Review: Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 Trailer

After the success of the Pokemon Black and White Nintendo DS games, the follow-up game is due to hit UK game stores next month. Unlike previous games, which would have simply brought out one 'Bonus' game with added features and a revamped story like, such as Pokemon Platinum in to Diamond and Pearl, Emerald was to Ruby and Sapphire, Crystal was to Gold and Silver, and - who could forget - Pokemon Yellow, which featured the undisputed Pokemon mascot Pikachu, these new games are literal sequels to the original games.

Moreover if the reaction to this trailer is anything to go by, it seems that cute little Pikachu is starting to lose his following and his audience. After watching this promotional trailer for the new Pokemon Black 2 and White 2, my first thought was to find out what others thoughts. I was not surprised to find that many people had viewed this trailer wistfully, wishing that this was an actual anime. 'Is that really what I think it is?' one comment said, 'Pokemon... being cool?'

For me, the story-line behind the games has always been the highlight of the whole thing, and from other have said, these new games are going to carry on the arch of Team Plasma and the struggle between two factions - those loyal to Ghetsis and those loyal to N. It has to be said that the latter has enjoyed a lot of popularity with the gamers as one of the most complex villains/rivals the games have ever seen. Unlike previous Bosses in previous generations, N is more misguided than bad. As a result, he has very much been taken to the heart of the gamers, especially the female players who (and I felt this too when I played) feel strangely drawn to his faye personage.

Needless to say both male and female fans are thrilled to see his return in this new trailer, and this trailer, together with the established story of the first two games and the new ones, many people are starting ask - why can't the actual Pokemon anime be like this?

Speaking for myself, I have not watched the Pokemon anime since I was about eleven years old at the most specifically because it became too childish for me. I know that an awful lot of maturity can be lost between the Japanese and English dubs, as I found out around the same time when I was into Cardcaptors only to discover how much was cut and re-edited from the original Cardcaptor Sakura. I stayed with that fandom until I was around fourteen when I started to lose interest in anime simply because it usually was so dumbed down by the time it got to the western world.

The games on the other hand maintain their storylines throughout and I feel this is what people pine for. The kids, like me, grew out of the anime but you never grow out of playing the games. Moreover, if the prospect for an edgy and universally appealing Pokemon series was produced, whether it was a 13 episode short or a movie, they would watch it.

The feelings I got from the trailer were reflected in the comments of others fans, who felt that while the games have grown up with the audience - i.e. portraying the heroes as being 16+ and seeing them face greater perils - but the rest of the franchise has not. I only found out recently that Pokemon was still being dubbed into English and shown on TV. Moreover, and I get the sense this is what bugs the audience the most, the hero Satoshi (Or "Ash" as the English audience know him) has never grown up either literally (Indeed, he appears to still be ten years old after 14 years of travelling), or as a person. Given that kids shows need only to be repeated with each new generation, keeping him in limbo for that long is, I suppose, silly.

I for my part agree that maybe it is time for him to move over for some new heroes. While I am unsure how successful a B2/W2 anime would be, given that the B/W storyline and characters are so prominent. I get the feeling - and I concurr - there is some disappointment that Touko and Touya don't appear in the game at all, except for one reference.

Either way, this trailer has certainly made me hopeful for the new games.

Why I Love Penguin English Library?

In April 2012 Penguin Press brought out the first set of what they referred to as Penguin English Library, a selection of fiction books from some of the great English authors of the last three centuries. These included some of the usual suspects of Dracula by Bram Stoker, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, and Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. Then there are some titles that the average punter might not have heard of before, such as The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg and Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, (both of which are books I will be reviewing here on this blog). With each passing month in the run up to Christmas, Penguin intended to release another ten titles to compliment the original twenty that hit the bookshops that Easter.

Yet despite being criticized for not including non-fiction works like the 1963 cheap and affordable paperback series by Penguin, I admit to having a deep love for the new publications. This is for many reasons, one of which I am not ashamed to say is purely cosmetic. The Penguin English Library books have a wonderful look and feel to them.

I first encountered them in the Foyles at King's Cross St Pancreas station and I bought two immediately - the two I am reviewing this summer. They have a soft feeling cover and a consistent theme to their covers, much like the Black Classics except the form is cheaply made and thus the price is lower even for thick books like Moby-Dick and Little Dorrit, being just £5.99 each. Moreover the selectiveness of the titles means that readers who see all the copies laid out can come across the rarely, lesser known classics like The Monk, Evelina and Two on a Tower.

As all the novels themselves are written in the English language there is no need to analyse the quality of the translations. The novels themselves are as good as their writers are. What the Penguin English Library comes down to are two things: their looks and the selection of titles. Due to the prettiness of the covers, the materials and the fact that every copy comes with the Penguin English Library leaflet means it wins on the first mark. Due to the obscurity of some of the titles, it wins on the second mark too. Had I not discovered these books, I would not have discovered the authors that I have - despite being an English student.

Do check them out. They will introduce you to a lot of 19th century novelists and their titles but they also make a pretty addition to your bookshelf.

Review: ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER, Seth Graham-Smith

When I first come across this novel as I hunted around the sales tables at Waterstones, the thing that struck me was how ridiculous the notion of the President of the United States during the Civil War, who was assassinated by a die-hard Confederate and actor, John Wilkes Booth, was a sort of Buffy vampire killer. I   knew that it couldn't be a serious piece of work. Indeed, the writer Seth Graham-Smith has also published other odd titles that people who frequent books shops will doubtless recognise: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The parody novel of Jane Austen's classic surpassed all expectations and became a surprise bestseller.

Yet if I have one major issue with this novel it is the question of whether I was supposed to take it seriously or as a joke. Considering the author's track record, the first assumption must be that it is a parody. The reason why it is so easy to be thrown one way or the other is because that the manner in which Graham-Smith presents this novel is very subtle. Posing it as an historical analysis of Abraham Lincoln's lost diaries, this is used to present the ridiculous story. Accompanied with mocked up photographs of Lincoln, posing with his "famed" ax with which he slayed the vampires, the book is not only written like a historian but has the feel of one also.

The problem isn't this but the fact that at times the author seems to find it hard to maintain the aura of a historian, and instead falls into the trap of simply talking through AL's diary entries rather than just 'picking out' sections and then summarising them in his own words. Moreover the manner in which the 'writer' comes across the 'lost diaries' is a rather cliche manner of a mysterious man passing them over. While this cover story only takes up about the first 20-pages, it still takes a long time to actually get into the book or become the amusing story that Vanity Fair boasts it to be.

Another issue I had was with the pace - it is often too quick, speeding through Lincoln's life like a runaway train. The depth of research that has gone into the novel is quite remarkable but at times it felt like reading a mixed cocktail of different types of writing: the diary, the historian and the novel writer. While this is not necessarily an issue when the three methods are employed effectively, I can't help but feel that more could have been done with this concept of Lincoln as a Vampire Hunter.

Overall this is undoubtedly a well-researched novel that has put a lot of attention into detail, especially in regards to the American Civil War. While the author's style of writing fails him now and then, this is a very easy novel to read and does not require much thinking about. It by no means keeps you wondering, not because it assumes the writer knows anything about Lincoln but because when the connection between vampires and the slave-owners of the American South is made, it feels too obvious a way to bring the book-sucking creatures into the Civil War environment. 

To people who might wish to avoid this novel because it is 'yet another vampire novel', they needn't fear as the vampire aspect at times does not really affect the overall presentations of Lincoln's life. The author finds a fair balance between portraying a human side to "Abe" as well as his eccentric vampire-hunter side, even if he doesn't quite manage to insert vampires comfortably into Lincoln's life. 

If I could say one thing about this book, it is that it is too short. I say this not because I enjoyed it so exceptionally that I wished I could read more, but because once I got to the end I felt it should have been longer. There is a lot that the author could have done and failed to do.

6/10

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Want this book? Buy it here:

Review: THE EMPRESS OF ROME, Matthew Dennison

People who are familiar with the Roman Empress Livia will likely think first and foremost of Robert Graves's I, Claudius, in which she systematically moves to annihilate all the troublesome members of the Imperial family who stand between her son Tiberius and the succession to her husband Augustus's new dynasty. Matthew Dennison's book attempts to absolve Livia, to prove that she did not murder her stepdaughter's husbands, Marcellus and Agrippa, and children, Gaius, Lucius and Postumus, and all manner of wicked deeds that the character contrives and relishes within the hallowed texts of Graves's classic.

