Morocco: Where the Mans and the Womans are Equal

I've always been a little skeptical of organised tours, where guides force some cliched aspects of the local "culture" upon you, often at inflated expense, while you slowly drown in post-colonial guilt. Morocco, as I expected, was no exception.

I've been on quite a few organised tours because they're easier and take the hassle and stress out of the equation. I would not, for example, fancy driving in the Atlas Mountains; I wouldn't know how to say "my car has fallen off a cliff" in Berber, for a start. So, after two days of being hassled into oblivion on the crowded and frankly not especially inviting streets of Marrakech, a city which seemed to have deliberately honed an atmosphere of chaotic, eclectic authenticity to inauthentic perfection then thrown in a Club Med and the ever-lingering prospect of catching e-coli for good measure with, I feel, unappealing results, we headed off into the Ourika Valley.

We were a strange and no doubt depressingly common convey – seven four by fours full of lobstered tourists in embarrassing sunhats, hurtling conspicuously along in a country where every second hand Mercedes in the world has gone to die, been painted beige and turned into a taxi.

Our first stop was a pottery, seemingly in the middle of a field surrounded by bored-looking goats. Inside the sole potter made a very small pot while we all stood and watch obediently. “In Morocco,” our guide said, somewhat out of context “All the mans and the womans are very equal. In Morocco,” he elaborated, as though he felt we needed a concrete example, “We do not have the polygamy.” He beamed proudly. The potter finished his pot and added it to a pile of identical pots probably made for identical group of tourists. “Now you shop,” said the guide, an order rather than an offer. The potter got some Tesco bags ready, and the sunhatted lobsters began to haggle enthusiastically while we loitered by the minibus. “The man is very sad,” mused the guide, making conversation. “He has nobody to leave his business to after he is dead, as he has no son, only daughter.”

Village in the Atlas Mountains

We headed on up into the mountains in a scene worryingly reminiscent of the final few moments of The Italian Job, skidding heart-stoppingly close to the edge of a sheer drop as the driver steers with one hand and texts into an old Nokia with the other. Our next stop was a small village high in the hills. “Here,” our guide said, as we clambered out of the cars on wobbly legs and check all our limbs were still intact, “We go to genuine Berber house, and you meet genuine Berber family.” We looked over to where a large group of tourists were traipsing out of the Genuine Berber House, being waved to be people I assumed were the Genuine Berber Family. They got into their Genuine Four By Fours. “That is a dog,” the guide said, unnecessarily, pointing to a dead labrador and clearly feeling that, as a guide, he should do as much guiding as possible. “Here is genuine Berber kitchen,” he announced, and we all peered into an unassuming kitchen where a Genuine Berber Woman posed for photos while holding a Genuine Kettle. “And now, we have tea!”

“There is tradition of hospitality for Berber people. If you come to visit Berber family they will invite you in and they will make you tea and food. This is central to Berber tradition.” We trudged into the back yard where, as if to prove his point, twenty seats were already set out, presumably on the offchance that some visitors turned up wanting tea. Miraculously, this Genuine Berber Family also had twenty matching glasses all ready for these unexpected guests. Then followed an elaborate ritual performed by Muhammad, a Genuine Berber Man, with copious quantities of fresh mint and water poured out of a series of highly decorate, ornate jugs. Our guide kept up a running commentary throughout: “Why you think Muhammad so happy? Why Muhammad always smiling?” Because he’s getting paid to show twenty gullible English people how to make tea? “Because he is not paying the taxes!”

Why you think Muhammad so happy? He is not paying any taxes!

After we’d drunk our thimblefuls of tea we left (some of us via the Genuine Berber Toilet) and headed back up the hill. As we pulled away another six four by fours arrived and as their passengers disembarked I thought how fortunate it was that they had happened upon this hospitable family, who fortuitously had twenty seats already set out and twenty glasses being quickly washed up on the offchance that yet another large group of people would pop round for a quick teabreak.

In other news, we saw this strange sight next to a layby just outside Essaouira: Goats in a Tree! The slightly left-field sequal to "Snakes on a PLane", I presume. I am told the goats climb up there of their own accord to eat the berries, and indeed a friend of mine who recently went to Cyprus confirmed that you can see the same spectacle there. I would believe this, except that the farmer was lingering in the layby and waved us in for a "photostop", for which he tried to charge us ten dirham each (that's about a pound.) Throughout this the goats looked on with bemused expressions that could only say "What the fuck are we doing up here?" I'll let you make up your own minds.

Goats in a Tree. The sequal to Snakes on a Plane

RIP the 96

Literally millions of pages have been written about the Hillsborough disaster over the years, and I, a child at the time and not connected to the club or any of the victims in any way, am not going to wade into the debate. There would be no point.

