Danny Fields' Polaroids - Art or just icky?

Art is a confusing topic, modern art even more so. Art has been around for so long, and has had so many things done with it; pretty pictures no longer seem valid. You can paint an in detail picture of a landscape – but that’s been done. You can draw a realistic portrait of someone – ten other people have painted that same person.

No if you want to be new, if you want to get people talking, you need to get creative. You need to be daring. And sometimes this can be a little confusing for us non-artists.

Confusing in the sense of, is it okay for me to like this? If I like this piece of art, am I sinning? Do I need to go to a Catholic church and confess? Am I a bad person for viewing this art?

To understand where I’m coming from, I need to direct your attention to Danny Fields. Some of you might know Danny Fields as the long-standing manager of the Ramones. You might know him as the guy who edited the iconic 16 magazine. The guy responsible for signing the Stooges, MC5, and Nico. At the very least, you’ve at least heard the John Lennon quote Fields was responsible for reporting – ‘We’re more famous than Jesus.’

But what you probably didn’t know about Danny, is that in the 1970s, he also enjoyed making porn. As you do.

So when the day was done, and he had gotten his fill of being an iconic figure on the New York punk scene. Danny Fields would go out, get a group of boys and bring them back to his apartment. Once there he would give them some vague directions and take pictures of the boys – and their genitalia.

In his Richardson interview, Fields says:

“They were all prostitutes. Well, prostitutes sounds too glamorous; they were hustlers. I’d pick them up in the street or at prostitute bars, and then one always seemed to bring the others. You’d pay them forty dollars or something, and they’d pretty much do whatever you told them to. This was before AIDS and the internet, so people weren’t so paranoid. A lot of them are dead now, and a lot of them—I never even knew their names.”

This is the back story behind the collection of photographs in this article. And this is what I meant by art being problematic nowadays.

On the one hand, I cannot deny that I find the photographs fascinating. And yet at the same time I’m disgusted.

Is it disgusting because of what the boys are doing? The pictures I’m showing here are the tame versions, others graphically show ass fingering, bondage... poo holding, and other icky stuff.

It could be said that these pictures are disturbing because of what they tell me about myself. They show that I am conventional in my sexuality. That other executions of sex repulse me, and perhaps that shows me to be a little closed minded.

Not all sex is based on love and cuddles, some people have sex purely for the pleasure. And some people experience pleasure in different varieties.

Then of course we have to address the origins of these pictures. Is this art or exploitation? Is this what makes the photos disgusting? These boys are being paid to perform these acts. More than likely the men in the pictures are selling themselves out of experiences with drugs, broken homes, dysfunctional relationships, ect.

Was it wrong for Fields to pay, and therefore fuel, their lifestyle?

By displaying these pictures, is he exploiting their misfortune?

Or are these pictures offering us a glimpse into someone’s life that would have otherwise been over looked. And it does have to be said, that in some of the photos, there appears to be a genuinely look of joy on some of the boys faces. Did they enjoy the experience? Are we judging their way of life too quickly?

In all honesty? Probably not. They probably were deeply troubled youths, and we’ll never really know how the rest of their life’s turned out. Maybe Fields is right, maybe most of them are dead. But do I find the photos exploitative?

Personally no. 

These are shots of just one night in these boys lives. Without Fields, these boys would have continued to do the same thing, only with a different person. And in a way, I find most interest in these photos stemming from a desire to know these people. To know what happened to them. To know if they’re now okay.

Obviously I’ll never get these answers. And the boys will never know that I care about their lives. But for a couple of minutes, these pictures have forced us to question something about ourselves and at the same time, pulled us out of our own problems and question and care about someone else’s.

Though keep in mind I do a literature degree, so I am prone to have my judgement clouded with feelings and pretension. So what do you guys think? Fields’ photographs: Porn? Exploitation? Art? Or just plain icky?

Let me know in the comments.

All the photographs and quotes in this post come from the sex magazine Richardson. I’m not cool enough to read said magazine, so I found all of this on one of my favourite blogs: Slutever.com. When you’re done reading my crap, give the original article a read and check out some of the more in detailed pictures. Because I can’t really have up close shots of anuses on a blog with a dragon drawn on the top, can I?

All images by Danny Fields

Britain’s binge drinking: It’s not about age but about culture

Last Sunday I made the snap decision that for dinner I was going to cook a nice bowl of lentils and chorizo. On the surface this doesn’t pose an issue. The lentils I had at home, all I would need from the shop would be chorizo, chopped tomatoes, and a small bottle of... RED WINE!

