I'll Fetch My Umbrella

I've read more than my share of press releases this week, having just finished 5 days of work experience at the Leicester Mercury, and some were almost painfully dull, pretty much beyond turning into interesting news articles, but none frustrated or depressed me as much as a 46 word press release I stumbled across this afternoon.

It was on the Nottingham Forest official website and the first half read:

Nottingham Forest have announced this afternoon that they have terminated the contract of manager Billy Davies with immediate effect.

Now this didn't come as a particularly big surprise but it does frustrate me. There's been plenty of speculation as to whether Davies had a future at the club after another season of bickering with the board and eventual disappointment, falling short in the play offs for the second season running.

I myself wrote a post on the topic a few weeks ago and since writing nothing had happened to change my mind that he deserved another 6 months in the job and the full backing of the board. That second part was crucial for two reasons; firstly because our team desperately needs strengthening in several areas if we are to stand a real chance of promotion next year and secondly because if Davies made a few signings he would no longer be able to use that as an excuse and we'd finally have seen whether the problem was a lack of signings or Billy's tactics and attitude. Personally I think it's probably a bit of both but I'll never know for sure now.

Like I said, I feel Davies had earned a few more months to prove himself and Forest as serious contenders but he has spent the past two years publicly mouthing off at every opportunity about the Forest board and being a manager of a football club isn't any different to other lines of employment in that openly and constantly criticising your employer isn't a strong long term strategy.

However part of the reason that I was happy to give him a bit longer was that the market isn't exactly over flowing with replacements that would be improvements on the diminutive Scotsman. There are really only two managers out there who are currently unemployed and were even vaguely likely to be tempted to take up the City Ground post. First up was Chris Hughton, who I feel, as do an awful lot of Newcastle fans, was awfully treated by the Geordie club's owner Mike Ashley. He's a good tactician and an excellent man manager as well as coming across as a true gentlemen in all interviews; exactly the kind of guy I want associated with the club I love. The other option I'd have accepted would be considered ridiculous if it wasn't for his history with the club; Martin O'Neill. The man is a Forest legend for his time at the club as a player and I've read several accounts claiming that he wanted to come and manage the club around the turn of the millennium but couldn't reach an agreement with the board at that time.

Either of those taking the job would have made me feel that perhaps getting rid of Davies was the right move but it doesn't seem that's what the club have in mind.

That brings me to the second half of the press release and the part which really depressed me:

They have also revealed that they are now talking to Steve McClaren about The City Ground vacancy.

The Club will be making no further comment at this stage.

If as seems almost certain McClaren does takes the job (several papers are reporting it as almost a done deal with him due to be unveiled tomorrow) i can't help but see it as at best a sideways move and probably a backwards step. I want to try and reserve judgement, in no small part because initially i wasn't over the moon about Davies appointment 2 and half years ago and he proved me wrong, but i can't deny that my gut reaction reading that news was not positive.

I remember the desperately poor qualifying campaign for Euro 2008 all too well and I have no desire to see that kind of football played every Saturday afternoon by the team I support. I'm repeatedly reminding myself that he has had success at Middlesborough, though as I remember it came while playing painfully dull football, and FC Twente, where I have no idea how they played. I guess what it comes down to is that it's an appointment I just can't muster any excitement about. I can't shake the feeling that the board have decided to go for a manager that will cause them fewer headaches rather than one that will necessarily make us any more likely to gain promotion to the Premier League but only time will tell.

I've written before about the power Nottingham Forest have over me, their ability to make me both incredibly happy and incredibly sad and today's news has highlighted that; in 46 words they managed to make an already gloomy Sunday afternoon become depressing.

Today's song i may have posted before, i know i've definitely posted songs by this band a few times before, but they've sound tracked writing this blog and i am really loving both of their albums.

My Favourite Films (8/15) - Horror

Favourite Horror Film - 28 Days Later (Boyle, 2002)

I have never really considered myself a fan of horror films, it’s not a genre that I tend to seek out, but when faced with deciding what film would be my favourite from the genre I realised there were actually more contenders than I would previously have believed. To say it is one of my less favoured film forms it actually presented me with quite a challenge, whether to go for one of my favourite slasher movies, such as perhaps the original ‘Scream’, one of the ‘of the Dead’ series (either the original Romero ones or the 2004 Snyder effort), the simple but effective scares of ‘Paranormal Activity’ or the intensely claustrophobic fear of ‘The Descent’.

