I’ve always (if subconsciously) had a soft spot for Mr Pertwee Jr in horror films (in fact, I think that’s all I’ve ever seen him in, apart from the brilliant thriller Four), but it was only recently, after seeing Neil Marshall’s witch-hunt horror The Reckoning that I fully realised how much of a legend he is in the genre. Part of the FrightFest programming last month, The Reckoning is a dark, atmospheric film set in a plague-ridden England of 1665, with Charlotte Kirk as suspected witch Grace and Pertwee as Moorcroft, the witch hunter who tries to make her confess by the most awful means (there’s family history there, too). The role of witch hunter in a horror film is one that invites the most extreme performances, and I was fully expecting Pertwee to come at it that way. I, and anyone familiar with his work, should have known better. His Moorcroft isn’t hammy or psychotic or gleefully cruel. Instead, he gives a quiet, considered performance that makes Moorcroft all the more chilling. He’s not mad, he’s not a sadist; he doesn’t torture Grace because he’s drunk on power. Rather, we see a pious, serious man who believes he’s doing the right thing, even as he cranks up the torture devices (and they’re not for the faint-hearted, BTW). Perhaps Pertwee and Marshall knew fine well that switched-on horror audiences would be expecting a modern-day take on the classic Vincent Price Witchfinder General, and so cleverly went the other way.
Whatever the thought process, Pertwee’s performance is an absolute treat in this, and it made me realise, belatedly, just how many times I’ve said or thought that before, from Event Horizon (the first film I saw him in and, coincidentally, one of my top horror recommendations) through Dog Soldiers (another favourite), Wilderness, Doomsday, Devil’s Playground, Four and Howl. I loved all these films. Sometimes his roles in them are cameos (no spoilers), but I always feel that if I see his name attached to a movie, I’m confident it’s going to be worth seeing; and once I’m watching it, I’m never less than 100% convinced by his character, thanks to his low-key, believable and solid performances. A look at Pertwee’s IMDB page suggests that he’s never out of work, so I suspect he has exactly the level of fame he wants: enough to secure great gigs, but not enough to make his life miserable. And fair play to him. But I do, still, feel he’s underrated as a national treasure, so I’m doing my bit here to shine a light on an actor who deserves it, especially when it comes to monsters, witches, zombies and psychopaths. Because there’s nobody I’d rather have by my side if I was trying to kick a werewolf in the arse.
Sounds like a dumb headline, right? Surely they should all be scary. Thing is, they’re not. Since I became interested in horror, properly, about a decade ago, I’ve watched a gazillion ‘scary’ movies. Some are well made, some are groundbreaking, some are beautiful, some are gory. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re scary. There are plenty of ‘classic’ horror films that didn’t make me flinch (Nightmare On Elm Street; Halloween; The Shining) and an equally blood-soaked bucketload of modern ones, too: Get Out; Hereditary; Midsommar. That’s not to say I didn’t like all these films, but I’d be lying if I said they frightened me. So what I’ve decided to do for Halloween is gather 10 films that really, really did. I’m not saying they’re classic, well made, or even my own personal top 10, but when I think of films that have terrified, upset or disturbed me (because that’s what Halloween dreams are made of), these are the ones that spring (creep?) to mind.
1. The Strangers (above) Oh, this film. This horrible, wonderful, awful film. I saw this home-invasion nightmare at the cinema not long after reading a book about the Manson murders (a case I’m fascinated and haunted and horrified by), and the movie ‘hint’-references those events just enough to have hit all my nerves at the same time. And let’s not forget the masks. I would find an Avon lady terrifying if she turned up at my door in a doll’s mask, never mind a knife-wielding maniac throuple. After our first viewing in the cinema, I’ve watched this film twice more on DVD and there is still one moment I’ve never actually seen because I’ve always been too scared to look. This film is why, before I moved in with my then-boyfriend (now husband), I’d stop blowdrying my hair every now and then to turn around and make sure nobody had broken into my studio flat and was advancing upon me with a knife. I don’t know that film critics would agree, but I always think of this film as being understated and subtle: yes, the violence is explicit, but the motives are not, and it’s all the more unsettling for that. I love it. I’m horrified by it. I often think of it when I can’t sleep and am hearing all the creaks in the house. It’s a great, underrated movie.
2. Sinister We’ve watched two of these movies and the only thing I can ever say when my husband mentions it is “MR BOOGALOO!” I’ve never managed to get his name right since we watched the first film years back, but bloody hell, that character is terrifying. I don’t really think there’s anything more to say about this film. Ethan Hawke is great, the plot is great, my husband thinks the music is particularly noteworthy in creating the atmosphere, but they’d all be nothing without Mr Bughuul (I looked it up). He’s nightmare fuel. That’s all.
3. Wrong Turn Yes, yes, yes, I know. In later years this franchise turned into a joke. I’ve seen them on late-night TV, they’re laughable. But the first one? The first one still haunts my dreams. Maybe it’s because I watched it years before I became a horror fan, but there is something so menacing and awful about it that it shook me up for ages. I do have a particular soft spot for inbred hillbilly horror, but when I watched this in the cinema I didn’t yet know that. I just sat there, terrified and engrossed, and I loved it. So I guess what I’m saying is, you don’t have to be a horror fan, but this is a great, horrid film.
