Hannah Nicklin

Rant (not to be mistaken for the Rant)

I find it difficult to rant. When I say I find it difficult to rant, what I actually mean is that I find it difficult to rant coherently, which is to say I feel coherence is important in a rant. A quick “define: rant” search on Google revealed amongst other things a rant (Rant) is an

“Old English dance of the seventeenth century in duple meter and binary form”.

Yes I ignored the other descriptions, but I like that, the notion that rants are impassioned outbursts (like movement and dance is) but only becomes communicative with form. Form is important in a rant because without it there’s no expulsion of feeling… it’s dissatisfying. To continue with the dance metaphor a bad rant is like watching those people on the dance floor who are too nervous/too much of a dickhead to dance properly, and who just pull stupid poses and ‘do the lawnmower’. Now dancing… and I mean real dancing – when you kind of phase out other people and don’t care how sweaty you are or how stupid you look – that’s the point at which it’s about you, and your emotions, your expulsion of energy. Go to an unfashionable rock club and try it. Good rants are transcendental while you rant, but at the end, when you sweating and breathing hard and dizzy and feel like your legs might collapse, expulsive too. But without the music, and without its end, you would either continue until you died, or finish before the song, a job only half done.

So why do I find it hard to rant coherently? You see there’s just so much to rant about I can’t stop, I fly from tangent to tangent, getting more and more stressed and missing the end of each rant until I just pull back because I’m getting so down that I’m too scared to go any further. It doesn’t feel like good writing, I do like some kind of structure…

So maybe it’s not the tangents that are the problem, maybe I am a naturally multilateral ranter, a Brecht of the ranting world, an episodic denouncer of society’s ills… maybe I should stop worrying about the read-ability of it, and let each little episode stand on its own…

Well here goes:

British Captives in Iran

It really annoys me the way that it’s ‘appalling’ that Iran was showing videos of the captured people ‘paraded’ whilst it’s fine that the entire British press were doing so, at the same time as extolling on the horror and hurt caused by these videos to the families- making the very ‘private’ grief ‘public’. Surely the way to prevent this would be to NOT SHOW THEM, leave them to Iranian/middle eastern TV, yes probably youtube, but still, I’m sure these families probably don’t pay for al jazeera in their sky subscriptions, and its effect on them would have been lessened.

Objectification of Women

While we’re on the subject of the media’s treatment of this, various sources’ singling out of the female captive to create that special kind of emotive slant on a story is just ANOTHER example of how women are used again and again in the media victim/mother/whore/angel/clever the problem IS the label, men are just men, but women are so very often ‘that type of woman’ or another and playing gently on the general western preconception about the ‘backwards’ treatment of women in middle eastern countries is an abuse far more terrible than someone suggesting, or she deciding, to wear a headscarf.

East vs. West (Feminism)

50 years ago in Britain it was unthinkable to go out on a Sunday without gloves on, if someone had seen your bra strap peeking out from under your vest top they would have been shocked, presumed you mad even. Yes there are certainly many ingrained and terrible inequalities for women, the poor, racial/religious minorities in the East, but these are not solvable by the West- they are compounded- western accusations only solidify the ground of the neo-conservative, far right Islamist (who are taking away many rights given to them by the Qur’an itself) and also supposes that the fight is finished here. And ignoring the rights being withheld in a slightly more familiar (safe, Christian) manner by neo conservative Christians. The fight is not done, the fight for men and women to just be themselves, a patriarchal claw back is occurring as we speak, and the gain for men is just as destructive. It’s more subtle, we are lead to believe that we’re choosing one construct or another as we play the flirt, the provider; we think we’re wielding power, but so long as we do that, we’re playing a part that someone else has written.

No Bra Burning Ever Happened

It is actually embarrassing to call yourself a feminist these days, I have to follow the “I am a feminist” statement with the fact that not all feminism is hairy, very little is anti male, and at no point in the entire 70s feminist movement was a bra burned (popular myth- some women threw nasty girders and false eyelashes and metal bras into a bin, but no burning went on- a newspaper made it up) and YES is still very necessary. It’s not about hating men, it’s about making us ‘people’ or individuals more or less equal. I eventually have to quote rape prosecution statistics, mention MP representation, the still lingering 30% or so pay gap in the part time sector, and the ‘bonuses’ in some areas of work which are paid unconditionally to men to supplement the ‘basic’ pay women get (this really does happen) In the 1960s, women were earning less than 60 pence for every £1 earned by men. Today, they are still paid only 71p for every £1. You can quibble with statistics, you should, how else can we get to the bottom of the reality of the situation. At the end most men are kind of surprised, and no longer threatened by me… But attitudes everywhere remain painful:

Plus Forty Four

I went to see an all male band who were supported by an all female band- the all female band wasn’t great, but most supports aren’t, that’s why they support, however all the men around me found it completely acceptable that their first comments about these women was not their music, but how ‘fit’ they were.

