A tool of revolution there in every single chord...

It's a brilliant feeling when you come across a "tell-all-your-friends" band or singer - an artist so good, you want to tell everyone you know about them. You want to stop random passers-by in the street and say "Listen! For God's sake, listen! Is this not everything you never knew you wanted from music?!"

They don't come around that often - or maybe I'm just really hard to please, I don't know. Currently, I can think of two - Brontide, and Thea Gilmore. Fortunately for you, I'm not going to bang on about Brontide again - how I feel about them and their dapper drummer is well-documented. No, this time it's all about the Gilmore girl, and how she pretty much is my taste in music.

Hard to label - she's a bit folky (without the rolling hills and fair maidens), fairly acoustic, rocky in places (there's a definite Chrissie Hynde/Debbie Harry swagger there) - she's the one artist whose career I will follow to the bitter end. I saw her live - for what must be at least the eighth time - at Union Chapel in Islington on Wednesday night. Which, by the way, is a gorgeous venue that if you get the chance to go to, you should. Sitting on a pew with my best friend and fellow Gilmore devotee, it occurred to me that I first heard of Thea nearly ten years ago. Which made me feel old - but not as old as I feel now, as I'm reading the Wikipedia entry for the UK charts of that year - 2003. The year of tATu (the snogging Russians). The year of Justin Timberlake's Cry Me A River, of Evanescence's first assault on our ears, and of Where Is The Love? Yeah.

The flipside to this "everyone must listen to this! Everyone!" feeling is that you lose that feeling of possession. Sometimes a band are so good, you almost don't want others to know. There is immense joy to be had in the selfishness of revelling in something no-one else knows about. You can smugly congratulate yourself on your own exquisite taste.

Fortunately for me, Thea Gilmore fulfils both of these things - she's so good, I want her to be compulsory listening for anyone who claims they have good taste in music. Far too clever to be lumped into the "female singer/songwriter" category, she ain't no Alanis Morrisette. She's also not exactly "famous". Say to most people, "I'm going to see Thea Gilmore tonight", and they'll say "Who?" On the one hand, it's kind of a shame that someone with such talent, who writes such fiercely intelligent songs yet never over-complicates her music, isn't more well-known, but on the other hand, it makes her the best musical secret weapon we have. When the rest of the world realises what we did by giving them Ed Sheeran, we can say "Don't shoot! We do have good music here, promise! The Clash and the Stones weren't just flukes!"

Here's a couple of Thea songs to get you started. If you like what you hear, I'd recommend her most recent album, Murphy's Heart (2010), and Rules For Jokers (2001). If you don't, well, I'm afraid you're just wrong.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEFm7d0fcCI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWmB1_DgihQ

On the subject of me telling you what's cool, if you happen to be at a loose end and are in/near London, please try and see the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition.  It's on at the Natural History Museum, and is around £10 entry (there's probably a student rate, and I'm still not used to the fact that this doesn't apply to me anymore. I just don't feel like a real human being yet). It's become a bit of a thing for the Boy and I, as it's on in Bristol too, and we always come out afterwards going "right, let's sod this real-life business, and just get cameras and go travelling". This year, there's fluffy ravens, comical penguins, breathtaking landscapes and a haunting photo of a tethered baby baboon with fear in its eyes that will make you wonder whether we really have a grip on what we're doing to this planet of ours.

I'm going to leave you with a very classy, non-Thea song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcmQQT0b-Hk

Women and men. But mainly women.

Well, they do say write about what you know...

This isn't going to be one of those concise, to-the-point blog posts. (You know, 'cause I write those all the time.) I've got a couple of small, half-baked ideas knocking around up here (you can't see, but I'm gesturing at my head), but mainly I just like putting thoughts down on paper. Or screen. It's with a certain amount of anxiousness that I draft these kinds of posts, because they're inevitably more personal. And those of you who know me, erm, personally, will be joining the dots and going "Yeah, I know what that's about". Or, "Yep, well, that's a reference to me. Good".

