The Nutshell Magazine Blog

Where's my Nutshell for 2011??

2011-11-29T03:10:00.001-08:00

The British Library and many of you would like an answer to that question, it turns out. And indeed it seems a very reasonable question to ask. Where is the much awaited Nutshell for 2011?

Well, it doesn't exist. That's right, a few unexpected things have happened, and a few delaying agents have popped round to the Nutshell headquarters, so now that we're ready to roll, we find that the year is coming to an end, and that it really would be much better if we called the whole 2011 thing off and went for 2012 instead.

That's the thing with being all independent and free (yes, we're back to free for the next issue, it turns out we really don't like charging for Nutshell), you don't have to come out when the office decides, you can pretty much come out whenever you like. That is not to say that we only like coming out sporadically, far from it: we'd like to come out weekly! But it does mean that when it's only one person working on a project like this, helped by people that are also doing it in their spare time, the timeframes expand, the delays increase and accidents are absorbed much more slowly. This is why we don't say yes to people asking to subscribe to Nutshell. We love the thought, but we don't want to disappoint.

This is also the proof that Santa doesn't exist. One big red man alone would never manage to keep that Christmas deadline every year, coordinating all those helpers who really have their own projects going (most amazon sellers are, in fact, Santa's helpers. Same goes for good sellers on Ebay.)

* * *

Having said all this, I am happy to update you letting you know that Nutshell is in very good form, it is scheduled to come out Jan/Feb 2012, it is absolutely packed with amazing stuff, it will be the first issue to be printed in full colour, the new graphic designer Mauro Sommavilla worked on it for ages and did an amazing job... it's all going swell. Unless of course you're pissed off we're late. Please don't be! The way we see it, all other aspects of life require us to worry, hurry, lose sleep etc. This really really shouldn't - we hope you agree!

Much love,

Nutters

If only Angela Carter wrote the news

2011-06-25T03:21:00.000-07:00

One of my all-time favourite authors, Angela Carter, started her working life as a journalist in south London, reporting local news for The Croydon Advertiser, before she achieved literary success. Reading her rich descriptions of a world that only she had the eyes to see has made me wonder what it would be like to open a newspaper and read an article written in the style of The Bloody Chamber or The Magic Toyshop.

Since 2009, one Israeli daily has given its readers a chance to read news written by fiction writers and poets. For one day a year, timed to coincide with Hebrew Book Week, the journalists and editors of Haaretz, a publication often referred to somewhat derisively as Israel’s “thinking man’s newspaper,” give up the reins to a selection of Israeli and international writers, who take over on every section of the newspaper for an edition where “writers write the news.” Even the weather forecast is a poem!

I awaited the day of the 2011 Writers Edition, 15^th June, with the kind of excitement that I used to reserve for birthdays when I was a child. This year, 53 writers had come on board to cover current events and give readers “a look at the news through literary eyes,” as the newspaper says on its masthead.

So what does “news through literary eyes” actually look like?

The news section echoed the Israeli public’s sense of ennui over the Arab-Israeli peace process, and the widespread sense of disappointment among the electorate in its government, much like the newspaper’s usual political stance. Four writers were featured on the front page.

Novelist Nurit Gertz used Sartre’s famous line “Hell is other people” to express her dislike of Foreign Minister Avidgor Lieberman in a scathing analysis of his stubbornness and myopic take on Israel’s foreign policy. “With Lieberman,” writes Gertz, “since there are no other people, hell is I – and one can imagine how hellish it is to live in a world where, at every corner, as in a hall of mirrors, one can see just one image – that of Avigdor Lieberman.”

In what read more like a short story than a typical newspaper article owing to its use of the present tense, short-story writer and graphic novelist Etgar Keret reported on his experience accompanying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on an official visit to Italy the week before the edition was published. At a press briefing, Keret ask Netanyahu a question about the perception that Israel is passive and reactive in the peace process, and the feeling that people either love or hate Israel. Netanyahu answers partly with “this conflict is an insoluble conflict because it is not about territory,” and says that a practical plan for resolving it is to reiterate this idea at every opportunity. Keret speaks for many Israelis when he says “I try to smile, but after this conversation I just can’t summon a smile, or hope. Just despair.”

Poet Haim Goury laments the “withering” of Israeli socialism “in the face of privatisation, and the rise of the national and religious right” in a piece discussing the relationship between Zionism, Communism and the Soviet Union in the years leading up to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and throughout its history. Today, he writes, “Israel is undergoing haredization from within, and is shunned, and cursed at and delegitimized from without.”

On a more positive note, Sami Michael, novelist and prominent Israeli activist, reported on plans to make Haifa, a city with one of the most mixed Jewish and Arab populations in Israel, a member of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN), an association of more than 20 cities around the world that give refuge to persecuted writers, in partnership with International PEN.

The Haaretz editorial, “It’s all thanks to reading”, reminded readers of the centrality of reading and writing to the accumulation of knowledge, and challenged them not to abandon books in the Internet age “which presents an opportunity and a challenge to reading’s future.”

The Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa adds his two cents with an op-ed originally published in the Spanish daily El Pais last year. Here he advocates for the legalisation of drugs to end the violence caused by drug cartels, particularly in Latin America. Although the beauty of the original Spanish is lost in translation, his assertion that drugs should be legalised because no-one has the right to criminalise the things they don’t like, “including people picking their noses in front of you,” transformed the piece into a comment on the safeguarding of individual liberty in general, and the dangers of paths that can lead “to the suicide of democracy.”

American novelist Jonathan Franzen’s editorial piece, an adaptation of a graduation speech originally published in The New York Times, started off as an ode to his new BlackBerry, and turned into a thought-provoking meditation on the nature of true love and heartbreak in an imperfect world in which people are growing more and more accustomed to the narcissism and mediocrity of “liking” things, Facebook style.

Is there actually a difference between these writers, and normal journalists and editors? Could fiction writers permanently replace the entire staff of a newspaper? I would like to think that they can’t, that word limits and editorial guidelines would be too much for your average writer of fiction. Aside from that, aren’t journalists meant to carry the mantle of objectivity? Isn’t their main role meant to be guardians of the truth, as opposed to masters of the written word?

Postmodern theorists ask whether there is in fact a world out there which exists objectively for all of us, and question the extent to which a newspaper is a reflection of this world “out there.” In a way, I think I would prefer to read a newspaper that did not print breaking news from its local reporters, or reprint stories straight from the wires, but instead featured beautifully written, thought-provoking pieces by a hand-picked selection of the kind of writers that I like to read, dead or alive – which sounds, I guess, a little bit like that game where you name your ideal dinner party guests.

The Haaretz Writers edition is a creative, innovative stroke of genius, and I wish that more newspapers would take such a risk, or indeed, that Haaretz ran the edition more than once a year.

The idea, however, seems better than its execution. I was disappointed at how similar in style the articles were, at how little I got to see of a writer’s individual literary style, and at the absence of creative risk-taking within the articles themselves, with the exception of Keret, whose piece felt as if it was structured like a story. The world seen through literary eyes did not seem that different to me than the world seen through the eyes of Haaretz's regular reporters, and I did find myself thinking, as I read, "if only Angela Carter wrote the news..."

Alona Ferber

The Tempest - Little Angel Theatre

2011-05-15T14:28:00.001-07:00

It is with tears in my eyes that I set upon writing this review, for The Tempest at the Little Angel Theatre in Islington was such a wonder and joy to behold that I am still moved now.

What a sweet, unassuming place the Little Angel Theatre is, hidden in a little court off Cross street it would be impossible to just walk past it and notice it unless already on your way there to see something. Tipped by a friend, we managed to catch the last night of this sold out production of The Tempest and I am so glad. A mixture of puppets and people, this child friendly production was superbly acted and never patronising. All the actors not only perform multiple roles impeccably, with an ease that leaves the audience not quite sure just how many actors are in the play and a transport that makes their throats knot and noses tingle; they also double up as master puppeteers, dancers and excellent singers and musicians, playing a variety of instruments.

Gross Caliban is here a clunky, 2-people puppet that is utterly frightful when enraged and sweet when in a more delicate, vulnerable attitude. The other main puppet, the floaty Ariel, is fine and subtly animated and its interaction with Prospero is one of the most moving elements of the play.

As well as deeply moving, this production is terribly funny at different levels, sweet in the father and daughter moments between Miranda and Prospero, exhilarating when Trinculo and Stephano are on stage, and unpredictable when the actors leave the stage and interact with the public. Even the seagull puppets are riveting!

Finally, the lighting and sound effects were seamless and essential to the atmosphere, particularly fine were the shadow play, and choral and orchestral moments that seal the union of Miranda and Ferdinand; as well as the particularly suggestive opening, which sees Prospero light up the tempest with his staff as if with a giant match.

It's sad not to be able to tell you to go and watch it as alas! it is no more. But as a huge part of the charm came from the theatre itself, so intimate and special, and the puppets, which when well made like in the Little Angel Theatre, are twenty times as magical to behold as any computer generated thestral, I feel confident that you'll be just as ecstatic as we were tonight to see any of their future adult productions. Alternatively, you if you have any young friends between 3 and 6, you might seize the opportunity and catch the forthcoming production 'The Magician's Daughter', running from the 28th of May to the 10th of July.

After going to the Little Angel Theatre once, I am sure you'll also want to take one of their adult puppet making courses, so I guess we'll see you there!

-- Faye Fornasier

Latitude 2011

2011-05-06T09:25:00.000-07:00

Today might not be sunny and warm, but surely you can remember the cleverly timed string of sunny days that blessed this country over Easter and the Royal holiday, if you can’t that’s probably because you are still sun stroked or were abroad on an anti kingdom trip. Either way, we're here to tell you that now it’s officially possible to envisage hanging out in a park and sleeping in a tent of your own free will and not just because you’re homeless. For a few months coming up we can confirm that the outdoors won’t kill you… it’s time to start thinking about festivals, and we’re thinking Latitude.

The Nutshell team went to Latitude last year for the first time and it was wonderful so this year not only we want to go again, we want you to be there too. Here’s a list of 5 indisputable reasons:

1. Sheep the colour of rainbow and the most bucolic of settings. I’m not sure why, but blue, green and pink sheep do exist outside the realm of hallucinogenics and they’re at Latitude, sprawled about on the field by a sleepy river, looking happy and chewing grass. Thick forest surrounds the main stages, with some smaller stages deep inside among the trees… We have to say, the location is perfect, and it kind of makes the festival.

2. The literary presence. There are several tents dedicated to poetry and literature. These are large, cool areas sheltered from the scorching sun and equipped with comfy cushions. One can very well wake up early in the morning, have a quick shower and then come here and settle on a cushion to see who’s reading what, not exactly dozing back to sleep but waking up gently to the sound of a poem or a story. If this doesn’t sound blissful I don’t know what does.

Later in the day, things warm up and the tents get packed, and the good thing is: they get packed with lovely people. The line up is super and the atmosphere great. Damn we do love those shady tents!

3. The comedyyyy. How blissful rocking up to the comedy tent at random times and finding ourselves sitting there in stitches for hours. The comedy tent is huge and really crowded, you’ll have to walk over people to get to an empty patch and that’s probably when you’ll be picked at by the comedian on stage. A tip: outside the tent we found some sofas lying about, if you see a free one, drag it all the way to the tent and use it. They’re the most comfortable way of watching comedy, they'll swallow you whole and you'll literally forget yourself.

4. The music. This year we feel like we're in a time warp, it's just a jump to the left and a step to the right and Suede appear, together with Echo and the Bunnymen. Those of you brave enough to admit it can join us right now and get really excited about these comebacks, what a treat! Also, remember when OMD meant Original Manoeuvres in the Dark and OMG absolutely nothing? We do, and we can't wait to be there and see how they hold the stage. The great thing about this year's line up is that Latitude combines good oldies with really fresh new bands, without forgetting the sweet inbetweeners like Paolo Nutini, The Cribs, Paloma Faith, KT Tunstall, The National, Eels, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan and British Sea Power.

5. The rest! Theatre, Cabaret, Film, Ballet, Contemporary Art... who knows what will impress you and capture your imagination, what will Sadler's Wells and the English National Ballet will come up with or what will happen at Pandora's Playground. One of the best things about festivals, and what it should be all about, is discovery and experimentation. Wandering the grounds finding new things to like.

We can't wait!

Paolo Nutini - Headlining on Saturday at the Obelisk Arena

* * *

By The Rivers, Brixton Hootananny

2011-04-24T03:55:00.000-07:00

I’d never been to the Hootananny in Brixton before. From Brixton underground you walk down a road unpromisingly lined with council estates and massive car and textile units. The venue has a peripheral outer gate and a pair of typically truculent bouncers. There are fried food stands in the front garden and a man wants to know if I’m on the weed tonight. Inside the dance area fills up quickly when the first band of the night, By The Rivers, arrives on stage. They deliver a really bright energetic set that has the whole house dancing. When not themselves playing, the wind/brass section of the band do their own little dance in one corner of the stage which is really fun and amusing to watch. The whole band looks so comfortable and happy performing and of course that lifts the audience. A few clips below.

Ian McLachlan

Pepe Belmonte involved in serious bike accident - tour cancelled but support event organised for the 16th of April

2011-04-11T05:54:00.001-07:00

On 31st March Pepe Belmonte was just about to start off on a tour to launch his critically acclaimed debut album 'The Hermit's Waltz' but was involved in a serious bike accident after being knocked down by a speeding police van.

On Saturday 16th April, he was supposed celebrate the final night of his UK tour. Instead his friends are hosting a very special fundraising night for the Beatroot Rendez-Vous founder who is currently recovering from the accident.

We friends hope to raise some funds to help him do his tour once he's better.

The proposed line up is set to include:

Jenny Lindfors
Benjamin Folke Thomas
Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou
Frank Doody
Jack Day
Trent Miller
Grace Banks
All the Queens Ravens
+ many more!

When: Saturday 16th April 2011

Where: The Betsey Trotwood, 56 Farringdon Road, City of London, EC1R 3BL

Time: 8pm - 11.30pm

Price £4

**Make sure you get there early if you definitely want to get in because we expect it to be packed out!**

News about the crash
http://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/cyclist_in_serious_condition_after_crash_with_police_van_in_haggerston_1_848940

http://www.folkradio.co.uk/2011/04/please-send-some-big-vibes-to-pepe-belmonte/

Some early 'The Hermit's Waltz' Reviews
http://www.folkradio.co.uk/2011/03/album-of-the-week-pepe-belmonte-the-hermits-waltz/

http://www.thecamdenstore.co.uk/pepe-belmonte-the-hermits-waltz

Pepe Belmonte

Pepe Belmonte 'Family State Blues' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS5S3MI8GOU&feature=related

Pepe Belmonte 'Mountain With a Moving Peak' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwScnGZ28EE
Pepe Belmonte 'The Hermit's Waltz' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBiHy4ghmOI&feature=related

Pepe Belmonte 'Glory of Love' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV7Xn10S24E

Pepe Belmonte 'Pending on my Mind' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnAM-PLGm_c

Pepe Belmonte 'Mistletoe Kisses' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU14wlcFxWc&feature=player_embedded

For more information about Pepe Belmonte and Beatroot at the Betsey please contact Jody VandenBurg

07793-251-688

jodyvandenburg@mac.com

Patch William at Nambucca

2011-04-03T04:11:00.000-07:00

What the hell happened to gig audiences? I’ll come back to this. First time I’d been to Nambucca since the fire that gutted it. The insurance money's created a new spacious look I like. I get a drink and wait for the DJ to stop playing and the bands to start up out back. After a protracted period of this not happening I go round the back to investigate only to find there’s now a separate closed-off room where the bands perform. Who knew? I see a band who don’t do anything for me, wonder if I’ve missed Patch William, the band I’ve come to see. Luckily I haven’t. They do a cool set ending with a really rocking indie tune called Skinny White Boy which I’m considering ditching the camera for in order to dance to. Glancing at the audience they’re as static as hypnotised cult members, apart from two couples in the corner who seem to think they’re attending a barn-dancing contest. To my dismay, the table I’m filming from starts to rock slightly – one attendee’s contribution to the night is a bit of swaying against the furniture. In fairness the audience gives decent verbal feedback. Couple of clips below.

Ian McLachlan

Check out PEPE BELMONTE on his 'SUPPORT YOUR INDEPENDENT RECORD STORE' tour !

2011-03-22T04:53:00.000-07:00

Brought to you by Beatroot Rendez-Vous, The Support Your Independent Record Store Tour in association with Record Store Day is under orders. Pepe Belmonte - the delightful opening act of our latest event at the Old Queen's Head - will be travelling by camper across the UK playing in-store shows followed by gigs the same evening in local venues supporting local acts.

If he's coming to your town, you should not miss it, if he's not, it's worth the trip!

Here's the schedule:

**APRIL**

7th BRIGHTON
4pm @ Ziggy's Basement, 29 Gloucester Rd &
7pm @ The Latest Music Bar, 14-17 Manchester St,£1/£4

8th BOURNEMOUTH
Red Rose Records, 3 Royal Arcade
Chaplins Cellar Bar, 529 Christchurch, Boscombe

9th YEOVIL
Acorn Music, 3 Glovers Walk

11th BRISTOL
5pm @ Rise Records, 70 Queen's Rd, Clifton &
7pm @Mr. Wolf's, 33 St Stephen's Street

12th STROUD
1-2pm @ Kane's Records, 14 Kendrick St
7pm @ Star Anise, 1 Gloucester Street, £1/£4 (with HERONS and HERMES)

13th FLINT
12-2pm @ Mold Music, 27 New Street
7pm @ Y Pentan, 3 New Street (with local acts)

14th NOTTINGHAM
5pm @ The Music Exchange, 18 West End Arcade7pm @ The Golden Fleece, 105 Mansfield Rd, FREE

16th LONDON
2pm-4pm @ Brill, 27 Exmouth Market
7pm @ The Betsy Trotwood, 56 Farringdon Rd, £1/£4

There is a small door charge at some of the evening shows but collect a magic mystery item at the in-store gig for £1 entry!!!

More info here...

Underground Poetry (UP)

2011-03-12T04:04:00.000-08:00

Underground Poetry (UP) is a new movement founded by Nina Ellis that distributes poetry leaflets to London Underground travellers. More information here: http://undergroundpoetry.org/

UP have run three events so far this year (two in London, one in Cambridge) which feature poetry readings and musical performances.

The most recent event was held on 2nd March at Proud Kitchen, Stables Market in Camden. I shot a few clips on my Flip-cam. Here’s Nina Ellis and George Worsley reading poems, and Will Adlard and Benjamin Compston performing together on guitar. Cool.

