Category: Off the Point (Page 3 of 4)

A Cuckoo In the Nest

12th August 2009 / Abigail / 2 Comments

: Image via Wikipedia

Writing a book is hard work. When it goes from being a hobby, something you can take as long as you like over because the only deadlines you have are your own easily breakable ones, to something that might just might have a future, things change.

I’ve written most of my life. When I was a child I wrote stories about my toys. As an adult I became a journalist so that I could earn my living through words. I’ve written books because I had a story to tell and a dream to follow and I’ve written one as a seemingly impossible feat as publication loomed mere weeks after my story was over. Each stage has been different and each stage has taught me new things about writing.

Over the last couple of years that learning curve has been particularly steep as the words became more than something I did and became part of how I paid my rent. I’ve learnt that I can hit a deadline with a book just as I can with an article. I’ve learnt that when the whistle sounds writers block is a luxury there just isn’t time for.

I’ve also learnt that several of the things I had indulged in when I only dreamed of being a writer are actually necessary to getting the whole ball rolling. I’ve read interviews with authors over the years who talk about their obsessions with a certain kind of ink or a certain kind of paper and thought, nice work if you can get it. Those of us who hack away for a living can’t afford the luxury of being picky. Any pen and any paper will do as long as the moment isn’t missed.

Now I realise that some touchstones, some rituals are actually part and parcel of the job in hand. Writing a book isn’t like writing an article. There’s a lot more of it for a start. You have to sustain the pace and the concentration to get to the end. That’s a lot of concentration.

When I obsess about working at my desk or drinking the same kind of tea or coffee for the duration of the project in hand it’s not because I’m being pretentious, it’s because it’s one less thing to worry about.

For the past six weeks all the order, all the usual, comfortable things were displaced and I learnt another thing about writing. Writing, at least to deadline, makes you antisocial. House guests should be accepted with caution. House guests who intend to stay for six weeks and who expect life to revolve around them should be avoided at all costs.

I freely admit that I’m territorial. Who doesn’t care about their home? I grew up as an only child and like my space. Writing hasn’t caused this territoriality but it has definitely exacerbated it. But hold on a minute. When it’s my space anyway, why should I worry about getting cranky when it’s invaded? When I have a big task ahead and am at a stage where I’m a step closer to the goals I’ve had for as long as I can remember, why shouldn’t I resent someone who disregards that, who should know better.

The common cuckoo, cuculus canorus, has a rather unattractive trait. It’s a bad mother, a dirty stop out who doesn’t see the point of raising the offspring once the egg has been laid. So it finds someone else to do the job for them. The poor unsuspecting foster mother raises the cuckoo chick as her own, unaware that her own chicks have been booted out of the nest leaving a hungry, demanding monster in their place. That’s what the last six weeks have been like. Paying court to someone who took advantage of hospitality and patience while my own chicks, the book, the husband (I make no apologies other than this one for that order – there’s no deadlines with the husband!) have been pushed very firmly out of the nest.

It should have been a no brainer but this was one writing lesson I obviously still needed to learn. For that matter it was also a life lesson that had passed me by. It’s not a mistake that will be repeated.

Not in Praise of Bloomsday…

16th June 2009 / Abigail / 5 Comments

Today, June 16th, was Bloomsday. If you’re not familiar with the concept, June 16th 1904 is the day when all the action in James Joyce’s opus, Ulysses is set. Every year on that day the great and good and literary and arty gather in Dublin to retrace the route taken by Leopold Bloom on a Sunday morning at the turn of the last century.

Joyce’s book has been heralded as a classic, a work of English unparalleled in the English language. That’s why he gets his own day.

Now this is probably the point where I should come clean. I hate Bloomsday. I’ve lived in Dublin too long not to get profoundly irritated by the marauding crowds of arty types and tourists that clutter up the thoroughfares with glasses of Guinness and dressed up to the nines in approximations of Edwardian dress. If you wander through the centre of Dublin on June 16th you will find a selection of middle aged idiots acting like undergraduates and giving the book that is on more peoples “haven’t quite got round to reading” list than most others I can think of, the Rocky Horror treatment.

Let me get this straight. Bloomsday is not just a bit of harmless playacting, it’s irritating, embarrassing and teeth clenchingly awful! It’s the one day of the year when you get to see people who really should have more self respect, dressing up like complete idiots and hitting the bars like a back of feckless 20 somethings.

I’m aware that by saying this I sound (a) a total ignoramous and (b) rather unsure about where I fall in the whole cool young thing and old fogey scale. For starters I have read Ulysses. I read it years ago when I first moved up to Dublin while I was devouring anything that came from the writers that had helped to make the city famous. I was fairly voracious in my reading in those days and didn’t always check the postal address of my chosen read.

