The Times.

Anna Reynolds

Winner of the Foyle Young Poet Award and member of the Barbican Young Poets collective under the mentorship of Jacob Sam La Rose.

She has been published in The Morning Star newspaper and has had work commissioned by the National Trust.

Faye Lipson, 21, poet IMAGE: MADLEN DAVIES

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Did you always want to be a poet?

I’m an accidental poet. When I moved schools to start A-levels in 2006, I found my English teacher was none other than Daljit Nagra. He’d risen to prominence as a recent Forward Prize winner and seemed to be on TV and radio every other week. I was so lucky.

Not many people have the good fortune to be taught by such a prominent poet.

I don’t come from a background with a tradition of creative careers - I grew up on a council estate - and without his encouragement I don’t think I would be writing poetry.

Matthew Lloyd, 26, photographer Do you think the world of poetry can be elitist?

I think poetry can be rarefied. Though they might not be wealthy, poets tend to be middle class. I’d like poetry to be more accessible to all and I’d like to see more political poetry. Our society is still rife with gender and class inequalities, anyone worth their salt should be writing about it.

What work are you most proud of ?

There is not one single poem, but I have written poems recently relating to autism. I grew up with a severely autistic brother, and capturing that experience and the complexities of his condition was a daunting challenge. I wanted to make sense of the differences between us - one child who can’t speak, and one who speaks and writes poetry - in a way which was loyal to him and didn’t diminish our family ties.

Madlen Davies

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the art of unrest words: Madlen Davies and Hugh Langley

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he forecourt of St Paul’s Cathedral, once a tented mass of political unrest, lies quiet. Free from the grimaces of passing bankers, its only visitors are tourists, the only sounds are the clicking of cameras.

Last October the site played host to the main camp of the Occupy London protest, a movement which stood in solidarity with New York’s Occupy Wall Street. Much like its US counterpart, it brought the failures of capitalism – social and economic injustice – right into the heart of public debate.

But while the voices of the movement have been loud and clear, the real legacy may lie in the arts that have sprung from Occupy. In the paint splashed on city walls, in the crafted words of the street poets, in the hand-drawn posters and banners, artists have responded creatively to the issues raised by the movement. But how exactly has this helped spread the message?

Dr TJ Demos, professor of contemporary art at University College London, believes

IMAGE: MASON LONDON

The legacy of the Occupy movement was more than just political change.

The arts that flourished have also had a lasting effect

the occupation’s success in challenging how public space is used is a pivotal cultural shift. He welcomes the blurring of the lines between activism and art. “I think the occupation is part of a growing development within contemporary art practice,” he says.

“The movement towards activism, towards forms of socially engaged arts and grassroots collaboratives means that activists enter museums and artists participate in protests. It’s an interesting experimental hybrid.”

Jody Porter, Occupy supporter and poetry editor of the socialist newspaper The Morning Star is excited by the flurry of poets writing about the contemporary political situation.

“Art can tend to do whatever it wants and get away with it, even if it breaks laws that in other spheres would make it illegal,” he says. “If you go on Facebook and say ‘Hey everybody, let’s riot’ you’ll go to prison, but you can do it in a poem. Art provides a protective shell.”

Choirmaster Sarah Jewell set up the Big Sing Up choir, a group that came together to sing about the perceived failings of the

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capitalist system. Singing workshops have been held at the Occupy camps. On the third day of the court case which led to the eviction of protestors from St Paul’s, 300 people came to sing their support on the cathedral steps. “It was fantastic,” says choir member Sam Chase. Creating songs was the perfect way to voice their disaffection.

“People can’t live on slogans alone.”

Playwright German Munoz, a close follower of the Occupy movements, wanted to contribute artistically to draw more attention to the London scene. So he set up a play in the form of a “living newspaper”.

“It’s a theatrical form that lends itself to presenting current events. It was used in the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in the early twentieth century so I thought it was an appropriate form,” he says. Munoz sent playwrights to the Occupy camps as roving reporters for this “living newspaper”, to capture stories and present things that hadn’t been reported in the news before.

“I tried to show how, though messy, the

general assembly at Occupy does work,” says Munoz. The plays deconstructed stereotypes of the protestors as lazy, unemployed “hippies” or tirelessly campaigning martyrs.

Some were then performed at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston.

Occupy has also been a fertile ground for visual artists who have attempted to illustrate the movement, with flourishing expressionist graphics and iconic symbolism that have helped take the message into the mainstream.

The now iconic red Big Ben poster, produced by artist London Mason, is as striking as the peace symbol of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament designed in 1958.

But the arts have flourished on a profoundly individual level, too. Jim Gledhill, curator of social and working history at the Museum of London, has been collecting artefacts from the Occupy London movement long before the St Paul’s eviction. Many of these now hang on the museum’s walls, already part of London’s history. “The Occupy movement has produced a lot of material

that’s highly individualised and often very creative visually,” he says.

Graffiti artist Banksy made his own contribution to the St Paul’s camp, donating a super-sized monopoly board with Uncle Pennybags sitting on top, no longer an image of prosperity, but dishevelled and holding out his hat in the hope of a handout from passersby. Though unconfirmed to be his work, it certainly played on the political style of the pseudonymous street artist.

But as the Occupy movement moves on, will any of this have a lasting impact? Dr TJ Demos insists that both the movement and its arts have seeped into the public’s consciousness. “I suspect the movement isn’t just going to go away. I think it’s important to see the whole movement both here and in other places like New York, not tied down to one specific site or one particular occupation.

It’s an energy that transcends that.”

To see a video of the artists at the Occupy movement visit xcityarts.com

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Women writers are defying traditional Hollywood prejudices about who calls the shots words: Sophie Haslett

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Diablo Cody

the fempire strikes back

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t’s Cannes 2011. Four women filmmakers have been nominated for the prestigious Palme d’Or Prize, the greatest number ever since the competition’s Abi Morgan inception in 1946.

Many see this as a golden age for women in film and TV, but it’s just the latest example of talented women defying the belief that filmmaking is an exclusive boys’ club.

Over in the States, the “Fempire” movement has been overturning industry stereotypes since they emerged two years ago. Four big name screenwriters, Diablo Cody (Juno), Dana Fox (The Wedding Date), Liz Meriwether (New Girl) and Lorene Scafaria (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist), form the Fempire’s group of screenwriters, and they actively support each other’s work in Hollywood. Meanwhile festivals such as the Athena Film Festival in New York and the Bird’s Eye View Festival in London highlight how receptive the industry now is to the idea of female screenwriters.

In the last year, several British screenwriters have enjoyed critical and commercial success.

Bridget O’Connor won a posthumous award at the BAFTAs for her film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and there has been major praise and recognition for Abi Morgan’s films The Iron Lady and Shame and Jane Goldman’s screenplay for The Woman in Black.

Development editors Ed Wethered and

Jane Goldman

Christine Langan at BBC Films and Tessa Ross at Film 4 have made it their job to champion new female talent. Wethered says that while it is not an official policy, now more than ever they are on the lookout for new female stars. “Many of our biggest recent success stories have been women,” he adds, saying that names such as Goldman and Morgan defy the stereotype that women can’t write drama.

Depressingly, according to the British Writers’ Guild, women filmmakers still fluctuate between 6 and 15 per cent of our national screenwriters. Barbara Norden, a senior lecturer on the creative writing MA at City University London, says that this used to

be due to lack of women entering film schools.

“A lot of well-known [female] screenwriters used to come up through theatre first instead,” she says. “Abi Morgan did a drama degree and wrote plays for the Hampstead Theatre before moving to film.”

But this is no longer the case, as film schools now take on as many women as they do men. Sophie Woolley, a Londonbased screenwriter, is proof of this, as she was recently one of nine women among 12 screenwriters who were picked for the Channel 4 screenwriting course.

Wethered thinks that screenwriting is having a resurgence among women because it is something that can work around the other demands in their lives. Unlike directing or producing it allows the writer to allocate the time they want to writing and refining a script.

The Fempire and the directors behind the Athena Film Festival in New York are inspiring female screenwriters. “Our festival, which has just finished its second year, has been important,” says the director of the Athena Film Festival, Melissa Silverstein. “Through big name screenwriters’ achievements and the lesser-known feature films, we aim to show that women are more than capable of writing hard-hitting screenplays.”

Many hope that 2012 will see more success for Britain’s female screenwriters. “Up until recently, it has always been harder to break into the industry as a woman,” says the author and screenwriter, Ruth Fowler. “It’s an industry dominated by suits and machismo.”

After decades of films written by men, portraying a male idea of femininity, a few women in British film have started to shake things up.

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cover story Beautiful book designs could help revitalise a flagging publishing industry words: Emma Spedding

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handsome and beautifully bound - is a “hugely” sensual experience. “It is beyond reading; it’s having an object that delights,” he said. But he believes a fine book should be read. “Why else is it a book? Even the colour makes more sense when read. As for any book artist the starting point is the text.”

English worked with Susan Hill to create a set of illustrations and design for a Profile Books hardback edition of The Woman in Black. He sees book design as a stage for the story and reads the novel three times before illustrating.

It is not just mainstream publishers paying greater attention to design. Emma Howard, editor of the Capauchin Classics series, says a book can sell by the cover alone. “People who love books want a beautiful object in their hands.” This is particularly true with classic literature.

“The point of putting them back into print is to attract attention to them, so these books demand a beautiful design.”

In 2012 creativity will flourish on every page. Dean is currently designing Andrew Motion’s sequel to Treasure Island, including the illustration, cover and inner text. Emma Howard from Capauchin Classics says increasing attention is paid to what lies beneath the covers: fonts, paper quality and illustrations.

Capauchin Classics is to have a major redesign in July. Their distinctive covers featuring black and white drawings by Angela Landels will be revamped with retro-feel covers. They want to move beyond the constraints of an illustration in a box, with drawings strictly echoing a moment from each book, says Howard.

“Because of our rigid design model we haven’t previously looked at old covers, but now we we’ll look back to the original book covers.”

“A well illustrated book is like having your own gallery of images,” says English.

The resurgence of beautiful books isn’t just down to the ebook. A fine book is a cheaper alternative to a piece of art. “People get to hold something utterly beautiful, for the fraction of the cost of even amateur art.”

IMAGE: THE GUARDIAN

bookshop isn’t just a house of words. It’s an art gallery. Bright pink flamingoes dance over Alice in Wonderland, Zandra Rhodes’ iconic wiggle lines crash onto The Sea, The Sea and oak leaves float across the cover of Middlemarch. Beautiful books are back.

In the UK eBooks outsell hardbacks by four to one, but an eBook is like a digital manuscript. On a Kindle, War and Peace and Katie Price’s “novels” would both look the same. Once read, they vanish. But the physical book is an object to hold, touch and smell, designed to endure. And now the physical book is fighting back by celebrating everything that the ebook isn’t.

Ruth Blacksell, who runs the MA in book design at Reading University, compares the trend to the rise of private presses, which were a response to Victorian England’s mass-production of books. These presses revitalised the craft of book making by using handmade paper and beautiful leather covers.

In last year’s Man Booker Prize acceptance speech for his novel The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes thanked his editors, his agent, the judges and the sponsors. Then he did something unheard of. He paid tribute to Suzanne Dean, “the best book designer in town”.

The Sense of an Ending is strikingly beautiful. Dean, creative director at Random House, spent two weeks painting to produce her perfect cover. It has poetic touches darkened page ends and a blown dandelion.

Dean was amazed at the acknowledgement. “That has never happened before,” she says, “an author thanking a designer. It was a rarity.”

But beautiful books certainly aren’t a rarity. Textile designer Celia Birtwell created

a cover for I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and milliner Philip Treacy gave The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles a new look. These are just two of seven designer novels created by Vintage Classics and the Victoria & Albert museum.

The recent obsession with the physicality of books is reminiscent of the fetishisation of first editions; books judged by form over content. Objects to be preserved and not

read. A first edition of The Great Gatsby 1924 sold in 2009 for $180,000. Its cover design, ‘Celestial Eyes’ by artist Francis Cugat, influenced Fitzgerald’s writing - he wrote to his publisher: “For Christ’s sake don’t give anyone that jacket you’re saving for me. I’ve written it into the book.”

So are designers creating books to be read or collected? “I am not designing it for collectors, but books should look as desirable as possible,” says Dean. “I design books to catch people’s attention.”

Book illustrator Andy English believes owning a “fine” book - one that is elegant,

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XCITY arts and culture

IMAGE: DAVID SHERRY

Bat for Lashes (l) and Pearl (r)

turn and face the strange Pop alter egos may look superficial, but is there more to them than meets the eye?

Words: Laurie Tuffrey

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his March, Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie’s alien humanoid alter ego, will be honoured with his own commemorative plaque. Adorning the Heddon Street, London location featured on the iconic cover of his 1972 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars album, the sign will rank the fictional figure alongside such real-life luminaries as Winston Churchill and Emmeline Pankhurst.

While such treatment may seem a little unusual - Bowie himself doesn’t even have a plaque - the Crown Estate, who are putting up the plaque, may be tapping into the recent trend for musical alter egos. Of late, we’ve seen a small cadre of characters and their accompanying cavalcade of names, personalities and costumes appear. There’s Lady Gaga’s “Jo Calderone”, Nicki Minaj’s

small army of personae and, most famously, Beyonce’s “Sasha Fierce”. But why do musicians create these second personas?

“The usual reason is that the second personality is a stronger personality,” says Andy Evans, a performance psychologist at Tech Music School in London. “Quite a lot of well-known performers are either introverted or slightly shy or just not very strong, theatrical and dramatic. So they create an alter ego to strengthen themselves for the act that they have to be onstage.”

The alter ego acting as a facilitating device, something which allows the musician to go somewhere they might not have as themselves, rings true for Sasha Fierce. “I have someone else that takes over when it’s time for me to work and when I’m on stage, this alter ego that I’ve created that kind of protects me and who I really am,” explained Beyonce when her third album I Am... Sasha Fierce was released in 2008.

Two years later, though, Beyonce ditched Sasha. She said: “I don’t need Sasha Fierce anymore, because I’ve grown, and I’m now able to merge the two. I want people to see me. I want people to see who I am.”

This, explains Evans, reflects the singer’s confidence growth. “She’d integrated the Sasha Fierce personality into her own

personality and didn’t actually need to split them... as the singer gets stronger, in terms of ego strength, they can then comfortably sit with the idea of being singers,” he says.

But the alter ego simply being the artistic equivalent of stabiliser wheels seems a little off the mark for other artists. Stardust, pop’s alter ego nonpareil, exemplifies a persona who was fundamental to the creative process. David Bowie’s musical shift from the orchestral pop of 1971’s Hunky Dory to the cosmic-sighted glam of Stardust’s eponymous album a year later was affected

by Bowie’s aesthetic shift from fresh-faced songstrel to leper messiah with screwed-up eyes and screwed-down hairdo. Stardust

‘creative convictions are embodied in their transformation’ enabled that change in many ways - he features in the lyrics, he provides a visual symbol of the music and he helped make Bowie a star.

While Bowie retired Stardust in 1973, this idea of the second persona as a

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an engagement with other artists who have done, in their artwork, alternative personas.

Khan is actually saying I’m doing a real in-depth examination, I’m not just taking a different name or identity as a promotional tool for a record.”

This sense of gimmickry perhaps explains why both artists have steadfastly refused to use the term “alter ego” for Pearl and Electra Heart. Khan refuted a comparison to Sasha Fierce, saying: “It’s

thing is fake,” she explains. “Even if you’re performing as yourself, there’s always going to be a space between what you are and what the audience’s fantasy of what you are is.”

The alter ego, then, perhaps represents the greatest grasp of artistic artifice - the musicians’ creative convictions are embodied in their transformation into another person, not as a mere prop but both as a means and an end of artistic production. Two Sun’s centrepiece, “Siren Song”, plays with this IMAGE: R BAMBA/REX

generative force has not since dissipated.

Artists like Bat for Lashes and Marina and the Diamonds have taken up the second personality in the lineage of Ziggy. Bat for Lashes developed her persona of ‘Pearl’ in the recording process of her second LP, 2009’s Two Suns. Pearl was a composite of various US cultural references, influenced by both the iconic photography of Cindy Sherman and Diane Arbus and Paris Is Burning, Jennie Livingston’s 1990 documentary about New York drag culture.

In an interview with Pitchfork, Bat for Lashes’ Natasha Khan explained: “I wanted to do something artistic that kind of represented a visual symbol of the old New York and what I wanted and kind of be my own Candy Darling for a moment,” referencing another bohemian icon.

Electra Heart, the character invented by Marina and the Diamonds, is also a means of exploring American disillusionment. She gives her name to Marina’s second album, and has been introduced over a series of three videos released in the second half of 2011. “Electra Heart is the antithesis of everything that I stand for,” Diamandis explained to Popjustice. “And the point of introducing her and building a whole concept around her is that she stands for the corrupt side of American ideology, and basically that’s the corruption of yourself.”

The visual transformation for both Bat for Lashes and Marina is similar; Pearl wears a peroxide blonde bob wig, a boho chic dress and heavy make-up, with what Khan described as “diamante tears” on her face.

Electra also wears a bright blonde wig, and channels a certain nostalgic Americana promo shots include one of her sitting at a diner table, with milkshake and omelette in front of her, while another has her posing over an inner-city freeway in black and white.

While the image change may be minimal, the idea of the persona change is undeniable. “Here, we’re looking at genuine ideas of alternative personas,” explains Dr Wendy Fonarow, associate professor of anthropology at Glendale Community College in California and author of The Guardian’s “Ask the Indie Professor” column.

“The idea of taking on a persona in order to specifically examine cultural issues,” she says.

For Dr Fonarow, the idea of Pearl being a composite of cultural references is key to understanding the persona. “This was really

David Bowie becoming Ziggy Stardust so funny how people just instantly make everything black-and-white, but actually... it really was like an art project for me.”

The reason for their reticence comes down, perhaps, to an issue of authenticity.

This, Dr Fonarow explains, is “the degree of belief that the audience has in its own fantasies”. In indie music, the idea of being direct and non-stagey legitimises the performer, making the alter ego, a selfconsciously theatrical device, a rare sight in indie. In pop, however, staginess is par for the course. “It’s seen as acceptable in pop, although one of the reasons why is because we already denigrate that art form,” says Dr Fonarow. Bat for Lashes and Marina, both indie musicians, are consequently rare examples in their genre.

However, as Dr Fonarow points out, there is a sense in which all art - indie included - encompasses fakeness. “The route for the term ‘art’ is in ‘artifice’, so the whole

idea, dramatising the relationship between Khan and Pearl, producing a dichotomy of Jekyll and Hyde-like dynamics. The verse persona urges “I’ll be good I think I could / Be all you could want and more and more” in underscored counterpoint to Pearl’s chorus refrain of “My blonde curls slice through your heart... ‘cause I’m evil, ‘cause I’m evil”.

The song is lent all the more power by the frictive tension between the two personas. Khan, like all musicians who use second personas, unlocks both the sense of visual spectacle and artistic expression they enable. Speaking about her, the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen said “I like that she isn’t afraid to reference or be someone else”. It is this lack of fear, this ability to play with our inner fantasies, that makes the idea of the alter ego increasingly and enduringly fascinating, for artist and audience alike.

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XCITY arts and culture

IMAGE: PAUL REES

IMAGE: GREG NEATE

Tape

John Doran

The Quietus editor

Everett True

Collapse Board editor “I was old, 17, when I first started buying pop music - I never liked it before then. I was aware even then that people might ask me what my first record was.

The first one I wanted to buy was the 7” vinyl of “Denis”

by Blondie. Suddenly, I understood why people loved pop so much. The thrill, the beat, the sexual awakening, all crystallised in two minutes on our tinny analogue radio.

But the first one I actually bought was the 12” “No One Is Innocent/My Way”, that god awful Sex Pistols record with Ronnie Biggs, because I thought that would sound cooler when anyone asked in the future... Fucking idiot.”