Ian McLachlan

Howl did they manage to make it so boring?

2011-03-09T07:09:00.000-08:00

For those of you hoping to see the daring, honest, brutal, sexy, filthy and scandalous on film, choose something else as you will certainly not find it in Howl, tonight, at the Curzon Soho.

Howl is rubbish. But let’s take a closer look. This film is made of scenes of Ginsberg reading Howl, scenes from the obscenity trial, an interview with Ginsberg, and HORRIBLE animation. Aside from the horrible animation, the ingredients for a decent film are there. But at a certain point film makers need to stop and think about how they're doing what they’re doing, who will end up watching it and whether it will work or not. Here it just looks like this wasn't done. Putting together all the ingredients is not enough, you must have some kind of vision, an instinct, something that will make it all gel together - and it should involve the ability to hire a better casting director.

Turning Howl, poem poet and crowd, into a film didn’t work - let's see why.

First of all, this is like being at school, the poem is paraphrased either visually, via horrid animation of people shooting up or mating (heterosexually), or through endless repetition, or – final straw really – through dialogues, literally explaining, in the trial scene, what the words might or might not mean. Surely to find out about Howl, one would have rather read the poem itself, or the relative wikipedia entry.

Second: there are times in which films set to tell stories we already know the end to, like the obscenity trial in this case, but these films generally manage to create some sort of tension, work their magic so even if we know the outcome, we might either put it out of our minds or wish to see how we got there anyway. Not here, this is not a film about the trial, nobody gives a crap about it. This is a film where the trial is thrown in for good measure, no tension is built around it and nothing justifies it even being there. Oh, and did we have to cast Don Draper as Don Draper? Doesn’t the fellow want to try something else for chrissake?

Third and final, third and main: excitement, or the total lack of. If you go and see Howl you are either a Don Draper/Franco fan, or know Howl. If the former, you are dismissed. If the latter, you are expecting at the very least cock and balls, insatiable ecstasy, or both. As on screen Franco fails (was he even trying) to look less like the badly cast unremarkable hotshot he is, and more like Ginsberg reading Howl to an enraptured, galvanised, and adoring crowd, people in the auditorium start to leave or fall asleep.

Snoring.

Really.

This might have been acceptable or even a source of pride for, say, Antonioni or Pasolini, Bergman or Haneke, at times, knowing that this or that film they made was not designed to be immediately accessible to all, but just to an élite; but here?? That such a blood pumping, all shaking, whirlwind of a poem (and of a poet) [and of an era] should be translated so tamely into film that people fell asleep is in itself a certain failure.

All this film needs now is a subtitle, a caption:

‘Howl, by Disney'

‘Howl, was it in fact censored? I can’t remember’.

‘Yawn..’ sorry I meant ‘Howl, soon on a plane near you - for those who fear flying and would rather be asleep’

--

Faye Fornasier

Nutshell Winter Boum, Islington

2011-03-02T09:09:00.000-08:00

Family performing at the Nutshell Winter Boum, Sunday 27th February 2011. Much of the ambient noise is provided by Faye yacking away about something or other. The decision to shoot directly at a pillar is an innovative one, but I think artistically it paid off.

Having shot a few clips of Family I then forgot about my flipcam until Faye went up to take a photo of These Furrows, at which point I retrieved it and captured their dying moments on stage. I realise such a short clip is of no use to man or beast and present it here for perusal by amphibians.

Luckily, early on in the evening, I did manage to record a clean audio track of Josh displaying a worrying absence of knowledge about his siblings’ work in our magazine. It wasn’t clear he’d looked at either Kat’s or Alex’s poems in Nutshell 1, and, though he claimed to have read Kat’s story in Nutshell 2, damningly, he then failed to recognise the issue it appeared in. How distressed Josh’s poor mother will be to hear this tale of fraternal impiety I can only imagine. Now I’ve never been one for blackmail. Faye, however, has no such reservations, as one might expect from the national of a country that routinely elects Berlusconi to power, and we’re hoping a financial backer for Nutshell has at last been found.

Never Let Me Go - Film Review

2011-01-31T09:37:00.000-08:00

My friend Siobhan and I have started going to the cinema together, there seems to be one implicit condition though, we can only see unbearably depressing films. It's unbearable or nothing. Which is fine, I guess, since we both enjoy that kind of pain, and we seem to bear it all right. Recently she suggested Blue Valentine, then I suggested Never Let Me Go. You can see them both and let me know which one you found to be the most depressing.

First of all, let me admit that prior to watching them I had no idea what they were about. Of Never Let Me Go I knew the cast, and the only reason I suggested it is that I quite fancied seeing pan-faced Keira and pig-faced Carey in action together again. It might be a bad habit but in the past few years I have started deliberately avoiding reading plots and reviews of films I might want to see at the cinema. I am far too put off by genres, so not having a clue what it is that I am about to see makes it easier to actually go and be surprised - sometimes. This doesn’t, of course, explain why I knew nothing of NLMG, since it's based on a novel which I own but i haven't read yet. I won't apologise for that though, I am busy, get over it. It's on the pile of books to read, I keep adding to the pile and keep reading the last book added. I was going to read it at the right moment and the moment hadn't come yet, so, from the poster alone (I don't read back cover plot outlines either) I assumed I would be a coming of age smooch fest, a boarding school version of Pride and Prejudice, only modern and therefore – I hoped – more explicit.

Imagine my surprise seeing Keira play the part of the selfish bitch in what turned out to be a really disturbing story scripted to spin sci-fi on its head and free it from any sci-fi elements bar one, microchip bracelets, a cinematic addition apparently. As it was a Q&A, I had the chance to see that the book lovers had no objection to the filmic rendition, and Ishiguro himself – I hear – is fairly happy with it, as he was consulted every step of the way to make sure everything felt right and nobody got pissed off. The casting worked really well, the children, in particular, were well trained to mimic their adult correspondents; and the Japanese aesthetics were well respected. What annoyed me, I have to say, is the exasperated cinematic cliché of colour representation of emotions. Blue, gray, green and the combination of the three equal sadness and hopelessness. Great, let’s turn this film into the winter installment of a knitting catalogue. In fact, let’s also design our intertitles to match that and turn the film locations ans time placers into knitting chapter openers (Hailsham: child wear, The Cottages: farming housewives, Completion: er... shawls?)

Anyway, enough technicalities, what is the film about? Should you see it? You should read the book first - you should always read the book first unless we're talking of The Girl With the Pearl Earring - but if now is not the right time yet, I'll be happy to spoil it for you. NLMG is the story of three children who meet in a special boarding school for clones who are created and raised for the sole purpose of becoming organ donors in their 20s. As the three protagonists grow up friendship, love and resentment get tangled, until Completion time approaches (death, that is) and they have to let go. The sadness is constant and justified: just like normal humans the clones know their existence will come to an end and hope to postpone it, the difference is that unlike that of most humans, their life will terminate in their prime and they don't get a chance to forget about it. Their desperation is not the raw, uncontrollable one of the replicants in Blade Runner, which is probably why this film didn't do well in the US market. The fact that the characters don't run much, reveals Romaneck, has displeased some critics over there. There is only one run in the film and not much screaming and confrontation; this is down to Romaneck's desire to remain close to the Japanese concept of Yūgen, according to which emotions should be expressed subtly, elegantly, like a small ripple on the surface of a river troubled by very strong, deep undercurrents. Not in the screamy, snotty way we go about things.

Ignore the remark on the overindulgent photography, I recommend this film because it surprised me, and also because not watching films only because Keira Knightley is in them is no longer a good excuse.

Good for you, Keira.

-- Faye Fornasier

Circalit Launch Crime Fiction Competition with Leading Literary Agency

2011-01-25T06:09:00.000-08:00

Circalit, the new online hub of the literary world, has just announced a competition to find the next big crime fiction blockbuster with winning entries being submitted to the leading literary agency, A.P. Watt.

Circalit, whose social networking and digital distribution platform aims to bring writers and agents together, are hosting the competition online where the public are able to read all submissions and vote for their favourite novels. The top submissions will be read and considered for representation by A.P. Watt. The competition is free and those wishing to enter must start by creating an account at Circalit and posting their work online.

Raoul Tawadey, founder of Circalit, commented, “There is a wealth of literary talent across the globe, only a fraction of which gets the recognition it deserves. Crowd-sourcing is a great way for the publishing industry to find literature that already has a proven readership. We hope this competition will give talented new writers the opportunity to get their work noticed and demonstrate the power of the internet to create a global talent pool.”

To enter your script please visit www.circalit.com.

About Circalit
Circalit is the world’s premier social networking site for writers. Originally launched in February 2010 as a place where screenwriters can showcase their work to film studios, Circalit is now also home to novelists, playwrights and short story writers across the globe. Its free service allows writers to have their work reviewed by peers and professionals, enter into free writing competitions, create a fan base, make industry contacts and market their work, and apply for professional writing jobs online. Circalit’s mission is to digitise and democratise the way that good literature is discovered by agents, producers and publishers.

Cool For Cats presents the Nutshell Winter Boum

2011-01-17T07:36:00.000-08:00

Cool for Cats and Nutshell Magazine team up to bring you the perfect Sunday do. Expect to stuff your belly with the best Sunday roast in town while watching live acts that are the pick of the crop, then the night will escalate both in beat and in heart rates as drinks replace food and it all turns into a massive party… without the hassle of a late night.

Aside music, food and drink there'll be a crafters' couch, and a Nutshell mag corner to keep your hands busy.

The line up includes: The Palpitations, Chapter 24, Microdance, These Furrows, The Inevitable Pinhole Burns, Raven Beats Crow, and Family

FREE ENTRANCE - you can't miss it!

Old Queen’s Head, Essex Road, Sunday 27th February, from 3.30 until night falls

Dior Illustrated: René Gruau and the Line of Beauty

2010-11-21T04:54:00.000-08:00

Kimberley Chen reviews the thrills and frills of the Dior Illustrated: René Gruau and the Line of Beauty exhibition, showing at Somerset House, Embankment Galleries, until 9 January 2011.

After many university students lugging hefty, hardback sketchbooks, busily scribbling and sketching saucy, seductive and wonderfully dressed figures at the Design Museum’s Drawing Fashion exhibition, Somerset House have also decided to open its doors to yet more fashion illustration fans. This time it sets out to explore the amazing relationship between Christian Dior and René Gruau.

There were many screeching girls who ‘oohed’ and ‘ahhed’ at the sight of beautiful Dior Haute Couture clothed mannequins. Bright, unmissable pink paint splattered over a pristine white dress would usually be an utter tragedy to behold, but the Olga Sherer outfit inspired by Gruau for the Autumn/Winter 2007/08 collection makes this so-called “clumsiness” into a thing of great beauty. Attach a pink scrunched rose detail to the hip of the dress, pull up sleek, long, black gloves, embellish the neck with a chunky pearl necklace, tilt a paint palette hat on the head (Complete with generous dollops of thick crimson, navy and black paint, and a giant paintbrush) and voilá here is an outfit that screams glamour and stylishness. Vintage perfume bottles also got their fair share of admiration, and no wonder, since these golden beauties possess such a commanding elegance just begging for attention. All the bottles were shaped as gorgeous amphoras, and the Diorling 1963 bottle and the Diorissimo 1956 bottle used Dior’s favourite motif: flowers. The former perfume bottle has a delicate rosebud stopper, whilst the latter has a spray of golden roses and jasmine as an ornamental lid. These miniature cuties gain a great amount of respect as well-sculpted works of art.

Despite all the gaping jaws at the mannequins, the obvious star attraction of the show was Gruau’s exquisite fashion illustrations. One thing which I wasn’t expecting was a rather kinky and naughty looking cookbook. La Cuisine Cousu-Main is a Dior cookery book filled with recipes Dior himself liked to prepare, plus 10 original drawings by Gruau. One picture showed a naked woman having a bath in a frothy gigantic glass of alcohol. There is a huge nest of alcoholic bubbles resting on the woman’s head, whilst the woman gives a wide, mischievous and suggestive smile.

René Gruau’s fashion illustrations for Christian Dior show intelligence, humour and attitude. The five contemporary UK-based illustrators who contributed images inspired by Gruau, indicates how he continues to impress and influence artists today, and beyond.

Kimberley Chen is a London-based writer. She has previously written for a number of publications including Blueprint magazine and The Architect’s Journal.

Solovino - He came alone by Alona Ferber

2010-11-10T08:50:00.000-08:00

It’s past midnight. Outside the street is dead quiet. No car drives past the colourful houses. Even the cars speeding down the avenue at the end of the street cannot be heard. The local dogs that live on these doorsteps are all sleeping too, guarding the people they wish were their owners. Solovino, one of the most famous dogs on the block, the one who knows all the faces and is known by them all is curled up outside number 16, dreaming of rabbits. As he chases them through his field of dreams, his raggedy ears twitch nervously and his dirty paws scratch at the pavement. In his dreams Solovino is a champion. No rabbit can evade his sharp sense of smell. He is a graceful huntsman, shiny of coat and wet of nose, who can track down any of those fluffy, big-eared little creatures with hardly an exertion. Yes, Solovino is feared and respected in this field of dreams. No bitch can resist his canine charm. They wait eagerly with their bums raised exaggeratedly in the air, just waiting for him to sniff. While he is sleeping, the speeding taxi that caught him unawares that fateful morning disappears from the limited view of his memory and his right hind leg becomes not an impediment but a definite advantage. What dog would be more attractive than one who not only is the best hunter for miles around, but who does it on the strength of only three good legs?

And so it goes. Every night he waits outside the girls’ house. He cries and whines and scratches on the door, just waiting for them to say yes. He knows he has convinced one of them. Every time she sees him there is the warm pat on the head, the “oh Solovino, how are you?”. He has taken to following her whenever she leaves the house, just to prove how faithful he can really be. The other two, however, are a different matter. They never stop to say hello, always walk away as quickly as they can and try not to look him in the eye. So Solovino makes a decision. He is going to try harder than he has ever tried, he is going to make them love him, make them need him and make them feel guilty as hell for not having given him a home sooner.

Luckily for him, or not so luckily, depending on your point of view, the rainy season is just beginning. Every afternoon round about four o’clock, the sky opens, and as everybody knows, in a few weeks or so every afternoon will see inundations as heavy as anything. So Solo, as those close to him sometimes like to call him, parks himself outside the house at rain time and whines away like a poor lovesick little puppy. He knows that maybe you can ignore a dog crying at night, when it is still warm and dry outside, but when the street is like a river? When all the other dogs, or at least those who are lucky enough to have owners are safely tucked up inside? What he wasn’t counting on however, was how little the other two girls feel when they see him there outside as they run home in the rain, or quickly make their way to the metro station under their umbrellas. Of course girl number three still looks at him with those wish-I-could-adopt-you eyes, but the other two don’t seem to budge.

Solovino has to think long and hard about this. In his experience, there are two types of people. People who love canine company and those who can think of nothing worse than waking up to a dog slobbering all over them first thing in the morning. And even worse, a vast majority of these are actually self-professed cat people. He suspects that the other two girls are of the latter kind. The first one, he has noticed, is the glamorous type, the kind of girl who never leaves the house without at least two coats of mascara and exciting shoes on, whatever the weather. Girl number two is the smart, down to earth, type. His tactic of following them down the street, nibbling at their shoes and placing his filthy paws affectionately on their breasts has done him little or no favours so far. He could almost kick himself now he thinks about it. He has even noticed that girl number three has started to recoil at his affections.

One Saturday afternoon, when the girls have still not stepped out of the house, Solovino is curled up outside their door in the sun, dreaming once again of rabbits. Solovino rarely dreams of anything else. In fact, it is a secret little known to humans, or cats or even birds for that matter, that dogs, even those who will probably never ever meet a rabbit, are hard pushed to dream of anything but the eternal rabbit chase. The colour or species of rabbit might change, the dream might take place in a field, or a car park or even a road filled with cars racing past, but the subject will not change. The rabbit, the universal rabbit signifies a host of things to dogs worldwide. It is the vehicle through which the humble dog understands the world. And so when Solovino awoke from a dream where there were no rabbits in sight, where he felt the absence of rabbit so deep within his soul that he started to howl and whine in his sleep, he realised that the only recourse left to him in these desperate times was the one thing that he had never tried before. After all it is not only humans who know the old saying. Absence certainly does make the heart grow fonder.

Solovino makes all the necessary arrangements. He makes sure he explains what’s what to the other dogs on the street. The new guy, who came to the street a few weeks ago, who looks like he hasn’t washed in years and who no one on the street has deigned to give a name, is sad to see him go, but understands. The ginger cat, who Solovino has never been particularly close to, gives him a brotherly nod, wishing him luck on the road. The other dogs of the street, of which there are about five, promise not to let on that they know he will come back, and more importantly, promise not to try to win their way into the affections of Solovino’s girls. “Don’t worry, they’re yours Solo”, says the one with half of one ear chewed off, “Yeah m’ijo, don’t worry, just make sure you come back”, says captain, the graceful dog who has not let the hard life of the street life rob him of the good humour of the Labrador. Bertha, the big mama dog who has been pregnant a million times and always lets the others in on it when she finds food and makes all the newbies feel like part of the family, gives him a reassuring lick on the neck.

With one last bark, Solovino makes his quiet escape. He runs all the way to the big avenue at the end of the street, makes a left and runs up the avenue, passing little streets identical to his own, stopping every once in a while to sniff the scent of other dogs, eat food left on the pavement and relieve himself. A long life on the road has made Solovino see life with eyes wide open, and one of his favourite past-times is to make his mark in just those places that humans would really rather he didn’t. It is not only that he finds it funny to watch them scream and shout as they step into the shit he has just left on their doorstep. There has been many a late night where he and the other dogs have discussed at length the political implications of controlling where a mutt can go to the toilet. Defecating and pissing where he shouldn’t is his way of protesting the human arrogance that assumes that they own the pavement.

The life of a street dog is not easy. Solovino has been doing it since he was a pup. His is the old story of the unwanted Christmas present. It only took them a few weeks to realise that she was allergic and then that was it, it was either little Juanita or him. Of course, they chose Juanita. Solovino had never really been able to get over that rejection. He had never been able to fully accept ownership again. But now, after so many years living la vie en rue, he was ready to settle down. And the girls were not like any other family that he had ever seen.

Not that he hadn’t enjoyed life. As he walked along now, nibbling at a broken ice-cream cone over here, picking up the scent of a bitch on heat over there, his mind was flooded with the memories of a lifetime under the stars. The first time he had ever come to the street, all the faces were different. The families who live in the same pile of bricks generation after generation had changed a little of course. The little girl in number 18 had started wearing make-up, and he had noticed that relations between her mother and her grandmother had started to strain under the weight of their daily convivencia. The old lady across the road had started curtain-twitching less and less as the pain of arthritis kicked in. But really it was the animals, his extended family, which came to mind.

