Photographs: 5 Summer Beaches

by Emma Bell

Coniston Water, Lake District, July 

Eastney Beach August 

Branscombe, East Devon, August

Lyme Regis, August 

Moraira, Spain, August 

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Photograph: On Milton Common III

by Laura Burden
 

Bee and ragwort on Milton Common, August 2013.

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Favourite Album: 'Dark Side of the Moon' by Pink Floyd

The fourth of a series of articles (originally published in the ‘Fight Club’ issue of Portsmouth Point magazine) exploring favourite music albums. Today, Mark Richardson explains why Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' is his favourite album.

“By the way, which one’s Pink?”

The title comes from ‘Have a Cigar’, a song that appeared on the 1975 album Wish You Were Here, the long-awaited follow-up to this issue’s piece on music, namely Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. Yes, I know there are other albums being dissected elsewhere in this notable organ, dear reader, (“Mum! He’s being old fashioned and condescending towards me!” “Darling, he’s just trying to inject a little old-fashioned style into his writing.” “Well, it’s not working.” “True, but bless, he is getting on”). I hear tell of stories that suggest that OK Computer is being considered, for instance, at least one horrified whisper expressing shock that there are no Beatles’ records in the offing, and another pondering the delicious possibility that Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica might be offered for your delectation. (“Now he’s just making up words!”) How wonderful if the last rumour were true. But I just thought it was worth highlighting a classic piece of vinyl that might have missed your attention, and which definitely ought not to be missed.

Why now? Well, by the time you read this, April 18^this likely to be but a vague memory. No doubt lots happened that day, but one of them was important enough to be given some prominence on national news, which was the death of Storm Thorgerson, for over forty years the designer of numerous album sleeves. As soon as the news finished, I put on the LP the bulletin used as its iconic example of his work, and an album which I just HAD to listen to again. It was, of course, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon.

Technically, I did not put on any LP: I fired up my iTunes library and used the Remote app to beam the MP3 version throughout the house. Vinyl is all very well, but digital is more user-friendly when making an unprompted choice. The system played not only Dark Side but also continued with the rest of the Floyd playlist. By the time it got to the soundtrack album More my wife politely asked why we were listening to this rubbish, which was a fair point: the band’s reputation will not rest on that album. Indeed, their output has been incredibly diverse, and I parted company with the Floyd experience with Animals, and my decision was confirmed when The Wall came out. Whatever Floyd had become, they weren’t mine any more.

There are two reasons why the album is worth talking about here: firstly, it’s both a tour de force, being a mixture of soul, electronica, jazz, English lyricism, songs both poppy and trippy, and a culmination of many distinct elements from their previous work; secondly, it’s a sustained body of work, not a loosely-connected bunch of songs, a work that may well come to symbolise the music business of the sixties and early seventies, as well as the cultural life of an aspect of Western life in general and that of Britain in particular.

From the opening heart-beat, which segues into a variety of elements that are later to be found in the rest of the record and which in turn launches into ‘Breathe’, through the stereo-busting electronica and found noises of ‘On The Run’, into the clocks chiming at the start of ‘Time’ (with its famous lyric ‘Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way’) to the concluding wordless singing of session singer Claire Torry at the end of ‘Great Gig in the Sky’, the first side of the album was jaw-dropping in its ambition, its reach, its musicality and its feel. This was an English band, for goodness’ sake. Oh yes, they had been clever, jokey, brimming with incredible ability and originality. But playing with ‘feel’? That was new.

The second side starts with more found noises, this time cash registers. The use of the non-musical noises recorded elsewhere and then added in later is a signature element of the band, and the discordant noise of money being collected is a deliberately offensive and ironic opening to the second side. What is here? Well, as with the Beatles before them, in ‘Taxman’ on Revolver, it’s a song about success. But whereas the Beatles’ song was, excuse the pun, a bit rich, banging on about how much tax they had to pay as a result of fame and fortune to an audience who had to pay for the album and who were never going to be asked to pay such an exorbitant level of income tax, this song is mocking the culture of consumerism. We then move into the patient ‘Us and Them’, which contains oblique references to the war, perhaps WW1, and then we cut straight into ‘Any Colour You Like’, with delicate keyboards and shimmering guitar, which then moves into the darker reaches of ‘Brain Damage’ with its references to lunacy, lunatics being a term that was coined because it was thought that mental instability was connected to the phases of the moon, and then the final moments of ‘Eclipse’, where everything is undermined, as ‘everything under the sun is in tune’ (which is great) but ‘the sun is eclipsed by the moon’ (not so great). Finally, with the muttered observation that ‘as a matter of fact there’s no dark side of the moon: it’s all dark’, we are back to the heartbeat of the opening, and the journey is over.

Conceived as two long songs, one on each side of the album, the LP marked the band’s turning point from being an ‘underground’ and counter-culture band to being a wildly popular stadium act, whose last appearance was part of the Live 8 Hyde Park concert in 2005. It was quickly used as a favourite demo disc for retailers selling hi-fi equipment, and its most lucrative song, of course, turned out to be ‘Money’. With hindsight, it was their last record as a unified group: in the future lay bitterness, feuding and contempt: dark, not pink. Oh, and Thorgerson himself never liked that cover!

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Photograph: On Milton Common II

by Laura Burden

A cinnabar moth caterpillar exploring ragwort on Milton Common, August 2013. 

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Simultaneous Chess: Mr Puchades v. Five Pupils

Richard Puchades 

On the Tuesday on the last week of the Summer term I played the 5 best PGS chess players in a simultaneous match organised by Luke Ronaldson. All of the games were hard fought but, in the end, experience triumphed over youth and I won 5-0.

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Photography: On Milton Common

by Laura Burden

An ant eyeing a ladybird inquisitively on some ragwort. Photograph taken on Milton Common. 