And what I bought really was a small bottle of red wine – a borrowers sized bottle of Sainbury’s own brand merlot. Yet I got ID for this tiny bottle of merlot. A bottle that had such insignificant amounts of alcohol inside, that a toddler would have struggled to get drunk on it – although don’t take my word on that because toddlers and alcohol is a bad mix, unlike vodka and cranberry which is an excellent mix (#tangent).

Luckily for my food snobby taste buds, I had some ID on me yet I recall a time when I was not so lucky. I had been seventeen and I had wanted to cook a nice chicken cacciatore, which unluckily for me, involved getting hold of some white wine – AN ILLIGAL SUBSTANCE FOR SOMEONE OF MY AGE! Why not just go without the wine? I hear you cry.

Because wine is to cooking as to what good foreplay is to sex, in that without it the experience is just boring and a little bit painful.

Now at the time I couldn’t buy the wine, so I had to get a grown up to pick it up for me. So it became one of those situations that you see in the movies, where the under aged person is huddled outside in the cold, waiting for the 18 year old to appear with the magical substance known as booze.

Now I bet good money, that from the outside, this transaction of money for booze looked a little sad. I bet most people would assume that I was going to take that wine down to the park and get hammered with my friends in the woods. They would not have guessed that I actually used that wine to make a fucking tasty dish of chicken cacciatore.

And this is the problem I have with British culture – or more specially, its culture of drinking.

Because there is this persistent idea that alcohol is good for getting drunk on, and nothing else. Not for taste, not for cooking, not sampling or vintage – for binge drinking, getting pissed, or at the very least, getting tipsy enough to flirt with the opposite sex on.

This is chicken cacciatore, infinitely more appealing than white lightening 

Very few European countries take the same stance that we brits do.  Wine is not seen as something to be downed, or mixed with lemonade and guzzled, but as a way to complement meals and flavours. I can’t help but think that if more kids were introduced to alcohol in this context, fewer would be inclined to run off behind some bushes and drink synthetic cider in the rain.

Just think of all those food classes you took in high school, and all those fairy cakes you made and then threw in the bin as soon as class was finished. Wouldn’t it have been a better use of our time, and the teachers, to get us viewing the dynamics of flavour in a better light? Maybe by making a nice risotto, or a beef and ale pie.

Every year the restrictions on alcohol get tighter and tighter. There’s challenge 21, challenge 25, bar raids, undercover police – I once worked at a bar, and was told, that if I was caught serving someone under the age of 18, even if I was unaware of the fact, I would get a criminal record and a £1000+ fine. And are these restrictions solving anything?

No.

Because the problem isn’t the availability of alcohol, it’s our own mentality.  We humans are a tenacious bunch, and if we want something, chances are we’ll get it. And so, if at 16, you want to wankered behind a bike shed, chances are you’ll find a way to do it.

Maybe if what we wanted was a decent tasting risotto, and a complementary pinot grigio – binge drinking in Britain wouldn’t be such a problem.

And I wouldn’t need to take my passport with me every time I wanted to make a red wine reduction.

Why I don't like Tyler Shields V.2 (and an apology for V.1)

http://ladybitsandbobs.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/why-i-dont-like-tyler-shields-v-2-and-an-apology-for-v-1/

Adult Limbo: also known as being a student

University is an odd place; it acts a limbo between our teenaged lives and our adult ones. On the one hand, many of us at university live independent lives. We go where we want to go, do what we want to do – get drunk and bring strangers back into our bedroom. All fabulous.

Yet at the same time, we’re either getting supplemented by either a student load, bursaries, or our parents. We’ve moved off the tricycle, onto the big kid bicycle, yet we still have stabilizers to stop us from falling flat on our faces. We’re semi-adults, which is the correct definition of a student.

Of course, the problem with this semi-adulthood, is that it is transient. Eventually the loans run out, our parents retire, and our degrees come to an end. Which leaves many of us in a precarious position – just what are we supposed to do with ourselves? If live was an instruction manual, I imagine it would go something like this:

If only life was so easy? I imagine if this was the instruction manual, many students would be calling the help desk, demanding what to do if they are unable to complete step C because of the recession. Or step D because the person they were supposed to marry just ran away with an accountant on the second floor. Or step G because they just went to the fertility clinic and found out their uterus is a hostile environment for sperm and only have an 11% chance of ever conceiving.

