Author: AnneIredale

Hi - I'm from Leeds in Yorkshire and I've been writing poetry and short stories for many years. My day job is writing articles and proofreading for websites. My eBook of poetry is called 'Bread and Circuses' and is available from the Amazon Kindle Store (you don't need a Kindle! See link). I love The Beatles, football, German writers, Liverpool poets and Nick Drake...and lots of other things. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bread-and-Circuses-ebook/dp/B0038JESQ2/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329400829&sr=1-2

Football – Likes and Dislikes!

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I love football. I love the rituals. It’s a dance. It’s geometry and physics and sometimes it’s guts and glory. At its best, it is poetry in motion. I have watched football all my life. Whatever is wrong with the modern game and there is a lot that is wrong, one can’t blame it on the game. It is, after all, people that spoil things, not the sport itself. For me, football has always been the Beautiful Game and it always will be. As for the other rubbish – well, it breaks my heart.

What I Like

Going to Live Games

Saturday is different. Saturday is special. There is the thrill of anticipation. Walking into the ground is like no other feeling. It’s a cathedral. It’s a theatre of dreams.

Sweet Georgie

His image adorned my bedroom wall. He made a lot of other players look like they were still in the 1950s. He was gorgeous. His balance and his ability to go past countless players was a joy to behold. I still miss him.

Glorious Pele

At 17 years old, the Brazilian genius was hoisted on his team-mates’ shoulders, having scored two goals in the 1958 final to clinch Brazil’s first World Cup victory. Scoring unbelievable goals throughout his career, he was a great ambassador for the game. Unfortunately, he was targeted in the 1966 World Cup campaign and literally kicked off the field against Portugal.

Bicycle Kick Goals

When a bicycle kick connects with the ball, it’s a triumph of spatial awareness and timing. When it’s a bicycle kick goal, the wow factor doesn’t get any more wow, as recently exemplified by Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s goal for Sweden against England from 30 yards.

Good Chanting

Good-natured banter gets the atmosphere going. It’s part of the game, along with pie and peas at half time and contributes to the local mythology of clubs. Each generation re-invents their own traditions.

What I Don’t Like

Tuneless National Anthems

National anthems (with the possible exception of the French one and the American one) are completely devoid of a decent tune. How many of these dirges have we sat through. Players half-heartedly mumble along with these apologies for an anthem, without a discernible melody.

Are You Blind, Ref?

Dissent. Aggressively going after the referee / assistant referees. Groups of players surrounding the referee to make their case. We see it every week. It’s bullying in the workplace and we shouldn’t stand for it.

How Far Can I Spit?

Really? Do you have to? Can you not carry a ‘kerchief embroidered with your initials in the corner and gob into it, discreetly?

Going for Broke

Why are clubs allowed to get into millions of pounds of debt? And why do they? A major factor is the wage bill for the squad. Let’s not forget that players in the lower leagues are not millionaires. So, let’s look at the clubs in the higher echelons. Working class fans struggle to afford tickets for a game and the superstars are bathing in champagne. I’m not recommending going back to the days of retired players facing dire straits and having to sell their medals and players’ incomes should reflect a career’s short span – up to a point. The minimum wage was a good idea, but so is a wage cap. It’s gotten out of hand.

Twits on Twitter

Players making crass remarks and comments on social media is getting out of hand too. At least they weren’t doing any harm when they just played golf on their time off.

Dive, Dive, Dive

This is my pet peeve when it comes to actual play. It’s endemic. And you can’t blame referees for getting it wrong sometimes. If the governing bodies and managers wanted to wipe it out, they could do. School kids copy this behaviour and it moves down the generations. Some media pundits give it tacit approval. It’s cheating. And it’s ruining the game.

On the Move

Nobody – not players and not managers – stays with a team anymore or hardly ever. It’s difficult to identify with certain players who keep on moving and it takes away the identity of clubs.

Sorry, We’ve Got Replica Shirts To Sell

The FA Cup is real glory stuff. All footie fans know this. I was disgusted when Manchester United didn’t defend their trophy in 2000, instead competing in some World Club Cup nonsense in Brazil. Was this a football decision? Of course not. It’s called ‘spreading the brand’. Yes, football is a brand now. Just like coca-cola.

Wembley Non-finals

Wembley is for internationals and club finals. FINALS. It’s the national stadium and having semi-finals played there takes away the special nature of finals.