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Three Poems: 'By The Sea'

Three poems written for the Leonardo 2013 competition ("By the Sea") by Mark Richardson, Gillian Meadows and Emma Bell.


A Call

I never thought I'd live by the sea
The rolling sway, the darkening gleam of water.

I was earth bound, city-plunged, dancing on concrete.
The thrum of the taxi cab and the Routemaster bell sounded my call.
Sirens rang around my head,
My face was decorated with lipstick and dust,
And the clatter of heels and disappointments whittled away at my heart
As the airs of boys and girls drifted into the trees of Soho Square -

Now I lie on stones gazing at thousands of acres of sky
The shape of islands reconstructs me.
The forts, my stays.
The dove-grey water cleanses me,
The world revolves on its axis properly and
The wind is my siren call now.

As my children bathe their strong coastal bones in the Sound
And the seagulls' shrieks match theirs . . .
The foghorn sings a baritone.
Twilight: and lights pinpoint through the lowering sky
Illuminating our future.

My heart, mended-
This is now my call.

                                      Emma Bell

 

Without Me
You are my sixth sense.

Inland and parched
I wither and weather.
As sand-tears chafe
Dryly.

Marooned.

The sea-smooth rock
Shaped by time
And tide;
My shipwrecked heart
Weighs heavy.

Heavier still
With bitter salt
As the tides call
And turn
And turn again without

me.

In my dreams

The slap and drag

Of the shore

haunt me.

The sifting

Sand

And

Shifting land

Taunt me.

 

The shrill cry of the gull

Mocks me.

Calls time.

As the saline drip

Slips.

Slips away.

Salient.
Silent.

Down by the sea

Without me.

 

                          Gillian Meadows

 

Perhaps

 

Mary

Rose early that day:

The noise of the expectant crowd

Was a tumult through the window.

She must have known why;

Nelson was about to leave The George.

The High Street was jammed with people

Eager to catch a precious glimpse of "Him", the Hero.

She would perhaps have realised

That he would never get out of the front.

Perhaps she spotted him leaving

From the back of the hotel.

Perhaps. 

 

He could

Have turned left, up Penny Street

And into what is now

PGS, his very steps

Later celebrated in assemblies.

But he turned right, the road here clear.

His voyage was to the sea

He was wanted on the Victory,

Moored tidily off South

Sea beach.

Ramparts
Prevented him from leaving eastwards
So his likely path to the sea was
The tunnel below the southern platform,
Now still supporting a cannon
Pointing not at the French
But the dangerous Isle
Of Wight.

Last steps,
Then, were under that tunnel:
Narrow and dark, echoes of his quick step
In the sudden silence, and then
Out into the noise, the glare.
After that, the beach, his last solid land.
Legend has it that the crowds cheered.
Perhaps the ghost of Henry Tudor,
Standing by his tent by South Sea Castle,
Vainly seeking glory in battle with the French,
Was looking not at his ship
Foundering in the Solent
Nor hearing the faint cries of the
Doomed seamen and soldiers
Trapped by the nets and rigging,
But instead, gazing out at the hero,
The admiral, the darling,
And hearing the crowd's wild
Huzzahs.

Perhaps
If he left the town
By the Sally Port as intended,
He would never have died on that heaving deck
Off the coast of Spain,
Musket bullet fatally lodged in spine.
But as he strode to the boat
Through the tunnel by the sea,
Through the darkness and into
The glare.

Footsteps
Fade.
The crowds dispersed, later learning
Of Nelson's death in the victory of Victory.
Perhaps some recalled, "I was there."
Some might have said they
Saw his small boat launched from the beach huts.
Someone might have said they
Saw his small boat launched from the beach huts.
Someone might have seen him
Dipping his head, hat briefly removed
As he walked through that tunnel.
The George has gone,
The eastern ramparts
Long since removed.
Waves still flop
Onto pebbles.
A cannon still stares, one-eyed,
Like Nelson.
Footsteps fade.
What remains?
Stories.

                                Mark Richardson

 

 

                              

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Mr McGuiggan's Mid-Year Top 10

by Patrick McGuiggan

I have selfish reasons for writing this article. My friends and I used to send these lists to each other which meant I rarely missed any new releases worth listening to. Nowadays, in my old age, I don’t have as much time to listen to music as extensively as I used to and so I call upon you, the people of PGS, to post your own lists from which I can garner some inspiration, perhaps whilst heavily criticising my own list? I can take it. As a result, most of the albums below are from bands I was already familiar with. I deliberated over this for far too long and I have changed the order numerous times, but it is what it is. Enough is enough.

Other releases I have enjoyed which didn’t quite make the cut: 

Fall Out Boy – Save Rock and Roll

Alkaline Trio – My Shame is True

Tom Odell – Long Way Down

Cartel – Collider

Laura Marling – Once I was an Eagle

Daft Punk – Random Access Memories

Phoenix – Bankrupt!

I Can Make a Mess – Enola

Andrew McMahon – The Pop Underground EP

10. Eisley – Currents

Eisley, a band of siblings and one cousin, produce a unique brand of enchanting indie pop; their previous album ‘The Valley’ was exceptional and, whilst I don’t think ‘Currents’ quite reaches the same heights, it is still a solid release. Free from the constraints of a major label, it seems like Eisley have been able to produce the album they have always wanted. It is probably less accessible than before and takes a few listens to get into, but being a fan of the band I persevered and, thankfully, it has really grown on me. The album is wonderfully whimsical, with an atmospheric sound frequent throughout, and is filled with some awe-inspiring vocals, this time from all three sisters. If I had one criticism, it would be that the album doesn’t pack quite the same punch as some of their previous work; the heavy rock riffs are less prominent and seem to have taken a back seat for a more subdued indie pop sound. Regardless, it is still a fantastic album, even if it does takes some time to get into; I would probably encourage new listeners to start with their previous album ‘The Valley.