4. Deliver Us From Evil I don’t, generally, go for horror films about possession or devil worship or anything of that ilk. I prefer the aforementioned hillbillies, or slashers, or zombies or aliens. To be honest with you, I only watched this on Netflix because we’d seen almost every other horror film on there and I was desperate. And you know what? I screamed all the way through. Moral of the story: don’t assume, you’ll only make an ass out of you and Eric Bana.
5. Martyrs (original) I know they remade this in Hollywood. We watched the original French version and it’s the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen. That’s all I need to say. It’s absolutely horrendous. In a good way.
6. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original) You say obvious choice, I say HAVE YOU SEEN IT? I first ‘watched’ this film with my ex in around 2002. And when I say ‘watched’, I mean I sat behind his back and refused to look at the TV because I knew it would be horrific just from listening to the screams. My engagement with the film consisted of asking ‘What’s happening now?’ every five minutes. I watched it for real years later and it’s just the worst (best) thing that ever happened in cinema. The sheer despair and lack of hope is one of the darkest things I’ve ever witnessed. It’s horror genius. The sequels can do one, mind you.
7. The Hills Have Eyes (original) So yes, you’ve seen a theme here. I have a love/hate relationship with inbred hillbillies. But what really upset me about this one was a scene with the dad of the family. I won’t spoil it. But if you’re a dad’s girl, as I am/was, this is hard to take. It makes you think, and it makes you see how fragile we all are, even the people we rely on to take care of us. It’s a nasty film, but a great one.
8. Event Horizon My great friend Claire reminded me of this tonight when I asked about the scariest film she’d seen (she and her husband are also horror aficionados). I’m glad she did, because I’d probably have filed this under sci-fi, not horror. But it’s both. There is a scene in this film that made me feel genuinely traumatised when I first saw it. Kudos to the director there, because it’s GRIM.
9. The Fourth Kind I’m not even going to lie about this film. I don’t remember much about it apart from the bit that SCARED THE ACTUAL LIFE OUT OF ME. I’ll never forget it. Milla Jovovich was basically nearly the death of me. It is great acting and a really, really haunting scene.
10. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Yeah, you think I’m joking. I know it’s not a horror film, but if I’m picking films that scared the life out of me, that wrong ’un the Child Catcher needs to be here. He terrified me as a kid and he still terrifies me now. Lollipops and treacle tart? GET TO PRISON.
I’ve written a couple of times on here about how I’ve been dealing with the Great Lockdown of 2020 and the short version was: “Don’t mind, not bothered. Happy sitting in my house, working from home and living in my comfy clothes. And I don’t have to blow-dry my crazy hair? RESULT!”
Oh yes, I was having a roaring time. I still had plenty of work, and in the hours when I’d normally be commuting I did all kinds of uncharacteristic things like painting, making soup and baking. In the odd weeks when I didn’t have work, I sat in our sunny garden, reading and eating ice lollies. I exercised on our sexy new training machine. I sorted out all my paperwork. Yay, go me.
That was until June.
In June, things took a turn for the grim. I didn’t have a stitch of work booked (things picked up in July, thankfully, but I didn’t know that they would, then, so bear with me). And whilst I probably could have found some scraps of work if I’d been prepared to email every magazine and chimney sweep in London, I was just too depressed, demoralised and wrong-footed to really do anything at all.
You see, the idea of spare time and/or a lack of work was completely new to me. In my full-time work life as a chief sub editor, I had always dedicated myself to the job and done whatever it took to get the magazine out. Long hours had always been par for the course.
As for my freelance life, this was my second time on the circuit and I’d never been out of work for more than a week. I’d never had to hustle for work or worry about where my next shift was coming from. Yes, that means I’ve been fortunate. But it also means that to find myself with an empty diary was like having the rug pulled from under me. Rationally, I knew it wasn’t my fault, or any reflection on my talent. We’re living in an unprecedented pandemic. People are losing their jobs left, right and centre. It’s absolutely awful for loads of us. But the rational side of your brain is always under siege from the emotional side, and the emotional side of mine was NOT TAKING IT WELL AT ALL. And it was difficult.
I also had the proverbial rug snatched from under me due to having nothing to do and hours to kill. Normally, I love it. I am never bored, because to my mind a world in which there are books and films and box sets is a world of endless joy. Sure, I’m a geeky couch potato, but books and films and good TV are my absolute favourite things: crime novels, true-crime books, thrillers, history books, horror movies, comedy series, documentaries… yet in June, I could concentrate on none of these things. I just wasn’t interested. I couldn’t summon the attention or the imagination to get involved. Some days I couldn’t even concentrate on an episode of my beloved Golden Girls. Why? Because I wasn’t myself. I’d let events and emotions get on top of me. I felt lost. How could I enjoy anything when I didn’t know where my life was going? WHAT WAS THE POINT? So I took myself out of group chats on WhatsApp and I temporarily deactivated my Facebook. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I didn’t know what to do. I needed some space.
Now, in July, when things are looking more normal for me, I’m saying all of this openly because I KNOW I can’t be the only one who has had moments/weeks/months like this. We are all living through a time of uncertainty and it will be affecting most of us in some way. Fair play to anyone gliding through it. But I suspect they’re in the minority.
