In Which Your Heroine Encounters A Caveman...

I like to think of myself as a decent and reasonable person.  Now I know I’m no Mother Theresa, but I try and do the odd bit for charity and to be there for my friends and family if they need me.  Y’know, just to generally try and be nice and occasionally practical, accepting that not everyone in the universe has the same views as me but is entitled to said opinion nevertheless?  Yeah, that’s me.  Little Miss Tries-To-Get-On-With-Everyone.

Except there are times, Blogverse, when even my equilibrium is disturbed by the sheer moronic mass of humanity and the creatures that dwell therein, to the point where there can only be two solutions: bash my head repeatedly against the nearest available wall or go on a killing spree.  Thus far I’ve avoided Holloway but have a lot of headaches…

Take today.  I spent an hour and a half of my precious time arguing with someone today, which I knew was completely pointless because arguments with this guy are always the personification of “head.  Desk!” and I know this because he and I have previous history.  In this hour and a half I could have been doing something constructive with my time, like learning Japanese flower-arranging or conversational Mandarin or something; instead, I decided to test the theory that even ill-informed idiots can be worth debating with.  My mistake.

You would think I’d have learnt, after knowing said individual for the number of years I have, that trying to bring his prehistoric and Neanderthal views of women kicking and screaming into the 21^st century would be at best a futile exercise.  Apparently not.  Somewhere in the deepest, darkest, most cavernous recesses of my brain there still flickers a little ray of hope which says even Captain Caveman over there can be brought round to the sensible and generally-held consensus that the fairer sex are, in fact, perfectly able to function as productive and useful members of the modern world.  I don’t wish to alarm anyone, but we can even fix things!!!  I know!!  Shocking, isn’t it?  I do hope none of you suffered an apoplexy reading that sentence; I should hate to have mass heart attacks on my conscience…

But I digress.  Which is, apparently, something I’m prone to doing because I’m a woman; apparently the female brain is unable to concentrate on anything for long periods of time, preferring instead to flit like a metaphorical butterfly from one topic to the next without taxing its little ole’ cells too much.  What I’d always thought of as a useful ability to multitask is in fact nothing more than a failure on the part of my gender to concentrate, thus rendering me unsuitable for anything other than staying at home, rearing a small flock of children, and ‘looking nice’.  This and various other disparaging remarks were the basis of the argument; basically I spent an hour and a half being told that women will never amount to anything as a result of this inbuilt ‘dysfunction’ and that I should just accept it rather than pretending I could play with the ‘Big Boys’ in the world of work/politics/scientific discovery/anything that isn’t staying at home and getting the dinner on.  Well thank you, Captain Caveman, for clearing that one up for me.  You’ve saved me from a lifetime of labouring under the misapprehension that I could actually make a useful contribution to society, when clearly I’m fit for nothing better than staying home to darn socks and knit tea cosies.  Thank God for you, else we’d have women all over the shop, thinking they could be helpful when really they’d just be getting in the way.  [/sarcasm]

What really, really gets to me about the whole useless argument, though, isn’t his prehistoric beliefs and the way he expresses them (loudly, obnoxiously and so everyone within a ten-mile radius gets to know about them).  I accept that there are still people in the world who think a woman’s place is in the home and that they are generally inferior to men – whether because of biological, religious, social or other factors – and I also accept that these people are likely to sound off about these opinions, particularly if you attempt to challenge them on it.  No, what really aggravated me was the fact that I let myself be baited and fell hook, line and sinker for the whole pointless discussion; I’ve known this guy for a long time and I know I’m never going to convince him he’s wrong, or at least get him to consider the other side of the coin.  The sensible thing to do would have been to either laugh out loud at how ridiculous he was being or else inhabit my duck persona and let it roll off my back; instead, I wasted ninety minutes of my vague and imprecise span of human existence to try and argue with him.  It doesn’t even matter that I was coming up with well-thought-out and reasoned ripostes instead of just shrieking at him like some horribly-demented harpy, or that I was able to evidence my argument with examples of extremely intelligent and articulate women who are/were at the top of their field and hailed as great by men and women alike – letting myself get dragged into the thing in the first place was stupid and I’m still kicking myself for it.

No doubt Captain Caveman would say it was only to be expected; I am, after all, only a silly female.  To which my response would be: get back to your cave, you twat; this isn’t the Stone Age and the moron quota for the New Millennium has already been filled.

Except I think the irony would be lost on him…

Let The Music Do The Talking...

...as Aerosmith once sang.  Of course they also sang "Dude Looks Like a Lady" and "Love in an Elevator", so they may not be the best people to invoke in a discussion about music but what the hell?  Sometimes even an ageing rocker like Steven Tyler makes a valid point...

