A GOOD DEATH

Woody Allen’s once quipped  ”I’m not afraid of dying; I just don’t want to be there when it happens”. This is a similar rationale that you also find in a corny joke I remember hearing, on the Dave Allen Show I think, when one man says to another – “I’d like to know where I’m going to die” – “What for?” asks the other. The man replies “Because I won’t go there!”

Behind this black humour lies the very real fear of the when, where and how we will die. These are not happy thoughts, of course, and for the sake of sanity they are questions most people (myself included) prefer to put to the back of their minds.

I admire the philosophy of my mother who at the ripe old age of 81 has just bought a new car and continues to plan holidays and excursions as if she had another 30 years to live (given her stubbornness and hardy constitution, who’s to say she’s wrong!).

There will come a time, however, when the inevitable must be faced and so I was moved by bravery of a couple from Berkshire, who this week chose to end their lives despite the fact that they were still in relatively good heath.

Dennis and Flora Milner, who were aged 83 and 81 respectively,  wrote to the BBC explaining their decision : “we can no longer attain the desired and acceptable level to support an enjoyable and worthwhile life”.

Daughter Chrissy, who knew what they planned to do (but not when) gave a short and dignified interview in which she said that it was her parents’ intention to have a “good death” at the end of their happy and devoted  life together. A BBC booklet ‘planning a good death’ is available but obviously the advice doesn’t include suicide.

UK legislation currently classifies any assisted suicide as a criminal offence.  For this reason, many choose to go to Swiss clinics where it is legal.  This option is only available to those who have the financial means and can come to terms to dying a long way from their homes.

The moral questions and dilemmas highlighted by the Milners story are huge, but , as Chrissy Milner says,  there needs to be an urgent debate with a view to adding clear and rational legislation to the statute books. The work of the organisation  Dignity in Dying is vitally important in putting pressure on the government and highlighting the plight of ordinary people who don’t want to end their lives in degrading and painful circumstances.

Image = Plate 37 from William Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’

NO CROSSES TO BEAR

God is watching!

I applaud The European court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for ruling against the use of crucifixes in Italian schools. In their judgement they stated that: “The compulsory display of a symbol of a given confession in premises used by the public authorities… restricted the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions.”

NAPPING WITH THE WILD THINGS

I have to confess to nodding off during the mid section of Spike Jonze’s movie version of ‘Where The Wild Things Are’.  If nothing else, this shows that the ‘monsters’ are in no way scary – with their runny noses and sad eyes they look every bit as vulnerable as the 9 year old kid.

WHAT WILL WE BE

I wonder if Devendra Banhart is just too damn happy to make another record to match the brilliance of  2004’s ‘Rejoicing In The Hands …..’ , an album which IMHO still stands  as his masterpiece.

Banhart has always been the personification of a red rag for bullish hippy bashers.  Consequently, the backlash against his freaky brand of folk has been substantial. Added to this are the insidious snipes over his high-profile dalliance with Natalie Portman and ,now, comes his switch from the hallowed Indie ranks of XL Recordings to the major label Reprise Records of  Warners Music Group (boo! hiss!).

Verily, not the actions of a back to basics treehugger.

FUCKING LIKE BUNNY

Avril Lavigne’s vagina and Kylie Minogue’s ass are just two of the abiding obsessions of the monstrous protagonist in Nick Cave’s new novel – The Death of Bunny Munro. In 2006, as part of Grinderman, Cave performed the memorable ‘No Pussy Blues’, but his Bunny can make no such complaints. He’s a character who regards himself as a “world-class cocksman” , a God’s gift to woman and his maniacal one track mind means that every female, young or old, fat or thin, pretty or ugly is regarded in purely sexual terms.

MY SUMMER OF LOVE

Pleased to finally get to see ‘My Summer of Love’ (2004) which was directed by Pawel Pawlikowski  and recently featured on the Observer’s  list of the best British films of the last 25 years.

It’s a fine movie that works mainly because of the perfect casting of Natalie Pressna as Mona and Emily Blunt as Tamsin.  There’s a real chemistry between these two that draws you into the story immediately.

Freely adapted from a novel by Helen Cross, the movie tells the story of these two isolated young women from different social backgrounds who meet by chance and become friends and lovers.