Many of us have struggled. My struggle has been losing work, after 20 years of working my butt off. Others have struggled with the pressure of home-schooling their children, or felt isolated and lonely, or seen their education stall, or their business fail. And let’s not forget those affected the most, the ones who have lost people they loved and/or not been able to visit their loved ones in hospital or attend their funeral – that is pain beyond comprehension and I feel so very, very sorry for them all.
We are all doing our best. I think it’s OK to admit it if you’re struggling. Let’s not be frightened to say it. Let’s be honest with ourselves – and each other.
And when I say shiny, I mean Instagram-friendly, of course. Because, really, sod that. Disclaimer: I stopped looking at Instagram months back. If you love it, fair play. It made me uncomfortable. That’s all. But its effect has undoubtedly changed the way we all look at life, and how we present ourselves to others. And you can see the results everywhere.
See, I’m not interested in convincing anyone that I have a fabulous life. I don’t. I have a quiet life. I don’t wear fabulous clothes, I don’t do fabulous things, I don’t live in a fabulous house. OR DO I? Because, that’s the thing. My fabulous is not your fabulous. I love my house and I love my life. I just also know that the things that make my life mine aren’t the things that win points on the internet. And that’s fine by me.
I think we have, collectively, forgotten that it’s ok to live a life that isn’t designed or “curated” (pass the bucket) for the eyes of the world. Even I forget sometimes, and I’m a proper old-school lump who doesn’t look at anything but cuddly old Facebook.
The reason I’m thinking of this now is that it was our fourth wedding anniversary yesterday, and I’m happy to say, loud and proud, that we did not do anything fabulous, or anything you’d want to see on Instagram. And if we hadn’t been in lockdown, it would probably have been exactly the same, because we did what we love. We ordered pizza and fizz and we watched a film about aliens. The pizza was delicious, the fizz we couldn’t touch due to being obscenely full of said pizza, and the film was simultaneously terrible and terrifying. Job done.
It wasn’t Insta-fabulous, but it was what we wanted to do. Oh, also, I’d got dressed up, to a point, in a jumpsuit that was tight when I bought it years back, never mind now. This was all very well until I was full of pizza and wanted to sprawl across my husband’s lap to watch the film and had to get him to unzip it three times (to varying degrees) so that I wouldn’t be garrotted by the neckline. I’d also limited my ‘special occasion’ blowdry to the inch of hair next to my forehead. And we were both as happy as clams.
If you’re happy being you, that’s probably the best thing you can ask for. But nobody ever acknowledges that any more, apart from the “influencers” who tell you to be yourself whilst also telling you how you could definitely benefit by being more like them. We all think we have to pretend to be living our best lives (who invented that phrase? Can we not let them invent any more phrases, please?). We’re all under silly, pointless pressure to be thriving, lean (yeah, we all know it means thin but nobody says that any more) and photo-fabulous and it’s all, frankly, bollocks.
You’d think we’d know by now, from watching celebrities and royals and our most ostentatious acquaintances, that outward appearances don’t reflect real life (madly in love today, in court tomorrow). And yet. People still feel compelled to say LOOK HOW GOOD I LOOK IN THIS BIKINI! LOOK HOW BIG MY HOUSE IS! (no, the position of my Zoom camera to show you my vast living area is just a coincidence), LOOK HOW PERFECT MY FAMILY IS!
Me, yesterday
Well, my life is a bit tatty around the edges. Whilst I’ve been mostly ok for work during lockdown, I’ve had some shifts cancelled and there have been weeks when I’ve felt scared and lost. Plus, I look offensive in a bikini, my house is tiny and I haven’t done anything especially interesting or fabulous with my spare time because I’ve been trying to keep afloat.
And I’m ok with all of this because it’s not for show, it’s not to prove a point. It’s real and it’s fine. And I suspect more of us feel this way than are saying it out loud.
After a lifetime spent generally avoiding exercise, and a month of lockdown spent with my backside spreading faster than Covid-19, that’s the million-doughnut question.
Whilst I’ll confess to being a gym dodger, I wouldn’t say I hate exercise per se. I love anything rhythmic and in the 1990s I’d happily do aerobics and step (remember those? How quaint they sound now!). Unfortunately, while I’m happy to do grapevines, I’m less enamoured of shimmying and thrusting, and having observed aerobics’ hornier younger sister, Zumba, from the sidelines, I’m not keen. I’d die of shame doing it and some poor bystander would no doubt die of fright watching it. I do also love spin, but classes at our local gym kind of petered out before lockdown (and, besides, my enjoyment very much depends on the instructor’s choice of music; it can be a very long 45 minutes if your tastes aren’t in sync. I’m still haunted by an early spin class years ago in Golders Green when the guy played Raspberry Beret over and over again. I didn’t think I’d get off that bike alive).
Since moving to London 20 years ago, I’ve joined numerous gyms, from a ridiculously swanky one in Covent Garden to the £20-a-month bargain down the road here in Bromley. And mostly, it’s been the usual story: short-lived enthusiasm, then the trainers gathering dust and the waistline gathering girth. I had a personal trainer for a while, and I ramped it up before I got married, and that was great, but I still felt that one PT session a week wasn’t really enough to keep me on the straight and narrow – for it to really change my life, I’d need to be all Hollywood, with someone coming to my house five days a week and monitoring my Pringle intake. And that arrangement is a bit pricey, even in Bromley.