Yet there are two major flaws in this history that let it down completely. First is its cherry-picking of the ancient historical accounts, only accepting the ones that favour Livia and coldly beating down the accounts of those that do not favour her - the most obvious being Tacitus, upon whose accounts that Graves based his Livia. Second, is that while the book is very readable and pleasant to read, it says very little and is based primarily on assumptions rather than facts. Most annoying of all, and this is a problem with many non-fiction books, is that the writer attempts to use pointless sources that bear no resemblance to their topic matter to justify their arguments.

It is true that Dennison is faced with the problem that his subject matter is one that we know very little about. Women were rarely written about unless they were famed for murder or incest (or indeed both),  as with the infamous Clodia (who is mentioned several times by Dennison). Trying to get to the bare-knuckled truth about a woman in Rome is an impossible task and, credit to Dennison, he does his best to piece together an impression of what Livia's life would have entailed. However it is his constant attempts to examine Livia's 'psychology' that undermines all this hard work as textually it is assumptions, not facts, that takes up the whole book.

Ultimately, the book would have done better to be much shorter. Most of it feels more like a PhD student's final thesis, using quotations such as Tennyson's poem, 'He chopped down the family tree...' which is the most references of a backlog of irrelevant passages that prelude each chapter. I found myself reading ahead to avoid them as they bore little importance to understanding his arguments about Livia.

As already stated in making his arguments about Livia, he pushes away any negative statements about her and basks in the positive - what little there actually is. While Livia may or may not have poisoned half her second husband's relatives, his arguments are once again let down by the fact that he only cherry-picks with Livia and not with the other imperial women, such as Octavia and Julia. He repeatedly remarks upon Octavia's blind hatred of mothers, 'especially Livia', and his presumed jealousy of her, despite it having no point in his argument past the death of Marcellus. Probably more unfair is his judgement on Julia: at one point he questions the absurd statement that she prostituted herself in the Roman forum (considering her renown for being fairly haughty), but later states the account by Seneca as if it were fact.

The overall narrative is jumbled, darting back and forth in time only to repeat itself. I was especially disappointed by how little time he spent on the later years of her life, in which Livia was emboiled in several scandals. These are mentioned, but include none of the assumptions or hypotheses that are said and repeated over and over in defense of Livia. They are just mentioned and forgotten, as if Dennison either lost interest in the book as he got to the end. Finally, concludes his argument in one line in the manner of, once again, a student's essay. When questioning whether there is any evidence that Livia was responsible for the crimes for which Graves's novel accesses her, he states 'the answer, insofar as trustworthy evidence survives, is no and no again.' This statement is uninspired, yes, but it is also utterly denying Tactius who, while not alive at the time of Livia, is closer to her era than Mr. Dennison is. Moreover he himself points out that one of Tacitus's sources was from the writings of Agrippina, Claudius's Empress. 'If we are to assume', to use the author's favourite phrase, that Tacitus got these stories of Livia from this (and there is nothing to say either way he didn't), then she was close enough to the time to know it to be fact.

Whether Livia killed these people or not, this book is a nice read despite its faults. It is not the work of a trustworthy historian but is a nicely researched account of Livia's life that makes the best it can with the little information it has. It is only a pity that Dennison felt to strongly about denying the work of Tacitus. After all, far from the vilified figure he believes her to be cast as a murderer, it does make her more interesting.

5/10

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The Scarlett Spot Summer Reading List 2012

The summer has begun for the UK and television is dominated by the Olympics. For that reason I have decided to make a set reading list to try and escape from the world's sporting event. See here the 10 titles I have selected to read between 23th July 2012 to 17th September 2012.


Fiction

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Seth Graham-Smith

The Pleasures of Men
Kate Williams

11.22.63
Stephen King


Classics

Lady Audley's Secret
Mary Elizabeth Braddon

The Moonstone
Wilkie Collins

The Private Confessions of a Justified Sinner
James Hogg

I, Claudius
Robert Harris


Non-Fiction

In Defense of Dogs
John Bradshaw

The Quantum Universe
Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw

The Empress of Rome: Life of Livia
Matthew Dennison

Review: THE UNDERSTUDY, David Nicholls

Following the success of his 2010 novel One Day, which was then adapted into a (truly terrible) film starring Anne Hathaway (and her truly terrible fake British accent), a lot of David Nicholls’s previous novels have been re-published with the same types of front covers. One of these said novels is The Understudy, a comical look on the life of an unsuccessful actor still waiting for his “Big Break”. The Daily Mail called it, as the front cover boasts, ‘a laugh-out-loud’ novel and it is – to an extent.

Chronicling the misfortunes the ironically named Stephen C. McQueen, employing the C. so that there would be “no misunderstandings”, the book is an easy read while doesn’t require much of an attention span to get through. The characters have only a medium depth to them, but this is not really an issue considering that the aim is clearly to get laughs. Moreover, it is not the characters that a reader will pick up this book for, but the language, which is very cleverly employed. While there were some points that I thought would be better if it was done x, y and z way, David Nicholls ultimately knows best and ultimately holds the reader’s attention.

The plot is reasonably straightforward, if not a little predictable. Stephen is the anti-protagonist who spends most of his working days playing corpses in TV detective dramas or playing a squirrel in a children’s programme which enjoys more success aboard than at home. The most impressive gig that Stephen actually has is his job as the understudy to the lead in a five-star rated West End show about Lord Byron, unimaginatively named “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know”. The title role itself is being played by a top-British actor named Josh Harper, a name which immediately inspires the image of a posh, mindless, coke-stuffing playboy actor whose success is truly owed to his looks rather than his talent. Much like Stephen, the readers are left to cringe at an imagined gushing interview done with this fictional actor in a Sunday paper by a stereotypically brainless female interviewer (It embarrasses me and most of woman kind I think to realise that some interviews with vaguely good looking actors do follow this stereotype), and roll their eyes at his selfish and self-centred actions throughout the novel.

Stephen is an unusual character in the sense that on the one hand he is easy to sympathise with, especially when he is duped several times by Josh into several compromising situations. The first of many comes when Stephenn, thinking (and hoping) that he might have his chance to go on stage, is pimped to the post at the last minute when Josh turns up at just as he's getting into costume. This leads to a humiliating misunderstanding when he “invites” Stephen to his showbiz party, only for Stephen realise that he is actually being hired to waiter!

It is at this party that Stephen meets to object of his affections, Josh’s unremarkable American wife Nora. Although in the blurb she is characterised as being ‘clever’ and ‘funny’,  the words ‘blunt’ and ‘boring’ were my own words to describe her. While she does have her moments in the novel, or rather a few funny quips, she is ultimately not a very inspiring character. If anything she is a little bit too much of a stereotypical bolshie American girl from New York. Despite Stephen’s obsession with her, it is difficult to really find any sympathy in their relationship or really maintain any interest with it.

I feel this might come from the fact that when it comes to Nora, Stephen ceases to be sympathetic. When he happens upon Josh having sex with the show’s ‘exciting new talent’ Maxine Cole in his dressing room, the big-headed sex god talks Stephen into keeping his mouth shut by promising him to pull a sickie for two nights so that he can play the lead role in the show and, presumably, get his big break. Naturally, Stephen agrees, and thus goes through the book continuously lying to Nora in a bid to keep the deal with Josh. He fools himself into thinking it’s all right while Josh repeatedly finds himself falling into every woman who proves herself willing to let him in, and there are apparently plenty. Much like a bigoted husband trying to justify his philandering to his angry wife, Josh’s defence is that he has a ‘sickness’ – that he is a sex addict. This is bollocks, of course, and Stephen knows it. Yet he accepts it. Josh, needless to say, is not a very exciting or even compelling antagonist.

The trouble is that it is hard to really ‘feel’ for Stephen’s relationship with Nora and it’s hard to tell whether it’s because of him, her or both of them. It might even be because the reader agrees with Nora that acting is a ‘pointless’ job, not least because Stephen’s ex-wife and daughter feel this way. Of all the few females who appear in this novel, it is the ex-wife Alison who speaks the most sense. At one point when confronting her ex about his delusions about his career, about waiting for his break, she makes her thoughts plainly and brutally:

They sat in silence for a moment, looking at each other, eyes narrowed.

            ‘You don’t think I’m any good, do you?’ said Stephen, finally.

            ‘No.’

            ‘Well, that’s the impression you give, Alison. I mean, if you do think I’m good then why don’t you support me?’

            ‘Hold on, Stephen, sorry, but I don’t think you understood me. What I meant was – no, I don’t think you’re any good.’

            A moment passed.

            ‘You don’t?’

            ‘No. No, I don’t.’

            Again, a moment.

            ‘Since when?’