And yet, inevitably for the time of year, there've been a few swipes at Liverpool and, worse, at the victims' families, over the last few days, notably over Liverpool's insistence that they would not - ever - play a match on 15th April. The forums, Twitter and the like were full of arrogance and ignorance, the "Time to move on", brigade. One even accused Liverpool fans as being "the ultimate grief tourists" and told them to "get over it." Interestingly for me, as a Bradford fan, comparisons were made with the Bradford fire. We, critics pointed out, play on 11th May. Why shouldn't they play on 15th April?

Read the second account, from the ambulanceman, in this article. As well as being an appalling tragedy, there is such terrible injustice still surrounding Hillsborough, and unanswered questions even to this day. Bradford fans know that, even though there were mistakes (most notably the gates at the back of the stand were chained shut, making exit impossible) everything was done to maximise survival and help the injured when the dreadful fire happened. Familes of those who died at Hillsborough, though, faced lies, accusations, cover-ups, and, in many cases, the terrible knowledge that mismanagement before, during and after the disaster (the ambulances not being allowed onto the pitch) meant that loved ones who could have been saved had perished. To me, reading about Hillsborough from an objective point of view (I watched it on television at the time but have come back to the facts, accounts and speculations later in life) as a football fan, a Christian and, most of all, a human being, what strikes me and makes me physically weep is the apparent disregard given for human life that day, and the lack of respect paid to the victims both that afternoon and the days that followed. The stab of insensitivity shocks me now, so I dread to think how those directly involved feel about it.

Someone on one of the forums pointed out that they would not be taking note of Hillsborough, because it's 100 years since the sinking of the Titanic today, and the greater loss of life there (1517 compared to 96) is "surely more important". This is not true. Every life is as important as the next, however it is lost. The volume of lives lost in a single incident is a red herring. Nobody should have died on the Titanic. Nobody should have died at Hillsborough.

It is not up to you or I to tell people to "move on" - this is arrogance of the worst order. It is the role of every citizen to always strive for justice, to comfort and support those in need, and to be sensitive, gentle and understanding. I think we have indeed "moved on" from the fire, but I will not accept this fact as some kind of accolade, holding us up as some paragon fanbase. That is a simplistic reading of it, and offensive to both clubs. We will remember our dead on 11th, with memorials and in our prayers. I will continue to raise money for the Burns Unit at the BUPA 10K in May. But today, I will spare a thought for Liverpool - the club and the city - and say a prayer for the 96, and for the families and friends still fighting. May they all find peace one day.

RIP the 96 x

Titanically Morbid

Is it just me, or are many of the 1300 people who have paid hundreds of pounds to go on the Titanic "memorial cruise" a bit, well, mental? For a start, the logic of such a trip seems a little...illogical: "You know that big boat that hit an iceberg in the north Atlantic and sank? Well, what I think would be a REALLY good idea is to get another boat, with thousands of people on board, and take it at exactly the same time of year to the same bit of the north Atlantic." And, presumably, hope it doesn't sink.

OK, perhaps I'm being a little flippant. I understand that, if you had ancestors who had travelled on that fateful sailing 100 years ago, it might be deeply moving to follow that same route, and to see some of what they saw, a sort of much-magnified version of what I feel each time I go to Valley Parade, look across to where the old wooden stand used to be, and shudder at the thought of family members watching that dreadful fire engulf both it and its spectators. But that is where my empathy ends. To be "recreating" the journey, even 100 years on, and, worse, marketing it to tourists as "the voyage of a lifetime" and flogging tickets for £5K (I kid you not) seems at best mawkish and at worst cynically opportunistic, not to say disrespectful. Where many on board see it as an act of commemoration, others seem to think it's a marvellous lark: a chance to dress up in chronologically incorrect costume and gawk at a remote bit of sea where hundreds perished. When interviewed by the BBC, one excited chap enthused that the trip had been a birthday present and was "a dream come true". Let's look at that statement: a dream come true, to relive a journey where years ago hundreds of people froze to death or drowned, terrified and desperately awaiting a rescue that never came while the too-few lifeboats abandoned them, in the middle of nowhere. Good.

It gets worse. In further news reports, over-excited passengers show off their Titanic-branded t-shirts (there's an "all I got is this lousy..." joke to be made here, but I simply cannot bring myself to make it.) Still more passengers turn up in costume - as ill-fated victims of the disaster, perhaps, in authentic period dress? Er, no. As Rose and Jack from 1997 blockbuster "Titanic". Some people feel this is, um, a little tasteless.

In making it primarily a tourist "experience", the "memorial cruise" is open to anyone from deluded film fan to morbid disaster enthusiast to reflective descendant, provided they have £5K to hand.

We have an enduring, macabre fascination when it comes to the Titanic. Psychiatrists can probably explain the many reasons for this. It is, ultimately, a tragic story, though, sadly, a true one, not a fictional one. I visited the excellent exhibition at the O2 last year and was struck by many things, not least that a disproportionate number of the dead were Irish - poor, ordinary people travelling third class in search of a better life which they never found. It is so desperately cruel, and we are, morbidly, drawn to such things, wanting to know what happened, how, why, and to whom, and, often, who was to blame.

