freewheelin', cartwheelin', tumbling towards the light...
Well here we are again. the world turns faster every year and I think 2011 has been no exception. January to March flew by like they were strapped to a rocket-sled and then the countdown to Christmas began around October and before we know it here we are at another end-of-year awards ceremony.
Okay. without further ado I present:
Event of the Year 2011
The Arab Spring
Honestly, who’d thought that one desperate man immolating himself in Tunisian rush-hour would cause so much upheaval? Though technically occurring in 2010 the spark of revolution started burning in the New Year and as of writing hasn’t stopped yet. Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have all seen their dictators toppled and Syria is currently embroiled in a mass guerrilla war with its own people as it too attempts to wrest control from the corrupt (and now being seen as brutally murderous) Basher Al-Assad regime.
With uprisings, protests and marches stretching across the top of Africa and into the Middle East, what is noticeable among all these outbreaks in the use of globally accessible technology, specifically mobile phones, viral videos and accounts from people at ground zero of events. Much of the likes of independent international newsrooms like Channel 4’s newsworthy coverage of the events (especially in Syria) are obtained from primary sources using the Internet as a voice. This is the first time this has happened to the extent of national revolution and it shows the world how little freedom of press and speech the population of these countries have, yet they still manage to tell the world what is going on.
Honourable Mention
London and UK riots in cities including Manchester and Bristol over the summer. Initially in response to the questionable shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham they quickly escalated into something else. Something that still doesn’t have a concrete explanation that everyone can agree on.
Sporting Event of 2011
Rugby World Cup 2011
The biggest event of the year for a variety of reasons. No bigger than the question mark surrounding the New Zealand All Blacks, could they finally win the World Cup? As the game was being hosted by New Zealand many people said they wouldn’t get a better shot at it, to the point that if they didn’t win it all they might as well stop playing in the tournament altogether.
In the end they won it, just, with a low scoring game over the French. But the whole thing was a little surreal at times. Not least because given the location and the time differential many games were broadcast live at 6am. The clash between England and Scotland was an 8.30am kick-off on a Saturday, which made the whole ‘down the pub’ atmosphere a new experience! And special note to Wales to got all the way to the semi-finals before losing to France, the team that did England in the previous week.
HM
SuperBowl XLV (45). Green Bay and Pittsburgh produced another close game, only decided within the last minute when Pittsburgh ran out of downs to lose the game 31-25. I lost around £30 on betting and am still dealing with the emotional trauma to this day…L
Film of the Year 2011
The King’s Speech
The tale of the stammering of George VI and how he fought to overcome such dysfluency and lead his country to war was beautifully done. A shoehorned Oscar for Colin Firth in the title role he managed to get not just a convincing stammer across to the audience but also the submerged emotional trauma that goes along with it. Supported by a brilliant cast of Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham-Carter I think it was the first movie ever to portray what it is like to stammer and how it is possible to overcome (but not lose!) the difficulties that are associated with being dysfluent.
HM
Sucker Punch - Zack Snyder’s first original film fell down in plot but made up for that in visuals.
The Help - The film about prejudice in the Deep South in the 60’s was a hit for the latter half of the year
Black Swan - Natalie Portman going bonkers whilst doing ballet snagged her the Oscar and is one of the few intense female performances in recent Oscar winning memory.
Never Let Me Go - English film about the life of 3 young clones as they come to grips with their planned lives.
Film first seen in 2011
Repo Men
Jude Law starring as a repossesser of human organs reminded me of a sketch by Monty Python. If you want/need a new organ (heart, lung, liver) then you can get one but if you can’t afford the repayments then the hospital that owns the organ sends someone to retrieve their property. Law unfortunately ends up owning a heart and as a result falls into the grey area of being both a client and an employee. In the end he decides to bring the whole rotten system down from within, with the help of Alice Braga, and they set off to blow up the records of the main hospital in charge.
The main scene for me is an intensely charged erotic scene between the two of them as they try and ‘scan themselves’ out of the system by cutting into themselves to barcode the implants. Set to a slow version of ‘Sing It Back’ by Moloko it does set pulses racing and the tag ‘Music to Shag To’ has never been more fitting for that band’s music.
Album of the Year 2011
All At Once by Airborne Toxic Event
The band from California manage to go back-to-back. Scooping the award last year when I heard their self-entitled debut album.
There was big hoo-ha for this for months and when it finally arrived for me it didn’t disappoint. Go listen to this band now! The second album is a little more grown-up than the first but what made the first one great (lyrics, catchy if occasionally ripped off melody) still remain. Special mention go to Numb and Changing, the latter possibly being the cream of the band’s impressive catalogue to date.
HM
Sucker Punch OST - The collection of covers added to the movie given each cover’s extensive re-working and inclusion at poignant moments in the film.