It's just been a long three days, that's all. Without going into too much detail, I really, really can't handle arguing with certain people. My family, that's fine. We shout and storm at each other and it's forgotten within a few hours. But I can deal with that, because your family have to still love you. That's not a connection you can break that easily. Friends and anyone closer than that, I can't. It scares me; it makes me feel guilty and restless and like a kicked Bambi. And tearful. I cry at everything anyway; the little man in control of my tear ducts has quite the itchy trigger-finger - but when faced with the threat of fucking things up between me and someone whose good books I'd quite like to stay in, I'm like a human water feature. Charlie Dimmock could put me in your garden and I'd just spout away.

It's probably just a woman thing, to a point. Catch me at the wrong time and I'll be weeping at puppies, small animals and the "It's not all doom and gloom" bit at the end of "Russell Howard's Good News" (gets me every time). If a girl is being ratty, boys sometimes think it's funny to say "Oooh, is it someone's time of the month?" If this ever happens to me, I'm going to say "Boy, you have no idea." I don't think I'm selling out the sisterhood to say, yes, we are mental (adding "sometimes" is optional), and it's often to do with pesky hormone gremlins running riot in our brains turning us into arational, stroppy, tearful little monsters.

Sometimes, however, I've been forced to contemplate the possibility that it's not hormones, it is in fact my personality.

So yeah. On the one hand, I know that stupid rows are going to happen from time to time (I should know this by now, having had my parents.) I wish I could be more carefree when throwing strops, and not constantly be second-guessing myself and thinking, "Am I justified in feeling like this? Am I being reasonable?" I admire people who, when they're upset, just come out with it, throw a bit of a shit fit and move on. I'm hoping that by, say, the end of my twenties, I'll have learned to not feel guilty for having feelings. I can't say progess is going to be swift.

On lighter notes, this week, I've gone back to 'Girls', HBO's sitcom du jour. I think it hits some kind of stride in its third episode, certainly in terms of humour - though it is still only funny in a "smile knowingly" sort of way.

This episode (S1 E3: All Adventurous Women Do) also happened to feature what I'd like to call "the least sexy line ever delivered that was meant to be sexy". During an awkward encounter between Marnie (the slightly uptight one) and some artist guy, he tells her, "the first time I fuck you, I might scare you a little, because I'm a man and I know how to do things". On watching it, I had to rewind to hear it again, going "Did he really just say that?" Good GOD. I'm sure the correct reaction to this would be, "I really hope you're not going to scare me, because I don't tend to have sex with men that scare me. I'm glad you know how to do things though, that's always nice, so could we perhaps downgrade this 'scaring' nonsense to 'pleasant nervousness'?"

 Or even, "Mate, you've scared me enough with that sentence right there, I don't need to know what else you're capable of," while backing away, then turning and breaking into a run.

It seems to work on Marnie though; she has to run to the ladies' room to spend some time by herself, if you know what I mean.

And so to take it back to a serious note, you'd have to have been hiding in your shed all week to have missed the desperately sad Savita Halappanavar case making the headlines. Yes, it made me cry (shocker). Briefly: Savita Halappanavar was taken to University Hospital Galway, 17 weeks pregnant but starting to miscarry. Due to legislation, doctors were unable to do anything while the foetus still had a heartbeat - abortion being essentially illegal in Ireland. Savita reportedly asked repeatedly for doctors to remove the already-dying foetus, but nothing was done. She contracted an infection and died of septicaemia and E.Coli about a week after initially presenting at the hospital.

I'll say that important bit again: the already-dying foetus.

I know the doctors were bound by the legislation of their country; I am well-aware of that fact. But surely, as a doctor, when you spend so much time wading in the murky waters between life and death, you are well-acquainted with asking yourself, "Are we doing the right thing?"

The best thing that can happen now is, obviously, a change in the legislation regarding abortion. As someone cleverer than me pointed out, if you let a woman die for the sake of her already-dying unborn child, you probably need to ask yourself how "pro-life" you actually are. And yes, there needs to be carefully-examined, extensively-considered laws where abortion is concerned. No-one in their right minds would dispute that. But abortion is a medical issue, primarily. The priority should be the physical and mental health of the mother, and then of the child. And once those things are straight, then we can talk beliefs. But not before.