But somehow, whether the intentions are good, bad, or (most likely) a mixture of the two, the notion of a cruise, commemorative or not, just jars with me. 15th April is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and the death of over 1500 of its passengers; it is a frightening reminder that we are not invincible, of the catalogue of mistakes, the mixture of poor planning and arrogance, that resulted in such a huge death toll - the ship design that meant it tipped, the shameful lack of lifeboats, because people thought they would never be needed. It is right that its legacies and memories endure to this day, and that its anniversary should be marked, its heroes honoured and its victims remembered, and it is not my place to say how this should be done most appropriately. And yet I can't help feeling this dress-up, carnival jollity is inappropriate.

15th April is the anniversary of another tragedy - Hillsborough. Again, what was meant to be joyous occasion resulting in devestating loss of life; again preventable, with hindsight; again, design and bad planning were both significant factors, and again, yes, there was probably "blame" to be dished out in abundance. 96 people died that day (far fewer, I realise, than Titanic, and I am not attempting to compare the two.) This year will be the 23rd anniversary. There would, of course, be an outcry were there any attempt to "relive" in any way the experiences from that day, thousands paying a premium price to turn up in the 88/89 strip or dressing up as Chris Eccleston's charater in the TV adaptation - memorial services inside the fated ground is as far as it goes, and though there are many (to some extent me included) who have researched that disaster to the point of obsession just as there are with Titanic, I would hope that in 100 years time it will be marked in appropriately reflective and sombre fashion.

The Titanic memorial cruise should now be somewhere in the mid Atlantic, but has been delayed, apparently, by bad weather. There's an irony in there somewhere. Its "lucky" passengers may well be seeking some sort of refund on those extortionate tickets they snapped up before the sold out two years ago, whereas those who didn't manage to go can still get "memorabilia" or "limited edition commemorative book" online from the tour operators. In the meantime, I genuinely wish well all those taking part in the memorial service on Saturday, and hope that relatives and morbid history geeks alike will find it a moving experience. I hope that the 1514 victims - rich and poor alike, male and female - will be remembered and the heroes deservedly commemorated, along with the 96 who died at Hillsborough. And I hope people will remember that a certain Jack and Rose were, in fact, fictional.

Handbags at Dusk

I'm a bit slow here in commenting in what has been described in the various media as a "terrible brawl", "unbelievable scenes" and "Bradford's night of shame", but I'll give it a go anyway. I listened - slightly incredulously, it must be said - to the unfolding, ugly events on Tuesday following yet another disheartening if somewhat inevitable draw. The following morning I awoke feeling metaphorically as battered and bruised as Claude Davis and Andrew Davies as I realised we'd made it onto the Today Programme, but for all the wrong reasons.

If you've not seen what happened on Tuesday night (and you actually care, or you're one of the people that finds it eyebrow-raisingly amusing, as I think the Today presenters did), you can see it here. The gist of it seemed to be that Crawley "started it", and our various players leapt in - heroically or stupidly - to defend their teammates. Certainly it looks that way, and I know from watching them (and friends who support teams in the same league concur)that they are not a "nice" team. And it wasn't a "nice" game, either - dislikable and thuggish or not, how could it be with one team vying from promotion and the other fighting for its very survival? But the problem is, it doesn't really matter who "started it". This is a professional (just about) football match, and these are grown-up adults (theoretically). It isn't the Year Six playground or the carpark of the Crown and Anchor after last orders. Throwing punches and generally having a great big barney just isn't on, and more to the point, it has potentially catastrophic consequences. For a start, we are now three players down: Davies is out for five matches and Luke Oliver ("Big Luke Oliver" to Pulse listeners, as though there's a Little Luke Oliver somewhere, sulking that he never gets a mention) and Jon McLaughlin are banned for the next 3. This is potentially disasterous: McLaughlin (though our record would suggest otherwise) has proved a saviour at times - many of our narrow victories and skin-of-the-teeth draws were thanks to his dexterity, and his absence could prove fatal; Oliver, too, has been an asset this year and at the very least brings the benefit of height and well-placed headers to the side. I'm not massively bothered about Davies, which is just as well as rumour has it he won't be seen in a City shirt again.

Worse, though, are the further penalties that could come our way. A financial punishment would be very difficult for a club already in dire straits to bear, and one is likely - Newcastle and Sunderland were fined £40,000 and £20,000 respectably for much less earlier this year, and the FA are going to want to look consistent. But a points deduction would be far more deadly. Bradford City is current teetering a dangerous 5 points from the bottom of the table. Any points deduction would make relegation almost inevitable. Davies, Oliver and McLaughlin never for a moment stopped to think, as they leapt into the fray, fists flying, on Tuesday night, that they could be inadvertantly signing the club's death warrant.

