Back to the Bennetts

A few months ago I developed sciatica, and I’ve had referral to a physiotherapist. I was there yesterday, as a matter of fact.

One of my biggest problems is my posture. I have a strong tendency to slump (apparently I also go constantly to one side – when I consciously straighten up I actually feel like I’m falling to the right. Weird. Anyway…) and I imagine I’m not alone. So the physio – Jenny, who’s lovely – has been trying to correct my posture. I have been taught how to stand, walk and sit straightly (another aside – I could actually learn an awful lot about this from my ten month old daughter…) and while I was practicing this in the clinic, I caught sight of my reflection in the window. I could have been starring in THE Pride and Prejudice.

Did you ever notice how straight-backed the girls were in that, especially Jane (which fits with her very proper character)? A result of underwear, yes, but also a lot of emphasis placed on deportment and carriage. Why do we not get the same emphasis now? When I was at school, being a hoarder who carried a ridiculous amount of STUFF around in my schoolbag, I was sometimes warned about posture by my mum but there was no real push to walk properly. In fact, it actually looks a bit odd to stand and walk tall, if not downright arrogant. It certainly feels odd. I know that to an extent that emphasis on deportment comes very much with the upper classes, and the need to present women as graceful and elegant; I have no real way of knowing if that is still the case today. And on the same lines, Regency working class women will not have had the same importance placed on deportment as the aristocracy. But I do think that deportment has been pushed firmly off most people’s priorities, perhaps even seen as frivolous or ‘posh’; it has a ring of ‘finishing school’ about it.

I’m not at all convinced this is a Good Thing. Why has it happened? I have a (totally unfounded on anything other than my own conjecture) theory that part of women’s emancipation, shedding restrictions such as corsets, led to us also shedding less tangible restrictions. We had the freedom to lounge like men, so we did. We felt free to focus on more important matters and dismiss carriage and posture as less so. We scoff at Victorian women, for example, distorting themselves to get a 10 inch waist in whalebone corsets, but the modern freedom I have to wear more relaxed clothes and slouch all the time is causing me harm too, and I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t have got away with it in a stricter age. I’m only 30, and I have back trouble – that’s not meant to happen! I do know that I am going to have to work very hard to get the posture that Jane Bennett had, and even if I do manage to train myself into it, I’ll look odd, unnatural, and I’ll definitely feel that way. It might be better for me, it might (and does) make me look far slimmer, but it just doesn’t feel right.

I personally think that women’s rights include the right to be, well, frivolous sometimes. It’s accepted pretty widely now that it’s not a cliche, we actually do like (in general) make-up, clothes, shopping. We like other things too, but there’s no shame in being girly. I like pink, I like my daughter in pink. (Aside – you probably saw some episode of QI where they discussed the fact that blue and pink for boys and girls is a modern thing. Fascinating. anyway…) I hope she likes pretty dresses when she’s able to choose her own stuff. And I hope I can learn from my mistakes and  encourage her to walk upright and hold her head high. Then not only might she feel proud of herself, she might escape my back problems.

Besides, it’s also a girl’s prerogative to pretend she’s a Bennett girl.

I Have a Dream…

Do you know what I would really like? What would be amazing and brilliant and fantastic and… ok, ok I’ll get on with it.

A North East Writing Festival. Yes, I know there’s one in York in March, but hear me out, please?

I’m not in the poorest bracket of people in the country, in many ways I’m very lucky. But we’re a one-salary household with two small children, and I just do not have the money to go to something as wonderful as York Festival of Writing. I wanted to, but that’s the way the cookie (or stale bread crust, cue the violins) crumbles. And York is probably my closest option – something like Oxford or Get Writing in Hertfordshire are out of the question; even if the conference / workshop fees were in my range, the cost of actually getting there would make it simply impossible. That’s only going to get worse, since fuel prices are creeping – no, not creeping, soaring up.

The thing is, I always knew that. I always knew that there were wonderful conferences and events where you had the option of workshops and meeting authors and suchlike, and I always assumed that they cost what to our family is a small fortune. I’m not totally unreasonable, I completely agree that anyone agreeing to lead the workshops etc needs to be paid and needs to have their expenses covered. But last year I got a shock. I was on Twitter (I know, what a shocking revelation) and I happened to notice Nicola Morgan tweet that one of her workshops in the Edinburgh Book Festival still had some spaces (btw if you don’t follow Nicola on Twitter or at her blog, do. Incredibly useful.). Out of daftness I clicked through to see how much it was and nearly fell off my seat – I can’t remember the price but it was something like £5. £5?! For a workshop with a prolific and talented author? And as I looked through the Festival programme all the workshops seemed to be the same sort of price. That’s it, I was off…until I saw that the travel and accommodation put it back out of reach. I couldn’t afford the train and the National Express times meant I would have to stay in Edinburgh overnight.