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Paul Rees Q editor

“The first tape I bought was a Thin Lizzy album called Jailbreak, from the Britannia Music Club.

They used to advertise in newspapers, you’d sign up, and once a month my dad would let me order one cassette from their catalogue.

I chose it purely for the sci-fi cartoon cover sleeve, so when I played it the first couple of times I didn’t get it at all. It was eight years later that I realised it was really good. I don’t have the original any more – it was eaten alive by my tape player.

But I’ve got it on CD, I still listen to it and I’ll never get rid of it. Your first record is one of the most evocative things in your life.”

record breaking

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Digital

“I was a latecomer as far as CDs were concerned, but my first was a compilation called 70 Minutes to Madness

by Coldcut. I was working in a factory and living in the Home Counties, where the only record shop for miles was Our Price. Britpop had been the death of guitar music for me and I wasn’t bothered by the UK top 40. While I’d always been an armchair fan of electronic dance music, it was around this time that I was starting to go clubbing, take ecstasy, stay out all night and embrace DJ culture. I’d travel into London to buy the niche records. There’s nothing that dates as quickly as dance music, but it’s an album I loved so much that I recommended it to friends for years, and I still listen to it now.”

IMAGE: PAUL BRANNIGAN

Vinyl

IMAGE: JOHN DORAN

CD

Paul Brannigan ex-Kerrang! editor

“It took me a while to catch up with the digital revolution, but I think my first MP3 was probably “Love Machine” by Girls Aloud. Failing that, it would have been something by All Saints, Destiny’s Child or Rachel Stevens. At Kerrang!

I’d be sent rock albums for free, but if a pop song captured my attention on the radio or MTV, I’d want to hear it without buying the whole album. I’ve actually got all the Girls Aloud records, as well as Beyoncé and Britney Spears’ greatest hits, on CD now. Digital downloads are a quick fix – I’d have to be pretty desperate or drunk before I could commit to buying full albums on MP3.”

A first record whether treasured or trashed, remains one of life’s memorable moments. Four music journalists share their first buys words: Eleanor Griggs

23/03/2012 12:21:52

e

a life in pop

A sideways glance at popular music - from euphoric gigs to salacious scandals - and how it affects our most important memories words: Oli Stratford

- 25 December 1959 It is Christmas Day and Cliff Richard, hair slicked into a 50mm high pompadour, arrives on the set of ATV’s The Hughie Green Show. Legs akimbo, he croons his number one hit “Living Doll” into the camera lens. At 6:25pm, Margie Goole, aged eight, stares vacantly at the television. At 6.30pm, she cowers as Cliff ’s convulsing pelvis thrusts at her from behind the screen.

- 10 July 1964 Pop girls and hip boys crowd into record shops, snatching at copies of The Beatles’ latest single, “A Hard Day’s Night”.

Written by John Lennon in a single night, the lyrics scribbled onto the back of a birthday card. Margie, 13, buys her copy from Barry’s Record Rendezvous in Manchester. Arriving home, she picks up the record sleeve and kisses the photos of John, George and Paul. She doesn’t bother with Ringo.

- 21 April 1972 Slinking across the stage of the Manchester Free Trade Hall, David Bowie reinvents himself as Ziggy Stardust, the intergalactic alien rock star from Mars. Bowie admits that he chose the name because it was “one of the few Christian names beginning with the letter ‘Z’”. Margie, 21, stands in the audience unsure whether Bowie is a boy or a girl. Eventually, she decides it doesn’t matter, his ginger mullet is just darling either way.

- 13 January 1967 “Let’s Spend the Night Together” fills the bedroom as Margie, 16, grooves to the new Rolling Stones track. The sexually-charged lyrics prove controversial, with talk show host Ed Sullivan announcing “Either the song goes or you do”, when the band play it on his variety show. Listening downstairs, Margie’s father is inconsolable. His daughter has succumbed to rock and roll. She is immediately enrolled in Catholic school.

- 7 June 1977 Crashing the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, The Sex Pistols sail a barge down the Thames, slurring their punk anthem “God Save the Queen” through thumping speakers. The boat drifts past Margie, 26, and her toddler Anna. Hearing the music, Margie frantically covers her daughter’s ears. But she is too late. Anna hears the punks describe the monarchy as “a fascist regime”. From that day forth, the infant’s brain is irretrievably infected with anarchy.

- 30 November 1979 Determined to recapture her youth, Margie, 28, buys a copy of The Wall, a concept album from progressive rockers Pink Floyd. The band’s bassist Roger Waters explains that the album’s theme of isolation came about because he had developed an intense “loathing” of touring. Two months later, Pink Floyd begin a 31-date major international tour. Margie learns to never trust a rock star.

- 19 February 1996 Live at the Brits and Michael Jackson performs “Earth Song”.

Quite suddenly, Jarvis Cocker appears beside him, waggling his bottom in protest. “He was pretending to be Jesus,” Cocker explains. “Rock stars have big enough egos without pretending to be Jesus.” Margie, 46, is disgusted. Just because Jackson was pretending to heal sick children and trying to bless a rabbi does not, she tells her daughter, mean he was pretending to be Jesus.

- 1 August 1987 “Smiths to Split” roars the NME, revealing that relations between The Smiths songwriters Morrissey and Johnny Marr have soured. Remembering her daughter is a fan of the band, Margie, 36, buys a copy. “When Morrissey and I started The Smiths,” Marr later muses, “we thought pop music was the most important thing in the world.” That evening, Anna is found weeping, a damp copy of NME clutched to her chest.

- 17 July 2005 James Blunt’s debut “You’re Beautiful” hurtles to the top of the charts, from where it squats over music for five long weeks. It is the breakthrough song of an artist the Guardian will later describe as “the human tragedy that would ensue were Tim Henman to attempt to become a rock star”. Criticism peaks when Rolling Stone votes the song the most annoying British record of all time. Margie, 55, disagrees. She is old enough to remember “Agadoo”.

- 8 February 2012 Designer Karl Lagerfeld prompts outrage when he describes the singer Adele as “a little too fat”. Adele hits back, arguing that “I don’t want to be some skinny mini” and five days later, she scoops six Grammies - a record for a British woman. Margie, 62, sides with Lagerfeld. Monochrome images of Twiggy flashing through her mind, she refuses to acknowledge Adele’s success.

Anything over 90 pounds, she hisses, and it just ain’t pop.

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XCITY arts and culture

literatureunbo

ILLUSTRATION:PATRICK SAVILE

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u

Digital publishing is side-stepping literary tradition, and shaking up the industry. Is this the start of a new chapter for the books business? words: Jen Bowden

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n 1935 the publisher Allen Lane was returning to London after spending a weekend in Devon with Agatha Christie.

Lingering on the platform at Exeter, he realised his choice of reading material for the journey amounted to reprints of Victorian novels or popular magazines.

Lane continued to London wondering how everyone could be given access to popular fiction at a low price.

So began the literary revolution of the century. That summer, Penguin started selling paperback books for sixpence the price of a packet of cigarettes. The availability of books at such a low cost transformed the way the British public consumed literature.

Now, 77 years on, literary consumption has changed again through eReaders and

‘All I want is for people to enjoy my stories’ - Kate Mosse eBooks, and new technology is altering how books are produced. Self-publishing platforms such as Kindle Direct Publishing mean authors are finding success online.

American writer Amanda Hocking became the first “Kindle millionaire” in June 2011, while British author Kerry Wilkinson’s novel Locked In reached number one in the Kindle chart in December.

Suggestions that traditional publishers are no longer of value to the modern writer and that publishing houses are “lagging behind” in digital developments have led to questions

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‘Self-publishing platforms mean authors are finding success online’ about whether old and new methods can co-exist. Traditionally independent authors are on the outside of the publishing industry, squeezed between fitting their writing around a day job and meeting the demand from publishing companies for a wide market appeal. But literary agent and novelist Orna Ross is making sure their voices are heard. Launched in April 2012, the Alliance of Independent Authors offers “education, advice, guidance and advocacy” for independent authors. “This is the most revolutionary thing that’s happened in centuries”, says Ross. “But publishing companies are caught on the back foot by the digital movement.”

Not everyone sees it that way. Ursula Mackenzie, chief executive of Little, Brown Book Group and head of the Trade Publishers Council says: “Every book we publish is available as an eBook at exactly the same time as the physical edition. We’re very comfortable with all the changes in technology but it’s a story journalists love to tell - ancient fuddy duddy publishers don’t know what they’re up to.”

Ross says the value of a publisher lies in their ability to get you access to readers through bookstores. “Technology underwrites this completely, now it’s a question of how we can work together so the risk and the reward can be shared.”

For some, this process has already begun.

Unbound is an online platform that lets readers control what is published. Created

by British writers Justin Pollard, Dan Kieren and John Mitchinson, it uses crowd-sourcing to gather funds and publish new works.

Authors pitch ideas online using video and written descriptions. If the audience like a book they can contribute money to publish it, and depending on the amount, their reward ranges from a limited edition hardback to lunch with the author.

This closer relationship is one of the bonuses of self-publishing Pollard says, plus the knowledge that there’s an audience willing to pay to have your work produced.

“Publishers never talk to readers; they sell their stuff to other businesses,” he says.

“We find smaller groups that might not be considered a viable market, readers put their money where their mouth is and we get it made. Who cares whether or not it sells a million copies?”

With Unbound, the competitive hierarchy of bestseller, celebrity and debutant is demolished, both in proceeds (every author gets 50 per cent of the profits) and publicity.

Bristol schoolteacher Jennifer Pickup was Unbound’s first debut novelist and her novel Unbelievable was published with new works by Monty Python actor Terry Jones and novelist Kate Mosse.

Unbound’s focus on maximising resources encouraged Mosse to publish with them. “Trying to judge how many books are wanted by people and printing to demand seems sensible and responsible,” she says.

In traditional publishing, the decades-old method of ‘returns’ means unsold books are returned to the publisher and pulped, while the company reimburses the bookshop for lost profits.

Mosse argues that while some of their methods are outdated, traditional publishers are invaluable to writers. “We can be excited about self-publishing, but it’s early days.

Having a relationship with a publisher is something that even a lot of self-published authors would like.”

Mackenzie says without publishers the quality of writing would dwindle. “The major elements to any writing endeavour are creation and craft. Craft is something you can learn, but editors can help a writer to make the best of their book.”

Self-publishing is a “wonderful opportunity”, Mackenzie insists, but “you can only really self-publish with Amazon, you can’t sell your book with Waterstones”.

But Pollard and Ross’s comments suggest that getting into a bookstore is the last thing on the mind of an independent author.

It’s the appetite for, not the method of, literary consumption that matters, according to Mosse. “We’re in danger of forgetting that content is king,” she says. “It’s about the story, not the delivery. Do I care whether people read my books on an eReader or in print? No. All I want is for people to enjoy the story. That’s it.”

The story continues at xcityarts.com

Jennifer Pickup Unbound’s first debut novelist What makes Unbelievable different from other supernatural tales?

It’s about self-discovery and adults hiding things from children in a mistaken attempt to protect them from the harsh realities of the world around them.

How did you come to write it?

A few years ago I asked a year nine class to write stories. They challenged me to write one too, and since I don’t believe in asking children to do anything in class that I wouldn’t be prepared to do, I accepted.

What drew you to this particular audience?

Unbelievable is a supernatural thriller, but it’s also about identity and growing up. I see teenagers go through it every day, and they inspired me. You’re competing with a multimedia filled world, so a book for a young audience has got to be exciting.

How did you find the writing process?

Writing a book and teaching full time was really hard. I could only write little bits when I had some spare minutes. It was Christmas by the time I had a chance to sit down and go through the whole story.

Why did you decide to use Unbound rather than Kindle Direct Publishing?

I hadn’t looked into self-publishing and I had no idea what there was such a huge market on Amazon Kindle. Unbelievable was read by a few publishers but they didn’t want to publish it. When I heard about Unbound I thought that it was such a clever idea. The very fact that writers are running it inspires confidence in me.

Do you prefer eBooks or paper books?

I have yet to read an eBook – mine will be the first one.

What sort of challenges have you faced throughout the process?

It’s hard to look objectively at your own work; other pairs of eyes are helpful. When you read it through for the third time and realise you’ve used the same word four times in one paragraph, you laugh.

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XCITY arts and culture

Kate Mosse words: Jen Bowden

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abyrinth was the biggest selling title of 2006. Did you feel pressured to make the next book even better?

Not from my publisher as I’d signed a threebook deal with them. Any pressure for the second book came entirely from myself. I was aware of all these readers waiting for the next one.

It’s the best problem to have, but when you’re writing you shouldn’t think about anything other than the next sentence.

How did you come to write a book about Chichester Festival Theatre?

I was asked if I would write it for the 50th anniversary this year. My father worked there for more than 30 years and growing up in Chichester the theatre has been significant in everything I’ve done. Access to live performance of the highest quality is what made me fall in love with storytelling in the first place.

Why did you choose self-publishing company Unbound as the platform to publish it?

Unbound is trying to ensure that the books available are the books people want. I was interested in how they were trying a different way of publishing.

Their production values are high; one of their commitments is using good quality paper and treating photographers like artists.

They’re also doing it on very low returns; every penny made goes straight back to the theatre’s development fund.

IMAGE: ORION

The Labyrinth author on self-publishing, prizes and why ebooks take the satisfaction out of reading

opportunity but many people are wondering how the industry is going to re-define itself. It’s important that there are various measures of success. Sometimes work of the highest quality doesn’t sell lots of copies, but prizes make sure that quality work continues to be given to readers.

Had you ever considered selfpublishing before you went to Unbound?

I wouldn’t want to do that. It’s terrific for people starting out but I like the partnership of publishing. I need another set of eyes to reflect back what I’ve written.

There are many things that, as a writer, I don’t want to be spending my time on; my job is to write the best book I can. Some do everything for themselves, and I applaud that, but I make the most of trying to be a better writer.

Do you think people will be surprised to find that you’ve written non-fiction?

Certainly the majority of readers know my work as fiction and I suppose some will be surprised at this departure. I’ve not always been a novelist; my first two books were non-fiction and I write a lot of journalism.

What do you think eBooks and eReaders have brought to the book industry? eReaders can reintroduce people who’ve fallen out of love with reading. But they come from a culture of immediacy, and the most satisfying thing about reading is that it’s not a quick fix.

You’re the co-founder of the Orange Prize for Fiction. Can literary prizes affect decisions to write or publish?

Major prizes do influence which books might be taken on, and that’s good because the publishing industry has never been in such a volatile state. It’s a time of great

Would you suggest that first time authors self-publish or go to a publishing house?

It’s interesting that a lot of people who have self-published have been picked up by publishing houses and almost all of them have accepted these deals. My hope is that it will encourage a plurality of voices. Books that were not taken on by publishers because they weren’t guaranteed to find a market in book form will find one online.

When you were a publisher what was the first book you “bought”?

When I was an editorial assistant at Hutchinson, a novel called Ruth, about a mentally ill woman, came in. It was written

by Jeremy Cooper and was the most incredible, exquisite book, but the sort of thing nobody would take on. I’ve never forgotten that moment of standing up and having to sell it to the room. I was nervous, excited, but worried I would be letting him down if I didn’t get it taken on. Because of that I know the passion publishers put in to fighting for a book.

The Guardian and The Bookseller listed you as one of the top 50 most influential people in publishing. What do you use that kind of influence for?

I’m proud of the way that the Orange Prize has put outstanding international fiction by women into the hands of millions. I hope I’m in the list because of the libraries campaign. The existence of downloadable books does not take away from the fact that we need physical places dedicated to reading, writing and learning in the heart of all of our communities.

Chichester Festival Theatre at Fifty is published on 1 May 2012. Citadel, the final novel in Kate’s Languedoc Trilogy is published in September 2012.

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the new dumb blonde Manic Pixie Dream Girls

are beautiful, dorky and life affirming. They are also a chauvinist fantasy words: Jessica Lambert

Y

ou might not have heard of a manic pixie dream girl but you’ve definitely spent time with one. She’s popping up on screen with ever-greater frequency.

Whenever a lead male character feels cynical and dejected about the world – poof – a manic pixie dream girl appears at his side.

She’ll be gamine and kooky and just twitching with adorable quirks. She’ll inspire the boy she’s with to break free of his inhibitions, achieve his goals and do something totally unique, that, like, no one has ever done before. She’s Natalie Portman in Garden State, Kate Hudson in Almost Famous and nearly every role that Zooey Deschanel has ever played.

It would be great if we were seeing an increase in the number of inspiring, independent-minded female characters.

Deschanel is currently starring in New Girl, a sitcom in which she plays a klutzy, socially awkward, “adorkable” MPDG. The show has been nominated for several Golden

Globes and Deschanel claims it is “reviving a grand American heritage of sitcom centred on a female character”. But the last thing we need are more female characters like this.

A MPDG looks like she’s breaking social conventions, but don’t let her fool you. As The Vagenda – a popular new feminist blog – pointed out, MPDGs undermine the idea of strong, funny, powerful women.

“When a young woman is humorous in films, she is usually not in charge of that humour. She is clumsy and quirky - that way she doesn’t have any power over it,” they write.

We don’t laugh with these characters, we laugh at them. They might be dressed in cute hipster clothing and geek-chic glasses, but being the butt of so many jokes makes them just a depressing variation on another female stereotype – the “dumb blonde”.

Like the blonde, MPDGs are secondary to the male characters. The film critic Nathan Rabin, who coined the term in 2007, described the MPDG as “that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature [who] teaches broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures”. She is never fleshed out. She never achieves her dreams or overcomes her emotional crises. Her only purpose is to be the kooky muse - a complete lifestyle repair kit in cute clothing.

Rabin continued: “[MPDGs] exist solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writerdirectors”. More specifically, she appears to be born out of the wistful longing those sensitive writer-directors had when they were awkward, teenage boys. They dreamed of meeting a girl who was quirky enough to share their taste in obscure bands and unconventional enough to fall for them instead of the good-looking school jock.

MPDGs are the female equivalent of knights in shining armour. They perpetuate the idea that there is someone out there who will not only make every dull moment sparkle, but who will also have the power to make every aspect of your life fall into place. It’s a deeply unhelpful fallacy that encourages people to feel dissatisfied with their real, quotidian and complex relationships.

As well as creating impossibly high romantic expectations, MPDGs are terrible role models.

That they superficially resemble admirably independent women makes their effect all the more pernicious. The purpose of their rebellious spirit is always to inspire someone else (a male-else) to take action while achieving nothing themselves. MPDGs are twenty-first century versions of Fifties housewives, baking up adventures instead of pies and aspiring to nothing more than being the good woman behind their man. We should not be celebrating their revival. We should ask them to go away.

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XCITY arts and culture

IMAGE: JOHN TRAMPER

lifting the curtain Theatrical history is being revealed in London’s East End as archaeologists unearth Shakespeare’s first theatre words: Emma Featherstone

I

t’s 1576. A couple are escaping their overcrowded hovel for the night. They swig from bottles of cheap ale and trek through the muck-laden streets towards the East End. Negotiating the marshy wasteland outside the city gates, they are met with a novel sight. Jutting out of the dusky skyline is a polygon-shaped structure with whitewashed walls and a newly thatched roof. Joining a jostling crowd, they force their way through the doors, dropping their coins in a ceramic box. The whiff of fresh paint mingled with unwashed bodies fills their noses. An excitable gabble fills the air.

They enter the pit. A player appears on stage and speaks the first line. A drunk tries

to clamber up onto the platform, only to fall flat on his face. A light guffaw turns into riotous laughter, which echoes around the pit and up through the stalls, reaching the boxes. The player trips off a monologue and the crowd are transfixed.