I’ve been steadily getting less fit since our wedding in 2016. And whilst I’m naturally lazy and greedy, it’s also true that life events play a part: although I’m very happily married, the past few years have brought their share of disappointment, loss, grief and uncertainty (such as the loss of my beloved dad in 2018 and redundancy from a job I loved in 2019) – and all of these emotions have, of course, influenced my mindset. So sporadic trips to the gym have been followed by months of feeling too overwhelmed and apathetic about the situation to really tackle it. Anyway, it’s come to a head this month because somehow, despite not being aware of making any significant changes in lockdown (I was sitting on my sofa eating crisps way before this all started), I’ve become acutely aware of just how unfit, how uncomfortable in my clothes and how annoyed about it all I am.
The solution? Max. It’s early days, but Max and I are going great guns. I had a quickie with him tonight, in fact. Max is big and strong and he lives in our spare room. We’re a week into our relationship and I’m pretty smitten with him. The best thing about Max (yes, Max is an exercise machine: the Max Trainer by Bowflex) is that he knows what he’s doing: he wears you out so much, he comes with a guarantee that 14 minutes a day will bring satisfaction. I’ve been doing two sessions a day, just to make sure. It takes quite a lot of effort to get him going, so for now I’m starting off slow and steady: I’ve found that Stock, Aitken and Waterman tunes are the perfect tempo for our sessions (I may even have been heard shouting “VENUS!” at particularly sweaty moments).
So we shall see. Hopefully in a few weeks’ time I will have a positive progress update to add to this post. Either that, or I’ll be living in two pairs of sweatpants sewn together and we can pretend that this never happened. In all seriousness, I spent my teenage years and my twenties obsessing about being skinny (I never was skinny, although there were times when I was pretty slim AND I NEVER EVEN REALISED, HAHAHAHA), and I’m genuinely not motivated by that these days. Nor am I interested in any sort of competitive fitness challenges, signing up for a 5k or being all po-faced and serious about my “training” (I’m calling it “going on the machine”, thank you very much). At this point, I’ll settle for feeling healthier, not weighing considerably more than my husband (in my defence, he’s a pretty slim guy), getting back into my nice dresses and not having arteries papered in Cheddar.
In pre-quarantine days, I was an Olympic athlete (in my sleep)
I have uncovered this surprising nocturnal secret because after a month of lockdown, I have put on a startling amount of weight. And no, it’s not because I’ve had to curtail my hobbies of fell running, Zumba or cycling. My enthusiasm for exercise in pre-apocalyptic times was sporadic at best, and I can’t claim that quarantine has made me move less or eat more (I’ve always been lazy and greedy), so I can only surmise that I must previously have been afflicted by a rare form of sleepwalking that involved running up and down the stairs with the cat on my back – and, for some reason, this has stopped during quarantine. The resulting weight gain (discovered because even my most generous trousers no longer fit) has been quite the surprise, especially since I’m no longer carb-loading at Pret twice a day or buying a cheeky packet of crisps for the train journey home. Anyway, the situation has become so alarming that I have ordered an elliptical machine for the spare room. So, if nothing else, that’ll be a bit more storage for hanging clothes on when they don’t fit.
My skin likes it rough
I have never had great skin, but I’ve never looked after it particularly well, either, so I can’t really complain. I once scandalised a beauty editor by confessing to a “skincare” routine that was basically… face wipes. I’m a bit better these days, but only marginally. Having said that, I do have a cupboard full of posh cleansers, face masks and moisturisers, the same as anyone who works on magazines, where there are always lotions and potions on the freebie table or being sold for a few quid at beauty sales. So, in this time of not having to rush in the morning and not being too shattered at night, I decided I’d FINALLY start giving my face some TLC. Out came the ridiculously expensive pots of lord-only-knows-what. And I prepared to be radiant and glowy and all those other magazine words. Unfortunately, my skin was horrified – insulted, even – and it protested by enlarging my pores until they’re pretty much all I can see when I look in the mirror (as I told some friends recently, I look like a seeded loaf). So I won’t be doing that any more. My skin knows its level, and that’s Boots face wipes, not rare truffle oil, magical volcanic lava or unicorn tears.
Tidying is a trap
I’m the messiest person I know. Not for nothing does my husband call me The Pig. This has led to some unfortunate domestic situations, such as the drawer in our kitchen that has, for about five years, been full of nothing but receipts. I’d like to say we’re both responsible, but since my husband doesn’t shop at MAC or the ladies’ department of John Lewis, I have to own this one. Likewise, apart from my pay and tax information since I went freelance (about which I am totally anal because I’m terrified of going to prison), my filing system is like something a monkey would come up with after six pints. There is no rhyme, no reason and no consistency to the folders, boxes and piles of bank statements, old phone contracts and 20-year-old payslips. It’s bothered me on a low level for years, so this week I decided to fettle it, once and for all. That was three days ago. It’s like painting the Forth Bridge. It doesn’t end. The “solution” is proving to be more stressful than the problem, and I’ve somehow pulled a muscle in my neck from rooting about in heaps of paper while numbly muttering about confusing the “to shred” pile with the “vitally important” pile. In hindsight, those receipts weren’t harming anyone, were they?