Bertha, the stereotype of the dog mama that every dog knew, had made him feel welcome in the way that she had made many a dog feel welcome over the years. She was the strongest, most generous dog he had ever met. A mongrel who had never met her real parents, she had been raised by an assortment of dogs and humans over her many moons. When Solovino first rounded the corner into the street, she had been lying in the sun across the road from number 16, nursing a brood of seven newborns who were the result of a one night stand with a sexy Alsatian. This was before Solovino’s accident, when his four legs were all working fine, and he could run as elegantly as any dog. Bertha had explained to him which houses tended to leave food out, which humans were receptive to doggy affection, which were the good places to shelter from the rain. Him and Bertha had become fast-friends, and a tear welled up in his big brown eyes as he remembered the day that the last of that particular brood, now grown-up and independent, had turned arses to Bertha and trotted off round the corner to find their fortune. Bertha had been through this many a time, and it never failed to make her melancholic. Which of course was only natural. It was never long before she would forget and get pregnant again, only to live through the same agony.

One time, one of Bertha’s children had actually made his way back to the street by accident. The reunion was very touching, and Bertha’s pup, who had been away for years, regaled the dogs and cats on the street with the adventures she had lived in the city. Most of the dogs in the suburbs rarely made it very far into the big smoke, where the dogs where mean, and the humans worse. Not that life in suburbia was not full of its own tragedies. Solovino could remember the countless dogs who had made their lucky escape from cruel owners only to be found again and kidnapped, or the many a dog caught unawares by the irresponsibility of a speeding and thoughtless driver. And then there were the men who came quietly in the dead of night, who would put a dog to sleep and carry him away to an uncertain future. The dogs on the street had organised a watch to protect each other, but very often it would be the very dog on watch, the only one awake who would have disappeared by the time everybody had woken in the morning.

Yes, Solo had lived many an adventure on that street, it was a part of him now, and he was determined to make it his permanent human home, with all the benefits that that entailed. His friends understood that it wasn’t that he was abandoning them, but that at his age, he craved a little stability. And so he would make himself disappear for a while, until the girls would begin to wonder where he had gone, would begin to miss his crying and whimpering outside their door, the affection in his eyes to welcome them home when they had had a bad day. He had known dogs who had won their way into the most icy of hearts, and he was determined to follow in their footsteps.

Time passed. For a dog there is no more accurate measure of time than the ebb and flow of smell and sound and light. A dog knows that when the complicated mix of what humans know as daytime smells has faded in intensity, when the distant whrrr of cars, which to a dog is as loud as thunder, really has reduced itself to something more like a whhrrr, then another of life’s mini cycles has come and gone. Soon the light will slowly seep its way into the world’s four corners, and life will begin again. But as far as measuring long periods of time goes, for a dog it is slightly tricky. Having no calendars to rely on, the humble dog can only try to remember how many times life’s mini cycle has renewed itself, and more often than not, loses count somewhere around 20. Solovino was not sure exactly how long he had been away from the street, but what he did know was that he had seen the yellowy-white circle in the sky, known to humans as the moon, change shape significantly, that he definitely had got past the count of twenty and that the rainy season was now in full throttle.

The day that Solovino decided to go home was a Thursday, unbeknownst to him. He sniffed his way along the street, picking up the distant scent of his friends and neighbours until his nose led him round a corner and into his old familiar territory. The closer he got the more excited he became. He started to run awkwardly towards Bertha and the dog who when he left had been the new guy, who were sitting on the pavement in the sunshine, his tongue hanging out of his mouth with happiness as he ran. As soon as they caught smell of him they stood on all fours and began to bark in surprise. He sped up and jumped towards them in a scene that would seem to the untrained eye like a fight in the making. Bertha began to lick his face and paw him with glee. The new guy began to chew one of his paws to welcome his return. The little girl at number 18, who happened to be staring out of her window at the house across the road where a certain handsome young 15-year-old gentleman lived began to shout “Mama, mama, Solovino’s back!” Yes Solovino had certainly been missed by some.

When the excitement had died down, Bertha started to fill him in on the goings on while he was away. Two new dogs, one young bitch and an old (unlikely) mongrel mix of chihuahua and dalmation had started coming to the street and stealing the food left out by the good resident folks for the good resident street dogs. One of the other street regulars had been killed by some poisoned food. Bertha and the New Guy weren’t sure enough to name names, but had their theories about one family who had shown nothing but contempt for the streets animals ever since they had moved to the street. Captain had finally been adopted by the old curtain twitcher, who had always shown a special fondness for him. A series of break-ins in the neighbourhood had made her realise the extent of her love for the old dog, and she had opened up her doors for him, living room and all.

“What about the girls?” he asked, “How are my girls?” The ensuing silence and averted eyes told Solovino everything that he needed to know. Bertha gave him a reassuring lick on the face, and the new guy pawed him and said “I’m sorry Solo, but you were gone for so long…” Solovino couldn’t say that he wasn’t disappointed. Away on his own, walking unfamiliar city streets, one of the only things that had kept him going was the idea that awaiting him, finally, was a home. That the three girls would have grown to miss his whining and his company on their way to the metro station so much, that they would even have bought special dog food bowls just for him to welcome him on his return.

“So come on then, who was it?” The answer to his question was a long and awkward silence. “Come on, I can take it. Did they adopt the new guy?” Bertha started to whine a little, “It was wasn’t it, or was it Captain? Yeah that whole curtain twitcher story was a good cover, last time I trust any of you…” Solovino was so far into his monologue that he was yet to notice a small, elegant ginger cat, wearing a brand new sky blue collar complete with tinkling bell, glide his elegant cat way along by the gate of number 16 and up and over it into the overgrown, messy garden on the other side. If he had stopped for just one minute and looked in that direction, he would have noticed the brand new metal bowls, one full of milk, the other full of cat food, which had been placed outside the front door of number 16. If he had seen the direction in which Bertha’s eyes, filled with compassion for her dear and disappointed friend, were looking, he would have seen girl number one actually holding that smug ginger cat and letting it claw her brand new jumper and get cat hair all over it. But Solovino would not find out about this treachery until later that day. And when he did, he would want to kick himself forever having let old ginger know his plans. After all, you never can trust a cat, especially not when there are cat-people involved.

Follow your own path and don't worry about the darkness

2010-10-10T06:53:00.001-07:00

Cheltenham Literary Festival 2010
Dreams and nightmares

After an early morning and a longer than anticipated train journey (yes, I had my northern head on and presumed that, being in the south, Cheltenham must be only just outside of London), I finally made it to the wonderful little Regency town of Cheltenham.

The theme of The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival 2010 is Dreams and Nightmares, and as I made my way into the Inkpot venue, I mentally prepared myself for a voyage into the supernatural world of ghouls and ghosts.

And what better way to begin than with an event called Fantastic Fictions, a discussion largely centered around Black Water, an anthology of supernatural tales put together by Argentine-born Canadian writer Alberto Manguel.

Manguel was joined on stage by China Miéville and Maggie Gee, and after a quick reference to the recent ‘Franzen Freedom fiasco’ (the very thought that this can so easily happen gives me the shivers), they each read a couple of passages from some stories in the anthology, such as ‘The Wizard Postponed’ by Jorge Luis Borges, ‘The Door in the Wall’ by HG Wells, and ‘Lady into Fox’ by David Garnett.

Now, having expected tales of vampires, monsters and other ogres, I was actually confronted with something rather different. As opposed to fantasy, the fantastic deals with the quotidian – using only slight tweaks and twists to give an intrusion into the ordinary, with horrifyingly nightmarish effect.

So, no vampires or zombies here, but all the same, I think I’ll throw my Monkey’s Paw on the fire – just in case.

So, where would my quest for dreams and nightmares lead me to next? Well, to Shakespeare’s Sonnets it seems. A slight diversion from my supernatural journey then, but I think you’ll forgive me when I tell you that the Shakespeare lecture was given by Nutshell favourite Don Paterson. Don has written a new book, Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets, in which he approaches the work in a non-scholarly, contemporary way. And it seems Don had a whale of a time writing it, mostly whilst in the bath, apparently.

The audience is largely made up of elderly couples, and I’m not sure how his controversial approach will go down, but the crowd loves him. He is certainly an entertaining speaker. He is joined on stage by an actor, who reads out some of the sonnets, with Don providing his own interpretations. And one thing’s for certain – I never expected to hear an analogy between women and hamburgers in a Shakespeare lecture, but I definitely won’t forget it. Lecturers take note.

On the way out of the auditorium I hear one man say to his wife, ‘Well I thought I was going to hate that, but he’s great! Let’s buy the book.’ Success.

But, back to the quest. After a complimentary wee dram of Highland Park (it was free, how could I decline?), it was time for Classic Chills, with Martin Jarvis, Andrew Lycett and Nicholas Royle. As with the Fantastic Fictions event earlier, the panel read and discussed some of their favourite Victorian ghost stories, by authors such as Algernon Blackwood, MR James, Wilkie Collins and Arthur Conan Doyle.

More ghosts this time, but there was still that eerie feeling that the most terrifying stories are those in which something under the surface of everyday life slowly reveals itself.

I left the event suitably chilled and, sadly, it was time to leave the festival. As I made my way back to the station in darkness, I considered the events of the day, and the thing that impresses me most about Cheltenham Festival, more so than other festivals I’ve been to, is that it is a truly individual experience.

The theme, Dreams and Nightmares, is a broad one and, with such a huge range of events taking place, you really have the scope to follow your own path through the festival. I chose a haunted path, but which path will you choose?

The Cheltenham Literature Festival 2010 continues until 17th October, and there are events with many great writers, politicians, comedians and historians still to come. Find out more at www.cheltenhamfestivals.com

Rebecca Sharp - Holiday

2010-09-23T04:22:00.000-07:00

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Rebecca Sharp

Edinburied

2010-08-28T00:12:00.000-07:00

So as this great festival draws to a close I look back on my last day and think "Whatever happened to the 'Edinburgh International Festival?'", which of course is what started all this back in 1947. It's a bit like the Murray brothers, in that big brother was good for a while but now is completely eclipsed by the young upstart.

I spent the day pottering around and chanced upon James Sherwood, comedy with the aid of a piano, he kindly pointed out some quite serious grammatical errors in a number of popular songs including 'And I stiiiill haven't found, THAT FOR WHICH I'M LOOKING', thanks James, what a funny man with a piano and a beard, no really!

Next I chanced upon a medley show 'F***ing funny for a fiver', now I'm sure that on occasions they are rather good but I have never had the chance to see a whole show die quite so spectacularly. It was rather entertaining to watch, a bit like snuff movie. There was also an element of the masochistic about it all, comedians began their sets with such amusing and prophetic lines as 'well, this is probably going to be the worst gig I've ever done', and 'this audience is s**t', and then continued to force through their act in some sort of misguided attempt at valor. By far the worst thing, which was surprising, was that there was no heckling, no booing, no tomato throwing, just a uniform half smile on the face of the audience which seemed like a rag to a bull to some of the performers, in hindsight, extremely funny!

Laura Solon is very good, but then I suppose you're meant to be with a Perrier award. Comic monologue with some brilliant characters set to the tune of an owl on an island. Spiffing.

Evening entertainment was musical in nature and took the form of an exclusive Masters performance by a group of sound artists. If you have never had the aural experience of being taken into the inner workings of a drum whilst it is dismantled around you or gone for a qudraphonic trip on a piano as it tunefully tumbles down the side of a mountain then you are surely missing out, the soundscapes created here were truly impressive, and who would have thought the noises of an empty office building could be so intimidating and alive?

Yes, Edinburgh festival has delivered and I have been entertained. Good!

Edinbetter

2010-08-26T03:12:00.000-07:00

The Sun was out yesterday, at times I was even able to take my jumper off when indoors, Hooray! The day began with a curious show of schizoid nature, a lady on a bike presenting a monologue on her superman's split personality, then changing herself at the toll of a bell and performing such feats as drinking an entire bottle of champagne or eating a whole packet of biscuits, in superfast time. Rather beautiful. Next to the screening of The Tunnel (http://vimeo.com/11801289). A flowing and well worked documentary which gives an insight into the alternative alternative comedy club of the 80's. The film itself is a prelude to a homage to Malcolm Hardee, the great unknown of British comedy, due out in the near future.

We were then lucky enough to see one of NMs own... Sarah Campbell who is debuting her first debut Fringe show, 27 up, itself a prelude to 54 up, to be screened in 27 years. Managing to cram in the essential details of her first 27 years on this earth into 30 minutes, yes, including those lonely moments with a party popper. We are also invited to communicate with our future selves via the medium of a cheapy videocamera, can't wait! Her relaxed style and engaging material surely mean that this is the last time will will see her on the free fringe, boo!

Kunt and the Gang, The complete Kunt, sort of introduces itself. Imagine, if you can, the most inappropriate lyrics, set to music which surely is from the demo tracks of an 80's casio keyboard, aided by the medium of dance and you can almost hear those classics such as 'Wanking over a pornographic polaroid of an ex-girlfriend who died'. The show was lifted by the crowd, who clearly knew his material; it is a little disconcerting seeing a room full of people singing along to 'Use my Arsehole as a Cunt'. It was funny at the time...maybe you had to be there.

Edinbrrrrrr

2010-08-25T01:04:00.001-07:00

Whereas the vast majority of places in the northern hemisphere, when asked if August counts as Summer, would reply '(chortle) but of course!', Edinburgh would disagree. As I disembarked from the train I instantly understood what the Fringe Festival was all about, how clever these Burghians are, it is a con to bring in vast crowds from the world over to open up every shack in the town for them so that they can spend their time flitting from one to the next pretending that Summer does exist but they're just too busy to see it.

Bravely I put on my duffle coat and dived into the first place I could find. 'AAAaand now for something completely improvised' is one of those shows that is awkward to watch as you know the protagonists are getting more from your being there than you are. Something about Wigan and Pies when I saw them but can't remember too much as I was too busy thawing.

Having sufficiently staved off frostbite I ventured out once more, yes dear readers the things I do for you, and chanced upon 'Sara Pascoe Vs Her Ego'. Much better, I love the feeling of actually wanting to be somewhere. This is her first show at the fringe but she has a good pedigree as an actor and comic and writer and she wooed us with 'Jokes from the 80's' and philosophy puns 'Jung Kant Hegel the truth!', also gets the prize for the worst joke on the fringe (no, seriously it was on the news!), 'Why did the chicken commit suicide? To get to the other side'.

Now feeling optimistic I took a punt on a comic who I probably should have heard of before, Simon Evans. Now this was seriously funny stuff, his rhythm, delivery and feel for the mood of the crowd was perfectly professional. It's a strange sensation being toyed with and made to laugh at whim, quite impressive that he hasn't hit the really big stages, let's keep him to ourselves... 'Obesicles', what a great name for mobility scooters!

I like this fringe business, more tomorrow please, I'm starting to lose sensation in my toes.

Exploring new café Drink, Shop & Do - just sprouted in the heart of Kings Cross

2010-08-18T03:56:00.002-07:00

Guess what we found tucked away between a rip-off hair salon and a bad novelty mug shop? A bright, huge, quiet hideaway called quite aptly and unpretentiously Drink, Shop & Do where you can have a variety of teas and coffees - and a beer too if you want - buy anything in sight, and do pretty much whatever you like, knit, scrabble, read, write, bring your own Lego and build a spaceship, hold an event, have a party, et cetera.

Working in King's Cross I am very aware that the area is developing into something quite pretty, the new glow-sticks coloured path over the canal, Kings Place, the new college of fashion... a lot is happening round here but with all the Costa, Nando's and McDos it's really good to know there is also a quiet, bright place to just ... relax - a word only recently discovered by the King's Cross community.

So we decided to make drink, Shop & Do our next pilgrimage destination to see whether we should recommend it to our Nutshell readers or warn them to stay away. The result is a big thumbs up and a wee chat with the hostesses, Kristie & Coralie.

Pilgrim: Drink, Shop & Do is the result of a pop up shop experiment, right? Pop up shops are terribly modern and exciting and give small businesses a chance to make a name for themselves, tell us about your experience.

Kristie & Coralie: The pop-up shop was more a result of the business plan, it gave us a chance to test our idea, see if it worked, see if people liked it, see if we could do it and see if we liked doing it!It then gave us some proof and figures to help us make it a reality.

P: Kings cross used to be fairly bare and dodgy but now it’s being completely renovated, new businesses pop up at every corner but they tend to be chains like Costa and Nando’s. It’s good to have a cute, independent hideaway to go and have coffee but we wonder: why here and, most importantly, how did you get that spot? the space is enormous and really grand, did you have to physically fight Pizza Express to secure it?

C&K: We already knew the space when we planned the business. Coralie used to work at a gallery and had used the space for a one month show so we knew it was sitting empty. About 5 minutes after having the idea we knew the space was perfect for it. We did almost come to fisticuffs with an Indian restaurant but luckily the landlord likes having interesting businesses in his properties.

P: With the yarns, fabrics, teacups and comfy cushions crowding your shelves and tables D,S&D looks like the place where people could just come and knit a jumper over a coffee, or read a book over a cocktail, or just have endless catch ups with friends over a pot of tea. Other café owners get annoyed if the time to money ratio is askew and constantly nag customers to have another drink or leave, what is your policy on ‘stayers’?

C&K: Hum... being brand new we're flattered that people like us enough to want to spend all afternoon here. We're friendly kind of people and so far we have attracted nice people who have wanted to support us so haven't taken advantage.

P: D,S&D is fairly new but you’re already mixing the ingredients for some tasty courses and events. What’s cooking? Will you have any literary events? Poetry and knitting go hand in hand these days, just think of the Poetry Society’s knitted poem.

C&K: A couple of people have asked about literary events and we'd love to hold one, we just need to find the right person to run one. Ideas on a postcard to mail@drinkshopdo.com needs a good name and a one line explanation and preferably a nice person to run it.

P: You have many items on sale, a lot of them handmade, many vintage. How do you choose what to sell?

C&K: We sell all things we love and we would like to buy!

P: Finally, what’s D,S&D’s favourite book?

C&K: Reader's Digest Cookery, Year 1973.

P: Thank you.

C&K: No, thank you!

Aw.... such lovely people. Make sure you pop round and have an ice cream when you're next in the area!