9. Josh Ritter – The Beast in its Tracks

Why are break-up albums so good? Some of my favourites: ‘Cursive – Domestic’,‘Dashboard Confessional – The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most’, ‘Elliot Smith XO’ or the all time classic ‘Fleetwood Mac – Rumours’. I could go on…but, another time maybe. I first got into Josh Ritter after being dragged to see him live by a friend. The gig was phenomenal, I have never seen someone so happy to be on stage, his enthusiasm was so infectious and upon returning home I immediately began checking out his back catalogue. The latest album to earn its place in the break-up album hall of fame is ‘The Beast in its Tracks’; after going through a bitter divorce, Josh Ritter decided to wait before recording his new album, admitting that the first songs he wrote were too spiteful and full of self – loathing to record. That’s not to say he doesn’t have his moments, on ‘New Lover’ he sings:

“I hope you've got a lover now, hope you've got somebody who/Can give you what you need like I couldn't seem to do./But if you're sad and you are lonesome and you've got nobody true,/I'd be lying if I said that didn't make me happy too.”

 ‘The Beast in its Tracks’ is honest, open and almost unbearably beautiful; it is one of the finest releases from a singer/songwriter I have heard in a long time, do yourselves a favour and give it a listen.

8. Frank Turner – Tape Deck Heart

Frank Turner, originally from Hampshire (so show him some love) and educated at Eton, isn’t your typical folk/punk singer songwriter. He has always been a magnificent story teller, but his music is sometimes marred by some poorly constructed political arguments, however, not on this release. Instead, he is deeply personal and intimate; he is baring his soul and the album is all the better for it. In fact, on songs like “Tell Tale Signs” it is almost as if he is reciting excerpts from his own diary. The album is 12 tracks long but I would definitely recommend sourcing the deluxe edition, as the six bonus tracks are well worth a listen. What the album lacks, in comparison with some of his earlier work, is the same number of fun, fist-pumping, punk anthems, though this is perhaps due to the more inward subject matter evident throughout; that’s not to say they are completely scarce, ‘Four Simple Words’ is a fine example of what he is capable of in that respect. In summary, I, as a long time fan, found this to be anothergreat addition to his already extensive discography; however, I imagine new fans might require a few listens to really appreciate it.

 7. Paramore – Paramore

I’ve never really been a fan of Paramore, in fact I initially ignored this release, but after reading several positive reviews I decided to give it a go; I was pleasantly surprised. The same thing happened last year when I finally succumbed to the hype regarding a certain Miss Taylor Swift and gave ‘Red’ a listen. Perhaps I should branch out a little more often? The album really makes the band stand out, they have taken a lot more risks and experimented with their sound, they even have a gospel choir singing backup vocals on ‘Ain’t it fun’. The album is exactly that, fun. You may not like every song but if you don’t find something to like amongst these 17 tracks, I would be seriously surprised. This is a hugely ambitious album; they have taken a lot of risks, most of which pay off. This album has gone some way to cementing Paramore’s place as one of the finest active rock bands in America.

6. Frightened Rabbit - Pedestrian Verse 

I fell in love with Frightened Rabbit after the release of their brilliant second album ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’ and even more so after seeing them open for Modest Mouse in Belfast. I had high expectations for what would come next and was left somewhat disappointed their next effort, ‘The Winter of Mixed Drinks’. Thankfully, this latest release is a return to form. The band fit somewhere between indie rock and folk on the genre spectrum, although this album is slightly grittier than previous releases. The band’s front man Scott Hutchinson is a sublime lyricist, the album is like a collection of gloomy poems, narrated in a charming Glaswegian accent. Everyone loves a good regional accent don’t they? ‘Pedestrian Verse’ is the name of the album, but don’t expect to find anything pedestrian about the magnificent song writing on show here.

5. Jimmy Eat World – Damage

I have always been a massive Jimmy Eat World fan. They are one of the few American rock bands who regularly made the trip to Belfast as part of their UK tour (when few others would) and I have been lucky enough to see them on every single occasion. My dedication to this band knows no bounds; I even went to an extortionate one day festival in which they were third on the bill just to see them perform, enduring Eminem and OFWGKTA in the process. Their latest album Damage has a slightly rawer sound, almost akin to their 1999 release ‘Clarity’; it doesn’t seem as heavily produced which works well with the more stripped back sound and Jim Adkins outstanding vocals. They are one of the most dependable rock bands around; as with every Jimmy Eat World release, the album is heartfelt, relatable and catchy. Everything I have come to expect from one of my favourite bands.

4. Lydia – Devil

Lydia are a band I have been aware of but never really paid a lot of attention to, until now that is. This is currently my album of choice on these numerous sun-soaked days on the South coast. Not that I can handle the sun, as many witnesses at Sponge the Teacher will testify after seeing the state of my sunburnt legs. Despite the somewhat morose title ‘Devil’, the album is extremely uplifting and has a distinct summer feel to it, which is a complete shift in mood from previous releases by this band. It is incredibly catchy, filled with captivating lyrics and interesting melodies – it is the perfect soundtrack to summer. 