But this isn't just about the club. I am not just being sentimental when I say that, at the thought of us dropping in disgrace from the football league, potentially never to be seen again, my childhood flashes before my eyes, adulthood hot on its heels. I have worn a City shirt for as long as I can remember; my family has always supported them. My cousin was present on that terrible day when fire took the lives of 56 people, including some of his friends, and I have run charity races for the Burns Unit in their memory. I have cheered and screamed til I was hoarse. I have actually cried in frustration at times. I have watched us rise to the dreamy heights of the Premiership, have watched us play the likes of Chelsea and, of course, beat the likes of Liverpool, waving my "Bye Bye Wombles" poster and experiencing an unfettered joy that those who don't follow a team cannot understand. I have watched the heartbreaking slide back down again, season by season, league by league, waiting for a Phoenix-like resurrection that never came.

I have watched the footage from Tuesday night, and begun to prematurely mourn. This is not just about a club. This is about a city, too. Years ago, when we dropped to League One, my dad said that it was sad that a city the size of Bradford did not have even a Championship team. The thought of us possibly not having a professional team at all seems inconceivable. My city has had a hard time, unfairly so. It is associated with riots and racism and the EDL, unemployment and poverty. It recetly came bottom in a study on wellbeing, and in 2010 was "voted" Britain's worst tourist city, being branded as "dangerous, ugly and boring." This is what people hear day in, day out: Bill Bryson once said our role in life was to "make everywhere else look better." If you say you're from Bradford, there is often an awkward pause, followed by the inevitable and slightly pleading "I hear they do good curries?"

I simply do not know this side of my city. I live in London now, and I have lived in many places, and Bradford is warm-hearted, friendly, concerned. People talk to you in shops. People smile at you. We are a city with a wealth of culture and history: the Brontes were born in Bradford, not in Haworth; we can boast Priestly and Hockney; we have a nationally acclaimed film festival, and our Media Museum was one of the most visited attractions outside of London last year; Titus Salt brought philanthropy to a whole new level at a time when factory workers in comparable towns were living in appalling squalor. Oh and while we're on the subject, yes, as it happens, we DO also have awesome curries.

Soon, though, we may not have a football team. The Bradford Bulls might not last much longer either.

So although you may laugh at this and other football tantrums, although you may swamp the chat forums with LOLs, OMGs and WTFs, once all the analysis is over, fines have been paid and bottoms well and truly smacked, I have just two words for the players who were involved and those they have left holding the fort: Grow up! And focus. Bradford needs you - Bradford sure as hell needs all the help it can get right now: after all, it just elected George Galloway as MP. So please don't let me down.

Be More British: Support a Rubbish Team

This was originally written for a blog for international students, but I fear it will be too long, so am putting it here to make myself feel better:

It’s a well-known fact that we Brits are obsessed with football (which is interesting, given that, when it comes to our performances in recent international tournaments, we actually don’t seem to be very good at it.) I have travelled extensively and on more than one occasion, on saying I come from England, I have been met with smiles and enthusiastic cries of “Manchester United!” Many people across the world have adopted a UK team as their own – in my experience usually Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool or Chelsea.
If you really want to blend in with the locals, then, you may find yourself embracing a team you can then vaguely follow – perhaps one of the above, probably London-based if you’re studying here. But if you really want to assimilate then may I suggest a bolder move: support a rubbish team.

Every year at our International Orientation I extol the virtues of my beloved Bradford City to my (bemused) students. I start by explaining that we – a club still riding high on the back of our FA cup victory in 1911 – are in League 2, and they smile politely, nodding enthusiastically and thinking: League 2. Hmm. Presumably that’s the second division, so you’re not far off the top; that sounds pretty good. I then explain that we have a Premiership, then a Championship, then League One, then League Two. I watch them count, then realise that this means my team is in fact in Division Four, and so probably not that good after all. I then tell them that we are skulking in the bottom half of that table, and as such are at risk of dropping out of the league altogether, at which point their expressions can only be described as pity.

For many Brits, Saturday afternoon means only one thing: football. Across the country, men and women of all ages pack out football grounds, and most of them do not support Manchester United or Arsenal. You may think you’ve felt elation after yet another 3-0 win, but you won’t have experienced the euphoria that comes with a last-minute extra-time goal resulting in three points after an extended run of dismal losses. You may think that you will dazzle with your knowledge of John Terry’s misdemeanours and Chelsea’s seemingly constant search for a new manager, but you will win a place in more British hearts if you too have shared the pain of a long, dejected train journey home following two hours standing in the rain in, say, Rotherham, ending in a 1-0 defeat. Your friends may have been to Liverpool, noted for the Beatles and its vibrant history, or Manchester, with its museums, nightlife and impressive pop back catalogue, but support a team like mine and you could find yourself in such glamorous locations as Torquay, the home of Fawlty Towers, Burton, noted for being where Marmite is produced, or Crawley, famous for...um… being quite near Gatwick airport. You could wow your fellow classmates with tales of your trips to Swindon and Southend, Accrington and Aldershot. Instead of clubs who regale themselves with tough nicknames like the Lions (Millwall) or the Tigers (Hull City), designed presumably to intimidate their opponents, you’ll be playing teams that are perfectly happy to be known as the Shrimps (Morecambe) or the Cobblers (Northampton), only effective against those with a phobia of small marine life or shoemakers. My own team are the Bantams: a bantam is a small chicken.