How Many Mascots Do They Need?

When one little boy or girl walked out with the team, it meant something. Now, there is one for each player. That’s a lot of mascots.

Bad Chanting – Hatred, Racism and Homophobia

Chanting that Liverpool fans are always complaining, post-Hillsborough. Chanting anti-Semitic chants at Tottenham fans. The list could go on. Whether it’s one person (on or off the field) or a crowd, it is vile.

Not Having Goal Line Technology

Why don’t we?

So, what are your likes and dislikes? You don’t need to be a football fan to join in. Bring it on!

Christmas – Likes and Dislikes!


What I Don’t Like

Carol singers who only sing a verse and a half and then start banging on the door to demand money.

People who only go to church, once a year, at Christmastime because “the church looks so nice at this time of year”.

Finding myself in a supermarket on Christmas Eve, getting squeezed in the crammed aisles and having to pass jars of cranberry sauce down the line of stressed out shoppers.

Being forced to wear a paper hat.

Someone asking for the one drink I forgot to get in.

Not one decent film on TV that I haven’t seen before.

Office parties. Poor food and poor conversation; so much forced jollity and no one wants to be there.

People who shake presents vigorously, as if that will make them give up their secrets.

Men who only cook once a year, on Christmas Day and think they deserve a medal.

Running out of room in the fridge.


What I Like

Playing with Lego / trains / shiny red fire trucks with small children who don’t mind me playing with them.

The smell of a real Christmas tree.

Lying on the sofa munching mince mobile casino pies and drinking mulled wine in front of an open fire.

Watching someone else do heaps of washing up after Christmas dinner.

Hearing The Pogues on the radio and their Christmas classic, Fairytale of New York, knowing that lots of people have never bothered to actually listen to the lyrics.

Listening to Christmas carols (even though I’m an atheist and, of course, I don’t join in).

Bread sauce (okay; that’s a weird one).

Watching someone’s kid play with the box after opening a very expensive toy.

Christmas pudding and custard (or rum sauce or brandy sauce).

Santa

Jesus (even though I’m an atheist – he was pretty cool).

Reading about the World War I Christmas truce when both sides dropped their guns and played football on Christmas Day.

Woolly jumpers with reindeer on, or snowflakes or Santa.

Eating up Christmas leftovers for an entire week (this means minimal cooking required).

So, what do you like / dislike about Christmas? Come on, let’s start a national debate!

An Interview With Bridie Jackson

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Bridie Jackson is the full package. A gifted writer of melody and lyrics and an accomplished musician and vocalist, her image would not look out of place in a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Following a recent period of extensive touring, the rest of Britain is discovering what her native North East already knew – that she is an original talent, both in the recording studio and in live performance.

Her band, known as The Arbour, is no mere backing band.

They supply excellent musical accompaniment and delicious harmonies and it really is a group enterprise. The band’s use of bell plates has entered local folklore. They look like something you’d use to scrape the frost off your windscreen, but they make the most wonderful sound.

Bridie is the very opposite of a precious diva. She likes to kick off her shoes when on stage and draw the audience in. I met up with her to pose some questions and shoot the breeze…

Bridie, it’s great to have this chat. I was in the audience on the night your album, Bitter Lullabies, was launched at The Sage in Gateshead and there was a lot of love in the room for you. How has the album been received since then?

It’s been going rather well. We’ve had some great reviews, quite a bit of radio play and the opportunity to gig a lot around the UK, which has been great. We really enjoy performing to new audiences, as it’s a clearer reflection of what people make of you than if the venue is full of people who know you and are going to be nice regardless!

Music journalists like to categorize new artists that come along. For example, ‘Chamber Folk’ seems to be the buzz genre right now. Do you welcome a label or do you dislike it and how would you describe your music?

I think labels are fine, as they generally come from people trying to fathom something out and through a desire to explain it to others. I’m not sure we fit into any label very comfortably though, which must be a bit frustrating I suppose. As for how we describe our own music, I still don’t have the faintest idea. Free album to whoever can come up with something that covers it!

You’ve been compared to Fleet Foxes and Joanna Newsom. Are you flattered by comparisons or do they irritate you?

It depends on the comparison! I know some artists think comparisons are a result of lazy journalism, which I suppose it can be, but I think if done accurately, they can make your music more accessible, which can only be a good thing.