Fast forward to February 2012. It’s a bright, busy Sunday morning on Curtain Road, London. This muddy expanse of land was once the site of an entrepreneurial venture. Visible through the wooden boards are the remains of London’s first playhouse - The Theatre - the ground where the seeds of our theatrical heritage were planted.

Shakespeare’s acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, often performed here; Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s

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Dream were first staged on this very spot and it is the place where the term “box office” originated.

This tableau was unearthed in 2008 when the Tower Theatre Company, an amateur dramatics group, scoured Shoreditch for somewhere suitable as a base.

They found a disused warehouse on Curtain Road that fit the bill.

The company called in the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) to decide if the ground beneath the warehouse was suitable for their new premises. Historical records showed that the late sixteenth century playhouse lay in the immediate vicinity of the site. From 2008 to August 2010, an archaeological dig found the exact location of The Theatre, and a number of important artefacts.

Despite four centuries of industrial use, enough of the original foundations of The Theatre survived for the Tamar Theatre Company to accurately reconstruct its shape and location.

The discovery of the old theatre also meant the artefacts collected through the excavation can help us to understand what Elizabethan people did when they went to the theatre - what they wore, ate and drank.

Julian Bowsher, senior archaeologist at MOLA, says the presence of Shakespeare’s troupe has made the site nationally, if not internationally, significant. “The importance of The Theatre to the development of drama and acting within the Shakespearean environment should not be underestimated,” he says.

One exciting find was ceramic money boxes. Archaeologists believe audience members dropped their entrance money into the boxes where the earnings from each performance were temporarily kept before being stored in a small, safe room. This safe room was later termed the “box office”.

These artefacts will be shown at Hackney Museum’s Mapping the change exhibition, which opens in summer 2012. Kate Bassett, theatre critic for The Independent on Sunday, says: “The boxes are small but intriguing, a rather wonderful find. They deserve a permanent home - maybe on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where there is a theatre archive.”

This discovery is significant to London’s theatre business today, where a play’s success is measured by box office sales. In 2011,

the UK box office took a record £500m, according to the Society of London Theatre (SOLT), with revenue from plays rising by 10 per cent.

London’s recent theatrical success is due to “adventurous producers, daring entrepreneurs and amazing creative talent,” says SOLT. Like the entrepreneurs of London’s West End today, The Theatre’s sixteenth century owner, James Burbage, was motivated by the potential for pulling in fee-paying crowds.

His pluck paid off and the venture was an instant success. Early on, the theatre staged productions by Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kydd and Ben Jonson.

As the popularity of the theatre grew, Burbage befriended the up-and-coming playwright, William Shakespeare. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men became resident performers and from 1594, Shakespeare’s plays were staged at The Theatre. For the premiere of Romeo and Juliet, Burbage’s son Richard, who would become a successful actor, was cast as the male lead.

It is thought the timbers of The Theatre were reused to build the Globe in 1599, in exactly the same form and size. The tale of the moving of the timbers from The Theatre to the Globe in Southwark can vary. The narrative that the MOLA team favour is that Burbage’s widow, his two sons, a builder and a dozen labourers took down each timber of the theatre and shipped it across the Thames. In the summer of 1599, the timbers had been reassembled and the Globe was ready to open. The Shoreditch site was taken over by tenements and warehouses.

The Globe became the most successful Elizabethan theatre. Its success is remembered at Shakespeare’s Globe, which opened in 1997, 750 feet from the original site. It attracts thousands of international visitors each year and is an integral part of London’s theatrical heritage. SOLT says that heritage is “part of the fabric” of the city.

Shakespeare’s plays remain as popular as ever. This year his life and work will be celebrated with the World Shakespeare Festival. It includes 70 productions of Shakespeare plays across Britain and forms part of the London 2012 festival.

Another exciting development was announced in February. Shakespeare’s Globe received £1.5m from an anonymous donor for a matched giving scheme to help the

Globe reach its fund-raising target of £7m towards the construction of a new indoor Jacobean theatre.

This new theatre, which will open in November 2013, will have two tiers of galleried seating and a pit seating area.

Plays such as The Tempest, Cymbeline and The Winter’s Tale were written for a different space to the outdoor Elizabethan playhouses like the Globe. The indoor theatre may aid further understanding of theatre practices at that time and will explore the unique relationship between actor and audience.

‘The most appealing thing about theatre is that it is a living art form. That’s what thrills most people’ Daniel Rosenthal, lecturer and author of 100 Shakespeare Films and the forthcoming History of the National Theatre, is looking forward to the opening. “What’s exciting about the site at Shoreditch, and about the Globe’s plans for their new indoor theatre, is the concerted attempt to bring us closer to discovering what it was like to be in the first audiences for Shakespeare’s plays,” he says.

In summer 2010, excavation of the theatre closed. On that evening, members of the Tower Theatre Company read A Midsummer Night’s Dream on the excavated site to commemorate the premiere of the play 400 years ago. Since then, the company has run out of funding to build their new premises, and further excavation and building works have been put on hold.

While the next two years are exciting in terms of Shakespeare appreciation with the World Shakespeare Festival and the building of the indoor theatre at Shakespeare’s Globe, there are no present plans to restore the site of The Theatre as a performance space. Leaving it as a forgotten expanse of mud is a regrettable fate, but perhaps another theatre company will one day decide to build a base there and the memory of this fascinating site will be restored.

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XCITY arts and culture

Paloma Faith P

aloma Faith is a wonderful mix – part singer, part showgirl, part actress.

She’s been a magician’s assistant, burlesque dancer, life-drawing model, barmaid and has spent time boiling chickens for sandwiches. At 26 she has a platinum album behind her and is just about to release her second, Fall to Grace.

Fashion extrovert and connoisseur of Forties chic, Faith’s outlandish outfits, trademark red lipstick and coiffed hair rank her high in the style stakes. Like Lady Gaga and Grayson Perry, she is her look.

Today it’s her day off, so she’s dressed down and wearing a shirt, Forties swing trousers and braces. “Nothing too fancy,” she says.

With a figure matching her Fifties pin-up ideal, Faith now embraces and emphasises her curves, citing Marilyn Monroe and Ava Gardner as her top style icons. When she isn’t dressed in retro Hollywood glam she often opts for the bizarre. Her wardrobe includes a jacket covered in multi-coloured pom poms, a Swarovski crystal-encrusted catsuit and a 1980s puffball frock, as well as pieces from Topshop, H&M, Zara, and New Look - her favourite shop for shoes.

Yet despite winning Best Dressed Woman of the Year at the Clothes Show Style Awards in 2010, Faith hasn’t always been a confident dresser. “I remember when hipster jeans were on trend, they didn’t suit my body shape – I had a massive muffin top and I felt a frump,” she says.

She blames her insecurities on the years she spent training to be a dancer, failing

Singer-songwriter Paloma Faith loathes Tory policies, loves Ken Livingstone, and longs for the day that she can wear Dior words: Kyrstena Petrakas

to fit the typecast physique. “The teachers didn’t treat me well and it knocked my confidence. I took a while to get over those feelings,” she says.

But she has chosen a more sophisticated look for her second album. “I’d love to wear Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier and Galliano but I haven’t been allowed to,” she says. “I think the quirky outfits I wore put the designers off but now I’m all grown up they might let me wear the clothes.”

Faith is taking a more stubborn approach to her second album, opting for a simple, raw backing to showcase her soulful voice, rather than over-produced tracks. “Now in the eyes of a business I have more value,” she says. “So the label has given me more rope to make the record I love.” Together

with her producer, Nellee Hooper, who has worked with Björk and Madonna, Faith has made a conscious effort to include songs listeners can dance to.

Faith was raised in Hackney by her single mother - a socialist and feminist who still remains a big influence in her life. “My mum taught me patience and acceptance not just towards others, but towards myself,” she says.

She remembers attending protest marches with her, and like her politicallyminded mother, she grew up idolising Ken Livingstone. “I’m completely anti Tory – I’m worried it’s all going to turn Margaret Thatcher,” she says.

She is concerned about the potential privatisation of the NHS and believes the Government should focus on supporting low-income families, pension plans and the homeless. “I feel disheartened being forced into a system that cuts benefit schemes and helps the rich get richer,” she says.

While studying at Central Saint Martins, she worked as a sales assistant at Agent Provocateur until Epic Records signed her.

She feels a sense of pride in being a higherrate taxpayer. “Although the cuts could benefit me in a horrible capitalist every-manfor-himself way, I don’t see myself as a single person in society,” she says. “I’m part of a community and I believe in that.”

She attributes her views to growing up in Hackney. “There’s a lot of corruption that goes on with the youth and police,” she says.

Despite this, she says she was influenced by the diverse music of the area.

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For a long time Faith refused to call herself a singer. “I felt inferior to the singers I listened to growing up,” she says. She references Etta James and Billie Holiday as two of her icons. “Even though they didn’t write those songs you can tell those women had been through a lot to be able to sing like that.”

She admits she has struggled to strike the right balance between her traditional jazz and blues sound and Amy Winehouse’s more accessible style. But she now feels a new sense of control in producing a record that suits her voice, as well as channelling cinematic inspiration.

‘I felt inferior to the singers I listened to growing up. You can tell those women had been through a lot to sing like that’ She says appearing on Jools Holland’s BBC Two show in 2009 changed her life.

After the show, the young singer was invited to perform at a festival curated by pop legend, Prince, in Copenhagen.

She performed alongside the “Queen of Funk” Chaka Khan, met actor Larry Gray and was given career advice from Prince himself. “It was all so overwhelming. I felt as if I’d been buried but then replanted in a different garden. Prince told me I’ve got something great that I need to nurture,” she says. Faith will be performing her album for the first time at Cheltenham Jazz Festival in May. Despite touring and performing in different countries, Faith is very proud of her east London roots. “Growing up in Hackney shaped me into who I am in a good way. I felt part of this amazing community,” she says. However, she is itching to start her next tour. “I want to go out and play again, because that’s the reason I love records.”

Paloma Faith’s album, Fall to Grace, will be released on 28 May.

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XCITY arts and culture

What is it about famous people that we love to watch?

And what makes a great biopic? words: Elli Donajgrodzki

L

the

rise

of the

biopic will already have an opinion and some sort of emotional attachment – whether positive or negative. The Iron Lady, for example, brought an onslaught of critiques and analyses of Margaret Thatcher’s years in power.

However biopics, especially if they are over flattering, can fall into the trap of becoming dull, according to Bradshaw. “Modern biopics can be over-reverential. Biopics tend to be quality cinema but can lack that spark of passion. Gandhi and Lawrence of Arabia were massive, grandiose projects in a way that they’re not now. You think ‘Christ, they actually had to get all those extras’ whereas now you can do it all on your iPhone.”

The solution? A biographical film must offer something unique and niche. The most successful filmmakers are doing what Bradshaw describes as “synecdoche” filmmaking, taking a big moment in history or a chapter of someone’s life and using it as an insight into their lives and personality.

This new breed of biopic, pioneered by Peter Morgan, screenwriter of The Queen and The Damned United, has proven particularly successful in cinema, as Graham illustrates. “The secret of a good biopic is to narrow the focus. It’s very flat if it’s just a linear tale from birth to death. Their rise, their fall; it’s the same inevitable stories. You can’t get psychological depth in 90 minutes. You leave the cinema feeling a bit unfulfilled, like they’ve just skimmed the surface.”

The latest film from director Roger Michell (Notting Hill and Changing Lanes) is an example of this trend. Due for release in December, Hyde Park on Hudson takes place over the single IMAGE: FOCUS FEATURES

Peter Bradshaw. “Maybe they won’t do that ike a well-fitting suit or a little black well at the box office, but everybody feels dress, the biopic is classic and good about themselves because they’ve made dependable. In the last few years, something classy; they’re not just churning out cinemagoers have been hit with a plethora rubbish. In a way, it’s about prestige.” of biographical pictures exploring the lives While the genre is likely to receive award of figures as diverse as Harvey Milk, Serge acknowledgement, there is no guarantee that Gainsbourg and Coco Chanel. this will translate into ticket sales. As Graham This year we have already had J. Edgar and comments: “At the moment, the big box office W.E, while 2010 saw the runaway success of The King’s Speech. With Stephen Spielberg’s forthcoming film Lincoln, starring Daniel Day Lewis, and the almost inevitable Princess Diana movie in the pipeline, there seems to be no end in sight for the genre. But what is it about the biopic that makes it so compelling?

Biopics are a safe bet. If the subject is well known enough, a captive audience is guaranteed. For filmmakers, biopics also offer a stockpile of easily accessible material, something that Jamie Graham, deputy editor of Total Film, thinks makes them so appealing. “Filmmakers are always looking for ideas and platforms.

There is only so much originality and so many sources you can plunder. One source you can always look to is real life.

Incredible stories that people should Bill Murray as FDR know about.”

Many hit our screens at precisely the right moment to guarantee Oscar and films generally have men in tights, pirates or BAFTA attention. Variety magazine calls these some sort of Marvel character. People pay “fourth quarter biopics” - a film released at the money to enter a different realm, to escape. end of the year, just in time for the Oscars. This Biopics tend not to be like that, but are where secures it the best possible chance of winning. you find the best of cinema, with films about (Recent examples include The Iron Lady and J. people. If there is no emotional connection then Edgar.) it isn’t as interesting.”

It’s not just a release date that guarantees As audiences generally know the character strong recognition. “Biopics are classy, heritage, being portrayed in a biopic, it’s likely that most hard-back cinema,” says Guardian film critic

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e Peter Bradshaw’s top five biopics know as much about Roosevelt as possible weekend in 1939 that saw the first royal visit before filming had begun. “With that kind to America. Stuttering monarch George VI of part you offer the actor a “character (Samuel West), crosses the Atlantic six weeks gymnasium”. Murray’s included meeting with before the outbreak of World War Two to try polio sufferers, time spent with a physiotherapist and forge relations with President Roosevelt showing him how to walk properly on crutches, (Bill Murray). It is also, many suggest, where the voice and accent coaches, and looking at seeds of the “special relationship” were sown photographs and archive material. incidentally over a hot dog picnic. “It’s a magical It’s the small things that make a character weekend. A tiny event with a massive tectonic believable, what Michell calls “little tells”. historical effect,” says Michell.

“You’re not putting on a false face, or sticking As well as highlighting the beginning of on a prosthetic nose. But if you look at the British/American relationship, the film Roosevelt the tells are little liver spots, slightly also reflects the men’s friendship, something stained old-fashioned teeth, the way the hair is Michell was keen to show. “They did get on fluffy at the back - the very well. They had generally crumpled a great affection aspect of the man. for each other.

All those little things Roosevelt, like many assembled trick you Americans, adored into thinking this royalty. If he’d been is FDR, without alive today he would having to do an be a keen devotee of impersonation of Hello magazine.” him.”

The film is Alongside Lincoln, narrated by Daisy 2012 will see the (Laura Linney), FDR’s release of two Jeff distant cousin with Buckley biopics, a whom he is having a film about Hitchcock relationship; bringing a and of course Caught new dimension to the In Flight starring character of FDR. Naomi Watts as the Having an unusual People’s Princess. narrator or storyteller, The Diana as Michell does, is biopic, in particular, a way of keeping a is something that biopic fresh, used Bradshaw is eagerly also in the 2011 anticipating. “I think film My Week with it would be brilliant Marilyn. Narrated by Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher to do it in a clear, Colin Clark (Eddie crisp, eerie way, in Redmayne), a lowly the style of director Gus Van Sant. I hope they film assistant who strikes up a friendship with Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) while she is try to get the bitchy, manipulative, slightly mad filming in England, it offers a unique insight into side of Diana.”

In all likelihood the film will depict a Monroe’s otherwise very private life. straight-laced version of Diana’s last days. But Another way of keeping interest is to focus perhaps it is time to be a little more creative. As on a particular point in a person’s life. The Iron Michell notes, biopics don’t necessarily have to Lady begins in 2008, when the former PM’s be completely factual – instead interpretation memories are clouded by dementia. It’s this and creativity have to come into it. “I think different perspective that adds an unexpected you have to take biopics in the spirit in which dimension and gives such force to Meryl they are made. They are artful, quasi-fictional Streep’s performance. versions of the past. They’re versions of A strong performance will always help history and history is just a story that is told in make a powerful biopic. But the transformation different ways by different people. I wouldn’t from actor to character can be a very complex claim for a moment that this is actually what process. Michell was keen for Bill Murray to

Raging Bull, 1980, Martin Scorsese

Ghandi, 1982, Richard Attenborough

Lawrence of Arabia, 1962, David Lean

Andrei Rublev, 1966, Andrei Tarkovsky

Backbeat, 1994, Iain Softley

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XCITY arts and culture

IMAGE: JAMES CAREY

James Carey’s artwork, soon to be hidden behind the plaster of a penthouse suite in south London.

hidden art

Secret creations defy convention. So why make work that will never be seen? words: Madeleine Cuff

O

n a cold morning in January 2012, two men were working away on The Library Building in Clapham, south London. All day and into the evening they worked. But they were not laying wires or plastering walls. They were not tiling, sawing, or sanding floors.

They spent the day creating bespoke art for this concrete world. Watched by a team of bemused workmen, the two artists transformed the bare concrete walls of the site into an art installation, a world teeming with humour, life and colour.

The next morning their artwork was covered with plasterboard, immured into the building’s structure. Photographs and a short film are the only remnants of what lies hidden from view.

The two artists, Paul Davis and James Carey, are both commercial illustrators. They always knew the building’s occupants would never see their work. So why do it? Why would someone agree to make art that will never be seen?

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ES CAREY

The idea of artists making work that is hidden or destroyed is not new. During the Dada art movement of the 1920s, the French painter Francis Picabia exhibited drawings done on a blackboard in chalk, only to rub them out during a showing.

This was taken a stage further by Robert Rauschenberg in 1953, who famously spent a month erasing a sketch by the Dutch expressionist artist Willem de Kooning.

The finished work, entitled Erased de Kooning Drawing, contains only a faint outline of de Kooning’s original work.

Today, unstable work is making an appearance throughout the artistic world.

Michael Landy is one artist renowned for his destructive work. In a piece entitled Breakdown, in 2001 he reduced all his possessions to dust as a comment on consumerism. Some artists deliberately choose a medium that means their work will not stand the test of time. Sand sculptor Jim Denevan takes photographs of his largescale creations just minutes before the tide sweeps them away, while Jonathan Lloyd’s intricate ice sculptures melt into puddles.

Richard Hickman, author of Why We Make Art – And Why it is Taught and reader in Art Education at the University of Cambridge, says imagination and curiosity has been crucial for our evolution as human beings. “We have a desire, a tendency and a natural curiosity that makes us want to produce things, to create things,” he says.

He believes it is the act of artistic creation itself, rather than the end product, that is important. According to Hickman the concept of art lies not in an “art object” but in its creator. “It’s not done so that you make a living from it, it’s not done because it’s good for your ego, it’s done because you have a fundamental urge to create something,” he says. In his view, the fate of the finished creation is less important.

Not everyone subscribes to the idea that the motivation for art can be separated from its audience. Paul Davis believes it is essential that people see his work. “Otherwise they don’t buy it,” he says. “What’s the point of doing work if people don’t buy it?

“Of course art is a commercial activity, I’m not in a garret, thinking ‘Oh I’m being existential’, reading novels and poetry. I want to sell the bloody stuff.”

Hickman’s theory sits well with James Carey, a London-based graffiti artist who

takes a different view to his project partner Davis. He describes the opportunity to work on bare concrete as “a graffiti artist’s dream” and insists his art is motivated through the enjoyment of creation, not in providing others with something good to look at.

“The simple act of emptying the spray paint can is cathartic,” he says. “It’s physical expression, and controlling that is really satisfying. Sometimes the process is better than the end result. It’s an impulse rather than a desire.”

But this impulse can lead to some dark places. In the depths of Manhattan lies an abandoned subway station, known only to urban explorers and engineers. This dark, forgotten corner of New York is home to the Underbelly Project.