            Alison closed her eyes. ‘Never […] Sorry.’ (pp. 306-7)

All through the novel, the reader is indeed treated to the true extent of Stephen’s delusions and dreams about his career. Early on in the novel, Nicholls treats us to what he calls Stephen’s ‘Nearly CV’, the CV he would have had had he actually won the countless auditions he went to and didn’t get. His lack of success and foolish faith that his hour will come is not only to the distress of Alison but his eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, who feels frequently humiliated by her father’s antics. Admittedly, Sophie is something of a pretentious and annoying little brat, influenced by her equally pretentious stepfather Colin, who constantly undermines Stephen. When talking about Sophie’s Christmas present of a piano, Colin suggests that Stephen might want to contribute something, ‘the piano stool or some sheet-music or something.’ Stephen does deserve to be undermined in some ways, but the characters who do it to him are usually very annoying so you still side with him. In regards to Sophie, while she can be dismissed as a bit of a brat her feelings are understandable, as any girl who has ever had a waste-of-space for a father would tell you.

Ultimately the end of The Understudy is somewhat satisfying although the conclusion is predictable. You will put the book down knowing that Stephen has done right the thing and, more importantly, learned his lesson. I definitely would recommend it for a quick read, like a long train-ride or to read during lunch breaks. While not the most compelling of novels, it isn’t supposed to be. It is a just a piece of harmless fun where the baddies get what they deserve and the goodies end up with a reasonable, satisfying lot. While we don’t know whether Stephen will be getting his happy ending, and too be honest we don't really care.


6/10


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Review: BRAVISSIMO (Bras and Fitting Service)

So, it's my twenty-first birthday coming up. My mum asked me what I wanted for my great, big special present. At the moment that choice is pending, but I did manage to tell her what I needed - a couple of new bras. It is an issue that I have been struggling with for a very long time, my bra size. Hours and hours of measuring, calculating and judging my bra size has led me from the most bizarre sizes of 36B to somewhat more realistic sizes of 34DD. Turns out that both these sizes were wrong. I am, in fact, a 32G.

My advice to anyone before I begin this review would be this: do NOT trust internet bra measuring websites because a majority of the advice they feed you is rubbish. It is from one of these that I got the ridiculous fitting of 36B, a size I knew I couldn't possibly be. Although I know very little about bras I do know my body, and many of you will find you do too. Women can tell if their breasts are big or small. B is small, and my breasts are not. It is my back that is relatively small, yet because of being side-tracked by all these internet wonder calculators and do-it-yourself graphs, I allowed myself to believe that my back size was a 34/36 rather than a 32.

A few years ago when I was still a teenager, I complained to my mother that the bra I was wearing was riding up my back. I was wearing a 34D at the time. Another measurement on a graph provided (at the time) by Bravissimo suggested I should go down a size and it worked. Yet years later I was tricked into believing it was my back, not my cup, that was increasing.

Finally, with my 21st coming up, the one thing I truly desired was to have some proper fitting bras, My mother suggested that I get myself fitted properly at Bravissimo. She herself had discovered them during the 80s when she happened upon their store in Shepherd's Bush in London and has never looked back. I went to the one in Covent Garden as it was at the end of my bus route.

After a brisk look around I finally went downstairs to the fitting rooms and asked for a proper fitting. The first thing I noticed, to my delight, is that all the women who work at Bravissimo appear to have D+ cup sizes themselves, i.e. they aren't the pint-sized, skinny little things you find in other shops (Required to be that way in order for them to fit into the standard size 10 clothing). It is reassuring to know you are being tested by women who understand the problems you face when trying to find bras that fit. It appears to be the impression of most shops that women with larger breasts must be larger in every other department too. It is not true. Many of the women I saw, and myself, all turned out to have much larger cup sizes than we outwardly would seem.

Probably the most important thing, and I learned this from my fitting experience, is that very few women appear to understand the way bra sizes are supposed to work. Generally, the smaller the back, the larger the cup. It is entirely possible for a woman with a very small waist to have breasts even larger than a DD. One of the testimonials on the wall of the changing room described a woman's experience with the Bravissimo fitting:

For years I was told I was a 32C, it said, until I was fitted by Bravissimo and found out I was actually a 28FF!

It is estimated that a majority of women probably have an issue within their bra sizes and are currently wearing the wrong one. The reason for this likely comes down to the fact that most women believe that their back is larger than their bust. I can assure you that this was my mistake. Having so much trouble with my bras, I thought about getting a 36, which rather than making the matter better would have actually made it worse.

The fitter and the trainee girl who booked my appointment both sat in on the biggest question in my life. Now, first thing you have to know about Bravissimo is that they NEVER use measuring tapes. It may seem silly but, let's face it, no one can ever get the same result from a measuring tape. It is a fact that women's breasts also change shape depending on the time of month, so measuring results are all the more unreliable. Instead, they use their knowledge of how a bra should fit to find the right one. For me, the cup size was too small and the back-size was obviously too big. First they tried me with a 34F but found my bust was still too clammed in and my back was too loose.

She explained then that she was going to take me down a back-size, and up another cup size. Now, because my back size had gone down, she had to take me up two cup sizes to my current size: 32G.

The special treatment does not end here. Once the correct bra size is found, they bring out several different types of bra (at whatever colour or type you want) for you to try. Moreover, if you need anything special - like a sports bra, maternity bra or swimming costume - they will fit you properly for that as well.

Considering that a majority of women wear the wrong bra size in the country, under the delusion that they are no bigger than a D or DD, I think that every woman who feels uncomfortable in her bra needs to get to her closest store pronto and get yourself fitted! Do not trust Marks and Spencer's fittings, which are notoriously poor especially in regards to women who have small backs and larger busts.

Trust me, you will never have a better fitting than at Bravissimo. Moreover, if you do have a cup size over DD and a back-size of between 28 and 40, it is the only place where you can by pretty bras that last and are somewhat affordable.

10/10

Notes:

1. Remember that if you go to your local Bravissimo, there are more sizes in the stock room. So if you can't your size in a bra on the shop floor just take it downstairs and ask them to check for you.
2. Fittings are mainly drop-in so it is best to go late morning or early afternoon if you can to avoiding waiting too long.
3. When you are at the till, sign up for the mailing list. This may sound unattractive but you can opt out of receiving any correspondence and, if there are any problems with your bra after a month of purchase, they will often take the bra back and replace it with another.

The Power of Shipping in Fandom

I have recently been reflecting on my consistent days within that taboo word amongst non-members (i.e. non-fangirls) of the dreaded land known as 'Fandom'. Sounding like some forgotten village out of the Internet Religious Bible, Fandom is both a mystical, magic and moronic place to spend your time. It is friendly, ugly and frighteningly addictive. Many a young girl might just enter into it and find herself pulled, dragged, sicked, kicking and screaming into its very dark and murky depths. It is where hardcore fans gather and, more often than you'd think, it where genuine love for the very thing they are celebrating goes to die.

The picture I am painting sounds like a terrible, deadly waste land, doesn't it? Yes.

I am writing this article not just to explain the habitual habits of a fan within an internet fandom. This may not only warn early visitors (referred to as "lurkers" in the fandom) of what to expect if they decide to make their presence more known, but also aid the parents of the younger fans about what it is their children are getting into. Believe me, some of the things that come out in fandom posts and comments can be more damaging to a teenage girl that some idiot writing "COCK!" every five seconds on an internet chatroom. I say that not to underplay the danger of internet chat room, but instead to alliterate the fact that, in some cases, the wrong people within fandom torment a girl or boy almost as dangerously as someone within a chatroom environment.

It is the most positive same-sex relationship fanclub you will ever see, but also the must disgustingly racist sector you can come across. It promotes feminist ideals while at the same time beating them, spitting on them, downright pissing all over them as very often one female character will be idolised while another is vilified. It is one of the most positive and excitable places you can be, while being the most negative and tiring death-trap you will ever stumble into.

However, I need to say this first:

To clarify, a majority of the people within fandom (who, it must be said, are chiefly women aged from as young as 12 to as old as 60) are nice people who want to share a particularly keen to share their views and theories about a certain TV show, film series or novel they are reading. They are not bad people, they conduct themselves properly and they will usually not engage in so-called "ship-wars".


Now, some of the biggest fandoms out there, none of which (admittedly) I have ever been a part of, include Glee, The Vampire Diaries, Game of Thrones and Smallville. I cannot speak for these particular fandoms, but I can speak for slightly smaller fandoms which I have interacted with since I was a shockingly young age right up until towards the end of last year when I finally started to tire of being a "professional fanatic". Some of the fandoms I have been a part of in the past included Doctor Who, Merlin and Being Human and also a very brief spat with the Torchwood fandom. It is from these personal examples I will draw on.