To lighten things up once more, in Friday's Times, there was a piece headlined "Why Bella from Twilight is the new feminist icon". 

I'd link you, but the article is hiding behind a paywall ('cause the Murdochs need all the money they can get, right?). Anyway, the title of the piece was on the front page, and it caught my eye, and prompted me to 1) say quietly, but clearly "What the FUCK?" in Waitrose, 2) hope desperately that it was an ironic piece, and 3) spend £1 on the paper. Fortunately, Caitlin Moran has a two-page feature in Friday's Times, so it wasn't a total waste of my money.

It wasn't an ironic piece. Apparently, because Bella is all glammed up when she's a vampire (does that make her a glampire?), and gets a bit ass-kicky, she qualifies as a feminist role model for our tweenage, Twi-hard sisters. What, after she's married Edward so he feels better about having sex with her and upon getting knocked up, literally dies so her vampire-human hybrid child can live? Righty-ho.

I think I need to chill out after all that. I'm going to listen to this in order to do so:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8OgWPcNA6o

If you haven't seen the new Bond film, look away now.

After waiting for what felt like ages, and what was actually a few days, on Wednesday, I saw the new Bond film. And if you've seen it, I'm not going to be telling you anything you don't know when I say it was cool, funny, dark, hot (Daniel Craig rocking the country casuals look in Scotland? Oh yes please. You work that Barbour jacket), and had possibly one of the best film villains since Heath Ledger's Joker. Javier Bardem, you hero. Oh, and Q is quite frankly adorable. I know that's an adjective the boys will be shuddering at, but he just is. 

A couple of days later, an article by Giles Coren caught my eye. Turned down by The Times, he felt so strongly about the piece that he got his wife to post it on her own blog. I'm giving you the link, in case you're, you know, really bored. (And as you're here, what other assumption am I supposed to make?)

I'm all for a bit of quibbling over whether something is sexist or not. I'm all for strong female characters in films and books, and whatnot. And I don't really know what people think of Giles Coren - though a former university lecturer did call him a twat during a seminar on language in the media. But I have to disagree with him on this one. Giles, I'm sorry, I do.

Yes, you're right - the first girl does meet a nasty end. But a) it's no good berating Bond for being "smug" and "smart-arse" - he's Bond, it's what he does; and b) I would say it's a bit much to say she shows no sign of being interested in him. They seemed to be eye-fucking the living daylights out of each other for at least a little while. The fact that she's killed so thoughtlessly is there to showcase the villain's unhingedness (totally a real word), not take a sweeping anti-women stance.

It's also true that M dies. We can take this as a statement about how the entire franchise views women as disposable background creatures - or we can be sensible, and say "Well, we've had the same M for ages, maybe it's time for a shake-up. And who knows? Maybe Judi Dench wants to put her feet up for a bit". Furthermore, killing a key character in a film or TV series gives that actor a significant responsibility - I'm not sure it's that easy to die convincingly and movingly on camera, unless you're the dog in Marley and Me.

As to the Miss Moneypenny thing, well, yes, but does anyone want to go back through Ian Fleming's entire body of work and re-write it from a feminist perspective? Admittedly, saying "Well, chill out Coren, it's just how Bond is" isn't exactly good debating technique, but it's not a documentary. I'd put good money on MI6 having a strict equal opportunities policy. The Bond franchise isn't claiming to make deep and meaningful gender-political statements. You want to start taking issue with sexism in films/TV programmes/video games, go ahead. There are plenty of opportunities out there.

Feminism's been having a moment over the last year or so, I think. It's realised how to get everyone involved - it's getting a bit cooler, and more relevant. Here in the UK, we have Caitlin Moran spilling the gory details on womanhood and just generally being awesome, and over in the US, we have Lena Dunham writing, directing and starring in "Girls" - the sitcom that's not afraid to say that your early twenties are often a bit shit and, you know, not exactly Friends. (I'm still undecided on it though - I had such high hopes for it but so far, I think the weakest character has been Dunham's Hannah. She's just a little bit too passive. Time will tell, I guess.)
Tina Fey is having wonderful moments like this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/26/lena-dunham-tina-fey-election-2012

So maybe Mr Coren is getting on the bandwagon. Bigging up women is what all the cool kids are doing now, so maybe he's trying to get in there. But he's missing the point. Or picking the wrong battle. I also have to add, while I remember, this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Tx7TpLuLs

Call me crazy, but I'm fairly sure that 0.09-0.16 is in there for the girls and the gay guys.

