Sinister: In other news...

[Kieran Devaney]

The phrase "In other news..." has been unfairly compartmentalised i think. 
What usually follows it is generally a weak attempt at lightening the tone, 
probably cobbled together by the work experience boy, to make up for the 
tales of drug addiction and woe that constitute the main news. Rarely are 
the tales of 'a local man who has found a new and profitable use for the old 
lawnmowers he keeps in his shed...' much consolation; and so the phrase has 
become associated with naff, non threatening token local news stories, too 
bland to be amusing or interesting. How unfortunate. Theres a strange 
psychology attatched to these stories isn't there? Possibly syptomatic of 
the the kind of malaise that affects a semi literate culture: the need to 
trivialise everything, so however bad things are, it's really ok, because 
they've still found time for the comedy story. Everyone goes away happy 
enough, or at least no more sad than when they started watching. The point 
of this whole paragraph was to now give you a link to a(n) hillarious 
website which visciously mocks the very foundations of local news reporting, 
especially the type of stories i've mentioned above. But i can't find the 
link. I'm sure i saved it to the favourites folder, so you can imagine my 
surprise at not being able to find it.
I realise this isn't much use to you as things stand.
Sorry.
If i find the link i'll let you know.

"I belong to the race of the disinherited, and I shall die without ever 
knowing whether the treasure within me is diamond or paste!"
Gustave Flaubert wrote that, in his book 'Sentimental Education', and that 
particular phrase struck a chord within me, and it sums the book up quite 
nicely too; pivotally located between pages 28 and 29 in my edition. I'll 
digress for a bit now because i feel like it, there will be a point to it at 
the end though, honest. In assemblies at school, the deputy head (Mr Vince 
Darby in case you're interested), used to do one particular speech at least 
four times a year, and it basically revolved around a quote from the 8th 
century (i think ) in China, which went on about the youth of the day not 
having as much respect for the older generations as was had in times of 
yore. Mr Darby tried to construe this as meaning that the 'youth' had been 
steadily losing respect for their elders for centuries; a vast downward 
spiral if you like, he would continue by pointing out then, that loss of 
respect was no new thing as regards society. He would finish by telling the 
school in general that we should buck up our ideas. Of course any vaguely 
savvy person would have interpreted said assembly as proof that the elderly 
(for the quote was from 'a wise elder') have always bemoaned their lost 
youth by blaming the young for being young, and have been doing so for 
centuries. On a wider level, proof that in terms of our behaviour at least, 
we haven't changed that much as a species. And thats where Flaubert and his 
book come back in, because the sentence i quoted at the top of the paragraph 
(it'll still be there if you missed it) was written sometime between 1895 
and 1869, and it still has resonance today. Because 'Sentimental Education' 
is, at least in part, about dreams going awry, never quite achieving what 
you believe to be your destiny and unrequited love. This does make it a 
tough book to deal with if you still have your whole life ahead of you, and 
the last 50 pages or so are, frankly, quite shocking. So, perhaps we haven't 
changed so much as a species, as humans, as we'd like to think; 'Sentimental 
Education' is depressing because it almost says that your destiny is 
essentially out of your hands, theres a little bit you can do, but you are 
more or less confined to one path dictated by society and its strictures. 
Something lots of us worry about today. Not sure how seriously i take all 
this to be, and most likely i'll just push the ideas to the periphery and 
stick with my youthful idealism. For now anyway. But i'd recommend the book 
anyway, well worth reading. So the point is, don't listen to Mr Darby's 
assemblies, especially the repeats.

