ISSUE ONE
XCITY
XCITY LIFE
life ISSUE ONE
The Secrets Issue HOW LYING WRECKS YOUR HEALTH HUSH-HUSH HANGOUTS: THE NEW LONDON UNDERGROUND WHY FASHION BLOGGERS ARE SO LAST SEASON ALEX ZANE
SECRET WEAPONS
GOING OFF-MENU
LUCY MANGAN
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The Secrets issue 2013
Welcome to the first issue of XCity Life. The theme is secrets, and our writers have crossed London to uncover our capital’s most clandestine corners. In LIFE we visit an enigmatic Earl’s Court bar disguised as a detective agency and swing by Somerset House to learn the secret to clever shopping; in BODY we try an East End workout that helps you keep fit and do good, and discover how to make the perfect sourdough loaf in a Kensal Rise kitchen. But we have gone further afield too — to New York, where we find out how one woman unlocks the culinary secrets of famous writers on her blog Paper and Salt; to Derry, where we spoke to its best-kept secret, 16-year-old singersongwriter SOAK; and even to Hollywood, as we ask why the film industry is rediscovering the secret history of the fairy tale. Putting together this magazine certainly taught us a lot — not least how many synonyms there are for the word “secret” — and we hope that you learn something too.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Hannah Shaddock, Editor
With special thanks to Barbara Rowlands, Jason Bennetto, Malvin Van Gelderen, Clive Raven, John Battle, Fred Burlage, Dan Davies, Francine Lawrence, Roger Tooth and The Guardian, Getty Images, Associated Press, Rex Features, Sportsphoto Ltd/AllStar Philippe Tyan
philippetyanphotography. tumblr.com
Zoe Zietman
cargocollective.com/zoezietman/
Polly Alice Norton
pollynorton.tumblr.com
Ollie Grove
olliegrove.tumblr.com
PHOTOGRAPHERS AND ILLUSTRATORS Isobel Kho
www.isobelkho.co.uk
John Kilburn
www.johndkilburn.com
Editor Hannah Shaddock Deputy Editor Ellie Clayton Managing Editor Yara Silva Production Editor Bronwen Morgan Art Editor Nina Zietman Deputy Art Editor Leonie Roderick Features Editor Claudia Canavan Deputy Features Editor Lucy Haenlein Pictures Editor Matthew Isard Style Editor Natalie Hammond Chief Sub Holly Stevenson Online Editor Antonia Hawken Deputy Online Editor and Multimedia Editor Abigail Davies Advertising Manager Roisín Dervish-O’Kane
Sophie Parker
www.sophie-parker.com
Rebecca Duff-Smith rduffs.tumblr.com
Writers Charlotte Oliver Lizzy Turner Publisher Barbara Rowlands XCity Life Magazine Department of Journalism City University London Northampton Square London EC1V 0HB Tel: +44 (0)20 7040 8221 Email: b.a.rowlands@city.ac.uk Web: www.xcitylife.com Twitter: @xcitylife Printed in the UK by The Magazine Printing Company www.magprint.co.uk
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Contents LIFE
P12 Your style or mine? Two fashion editors learn from each other’s shopping habits
14 Zane’s world Wild-haired presenter Alex Zane reveals his unlikely style icons 16 Blog off Now fashion bloggers are selling out, have they finally had their day? 19 What’s in a name? The unknown history of London’s street names 20 Privacy settings Is it possible to remain truly private in the 21st century? 24 Handshakes and jam Once shrouded in secrecy, exclusive societies now want you to join up
WORK 28 Trade Secrets Four unsung heroes who work behind the scenes tell all 32 Works like a charm From acrobats to chefs, everyone has a lucky trinket or ritual 36 E-zines made easy Stand out on the digital newsstand
MORE ONLINE Go to www.xcitylife.com for more, including: An interview with Young Kato Exclusive videos London’s most secret activity Follow us on Twitter: @xcitylife 2
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P34 The war of independents (magazines, that is)
P50 Sourdough starter Bread’s getting a makeover
P58 All the world’s a stage Off-stage theatre, coming to a castle near you
BODY
ARTS
38 The truth hurts... But lies are worse for your health. We investigate the dangers of keeping it all bottled up
60 Scarily ever after Why Hollywood’s gritty reboot of fairy tales is nothing new
42 Let’s get digital More under-25s are dating online than ever. So why is it still taboo? 46 Eat your words Writers’ recipes revealed by Paper and Salt’s Nicole Villeneuve 48 Cool Runnings At Good Gym, getting fit and doing good aren’t mutually exclusive 54 Under the table Getting a taste for secret supper clubs’ clandestine cooking
P56 Fancy a McGangBang? Exploring the hidden world of off-menu ordering
64 What we hate to love Forget arty films and edgy bands. Critics confess their guilty pleasures 68 SOAK it up We chat to teen songstress SOAK — just don’t mention Justin Bieber 70 Poems from the trenches We learn more about Wilfred Owen’s haunting words of war 72 Hangin’ with Mangan Columnist Lucy Mangan on sharing her life with thousands of readers
P8 Why secrets sell The lure of undergound hangouts
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Diary 2013 We bring you the only alternative cultural calendar you’ll need this year WORDS by Hannah Shaddock
APRIL THE FALL This sophisticated crime drama follows an experienced detective attempting to hunt down an eccentric serial killer. Sound familiar? The premise is eerily similar to The Following, but there the similarities end. Created by Alan Cubitt, who wrote Murphy’s Law, the five part series is set in Belfast, and has a female heroine Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson, played by the unfailingly brilliant Gillian Anderson. Model-turned-actor Jamie Dornan — fresh from his role as the Sheriff in American series Once Upon A Time — plays the killer in his most substantial role to date. It has all the hallmarks of a classic BBC drama. Alternative to: The Following Release date: Not yet confirmed, but rumours say April.
NOVEMBER THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS
Another New York hit transferring to London this year, The Scottsboro Boys tells the true story of nine young black men falsely accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. An unlikely topic for a musical - but is there any story that can’t be told through jazzy ensemble dance numbers and stirring duets? We’re guessing the show’s creators John Kander & Fred Ebb, who were also behind Cabaret and Chicago, would say no. Reviews have been rapturous and tickets to its opening in November at the Young Vic are already selling out. Get one while you can. Alternative to: The Book of Mormon See it: At the Young Vic for a limited time only (18 Oct to 23 Nov). Visit www.youngvic.org or call 020 7922 2922 to book tickets. Tickets start from £10 for students.
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MAY KAFFE FASSETT
Some say Kaffe Fassett is the Bowie of the textile industry. In fact, artist and designer Fassett is way ahead of Bowie — he had an exhibition dedicated to his work at the V&A back in 1988. This year’s exhibition will bring together 100 of his pieces, and will include a “feeling wall”, where visitors will be able touch the textiles on display. He also designed a gold-medal winning garden for the Chelsea Flower Show in 1998. You’ve got some catching up to do, Bowie. Alternative to: David Bowie at the V&A See it: At the Fashion and Textile Museum, Bermondsey Street, London. From 22 March to 29 June. Tickets cost £8. To book go to www.ftmlondon.org.
JUNE MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Joss Whedon, director of The Avengers and TV show Firefly, has filmed a version of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. The film’s credentials are impressive — it was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival and the only slightly less prestigious Glasgow Film Festival — and Whedon has already proved his skills at adapting stories from page to screen. How different can Shakespeare and comic books be? Alternative to: The Great Gatsby Release date: 14 June
MARCH SOUND CITY PLAYERS
Thom Yorke’s rockier counterpart, The Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, has also formed a supergroup — and this one may be even superer. Named after Sound City studios in LA, the group is made up of members of Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, and Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Stevie Nicks and Paul McCartney both make an appearance on the Sound City Players’ debut record. The first release was “Mantra”, a surprisingly restrained collaboration between three of rock’s most notorious frontmen — Trent Reznor, Josh Homme, and of course Grohl. Alternative to: Atoms for Peace Release date: 13 March
MORE ONLINE
Go to www.xcitylife.com for more alternative cultural events.
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LIFE A NEW GENERATION OF FREEMASONS P24
WHY SECRETS SELL PRIVACY IN A DIGITAL AGE ALEX ZANE STYLE SECRETS OF THE SEXES ARE BLOGGERS LOSING POWER?
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PHOTOS: ADDIE CHINN; BART’S; 69 COLEBROOKE ROW;THE GASLIGHT GRILL; EVANS & PEEL
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i know
somewhere
YOU DON’T KNOW
If you look hard enough, you can find speakeasies in every nook and cranny in London. But what’s our fascination with hidden bars?
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WORDS by Lucy Haenlein
here is a doorway at the side of a launderette on Earls Court Road. You would be forgiven for walking straight past it without a second glance. Like Diagon Alley in Harry Potter, it is visible only if you are looking for it. If you do happen to find it, and if you lean close enough, you will see that this door is inscribed with the words “Evans & Peel Detective Agency”. To be allowed into this mysterious place, you must have booked an appointment with “the detective”. Down a narrow and dimly lit wooden staircase, you arrive in his 1920s office. There you must make your “case” to him, as to why you are in need of his services. Then, and only then, does he get up from his desk and open a secret doorway in his bookcase. Phew, you’re in. Once inside, the role-play stops but the speakeasy begins, and you can settle down to a delicious cocktail and period décor that even extends to the loo-roll dispensers. From speakeasies in Dalston to underground detective agencies in Earls Court, secret bars are opening in every hidden corner of London. Top 10 secret lists turn up again and again in magazines, and it has become an obsession of people in the know to find the most obscure and hidden places they possibly can. But what exactly is this fascination with the hidden? Are these venues just a passing fad? Or is it something deeper — a genuine social or psychological longing for secrecy? Vincent Williams, the general manager of Evans & Peel, thinks the secrecy element of venues like his is a theme like any other. “It’s a fad, a gimmick. Especially this place. The reason we do well is that we put effort into the food
and cocktails that we produce.” He does believe, though, that secrecy adds another dimension to the whole bar experience. “Of course you could just go to a bar if you wanted to. But it’s not just about the drinks. It’s about getting the whole theatrical experience,” he says. And judging by the popularity of venues such as 69 Colebrooke Row, Ruby’s, and The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town, it is clearly an experience that people want. Charlie Gilkes, the owner of another west London secret speakeasy, Bart’s, says these venues are meeting the demand of customers who are expecting more from an evening out. “They want an interactive experience that goes beyond simply drinks or dinner,” he says. “Events and venues are constantly innovating.” Gone are the days when shoving a segment of lime in the top of a Corona bottle was the height of interactive bar experience. But why the sudden demand for such experience-led venues? Sure, we went through a pretty heavy karaoke phase in the Nineties, and burlesque and cabaret evenings had a bit of a moment a few years ago. But this is something slightly different. Judging by the sheer volume and prominence of these venues in the bar scene, we seem to demand “experience” in a way that we never did before. For Paul Tvaroh, the man behind Czech-inspired cocktail bar Lounge Bohemia in Shoreditch, this demand is rooted in the fact that there is less money to splash around than there used to be. “People plan their nights out a bit more. They want a little bit more quality, or novelty,” he says. Even if something with an experience element is more expensive, people are happy to pay a bit extra to
‘People want to spend money on an experience they’ll remember’
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make sure that their night is worth the expense at all. Ross Parkes, marketing and PR manager for secret bar and restaurant The Gaslight Grill in Battersea, agrees. “People are a lot more cautious now, and they want to spend money on an experience they’ll remember.” It is certainly the case that the recession has changed the way we consume. But why is it specifically secrecy that we’re after? If it were just an experience we wanted, then surely there would be all kinds of outlandish concept-led venues, from space-age sushi bars to Hawaiian-themed coconut lounges. Neil Frame, editor of London guide The Nudge, says secrecy has always been
PHOTOS: ADDIE CHINN
a desirable attribute in a venue. And certainly, in my experience, the “lovely little” cafes and bars “round the corner” have always drawn their appeal from the fact that only a select few know about them. He says: “Wanting to know things that others don’t know; wanting to uncover what’s hidden; and wanting to go places that others might not even know exist are all natural urges shared by inquisitive minds.” As these secret new speakeasies show, we are so attracted to secrecy that we manufacture it out of nothing and for no practical reason at all. The original speakeasies of the 1920s were secret by necessity — ours are secret by design. And our fascination extends beyond bars and venues. It is thought that if a magazine editor puts the word “secret” on their cover, it will probably sell more copies. So there must be something about a secret that just draws us in. Georg Simmel, a founding father of sociology, believed the appeal was rooted in a belief that a piece of information a lot of people don’t know must be more valuable than something everybody does know. In his 1906 study, The Sociology of Secrecy and of Secret Societies, he uses the example of children boasting “I know something that you don’t know” to show how we are naturally jealous about information. We don’t like to feel that we aren’t in on the secret, and people are at an advantage if they know it — no matter what it is. A grasp of just how strong the desire to know what the secret is lies at the heart of how secret venues are marketed. They seek to attract customers by deliberately withholding information. Contact details are sparse and obscure (single mobile numbers, reservation request forms), and there is very little in the way of photographs or menus. All of it is designed to keep you guessing. And to make people want to be in on the secret, what better way is there than to exclude them from it? Not only that, but according to Simmel, a secret is at its most valuable when we tell it to someone and show them how superior we are. So not only are we dying to be let in on the secret, we are also desperate to tell it to other people. A Left: East London secret pop-up rum bar Portside Parlour; Above: a Portside Parlour cocktail; Above right: Chelsea speakeasy Bart’s
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pretty solid marketing tool if ever there was one. Dr Brian Balmer, a reader in science policy studies at UCL, says the division between people who know the secret and people who don’t also creates “types” of people. If you are let in on the secret, it is implied that you are the right “type’” of person to be allowed to know. Dr Balmer’s theory applies to state secrecy, but the parallel seems pretty clear with private members’ clubs. They carefully select their membership, and shroud their inner workings with as much secrecy as possible. And according to Robbie Acres, co-owner of secret East London pop-up bar Portside Parlour, it is the same appeal as a members’ club that draws people to secret venues.
“Customers love walking through a secret door. It makes them feel special. They feel like they’re going to a members’ bar without actually going to a members’ bar.” So though we might not like to admit it, perhaps, like fusty old gentlemen, we are also out to prove that we are the right “type” of person to be included. The appeal of secret venues is a powerful one, drawing on desires beyond that of other experiences. We want to know what other people don’t to set ourselves apart from the crowd and to prove we are the right “type” of person. But what happens when secret places become so common they are no longer secret at all? My bet is we’ll still be wandering down even darker streets in search of somewhere truly secret.