In those days I read Sean O’Casey, Samuel Beckett, Flann O’Brien, Oscar Wilde, and George Bernard Shaw…I’m not sure why I didn’t get round to Behan…I think I got side tracked by Lewis Carroll. Anyway, at the time I was working on an antique stall in the George’s Street Arcade.

My boss at the time was working on a book of postcards all sent on June 16th 1904, that corresponded with the various locations in the book. He’d written a synopsis of the book to go with the images and, knowing that 19-year-old me was keen on writing, he asked me to check it, casually throwing me a copy of Ulysses to make sure he hadn’t left anything out.

So I read Ulysses. From cover to cover. I quite liked Leopold Bloom but preferred his wife Molly and couldn’t stand Stephen Dedalus, who I thought and continued to think was a pretentious little git. In terms of Joyce’s prose, while I get what he was doing from a technical point of view, it just completely leaves me cold.

I will freely admit that this could have to do with the never ending stream of postcards or my bosses synopsis but Ulysses would not appear anywhere on my list of books I would want with me if I was ever marooned on a desert island and I would be quite pissed off if it found it’s way there ahead of me.

I know that Ulysses is held up as a work of genius. I just don’t like it. I’m not denigrating Joyce as a writer in any way…The Dead is one of the best shorter pieces of writing I have ever read. I just don’t like Ulysses. I don’t like the fact that the men run the plot while the women are either leched over virgins, prostitutes or adulteresses. I don’t like the fact that the book that is now synonymous with Dublin is arguably the least accessible. I don’t like the fact that Bloomsday itself tends to be a rather snobby affair with pantomime overtones.

Dublin has produced many fine writers; Samuel Beckett, Brendan Behan, Oscar Wilde, Sean O’Casey, Flann O’Brien, George Bernard Shaw. Writers who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, writers who deserve to be celebrated each year but who only get a look in for centenaries or on whims.

So I say, let’s give Bloomsday a rest. Next year let’s have At Swim Two Birds Day to celebrate Flann O’Brien’s lunatic masterpiece. The day could start in Grogans Pub off Georges Street and there could be cowboys in Ringsend, someone sitting up a tree proclaiming that a “pint of plain’s yer only man”, come to thing of that could the the city’s clarion call. We could have someone dressed up as the Pooka MacPhellimey and someone or something as Finn Mac Cool.

Instead of having a day where the middle classes dress up in straw boaters and give the day over to cataloguing the eating and drinking in Joyce’s novel, lets have one where the surreal and bizzarre takes over the city. Instead of a daytrip to Sandeymount and Grafton Street, lets see the cattle corralled in Ringsend.

It might actually work. And it would be a lot less irritating that bloody Bloomsday.

The Lure of Celluloid

10th May 2009 / Abigail / 0 Comments

I’ve always loved going to the cinema. Since I was a kid and the expedition to the two screener in Wimbledon a treat for high days and summer days and whenever we had the money to go. They still had a commissioner in those days (Ashes to Ashes territory), a short man with a lot of gold on his uniform and a hatred of kids. I can remember my mum getting into a row with him because she was bringing me to see a 15 certificate and I was only 12 or 13. He called her bluff but my mum was never a person to cross and he ended up backing down. The film, if I remember right, was The Assam Garden, hardly a riot of violence and torture porn.

When I was in school in Sligo the trip to the flicks was the once monthly treat for boarders. I went on my first proper date to the cinema. It was hardly the most obvious date movie…a film called Skindeep most famous for the scene where you see light sabre-like duelling condoms.

Once I’d left school and moved away from home, cinema became a refuge from long days and a strange city. The cinemas along Abbey Street here in Dublin were my favourites – the Adelphi for the Hollywood blockbusters and the tiny Lighthouse for foreign films and arthouse. I can remember a friend and I going to see Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves dozens of times during the summer of 1991. Both of us can still quote most of Alan Rickman’s Sherriff of Nottingham dialogue by heart.

The Lighthouse was a different experience. Tiny and red carpeted the screens had an intimate atmosphere I’ve never encountered before or since. Screen two in particular only sat around around 30 people. I remember once, during a showing of Tous Les Matins du Monde staring the Depardieu father and son, someone started handing round Maltesers to the whole audience – there were only about six of us.

The Adelphi and the old Lighthouse are long gone, as is the Adelphi’s sister hotel the Carlton which used to be at the top of O’Connell Street opposite the Savoy. By then the Irish Film Centre had opened up in Temple Bar, showing art house and independent films, retrospectives, foreign films but also providing a hub for a certain section of the cinema going public. There was a restaurant there, a bar and a shop. The big airy space in an old glassed over courtyard seemed fresh and modern. I was working for a community radio station at the time, while I was in college. I’d got involved with the movie show and used to love going to the IFC in the morning clutching paper cup of coffee and balancing a notebook on my knee in the dark.