From my time in each and every one of these fandoms I have discovered one thing in particular, and that is that it is very clique orientated. That is to say, in true Mean Girls style, due to being a chiefly female-dominated dominion, many fandoms that run for as few as three episodes will quickly start to have preferences for certain characters and, with that, certain ships.

The way this develops depends on many things but it usually comes down to two factors: the type of show and the number of primary characters.

A fandom like Doctor Who usually only has a few ships at any one time, due to the low-level of primary characters. In the current show, for example, as the Doctor (Sometimes referred to as "Eleven" in the fandom or general DW fanbase), Amy Pond, Rory Williams and River Song. Due to the small size of the character pool, there are a very limited number of ships. Ones that are more common (For obvious reasons) are Amy/Rory, Amy/Eleven and Eleven/River, with the first and the third being more popular than the other. Moreover, it helps also that River herself is a recurring character, meaning she is not always part of the action, meaning that most fans watch the interactions between Eleven, Amy and Rory, and because Amy and Rory are married it is generally accepted with good grace that they are a leading ship, and generally there very few serious conflicts - known as ship-wars - in the Doctor Who fandom.

This goes in to a little theory I have called the 'Threeway Theory', which has probably been proposed by more qualified people who have studied the fandom in academic circumstances. It basically states that three is the magic number. It is usually proposed in linguistics and communication studies that people respond better to words that are delivered in three. It is the same principle with fictional characters. If a show has only two to three main characters, then logically the character pool is smaller and the number of ships people can make is more limited, which means less conflict and more room for preference either way.

Of course there can be situations where the reaction is all the more harsher because the act of having three people at the centre of the show can create more friction, especially in a male-female-male or female-male-female situation because this anticipates a very literal triangle. This can sometimes be the case but the manner in which a show can deal with this is by defining the characters by other things. For example, the lack of conflict in the Doctor Who fandom generally revolves around the fact that a good portion of the fandom accept the Doctor, being an alien, is not the same as Rory, who is a male human.

Moreover, Steven Moffat established very early on that Amy/Rory were going out, that they were going to get married and that Amy was in love with Rory, which left the fandom with no choice but to accept this. In comparison to Russell T. Davies, who dragged out the relationship between the Doctor, Rose and Mickey, ultimately created a fiction within his own fanbase, especially when Rose left. The reaction against Martha Jones's character was similar to when Henry VIII switched Queens. Imagine Rose Tyler as Catherine of Aragon and Martha Jones as Anne Boleyn. By adding another female character while giving the previous leading female a sad, but ultimately unsatisfying send off, it invited the fandom to hate the character who was replacing her.

This led to 'ship-wars' centred on characters, rather than specific couples. Some Rose-fans, who may or may not have shipped her with the Tenth Doctor, would witchhunt anyone who dared to say they preferred Martha. Yet when Donna Noble came along, the fandom's loyalty was spread three ways and there were fewer ship-wars.

However when there are more than three characters, this is when the wars become more tense. The simple reason for this is variety. Logically, if there are more regular characters, there are more interactions that can be twisted into romantic gestures. After merely a few episodes of the first series of Merlin, the chief (and only real) ship had emerged - Arthur/Gwen, and with that Gwen/Lancelot (Lancelot being a secondary character and therefore not really applicable). The set up of Merlin meant that, logically, with Arthur as a Prince and Guinevere as a Servant, they were going to fall in love 'across the class barrier'. However due to the shows failure to affectively suggest this in a realistic light until episode 10, the fans formed ship-ideals that were not only completely dead in the water but downright wrong.

The greatest oddity of all comes from the overwhelming number of women who openly ship (quite seriously) Arthur/Merlin, despite no suggestion whatsoever of a romantic relationship. It is very tempting to pad all this down to an expression of female sexuality, a reverse on the male fantasy of two women together. However, in my experience, some of the girls who support these types of ships (i.e. male characters together who are NOT homosexual within the show), they also seem to despise with every fibre of their being the female character who is really the object of the hero's affections. This is sometimes the case with Gwen. For me, it stems from several reasons. A minor section of them, in the particular situation, are simply racists (Had to be said, I'm afraid), while others appear to be self-hating women. This is the negative affect of fandom as basing their entire love of a show around a ship, one that can never be truly realised, is frustrating. This then leads to overall negativity and fighting with other sections of the fandom that they don't agree with.

Eventually, the fandom will realise that these fights are a problem and, so, in the case of somewhere like LiveJournal or on a general internet forum, certain "cliques" of the fandom retire to "communities" or threads specifically for that ship or character. More often than not, shipping communities are more active than general communities. At its height, the Arthur and Gwen community on LJ for Merlin could get over 4000 comments on an episode post, while a general community would be lucky to get more than 100 comments.

This is the cyber version of the Great War, an all around "stalemate". That isn't to say that shippers do not occasionally clash and fight, (usually the younger members aged between 12 to 14 who are unaware of the stalemate). It is a nuclear missile strike situation: neither fanbase wants to be targeted as having 'struck the first blow' against another. Neither group can make a move towards peace because, and this is a fact, a significant portion of fandom-dwellers, (I was one of them once), prefer the safety of their fellow shippers with whom they are more likely to agree. Bizarrely enough many of these people might have nothing whatsoever in common, in regards to their feelings and theories about the show or just in general, yet they still prefer each others company to someone who they know hates their preferred ship.

That is not to say that people do not ship more than one thing nor have friends who prefer different ships. After all, there are always exceptions. Nonetheless it is generally true that people who have an OTP (One True Pairing) will prefer communities about that couple to any other. Once the Group Think has sent in for someone in the fandom, that is when they get sucked in.

In the past, it has been easy to prevent cyberbullying and attacks of fans, particularly young ones, on communities as places like forums and LiveJournals often had moderators to ensure that no one was personally insulted by anyone within the fandom. However with mediums such as Twitter and Tumblr, two things I just can't get along with myself, becoming more popular, it is becoming harder to avoid cruel comments or upsetting statements.

Anyone outside the fandom would probably think it stupid for someone to be so invested in a character or couple on a TV show so personally, but they would equally be surprised how quickly one disagreement over something a petty as a fictional couple can turn bloody.

I am not saying that people should BAN fandoms. They are great places: centres of discussions, debates, networking, art, fiction, videos and all sorts of brilliant things. I just ask anyone who is just getting into it to be weary of how easy it is to get sucked in and carried away. Try not to use it everyday, and even if you do only for a short period of time, no more than an hour. It's great to make new friends but don't become obsessed. And for parents, be aware of your teenagers emotions. Fandoms are great places for them to boost their self-esteem with with fanwork and being able to communicate with people their age who might like the show too from the safety of their own home. Nonetheless, be aware of how quickly it can upset them too. Don't immediately block or ban it, just be understanding and talk it through with them. Be that other voice, outside the fandom, reminding them that its all fictional.

Most importantly be more aware of fandom itself. Look into it yourself. See what it's like. Overall, you will see its a good place and filled with remarkable things besides ship-dedications. Just try to understand its nature. Only then can any of us tame this beast.

Old Review: HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE, Diana Wynne Jones

Like a dream it fills you up until you're full of joy...

Diana Wynne Jones is renowned for being "hotter than Potter" and her books are sold all over the world. They are popular and loved by each generation they touch. Diana Wynne Jones is famous for the award winning THE CHRESTOMANCI SERIES, and other works such as DARK LORD OF DERKHOLM. Yet out of all of her novels there is one novel which is without a doubt the most popular, treasured and loved of them all - HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE. Most people who have read it will confirm that it is a charming tale of magic, love, humour and wonder. It touches the fibres of your heart so greatly that the sound of the character's names "Sophie", "Howl" and "Calcifer" bring a smile to your face. Although each character is faulted they are wonderfully painted so that you love them as if they were real people.

The story follows the tale of Sophie Hatter, the eldest of three sisters, who unfortunately lives in a world where fairytale traits are the laws of physics. For that reason, despite being attractive, intelligent and talented, the eldest child is destined to come to nothing. While her younger sisters go out doing their own thing, Sophie is forced to make hats in their late father's hat shop. However, it turns out that she has a remarkable talent with magic as well as a needle as she speaks life into the hats, giving them personalities so that good things will come to the wearer of the hat. This is how Sophie attracts unwanted attention from the jealous Witch of the Waste, thinking her a rival witch, and turns her into an old woman to punish her. Ashamed of her appearance, Sophie decides to seek help from the infamous Wizard Howl whose moving castle roams the hill above Sophie's home, and is known throughout Market Chipping as a wicked young man who sucks the souls out of young girls and feasts on their hearts.