‘Customers love walking through a secret door. It makes them feel special’
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I’ll tell Men shop for functionality, women for frivolity. Right? But what are the real style secrets of the sexes? WORDS by Roisín Dervish-O’Kane PHOTOS by Philipe Tyan
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hen it comes to shopping, men are traditionally thought of as the less qualified sex. No more: there’s change afoot in the world of menswear. According to Nick Carvell, online fashion editor at GQ.co. uk, the revolution has brought cashmere knits, Tumblr stalking and discussions about the virtues of slim (not skinny) jeans to the forefront of male minds. How do men shop now? “Men’s fashion is changing, but it’s still true that for the majority of men shopping is about convenience. If they walk into a shop and find a shirt that looks good, they’ll stick with that brand. That’s the reason why online shopping is so popular with men; they know what they want and they know how it fits.” How is menswear changing? “Over the last decade there has been this revolution, where guys have started taking an interest in what other guys are wearing. It has suddenly become OK to go on Tumblr, to copy the outfits of men you think look cool.” Can women learn anything from the way men shop? “Menswear is based on style rather than fashion. It’s taking a step back when making big purchases and looking for something timeless.”
NICK’S SHOPPING SECRETS Daywear: J.Crew Shirts: Hentsch Man Suits: Spencer Hart Shoes: Mr. Hare One to watch: Ami. “It’s a French label run by Alexandre Mattiussi, who previously worked at Givenchy and Dior. It’s wearable and impeccably cut menswear.”
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What items should every man have in his wardrobe? “Every man should have a pair of black Chelsea boots. Guys should also have a pair of slim, not skinny, indigo jeans, a grey wool blazer and a cosy sweater in cashmere or cable knit. A white, button-down shirt is essential, and in terms of outerwear you can’t beat a classic mac.” So they should stick to classic items? “Yes, but obviously you do need things in your wardrobe to tart those things up. It’s about taking those items and remixing them as you see fit.”
you Mine
...if you tell me yours
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t’s not just the boys who have changed their retail routine. Scarlett Kilcooley-O’Halloran, junior editor of Vogue.co.uk, believes women are now smarter shoppers than ever, with both sexes learning from each other to rewrite the rules of shopping stereotypes. How are women shopping now? “I think with the benefit of the internet, women have become savvier about shopping. Because of e-commerce sites like NET-A-PORTER, and the fact that all the big high street brands are online, women now like to be informed of what’s out there. I’d never go into a shop and buy the first thing I see.”
How does that compare to the way men shop? “Traditionally, women do shop more, and make more trend-led purchases. But times have changed in fashion. It isn’t embarrassing for a guy to admit he is interested in clothes any more. Thanks to this shift, guys now feel able to wear a stripy suit or a pink shirt.” So men are still the more sensible shoppers? “No, women have just taken that idea of investment buying in a different direction. Women on all budgets do subscribe to the idea of investing in the staple items, but they also try all these trend-led pieces from the high street because they are so competitively priced.” Are women better at dressing for their shape? “I’m not sure. I do think that most women know what they feel comfortable in, and when a woman feels comfortable and sexy in her outfit that will always translate.” What items should every woman have in her wardrobe? “Every woman should have a great pair of jeans that suit her body shape, a simple white shirt, and a sumptuous cashmere sweater. A navy blazer is another useful thing to have, as is a parka. A comfy pair of flats is essential, whether that’s a pair of boots, loafers or sandals.”
SCARLETT’S SHOPPING SECRETS Daywear: Zara Workwear: Vanessa Bruno Evening wear: Sandro Shoes: High tops from Nike, kitten heels from Nicholas Kirkwood One to watch: Paula Gerbase of 1205. “She freshens up the boy-meets-girl thing that so many labels do.”
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CLOTHES MAKETH THE MAN What do The Matrix,Withnail & I and the Crystal Maze have in common? They all inspire Alex Zane’s distinctive style INTERVIEW by Abigail Davies PHOTO by Philipe Tyan
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he sartorial choices we make have a huge impact on how people perceive us. As Virginia Woolf once said, clothes “change our view of the world and the world’s view of us”. And, for those in the spotlight, there is always pressure to look good and stand out. We ask presenter Alex Zane about his cultural style icons. “I don’t really have one icon. I don’t think there is one person that you could raise to that level who hasn’t at some point got it wrong. If you’re going to put someone on a pedestal and think: ‘Forever more I shall follow your lead as far as fashion is concerned’ then they have to be flawless. And no one ever is.
I like Neo from The Matrix. His outfit is cool, but you can’t wear it every day. Believe me, I’ve tried. It just looks like you’re on your way to a fetish club. And only dickheads wear sunglasses indoors or if the sun’s not out. But in The Matrix it’s awesome! Withnail is a really good example of a secret style icon. He’s great — I love long coats. Every man benefits from a good coat. I have a beautiful Vivienne Westwood one. It’s huge, double breasted, and I never want to lose it. I used to think Richard O’Brien was a stylish guy when he was hosting the Crystal Maze. I’ve tried leopard print before but I can’t pull it off. I think it’s because of the long hair and tight skinny jeans.
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I’m a fan of the era when men didn’t leave the house without a hat. I guess I’m going for Fifties/early Sixties. You left the house and you put a trilby on and a beautiful suit. I’m a huge fan of a nice suit. People buy clothes that don’t fit them. I’ve made mistakes in the past. My mantra was “the skinnier the better”, but I found there is a line that you shouldn’t cross. I got a suit made that was too skinny. It just becomes obscene. I like well-fitted suits.”
MORE ONLINE
Go to www.xcitylife.com for a video interview with Alex.
LIFE
BYE BYE
bLOGGERS? Once fashion outsiders, style bloggers have become part of the industry. Now they risk losing the authenticity that set them apart
WORDS by Leonie Roderick ILLUSTRATIONS by Sophie Parker
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rom personal style bloggers to those who snap fashionable people on the street, thousands of people write about fashion every day. Online communities such as Independent Fashion Bloggers boast memberships of over 49,000. Many more bloggers aren’t registered. However, they have one thing in common: they all want to gain a large following. Fashion bloggers were initially praised for democratising a world that was seen as elitist, while also making their mark on the style agenda. But with the abundance of fashion bloggers and increasing number of sponsored posts and advertisement deals, has commercialisation dented their influence? Or should the blogging community have the right to profit from their work, and embrace advertising? The discussion heated up in February after New York Fashion Week when fashion critic Suzy Menkes wrote an article for The New York Times’s magazine, T. Menkes branded the crowd of bloggers loitering around the runways as “the celebrity circus of people who are famous for being famous”. Menkes concluded that the aim of bloggers was to receive gifts and paid-for trips to the next round of shows, and that “only the rarest of bloggers could be seen as a critic in its original meaning of a visual and cultural arbiter”.
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Roger Tredre, lecturer in Fashion Journalism on the Fashion MA at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, agrees. He says: “They were a breath of fresh air at the beginning. But now many of them have become part of the fashion media establishment and so there has been a loss of innocence.” Having an advertising deal with a major brand is often seen as the hallmark of a successful fashion blogger. But gift-giving and sponsored posts by fashion labels are hindering objective reporting. For fear of upsetting any designer friends, bloggers promote whatever freebie gets sent their way. With criticism no longer an integral part of a blogger’s role, many are signed up to agents, who specialise in arranging lucrative advertising deals with fashion brands. Karinna Nobbs, lecturer in Fashion Branding and Retail Strategy at London College of Fashion, agrees this has had a profound impact on the fashion blogosphere. “They have a more corporate feel,” she says, “Bloggers are not on the outside anymore.”
‘The b-word has been tarnished’
Photographer David Cummings captures fashion on the street
PHOTOS: DAVID CUMMINGS
In response to Menkes’s piece, Susanna Lau, the Londonbased writer behind the acclaimed blog Style Bubble, said that “blogger” had become a dirty word. She wrote: “The b-word has been tarnished — asking us how much money do we make; suspicions that every blog post is sponsored; outfits that have been littered with gifts; accusations that we’re poseurs and not fashion critics; lack of journalistic standards — things, which, I along with others have been guilty of to some degree or another.” Lau said that this tainted image has serious implications for the future of fashion blogging. “If I am just a ‘blogger’, a word that has become an irritant and a pest to the industry, then how can I carry on at present with all the current connotations that go with that word, and still write about the things that I want to write about?” Experts also believe the blogger’s influence is waning. Joanna Shiers, fashion and beauty editor at Stylus.com, thinks that the infinite number of bloggers means they have lost their initial appeal. “When there is a saturation of something with no way of policing, everyone can seem like an expert with no apparent fashion credentials.” The blogger’s unique ability to provide a fresh view of street trends is also diminishing. They are snatched up by advertisers who use their influence to promote everything from clothes to cameras. And many,
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including Tredre, have claimed this has led to a loss of individuality, as many of them have been bought up. Nevertheless, some have spoken out in defence of fashion bloggers. Jai’me Jan, a London-based blogger who runs a fashion blog called Boy Meets Fashion, says the growing number of fashion bloggers will only increase the influence they have on the fashion scene. “The fashion blogging community’s voice has been getting louder over the last decade,” he says. “And it’s now impossible to ignore.” Freelance stylist Holly Swayne, also from London, says that successful bloggers should be able to make money from what they do. “If they over-advertise on their site and it distracts from their authentic content, readers will see through this and the blogger will lose their readers,” she says. “It’s a fine balance to get right.”
‘Everyone can seem like an expert with no apparent fashion credentials’ With the authenticity of fashion bloggers now in question, what will the blogging community do next? Some believe that bloggers will have to be more transparent about the products and designers they write about. Nobbs says that in order to be successful in the future, bloggers need to offer a unique point of view and use marketing principles to create content with their readers’ needs in mind. “This is both an authentic proposition and a commercial one, therefore making it sustainable.” Jai’me Jan also says that bloggers should embrace advertising. “People who work in social media usually know a lot about social media, but most of them don’t know how to put together a terrific outfit,” he says. “This is why it makes sense for them to work with important bloggers who they believe have a great vision for style.” Since starting his blog in 2010, Jan has accepted the commercial side of blogging, and gained recognition through sponsorships and advertising. He’s done styling jobs, judged competitions, given talks to other bloggers, interviewed celebrities such as Florence Welch and Grace Woodward, and even modelled on the catwalk. He believes these opportunities have given bloggers more power than ever before. Openly embracing advertising, as long as they’re honest about it, might just be their lifeline.
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A ROAD BY ANY other name The hidden history of London’s street names WORDS by Holly Stevenson ILLUSTRATION by Rebecca Duff-Smith Hatchett’s Bottom Hampstead Heath, NW3 Now: The Vale of Health
This part of Hampstead Heath was originally named after an 18th century cottager. However, this was not a compliment to Mr Hatchett, as the area was malarial marshland until it was drained in 1777. When houses were built there, residents wanted to attract tourists. They came up with the name “the Vale of Health” to imply purity away from the City’s smog. And it worked — today the Vale of Health is one of the most expensive places to live in the world.
Rillington Place Kensington, W11 Now: Bartle Road
When eight bodies were discovered by on 24 March 1953 at 10 Rillington Place, the quiet lane off Ladbroke Grove became the most notorious street in England. John Christie had strangled the victims (one of which was his wife) and buried them in the house’s garden, the washing house, and even behind the kitchen walls. When he was hanged in July 1953, the road was renamed Ruston Close. Now it’s simply known as Bartle Road.
Gropecunt Lane City, EC2 Now: Cheapside
Yes, you did read that correctly. Gropecunt Lane, along with Popkirtle Lane (“poke skirt” in modern English — a cutesy name for illicit sex) and Bordello Lane formed a 14th-century red light district in Cheapside. The alleys aren’t there anymore, they serve as a reminder of the blunt functionality of medieval street names. Chaucer seems quite tame by comparison.
Pissing Alley Farringdon, EC1 Now: Passing Alley
As there was no indoor plumbing for most until well into the 19th century, this ginnel served as one of the medieval city’s public conveniences, which were all helpfully named Pissing Alley. This remains the only one that gives any indication of its previous use — presumably because the council thought painting an “a” over the “i” would suffice…
Petticoat Lane Spitalfields, E1 Now: Middlesex Street
Called “Peticote Lane” since 1608, after the undergarments the market traders sold there. But the uptight Victorians thought the reference to underwear too racy, so in 1830 the road name was changed to Middlesex Street. However, traders refused to change the name of the market — it remains Petticoat Lane Market today.
Bismarck Road Islington, N19 Now: Waterlow Road
During WWI, Bismarck Road was the most undesirable address in the country. Not only was the road named after the notorious German politician, but it was also the home of George Joseph Smith, known as the “brides in the bath murderer” for drowning three women in their bathtubs in 1915. The road was renamed in 1917.
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TMI?
*
*too much information
Our lives are played out on social media, and our personal details are available online. So has privacy gone for good?
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WORDS by Claudia Canavan ILLUSTRATIONS by Isobel Kho
e live in the age of oversharing. Grotesque faces pulled after one too many tequilas, bikini snaps on Spanish beaches and the perfect pancakes we flipped on Shrove Tuesday are all out there. Research published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal in March shows that a person’s drug use, political opinions and whether their parents are likely to
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be separated can be discerned from the public pages they have “liked” on Facebook. Even toddlers who can’t yet type their own name are not safe — one in eight parents create a Facebook or Twitter profile for their baby, according to a Currys and PC World survey taken in February. Where we shop, our political opinions and where we went to university are in that infinite pool of sensitive information. Our lives will only become more internet-
centric. Google hope to release Google Glass — glasses fitted with a tiny computer that let the wearer search the internet, take photos and record via voice command — by the end of this year. It is now normal to spend an evening on Facebook, share photos on Instagram and tweet our way through a television programme. Our working lives are also involved. A poll taken by security software providers AVG in January showed that 53 per cent of professionals believe that privacy in the workplace has been destroyed by social media. As colleagues have access to the streams of personal photos that we share, the wall between professional and personal life has been demolished. What we search for can affect us as much as embarrassing photos. While the content of your “IBIZA 2006 WOOOOOO” photo album may make you want to disappear with mortification, darker internet behaviour, such as viewing extreme porn, has the potential to wreck our careers.