However despite realising my affection for all those films and a whole host of others I in the end realised that there could be only one film crowned as my favourite horror film; ‘28 Days Later’. Danny Boyle’s 2002 effort is the film that scared me in the most deep and lasting way, which in the end has to be the aim of any horror film.

Crucial to that is undoubtedly the UK setting; shots of London abandoned and the motorways empty will always strike more fear into my heart than any portrayal of an American city in a similar state ever could; I have walked those streets and driven down those roads, the scenery and location is familiar and so to see it destroyed carries more weight.

’28 Days Later’ is not strictly speaking a zombie film, the threat are humans infected with a ‘rage’ virus which fills them with adrenaline to the extent that they become mindless killing machines, acting like zombies to an extent, but they are not reanimated corpses and so therefore can’t be considered true zombies. However I often consider it to be so because the narrative elements are the same as in zombie films; cities abandoned, small strongholds of survivors, crazed flesh-eating monsters and unlikely people thrust into being heroes.

It’s one of the trends of the modern zombie film, that the creatures are no longer the shambling cripples of the Romero originals, they run now, often as fast or faster than the surviving humans can hope to get away. The infected act without thought beyond the primal urges to feed and to fight and so they make for a terrifying threat to the hero; they are brutal and animalistic, yet undoubtedly still human. A human threat, no matter how inhumane they may act, will always be scarier than some fictional demon or creature because they raise questions, whether consciously or not, of the limits of human cruelty and barbarism.

So a human threat in a familiar location makes for a good horror film in concept but it requires the execution to live up to the idea. Luckily though ‘28 Days Later’ is a film executed with near perfection by Danny Boyle. The look of the film is superb with the opening scenes in London of bicycle courier Jim, played by Cillian Murphy, brilliantly realised; there’s a chilling quality to seeing the streets of London silent, to seeing one of the iconic red, double-decker busses on its side and to seeing walls covered in missing persons posters.

There’s several stand out moments, from a church wall daubed with the most perfect graffiti “Repent, the end is extremely fucking nigh”, to the final showdown set to John Murphy’s incredible score, via an almost unbearably tense scene in a dark tunnel with silhouettes of the infected drawing ever closer, preceded by a tide of rats.

The entire film is an example of where plot, script, cinematography and soundtrack all came together to create an almost faultless piece of cinematic entertainment.

No review of a horror film can be complete without considering the impact it had on me; I can’t remember ever feeling such a deep and intense discomfort after watching a film as this, it unnerved me completely and I remember struggling to sleep the night I first watched it, aged 13 or 14, almost convinced that I would wake up the next morning to find that the world of the film had become the real world. Lying there trying to get to sleep every noise from the street outside was, to my freaked out mind, obviously an infected that was going to try and break into my house and kill me. That has to be the mark of a good horror film; if you are left fearing being killed in your sleep then the film has done its job.

The song today is one i've posted before, in a blog about my love of zombie films actually, but as well as being the soundtrack to one of my favourite sections of '28 Days Later' it is also just a damn good piece of music.

My Favourite Films (7/15) - British

Favourite British Film - This is England (Meadows, 2006)

Compared to a lot of genres I’ve considered in the past week or two, the choice of my favourite British film was ultimately a very simple decision. There were only two contenders and as I’d already decided that the other option was going to be my favourite horror film (probably obvious but I won’t explicitly say which film that is until I get round to that genre), it was an easy choice to decide on ‘This is England’ as my favourite film made by a British director, filmed in Britain and to it’s very core British.

‘This is England’ is one of the most powerful films I’ve ever watched; Shane Meadows has that crucial skill that all great film makers need, the ability to fill his films with characters you connect with and care about, often despite them being the bad guys.

It’s a tale of a young boy named Shaun (played with incredible subtlety and precocious skill by Thomas Thurgoose, who was only 14 when the film was made and in his first acting role) who is first taken in by a group of well intentioned older teenagers, then introduced to the world of nationalism and racial hatred by the arrival of Stephen Graham’s Combo.

At its core ‘This is England’ is a classic tale of innocence corrupted, set in a period of English history where innocence and optimism were in short supply, the 1980s and Thatcher’s Britain. Meadows’ vision of the 1980s is grim, full of identikit grey council homes, over cast skies and racist bigotry, but it isn’t without bright points; the camaraderie between Shaun and the group that takes him in, led by the charismatic Woody and his best friend Milky is full of joyous moments that capture the intensity of finding a place where you belong.