So if your music could actually talk, what would it say about you?  This is quite a pertinent question for me at the moment as I refilled my mp3 player yesterday, and as well as some of the old favourites I ended up adding new discoveries and bands people have probably never heard of.  So I guess if my music could talk, it would say that I'm both incredibly eclectic and slightly weird.  Not really a surprise, is it?  One of the things that was surprising, however, was the number of bands/singers I rediscovered a passion for, especially the amazing Amy Studt.  I'd completely forgotten how brilliant her debut album False Smiles was - she was only 14/15 when she wrote and recorded the vast majority of the songs - and it's utterly brilliant.  This was my anthem for years:

And apparently she's still recording as an independent artist.  Whoo-hoo!  It's weird - despite all the rock/metal stuff on my hard drive there's still a lot of 'poppy' stuff going on; I guess it's a bigger part of my musical DNA than I ever realised.  Or wanted to admit. 

Although while we're on the subject of bands you might not have heard of...

This is Shere Khan.  They are, quite simply, immense.  And considering that today is 'Blue Monday', which is apparently the day everyone feels the most depressed, listening to them is making me one very happy little bunny.  And speaking of happy bunnies...

The Magnetic Fields.  Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits.  'Nuff said...

Manie Sans Delire (Insanity Without Delusions)

I can pinpoint almost the exact moment my interest in the workings of the criminal mind - murderers, to be exact; of the singular, serial, spree and mass varieties - began: I was ten years old and, up in Bootle near Liverpool, a two year old boy had been abducted from his mother inside a shopping centre.  When his battered, mutilated body was found two days later lying on a railway line, it sent a collective shock wave and shudder of horror through the country; when, six days later, it was announced that two ten year old boys were being charged with murder, it felt as though the whole country was once more paralysed with shock.  The two boys were, given the severity of the crime, to be tried as adults; during the trial, prosecutors had to make sure both defendants understood the differences between right and wrong; that what they had done was wrong.  Bewildered, I turned to my mother and said: "but I'm ten and I know that killing someone is wrong!"  Voila - the seed of my fascination was sown.

Fast forward almost twenty years and my interest in the workings of the minds of murderers has, if anything, only deepened.  As a child I didn't really understand what it was that so bewitched me about it but, even though my fascination with criminal psychology has often made people look at me as if I'm the one who should be locked up somewhere, it remains an enduring mystery to me: I like knowing what makes people tick, and I want to know why some people feel the need to take the life of another human being; what thought processes they go through to come to the conclusion that this is an okay thing to do.  I fully appreciate the fact this makes me weird in the eyes of most people, especially when I've caught myself on occasion shouting at newsreaders because they called someone a serial killer when it's blatantly obvious that, technically, they were a spree killer (and I still can't believe I got quite so pedantic over it, but it's the principle of the thing), but it is what it is, and it's as much a part of me as my blue eyes or my belly button.  And the one thing that really, really gets me about the whole serial/spree/mass murderer thing is the fact that most of them are so gosh-darn-nice and normal.  I know it's something of a cliche that whenever someone somewhere is arrested for such terrible deeds there's always an interview with a friend or neighbour expressing their shock and amazement at such a revelation because, "he was such a lovely man/we used to talk over the fence all the time/he'd wash his car every Sunday/we used to walk the kids to school together" etc etc, but the fact is the majority of these men (and it is usually men) are so adept at appearing "normal".  Christ, how else do you think the likes of Ted Bundy were able to go on being so 'successful' for so long; as a young woman would you rather get into a car with someone who looks like a total maniac or with a guy who looks like Mr All-Round American Golden Boy?  It's not exactly a contest, and it's exactly why these so-called 'organised' killers are often so difficult to catch (at least until they get cocky about their success and then do something patently obvious and stupid, thus making it easy for the authorities to track them down.  The 'disorganised' offenders are the ones who are most likely to bludgeon you over the head from behind and drag you half into the bushes, usually leaving something obvious like their DNA all over you before running off down the road covered in blood, so the police can quickly apprehend them and put them away before anyone else gets hurt; the 'organised' offenders, however, are the ones you see walking their kids to school, holding down a steady job and generally being the type of person who makes you go "really?!!" when the police kick their door in at 3am and haul them away before digging up the six bodies he'd buried under the children's sandpit.  These are also the ones most likely to be psychopaths or, to a lesser extent, sociopaths (more of the difference anon...)