3.Tegan and Sara – Heartbeat

'Heartthrob' is nothing short of a triumph. On their seventh attempt, the Quin sisters have released what is, without question, their best album to date and probably a contender for the best pop album of the year. What is more impressive is that the girls have abandoned their guitars and traded them in for keys and synthesisers. With each album, their sound has slowly evolved but here they have jumped feet first in to the world of pop music ... and they are showing everyone else how it is done. What the girls have accomplished is an album that sounds like it could have been released 30 years ago yet still somehow manages to sound current. 'Heartthrob' excels at disguising its darker lyrical content with bright, electronica flourishes and its consistent up-tempo beat; they manage to harmonise throughout in a way that only twin sisters know how. It is entirely different to anything they’ve ever released, yet still sounds like a Tegan and Sara album. I promise, you will not regret it if you choose to buy 'Heartthrob' (or, more likely, spend time looking for it on Spotify or You Tube), for it is truly exceptional.

2. The Wonder Years – The Greatest Generation

       

Pop punk has never sounded as mature, cohesive or exciting as it does on The   Wonder Years latest release, ‘The Greatest Generation’, their best album to date. I was lucky enough to see them live at Slam Dunk festival and I can honestly say, despite almost being crushed to death due to the crowd’s enthusiasm, they were easily the best band of the day. The album has some fantastic lyrics; one verse I particularly like is:

“I’m sick of seeing ghosts/And I know how it’s all gonna end/There’s no triumph waiting/There’s no sunset to ride off in/We all wanna be great men/And there’s nothing romantic about it/I just wanna know that I did/All I could with what I was given.”

I don’t have enough superlatives in my vocabulary to accurately describe how I feel about this album. There just isn’t a band in this genre that is even in the same league as The Wonder Years right now. Simply put, this is one of the best albums I have heard in a long time.  

1. The Postal Service 10th Anniversary Reissue – Give Up

Ten years on and I still listen to this album on a regular basis. The Postal service is the collaboration of Death Cab for Cutie front man Ben Gibbard and Dntel’s Jimmy Tamborello. The two friends exchanged ideas through the post and after being pleasantly surprised by the success of the song "(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan" on which Ben appeared as a guest vocalist, The Postal Service was born. They have never given me the second album I so desperately crave, however, this new edition which includes a few new tracks, as well as rarities and b-sides is a step in the right direction. The album is timeless; it is a perfect blend of indie pop and electronica; do yourselves a favour and bask in the unique brilliance of this album.

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Developing Cultural Understanding: Portsmouth and Ping Xiang

by Louise Wilson

What images are evoked when you think of China?

  For me these formed a confusing kaleidoscope. I envisaged the bicycles, terrible grey poverty and paddy fields of China following the bookless (apart from works by Chairman Mao) cultural revolution of the 1970s, contrasting with the vibrant and cosmopolitan city of Hong Kong where I lived 30 years ago, when that pearl was still a British territory, secured from the Qing dynasty in China for over 150 years, as a trophy from the Opium Wars. I could still smell the rich odours of Cantonese food and see squirming live eels, chopped and dished out to shoppers on the street, great mounds of ‘thousand year old’ raw eggs preserved in soil and slimy sea cucumbers served up – all too exotic for my twelve year old taste buds.

I imagined Chinese cities of choking pollution, with masked pedestrians bustling along packed roads of every vehicle, except bicycles, rushing to work in factories, built to serve a now-ailing Western economy while the People’s Republic of China booms (for the time being) on plentiful minerals, cheap labour and limited health and safety restrictions.

I have just returned from a week in the city of Ping Xiang, in southern China, bringing home an agreement between PGS and Ping Xiang Middle School (for 15-18 year-olds) to develop a mutual understanding of British and Chinese cultures. PGS may host one or two students from Ping Xiang in our Sixth Form; we hope to have a pupil exchange programme and benefit from a teacher from Ping Xiang working at PGS for a short time.

Our ‘sister’ agreement was met with great excitement in the Middle School – hundreds of fire crackers were let off in a 15-minute explosion of sound that had me and my Chinese counterpart cowering in the security guard’s office and then emerging to a sea of red paper, smouldering and burning at the entrance to the school.

Should we feel the same degree of excitement for our side of the deal? Absolutely. Those members of PGS who are fortunate to visit Ping Xiang in future will have a life-changing experience. You will visit a thriving city of 2 million people, living in high-rise apartment blocks in family units of three generations, each conforming to the government’s one-child policy.  It is a place of rampant consumerism nestling under towering monuments to the Republic’s revered former communist leader, Chairman Mao.

Coal-fired power stations and tiny businesses produce everything the capitalist world thinks it needs, with little thought for health or safety; however, the level of air pollution feels nowhere approaching that of London. The people are relaxed and friendly – particularly to Westerners, and mine was the only Western face I saw in a week. Your hosts will do everything to make you feel welcome and enjoy your stay, and want to learn everything about your home.

In a region two thirds the size of the UK, there is much to see outside Ping Xiang. This is a lush, semi-tropical area, with lotus flower meadows, freshwater and thermal springs, paddy fields, orchards of Chinese strawberries and mangosteen fruit and steep, bamboo-covered hills and mountains.

Good use is made of the fertile land to make delicious dishes. Meals always include chilli but there are also gentle flavours from soups made with hibiscus or day lily and lots of green vegetables. My tastebuds have become much less risk-averse since my childhood in Hong Kong and I enjoyed nearly everything that was offered. I re-encountered black, preserved eggs and avoided those. I also declined duck’s tongues, served on the bone.

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Sabbatical Blog 3: Female Writers: Fighting Against Religious Ideology

by Bryony Hart

I have become entrenched in some fascinating books about female rights (or the lack of), written either at the end of the seventeenth century or the beginning of the eighteenth century.  I already knew that women were writing prolifically about and publishing their experiences, mostly about courtship and marriage, in fictional form, but I had no idea that entire non-fiction books were being published, as early as 1673, about the inequalities between men and women.  In fact, men were also writing about it, which shows that it was certainly a topic that was being publically debated  It is amazing how this seems to have been written-out/forgotten through the years.  And my most recent reading has shed light on the fact that by 1700 this challenging and threatening female voice starts a gradual decline into obscurity. 