‘One in eight parents create a Facebook or Twitter account for their baby’ Dr Keiron O’ Hara, a senior research fellow in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton and co-author of The Spy in the Coffee Machine: The End of Privacy as We Know It, says that we are facing a new situation in which secret internet searching could cause havoc in our professional lives. “If you wanted to become prime minister, you could reasonably expect to do so in your forties. But you have to make sure very early on that there is nothing bad on your records — a few downloads of the wrong thing now will be available [if your computer was searched by the authorities] when you try and go into politics. This is a situation we have never had before; now your past life is extremely hard to throw off.” Information we want only family and friends to know, such as our mobile phone number, is more accessible than we would like to think. We enter our contact details and where we live into our chosen networks routinely, and the owners of sites such as Facebook are simply not bothered about guarding our privacy. Suriya Prakash, an 18-year-old security expert from Tamil Nadu, south India, was able to hack into the system to obtain masses of phone numbers for
people he is not friends with in October 2012. He did this in order to investigate the true security of users’ details on the site, which he suspected would be less than stringent. He says: “What I found was a vulnerability because of the inefficiency of the people who are supposed to protect [your security]. Hacks like mine happen all the time, but most are not reported to the public, or even detected by the companies themselves.” Facebook security will try to hang the blame on the user, despite making their privacy settings tricky to control and regularly changing how we access them. When Prakash reported what he had been able to do to Facebook security, he received a response saying that: “By default, your privacy settings allow everyone to find you…using the contact information you have provided, such as your email address and phone number.” Laziness is part of the problem, according to O’ Hara. We cannot be bothered to protect ourselves properly. We gladly give away whatever a network asks in order to use its services, without wondering where it is going or how they plan to use it. Prakash adds: “What many people don’t realise is that when you agree to Facebook’s terms and conditions, you give it almost unlimited control and access over what you share.” O’Hara says the immediate buzz of gratification from sharing our lives online outweighs the long-term dangers in our minds; like consuming a bottle of Merlot on a Friday night even though we know that the next morning will be hellish. It is not that our expectation of privacy has fallen but that we care more about the here and now, he says. Revealing too much online can also affect our romantic lives. Jean Smith, a relationship expert and founder of dating seminar company Flirtology, says that social media profiles can have a negative effect on burgeoning relationships. Before the digital revolution, we could reveal new things about ourselves to someone we were dating at our own pace, and would probably never see a photo of their ex. Now we can have access to this information, which Smith says is irrelevant and unhelpful. Ruth Bross, a family
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solicitor at Bross Bennett in Highgate, north London, says that the digital age has also prompted change in the way evidence is collected in divorce cases. “If you can get evidence from computers about what people are up to, and it shows that they are lying about what they said or did, it affects their credibility in court. So there is a trail of evidence now.” The internet has also invited new reasons for divorce. “People might meet old flames online, and they might be going through a low patch in their marriage. It’s easier to connect with people. And because of email and texting people are able to say things in writing much more quickly, and once you’ve sent one it’s a permanent source of evidence — you can’t just take it back,” she adds. O’ Hara agrees and notes that everything you post on Facebook is the property of CEO Mark Zuckerberg and, as such, you have no power over your content. Lawyers in the US spend phenomenal amounts of time and money trawling through emails for court evidence to be used in divorce cases. The information that can be gathered on us from our networks is astounding. O’Hara describes a 2009 experiment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in which network analysis was used to work out who in a certain area might be gay, based on who they had been talking to and their social circle. “Once you’re in a network, it is very hard to control what inferences can be made about you,” he says.
‘The immediate buzz of gratification outweighs the the long term risk’ In the same way sites such as Amazon work out what we may want to buy based on our past purchases. This can save us filtering through the web to find what we want. Jake Attree, a junior creative at marketing company Dare, says that social profiling makes a service look more personable and tailored to the individual, creating the impression that the company knows the buyer on an intimate level. While our lives can be made easier through this use of information, when we are profiled by various companies we limit our interaction with people and ideas. If we are recommended every article we read on a newspaper app, we miss what we may have flicked over and partially absorbed in a print newspaper. In the same way, if we only communicate with people on social networks we
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lose the chance of serendipitous encounters with people from different backgrounds. But the real problem lies in our preferences and social habits being forever available. When we are alone with our laptops and the web at our fingertips, we create an illusion of secrecy for ourselves. It is where our strangest compulsions might be exercised and where we might search for the things we are too embarrassed to ask friends. But this information is more permanent than a throwaway query in the pub. If we want to have a secret life in the digital age, we have to make sure nothing of it is typed into a search bar.
HOW TO KEEP YOUR DIGITAL LIFE PRIVATE Linkus Photo Manager Pro: This photo blocking app secures all the photos and videos on your phone in password controlled folders. No one who steals or picks up your phone can view your content. McAfee Security Software: Stops friends of friends being able to view your photos on social networking sites that are set to private. Your content cannot be passed on. Snapchat: An iPhone and iPad app that allowers the user to send photos to friends, which automatically delete after 10 seconds. Originally intended for goofy snapshots, it has become a go-to for teenagers sending saucy snaps. Tor Browser Bundle: This software encrypts your internet traffic, meaning that browsing data is inaccessible. It has been tested in oppressive political regimes that do not allow free web browsing, and works. Reviews say that it makes browsing slow, but that it is a secure way to search for occasional use.
LIFE
Shedding the
cloak and dagger
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Traditional societies and guilds are encouraging younger members. But open doors don’t necessarily mean their secrets are free for all
L
WORDS by Charlotte Oliver
ike any other thirty-something working in London, Nicholaa Plant is in a hurry. Her meeting overran and she’s hightailing it across the City to make an appointment. Time is tight, but this is one arrangement she refuses to miss. “Sometimes it’s difficult to go to a meeting, but I never regret it,” she says. Tonight is different from Nicholaa’s standard evening, which usually involves drinks with friends or a yoga class. One can only guess what it entails, for Nicholaa, 32, is a Freemason and she’s on her way to her lodge’s quarterly meeting. Women’s Freemasonry sounds like a joke. How could an ancient fraternity that prides itself on patriarchal hierarchies possibly admit women? Think of the Freemasons and you see images of cloaked knights, secret handshakes, aprons and compasses. But Nicholaa represents a new face of Freemasonry – one that, as it approaches its tercentenary in 2017, is making greater efforts to be open. The United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE), which governs over a quarter of a million male members, is shedding its shrouds in the public domain. Last year, it released its Future of Freemasonry report, commissioned to place the society in a modern context. Its open website and Twitter presence makes you wonder whether this “secret” society has any secrets left. The Order of Women Freemasons (OWF) is quietly catching up. With 5,500 UK members and counting, it is keen to welcome fresh faces. Nicholaa was initiated four years ago into Lodge Courageous Number 30. She says: “I’d always been interested in what my dad was doing — he’s been a Mason for 40 years.
“I’m the youngest in my lodge, which I think is a pity,” she says. “We pride ourselves on keeping traditions alive. But any society needs younger members to keep it relevant.” How do secret societies increase their numbers without compromising their integrity? The internet has answered previously unanswered questions surrounding their rituals, but some matters still remain behind closed doors. This is at the heart of Masonic survival; for many, the attraction lies in the mysteries waiting to be solved. According to Nicholaa, information is granted as you progress higher in the Order. Rachael Newman, 41, the Master of Nicholaa’s lodge, says it’s important to maintain some secrets. “It makes for an interesting journey — one where all is gradually revealed,” she says. “It would be a shame if Freemasonry lost its mystique; then it would be like any other club.” Challenging preconceptions is not exclusive to the Freemasons; traditional societies are also being rejuvenated. With 212,000 UK members and 22,600 new members in the last four years, Women’s Institutes (WI) are
‘It would be a shame if Freemasonry lost its mystique’
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Left: Nicholaa Plant outside the Grand Lodge of the Order of Women Freemasons in Notting Hill. Photo by Ollie Grove; Right: Shoreditch Sisters in central London. Photo courtesy of Shoreditch Sisters
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PHOTO: SOPHIA PANTELI
Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Stationers Madeleine Cuff (fifth from right) at her Freedom ceremony
now a fundamental feature of many young women’s lives. In central London, groups like the Dalston Darlings and Shoreditch Sisters now have women in their twenties. Recent meetings have included pole-dancing lessons, bicycle repair demonstrations and a Flirtology workshop. Joy Robinson, president of the Wallington & Carshalton WI, Surrey, hopes that more awareness will entice younger members. “We’re not all about jam and Jerusalem,” she says. Joy’s enthusiasm appears to be working. After a Downton Abbey-inspired talk from the National Trust at their last meeting in February, 22-year-old Gemma Cook joined. “I’ve been ridiculed for wanting to come, but it sounded like a laugh – sort of like Guides for grownups.”
‘We’re not all about jam and Jerusalem’ The new direction some societies are taking is not reserved to those of single-sex. The City of London has 108 livery companies ranging from modern trades to those of a more antiquated variety, like Loriners and Pattenmakers. Paul Campion, Pastmaster of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, says: “We’re very much in the 21st century. Our history and what we aim to do in the future is very transparent. We have no secrets.” Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Stationers, Madeleine Cuff, 23, is keen to dispel any myths. She won a Stationers’ bursary two years ago that funded her Journalism masters. She says: “It does look like a lot of middle-class people having high-minded discussions but it’s just a place for people in the same profession to come together. You don’t get the feeling that there are secret rooms where you have a
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special knock to get in.” Societies and guilds are lifting their veils and membership is on the rise. Yet the fact is, their message has always been spread by word of mouth, father to son and mother to daughter. The only difference is that today’s word of mouth is digital and louder than ever before. “There’s a lot that younger people have to offer which would really help Freemasonry,” says Nicholaa. The message is spreading and it’s up to younger generations to hurry to the next meeting of their choosing to avoid being left behind.
TEMPTED TO JOIN? For more information, visit: The United Grand Lodge of England ugle.org.uk/ The Order of Women Freemasons owf.org.uk/ The National Federation of Women’s Institutes thewi.org.uk/ The Worshipful Company of Stationers stationers.org The Worshipful Company of Musicians wcom.org.uk/
WORK
TRADE SECRETS: HIGHLIGHTING HIDDEN JOBS P28-31
BEHIND THE SCENES WITH A WIG MAKER AND MORE MAKING A TOP DIGITAL EDITION HOT INDEPENDENT MAGS www.xcitylife.com
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WORK TRADE SECRETS
The
WIG
Maker Joanne Foster, 43, has made faux locks for the West End, the BBC and Dame Judi Dench INTERVIEW and PHOTOS by Antonia Hawken
M
aking wigs is supposed to be a Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 job. It rarely works out that way. When I’m working to a deadline I’ll end up taking a wig home and continuing into the night. I work with two other wig makers at Shepperton Wig Company which we founded in 2002. Together we’ve worked on film and theatre productions of The Phantom of the Opera, Grease, Cats, Mission Impossible and Alice in Wonderland. I’m usually given three weeks to complete a commission, from the consultation up to the attachment of the hair to the net. With a commission I’ll organise a fitting with the individual to take a head shape using cling film. I’ll then mark on the hairline. Measurements will be recorded and photographs taken to remind us of the client’s head shape. Together we’ll finalise colour, length and style. From the mould we create a net which is covered in tiny hexagon holes. The hair is then ordered and knotting begins. Each wig needs around 4 ounces of hair. Depending on hair length knotting can take up to 40 hours. Strands vary in thickness depending on the desired look. Just like a real head of human hair, no two wigs are the same. We do one hair at a time and have to ensure that it’s tied on to the correct side to create a natural fall from the scalp. Once completed we call the client back for alterations. The
wig is then covered with a hair net and left in the wig oven to set for 24 hours. The oven resembles something you’d see in a bakery. It’s warm, rather than hot, and has two shelves. We use human, acrylic and yak hair. Human hair has the most versatility because it looks and feels natural, and can be easily styled and coloured. Yak is used for body hair because it’s coarser. I’ve even made a pubic wig before because the actress had removed all of her own hair. To create the right look I had to use curling tongs. Because the actress was going in water the curls had to be really tight. The most expensive wig I’ve made was £2,000 for a Spanish film five years ago, made of gorgeous long red hair. We’ve also made a wig for Judi Dench when she played Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Rose Theatre in Kingston. We used two hair colours to match her costume. There’s no set path into wig making. I trained as a hairdresser which helps with understanding the hair and how to treat it, and then took a two week course. Others I know have taken a BA in costume design, undertaking an optional wig module. Another started through an apprenticeship when she was 16.
‘I’ve even made a pubic wig’
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The
Food Stylist From fast food to filet mignon, Alan Thatcher, 28, will go to any lengths to make food look beautiful INTERVIEW by Holly Stevenson
W
ith every picture of food that you see anywhere, there’ll be a food stylist — also known as a home economist —behind it, and it will have taken days to shoot. I work with two other guys, Phil and David. We met while training as chefs at the City of Westminster College, Kingsway, in London. The food industry is vast - our company also does festivals, books, food shows and TV programmes. A large part of the work is supplying and preparing food for contestants on shows like Great British Menu and Saturday Kitchen.
They dictate what they want — sometimes they want a particular pear from a particular tree. Some of the produce is incredibly expensive and they only use a tiny bit of it. Things like gull eggs —which cost up to £5 per egg, and they’re so fragile that two out of every three will break during cooking. Some chefs have ordered 3kg turbots just to use the tail. But a lot of chefs will take food home and production crews eat a lot of it, so it doesn’t get wasted. On a programme like Saturday Kitchen you turn up at 5.30am, and we will shoot until 1 in the afternoon. When you see the close-ups of the food on TV programmes, it’s won’t always be what they’ve cooked. It’s what we assemble and recook. This takes at least three quarters of an hour, all for a two or three second shot. When we did an advert for a fast food company, for a hundred seconds we needed 1000 burgers. Our team had to take over their kitchens to cook them all. Although we use all the ingredients your average burger flippers does, we do make them look good — we syringe the mayonnaise and go through ten boxes to find the best lettuce leaf. I did an advert with a Michelin-starred chef recently where he puts a 15-pound steak in a pan, and I had to use around 15 steaks to capture every angle. But you wouldn’t necessarily want to eat them – during shoots, the food might sit out for three hours. There are lots of different tricks you can use: poking a hot tampon in a cake to make it steam, and putting red hot nuts and bolts in the bottom of soufflés to keep them upright. I don’t know what the definition of a ‘home ec’ is. It’s all in one title, but there are so many elements and aspects to it — the only constant is that they are all connected with food.
‘Poking a hot tampon in a cake will make it steam’
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WORK TRADE SECRETS
Orla Pearson, 41, appears on BBC news every morning - but you won’t have seen her face INTERVIEW by Matthew Isard PHOTO by Ollie Grove
THE
STENOGRAPHER
T
he average person types 30 words per minute (wpm). I type at 235 wpm. Reporters can talk up to 310 wpm. It seems unbelievable that anyone talks that fast, but they have a three minute slot and about 10 minutes of footage and interviews. I learnt stenography 22 years ago at Bray Senior College in Dublin. After graduating I worked in the English courts for a few years before joining the BBC. I was there for 16 years, but now I freelance. I do live captioning for BBC News 24, every night for BBC Newsnight, and sometimes sport for ESPN. I do all my typing on a stenography machine. Individual letters and whole words are made from typing different combinations of the 21 keys. Captioning is very much about patterns and memory. Since I’m musical and good at maths, I just get it. If I get a key stroke wrong then a completely different word comes up. You only get one second to correct it and catch up. During a football match a stenographer once mistyped “penalised from behind” and it came out as “penis from behind”. Another time the Prince of Wales visited “Helen’s bra” rather than “Helensburgh”. I also do speech-to-text work for deaf people. One thing I’ve done is caption at the European Commission of Human
Rights for a disability forum. I’ve also done meetings for Camden Council as one of the ladies is deaf. She has been at high level meetings and would miss a lot of information if I wasn’t there. This job is important for the deaf community. But they are worried that the resources are drying up. The Dublin stenography course was the only full-time course in Europe and it was abruptly halted last year. Occasionally I switch off during a council meeting and start thinking about what I’m doing the next day. I can’t do that with television work. It’s intense and constant. BBC Newsnight is 50 minutes of constant talking without a break. When you do a desk job you can go out and give yourself a break every 20 minutes. I can’t stop. My biggest bugbear is Kirsty Wark on The Review Show. She talks so fast. When I’m done my brain is dead. I need to keep the audience in mind and think about how they are reading the subtitles. I have to put in exclamation marks for jokes. I need to get the tone right otherwise it could look like a bold statement rather than a joke. Sometimes I can’t process what they are saying. If I did I’d never be able to keep going. I was working when 9/11 happened. I captioned when the planes hit the towers. Other people were reacting, but I couldn’t, I just kept typing. I couldn’t think about what the story was.