So imagine my excitement when I heard about the York Festival! I assumed it was the same sort of idea, but, y’know, in York. Sadly for me, it’s not; it’s the sort of thing I would have imagined before seeing the Edinburgh events. And I do not for one minute think it’s not worth every penny – believe me, if I had the money I’d have been booked as soon as the tickets went on sale. Every event looks amazing, nearly every facilitator is someone I’d be over the moon to meet, and one day, one day, I will go. But it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t, and I assume there’s a canny few who are in the same boat. Excuse the colloquialism, I’m getting to the North East bit now…

My dream, then, is to have a North East Festival of Writing, or Books, or Literature – however you want to describe it. Along the same lines as Edinburgh – individual workshops. The thing is, there are loads of talented writers around here but we are a relatively deprived part of the UK and we are a relatively neglected part of the UK. Here’s my, er, manifesto:

The NE Festival would be:

  • accessible: venues in Newcastle City Centre; perhaps also in Durham or Teesside. But Newcastle has such good transport links it is the most feasible.
  • varied: I envisage events with authors, publishers and agents, covering submissions, writing tips, Q&A, book signings, critiques…
  • sociable: alongside the individual events I’d have picnic lunches for participants (giving the speakers some rest time!) and extra dinners on Friday and Saturday night
  • affordable: my rough idea would be a blanket charge to cover entry to 3 days of events and two social dinners (“networking opportunities”!) BUT because that would be a substantial fee, I’d also charge a small amount per individual event – maybe up to £10 – and per social, so you could kind of mix and match your own Festival based on your budget. And people bringing a picnic lunch, for example, would keep costs down too.
  • locally-biased: I wouldn’t include accommodation in the overall fee. This would mean that a)prices were kept down as much as possible and b)more local writers were encourage to come. Although if any hotels wanted to do a deal and discount prices for attendees I wouldn’t say no…
  • fair: I’d cover all fees and expenses of the attending speakers. Well, not me personally. You know what I mean.

Now obviously, it’s a HUGE ask. I really do think it would be worthwhile though – I think a lot of writers from the North East would jump at the chance to go to such a Festival; or, of course, from anywhere in the country – you’d just have to sort yourselves out with a bed for the night. Ooh, or we could make it the Glastonbury of writing, and have people camp out, with a big marquee for events… *mind off on another track*

Ahem. Anyway, I’m off to research charitable trusts for the Arts to see if I can persuade anyone to fund this brainwave. Wouldn’t it be good, though? What would you put in, if you were organising the line-up? Any thoughts? But the first person to say it’ll never happen gets a rotten tomato thrown at them. A girl can dream…

Stuck in the Mud

The woman tried to move her feet. However much she wriggled and jiggled her legs, they wouldn’t free. She stood up straight, hands pushing into the small of her back, closing her eyes with a weary sigh.

On every side the world moved around the mud puddle. Children danced and ran, energy pouring out of them and towards her in torrents, but the torrents died away to drips before they reached the mud puddle. Busy busy people power-walked, focused, in a straight line towards a goal she couldn’t see. Where their so-straight path crossed her puddle, it veered around the outskirts, as if repelled by the negative power like a magnetic forcefield.

She tried again to get free but her struggles only seemed to suck her further in. The mud crept up her leg, cold and dark, and she shivered. She started to call out for help. She called louder and louder; no-one heard, although every now and then someone would stop and look around them as if bothered by something they couldn’t quite work out. Shaking their heads, they always moved on.

To her left she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a dark cloud beginning to crawl over the sky. She sobbed once and the breath caught in her throat with the cold. Her legs were aching from the effort of holding her increasingly heavy body up, and she slumped, her hands resting on her thighs taking as much of her weight as they could. Shallow breaths turned to droplets in the damp air. As she began to give up her hands slid down her legs. She jerked herself up for one last look at the world around the mud puddle and saw, in the distance, other people stuck in their own puddles. One caught her eye and they smiled humourlessly at each other. He waved at her, and began to raise his leg. She watched him wobble as he managed to free first one foot, then the other, stepping out of his puddle and striding away, mingling into the crowd with only a watery brown mudstain on his clothes as evidence of his entrapment.