DRINK, SHOP & DO Ltd
9 Caledonian Road
Kings Cross
London

www.drinkshopdo.com

Some Positive Ramblings about The Not-So-Secret Garden Party

2010-08-07T01:23:00.000-07:00

First of all, I think I owe my fellow gardeners an apology... for I fear I may have been slightly responsible for the epic queue that hindered the start of this year's festivities. You see last year's edition of the party was just so good that I couldn't possibly keep it a secret! And because I recounted my tales of adventure and intrigue to just about everyone and anyone over the course of the year I think the world and his dog (for yes there were many fine four-legged friends gardening around) came along to see what the fuss was all about.

And this year did not disappoint; quite the opposite. Whilst it grew in quantity it also grew in quality and along with a repeat of last year's wonderfully weird attractions there was a much improved standard of music. In preparation for the festival I spent a lot of time warning my music snob friends that it wasn't about the big name DJs but the experience- and so not to be disappointed when they found themselves do si do-ing atop a bale of hay to the beats of a banjo instead of the usual stomping in the depths of a throbbing AVB crowd.. But alas, much to their delight the Pagoda stage was graced with some rather impressive "guest DJs"; who turned out to be the likes of Annie Mac, Alex Metric and Adam Freeland! Bonus.

My favourite parts, however, remained the smaller attractions. The Village Hall for example; sitting in my Victorian dress in the sunshine whilst drinking a cup of herbal and knitting most certainly goes down as one of the happiest moments of my life (call me a girl of simple tastes if you will). In fact tea featured rather prominently in my festival antics. A quintessentially British concoction of gin, cold fruity herbal and a dash of lemonade, supped from a tea pot, perfectly complemented the laid-back vibe of the Living Room. This was a cosy tent adorned with mantle pieces, bookcases, cushions and Grandma's old sofas all facing a small television-esque stage. Relaxing here in front of a live band on the Sunday afternoon was better entertainment than the Eastenders omnibus, and that is high praise indeed.

Another highlight of this festival is that a health freak such as myself can indulge themselves till their healthy hearts are content- God bless you Weirdigans cafe! Night or day you were there to feed me and my insatiable appetite for healthy inebriation; with vegan chocolate energy balls, guava punch and oodles of my beloved houmous. Bravo.

I'd also like to propose a toast to the Hendrick's gin troupers. Their task for us gardeners was to write a story in exchange for a free gin and tonic (albeit a thimble full) and our task for them was to listen to them all. After our initial surprise that the fine gintlemen weren't as enthused as we were over our tall tales the realisation dawned on us that they had probably endured four whole days of drunken revellers' incoherent ramblings. For this reason (I can only assume) they had sneakily hidden electrodes in two giant cucumbers, and thrust them into the palms of unsuspecting gardeners! Our friend Jon succeeded in enduring the most electric cucumber of all SGP revellers; well done to him. He really was determined to win that Little Book of Gentlemen's Etiquette.

Secret Garden is definitely the festival for extroverts, and offers the perfect opportunity to show off that long-lost school hobby you thought you'd bid farewell to at the age of eleven. I, for example, had a lot of fun reliving my days as a ballerina; pirouetting between the tents in long flowing gown (a costume that was likened more to Little Bo Peep than that of the intended Lydia from Pride and Prejudice) until I managed to fall spectacularly on my face straight into a bin. We also enjoyed (rather less dangerously) playing the ocarina, and cucumber and rose petal draughts; for which my rusty skills won a grow-your-own cucumber set! This now sits on my desk and serves to remind me of happier, fruitier times.

The festivities in fact culminated in a giant sing-song on the Sunday evening. Once all other sources of music had been thoroughly exhausted one charitable fellow, with some rather impressive musical skills, took to a randomly placed piano and bellowed out pop classics- in true primary school assembly style! Admittedly, this wasn't exactly the kind of vibe we were going for after exiting the pagoda and its filthy electro beats but once Queen's Bohemian Rhapsidy had finished (I detest this song) we were completely won over... The enthusiasm and genuine guffaw of the singing around this tiny old piano epitomises beautifully the vibe of Secret Garden; and was akin both to some sort of war time sing-along and that scene in Titanic where the orchestra plays on till the bitter end.

I think the only real downside to SGP was that upon leaving I felt that I hadn't made the most of it- there was just so much to explore in so little time. Thanks to a giant power nap Saturday night we missed the likes of Eliza Doolittle (the only artist I had actually committed to seeing) and the majority of the fireworks. The fireworks did still look spectacular from our tents (I believe the explosions actually woke us up) but we couldn't really see the burning of the mid-lake boat stage in all its glory which is a shame. Aside from this I think SGP might have been a little bit perfect and probably the best festival I've been to (although I might be guilty of saying this after every festival I go to). To be honest I even enjoyed the 4-hour queue- eased along of course by the gallons of cider/wine consumed in it- for it was yet another opportunity to meet like-minded gardeners. I made a great friend whilst hunting for a spot to pee in the bushes, for example. I didn't catch her name unfortunately but I shall call her "the girl with the really large mac who shielded me from the crowds"- thanks for that one, you know who you are...

So now back to normality- it's been a tough few weeks but we're nearly there. The Garden has become a mere glimmer in our eyes; Jon is a little bit more of a gentleman, I have a miniature vegetable patch on my desk and we all have a slight addiction to cucumber-based gin.

From our special agent Laura Hitchman

Circalit And Little Episodes Get Writers to Open Up About Depression With Free Short Story Competition.

2010-07-30T07:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Circalit announced a free short story competition on the theme of “Broken Identities” with Little Episodes, an independent publisher and production company who raise awareness for those suffering from depression and addiction through the arts. The competition is peer reviewed, meaning that the public can read the submissions and vote for their favourites. By making all the submissions public, Little Episodes and Circalit hope to encourage writers to open up about mental health issues. Writers can submit their work by creating a free account at www.circalit.com and posting their submissions up online. The deadline for submissions is 15th Sept 2010. Celebrated author and critic, Kasia Boddy, will judge the final winner from a short list of candidates. Kasia Boddy is author of numerous books including The American Short Story Since 1950, and she is currently editing an anthology of the top 25 American short stories of all time for Penguin Classics.

Little Episodes is a growing phenomenon in London, hosting events where people can display their art, play music, recite poetry and prose, or perform stand up comedy to raise awareness for depression. They are currently producing the second volume of their anthology series, “An Expression of Depression” where the winning short story will be published. Actress Sadie Frost, a contributor to Little Episodes anthology, said of the project, “I just thought, what a great thing to do, to channel that energy into something positive... I was in and out of hospital for a couple of years. The one thing that kept me alive at that time was writing.”

Lucie Barât, Founder of Little Episodes, commented, “We’re really excited about the idea of doing a peer reviewed competition and we love Circalit’s approach. With Circalit, it’s not just about having a single winner, it’s about getting the public involved by reading submissions and voting for their favourites. Circalit and Little Episodes have the same ethos, we want to give talented artists who haven’t had the break that they deserve a platform from which to make themselves heard and get some exposure. We both hope that this will be a good opportunity to raise awareness for mental health issues through art.”

Kasia Boddy, Senior Lecturer in English Literature at University College London, commented “I think this is a very worthwhile project and I’m glad to be a part of it. This collaboration between Circalit and Little Episodes demonstrates the strengths of the internet as a social and cultural resource with real potential to change lives.”

Circalit, which started life as a site where screenwriters could showcase their work to film studios, has already hosted free competitions with companies such as the BBC and Hollywood producer, Julie Richardson. It’s social networking features make it an invaluable resource for writers looking to make industry contacts and it is integrated with Facebook, giving talented writers the means to spread their wings and go viral across the internet.

Raoul Tawadey, CEO and founder of Circalit, said, “We’re very happy to be working with Little Episodes, who do a fantastic job destigmatizing depression and encouraging self-expression through creativity. We’re proud that Circalit can be used as a platform to bring these issues to life, and we hope to discover some bright new literary talent. This is a great opportunity for writers to gain exposure, so I encourage everyone to read the short stories and vote for your favourites.”

If you are interested in interviewing Raoul Tawadey, CEO of Circalit, or Lucie Barât, founder of Little Episodes, please contact:

Robert Tucker
Communications Director
www.circalit.com

Hate Yourself Thin! with Dr Marilyn Baedecker

2010-07-21T06:11:00.000-07:00

Dr Marilyn Baedecker’s revolutionary Hate Yourself Thin! Lifestyle Programme is devised to help YOU get in touch with those reserves of self-loathing deep within.

‘Friends used to say to me, “Marilyn, how do you stay so thin?” I realised that what came naturally to me – utter self-hatred, a cruel and punishing inner voice, deeply ingrained shame and guilt – were attributes others had to strive for. That’s when I started to devise my Lifestyle Programme. At first I worried that making a blessing of my curse would encourage me to feel good about myself, but soon I remembered that any small success is easily countered; for no singular success is ever good enough, and however well I did, I knew I would never truly achieve my imagined potential. So - I can stay thin and help you to get there too!’

This 5-step programme is proven to work! Just try it!*

1. Learn to focus your energy

Learn to focus your energy on parts of yourself you truly hate. Try focusing on a physical defect while looking into the mirror. Dr Marilyn says she used to spend time staring at her left nostril, which is fractionally larger than the right, and is upturned at a greater angle, to enter into the mindset she calls VMD – Voluntary Masochistic Disgust. ‘Once you’re in a state of VMD, bring to mind other areas of your body that force you to recognize just how much work you need to do on yourself to become a person worthy of love, goodness or happiness.’

2. Channel your anger

Anger is self-hatred turned outwards! Don’t go about blaming others for your misfortunes: deep down, you know its all your fault. Stop wasting your time feeling angry about the state of the world. Turn your passionate engagement with climate change, slave labour or the credit crunch into zealous self-loathing and see the pounds drop off!

3. Set your goals

Set yourself some unachievable targets. Add one or two more things to your daily to-do lists and watch yourself fail to get where you want to be! Unfulfilled potential is the mainstay of self-hatred. Go for it! You know you can’t do it.

4. Join a group

Dr Marilyn now has weekly groups running in almost every city. Join us for some group work, where we’ll focus on false modesty, shallow interpretations, back-handed compliments and crushing humiliation. Weigh-ins allow each participant to prove just how badly they’re doing.

5. Buy Dr Marilyn’s books

Dr Marilyn has recently brought out two sequels to her international best-seller How to Hate Yourself Truly and Get Thin Quick. In her book The Self-Hatred Diaries, read stunning testimonials of the Hate Yourself journeys, while the Low Self Worth Bible: Esteem, What Is It Good For? provides hints, tips and a schedule for the loser who wants to be a winner at being a loser.

* The Hate Yourself Thin! Lifestyle Programme can lead to compulsive over-eating and associated weight gain, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, EDNOS, suicidal ideation and mental health difficulties. Consult your doctor if concerned.

Helena Michaelson

The last day of Latitude, Heather Phillipson, Blake Morrison & Sebastian Faulks.

2010-07-21T02:05:00.000-07:00

On the last day of Latitude everybody was exhausted, the sun still hitting down hard on various levels of sunburnt and freckled skin, the memory of rainy British summers gone. In the morning, the poetry and literary tents offered shade and quiet to people wishing to use the cushions scattered around the floor for a nap, the memory of the comfort of mattresses and pillows still quite vivid in everyone's minds and crooked spines. Regardless of their efforts, the spoken word kids couldn't wake up the audience, let alone get them to join in, although, to be fair, the ginger guy with guitar (it you're reading, come forth with your name, i didn't catch it and you're not on the program - but i am posting a video of you below) did get a few feet waving unconsciously to his pieces, and got Joshua Idehen and Alex Gwyther (He's a poet - and you know it', pictured above) on their knees in adoration as a result.

Then it was the turn of Heather Phillipson, whose poems lie peacefully between philosophy and the mundane. It seemed that her reverie on stripping between Marlborough road and Archway, and 'say nothing of what I know except what my body announces' were shared by many a listener who wished to do just that. The poem on mashed potatoes, however, didn't quite make it past the music coming from the stages, and many drifted away while I got quite hungry.

In the literature arena, in the meantime, Sebastian Faulks was being introduced. We pop round to have a look and find Faulks exclaiming 'God, I'm prolific!' after mentioning a couple of new books coming out soon. He follows with a few excerpts from Pistache, one of said releases, and then proceeds to answer a couple of questions from the audience: Did he always want to be an author? Yes. Does he work on one project at the time? Yes. Does he ever struggle to write? No, he doesn't believe in writers' block - déjà vu? It seems that he and Bret Easton Ellis agree on this one - 'Respect the bad day,' he says, 'it's God's way of telling you you've got nothing to say.' Faulks has his followers, of course, but they're not many and not very dedicated, however much people parade Latitude as a tame family and old people do, everything points to the opposite, it's a festival for people (young, older and, yeah, with children too) interested in poetry and literature as well as music, but they want it edgy and provocative. Ellis might have been too hung-over to speak or answer any questions, but he packed the tent with stalkers and groupies.

But let's go back to the Poetry Tent, here it was the turn of old Nutshell friend Blake Morrison, introduced as 'the best and most influential poet of the past 30 years', who reads a few favourites as well as some new material, and works the crowd well, picking from a very well stocked bag of tricks a poem made entirely of monosyllables, a poem composed by only 7 rhyming words, and an intense, violent poem about serial killer Peter Sutcliffe. Morrison explains all poems prior to reading and reads them out clearly, passionately, and changing voices and accents, he leaves without Q&A but the crowd loves him anyway.

The Masked Ball in the Faraway Forest - Latitude

2010-07-19T14:02:00.000-07:00

This festival, they say, is much more relaxed and civilised than Glastonbury & Co. and we agree, however, on the night of the 17th, Saturday, I discovered the other side of Latitude. After the main stages close down everybody is too high on sun and music to go to sleep, perhaps those who equipped themselves with blow up mattresses or even rented one of those amazing bungalows the prospect of an early night might have seemed appealing, but for the majority of us sleeping on the cold, hard ground, with insects and whiffs of faraway portaloos coming in waves through the plastic of our tents, the night was to be spent celebrating. Night time entertainment was divided in two main areas, 'In the Woods' and 'Faraway Forest'. While on the first night we only ventured 'In the Woods', where two stages pumped electro-tech-house-progressive-underground beats and ravers jumped from trees on other ravers busy in deep philosophical conversations, on Saturday we ventured into the 'Faraway Forest', which being rather far away we had previously missed, and into the masked ball.

The mood, in the 'Faraway Forest' is suddenly altered, some trees are covered in luminescent, Avatar-like, strings and ribbons; others are wrapped in pieces of paper, each carrying a different message; some are there to protect the faeries' cruising grounds, where a pair of siamese twin zebras abduct you and take you to cruising spirits who want nothing more than giving you a good time. At every corner, surreal happenings take place on makeshift stages and theatres: a wasted teenager turns out to be a hoola prodigy, shooting her shoes into the distance and whizzing her 7 hoops past a bottle of vodka and discarded items of clothing; a two headed mannequin woman dances the struggle of her two identities away while a gang of horror paramedics tend to random passers-by with bandages and electric charges. Two Roving Unicorns roam the forest calmly as puppeteers animate the tragi/romantic story of Panfilo and Perpetua (courtesy of the woodenfingers theatre), and people cheer to the queer DUCKIE vaudeville and variety acts, including brilliant stripping magician Ursula Martinez, in the warmth of the cabaret tent. Quite like a dream, and better than any cinematic reconstruction of follies, the Faraway Forest masked ball set the night alight. After the shows, people kept dancing - and really engaging with each other! - until closure at 3AM, and even then, not ready for sleep, retired to the campsites to dance some more around bonfires.

Saturday Night at Latitude - Belle and Sebastian

2010-07-19T06:42:00.000-07:00

After Crystal Castle, came Belle and Sebastian. I am not sure if you're familiar with either, but they go together like paper cuts and lemon juice. B&S are back on stage after four years, and initially, as I watch the crowd disappear over the hill to go and see the XX, I am worried that nobody will remember them or care enough to stay. But the XX fans' disappearance revealed the solid block of hardcore B&S supporters glued to the barriers under the stage, and soon more tigermilkers and sinisters descended from the trees and came out of the forest where they hid from Crystal Castle to fill the field with the nicest crowd you'll ever see. Strangers high-five-ing from the top of their mate's shoulders, people hopping and skipping, singing along to every word (from the early albums, at least) and children blowing bubbles with bubble machine-guns (here's to modern hippies).
Belle and Sebastian might not be the most visually stimulating band, they generally just play standing quite still, as Stuart Murdoch hops about the stage alone, but they compensate well, getting 20 kids from the crowd on stage to dance, playing an improvised Stones cover, and generally relying on the kind of audience who were following them when nobody knew they existed, and just can't believe they're seeing them live, playing 'Fox in the snow', again.

Saturday night Latitude - Crystal Castle

2010-07-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

The Crystal Castle's set began as it meant to go on - CASTRATE THEM!! - she shouted, garnering instant support from the vocal crowd, in reference to the rapist(s) who have brought an unwanted edge to the weekend.

The same rage accompanied the rest of the set. Alice Glass is well known for her stage antics, with her Smiths '84 tour t-shirt and emo'd up to the nines, she proceeded to beat teenagers with her microphone using a viciousness matched only by the joy of those being assaulted, having recently had the opportunity to grapple her flesh as she surfed above them.

Music needs its heroines and villains, both together is a bonus, it keeps teenage pants warm. However, seeing as we're at 'Latte-tude' I'll have to watch Belle and Sebastian to calm my nerves.

Sad news from Latitude, two girls raped.

2010-07-18T05:38:00.000-07:00

I am supposed to tell you all about last night but today's grim discovery kind of put me off it. A girl was raped on Thursday and another one on Friday here at Latitude festival, which puts all the fun we might have had so far into perspective, especially since it's been kept rather quiet, the only indication being the barely decipherable rants of a teenage maniac (Crystal Castle's front woman) as she proceeded to punch her fans, and the suspicious closure of the press tent. Even then, nothing's being said, only upon googling 'latitude rape' we found out what might be the cause of the closure and cameras filming policemen. Of course, although more highbrow and adult than other festivals, Latitude is packed with very drunk, very friendly young men and women running around all night having fun, and even more so, maybe, than at other festivals, there are lots of children too. The parties go on until 3am and then people either crash or keep partying around campfires by their tents. Although it's great to see the amount of freedom everyone enjoys in these woods, which at night turn into hallucinating real life midsummer night dreams where anything can and does happen and everyone is happy, leaflets spreading the news and asking for witnesses, announcements raising awareness and not just that Tom Jones is back for another set, would be a sensible move, and could help finding the rapists. So what if the mood of the festival is spoilt?
We will blog about the night as soon as the press room reopens, until then, sad times @Latitude.