I saw so many films in those morning showings, too many to detail here. I’d always wanted to review movies and was finally living the dream. I used to sit in the dark listening to the scratching of pens from all the other reviewers around me. I enjoyed every film I saw, partially because they were free, even if I would sometimes find fault – just for the show of it!

I loved the IFC, now the IFI, but I always missed the Lighthouse. Even in the early morning press screenings, no one ever handed round Maltesers and there was never the same sense of camaraderie, that you knew you were in the company of like-minded people, or at least, one or two like minded people and quite a few homeless people and pensioners.

So I was delighted, ecstatic even, when I heard that, not only were we getting a local cinema in Smithfield but it was going to be the resurrected Lighthouse. This time last year it opened and we’ve been going ever since. In it’s new incarnation it’s a far cry from the tatty seats and cigarette stained red carpet of the old Abbey Street venue. The new Lighthouse is quite simply the nicest cinema in Dublin and in the top three of cinemas I’ve ever been to.

I love the multicoloured seating in the largest screen and the fact that every screen is different. I love the fact that it’s designed with lots of interesting spaces and places to sit when you’re not watching films…it cries out to be used for seminars and conferences and talks, and I gather it’s been pulled into service for that very purpose more than once. But probably the thing I like most about it is that it’s so far underground, deep under Smithfield Square, that mobile phones just don’t work – and anyone who’s had a pivotal cinematic moment ruined by some gimps novelty ring tone will agree that no signal is a good thing in a cinema.

I’ve become positively evangelical about the Lighthouse. It really is a world class place and worthy successor to it’s Abbey Street predecessor. It deserves to do well and I really don’t think I could deal with losing the Lighthouse for a second time!

I’ve nothing against the multiplex experience. There’s nothing wrong with a decent blockbuster when you’re in the mood and multiscreens are great for those. My favourite in Dublin is Cineworld on Parnell Street…a good selection of films and it’s actually a big enough place that even marauding packs of kids don’t get underfoot while they’re waiting for the latest pre teen sensation to start. But a small local cinema like the Lighthouse that shows interesting films and champions the titles that would never get a multiplex showing…that wins every time.

I love films and I will always love going to the cinema. Being able to get lost in another world for a couple of hours knowing that around you there are other people lost in exactly the same world is like nothing else. It’s a totally different form of storytelling than books, communal rather than solitary and there are times when that simply can’t be best. Theatre is a local experience. A play is done performed by a specific group of people in a specific venue and will only be that way with those people and that venue. Cinema is universal, one vision suits all, the whole world can see the same thing.

The Lighthouse is a cinema for people who love film, run by people who love film. That can’t be bettered!

Journalism Movies and Bus Shakeups

26th April 2009 / Abigail / 0 Comments

Weekends are a time to leave work alone if at all possible. When you spend all day in court listening to the gruesome details of murder after murder switching off is even more important. If you dwelt on everything you hear on a daily basis you simply wouldn’t sleep at night. And by “you” in this context I do, of course, mean “I”. So while today might be off the point tomorrow it will be back to normal service and further coverage of the Ronald McManus trial for the murder of Melissa Mahon.

In the quest of a break myself and the husband headed to the cinema this morning. I love early showings – a throwback to the days I used to get into press screenings while working for a local radio station in college. This week we went to see State of Play with Russel Crowe and Helen Mirren. I’m a big fan of the original BBC series written by Paul Abbot and was initially highly dubious of a Holywood remake. If you haven’t seen the series I’d still highly recommend it but I’m pleased to say that the movie actually does live up to the hyoe it’s receiving and is a damn fine thriller.

I’ve always been a sucker for films that centre around aheroic hack. I’ve a reasonably comprehensive collection of these journalism movies from 1961’s The Day the Earth Caught Fire to Good Night and Good Luck via Mel Gibson in Peter Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously and of course All the Presidents Men. State of Player is a worthy addition to the genre.

The original was one of the best drama series the BBC have produced in the past twenty years with a fantastic cast including John Simm, David Morrisey, Bill Nighy, James McAvoy and Kelly McDonald. The movie also has a pretty impressive cast with Russell Crowe as journalist Cal McAffrey, Helen Mirren as his editor, Ben Affleck (well cast for once) as the beleagured congressman Stephen Colllins and Robin Wright Penn as Collin’s wife. But the best thing about the movie is it’s not just a cracking thriller, it’s also the kind of film that makes you proud to be a journalist (and god knows, those films are few and far between!)

The film version of State of Play sticks pretty close to the plot of the original but the context is now totally up to date, dealing with media ownership, the threats to traditional media and the rise of the blog. More than any of this though is the championing of good old fashioned journalism. I remember watching the original series when and cheering at the television when Bill Nighy as the editor stood up for the story and rallied his troops. Helen Mirren is equally inspiring at the relevent bit but it was Rachel McAdams as blogger Della Frye who was the best line “With a story as big as this, people should have newsprint on their fingers while they’re reading it.” (or words to that effect)

It’s nice to see journalists portrayed as something other than scurrilous muckrakers and unprincipled hacks. That attitude is prevalent enough as it is. It’s nice to feel proud of the job I do.