Much as I would love to inspire you to join me and become ardent Bradford City supporters, this is probably a little impractical, not to say expensive, if you’re London-based (I speak from experience.) Fortuitously, though, there are several London clubs floundering in the same division as us who would be thrilled by your support. To start you off and help you decide which one might be for you, here are a few facts:

Barnet: based in North London and known somewhat unimaginatively as the Bees, their mascot is called Mr Bumble, who appears at home games as a man in a giant and slightly creepy bee costume. Their current ground (though not for much longer…) is called Underhill, and is on a slope – when my team was losing at the end of the first half a few years ago I heard someone wryly say “it’ll sort out in the second half: we’ll be playing downhill.”

Dagenham and Redbridge: The result of a relatively recent merger between two local teams, my best friend rather unencouragingly says of the “Daggers”, his team: “this is proper football: people get hurt.” Dagenham unexpectedly went up to the first division last year after winning a play-off against Rotherham, and promptly came down again at the end of the season after losing most of their games. They are now near the bottom of League Two, which means they are below us, despite beating us in their last game.

AFC Wimbledon: You may have heard of Wimbledon, but possibly not this Wimbledon. For reasons best known to those involved in the decision, but a mystery to everyone else, the club relocated to Milton Keynes in 2002, a town almost 60 miles away in a completely different county. Unsurprisingly, their fans were not thrilled about this, what with being largely based in Wimbledon and not Buckinghamshire. So they founded a new club and pinched the name (the club that had moved became the MK Dons) and, 10 years on, they are back in the football league. And, um, currently doing better than we are...

So, I hope that has inspired you to seek out a more authentic – and far cheaper (usually £15-£25 on the gate) – football experience. Be warned, though, football supporters can take it all very seriously: when one of our fans asked on a chat forum for advice as to whether he should attend a match on Valentine’s Day or take his wife out instead, another simply replied: “Mate: you can always change your wife, but you can’t change your team.”

Defeat at the Hands of Bristol's Pirate Kings

"Proper Cornish" fare in Proper Bristol

Almost a week ago now I faithfully promised two friends and fellow City fans that, in their absence at the Bristol Rovers game, I would post a match report on here. I didn't, partly because life got in the way, and partly because actually the performance was more than a little lacklustre, with none of the heroics we saw at Swindon early in the season, and none of the flare that increased our confidence so much before Christmas.

The game, at the somewhat underwhelming Memorial Stadium on the edge of Bristol, was a test for even the hardest of City fans. Despite bright sunshine the biting wind swept through the seated area, leaving even those of us with the most Northern genes too numb with cold even to shiver, and the terrace was only marginally better. Unprepared for the 500-odd visitors, the queue for the snack bar lasted for the entirety of half time, and by the time you finally got to the counter they'd run out of pies (I have no evidence that Mark Lawn was at the front of the queue, either.) The one benefit of being a woman at football, of course, is that there is never a queue for the toilets, but here there was no hot water either, nor any paper.

Comfort aside, the activity on the pitch did little to raise the mood, either. A Rovers goal in the 6th minute seemed to signal that they had started as they meant to go on, and City looked a combination of desperate and ill-prepared. A partly unfamiliar squad can't have helped, with some bigger names having left in the previous weeks, and with Syers back after a long absence from injury then suspension, they just didn't seem to gel. There was none of the seamless passing that looked so hopeful earlier on in the season, little risk-taking, and the players seemed to be largely relying on good luck, which was notable by its absence when both Atkinson then Fagan made sterling efforts to score, but without success.

The second half opened much like the first, with a second Bristol Rovers goal two minutes in, after which all seemed to be lost. But whatever they'd been told, or whatever rocket had been put up their arses in the dressing room at half time, had clearly had an impact: we started to attack more as well as defend; suddenly players had others to pass to, rather than kicking the ball into a general scrum and hoping for the best; Kyle Reid came on and added a flash of brilliance from that moment on. Then, in the 65th minute, Kozluk was controversially sent off for a second offence. With only ten men, you would almost forgive them for giving up, but this blow was almost instantly followed by a fantastic Syers goal, reminding us all why we'd missed him so badly. From that point, we positively sparkled. An equalizer looked almost certain, with Reid running everyone ragged, and two successive attempts at goal from Hanson. We felt sure that we would do to Bristol Rovers what Morcambe and then Burton had so cruelly done to us.

Perhaps that's why I felt such crushing disappointment when the whistle blew and this hadn't happened. If the second half was anything to go by we should be feeling a new wave of optimism, but the fact is that as a result of that game we dropped down to 20th in the league, still perilously close to relegation and an increasingly unattainable distance from the play-offs. Even the normal exhuberance and passion of the City fans present was notably muted, and mutterings of discontent on the forums and an progressively bleak atmosphere, tinged with the violent negativity and viciousness that the likes of Boy From Brazil so beautifully tried to counteract, makes this one of the most depressing seasons I can remember. The excitement of early cup wins is becoming a distant memory, and my City experience is more and more one of overwhelming disenchantment.