Porky The Poet missing Tim Wells and Hanif Kureishi watches his kids rock at Latitude Festival

2010-07-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, so the last thing we tweeted last night was embarrassing, as talking about philosophy in the woods at 3AM can only mean one thing - and we don't want to talk about that now. By we, I don't mean the Nutshell representatives at Latitude but more specifically me and what used to be my body and can only assume is now my tent's body as the night spent in there completely reshaped it and made it alien to me. I don't know you anymore body! Go away!! But I digress, and will be doing more of that in this blog, so if you don't 'do' digressing, you're as alien to me as my body is and you should go away together.

Nutshell woke up early today and spent ages queuing for various things before hitting the stages. But hit them we did. And here's what we found:

Reclined like a seal on the pink plastic sofa on the Love Poetry stage you can vaguely make out Mr Porky The Poet. The reason the photo is taken from so far away is that, as you can see, the poetry arena is packed. The reason he resembles a seal is that he is recovering from last night and the 25 balloons of laughing gas that came with it. At least we are all a big happy family, each nursing a great, all-embracing hangover, but, again, I digress. Phill Jupitus starts his set with laughing gas and follows with a Christmas poem, 'Father's Christmas' - just as timely as this month's edition of Vogue, which tells us that it is now time to start buying fur coats again. After revealing to the crowd, 20% kids and 30% parents, that Santa doesn't exist but is in fact a lie of 'I've never had sex with that woman' or 'They have weapons of mass destruction' proportions, Phill Jupitus takes a moment to mention fellow poet Tim Wells 'who is not here, but fucking should be' before moving on to two poems about celebrities. The first one, about Paul McCartney, is preceded by a long anecdote that has the crowd in stitches - man meets celebrity, man makes a fool of himself - and then by the poem itself which is sweet and carried the weight of such an extensive introduction well, the crowd is pleased and makes itself heard. The next poem is about Russell Brand, he introduces it by saying that, when he met him, he was charming, bright, fun, smelt like flowers and ladies, but 'prior to that I thought he was a dick' which, somehow, gets waves of approving cheering and ends the set nicely.

Before him, keeping the tent warm was Tim Cockburn who was sweet in his indie references (Belle and Sebastian and The Working Men's club) and topics, a lot about love and relationships ' No Jennifer, we were never beige,' and a grand finale villanelle about a sticker seen on a microwave at a pub he used to work at which read 'Delayed Erupting Boiling'.

At 2PM it was the turn of Hanif Kureishi reading extracts from The Buddha of Suburbia accompanied by Lola Perrin at the piano - which made it really engaging and atmospheric and in contrast, made the funny moments really stand out. Kureishi has recently re-read The Buddha of Suburbia in preparation to this, and admits that although this is not a biographical novel, he found many biographical and personal references to his family life which weaved themselves into the net of fiction and moved him, unexpectedly. As appropriate to this novel, the questions asked by the crowd were mainly political ones. Of growing up in 60s London he says that it's not like it was a different culture, but that there was no culture whatsoever 'If you went around saying the word 'culture' they'd want to kill you,', and that he became a writer because it was impossible to speak to anyone there. When challenged by someone else in the audience that also came from Bromley, asking why he thought such a cultureless area produced so many talented people through the years, he replied that it has good, quick train access to London. Later, he also ventures in the perilous area of multiculturalism saying 'I used to be interested in multiculturalism, but now I am fed up with it. People are now using it to exclude themselves from what they have in common.' Of Islams he says 'Radical Islam doesn't like books and I write them for a living, so we don't have that much in common.'

Somewhere through the Q&A Kureishi manages to mention his sons' band 'Boycott Mondays', who'll be playing later on. I guess now we know the reason behind his appearance today, thank you guys.

Just after Kureishi, guess who come on stage nursing an evil hangover? Yes, Bret Easton Ellis again. I am not sure I should indulge myself and write more about him here, so I think i'll tweet instead. So long.

Going 'up space' with Josie Long at Latitude

2010-07-17T08:45:00.000-07:00

Comedy was the theme of this afternoons early jaunt, having shaken off the delights of the exuberance and later spine-crackingly uncomfortable night we headed to see our new old favourite Josie Long. Preceeded by the ever-present Ardal O'Hanlon it was clear that her audience and appeal has rapidly grown since the days of fringe busking, filling a giant tent of several thousand with crowds waiting eagerly outside.

It was delightful to see her brave that most difficult and demanding of comedic disciplines, improvisation, with such success. Her essex-girl nail-technician-come-astronaut persona who had just been 'up space' informed us of 'space the universe, and that shit', reliably revealing to us the meaning of life... 'have you heard of N dubz???', and of the biggest thing you can see from space? 'Blue Water' of course, being much classier than Thurrock or the Westfield Centre.

She has clearly grown in confidence since I last saw her, not surprising given her own rocketing to fame over the past two years, she effortlessly played the audience and will remain firmly on the comedy circuit.

Wendy Cope @ Latitude Festival

2010-07-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

Wendy Cope is charming and reads poetry that speaks directly to the listener, any listener who might want to stop and connect. Her verse, often in rhyme, has a musicality which really works read out loud. It's clear, simple, almost child-like at times and brilliantly funny. 'Loss' ends with 'his absence wasn't a problem, but the corkscrew had gone as well.'
A haiku titled something like 'looking out of my back window without my glasses on' rings a bell and goes:
What's that amazing new yellow flower?
Oh yes
A football
Another, touches the pressing problem of lack - or scarcity - of adultery in The Archers. We like!

Faye Fornasier reviews the Guardian Book Club with Bret Easton Ellis

2010-07-15T09:18:00.000-07:00

The thing about Bret Easton Ellis is that his readers appreciate his work at very different, very personal levels. So last night, at The Guardian Book Club dedicated to American Psycho (that’s right, not his latest novel, Imperial Bedrooms) the atmosphere is electric with anticipation; we’re among real fans, real devotees. When he enters the room and takes a seat on the stage the auditorium is suspended in a ‘should I be clapping / is that really him’ bubble, and only when host John Mullan – UCL professor – introduces him, does everyone start breathing again, breaking into a long, relieved applause.

The evening starts slowly with Mullan’s anecdotal introduction serving as amuse-bouche while Ellis, relaxed in hoodie, jacket and jeans, looks around at the audience, bobbing his head every now and then as if to an inner metronome. When he finally engages, he is funny and generous, he explains how only recently he has been able to admit Patrick Bateman came from a very real place within himself, and represents him much more than the Bret Easton Ellis in Lunar Park, the latter being entirely fictional in his apologetic relation to American Psycho. He tells us – all envious here, I dare to guess – how he writes his novels quite easily, 9 to 5, and never has writer’s block: ‘ writing is never, should never be a struggle, it should be fun!’

He does have ‘a plan’ he admits, from the increasingly surreal meals running parallel to the increasing violence in American Psycho, to the careful mixing and matching of clothes items found in fashion magazines to create outfits which, ‘if you could see them together would look like jesters.’ Lunar Park is another example of a plan well made: Ellis came up with the idea while working on American Psycho but had to withhold it for 15 years as he felt it would only work after he had published more novels and enough time had passed.

With the Q&A Ellis is put to the test. The audience is made of real B.E.E. lovers, each engaging with his work at different levels, and asking rather challenging questions. One woman introduces her question on sexuality with an anecdote of her being caught masturbating while reading American Psycho by her grandmother, who then demanded to read it herself. Another, who ‘studied him’ at university, asked a question she had been wanting to ask since graduating, many years ago.

Faced with literary theory questions, searching the machinations behind his work, he refuses to answer but does so most gracefully, ‘these are all very interesting, very intelligent questions, but I just don’t know the answers.’ He writes because he gets the idea and thinks it would be fun to develop, he says, or to let out strong emotions ‘the world doesn’t necessarily want to hear’, not to anticipate his own literary criticism, to gain status or to compete with himself. He apologises for being disappointing but the audience doesn’t feel that way, proof of it is the amount of hands waving in the air to get the microphone and the long relentless queue to get autographs and photos with their hero – who obliges almost mechanically but with religious dedication.

A hero you won’t be disappointed to meet.

Nutshell Issue 2 Launch Party

2010-07-01T01:04:00.000-07:00

On Sunday 27th June, following England's 4-1 drubbing by Germany, came the event the country had really been waiting for, the Nutshell Magazine Second Issue launch party at The Last Days of Decadence in Shoreditch.

Savvy host Kat "Duckling" Redstone opened the night with a bang by reading out one of Faye "Nutshell editor" Fornasier's confused, rambling e-mails on the theme of why she started the magazine, a curtain-raiser London legend Tim Wells found so moving he immediately left. Kat made her name in double act 'The Ginger Nuts', one half of which was acrimoniously dropped from the evening's proceedings. For admirers who feel strongly about this, we understand there is a fan page for Will "half a Ginger Nut" Rodgers on Facebook, and a support group. Those of us who were eagerly anticipating one of Will's now famous emotional outbursts, which have entered common parlance as a 'Helena moment', were sorely disappointed. He did attend the event, but, perhaps in protest about being dropped from the billing, declined to wear one of his trademark tiny comedy jumpers.

Ever the professional, Kat "Poopsie" Redstone seemed undismayed by the loss of her former partner, who had been replaced by chirpy Sarah Campbell, a comedian who ran at a similar speed setting to Kat, in direct contrast to the Slow/Fast speed setting of The Ginger Nuts. 'Where is Faye?' Sarah called out, seeking to introduce Nutshell's editor to her public. Well-known for her extroversion, Faye was at the opposite end of the room, kneeling behind the reception desk with her hands over her face, quietly moaning 'Oh God'. She then spent the next few hours scrabbling around on the floor looking for loose change.

Readings were initiated by Poetry Society poet, Paul McGrane, who expressed pleasure at the placement of his work in the magazine. Many of us will appreciate his excitement at finding his poetry next to an interview by esteemed Scottish-surnamed writer Ian McLachlan.

During one emotional musical interlude provided by Trent Miller, Faye Fornasier and Kat "Wolfie" Redstone, both semi-professional dancers, spontaneously improvised a beautiful piece of choreography known as the Squirrel Dance (shown here), a perfect counterpoint to the melancholy charm of Miller's music. We hope to be opening the launch of Nutshell 3 with a synchronised performance of the Squirrel Dance.

Many members of our audience were avidly awaiting the arrival of Alex (né Alexander) Eisenthal on stage, who was billed to appear at the Nutshell 1 launch, but, owing to the hectic schedule of his student lifestyle was, we understand, unable to make it out of bed. He was here this time though, now with a top Cambridge First, and carrying a thick wad of papers many at first took to be his doctoral thesis. Eleven pages in, we concluded it might well be. If few audience members understood a word of his poem, I can only say Alex has a beautiful geeky reading voice and my maternal bosom was heaving with pride throughout. He is off to live in France now. Who will prepare his packed lunches for him there?

Rounding the night off was blues master John Drain. Eschewing audience requests for Madonna, perhaps owing to the musical complexity of that artist's work, he settled instead for safe covers of such Robert Johnson strum-along faves as Crossroads. 'Could you play the drums as well?' an audience member called out at one point, referring to John's multi-faceted use of vocals, super-fast hands and foot-stomping.

At this point I feel I should say that, despite appearances to the contrary, John Drain has not been technologically augmented in order to conduct his multi-faceted performance, and that the telescopic, x-ray and infrared facility in his left eye is entirely natural. The interjection made by our audience member was nonetheless a useful reminder to all performers that you can never have too many components in your performance, and, in fact, I aim to be adding new elements to my own guitar routine with the aid of some prosthetic limbs and a jiffy bag.

This time, Faye Fornasier did not take to the stage at the end of the evening to make a speech, something many of the audience had prepared for by bringing ear mufflers. 'Look, I've found some more money for Nutshell,' she did announce to her fellow editors though, rising from nearly three-hours-worth of floor-scrabbling and confidently dropping 7p into the cash box. With rich findings such as these we may even be paying our contributors in Nutshell 3.

Ian McLachlan

Faye Fornasier reviews Electric Hotel

2010-06-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the little blue box at the end of Lynch's Mullholland Drive? Hold that thought.

Electric Hotel is an open-air spectacle set against the last remaining Victorian ironwork Gas Holder, in Kings Cross, in a set that develops towards the sky, rather than on a stage. The spectators are required to wear headphones and plunge into the seductive role of Peeping Toms, only somehow, underwater. From the sounds, perfect yet suspended and surreal, to the hotel itself, reminiscent of big aquarium tanks, everything alludes to oneiric, underwater imagery.
The inhabitants of the Electric Hotel are visible through the windows at nightfall; each with their own obsessive behaviours, mysterious visitors, phone conversations and daunting dances to sensual Jazz, much like Audrey Horne’s dance in Twin Peaks – am I back to Lynch again? The parallel runs on.
On the Sadler’s Wells website it is explained that ‘some time ago, an unspeakable incident destroyed the reputation of the five star Electric Hotel’, we are given some kind of a plot, but the mesmerized, open mouthed faces of the spectators crowding around the hotel show that the fact that there isn’t a plot per se isn’t a problem, in fact, nobody misses it – we are content with the low and ebb of repetition, dances and moves that seem unrelated and suddenly synchronise the occupants revealing a communal umbilical cord between the cells of the womb-like hotel.
Water is not only perceived here, it’s also an obvious component of the show, another occupant. The rooftop pool introduces and closes the show, marking the beginning of each cycle as the pregnant swimmer emerges from it over and over. Water invades several rooms in different ways over the course of the night, making the passage from room to room fluid and natural.
The closing scene is an apotheosis of references and imagery that really set my mind in motion. A disturbed child wearing red Indian headgear, just like Audrey Horne’s brother in Twin Peaks, meets jelly-like dark figures, which move like seaweed, immediately reminding of Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle’s evil guards, or Spirited Away’s river spirit, or even the daemons taking over the wounded animal spirits in Princess Mononoke. The jelly-like figures take over the hotel, breaking through the walls like a tsunami, sweeping away the occupants and changing their lives. In the meantime, in the roof bar of the Hotel, a jellified Nick Cave-like singer sexily croons over electric sounds –the party unaware of the revolution happening below – much like the Llorando moment in Mullholland Drive, or any other lynchian performance moment.
Until the mysterious blue box gets into the right hands and is finally opened.

Satisfyingly electric, mind teasing and breathtakingly beautiful. You’d love your stay at this hotel.

Emma Gibson interviews talented new writer Evie Wyld

2010-06-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

Evie Wyld won the John Llewellyn Rhys prize in 2009, with her first novel, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, a powerful tale of loss set against a richly depicted Australian landscape. She was also shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers 2010, and it was at a celebration of this prize at the Southbank Centre that I was first captivated by her lush, evocative prose style.

I catch up with Evie on the fifth floor of the Royal Festival Hall, where we grab a coffee and settle down to talk about the writing process, gendered writing, and what it feels like to become a published writer.

EG: Did you come up with the idea for After the Fire, a Still Small Voice whilst studying for the MA in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths?

EW: At university I focused on short stories, and there was one particular short story that I wrote about a man going to Australia from England, half chasing, half just looking for his girlfriend who’d left him, and I think that was the starting point with Frank, because he’s in this relationship with Lucy that has all gone wrong, and I think that there are strands of him in that. Apart from that, no. I got an agent through having a short story on the Goldfish website and she just asked me to write a novel, it was as mercenary as that! But I really didn’t have any plans as to what it was going to be about, I just started with a voice.

EG: So how did the ideas develop and become the novel that they are now?

EW: Well, without wanting to sound like ‘I found it in the woods under a willow tree’, it felt much more like I was developing the characters and then just following them. I started with Frank being on his own in the shack and then tried to work out why he was there, and that seemed to involve his family, and it just sort of kept on, a bit like a kaleidoscope, just going back and back… Writing my second novel now it’s a relief that I had no idea what I was doing with the first one because I have no idea what I’m doing now. I just hope it works the second time round, just following and not trying to get anything too black and white too early on.

EG: Do you usually plan to the end of the book? Do you know the ending before you get there?

EW: No, not at all. I’d find that really difficult. I think it’d be a little bit like reading a book you’ve already read. It’s really exciting writing a book because you don’t really know what’s going to happen, but there are elements there, and maybe I had an idea that three or four things would happen along the way, but I didn’t know which one was going to be the main crescendo. I didn’t really know how I wanted the characters to be by the end. I think I did decide on the ending a few times, but they were all completely different endings, which didn’t work, and you just have to muddle through. There’s so much muddling through!

EG: And what about the physical process of writing? Do you stick to a schedule? Are you very strict with yourself?

EW: No, I’m not very strict with myself at all, I’m rubbish! I try to come here whenever I have a free moment, because it just gets you away from things like housework, and telephones... even just staring into the fridge! I normally come here three days a week and work in a bookshop two days a week. The bookshop is called Review and it’s a really small independent bookshop in Peckham, where I live.

EG: At the Orange Prize discussion the term ‘gendered writing’ was highlighted, and I just wondered how you feel about it, personally. Do you feel that you’re at a disadvantage as a female writer?

EW: Working in a bookshop I know that people do tend to buy men’s novels more. I’ve never seen a woman come into the shop and pick up a man’s book, realise it’s by a man and then put it down, but you do get men doing exactly the same thing. Someone actually came in once and complained that they’d bought M J Hyland’s book assuming that because it had murder in it that it was written by a man. She actually came in and said she was horrified to discover it was written by a woman, and she stopped reading. I think it’s quite similar to the weird belief that women aren’t as funny as men, I think it’s tied in with all of that sort of stuff… but I write as two men in After the Fire, a Still Small Voice.

EG: Was it a conscious decision to have male protagonists?

EW: Before I wrote the novel I had written quite a few short stories as men and it really hadn’t occurred to me that it was an unusual thing to do. I don’t know if that’s because when I was finding my feet I read a lot of what you might call ‘masculine novels’. I was always interested in really fun, action books and writers, such as Chuck Palahniuk, so it didn’t occur to me that I was making a statement; I still don’t think I was.

EG: Being quite a new writer yourself, do you have any advice for new writers? Maybe you were given some valuable advice yourself?

EW: I’d say the main thing, and this just sounds so trite and obvious, but just keep writing and don’t take offence at rejections. It’s really hard but try to take it on the chin and actually listen to what people in publishing and the agents are saying, because they’re not against you. I’ve met a lot of people who are potentially fantastic writers but have stopped at a certain level because they’ve decided the thing to do is to self-promote before they’ve got their book to a level where people will accept it. If they just spent an extra six months working really hard, instead of doing all the stuff they’ll do anyway once the book’s published, they’d be much more successful. Yes, so just take it on the chin and keep trying.