We need a rethink on clothes
Apart from the fact that my clothes are a bit “snug” right now, what a time to be alive, sartorially speaking. In the past four weeks I’ve worn a bra approximately twice, lived in sweatpants and pyjama bottoms and not done up a single zip. You could say this has contributed to the aforementioned weight gain, and you’d make a fair point, but isn’t it nice to be comfy? When did we forget that, and turn everyday dressing (not even fancy, occasion dressing) into something so… awkward? Jeans are not comfortable. How they ever became the go-to for work and play, I’ll never know. Bras are not comfortable. I’d have burned mine long ago if I wasn’t at risk of tripping over my own breasts and landing in front of a bus. Shoes are not comfortable. After a month of lockdown, I’m amazed to see that my feet are morphing from gnarled tree stumps back into human flesh, like something out of Labyrinth. These might be challenging times, but I reckon when we’re all struggling into jeans and – shudder – tight tops again, we’ll look back wistfully at these halcyon days of elasticated waists and free-hanging boobs.
I am not a domestic goddess
Well, this is cheating because in no way was this a surprise discovery. Let’s just say I’ve always had my suspicions about my limitations in this field, and this period of reduced work has proved I was bang on the money. Just in case there was any part of me that thought I’d be magnificent at it all, IF ONLY I HAD THE TIME, along comes quarantine to debunk that theory in one fell swoop. Yes, I have baked. And I have made soup from scratch. And the results were pretty tasty, against the odds. But my version of baking wasn’t donning a chic apron and gaily skipping around the kitchen feeling relaxed and creative. It was stressful and sweaty and culminated in wails of “WHO DOES THIS FOR FUN? IT’S ONLY SLIGHTLY MORE FUN THAN GOING DOWN A MINE.” Moving on, my next domestic project is to try and work out how to use my sewing machine, but I’m not sure how far I’ll get, to be honest, because I’m pretty terrified of the thing. I bought it a few years ago because I had a fantasy of whipping up lovely 1960s outfits from vintage patterns and swanning about Bromley like a pound-shop Jackie O, but I also know that the reality is more likely to be two punctured fingers, some choice language and a really badly done cushion cover. Lifestyle bloggers, I’m coming for you.
We’re all living through something we’ve never seen in our lifetime and didn’t expect to; it’s a scary, horror-film kind of time. It’s been a while since I wrote on this blog, for several reasons, so I thought I’d jot down my personal experience of Lockdown 2020 so far, hopefully with honesty and hopefully with some laughs.
So, today marks the end of the third week that I, like many of us, have spent at home. The first week (well, from the Tuesday onwards), I was working from my living room, hugely grateful that the company I’d rocked up to on the Monday – when the idea of isolation was just gaining traction and still seemed kind of OTT – was able to facilitate remote working. The second week, I had my shift cancelled (a different company, remote working not feasible), so I mostly spent my days lying/shuffling/wailing around the house having some sort of existential crisis and painting the worst watercolour pictures you ever saw (more on that later). And this third week has hovered somewhere between the two: I (thankfully) kept my booking, but my regular shift at this particular magazine (a full week in pre-apocalpyse times) shrunk to approximately ten hours of work. As, of course, did my invoice.
That’s the skeleton of my three weeks at home. And I, like everyone else, have been left trying to fatten up the gaps.
Full disclosure here: staying in my house, living in my pyjamas, not seeing sunlight or other human beings… well, that’s ‘living my best life’, to be honest. Lockdown hasn’t really stopped me doing anything I’d really like to (I am looking forward to poking around vintage stores and book shops, and a cheeky scuttle around TK Maxx wouldn’t go amiss, but I’ll cope). In truth, my favourite ways to spend my time are reading, watching horror films, putting my pyjamas on and hanging out with my husband and the cat. I know that doesn’t make me cool (again, I’ll cope), but it sure as hell is handy at times like this. Tonight, for example, my husband and I have great plans for what we’re calling date night, and they wouldn’t, in all likelihood, be any different if the world wasn’t in the grip of a pandemic: “Babe, shall we have showers and then play Scrabble?”
Terry and June: sexier than us
So I can’t pretend that I’m finding it hard to be quarantined (and I feel for anyone who is struggling with it, really). I’m lucky in that I love my little house and who I live with (the husband and the cat), and that my spirit animal is the hermit crab.
But that doesn’t mean I’m sailing through lockdown. Yes, I love being at home. But I normally love being at home because that, for me, represents relaxing, recharging and nesting as the yang to the working-life yin.
And yet I find myself, after 20 years of giving my all in my chosen career, and being very good at what I do, in the disheartening position of not having much of a working-life yin and not really knowing where it’s all going (again, I know this goes for many people all over the world; this is just my own take). In July, I was made redundant from a job I adored. It hurt like hell but I was pragmatic: “I’ll freelance, I’ve done it before.” And I did freelance, and it was fine, and I was never out of work. But it took until about a month ago for me to think, “Hang on, this isn’t just fine. I’m actually really enjoying freelancing this time”. Irony, right? Because now my work situation is looking pretty uncertain, so to call that state of affairs enjoyable would be idiotic. Plus, I haven’t been freelancing for long enough to qualify for the government’s aid package, but I’ll bet I qualify to pay for it in my taxes next year, so CUE MAD LAUGHTER.
So that’s the bad. We’ve got that out of the way.