One of the books that I have been examining is The Female Advocate: or; an Satyr Against the Pride, Lust and Inconstancy, & C. of Woman by ‘A Lady in Vindication of her Sex’ (1), Sarah Fyge, all written rhyming couplets.  It was written in reaction to a satire written by a man (which I am still searching for) about the poor virtues of women, which are inherent in every female as soon as she is born. Obviously, one can not completely trust that it was written by a woman; men were regularly writing under the disguise of women because women’s works were selling so well (another fact that perhaps is not common knowledge to all) and it was often an easier method of instilling patriarchal morality into the female readership.  However, if one trusts that this is a ‘Lady’, and in fact Sarah Fyge, it is impressive and rather dangerous reading. If it is a male writer, even more interesting that he should be conveying such potentially risky ideas about the power imbalance between the genders.

As I have mentioned before, the basis for male superiority was founded on religion, namely Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.  It was part of the gender discourse of the time and is referred to as the main argument in countless texts that I have read thus far from this period.  In The Female Advocate, the writer bravely questions this foundation) and she is not alone in her questioning of the basis of male superiority).  In her Preface, she writes ‘According to my Antagonist’s Preface Fancy […] all Men are good, and fitting for Heaven because they are Men; and Women irreversibly damn’d because they are Women.  But what that Heaven should make a Male and Female, both of the same Species, and both induced with the like Rational Souls, for two such differing Ends, is the most notorious Principle, and the most unlikely of any that even was maintained by any Rational Man.’ This is a daring move to question Religion in this way but Fyge cleverly buffers her response using the Bible as her source to support her argument.  This is a technique that I have noticed being used by a number of writers; using the text that is constraining to actually start the process of liberation and equality. 

The writer’s main thrust of argument challenges the way in which the Bible has been interpreted as a way of repressing women and empowering man.  She turns the conventional reading of Eve being created from a ‘spare part’ to keep Adam company on its head; being made after him Eve has always been perceived as inherently inferior and therefore the ultimate after-thought. However, rather amusingly, and a little bit perilously, the writer states that:

Heaven survey's the Works that it had done,
Saw Male and Female, but found Man alone,
A barren Sex and insignificant;
So Heaven made Woman to supply the want,
And to make perfect what before was scant:
The surely she a Noble Creature is,
Woman Heaven thus made to consummate all Bliss (p. 2)

                                
Here she argues that without Woman, Man is ‘a barren Sex’ and therefore useless in terms of procreation.  It takes the power of a Woman to ‘consummate all Bliss’ to enable the human race to multiply.  She takes her argument even further by suggesting that ‘Man was form’d out of dull senseless Earth/ But Woman she had a far nobler Birth’ [p. 2]. Clearly, there are problems with this argument that can not be ignored.  The writer completely subverts the gender-imbalance discourse so that it favours women over men rather than striving for equality – one could argue that her theory is no better than the patriarchal ideology that was using the Bible as a force of female repression.  The crux of modern feminist discourse is the battle for equality and fairness in all aspects of life, and this particular view does not sit particularly happily with the arguments being made in The Female Advocate because it is suggesting that women are superior to men.  But, in light of the female position at this point in history, one can see that this is an early form of feminism in that it questions the validity and authority of male dominance using the very narrative that has been used to repress and restrict women.  For feminists of this era, they ‘denied both Eve’s natural inferiority and her sole responsibility for the fall.  Eve was created ‘a wife and friend, but not as a slave’ for Man (2).

Nonetheless, there is a moment of balance reached in Fyge’s argument. She poses the question, ‘for both one Maker had/ Which made all good; then how could Eve be bad?’ [p. 2] If God has created both Adam and Eve, and all that God creates is good, how can Eve be demonised in the way that she has?  This language of demonization is later referenced when she says, ‘You do describe a woman so that one/ Would almost think she has the Fiends outdone’ [p. 14].  It is a valid question that undermines the main thrust of argument that keeps women apologetic (and therefore submissive) for their original sin.  She pushes this idea even further by saying, ‘But you’d persuade us, this ‘tis we alone/ Are guilty of all crimes and you have none,/ Unless some few, which you call fools, (who be/ Espous’d to Wives, and live in chastity)’ [p. 10].  As a female writer, Fyge would have experienced directly this demonization and persecution for being a published writer (interestingly, she does not put her name to The Female Advocate – another example of the persecution these women felt).  It was generally believed that ‘a woman prepared to make her writing public would be prepared to expose herself in other ways: that a woman writer was almost by definition sexually immoral.’(3)

What I love most about this text is the way in which the writer questions why all women should be wed – surely rocking the foundations of the religious ideology that ensured female subservience to husbands. Her argument about the interpretation of the Bible is a start in the fight against gender inequality but is ultimately flawed by our modern standards – nonetheless, it does make sense that the discourse that is being used to control women is challenged and questioned in the first instance.  However, what is more fascinating, and perhaps more provoking, is the following:

            For I love Liberty,

            Nor do I think there a necessity,

            For all to enter Beds, like Noah’s beast

            Into his Ark; I would have some releast

            From the dear cares of that lawful state:

            Hold I’ll not dictate, I’ll leave all Fate.’ [p. 11]

It is clearly a dangerous reflection; she quickly concludes this brief reference to ‘Liberty’ and a life not defined as ‘wife’ with ‘Hold I’ll not dictate’.  She is eager to not to appear too forceful on this point, which is unusual because of the sheer gusto that is apparent in her other arguments, and puts a self-imposed stop to her point.  What is most interesting here is that she acknowledges that from liberty of marriage comes freedom and time to think and observe the world (‘Only I do think it best/ For those who love to contemplate at rest,/ for to live single too, and then they may/ Uninterrupted, Natures Work survey’ [p. 11]).  For some women, it would be better for them to be contemplative, to use their brains and be educated (another one of the major arguments in the feminist discourse of the ear), rather than be shackled by marriage.  As mentioned before, marriage removed all legal power from the woman and, in contrast, a single woman remained more powerful in legal terms (clearly she was demonized by society for being an aging spinster).  Perhaps the reason for this tentative and brief comment about liberty is that this is her ultimate goal – freedom from marriage and from the control of man.  It is a dangerous goal and she appears to be testing to water. 