The real reason i decided to email was because of some things i saw in town 
today, town being Birmingham city centre; for those of you who don't live 
here. I saw two surprising things there today, one more so than the other, 
and i'll tell you about the less surprising one first i think, to maintain 
the classic elements of suspense, and because it fits chronologically. The 
first bit mainly revolves around this particular bloke who may or may not be 
homeless, it doesn't really matter, though he looks, at least in my opinion, 
too healthy to be homeless, this is just conjecture however. Anyway he is 
always in town (that makes him sound a bit like a circus, but he's not), and 
he has the habit of accosting random people, usually people, on their own, 
who look a bit scruffy (i.e. me) and asking them for fags or money. He 
always does this with the same story, that he has lost his train fare and 
just needs a couple of quid so he can get back home "oh, and have you got 
any spare fags too mate?". Always the same story. Theres a certain nobility 
to this approach, and a disarming honesty about his lack of honesty. He 
doesn't ever even recognise my face, even though he must have asked me 
hundreds of times. I sometimes give him some change, but most of the time i 
save it for people i know are really homeless. The fags i can't help him 
with at all because i don't smoke. A month or so ago i suggested that, 
rather than approaching scruffy kids such as myself, he should go for the 
armani suited business types who inevitably will be carrying more money. He 
didn't seem to hear and just went away, i had nothing for him and so wasn't 
of interest. Today i saw him in town again, i was with my friend ian, who 
recognised him as i pointed him out. He was in the process of talking to a 
timid looking asian youth. Ian was telling me of the various times he has 
been accosted by the man, when two blokes who must have been in their 
mid-twenties came up rather aggressively behind this man, jostling him and 
shouting "fuck off" and other obscenities at him. I was worried that they 
were going to start hitting him, but fortunately they just walked off, 
occasionally looking back and shouting. Rarely have i felt more sorry for 
another person, i was shocked, but he glanced at me briefly as if this had 
not been the first time, and that he was resigned to the fact that it 
wouldn't be the last. Admittedly, this guy has pissed me off in the past, 
but i've never really been angry at him; it's the berghaus wearing fuckwits 
who genuinely get me down. I think the next time he asks me though, i'll 
give him something; it's odd how our opinions on people can change isn't it?

The other thing i saw in town today which is worthy of note is a lot less 
depressing. I'd just parted from ian and i was on my way to get the bus, 
still a bit surprised at what had just happened, when almost directly in 
front of me was a girl, who was about the same age as myself i'd say, 
bedecked in full goth regalia (i have a feeling 'goth' isn't very 
politically correct term, but i know of no other which would convey the 
meaning i want), with multiple facial piercings, knee length black boots 
etc... i noticed also that she had a slipknot badge on her bag (their slogan 
'people = shit' is quite important to the story... and i noticed it 
especially because slipknot aren't normally associated with goth types). The 
interesting thing is that the girl was pushing her mother in a wheelchair 
(this is slight conjecture on my part, but the resemblance was close enough 
for it to have been her mother, and it gives the anecdote more potency i 
think). This single image of the teenage goth, with all it's connotations of 
rejecting authority and especially ones parents pushing the wheelchair is 
one that will stay with me as long as i'm alive i think, a photograph would 
of course have been rude, and i didn't have my camera anyway, but hopefully 
you'll be able to picture it for yourselves. It seemed to be the perfect 
type of half-ironic paradox that a clever clever author like joseph heller 
would have pissed himself just thinking about, but i found it quite a moving 
thing; two disparate worlds coming together. I wondered what the girl was 
thinking, and what her mother (again, still conjecture), was thinking, 
whether this was a regular occurence etc etc. I thought about talking to 
them, but my natural shyness, and the feeling that i wouldn't be able to 
avoid the inevitable clichés made me think again. I'm glad i didn't 
actually, explanations would have ruined the moment. I admired the girls 
guts more than anything, and puzzled over her slipknot badge; she obviously 
didn't hold with the idea that 'people = shit' (not that many slipknot fans 
do though i suppose), her whole dress was at odds with her actions. I 
suppose what i'm getting at is the slightly tired sententious clichés that 
bemoan how much we judge people on how they look. But what a i saw in town 
today certainly gives them a new perspective; if the girl would have been on 
her own i would have certainly dismissed her as another middle class rich 
white spoiled girly, not intellegent enough to find an original form of 
rebellion, and has thus rebelled with what she wears. The act of care and 
attention i saw from her today completely recontextualised that image. At 
least in her case.

Admittedly, i'm still baffled by it, and any possible clarification of why 
these two conflicting ideologies, of teenage rebellion and familial care, 
should have cause to come together, it would be much appreciated.

Having just read this whole post back to myself, it strikes me as somewhat 
academic in style, probably because i'm interspersing it with writing an 
actual essay about Wilfred Owen. I can only apologise and promise to be more 
bouncy next time.

peace and love
-kieran

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