‘I captioned when the planes hit the twin towers’
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the
make-up effects
I
ARTIST
grew up in Lancashire, and my dad was manager at the Odeon, so always he took me to the cinema. I loved monster films, and always wanted to make creatures and mess around with clay and rubber and stuff. I went to art college, and when I left I thought about doing graphic design. But then I saw that there was a college in London [the London College of Fashion] that taught make-up and prosthetics. As it was a make-up course you had to do hairdressing as well, which I’d never done so I didn’t get in first time. I had to spend a year setting old ladies’ hair. I reapplied and was accepted. I specialised in prosthetics and once I left I went to the BBC, where I worked for six months on dramas like Silent Witness, doing the dead bodies. I worked for other people for 17 or 18 years, but I set up my own company [BGFX] three years ago. I get contacted by the line producer or make-up designer on a film, and they’ll tell me when the film starts and what make-up they need. They might need anything from old-age make-up
Although Barrie Gower, 40, has transformed Hollywood’s leading ladies, he dreams of working on Star Wars INTERVIEW by Hannah Shaddock
to a severed head. An average prosthetic character makeup takes three to four weeks to produce. We start with a “life cast” of the actor, which is an impression of their head taken in a dental alginate or silicone materials. We cast a plaster of Paris head out of this mould and sculpt the make-up in a wax-based modelling material similar to plasticine. Once we have our moulds the pieces are cast in silicone rubber, a life-like material which is soft and flexible. In the workshop I work normal office hours, but once I’m on set the days are a lot longer. Even something like ageing make-up can take four or five hours to apply. Often by the time I get on set I’ve already done a full day’s work. One of my favourite projects was The Iron Lady, where we had to age up Meryl Streep to look like an elderly Margaret Thatcher. It was a two or three month shoot, and it was the loveliest job. Meryl Streep is very sweet and down to earth. I’ve also worked with Michelle Pfeiffer on Stardust, who had a great sense of humour, and Naomi Watts, who was very professional, on Diana. The Harry Potter set was a great place to work and the last film was the nicest experience. There was a huge department of about 150 people, and I had great characters to work on, like the goblins (pictured left) and Mad Eye Moody. You spend so much time with the actors; you’re the first person they see in the morning, spending hours glueing rubber to their face, then you spend the rest of the day making sure it doesn’t fall off. You’ve got to get on well with them. I worked one day on the second Star Wars film, but I’d love to work on the new one. That’s my dream project. www.bgfx.co.uk
‘I had to spend a year setting old ladies’ hair’
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WORK
very
superstitious From politicians to acrobats, everyone has a trinket or ritual that guarantees success
F
WORDS by Yara Silva and Roisín Dervish-O’Kane ILLUSTRATIONS by John Kilburn
or many of us luck is not a matter of chance. Lucky charms and rituals have become an integral part of our lives; often we credit our success to these bizarre objects and actions. But why do we hold on to them? Dr Caroline Watt, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Edinburgh, says: “When people are living in risky areas, they hold greater superstitious beliefs. This is probably because the believer
gets a sense of control by adopting a ritual that overcomes the unpredictable environment.” And can they actually work? “Yes, but not in any magical sense. If a person believes in their lucky charm, they may try harder, be more persistent, and be more resilient.” So if you wear that holey pair of lucky knickers to job interviews or carry around your old teddy bear, then don't worry, you're not alone — plenty of others do it too.
“I wear my lucky knickers on important days even though they’re falling apart. They’re pink with green polka dots and not very flattering at all.” Kerry Ffeon, 25 Legal secretary, London “I make sure I pick a piece of music to perform to that really sucks me in. Before I go on stage I play it to calm my nerves. I shut my eyes, think of the music, breathe deeply and have a long stretch in a warm place.”
Lowri Thomas, 22 Acrobat, Bournemouth “My sketch group WitTank do a chant. It’s a call and response routine and we do it three times getting faster and faster. We’ve done it for years before most performances and get antsy if there isn’t any time. It’s mad but it works. We always have peace of mind afterwards. I also list every US state in alphabetical order in under 20 seconds. It’s part of my routine so I have to make sure I won’t mess up on stage.”
“I drink a litre bottle of cola before an important meeting. I feel more focused after it. It wakes me up too because I have a lot of trouble sleeping.”
Mark Cooper-Jones, 27 Stand-up comedian, London
Stacey Hallam, 26 Teacher, Leeds
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“I have lots of pop culture t-shirts that I wear in rotation when shooting. At the moment it’s either the Cookie Monster or Charlie Chaplin.” “When speaking in Parliament the most important thing is to know your stuff. A good haircut, gel nails, mascara, and lipstick all make me feel ready to face the world – but no amount of cosmetics can replace knowing what you’re talking about.”
Lillian Greenwood, 46 Labour MP for Nottingham
Mikel Iriarte, 22 Film maker, Bournemouth “I always have a piece of paper in front of me with the key facts of my report on it. I could do without it now, so I guess it’s a security blanket. But when your mind goes blank it is comforting to have the essentials in front of you. Mind blanks are horrifying enough to make me think: ‘I will never be in that situation again.’”
Torin Douglas, 62 BBC correspondent, London “When hanging above 500m drops, it’s hard to steady your camera and tripod without dropping them. I always put my favourite beer towel at the top of my camera case so when I open it inside the cave, it’s the first thing I grab. Then I can clean my hands before handling the camera.”
Robbie Shone, 32 Photographer, Sheffield
“I have a little teddy bear keyring that my boyfriend gave me for Valentine’s Day three years ago. I carry it everywhere. It’s comforting and I think it’s lucky — I once went out without it and my purse was stolen.”
Joanne Hutley, 24 Chef, Stourbridge
“Every New Year’s Eve I run around my block with a packed suitcase. It’s to make sure I spend the next year travelling around the world. I also wear yellow underwear that night to wish for a whole year of good luck.”
Santiago Ramos, 26 Advertising strategist, Colombia www.xcitylife.com
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WORK
independents’
day
Independent magazines are like high fashion: beautiful, expensive and constantly changing. We take a glance at this transient market WORDS by Ellie Clayton
A
s nostalgists everywhere lament the decline of the printed word, independent magazine publishers are ploughing valiantly on. From Little White Lies to Rouleur, the independent sector turns out an endless stream of beautifully crafted, niche titles that work hard to earn their high cover prices. With no official body representing them and no real incentive for publishers to reveal their sales figures, the independent sector is an almost unquantifiable industry. “It’s not just about numbers,” says Steve Watson, founder of independent magazine distribution service Stack. He believes that what is notable are the trends and fluctuations in the subject matter. Right now, for example, he sees a current “unexplained trend” for drink magazines. Gin & It, the boozy sister publication to indie food title Fire & Knives, is accompanied by Hot Rum Cow and Noble Rot. All three focus on a burgeoning interest in good quality alcohol. But, says Jack Roberts, co-founder of independent literary magazine Bad Idea and managing director of Good Publishing, independent publishers aren’t as tied to the pursuit of a perceived market as their mainstream counterparts are. According to Roberts, demand is not necessarily created by an unsatisfied market, but by the people who supply the magazines. “A certain group of people have become interested in this cultural area, they want to publish a magazine and they are capable of creating a product that people want to buy,” he says. Independent magazines are also able to respond creatively to the gaps left by mainstream magazines. Watson identifies
a new wave of travel magazines, which, through innovation and an alternative approach, are setting themselves apart from an otherwise saturated luxury travel market. “If you look at any of the big travel titles they probably have a nice cover photo of a beach or swimming pool and stories about wonderful experiences to have and great hotels to go to. It’s really staid and boring,” Watson says. According to him, new magazines such as We Are Here and The Travel Almanac focus on unique experiences. “They don’t tell the reader what to do and where to go. They focus on the people and the experiences that you encounter when you travel,” says Watson. Independent magazines create an environment around themselves that appeals to a particular group of people. Roberts believes their readers buy into a counter-cultural ethos. “They are appreciators of art and appreciators of design. If you go to these people’s houses, they may have similar types of books in their bookcase,” he says. People who read Fire & Knives read it because they are food lovers, but also because they are the kind of food lovers who shop in Broadway Market in Hackney. Though independent magazines are, on the whole, warmly welcomed by fans and enthusiasts, they often disappear as quickly as they came on the scene. As Roberts explains, “You never know how they’re going to pan out in the long-term. Many print titles are in their third or fourth issue; not many will make it to issue 13.” He says that by nature, printed independent magazines are less likely to survive than their mainstream rivals simply because people make a lot less money creating them. But there are always new titles filling the gap. “It’s a cycle that keeps refreshing itself,” says Roberts.
‘You never know how they’re going to pan out in the long-term’
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MAGAZINES TO WATCH as chosen by Jack Roberts & Steve Watson
Hot Rum Cow
Aimed at people who want high quality drinks but aren’t necessarily connoisseurs. It has a print run of 2,000 and is available in independent bookshops and food & wine shops. www.hotrumcow.co.uk
The Travel Almanac
Travelling, as experienced by cultural innovators and icons with informative writing and photo essays. Circulation of 22,000. www.travel-almanac.com
We Are Here
Each issue focuses on a different city. Its next issue, Kathmandu, will be released in June 2013 and distributed in stores across the UK and Europe. www.weareheremagazine. com (currently available on cargocollective.com/ conorpurcell)
The Ride Journal
An all-encompassing read for bike lovers. It has a print run of 5,000 and a strictly limited advertising policy. Proceeds from each issue are donated to various charities. www.theridejournal.com
The Blizzard
Football-related reportage, history and detailed analysis. It offers a paywhat-you-like policy for both print and digital editions. www.theblizzard.co.uk
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WORK Play to your strengths
Ads make the mag
“Magazines are very good at doing the graphic, photographic, and editorial elements. But with video and audio they overstretch themselves.” Jack Roberts, founder of Future Human and Bad Idea magazine
“People buy magazines for the ads so make them better. The Economist does some ads with Audi where you can download the car’s sound.” Peter Bale, vice president and general manager of CNN International
Divide and e-conquer
Give the people what they want
PHOTO: Guardian
“If Cineworld Online and Cineworld iPad were people they would look, dress, speak, think and act very differently. They’re not just two versions of the same thing.” Pat Reid, editor of Cineworld magazine
“If a new function is not helpful or useful we will not include it. We know people use their tablets in their kitchens so the timer on our tablet version is really handy.” Katy Griffiths, editor of Morrisons magazine
Strip it down
From the font up
“Too many bells and whistles ruin the reading experience. You can’t go too crazy.” Chris Lupton, art director of Empire magazine
“Start from scratch. It needs new fonts, new spacing.” Nicole Yershon, director of innovation at Ogilvy
Stand Out on the cyber newsstand Industry experts tell us how to make magazines look as great on screen as they do on paper WORDS by Matthew Isard
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agazine readers are moving from print to tablets. Recent Audit Bureau of Circulations figures show that for some brands, like GQ and Vanity Fair, the inevitable drops in print circulations at the end of 2012 were balanced out by an increase in digital sales. For example, the print circulation of the European edition of The Economist dropped by 7,013, but its digital
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circulation was 11,624. For the first time the Professional Publishing Association (PPA) released combined figures, and publishing houses like Condé Nast and Future say that this mix shows more accurately how magazines are faring. With the International Data Corporation predicting that tablet sales will reach 222 million in 2016, more readers will want high quality digital magazines. Now is the time to listen to the experts advice.
BODY PAPER AND SALT MIXING FOOD AND WORDS P46-7
SOURDOUGH BREAD ARE SECRETS HARMING YOUR HEALTH? SECRET SUPPER CLUBS REVEALED GETTING FIT WITH GOOD GYM www.xcitylife.com
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The deception
Disease
From white lies to dark secrets, we all keep things to ourselves. But it may be time to confess all — the skeletons in your cupboards could seriously harm your health WORDS by Bronwen Morgan
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rank Hopewell-Smith was 18 when he came out to his best friend. Despite suspecting he was gay from the age of 14, he hadn’t spoken to anyone about it: he spent his formative years at boarding school, where homophobic attitudes were the norm. “A huge part of me was pretending,” Frank says. “I was on constant alert: monitoring how I spoke, thinking about
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every one of my actions and second guessing how they would come across to other people.” When Frank finally came out, on his gap year after school, he describes feeling an immediate sense of physical and emotional release. “I started laughing uncontrollably with the relief of being able to admit something I’d been hiding for so long. It felt like my whole body was alive.”
We all know that keeping a secret can feel like carrying a heavy weight. This is something with a scientific basis — last year, researchers at Tufts University in the US found that people who were keeping an important secret such as infidelity thought hills were steeper, distances were longer and that physical tasks would take more effort. They also found that the larger the secret, the more perceptions and actions were influenced. This effect is similar to when people are told to carry an actual physical weight and then judge distances. More shockingly, earlier this year psychologists in Canada released results of a study showing that the burden of carrying a secret could actually do serious harm. Frank was a sickly teenager, despite being sporty. He suffered with constant headaches and chronic stomach pain. “I used to get through at least a pack of painkillers a week,” he says. “It was crazy.” Despite a more decadent lifestyle now he’s 25, Frank says his health has fully recovered. “I really went for it at university,” he says. “I put on almost three stone in a year. “At one stage I was easily drinking around 20 pints a week. But I was so happy – I was dating my first boyfriend and was out to pretty much everyone – that I didn’t care too much about the weight. I was enjoying everything else, and felt fine. I still do.” Researchers have spent the last 20 years or so looking at
the dangers of keeping secrets. This has included lots of work among the lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) community, which is unsurprising, given that sexual orientation is a significant but still relatively commonplace secret to keep. Dr Nathan Smith, one of the authors of the Canadian study, says that his findings are consistent with other studies exploring the physical and mental toll on people who keep secrets. “There was some research in the 1990s looking at HIVpositive gay men,” Dr Smith says. “It was found that the HIVpositive men who were closeted had much worse health outcomes than those who were out of the closet. But ours was the first study to look at healthy LGB individuals.” Dr Smith and his colleagues tested nearly 90 straight and LGB people for symptoms like anxiety, depression and burnout. They also collected blood, urine and saliva samples to capture markers for physical wear and tear on the body — known as allostatic load — caused by stress. They found that, within the male LGB sample, those who had come out had lower anxiety, depression and burnout rates than those who hadn’t. These lower rates were in turn linked to a lower allostatic load. So if Frank had continued to hide his sexuality, his teenage illness could have become progressively
‘The burden of carrying a secret could actually do serious harm’
→
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF STRESS Our bodies have a natural physiological reaction to stress, known as the “fight or flight” response. This is our primitive, automatic way of preparing to fight or flee from a threat to our survival.
1
constantly monitoring their behaviour to ensure they are not at risk of revealing it, putting them in an almost permanent state of “fight or flight”.