Feeling unthreatened as an old woman, Sophie ventures inside and instead of finding Howl, she finds his fire demon Calcifer who convinces her to make a bargain with him - he'll lift the spell on her if she breaks the contract between Howl and himself. Sophie soon discovers that far from being evil and cruel, the Wizard Howl is a cowardly heartbreaker who takes pleasure in courting girls but dumping them before it turns serious. Also cursed by the Witch, Howl cannot allow himself to fall in love otherwise he must return to the Witch and give her his heart. In order to save Howl, Calcifer, and her own youth, Sophie has to hurry to find out how to free Calcifer and Howl from their contract before the Witch catches up with them.

A beautifully written tale of a cursed young girl and her cowardly sweetheart, HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE is a light and hysterical novel with a heroine to love; an anti-hero to adore, and a villain to hate and fear, and yet pity. As the novel goes on and the love between Howl and Sophie grows, you heart dances with excitement and joy which rises up and up until the last chapter. The feeling of your heart beat is one of the most important factors of the novel; don't take it for granted. I highly recommend this book to anyone. It is a book you will keep by your bedside forever, re-read every year or so, and cherish forever. I also recommend the animated film by Hayao Miyazaki of the same name. Both are truly stunning works of art.

Old Review: Jack the Ripper Unmasked, by William Beadle

I wrote this review a few years ago when this book was still published, and after having giggled over it with my mother last weekend, I thought I'd post it here again...

‘Jack’ is one of the great mysteries of crime. Ever since his career came to an abrupt end in November 1888 people have attempted to put a name to the infamous Ripper. Many have devoted time to writing and proposing their theories on the case and the suspects have become something of celebrities from the outlandish Royal conspiracy revolving around William Gull to the simplistic believers in no. 1 suspect M. J. Druitt, commonly referred to by the Ripper world as the “Druittists”. One thing for certain: William Bury will not be garnishing enough support to start the "Buryists" any time soon. While he is a reasonable suspect (albeit nothing to get excited about) this book is one of the most intolerable I have ever come across in the Ripper World.

JACK THE RIPPER UNMAKED is a typical example of Ripperology gone wrong. In an attempt to appear more scientific psychological terms are thrown at you left, right and centre in the first chapter. Therefore you are advised to read up on your criminal psychology before venturing into this book as you will find yourself bombarded with crime information completely unrelated to ‘Jack’. For the sake of your sanity here is what the author does: he uses the ‘Top-down’ approach to crime investigation to draw (very poor) assumptions about Bury’s link to the crime. He quotes several 20th century examples of crime in order to back his argument that ‘Jack’ was in fact ‘Billy’. This fell flat as I can quote several studies that show ‘Top-down' is not always a reliable form of deducing a criminal, and if this book can be scrutinised with A-level Psychology, I hate to think what real Criminologists would make of it!

While respect should be given to the time and research put into this book (four years) by William Beadle, it becomes clear quickly that all he did after four years was write a very muddled book. He has the nerve to consistently state that Bury (Not Jack or ‘The Ripper’) murdered the main five victims as well as other (deservingly) less probable Ripper victims and expects us to agree with him from the off. It is closely followed by the author's assumption that the ‘tragic’ Bury killed the prostitutes because their names were the same as his mother and sister.

Yes, because of their names.

It is all tied together with a repetitively anal and an unfounded psychoanalysis of Bury that would make Sigmund Freud blush. The author even attempts to tie Bury into the Ripper Letters (Including those that are obviously forgeries) and continues to do so despite the fact that a handwriting expert he himself asked said Bury’s writing did not match those of the letters! You get the feeling that the author distorts the facts slightly to better to his version of events. Whether this was his intention or not, who knows?

Throughout the book you are overrun with irrelevant 20th century cases that have no real parallel to the Ripper and frequent statements that ‘Bury did this...’ and ‘Bury did that...’ that by the time the important bit comes together, you no longer know what is fact and what is guesswork. Furthermore when you take time to analyse the sources used by Mr Beadle to ‘clarify’ the more convincing points he makes, you discover they from are rags such THE WEEKLY NEWS, written nearly forty years after the murder of Mary Kelly.

A majority of the ‘terrible childhood' he describes on the blurb is made up and based on unfounded assumption on his part about Bury’s early mental state. He frequently contradicts himself and glosses over any evidence contradicting him rather than produce a reasonable argument to it. To say that the book was disappointing is an understatement. It should not be tossed anyway lightly but thrown with tremendous force.

It frequently happens that when someone becomes in depth with the Ripper case, they latch on to a suspect and fight tooth and claw for them. In extreme cases, as fellow followers will agree, (Need I remind us all of Patricia Cornwall's JACK THE RIPPER: CASE CLOSED?) the writer becomes so obsessed with their idea that they start talking about their suspect as if he truly was the Ripper. This book is an example of that. He waits until the very last chapter to make his point by which time you are completely lost in a sea of head-spinning statements, most of which are speculation wrongly presented as fact. He lost me in first chapter and in the case of my mother who also read the book, the first paragraph.

The most important fact that ties Bury to the Ripper killings is that he murdered his wife in a slightly similar way to the earlier Ripper killings. It would seem more logical to start with that key point but no, Beadle insists on taking us on a fantasy background he had made up for William Beadle and delusional journey of circumstantial evidence before he even details the murder of Ellen, and even that misleading.

All things considered the book falls as flat as most Ripper books that have ‘UNMASKED’ in the title. The Ripper is certainly not ‘unmasked’ when he's armed with no more evidence than a half-decent suspect and over-the-top assumptions about Bury’s state of mind. The conclusions drawn certainly do not set the world alight nor do all of them make sense. Whether Bury manages to crawl into Donald Rumbelow's THE COMPLETE JACK THE RIPPER if he comes to revise it again in five years or so, who knows? But he'll have no trouble picking holes in the case if he does.

For a more comprehensive and readable book about William Bury I highly recommend Euan Macpherson’s THE TRIAL OF JACK THE RIPPER: THE CASE OF WILLIAM BURY. Macpherson manages to present Bury’s case in a much more organised (and honest) manner than Beadle does although I personally remain unconvinced by either.

My final message is to the author: I recommend that you find a good editor because the book is also not only confusing but riddled with several grammar mistakes. One or two can be forgiven but in the end my mother (who is a teacher) went through with a pencil, marking the mistakes. Overall it has all the sophistication of a first year A-level student's induction essay - and it's certainly not an A-grade.

Review: Why BBC's Merlin Episodes Need to Be 50 Minutes Long

Last year the fans were horrified when the fourth series of Merlin was commissioned and there was a suggestion that there would only be ten episodes rather than the usual thirteen. I admit I was one of the aforementioned horrified because the thought of the show being cut down for what was ultimately budget cuts seemed unfair. The show wouldn't have gained an extra few minutes, just have three episodes cut.

But following the end of Series 4 I cannot help but feel that the show could do with some sharpening. For one thing, anyone who has now bought the series on DVD will see that a wealth of material was cut from all the episodes for no other reason than the episode was clearly running too long and had to be shaved. For example in The Wicked Day which saw the demise of King Uther Pendragon and the accession of Arthur loped off an entire side-line in which Arthur and Gwen talk about the moral issues surrounding using magic to cure Uther. They were deep, rich scenes and I thought it was an outrage that they were cut, especially since rather painfully cringy scenes involving 'Emrys' and Arthur were kept in.

Another issue that frustrated me was the portrayal of the character Agravaine. This is no slight on Nathaniel Parker's performance but the character was completely undeveloped and unrealised. He was introduced in the first episode of the series, literally appearing from the shadows, and then stayed in the light until Merlin finally kills him in the last episode in a gloriously remarkable scene which has absolutely nothing to do with Agravaine and everything to do with Colin Morgan's amazing acting.

The most frustrating thing about him was that his origins were never explained. He literally appeared out of no where and was then treated as if he had always been there. It is possible that the writers wanted us to think that Agravaine had always been there. It was the only explanation that my mother could come to to explain why the show had failed to give him any background or motivations for wanting to kill his own nephew and replace him with his sister.

Oh, wait! There was an explanation. Agravaine was in love with Morgana, apparently. But why? She never gave him any reason to love her and she certainly never treated him as if he would prosper from helping her. The entire logical of this motivation was completely flawed and filled with holes. Yet the worst thing was that a scene in the second episode of the series in which Agravaine explains his love for her was cut. On the DVD you can watch the scene in which Morgana cruelly twists Agravaine's arm while he declares his undying love for her. Even with this scene it is still a weak motivation for this character who up until now had never been seen or heard, but without it we literally had to wait until episode thirteen for Agravaine to even suggest that this was his one and only motivation. This completely blighted not only the character but the whole backbone of the show.

