It’s 20 years this week since the Berlin wall fell. A few years ago, as part of my Masters I interviewed Wim Wenders about his films and his memories of the cold war. It was a long (and heavily academic in tone) interview and so I won’t publish it all but when I asked him about his memories of the cold war, he said this:

“The cold war was a given thing. I was one of the few who had traveled to the Soviet Union, to Poland, to East Germany. I lived in West Berlin, then, a city encircled in an anti-fascist wall, as they called it.
I knew that communism was basically the reign of an ultra-bourgeois and mediocre
class that stuck to an ideology long outdated. I knew that they had to suppress
the working class they really pretended to represent.”

Well, quite.

My husband is guest blogging here today (promoting his new book of course).

I’ve been meaning to mention this blog for a while. It’s always worth a look. It’s one of those rarities that is updated every day and showcases new talent.

We’ve got a new baby in our flat, our little kitty, Rhymney (put on your best Newport council estate nicotine drawl and pronounce it ‘rumney’).

We’ve had her 6 weeks now and this photo was taken in the first few days of having her. She’s still a kitten but she pretty much looks full cat size now.

She’s settling in nicely and isn’t petrified of me anymore (she was for the first week or so and as I have next to zero cat experience I was equally nervous of her).

For the first few days she just hid behind the washing machine. Now she jumps up on me for a cuddle in the afternoons.

It’s funny how they establish routines so quickly. In the mornings she likes to hide under the bed and pounce on your feet. In the afternoons she likes to cuddle up to me and try to read what I’m doing on my laptop and when Mr Norman comes in from work just after six, she wants to play before settling down on his chest for a cuddle. Then, last thing at night, she likes jumping around on the duvet. Enough already! You can set a clock by her.

She’s particurlarly fond of nibbling feet and you have to be careful when you’re around her. Her uncle Louis let her sleep with him this weekend and I think she took a shine to his toes.

Anyway here are a few of her favourite things:

Tune: Ruby Lee by Bill Withers. (Perfectly moody for a slinky black cat padding around on all fours).
Food: Whiskers. Well, she doesn’t have much choice here, as we’re too tight to go for that expensive Waitrose stuff in a square tin with an aristocratic cat on the front.
Body Part: Male genitalia/toes. A close call.
Toy: Her pretend black mouse. Contains cat nip. (It must do. It’s really not that exciting otherwise. Rhymney finds it skin-blisteringly, psychotically exciting).
Time of day: When Daddy comes home. (She normally skids across the floorboards with delight).

Black cats rock and we love her.

Two words that make me swell a bit with pride: Andrea Arnold.

She’s being lauded as the next Ken Loach and there are similarities in texture and content with Kes in Fish Tank (which you must go and see) but it’s also original; while being depressingly predictable in places, the film still achieves something that isn’t easy to do, a running thread of ambiguity. We’re not convinced as to whether the girl at the centre of the story will find safety and some semblance of comfort or not. Deep down, we know she probably won’t.

Mia is a 15 year old girl, who drinks almost as much as her selfish and indifferent Mum. Her Mum’s ‘boyfriend’ is introduced into the film as abruptly for her as he is for us. He breezes into the kitchen, shirtless and makes a morning cup of tea and Mia doesn’t bat an eyelid which makes you wonder whether this isn’t an alien occurrence in that household.

Michael Fassbender, who plays her Mum’s boyfriend, Connor, treats Mia with some humanity (he’s kind to her when she shows up at his work unnanounced and takes care of a cut on her ankle. He puts her to bed and removes her shoes and trousers when she crashes out drunk but goes no further…) He quickly becomes significant to her as a kind of emblem of safety and Arnold chooses to make use of ‘Overcranking’ (where the shot is slowed down and the sound is heightened) when the two are alone together. There’s much that can be made of this choice. In a similar vein with Samantha Morton’s ‘the unloved’, there’s too much noise in Mia’s life, loud music blasting from the kitchen of her own house and those of her neighbour’s, shouting and screaming between family members and local kids…it’s distressing and unrelenting. When Connor is alone with her, the scenes are quiet, calm and almost emit a sense of discontinuousness. But, we’re not sure. He seems too good to be true and there’s sexual tension in the stillness.

Connor is encouraging towards Mia but he’s experienced and she’s not. He would have known that Mia’s dance audition would be for something seedy and we’re gently sifted into the worthless label he’s placed on her here before she realises. (She’s too decent for that kind of life, despite his low expectations of her and she actually leaves the audition before trying).

There’s always a story behind any family in a council flat that’s as complex, technicolour and linear as any story. There are small defiances and unexpected dignities taking place every day. Nobody should be invisible and especially not children. Good work AA.

It’s been an eventful year so far in this corner of the net. Among other things, a certain member of this household has a book out (available in WH Smiths, Waterstones and other outlets from Mondayish).

To be brief, I’ve lost the motivation to give this blog some welly but I’m still writing for various outlets, just not on this blog very often.

In the meantime I’ll mostly be stroking my new cat, Rhymney leading an exciting London life and enjoying reading what some of you have to say.

Just a fleeting thought for the day.

Off the top of your head, can you quote any Leonard Cohen? Do his lyrics or mutterings speak to you?