Completed in October 2010, Underbelly was a highly secretive urban art collaboration involving over 100 international artists, including Carey. Over several months they decorated the abandoned station with installation pieces, graffiti and paintings, working by the light of lanterns.

To avoid being caught and prosecuted, each contributor had to slip off the end of a platform at a working subway station, and be led into the dark warren of tunnels to reach the site. Participants went by street pseudonyms to avoid identification. The artists were right to be wary; in New York being caught graffiting can result in up to four years in jail.

‘The simple act of emptying the spray paint cans is cathartic.

Sometimes the process is actually better than the result’

‘There was no exhibition, no preview ... No critics have been permitted to see it and no art dealers may value it’ Like the Dadaists in the 1920s, the Underbelly Project rejected many of the social expectations we attach to art today.

There was no exhibition, no preview. No critics will see it, no art dealers can value it. The public is strongly discouraged from attempting to seek out the installation.

“Workhorse”, co-curater of Underbelly alongside fellow artist “PAC”, described it as “an eternal show without a crowd”.

Is this underground rebellion a search for power? Hickman thinks it could be the case.

“The way society has evolved allows artists to be the ones to break down boundaries,” he says. “The cliche of the artist as a visionary and a rebel serves them well.”

There may appear to be no trace of these artworks left after they have been hidden or destroyed, but the artists are careful to document their actions. Attached to the back of Rauschenberg’s piece is a photograph of de Kooning’s original sketch, and Denevan is meticulous in photographing his work before the sea washes it away. Carey explains how these photographs provide power. “I’m controlling it. I can choose where those photographs go,” he says.

By rebelling against the expectation that art should be both public and timeless, the artists’ creations will never now belong to anyone but them. This control leaves them free to shape its history.

The organisers of Underbelly want their work to become legendary. “We want people to know it exists,” says PAC. “We want it to become part of the folklore of urban art.”

The story continues at www.xcityarts.com

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CULTURE

meat the future 30

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Lab-grown flesh may seem like science fiction, but Dutch scientists are on the verge of creating the first “frankenburgers” words: Madeleine Cuff

B

acon or babies? Bacon every time it seems, for men at least. A 2009 survey by One Poll found that men preferred a waft of sizzling bacon to the scent of newborn babies. The survey, which asked people to rate their favourite smells, also discovered that both sexes are a sucker for the smell of a roast dinner in the oven.

It seems we live in a world addicted to meat, and it’s an addiction that is proving impossible to break.

Every day, 58 million people around the world chow down on a McDonalds – the equivalent of everyone from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland picking up a daily fast food treat. The world’s total meat supply has more than trebled from 71 million tonnes a year in 1961 to 244 million in 2009.

The United Nations estimates that global meat consumption will reach 373 million tonnes a year by 2030, with China and other developing countries leading the charge towards a fleshy future. The result of this increase has manifested itself in deforestation, water contamination and increased global warming from 1.5 billion methane-producing cows.

Why haven’t we renounced all our carnivorous tendencies and gone over to the green side? Perhaps it’s because, as omnivores, most humans enjoy a good steak now and then. And thanks to some Dutch scientists, a taste for T-bone may no longer pose a moral dilemma. They have succeeded in growing meat in a laboratory, bringing a whole new meaning to the term “steakhouse”.

The idea of in vitro meat, as laboratory meat is known, is not new. In 1932 Winston Churchill chillingly predicted: “Fifty years hence, we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.”

Yet it was not until early this century that scientific knowledge of stem cells was advanced enough to make in vitro meat seem a possibility. Since then, scientists from NASA to the Netherlands have tried their hand at growing everything from goldfish meat to beef in a petri dish.

Professor Mark Post, of Maastricht University in the Netherlands, is the man closest to cracking the in vitro code. In his laboratory he is growing flesh with stem cells from a cow. Strips of Velcro-like material act as an anchor point, and a 3D gel is added to aid growth. Gradually the muscle fibres start to contract and build up tension, creating the texture of meat. In October he hopes to present the first ever stem cell burger.

Prof Post claims producing meat in this way will minimize animal cruelty, save the environment and even make us healthier.

But can this groundbreaking new science really rival vegetarianism as a green, ethical lifestyle choice?

Not according to Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University London, who describes it as “pandering” to our meat culture. “We’ve already got a world in which people eat flaccid, tasteless meat grown in factory conditions. This is the next step in that industrialisation process,” he says.

“There is a big debate in food policy about how we are going to feed the world sustainably in the future. Artificial meat is just one tiny bit of technology entering a complicated issue,” he says. “This approach suggests you don’t have to address anything other than the capacity to feed people, and the technology will solve social problems.”

‘We’ve got a world in which people eat flaccid, tastless meat grown in factories.

This is the next step’

In China, increased meat consumption has led to an increase in heart disease and other conditions linked to excessive meateating, as Prof Lang explains. “The Chinese Ministry of Health is deeply concerned about the westernisation of its diet, which carries public health consequences that it cannot afford to pay for. Diabetes and heart disease are very expensive diseases.”

But Prof Post believes meat should not shoulder the responsibility for this - it has more to do with the lifestyle choices people make. “Everybody can reduce meat consumption if they want to,” he says.

‘Scientists from NASA have tried their hand at growing everything from goldfish meat to beef in a petri dish’ Indeed, Prof Post believes that in vitro meat could prove to be much healthier than traditional flesh. Polyunsaturated fatty acids - “good fats” which can lower cholesterol - are made naturally by stem cells. With further research, Prof Post thinks his team can find out in the lab how to encourage these cells to produce more of these good fats in meat, potentially making in vitro meat a healthier option.

However Liz O’Neill, head of communications at the Vegetarian Society, doesn’t believe in vitro technology heralds a new age of guilt-free meat eating. “Why would you bother to create artificial meat when a vegetarian diet is so delicious, nutritious and sustainable? There already is an answer,” she says.

Artificial meat may triumph over traditional meat on health grounds, but is it better for the planet? Cells in petri dishes don’t munch their way through tonnes of soy animal feed grown on the plains left by flattened rainforests. If we replaced livestock with artificial meat, Prof Post estimates that we could reduce the number of animals being slaughtered by anything from a million to a trillion-fold.

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XCITY arts and culture

What would this new, livestock-less world look like? For a start, we would all breathe a little easier - researchers from Oxford University published a study last year estimating that lab grown meat would produce 96 per cent less greenhouse gases than current methods of farming (cells in petri dishes don’t fart much).

Prof Post envisages a future where in vitro meat could be produced in hundreds of factories, “very much like our cheese is made now”. There will be some donor animals from which to extract the stem cells, but standards of care would be much higher.

“Many of the problems with animal welfare come not from the livestock keeping per se, but from the industrial scale of livestock keeping. If you slaughter 5,000 animals in a production line there are going to be two or three animals that are not completely anaesthetised before you kill them. If you slaughter one animal a month you can take all the care you want to extract the stem cells. The chance atrocities will happen during the slaughtering procedure is much reduced, if not zero.”

Prof Lang is sceptical the project will ever cause as big an impact as some hope.

“Is it a realistic, important development for the challenge of sustainability? No.” Funding is difficult to come by, says Prof Post, who depends on philanthropy and research money from the Dutch government. He hopes that by producing the world’s first in vitro burger he will entice investment from businesses. “A lot of work still needs to be done to create a commercially viable product,” he says. “For that you need resources, lots of people who are interested in it and the money to do the research.”

There is one area the two professors agree on. Both men admit that the reality of in vitro meat lining the shelves of our supermarkets is years away. Prof Post estimates that it will take another 10 to 15 years before the “frankenburger” is commercially viable.

When it is finally ready, Lang warns that in vitro meat may not be the immediate answer many have been waiting for. “Don’t get too excited about this technology. We can put people on the moon. Are we putting everyone on the moon?”

A meat eater and a vegan argue the case

the debate

Fergus Henderson Owner of Michelin-starred restaurant 26 John St and author of Nose to Tail Eating

Heather Mills Celebrity charity worker and owner of vegan cafe VBites in Brighton “In an ideal world, everyone would be vegan.

Not only for the animal cruelty issues and health, but science has proven if we do this the outcome would be the lessening of deforestation to feed cattle. This in turn would considerably reduce methane and C02 gasses that contribute to global warming.

“I initially became vegan because of health reasons. I had been hit by a police motorcycle, and after three months in hospital I decided to follow the advice of a vegan girlfriend. I was as ignorant as most on the animal welfare issues, and the environmental impact never came into play as far as awareness was concerned until years later.

“Anything that reduces cruelty to animals and the environment is welcome. But apparently they still have to use one cow to produce a million burgers so I will still be eating vegan burgers.”

“I hate when people blame cows for farting.

Let the cows fart. It seems to be blaming the animals. We should look after animals, and make sure companies look after farmland.

It’s about being respectful.

“The way we consume meat in this country is bad. Butchers have disappeared in central London. Everyone seems happy to go to the supermarket and buy pink flaccid meat. Why would you do it?

“This stem cell petri dish burger sounds disgusting. Animals are made to be bred.

Growing meat in a laboratory seems...eurgh.

No chefs that I know of would cook it. I can’t see it catching on.

“I think we can reduce our meat consumption by being more economical.

We’re in danger of having two-tiers of food.

All the pink plastic stuff - the mass - and then the good food. People have forgotten to look for the good food. They should be interested in where an animal came from, and how it was reared.

“It’s about creating a happy chain. The animal is happy, the meat doesn’t travel for thousands of miles, the chefs butcher the carcass, and have a real relationship with it. Then they cook it with love. In my restaurant we know the farms that our animals come from, where they are happy gambolling in the fields.”

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e

WIMBLEDON COLLEGE OF ART

WIMBLEDON COLLEGE OF ART SUMMER SHOWS 2012 UNDERGRADUATE POSTGRADUATE

WIMBLEDON COLLEGE OF ART

WIMBLEDON COLLEGE OF ART

e

Friday 15th to Saturday 23rd June 2012 (closed Sunday 17th June)

Friday 7th to Thursday 13th September 2012 (closed Sunday 9th September) For visitor information, times and travel details please go to: www.wimbledon.arts.ac.uk/summershows2012 Merton Hall Road, London SW19 3QA

WIMBLEDON COLLEGE OF ART CCW_Advert_xcity arts culture_01.indd 1

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23/03/2012 12:27:17

women on TOP The porn industry has traditionally been seen as a man’s world. But a new sexual revolution is catering for the female appetite words: Hannah Bass

I

t begins like any high society party.

Guests in cocktail dresses and chinos sip champagne and make small talk from behind Venetian masks.

But at midnight the atmosphere changes.

Two women strip down to lace lingerie and jump into the Jacuzzi, beckoning a couple of blokes to join them.

Soon enough every surface writhes with naked bodies. From behind my mask I behold threesomes, foursomes and fivesomes. A leather-clad dominatrix leads a nude man off into a private room. Another girl approaches me, boyfriend in tow, and whispers in my ear: “We've had our eye on you all night.”

I have braved a Killing Kittens party, an orgy for the “sexual elite” where, according to its organisers, “the sole aim is the pursuit of female sexual pleasure”.

No-strings sexual gratification, once the preserve of men, has been seized by women hungry for satisfaction. And Killing Kittens is part of the new sex industry cashing in on female desire.

But Killing Kittens isn't any old orgy.

Featured in Tatler and Harper's Bazaar it is an exclusive network whose members are vetted on attractiveness, age and social standing.

It is run by Emma Sayle, the daughter of Colonel Guy Sayle OBE and a close friend of the Duchess of Cambridge.

After buying my ticket online, I receive an email confirming the secret location. I am also reminded of “the rules”. Men must wait to be approached by women.

‘Women account for one in three visitors to porn websites’

Jo, 28, an advertising executive, has been flitting between couples all night. I ask her what she loves about these parties. “The sense of power is incredible,” she says. “I can have any man, or woman, I want.”

According to a 2011 study by Dr Terri Conley, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, women are just as likely as men to have casual sex when they can be assured that the encounter will be safe and enjoyable.

“Women are generally more positive towards casual sex than most people assume,” Conley says. “And my research suggests that men and women’s attitudes and reactions to casual sex would be the same if there were a level playing field.

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That is, if women didn’t have to worry about issues such as physical safety and the stigma surrounding women having casual sex, they would be as positive as men are about it.”

Finella, 24, a secondary school teacher from Shropshire, says she's “stereotypically male” in her attitude to sex. With her Mulberry handbag, pashmina and plummy public school tones, Finella certainly doesn't seem like a sex-mad lad. But that’s how she describes herself. “There's that cliche that says men think about sex every seven seconds,” she says. “I'm very masculine in that I think about sex a lot. I like sex. A lot.”

For Finella, no-strings sex is a unique pleasure. For her casual encounters are a way to experiment and explore. “I’m a bit of an exhibitionist,” she says, “and I’d really like to have sex with other people watching. That’s something I wouldn’t want to do in a relationship because it would affect your private dynamic. For me, casual sex is a safe way of discovering yourself.”

However, Finella says she still struggles against the outdated idea that “nice girls don’t like sex”.

“Sex is always seen as a win for men and something that women should feel a bit ashamed of," she says. "Men can enjoy sex for the sake of it, while women get judged by men and other women for enjoying or getting turned on by it.”

Not, however, at a party like Killing Kittens, which Finella will attend in a fortnight. And with over 6,000 Killing Kittens members, 80 per cent of whom are women, there's a clear demand for female-oriented fun. It’s a lucrative market: the Hewson Group’s 2011 Women, Sex and Shopping report found that women spent £6bn last year on sex toys, lingerie and pornography.

If that's surprising, then this is the real shock: women account for one in three visitors to pornographic websites. And girls aren't just watching porn - they're making it too.

Anna Arrowsmith has been directing award-winning pornography since 1998 under the pseudonym Anna Span.

Arrowsmith, who is also studying for a doctorate in gender studies, says she was driven by the desire to create a “female Soho”, a women’s alternative to the sex

industry enjoyed by men.

She says: “Having your own pornography, a representation of your imagination, is vital for having sexual autonomy. A man has the confidence of knowing the world respects his sexuality enough to offer industries that cater to it, regardless of whether or not he chooses to

‘The sense of power is incredible. I can have any man - or woman - I want’.’ use them. Women don’t have that.”

The common misconception is that only men respond to erotic visual stimulus.

Yet a 2008 study found that all women showed signs of physical arousal while watching explicit films – even if they reported no conscious arousal. Perhaps it’s just that mainstream porn, with hairy blokes jack hammering away at silicone blondes, makes most women wince.

Arrowsmith’s films aim to “bring back the female perspective that’s often omitted in porn”. Her lens lingers on men chosen for their good looks, and she tries to build a storyline with believable characters.

Through interviewing both men and women about their desires, Anna found that context and detail was important to women.

“Men have had their sexuality catered for; they’ve always had images provided so they’ve not had to fill the details in with their imagination,” she explains. “Women have had the time to go back to the same fantasy and replay it and replay it because they didn’t have anything offered to them on a plate.”

But the female appetite is being 1catered for by a burgeoning sex industry powered by women. At Killing Kittens that night, my desire is mistress. It makes for a far more savoury - and sexy - experience than being groped and grinded upon in a nightclub.

As Rihanna, pop’s dominatrix du jour, sings: “Make me your priority, there’s nothing above my pleasure.” A new sexual revolution is gathering pace, and this time women are on top.

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Barack Obama’s first term, judged by our panel of experts

IMAGE: CHARLES OMMANNEY/GETTY IMAGES

words: Sophie Tighe

W

hat do John Adams, Jimmy Carter and George H W Bush have in common? They’re all members of a very exclusive gentleman’s club that Barack Obama is desperate not to join - the One Term President’s Club, membership via crippling electoral loss only. Yes, it’s that time of the decade again - election year in the US. It’s hard to believe it was four years ago that Obama was sworn in as the 44th (and first African-American) president and even harder to remember what he has actually done in his first term. For every pat on the back the president gives himself, there is always someone ready to stick the knife in and kindly point out exactly where he went wrong. We have taken a selection of Obama’s biggest achievements and, along with our panel of experts, put them under the political microscope to decipher whether or not they can truly be called a success.

This is the trial of Barack Obama.

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Charge: stimulus package of 2009

Charge: “Obamacare”, healthcare reform

Charge: repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

The Obamas had barely unpacked at the White House before the new President announced his stimulus package to try to combat the trillion dollar deficit he inherited from the Bush administration.

Obama’s answer to the subprime mortgage and a global economic crises was a $700bn bank bailout and a $787 bn fiscal stimulus package. The main aims of the stimulus package were to create jobs and get the US economy back on track.

A dream held by Democrats from Bill Clinton to Ted Kennedy, healthcare reform was the most important thing on Obama’s mind for the first 18 months of his presidency. In 2010 he passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a sweeping reform that would aim to slash the number of uninsured Americans from nearly 50 million to 23 million by 2019.

One provision of the act states that no one can be refused insurance due to a preexisting condition, another allows children to stay on their parents’ plan until they are 26. Despite these seemingly positive measures, it has proved to be a divisive issue, with harsh criticism from both the left and the right.

One of the President’s most emotive campaign promises, Obama pledged to repeal the controversial law introduced under President Clinton that stated openly gay men and women could not serve in the US army. Since its introduction in 1993 to its repeal in September 2011, 13,000 service men and women were discharged from the military under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), twice the number of military personnel killed to date in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite Obama’s promise for swift action, it was nearly three years into his presidency before DADT was finally officially overturned.

FOR “The flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy. That is why this administration is moving swiftly to restore confidence and re-start lending to the American people and American business and end this crisis once and for all. It’s not about helping banks – it’s about helping people.” from Obama’s Address to the Joint Session of Congress, 24 February 2009

‘Flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy ... It’s not about helping banks - it’s about helping people’

AGAINST “The primary objective of the stimulus package was Keynesian pumppriming the economy, stimulating the economy by putting money back into it. You have to replace the amount of money lost in order to restore the economy’s equilibrium. But because of political reasons, they didn’t come anywhere close to the amount that a Keynesian economist would say was necessary in order to bring it back to the way it was before the collapse. It did work, as far as it went.

But did it work politically? Probably not. It wasn’t enough.”

Rick Perlstein, author Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

FOR “Congress finally declared that America’s workers and America’s families and America’s small businesses deserve the security of knowing that here, in this country, neither illness nor accident should endanger the dreams they’ve worked a lifetime to achieve. Tonight’s vote is not a victory for any one party. It’s a victory for the American people. And it’s a victory for common sense.” from Obama’s “This is what change looks like” speech, 20 March 2010 AGAINST “There are some provisions in this healthcare reform that should be popular but the Democrats have done a poor job of selling it. The individual mandate, which says everyone must have insurance, plays into the Republican narrative of government overreach. Obama had a moral imperative about the health care system in the United States, which was and remains immoral, and he answered it.

Sadly, “Obamacare” is a huge liability for the President.”

David Usborne, US Editor, The Independent

‘Sadly, “Obamacare” is a huge liability for the President’

‘It was nearly three years before DADT was officially overturned’ FOR “As of today, patriotic Americans in uniform will no longer have to lie about who they are in order to serve the country they love. Today, every American can be proud that we have taken another great step toward keeping our military the finest in the world and toward fulfilling our nation’s founding ideals.” statement by Obama on the Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, 20 September 2011 AGAINST “The President could have made an executive order, which would have been a lot faster. Instead, he helped it go through Congress and then signed it into law so it took a lot longer. There is a kind of rationale behind it, but I still think he dragged his feet. Considering the trouble he has had with other issues, the fact he got it through Congress is a victory. We’re fighting about contraception, let alone gays in the military.”

Dr. Michael Bibler, lecturer in American Literature and Culture, at The University of Manchester The story continues at xcityarts.com

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she who dares Young women must embrace risk if they are to smash the glass ceiling words: Emma Spedding

I

n February, leading independent girls school Wimbledon High School dedicated an entire week to failure.