Yes, Bond might be a bit sexist from time to time, but the first Bond novel was written in 1952. That kind of thing was still OK then. Say the word "feminism" to the average kid on the street and they're still probably going to think of boring, humourless, man-hating women. A lot of people still roll their eyes and go "Not this shit again" when the subject of feminism comes up. And part of the reason people do that is because of this nitpicky kind of behaviour. So, with all due respect to Giles Coren, he should back off for a bit. When we want his help, we'll ask. We're allowed to fight our own battles now, has no-one told him?

Just one for you tonight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKQGedVC73Y

Team Strictly...

...and whatever else I need to get off my chest. Such as:

1) It's going to be really freaking embarrassing if I've failed my dissertation;
2) Does anyone else's family cause them terrific amounts of stomach-clenching guilt?
3) I don't want to go back to work tomorrow; I want to be back in Spain, drinking all the beer and eating all the chorizo (that's no euphemism, by the way).
4) Why are my 16-year-old brother and 12-year-old sister both taking their laptops on holiday to Dubai with them? Why?!

OK, that's that over with, now to this...

For the first time in four years, I'm spending autumn at home in Sussex. This, coupled with having a job that requires a wake-up time of 5.50am, means that to my disappointment, I've become a lot less discriminatory in what I watch on TV. Which is, admittedly, a bit rich coming from someone who has no problem saying she enjoys Made in Chelsea - something the Boy felt the need to let slip at the pub the other night. A friend genuinely spluttered into his pint. We did all agree, however, that "well, at least it's not TOWIE".

Like all good Freudians, for my worsening taste in television, I blame my mother.

Let me explain. Mum's an early bird. She's in her dressing gown by 7pm, in bed by 9.30 at the latest and up at half 6 in the morning. She doesn't really do 'relaxed'. She's had one lie-in in the last twelve years. It was quite recently; I remember it well. I was genuinely concerned that she was gravely ill when I found her in bed around mid-morning. It's going to go down in family legend as "Remember that time Mum had a lie-in?" Right there with the mayonnaise-on-the-rhubarb thing. My gran took the wrong tub out of the fridge after a Sunday roast one time. Why we didn't stop her before a dollop had landed on someone's portion of crumble is anyone's guess. Where were we? Oh yes.

So yeah, it's Mum's fault. When it gets to about half-7 in the evening, and the dinner things are in the dishwasher and the table is set for breakfast (I kid you not), Mum settles down with the newspapers and mostly, some God-awful TV. She even enjoys The One Show.

Thanks to her, I've recently got quite into Holby City. And I can see why people get hysterical over Downton (that was pretty emotional when Whatsherface died, wasn't it? Good grief, is it always like that?) And I am absolutely, vehemently, definitely anti-X Factor - and therefore, Team Strictly all the way.

Note: while I am aware that Simon Cowell no longer appears regularly on X Factor, he is the target of at least some of my rant because he owns Syco, which produces the show. And I like to think of him as some evil Dracula/puppet-master.

It's probably not news to anyone that I'm anti-X Factor, actually. I've always been very much in my own world, musically-speaking. When my classmates were into Britney and Billie (Piper), I was digging out my mum's Celine Dion records. Yes, records. When the world calls for Adele, I say, "Right, enough, I'm off to find Thea Gilmore". You say Mumford and Sons, I say The Decemberists. You say Taylor Swift, I say Michelle Branch. It's the just the way it is. When I came in to find my housemate watching the Brits last year, the first thing she said was, "there was this weird girl with an acoustic guitar, you'd like her". She meant Laura Marling.

It's a question of authenticity, I suppose, and there is nothing authentic about The X Factor. No-one can argue that it's about the music. They can try, but they will be shouted down.