I was amused, then, by this bit of light relief: a group of Bristol fans inexplicably dressed as reindeer and looking puzzlingly bleak as they left the ground, given they'd just earned three points. Not all the loonies have been locked up yet.

Capital Networking

I read an article the other day about Social Capital and social networking. I'd reproduce it here if only I could remember where I'd got it from, but I can't, and so I won't. To some extent, the whole thing made me shudder a little, reminding me of windowless, basement classrooms and monotonal lecturers droning on about social capital, in spurious connection with some tedious passage of Edith Wharton or some other cheerless tract. On the other, it set my mind wandering to my own increasingly and persistently paranoid use of the internet. You see, in between occasional references to De Tocqueville (a sort of gently firm reminder that the author knew what she was talking about) she asserted that social networks are basically jolly good, because they allow us to connect in lots of ways with lots more people, which in turn leads to lots of nice reciprocal behaviour (chatting, "liking", commenting, sharing pictures et cetera) whilst we all bond over shared interests and ideals. She also reckons we're all more confident online, can create online personas etc and present the people we would like to be to the outside world. She's probably right.

I'm not going to talk about social capital. For one thing, this is a blog and not an academic essay; I shall probably get it wrong, and there are people who read this blog who will take pleasure in mocking me for my idiocy. And that is the crux of what I AM going to write about: social media and increased online presence may well have all the positive benefits and happy outcomes beloved of the (slightly smug) columnist, but they in turn come with downsides. Aside from the ever-present danger of being sued (remember this?) there is an ever-present chance/fear of being humiliated, ridiculed, rejected, and simply ignored. In short, the likes of Facebook and Twitter expose one constantly to the threat of public failure.

One good example is the relative ease to humilate people in front of an audience. Social networking sites and even emails are informal yet safely distant. There's no chance the person you're mocking will burst into tears in front of you, or give you the good slap you might well deserve. Even if they retaliate, it's erasable at the touch of a button. In this sense we all have more power than perhaps we can really handle. In turn, it's so instant that it's easy to tap in something without really thinking it over first. Last term a colleague of mine sent a "reply all" email to the whole of our team putting me well and truly in my place (I won't go into the reasons why, which are relatively dull, not to say innocuous). Everyone I know seems to have an example of this happening in a work context: in another instance, a relatively senior staff member sent an email to a friend of mine telling her she had done her job incorrectly. Among the host of people she had copied into this correspondance (and to whom, for the most part, the matter was wholly irrelevant) was my friend's boss. When it turned out that actually the person who'd sent the email was wrong, and not my friend, she sent a terse yet private email to my friend which basically said "You were right after all". She did not, as I believe she should have done, send an email to the various senior people involved the first time around apologising. Ultimately, she could have been accused of trying to destroy my friend's reputation. In fact, Unison now lists copying people into emails in this way as a form of bullying. In my case, I went home, fretted, and sobbed a little on my long-suffering husband. My colleague was probably oblivious to this, and probably didn't intend this to be the outcome, her email most likely being no more than a little strop at the end of a busy day.

And so to Facebook. My husband thinks I am becoming obsessed with the internet, in fact, I am rather constantly afraid of my presence on it backfiring on me. I will readily admit I'm a sensitive person, and take things to heart that should really be shrugged off, and yet I was hurt when a friend mocked me the other day for misunderstanding a joke someone had made, the implication being that I was a bit slow on the uptake. Another friend replied, himself laughing at my stupdity. When I finally rejoined the fray and wrote "aw not fair, you're all teasing me now *goes and hides under rock and cries*" both "Liked" the comment, presumably assuming I too was laughing at myself, and not slowly tearing myself to pieces.

I am, more worryingly, increasingly agonising about how I come across, convincing myself in my more anxious moments that many people simply humour me, and secretly think I'm a complete idiot, bordering on a nuisance that they'd like to shake off if only they could. I worry about why someone likes all the posts everyone else puts on their wall, but not mine; I feel almost offended when I comment on a thread and people reply to all the other posts but seem to be tactfully ignoring mine; I feel pretty peeved when I message someone and they never reply, particularly if I've gone out of my way to say or send something nice or personal to them; I live in terror that someone will expose something I've said or done somewhere public, even though I can't honestly think of anything worth exposing.

In short, social networking and accompanying media have probably not had much of an impact on me in terms of social capital (unless joining a Dean Windass support page and setting up a new Bradford City page which hardly anyone has joined counts) but it has served to emphasise some of the worst and most niggling aspects of self-obsession, introspection and even paranoia.