You’ve been doing a lot of gigs, Bridie. With all the travelling and performing, do you find it difficult to find time to write?

In some ways, touring is a really good space to write, as generally there are large chunks in the day when you’re not that busy, so you can really focus on getting things done.

I’m interested in your writing process. Do you have a routine approach or does it depend on your mood and circumstances at the time?

The only proper routine is making sure the ideas get ‘caught’ and archived properly when I have them. The actual creation is rather erratic and it can take months, even years to complete anything. It can often feel like the song isn’t all that much to do with me sometimes. I just have to wait for enough ideas to plop out so that I can actually write the whole thing. However, I’m always working on something and tend to be fairly dogged until it’s completed. Also, even if I have no inspiration whatsoever, I’ll still write most days, even if it’s just daft songs about dual carriageways and stuff… just to keep in the discipline of doing it I suppose.

Would it excite you to write with other people or do you prefer to write alone?

I generally write alone although I’m currently involved in a project called Riverrruns, which involves collaborating with other writers, mostly poets, and it’s been wonderful – a complete revelation, so I would definitely consider doing it again, for specific projects.

Some songwriters find writing lyrics a cathartic exercise. Do you share this feeling and do they serve to document your life?

Sometimes the songs document life events and they are frequently cathartic. The great thing about a song is you get to whinge on and it takes longer for people to tire of hearing it, which is handy.

It’s easier than ever to distribute songs and engage with fans. Do you think today’s artists have the best deal or do you hanker back to being an artist in the simpler days of the 1960s and 1970s?

It definitely assists the grassroots movement and allows artists to operate more independently, which is a very positive thing, so mostly, I’m in favour.

You and the band are certainly in harmony when on stage. What’s the dynamic like when you’re all hurtling down the motorway on a cold, wet morning after a few hours’ sleep?

I think bands on tour sometimes develop a bit of a ‘family on holiday’ dynamic, complete with ensuing social dysfunction, but we get on really rather well. I think in the last few months we’ve got very good at knowing when one or the other of us needs a bit of space, or support, etc., and as a result, it’s very harmonious. No gossip there. Boring I suppose…

Okay, Bridie, to wrap up, this is one of those job interview questions, but where do you see yourself in five years’ time?

On Desert Island Discs please! Or maybe that’s more a ten-year aim….

If this interesting insight into the life of a musician has whetted your appetite, check out Bridie Jackson & The Arbour’s album. Kick your shoes off, turn the lights down and see what happens…

For more information on Bridie Jackson, check out the Tumblr page.

Book Review: Lessons Learned, by Sydney Logan

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A town reliant on the two pillars of school and church, Sycamore Falls is a profoundly conservative community in the American South, named after the falls that provide a local beauty spot. An English teacher named Sarah has returned to her hometown from Memphis, where a violent incident about which she feels guilty has traumatised her. Going back to live in the house that her grandmother has bequeathed to her, romance blooms when she meets fellow teacher, Lucas, newly arrived from New York City. Their relationship is conducted against the background of events surrounding a troubled student jock called Matt.

Sarah sees Sycamore Falls and the house where she used to live with her grandmother as a place of safety. Her need to return to her roots has taken her by surprise. It’s a response to her witnessing a shooting incident at her former school involving a vulnerable student followed by the end of her relationship with an unsupportive partner. She craves the familiarity of home where she had a special bond with her grandmother, who cared for her after the death of her parents when she was 16 years old.

Spoiler Alert (but not really)
A small town gal returning home from the big, bad city is familiar territory as is a tormented student struggling with his sexuality. I don’t think I’m giving anything away as Matt being gay is kinda flagged up before the reveal, so it doesn’t come as any surprise. He’s the football team’s quarterback and the story begins with him dating the head cheerleader. The author displays a neat sense of the book’s self-awareness. Matt even describes himself as “a walking stereotype”. It’s easy to imagine this as a TV movie, complete with spectacular mountain scenery.

The Sin Bin

When Matt’s sexuality is revealed, the town is divided with many people at school, on the football team and in church ostracising him. His few allies include our romantic pair, Sarah and Lucas. Oh, they disapprove of his ‘lifestyle’, but they don’t think that should affect anyone’s relationship with him or treatment of him. I was waiting for at least one character to come along and say that, actually, there is nothing wrong with being gay, but no one ever does. No one is put forward to offer a counter argument.
All credit to the author for incorporating a controversial social issue in the romance genre, but it won’t go far enough for the more liberal readership. The message is to disapprove of the ‘sin’ and not the ‘sinner’. Even the Falls is a metaphor for sins being washed away.