The girls were given a tray of Smarties and told that the blue ones were magic; if eaten they will never fail again. Forty-three per cent of pupils took the Smartie. But, after taking a week-long confidence course, only 17 per cent ate the “failure” sweet.

There were discussions about failure in an assembly, 12 members of staff revealed personal failures. There were also new activities on offer, such as a photography

IMAGE: HANNAH BASS

and history of art club, to encourage girls to try something different.

The school created “failure week” because girls do not fail as well as boys. Dr Elyse Waites, the teacher who developed the week, explains that girls outcompete boys at GCSE and A Level, but often have less spectacular successes in their careers.

“Girls would rather take a boring route to get a good outcome. They are perfectionists.

They often won’t try and answer a question, guess or make a comment. It’s a very common problem,” she explains.

But if girls win the race to the most A*s at school, why does it matter? “Our biggest worry is that girls will do really well throughout school and then, the first time they don’t get what they expect, they will crumble,” explains Dr Waites. “We worry that they won’t have any resilience.”

Every great success story is peppered with losses. Inventor James Dyson failed 5,127 times before he created his eponymous vacuum cleaner. In 2006, basketball player Michael Jordan confessed: “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in

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my career. I have lost almost 300 games.

Twenty-six times I have been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I have failed over and over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

But if failure is the route to success, women are at a distinct disadvantage. Young women like to be first, safe from risk. This arguably stems from early development.

“The stereotype is that a boy is rough and tough,” says psychologist Professor Joan Freedman. “They are encouraged to play outdoors more and take more risks.”

Jessica Chivers, women’s life coach and writer, believes men are encouraged to take more risks because they develop their motor skills earlier than girls. Boys take part in riskier activities earlier on. “There is no risk in playing with a doll on a carpet,” she says.

Oliver James, psychologist and author of psychology handbook, Affluenza, is skeptical about evolutionary psychology but says: “Women can get pregnant and that has a profound effect on them. It is perfectly reasonable that they have a built in concern to preserve their health to have a baby.”

If women are aware of risks in the world they will safeguard their offspring more effectively. Human infants have a much longer developmental period compared to most animals, so it does seem conceivable that this would lead women to perceive greater risks than men.

‘The female perfectionist’s self-esteem relies on winning’ ASS

There has been a growing interest in the psychology of failure due to worldrenowned psychologist Professor Carol Dweck’s research about ability and fear.

She argues in her book Mindset that people believe success and failure depend on circumstances out of their control. Dweck argues roughly half of us have a fixed mindset about our intelligence. These people tell themselves they have inherent handicaps, such as “my memory is rubbish”, which prevent them from succeeding.

This fixed mindset leaves you terrified of being exposed to failing at the things you cannot do. With a fixed mindset your creativity and willingness to seek challenges is reduced. Dweck thinks this mindset is accompanied by an “imposter syndrome”.

Former teacher and educational consultant Will Ord explains that many young women are tirelessly working to keep up the appearance of doing well. He says: “They are driven by the fear that one day they will be caught; that they are not this clever thing people think they are.”

A study published in 2003, cited in James’ Affluenza, looked at the levels of anxiety and depression in two samples of over 5,000 15 year olds in 1987 and in 1999. Among the top class, emotional distress in girls such as anorexia, bulimia, stress, anxiety and depression, rose from 24 per cent in 1987 to 38 per cent in 1999. There was no significant rise in similar problems amongst boys. At the same time, girls began to outperform boys in almost every subject. By 1999, 43 per cent of boys got five or more GCSEs A-C, compared to 53 per cent of girls.

James uses this study to highlight the outbreak of perfectionism among girls in this period. The female perfectionist has an intense fear of failure; her self-esteem relies on winning. “Young women are liable to walk around plagued with the sense that they should have done more,” he says.

Ord, who was the inspiration for “failure week” at Wimbledon Girls School, has been into 80 schools over the past 10 years and has noticed that a fear of failure is especially prevalent in girls’ schools.

“There is a correlation between rising results and the extraordinary hidden cost to the mental health of young girls in particular,” he says. The number of young girls being admitted to hospital with emotional distress trebled from 6 to 18 per cent between 1987 and 1999.

This shift is part of a wide cultural picture, as girls have been encouraged to see themselves extrinsically. “Women are more concerned from a very young age to find out what other people are thinking and feeling about them,” James says.

They see perfection as the route to success. Men are more likely to ask for what they want, whereas fear prevents women doing the same. But according to Chivers, the solution is just giving things a go anyway.

“You don’t have to get it right,” she says.

“You just have to get it going.”

Getting things wrong is crucial to most careers. Sara Malin, managing director of luxury travel company Prestige Caribbean, claims her successes are down to risk-taking.

“If I had not risked the possibility of failure I’d still be working in Sainsbury’s. I still make decisions with fear in the back of my mind.

“I have always pushed myself out of my

‘Are we schooling kids for high grades, or are we educating them for life?’

comfort zone. At 14 I went to Italy on my own by train and boat, but hid behind the funnel crying. To this day I do not know how I did it. But my motto has always been ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’.”

In terms of education and parenting, the emphasis should be shifted from praising the outcome to rewarding the act itself. Are we schooling kids for high grades – or are we educating them for life?

James thinks the problem is a vicious mix of things. He says: “The iconic example is St Paul’s Girls’ School. The girls have to be very academic and sexy at a young age. On top of that they also have to be individual.”

This, James points out, is an impossible task. Women have to think about what other people want and enjoy looking at, while also being unique. “It is a toxic combination. It leaves women feeling perpetually inferior; even though they are the most talented and attractive of their generation.”

Wimbledon Girls School has received emails from schools from Australia to America, wanting to introduce a similar scheme to “failure week”.

Girls need to be told it can be beneficial to fail. “There is a terrible lack of emotional literacy in Britain’s independent girls’ schools,” says James. “They need to start celebrating achievements other than being first in class.”

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XCITY arts and culture

the revolution will be three dimensional 3D printing might sound like fantasy, but its uses for creating artificial implants could lead to a new era in medical science words: Hugh Langley

S

cience is forever chasing the coat tails of Hollywood. And yet it’s unlikely that we’ll ever step onto that iconic hoverboard from Back to the Future II, disappear under Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak or transport ourselves in the Star Trek human teleporter. The mass production of human body parts was also, at one point, a concept confined to the realm of science fiction and the nightmares of creationists.

But that’s about to change.

In January it was announced that a team of medical professionals from Belgium and the Netherlands had successfully made and surgically implanted the world’s first 3Dprinted jaw. An 83-year-old Dutch woman suffering from a chronic bone infection was fitted with the new titanium implant, which was “printed” using the niche technology.

The revolutionary procedure, carried out

by Dutch sugeons working in collaboration with doctors from the University of Hasselt, Belgium, took place in June 2011 but was not revealed until January this year.

Built using a titanium powder, the

implant was printed in a way not dissimilar to paper. Instead of printing across however, the jaw was printed by heating the powder and building layers upwards. A laser was then used to fuse the particles together, consolidating the jaw, which was finally reinforced with a bioceramic coating.

Three dimensional printing - or additive manufacturing as it’s otherwise known - is not a new concept. The technology has existed for some time, but traditionally remained marginalised to the fields of engineering and design where it has been used to build prototypes. More recently this has started to spill into other areas as the use of 3D printers as a form of home production has become more viable. 3D printers have been placed on the shelves of the mass consumer market and can now be purchased for little more than a home computer - and sized not much bigger.

The jaw implant, while a huge leap forward, just hints at the potential this technology has in the medical field. The operation took no more than four hours, only a fraction of the usual 14-20 hour time for similar procedures. The jaw was also tailor-made for the patient in a way that traditional forms have not allowed, and only one day after surgery she was able to speak and chew normally.

Ruben Walther, medical engineer at LayerWise, the Belgian metal-parts manufacturer that designed the implant, is among many who champion the use of 3D printing in the medical field. “There’s a perfect fit for the implant with the patient and that saves surgery time,” he says. “The better the implant fits the shape of the bone defect, the better the healing process will be, so the time in hospital also decreases. You save time and money in every step, starting from the design.”

Such technology could offer a more practical and effective solution for patients.

“If you design a custom-made implant with bone structure attached onto it that will fill the gap or bone defect, there’s no need for a surgeon to remove the extra bone to make it fit,” says Ruben. Once one model has been built, the design can then be stored and reused later down the line if the patient requires a replacement. “For us, it’s no extra cost if the design is the same as last time or for another patient, we just use the same software, same principles,” says Walther.

But how quickly will the industry adapt to these new developments? The Department of Health says it welcomes “new and innovative technologies” that transform the way NHS services are delivered and “enhance the quality of care for patients”.

But until the knowledge behind this technology is better understood, there may be a reluctance to invest in it. “For now it’s just not a well-known technology, so health services need to adapt themselves,” says Ruben, who is also concerned that medical insurers are proving slow to catch onto the benefits of 3D printing. “Medical insurances do not take total cost into account, only the implant cost, even though the total costs will be lower.”

Though this technology is now capable of printing metals, Ruben adds that printing with a combination of materials is still “a big step” away. Yet with the ability for 3D printers to even build their own parts, this is an area of manufacturing that’s growing exponentially, with many experts now exploring 3D printing’s potential.

Dr Ingeborg van Kroonenburgh of Maastricht University, the Netherlands, was part of the medical team that worked on the jaw implant. “This custom-made implant is only the beginning for the potential medical use of 3D printing,” she says. Though it may be a while off, some researchers are already looking at the possibilities of combining “biodegradable scaffolds” with

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stem cells in a way that may one day allow them to print human organs. “Eventually this may lead to a viable implant without the need to harvest large bone transplants from the patient. The manufacturing could thus be regarded as real ‘organ printing’.”

But the possibilities of 3D printing in the medical field are not limited to surgical implants. Adrian Bowyer, founder of the RepRap 3D printer – the first to be able to print its own parts - claims that 3D printing could be used to get around the issue of patented drugs in the UK, which currently cost the NHS billions of pounds a year.

“Some drugs are incredibly expensive. Breast cancer drugs cost thousands and thousands of pounds for a year’s treatment,” he says.

“Instead of buying patented drugs, the NHS might be better giving patients a drug synthesiser to build the drug instead.”

Building such a device would require shrinking the technology currently used on an industrial scale down to a more compact device - something Bowyer believes could be done with a 3D printer. “You would print the parts to a machine that could synthesise drugs on a micro scale. The technology would be expensive, but won’t seem so expensive once the patented monopoly kicks in because that allows the drug companies to charge enormous sums for what are, in many cases, fairly straightforward substances.

Other uses for 3D printing Aviation manufacturing Aerospace engineers are looking into the potential for using 3D-printed components in aircraft, which could offer more lightweight structures than current. In 2011 a group of University of Southampton engineers built the world’s first (unmanned) 3D-printed aircraft.

They managed to fly it remotely, too.

UK patents are what make the idea so theoretically appealing. Ruben Walther agrees that the ability to do this is “perfectly possible,” he says. “I think the technologies are available, but the combination will not be so easy.” The idea that patients may one day be able to wake up and find their medication waiting for them with their breakfast is certainly an appealing prospect.

For the time being, the ability to create patient-specific implants is enough to have huge ramifications for the medical industry – if they’re ready to take the leap. “There has to be a first for everything,” says Adrian Bowyer. “An idea that seems ideal in retrospect was once unobvious”.

Jewellery Jewellers have been using 3D printing technology longer than anyone, but further advances in this field have improved the accuracy at which jewellers can work with this technology, with the ability now to craft designs directly onto the metal.

Piracy While a positive step forward in most ways, 3D printing has a slightly more sinister group of supporters– the pirates. Copyright infringement will become more of a vexed issue as 3D printers appear more frequently in people’s homes. In January, The Pirate Bay rolled out its first set of 3D Torrents – downloadable files that could be read by a 3D printer to create physical objects.

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23/03/2012 13:13:50

XCITY arts and culture

d tourism a rk A

fter graduation, Chris and Richard spent the summer touring Europe. Now they’ve reached southern Poland where another attraction awaits. Stepping off a coach, they are faced with a sprawling network of camps. The sun glints off the instantly recognisable sign with its chilling phrase Arbeit macht frei, “work makes free”. This is Auschwitz, where from 1940 to 1945 an estimated 1.5 million people, mostly Jewish, were starved, tortured and killed.

The two young travellers may not be aware of it, but they are indulging in “dark tourism” - visiting sites of death or disaster - and it’s a practice that’s growing in popularity. In 2011, the memorial site at the main camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, had more than 1.4 million visitors. Meanwhile, Ground Zero in New York, which attracted 3.6 million visitors in 2002, recorded 9 million annual visitors by 2011.

On 24 April 2012, the Institute for Dark Tourism Research, the first centre of its type, will be unveiled at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston. Dr Philip Stone, a senior lecturer, is executive director.

He believes the centre will become the “global hub” for dark tourism research. He said: “Anything to do with its social, cultural, political implication-we’ll have the answers.”

The opening will be marked with a symposium, at which Dr Stone will give a paper discussing why dark tourism is on the rise. “It’s perhaps one way of connecting

XCity A&C p.42-43.indd 2

The gates at Auschwitz

Sites of death have become premier tourist destinations. But is the commodification of disaster unethical? words: Emma Featherstone with the dead. Rather than remembering them through church services, we remember through tourism. It allows us to build a relationship with unthinkable atrocities.”

Dr Tony Johnston, a lecturer in development geography at King’s College London, is also speaking at the symposium.

His research is focused on tourism, particularly that connected to sites of death.

He resists the term dark tourism but says the media friendly title is part of the reason the subject has recently received more attention.

He prefers the term “thanatourism”, which comes from the Greek word thanatopsis, meaning the contemplation of death.

One thing that concerns Dr Johnston is what he calls “Disneyfication”. He said: “Some tourist sites are being marketed for entertainment value, for example the London Dungeon, or the Salem Witch Museum in Massachusetts. It should be about education.”

Dr Johnston has visited hundreds of dark tourism sites. He says the most affecting was Srebrenica, the town in eastern Bosnia where 7,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered.

“When I visited it was still very raw, I remember the mass graves. The bodies of many of those killed were still missing.” He says although it isn’t yet a tourist destination, the signs are “creeping in”, and there is a small gift shop being set up.

23/03/2012 12:10:48

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Dr Johnston says tourists’ reasons for visiting these sites range from seeking answers to their heritage, to looking for some macabre entertainment. There are certain places which visitors revere, despite not having a direct connection to its victims.

“People can feel guilty that their country allowed cruelties, such as genocides, to occur”, explained Dr Johnston. “Visiting may help to relieve that guilt.” For example, a British person with a grasp of the history of world war two might feel a sense of disappointment that the Allies failed to accept the extent of cruelty that was taking place at Auschwitz, or that the British Government decided against bombing the camps.

Another example of dark tourism is the scenes of mass death in world war one, including the Somme, Ypres and Passchendaele. The first company to offer these trips was Major and Mrs Holt’s Battlefield Tours. Tonie and Valmai Holt ran them for 20 years, starting in 1978, after writing a book about World War One. “As authors, we wanted to tell a story,” says Major Holt. “We’d provide literature from the period and we’d ask participants to take on the roles of the individuals we’d been talking about. The tours helped people to empathise with those that were affected.

We raised questions in people’s minds.

“The way you put a story together is very important. Our guides weren’t allowed to go out on the ground anywhere until they’d gone through our training course.”

The Holts will also be speaking at the dark tourism symposium. “We want to show the value of a World War One battlefield tour. There is nothing ghoulish about it. They can be educational and have a broad appeal, from military historians to family members researching their history”.

According to the Holts, a good understanding of the events that made a site of interest is vital. It is also determined by the way tourists consume an attraction. A readiness to empathise with victims, to develop their understanding of an event and, above all, to remember, can all offer a valuable experience. The experts all emphasise that each experience depends on the person, so the best source of information is the travellers themselves.

tourists’ perspectives The Killing Fields, Cambodia: 1.4 million people were killed here under Pol Pot Boris Ajzenkol, 23, London, visited in 2011 with his girlfriend.

“When we arrived in Phnom Penh everybody was talking about the Killing Fields. There were about 30 tuk tuk drivers at the bus station selling tours. I felt kind of pressured to agree, but also intrigued.

It was chilling walking around the fields, but they weren’t as disturbing as the S-21 Museum. We saw rusty pliers and bars that were used to hang people for hours. In one room there was a bloody handprint.

Outside there were victims of the regime, with limbs missing. There was one man in his seventies. He’d been at the prison and his wife had died there. And yet he had to go back to the same place and sell books to tourists. I wouldn’t encourage people to go there. The way the place was promoted made me feel really uncomfortable; it plays up the horror of what happened there.”

Auschwitz, Poland: The largest concentration camp of the Third Reich Chris Green, 33, London, visited with a friend in 2001.

“I wanted to go because the Holocaust is so important to European history. When we reached the camp with the famous arch, where the trains used to come in, the whole scale of it was unbelievable.

Some tourists were taking pictures that were like, ‘This is me standing in front of a gas chamber.’ My friend and I felt that was weird and inappropriate.

I remember the display of human hair and a pile of socks. I felt they were deliberately trying to say: ‘Look how many people died in this concentration camp’. It’s more effective leaving it to the imagination.

I think visiting the places where bad things occurred teaches us a lesson. Human beings need to remember. I remember people crying, it’s very hard not to be affected by it all.”

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23/03/2012 12:10:55

A comic legend whose influence on modern comedy has lasted beyond his death words: Erica Buist

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n 2008 the world lost comedy legend George Carlin. 12 May 2012 would have been his 75th birthday. Born and raised in New York, he was influenced by Monty Python and inspired British comics such as Stewart Lee, Jimmy Carr, and Russell Brand - who blogged that he cried when Carlin passed away. Before his death he was featured on BBC Four programme Dawn French’s Boys Who Do Comedy and BBC Two’s The Nature of Laughter. His daughter Kelly, a broadcaster and performer, is currently doing a one woman show about life with her father.

Carlin’s 50 years in comedy helped define the genre. He started doing stand-up in the early Sixties. By the late Sixties, Carlin realised he had been talking to the wrong audience and transformed his persona. He exchanged neat haircuts and suits for long hair and faded jeans and began delivering a more hard-hitting, controversial act.

His best-known routine, the seven words you can’t say on television - shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits - got him arrested for disturbing the peace, leading to a landmark Supreme Court case about censoring indecency.

Carlin’s material spanned three themes - social commentary, observational humour, and peculiarities of the English language. His monologues about war, politics, race and government would

george carlin follow light-hearted observations on driving, pets or relationships, before returning to scrutinise the true meaning of words.

In his 1972 album Class Clown, Carlin talked about his time at Catholic school and how he lost his faith. He was unpopular with Christians, receiving death threats and hate mail from them his entire life. Even after his death, the Westboro Baptist Church made a video announcing he was in hell, and his own church parish and school protested against the petition to rename New York’s West 121st Street, where Carlin grew up, George Carlin Street.

In 1976, Carlin had his first heart attack after several years of cocaine abuse. He hosted Saturday Night Live and conducted an interview on The Tonight Show high on the drug. He kicked his habit and despite suffering three more heart attacks, two open-heart surgeries and further addictions to red wine and Vicodin, lived to be 71.

Carlin’s touring methods - touring for 12 to 18 months at a time, and then scraping the material at the end were unheard of at the

evolved significantly over his lifetime.

Labelling himself a “disappointed idealist”, he railed against religion, hypocrisy and corruption. From the smallest daily rituals to the policies of the government, no one was safe from his erudite scrutiny.

Had he not been taken early, when would he have retired? “Never”, says his daughter Kelly. “Never ever.” She has his computer, with around three HBO shows’ worth of unperformed notes. His consistent hard work was, she believes, down to knowledge of his limited time.