Because life isn’t a SIMs game, where we set a life time achievement goal and use cheat codes to get there a little faster. We cannot set ourselves up for goals and check them off like a to-do list. There is no certainty in life, just as there’s no guarantee that when you remove the stabilizers from a bike, that you won’t crash or fall off somewhere along the way.

Though anyone will know, as a kid, if you’ve never experienced falling off your bike before, the idea of it happening to yourself can be pretty daunting. The same applies to being an adult. As I’ve just finished my exams, my second year at university draws to an end. In a year’s time adulthood will be knocking at my door, and in the mean time, I get a sneak preview of my worries in the form of my mother, who likes to write emails saying: “What’s the plan? Where are you going to move? What career are you going into? Do you know what you want to BE yet?”

And you know what? I’m scared. Scared of falling off my bike, scared of failing as an adult.

I don’t know what I want to be, and by that logic, I am therefore nothing. Or rather, I feel like nothing[1]. 

Life sometimes, feels that it is set up in a way that makes you believe the instruction manual I wrote earlier, exists. That we should be heading towards certain goals, certain lifestyle decisions. Now I’ve already stated that this isn’t true, and yet here I am, contradicting myself, by telling you that even I feel that it is true. And the problem is, this imaginary check list of achievements, which hangs over our heads – my head – doesn’t tell you how to go about checking off these accomplishments.

So what is the point in this blog post Heather?

This is the part where I would like to impart some sort of advice to you, the readers. Say something really profound and comforting to all of you who are reading this and experiences the same problems as I am. Maybe something along the lines of – hey buddy, don’t worry about tomorrow, live for today and... something, something, inner self, something, something, have confidence and BELIEVE in... something...

But, as someone, who is still set in the student-limbo of adulthood, I’m afraid I cannot advise on what I have yet to experience. All I can do is relate to you my fears, letting you know, that if you too share my doubts for the future, you are not alone. We are all stuck on a hill, on our bikes, just about to ride off into the sun set, yet not quite ready to whiz down the incline. 

Instead we hover, our stabilizers rusty and just about to come off, and watch – watch as people graduate, get jobs, and fly down the hill to a place we can’t be certain of. All the while thinking: Will I be next? What if I fail? And thank fuck I don’t graduate for another year.

---

[1] Or is it that SOCIETY MAKES ME FEEL LIKE NOTHING?! (Sorry, doing English literature exams does this to your world perceptive).

My Reaction to 'The Great Gatsby Trailer'

When I hear the title ‘The Great Gatsby’, several things come to mind. The first is my A-Level literature teacher – Eileen Cheers. Eileen was an old woman, pushing on retirement, with the most perfect reading voice I have ever heard. She read the book out softly, in a husky whisper. It made you feel sleepy, relaxed – it took you back to your Grandmother reading you stories just before bedtime.

The new Great Gatsby trailer however, is anything but a relaxed affair. This is Moulin Rouge having a love child with your bookcase, all to the soundtrack of Jay Z and Kanye West. Not surprising when you consider Baz Luhrmann is the director to this new adaptation. While other directors have gone for smooth jazz and subtle glances, Mr. Luhrmann has done a 21st Century translation. He gives us decadence, hip hop, debauchery - Leonardo De Caprio's face.  

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited, and a little bit scared. Excited in the sense, the trailer has built this up to be an exciting affair. I’ll be going into the cinema expecting scantily glad women scissoring in large martini glasses. And scared because that’s what I might actually get. Scared that in among the bling and the show girls, the soft, heart aching life story of Gatsby will be lost under boob glitter.  

Hopefully my fears won’t come true. I sheepishly admit to squealing a little when the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg. That faithful bit of imagery that has helped me, and countless other A Level students get by in an exam. And then of course there is Carey Muligan, perhaps my favourite actress of the moment.

If there is anyone that can portray subtle heartbreak it is she. Where Grazia admit to having doubts of whether Carey could pull off the role of Daisy, I have always had an unwavering faith in her ability to pull off this iconic role. As I watch her films, I’ve noticed more and more, what it is that makes her my personal favourite.

It’s her ability to make the audience love her.

While other, more conventionally ‘sexy’ actresses walk onto the screen and ooze sex appeal. Carey steps into a film, merely stares into the camera, whispers one or two lines and POOF we’re in love. In Drive, when she lay in the hallway, staring up at Ryan Gosling we could feel that tug on our hearts. She is not merely an object to be lusted after, as so many actresses are, but a fragile little bird that we want hold in our hands but can’t for fear we might crush her.