This text is not alone in its fight for equality and liberation – many of these arguments were made well before the 1700s, and from what I have read thus far the increasing legal control over drama, one of the major outlets for female writers, deterred women from writing.  If you were a popular and well-published female writer you were undoubtedly a whore, and this argument is one that seems to become stronger as the 18^th century continues.  As Pearson succinctly reminds us, ‘The pun on ‘pen’ and ‘penis’ was one which the age took seriously: ‘a pen in the hand of a woman is … an instrument of propagation.(4)

(1)The Female Advocate: or; an Satyr Against the Pride, Lust and Inconstancy, & C. of Woman (London: H.C. for John Taylor, at the Globe in St Paul’s Church Year, 1686).

[2] Jacqueline Pearson, The Prostituted Muse: Images of Women and Women Dramatists 1642-1737 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1988), p. 2.

[3] Pearson, p. 9.

[4]Pearson, p. 10.

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"A Man Made of Solid Air": Nick Drake

by Emma Bell

The singer songwriter Nick Drake would have been 65 this week and it seems more than appropriate to remember him today. Nick was a truly magical and unique musician and his reputation has grown in the years since his death on June 19th, 1974.

Born in Rangoon, the son of a diplomat, he grew up in Warwickshire after his family returned to England. There is something magical about the centre of a space (as the Midlands is, where Shakespeare, Elgar and Housman were born), something that feels special, something that you feel when you move about the county, under the sprawling oaks and soft rain, a sense of the pastoral which seeps through Drake’s music. The moon, stars, sea, rain, trees, sky, mist and seasons are all commonly used, influenced in part by his rural upbringing. Images related to summer figure centrally in his early work; from Bryter Layter on, his language is more autumnal, evoking a season commonly used to convey senses of loss and sorrow.

 

Drake went to Marlborough and then Cambridge to study English Literature and was very drawn to the works of William Blake, William Butler Yeats and Henry Vaughan, his lyrics reflecting such influences. Whilst he was there he found a music student, Robert Kirby, who became a long-term collaborator. What is interesting about that is that it determined a sound of orchestral arrangements that owes more than a nod to Mozart and Handel. The ongoing folk scene in Cambridge and London added to the mix and created a wholly new and rich style of singer-songwriter music.

He left Cambridge before completing his degree and moved to London in 1969 where he strolled into a record deal with Island Records and recorded his first album, Five Leaves Left. Such was his talent that musicians such as John Cale, who later formed The Velvet Underground, were clamouring to record with him. Even now, guitarists are utterly perplexed at the complexities of his playing and its intricacies.

But with record deals came obligations to perform live; and these songs, with intricate tunings and orchestral arrangements were difficult to replicate on stage; the delicacy of the lyrics and melodies were drowned by the chatter of working men’s clubs and lost in the echoes of half-empty town halls. He often stopped to retune his guitar for five minutes at a time, and changed his guitars over so he could use different strings and achieve different sounds. He often walked off stage before finishing a set, despondent that his music was not being listened to.

 

Nonetheless he carried on writing his second album, Bryter Later, released in 1972. However, despite garnering good reviews from the music press, he was hampered by his own unwillingness to perform live and the album flopped, selling only 3000 copies.  Drake then wrote what would be his last album: Pink Moon. Only 28 minutes long and largely stripped back to only Drake and his guitar, it is a sad piece of work; suffering badly from depression, he withdrew from both live performance and recording.

The last two years of his life were spent back at Far Leys in Tanworth-in-Arden, and were sadly marked by unhappiness and hospitalization. On 25 November 1974, Drake died from an overdose of a prescribed antidepressant; he was only 26 years old. He is buried in the churchyard of St Mary Magdalene in Tanworth, a very beautiful spot, the churchyard looking over the rolling hills and oak trees of Warwickshire.

Nick Drake, thanks to the use of his music in advertisements and films, begin to be rediscovered in the mid- 1990s, and he is now recognised as one of the most talented guitarists and songwriters of his generation. Such a turn of events isn't without a certain irony. 

Towards the end of his life, Drake appeared to long for the vindication that comes with commercial success. And yet he seemed incapable of compromising himself to the pursuit of recognition. His only compass was the music he created and whether he was proud of it. He was, as John Martyn wrote, a man made of Solid Air – no-one truly knew him or could help him in his darkest days. Yet he left behind three albums that are incredibly beautiful and hugely influential. I hope that I might have inspired you to discover them fully for yourselves.

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Please Look After These Brains. Thank You.

by Amanda Wood

Last half term I presented an assembly to Latter House. I always find these occasions tricky. In years gone by, I thought little about why. The answer surely was obvious; standing up in front of large numbers of people is nerve wracking. But assemblies to me are particularly challenging, more so than other types of public speaking because the topic that you choose to talk about surely says something about you. Why, with all the topics in the world to choose from, did you choose this one? What does this say about me as a person if I choose this topic?

However, there is also another more pressing concern, for, behind the foreheads of those one hundred freshly polished faces staring at me, are 100 fabulous brains, and brains change in interaction with the environments in which they find themselves. I am about to commit “synaptic assault”. Through talking to these brains I am going to change them; the perception of my words will cause physical changes to the neural networks of these children. What an awesome responsibility!