The reason for this blog post is that today, whilst braving the wilds of Tesco in search of something edible for dinner, I made a detour to the book section and picked up a brilliant book called "The Psychopath Test" by Jon Ronson, the man responsible for the bizarre book "The Men Who Stare At Goats".  By turns hysterically funny and utterly terrifying, I am completely and utterly fascinated with this book because it takes the concept of the psychopath and draws the startling conclusion that not all of these individuals are going around killing people in a general display of indifference to basic humanitarian values but are, in fact, the leaders of huge multinational corporations and earning millions of dollars for doing so.  Now this idea isn't new, not by a long shot, but this is the first book I've read on the subject that puts the concept of psychopathy into 'laymans terms'.  The mind is a complex and fascinating place which we, as humans, understand relatively little about; even the greatest neuro-scientists the world has to offer admit there is much more about the brain and its inner workings they don't understand than things that they do, but what goes on 'up there' - especially in cases which are perceived as 'abnormal' - holds unending fascination for many people.  The fact that many people in positions of power seem to share similar traits to psychopathic murderers is, then, quite a sobering one...

Psychopaths and sociopaths share several traits which often make it difficult for people to distinguish between the two.  Both psychopaths and sociopaths have some form of Antisocial Personality Disorder which makes it difficult for them to show empathy towards others (although sociopaths can form attachments to people and will feel some form of remorse if they do anything to hurt that person, whereas a psychopath may form a relationship because it's the 'normal' thing to do but show no remorse or concern whatsoever if they do anything to hurt that person).  Psychopaths are organised to the point of obsession and are often highly successful individuals with steady jobs and and family; sociopaths, on the other hand, find it hard to hold down a job or relationship and is less capable of thinking things through - where the psychopath understands human emotions and uses that knowledge to manipulate people to his/her own advantage, the sociopath lashes out wildly if angered and doesn't consider the consequences.  Psychopaths are keenly aware that what they are doing is wrong but just don't care, even going so far as to marry and have children to appear 'normal' to the rest of society; sociopaths struggle in social situations and are more fretful, anxious and easily agitated.  A psychopath is more likely to be an 'organised' offender, plotting and planning their crimes and how to avoid detection for years in some cases, whereas the less stable sociopath is often classed as 'disorganised' and is more easily caught.  Criminologists, law enforcement agencies and psychologists have been discussing and debating the differences and similarities between the two groups for many years without reaching definitive conclusions, so nothing is cut and dried in these matters; however its far more likely that the millionaire CEO of that bank or multinational corporation is going to be a psychopath - a sociopath just wouldn't have the skills to attain such status.

In the early 1990's Robert Hare, a Canadian psychologist and researcher, devised the Psychopathy Checklist; a series of 20 items which are scored either 0 (if they don't apply to an individual), 1 (if they partially apply) or 2 (if they apply fully).  There are two factors; those which relate to personality and those which relate to lifestyle, as well as four traits which don't apply to either.  The higher you score, the more likely it is that you're a psychopath, but as this could obviously have negative consequences on a persons life the test is only to be administered by a trained psychologist.  It's also the reason I'm not going to list the items and the scoring here.  I don't for one second think that anyone I know is a psychopath, but you can;t be too careful these days...as Nighwish once said, "it's not the monsters under your bed, it is the man next door that makes you fear..."

Sleep well, everybody!  :P  And I heartily recommend you check out Jon Ronson's book - it's definitely food for thought...

A Grand Day Out...

No, Mother, not a post about Wallace and Gromit...*sigh* This is actually a post about my fantabulous day out in London today; for those of you seeking animated Plasticine goodness, alas, you shall remain disappointed. Jog on...

So. Today. Well, not having seen Rich for about a year, what with one thing and another, we decided to meet up in Londinium and it was awesome. Even though he's horrible to me and insults me all the time (love you really!) we always laugh like mad things when we meet up and it's always, always brilliant fun when we get together. We started off at Highgate cemetery, which is incredibly beautiful and really interesting - if you haven't been I strongly suggest you drop by because it's fascinating. It was bloody cold though; trust us to pick the one day of the year when it actually feels like winter!! *insert Game of Thrones-related pun here* But yes...Highgate. It really is amazing; the Victorians certainly knew how to *do* death and some of the tombs and headstones are absolutely staggering. When I finally shuffle off this mortal coil, that is how I want to be remembered: with a bloody great big lump of rock carved into a suitably epic memorial to my greatness and how much you are all going to miss me. Pay attention to this, please. You are all to be prostrate with grief at my passing and erect a headstone which adequately reflects your sorrow and despair. Or I'm going to bloody well come back and haunt the lot of you. Just a friendly heads-up, however : whatever goes on your headstone is how you'll be remembered for posterity, most likely by random strangers with cameras, so think very carefully about how you intend to be immortalised!! Some of the inscriptions on the headstones and mausoleums go from the sublime to the ridiculous; I'm not sure you're supposed to convulse into hysterical giggles while walking round a burial ground!