And now, of course, I'm going to post this and, in doing so, throw myself to the proverbial lions, rendering all I've said above somewhat ironic. So while I go and wring my hands and fret myself into oblivion over yet another Facebook chat which clearly has far more significance for me than for the person with whom I'm chatting I shall leave you with this last intellectual thought: Social Capital my arse.

The Midlife Crisis begins

My other half looks unimpressed with our latest foray into retro gaming.

There's nothing quite like the unadulterated joy of holding a joystick in your hand and figuring out how to make it do exactly what you want - and that isn't even some kind of euphemism. As a kid I dreamed of owning a "proper" games console, like some of my friends had - a C64 or an Atari - complete with proper games rather than games with unconvincing names like "Let's Play Maths!", complete with redundant exclamation marks in an attempt to make them sound enjoyable, that you could play in school for ten minutes every other week. Instead, I made do with a borrowed BBC micro every holiday (plus side: better graphics, relatively speaking, and short loading times, but no joystick) then, a few years later, a borrowed Acorn (plus side: Lemmings!) Now, more than two decades on, as I approach my mid-life crisis, I finally have my Atari.

The Atari flashback comes with 2 joysticks and 60 pre-loaded games which, according to one of the websites "defined a generation". This seems needlessly hyperbolic: I don't think anyone would claim that the likes of Human Canonball and Nightdriver defined a generation. Pacman or, say, Space Invaders possibly did, but they're not on there. Instead you get an eclectic collection of games that range from the gloriously addictive to the comedically unfathomable. The result of this combination is hours of pure pleasure.

The Atari flashback had mixed reviews. Some criticise it for its "basic" graphics and clunky gameplay, which begs the question: "what did you expect?" Others wax lyrical about the simplicity of the games, which strikes me as missplaced nostalgia, because some of the games are positively crap, even by early 80s standards. The reality is somewhere in between: some of the games are genuinely fun, and don't require the ostentatiously high-tech spangliness of their modern counterparts. Others look laughably amateurish and are, by today's standards, just plain dull: "adventure" games where your pixellated alter ego totters from "room" to "room", symbolised by different coloured squares with gaps for doors, just don't cut it if you've ever played on anything developed since.

As ever, the guide which comes with it is at times as enjoyable as the product t accompanies. It doesn't actually perform any useful function, like tell you what the heck you're meant to be doing when confronted with an unidentifiable shape on the screen which doesn't seem to actually move anywhere but seems to be being shot at (we also gave up on "Miniature Golf", which consists of several squares of various sizes which don't appear to do anything). Instead, its contents are a colletion of factual descriptions interspersed with statements of the blindingly obvious with a smattering of wistful geekery. "Now this is an interesting concept for a game", says the writer at one point, raising our expectations until we discover that it isn't. "The aim of this game is to score as many points as you can", he says at superfluously at another (really?) "Collect as many dots as possible to win points", begins a third. Dots? Really? Surely they symbolise something - coins, perhaps? Treasure? Some life-saving elixir or weapon you can use later on to destroy your enemy? Apparently not: they are just dots. The description of "Wizard" is delightfully baffling: "Get hit by an imp's magical bolt or touched by an imp and your damage goes up by 2 points. Hit an imp with your own magical bolt and their damage goes up by 2. However the Flame seems to have a mind of its own and goes deeper into the catacombs with each confrontation." Good. Glad we cleared that up. As for "Fun With Numbers", someone should report the name to advertising standards: the aforementioned "fun" is simply a series of sums, but at least you get to "choose" from addition, subtraction, division AND multiplication. Get in! I bet that was well worth your hard-saved twenty quid back in 1981.

As usual I've rambled on for far too long, but I will at least pick a couple of games that I and my trusty gaming sidekick have singled out for special praise.

Frog Pond: This. Is. Brilliant. A two-player game, you are a frog (inexplicably pink or luminous green) and you get points by catching flies on your tongue. The flies look uncannily like birds, but hey. Detail.

Bowling: Who needs the Wii when you can bowl on an Atari? AND you get to see your character perform a nice little dance to the accompaniment of some marvellous sound effects and epilepsy-inducing flashing lights when you get a strike.

Circus Atari: I have no idea what the significance of the dots at the top of the screen are, except that you get points for hitting them. You basically have to catapult a stick man on and off a deceptively difficult-to-move see-saw, but there's something sadistically pleasing about the underwhelming splat when you miss.

Soccer: Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! Table football on a screen, with a square ball and no concept of the offside rule and no ability to move the goalkeeper on his own. Great stuff.

You probably have better things to do and far superior technology with which to do them, but if you fancy a bit of untainted enjoyment do pop round some time.

The Best Cake in the World...Ever!

Of all the cakes you will see throughout your lifetime, I'm pretty confident I can guarantee you will never see one as fine as this. The friend who made it for me wanted to combine the two things I love, namely Space Invaders and Bradford City FC. I'm not sure what this says about me, though looking back at recent blog posts I can't deny that she got it spot on. I'm particularly impressed that she managed to get the shades of claret and amber so perfect.