Assemblies happen first thing in the morning too, and this is even more stressful. I usually feel rather bewildered until at least ten o’clock; that startling insult that is ‘day’, that dramatic inhibition of melatonin production, forcing me to wake up, is something I have never especially enjoyed. So I will be pruning the minds of 100 beautiful and clever children at the worst possible point in time for me and yet potentially the most receptive time for them. Assemblies require careful thought. The day will be young, yet to take shape. A lot can happen in 24 fleeting, precious hours and I am about to set the feel of the day.

What follows is a summary of my assembly; I started by telling them how privileged a position I felt I was in, standing in front of the afore-mentioned 100 beautiful and clever faces (tip: flatter your audience early). I told them my feeling of privilege stemmed from my knowledge that encased in all the skulls in the room there was about 135kg of brain (maybe more) and that I found this quite astonishing. An average human brain weighs 1350g, the equivalent of about three cans of baked beans; with all those beans (or all those brains, should I say?), there would probably be enough energy generated in this one room to power the lights in Cambridge House (frankly, we might have done a better job, given the problem in the second floor corridor at times!).

I reminisced about my Year 9 Psychology Club a fortnight previously, when we modelled a brain, imagining the gap between the tables was a synapse, the tiny gap between a brain cell and its neighbour. One group of pupils imagined they were vesicles, or little purses, filled with balls of neurotransmitter (they were actually balls of coloured paper). The pupils on the pre-synaptic table hurled the balls at the pupils on the post-synaptic table. These pupils had their hands in the air waiting to capture the balls; they were pretending to be neuro-receptors. We had a lot of fun.

Milky Way

Then I said to my vesicles and my neuro-receptors that I would like them to imagine that every child in the whole world was playing this game right now; that’s two billion children throwing balls of paper at each other and yet we would only have modelled 1/50th of the number of neurons between your ears at this very moment.

It is estimated that there are 100 billion neurons in the brain, the same as the number of stars in the Milky Way. So, in my assembly room, there would have been one hundred galaxies of stars: each star, each neuron, with up to 10 thousand synapses. That’s a 100 billion x 10,000 x the 100 brains in here; an extraordinary, unthinkable number of synaptic connections, in one room, in one school, in one special city.  And those synaptic connections are made and unmade with every passing second of the day.

I told those starry brains in front of me that morning that my responsibility in talking to them for just ten minutes was so awesome, because I would be responsible for altering their minds; you see, every moment of the day is mind-altering, our brains, our futures, every choice that we might make changing with every passing second.

I told them that we would have a little adventure in neuroscience just for a few minutes before I passed on a short message that they might do me the honour of thinking about, even if only for a few fleeting seconds, because every second matters.

“So lets us imagine that in this room we are a brain, we only have 100 neurons, though, because the Lower Sixth and Year 11 have abandoned us (for study leave); unfortunately, we only have about the capability of one tenth of a leech, so we aren’t capable of much, it has to be said, but still . . .

Some of you have a folded piece of paper in your hands, I want you to cut out the shape on the paper, and then unfold the bean stalk you have created. Don’t forget each of you is a neuron and you are about to reach out to each other and create some connections. When we do this, we are altering the probability of different courses of action for the creature whose mind we are controlling.”

The pupils cut out their branching streams of paper, which were dutifully unravelled and passed along the lines, crumpled dendrites extended, reflecting the etching of experience into the fabric of our very being. Together they created a tangled forest of connections. As the assembled housemates made that leap of faith, beginning to see themselves as one tiny part of the whole, a massive growing brain in the Middle School Common Room, I told them some stories but not before indulging in some personal reflections of my own. I can’t explain why, but I do have a hankering to know where my current mind came from and occasionally ponder the significance of the memories that surface each day: Why now? How are you useful, little thought? What is my brain trying to tell me…?

When I was five or six, my father used to play “Puff the Magic Dragon” on his guitar. It’s a special song with a poignant message: “Dragons live forever but not so little boys”. Little boys and girls grow up and the child without becomes the child within, never lost but silenced to a lesser or greater extent. Today, my other memory is that of a picture by John William Waterhouse: The Lady of Shalott. For sure, I did not know the poem by Tennyson when I was five or six, but I remember the tender ache in her face as she floated down the river. I recently asked my father (who, weirdly, does look very much like Tennyson!!) whether I could borrow the picture to hang in my house, interested to know whether my little face-ache (aged 8 ½) would remember The Lady’s beauty in years to come as I do now.

Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse

My father replied, “I don’t know where it is”. “Really?” I said. “Yes,” he said “Who would want that morbid thing hanging in their house?” “You did,” I replied, “when I was six.” Thirty years have not altered the poem yet I wonder how the architecture of my mind has changed since then --- in the 1, 576, 800 blocks of ten minutes that have passed:

“On either side the river lie,

Long fields of barley and of rye

That clothe the wold and meet the sky

And thro’ the field the road runs by

To many-tower’d Camelot

And up and down the people go

Gazing where the lilies blow

Round an island there below,

The island of Shalott

Willows whiten, aspens quiver

Little breezes dusk and shiver

Thro’ the wave that runs for ever

By the island in the river

Flowing down to Camelot.

Four gray walls, and four gray towers

Overlook a space of flowers

And the silent isle imbowers

The Lady of Shalott

The relentless rhymes and rhythm running through this yarn drag us on and on, marking out the passing time, that, in the Lady’s case, is, as for us all, in finite supply. I reminded the pupils to keep snipping, with each passing moment I wanted them to see how our Latter House brain was changing: a dynamic house, a connected house.