She gritted her teeth, grinding them until they hurt and her jaw was locked in place. She stared down at her legs and willed her foot to lift free of the slime around it. It began to move; still sucked under the surface but starting to shift slightly. At the edge of the circle the man stood waiting; he’d returned for her. Every ounce of strength was forced into that obedient leg and it juddered free. She took big sticky steps, wading through the treacly mud with aching slowness until she finally stood with one foot poised to step into freedom. She looked back over her shoulder at the ever-present, threatening dark cloud and then turned, put each foot in turn onto solid ground.

She stretched in the sunshine and revelled in the warmth seeping into her skin, like a lazy cat on some Mediterranean tiled roof. Her eyes narrowed against the brightness and the colour.

Then she walked away.

Belle

from nopo_11 on PhotobucketThere’s a scene in Moulin Rouge which is possibly in my top ten film scenes ever – The Emergency Rehearsal. Christian (Ewan MacGregor)is unexpectedly pitching the show they need finance for to The Duke, and he says it’s about love. The Duke sneers until Harold hastily adds more licentious details. Well, excuse me, M. le Duc, but I’m with Christian when he says “Love is a many-splendoured thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love.” I reckon some of the most powerful stories in the world are love stories, and some of the most beautiful songs in the world are love songs. Not the watered-down number 1’s produced by cloned boy bands but real, moving songs. Which, funnily enough, can often be found in musicals.

Take “Love Changes Everything” – it talks of the contradictory way you feel when you’re in love, the way it transforms you for ever, and the song just soars and takes you with it. I think I want it played at my funeral – obviously the Michael Ball version (is there another?).

Obviously there’s the whole range of love – romantic love, parental love, love of country or a cause… all of these have been covered spectacularly in musicals. Off the top of my head, Love Changes Everything from Aspects of Love, I’d Give My Life for You from Miss Saigon and Do You Hear the People Sing? from Les Misérables respectively. What I’m really looking at in this post is different ways romantic love manifests itself, as demonstrated spectacularly in Notre Dame de Paris by Richard Cocciante and Luc Plamondon. I don’t think it’s widely known in England although it did have a run in London with Dannii Minogue, and was featured on the Royal Variety Show one year. It’s not one of the blockbusters anyway, although it deserves to be – it’s stirring, powerful and has a modern edge whilst retaining the atmosphere of the time in which it’s set. (Quick disclaimer – to my shame I haven’t yet read Victor Hugo’s original book, so all references to story and characters here are entirely based on the musical).

The story features Esmeralda the gypsy and the three men who love her in their different, yet ultimately destructive, ways. Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bellringer, who loves her the most unselfishly and tries to protect her; Frollo the priest, whose lust overcomes his morals and eventually leads to Esmeralda’s execution; and Phoebus, the Captain of the King’s Archers who selfishly pursues her and takes advantage of her love for him despite being betrothed to another girl, and who betrays Esmeralda when she needs him even though she has risked her life to love him. These three men show the different facets of their love in the song Belle, in which they variously turn their back on the Church that has sheltered them, their priestly vocation and vows and their vows of fidelity to another woman. It’s the first time you get to know exactly how each of them feel about Esmeralda, whilst I have an image of her flitting just out of reach. It shows the power a woman could have over men even in an age dominated by man – each man is completely enthralled by her and breaks the rules they have set themselves in an effort to claim her.

Quasimodo alone recognises her free spirit – “A bird stretching out its wings to fly” is how he describes her at one point. His is the ultimate unrequited love, and he actually does die of a broken heart. He is the only one who wants what’s best for her even though he longs for her so much, to the extent that he murders the man who has raised him, the only one who has ever shown concern for him until now. His love for Esmeralda overcomes the love he has for Frollo, who he loves “more than any dog ever loved its master”. I think if you really want a heartbreaking love song, you could do worse than listen to Quasimodo’s Dieu Que Le Monde Est Injuste (God You Made the World All Wrong in the english version) – on YouTube here (ignore that the title says Vivre). Garou’s voice is perfectly imperfect as he mourns his own hopeless situation, the contrast between his ugliness and poverty, Esmeralda’s beauty and Phoebus’ wealth and handsomeness.