4 This can cause damage to the
body over time, due to the constant flow of hormones and firing of nerve signals. This wear and tear on the body is known as the allostatic load.
The response is triggered 2 by the hypothalamus, an
almond-sized structure on the underside of the brain. This structure sends signals that prepare the body for action by releasing hormones into the bloodstream and ensuring muscles are ready for action.
someone keeps 3 aWhen significant secret, they will be
5 The allotastic load can
cause minor symptoms, such as headaches, but research shows that in the long term it can result in more serious conditions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and heart attack. IMAGE: EMILY MAGUIRE
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worse — a chronically high allostatic load can eventually lead to problems as serious as diabetes and heart attacks. Given the evidence that our secrets can quite literally weigh us down, it makes sense that the act of revealing them can bring genuine physical relief. But sharing our secrets isn’t always easy. Dr Smith says: “In some cases, there is a danger associated with disclosing secrets. When it comes to sexuality, for example, there will be some places where being “out” carries more risk than being closeted.” Other common confessions that could
HOW TO SHARE A SECRET Chartered psychologist Professor Alex Gardner offers his guidance:
1 Mentally reframe all your secrets
into individual concerns; concerns are concrete notions that can be dealt with more objectively.
2 Think of your secret like a rucksack,
filled with these individual concerns. Imagine emptying the rucksack, laying the concerns out, then dealing with each in turn. You’ll find that you can handle some of them by yourself. Other concerns can be “given away”. 3 For example, you might give away the
concern of having a root canal treatment to the dentist — it’s outside your control so not worth worrying about. Once you have done this, when you “re-pack” your rucksack it will be much lighter.
4 When you do tell someone your
secret, make a list — mental or written — of the concerns you want to share. You should approach telling them in a structured way, asking them to give you time to work through everything you want to say. They can then ask you questions once you’ve finished.
5 Don’t tell your secret in a way
that burdens someone else, such as starting with: “I don’t want you to worry.” That’s a red flag and will cause them to start worrying before you’ve told them anything. Instead, say calmly: “I have a concern I want to share.”
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carry stigma include a past criminal conviction, infidelity or mental illness. This might explain the popularity of websites Sixbillionsecrets.com and Postsecret.com. They encourage people to anonymously reveal their innermost thoughts and taboo behaviours: Sixbillionsecrets.com displays posts online; Postsecret.com exhibits photos of postcards that have been sent in. Secrets range from the trivial (“I never had a celebrity crush until I turned 45”) to the disturbing (“I sleep around so I can devalue sex and then devalue my rape”). Since its launch nine years ago, Postsecret.com has received around 500,000 submissions. The only rules are that everything must be true and must not have been shared previously. These confessions echo the work of Dr James Pennebaker, an American psychologist who, during the 1990s, researched the positive psychological and physical effects of writing down secrets. Dr Pennebaker and his colleagues found that writing out details of traumatic events led to long-term improvements in immune function and lower levels of distress. The biggest change was seen in those who had never before revealed their secret. The scientists concluded that confronting a trauma by writing about it improves health. The evidence is clear: keeping secrets can seriously affect us. Telling the truth is not just cathartic — it may actually prevent serious illness. So it might just be time to start being more honest: those little white lies aren’t as harmless as they seem.
MORE ONLINE
Go to www.xcitylife.com for results of our survey to find out what people keep secrets about, and who they tell them to.
THE SECRETS WE KEEP The XCity Life team confess, Postsecret style
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we just
clicked
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
It’s the only thing your best friend would never tell you — even though you’re probably doing it too. More under-25s are looking for love online than ever before, so why the secrecy?
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WORDS by Antonia Hawken
’m 22 years old. It’s Friday night. There’s a glass of wine in my hand and I feel confident. “Hi, my name’s Robin. I wanted to say hello.” He’s in his 20s, looks nice. Just my type. “Hey, I’m Antonia. Nice to meet you.” I take a sip and click send. I have a boyfriend. But in the name of journalism, I’m using the internet to find single men under 30. Browsing through profiles makes me wonder whether, if my relationship came to an end, I’d jump on the online dating bandwagon to find “the One”. After all, when I was 16 I found my first boyfriend on social site Bebo (think Facebook but much worse).
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These days, it’s not just the divorced and middle-aged surfing the net to find a partner — younger users are also finding love online. In the last five years over a million 20to 25-year-olds have joined Lovestruck, and Jewish website JDate has experienced a 50 per cent increase in the number of 18 to 25-year-olds joining up. To a generation used to refining their choices online, it’s easy to understand why. There are over 1,400 websites in the UK dedicated to helping you find love. Countryside lover? Muddy Matches is for you. A penchant for pets? Try Animal Lover Dating. I created my own dating profile on Freedating.co.uk. Of the 800 people who viewed my profile,
65 per cent were under 30 and employed. I meet Midnight 22. His profile says he’s 29, from London, attractive, earning over £100,000 and looking for love. We chat through the site’s messaging system and I ask why he’s using it. He didn’t want to reveal his real name, telling me that the anonymous nature of online dating appealed. “People can be more confident and approach people they’d ordinarily be scared to. I’m too busy to meet girls so this is the easiest way,” he said. Dr Bernie Hogan, a research fellow in social networks and human interaction at Oxford University, believes people view dating sites as a secure environment. “It’s about creating a safe space for negotiating personal boundaries,” he says. “Rather than going to a club and assuming that if you meet someone you might be pressured into snogging them or having sex on the first date, online dating enables people to gradually get to know others through short messages, photos and texts, working up to a face-to-face meeting.” Matthew Stevens, 23, an outdoor pursuits instructor from Somerset, has been using free dating website Plenty of Fish for three years. He says online dating allows him to contact and date lots of women as well as giving him confidence. “I started when I began working in the outdoor industry,” he says. “The only way I was meeting people was through work, or when we went out. I’m not very confident and online dating was an easier way to start chatting to people.” Matthew’s not alone. For Hannah Rowand, 23, who works in HR in Aberdeenshire, meeting new people was difficult, so she joined OkCupid. “Once you graduate from university it gets harder to meet people,” she says. “I’m not into clubbing, and guys you see on nights out are either on a mission to pull, or they’re drunk. It’s not attractive.” Shimrit Elisar, author of Everyone’s Guide to Online Dating says that for people in their 20s the internet is second nature. “They understand the benefits of using it to save time and get access to a wider range Was dating simpler before the internet? Photos: Malvin Van Gelderen
of options. When people are busy it gives them the option to connect with thousands of people instantly.” Cosmopolitan’s Sex and the Single Girl columnist and online dater Laura Jane MacBeth thinks online dating offers control. “You can scroll through thousands of profiles, select as many as you like, get chatting and whittle down to your top five options,” she says. “You have more choice.” Not only that, you’re also given time. Inspecting someone’s online profile is much faster than meeting them in person to work out whether you’re compatible. “Most sites allow you to sign up and look at profiles without subscribing. It means you can have a look and see if you fancy anyone before making that leap,” says Laura. An important change for younger daters is to do with image: users I spoke to agreed online dating is no longer viewed as geeky. Many saw no differentiation from other social networks like Facebook and Twitter. It’s no longer the hangout, in Shimrit’s words, of the “desperate”, but has become “the standard way of meeting people”. Marketing has also played its part. “Match.com adverts made online dating seem young, cool and sexy, and as though young, cool, sexy people were doing it,” says Laura. “The people they featured in their adverts were clearly 20-somethings.” Dr Hogan says social media has played a huge part in normalising internet dating for the under-25s. “When we think of the web as a place full of strangers, online dating seems terrifying,” he says. “But people now think of others on the web as real people and are more trusting. “There’s now a mass of people willing to put their information out there, most obviously people in their 20s. These are the people who have been at the forefront of the social media revolution. Online dating is a natural extension.” Despite the popularity of social networking and its integration into our everyday lives, it’s still something that we can disconnect from whenever we choose. If internet dating is its natural progression, are people drawn to
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the fact that you don’t have to commit to the first screen name you see? “Most people nowadays don’t start thinking about starting a family until their thirties so there’s no reason to rush,” says Shimrit. “It’s always good to know you have options, especially for women. People make wiser choices when armed with the confidence that comes with knowing their own worth and realising the range of singles they could be dating.” There are dangers, however. Channel 4 reported last November that a British dating firm paid staff to pose as users. Team members searched social websites and “stole” photos to use on their profiles. Joining one of their 7,500 sites is free, but you must subscribe to respond to messages. More than 400 flirty messages were sent by the team in an hour to convince people to sign up. Be careful of hooking a “catfish” — someone pretending to be someone else. “Online dating allows you to meet a lot more strangers, so statistically you may end up meeting someone dodgy,” says Shimrit. “You need to be savvy to see through lies. People in their 20s are better at this than older generations.” Internet dating is, of course, limited. I lost track of how many profile images on Freedating.co.uk had been Photoshopped or taken at odd angles. Everyone wants to look their best, but with doctored photos and exaggerated credentials, there’s no substitute for meeting face-to-face. “As much as you like the look of someone’s photos or their email banter you can never predict whether you’ll have a spark in real life,” says Laura. “You’ll end up disappointed by the lack of chemistry,” Dr Arthur Cassidy, a social psychologist from the Open University, says.
“Going online is a lazy way of finding a partner. It lacks the essence of romance and the initial real life attraction. It’s a form of game-playing: we can just delete the individual if we feel it’s not going to work out.” Despite the dangers and drawbacks, the reasons to join a site are compelling. On average a month’s subscription costs little more than a night out, and people working long hours can have social relationships from their desktop. Why settle for meeting a few people in one club, says Professor Mark Griffiths, a psychologist and expert in gaming and internet addiction at Nottingham Trent University, when logging into a dating site is effectively entering “an electronic singles bar”? Though the number of online daters is ever-increasing, there are still those who are reluctant to reveal that they met their partner online. Hannah finds it hard to tell people how she and her boyfriend met. “It isn’t very romantic. I still get an awkward feeling when people ask.” Hannah may be grateful that OkCupid helped her find someone she adores, but does the fact that she’s embarrassed to reveal the truth mean she’d have been more comfortable if she’d met him through friends? Perhaps online dating is yet to totally lose its stigma. Having a dating profile was certainly interesting. It may be flattering to be sent over 500 messages, but I can’t gauge what these men are after. At a glance it seems sex rather than romance, but perhaps that’s because of their age. To me, it’s just another social network, but it won’t replace first meeting in person. Locking eyes with an attractive profile image will never generate the same feeling as catching someone’s glance across a crowded room.
‘Online dating is a natural extension of social media’
MY ONLINE DATING EXPERIENCE Weeks online: 3
Profile Views: 845
Messages received: 571
zzgrayszz: “Ur beautiful” Lff: “Very sexy sorry I don’t have a pic but I can email you one you won’t be disappointed x” djhotman: “Hi babe Iam Chris looking for fun sex if u up for it tex me” GoodFunGuy: “Hi you sound perfect I love sport and Tennis and I am also a Christian and love hymns” nstant aphrodisiacs made out of vowels and consonants. Tornado999: “Ur hot. What u up to?” Sugarman: “God you look hot ! You’re not just faking it, are you? Read my profile and respond tonight..xx” dartanyel1: “meow” AJenkinss: “I can take you to Jamaica” Atis: “Are you an angel?”
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paper anD
salt Nicole Villeneuve is the author of literary recipe blog Paper and Salt. She tells us about Capote’s sweet tooth and the tricks of tarte tatin
FRANZ KAFKA’S POTATO MUSHROOM SOUP (Adapted from Czech in the Kitchen)
WORDS by Natalie Hammond
I
n a New York Times cartoon called “Snacks of the Great Scribblers”, Truman Capote’s daily nourishment was depicted as follows: coffee at 11am, mint tea at 12pm, sherry at 2pm and a martini at 4pm. Although Capote’s penchant for liquid meals is the stuff of literary folklore, Nicole Villeneuve, the 25-year-old New Yorkbased author of recipe blog Paper and Salt, has a different take on the writer’s eating habits. Capote’s favourite dessert, she says, was “a sort of chocolate cream stuffed with fresh raspberries”, which he first sampled at lunch with Cecil Beaton and the Queen Mother during a trip to England in 1962. Villeneuve’s contemporary version is the Italian summer pudding – a chocolatey confection with layers of macerated raspberries and ladyfingers soaked in coffee and rum. Villeneuve moved to New York from the San Francisco Bay Area in 2009. She works for an independent publisher and writes Paper and Salt in her spare time.
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2 garlic bulbs, outer layers of skin removed 2 tablespoons butter 1 small onion, diced 1 tablespoon flour 2 cups mushrooms 6 cups vegetable stock 3 to 4 carrots, chopped 2 leeks, chopped 1 1/2 cups baby potatoes 1 tablespoon caraway seeds 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano 1/2 teaspoon salt and freshly ground pepper 1. Preheat oven to 180°C (360°F). Slice off the top of the garlic heads and drizzle with oil. Wrap in foil and bake for 45 minutes. Cool then squeeze the roasted cloves into a small bowl. Set aside. 2. Warm butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and sauté for 2 minutes, then add flour, stirring until lightly browned. Add mushrooms and cook until tender. 3. Add stock, carrots, leeks, potatoes, caraway seeds, oregano and salt. Add roasted garlic paste and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are tender (30 minutes). Season to taste.
As its name suggests, Paper and Salt is the marriage of Villeneuve’s two greatest loves: reading and food. Her recipes are inspired by the food that writers describe in their letters, diaries, essays and fiction. After the US, the UK is home to the blog’s biggest readership. Its popularity over here may be down to the inclusion of our nation’s bestloved authors, including Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf. Villeneuve says the blog owes its success to our fascination with celebrities’ personal lives. “People are always interested in the recommendations of famous figures. Authors fill that role in my life; I really look up to them.” The idea for the blog, which celebrated its first anniversary in January, came to Villeneuve while she was poring over a collection of Ernest Hemingway’s letters for work. It was the minutiae of Hemingway’s yarns about food — the restaurants he frequented in Paris and how he stocked his liquor cabinet — that piqued her imagination. “It was so intriguing that he should have this interest in food, and obviously drink, running throughout his entire life. Even as a kid, he would write, ‘I’m going to pick strawberries so that Mum and I can make strawberry shortcakes.’” Villeneuve’s first culinary experience also came at an early age. The pastry chef who made her parents’ wedding cake gave the family several of her own cookbooks. “They kind of languished in the cupboard because they’re difficult recipes and my parents don’t bake that much,” she recalls. Villeneuve was leafing through the tomes one afternoon and decided to try her hand at tarte tatin — a pastry base topped with a sticky mound of caramelised fruit — for a French presentation at school. Despite having a sweet tooth to rival even Capote’s, books formed the biggest part of Villeneuve’s childhood. Favourites included Harriet the Spy and Anne of Green Gables. “Much of my life was lived in books like those,” she says. Unsurprisingly, the hub of her Upper West Side apartment is its 0.6m by 1.2m kitchen. Although it’s roughly the size of a lift, adaptations of Beatrix Potter’s gingerbread biscuits, Willa Cather’s spiced plum kolache and Franz Kafka’s potato mushroom soup were all conceived in its confines. After finding a dish to recreate, Villeneuve devises a recipe without compromising historical accuracy. Most dishes come from the “lost generation” — a term used by Gertrude Stein and Hemingway to describe the men that came of age during World War I — and use ingredients that are no longer readily available. “I look back
at the cookbooks from whatever era I’m writing about to get a sense of the finished product. I then work backwards to put the recipe together,” explains Villeneuve. However, this formula doesn’t always work. “Samuel Beckett basically didn’t eat. I would have loved to do something with him but he didn’t give himself many luxuries.” Uncovering a secret foodie still surprises Villeneuve. She recently discovered that Alexandre Dumas, famous for historical epic The Count of Monte Cristo, also wrote a 1,152 page food encyclopaedia. “The guy who wrote all about the three musketeers also wrote about food!” Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine takes the traditional alphabetical format, with entries on everything from absinthe to zest. Villeneuve was particularly taken with his potato salad. “He has a hilarious little entry about how a potato is the most perfect ingredient. I think his notes about food are very witty and of his time.” www.paperandsalt.org
‘Samuel Beckett basically didn’t eat’
PHOTO: NICOLE VILENEUVE
Opposite page: Franz Kafka’s potato mushroom soup; Right: Truman Capote’s Italian summer pudding
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To read more Paper and Salt recipes, such as John Steinbeck’s pork posole, visit www.xcitylife.com.