Still, the show might have been a lot better if this scene had been left in and told the audience immediately what ended up just being wild speculation on the road to nowhere. Therefore I think the show could benefit from being 50 minutes long as opposed to 42 minutes long.

But I also think that in order to achieve this the show does need to be cut down. The creators need to learn not to waste precious screen-time as they did during Series 4. What could have been the best series ever was slighted by numerous screw-ups and poor choices in the editing suite. There were at least two episodes which the show could have done without last series, including the episode in which Elyan was possessed and the episode with the snake-woman Lamia. These were episodes which could have been used to explain other series plot holes, which as Agravaine's backgrounds and other motives (to back up the unconvincing ones he was given) or wrap up the whole story of Arthur's birth - which was never explained and yet Arthur suddenly appears to have full knowledge of.

Agravaine was Ygraine's brother yet he showed no genuine motivation on her part for revenge. The killing of Uther wasn't deeply portrayed enough and could easily have been justified by his flaky and ridiculously conceived love for the she-wolf. Many opportunities were wasted and the show needs to get its act together for this next series.

After all, it is due to be the last one.

___

Review: Being Human, the Half-Way Point

So, I know a lot of us were wondering what the future of Being Human would hold. We all wondered whether we could get by without our Fab Four, with the original cast number being taken down to one. We all wondered whether Annie would be strong enough to hold the show alone or whether the new characters would be as good as George and Mitchell without copying them.

Could the show cope without characters like Herrick as the Big Bad? Could the feared 'Old Ones' really be a massive threat? Could the show come up with a better plot than last years which foresaw the end of John Mitchell, every fangirl's wet dream?

But most importantly, would the show be able to survive the wave of unshakeable fan girls crying at the TV, "It's rubbish without Mitchell!"

Well, after all that wondering and with four episodes down (The Series half-way point) I can say this: Toby Whitehouse has kept the show fresh and alive where other show creators have failed.

For one thing the plot for Series 4 has so far bested all other plots to date. With a fantasy/sci-fi show there is always the pressure to 'top' what has come before. Take Doctor Who, for example. Once RTD brought back Gallifrey and the Time Lords in the New Years Special which also bid Bon Voyage to David Tennant's Doctor, we all wondered how the Hell Steven Moffat was ever going to top it. And what has followed since then?

Series 5 - The Destruction of the Universe and the Second Big Bang resulting in a BRAND NEW reality.
Series 6 - The Death of the Doctor, the Revelation of River Song's identity...

And what does Moffat have in store for the future? An answer to 'The First Question'. The only concern we have here is HOW much more than Doctor Who do after THAT? Because it is clear that the end of the last series foresaw the demise of the Eleventh Doctor (Who, by the way, is the Greatest Doctor of All Time. All Hail Matt Smith!) and from the sounds of things, this will be a regeneration that will make the Tenth Doctor's looking even more dreary and annoying than it already was!

Back to Being Human...


The plot of this series is definitely a step out of the comfort zone for many BH fans as the story has moved far away from its humble origins in a wafer pink house in Bristol. The story focuses on the destiny of George and Nina's daughter Eve who is apparently destined to bring about the destruction of the vampires. With the destiny comes two sets of enemies: on the one side we have the Old Ones, and elite group of vampires who fear the prophecy of the young baby. Then we have the mysterious Woman from the future, speculated by many to be Eve.

With the deaths of Mitchell, George and Nina, three of the original four line-up of Vampire, Werewolves, Human-Then-Werewolf and Ghost had been lost. Many people doubted before the show came back a few weeks back that the show could keep going after having suffered such heavy casualties on the cast list, leaving only the ghost Annie behind.

There is no denying that the original four characters were very popular, especially the vampire Mitchell. I, for my part, could not see the appeal of him as he seemed to demise as a character after Series 1 and by his death at the end of Series 3, he was my least favourite character. Even his finally getting together with Annie for a short interval felt a little empty because Mitchell had lost so much of what made him a sympathetic character. His desperation to hide and run away from his mass slaughter of the Box Tunnel 20 changed him and he had passed the point of no return. There was no going back. Aidan Turner was right to leave when he did because, in all seriousness, there was very little wriggle wrong for Mitchell's character any more.

However the loss of George and Nina, the Golden Couple of the show, did strike me as disappointing. Nina was my favourite female character: feisty and argumentative I grew to love her all the more my love of Mitchell declined. And as for George... he was always the heart and soul of the gang, but without Mitchell and Nina, he lost his edge and it right for him to die.

And so we were flung into Series 4 after the first episode with several things to get used to: a life without them, and a new life with Tom and Hal.

Tom we already knew from the last series as a young and not-too-bright werewolf, the adopted son of the Vampire Slayer McNair. With the death of his father it seemed only natural that he would move into HH with Annie and George, and with the death of the latter he has taken over in the show as Chief Werewolf. One of the appealing things about Tom is that he is so different from George and Nina. Although his lack of basic knowledge outside killing vampires and the cafe in which he works can be annoying at times, it is refreshing.

It is clear that the show is trying to re-create the friendship between the Werewolf and the Vampire with Tom's friendship with Hal. Of course, having spent most of his life killing vampires, this is difficult. Yet following Episode 3 in which Hal was forced by Annie to get a job and help support the household, it was nice to see the trust between Tom and Hal develop. It helps that they are really forced together by Annie, and by Baby Eve.

And as for Hal, the new Chief-Vampire in residence, he had an even tougher act to follow with the popularity of Mitchell. Yet all the fears of the fans have been averted and some (Including myself) actually prefer Hal. The king is dead, all hail King Hal!

The appeal of Hal's character lies in his classy self-control. Even people who still long for Mitchell admit also liking Hal, almost because he is impossible to dislike. He is oddly charming with his anal router of things he has to do to stay off killing and his enjoyment of the Antiques Roadshow (I think all of us regular viewers had a giggle by Tom and Hal's rejection of the "show about conmen...") and BBC Radio 4. But probably the reason why he is so difficult to dislike is because he has beaten Mitchell at one thing many fans, even the ones who adored him, held again him - his constant emo whining about how difficult it was to stay clean.

Hal is an Old One who has been clean of blood for fifty years following his live-in situation with another ghost-werewolf set. Mitchell was a one-hundred-and-twenty year old vampire he didn't manage to stay clean even once during the show's run despite his constant attempts. With every failure, sympathy for Mitchell faded but by bit. With Hal, we can start afresh. Here we have an odd-ball, strangely likeable vampire who has yet to fall off the wagon...

And all of us hoping he manages to protect Eve without killing someone in the process by feeding off their blood.

The Rise of the Female Messiah

Has anyone else noticed that in television and literature these days there is a rise in popularity, especially in science fiction and fantasy, of the notion of a Female Messiah or Saviour of the Human Race? I have just finished watching the opening episode to Series 5 of Being Human. They have killed off three of the four main characters and now all that remains is Leona Crichlow's character Annie, the vampire-slayer werewolf warrior Tom, (Who regular viewers will remember from the last series), and the human/werewolf hybrid baby newly christened 'Eve'.

Now, while this is only the first episode and everything is still a little ambiguous, (You need to watch it to understand why), it appears that George and Nina's daughter is the saviour of all human-kind as she will supposedly rid the planet of the vampires. In flash-forwards to twenty-five years into the future depict a bleak world in which, it appears, the beautiful Eve adorned with crucifixes and leading the human resistance against the vampires sacrifices herself in order to 'saves' humanity. By killing herself.

This seems to be a popular thread for quite a few television shows. It is a relatively new concept and one that in the case of British television finds its route in the mother of all British fantasy: Doctor Who. Anyone who watched last year's series which chronicles the love story of the Doctor and River Song will know that River Song herself is also a 'female saviour', Melody Pond. To the Silence, she is the warrior who will destroy the Doctor. To the Doctor, she is the woman who will save him. It should also be said that there are distinct parallels between the Being Human storyline with George and Nina's daughter and the Doctor Who storyline with Amy and Rory's daughter. They are both female children born to two of the protagonists of both shows; they are both feared and sought after by 'The Enemy' (The Silence/The Vampires); they are both human-plus (i.e. they possess supernatural qualities: a Child of the TARDIS/a Child of the Moon), and they both have to make ultimate sacrifices for the greater good. River gives her regenerations to the Doctor so that he could live, and Eve gives up her life to apparently complete the prophecy.