Frollo is the Bad Guy. In Belle he blames Esmeralda for inciting his own lustful thoughts. He basically admits that he wants to break his celibacy vows, he knows how wrong it is, yet it is Esmeralda who “is the devil incarnate” and who carries the weight of original sin. Belle is a foreshadow of Tu Vas Me Detruire where he sings of being torn apart by his obsession, of how he thought himself as hard and cold but consumed by lust and haunted by the gypsy’s eyes. And again he he blames Esmeralda and curses her. In the end, of course, he does destroy himself, and Esmeralda and Quasimodo alongside him. If Quasimodo’s is the ultimate unrequited love, Frollo’s is the ultimate destructive love.

Phoebus is a bit of git, really. I found when listening to first the English then the French, that Phoebus is far more sympathetic and distraught in the English. In the French he is much more calculating, quite determined to have his cake and eat it. His part in Belle sets out his plan to be unfaithful to Fleur de Lys and his fairly slimy nature comes up again and again in the show. In Le Val D’Amour he reveals that he frequently sleeps with prostitutes; in Déchiré he describes himself as ‘torn apart’ to a gang of his soldiers but he’s loving every minute of it. He also shows how little he knows of Esmeralda – despite the fact that she is young and innocent, he sees her as a stereotypical gypsy and mistakes her exotic-ness for loose morals. He shamelessly exploits her love but casts her aside for the wealth and stability of Fleur de Lys, leading to Esmeralda’s death. Phoebus shows the ultimate selfish love; and you just know that it’s not going to end well, however much Esmeralda wants to “live for the one she loves”.

I haven’t touched here on the fraternal love of Clopin or the platonic love of Gringoire the poet. But it’s indisputable that the power of this story is due to the importance of love.

Despite what The Duke thinks.

Here’s Belle. And if that’s a bit intense, let’s finish where we started, with the gorgeous Christian in Moulin Rouge.

Belle on YouTube Elephant Love Medley on YouTube

Shoes

We reached a landmark for Emily a couple of days ago, her first shoes. She’s been standing for ages, cruising round furniture for weeks and trying to push her walker frames for about a fortnight, and her little pram shoes just weren’t giving her the support she needs. So, off we trotted to Clarks.

Now, I remember this was incredibly exciting for us when we got Daniel’s first shoes. We did the whole posing for a Polaroid (which, by the way, have gone very downhill since Daniel was done three years ago. A small sticker with very poor resolution. Anyhoo…), deliberating over choice and choosing the cutest and best fitting pair. Being a boy, the colours were mostly dark blues, browns, etc and all shoes pretty much went with all his outfits.

Oh, how different for a little girl! I had already looked ahead and seen some very pretty shoes in the “Cruising” range; although the ones we really wanted were “Crawlers” and not supportive enough. I wanted them to go with everything she had, to be pretty, not too bubblegum-my, and did I mention pretty? Sadly, because she’s a very young walker, her feet are still quite small and the only two styles that fit in the “Cruising” range were either a plastic-y, trainer-y sort of thing (no thank you, we’re not quite ready to do the Great North Run yet) or the ones we got. They’re in the photo. They’re also in black and white because they are a little bit TOO pink. Candy floss pink, not a nice raspberry or pale rose. Not really what I was after, but they fit. They also have helped her, she’s gained confidence in walking in just a couple of days. So I was silly to be upset, which I was. Just a little.

The thing is, which possibly men (most men; I hesitate to generalise) don’t understand, is that shoes finish a girl off. The right shoes make you feel confident, help you walk taller, complete an outfit, complement your personality. Heck, they can even make you look slimmer (by helping your posture). A girl’s first shoes should be the magical start of a lifelong love affair.

Trying to be so noble about her shoes, bless her...

Sadly, my shoes were never any of those things. I have the most awful feet – long, thin and shallow. I was condemned throughout childhood and adolescence to have sensible shoes, black or navy with laces when I longed for pretty slip-ons or lovely buckles. The closest I came, I have no idea how old I was (9?10?) was a pair from Clarks. They were advertised on tv, with a little girl going through a secret doorway with a magic key, and the shoes had the key in the soles. I adored these, I think I walked on air when I managed to get a pair that fit. Then in no time I outgrew them.

Adulthood has brought the freedom to ruin my feet with shoddily fitting shoes but alas, not the money to buy them with. So I still have to be sensible in my shoeshopping. Luckily, I thought, I now have a daughter. I can live out my shoe-love-life vicariously through her.

So it was a horrible flashback when, in the middle of Clarks, I had to choose between what sensible and pretty shoes again. I’m quite sure a therapist could have a field-day with my overreaction to the whole event, but there you go. On the positive side, Emmy is only 9 months old. We have time, my precioussss…