Instead, like the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg we are forced to watch her. And watch this space for the release in Christmas 2012. 

Does The Woman Make The Hair? Or The Hair Make The Woman?

Like many women I have a love, hate relationship with my hair. On the one hand I love my hair. It’s one of my best friends. It keeps my ears warm (or used to, but more on that later), compliments my eyes, and makes me feel... all girly and stuff.

If there’s one thing that helps women define a woman’s femininity, it’s our hair.  In a recent interview with SFX, Gwendoline Christie , the new star of HBO’s Game of Thrones, confines what it meant to chop off her pretty blonde locks.

“When they cut my hair off, the transformation was complete,” she says. “I really, really miss it. When I had it cut I was a good girl on set – I went to my dialogue session and my horse-riding session – then I went to my hotel room, shut the door and sobbed for two hours.”

For Christie, as a six foot three woman, her hair provided her a reassurance of her femininity. It may not be possible for all of us to match up to the small, willowy frames our childhood princesses sported; so we settle for the next best thing – Princess hair. Where would Repunzle be if now if not for her long, following hair? What is Snow White if she doesn’t have her hair black as coal? If there’s one thing that made a Princess a Princess – it was her hair.

However, is Princess hair really do-able, or like the Princesses themselves, is it just a fantasy?

In an ideal world I would have fantastic hair. Long, silky, with just the right amount of volume. I would wake up, run my fingers through it, and leave the house with birds singing around my bouffant mane. When I gave my head a wiggle it would do that thing hair does in adverts, where the sun bounces off it and makes it look like the sun is literally renting a room on top of your head. I would literally be the centre of the solar system. Planets would gravitate around my head – that’s how fantastic my fantasy hair would be.

Is my hair like that? No.

Here's my hair and the lead singer of Dry the River. Notice his hair is longer, also notice how you're (hopefully) not confused who belongs to what gender. 

I have short hair, very short hair. Why? Because in real life, only a select few have Princess hair and one of them is Kate Middleton. The rest of us aren’t capable of having long, silky smooth hair. Our heads just won’t have it. In my case, my hair grew up to my shoulders before having a systematic melt down and leaving split ends all over the place. My hair is also curly, which is a polite term for frizzy. Meaning if I wanted nice hair, I would either have to sit perfectly still for 6 hours and let the bitch dry naturally, or spend an hour burning my face off with strengtheners hot enough to melt steel.

Needless to say, I went with option C and just cut the damn stuff off. And while I would like to say ‘Oh I just felt so liberated, like a Joan of Arc but with hair and stuff’ what I actually felt was sadness. Seeing my hair on the floor I felt exposed, like some kind of shield had been taken away from me. Without hair I had nothing to hide behind. Suddenly I was very conscious of how unisex my pants were, of how they squeeze my hips and gave an ever so slight muffin top. I wanted to put more make up on, change my trainers for high heels – just do something to vindicate my womanhood.

It’s was only later, when I started to lose my preconceived notions of what a woman should look like, that I was able to acknowledge that my hair looked great. For once I wasn’t weighed down by my unmanageable hair. It didn’t six hours to style it, I didn’t feel the need to burn it alive before venturing out in public. And more importantly, I accepted that it suited me.

My eyes looked bigger, it made my cheek bones stand out. Without a mane of hair, I saw that hey, my neck isn’t half bad – it’s long, makes me look like a Jane Austen character.

Now by no means am I suggesting that every woman who reads this blog (hey flatmates) has to go out immediately and cut off all their hair. That would be silly, just look at Kerry Katona. But what I am saying is: don’t be afraid.

If you find yourself on tumblr, doing nothing but stare at pictures of Carey Muligan and moaning ‘God I wish I had hair like that, but it’s just so... short’. Fuck it. Cut it off. Who knows, you might look great – you might look AMAZING! Don’t cling to your princess hair hoping that one day a handsome prince will yank his way up your tresses and affirm your femininity. Newsflash: as women we all have vaginas, long hair or no.

What makes us women, what makes us feminine is what we make it to be. Our identity is unique to us, not to be placed into a category set out for us by fairytale books.

I mean Christ, just think how long Rapunzel has to spend washing that mane. No wonder Disney made her chop it off. 

“We moan when we don’t have a boyfriend and we moan when we do”

http://ladybitsandbobs.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/we-moan-when-we-dont-have-a-boyfriend-and-we-moan-when-we-do/

The Hazards of Gift Buying

It’s the second to last day of my holiday. I’m in a busy market place. So many stalls, so many sights and sounds – so many gift ideas. I can feel myself starting to sweat, and for once it isn’t because of the weather. Where do you start when buying your boyfriend a present? A spontaneous present no less.