Album First Heard in 2011
Me and Armini by Emiliana Torrini
Picked up in a second hand shop in Glasgow I first heard Torrini on the Sucker Punch Soundtrack, her growling and slightly surreal rendition of White Rabbit adding to the madness of a psychedelic World War One battle scene. This album is surprisingly good. Nothing groundbreaking but nice to bake to and dance around the apartment to. And it’s often my bath music, nice to read in the tub to.
Song of the Year 2011
Changing by Airborne Toxic Event
The first song of the album it has a lovely back-beat that reminds me of the song off Bugsy Malone entitled ‘So You Wanna Be A Boxer?’ The video takes place in a bar where the bar crew engage in an impressive dance routine that has them hurling themselves all over the place and the band getting mobbed at the end by a grateful audience. Ahhh!
HM
Where Is My Mind? by Yoav & Emily Browning - Just pipped by the ATE, Yoav’s version of his own song with Sucker Punch lead Browning adds some lead in the pants to his own version. The drum beat kick-up at the 3 minute mark and the electric solo a few minutes after give the whole thing a lot more life. What’s better is that it corresponds in the movie to Browning’s character’s realisation of what she has to do to achieve her freedom. A good song when your back’s against the wall and all hope seems lost…
Book of the Year 2011
Boys will Be Boys by Jeff Pearlman
Pearlman’s book chronicling the dark side of the Dallas Cowboys’ glory days in the nineties was the literal equivalent of peeking behind the curtain and seeing the football team of the nineties in all their decadent psychosis. Or possibly psychotic decadence.
Highlighting their 3 Superbowl wins in 4 years it ignored the plaudits and examined the cold reasoning behind the team’s success. Included in this wagon-train to nowhere the phrase ‘nothing exceeds like excess’ was less a stuffy stat-filled tale of how great the team was and more a social examination of what caused the team to be that dominant.
Strip clubs and misogyny, mountains of cocaine and marijuana the team was a coiled spring under Jimmy Johnson but when he quit after the second championship the lax, loose attitude of Barry Switzer put the inmates firmly in charge of the asylum. Players crashed their cars, failed drug tests, operated a team-brothel and it’s still unbelievable they managed to win the third Superbowl in 1995.
Eventually the wheels came off but what’s interesting is that the ‘thuggish’ attitude the Cowboys preached is now widespread in the league (minus the drug abuse) and the rah-rah attitude - though now heavily diluted - was neat as draino during the early nineties. It’s a miracle not more of them died.
HM
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - A trilogy about kids fighting for their lives is very dark at the end. The film’s due out in March 2012.
Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher - A story of a young t-girl trying to find acceptance in a Missouri town.
Clones by Michael Marshall Smith - A book about cloning that would be a good film is Hollywood had balls.
Gone but Not Forgotten of 2011
Al Davis (1929-2011)
Al Davis passed away on Yom Kippur, which is the Day of Atonement for the non-Jewish among you. There’s a saying that only the very best and the very worst pass on this day and for Davis, a Jew from pre-war Brooklyn he clearly had a measure of both as his legacy attests.
Al Davis was the founder, owner and for a time the coach of the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders. The NFL bad-boys since the days of John Madden (the man coached before he started putting his name on video games) in the seventies the team developed a misfit us-against-the-world attitude that continues to this day. Dressing in black and with a pirate as a team symbol they followed up the look with a questionable attitude to all in authority.
To this day they are the often the most penalised team each year and this has often caused them to lose games they should win.
But the flip side of this anti-establishment attitude is that the Raiders became (and to an extent still are) a team that takes any player regardless of character. Misfits, rejects, renegades all find a home with the Raiders as long as they can play and for a time in the late seventies and early eighties that the team one three championships largly with this philosophy.
If that were not enough Davis himself was more influential to the league structure than many realised. Hiring the first black head coach and the first female trainer in a league that until very recently was governed by the ‘good-old boy’ network it was monumental that Al had the foresight to lobby for such social changes. This is evident now within the international soccer world where there are very few (almost none) coaches of colour playing at premiership level. Personally I find the apathy towards that astounding, and that opinion comes from the groundwork laid by Al Davis.
I think what I liked the most about him was his refusal to march in lockstep with the other owners when following the orders of the commissioner of the league. All major organisations should have at least one naysayer; it keeps the structure grounded and allows it to thrive. Shalom Al.
HM
Amy Winehouse - The sultry bee-hived singer accidently overdosed on booze at the age of 27.
Osama Bin Laden - The mastermind responsible for 9/11 was finally discovered in Pakistan and got one between the eyes courtesy of a US Seals team back in May.
TV Show of 2011
Boardwalk Empire
Easily the hardest award to give, my purchase of Sky TV meaning I now have access to a higher percentage of tv’s cream shows rather than the usual freeview dross.
But BE had to win this award. Recently closing its second season and with a third on the way its tale of prohibition New Jersey (the boardwalk in question) in 1920 has scooped awards from everywhere. Detailing the intrigue of American politics at the time together with the rise of some of the most well-known gangsters ever (Al Capone, Meyer Lansky) it has you following every episode with eager anticipation of the next.