Given that Toby Whitehouse is the creator of Being Human, and has also written for Doctor Who, it is possible that the two shows have been influenced by each other. But is it more than that? Is this part of a growing trend that Woman is now the new Messiah for Man, rather than a man?

A quick look at the pre-Moffat era when Doctor Who was in the hands of Russell T Davis, there was still a hint of the Female Saviour. Rose Tyler took the Heart of the TARDIS into her head and destroyed a Dalek fleet; Martha Jones became known as the only person on Earth who could kill the tyrannical Master and defeated him with just the power of her words; and Donna Noble rehashed Rose Tyler, only instead of taking the TARDIS into her brain, she took the Doctor's consciousness. Three Women of the Doctor, all of them noted for being Messiahs. Martha Jones and Donna Noble in particular had legends circulated about them during their 'period of fame'.

But where did this trend of the Female Saviour and Messiah come from? Most people would argue that the first was Buffy. Yes, there have been many, many, many other female superheroes but the image of the Modern Female Saviour probably began with her. Even if you think it began earlier, you cannot deny that it has been heavily influenced by Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy, the blonde action-hero who saved the world countless times from demons and magical forced, died twice and rose again twice, and who kicked the stereotype that the pretty cheerleader in horror films always gets it first into the dirt.

It's not just Buffy either. Her best friend Willow was often totted as being more powerful than not only Buffy herself but the forces that created her powers in the first place. In the final episode of BTVS, Willow used her magic to change the natural laws that had determined that only one girl is chosen to be a slayer by making all potential slayers powerful. It should be noted that she is changing the law of men and, in effect, becomes a goddess. Cordelia, initially an air-headed yet gentle-natured cheerleader, matured into a sensible, self-sacrificing woman in Angel. The popularity of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel almost certainly helped promote this idea of Women as Saviours.

The next question is this: where does it go from here? So far the only big show in the UK not to produce a Female Messiah I can think of is Merlin. It is really one of the few examples at the moment where the Saviour is still a man - Merlin himself - rather than a newborn girl child destined to smite the evil. Yet that isn't to say there is no room for them to go down this route also. It has been established that Arthur and Merlin will reunite Albion, but that Morgana and Mordred will bring about its destruction by killing Arthur. There must be some for of 'setting the world right'. This is probably the room for yet another girl-child destined to save the world when all else fails. Arthur and Guinevere have just got married; babies are the next course of action and the show-makers have suggested they might try to continue to show past Series 5, which was said to be the final series, airing next year. Moreover since the turn of the 21st century the notion of giving the fames King and Queen a female heir is steadily becoming more and more popular.

So there is room for the birth of a Female Messiah who will finish Merlin's work by avenging her father and destroying Mordred. We will have to wait and see. Either way, I see room for more and more Messiahs in TV shows because there is a market for it. The world is steadily becoming harsher and the religious believe we are entering the Reckoning. The idea of a saviour coming to Earth to save us all is something we all hope and dream of.

Moreover, in this day and age, there is no denying that women make for more appealing figure-heads and saviours.

Quickie: Lack of Litter Bins?

Why is it that no matter where I am in London, whether I am at Bank or Monument, Canary Wharf or Canada Water, Tower Hill or Fenchurch Street, I always seem to be walking for miles and miles with an empty take-away coffee cup before I can finally find a bin to throw it away?

This has happened to me several times now. First time I really noticed it was when I was walking around Canary Wharf and its surround areas and I noticed the lack of bins near the river. I've already told you about this so I need not repeat myself.

The second time happened on Monday when I was making my way back to London via getting a coffee at the station cafe near my home. I made the coffee last and still had it when I got off the train at West Ham. I thought there were bins on the platform but I must have imagined it; there were none in sight. I actually still had the empty coffee mug with me when I got off at New Cross Gate, clutching it all the way on the Jubliee and Overground before I finally saw a bit just at the ticket barriers.

I wonder how many other commuters have the same problem?

The third time happened today. In my quest to get 10,000 steps in a day, I have taken to walking and wandering all over London. I'm starting to think what I should really do is that to jogging on the spot - seeing as I have an aversion to the gym! - not only because I hate working out in public, but because even after I have wandered up and down Oxford Street several times, and from station to station all over London, I was still 500 steps short by the time I got home.

But this is beyond the point.

This time I was carrying an empty coffee mug on the Central Line, then the Jubliee, then the Overground until it happily found its way into the very same bin the second cup made it into at New Cross Gate station.

I am certain there are other cases in which I have been left holding litter because I am too polite to just leave it somewhere. I think I was left holding a coffee mug when I left Westfield, Stratford a week or so ago. I drink a lot of coffee and more often than not I'm left holding the paper mug, looking for somewhere to dispose it. There have been times when I didn't get to throw them away until I reached the green bin near my flat!

My conclusion is that people aren't joking when they say there aren't enough litter bins - and people wonder why London is so dirty!

New Place #1: Canary Wharf

I know it seems strange given I am a Goldsmiths student that I have never been to Canary Wharf. It is, after all, only one stop away from my interchange at Canada Water. So often on the tube have I looked out the carriage window to see all those well-dressed people, an array of black, strutting through the station to one of the many class buildings I knew were out there.

Obviously, I had seen Canary Wharf on TV from one time or another.

So I decided to set after the rush hour and took my normal route home from New Cross Gate to Canada Water and from there to Canary Wharf. Now, I have been to Canary Wharf station before if only to stand there until a train came to pick me up because I had got onto a North Greenwich terminating train instead of a Stratford train, and didn't want change platforms as you would at NG. Therefore I was aware of just how large the station is and now long the escalators are.

Another thing about Canary Wharf station is that is linked to the Canada Square shopping centre, which is a bit of a... meh shopping centre. I suppose the reason I feel that way is because I am used to large and shiny shopping centres. Lakeside, Bluewater, Westfield Stratford... you get my idea. The feeling I got while walking through Canada Square was being trapped in a never ending line of small, expensive shops. They were all expensive, of course, as this is where the rich come out the play, to do shopping just metres away from their their place of work.

I was wearing dark clothes and the way people looked at me, they clearly thought I was 'one of them' -- a complete mistake. Still, I always feel it is best to blend in rather than stick out like a sore thumb. Together with my received pronunciation, courtesy of my grammar school educated mother, they were easily misled when I bought a coffee and tried to negotiate my way out of the maze.

After going to the very end of a long stretch, turning a corner and finding an escalator, I followed a woman with The White Company bags to the exit, around another corner. That led me to the front of Canada Square, where just ahead was Cadet Square. I walked straight ahead, wondering where it led. There were signs but I didn't really look at them at first.

Walking along, I found the site of the buildings beneath the grey sky morbid. Inside them were rows and rows of bored looking people at desks. I'm sure they all had good jobs but how tiring it must be for them to spend all day staring at a computer screen. Furthermore, I only saw about four or five people coming in and out of the buildings, so it seems most of them are chained to their desks. To think that will probably the future of most of us students. Either that or becoming a teacher.

I ended up at Westferry Circus, a secluded and quiet part of the Wharf. It strange because it really was very, very quiet. Like ghostly quiet. Even fewer people around there than there were in the Square and not a homeless person in sight near either of them. Yet sitting on a bench in Westferry Circus, just opposite the Thames, it reminded me of Duloc in Shrek.

So I sat there and finished my Latte. Once I had done that I stood up and looked around. To my surprise, there was not a dustbin in sight. It confused me because the place was impeccably neat and clean. The rich and powerful wouldn't have it any other way, being the centre of London's power. I suppose like me these people just walk around with their litter until they get back to their offices. It shows the class of people who do go for walks down there. I bet they don't spit either, one thing I love them before because it is something I cannot stand about some of the people from where I come from. I mean, seriously, who the hell spits? Animals. I went to a comprehensive school but if you spat from a height in the corridor, you got expelled on the spot. I knew a boy that happened to.

But still, no bins.

I circled the area near the hotels but still nothing. I walked back towards Cadet Square where, finally, I found several.

I returned to Canary Wharf that Friday evening, trying to find the DLR station to take me to Limehouse. I can't say there is anything much to spark my interest other than as a looking-glass into the future of my friends and many of my friends. If we don't end up as teachers, we're probably going to be some sort of private sector office monkey.

These people seem to have good jobs, but it makes me want to enjoy my short-lived freedom while it is still mine.

Review: Pixlr-o-matic for Google Chrome

This is a picture of me. Given that I don't have Photoshop on my netbook (My Dell laptop tragically died recently) I have been looking for a way to jam up my pictures, as I happen to take a lot of my friends, myself and most important of all, my cats.