Carlin would think it ridiculous to celebrate a dead person’s birthday. He would likely compare it to a pet peeve of his Mickey Mouse’s birthday. “Part of me rolls my eyes at it”, says Kelly, “but his legacy is important. I want future generations to know who he is.”

As his fans and fellow comedians raise a glass, the best they can wish for is someone as funny, honest and courageous to fill the void.

And that his ghost would storm in, ranting about the idiocy of it all.

Carlin’s Best Quotes “I don’t get all choked up about yellow ribbons or American flags. I consider them symbols and I leave symbols to the symbolminded.”

time. Each of his tour runs would end in an HBO special. His next tour would then start with completely new material, a method now picked up by numerous touring comedians.

Rarely discussing his own life after his early Catholic school material, Carlin’s comedy

“Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.”

“Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster is a maniac?”

“I call him Governor Bush because that’s the only political office he’s ever held legally in this country.”

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23/03/2012 12:21:50

Whether throwing a Jubilee garden party or cheering for Team GB, this year there will be plenty of opportunities to celebrate all things British. But from an outsider’s perspective, what does it mean to be British?

words: Elli Donajgrodzki photos: Merlo Michell

My first experience of Britain Rashid Tamer, a 38-year-old musician from Iraqi Kurdistan, living in Leeds, sought asylum in 2000

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round the country, the imprint left by decades of immigration can be seen in our food, music, art and religious worship. Immigrants have left an indelible mark on our cultural landscape, enriching all facets of our daily lives.

And yet the Government wants to cut net migration - the difference between those who come to and leave our shores - from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands by 2015.

What does it feel like to be embraced by some and yet still regarded and outsider?

We ask a group of immigrants and asylum seekers to tell us about their first impressions of the UK and what it feels like to be British.

Arriving in a foreign country, learning a new language, acclimatising to a different culture and discovering sliced bread coming to Britain has meant many things to these five people.

“I left because of political problems in Kurdistan. Saddam’s regime was very bad for the Kurds. I sang about freedom and the regime didn’t like it. I used a visa to cross the border to Turkey, it was difficult and expensive. Then I travelled overland for eight days to Britain.

When I arrived at Dover there were lots of security men, but I didn’t speak English.

I was afraid. I thought they would be like the Iraqi police but they were polite and respectful. I knew I’d come to a safe place that it was different.

The weather was really nice when I first arrived. Everything was so green; I’d never seen places with so much grass. My country was polluted with fighting. I’d never seen sliced bread before or eaten toast. I think that’s all I ate for the first eight days.

Day by day I grew to know more about life in England. The biggest surprise was that I was finally safe.

Britain is different to how I’d imagined.

I thought it would be full of rich people but instead it’s more equal than some countries.

It’s very different from Kurdistan. If you’re not working, then the government won’t help you.

I’m applying for university to study music. I also perform a lot, at Kurdish weddings and festivals.

I’d like to go back to Iraq, but just to visit. I’ve lived in the UK for 12 years, it’s my home now and I have lots of friends.

This country saved my life.”

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23/03/2012 12:22:00

XCITY arts and culture

Dejan Ajzenkol, a 49-year-old management consultant living in Solihull, left Serbia to find work in Britain in 1990

Elvie Williams, a 72-year-old retired nurse emigrated to Birmingham from St Kitts in 1957

“I remember seeing smoke coming out of chimneys, I thought they were factories.

I couldn’t believe they were homes”

IMAGE: RASHA COROVIC

“It was December when I arrived. I was 16 and with my new husband. It was freezing cold; there was snow all over the place. I was ready to go straight back home.

We travelled by boat, the Sorrento, which took three weeks. I’m a good traveller but there were a lot of people in our cabin. It’s not like now, there was no first class. You didn’t need a visa in those days. You just booked your passage and came.

When I first went to Birmingham, I remember seeing smoke coming out of chimneys, I thought they were factories. I couldn’t believe they were homes. The city was foggy and smelly, not how I expected.

We were treated badly. Not by the immigration or police, they didn’t bother you back then – they were happy you were coming to work, cleaning their houses. But I got called racist names, laughed at in the street. It went on for a long time. It still happens now.

Lots of people came over from the Caribbean to work on the trains and in the hospitals, but a lot of people went back. Not everyone could stand the cold and the nastiness, the racism. I wouldn’t move back. It’s hard there, but it’s hard here too. I wouldn’t encourage my family to come here.

I’m retired now and like to look after my grandchildren.”

“I only planned to come to Britain for a short time. In Serbia the economy and the political situation were difficult, with figures like Milosevic gaining a lot of support. As a young engineer you want opportunity and innovation, and that wasn’t happening at home.

It was very difficult leaving my family behind - my son was only two - but we agreed it was for the best. I had a friend who knew London quite well.

Every time we left the tube I thought: ‘we must be in the middle of town’ – everywhere was so busy and big. I loved it, especially the West End. I remember being surprised at how much money people had to spend, especially on drink.

I liked the multiculturalism. Serbia is very white but in Britain you have different people with different backgrounds and professions all mixing together.

I managed to get a job at an engineering company and was given a working visa, which meant my wife and son could join me.

People were very friendly, that was probably the biggest difference. I made a lot of friends through work who really helped me out, encouraging me to do well and teaching me about the company. There is a lot more freedom in the workplace over here. People are encouraged to explore opportunities, to train and to progress.”

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Balbir Singh Ghattaura, 55, emigrated to Yorkshire from India in 1983 for an arranged marriage

Jasmeen Yasser, a 27-year-old doctor living in London, sought asylum in Britain in 2011 after fleeing from Yemen “My family and I used to visit Britain every year as tourists, so when my mother and I had to leave Yemen quickly it was the only visa I had.

We escaped because of political problems. Yemen is democratic by name, but it’s not really. We are from the south but lived in the north. Our people want freedom from the north but they don’t want to let go. We were afraid of persecution and violence, it was getting very dangerous.

We arrived by plane and applied for asylum immediately. We were taken to a detention centre in Huddersfield, in the north of England. It was horrible, like we were in prison.

I’d only ever visited London before so it was hard to get used to the strong northern dialect. And you can never predict the weather - I always carry an umbrella!

I was used to the European environment from my travels but I had to adapt to British culture. If you don’t say ‘please’ then you won’t get anything, which was unusual, as it’s not a word we use much in Arabic.

I loved the greenery in Britain and the animals. The nature here is amazing.

I’m working now as an assistant teacher in a local school, but also studying for IELTS (International English Language Testing System). I’m a trained doctor but I have to prove that I can speak English well enough to communicate with my patients.

I feel very safe here and can plan for the future. I wouldn’t say I’m 100 per cent at home yet. I’d like to be with my friends and family, but then I’d be unsafe. I’d prefer to stay here.”

“I was 26 when I left India for the first time.

My wife was born in Britain and although our families were close relatives I had never met her. Back then it was very easy to apply for immigration, you just went to the embassy in Delhi. Now it’s much harder.

My brother and I came by plane. I’d never flown before so I was very nervous.

When we arrived I was amazed. I’d never seen so many white faces.

Everything seemed so advanced – the roads, the cars. Over in India the population is very high and there is a lot more space here. I noticed the fashion was completely different – like women in trousers. You could tell I was fresh from India.

Now I’m very settled here. I work at a copper works in the morning and then run a convenience store in West Yorkshire in the afternoon. It’s a long day, I start at 6am and finish at 7pm, but I’m used to it now.

I’ve taught my children to work hard. My eldest daughter has just finished a master’s degree and my second is studying law. My youngest daughter is doing her A-Levels and my son is about to start GCSEs – I want them to do well.

I see myself as Indian even though I’ve got British nationality. I was born there, my parents live there - it’s my heritage.”

Go online to see our video of Rashid talking about his first experiences of Britain and his music.

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23/03/2012 12:59:02

LIFESTYLE

Fashion houses are notorious for drip-feeding clothes to the market.

But now, in the digital world, things are changing

IMAGE: BURBERRY

words: Sophie Haslett

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wl print jumpers, polo necks, dungarees and leather trousers.

Come September anyone worth their sartorial salt will be coveting these new season must haves. They have already been seen in the fashion capitals this spring. And now, they will be tucked away in editors’ notebooks, forgotten about until the September editions of the glossies and the high street onslaught in the autumn.

Such are the unspoken laws of the fashion calendar – patience, foresight and delayed gratification. But has this rigid system had its day? Is fashion keeping up with digital culture? And does the drive towards the digital risk the industry losing its exclusivity?

Fashion blogs and live-tweeted, livestreamed catwalks show that fashion can no longer be contained by designers and editors.

The joke doing the rounds at this year’s London Fashion Week was that the traditional stamp of approval for a collection – applause – no longer exists. Instead, journalists rush to tweet a 140character review of the show, tapping away to be the first to file a report for their digital audience.

‘Twitter and the internet can never replace gorgeous, glossy images and long, well-researched think pieces’

Burberry models file down the catwalk at the 2012 London Fashion Week

fashion in the digital age

“Fashion is becoming more democratic,” says Alison Bishop, a trend forecaster from the fashion prediction agency LS:N Global.

“There is much more of a blurred line between the industry and the people outside the industry,” she says. “Everyone is able to use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr, and it can be hard for the designers and journalists to maintain control.”

This is no bad thing for a sprawling industry, and designers are already more than happy to exploit our hunger to see, photograph and buy their latest work. It is clothes that drive the fashion economy, and clothes that make us want to shop, and to shop more frequently.

Chanel produces as many as six different ready-to-wear collections in the calendar year – a staggering number considering the level of detail involved in just one. “There is a big

pressure on fashion designers to create and keep creating,” says Roger Tredre, an associate fashion lecturer at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.

“Since the emergence of fast fashion and stores like Zara and Topshop, which are able to churn out new designs every week, there is pressure on the higher-end designers to do the same. Naturally this means that trends appear and disappear very quickly.”

Some design houses have adapted well to the new pace. After the success of live-streaming their spring/summer 2012 collection, Burberry launched a “Tweet-walk”, in which outfits were tweeted a few seconds before they debuted on the catwalk. It also put its entire collection online and available to preorder. Customers received the clothes just six weeks later - several months before the usual release date.

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23/03/2012 12:48:34

“Burberry have really changed the game,” says fashion blogger Emily Johnston, whose sartorial blog, Fashion Foie Gras, gets over 250,000 hits a month. By embracing social media, Burberry has amassed just over 11 million Facebook fans and 816,000 Twitter followers.

Burberry is not the only design house taking advantage of the changing scene.

Many others are finding new ways to engage the public. Richard Nicoll showed his latest collection as a live digital installation, and fellow designer Peter Pilotto uses digital printing software to copy digital, colourful prints onto his clothes.

Meanwhile, See by Chloe showcased its latest collection exclusively on the internet, while Oscar de la Renta incorporated real-time crowdsourcing into a catwalk show, asking attendees to take photos and upload them to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. The way we look at fashion is changing and the more designers include democratic choice and participation in how we see their clothes, the more successful they are.

But with the immediacy of e-commerce, blogging, and sites like Moda Operandi - an online shopping website that lets customers pre-order catwalk clothes - where does this leave the more traditional fashion go-to, the glossy monthly magazine?

“People still want a collectible, inspirational read,” says Navaz, the online pseudonym for the editor of the Disneyrollergirl blog. “Magazines just have to think more creatively, with interactive apps and affiliate marketing.”

Laura Atkinson, fashion features editor at The Sunday Times Style magazine, agrees that there is a future for the physical fashion magazine.

“Twitter, instant blog posts and the internet can never replace gorgeous glossy images and long, well-researched think pieces,” she says. “The different forms of fashion journalism can live and evolve side by side.”

Startup publications around London and other UK cities will hope that this is true.

Charlotte Summers, editor of a new magazine and iPad app called Suitcase, says that as long

‘The more designers include democratic choice in how we see their clothes, the more successful they are’

as they offer readers something different, new fashion publications can succeed. “It’s all about capturing the frenetic pace of fashion in whatever way you can,” she says.

Summers has created a buzz around her magazine by using Facebook, tweets, photos and website teasers to establish a readership before the magazine’s print launch in May. On the back of successes like The Daily Telegraph’s shopping pages and the UK Vogue interactive app, Summers realises the importance of using digital platforms with print.

There are big changes ahead for designers, journalists and anyone working in the fashion industry. Soon we won’t have to wait months for owl print jumpers and leather trousers. Perhaps there will even come a day when, as we see new clothes on the While the collection is catwalk, we will be able to simultaneously streamed order them direct to our online at www.burberry.com door days later.

Patience, delayed gratification and foresight may soon be things of the past. “Fashion is more democratic, more transparent and more in the hands of the consumer than ever,” says Laura Atkinson.

But this does not mean that the only future for fashion is fast. As some rush to consume fashion quicker than ever, others will choose to opt for something more unique. “If anything, as some areas of the industry become ‘faster’, people will return to wanting one-off, bespoke pieces.”

IMAGE: BURBERRY

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23/03/2012 12:48:35

XCITY arts and culture

siege of the power stylist IMAGE: SIPA PRESS/REX FEATURES

Stylists have become the fashion brokers between designers and Hollywood stars, but how much control do they actually have? words: Krystena Petrakas

T

he Oscars is a stylist’s summit.

Kim Basinger dressed in Escada 1998, Julia Roberts in vintage Valentino 2001, Hilary Swank wearing Guy Laroche 2005 – all works of art painted with the brush of a power stylist. With the authority to make sales soar or a celebrity’s image plummet, stylists have become powerful influences in the fashion industry and celebrities in their own right. But just how much influence do they have?

The term “stylist” didn’t come into play until the mid-1990s. Before then celebrities would shy away from admitting someone helped to pick their outfit. One of the earliest names in fashion styling was Hollywood’s notorious red carpet dresser Jessica Paster. After 15 years in the trade, Paster, 35, has become known not only for her talent for trend-spotting but also her no-nonsense attitude. She often works 18 hour days, but the perks of the job include an eye-watering salary and client list as long as the train of an Elie Saab gown.

Stylist Rachel Zoe and actress Kate Hudson

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23/03/2012 12:56:53

‘The industry has become a political wardrobe of celebrity collaborations and lucrative advertising deals’ major fashion and beauty brands come calling to place them in high-profile advertising campaigns.”

For a stylist the red carpet exposure transforms them from the people who pin models into clothes at fashion shoots to formidable agents capable of changing the trajectory of a star’s career.

Hackworthy thinks the press has caused the rise of the power stylist by propelling them into the public arena. “In the past decade they have reached a level of notoriety that previously didn’t exist,” she says.

But Sacha Bonsor, editor of The Times Luxx magazine, rejects the notion that stylists dominate. “How powerful they are depends on the power the celebrity gives them,” she says. “A stylist can’t force a

celebrity to wear or not wear something.

Their choices are informed by the personality they are dressing.”

But despite acting as a linchpin between haute couture and A-list stars, a stylist’s job has developed beyond merely picking the right dresses. Hackworthy says: “The best stylists in the world no longer just dress celebrities or models – they act as creative directors.

“When working on editorial or advertising campaigns the best stylists also act as art directors,” she added. “They come up with photographic concepts, hair and make up references and are really the driving force behind the photographer and the final image that is produced.”

But can this put too much power into the hands of stylists? Developing a close relationship with editors, celebrities and photographers is vital for any stylist, but their affiliation with designers trumps all.

Hackworthy says that a young designer can get “railroaded” by a stylist into creating something that is not necessarily right for them. But she concedes that a designer can benefit from the expert eye of a talented stylist.

Rachel Zoe is one of the stylists who has made the career move to working as a designer. After styling Kate Hudson, Nicole Richie and Anne Hathaway, the platinum blonde - who has become a brand in her own right - used her credentials to launch an empire that now includes two clothing lines and being credited with creating the boho chic movement.

As stylists continue to shape the fashion industry a more formal career route is developing, and it no longer involves simply schmoozing with the it-crowd. Over 60 universities in Britain now offer degree courses in fashion styling. Lesser known stylists can earn from £125 to £2,500 a day. And highstatus stylists such as Andrea Lieberman, Annabel Tollman and Petra Flannery earn more than £3,000. Those who enjoy the high-paying salary of a super stylist have to ensure their client’s style is bewitching enough to secure magazine covers and cosmetics contracts that celebrities now view as their prerogative.

As the celebrity status of stylists rises, it is likely fashion’s well-dressed brokers will continue to shape the industry.

the life of a stylist IMAGE: SARA WILSON

In the last decade the styling industry has become a political wardrobe of celebrity collaborations and lucrative advertising deals.

Wearing a Louis Vuitton frock means a great deal more than looking pretty in coral. Once an actress represents a fashion house the stylist becomes the link between the two.

Wearing Louis Vuitton at the Oscars leads to castings, endorsements, and sponsorship.

And that success reflects back on the stylist.

Gabriele Hackworthy, fashion director of Harper’s Bazaar, says a stylist can take a girlnext-door and turn her into a fashion icon.

This is what happened to actress Katherine Heigl after she hit the red carpet in a one-shoulder Escada dress two years ago.

Suddenly the starlet was inundated with calls from casting agents and studio executives.

It’s not just minor stars that benefit, Nicole Kidman’s appearance at the 2004 Academy Awards in a hip-gripping Chanel number led to her fronting the Chanel No 5 perfume ads for the next four years. In the past, advertising campaigns would be reserved for models only. Now designers are choosing famous faces over unknown models.

Hackworthy says: “A great stylist can completely change the public’s perception of a star and this can benefit the celebrity hugely. If they are seen as “fashionable”,

Sara Wilson, 24, studied fashion design and worked as an intern at GQ. She then won Channel 4’s “Style the Nation” competition, her prize was a stylist job at retail store New Look.

Wilson works from New Look’s head office. Her job involves sourcing items, understanding the brand’s current looks and making trend predictions.

She says: “In trend-prediction we lay down all the research. We look at street style, bloggers or what’s big on TV at the moment and trends in today’s youth culture. Then we put together a mood board and vibe of what we think are going to be the biggest looks.”

At the weekend Wilson works as a freelance stylist on shoots for publications such as Wonderland and Disorder magazine. She spends the evenings writing online fashion articles. She stresses the importance of having other skills that work together with her career as a stylist.

Wilson notes her proudest moment was when her graduate collection was shown at London Fashion Week in 2010. She says: “I made the whole collection myself but the basis of that collection, it was very much about styling. I was sewing two minutes before the models went down the catwalk. It was insane but amazing - I actually cried.”

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between the lines Androgynous tailoring meets block colour in a playful take on Forties style. Silk blouses and heritage tweed offset clean lines, harking back to a time of candlestick telephones and typewriters

Photographs by Fenris Pรกcol Styled by Stephanie Kukulka

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Previous page: Blazer, £98; under suit, £89; silk shirt, £48; trousers, £79, all Olga de Polga. Bowtie, £10, Topman. Box bag, £38, Des Moines. Gloves, £10, The Laden Showroom. Shoes, model’s own

This page: Hat, POR, Blitz. Jumper, £48; trousers, £17.50, both The Laden Showroom. Shirt, £67, Olga de Polga. Shoes, model’s own Opposite: Beret, £35, Her Curious Nature at Topshop. Pearl collar, £14, Freedom at Topshop. Blouse, £25.99; jacket, £19.99; trousers with belt, £29.99, all Zara. Bag, POR, Blitz. Shoes, model’s own

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‘That’s my farewell to the newspaper game.