Rarely a poor performance from an ensemble cast it has some memorable characters from Chalky White (Mike Williams, played Omar in The Wire) and mask-wearing sniper Richard Harrow to Margaret Schroder, who being the female lead in a cast 75% male holds her own against protagonist Steve Buscemi as he tries to hold onto his power and she wrestles with her own demons as an immigrant from Ireland.
What I like the most though is the stark contrast to English period-drama Downton Abbey. Set in the same year but 4000 miles away in England the differences between the two shows is understandably stark. But aside from the shootouts, assassinations and sex scenes both shows focus on people talking to each other; from honest soul-bearing to agreements on the best way to murder someone the writing is excellent. And as with such a good show it highlights the limitations of its neighbours, and you go to bed wondering ‘Why oh why can’t all TV be like this?’
HM
The Shadow Line - BBC’s 6 part drama on the UK heroin trade and how its tentacles snake everywhere was breath-taking. With a body count as high as the Sopranos and a terrifying performance by Stephen Rea as Gatehouse its script was the highlight in a world where anyone can be corrupted and everyone can be bought off (if not bought off then killed). Its attitude towards the global drug trade scared people in its honest reality.
Alphas - Another ‘you have special powers’ drama with a group of people in New York but with an element (albeit teeny tiny small) of biological fact it is surprisingly good. And currently not cancelled. Yet.
Spartacus - Steven S DeKnight’s tale of the Thracian slave rebelling against Rome is both graphic in and out of the arena. Despite the sad death of the lead (Andy Whitfield) to cancer he is forging a second official series hopefully as bloody as the first.
My Own Personal Tale of the Year 2011
Finding that Somewhere Else can be Somewhere Better
I left my old hospital back in January and following my annual week off for the Superbowl I reported for duty in Urology in the other hospital, Southmead, and have been there ever since. I admit I wasn’t sure what to expect to begin with, I had worked in the department for 2 weeks the previous year during my theatre course and knew some of the surgeons and staff but not all of them, and they certainly didn’t know me. Now, here we both were, thrown together in a marriage of convenience.
What I learned was that people think I’m ok. The environment in question I have compared it to the Oakland Raiders in their disinterest in any character issues you might have, the misfits and the rejects fit in well in Urology because they have a work-ethic that is beneficial to the department. It doesn’t straitjacket itself with ticky-tacky rules (eg. “You are rostered til 6pm and I WILL NOT let you leave at 5.55pm!!”) and in return the crew works hard, does what is needed and thrives.
For the first time in my career I have been outside of work with colleagues (and now officially friends) for something other than Christmas parties. That just didn’t happen in Frenchay. Often on Fridays - Fridays is the hardest day of the week - a few of us relocate to a nearby pub for a pint and a post-mortem of the day. We bond, and for any team be it sports or otherwise bonding is an important part of becoming an effective unit.
Are we all BFF’s? Nope. But we’re all friendly to each other, if only to moan about something that affects us all. We are kind of like a family and that to me personally is something that is terribly important for my own mental state. Some people know about that, the reason why I was transferred, I am comfortable enough to tell them and they are honest enough to help me when I need it, give me space when I need that and in return I do for them. Not because I have to, but because I want to.
It makes it enjoyable. Keeps the demons out, the maelstrom settle and allows me to enjoy my work rather than simply endure it.
HM
Having (hopefully!) my final surgical procedure in CX. Just a revision of tissue it meant another round of propofol and almost six weeks off work over the summer as I fought to regain my strength. Ug!
Getting on the first rung of the property ladder. I know it’s only a little 2 bedroom apartment but it’s mine (and the banks, and the builders) and I can walk to work so I’m not paying something stupid in gasoline and parking permits and it’s warm and mine and lovely.
Well. there you have it. 12 whole months. I don't think 2011 was one of my favorite years, but as Charlie Brooker commented yesterday it certainly wasn't a boring one. He used the analogy that 2011 was like a season finale, where everything explodes, the body-count skyrockets and there are cliffhangers galore for the forthcoming season. I don't know how 2012 is going to open, but it will be the most eagerly anticipated January's in recent memory.
Personally it was a time of transition for me. The common overused phrase is 'The only thing constant is change' and that was certainly true this year. I bought my own property and i started dating again. I am in a job where I am supported most of the time surrounded by a workforce that understand me to a greater percentage than the previous workforce did.
I have plans for the future, a writing course that is due to start on the 10th January and I have sold another 2 prints in the Staff art exhibition which will hopefully net me close to £80 in the New Year.
What do I want to do with my 2012?
I want to take the American Conversion course. Or at least start studying for it. I always thought that somewhere else would be somewhere worse, but this year nothing could've been further from the truth. I still don't trust the majority of people I know but I think I am improving, my feelings are still tender and raw, and if I am honest I doubt if they will ever be as strong as some people's. However I cannot, I will not, dwell on these limitations.
I can't. It's too damaging. I resolve to be more positive in 2012. If only in some aspects of my life rather than all.
My love and happy new year to everybody.
Devi Xx