Tamlin is  a fantasist, cellist and atheist from a wealthy family. She’s been suspended from boarding school for being a bad influence on others.

Mona doesn’t know her father and her mother is dead, so she lives with her brother who has found God (“or God found him”) while in prison. “He went inside, but came out funny”  says Mona.

While the brother’s crusade to rid the small northern village of sin is a key aspect of the story, it is intense friendship between the women that lies the movie’s heart . Their relationship is a failed attempt to live an existential existence beyond good and evil (Tamlin has read her Nietzsche!).

That freedom has its limits, is something the more streetwise Mona understands more readily than her supposedly more educated lover.  Asked by Tamlin what she plans to do with her life Mona at first jokes that she’ll become a lawyer, then gives an altogether bleaker outlook :  “I’m gonna get a job in an abattoir – work really hard – get a boyfriend who’s a bastard – churn out all these kids with mental problems and I’m gonna wait for the menopause ……….or cancer”.

For all her apparent learning and haughty detachment, Tamlin is unable to face up to reality in such stark terms. While Mona seems the weaker and more impressionable of the two, it is she who ultimately seems to be the most clear minded and purposeful.

The hint of optimism of the end of the movie comes from the feeling that she at least has the courage and wits to make something of her life.

CAPTURING POLLY

Jane Bown’s lifetime in photography is justifiably celebrated and is in the news again through the publication of a collection of her most famous shots (‘Exposures’) and an exhibition at the Kings Place Gallery  in London.

A selection of her fantastic portraits can be seen in the  the gallery in the Observer .

All her subjects are in black and white and captured using just natural lighting. Bown, now in her 80s, is a modest and self effacing character who shuns the limelight and this  is probably what allowed her to get close to her subjects, even those who were notoriously camera shy, like Lucien Freud and Samuel Beckett.

The eyes are what you are drawn to when you see these images.

This great picture of P.J. Harvey, which I hadn’t previously seen,  illustrates what makes Jane Bown so great. In that strong sorrowful gaze you get a glimpse of what makes Polly Harvey’s music so powerful – the look (and the music) manages to be both assertive and fragile at the same time.

Bown almost certainly didn’t know Harvey’s music when she took this photo, just as she had never heard of Bjork or Jarvis Cocker when she was commissioned to photograph them.  This shows that her skill lies in being an instinctive judge of what made people tick.

MORRISSEY ILL

Saddened to hear that Morrissey collapsed onstage after completing just one song – This Charming Man – at  Oasis Leisure Centre in Swindon, Wiltshire.

He was initially said to be in a stable condition and subsequently discharged after one night in hospital.

The incident is an indication that he has underlying health problems. The fact that  he has pulled out of so many concerts of late means you have to worry that these are pretty serious.

Not surprisingly,  there have always been denials that he has any major  problems – earlier this in Rimini the promoters came up with a spurious excuse about the stage not being big enough! Hopefully now we’ll get to know the true nature of his physical condition.

Get well soon Mozza!!!

report of Morrissey’s collapse

REAL TRUTH IS SUBVERSIVE

I’m grateful to the link from Wikileaks to John Pilger’s keynote speech at Chicago Socialism conference in 2007. This is full of the sort of wisdom that you encounter all too rarely.

His main topic is what he calls ‘professional journalism’ , by which he means those in the media who do no more than present governmental and institutional propaganda.  Journalists, he argues, should be the “agents of truth and not the courtiers of power”.

He speaks with the authority of someone who understands the “bogus objectivity” that passes for a free press and is part of the process of “normalising the unthinkable”.

In Iraq, for example,the real atrocity of the war  is for the most part unreported, or else presented in a way that makes America (and Britain) blameless.

Pilger says that  “real truth is subversive” and the myth that the media speak for the public is the great lie.

Hope lies in the guerrilla journalism that can find an outlet via the internet .

“True democracy is always fought and struggled for”.

STEP WITH INTENTION

I’m currently using this photo of graffiti I took in Portland as my screensaver image – a real work of art by person(s) unknown. It’s located off Hawthorne in a side street opposite  Ben & Jerry’s if memory serves me well. A great advert for an area which a brochure describes as a “popular and eclectic close-in neighborhood known for its mix of funky counter-culture with a vibrant bohemian flair”