The good? Well, there’s plenty of that as well. For starters, freedom. The reason I decided those few weeks back that I was enjoying freelancing was that I’d really started to appreciate my lack of boundaries outside of the 9 to 5. As any chief sub knows, your job will involve working late/coming in early/waving goodbye to weekends. Fine. You know that when you take the job, so you don’t complain about it, and if you love your job, as I always did, you don’t mind. But once you don’t have to live around those constraints, it’s quite the novelty. The first time I freelanced, back in 2016, it was only because I’d had to bail out of a situation so untenable and dumb that I had no choice. And it broke my heart. So I wasn’t really in the mindset to enjoy anything about freelancing. This time round, I was pretty much flying. So the good stuff now is that I’m still living by those rules – I’m as free as I was as a freelancer, but more so. And as much as I know that freedom is coming at a financial cost, it’s also pretty lovely to wake up, look at your day and see possibilities that aren’t all about work. And maybe it takes the uncertainty of these times to give us that. And, yes, that’s about as hippy dippy as I’m likely to get in my lifetime.
The other nice thing is that I’ve started dabbling in things I’d never had the time or, if we’re honest (I know, I have no kids, WHO THE HELL AM I TO SAY I HAVE NO TIME?), the head space to think about. So about six weeks ago, during one of my regular trips to TK Maxx (God, I love that place. Not all of them, mind, but Bromley’s branch is sublime), I picked up a cheap set of watercolour paints. I can’t explain it. I’ve never had an urge to paint. I didn’t have any talent (or penchant) for it at school. I didn’t do art from the minute I was given the choice not to. And yet, I bought these paints. And then, a couple of weeks later, there I was, insomniac and looking for something to do. I started out copying photographs of icons: Marilyn Monroe (not great, but I was so pleased with my first attempt at art in 30 years, I put it on my dressing table); Elizabeth Taylor (awful; I made the most beautiful woman in the world look like an alien life form with a cold). But I found my stride one night when I couldn’t sleep and decided to copy a picture of me with my mum when I was a baby. I was overjoyed with it. The point of this isn’t that I’ve discovered some latent talent (I wish). The point is that I now have the space in my mind to try these things, and it turned out to help me feel close to my dad – because that’s what I did next: painting after painting of him, all through the night. They’re not good, but they’re my way of saying hello, I’m thinking of you, you’re still with me.
I’ve also: unearthed old albums and listened to them. Got out the books that might tell me how to use the sewing machine I bought 7 years ago (I know). Tidied the house to the point that I’ve inhaled enough dust to think my house could kick Covid’s ass. Decided to repaint our (mucky-looking) white hearth. Googled yoga for beginners. I’m not promising to do all these things, but I’m saying that the very thought of doing them didn’t enter my head when I was working full time. Make of that what you will. There’s more on my to-do list going forward, but I’m keeping them to my fat chest.
On emotional terms, well. Here comes the honesty. It’s changed nothing between me and my husband, apart from last week, when I had no work, and I knew a newspaper was going to press in our spare room and I wasn’t involved in it, and I nearly went through the floor like Rumpelstiltskin. “LET ME SPIN SOME HEADLINES OUT OF STRAW!” “CAN I HELP?” “I’M REALLY GOOD AT WORDS IF YOU NEED ME!” Answer: “I don’t need any help right now, thanks babe.” CHARMING.
The hairy. Well. That’s the cat, of course, who is enjoying himself perfectly right now, regardless of any worldwide crisis, because cats do not care. Oh, and it’s also me, because I’m now very hairy of head and styling my hair is like fighting with a Tasmanian devil. On non-flippant terms, the hairy is also the fear. My mum is miles away and I can’t check on her. My husband and I are checking in with our parents and our elderly/ill neighbours by phone.
And please don’t misinterpret this, but I feel a real relief that my dad isn’t going through this. He was very vulnerable in his last years, always in and out of hospital, and when I’m looking for things to be grateful for right now, the fact that he isn’t enduring this virus on top of everything else, and that my mum isn’t struggling to keep them both safe against the tide, is one thing I am truly thankful for.
And lastly. It’s not just the NHS. I’m saluting the police, the fire service and all the other services/businesses keeping us going right now. Heroes one and all.
So, my bad. I think I got so carried away in Part 1 that I went a bit off piste and what I wrote didn’t really have much in common with how I titled my post. So let me promise that this, Part 2, will stick to the brief.
What is strange about my (almost) 30-year fandom of Numan is that my enthusiasm has, seemingly, waxed and waned in completely the opposite direction to his success. In the early ’90s when, by his own admission, Gary Numan couldn’t give albums away or fill gig venues, I was just discovering him and his magnificent back catalogue (not a euphemism); I was joining the fan club, swooning over the exquisitely cold, beautiful and evocative synths that dominated his early output and generally becoming a mad teenage fan – a decade too late.
That, by the way, involved forgiving some pretty unforgivable tunes from 1982 onwards (his fans all rave about that year’s I, Assassin album, but I can only think of one or two songs from it that aren’t like being punched in the ear by Mike Tyson), but also recognising the diamonds peeking out from those bits of vinyl rough. And that’s my point. Every single album after the faultless ‘classic trilogy’ of Replicas, The Pleasure Principle and Telekon had its horrors, for sure – but also its highlights. (Yes, even Machine and Soul, the 1992 albatross that nearly finished him off.) That’s what kept me going back for more: however ‘mixed’ I found his albums, there was always the hope that there’d be a few of those weirdly magical and thrilling moments that only Numan can bring.