The cemetery itself is split into two sections: the 'newer' East Cemetery, which you can wander round of your own free will and where you will find the burial places of such diverse characters as Karl Marx and the man who invented Hovis, and the West Cemetery, which you can only see by guided tour in order to prevent yourself breaking something vital while wandering around. And to stop you hurting yourselves, too...We had a brilliant guide for the tour; he was really funny but very interesting, and he gets bonus points from me because he agreed to include Lizzie Siddal's grave in the tour so I could go and say hello to my girl. We also got to go into one of the mausoleums, and also one of the other burial tombs where you can see some of the hundreds of lead-lined coffins stacked up. It was incredibly atmospheric, but I found it slightly sad as well; all those people being buried above ground and yet hardly any of the tombs are visited now because the families have either died out or moved away. The East side was more intriguing because there seem to be a lot of 'political' burials all in one area by the Marx memorial - Eastern Europeans and Islamist Communists all buried in the same area; fascinating. I didn't even know there was such a thing as an Iranian Islamist Communist, but that is apparently the Thing-I-Have-Learnt-Today.

Having frozen half to death (boom boom) walking round Highgate, we headed off to the next part of the day - which I didn't know anything about because someone refused to tell me beforehand because it was a surprise or something :P - with a quick detour to Tate Britain so I could say hello to Lizzie properly. And that was when I found out they. Moved. Ophelia. All the Pre-Raphaelite stuff appears to now be shoved on two small walls in one end of one gallery (and Beata Beatrix has been loaned out to a gallery in Russia, so grrrr on that front also); as a result, poor Lizzie-as-Ophelia isn't shown to her best advantage. It's still one of the most mesmerising paintings I've ever seen though, and as an Elizabeth Siddal fangirl it's always a joy to see her.

Then it was onto the surprise: the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, which is held at the Natural History Museum and was a brilliant surprise! But oh. My. Stars. There were some seriously amazing photos in that exhibition, some of them by bloody ten year olds - it's enough to make a girl throw her camera out the window and vow never to take another photo ever again.  Now this:

is a photo I took with the panoramic setting on my camera while in Northern Ireland last year, and I was stupidly-proud of the result.  However, there were people who'd sat in the cold for FOUR DAYS just to get one shot taking part in this contest; FOUR FREAKING DAYS!!  Not only is this completely insane but the photos were INCREDIBLE! Picking a favourite would be really, really difficult because most of them were just beautiful (except for the one inevitable picture of frogs, which had me averting my eyes, although I didn't actually physically run off screaming. This is progress...) but one of the ones that sticks in my mind is this one: a merlin which has just pounced on dinner and looks incredibly peeved that a photographer has dared take its picture while it does so!!

  

I also really like this one of the butterfly:

 

OH!  And how could I forget the picture of the baby chimp?!!

Isn't that just the cutest thing you've ever seen in your life?!!  I mean really, how can you not look at that and go "aww!"  You have no soul otherwise.  It's a fact.

But seriously, there were so many incredible images in the exhibition that it's almost impossible to choose one or two favourites; I'm glad I wasn't judging it.  But it was a fantastic exhibition and a brilliant surprise: I am *so* glad we went because it was just amazing.  Definitely going to have to do this more often, methinks...

Oh, and if you want to see the photos for yourselves, head to the Natural History Museum website where they have a whole section on the competition: you can find it here.  Definitely recommended!!

It's Friday....

...it's five to five; it's Crackerjack! Except this isn't a 1970's kids TV show, it's the random outpourings of my brain which masquerades as a blog, so actually only one third of that title/opening line combination is true. Wot - as the Yoof of today would say - EVS.

But yes, it is Friday which means only one thing: another *exciting* installment of the Lust List. It was hard to narrow down today's contender for the honour (so many men, so little time, right Lee?) but after much deliberation and an acknowledgement there are still another fifty weeks in the year to come, I realised there could only be one submission...

Now he may not be conventionally gorgeous, but as I wholeheartedly find convention to be an often dispiriting, disquieting and occasionally irritating concept, such vanities have never bothered me. He is, however, a poet; a troubadour and an all-round Nice Bloke, whose song lyrics speak to my heart and whose voice makes my knees weak, my eyes fill with tears and my soul tremble. I can withstand almost any *funny* comments about my taste in men - most of which I'm bound to agree with because even I know how eclectic and, er, strange it can be - but I will not hear a bad word said against this man EVER, on pain of being cut out of my life completely. He is, in short, amazing. Ladies and Gentlemen of the Blogsphere, I give you...Mr Gary Lightbody.

This song is beautiful and the way he sings it makes me want to sob. Leona Lewis can stfu and step away from the song because her version could never in a million billion years ever compete. And because I don't need an excuse (although I'll give you one: this second song is about Seamus Heaney, one of my favourite poets), here's another video for you...

*sigh* Please excuse me, I have some swooning to do...