I’ll be a woman, not a news machine’ - Hildy, His Girl Friday (1940, Columbia) This page: Blouse, £56, Olga de Polga. Wool skirt, £98, Jigsaw. Pearl collar, stylist’s own 57

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This page: Jacket, POR, Chanel. Shirt, £29.99, Zara. Tie, £10, Topman Opposite page: Dress, POR, Prada. Fur stool, stylist’s own. Shoes, model’s own

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Stockist information Blitz 0207 377 0730 Chanel 0207 493 5040 Des Moines 0207 787 2268 Freedom at Topshop 0127 784 4476 Her Curious Nature hercurioousnature.com Jigsaw 0208 392 5603 Olga De Polga 0207 377 6851 Prada 0207 235 0008 The Laden Showroom 0207 247 2431 Topshop/Topman 0844 984 0264 Zara 0800 030 4238

Production Director Krystena Petrakas Makeup artist Joanne Lapel Model Taii @ Premier Art Director Donna Marie Howard Production Emma Spedding & Sophie Haslett

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23/03/2012 11:07:25

XCITY arts and culture

fashion on film The clothes worn by cinema stars have inspired some iconic clothing trends. We pick out 10 of the best

1 2 words: Jessica Lambert

It Happened One Night (1934)

Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

Best known for being the first screwball comedy, this film also had a dramatic effect on how the American man dressed. The sexually charged, witty rapport between Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert was so electrifying that it inspired a whole new genre, but for the makers of men’s undergarments it was a disaster. In one scene Gable starts undressing while in mid-repartee with Colbert. As it proved impossible for Gable to remove his vest without breaking the fast-talking rhythm of his lines, it was decided that he would simply be bare-chested under his shirt. Sales of vests plummeted by 75 per cent.

The moment James Dean tumbled onto the screen in his white T-shirt, sweating rebellion and angst, he was crowned the icon of a disenfranchised generation. It was the first time that these new ‘teenagers’ or ‘goddamn juvenile delinquents’ had seen characters like them on film and they rushed out to buy simple, Dean-esque white T-shirts.

‘the icon of a disenfranchised generation’

Et Dieu… Créa La Femme’ (And God Created Woman) (1956)

Brigitte Bardot was the first movie star to dare to become a poster girl for the bikini. When Louis Réard designed the first bikini in 1946, it was considered so shocking not a single model would pose in it. Few women were tempted into buying an outfit so skimpy - it was said to reveal “everything about a girl except for her mother’s maiden name”. But 10 years later, all that began to change, thanks to a pretty French sex kitten. Bardot’s bikini scene in Et Dieu… Créa La Femme turned her into an international star and the bikini was transformed from scandalous into glamorous.

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‘not a single model would pose in a bikini’

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) When Audrey Hepburn stepped out of that cab and walked up to window of Tiffany’s, she brought the Little Black Dress back to life. Coco Chanel invented the LBD in 1926, with Vogue declaring it “a uniform for all women of taste”. But by the 1950s taste

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had got lost in pastel twinsets. By wearing the LBD, Hepburn reminded women that you didn’t need money to be chic – you just needed to wear one outfit stunningly.

Hepburn’s dress might have been designed

by Givenchy, but any girl with a sewing machine could make one of her own. Since then the LBD has never gone out of style.

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We have Fame to thank for the garish dancewear craze that lasted a decade. The dancers in Fame’s New York performing arts school didn’t go in for tutus and pink ballet pumps. They were tough and street-wise and dressed in slouchy T-shirts, brightly coloured leggings, neon headbands and rolls upon rolls of legwarmers. Leggings have survived to become a fashion staple, but legwarmers and headbands have thankfully become novelty items.

The slim-fitting black suits and skinny ties worn by Reservoir Dogs’ gangsters were designed by Agnès B. who was such a fan of American crime films that she agreed to do the work for free. As Quentin Tarantino observed: “You can’t put a guy in a black suit without him looking a little cooler than he already looks”. With his shockingly violent debut, Tarantino quickly became the darling of independent cinema and his fast-talking, gun-toting, elegantly-dressed anti-heroes became the height of cool.

Sex and the City (2008)

Annie Hall (1977) Diane Keaton’s ramshackle outfits in Annie Hall – men’s shirts, oversized tweed jackets, floppy fedora hats and wire-rimmed glasses – were simply variations on how Keaton dressed in real life. Like the off-screen romance between her and Woody Allen, her costumes were art mimicking life.

Unexpectedly, the film’s wild popularity caused life to start imitating art. Ralph Lauren started selling Annie Hall-inspired tweeds, Vogue declared the mannish look a perfect expression of “women’s hard won independence” and women everywhere started ransacking thrift stores, desperate to recreate Keaton’s casual insouciance.

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This film about a male prostitute launched the career of Giorgio Armani and seduced American men into a totally new way of wearing suits. As the eponymous gigolo, Richard Gere shows more care towards his clothes than to the women he is paid to sleep with.

By removing the traditional lining and paddings from men’s jackets, Armani created a revolutionary new silhouette.

The new lines were soft and flowing, with seductively crumpled linen shirts.

Men across America started dressing like gigolos and Armani became a global fashion name.

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Reservoir Dogs (1992)

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5

American Gigolo (1980)

Fame (1980)

The shoe designer Manolo Blahnik was name-checked so many times that he was described as the fifth star of the cast.

Carrie Bradshaw sashayed onto the small screen in 1998, cosmopolitan in hand and fabulous friends in tow. The original TV series was witty and ground breaking - no one had ever shown women being so frank about the realities of the dating scene. Nor making quite such a fetish out of high-heeled footwear. By the time the show graduated to the big screen, it had become a depressing pantomime of its edgy younger self. Only the stilettos remained as seductive as ever.

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8 Great Gatsby (2012)

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Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of the champagne-brimming, Jazz Age classic won’t be in cinemas until Christmas Day, but already the catwalks and the high street have become a cascade of feathers, sequins, flapper dresses and pearls. Both Marc Jacobs and Ralph Lauren have created decadent, 1920s-style collections, while Topshop and River Island are giving anyone the chance to look as ravishing as Carey Mulligan’s Daisy or as debonair as Leonardo DiCaprio’s Gatsby.

For videos of these on-screen outfits, visit xcityarts.com

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XCITY arts and culture

ILLUSTRATION: SOPHIE BASS

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A

tube of lipstick rolls across the diner floor. The camera pans up the mile-long legs of screen goddess Lana Turner. John Garfield picks up the tube and hands it back to her. She slicks it onto her lips and sidles away, with just a sultry glance back.

So the hero of the 1946 film noir classic The Postman Always Rings Twice meets the femme fatale who will be the end of him.

Glenn Close’s Marquise de Merteuil is exposed as a scheming seductress at the end of Dangerous Liaisons. The 1988 film closes with her scrubbing away her rouge lips to reveal a vulnerable woman stripped of her powers.

The scarlet-lipped woman is an enduring icon. The perfect pouts of Clara Bow, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe are printed onto our cultural consciousness. And with painted models strutting down every Fashion Week catwalk this year, red lips remain synonymous with sex and seduction.

Despite all of this, it is anything but a straightforward symbol.

A slick of red lipstick is the timeless weapon of choice for the seductress and with good reason. Scientists at Manchester University have used eye-tracking software to prove that men are hopelessly drawn to a bright red mouth.

When shown photographs of a woman for 10 seconds each, men spent 7.3 seconds looking at red lips compared to only 0.95 seconds on the eyes.

Pink lipstick held the gaze for just 6.7 seconds. Dr Geoff Beattie, professor of psychology, says the study suggests that “red lips and perceived attractiveness are still inextricably linked”.

Why? It’s because that flash of Chanel Rouge Allure is nothing less than a glimpse into a woman’s knickers.

Naturalist Diane Ackerman, author of A Natural History of the Senses, summarises the leading anthropological theory on lipstick: “The lips remind us of the labia, because they flush red and swell when they’re aroused, which is the conscious or subconscious reason women have always made them look even redder with lipstick.”

No wonder it was banned by the famously prudish Queen Victoria. With cosmetics branded “brazen and uncouth”,

read my

lips Red lipstick is the enduring symbol of glamour, sex and seduction.

But is there more to it than meets the eye? words: Hannah Bass

rouge appeared only on the mouths of actresses and prostitutes during the nineteenth century.

Had Poppy King been around at the time, she would have been horrified. The cosmetics entrepreneur associates the pale-lipped look with “silent-mouthed” women. “A slash of red on the mouth has a clear relation to genitalia, sex and the menstrual cycle, and wearing it is a sign of female power,” she says. “You leave your mark on the world.”

The Suffragettes were much more up her street. The 1912 New York Suffragette rally saw hundreds of red-lipped and loudmouthed women reclaiming lipstick as a symbol of their independence. Meanwhile, advertisers influenced by Freud sold lipstick based on its phallic shape. The 1920s flappers scandalised society by applying it in public.

Since then, lipstick has been adopted by punk in the 1970s and Madonna in the

1980s. It has been brandished by first, second and third wave feminists and it remains a powerful, enduring symbol of female sexuality.

Wearing lipstick is a self-conscious performance of femininity. Unlike concealer and blush, red lipstick is not intended to look natural. It retains its theatricality – and that’s part of its appeal.

Rachel White, 27, is a journalist and the founder of No Makeup Week, a project which challenged women to go makeup-free and blog about it. White says: “Lipstick is a wondrous tool. Ask any drag queen or club kid or actress. It has the power to transform, to create a character.

I would venture that red lipstick is one of the few beauty items that is purchased for this sort of fun escape.”

The promise of escape might explain why lipstick sales soared during the Great Depression of the 1930s and again during the uncertain times following 9/11. Leonard Lauder, chairman of Estee Lauder, coined the term “lipstick index” as sales in the US increased by 11 per cent in 2001 – and by 14 per cent in 2011. Cheaper than a whole new outfit, a slick of lippie offers a fleeting taste of Hollywood glamour.

Anita Bhagwandas, Stylist magazine’s beauty writer and Guardian columnist, agrees. “It’s the simplest way to transform yourself instantly,” she says. “That idea of being a different version of yourself in a few seconds – that’s what makes red lipstick so special.”

Bhagwandas adds that the crimsonlipped look combines “smouldering sexuality” with a “look-but-don’t-kiss power statement”. Red might be the colour of love, lust and the labia but it also stands for danger, blood, and screaming STOP signs.

If it draws the eye of an admirer, it warns the mouth. Maggie and Annie Ford Danielson, the women behind Benefit cosmetics, advise girls not to wear lipstick on dates: one kiss and your bloke will be branded with man-eating red. But, of course, that’s all part of the appeal for the crimson-lipped femme fatale.

The story continues at xcityarts.com Sophie Bass’ illustrations can be found at www.sophiebass.tumblr.com

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XCITY arts and culture

Sex on tapp Grindr and Blendr offer hook-ups at the touch of a phone screen. Is this the end of romance? words: Madlen Davies

M

y friend is excitedly scrolling down his iPhone. “It’s like shopping for sex,” he tells me. “You can browse through all the things that are available and you can choose the ones you want.”

He’s talking about Grindr, the app used for finding single gay men in your area, that has been downloaded by 315,200 men in Britain since its launch in 2009. London is the city with the most users worldwide, beating New York and Paris with 104,400 Grindees. The app proved so popular that in 2011 its makers released Blendr for everyone else. “You can have it all nowadays,” he continues. “People go to the shops and they think ‘I want sushi and a sandwich…and I want sex with someone in half an hour’ and these days they can have it.”

Grindr and Blendr are “geosocial networking” apps, meaning they use GPS to track your movements and update your location wherever you go. Waiting for a bus?

See who’s near. Going to the theatre? Why not meet a new friend in the interval? They make real time connections in the real world.

It’s social media that’s actually social.

But does this mean the beginning of a world where emotionally intimate, difficult relationships are shunned in favour of easily facilitated encounters between people who meet online? And how has the rise in Grindr and Blendr affected offline communication?

Some worry that Grindr and Blendr are replacing real, sometimes awkward,

face-to-face communication. It’s easy to be vivacious, confident and promiscuous in the safe glow of your iPhone’s backlight.

Zoe Pine, a 21-year-old stylist in London, uses the app as she finds introducing herself to men on Blendr a lot easier than approaching them face-to-face. “In real life people are generally surrounded by friends so it’s intimidating to approach a stranger,” she says. She found that men are very forward over the app, but when it comes to meeting in real life, they can be shy and awkward. There is a disappointing distortion between their online and offline personas.

Alan Sayle, a 28-year-old junior doctor in Abergavenny says that although Grindr has allowed gay men to identify each other, to some degree it has replaced face-toface communication. “Sometimes you go to a bar in London and instead of talking to one another the men standing at the bar are messaging each other on Grindr,” he says. “Part of communication is being comfortable with other people and being at ease. The quantity of men I meet on Grindr is high, but the quality of their communication is low. Most people on Grindr are socially awkward.”

Scott Llewellyn, co-founder and vice president of Grindr and Blendr, says that the apps are mostly used to initiate traditional face-to-face relationships, but admits that some people have replaced any other social contact with talking on Grindr or Blendr.

He says: “What I’ve found is that it can be used as an ice-breaker. It can be used as an additional tool. You can go up to people and say: ‘Hey do you have a Grindr profile?’

If you’re an introvert it’s easier to stay at home on Grindr and talk to people that way, especially if you have social anxiety.”

Grindr and Blendr have also been accused of encouraging infidelity. Though they both have distinct logos, you can turn off notifications and hide the app so that it never appears on the main screen.

Being so discreetly concealed, and

carrying the allure of no-strings-attached liaisons, Grindr and Blendr easily lend themselves to deception. Finding somebody nearby who’s also looking for a secret fling is cheaper than visiting a prostitute.

Sayle chatted to over two hundred men and found that around 20 per cent openly admitted to being married or having a boyfriend or girlfriend. He says the number of partnered Grindr users could be even higher: “I’m quite upfront so I ask questions.

If you didn’t ask you’d never know.”

Blendr is meant for 18-year-olds and above but requests no proof of age from users. Similarly, Grindr is meant for men aged 17 and over, but the only blockade to making a profile is to click a button confirming that you are over 16.

Llewellyn insists that in order to download an app over a certain maturity level like Grindr or Blendr from Apple’s operating system, the IoS, you have to put some billing information into your account.

He says there are obstacles that Apple has put up to make it difficult for someone underage to access that app. But are these obstacles insurmountable for the average computer-savvy 16 year old?

When Grindr was first launched, Matt Todd, editor of leading gay magazine Attitude, expressed concern that it meant young, possibly inexperienced, gay men were being thrust into a very adult, sexualised world where there are no concepts of relationships. This is an issue that Sayle agrees with. “If you’re naïve you will get

‘They’ve made casual sex with people met online the new normal’

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‘They’ve made casual sex with people met online the new normal’ taken advantage of. There’s too much of an agenda with Grindr,” he says.

With thousands of people at your fingertips, Grindr and Blendr can make people very disposable. The grid of profiles can become a ticklist. Blendr user, Sophie Pine says: “I get the impression that all the men on here just want to fuck as many girls as possible.”

Andy Phippen, professor of social responsibility in IT at the University of Plymouth, is researching the use of technology in relationships and is similarly worried about Grindr and Blendr. In a survey of a thousand self-selecting 16-24 year olds he found one in ten had met up with someone they’d found online for casual sex. He also found that 15 per cent of respondents said they didn’t see anything inappropriate about receiving a naked picture to their mobile. “It just raises the question of what then is inappropriate?” he says.

Though Grindr and Blendr themselves have strict policies on profile photos (no nudity, nothing overtly sexual, no bare skin showing one inch below or one inch above the pubic area) users are known for sending naked photos, usually of their genitals. Both Sayle and Pine received around five naked photos a week.

Phippen says that the nude snaps and sexually suggestive chatting, common on apps like Grindr and Blendr, could be distorting young people’s sensitivity to sexual images and what is appropriate behaviour.

“You know the character of Jay from The Inbetweeners?” he asks. Jay is a teenager who brags about his vast sexual experience, but in reality his “knowledge” comes from the pornography to which he regularly masturbates. “He’s not a caricature. We see plenty of people like Jay who are constantly talking about sex.

There’s a certain part of the population whose level of perception of what is normal is being distorted by the availability

of images online and shared on apps like Grindr and Blendr,” he says.

Phippen believes that Grindr and Blendr are also facilitating and legitimising extreme promiscuity. It’s great as a tool for meeting like-minded people. If you think you’re weird or strange or a bit of a deviant there’ll be thousands on the apps who are looking for the same things. They’ve made casual sex and nude pictures the new “normal” for this generation, meaning many have to try more extreme behaviour to feel a sense of excitement. He says: “If you see these sorts of things as normal, you need to start pushing the boundaries further. We’ve seen that throughout the data. There’s a

proportion of people who think you have to push the boundaries because other people are pushing them.”

Will long term use of Grindr and Blendr lead to a whole generation of characters like Jay, obsessed with sex to the point that it’s dehumanising? It’s too early to tell.

Llewellyn points out that in a survey they conducted last year 67 per cent of Grindr users are looking to make friends. He insists that Blendr and Grindr are more than just hook up apps. However, he says that ultimately users are free to do whatever they like with the technology. “We’ve provided a tool. People can do whatever they want with their personal lives.”

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23/03/2012 13:10:26

the style council

Tower blocks on estates don’t usually make for beautiful homes. But we meet the people who have made fortresses out of their council flats words: Emma Spedding and Sophie Tighe IMAGE: MARTIN PLIMMER

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uring the early 1980s recession, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher introduced the right-to-buy scheme, allowing council house tenants the opportunity to purchase the homes they rented. Since then, over two million council houses have been bought from local authorities across the UK. Despite their humble roots, these properties are now more desirable than ever.

Property expert Adam Ward, manager of Spencers estate agents in east London, says: “There has been a definite increase in people buying ex-council properties because they’re more affordable and you get a great size for your money.” The difference between a twobed ex-local authority property and a new build in London can be as much as £50,000.

It is easier to get a mortgage for excouncil properties says Ward, as banks are reluctant to lend on new builds. The best mortgage you can get on a new build is 85 per cent. “But for a standard 1930s to 1950s ex-council maisonette, there are 90 to 95 per cent mortgage plans available,” Ward says.

“That 10 per cent can make a big difference.

In Bethnal Green, east London, for example, that can be worth up to £20,000.”

Property expert Graham Norwood, contributor to Financial Times and The Telegraph, advises investing in those built between the 1950s and 1970s. “A council house would have been better than a private one in this period in terms of space.” This is due to strict restrictions on minimum space, known as the “Parker Morris standards”, which didn’t apply to the private sector.

Television shows like Only Fools and Horses or Shameless reinforce the stereotype that these properties are dull, drab and dismal.

But cheap can be downright chic. Londoners who have built their own palace out of a purpose built ex-council home give us a guided tour...

Author and journalist Martin Plimmer owns a 1960s council block in Battersea, south London, which he rents to tourists visiting the city “Battersea used to be very slummy, with heavy industry. The council estates then took the place of the slum dwellings.

These were once stigmatised as violent and poverty ridden, but are actually beautifully designed flats.

Modernism is suddenly being rediscovered. Colin Lucas, who created the noted modernist building 66 Frognal, Hampstead, was in charge of the Greater London Council architects department when our building was built in 1964. It’s a 21-storey building and the flat is on the eighth floor with views across the Thames stretching to the church towers of Kensington.

I decided early on to stick to the vision of the architects and designers, and give the flat a clean, uncluttered look. It looks

huge, but it’s not. It’s just the modernist clean lines.

The end wall was crying out for a picture. But I didn’t want to have something mediocre because I couldn’t spend enough money. I decided to exaggerate the views with a large round mirror, which also reflects the light.

For foreigners visiting London, council houses don’t have that stigma. The problems with these high-rises are political.

Abandoning vulnerable people and not following through with care promised to them. But structurally in many places they are better than Victorian houses, which are shoddily converted with creaking floorboards, paper-thin parting walls and narrow hallways.”

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IMAGE: HANNAH BASS

Born in Malawi, Naadia Kidy works in music PR. She has lived in her Bethnal Green flat in east London for two years

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IMAGE: HANNAH BASS

IMAGE: HANNAH BASS

1.

IMAGE: HANNAH BASS

“I wouldn’t want to live anywhere but east London. There was no way I could afford to live in one of the townhouses out in Mile End. So two years ago I bought an ex-council flat for £210,000 in the Pollard Street Estate, just off Bethnal Green Road.