Pet Names

I object to people calling me pet names, this is not because I necessarily believe the person is doing so vindictively, it is because I do not wish to be pigeonholed along side a million other ‘luv’s, someone pulled me up on this the other day ‘he didn’t mean anything by it’ – but surely a couple of decades ago words such as ‘nigger’ or ‘wog’ being part of common parlance was even worse than them being used now with spite- because the person using any of those words is placing an individual in a group, as an ‘other’. In short is unconsciously prejudiced.

Indie Boys

If I ever grabbed an indie boy’s dick (in a hurty way) and said he was asking for it because of the revealing, spray on, skinny fit jeans he was wearing I’d be weird, but when guys find it ok to pinch my ass, and pinch is so that it hurts (up until the point I stamp on their stupid indie converse covered toes) it’s ok, because I’m wearing jeans that vaguely show off my shape (because I HAVE one, which is slightly alien in the indie world). Why is it always women asking for it? Why does it matter if a rape victim is drunk? Why are men portrayed as completely incapable of controlling their lust? It’s because women are continually portrayed as objects, not individuals, but one stereotype or another, something selling a magazine or a car. This isn’t a man (singular)’s fault any more than it is a woman (singular)’s fault. It is gender roles.

Movies Aren’t Real

Gender roles don’t fit anyone, they just damage people, if men feel usurped it’s because they are also tormented by an unattainable gender role. It’s like sex in the movies, if any guys out there still think that’s how you do it, please do talk to a female friend as soon as possible, it’s never going to be like it is in the movies, you’re never going to be able to think say or be everything you think, or are told, that you should. So give up. No, give up now. Do it. If it rains when you are outside having an argument it’s coincidence. Saying exactly what you feel and then storming out is never productive. Running along the platform as a train leaves will just mean you’ll bump into someone. Deal with it.

Bedtime

Sigh. I could go on for longer… but I should go to bed. I promise not many of my blogs will be like this.

A Haiku (probably)

Writing update…

1) ‘Crystal Clear Creators‘, a local creative writing intiative have accepted one of my poems ‘The Ardeche Gorge’ for publication in their pending anthology ‘Beginnings and Endings’.

2) they have also agreed to record my latest play for radio ‘Prometheus and Sisyphus’ recording begins in early May.

3) I have begun to develop a statement of intent for my Science Fiction Theatre:

“I propose to develop my ideas for a Science-Fiction Theatre, using ‘universes’ (mythical, classical, forward in time) to form a commentary coercive but subtle in intent. This will be akin to a combination of the best Radio Four political comedy and the moment at the end of Caryl Churchill’s ‘Far Away’ where following a fantastical yet strangely recognisable presentation of modern fear, a character recalls dipping her foot in a river, this suddenly humane experience grounds the audience to this world and its own brand of political violence. However my theatre would address the more subtle violence never quite being able to do, say, or be everything you think (or are told) you should.”

all very exciting! ^_^

Derby train station: a rant .

I like trains. I don’t drive – for plenty of reasons – and so trains for me are kind of my (forgive the pun) ticket to freedom. They, are how I escape, visit people I love, return home after. Trains. I like them… What I don’t like however, is train stations. Train stations and the completely inexplicable and un-announced stops they seem to have to make in them. Stops in the countryside are normally ok, apart from the train from Nottingham to Lincoln which finds it necessary to stop nearly every journey outside a sewage station, most countryside stops are the equivalent of stopping the car to admire the view. But the un-planned stops in stations, are the equivalent of traffic jams; why they happen is beyond me, I will probably never find out, my journey is being unnecessarily delayed, and they make me want to hit people.

Out of all the train stations I don’t like, one right up there with the worst of them is Derby train station. Derby train station is green and dark and…not even a nice green, not verdant, or relaxing, no, the station is a maze of high standing MDF panels painted a particular shade of toxic blue-green than makes your eyes feel funny.

And I am sat. On a train. In Derby train station squeezing my eyes open and closed to try and counter the effect of the MDF maze when I see these people. These… men. I didn’t mean to spit that with so much venom, but… well, it’s the tall one that draws my attention first. He moved like a pigeon. I mean he’s normal looking- quite a standard, balding, be-anoraked train station hanger on. It’s nothing in his appearance that gives him his pigeon-osity. It’s the strut. He’s strutting and when he struts his head bobs, back and forth and, although I can’t hear a word, is clearly bobbing in time with the rant he’s expectorating with great force. His fellow pigeons meanwhile, shorter, with obviously cheaper anoraks, follow him, butt in with (what seems) encouragement, acquiescence, exalting his king-among-pigeon-men status.

Now I would have passed this vision off as vague toxic-green induced psychosis. I could have continued trying to read my book, or shifting in my seat, or wondering when the unannounced stop in Derby would possibly end and I would able to reach my destination. But the moment, my moment, was stolen back by this man, solidified. A middle aged Chinese woman appeared from some MDF obscured stair set, walking briskly, followed by her daughter and an attendant pointing them in their direction. It was then. They nailed it. Those pigeon men; they earned Derby the accolade of my most loathed station, lead by Mr. King-Pigeon as he fluently spun on his heel, steepled his hands, bowed his legs, protruded his front teeth and waddled after her, squinting. His friends laughed. She didn’t see. Then he turned, and started leering at me.

I like trains. Because the train took me away.