In psychology, detailed case studies, involving observations, hours of testing and interviewing, and often secondary data collected from a wide range of sources, help psychologists to understand the extraordinary in order to explain the ordinary. I was about to tell the tales of three participants whose experiences of the world are quite striking and extraordinary.

Firstly, Capgras Syndrome; inside the temporal lobes you will find a tiny brain structure known as the ‘fusiform gyrus’ necessary for recognising faces. Some people who have sustained an injury or have had a brain infection affecting this area suffer prosopagnosia, meaning face blindness; they are unable to recognise the faces of people that they know from celebrities, to their own family and even to the point of not recognising their own face in a mirror. However Capgras Syndrome is something even stranger. Let us imagine someone has sustained a nasty head injury and, on waking from a coma, they see their mother or father before them. They may recognise the face but will claim that the person is an imposter, an alien or even a robot. Although the syndrome can present as a part of a psychotic illness this is not always the case and it seems that it can be explained by thinking about how the brain works.

Usually speaking, visual information comes in through eyes and is directed to visual areas of the brain at the back, and then onto the fusiform gyrus where the face is decoded. This information is then cascaded onto the amygdala, an emotion centre in the brain which will tell us about the emotional significance of whatever we are looking at. If whatever it is is important to us in an emotional sense, i.e. someone we love or something that scares us or disgusts us, then our body will react in various ways which indicate arousal, not least sweating which can be measured using something called a galvanic skin response (GSR).  It is interesting to see that Capgras patients show no GSR when looking at their loved ones. This may be because the areas of the brain responsible for recognition and for emotional reactions have become disconnected (sometimes as a consequence of an injury). It seems that the wiring from the fusiform gyrus to the amygdala has been severed and so they see their family member and recognise their features but have no feeling about the person and so assume that they cannot be their loved one. A very sad state of affairs for all involved.

Prosopagnosia can be equally poignant, patients may well have non-conscious emotional reactions to their loved ones but, as their fusiform gyrus is dysfunctional, they have no idea who these people are and treat them as strangers.

My second weird and wonderful neuroscientific diversion is that of Phantom Limb Syndrome. When an arm or leg is amputated, a person may still vividly feel the presence of the amputated limb. Some of these patients have the sensation that the limb can move, yet many others feel the limb is paralysed and clenched resulting in agonising pain. This is often the case in patients who have actually had a real paralysed limb, which has presented unbearable pain and subsequently been amputated in attempt to remove the pain. Imagine how horrific a situation it must be, to have a limb removed and then experience the same pain in a limb which isn’t even there! Some of these patients have become so depressed they have even committed suicide to escape. This situation may arise because, for months before the amputation, the brain has commanded the paralysed arm to move and received the message loud and clear back from the arm: “No!” The brain then learns that movement is not possible. The renowned neurologist, VC Ramachandran devised a beautifully creative plan to treat these patients and simultaneously demonstrated how the brain can be tricked and retrained.  He developed a ‘mirror box’ whereby the patient puts his or her phantom left arm behind the box and then holds out the right arm and wiggles the fingers, so that in the cleverly aligned mirror it looks like his left arm has been resurrected as the reflection of the hand appears on his left arm. To the patient it actually feels as though the phantom arm is able to move and the pain is momentarily relieved, but only while he or she is watching his right hand moving. The pain returns when the patient closes his or her eyes. However, if the patient practices and teaches the brain to unlearn old habits, the pain can be relieved long term. Old synaptic connections are pruned away and experience creates new connections in their place.

The final phenomena for discussion was synaesthesia. Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, was first to document this. For someone with synaesthesia, every time they see a number they sense a colour, the same colour every time. Sometimes, differing musical tones generate a sense of colours or even tastes. Synaesthesia is a muddling and mingling of the senses, the condition appearing to run in families, which suggests a genetic predisposition; it is also eight times more commin in creative types, such as painters and novelists, than in the general population. It seems that, since colour and number areas are next door to each other in the brain, an accidental cross-wiring may be responsible for this unusual phenomenon. More interestingly, however, it seems that it is not that these area have become wrongly connected but rather that they have not been disconnected. When we are born, our neuronal networks are thick with synaptic connections, every area is wired to every other and, over time, the wiring is trimmed and pruned. Genetic problems may mean that the brain does not prune itself quite as it should.

And so, throughout our stories, our modelled brain has become connected and, through genetic inheritance and environmental experiences, we have seen how areas may become overly connected or indeed disconnected.

So what should we learn from all of this?

Firstly, let us return to "Puff the Magic Dragon". The lyricist of this popular song was Leonard Lipton, who wrote the poem later set to music while a 10-year-old Physics student at Cornell University, in the United States. You are probably more familiar with Lipton than you think as he later invented stereoscopic cinema and was responsible for those geeky black glases we war in the cinema to view a 3D film. And, finally, to Tennyson's words, which have crept into our collective unconscious, recent and memorably: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield" chosen as an inscription engraved in the 2012 Olympic Village, inspiring athletes from the four corners of the globe.

But what other notable expressions can be attributed to Tennyson? Two seem especially pertinent: “I am a part of all that I have met” relates well to our discussion of the way in which experiences sculpts our tangled web of neurons, and “Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers” captures the idea that, although fragments of experience, of knowledge, may be caught in this neuronal web, amidst the pieces is a truth to be discovered only later in reflection.

Jackie Paper grew up and Puff was sad, he felt redundant. We will never know what sort of man Jackie Paper became; maybe he bumped his head and went to bed and woke up with Capgras Syndrome, or maybe, due to Puff’s nurturance, he grew into a wise and loving father himself, to one day play his guitar and hang pictures in his home that would leave an indelible mark on his own Paper boy or girl.

Please look after your astonishing brains and please take responsibility for the mark you leave on the astonishing brains of others.

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