EG: I’m sure all our readers and writers would love to know: how does it feel to be a published writer?

EW: Very nice! I sold the book two years ago and it still hasn’t really sunk in. I won the John Llewellyn Rhys prize and that was amazing, and really led to so much incredible stuff, like Woman’s Hour, so yes, it’s amazing, and I never would have imagined it etc etc!

EG: And how do you feel when you see your book in a shop?

EW: Really smug! Especially with the Orange Award for New Writers sticker on the book, and being in the 3 for 2s at Waterstones. As much as I’m very much firmly on the side of independence, it’s very exciting seeing your book with a sticker on!

EG: Your novel is set in Australia. Do you find it easier to write about somewhere that you’re not? And are you tempted to go to Australia and write about England, or London?

EW: Yes, whenever I go over there that seems to be what happens, which is really odd. I was thinking about this today. I think that sometimes, when you’re faced with the reality of something, it’s quite difficult to get over the fear that what you’re writing or painting or whatever is not exactly what’s in front of you, so I think it can be a bit of a hinderance sometimes. Also, because I’m half Australian, when I’m over here I miss Australia, and when I’m over there I miss England, so I think I slightly work out of a sense of homesickness. And, well, if you’re in Peckham it’s quite nice to imagine you’re on a beach in Australia.

EG: You mentioned that you’re working on a new book now. Can you give anything away?

EW: Well so far, which is very early days, it’s set between Australia and coastal towns in the UK, and it’s about a very tall woman… that’s about it so far… and sharks!

Evie Wyld is currently the Writer in Residence for the Booktrust. You can read her weekly blog here: http://www.booktrust.org.uk/Booktrust-blogs/Writer-in-residence-blog

For more information visit her website: http://www.eviewyld.com/

After the Fire, a Still Small Voice is out now and is published by Jonathan Cape.

James Bower reviews The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

2010-06-14T04:22:00.000-07:00

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

Dir. Werner Herzog, USA, 2009, cert. 18, 122 mins

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Xzibit

Imagine Joaquin Phoenix’s confusion as, some years ago, Werner Herzog famously dragged him from the upturned wreck of his car. How must that feel?

Probably very similar to watching The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans. It’s dark and frightening. Everything's upside-down and back-to-front. But there’s a serendipitous German to help put things right.

Is this what it takes to coax a decent performance out of Nicholas Cage? There’s no wonder then, that we don’t see it more often. The Bad Lieutenant is arrestingly peculiar. Cage plays Terence McDonagh, a cop in post-Katrina New Orleans. A crazy cop. A junkie cop. A scathing critique of drug culture? More like Requiem for a dream starring Frank Spencer.

Oh yes. It’s a comedy. You’d be forgiven for expecting something different. The Bad Lieutenant is not an easy film to market. Because it’s crazy. Crazy like a fox!

A clown who’s swapped his custard pie and giant hanky for gun and a crack pipe, Terence is obscene and pitiful. He may once have been a good lieutenant, but his bad back has led to an addiction to painkillers. Then to other drugs. All of them. But despite his flaws, Terence is no chump. His state of mind seldom brushes the outer reaches of lucidity, but somehow

he’s playing the entire world for a fool. The flooded shell of his life is held together by a fragile and oddly beautiful network of lies. His captain (a hilariously naive spin on the Angry Black Sarge) thinks he’s the best cop on the force and he’s dating Frankie (Mendes), a beautiful drug-addled hooker. Tasked with solving a multiple homicide, Terence sets out to paint the town red and blue.

In the post-Katrina apocalypse, up is down, black is white and The Bad Lieutenant is a buddy cop movie; Terence’s ‘buddy’ is Big Fate (Xzibit), a local drug lord with whom he plans to build holiday homes. It’s also a family comedy. Terence finds himself on a road trip with a sulky teenager (somebody call Ice Cube!) and the dog from Marley and me. And it’s a nature documentary: a hallucination causes Terence to see invisible reptiles in the middle of a stakeout. As the wobbly camera gazes lovingly at a blinking iguana, the soundtrack croons ‘Please release me’ and a blurry Cage stands in the background, glancing towards the audience and smiling awkwardly. It was at this moment that I mentally cast him to star in a big-screen adaptation of Alan Partridge.

Cage is funny as hell. He delivers his second great performanc

e in a year, tapping a reservoir of talent I thought he’d crapped in long ago. Or maybe he’s simply flipped. I couldn’t tell. Wracked with back pain, Terence lurches around the topsy-turvy big easy like an angry scarecrow, scouring crime scenes for anything he can swallow, snort or smoke. His drug addiction may be competing with his gambling problem for control of his shattered body. But when he mumbles threats though his permanently clenched teeth, you damn well better take this joker seriously. Despite telecommuting from another galaxy, Terence still brings in more than his fair share of bad guys. Is he the world’s cleverest, most tenacious junkie? Or is he a genuine supercop with an unfortunate powder problem? It’s never totally clear, but Cage’s truly bizarre turn keeps you guessing right to the end. Which is one big, awesome twist.

The Bad Lieutenant has ‘cult classic’ written all over it, and will most likely do for Cage what Lebowski did for Bridges. Tempered with just enough sobriety to keep it from tumbling headlong into a smirking parody, it’s well-shot and the weirdest thing you’ll see for quite some time. Herzog turns a mundane tale of bent cops and co

ke into an almost British comedy of embarrassment. Terence is a hypnotic creation made up almost entirely of tics and quirks. Eyes rolling in his skull like a fruit machine, Cage is rivetingly unhinged, and seems to realise that in Herzog he has a director who will actively encourage his lunatic side.

Bad lieutenant. Good film. Excellent iguana.

4/5

-James

F is for Fiction

2010-06-09T06:34:00.000-07:00

Not yet out of his teens, Rock Tiller is already regarded as Hollywood hot property. The heart-throb romantic lead in the hugely successful Sing-Along-a-Schoolathon blockbusters, and then the too-dreamy-to-believe love interest in Vince Walden’s 2008 remake of the 70s classic Blonzy, Tiller is set to break the mould in his next role. Rumours abound about the teen star’s religious upbringing, his contractual obligation to retain his virginity. Disney has relied upon his squeaky clean boy-next-door-image since he first appeared on our screens aged 9 in Super Summer as the adorable little brother of teen bimbo Summer Solstice, played by Tamar Lovejoy. In his good-looking, good-hearted portrayals of the All-American boy, we have watched him sing, dance, shoot hoops and hit home runs, walk with his arm around the shoulder of the right kind of dozily flirtatious girl, his sports jacket folded carefully over the little puffy armlets of her prom gown, corsage in view, right up to her doorstop, to chastely kiss in the full admiring glow of her adoring parents, before soberly driving home to help his disabled brother do math.

In the new independent release, F is for Frenzy, Tiller plays Franz Bollinger, a troubled, dope-smoking outcast, trying to find a way to deal with his violent urges to rape and maim, the voices inside his head, and the lifetime of abuse he has suffered at the hands of his alcoholic parents and disturbed older sister. Need it be mentioned the contract with Disney came to an end last year, and though they bid big money to keep him on until he turned 25, the statement from his agent suggested that though he was very grateful for all Disney had done for him, ten years was long enough.

Tiller is in London, on a promotional tour for the film, which itself has been rather frenzied. “It has been non-stop since I got here,” he says. “I’m kind of wiped.” But he doesn’t look wiped: his famed blue eyes sparkle out at me across our knees, and though I am twice his age – more than twice his age – I feel myself blush when he smiles at me. I’ve come to meet him in a place about as insalubrious as they come, a titty bar, downstairs from an institutional-looking cafeteria in Dalston, which you enter via a spangly curtain of metallic ribbons. Neon signs reading Physical Emotion! and Girls! grimly light the black walls of the bar. In the section we are sitting, a skewed sticker on the mirrored walls lets us know we’re in Champagne Corner. This comes as a surprise: I would have attributed the stickiness on all the surfaces to almost any other kind of spillage. The carpet, where there is carpet, is spongy underfoot and slopes muggily towards the toilets. The darkly empty dance-floor is almost gluey – more spilled champagne? Why here? I ask.
“Back home the reaction to the film has mostly been shock,” he says. “People have been outraged; distribution’s been pulled in Louisiana, South Carolina and Georgia. There’s talk of a projectionists’ strike in Mississippi. And that’s my home.” He fixes me with a wide smile, his eyes look surprised and resoundingly innocent. “To my mind, it’s an overreaction. I’m proud of this movie, I’m proud of the part I’ve played in it. I think it’s a story that needs to be told and I think Lawrence [da Silva, the movie’s director and executive producer] has done a great job. I think people are shocked because of the parts I’ve played before. But this was a huge role for me, a break from playing myself. The audience hasn’t wanted to see the Rock they know disgraced. But I don’t feel disgraced,” he explains, with a shrug, “I feel like a real actor now. I’m me, and playing a part doesn’t change that. But I want people to know that I know how the world is. I know strip-joints exist.”

I ask him how the response in the UK has been. “Everywhere in Europe had accepted this film, accepted my part in it.’ Accepted is an understatement: the film won the prestigious Prix du Jury at Cannes this year, but was panned at Sundance. “The critics over here have been really kind. Not kind – compassionate. They’ve understood the drive of the movie and they’re saying it's well made. I think it says something dark about the States, that it still can’t accept what lies beneath the surface. The States doesn’t want me to grow up.”

How about your parents, your family, I ask. He looks away, focuses his gaze on the stage at other end of the bar where a girl in tassels is titillating the lone customer. It is 5pm. Rock and I are sitting very close, on high bar stools that were difficult to mount and which swing cheaply, and now as he turns away, our legs interlock at the knees and we turn left and then right, trying to disengage. He laughs. I blush hotly. “My folks aren’t too happy about how I’ve been treated,” he says. “But we’re close. They support me.”

Despite his reticence, it’s impossible not to know about his severed engagement to Natalie Luana, his co-star in the Sing-Along-A movies. The tabloid press have been printing teary-eyed snapshots of her for weeks; in the last week there has been a plethora of photographs of Natalie with Jot Toberman, son of the staunchly Republican Congressman Abraham Toberman.
When I ask about America’s new premier, Rock says he’s never taken much of an interest in politics, but that despite the seeming swing to the liberal that Obama’s Democratic presidency represents, in theatre audiences, at least, America is still fiercely conservative. His single-mindedness in talking about the movie is surprising; he talks of it as if it awakened him to art, and to politics, as if, in acting the outcast for the first time in his life, a social conscience was born. There is something of the eighteen-year-old activist in him; of the white girls with dreadlocks and the trustafarian boys who parade banners about the approaching end of capitalism on anti-war marches. Yes, he is smiling magnificently, and yes it is with a certain debonair charm that he addresses me, and our photographer Geoff, and the sour looking barman and his agency’s British representative, Carlotta; but even ordering his coca-cola (“Hold the rum’” he quips), I can see that this is a boy in pain.

His childhood was happy, he tells me, but the family order was strict, and unlike his ex-fiancée’s family, who are portrayed as pushy Hollywood types, his family were firmly against his move into performance at such a young age. Tiller grew up on his father’s small dairy farm, outside of Picayune, Mississippi. His mother was a god-fearing home-maker, his father was a hard-working Methodist, stern and irascible. Rock stands up smoothly from the bar stool, which swings impertinently having lost him, and pulls his wallet out from his back pocket. He flips it open to show me, in the seedy lighting, a picture of perfect America. The family stands between the swinging seat and the two rocking chairs on the porch of a largish farmhouse, placed to catch the evening sun, which slants artistically over the kids. They are ranged in height order, and the beam of light matches it exactly, spotlighting each sandy head, each freckly face, leaving their chests in shadow. There is a screen door. To the far left of the shot I can make out a picket fence; and yes, it is painted white. The boys, two big and one little, are holding out a baseball bat, a baseball, a catcher’s mitt. The two young girls are dressed prettily in flowery dresses and grin cheekily towards the camera. Mom and Pop stand behind them, their faces beatific in the glow. He is small and wiry, she - buxom and grey. They look far too old for these children, but full of energy. “This isn’t really your family,” I say. “Disney put this together for a remake of The Waltons.” He laughs at my joke, and then winks at me coyly. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” he says. The third of the five children, Rock is the only Tiller to have flown more than half a mile from the nest. Eldest brother Bud took over management of the farm from his father Harrison two years ago, and lives there in a small house he has built on the land. Second brother Junior is working on a small-holding not far from home; the two girls are finishing off high school and are thinking of teaching for a few years before marriage. But from a young age Rock wanted something different. He says it was a nativity play that sparked his love of performance: Christianity was – and is – central to his life. “I love Jesus,” he says without a trace of irony, which is a shame, because I guffaw immediately at his American sincerity. “I pray every day. But I’m growing up.” I ask him – what about the virginity? “I’m a young man,” he says, “I’m almost 20.” I’ve got no idea whether this is supposed to affirm or confound the rumours, but I find myself unable to speak for a moment, because Rock has casually laid his hand on my knee, ostensibly to whisper something to Carlotta. I am pretty sure he squeezes.

“Have you seen the movie?” he asks turning back to me, and gently removing his hand as if he never knew he had laid it down. I have seen it. It is cuckoo, crackerjack, f for effing amazing. It is neither indie tongue-in-cheek nor cutesy dark humour; it’s not cartoonish, its not horror blood and violence. It is the quiet intensity of sitting on the end of the bed as your son cracks up; crying as he babbles and raves. It is Bergman, reborn an American in the time of Dubya, Eminem and Dancing with the Stars. There is a gripping stillness to the movie; it could almost have been a play. He nods “The writer, Mike Orly, started writing it as a play, but Lawrence got hold of it and insisted.” [Da Silva and Orly go back a long way: they met in the off-off-Broadway circles in the early nineties and have been friends ever since.] “Its because of the dreams – he insisted the dreams would only work on film. And the voices.” The voices, those that Franz ‘Frenzy’ Bollinger hears in his head, are terrifying and strangely compelling. They seem to be speaking from inside Tiller’s head. The camera watches the breeze in his hair compulsively, and yet it is somehow understated, somehow heart-breakingly subtle.
I tell him how much I liked the film, and he smiles eagerly throughout my compliments, and thanks me. But then his smile drifts away. His face takes on a bitter look. “You know I’ve received hate-mail because of this. I’ve been spat on. I’ve…’ He looks at Carlotta and abruptly stops talking. I follow his gaze, but her face looks calm, unperturbed. He continues, tentatively. “They don’t seem to get that…”
“F is for fiction?” I offer. He comes back quicker, sharper than I would have expected: “F is for farce.”

The outcry in America, however, is concentrated around the fact that this movie may not be fiction at all. Franz Bollinger may be a fictitious name, but Johan Doolethey, the man whose life Frenzy is alleged to follow, is not. You may not remember the name, but it’s unlikely you will have forgotten the Thanksgiving Murders, four of the most grotesquely sterile slaughters ever tried in America. On November 22nd 2001, Leonard and Cynthia Doolethey of Avalon, Georgia were gathered for Thanksgiving with their daughter Gabriella Sheers, her husband Steve, and their two daughters aged 6 and 8. Johan, their 23 year old son, was long estranged from the family and had not been invited, so it must have come as a surprise when he rang the doorbell at seven that evening, bearing a pumpkin pie as an offering and expensive presents – a new bicycle and mini-scooter - for his nieces. From the stony faces and the stiffness of the poses on the photos taken that night on Leonard’s new digital camera, all signs point to an unhappier-than-average family reunion over turkey, yam and plenty of greens. The last few photos are of the two girls, whippet-thin in pink chenille, trying out their new toys in the yard. What we know happened next takes a dark and disturbing turn. The girls found that they were locked out of the house. They tried the front door, then went round to the back. The doors wouldn’t budge. They made their way around the side to see that all the curtains were closed. Unsure what was happening, they pushed their scooter and bike up the road, to the house of their grandparents’ friends, Deon and Celeste Williams. Deon soon came out to investigate, and suspecting something was up, put in a call to the police. But he was second in line in making the call - Johan had already turned himself in.

The scene in the house was described by police reports as ‘shocking and macabre’. Doolethey first poisoned his victims - the pumpkin pie he had brought for desert was laced with large doses of a mild sedative - then they were rolled and sealed in polythene bags, and stabbed once each, a kitchen knife straight through their sternums. The photographs of the scene make it seem surreal in its cleanliness. The blood from the knife wounds had spilled and eddied within the plastic wrapping but none had leaked. The four bodies, laid out neatly in height order, in their reddish, bubbly shrouds appear like vacuum-packed joints of meat.

This is no spoiler. None of what I have described above appears in the movie. And yet Bollinger is as close to the real Doolethey as ‘real-life characters’ come. Where is the link? And why does the movie not feature these murders, gory, and terrifying and dramatic as they are?

The Thanksgiving Murders were big news, for a week or two. During his trials, Doolethey was featured in the press all over the south eastern states. A pop psychologist chatted with Oprah on a segment entitled Bloodbath, the inside story of the Thanksgiving Murders. When he was sentenced to death at Georgia’s State Prison, a number of highly-publicised suicide attempts kept him in the papers. It was the attempts on his own life that drew the young playwright, Mike Orly’s, attention: "He suddenly realised, he knew this guy," Tiller tells me. He knew him? I ask, knew him personally? "No, I don’t think so. But he felt like he knew him – he felt – this is a man I know – so he wrote him. And Johan wrote back. And then they kept on writing." The full correspondence between Orly and Doolethey, Death Called to Me, is being brought out later this year by HarperCollins. It is, according to the press release ‘a stunningly beautiful and empathic account of death row and the life that lead there.’ Four of the letters will be printed in tomorrow’s Observer to coincide with the release of the movie in the UK. It was their publication in The New York Times last month that precipitated the uproar in America.

The selection of letters featured is comprised of Orly’s first letter to Doolethey from January 2002, Doolethey’s bewildered, heartfelt response, and then two more letters from the death row inmate, dated 2005 and 2008. Orly’s letter is a powerful tract of recognition.
‘Dear Johan Doolethey,’ it begins. ‘You may well receive a hundred letters like mine, and I’m certain you won’t have the inclination to answer them all. But I write to you because your story speaks deep to my gut and my gut is a cruel master whose demands I can’t ignore. I can’t be sure, but my sense is that you have similar troubles with your gut too. I would like to understand – and that’s all. I’m not interested in the way you killed your folks. I want to know why you had to do it. Because if your gut is anything like my gut, you only did it because you had to. And I’m only writing to you because I have to, and I hope that’s clear.’