You often hear men lament ‘woman are SOOO hard to buy for!’ Or the ever persistent question of ‘what do women want?’ To these pointless questions I laugh, LAUGH I TELL YOU! What do women want? Just take five minutes to look around her room and you’ll know. The only reason men pretend otherwise, is that when they remember their GF’s birthday on their way home from work, and only one dingy service station is open, they can burst through the door and present said woman with some windscreen wipers and calmly say: ‘Well honey, you know I don’t find it easy shopping for a woman. The blame obviously lies with you for having a vagina.’

If men only took a minute or two to step into their partners ‘space’, the part of the house they have marked, not with urine, but with bunting that says ‘A GIRL WAS HERE’, they would know what said woman would want. Two minutes in my room and a monkey could work out that giving me anything from IKEA with a floral pattern on, or a box set from HBO would make me a very happy bunny. I want people to know what I like. Come birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, I basically send a list to my loved ones demanding shit that I want.

Why?

Because I want a lot of stuff and I haven’t learned to shit money yet.

Assigning people BBC dramas really boosted my collection at Christmas

This is the difference between men and women. Women need a lot of stuff. We have to buy make up, clothes, nice underwear, several piles of shoes, smelly shower stuff, smelly lotion stuff. By the time all this stuff is bought in order to make us look acceptable, we don’t have money to spare for things like The Wire box set. A man on the other hand, literally has to buy some deodorant once a month and he’s done. Instead of foundation, he’s free to splurge on Mass Effect 3, instead of Palmers Coco Butter, he buys that Futurama poster he spotted last week. Consumerism opens its arms to men and says ‘whats mine is yours TAKE IT! RUN FREEEE, AS FREE AS THE WIND BLOWS!’ Meanwhile, women are chained to the Topshop website, putting at least 50 items into their wish list and counting down the days until their next birthday.

What this ultimately means, is that come your boyfriends birthday, when you demand to know what he wants (‘and no love, a love coupon doesn’t count’) he breezily replies: ‘Oh I dunno, I’ve basically got everything I want’. To a woman this is unimaginable. Isn’t there a DVD you want? (‘Bought three last week’) A CD you want to hear? (‘Ituned that shit yesterday’) How about some new shoes? (‘I already have two pairs, I don’t want to go mental’) How about... erm.... a.... love coupon? (‘Now we’re talking!’)

Unfortunately for me there wasn’t a love coupon stall in Malaga. And besides, only 6 months into the relationship, sex is still pretty much a given. Maybe in a few years  time, when my libido has calmed down, and sex becomes one of those rare treats, like Lord of the Rings boxset days, I’ll be able to get away with a cheeky throw around as present material. Until that time though, I’m stuck staring at flip flops. ‘How about these?’ My Mum suggests, holding up some leather sandals. ‘No, he’s too fussy with his flip flops.’

‘These sun glasses.’

‘He has some.’

‘A Frisbee, didn’t you say he likes Frisbee?’ (My boyfriend doesn’t like Frisbee, he loves Frisbee. He’s the vice captain of the Frisbee team. He has a custom Frisbee kit. When we make love I can in his eyes my breast blur into Frisbee circles.)

‘I don’t think I want to step into that territory.’

‘Well what else does this boy like?’

I think about this for a minute. What does he like that he doesn’t already have? And then a see it, glimmering in the distance like Jesus in a sequin cocktail dress, ‘ROCKS!’

Not just any rocks, fancy rocks. Rocks with bits of crystal in. Shiny rocks. My brain isso frazzled by stress and the Spanish sunshine, that I have started to believe my boyfriend is half Geologist and half magpie. ‘Give me the shiniest rock you have, gimme that one on the left, it’s pointy like an arrow – it’s a manly, shiny rock.’

I failed to take a picture of this manly rock, so here's the Microsoft Paint version. Look how MANLY it is!

When presented with said ‘manly’ rock at the airport I can tell he is overwhelmed with the gesture. ‘It’s a rock,’ he says.

‘Yes but it’s got those shiny bits there.’

‘Oh yeah... Looks like Fools Gold.’

‘AHA! My plan all along! I’m helping you flecks your geology muscles. If presented with a question on Fools gold in the exam you’ll be able to think back to my amazing present – in fact it’s more than a present, IT’S HELPING YOUR DEGREE! IT’S MAKING YOU A BETTER PERSON!’