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EXERCISE YOUR
CONSCIENCE
If your fitness routine is in need of a shake-up, do a good deed and get fit for free with East London’s kindest running club
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WORDS by Roisín Dervish-O’Kane
ow does spending your Monday night legging it around the streets of East London with a bunch of strangers, pausing only to do some digging, sound? As I wander somewhere between the Regent’s Canal and a row of identikit warehouses, I’ll admit the prospect is beginning to lose its appeal. In a bid to kick-start a spring fitness regimen, I’ve signed up for a free group run with do-gooder fitness collective, Good Gym. The not-for-profit initiative was founded on the belief that gyms are a waste of human energy. Every Monday, well-intentioned fitness nuts come together to run and do labour-intensive work for community organisations in the East End. Tonight, I’m going with them. If I can ever find it.
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Just as I am about to skulk home, two beaming, beaniehatted chaps wave me over and introduce themselves as Good Gym leaders Mark and Ivo. I am directed into a cavernous warehouse, which rings with the cheery chatter of 26 athletic twenty-somethings. We form a circle and introduce ourselves before Ivo tells us that in addition to tonight’s five kilometre run, we will also be “working out” at Stepney City Farm. Hands flop and ponytails flail as the line of bounding runners snakes down Cambridge Heath Road, Old Ford Road and down the side of Mile End park. Three kilometres later we squelch into Stepney City Farm. “Right guys, tonight you have a choice of shifting paving stones, digging beds, shovelling compost and breaking up
‘We get to work turning big mounds of brown matter’
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pallets,” Katharine, the farmer announces. We form an orderly queue to borrow some working gloves, grab our pitchforks and trot past goats, chickens and more mud to the compost heap. We get to work turning big mounds of ponging brown matter, making my nose crinkle up and reminding me of childhood staycations. Fifteen minutes in, my nostrils have got used to the odour, and I begin to feel the strain of the exercise all over my body. Thirty minutes pass and I am hauling fresh hay onto the piles with vigour. I decide this is definitely a more rewarding way to hone my upper arms than paying for the privilege of lifting weights in a sweaty room. After 45 minutes and a thorough hand scrub, we set off on our homeward run. Halfway home I get chatting to a fellow runner who tells me she works for a think tank, and never ran until her friend forced her to go on a Good Gym run. Ruddyfaced and breathless, we marvel at the fact that running with Good Gym is actually enjoyable. “You’re doing good work, meeting new people, and hearing new stories all the time. Seriously, I keep trying to advertise it to people as a bloody great pulling activity.” I politely agree, though secretly question who would be brave enough to work their magic sweating and smelling of compost. Strolling home with a satisfying ache in my thighs, I’m struggling to get my head around the fact that I actually enjoyed myself. Not only was running with Good Gym brilliant exercise (their online calorie counter website estimated we burnt almost 800 calories each), but I was doing something useful, and having a really good laugh. So for all those of you looking to get fit for free, get out running with Good Gym.
A GOOD CHOICE In London, it’s hard to find a monthly gym membership where you can get change from £40. Cheap, no-frills gyms like Fit4less often have grim interiors and increase the chore vibe that comes with exercise. Free group activities, with the added incentive of doing something productive for the local community, can be a more motivational alternative. Fiona Bulger, editor of fitness website therunningbug.co.uk, says: “Running for a good cause means you have a reason to get out the door. To do anything you need to have a reason, and vanity isn’t enough for most people.” Running is also free. “In a recession, people have to be conscious to get value for money and get the most out of their work out. Running is the best and cheapest way to lose weight, all you need is a good pair of shoes,” says Bulger. Good Gym is a not for profit organisation and all runs are free. It currently operates in East London, Camden and Liverpool. Group runs are held every Monday at 6:45pm, are open to all ages, are never more than five miles long and usually last around two hours. For details, sign up at www.goodgym.com. Make sure you wear something with zip pockets for valuables.
Above and above right; Good Gymmers in action
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THE
BEST tHING since...?
Despite tough economic times, Britons are rejecting bland supermarket loaves and forking out for gourmet bread. We find out why WORDS and PHOTOS by Nina Zietman
T
he smell of fresh bread fills the kitchen. Warm loaves are spread across the counter, a mixture of wholegrain and dark rye. As the knife grinds through a golden crust, it reveals a pillow-soft centre. This is real sourdough bread. It bears no resemblance to the supermarket loaves that the nation’s bread bins. Sandra Benet started teaching sourdough baking classes from her kitchen in Kensal Rise in London six months ago. “It’s not as hard as everyone thinks,” she says, pulling a pair of crusty loaves out of the oven. “It looks like you’ve bought it in a shop, but you can do it yourself at home.” Benet is one of thousands of Britons who have fallen for sourdough. After spending 17 years as a designer for the BBC, she wanted a lifestyle change. “By the time I left, I was spending 12 hours a day on the computer. I missed the real world and making things.” Now, she teaches something she’s truly passionate about once or twice a week: real bread. “There’s something about fresh bread with a great crust,” says Benet. “Sourdough is special because it’s such a traditional way of baking. You can make all this wonderful bread from the most basic of ingredients - flour and water.” Bread has been a staple part of our diet for centuries and today 12 million loaves are sold daily in the UK. Eighty per cent of these are white sliced packaged loaves. In 1961,
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the Chorleywood Flour Milling and Bakery Research Association discovered that by mixing flour and water with vegetable fat, yeast and additives including ascorbic acid, bread could be made and baked in three and a half hours. This revolutionised bread production across the UK. However, generations that were raised on sliced supermarket loaves are more concerned with what goes into their food than ever. Artisan bread sales are on the rise. GAIL’s Bakery, a popular artisan bakery chain in London, sells 4,500 sourdough loaves a week. Favourites include the potato sourdough loaf flecked with rosemary and the mixed olive stick, a small baguette bursting with giant olives. Over the past six years, the number of artisan, independent bakeries in Britain has risen by almost a quarter. The Real Bread Campaign noted 87 per cent of their bakers made sourdough bread, with an average 67 per cent increase in business since they started selling it. Tesco sells three types of sourdough bread, Marks & Spencer bakes six and Waitrose stocks 14 varieties, including bread by the world famous Poilâne bakery. But what makes sourdough special? Sourdough is made using a slow fermentation process. Flour, water and salt are mixed together and left at room temperature. After four days, it starts to bubble and smell acidic. This is called the sourdough “starter”. Wild yeast
Rw
Benet in her kitchen in Kensal Rise, where she holds her sourdough classes once or twice a week
forms in the starter, which needs regular feeding with more flour and water to keep the lactobacilli bacteria alive. As the name suggests, sourdough has a slight acidic tang. Benet explains that the longer you leave the starter to ferment, the more sour the bread. “I use an equal ratio of flour and water. By feeding my starter regularly, I keep the taste quite mild.” But how does it compare to supermarket bread? “Have you ever scrunched supermarket bread into a ball? It’s like putty. They put so many chemicals in it. It’s not cooked, it’s not proved, there’s no fermentation involved. Bread has moved so far away now from what it was.” Sourdough is well established in bakeries across the world. San Francisco sourdough is famous for its distinctive
tang. Italy and Germany rely on the slow fermentation process to produce focaccia and rye. Sweden has seen its own sourdough revolution over the past five years. There are 67 sourdough bakeries in Stockholm and a sourdough hotel in the Urban Deli, Stockholm (urbandeli.org) where they feed your starter while you’re on holiday. Successful Swedish sourdough chain Fabrique set up its first international branch in Hoxton, east London, last November. David Zetterström, owner of Fabrique, believes the real bread movement is here to stay. “The trend for sourdough is really picking up in London. It’s going back to the roots of how we used to bake 100 years ago. It’s not a passing trend, it’s just how normal bread should taste.” But artisan bread comes at a price. Poilâne, the
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world famous French sourdough bakery, opened its first London branch in Belgravia in 2002. The average loaf costs £9.62. With loaves stocked in Waitrose, it’s becoming more accessible, but no more affordable. Can artisan bread really justify the cost? Chris Young, coordinator of the Real Bread Campaign, says independent bakeries have bigger overheads than supermarkets and don’t take any cheap shortcuts. “When you take into account the high quality, local ingredients and labour involved, it’s what small businesses have to pay. “Supermarkets may say they sell sourdough bread, but there’s no legislation on the word ‘sourdough’. By law, unwrapped loaves don’t have to have an ingredients list. Customers may take a loaf labelled sourdough at face value. It’s likely it was made using commercial yeast, a touch of sourdough powder and all sorts of additives. They use the halo of sourdough to make it sound special.” Ultimately, the best part about sourdough is baking
it yourself. “It’s good to support your local bakers but their product is expensive,” says Benet. “But if you make it yourself, you appreciate what they do more and you can feed yourself on a lower budget.” Benet bakes bread for her family and friends on a daily basis. She keeps her starter bubbling in the fridge and her counter is rarely without a loaf of fresh bread. “When my life became very fast and technology-based, baking sourdough gave me the opportunity to connect with the natural rhythm of life. It makes you slow down and think about where your food is coming from. It’s a gentle way of making food for yourself that you can share with others. I think it’s great to make space for that in your life.”
MORE ONLINE Go to www.xcitylife.com for more, including videos and Benet’s list of essential sourdough equipment.
BENET’S TOP TIPS FOR MAKING SOURDOUGH 1 Don’t try and work on too many loaves
at once. It’s better to focus on one bread and perfect it before starting on other types.
2 Always use good quality, organic
ingredients. Shipton Mill flour is great. You can buy it from most health food shops or online (shipton-mill.com). Try and source locally where possible.
3 Buy a scraper. It’s the secret weapon of
the baker. It’s perfect for scraping dough off the table when kneading without having to add flour to the surface. £2.39 from Bakery Bits (bakerybits.co.uk).
4 Neglect is the number one mistake first-
time bakers make with their starters. Make sure you feed it daily at the start and keep it at room temperature.
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5 Every time you feed your starter, make
sure you chuck, or give, at least half of it away. It sounds wasteful, but otherwise you will end up with a monster.
6 Don’t put your starter in the fridge just
after you’ve fed it. Leave it out for four to six hours until it starts bubbling, otherwise you’ll weaken it. How do you know when your mix is 7 ready to bake? Drop a small blob into a
glass of water. If it floats, that means it’s nicely aerated and it’s ready to bake.
8 Steam your oven. Just as the bread has
gone in, spray inside the oven with a water spray. This is very important because it stops the crust from forming too quickly.