 Yes, if you want fakery and glitter, Strictly delivers in that, in spades. But Strictly is upfront about it. The dresses, the make-up, the razzle-dazzle - that's the whole point of Strictly. It's panto - it knows that it's a glorious, rollicking-good-fun panto that lasts from October to (fittingly for this analogy) Christmas. What's more, SCD is harmless.

 And harmless is precisely what the X Factor isn't, to my mind. During a Mock The Week appearance a few years back, Lauren Laverne came out with a brilliant line about how Simon Cowell had "slit the cultural throat of Britain and was drinking its still-warm blood". They say that Brits have a habit of slagging successful people, and yes, Simon Cowell has been a tremendously successful businessman. But I don't envy him his success, or his money. In fact, if I'd made my money the way he has, I'd feel very uneasy about the bottom line of my bank statements.

There's as much of the pantomime in X Factor as there is in old Strickers, but with XF it's (a bit) subtler. Villains have been played by Katie Waissel, Jedward (kind of - or are they more jesters?), maybe Rylan this year, I don't really know. Prince Charming has been played by Matt Cardle and all of the One Direction boys, to name a few. The judges are, for the most part, the Fairy Godmothers of the piece. And the ghosts whose chains rattle and clank in the wings, they're the harder-to-pin-down, but definitely more talented kids, like that Aiden chap, and Lucy... Lucy Jones? Yeah, her.

 I want to see the acts playing shitty pub gigs, to an audience of 8 (one of which would be the pub's resident elderly Labrador). I want to see the contestants locked in rooms, alone, with either a piano or an acoustic guitar, and not let out until they'd written one complete song. And if there was so much as a whiff of cliche, anywhere in the lyrics, they'd be battered over the head with a copy of this and promptly sent home. And all this before the live shows. That would sort the Waissels from the Rebecca Fergusons, wouldn't it?

The people who complain that Strictly is just a bunch of has-beens trying to have one last stab at fame are missing the point. I don't think I've ever seen a celebrity taking part in Strictly not bloody loving it. When they show the footage of the training, the famous person is always gushing about how hard it is, but how much fun. Strictly seems to project this sense of fun - even Craig has a wry glint in his eye when he's dishing out criticisms harsher than a Russian winter. X Factor just worries me. A lot of people - boys, mainly; do you guys just enjoy other people's misfortune? - admit to not minding the audition stages, because the woefully untalented and deluded are there to be laughed at. I cannot watch those shows; I just can't put myself through it. Watching the talented ones make their way through to the live shows makes me just as uneasy, in a way - the urge to shout at the television, "Retain your musical integrity! You do know that you won't have any control over your career if you persist in this? They will make you into who they want you to be!" rings in my ears.

Talent shows have been around as long as television, and watching other people put themselves through things we wouldn't put ourselves through will continue to be, you know, a thing. But I can't help grinning when I see that SCD is beating X Factor in the viewing figures battle. Frankly, anything that slows Simon Cowell down, even a little, makes me smile.

I'm going to stop, 'cause this is getting a bit wordy, even for me.

Being on holiday meant that I was able to reacquaint myself with the long-forgotten activity of reading for fun, and I can highly recommend:

1) David Mitchell's autobiography, Back Story - it's so very him (shocker, I know), and a great read from a funny, articulate man. The chapter on Victoria Coren may have jerked a tear or two - it's everything I've ever wanted to say about love but, well, haven't bothered to.
2) The Crimson Petal and The White, Michael Faber - like Dickens, with all the descriptions of its London setting. You really feel the grime and the grease, the damp and the chill. But this ain't no Great Expectations. This is darker, and raunchier - and for an 800-page tome, it zips along nicely.

A double whammy of musical deliciousness for you tonight:

This:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvCBSSwgtg4


And this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd90W09MuVU

Why I don't slag off National Rail...

...it's mainly because I'm one of those people who a) works in the middle-of-sodding-nowhere-ville, and b) is feeble enough to not be able to drive. (I tried, for a long time, but kept being beaten by the fear of the disasters that can occur when one is travelling at high speeds in a metal box. I think there's something wrong with my brain.)