The second thing I wanted to write about today is a little bit of a rant. Dublin Bus today introduced changes to their timetables in the first stage of their fleet reduction as a cost cutting measure. Looking at the list of routes that have been affected one thing stands out. The changes are extensive and affect a wide range of buses. Some routes have been done away with entirely. This would be fine if the cuts were made across the board but that’s not what’s happened here. Looking at the list of bus routes it’s noticeable that the majority go to the north and the west of the city, areas where a large percentage of the population live in local authority housing and who do not have access to DART urban rail services of the LUAS trams.

One of the most frequent services that frequently trundles into town with empty buses at off peak times of day has not been touched. The 46A goes through the more affluent parts of town, Donnybrook and Dundrum. During the afternoon buses frequently go past empty, at a frequency of every five or ten minutes. It’s one of the most over supplied bus routes in the city but because of it’s route I’d be surprised if Dublin Bus reduce the service. It’s nothing new of course. Here in Dublin the poor always pay when the powers that be decide to save a few bucks – the recent decision to cut the Christmas bonus for those on the dole is a case in point. But I’m not here to bang any particular political drum. There are others who do that far better than me. Dublin Bus may yet produce sweeping cuts through the posher bits of town in their second volley in May but I’m just saying what I noticed this morning and throwing it out there.

Hmm, reading back over this post it occurs to me that anyone who has issues with the liberal meeja is probably going to have their worst fears confirmed. Well you can’t please all of the people all of the time. As I said before, tomorrow I’m back in court and this blog will return to it’s normal subject matter. Happy Sunday!

Holy Orders…

10th April 2009 / Abigail / 0 Comments

Every year on Good Friday Ireland closes down. It’s illegal to sell alcohol here today so houses up and down the land are full of people getting completely rat arsed at home with oceans of booze bought the day before. One or two uncharitable souls might venture into town to laugh at all the tourists wandering dejectedly around Temple Bar because no one bothered to tell them about the law.

Off licences around the country enjoy their one Friday night off of the year and rebellious parties rock through the night, continuing the theme of getting rat arsed with previously bought alcohol. This year the truly dedicated (along with hotel residents, people in airport departure lounges and one or two other refuges of the desperate and alcoholic) can actually get wined and dined totally legally, not quite in international waters but a definitely aquatic bending of the rules.

The standard line you hear trotted out today when people complain about the levels of drunkenness sparked by enforced prohibition is that it’s only one day a year. Sure we’re not that desperate for a drink are we? But it’s not really a question of the whole nation going cold turkey if they don’t have intravenous alcohol it’s simply a case of the Irish inclination to do the opposite of what they’ve been told to do (look at the Lisbon Treaty!)

But behind all the hilarity and festivity is an inescapable problem with the Good Friday licensing laws and similar rules that govern Christmas Day. They are there solely because Good Friday is a holy day in one religion. For two days a year the laws of Ireland seek to force everyone in the country, regardless of their belief or lack of it, to toe the line laid down by the Catholic church. It’s not a question of whether people can stand being without alcohol for 24 hours, it’s a question of why they’re being told to abstain.

In my previous post I wrote about the ads taken out by the Humanist Association of Ireland which are currently running on DART commuter trains around the capital. The ads point out that in order to take high office in this country you have to take an oath to the Christian god. Not exactly a separation between Church and State! The Good Friday licensing laws are part and parcel of the same thing. A religious law imposed on a population.

Now I know that Ireland is still a predominantly Catholic country. According to the 2006 census there are still more than 3.5 million people living in Ireland who would describe themselves as Catholic. However, the same census also shows that there are more than 700,000 people who do not share that faith. Granted, included in that 700,000 would also be all the other denominations of Christianity who would also celebrate the resurrection but who might have different customs when it comes to observing Good Friday.

The licensing laws don’t take any of this into account. They assume a population that needs policing to follow the rules of their faith, not allowing for personal discipline or responsibility. They are no different from rules under Muslim Sharia law that dictate what a woman must wear and restrict her movements. These rules assume that religion needs to be policed and takes it away from a matter of personal conscience.

It might seem like a little thing. An archaic rule that harks back to a simpler time and might actually have positive health benefits. We’re not talking about going to your local butcher here or buying organic. This is a situation where the rules of one religion dictate the law of the land. I have no problem with individuals following whatever faith they choose. I do have a problem when they impose that belief onto me.

A Still Small Voice of Reason?

8th April 2009 / Abigail / 0 Comments

A few months ago the British Humanist Association launched bus advertising in London. The ads which said “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” caused quite a bit of controversy and sparked several retaliatory campaigns from religious groups.