Out on the Wiley, Windy Moors...

Before I embark on the following I should probably declare an interest or two. Firstly, I do have a favourite Bronte sister, and it isn’t Emily. In much the same way as George Harrison was my favourite Beatle, I always felt that Anne, an eloquent feminist ahead of her time, was the sister with probably the most profound contribution to make, and a mass of undervalued talent with which to make it, and who often goes sadly neglected in the shadow of her more crowd-pleasing big sisters. Secondly, I should admit that I’m actually not all that keen on Wuthering Heights which I always felt, though this sounds something of an oxymoron, managed against all odds to combine the eyebrow-raising, dramatic improbability of a Mills and Boon novel with the tedium of Jane Austen (sorry, Austen fans.) At the same time, though, the Yorkshire-bred, English graduate geek inside me was still intrigued by the hype of yet anothe Bronte adaptation, and eager to see if it worked.

Given my introduction above, perhaps it did, being every bit as tedious, far-fetched and unrelentingly bleak as the original. As far as the tedium is concerned, I was actually rather pleased that Andrea Arnold decided to sacrifice loyalty to the original and call it a day soon after Cathy’s untimely death, rather than several chapters and a few more births and deaths later, as Emily did. In terms of the story, then, it’s something of a disappointment if you’re a literary purist: aside from only including half the plot, it doesn’t actually include the character of Lockwood, which means it doesn’t include the ghost, which means, ultimately, it isn’t a ghost story, just a miserable and depressing one. It also does little to explore Heathcliff’s character. I assume this is a deliberate attempt to make him enigmatic, as he is in the book, but it doesn’t work: he comes across as resentful, hateful, and ultimately a bit of a fruitcake.

The main “character” in the film, according to some of the reviews, is the "landscape". This immediately put me off a bit, having endured endless lectures about “pathetic fallacy” throughout school and university – the Disneyfication of the landscape, where it is inevitably dark and stormy at key moments of drama, only for the sunshine to come out after the goodies win the day. Except that in Wuthering Heights, of course, the goodies never win, and consequently you’re treated to two hours of windswept desolation filmed at funny angles in bad light, Arnold presumably being one of those directors who thinks that constant semi-darkness somehow makes it all a bit more arty, whereas in fact it just means you can’t really make out what’s going on. I’m not trying to claim that Yorkshire is generally basking in a warm glow of sunbeams – I don’t think I’ve ever been to Haworth when it wasn’t drizzling – but a bit of seasonal let-up would’ve been nice. It’s implied that Cathy and Heathcliff, admittedly odd though they are, bonded over the awesomeness of their surroundings, and it makes sense that they would have thus bonded in a variety of weathers.
Yorkshire, looking characteristically gloomy. Pathetic fallacy, that.

Arnold takes other liberties, too. Most notably, she makes Heathcliff black. Much has been made of this, which is wholly plausible, and as far as I’m concerned really doesn’t matter much as the point is that Heathcliff is somehow "other", though the book seems to imply he is Asian or Middle Eastern (it’s claimed that his mother could have been an Indian Princess). It does however allow Arnold to chuck in some gratuitously racist terms which aren’t in the book, possibly for shock value more than anything else, accompanied as they are by several “fucks” and even the occasional “cunt”. Again, this isn’t implausible – both are good, old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon words and probably as common then as they still are on the football terraces of West Yorkshire – but whether it’s entirely necessary is a matter of opinion. While we’re on language, though, I was satisfied by the Yorkshire accents and (nerd alert) some of the language structure: devotees of Emily Bronte will note she writes in (to a reader often incomprehensibly phonetically-spelt) dialect with a pronounced West Yorkshire inflection, yet you’d be both amazed and amused by the clipped BBC radio announcer voices of the early adaptations, whose speakers have clearly never been any further north than Watford.

So, was there anything else I liked? Well, frankly, no, but as I’ve said that could partly be down to personal taste. For me the only moment of light relief came after a particularly jaw-dropping few moments of necrophilia, where Heathcliff breaks into Cathy’s room after she has apparently pined herself to death, and appears to have sex with her corpse. The lady in the seat next to me, who’d looked pretty unimpressed for the previous 90 minutes and had already expressed dismay a few minutes earlier when Heathcliff rather over-graphically hanged a puppy from a gatepost, turned to her companion in horror and exclaimed, perhaps louder than she intended: “That wasn’t in the book!”

Indeed it wasn’t. She left then and there, and a gruelling 30 minutes later so did everyone else, possibly toying with the idea of going to the screen next door to watch “We Need to Talk About Kevin” for a bit of light relief. I in turn went home and listened to Kate Bush, whose version of Wuthering Heights is about as accurate as the film while being mercifully briefer, and whose dancing and astounding vocal range are far more chilling than anything a backdrop of Yorkshire moorland could ever offer.

And finally, if you got to the end of this clunky review, here is your reward: (about a minute in) Monty Python's "Wuthering Heights in Semaphore"