The job I have, if I'm honest, is far more hassle than it's worth. Rail fares are jumping up, I spend over three hours on a train most days, and the job itself makes my brain melt with its lack of creativity. After doing the Sodding Masters (to give its technical term), I was happy to rest on my academic laurels and earn some money by reading bills, insurance policies and the odd textbook for hours on end. The only good thing I can say about it now is it keeps me from having to sign on for Jobseeker's Allowance. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just feel it's better to stay employed if the work is there. And it gives me something to do and, more accurately, something to complain about.

Knackering though the commute is - and it really is* - once I'm on that train, I really don't mind it. I get uninterrupted time with my iPod/a book/my own thoughts. I can people-watch, people-judge, and people-crush to my heart's content.

*When you're a kid, you imagine adulthood to involve eating Smarties for breakfast, staying up late every single night and never having to do Maths homework. Turns out it's just "get up hideously early, spend hours on a train - often with morons - do a job that both bores and frustrates you (also often with morons), spend hours on a train, eat dinner, sleep". On repeat.

I've said before that I fall in lust regularly whilst travelling on trains - and I've found that I'm pretty open-minded about who I lust after. Men, women, anyone's fair game. Recent train-crushes have included the geek-chic, suited and bespectacled chap with whom I shared a smile, once, when we both jumped at Boris Johnson's "today's the day, folks!" Olympic message as it boomed out across the station. This guy looked like Francis from Made in Chelsea, if that helps. He doesn't get the 08.13 to Caterham anymore, which is a shame.

Then there was the glamourous woman who looked like Rosamund Pike (like this), and was dressed immaculately in a navy maxi dress with a butterfly print and a cream mac. And the nice, friendly conductor who was sweet in a David Miliband sort of way, but who lost points for saying "that's a long way" when I bought a ticket from Littlehaven to Uckfield. Don't I bloody know it, sunshine. The impeccably-dressed guy I saw for 2.7 seconds this morning - shirt, jumper, jeans, Converse, long wool coat, stubble and untidy hair. The pouty blonde girl with the amazing eyelashes, who looks like she has moody tendencies and maybe a useless boyfriend she has to keep tabs on (she's always on her phone).

Then there's the rare,  but warm-and-fuzzy "aww!" moments. Like the tiny little black girl who wears a stiff school uniform topped with a red beret. All I see when she walks down the platform, escorted by her mother, is huge brown eyes and a little hat. Too cute. And the guy I saw a couple of weeks back, who looked kind of thuggish but was clearly besotted with the well-behaved Staffie that sat at his feet, eyeing up the pigeons.

Sure, there are people that annoy the living daylights out of me (this wouldn't be me if it was all warm-and-fuzzy and puppies 'n' rainbows). The girl in the paint-splattered jeans who knocked into everyone today, and who positively reeked of weed. The couple who look "alternative" and are all cute and publicly affectionate. I don't care how in love you are, 8am is too early for that shit. And the girl just looks like someone who would describe themselves as "quirky", and the boy seems pretty whipped. (I'm really getting my bitch on tonight. Eek.) The business types who look important as they hash out Powerpoint presentations on their MacBooks and talk in infuriating, meaningless jargon. Please. Speak. Properly. Or I'll re-brand you.

I'm definitely guilty of romanticising train travel. If I had my way, we'd still be relying on steam trains. Young wives running alongside trains as they pull away, waving their handkerchiefs at stern, yet kind men, who're saying "I'll write every week darling, I promise!" would be a regular occurrence. With all those people in such a small space, you could meet your soulmate on an otherwise very ordinary train journey. If you believe in soulmates.

It was Samuel Johnson who said that when one is tired of London, one is tired of life. I'd re-phrase, and mangle his idea: when you're tired of quietly observing all kinds of people as they pass through somewhere like a busy railway station, then you're probably tired of people.

On that note, have a bit of this. I'm not sure if I'm late to the party as far as this song is concerned (I'm not great with singers other people have heard of. Sad but true):

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCYtesyE7OA