At the time the Irish Humanist Association told the Irish Times that they would not be following suit because they thought the ads were too inflammatory. In a predominantly Catholic country like Ireland you can see their point but I for one was rather disappointed. After all, we see plenty of ads appearing from the Christian side of things, be it the “What think ye of Christ” ads that pop up on buses at this time of year to the various campaigns by pro-life groups, most notably the Mother and Child campaign a few years ago.

The Mother and Child Campaign, and of course Youth Defence, are vociferous in their fight to protect Catholic morals. I spent some months several years ago working for the All Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution when they were looking for submissions from members of the public on possible changes to the section of the Irish constitution that deals with the family. We weren’t even dealing with the contentious Article 40.3.3 which is the one dealing with abortion (a somewhat volatile subject here).

What was under discussion though was a woman’s place in the home, the definition of a family and the rights of unmarried parents, adoptive parents and gay couples. Not to mention the ratification of the UN Declaration on the Rights of the child.

There were thousands of submissions. The bulk of them were printed red and white forms distributed by the Mother and Child Campaign in churches around the country. We had people raging against the possibility of taking God out of the Constitution (not up for discussion at that time) and dozens railing against yet another attempt to “bring in abortion by the back door”. People would phone up and hurl abuse. There were even veiled threats at those working in the Committee if they tried to change the status quo.

Having experienced this much vitriol at an attempt to simply modernise the Constitution to take account of the changing make up of the Irish family, I was disappointed but not altogether surprised at the HAI’s response to such a confrontational bus campaign. Religion is a highly inflammatory subject here. Even careful reasoned arguments can get a violent backlash from a particularly vocal minority.

I remember the placard waving crowd that appeared outside the Four Courts every day during the High Court case around “Miss D” a teenager in state care who had been told her baby was suffering from an incurable condition and would not live long after birth. It made going into work an uncomfortable experience and must have been highly traumatic for the pregnant teen who had to run the gamut every day while she tried to simply avail of the right to travel out of Ireland for an abortion available to every woman in the State.

So I was surprised to learn that the HAI have reconsidered and posted ads on the DART commuter trains that form one of the main transport systems in Dublin.

The information campaign from the Humanist Association of Ireland during Easter week 2009

And here’s a close-up of the text of the ads.

Humanist Dart campaign close up

They might not be quite as eye catching as the London ads but they do make a very good point. There has been a campaign for the separation of Church and State here for years but it’s had only limited success. While you can affirm without use of a religious text if you swear in for jury duty, that option isn’t available if you take high office here. God is still firmly part of the constitution and will be for a considerable time to come.

However, it makes a refreshing change to see Humanist ads up where usually there would be “What think ye of Christ” ads promising a video presentation showing proof of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The “What Think Ye”s were up but they’ve been taken down again so the Humanists are out on their own.

I thought a lot about posting on this subject. I had wanted to write about the initial London bus campaign but thought twice about it. Even touching on the subject of religion can open the flood gates and the vitriol can be extreme. There are some sections of society here that don’t like any viewpoint but there own seeing the light of day. Even though there are almost 190,000 people according to the most recent census, who say they have “no religion” making this the second largest group after Catholicism it’s still a largely ignored group.

Hopefully the DART ads will get people thinking and start a debate. I don’t hold out much hope though. Reasoned debate is often drowned out by the shrieks of those trying to drown it out.

A Matter of Censorship…

25th March 2009 / Abigail / 3 Comments

Today I’m jumping on a bandwagon. I don’t normally comment on matters that fall outside my own little world but this is a story that I just couldn’t let pass unremarked. I’m not the only person writing about this today and I won’t be the last.

If you’ve missed the saga of the guerrilla artist who managed to hang a two less than flattering portraits of our esteemed leader Brian Cowen in two separate art galleries then you could be forgiven. The story was just a bit of fun initially in the tradition of any good satirical stunt. It was a short item at the end of the 9 o’clock news on RTE, the state broadcaster on Monday. Something along the lines of the kind of “And Finally” stories they used to have on the ITN news just rather less cute.

What’s made things go a bit nuts is the reaction of Brian Cowen’s political party, Fianna Fail. Now if you’re not familiar with Irish politics Fianna Fail are the party that has been in power for the majority of Ireland’s existence as a republic. They’ve been in power in one coalition or another right the way through the Celtic Tiger years and are now presiding over the disaster area that is the Irish economy at the moment.

Since one party has been in power throughout the boom and now the bust the finger of blame has been pointed squarely in their direction by various commentators. Their popularity has plunged in the most recent polls. In February the Irish Labour Party passed them in the popularity stakes for the first time. The nation is decidedly pissed off.

So really it’s hardly surprising that this sort of thing happens and hanging a couple of pictures is hardly the same as taking to the street with burning torches…is it? Well, when the gardai turned up at the offices of Today FM radio station demanding to see emails between a researcher and the artist because he could be looking at various criminal charges including criminal damage and incitement to hatred. Apparently “the powers that be” wanted action taken.