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Come dine on the qt
Supper clubs have never been more popular. We infiltrate the world of underground eating to discover the thrill of sitting down with strangers WORDS by Lizzy Turner
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scan the deserted Hackney street. It’s eerily quiet. As I approach my destination, my eyes strain to make out the silhouette of a young woman bathed in the orange glow of the streetlights. Another woman appears from nowhere and we huddle around the frosted glass door. “Are you here for the supper club?” she asks me nervously. Breathing a collective sigh of relief, we begin to chat and discover we’re all Leluu supper club first-timers. Uyen Luu, 35, has run Leluu, an eight-course Vietnamese supper club, from her London Fields studio for three and a half years. At £35 per person, it’s the average price with twice the number of courses. Being a supper club rookie, I’ve headed to Luu’s to find out why this clandestine dining movement has gained such a loyal following, hoping to uncover the secret world of the supper club in the process. Supper clubs began in earnest in 2008, providing punters with an intimate, social dining experience. Since then, they’ve popped up across the capital and the rest of the country. There are over one hundred operating in London, and roughly one hundred elsewhere in the UK. Radical Dining Society is further proof of how popular supper clubs have become. Former artist Julia Macmillan
set up Radical Dining Society to bring chefs, venue owners and artists to collaborate on supper clubs. Macmillan already has 600 eager members, a month before its official launch in April. She says the idea came from her experience of supper clubs. “It’s about meeting exciting people in an amazing space that you might not know about. It’s like Secret Cinema for food.” Trial events have proved popular. “One was in the room where they filmed The King’s Speech. That was pretty amazing.” Back in London Fields, Luu welcomes us into the warmth of her home. Her cosy studio is festooned with fairy lights, trinkets and mismatched mirrors. The five tables seat up to eight and diners share large platters of food. Digging into a communal plate of bo la lot (beef wrapped in betel leaf) with fellow foodies is my idea of heaven. Seven of us get to know one another across the glass table top, which is an enormous reclaimed window. We’re a mixed bunch: a French doctor from Strasbourg; two students; two PRs; a charity campaigner and a structural engineer from north London. By the end of the night, they feel like old friends. Luu joins us for a beer after a dessert of tapioca pearls and red beans infused with orange zest. It’s clear that she PHOTOS: PIERO CRUCIATTI; SOPHIA SCHORR-KON
Left to right: Frogs’ legs at Leluu; messing around at Italian Supper Club; dessert is served at The Art of Dining
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A group of guests enjoy their meal at Italian Supper Club
loves getting to know her guests as well as cooking for you won’t meet new people. At our last event we had people them. “You have to want to try new things and be sociable,” aged 25 to 50, all at the same table. Supper clubs offer she says. Seasoned supper club host Goz Lee, founder of something that restaurants don’t,” he explains. Great food and company aside, what really entices the +(65) supper club, says that you need to enjoy meeting people: “The ‘base’ person has to be either adventurous or supper clubber is the illicitness of it all. Pezzana feels the a foodie or both — an adventurous foodie.” Run from his key to attracting customers is an air of mystery. “When Islington flat, Lee’s supper club — named after Singapore’s we send out tickets, people only know the first part of dialling code — is his way of giving Londoners an authentic the postcode and what the theme is going to be. I think people like not knowing everything taste of Singapore. “Singaporean immediately: they feel intrigued.” food was underrepresented in this Gingerline supper club is hard to country. Everyone thought we ate trump in the secrecy stakes. Diners fried noodles, which isn’t something are only told an hour before at which we eat.” station on the orange (or ginger) Authenticity is something in which East London Line they must meet. Rob Cenciarelli and Fabio Forin, 1 Ditch all preconceptions. Founder Suz Mountfort believes this founders of The Backdoor Kitchen, Always stay open to trying keeps things interesting. “People in also pride themselves. “Diners get 2 new, potentially scary, foods. London are looking for adventures something more authentic because and it’s hard to find that in modern it’s homemade. We focus on regional Make an effort to get to 3 know your fellow guests. city life,” she says. cuisine, using small producers and Secretive thrills aside, the golden forgotten recipes from Italy and Don’t hog the food: sharing rule for enjoying a supper club is Spain,” Cenciarelli explains. 4 is caring. It’s also common “liking people, not being mean He and Forin have run their supper decency. and wanting to share”, says Kerstin club in their Bermondsey flat since Rodgers. Rodgers forged the path 2011. “You have to be natural, like for UK supper clubs with The you’re having friends over,” he says. Cenciarelli emphasises how important a supper club’s Underground Restaurant through her blog The English convivial atmosphere is. Silvio Pezzana, of Italian Supper Can Cook. She now also runs a supper club directory. Back in Uyen Luu’s studio, we polish off a platter of frogs’ Club, has also seen a shared love of food translate into friendship. “Lots of nice networking happens,” says legs coated in chilli and garlic sauce. This is a night of firsts: Pezzana, a Milanese wine merchant who set up the supper frogs’ legs and supper clubs. I didn’t expect to enjoy either half as much as I did, but I’m definitely coming back for club to serve authentic, four-course Italian food and wine. Pezzana thinks supper clubs are popular for two reasons: second helpings — of both. hosts are using the skills they have to create extra income doing something they enjoy, and diners love meeting new people. “Socially, people need nightlife and entertainment Go to www.xcitylife.com for a video of Lizzy’s supper club experience, including an interview with Uyen Luu. to offer them something different. If you go to a restaurant,
TIPS FOR FIRST-TIMERS
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REBEL WITHOUT
a menu
Supersized and unsatisfied, gluttonous fast food fans are going off-menu
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WORDS by Lizzy Turner ILLUSTRATION by John Kilburn
s I sidle furtively away from the counter clutching my McDonald’s Land, Sea and Air Burger I feel elated. I’ve done it! I’ve ordered a tower of beef, fish and chicken patties. No, the deep-fat-frying fumes haven’t gone to my head. This is all part of a covert operation. My mission: to test the secret fast food menu items that have gained cult status in restaurants across the US. Legend has it that their origins lie in American chain In-N-Out Burger. But have these bizarre combinations of sugar, grease, meat and cheese caught on this side of the pond? Dr Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think and founder of Cornell University’s Food & Brand Lab, explains that ordering offmenu evokes the feeling of being in an exclusive members’ club. “In a world of mass production, it makes you feel more special. You’re not like the other six million people ordering a Big Mac,” he says. I feel my new McDonald’s server friend and I need a secret handshake to seal our bond, but all triumphant notion of foxing the system disappears as I take my first bite. The Land, Sea and Air is a disgusting combination: it feels like the system has beaten my taste buds. The three patties amalgamate leaving a metallic gherkin aftertaste. The novelty factor is fun – the residue in my mouth is not. I head to another branch for Part Two. My next target is far less eager to fulfil my fast food request. “Do you serve McGangBangs?” I ask. The bored-looking
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young woman serving me frowns. She stares me down with hostile eyes, as though I’ve just asked her to lick the sticky floor. The McGangBang apparently consists of an entire McChicken Sandwich stuffed inside a Double Cheeseburger. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, for my arteries’ sake, the lady serving me doesn’t appear to know what I’m talking about. Although I feel queasy, I understand why people enjoy this kind of eating experience. Deborah Tagliareni, dietician and author of The Food Psychologist blog, believes gluttony is half the attraction of these epic edibles. “It’s rebellious. These items contain a ton of calories. It’s like, ‘I’m going to eat this 1,000 calorie side of fries because it’s delicious and flies in the face of what mainstream nutrition is telling me to do’.” With this in mind, Burger King and its Suicide Burger - four cheese slices, bacon and special sauce, beckons. Following a failed attempt to order Burger King Frings (fries and onion rings together), I don’t hold much hope. The King doesn’t serve Suicides here, and I breathe a sigh of relief. To Starbucks. The sickly London Fog – Earl Grey with a shot of vanilla syrup – ruins a perfectly good cup of tea. The Tuxedo Mocha however – half white chocolate, half normal mocha – is a pleasant surprise. It’s actually a delicious combination. My body on the verge of diabetic shock, I call it a day... for now. Mission partly accomplished, I am glad to end on a (sugar) high.
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ARTS DISCOVERING UNDERGROUND THEATRES P58-9
WHAT’S YOUR GUILTY PLEASURE? LIFE WITH LUCY MANGAN WORLD WAR ONE POETRY DARK SIDE OF FAIRY TALES www.xcitylife.com
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behind the
curtain From the middle of a lake in Berlin to Debenhams after hours, innovative theatre companies are taking their plays off-stage WORDS by Natalie Hammond
Above: Punchdrunk’s Tunnel 228 beneath Waterloo station; Above right: Forster & Heighes’s The Earth, A Good Apartment on a lake in Berlin; Right: Grid Iron’s 2010 Decky Does a Bronco in a children’s playground
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PHOTO: STEPHEN DOBBIE
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ou start in the McKittrick Hotel’s Manderley Bar on West 27th Street, Manhattan. Taking refuge from the clamour of the city streets at dusk, you ride the hotel elevator to an unknown floor. As the doors slide open, you are let loose. You chance upon a lunatic asylum, a crumbling cemetery, a padded cell, a ballroom, a taxidermist’s menagerie, a room stuffed with various herbs and a nursery splattered with blood. After exploring for three hours, stumbling upon naked raves, hurtling down corridors with total strangers and feverishly rifling through chests of drawers and suitcases, you’re ushered back into the elevator. Exhilarated and disorientated, you return to the velvet-lined bar. This is Sleep No More, a reworking of Macbeth by British theatre company Punchdrunk. Sleep No More premiered in London in 2003 before moving to the US. Its current resting spot is the fictional McKittrick Hotel, a reference to the 1958 Hitchcock thriller Vertigo, staged across three disused warehouses in Chelsea, Manhattan. Sleep No More is an example of a site-specific production. Instead of actors performing from a stage to an audience in rows of seats, the production takes place in an unusual location. This could be anywhere from a decaying manor house in a secluded forest to a set of swings on a children’s playground. Site-specific theatre was confined to an elite few companies in the Nineties but has since moved into the mainstream. Tristan Sharps’s dreamthinkspeak recently collaborated with the National Theatre to stage a production in the hidden cavities beneath Somerset House and King’s College London. Similarly, Forster & Heighes, the artistic partnership of Ewan Forster and Christopher Heighes, has just received funding from Arts Council England to develop the abandoned Pegwell Bay hoverport, near Ramsgate, for their next production in 2014. Heighes and his partner trained at the Dartington College of Arts in Totnes, Devon. The radical institution bred a deep-seated frustration with “straight” theatre in the pair. “We wanted to extend the experience of performance outside all the conventions of theatre,” Heighes says. During their search for alternatives, they discovered what he calls a “principal building” — an institution or piece of architecture associated with a philosophy or an individual way of living. An example of a principal building is the work of German
PHOTO: GEORG KNOLL
architect Bruno Taut, who, says Heighes, “believed that the colour and spatial dimensions of buildings could affect the temperament of their inhabitants”. The lake at the centre of Taut’s horseshoe-shaped housing estate in Berlin became the site of Heighes and Forster’s The Earth, A Good Apartment. The actors performed on a floating bamboo platform and wooden rowing boats, while the audience looked on from the lake’s grassy verges. Ben Harrison, 42, one of theatre company Grid Iron’s artistic directors, describes a site-specific production as a cinematic experience. “It’s like being inside a film. What’s happening behind you is often as important as what’s happening in front of you,” he says. After finding a potential location on a scouting expedition, Harrison and co-artistic director Judith Doherty begin with a loose concept. “We might go in with just a couple of sides of A4. It’s the site that begins to shape the story.” And, he says, they always discuss the “soul” of a site. “Not in a religious way, but does it have an interesting energy about it?” he says. Founded in 1995, Grid Iron was among the first to remove theatre from the stage. Their first site-specific production, The Bloody Chamber, took place in Mary King’s Close, an underground street beneath Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. It was walled up during the plague in the 17th century and left undisturbed. Grid Iron has gone on to work in increasingly challenging environments, including the old mortuary building in Cork, a boat-builders’ island in Norway and the former security headquarters of the Syrian secret police in Hamra, Beirut. Harrison says the vacant headquarters were “curiously beautiful” but bore the signs of their previous function. Each level had an in-built cell, and one of the ground floor rooms resembled a dungeon. One audience member had even been interrogated in the building some years
before. For him, the performance was a form of catharsis. “His knowledge of that room was far greater than ours. It held bad memories for him but they were revisited and rewritten. He saw the experience as a positive thing.” Grid Iron also experiments with spaces in the public domain. The Devil’s Larder was staged in the bedding, wedding and cookware departments of Debenhams after closing hours. The department store’s only condition was that their security staff could perform a random bag search at the end of the show. “Someone could easily have stolen a couple of spoons or a nice frock,” jokes Harrison. Punchdrunk specialises in immersive performance, transforming huge buildings into living theatre sets. Like Grid Iron and Forster & Heighes, the company aims to make audiences take a more active role. Punchdrunk’s past performance spaces include the hidden spaces in the eaves of Battersea Arts Centre, the tunnels beneath Waterloo station and a decommissioned pharmaceutical headquarters in London’s Docklands. Several performances tale place at once, ranging from intimate one-on-ones to large theatrical spectacles. Jacqui Honess-Martin is responsible for finding buildings for Punchdrunk’s performances. “Every person who passes through our buildings has a different experience,” she says. One thrill of site-specific theatre is keeping the location of an upcoming production a closely guarded secret. Honess-Martin is unable to shed any light on Punchdrunk’s next production and it’s a similar story with Grid Iron. All Harrison will say is that it examines a possible view of the future. Perhaps an alien abduction from a subterranean landscape? We’ll have to wait and see.
‘The site begins to shape the story’
PHOTO: RICHARD CAMPBELL
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SCARY Tales LIFE
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Every bedtime story has a secret past. Hollywood is revealing a dark and twisted side of fairy tales — and they’ll give you nightmares WORDS by Yara Silva
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15-year-old girl walks alone. She approaches the edge of a forest and pauses, looking around. She has to plunge deep into the forest to get to her grandma’s house, but the dark mass of trees terrifies her. She takes a step forward, but before she can proceed, a wolf slinks out of the bushes, salivating, and moves towards her. Not exactly a soothing bedtime story, but this is what parents read to children in the 17th century. The beginning of the original Little Red Riding Hood, written by Charles Perrault in 1697, is just a glimpse of the terrifying nature of early fairy tales. Over a century later, in 1812, the Grimm brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm, published their first collection of fairy tales and many believed that the stories were unsuitable for children. Fast forward 201 years and seven editions of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and the original stories have been watered down almost beyond recognition. This year a survey of 2,000 parents conducted by TV channel Watch revealed that a quarter of parents wouldn’t read a modern fairytale to a child under the age of five. Two thirds of parents also avoid stories which might give children nightmares. But a good shot of fear is just what children need. Professor Maria Tatar, author of the Bicentennial Edition of the Annotated Brothers Grimm and advisor for the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy (SCFFF) based at the University of Chichester, says that children need to hear scary stories to work through their own complex feelings: “They give us worst-case scenarios, they offer wit and wisdom about how to navigate perils and possibilities.” The twisted secrets of fairy tales have remained hidden from popular culture for over a century — until now. Thanks to Hollywood, dark fairy tales are making a comeback. They’re gritty, scary and earning millions at the box office. The dark remake of the Disney classic Snow White into Snow White and the Huntsman topped the box office charts in the US on the day of its release in 2012, but 2013's twisted remake of Hansel and Gretel was slammed by critics. While Snow White and the Huntsman stuck to the Grimm brothers' plot, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters picks up Grimm's tale years later. The eponymous siblings,
who in Grimm's tale sought solace in a cannibalistic witch’s gingerbread house after being abandoned in a forest by their parents, are now vengeful bounty hunters. It is this departure from the original tale that has led to the film’s harshest criticism by viewers and commentators alike. There are more to come. In the next two years we can expect Snow White and the Huntsman 2; Cinderella with Cate Blanchett as the evil stepmother, Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty told from the perspective of the princess’s arch nemesis, Maleficent), featuring Angelina Jolie; and Jack the Giant Slayer, a version of Jack and the Beanstalk starring Nicholas Hoult, is out now. But is this influx of dark fairy tales a good thing? Professor Tatar says that Hollywood has always doted on fairy tales. What is new is that these recent darker films are made for adults instead of children, yet keep the fairy tale name. She says that modern culture is surrounded by fairy tales: “A generation ago, Cinderella stories were all the rage, but they were not called Cinderella — instead we had Pretty Woman, Maid in Manhattan, and The Princess
‘A good shot of fear is just what children need’
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ILLUSTRATIONS: CONSTANCE E. ROWLANDS
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Diaries, all those makeover stories or rags-to-riches tales.” Professor Judith Saltman, chair of the MA in Children’s Literature at the University of British Columbia and SCFFF advisor, attributes this to the recession. “Fairy tales have great appeal for societies in times of economic or societal upheaval. People are drawn towards fantasy, as it takes them beyond the realities of daily life.” Filmgoers aren’t the only ones feeling the pinch. Professor Jack Zipes, author of The Enchanted Screen: the Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films says that the stories have been given dark makeovers because the directors and studios need the money. “These Hollywood-made fairy tale films teach us nothing. They are spectacle for the sake of spectacle, and they are based on stupid plots and encourage violence,” he says. According to Professor Zipes, it was during the Victorian era that adults decided to censor the children’s stories due to the period’s Protestant values, and publishers began to alter the books drastically to give parents what they wanted. Over the past century, fairy tales have become a children’s domain. The recipe for successful fairy tale films was to pander to the bland tastes of parents — happy endings were a must, and according to Professor Tatar, their function is to add “a utopian element that keeps hope alive, that reanimates us and renews our spirits”. Although the modern, darker films are scary, they still have traditional fairy tale endings, rather than Perrault’s disturbing climaxes. Nowadays, the audience can watch the films safe in the knowledge that the protagonists will undoubtedly live happily ever after.
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Go to www.xcitylife.com for podcasts and an excerpt of a Roald Dahl poem inspired by Cinderlla.
THE DISTURBING ORIGINS OF OUR FAVOURITE FAIRY TALES Snow White
Published by the Grimm brothers in 1812, it is the jealous mother (not stepmother) who sends the huntsman after Snow White. The evil mother is punished for her attempt to murder Snow White by being forced to wear burning hot iron shoes to Snow White’s wedding and dance in them until she dies from the pain.