Despite loving his songs and lyrics, I can’t specifically quote more than a line or two from memory. But anyway, I came across this in a magazine today. It’s his musing on love and I thought it was very simple and quirky but still managed to touch you ‘right there’. Well, that’s what he does, isn’t it?

“We are made in love and in love we disappear. I don’t think anyone masters the heart. It continues to bubble and sizzle and cook like a shish kebab in everyone’s breast and no one gets a handle on it. I think one is vulnerable at any moment to those emotions.”

Well, why not listen to a man in beads?

These people don’t come from just anywhere you know. And it wasn’t just Sarah’s Mum who was a somebody, (ie a minor sixties actress), her Dad worked as assistant director on such Kubrick masterpieces as A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey (Cracknell was almost the baby in *that* opening shot). But her Dad was also in this advert, supping on a frothy pint (2.07 into the footage of a collection of Thames TV ads from the 70s). “All I remembered was the taste of bitter and washing up liquid all day.” Gosh.

Derek is the man drinking from the large pint.

I very much enjoyed reading Andrew Collins’ account of the Edinburgh Festival this year. It was a long blog piece that I wouldn’t normally plough through (I don’t like over-long blog pieces), but he’s a fine writer and despite previous reservations about some of the more jarring opinions on his blog, I found myself lost in his experiences.

I’ve never been to the Edinburgh festival but I’d like to go one year. I know just enough about comedy to know who are the industry’s darlings (the not especially ambitious, or in other words, genuinely funny writers and performers, Daniel Kitson for one) and I’ve mentioned before I don’t get the Boosh business at all, but some respected opinions find it creative and clever (David Quantick for one). I don’t know about that. I know I was immediately taken with the creativity and cleverness of Flight of the Conchords, which may partly be down to the humble, even if faux-humble attitude of the writers and performers. In contrast, I’ve always been a little (ok, a lot) suspicious of the Boosh boys. I’ve long been under the impression they’re more focused on fame than content. I could be wrong about this but it’s a gut reaction.

Part of the reason I’ve never been to Edinburgh, but have been to other comedy festivals (well, Brighton) is that I assume, as I don’t know anyone who lives in the city anymore, finding somewhere to stay would be near on impossible. People do manage to find somewhere to stay though, but this involves a lot of planning in advance. If I wanted to go, I’d need to be organised.

What I liked about Collins’ piece was the fondness and respect that glowed from the page for some of the female performers he saw (mainly Sarah Millican but others too) and I have to admit, I liked that. What was a bit harder to swallow was his contempt for some twitter pals he’d put a shout out to meet (buying friends to ease a lonely 2 hours basically) but in describing with too much repetition, his relief they didn’t have 3 heads apiece or weren’t mentally ill, kind of reaffirmed what some of us had long suspected; the ‘relationship’ between ‘celeb’ and ‘fan’ is an unequal relationship and no amount of manipulation under the rod of chumminess and ease of accessibility on these sites will change that anytime soon.

Why people follows ‘celebs’ on Twitter, I’ll never decipher (unless they work in a similar industry and need to request a favour from them, I can see how that may be useful). Otherwise, it could have been you Collins was sneering at and as his trip to Scotland was largely self-financed, that’s not a wholly satisfying thought.

‘Where are we going’? Pipes an eager child… ‘We’re going mad’ says Morrissey sneekily, with an almost Spider from Bad News, but a bit more genial, type of sarcasm.

Where is this leading? Hang on, this could get dark. I think we need a twee sounding (but perfectly accomplished) female vocalist to fill the role of missing 80s primary school teacher, to sit on the lawn and sing with them. Luckily, Sandie Shaw appears, to sing ‘Jean’ acoustic with them al fresco in Kew Gardens while Marr strums along on guitar.

It wasn’t quite this much fun the last time I went to Kew Gardens. In fact has anyone ever had this much fun in Kew Gardens?

It’s 1974. A hack has just been ticked off by a broadsheet editor for describing a female politician, in no uncertain terms, as not fanciable and a frumpy dresser. The reason he was ticked off: such observations are irrelevant and in bad taste. Also it’s 1974 and the feminist movement is well underway. ‘This isn’t The Sun’ the editor screeches. Keep that tabloid bile to yourselves. This is a serious newspaper’.

It’s 2009. A hack has not been ticked off by a broadsheet editor for describing a female politician, in no uncertain terms, as not fanciable. The reason he wasn’t ticked off: such observations are deliciously post-ironic. Also it’s 2009 and the feminist movement has long since become an irrelevance. Women can enjoy a bit of high-profile jostling can’t they? We know they do a serious job but there’s no way on earth they’ll mind being animated in this way. This is because they’re completely on equal terms these days. The ‘war’ has been ‘won’ and now women’s place in the workplace is not only one long yawn, but as an added bonus, we (men and women) can revert to 60s style attitudes because it’s amusing. We’re safe. Women don’t face any type of pay discrimination or bullying in the workplace or targeted bitterness under the guise of humour online or anywhere else for that matter. And don’t mind the talented women journalists who also write for this paper. They’re not embarrassed by association with this male contributor under the same umbrella in the least. We all work towards the same cause of this being a serious newspaper.