And that’s not all. Yesterday RTE issued an apology after the 9 o’clock news for any offence they’d caused poor sensitive Mr Cowen. Since then the clip of the original segment has become harder to find on the website and captions have been changed.

The net result of all of this has been that picturegate has gone global. It’s made the London Times and the New York Times to name but two and the story looks set to run for quite some time especially since a 35-year-old teacher called Conor Casby has voluntarily turned up to talk to gardai. If it finds it’s way to court I will definitely write about it here.

Irish satire is generally a fairly toothless affair. During the years of prosperity the sharp jokes about politicians and politics that had always been such a feature of the Dublin sense of humour in particular became noticeably muted. People didn’t seem to want to rock the boat. Now that it’s rocking anyway that “fuck you” attitude has returned somewhat. The problem is that the politicians seem to have lost their sense of humour in the intervening years. Well, Fianna Fail’s po-faced attitude has made them look like the little tin gods they are. It was a well aimed pot shot that could have given people a chuckle but if the t-shirts available from Irishelections.net with the full frontal caricature from Allan Cavanagh are anything to go by, Biffo had better get used to seeing himself in the buff!

When Hollywood Loses the Plot – Literally

30th January 2009 / Abigail / 1 Comment

I’ve been sorely vexed on the last couple of visits to the cinema. The posters for The Secret of Moonacre are everywhere and they make me decidedly cross. Now it’s followed me home and the trailers are showing on television as they announce themselves as the latest blockbuster fantasy. But they are wrong, so, so wrong. Every time the ad comes on I find myself shouting at the TV or clutching wildly for the remote control and eventually decided that this was something that merited a blog post.

Now before I continue I should probably state a couple of things. Firstly, this is not crime related (well not legally speaking anyway) so if you’re looking for discussion of the latest murder to pass through the Irish courts the links to the crime stuff are to the right of this piece.

Secondly The Little White Horse was my favourite book as a child. Yes, I know it was also J.K. Rowling’s favourite book but that’s not coming into this. This is post is not going to a model of journalistic balance and objectivity. Again if you want something more along those lines the links are to your right.

So The Little White Horse has always been a special book to me. I’ve always grown salmon pink geraniums because of a description in the book about a particularly idyllic kitchen; lions were always known as Wrolf after the large mysterious “dog” belonging to Sir Benjamin Merryweather; I used to have a toy cat called Zacariah…I could go on but risk sounding somewhat obsessed. Let’s suffice to say that that book was one of the first books I ever loved and has a special place because of it.

Not only that but it’s embedded itself so deeply that echoes of it have found their way into my writing. Maybe not the journalism (that would be a little odd) but when I’m writing fiction those echoes are there, in descriptions of food or clothes mainly I think. Those echoes have been a source of fascination as I edit the novel. I’m not talking about derivation here just the literary landscape your brain inhabits after a lifetime of reading.

Anyway, back to the film. I was delighted when I heard, a couple of years ago, that a film was being made of The Little White Horse. But wondered at the time how Hollywood was going to deal with a simple little story about not making knee jerk reactions and bothering to find out the truth. It’s quite an old fashioned book, written in the 1940s, with everyone pairing off at the end leading to a trilogy of weddings. The fantasy elements are actually quite subtle. I’d be the first to agree that it could probably do with a bit of delicate pruning for a modern audience but the film company has definitely thrown the baby out with the bath water.

Hollywood in it’s infinite wisdom has decided that this

Little White Horse Book Cover

doesn’t quite cut it. They’ve gone for this…

Secret of Moonacre Movie Poster

In the new version there is magic and mystery and major mutilations of the original plot. No character is safe. The hero has changed from a constant companion and childhood friend to a slightly dodgy bit of rough who’s had a full family transplant and is now the son of the villain of the piece. His mother, one half of the next generation of lovers, has become a weird priestess type who is no longer Robin’s mother. Wrolf is black for god’s sake! Lions just aren’t black! The changes are so blatant that even looking at the trailer or the poster shows up dozens of points that have been butchered. Rather than bothering to make a film of a much loved book the idiots have decided to make a generic sub-Harry Potter fantasy extravaganza that bears little or no relation to the original.

Now I will freely admit that I have not seen The Secret of Moonacre. I don’t intend to – I don’t like going to films that make me want to throw things at the screen and any that take such an ad hoc approach to a story I know so well are going to fall into that category. It might work as a stand alone film (or even a franchise apparently) but it’s not what it says on the tin.