It is the way in which Shaun drifts away from this group towards Combo and his National Front ideology that forms the heart-breaking centre of this film. As mentioned earlier the film is a tale of lost innocence and Meadows makes his audience want to protect Shaun from the world by introducing him in a pair of scenes which establish that his father had died serving in the Armed Forces during the Falklands conflict and that he gets bullied by other kids at school.

By creating that protective feeling he makes the moments where Shaun starts sprouting racist statements so filled with anguish. We’re given a personal stake in the scene and so it makes it all the more painful to watch this young boy slide into a world full of hatred and anger.

This brings me to the other key theme of ‘This is England’; anger. Meadows was a teenager in the 80s, growing up in the midlands and I can’t help but wonder if he is channelling some of his own personal experiences into the film. ‘This is England’ is full of anger, anger lacking worthwhile direction so aimed at the easiest targets, immigrants. It’s an anger at a lack of opportunities for the white, working class, an anger at the fact that the generation growing up in the 80s saw the promise of the baby boomer generation go unfulfilled and an anger at feeling powerless to change your own situation.

Therein lies the genius of the film. I don’t want to spoil the film or the TV sequel, ‘This is England 86’, which incidentally would be a strong contender for my favourite piece of British Television, but I want to write a separate blog about that someday. However I will say that if you are hoping that Combo will be a straightforward bad guy you may be left feeling a little disappointed. Meadows and the fantastic Stephen Graham make sure that Combo never becomes a caricature of a National Front supporter; here is a character so filled with pain and frustration that despite the disgraceful acts he carries out you can’t help but feel some sympathy for him, even if merely that he’s become this man.

It’s a film full of sweet moments contrasted by brutal ones and what better metaphor for growing up could there be than that. It’s moving in the way cinema really should be; challenging, honest, complicated and passionate and I struggle to think of too many films of any genre that achieved more of an emotional impact on first watching. It’s one of those rare films that left me rooted in my seat as the end credits rolled, accompanied by a beautiful cover of the Smiths song ‘There is a light that never goes out’ and then a glorious bit of solo piano from Ludovico Einaudi, a man who is a favourite of the director. I didn’t want to move and leave the world of the film, so fascinated and emotionally invested as I was by this point and it’s not often you find a film that can do that to you. I’m one of the biggest advocates of the escapism of film but as soon as the credits appear on screen I tend to snap out of it, immediately wanting to move onto the next part of my day, but not with ‘This is England’, instead I wanted to think about it, to work out how I felt and just extend the viewing experience a little longer. Surely that’s what you want from a great film?

Today's song is another that features on the excellent soundtrack for the film, but it's a little more upbeat than the two mentioned above.

Lies and Confusion

So today i have to write a story that's surprised me quite a lot, one i really don't know what to make of yet and perhaps won't be able to for quite a while.

As i stated in my blog on Tuesday evening the Syrian blogger that i have admired the work of Amina, was reported to have been arrested by the Syrian security forces. There is still no news on the location or condition of her and i will be sure to report anything when i read it.

However what is unusual and unnerving is that there is now a lot of speculation as to whether Amina is who she says she is. A number of newspapers have now taken a photo (below) off of their website that they were previously stating was Amina after a girl from London claimed that it was actually a photo of her.

Jelena Lecic, from London, claims that the photos used all over the internet in the past week as a picture of Amina are actually of her. So far that hasn't been confirmed but it's only added to the speculation as to the identity of the Syrian blogger.

Then there's the fact that the American embassy in Syria can't find any record of a woman by her name in Damascus, so aren't able to offer consular assistance to the woman, if she is in prison and is actually an American citizen.

Since the speculation began earlier today a large number of national newspapers, internet bloggers and interested neutrals have been scrambling to find some proof of the girl's identity. People want to know whether there even is a half American, half Syrian lesbian writer and revolutionary. I'm one of those people; the thought had occurred to me that she seemed almost too good to be true but she seems so real, honest and detailed in her posts. I'm not going to speculate too much but the evidence on The Guardian and Andy Carvin's twitter feed isn't filling me with confidence that this won't turn out to be some sort of hoax. I'm going to leave the investigative journalism and speculation to people who have a greater level of experience, contacts and incentive (i.e they're getting paid to find out this stuff, i'm tired after a few days of work experience).