The three of Doolethey’s letters selected for pre-release, reveal a mind that works at breakneck speed: there is the sense in Doolethey’s writing that he is sprinting after his thoughts, panting, trying to catch up, and sometimes achieving it. The letters span his lifetime in jail, from the ‘excruciating hollowness, the living death, of life in the can’ which his first letter describes, to the last letter he penned before his execution, which ends, heartbreakingly: ‘Mike, Mike, my truest friend. I’m sorry. Thank you. And goodbye.’

But it is the second of the letters around which the storm of hatred for the movie has whirled. Described by the Facebook group F is for Frenzy Must Be Banned as ‘the work of patent sanity masquerading as gross madness,’ this letter is being portrayed by the right in America as a cynical and pointed attack, and along with the movie and the book, is considered as a major weapon in the arsenal of the Campaign for the Cessation of Capital Punishment. I ask him, was it Mike Orly’s and Lawrence Da Silva’s intentional that this movie was a political protest? "I don’t think it was the aim. That makes it sound so cynical. This is a homage to their friendship,’ he says. "I didn’t know Mike back then, but when Johan died? It was really bad. He told me he was drinking, he could barely get out of bed, it’s like his life was going off-track. He told me that the only way he started to get better – started to deal with this loss – was by continuing to write." And what started out as more letters to Doolethey, became a fictionalised version of his early life, and then a play – and finally the film as we know it now.

So what’s the fuss about? "As far as I get it, it’s that the movie doesn’t feature the murders, or death row. It’s that it’s a compassionate look at a guy who’s been really cruelly treated and about how that affects him when he’s young. Also, from this movie, there’s no doubt he’s not well… I mean, this guy is very sick. He wasn’t in touch with reality. There are moments in the letters when he’s clear as a bell, but other times… Mike got to know him as a person, and he managed to understand that sickness a bit, and he was completely convinced that they would win the appeals. It’s not legal to execute people who are insane, right? So he appealed – Mike was there, helping him out, all the appeals you can do from death row, and the judges just kept on loop-holing the psychologists reports which said that he was psychotic and whatever else. So now all this shit storm is about the fact that the movie portrays him as mad, which the courts say he wasn’t. It’s like – when did America become a country when an artistic endeavour can’t criticise the authorities?" He pauses, looks down at his hands. There’s something of the undergraduate about him now, the way he seems to be watching his own naïveté spin him in circles. He looks up at me, and asks "Or is that what it’s always been like?"

Helena Michaelson

Romanticising wrecked bicycles..

2010-06-07T05:21:00.000-07:00

Nothing reminds me of my grandparents like bicycles, all for completely different reasons. On both sides of my family there was a net split between cyclists and walkers. Incidentally the one who wouldn’t cycle wasn’t much into driving either – which makes me think of a character trait rather than simple disinterest in two wheel joy.
On my father’s side the cyclist was my grandpa. He had lots of bikes in the garage at the back of his enormous garden. They were all strictly gentlemen’s bikes, Michelin mostly, black or racing green, with the gear levers on the frame rather than on the handlebar, some with rod brakes. He had been cycling up and down the mountains throughout the war, sometimes even 95 miles at a time, to go and visit my grandma before they got married. He would hop on and off with the elegance of the gymnast he was, stepping on a pedal to gain speed and lifting his other leg high over the frame to get on – I watched him and learned, much to the dismay of my grandma who was very proper and ladylike and disapproved of almost anything I could possibly learn from him – whistling, absailing, tree climbing and daggers-throwing to name but a few. In her opinion, girls should not cycle, definitely not mounting and dismounting like that! But grandma was a little bit extreme on the what-girls-should-do front: she never in her life wore trousers, or a pair of flats, and she wouldn’t be caught dead on a bus.
On my mother’s side of the family things were reversed. Grandpa wasn’t about speed and hated having his hair messed up, so no windswept look for him. He was an artist, a patient portraitist and would rather play checkers, go fishing or make beautiful sand sculptures on the beach. This he would do with the aid of an ice lolly stick, he would get down to the beach early and start digging ballerinas, ice skaters and mermaids out of the sand, he even got in the papers a couple of times because of it. So you can see what kind of a man he was.
Grandma, on the other hand, hated the seaside, the sun and the heat. What she did like was playing cards for money, drinking cappuccino, smoking a million cigarettes and cycling to church with me standing on the rack behind her, singing hymns together at the top of our voices. She’d always wear her flowiest skirts on the bike, and so did I. We had great times together on that bike – and it was a great ploy to get me to go to church. She was clever all right.
So really what I associate with my grandparents are old, noisy bikes. The metallic rattle of the pedals, the accidental, joyous ringing of the bell over potholes, the repetitive groan of a wonky wheel rubbing on the brake pad… my bikes always have these characteristics. I can only ride battered bikes, hopeless time warpers that might not get me to my destination but always get me traveling back in time. Living in London I see fancy new bikes all over the place, and yes, they look really cool and I’m sure they go really fast but where on earth do you need to go in such a hurry? And although I get the Shoreditch trend for minimalist super customised bikes – I did, after all, install a coaster brake on my 1980s Raleigh Caprice – why would you spend more on a bike than on a holiday to Morocco?
Anyway, I guess each of us is allowed to indulge in their chosen obsession. I’m sure someone somewhere on the web is blogging about people who spend more on underwear than on Moroccan breaks so I can shut up about bikes already.
With Boris' efforts to make London as cycle-friendly as Paris, and with the help of a few sunny days I am certain I'll see the number of bicycles on the road multiply, what I will do, then, is keep an eye on the pavement and see if I can spot some beauties to put on the blog.
A tribute to my grandparents, cyclists or not.

Let's meet new poets - Rebecka M. reviews the Faber & Faber night at the Curzon

2010-05-26T00:52:00.000-07:00

Post-election, the arts world is left pondering the impending, but certainly promised, funding cuts by the new government. Should such cuts affect Faber & Faber’s brilliant New Poets Programme – a programme of ‘bursaries, mentorship and encouragement’ for emerging poets funded by the Arts Council – the loss would leave the heart of many a poetry lover rather sore, judging from the attendance at last night’s readings at the Curzon Cinema in Soho. In spite of the sticky Soho heat, the dark cinema salon corner was the best place to be, with readings by Tom Warner, Sam Riviere, Annie Katchinska and Joe Dunthorne.

With their words speedily spinning the minds of the audience from one image to the next, we are left wondering why poetry is so often depicted as po-faced? There was more laughter than earnest “poetic” solemnity among the audience, as Tom Warner read about schoolgirls with violins trapped under their chins, and the incompetence of Microsoft’s spell-check when it comes to the study of crayfish (‘astacology’). Sam Riviere finished his set with a nicely rambling 'Galaxie 500'-style insight into the mind of a man who may have lost his opinions, but is certainly sorted when it comes to chic sunglasses. Annie Katchinska pondered the sum of vodka + Russian family + gherkins + carpet and came up with the answer of Toni Braxton’s chest exploding. Joe Dunthorne took Lego from the nursery to (adult) bedroom acrobatics in the space of one poem. Possibly bordering stand-up comedy at times, but still a heavyweight poetic mix of well-worded incongruity, sincerity and humour. Had I had more money in my starving purse, I would have left with all of the Easter-egg pastel coloured poetry pamphlets on sale. As today’s papers howl that the Arts Council will have to save £19m in their budget, lets hope they can still fund poetry mentorship programmes like Faber & Faber’s – there’s no doubt that they breed brilliant writing.

For info on Faber & Faber’s New Poets Scheme and upcoming dates for readings, have a peek here: www.faber.co.uk/about/faber-new-poets/

'Galaxie 500'-style? I meant their song, Fourth of July: www.dailymotion.com/video/x1bmcs_galaxie-500-4th-of-july_music

Baring bar codes

2010-05-19T07:29:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the 1990s, when the epitome of alternative sci-fi chic was having a bar code tattooed on an uncovered body part? We do, and we are mighty proud to have taken sci-fi chic to a new, literary level by having a bar code tattooed on our back (-cover). But with the bar code comes a price tag and our decision to go from freebie to three-quid-something warrants an explanation.

The creation story of a small literary magazine often starts as a dim thought in someone’s head at dawn, expands in conversation over numerous coffee mugs and doodled pieces of paper and eventually comes alive in the birthing hands of some small printing company. But apart from all the fun stuff – the juggling of ideas, the arguments over full stops, commas, and paper quality – comes the squiggly jerk of the pound sign. Although we planned to be a quarterly publication, Nutshell #2 took 365 days to come to life. We spent hours inking our pens, not only editing poems and stories, but filling forms and writing business plans, juggling equations rather than words.
Don’t get us wrong: fundraising can be fun. We nearly became a sweatshop as we printed our own Nutshell T-shirts adorned with Siobhan Maguire’s fab illustration. We dove into Wonderland and spent a mystically miraculous evening in the company of gender bending Alices, fluorescent fairy cakes and jigging legs. We well nigh fell over with joy at the generosity of our donors and supporters, and at the end of it all, the kitty was full enough to get a new Nutshell printed.

But when you hold down full-time jobs the time available for cake baking and rabbit holes is, sadly, limited. And judging from the positive response to our self-funded first issue, it was clear we weren’t alone in wanting the magazine to have a quicker turnover, more pages (we have already upgraded from 64 to 80), and perhaps colour illustrations and ... there you have it, the radical idea of a price tag was born.

Still, that is not, strictly, it. There is a very important principle behind this decision. We started wondering if the balance of “free” stuff and “paid for” stuff hasn't become somewhat skewed lately? Perhaps the things we now pay for (bank accounts, our MP’s new conservatory, dentists) we shouldn’t – and things we don’t pay for (newspapers, online artwork, films, poems, music) perhaps we should. We all know it’s difficult to stoke our brains to spark up ideas if our stomachs intervene with purrs. It's a crude analogy, perhaps, but our contributors are so talented and we really want to be able to pay them soon. This is what we hope the genie of the price tag will ultimately bring.

We finally stopped tinkering and left Nutshell #2 at the printers. After it comes back – with its perfect cover by Irene Fuga and full of frogspawn, Benny Hill, immortality, Wood Green, Don Paterson and Simonetta Agnello Hornby – we will have a lazy Sunday launch with music, readings and maybe a levitating bookshelf ... consider yourself invited!

New animation from Emanuele Kabu: Music video for Maci's Mobile

2010-05-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

Enjoy!

Film review: James Bower gives Alice a kicking - clearly Nutshell does Wonderland better than Burton...

2010-03-30T02:30:00.000-07:00

Dir. Tim Burton, USA, 2010, cert PG, 108 mins

Cast:
Mia Wasikowska,
Johnny Depp,
Helena Bonham-Carter

Alice was surprised to discover that her rabbit-hole contained a magical world full of whimsy and nonsense. Tim Burton’s adaptation of this beloved classic opts for a grittier, more realistic depiction of a girl falling down a rabbit-hole.

It’s full of shit.

Welcome to Burton’s wonderland, a fantasy experience that is both meticulously branded and utterly disappointing. Sound familiar? It should. If movies were music, this would be Burton singing a karaoke version of his own greatest hits. Evidently it’s now more important to him to make a Tim Burton movie than to make a good movie. It’s painfully predictable. But if you’re a pea-brained teenage goth, you’ll love it.

Oh, and don’t let the title fool you. This is not Alice in Wonderland. It’s a tiresome yarn woven from the trailing threads of Lewis Carroll’s books. Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is now 19, and has forgotten her original adventures in wonderland entirely. A shame, since they were far more entertaining than this bloated dirge. Once again Alice chases a rabbit down a hole, and once again she finds herself in wonderland. Here’s where the film’s big problems start; abandoning the original story would be fine if the film had a good story of its own to tell. But it doesn’t.

Alice in Wonderland isn’t a huge story. It’s little, and it’s cute. It’s a travelogue in which Alice stumbles from one impossible situation to another with barely any narrative glue to hold them together. Burton’s Alice doesn’t get this, and is hell-bent on mushing these neat little plays, songs and riddles into drab blob of sub-LOTR epicness. The parlour-game cuteness of the books is thrown out in favour of sweeping shots of Alice riding across landscapes to thunderous music to thwart the ill-defined machinations of the Red Queen. It just doesn’t fit; for one thing, the denizens of wonderland aren’t especially versatile. They don’t work well when removed from their traditional roles and places. A prime example is Depp’s Mad Hatter. He’s an action hero. He’s a leading man. He has an origin story and multiple personality disorder. Which is a lot to ask of a guy who only ever existed to drink tea. Depp’s lazy performance does little to paint over the cracks; Tim has finally stretched his Johnny too thin.

It gets worse. Remember the exploding penguins from the climax of Batman Returns? Alice wraps up with something equally stupid; a big fight. It’s hard to imagine a cast of characters more ill-suited to a massive, LOTR style dust-up. I do not feel any richer from having seen Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum doing kung fu, nor from seeing Alice transformed into Joan of Arc.

Visually the whole thing is an ordeal. The film’s palette is the colour of chewed up M&Ms, with psychadelic colours dotted across a drab brown canvas. The cast is stellar, but the only one to claw his way out of out of the film’s CGI murk is Stephen Fry as a smoky, billowing cheshire cat. It’s a real pity to see Rickman and Glover submerged in such a turgid piece of filmmaking. And it would’ve been nice to give Christopher Lee more than 2 lines of dialogue.

Lee plays the Jabberwocky, realised in eyeball-rattling CGI. But this leathery monster is symptomatic of the film’s deep flaws. A computer generated lizard is no substitute for the beautiful wordplay of Carroll’s nonsense poem. A single stanza of the poem itself is recited by (who else?) Depp’s Mad Hatter. There’s no love of screwing around with language and no recognition at all of the poem’s awesomeness (which is considerable). I’d foolishly raised my hopes that Lee would recite the whole thing; instead the film misses a huge opportunity to do something really cool in favour of that lousy action finale. What’s a vorpal blade if it doesn’t even go snicker-snack?

2/5

-James

Emanuele Kabu's new video: Saturation

2010-03-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

This is Emanuele Kabu's first completely 'hand made' animation project and we love it!

SATURATION from Emanuele Kabu on Vimeo.

What a night!

2010-03-11T15:36:00.000-08:00

What a night! Nutshell's Alice in Wonderland Tea, Cake and Gin Party was a grand success.

Stuffing many scrumptious cakes into their mouths, the various Alices, Mad Hatters, Dormice and other non-dressed-up-folks enjoyed an evening of music and readings to raise money for Nutshell magazine’s second edition.

The Korsan Bar, venue for the evening, was well decorated with customised playing cards featuring the Jack of Nutshells, Nutshell squirrels and other illustrations by Siobhan Maguire as well as balloons, party poppers and paper teapots. Many of the guests and organisers donated gorgeous, multicoloured homemade cakes and biscuits, and the evening included a raffle with many Alice-inspired prizes as well as a rather random bottle of vintage sherry.

The night kicked off with the Bobby McGee’s, undisputed royalties of twee indie, who, with the help of a ukulele and some silver pom-poms, delivered a heart-warming and refreshingly unusual performance. After all the excitement a grown, beardy Scottish man with pom-poms can bring, there followed a reading of three poems by Don Paterson, another much respected Scot whose interview will feature in the much awaited second issue.

Then on came indie rockers Inland Empire. With a frontman somewhat reminiscent of George Lamb, Inland Empire combined a lazy vocal style with old school Rock and Roll and a great stage presence. Substantial merriment was had by all.

Here the evening took a curious turn indeed: after Inland Empire, a selection of actors and Nutshell team members performed a rollercoaster of a reading of the Mad Tea Party scene from Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, featuring Angie Valenti as a Mad Hatter well worthy of its attribute, Kat Redstone as a very suave March Hare and Colin Reed as a perky Alice, perhaps enjoying the blonde wig and little blue dress a bit too much.

Then, without further ado, the London based trio Coppers for Karma got us all out of our comfortable seats and down to the dance floor with their explosive energy, glittery eyes and massive grins. Hooray!

The evening was rounded off nicely with the Housewives, a jovial and entertaining combination of Indie, Drum&Bass and Latin. Everyone was drunk and merrily dancing while, on stage one housewife played various percussive instruments and a small archaic keyboard. The audience took great pleasure in watching a man thump seven shades of s**t out of a cowbell and the live acts came to an end in style.

Now my memory runs a little hazy, although after a few bottles of the Korsan’s finest vino it’s really no surprise. All I know is I ate lots of cake, danced too much and ran into a lovely opium-smoking caterpillar on the way home, which in my book is a good night.

Lucy Adlard

Why you really shouldn't miss this party...

2010-02-24T07:50:00.000-08:00

What are you doing on Saturday 6th March?
We’ll be giving our books a rest and letting our hair down to celebrate the arrival of spring with the best non-literary literary party of all time.

We’re taking the Korsan bar and turning it into an Alice In Wonderland’s mad-tea party adding great live music, a raffle, some readings, home-made cakes and a proper bar to hit.

But this is not just a party, this is a fundraiser too, our way to get the money we need to print issue two and get new writing out of pixelated folders and on the printed page, in the fresh air, in the minds of the readers, in the cosmic cycle of the universe. And beyond.

So you should come because you love a good party, because Saturdays are dull, because you love Nutshell and because you're happy to give a fiver up to a good cause.

See you there!

Cafe hunting in Angel, London

2010-02-03T06:02:00.000-08:00

What a find!

Looking for a quiet place to read and work in Angel has always been a rather arduous venture. Plenty of lovely restaurants and a good choice of pubs, but when it comes to an undisturbed coffee to last you several hours there's not much hope. Even going all "You've Got Mail" and classic American with either of the two Starbucks you'll be lucky to find a seat, even on your own, regardless of the fact they have crowded those two square metres available with an unjustifiable myriad of ridiculous microscopic tables and chairs on end. And, assuming you did find a seat, would you really take it, when the place smells so much of rancid milk and the noise of Sex And The City wannabe quartets reaches dangerous levels? I thought not. Of course, in dire straits you could have once squatted in one of the armchairs in Borders for a few hours of undisturbed peace but, now that the big mama of books has gone, what is a poor literary pilgrim in need of a place to create to do? Well, try Tinderbox. A new addition to that monstrosity that is the Angel complex. Its ground floor entrance is cleverly disguised as an unassuming espresso bar and the horrid Asian buffet distracts most people away from the first floor entrance. It is out of desperation alone that on a Sunday afternoon I discovered my new favourite Angel cafe.

Yes, the unusually cubic arrangement of seats and tables right by the entrance do remind one of a strange black leather version of a Cbeebies set, but past the bar you'll discover a solo writing heaven. There are hobbit sized booths if you come with company, quiet solo seats on the mezzanine, a couple of recycled leather train seats with adjustable footrests and one big table full of the papers of the day where solitary visitors can squeeze in and read a book in peace. Did I mention their chai latte is the best I have ever had? The froth itself is worth the £2.60!