I know it’s not for everyone but I love living on an estate. There is a real sense of community. The area is perfect for me - it’s full of artistic people and we’re all part of the creative hustle.

For each room in the flat, I wanted there to be a mix of antiques and random pieces I’ve picked up on my travels, as well as more mainstream staples. My TV stand is the original trunk my grandmother used when she emigrated from India to Malawi in the 1950s, but my couch is from DFS. My favourite piece is my Omani antique globe. I recently lost my father and that was one of the last things he bought me.

We found it in a souk in Muscat in Oman and it’s just beautiful, really unusual. I tend to buy things that are pretty and keep things that mean something.

The chances of me moving back to Africa are so slim that I would never want to get rid of anything that epitomises that time. You should surround yourself with your heritage.

My favourite room in the house is my study. It’s the room I spend most time in.

I originally wanted hand-painted wallpaper from de Gournay, but it would have cost around £3,000 and I couldn’t justify that.

So I painted my own mural of a Japanese cherry blossom on the wall and now it’s my oasis of calm.”

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1. Naadia’s kitchen (starring Cocomo-Vogue the cat!)

2. The exterior of Naadia’s flat on Pollard Street Estate 3. Omani antique globe 4. Cherry blossom mural

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5. The artwork in Naadia’s bathroom

Naadia’s top tip “Space in ex-council flats can be limited so buy compact pieces like an extendable dining table - that way when you’re not using it, it doesn’t take up the whole room.” She also suggests a little cheat: “Putting mirrors alongside one wall will instantly double the size of the room.”

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IMAGE: HANNAH BASS

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IMAGE: JESSICA LAMBERT

IMAGE: JESSICA LAMBERT

1. Bella’s bedroom 2. Open plan kitchen and living room 3. Bedroom 4. The view from Bella’s Balcony

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Bella’s Top Tip

2.

IMAGE: JESSICA LAMBERT

If you have to live in a confined space try and find a place in a great area, because the outside space does become your inside space too. Don’t be afraid of your clothes - Bella says her house looks like a “coat cupboard come bedroom”.

IMAGE: JESSICA LAMBERT

1.

“I found my 1,000 square foot, threebedroom ex-council flat in Notting Hill for just £430,000. I fell in love with it. It’s a purpose built block of flats, but it’s quite elegant. It looks Scandanavian - a low-lying building with courtyards at the back.

I worked at Vogue in the Eighties and then did room sets for brands such as Laura Ashley. I moved here with my six children (ages 10-25) following a difficult divorce.

Now five of us live in the house.

With no budget I focused on opening up the space. I knocked the kitchen door down, put in a new wooden floor, recarpeted my bedroom and transformed a tiny cupboard room into a small room we call the railway bedroom.

I recycled old antique furniture. Not one thing was new. You have to cram as many things you love into your house as you can and enjoy the treasures you do have. It took four men to bring in a marble statue of my granny Margaret which has been in the family for years. I have Gene Monroe fabric blinds in my bedroom, which were a treat in my country house but are even lovelier here.

As housing gets precious it is wholly acceptable to buy ex-council. But they have a ceiling price - they will never triple in value.

Still, in the recession mine has gone up from £410,000 to £580-£620,000. It’s now my country house meets council flat.”

4.

IMAGE: JESSICA LAMBERT

Bella Huddart lives in her own ‘country house meets council flat’ in Notting Hill, west London

5.

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23/03/2012 13:19:19

running free A

s action scenes go, the opening chase of Casino Royale is hard to beat. Co-founder of parkour, Sébastien Foucan, jumps from cranes and performs acrobatic stunts mid-air off a Madagascan construction site, with Daniel Craig’s Bond in hot pursuit. The film’s success triggered a wave of parkour-inspired stunts across cinema, including The Bourne Ultimatum and Breaking and Entering.

The adrenaline sport, parkour, meaning “a way with obstacles,” originated in France and has taken off in the UK with centres being set up all over the country, with Scotland opening its first park in January 2012.

Foucan’s own take on parkour freerunning - is what he describes as “a lifestyle” and “an education,” allowing him to express his feelings and creativity within the confinements of urban living.

Here he talks about the real meaning behind freerunning and how it is taking over the world...

How did freerunning start?

As children we climb everywhere, it is a natural instinct which I just carried on doing.

I truly believe I haven’t created something, nobody creates anything - I just put it in the eyes of the people. Freerunning was always there, Jackie Chan was doing it, even Tarzan did parkour.

Did you ever think you could make a career out of freerunning?

Never. When my friend David Belle and I started out 20 years ago, we were just kids having fun. I still don’t see freerunning as a career, it’s a way of living your life.

Sébastien Foucan talks about the art of freerunning for Hollywood, the Olympics and his spiritual liberation words: Anna Reynolds

What did you do before you were spotted?

I was living in Paris and was working as a firefighter. I used to have to hide my freerunning when I was at work because I had to be professional. Where I live it is quiet and nobody knows who I am. I’m a bit like a superhero in that way - I hide behind a mask!

What projects are you working on at the moment?

As well as starring in Dancing On Ice earlier this year, I have been working as a consultant on Twist, a 3D adaptation of Oliver Twist. The director, Matthew Parkhill, wanted a movie where Oliver and the gang have parkour skills.

Who would you say was the first person to inspire you?

Spiritually, I would say Ghandi, sport-wise Michael Jordan and Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee once said “Empty your mind, be like water my friend” and I apply this philosophy to freerunning. It’s a bit like when you need food, you need to be hungry for inspiration.

IMAGE: JON LUCAS

What do you love about freerunning?

Living in an urban environment can make you feel trapped and freerunning teaches you how to break out of this. When I jump, I separate my mind from my body. That’s the beauty of it, my body is in complete control.

Do you worry about injuring yourself ?

You can get injured anytime, anywhere, but because we are human beings we try to make things safer. I prepare myself in the right way; I know my body and if it tells me something isn’t right I won’t push it. It requires a lot of patience and dedication if you do it wrong then you could end up killing yourself.

Would you like to see freerunning in the Olympics?

It would be amazing but I’m not going to be the one pushing it. If you make freerunning competitive people might miss the real point of it - the spiritual aspect.

What is the future of freerunning?

Freerunning has already evolved, it is influencing movies, entertainment, music - I got to perform with Madonna on her Confessions tour for six months travelling around the world.

Where it’s going to be in 10 years time I don’t know; it grows by itself. I want to open a freerunning centre in London where I can experiment, but I’m still struggling with the format. I am not a believer in teaching 100 people at once, I’d like to focus on say, three people at a time, but financially that wouldn’t really work.

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23/03/2012 13:19:20

XCITY arts and culture

eating our way out IMAGE: iSTOCKPHOTO

Britain’s restaurants are booming despite talk of tightening belts words: Tom Allsop

W

hen your grandchildren ask how you survived the recession, what will you say? That you slept under bridges and sold matchsticks on street corners? Or that you supped on champagne and oysters?

From the high end to the reasonably priced, Britain’s restaurants are booming.

In the last year the management team who turned The Ivy around has opened The Delaunay. The current owner of The Ivy has opened 34, and the former director of The Fat Duck has opened Karpo. All these restaurants seat over a hundred diners.

The restaurant boom isn’t confined to London either. In January, Harden’s guides published a list of the 20 most talked about restaurants in the UK. It included Mark

Hix’s Hix Oyster & Fish House in Lyme Regis and Kitchin in Edinburgh. In fact, 14 of the restaurants were not in the south east.

After the high profile closure of The Vintner’s Rooms in Edinburgh, it looked like the recession was taking its toll on restaurants in the Scottish capital. But Richard Harden, co-author of the Harden’s guides, said some local commentators actually blamed the unprecedented success of high-end restaurants in Edinburgh. That success prompted a flurry of openings and an over saturation of the market.

We ask industry insiders for their take on who is eating out and where the money’s coming from.

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23/03/2012 12:11:24

e

Peter and Richard Harden, authors of the Harden’s restaurant guides Restaurant closures are the dog that didn’t bark. If history is any guide to the future, one would have expected to see a nosedive in restaurant-going after the Lehman Brothers collapse - but it didn’t happen.

There are restaurant clusters around the UK in places like St Ives, Whitstable and Ludlow. They didn’t exist 10 or 15 years ago.

Barely a week goes by without a £70 a head restaurant opening in Mayfair. There are now more billionaires in London than ever before. The vagaries of the British economy don’t affect their ability to pop out and drop £150 on dinner.

British people who come to London don’t want to settle down. The average age of women having their first child is now over 30. Buying a house is out of most people’s reach. If you’re living at your parents or renting, you’ve got more money for going out and having a good time. So all of the consumption that goes into nesting and buying baby clothes now goes on another six to eight years of drinking Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc.

If you own somewhere, you’re probably older. The amount we eat out peaks in our 60s, when we’ve got some money and no children. So the way the cookie is crumbling economically won’t have a huge effect on those people either.

Maureen Mills, director of the restaurant PR firm, Network London I could lift all my fingers and toes twice to count the number of restaurants that have opened in the last two months and that are pending in the next two.

It’s not like they’re dainty bistros for 40 people - these are big places. Look at the One New Change shopping centre next to St Paul’s Cathedral. Gordon Ramsay’s got his Bread Street Kitchen in there, Jamie Oliver’s got his place just opposite. They both seat more than 200 and they’re rammed.

I walked through the shopping centre to get to Gordon Ramsay’s place the other day and the cheaper restaurants were absolutely packed. Nando’s and Le Pain Quotidien had queues of people waiting to get in.

‘My customers aren’t worried about the recession, so neither am I’ With the euro so strong against the pound, Britain is relatively good value for visitors at the moment, so there’s also a lot of foreign investment and traffic. It seems like the city’s jammed with people from all over the world.

Nigel Sutcliffe, owner of Truffle Hunting consultancy group and former director of The Fat Duck My parents used to go out once every three to six months. During the 1970s recession they didn’t go out for two or three years and they didn’t even notice.

The lifestyle in Britain has changed. It’s part of our culture to socialise at lunch and after work - it would take a lot to stop it now.

Supermarkets are looking for every opportunity to get people to stay at home, so consumers have a better perception of value and they demand a better deal. That means we have to really analyse what we offer, whether it’s in top-end restaurants or inexpensive ones.

Restaurants used to offer really poor value. They would produce something for £3 and charge £15-20. Now the profit margins are much smaller. The kitchen will make something for £5 and charge £10-12 for it.

There are more restaurants where you can go out and get a good product for less nowadays. If you look at the Polpo restaurants in London, they’ve opened five

restaurants in three years and they’re all at the very inexpensive level. But I don’t think it’s cheaper in general – both the Le Manoir and The Fat Duck have got more expensive in the last year.

Not everyone gets it right. If you look at Fulham Road, for example, you can see all the “for sale” signs - that’s because they weren’t offering the community what it wanted. But if you look at the Uxbridge Road, it’s in a more impoverished area but it supports the community and that’s why every single restaurant is full.

Andrea Montovani, former chef at the Michelin starred Arbutus and Wild Honey, has set up his first restaurant, Mele e Pere My customers aren’t worried about the recession, so neither am I. We get all kinds of people here - older, younger, middle class, upper class. They want to get away from work and enjoy their lives. So if they want a good meal and a great night, they just do it – they don’t think about the economy.

Our worry isn’t the lack of customers, it’s the amount of competition. There are loads of good restaurants around, especially at the moment. They’re not just serving good food, they’re also doing well at the business end.

We charge £20-35 on average for two courses plus wine. We use all the best ingredients and we have to charge accordingly. But we can make things more affordable by using different cuts. One of the most popular dishes on the menu is veal tripe. It’s the best tripe you can get but it’s still not too expensive so we don’t have to charge much.

In the last two or three years, people in Britain have started to understand more about food. They’re more discerning about what they eat and where they eat it. They understand value and they know how to find the best food for the lowest price.

It’s definitely good for business – it means you get more people coming in and seeing your restaurant. They might just have one dish but if it’s good they’ll come back and have the full à la carte.

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23/03/2012 12:11:24

XCITY arts and culture

the first

place to go in...

IMAGE: CLI VE TOTMAN

City alumni share the first places to visit when arriving in the city they call home words: Emma Featherstone & Elli Donajgrodzki IMAGE: THE ROYAL INST ITUTION

Hannah Booth (periodical, 2000), commissioning editor, Guardian Weekend The Royal Institution, Mayfair “The institution is an extraordinary 200-year-old establishment that holds talks on science and psychology in its ancient, wood-panelled theatre.

It has a brilliantly designed bar with great cocktails, a cafe and a free museum attached. It’s never that busy and the location is perfect for shopping - you can hit Soho or go for a walk round Hyde Park.”

ES JOHN SOAN IMAGE: SIR

Nicky Evans (newspaper, 2008), news and online editor at squaremeal.co.uk Hampstead Heath “The Heath feels very far from the city and it’s got a rugged beauty that most central parks lack. When you first arrive in London the pace and pressure of life can be overwhelming, so it’s good to get away from it. Plus, it’s close enough to civilisation to rub shoulders with some pubs and restaurants.”

Phil Hebblethwaite (periodical, 2001), editor, The Stool Pigeon William Hogarth’s House, Chiswick “People who love newspapers need to see where the great William Hogarth lived. This was his country house, and while there aren’t any Hogarth paintings, there are plenty of incredible prints, including the classics like “Beer Street” and “Gin Lane.” It’s amazing looking at those two prints, both from 1751, in 2012.”

Andy Barker (newspaper, 2006), executive editor, ES Magazine Sir John Soanes Museum, Bloomsbury “The museum is a treasure trove of Ancient Greek and Roman marbles, Renaissance paintings and oriental curios. Best of all, is one of the smallest rooms, with gilt framed Hogarths and Turners on the panelled walls. If you ask nicely the wardens will pull out the panels to reveal more hidden paintings. I’m sure there are many more secrets buried within the house. That’s one of the reasons I’ll never tire of visiting it.”

Martell Maxwell (newspaper, 2000), writer, broadcast journalist and author of Scandalous Up the Creek, Greenwich “Greenwich is one of my favourite places to be for a dose of arts and culture. When I’m feeling mischievous, the comedy club Up the Creek is around the corner. They have an open mic night every Thursday where performers have five minutes to make the crowd laugh. Weekends attract a “lively” audience, who may have had warm-up drinks, which reminds me of my native Scotland.”

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23/03/2012 14:01:18

Sophie Haydock (magazine, 2008), freelance journalist and sub-editor for The Sunday Times The Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield “The gallery, the largest exhibition space outside of London, opened in spring last year and is dedicated to the life and work of the sculptor Barbara Hepworth who helped develop modernist art in Britain. The gallery has a unique collection of Hepworth’s work, including more than 40 pieces of sculpture, many of which have never been seen in public before.”

IMAGE: IWAN BAAN

Kathryn Stanczyszyn, (broadcast, 2007), BBC Birmingham broadcast journalist Victoria Square, Birmingham “The square is in the heart of the city. It’s where the nineteenth century industrialists, that turned Birmingham into the lifeblood of England, built buildings to show off.

Like the Council House, part of which now houses the superb Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the Town Hall, and the affectionately-known “Floozy in the Jacuzzi” - an ornate Italian-style fountain.

T ARTS C E PROJEC IMAGE: TH

ENTRE

Caomhan Keane (magazine, 2008), theatre writer, entertainment.ie, staff writer, News Four The Projects Art Centre, Dublin “The centre is the best place to see contemporary theatre and dance in the country. Larger companies bring their more experimental work here while emerging companies blossom under their patronage.”

James Williams (broadcast, 2009), BBC Wales broadcast journalist Swn festival, Cardiff “Despite having a rich musical heritage, touring bands have long eschewed Cardiff. Now in its sixth year, the annual festival is a four-day event held in November showcasing the best new Welsh music.”

IMAGE: THE MERSE Y PARTNERSHIP/VIS IT LIV

ERPOOL

Pippa Jacks (magazine, 2006), managing editor at Travel Trade Gazette Albert Dock, Liverpool “Opened in 1846, the grand Victorian warehouses now form the largest group of grade one listed buildings in the country. The International Slavery Museum, Merseyside Maritime Museum and The Beatles Story mean you can cover much of the city’s history and heritage in one spot.”

IMAGE: THE OR

CHARD TEA RO

OMS

Alice Hutton (newspaper, 2009), reporter, Cambridge News The Orchard, Grantchester, Cambridge “Home of poet Rupert Brooke, the Orchard became the countryside base of many iconic thinkers (Virginia Woolf, Maynard Keynes, EM Forster and Ludwig Wittgenstein) and has an on-site museum next to its tearooms.

It’s a very weather dependent destination, but if it’s sunny having tea on deck chairs under the blossom says ‘Cambridge’ better than anything else.”

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23/03/2012 14:01:23

the last word

Matthew Lewis IMAGE: IDIL SUKAN/DRAW HQ

Neville Longbottom was Harry Potter’s cowardly sidekick, now Matthew Lewis is breaking away from his boy-wizard image words: Elli Donajgrodzki

M

atthew Lewis played the nervous buck-toothed Neville Longbottom in all eight Harry Potter films, but after losing the false teeth and the puppy fat in the last two movies he has become an unlikely heartthrob.

Now starring in The Syndicate, with Joanne Page and Timothy Spall, (starting March 27, BBC1) and with independent movie Wasteland in the pipeline, Lewis has shed the fat suit and is ready to flex his acting muscles...

I’ll never forget the first time I turned up on the set of The Philosopher’s Stone. It was magical. The first scene I ever filmed was a broomstick lesson - it blew me away.

Harry Potter didn’t change my life, it added another dimension. I went around the world, went to premieres, then I’d come back to my home in Leeds and go to the pub to play darts with my mates.

My friends keep my feet on the ground. They remind me what real life is about - they’re merciless. They’ll say: ‘Well you might have had that write-up in the paper but you’re still crap at football.’

I didn’t realise at the time, but Neville made such a difference to people’s lives. His character had been through a lot. I got some really heart-warming letters from people who had been bullied and seeing Neville’s strength helped them get over it.

It’s difficult to keep in touch with the other cast members because everyone’s working all over the world. But when we meet up at events we have a good time.

Matthew Lewis will star in a new BBC drama

I’m not worried about being labelled as “that guy from Harry Potter”. I can think of a lot worse things to be called.

As for being the “hot one” from Harry Potter I don’t know about that. Very excellent photography is more accurate. It was the fact that I didn’t have the fat suit and the false teeth that shocked people.

I was ready to finish playing Neville.

I was happy with the way it had gone, but I wanted to take on a different character and be somebody else.

Filming The Syndicate was brilliant. It’s a five-part series by Kay Mellor about a group of supermarket workers who win the lottery.

My character, Jamie, makes some poor choices but there’s much more to him.

‘As for being the “hot one”... I don’t know about that.’

Matthew McNaulty is a lot of fun to be around and it was good to work with Tim [Spall] again. Tim is also in Wasteland, the next film I’m doing.

I started playing the lottery when we were filming because my character drives a Ferrari and I thought: “I could get used to this.” I didn’t win, although if I did I would have had to buy a Ferrari or an Aston Martin. Not sure if I could afford the insurance for that though.

Now I’m filming Wasteland. It’s about a lad, Harvey, who’s been framed for heroin possession. He’s in jail for 12 months and he comes out planning how to get back at the gangster who framed him.

It’s a heist film but it’s also about redemption. It’s about four friends, loyalty and friendship. Think Stand by Me meets The Italian Job meets Trainspotting.

When I’m not filming I’ll wake up late morning and go to the gym. Then watch the rugby in the pub. There’s nothing glamorous about my life. I’m pretty normal I think.

72 XCity A&C p.72-73.indd 2

23/03/2012 14:05:23

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57 XCity A&C p.72-73.indd 3

23/03/2012 14:05:23

TB&TT_X-City_Ad

20/3/12

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