The only argument to support the disapproval is that the Bible says so, so there isn’t any springboard for a debate. There is a lot of talk about tolerance and unconditional love, ironically also inspired by the Bible. Small town life and life in the ‘big city’ is compared in terms of its capacity for tolerance. The author asks the question, are the ugly attitudes of a small town ever a price worth paying for living there?

In Lucas, Sarah finds her soul mate, as he too is coming to terms with an upsetting incident. He’s left New York under a cloud, despite being cleared of all charges, having faced a malicious and false accusation by a student. When Matt’s problems overwhelm him, Sarah and Lucas are determined to defend him. This new situation mirrors the one in which Sarah’s former student in Memphis found himself and her guilt about failing to save him is a compelling motive to save Matt. Helping this young man represents closure for Sarah and the chance to move on from her past.

This might sound unkind, but Sarah is high maintenance. Lucas has the patience of a saint in dealing with her insecurities and mood swings. She is reluctant to let herself go and trust her feelings. This leads to some tension, which sometimes seems to be heading for conflict but it never comes. I was longing for a blazing row, but instead, Lucas dries her tears and sweetly reassures her every time.

The couple’s bond is cemented in the face of Matt’s life spiralling out of control. He’s a sensitive and thoughtful young man, without being insipid. At the other end of the spectrum, his father and his head teacher are reactionary bullies and respond as if he’s grown two heads overnight.

Future Promise

Sydney Logan has a very good ear for dialogue, both dramatic and light-hearted. She doesn’t go in for elongated descriptive passages, so the pace zips along and you certainly want to turn the page to see what happens. The structure of the story is impressive given this is her debut novel.

When Logan looks at the raw emotions of Matt and the people affected by the fall out, it is very powerful and I would have preferred more of that and less of the domestic bliss of our loved up teachers. There was a bit too much “brushing lips” for my taste, but this is a romance novel, after all. I did find Lucas to be impossibly perfect, to the point of being tedious.

I think Sydney Logan has an assured future as a writer. One of the most moving passages is when Matt’s mother makes a speech defending her son to the church congregation. My wish would be for her to explore issues in a more balanced way in her next book and to do more of what she’s good at – describing real emotions.

 

If you have a Kindle and want to read Lessons Learned, you can grab a copy here.

The Magic of Mad Men

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Mad Men is another intelligent drama series from America, with charismatic characters and a socially relevant story, illustrating that not everything has to be about cops or doctors. I caught some of the season 5 episodes recently and was hooked, so now I’m watching from the beginning, devouring the repeated first season.

Mad Men is set in the Madison Avenue of the 1960s and the first season opens in 1960. The creative force at Sterling Cooper advertising agency is Don Draper. He’s not who he says he is and watching flashbacks of his mysterious childhood reveals tantalising clues. He sells the American Dream at work whilst at home, his suburban kingdom is falling apart.

The men in the office swap banter about the attractiveness or otherwise of the women in the office and sometimes make direct remarks that would result in a sexual harassment lawsuit today. The casual racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny are jolting to us, the modern audience.

Advertising sells the perfect family. Don understands what his clients want and cleverly manipulates them. Behind the white picket fence at home, his wife Betty struggles to keep up appearances. While Don sells the American Dream and the easy life, she spectacularly fails to cope within her suburban prison.

No one is happy. The wives gossip and go to the grocery store and prune the roses and pretend that they’re not bored and not nostalgic for their younger selves, before they were just somebody’s wife; somebody’s mother. They don’t know who they are anymore. Making sure casino online dinner is on the table when their husbands return is their primary concern.

The women in the office serve the men, sitting behind their typewriters, providing a decorative distraction. The men would do something else if they could. They’re ambitious but they also yearn for their former selves. After all, they are creative people applying their minds to selling baked beans. They live on stories from their carefree, college days.

No one tells the truth. The consumerism boom of the 1950s and 1960s in America fed into people’s desires and images of themselves, but in contrast with today, there is nothing ironic about it. There is no truth in how the copywriters make their money or in their various affairs. Husbands and wives hide their disappointments from each other and the advertising industry continues the lie.