Perhaps the staff are the only drawback. They hate both you and Tinderbox and make you want to stick your neck out and have a peek behind them, in case they really are being held at gunpoint while they’re making your coffee. But then again they might not be allowed any of the chai latte, which is terribly addictive, and might resent customers for this. Who knows?!

What I do know is that I'll be back next Sunday, quite early, to try the mezzanine.

Meet Emanuele Kabu' s colours...

2010-01-17T05:10:00.000-08:00

Girl With The Gun - In The Sunshine from Emanuele Kabu on Vimeo.

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS ANYONE? Have a Nutshell Limited Edition Tee!

2009-12-06T14:42:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends,

Have I ever mentioned how hard it is to fund a literary magazine nowadays? It's probably too obvious to mention. What's worth mentioning, however, is that we won't be intimidated by the unpopularity of poetry and the solitude of short stories in the world of money but we will flip our nutshell over, stick a sail in it and use it as a vessel to sail the seas of funding, starting with sartorial experimentation! Yes, that can only mean one thing: the famous Nutshell Tees are finally ready and they are:

- individually hand printed (yes, it took ages - but anything for you!)
- super limited edition - only 50 (better hurry)
- limited prints of Siobhan Maguire's legendary cover design (you can frame them if you want)
- great quality and fit: American Apparel (ooooh)
- super wearable: black print on light grey (instant chic)

And here's the second list, by buying them you will be:

- supporting your favourite literary magazine - who loves you and needs you so
- making the world a better place where magazines can exist and play trumps with each other's submissions
- becoming the owner of a real work of art, a collectible item and a piece of history
- possibly giving the best Christmas present ever
- so cooool

This is how you can buy your T-shirt for only £12 (or more if you feel generous) They come in Unisex S, M and L (sizes are on the small side) or Girl fit S and M (which are also great for kids):

-Send a cheque payable to Federica Fornasier to this address:
Nutshell Magazine, 77A Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 1JD

-Pay via Paypal

* * * Thank you Pandora and Daniel for modeling our tees - you look great! * * *

CALLING FOR NEW SUBMISSIONS

2009-10-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

The summer has been a hugely rewarding and very busy time for everybody at Nutshell. Issue One was so well received that we were submerged by submissions, feedback and professions of love from all over the world. So now, having changed the clocks, read our fan mail, and patted ourselves on the back, we find we all have much more time to spend indoors preparing the next issue of Nutshell.

We are calling for poetry, flash fiction, short stories, poetic prose or creative non-fiction. The inspiration and main theme behind Nutshell is urban space, the city as inextinguishable source of images, sensations and ideas. We still believe in cities and therefore, with such a vast theme behind us, we ask you to send us submissions on any topic you like – because we think it's very likely a city will be lurking behind it somewhere.

***DEADLINE: 15th DECEMBER 2009, to submit and get more info visit www.nutshellmagazine.com or send us an email: editorial@nutshellmagazine.com***

We are also still accepting, and very much encouraging, DONATIONS – YES PLEASE! All the people behind Nutshell work as volunteers, just for the love of writing and the pleasure of sharing a great publication with the world. Unfortunately, the printers don’t – they’d rather have the cash.

You could really help us with a donation, even if it seems like a teeny amount of money. Donate via paypal on our website, send us a cheque @

Nutshell Magazine HQ
77A Dartmouth Park Hill
London NW5 1JD

or talk to the printers in person and make them an offer they cannot refuse.

Either way WATCH THIS SPACE, Facebook page and Twitter for news on readings and fundraising parties, Nutshell Limited Edition T-Shirts… and who knows what else!

Keep writing!

Nutshell

NEW BLOG ADDITION: FILM REVIEWS

2009-10-27T07:58:00.000-07:00

Dearest Nutshell Blog readers,
As you can see we have a new addition to the Nutshell Blog: the film
review. We are crazy about words and storytelling and creating amazing
imagery and therefore as well as loving poetry, fiction and beautiful
writing we also love great filmmaking. Being Nutshell in paper form we
couldn't really include film in it, but we now have this blog and we
think films and film reviews could well become a little part of it.
James Bower is a freelance writer who specialises in film. He's very
witty and writes beautifully. His favourite movie is The Apartment and
(quoting him) 'He is absolutely not a dork.'
James will review selected films that we find have a connection with
what Nutshell stands for, which are simply outstanding, or which we
find stimulating for any other reason and would like to share with
you. As usual you are more than welcome to leave your comments.

Nutshell.

James Bower reviews UP for Nutshell

2009-10-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

Review: Up
USA, 2009, Cert U Dir. Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
96 mins. Cast: Ed Asner, Jordan Nagai, Christopher Plummer

Up is a masterpiece.

Not only that, but Up succeeds against the odds. Conceptually it’s Pixar’s weakest offering yet: It’s not about monsters, or robots, or toys. It’s about Carl Fredericksen. Carl is 78 years old with a walking frame and a house full of faded memories, primarily of his beloved wife Ellie. Ellie just died, and her loss is something that you’ll feel for the duration of the film. This is thanks to one of the greatest opening montages I have ever seen, animated or otherwise. Critics have been swooning over this one for weeks, and it’s my turn to join them. It’s the condensed life story of Carl and Ellie, from their first meeting as kids drunk on tales of ‘adventure’ to a closing image of old Carl sitting alone by a table of condolence messages. It’s the most affecting 20 minutes I’ve seen this year.

If you’ve seen a poster for Up, you know the story. Using hundreds of coloured balloons, Carl floats away in his sad little house (hey, it’s better than the Shady Oaks retirement village). But Up is not about a floating house. It’s about Carl. Carl clings to his house like a drowning man to a rock. He needs his stuff, and he has a lot of it. Photographs, scrapbooks, ornaments, furniture - it’s a chintzy museum dedicated to a life that ended when Ellie died. And he’s terrified of letting go. When Carl realises that the two of them never achieved their shared dream of adventuring in South America (his life in montage is full of mundane joys, but none of them involve what he considers to be ‘adventure’), he finds a way to get there without leaving his fully-furnished mausoleum. Did I mention that Carl is a balloon salesman?

The storytelling in Up is nothing short of masterful. Carl is painted so lovingly and with such clarity that it’s impossible not to feel for the cranky old coot. Ed Asner’s voice work is just perfect, right down to the irritated little grunts that make up half of his vocabulary. Despite himself, Carl charms not only the audience but also Russell (Jordan Nagai), a wide-eyed, slow-witted boy scout who happens to be on Carl’s porch when the house lifts off. Russell is part of a small supporting cast that also boasts a talking dog and an LSD-flavoured flamingo straight out of a Tex Avery cartoon.

At once crushingly sad and outrageously funny, Up’s laughs range from classic slapstick to a sublime musical montage set to Bizet (the whole score is first rate). One thing Up lacks is ‘zingy’ dialogue. Thank Christ! Am I the only one who’s sick to death of smart-ass zebras and neurotic penguins? Up’s delicate, honest humour is part of its irresistible charm. Equally satisfying are the action sequences, perfectly paced and choreographed and a thousand times more gripping than the cgi brain damage of the summer’s top action flicks. A briefly-glimpsed thunderstorm into which Carl and Russell accidentally drift might even out-rumble the whirling ocean maelstrom of Miyazaki’s Ponyo.

Up is visual poetry. It speaks on many different levels woven into an outstandingly complete cinematic experience. Most of Carl’s life whizzes by us in a few minutes, but you can feel the passing years as though you’re there with him, and that’s what gives the rest of the movie such a wonderful weight and texture. Carl’s hermit crab-like dependency on his house is never telegraphed; it’s just there, plain as the big round nose on his face. Russell isn’t just bumbling comic relief; he’s a real kid, and he has a sad story of his own that he can barely articulate. But Up can.

See Up as soon as possible, as many times as you can. Whimsical but not saccharine, tight but not contrived, it’s smart, it’s funny and it’s beautiful. It’s also strikingly mature. This is a kids’ movie, but not one in which everyone’s dreams come true. It’s one founded in disappointment and regret, but which then lifts this sadness into a glorious statement about the malleability of dreams. There are new ones out there that Carl just didn’t know about yet. You can tell when a film has been made with love; Up is such a film.

10/10

- James Bower

Poem

2009-09-29T00:43:00.001-07:00

I have constructed the moon into a lamp

So that it can bear its days without shrinking

Like a soap, but be a head proudly shaping

Over the clouds into the white vanity it deserves

For its force. Dragging seas and women

Behind its back in a heavy bridal veil,

Horses envy its strength. Corpses

Leave sleep in their graves to hold

their hands under that lamp again,

My lamp, my kitchen lamp.

Rebecka Mustajärvi

Rebecka Sharp

2009-09-21T06:52:00.000-07:00

Rebecka Sharp, 20, lives in London and misses America. We hope to feature some of her B&W shots in issue 2.

Buonasera Bongiorno

2009-09-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

As many of Nutshell's readers will be aware, legendary television host Mike Bongiorno died on Tuesday. How to communicate to those unfamiliar with Italian television the scale of his talent? I take the wikipedia entry for Mike Bongiorno and I run my eye down it. Quite quickly I arrive at this: "In 1963, Umberto Eco wrote an essay entitled Fenomenologia di Mike Bongiorno in which he used advanced academic theories to shed light on Mike Bongiorno and his way of communicating. Eco held that Mike Bongiorno was so good at portraying himself as no better than average in every respect, that 100% of his audience could feel good about themselves, could feel that they were more sophisticated in some way." Let us dismiss this false start.

How well I remember Mike Bongiorno's presentation of the San Remo festival. Who better qualified to introduce popular contemporary music to a new generation than a man in his late seventies? His co-host of the night, a spritely fifty-year-old, was under the impression Madonna would accept an interview in Italian. Though immediately evident Madonna's command of Italian didn't stretch beyond 'Buonasera, San Remo', this co-host laboriously persisted with question after question to a blank and increasingly annoyed Madonna. Of course it was Mike, Mike Bongiorno who saved the day, ushering Madonna away from her tormentor with promises to 'see you back in the States' in an impressive American accent. Mike, you did good work on Italian television and will be missed.

I cannot call to mind Mike Bongiorno without seeing the faces of other outstanding Italian presenters: Maria De Filippi; Red Ronnie. Still living? Surely yes. And surely not yet so antique they're ready to present the San Remo festival. Not yet ready, so I'm saying, to step into the shoes of one Mike, Mike Bongiorno. Maria De Filippi, wife of fellow television presenter Maurizio Costanzo, a man famed for his wit, though a wit of such subtlety it ran beyond my limited language skills to appreciate. How many long Saturday afternoons did I pass with Maria and her 'Amici', Roman juveniles with emotional problems and Invicta rucksacks? I cannot now recall, nor would I wish to.

Red Ronnie presented (still does I guess) an afternoon music show in which Italian teenagers would watch famous bands perform, and then submit questions to the band. One exchange I remember in particular. Following a performance by Suede of 'Beautiful Ones', which contains the line 'loved up, Doved up, hung around, stoned in a lonely town / shaking their meat to the beat,' an astute Italian girl asked Brett Anderson if the dove in that line represented the dove of peace.

Too big for afternoons only, Red also had an evening programme, during which he would tackle the main band on the show with an interview in English. During such occasions, which could be arduous affairs, I have to admit, I was always sympathetic towards Red who knew how to handle himself in a Q&A situation despite some notable revisions to the book of English grammar and syntax on his part. Alas, my sympathy was not shared by the army of Italian girls who would call the show on a routine basis to communicate to Red their opinion of his foreign language skills. But what did they know? Were any of those bilingual callers fronting a national television show? Are they now? Of course not.

We might have said to Mike Bongiorno arrivederci (or should that be a fussy arrivederla?), but young guns like Maria De Filippi and Red Ronnie survive him to carry his torch and perhaps in a decade or two, when of sufficient seniority, to present, as he did, the San Remo festival.

--

Ian McLachlan

Colin Reed and Weeping Willow

2009-09-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

So I...

2009-09-04T06:20:00.001-07:00

...went to Italy for the late summer bank holiday to see my friends and family. BA is the only company to provide commuter friendly flights and since it was also a bank holiday weekend the tickets were a bit pricey. I had no other option so I booked them. When I checked in online I was annoyed to find I was sitting at the very front of the plane, row 3. It bothered me because in my irrational frightened mind the two ends are the ones that move the most upwards and downwards, while the middle stays nice and still. A bit like when you hold a pencil between your thumb and middle finger and make it oscillate, the middle bit stays still while the ends sway like crazy. It probably does not apply to planes really, but in my heart it does, so I was upset. It wasn’t until after the three course meal in crystal glasses and real metal cutlery that I realized that I was sitting in first class. To be honest I wasn’t quite sure of it until I asked the steward. So that was why I was sitting at the front of the plane for that flight! I should know from now on. What gave it away, though, was not the extra leg room - if you have met me you know I am perfectly comfortable with what ryanair offers in that aspect - or the fine bone china, or the metal knives (terrorists don’t fly first class, obviously); what gave it away was A: niceness and B: gold. The stewards and stewardesses checked our seatbelts were fastened ever so gently, then made sure we had just enough pinot and champagne, and always spoke to us in the sweetest voices before opening the little curtain and moving on to the rest of the plane barking orders and kicking people’s bags out of the way with deliberate nastiness. But the gold! Oh, the wonders one can only behold in first class! The women in first class might have been similar in shape and form to me but their every inch was covered in neon signs screaming MONEY. Peeping through the curtain I could see sensible grey and black jumpers and blue jeans, but next to me there was a peacock display of crimson silks and emerald green taffeta, silver leather handbags the size of parachutes (maybe the first class ladies are smarter than they seem), with solid gold lockets and chains and charms dingling at their every (bloody) move, hair blown to perfection in the softest, most precise careless waves, tans the shade of terracotta, heels that could puncture the plane floor and kill us all, and a tiny bolero cape made of cow foetus skin – charming. Needless to say they looked at me, my cheapskates-class grey top and jeans combo, my unmade-up face, and the sad, battered remains of the guardian weekend ‘Summer short story special’ magazine with disgust and contempt. What was I doing there? Why was I allowed the same niceness and salmon niçoise? Why the unneeded yet clearly undeserved extra leg room? I smiled at them politely and stuffed the unfinished miniature wine bottle in my bag before the same steward who had just thrown the horrid BA sarnies (which I kind of love) onto the inferior laps of the crappy-class passengers asked me in the sweetest voice if I was finished with the tray and if he could offer me any more olive bread or mango pavlova. I am not sure I need first class, I most certainly wouldn’t buy first class tickets deliberately, but it did feel good to be the only person there not burdened with their weight in gold and dead foetus’ skin; it made me feel good about myself and my bottom-of-career-ladder situation. And finally, it made me feel good about having to come up with more inventive ideas than a credit card to fund this magazine. I just hope those wee Nutshells out there are having a better time than my guardian supplement.

Faye

Dear all,

2009-09-03T04:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the latest addition to the Nutshell Magazine venture: the blog. This blog is our way to keep in touch and let you know that we’re still alive and well, and working hard to present you with a new edition of Nutshell very soon. After our glorious first appearance on the zine scene we received masses of excellent submissions, some great reviews, some donations and really warm words of encouragement – thank you! What we didn’t get was a big fat cheque from the Arts Council to make more Nutshells, but don’t worry: we have a plan. First of all we will continue to welcome your donations *here*, then we will miraculously multiply them by turning them into something else: our cover artist Siobhan Maguire is currently working on a design for our limited version Nutshell #1 T-Shirt! Only 100 will be printed and all funds will go towards issue two of Nutshell. So not only will you be buying a rare piece of wearable art, you’ll be producing a magazine at the same time! Imagine!

So add this page to your shortcut toolbar and stay in touch!

Faye

The Nutshell Magazine Blog

Where's my Nutshell for 2011??

If only Angela Carter wrote the news

The Tempest - Little Angel Theatre

Latitude 2011

By The Rivers, Brixton Hootananny

Pepe Belmonte involved in serious bike accident - tour cancelled but support event organised for the 16th of April

Patch William at Nambucca

Check out PEPE BELMONTE on his 'SUPPORT YOUR INDEPENDENT RECORD STORE' tour !

Underground Poetry (UP)

Howl did they manage to make it so boring?

Nutshell Winter Boum, Islington

Never Let Me Go - Film Review

Circalit Launch Crime Fiction Competition with Leading Literary Agency

Cool For Cats presents the Nutshell Winter Boum

Dior Illustrated: René Gruau and the Line of Beauty

Solovino - He came alone by Alona Ferber

Follow your own path and don't worry about the darkness

Rebecca Sharp - Holiday

Edinburied

Edinbetter

Edinbrrrrrr

Exploring new café Drink, Shop & Do - just sprouted in the heart of Kings Cross

Some Positive Ramblings about The Not-So-Secret Garden Party

Circalit And Little Episodes Get Writers to Open Up About Depression With Free Short Story Competition.

Hate Yourself Thin! with Dr Marilyn Baedecker

The last day of Latitude, Heather Phillipson, Blake Morrison & Sebastian Faulks.

The Masked Ball in the Faraway Forest - Latitude

Saturday Night at Latitude - Belle and Sebastian

Saturday night Latitude - Crystal Castle

Sad news from Latitude, two girls raped.

Porky The Poet missing Tim Wells and Hanif Kureishi watches his kids rock at Latitude Festival

Going 'up space' with Josie Long at Latitude

Wendy Cope @ Latitude Festival

Faye Fornasier reviews the Guardian Book Club with Bret Easton Ellis

Nutshell Issue 2 Launch Party

Faye Fornasier reviews Electric Hotel

Emma Gibson interviews talented new writer Evie Wyld

James Bower reviews The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

F is for Fiction

Romanticising wrecked bicycles..

Let's meet new poets - Rebecka M. reviews the Faber & Faber night at the Curzon

Baring bar codes

New animation from Emanuele Kabu: Music video for Maci's Mobile

Film review: James Bower gives Alice a kicking - clearly Nutshell does Wonderland better than Burton...

Emanuele Kabu's new video: Saturation

What a night!

Why you really shouldn't miss this party...

Cafe hunting in Angel, London

Meet Emanuele Kabu' s colours...

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS ANYONE? Have a Nutshell Limited Edition Tee!

***CALLING FOR NEW SUBMISSIONS***

NEW BLOG ADDITION: FILM REVIEWS

James Bower reviews UP for Nutshell

Poem

Rebecka Sharp

Buonasera Bongiorno

Colin Reed and Weeping Willow

So I...

Dear all,

CALLING FOR NEW SUBMISSIONS