And yet. Fast-forward to the late 1990s and Gary Numan’s rise from the doldrums of obscurity and ridicule (or The Dumper, as Smash Hits so brilliantly used to call it) coincided with a musical direction that just… isn’t for me. That’s not to say his offerings for the previous 20 years were all my cup of tea, or that he isn’t allowed to change his musical style, but the industrial/head-banging/Nine Inch Nails-lite stuff he’s been doing since 1997 isn’t really what rallied me to the Numan cause in the first place (although I’m sure it’s attracted new fans, and I know a lot of the older fans either like it or… pretend to).
Numan doesn’t seem to like any reluctance on his fans’ part to embrace his new stuff, and I understand his viewpoint: it must be incredibly frustrating. But I’d ask him this: as a big Marc Bolan fan back in the day, would he have still been so keen if Bolan had survived the car crash and come out with a folk album? A jazz one? How about bell ringing? The fact that you love the sound an artist made themselves famous for doesn’t lock you in to drink the KoolAid about everything they do afterwards. That makes no sense.
So I’ve been in the weird position over the past 20 years of seeing a wave of ‘credible’ musicians citing Numan as an influence (everyone from Prince to NIN) or alchemising his 1979 classics into noughties chart-toppers (Basement Jaxx, Sugababes), and witnessing the musical establishment collectively issuing a mea culpa for ignoring him in the ’80s, and falling over themselves to give him awards and ‘elder statesman’ kudos. And all the while I’ve been thinking, “But now? Really?”
But you know what? I am genuinely thrilled for him. I think he’s a nice man. I think he deserves all this belated respect, even if he merits it for the music he was pioneering decades ago, not what he’s doing now. I’ll always buy the albums and go to the gigs (especially if he carries on playing the old stuff, which he said he never would, but I think he knows now what his fans really want to hear, and pay for), and I’m very happy that he’s gone from being bankrupt to living in a castle in LA with a family he adores, because I think he’s essentially brilliant. I just wish I still felt the same way about the tunes.
Well this is random, isn’t it? (Little in-joke for the Numan fans there, but actually this is very different to anything else I’ve written on my blog so far, so it works on any level.)
Anyway, where to begin with this white elephant of a post?
Gary Numan (real name: Gary Webb) blindsided his way to fame, aged 21, in 1979. His electronic tunes and android-like persona (real name: shyness) were a kind of pop Marmite, leading to a short period of intense fame and a legion of devoted ‘Numanoids’ juxtaposed with vitriol from the press and disdain from the music establishment, none of whom quite understood what they were dealing with (hence blindsided).
I was born in 1977 and had never heard of Numan until my dad bought a ‘Best Of’ cassette (yes, I’m that old) in around 1991. He wasn’t a fan, in particular, but he’d remembered that he’d liked Numan’s 1979 chart-topper Are ‘Friends’ Electric? back in the day, and decided to buy the tape. (I need to say here, AFE is the one everyone knows, and it’s the one the fans go ape over… but in no way, shape or form is it the best he’s ever done, but more of that later.)
My dad would play this tape in the car (and, to be honest, he didn’t like any of the other songs), and I’d sort of appreciate some of it. I can’t remember when I progressed from thinking ‘This one’s OK’ to getting mildly obsessed in the way only teenagers can, but some time in 1991 or 1992 it happened… and BOOM.
For context, I was already a lover of electronic pop. My first love (and it’s my most enduring one, apart from the Bangles – I’m going to write about them too) was the Pet Shop Boys. That came about because I fell in love with Neil Tennant when I was 10 years old and saw the video for Always On My Mind in 1988… but the PSB’s synth pop resonated with me as much as Tennant’s adorable face and that’s what I love to this day.
So I had my everyday soundtrack of gorgeously desolate pop-synths, but what I was hearing from Numan was that sense of abandonment, to a new degree. Synths spoke to me (they still do) and I make no apology for it. If you find nothing more beautiful in life than a guitar solo, fair play to you. I get goosebumps from a cold, haunting, metallic, robotic synth. And Numan ’79 was PSB ’88 on steroids.
So that’s where I was (albeit also listening to Jesus Jones!) when I discovered Gary Numan. And at the age of 14, I found myself joining the fan club of an artist who’d had his major success when I was a toddler. As you can imagine, I was not too cool for school.
This went on until I was in the sixth form. I was in the fan club, I bought the album (Sacrifice) and I dragged my best mate to a gig in Manchester. She was dreading it; now we go to Numan gigs together 🙂
Then I went to university in 1995 and kind of lost touch. I was still in the fan club, but, you know, I had other stuff to think about. I bought the autobiography and the Exile album in ’97 (did not love it) but I was already drifting away. Growing up. That’s OK.
So imagine my confusion when I came back to the Numan scene years later and found that not only had he turned into some kind of goth emo act, but, riding a wave of new-found credibility and finally hailed as an icon by the press, he was also claiming that all his songs from 1983 to 1995 were terrible. And his fans were peddling that theory too.
And whilst those years certainly have their moments, I can’t go along with this rewriting of history. Because that would mean forgetting these beautiful songs.