Cinderella
In the tale published by the Grimm brothers in 1812, when the prince knocks on their door on his hunt to find the girl who owns the glass slipper, the evil stepmother gives her daughters (Cinderella’s stepsisters) a knife and instructs them to cut off their toes until they can fit into the shoe.
Sleeping Beauty
In the original version by Charles Perrault (1697), Beauty falls into a deep sleep after getting a splinter under her nail. The king finds her and rapes her. After nine months, and still asleep, she gives birth to twins and only wakes when one of the babies sucks the splinter out of her finger.
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Guilty
Pleasures
From rom-coms to easy listening, critics have been panning our socially unacceptable favourites for decades. Here, seven leading arts journalists reveal their alternative critic’s choices - guilt doesn’t even come into it 64
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PHOTOS: REX FEATURES; SPORTSPHOTO LTD/ ALLSTAR
Robert Collins deputy literary editor The Sunday Times No matter how much my taste in books or films evolves over the years, one thing in my life never moves on: how much I love Friends. I’ve been watching it since it began. I’ve spent entire afternoons watching episodes back-to-back, meaning I start expecting people around me in real life to say something funny about every 20 seconds. Now, still, if I ever see an episode pop up on TV, I’ll sit down and watch it – and then I’ll watch five more. Of all the things I do in life, I’d still probably rather be watching Friends. My sister and I once tried to work out how many days it would take to sit down and watch every single episode of the 10 seasons in order, without going completely mad. Even one episode of Friends has you thinking and joking just like they do. And yet I don’t tire of it – in fact, the more I know the episode, the more I’ll get a thrill out of it. There’s always the ever-tantalising prospect that there might be an episode out there that I still haven’t seen, and it’ll fill me with the weird, irreplaceable mixture of joy and familiarity that Friends gives me. I keep thinking I should have grown out of it, but I never do. Favourite authors come and go. But Friends – Friends is for life.
Jane Crowther editor Total Film
Stuart Stubbs editor Loud And Quiet
It’s cheesy, silly and not remotely sexy as its title suggests, yet it gives me goosebumps. I first saw Dirty Dancing on VHS at a sleepover and no matter how many times I watch it; how unapologetically Eighties Patrick Swayze’s hair is in a Sixties-set movie; or how the protagonist defines herself by whether a bloke will dance with her in public; I feel a triumph-of-the-underdog thrill when everyone’s having the time of their lives. It may never become a cult classic but it is slated to be remade this year, so clearly studio suits think there’s a new generation to be tapped for that money-spinning unquantifiable delight of watching a girl tell a boy she carried a watermelon. In my job I have to watch films critically. It’s hard to switch that off. The joy of Dirty Dancing is that I’ve seen it so often I don’t have to think about anything but the inane pleasure of a dance montage and not being put in the corner. I can’t say the same about Lincoln.
Guilty pleasures don’t come more red-faced than Coldplay, and it doesn’t sweeten the pill that I’ve done the band in reverse. For the “credible” albums, Parachutes and A Rush of Blood to The Head, I didn’t care for Coldplay. It was on their sell out record, X&Y, that I started paying attention. “Square One” - X&Y’’s opening track - somehow grabbed me and I’ve been a genuine fan of the band ever since. For this particular track, it’s all about the drums, and that sudden stadium rock rush that comes when they drop, but really it’s a song that sums up the band’s unashamed ambition, which is perhaps what I like most about them. It might be because I spend most of my time watching bands in back rooms playing to 10 people. Coldplay are my mega-band escape. For all the hate they get, I love that they’re the biggest band in the world, and it’s amazing that any band can still sell out Wembley in the postYouTube age.
‘I, Jonathan Dean, apparently thought Transformers was the “stuff of legend”.’
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PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jonathan Dean digital editor Sunday Times Culture There is a great difference between something being the “stuff of legend” and the “stuff of pop legend”. “Legend” is everything. “Pop legend” is some music and film or toys from when you were a kid. I played with Transformers when I was a kid. Robots that changed shape and came as dinosaurs or cars or boomboxes. I looked forward to the film and, obviously, I loved it. It had my favourite childhood playthings up on a big screen. It was even funny. It’s about giant space robots beating up Los Angeles. Sure, it was a bit loud and crass , but so was I when I was young. I reviewed it for the magazine I was working for. Four stars. The “stuff of pop legend”, I wrote. The film company were over the moon. Everyone else thought it was awful. They quoted me on the poster in a really, really, big font. Except, they changed it. I, Jonathan Dean, apparently thought Transformers was the “stuff of legend”. Bit strong. I don’t do poster quotes anymore.
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David Jenkins reviews editor Little White Lies I adore the film Ishtar by Elaine May. A magnificent bomb at its time of release in 1987, the film sees Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty as failing showtune writers/lounge singers who are offered a series of gigs in Ishtar, Morocco. Almost instantly, the pair become embroiled in some miscellaneous Cold War combat and it eventually ends up with them running around in the desert in wrap-around shades and skinny ties. Batshit story aside, this is a genuinely hilarious movie, and one which is intended as a satire of American idiocy and militaristic bullishness and not some earnest, freeform, comedy extravaganza. On paper it doesn’t quite compute, but Hoffman and Beatty make for a surprisingly intuitive double act, and the ad-hoc creative process of their songwriting is a joy to behold.
David Smyth chief rock and pop critic Evening Standard There was only one thing I worried about on my wedding day – the music for the first dance. I needed something to combine a message of true love with a beardstrokingly hip background, so that aunts would sigh and mates would nod admiringly at the same time. Or did I? In the end, we settled on something as naff as we could muster – country stars Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers singing “Islands in the Stream”, an Eighties number one written for them by the Bee Gees. The pressure was off, the melody was indelible, the words spoke of “peace unknown” and it was perfect.
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Harriet Lane author and freelance journalist I love Jilly Cooper’s earliest novels. Harriet is my favourite, obviously. Today’s readers might be dismayed by the stone-age gender politics; the fact that the heroines aspire to little more than marriage; and to men who are, without exception, sexist gorillas (I give you the appalling Gareth, who spanks sense into Octavia). When I first read the books as a teenager, I knew all this was cobblers. But I got past it without difficulty, because Cooper’s heart is in the right place. Once you’ve made your peace with the historical attitudes to sex, class, race and drink-driving, you’re free to enjoy the fabulous seventies colour. It’s all record players, avocado pears and Cinzano, men in fur coats or grey velvet suits, penthouses near Green Park filled with huge fleshy potted palms and fur counterpanes. The novels are deliciously textured: London sweltering in heatwaves; Oxford in the snow. Cooper nails characters with similar economy: a ravaged beauty at a party who, having failed to make much of an entrance, goes out and comes back in again; someone who reveals himself as a control freak by keeping a halfeaten bar of chocolate in the glove compartment. The one thing I’m eagerly anticipating about my daughter’s adolescence is the moment when I’ll be able to press these funny, sunnynatured, and well-observed books upon her, saying: “Try these. You might like them.”
COMPILED by Ellie Clayton and Hannah Shaddock
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INTRODUCING Bieber fans, look away now — SOAK is a teen singer with soul WORDS by Roisín Dervish-O’Kane
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OAK (a hybrid between “soul” and “folk”, which her mum came up with) is 16-year-old Bridie Monds-Watson from Derry. One year and two acclaimed EPs on from her first solo performance, the Northern Irish singer-songwriter has earned legions of fans and has been dubbed “one to watch” by The Observer. The sixth form student has performed to thousands of Irish viewers on RTÉ’s The Late Late Show, and recently caught the ears of talent spotters at Universal, which signed her up in February. Things are moving swiftly for Bridie. “In the past few months I’ve moved on from little pubs to playing crazy places I never thought I could,” she says. Personal highlights include supporting shows for Villagers and Dublin-based indie duo Heathers, as well as a sell-out gig with Snow Patrol at Belfast’s Odyssey Arena. “That was insane,” she laughs. “[Snow Patrol frontman] Gary Lightbody and I are going to co-write in the next year, which is pretty cool.” Bridie describes the sound of SOAK as “small and soft”, and on both debut EP Trains and second offering Sea Creatures her delicate vocal lilts over a simple, acoustic strum. It’s rather like listening to a teenage Joni Mitchell if she had swapped her formative years in Canada for a Northern Irish border town. The purity of her voice has drawn comparisons to Irish songstress Lisa Hannigan, while the moodier tracks such as “Numb” are reminiscent of Laura Marling’s Alas I Cannot Swim. But make no mistake, SOAK — all ginger fringe, elfin features, and no-nonsense Derry intonation — lacks any folksy pretensions. “I get my inspiration from everywhere,” she enthuses. “I honestly love all music. Except Justin Bieber.” Her parents’ old Pink Floyd, ABBA, and Leonard Cohen records are just as important in shaping her sound as newer artists like Bastille and Bon Iver. The thoughts are deep and introspective, but then
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PHOTO: AISLING MONDS
SOAK
quips like “I know there’s monsters in your house/I’ll be your ghostbuster” remind you that you are listening to a 16-year-old. “I can’t talk about my feelings so I sing them,” Bridie says. “It’s just the best way for me to get it out and forget about it.” But what can we expect from SOAK in the coming year? “It’s going to be absolutely mental,” Bridie says with delight. There are a number of collaborations, an Irish tour, as well as a string of festival dates in the UK and Europe, including at Brighton’s Great Escape festival in May. But before she can think about these, it’s time to focus on her third EP. “I just need to find somewhere to record it which makes it sound like it’s been done in a shed,” she laughs. “That’s just what I like.”
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words of Poem from Wilfred Owen:The War Poems (Chatto & Windus, 1994) edited by Jon Stallworthy
DULCE ET DECORUM EST Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime. . . Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, — My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
2014 will be the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I. Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est”, one of the era’s best-known poems, captured the hell of the front line. We spoke to WW1 poetry expert Dr Jane Potter about why it still resonates today WORDS and INTERVIEW by Abigail Davies ILLUSTRATION by Rebecca Duff-Smith 70
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WILFRED OWEN
ane Potter, the co-editor of Three Poets of the First World War: Ivor Gurney, Isaac Rosenberg and Wilfred Owen (Penguin, 2011), sees the commemorations as an opportunity for people to learn new things about WWI. “People in academia don’t want to get to the end of 2018 telling the same story,” she says. One way to comprehend this extraordinary period is to study the poetry it produced. Here Dr Potter tells us more: ““Dulce et Decorum Est” is one of the best known war poems - and is also one of Owen’s most cynical. The title originally appears in Horace’s Odes III.ii.13 as “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”, meaning “it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.” But he opens with a very different image: Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge
This is not a decorous picture of what it’s like to be at war. He moves through different horrible situations in which the soldiers find themselves, which is so far removed from the sort of adventure tales that were told about the trenches. It’s not clean, it’s not tidy, and it’s horrific. Men don’t have boots, and are so tired they are marching asleep. Their feet are bloody. They are lame and blind. In the next stanza, Owen changes the tone dramatically with “Gas! GAS!” The second mention of gas is in capitals, as in a letter that Owen writes to his mother in January 1917, when he says: “I went on ahead to scout foolishly alone, and when half a mile away from the party got overtaken by GAS.” It was drafted when he was at Craiglockhart hospital in Edinburgh in October 1917, where soldiers suffering from shell-shock were sent. He revises it again between January and March 1918. We get the chaos of this gas attack in the second stanza. He says: Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
The misty panes refer to the gas masks’
celluloid windows that you had to see out of. And the gas is that sort of colour. And then setting apart that third stanza is just one sentence which is two lines: In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
It is known that Owen suffered from nightmares and dreams of these kinds. He’s reliving this in his sleep. Then he refers to that again in “smothering dreams”. He also had these kinds of dreams when he was younger, even before he went to war. Owen is piling on horror after horror. It builds to a crescendo, and echoes what happens when someone has been gassed. It attacks your lungs — you essentially drown. Then we get the final lines of the poem, when he’s saying “My friend, if you could see this...” Who is he talking to? The manuscript shows that the first couple of drafts Owen did were dedicated to Jessie Pope, a humorous poet who also wrote children’s books, stories and nursery rhymes. And so Owen is directing this poem at the kinds of books and poems that she wrote, which extoll boys to go off and fight. He deletes this in the later version, and part of the suggestion as to why is that it was more universal simply to put “my friend”, and to leave it as a symbol of anyone who propounds the idea that it is sweet and glorious to die for one’s country. Owen’s poem has endured because, even though it is very much based in World War I, in some ways we haven’t quite moved on. “My friend” makes it much more timeless. I wrote Jessie Pope’s biography for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and this poem, or the knowledge that he dedicated this to her, has sealed her fate as this horrible quintessential war monger; the callous female who gleefully sends people off to die without realising the horror of it. This poem has, in a way, entered our language. The manuscript shows that he worked hard at this poem — it is a piece of art. It captures the idea of the horror of war. He’s saying: “How dare you say that this is glorious when you haven’t been there; look at this, look at what this does.”” To commemorate the centenary, the Imperial War Museum will hold events throughout 2014. Visit www.1914.org for more information.
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We ask columnist Lucy Mangan how she keeps her life private when she shares her thoughts with thousands of strangers every week
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INTERVIEW by Abigail Davies ILLUSTRATION by Polly Alice Norton You’re a big Tweeter. Do you think social media changes how we keep secrets? I do. I sometimes feel when I’m on social networks that I am of a different generation from the people who have grown up with it, or had it from an earlier age than I did. They seem much freer.
hat’s it like to share secrets with readers? I’m careful not to share any genuine secrets with the public. The secrets I do share might be personal but they are things I don’t care about keeping private. I am in complete control. I think there are some columnists who sometimes aren’t aware of how much they are revealing. I’m careful and am always aware of what I’m doing — or at least I try to be. Is what you write true? I’m not lying. It’s that strange thing that, once you’re in print, people think that you’re telling them everything. If they read everything that you write, they think that you’ve told them everything that there is to know — but of course you haven’t. It’s just that one incident per week.
When you do want to be alone, do you have a secret escape in London? The National Theatre, because it’s a very big, open space. You can go anywhere you like in it and hide with your laptop and a coffee.
‘I would crawl over broken glass for Jake Gyllenhaal’
Do you have a secret crush? I would crawl over broken glass for Jake Gyllenhaal. Although I don’t know how to pronounce his name.
Your Stylist column is called “Lucy Mangan is…Outspoken”. Are you? No. I had to learn to be much more definite in my opinions and much more outspoken for that column.
Do you have any secrets? My cat Henry has just been diagnosed with a heart and kidney condition, and I am prepared to pay any amount of money to keep him going —which is something that I absolutely can’t tell my mother.
Did you have a secret diary when you were a teenager? No, I didn’t. I always knew that I’d find it far too embarrassing to read back, so I never wrote anything down. I never have.
Lucy Mangan is a columnist and features writer for the Guardian and Stylist magazine. Her latest book, The Reluctant Bride, is available in paperback and on Kindle.
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