Don’s generation is an interesting one, caught between two generations – the WWII generation of their parents and the counter culture generation of the 1960s. In coming seasons, the cultural revolution will rage outside but Madison Avenue is slow to catch up. Don is more Frank Sinatra than longhairs playing guitar. It’s a shifting landscape of change. In season 1, Kennedy is trying to be President. As America is on the cusp of this revolution, the advertisers tell people what they want to hear. Within relationships, husbands and wives tell each other what they want to hear. Kennedy will tell the country uncomfortable truths that the WASPS (white Anglo-Saxon protestants) will clearly not want to hear. As a surreal counterpoint, Don has bizarre brushes with a bohemian lifestyle when he takes a mistress whose Beatnik friends disapprove of him.

And then there is Peggy Olson. Peggy represents women in transition. Her rise from secretary to copywriter is a big deal in these times and so is her sexual liberation. There is also account executive, Peter Campbell, a man struggling with his identity. He gets married and immediately knows he’s made a mistake. He wants a woman he can drag back to his cave, but he hasn’t got the energy to stop his wife getting her way and he’s in hock to his in-laws. Feeling emasculated, he buys a hunting rifle, only for his wife to demand he take it back to the store. Gender politics, class snobbery and race relations are always just below the surface of the smiling, nuclear family with 2.4 children and a dishwasher.

Visually, Mad Men is stunning. Essentially a period drama, the clothes, hairstyles and décor flavour the drama as well as representing a point in time. Music also plays an important part in the series. Each episode ends with a different piece of music. Crooners of the 1950s make way for The Beatles.

Selling the American Dream used to be easy for these boys. But what do you do when people begin to question it – when people start demanding the truth? What do you do when everyone starts dreaming a different dream?

There is a Flame That Never Goes Out – Reflections on the Olympics

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Missiles on roofs, a warship in the Thames and a no fly zone…it’s all a far cry from the previous London Olympics of 1948. They called that one ‘The Austerity Games’. Coming on the heels of World War II, it was a shoestring budget in comparison. But no one feared someone would plant a bomb in buy generic cialis online one of the stadiums. The Olympics is a sporting event at its core still but it’s also an exercise in security, political sabre rattling and an expensive display of national showing off.

Time was when the opening ceremony was a simple parade of the athletes. Now the money spent on the ceremony could keep a small country going for a year or two. Each one tries to outdo the one before. Lots of people cavort around in colourful but baffling costumes, acting out historic and cultural references that the commentator struggles to interpret. There’s a lot of symbolism and national pride and symbolism and storytelling and… more symbolism.

Having said that, the Beijing opening shindig was jaw-droppingly amazing. Surely London can’t compete with that? Enter Mr Danny Boyle, director of Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours. If his direction of the opening were to reflect his back catalogue, we’re in for babies crawling across ceilings, Bollywood dancing and trapped rock climbers hacking off their limbs. Alas, we’ve been told we’re getting farm animals. Yes, farm animals. Choose pigs. Choose cows. Choose sheep. It doesn’t sound promising but given Doyle’s pedigree, I have to keep faith. As long as Boris doesn’t take part, we’ll be okay.

An entourage of sports psychologists and nutritionists fine-tune today’s sportsmen and women whilst agents build up the image of the potential gold medallists. A gold medal is a ticket to a lucrative media career. Now, what would Alf make of all this malarkey? Men of a certain age (and old tomboys like me) will remember Alf Tupper, the working class lad who graced the pages of The Rover and The Victor. He would finish up his welding and scoff his fish and chips before competing in the mile, winning ahead of his toff rivals, of course, and then get the train home. He would have told a nutritionist where to go, all right.

There’s a real sentiment at the heart of both the summer and winter Olympics. It’s based on individual stories of years of sacrifice and striving for excellence and teary-eyed champions on the podium with proud parents in the crowd. A few bars from ‘Chariots of Fire’ and we all melt. Politicians and governments sometimes rain on our parade, however. There’s a lot of national posturing, appeasing and old scores to be settled. Of course, political baggage has always shadowed the Olympics. The 1936 Games in Berlin was a platform for the Third Reich. America boycotted the 1980 Games because of the Soviet’s invasion of Afghanistan. For sport to be purely about sport, all human activity would have to be pure.

But all this will be forgotten – just for a few minutes – as we watch these men and women run faster and jump higher than anyone ever did before. The glow from the Olympic flame will mean something once more, before the foolishness of the human race extinguishes it again.