I have discovered Pixlr-o-matic. Now, I am only just getting the hang of it but with a little adjustments and a play around, you can make your pictures look borderline professional. I was pleasantly surprised at how well they came out. This is strictly for beginners and quick-edit users only. I imagine that a professional or intermediate photo editor would spontaneously combust at how simple and limited this little program is.

Let's do a little walk through. First of all, download Pixlr-o-matic from the Google Chrome shop. Once you have done that, click on it in a new tab on your apps section (The button is at the bottom of your Chrome browser).

Now click on select an image from your computer.

The first selection on the photo editor (The Red Tab: Effects) is adding colour and gradients to the image. These all have different people names. For example the one I have used above is called 'Anne', which I chose because it darked my hair and added more contrast to the image. I recommend that if you want to use other colours, e.g. 'Melissa' but want to have more contrast, I recommend you adding it yourself using Window Live Photo Gallery (which you can find by right click on any image and then selecting Windows Live Photo Gallery, and then clicking Edit, Organize and Share in the top left-hand corner).

For the purposes of this edit, I have chosen 'Greg'.

Next up is the Blue Tab (Overlays):

Here you can choose textures and lighting effects. I simply adore adding these to my photos, banners and what not when I am using Photoshop so this is right up my street. I don't usually add them to pictures of myself but for the purposes of this review I will this time. I am choosing 'Local'.

Finally, we have the Green Tab (Borders):

This is where you can, you guessed it, add borders. There are many different ones you can chose but I prefer to use photo based ones. However there are many different ones including effects to make your photograph look like an old pre-1900s picture; effects like rustic, grunge and spot to give your pictures jagged edges and newspaper looks; and effects such as flowery and wispy to give your pictures pretty little curvy and flowery backgrounds. You can only get banners in black or white effects but there is a wide selection. I prefer black borders personally so I'm going to be boring and pick 'Black'.

And there you have it. Save:

Pixlr-o-matic gives you the choice of saving it to your computer or uploading it to imm.io. The latter is a good idea if you want to post your images to Twitter as it presents you with a shortlink like this one (http://imm.io/e95B) but otherwise I recommend just saving it to your computer if you are talking about Facebook snaps.

You can go back and re-edit the same image any time by clicking the back (<<) button or you can completely start again by pressing the 'other' button.

You also have a selection of more Effects, Overlays and Borders than the ones presented on your strip. For example if you click the little camera icon at the bottom of the page, you are taken to a selection page where you can pick a variety of different examples. The best selection is definitely the Overlays and the Borders. It would take me too long to explain why - go and have a look for yourself. The different types of each Layer to add to the photograph are added into nice little categories (e.g. Under Overlays you have things like Leaks, Chem burn, Light paint etc.)

Also if you want to have a little fun with it, you can also press the Mix-up icon next to the Camera icon, which  shuffles up all three types of layer for your photo to give you different effects. You do get some nice combinations so maybe have a play around with that if you want.

Overall I would definitely say this is a nice little thing to have on your Google Chrome if you want to quickly edit images, even if you are planning a very quick Tweet on Twitter.

STATS
Type: Lifestyle, Photography, Editing App
For the: Google Chrome
Rating: ***** 5 Stars!

Built Like the TARDIS: The British Standard Clothes Size

I love everything about Christmas from the food to the presents. This year was a nice one for me and my mother got me more than I ever expected to get. As well as the gloriously large box of Guylian chocolates to really help me chub up for the New Year and a beautiful Celtic cross, my mother also bought me some new sleepwear and underwear from La Senza. The dressing gown with little read robins was heavenly and the pink slipper boots are great...

Even the bikini briefs were a perfect fit. But the bras... ouch!

First of all, I want to state that I have a very positive body image. Like all women I have my moments, especially after Christmas when you do tend to start piling on a few pounds and your bras a bit more snug than usual. That said while I am not skinny I have a very nice little shape going on and, fortunately, when I do put on a couple of pounds it always seems to go up equally on my hips and my bust. It is my waist that gets a little chuckier, but again I still have a waist.

Here is my profile:

HEIGHT || 5 ft 5 in (165 cm)

WEIGHT || 140 lbs (67 kg)

BMI || 23. 3

BUST || 38.5 in (97.8 cm)

WAIST || 29 in (73.7 cm)

HIPS || 39.4 in (100.1 cm)

From this you can tell I am of average height and a healthy weight. Now according to the BS 3666:1982 – the British Standard Designation for Women’s Wear – I am a Size 16.

This is of course ridiculous.

Clothes wise, I have never bought anything larger than a Size 14 (US 12/EU 42). This is for many reasons. First, I tend to buy a lot of my clothes online and Size 14 is the one I KNOW will always fit me, which is handy is the shop in question does not do a free returns deal. Secondly, I like my clothes to be baggy. Thirdly, if I do buy clothes from shops I rarely have time to try them on in fitting rooms. And finally, probably the strangest reason of all, I feel that sometimes the bagginess makes me feel comfortable and, dare I say it, very secure.

My actual size, the clothes size that I prefer when I want my clothes to fit me properly, is Size 12 (US 10/EU 40) although I can fit quite comfortably into a Size 10 (US 8/EU 38). Most of the time I admit that I cannot see the difference between a 10, a 12 and a 14 especially if we are talking about a jumper, a blouse or a stretchy tee-shirt because the material gives way for slight weight differences. It’s only logical given there isn’t a woman alive who does not change her proportions, even those with high metabolism. I could probably squeeze myself into a Size 8 if I wanted (and I have done it, as I said earlier, just to prove to myself I could).

Yet here is the real reason I prefer Size 14: it’s because my relatively small frame must support D/DD breasts and I prefer to try and minimise their size rather than expose them. This has always been my feeling ever since I was fifteen-years-old and some forty-year-old pervert nearly fell over his shopping bags in Lakeside because he was staring at my chest. Even before then I preferred to hide them. When I was just eleven-years-old I already had 34B breasts and all the girls made fun of me. I hated it, and it has rather warped my view of clothing.

I figured a long time ago that I’d rather wear larger sizes and minimise the size of my bust than wear smaller sizes and flaunt them.

I am certain that by the British Standard Dress sizes, I am supposed to be a Size 14 to 16. The fact that I take a Size 10 through 14 really just shows the influence of Vanity Sizing. Just because I am labelled with a Size 16 doesn’t make me any fatter than if I were to be labelled with a Size 12; the only difference is the stroking of one’s ego.

I have seen a lot of articles about Vanity Sizing but the one I keep coming back to is the one on Retro Chick. In it the blogger describes how she went into TK Maxx and tries on Size 12 dresses, all of which fit, but according to the British Sizing Standard she was anywhere between a Size 14 and 18 despite having never brought an item of clothing larger than a Size 16. The article goes on to talk about issues such as the NHS/BHF and their unrealistic look on the measurement of women’s waists, and I would highly recommend you all read it. I have linked it at the bottom of this post.

Anyway, this article got me thinking about clothes sizes like I never have before. I started to wonder whether simply buying a Size 14 because I know it’s definitely going to fit my measurements was necessary. I started to wonder whether I did indeed fit comfortably into tops and trousers of smaller sizes, like a Size 10.

Mini Experiment

Yesterday I went to Lakeside Shopping Centre to enjoy the sales. Going early in the morning to avoid any afternoon crowds I treated myself to a Mocha Flake at Costa before heading off to some of my favourite clothes shops. The shops I visited include in this order Dorothy Perkins, Topshop, Primark, Miss Selfridges and M&S. I tried on tops and jumpers in each shop to see what were the smallest size I felt most comfortable in.

Here were the results:

Dorothy Perkins || Size 10

Topshop || Size 10

Primark || Size 10

Miss Selfridges || Size 10

M&S || Size 8

Conclusion: Having once believed myself to be a Size 12/14, it turns out I can fit quite happily into a Size 10.

This needs to be investigated further.

I fully intend to visit these shops again in a few weeks to try a more reliable way of testing clothes sizes; comparing them via dress size. So I will write up my findings when I get them for this experiment. All I will say for now is that women should stop worrying about their clothes sizes because they truly can vary between different shops.

The other night I looked up as many of the Sizing Guides for each individual shop I visited that I could. I also looked up the sizing guides for my favourite online shop, The Fashion Union.

Here is what I found:

So I AM a Size 14! Or a Size 12. So, I say throw out your tape measures, throw out your pre-conceived ideas that you are one size or another and just put on the size that suits you best.

Links

The British Standard 3666: 1982, Size Designation for Women’s Wear

How Vanity Sizing is Killing You, from Retro Chick

Dorothy Perkins Size Guide

Topshop Size Guide

Miss Selfridge Size Guide

Fashion Union Size Guide

M&S Size Guide