‘Well it’s the most revision I’ve done all week to be honest, I bought Mass Effect while you were a way.’

Shit, I think to myself. I was going to buy him that for our anniversary.

Maybe a love coupon isn’t such a bad idea...

Why Start a Blog?

In the earlier days this question would probably follow ‘what the fuck is a blog?’ and ‘is it contagious? Do I need a laxative?’ Nowadays we’re a little more clued up, or at least, we like to think we are. We ask non toilet related questions, such as: are you doing it for money? Are you doing it to get a career? And, more importantly, do you think you’re talented enough? What have YOU got to say?

New blogs pop up every day (hello), some about cars, some about fashion (a lot about fashion), and some that don’t seem to be about anything at all. Blogs, I like to think, are like dogs. Dogs are all of the same species but not of the same breed. People never confuse a Great Dane with a Pug, similarly you wouldn’t confuse a blog on politics with the pretty pictures of fashiontoast.com. The one thing that connects them all is the blog DNA which can be broken down into the genetic alphabet of html, awkward sentence structures, exclamation marks, and neurosis.  Mostly neurosis.

On the subject of dogs, here's mine. I like dogs, I like them a lot.

And this is the problem I have with modern day blog culture. Because blogs boil down to one thing – the person writing them. They’re all about opinions, about a person’s selfhood and beliefs.  And when you take someone’s selfhood and question its commercial value, it’s worth, its money making potential, then you’re really entering into something quite perverse, and I don’t mean that in a good way. For example, a friend opens up a blog. It’s nothing ground breaking, just little snippets of her day, what she thinks about new fashion trends, how she does her make-up; you know, girly stuff. In the old days we may have all coo’ed and called it ‘cute’. Instead we have people, usually Londoners, asking: what’s the point? Where’s the big picture? The pithy female intellect? Why the fuck do we care about what colour her nails are, unless it’s in high resolution and photography artfully next to a mile of pastel coloured macaroons?

People no longer accept blogs as cute little side projects you take up to kill time on your lunch break, now it’s almost a career. Cute doesn’t cut it anymore kid, the world demands PROFESSIONALISM.

Nothing says professionalism like a pink laptop and a take-away carton on the side

Now in my experience, when it comes to matter of the self, people in general are far from professional. The Coca-cola is professional, the brand of one Heather Shaw, is not. For instance, professional is slink and shiny. It’s polished cherry red with crisp, clear white writing. When I try and wear any white it usually has a Bolognese stain on it within half an hour. As a person I cannot be professional. In a job I can put on professional looking clothes, talk for a few hours with a British sense of what being professional is, but as a whole, me as a person, cannot be professional. And I strongly question whether anyone out there can – even politians.

Why then am I starting a blog? I’ll tell you.

1)      Because by naming said blog WizardFaces, it finally gives my twitter account of the same name, some purpose. I had mistakenly thought a username required quirky imagination and nonsense words, like most usernames do on other sites. This was before I actually took a closer look at twitter and saw everyone else using simple variations of their name like: steve_010 or Jane_EM. Making me feel a crazy beatnik who’s just walked into the Ad Agency in Mad Men and started singing marijuana-induced love songs to Jon Hamm.

2)    Because I want to wade through the bullshit that surrounds blog culture and dump myself (almost literally) onto the internet and go – this is me, this is what I think. Yes I may try and be pithy, yes I may even try to make you (the reader, who if rumours are to be believed, may or may not exist) laugh, and hell, maybe one day I’ll sit down figure out what all this HTML shit is about and make this blog all clean lines and nicely sized font. But other than that, this is not a career venture. This is not some trap in the advertising forest trying to snatch up some sponsors. All this is, is one twenty year old student, sitting at a laptop and trying to articulate one thought a week to you – the reader.

It’s me, nothing else that will drive this blog. I sat long and hard trying to think up a theme, some concrete genre this blog could be placed in (a student orientated cooking blog may or may not have been thrown around) but in the end I’m not just one concrete element. DNA is built up from more than just one gene that decides you’re prone to fart a lot. It’s about variety, expression, about being HUMAN. Having one post about where women stand in society and the social ramifications of state-controlled contraception, and then another on why I like to watch reruns of The Hills and why it got so crap when Lauren left. It’s not shiny, it’s not slick – it is a mutt, many breeds jammed into one misshapen, multi-coloured fur ball that will probably wee on the new run and chew up the sofa. But at least it’ll wag its tail in the process.