That does bring up the next question, is it a hoax being executed by someone who is not even in Syria, or is it a deliberate effort by the Syrian blogger to create a false trail so as to keep the security forces away. I really hope it's the latter because i'd find it quite depressing to learn that it was all someone just writing fiction. The blog posts were seriously inspirational and challenging, arguing about some of the big issues facing the Arab spring, Islam and homosexuality in general.

There is a perfectly good possibility that it is just a deliberate effort on the writer's part to try and avoid detention; writing under pseudonyms and under a false identity is fairly standard procedure when writing in a situation where there is a very real chance of violent repercussions for speaking out against a repressive regime. The worrying fact is that if it is a pseudonym, unless her family comes out with the real name, thus confirming the Syrian security forces suspicions that they've got the right person, it will be impossible for the world to put real pressure on the Syrian government to release her.

If it does turn out to be a hoax then I don't feel any shame in having been taken in by the lie, if it is an impostor then they have fooled the majority of the Western media.

Until i see anything resembling proof i'm going to do my best to reserve judgement either way but it's tough when i've invested quite a bit of interest and affection in the blog and drawn a huge amount of inspiration from the story of the brave, determined Syrian who kept blogging even after it became clear that the Syrian authorities were aware of her and trying to track her down.

The one conclusion it seems overly stubborn to refuse to arrive at is that it seems unlikely whoever the 'Gay Girl in Damascus' is, she's probably not called Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari.

I hope that all of the political prisoners in Syria are released and there somehow is some kind of positive solution to the unrest as on top of the obvious benefits of potential democracy and a decrease in violent repression, there's the chance that we will get some answers on this topic. Sadly however i suspect that it will be nowhere near that clear cut, because in the world of political unrest, oppressive governments and the potential anonymity of the internet, nothing is ever that clear cut.

Today, instead of one song i'm going to post a link to a Guardian page where they are streaming the new eponymous Bon Iver album in it's entirety. It's well worth a listen, in my opinion a little more varied than the superb first album, but i'm not certain after only hearing it once whether that's a change for better or for worse.

A Christmas Lacking in Festive Cheer

Extremely short post today as i'm tired, have an early start tomorrow and didn't mean to leave it this late until writing.

I'm simply going to post a quick review of a film i watched with my house mate last night.

Black Christmas (Morgan, 2006)

Crimson stained snow, stranglings by fairy lights and film history's least appetising Christmas cookies; 'Black Christmas' is a film that revels in tarnishing as many holiday traditions as it can.

It is one of those films that is so bad it becomes enjoyable. It's a horror film set in a sorority house on Christmas eve and deals with a maniac escaping from a mental hospital and returning to his old home, now the sorority house, and attempting to kill the girls off one by one. The maniac's name is Billy and compared to some horror films he's actually given some back story as to how he became quite so homicidal, with his childhood involving initially neglect and then treatment that makes the neglect look almost like good parenting. You almost begin to develop some sympathy for his character, a surprising emotional connection that you wouldn't expect from a film like this, only for that to be ruined by a particularly grisly bit of Christmas cooking.

The film is full of moments that will mean you'll never look at a number of iconic Christmas objects and traditions in the same way. The film reminded me of 'Home Alone' in some ways, with brutal violence being inflicted in a big house with an improbable number of hiding places; just in 'Black Christmas' decides to take the Christmas themed antics but turn the gore up to 11. Every possible moment is drawn out and made as blood drenched and gory as possible; resulting, as so often is the case, with you having reached saturation point in terms of being freaked out long before the film builds to a climax.

In fact it's pretty much threats and violence from the very beginning with none of the lengthy build up to the first attack that is so customary in horror films to build up the tension; Morgan seems disinterested in ramping up any real anxiety in his audience, the few moments where the on screen violence lets up and we are allowed time to wonder what will happen next are hamstrung by characters who are seemingly desperate to fall into the exact kind of horror clichés that the 'Scream' series parodied. There were two or three moments in the film where you will be almost willing the maniac to get some of the people in the house, they're that stupid and annoying, though i doubt that was the director's intention.

Maybe it's just me personally, but when horror is done this badly it becomes enjoyable in it's own right, almost like it's an inadvertent parody of the genre, and when viewed in that light 'Black Christmas' is great. Watch it with friends and spot the plot holes, shake your head at the infinitely flawed decision making and cross your fingers that you never have a Christmas as bad as this, in either sense.

2/5 or 4/5 (dependant on how you choose to watch it)

To finish the blog today is a favourite song of mine, definitely one of the best to come out of the 1990's.