I know stories get changed for films. I’ve had to think rather seriously about that over the past couple of months in relation to my own book and decided that it’s a necessary part of building a narrative. When I write something I’m writing a book. It doesn’t necessarily run along the same narrative tracks that a film would need to. I can take pages to describe something that can be shown in a second on screen but on the other hand I can go places films can’t, not having to worry about budgets and technology, just the limits of my imagination. The problem with a film like Moonacre though is that they’ve abandoned the original source material.

In a 2008 interview with Empire Magazine, director Gabor Csupo, whose previous credits include the Bridge to Terabitha, that he had decided to ramp up the adventure and magic end of things. He is quoted as saying “We didn’t want it to be like your typical costume movie…I told each department to just go for it, follow it to your wildest dreams so it looks just a little out of the ordinary.” Quite why they didn’t just write a completely separate story, change all the character names and go with that is beyond me.

But Little White Horse isn’t the only book that’s ended up this way. Even books as well known as Peter Pan have suffered from over zealous script writers. Despite the fact that J.M Barrie himself wrote a script of the story there has never been a film that simply stuck to the story, keeping the darkness of the original, not to mention the fact that it’s actually addressed to the parents rather than the children. The 2003 version directed by P.J. Hogan felt it necessary to add a snotty aunt to the Darling family entourage with the principal purpose of making Mr Darling a weak, bumbling character at odds with the traditional alter ego of Captain Hook (in theatre tradition the same actor invariably plays both parts). This spoilt an otherwise faithful translation of the book and the play and added an extra layer of fluff that simply wasn’t necessary. It’s a story that has never managed to make it onto the big screen without unnecessary changes. At this stage the film probably closest to the spirit of the book is a biopic of it’s author, Finding Neverland. I’m not even touching last years sorry attempt at Philip Pullman’s The Northern Lights.

I know that writing fiction and writing scripts are two entirely different disciplines but the basic narrative rules still apply. Hollywood has a habit of assuming their audience are popcorn munching imbeciles and, maybe some of them are, but that doesn’t mean you get to insult the rest. As Hollywood searches for the next blockbuster it’s always going to get a great deal of it’s stories from books. There will always be cases of sexing up, contracting and simplifying plots and amalgamating characters but it can either be done skilfully, such as Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy or the recent film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s book Stardust. These are films that have taken a book and trimmed it enough to keep the story flowing on screen but not sacrificed the original author’s voice.

I would be delighted if one day a major movie studio came looking for something I had written and I’m not big headed enough to think I would have any control whatsoever over what would happen once the contracts had been signed but I hope nothing I’ve written ever gets mutilated the way The Little White Horse has been.

On the Lack of Flea Markets in Dublin…

18th January 2009 / Abigail / 3 Comments

I was wandering around town yesterday, past the Cornucopia Restaurant (which reminds me, I haven’t been there in years, I wonder why) when a poster on the wall caught my eye.

I stopped in my tracks…could it be? Was it possible that at long last there was a flea market in Dublin again? Stopping in my tracks I wandered over to take a close look at the poster and saw that, yes indeed, there was a flea market in Dublin again and, even better than that, it will be on next Sunday.

When I got home I checked the website given on the poster and discovered that this was not to be an isolated event but will be happening every month – and I’d already missed the first two.

I should probably explain at this point why I get so excited about the prospect of rooting around other people’s discarded junk. Actually maybe this isn’t quite the time for that, I’m not going into my squirelling tendencies in a public forum like this! But seriously, I’ve often lamented the lack of flea markets in modern Dublin.

When I first moved here, in the early 90s there were several, scattered around the city centre. Mother Redcaps, The Dandelion, The Blackberry Fair were all favourite haunts and the source of most of my interior design in those impoverished days.

The Blackberry Fair in particular was where I found the 60s kitch cream cube of a tv that might have only been a black and white but for the 20 old Irish pounds I paid for it was all I could afford. It still works a treat by the way and with it’s rounded corners and polarising clip on screen is a little design classic that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a set from the Avengers or The Prisoner.

You could get anything there, from beanbags to 8-tracks to strange twisted bits of metal that could have been used for just about anything. I remember buying a massive ppine chest of drawers with a serious list to one side that I always meant to sand down and renovate but never got round to it.

Most people I knew in those days would have been advocates of what’s now known as shabby chic. It wasn’t because it was trendy back then, it was because it was cheap and quirky and there was always treasure to be found amongst the junk.

Going to a market at the weekend was a foraging mission like no other. You might have an idea what you were looking for but in the end you could literally come home with anything. Even looking around my living room now I can see a couple of vases and a 70s wooden lamp that were market finds.

I used to come home with bizarre finds – an antelope horn mounted in silver, oil lamps, a replacement lid for an old slow cooker. Not to mention the fantastic vintage clothes finds…

The problem was that when Dublin got rich the markets closed down one by one. The Dandelion was the first to go, followed a couple of years later by Mother Redcaps, there so long it was a Dublin institution. They closed because people had stopped coming and people were so busy with the bright shiny things they could now afford that they didn’t even mark their passing.