Love Is Like Clock Law
Berserker
Your Fascination
This Is Love
My Breathing
America
Voix
Respect [I LOVE THIS WHOLE ALBUM, SHUT UP SAYING IT’S CRAP!]
My World Storm
Come on, these are amazing tunes, and I’d rather listen to them than anything on Numan’s latest album, Savage. If you don’t agree, fine. But if you do, don’t drink the Kool Aid! Gary Numan didn’t just get good when the press (or Trent Reznor) said he did!
There are some real gems throughout all of his 40-year career, and that’s why he’s still here.
Ho, ho, ho, it’s Christmas! And I love Christmas. I’m a sucker for all the sparkle and the magic and the cheesy films and playing Christmas music in the office. I love all the festive rituals we had when I was growing up, but also the new ones I’ve started with my husband (spending an evening watching all the Christmas-themed episodes of Frasier, for example). I love buying presents and choosing wrapping paper and decorating the house with candles and shiny tat.
Yet if you dust off some of the surface glitter, this time of year has the potential to be difficult for a lot of people. And I’m not just talking about the more obvious things, such as missing someone who is no longer here (I’ve put a little framed picture of my dad on the Christmas tree and am lighting candles for him in the evenings), or worrying about money, or feeling stressed about hosting/cooking/socialising.
Because the other thing about December is that it forces you to stop and take stock of your life. ‘What have I achieved this year?’ ‘Am I where I want to be?’ ‘How do I make next year better?’ And that, I think, is where we can all come a cropper.
Remember a couple of decades ago, when round-robin Christmas letters were all the rage? People would slip one in their Christmas card to let everyone know all about the highlights of their year: their promotions at work, their fabulous holidays, their kids’ outstanding performance in the school play, their fancy new kitchen. I remember they were often greeted with some eye-rolling.
And whilst round robins might seem quaint and archaic now, the truth is that they never went away. They just became more frequent (ie daily) and shifted from paper to screen, via social media. Instead of a once-yearly brag-fest, the norm now is for us all to feel compelled to show that we are ‘living our best life’, ‘feeling blessed’ and acing our ‘goals’.
Whatever your views on social media, it’s fair to say this culture of relentlessly showing how much we’re thriving probably isn’t hugely helpful to anyone who feels as if they’re not.
I, for one, am not really where I want to be right now. This time last year, I had a job I adored, but then we were all made redundant (I know, I’m lucky that was the first time it had happened to me, given the industry I work in). So now I’m freelancing until something permanent comes up, and while it’s all been completely fine and dandy, it’s not the same. I miss having responsibilities, managing a department, making creative decisions and being an integral part of a team.
So in that respect, my career situation is not something I can file under ‘Laura’s Roaring Successes Of 2019’.
Or is it?
This is where the lemons come in.
To use the adage on this image, when life gives me lemons, my first instinct has always been to assume that I’ll never have anything but lemons and that I might as well squirt them in my own eyes (oh, and into any open wounds, while I’m at it), before fate does it for me.
I don’t subscribe to the clichéd view that this means I’m inherently some sort of doom merchant, or that the people who crack on making the proverbial lemonade are necessarily rays of sunshine. I think it’s just how our brains are wired, like when it comes to worrying about plane crashes: some people are sure ‘It’ll never happen to me,’ while others would say, ‘It has to happen to someone, why wouldn’t it be me?’
I’ve always been firmly in the second camp. But since being made redundant I have been trying very hard (with trying being the operative word; I make no claims to have become a pro) to look on the bright side. So I’ve piled up all my lemons and tried to make a cheesecake.
Here’s what I’ve whipped up so far.
No, my career isn’t quite where I’d like it to be, but I haven’t struggled to find work, I can pay my half of the mortgage, I’ve worked with some lovely people, I’ve learned some new skills and I haven’t had a moment’s stress for five months. Freelancing, as opposed to chief subbing, means I get to take my lunch breaks and leave on time every night – which in turn means I have the time and the head space to do other creative things. I can choose when and where I take shifts, I have a decent work-life balance and I can discover, at my own pace, what I want to do next.
When I write it all down like that, and imagine myself saying it to a mate in the pub who couldn’t find work, hated their job, was being bullied by a boss or was ill with stress, it doesn’t sound so bad, does it?
As for why I could file my career under 2019’s successes? Well, I was knocked down and I got up again, and I carried on. I don’t think any of us give ourselves enough credit for that alone, in any aspect of life.
And for the topping on my lemon cheesecake, I remind myself that I also have a lot of things to be grateful for (it’s now a mental-health cliché that gratitude is good for us but I’ve found it to be true). I have an incredible husband, a lovely mum who is still in good health, a cosy home and some wonderful friends.
As I said earlier, this kind of thinking isn’t my default setting, and it takes work. But I will be trying very hard this Christmas (and every day) to focus on the good stuff, keep putting one foot in front of the other (preferably in fabulous shoes) and to trust that while I may not be where I want to be right now, I’m heading in the right direction even as I write this.
So for anyone else who’s struggling with anything this Christmas, we should all remember we’re not alone. Life isn’t always easy or fair, and that doesn’t change just because it’s December and you’ve got your party frock on.
But if life has given us lemons, we can make a cracking gin and tonic while we figure out the rest.
Laura Eddy writes 