By the time the Blackberry Fair closed down nobody even murmured.

We had become too grand to root around in bric a brac. We didn’t want it if it wasn’t new and preferably designer. We’d go to markets if they sold organic vegetables or expensive crafts but the true flea market was just too messy and cheap to satisfy us anymore.

True, in recent years, websites like Freecycle and Jumbletown have sprung up to allow unwanted items to find a home but it’s not really the same.

There’s nothing quite like wandering around a collection of stalls with a steaming cup of tea in a polystyrene cup searching for overlooked treasure. Maybe it’s my seventies upbringing showing through but I’ve always loved renovating and customising and making do. I’m the kind of person that can’t walk past a skip without having a look.

But the markets that Dublin used to have suited the city. To be honest I think I prefer the somewhat grimier Dublin from those days. You could always get the designer stuff if you wanted it, Brown Thomas is hardly a new addition, but you had the rest as well.

Now as we head back into economic blackness the penny is beginning to drop that maybe we threw out the baby with the bathwater. It’s all very well having the luxury but if you don’t have the money you need to be able to get hold of the junk and get creative. These days there doesn’t seem to be much choice, it’s luxury or nothing in most places.

I’ll be going to the Dublin Flea Market next Sunday and I urge you to as well. Maybe if this one really takes off Dublin can see it’s markets flourish again and we can be skint with a bit more grace, after all these days, thanks to shows like Bargain Hunt on the BBC, everyone know you never know what you’re going to find among the jumble.

On the Enduring Attraction of Dr Who…

4th January 2009 / Abigail / 3 Comments

I ended up getting completely distracted yesterday afternoon by the impending announcement about the next actor to be cast in the role of Dr Who. I ended up in a texting conversation with the brother-in-law trying to guess the name as we both waited for the announcement to be made.

Ever since I can remember I’ve been mad about Dr Who. The earliest shows I can remember watching were part of that familiar Saturday evening line-up in the seventies…Basil Brush, Star Trek and Dr Who. The doctor was the stand out highlight. I like science fiction but I’m not a complete sci fi nut but with Dr Who it was different.

As a child of my time, I’m very much in the Tom Baker camp when it comes to naming my favourite Dr. It’s very much a matter of age since the series has been running for more than 40 years and the role itself has been played by ten different actors. Matt Smith, the new guy is number 11. Ask someone who their favourite doctor is or was and they’ll invariably mention the actor who played the part in their childhood so for me it’s Tom Baker, but the husband, being a few years older, leans towards John Pertwee. My nephews on the other hand, being eight and nine are firmly in the David Tennant camp, though at least their dad has made sure they’re familiar with the old series as well.

Forgive me if I’m sounding geeky, I’ve been a Dr Who geek long before the current hysteria. It was always the highlight of the week when I was small and I still look forward to the Christmas special with way too much enthusiasm. I might not hide behind the sofa these days but still find it easy to suspend disbelief and get into the adventure.

I can remember visiting friends and acting out our own scenarios. I seem to remember arguing to toss quite heatedly because I never got to play the doctor myself, reluctantly conceding that the doctor had to be a boy (something the show’s producers obviously agree on!). I remember how I cried when the robot dog K9 was retired for the first time to cheer loudly when Tom Baker wheeled in a large cardboard box stamped K-9 mark II.

The one toy I wanted to quite obsessional levels, and never got, was a battery operated K-9 like this one.

Years later, once the show was revived and the husband finally got me a remote control K9 – it quite made my Christmas – even if it had arrived almost thirty years late. For some reason the show had a special place in the imagination that no other science fiction show before or since has ever managed to quite match.

When a friend who was also an avid fan and used to act when he was younger got a part in a show with Patrick Troughton. I was far more jealous that he had got to act with a former Time Lord than over the fact he had a main part in a high profile tv series.

I think my appreciation has changed over the years. Since the new series started I watch it with as much appreciation for the writing as the whole Time Lord mythos. When I was a kid I wanted to be in Dr Who. I wanted to be a companion (once I got my head around the fact I couldn’t be the doctor) and take part in the adventures I watched every Saturday teatime.

These days I’d prefer to write the adventures. I’ve been known to daydream about how the circumstances might come about (once I’d managed to become a best selling author and media darling etc, etc, etc.). Well when you’re sitting in your pajamas in front of a blank page struggling to find the words you need for that first paragraph when the deadline’s far too close and you’re wondering why you ever got yourself into this in the first place, you need the odd carrot!

The idea of actually putting dialogue into the mouths of the doctor and his current companion is ludicrously attractive. To maybe write a classic episode that people remember just as I can still remember episodes that went out in the mid seventies.

But I’ll just have to keep dreaming about that. It’s not as if I’m even a script writer. But you never know. When I was a kid I never really thought I’d be an actual published author. And a person has to have ambitions!

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