The Accidental Tourist: Inside the EU

As you know, ShadowPlay is a staunch pillar of the fourth estate and believes our journalism can breach any boundary. To prove a point, our intrepid reporter Emily Macintosh donned some sensible shoes and went undercover in the European Union

We all know there is nothing worse than a traveller who insists they are not a tourist – and in the same vein, although I work in Brussels, I assure you I am not a Eurocrat, honestly.

To understand the ‘Brussels bubble’, first you need to learn the lingo. To the uninitiated, turns of phrase like "Oh well it is a Strasbourg week" will seem bizarre. 'Strasbourg week' is when the whole European Parliament moves in vans and on trains once a month from Belgium to France. This writer has never been in a position that merits her a trip to this mysterious junket, but reliable sources relay tales of long-suffering Strasbourg residents boarding up their windows as they hear the MEPs descend.
Back in Brussels, the after-work beers are to be found in Place Luxembourg, or ‘Plux’ as some like to call it. It is a square of bars outside the European Parliament attracting a mixed crowd of tourists, young workers from the EU institutions and NGOs. They are joined by the many Brussels based law and consultancy firms, excited underpaid stagiaires (French for interns), and minor political celebrities like UKIP Nigel Farage MEP who for someone so intent on hating the EU and Belgium as a full time job seems not to mind a few lunchtime pints of Guinness while on the continent.
Those unfamiliar with Farage’s work might remember him from his headline grabbing plane crash, where the light aircraft he was travelling in was brought down after his election banner got caught in the propellers. Before this adventure in the skies he tried to play the naughty schoolboy by calling well-respected Belgian politician and president of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy a “damp rag” with “the charisma of a bank clerk” in a blatant attempt to shake up a few news agendas in the run up to the UK general election. He refused to apologise for his childish remarks, conceding only to state that he hadn’t meant to offend any bank clerks. No surprise really that people have a bad opinion of the British.
But aside from the MEPs jostling for headlines, behind the scenes there exists a whole network of European Commission civil servants who are either writing carefully choreographed speeches for commissioners or, in an institution where you need to fill out a request form to move a chair from one room to another, keeping the administrative wheels well oiled.
And if you don’t want people in the rest of Brussels to know you are part of this world, be sure not to head out of the European quarter brandishing the free canvas bag you just picked up at a policy launch or that handy umbrella with the EU flag on it – if not you only have yourself if you are dubbed a Eurocrat.

ShadowPlay's problem page with Piney Gir: Part Two

The second part of our Agony Aunt Piney Gir’s helping advice corner features horticultural quizzing and a person in a genital pickle…

Dear Piney Gir
Last night I googled "what is the origin of the phrase shaking like a leaf?" The first three returns didn't give me the answer. Can you find it for me?
Tom Whalley, Holloway
Dear Tom,
I think the answer is that a leaf shakes quite a lot as it's only lightly anchored to the tree by a little stem and when the wind blows the leaves really go for it like it's part-time. I hope that answers your question.

Piney x

Dear Piney,
I’ve been a post-op transsexual for several years now, but I’m a bit fed up and would like my manhood back. Is it easily reversible?
Adam, London
Dear Adam,
Suffering is a relative thing. Did you find the first time you had the sex-change procedure easy or difficult? You are likely to experience a similar level of pain the second time around. However, if being a man trapped in a post-op transsexual’s body is generating mental torture and anguish for you, then remember that physical pain is temporary, sexual transformation is forever (or in this case for as long as you want it to be). You might want to consult a nice therapist before you go for another great big change though. Try this place; they charge you according to your income so you can afford it! http://www.london-counselling-psychotherapy.co.uk/
Piney x
Dear Piney,
I’m addicted to wearing stripes but fear I may get piegonhold as a stripe-wearer – what do you advise?
Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
I kind of think it’s not such a bad thing to be known for. If you are really concerned about being known as ‘Stripes’ or ‘Stripeytime Tennessee’ or ‘Stripe-o McGee’ then give all your striped items to the charity shop and start again sans stripes. OR you could draw contrasting stripes over the existing stripes on your clothes and you could be ‘Checkers Checkofferston’ for a while. If that doesn’t appeal, try taking up a new hobby where stripes are encouraged. Have you ever considered miming?
Piney x

ShadowPlay's problem page with Piney Gir

Our resident Agony Aunt was so concerned about ShadowPlay’s confused, depraved and downright weird readership last time out she’s returned to answer your queries. Here, country pop starlet Piney Gir, whose new album Jesus Wept is out now on Damaged Goods Records, offers a helping hand in part one of our series

Dear Piney,
The high-volume of fish-related TV in the past week is making me want to stop eating fish. What do you think I should do?

Tom Bonnett

Dear Tom,

What you decide to eat and what you decide not to eat is entirely up to you and only you. Don’t let any posh-o celebrity chef push you around, and don’t let your concerned family and friends worry you about how much protein you are getting. If want to eat fish/ or not eat fish… that’s your choice. If you don’t want to eat fish but you want to trick the people around you into thinking you are eating fish, you could make fish shaped cookies and cakes and eat them in public places. Get a friend to photograph you eating the fish-shaped/fish-free items and tag you on facebook. Then your mom won’t bug you about where you get your protein from, and if a posh-o celebrity chef shouts at you say, “hey man they are just cookies shaped like fish, back off!” Piney x

Dear Piney,

For about two weeks now I have been unable to stop watching old episodes of the hit circa early 90s programme Blossom (you remember, the girl who wore the cool hats). Some kind soul has uploaded a plethora of these 20 minute gems onto youtube and watching one is never enough for me. It is starting to really affect my sleeping patterns, my relationships, my eyesight, my sanity, my humour and my fashion sense. Please help me resist!
Emily Macintosh

Dear Emily,
I feel your pain, I really do. It is tough to resist the nostalgic and wholesome appeal of Blossom! I would recommend you firstly tell the people closest to you about your issue with Blossom and explain to them how important it is that you wean yourself off of it. You will need a strong support network in the coming weeks. I would then instil what I call 'the treat' system. That is… when you finish your homework treat yourself to an episode (only one episode) of Blossom. When you helped the little old lady that lives on the fifth floor carry all her groceries you can treat yourself to an episode again. This should reinstall your Blossom vs life balance. Piney x

Dear Piney,

Do skittles count as one of your 5 A DAY? (or even five of your 5 A DAY what with there being 5 flavours?)
Bridget Tompkins

Dear Bridget,
I’m pretty sure that for each colour Skittles you eat, that counts as 1 of your 5 A DAY. As you very accurately pointed out, there are five flavours of Skittles so if you eat one bag of Skittles then you are defo getting all kinds of vitamins and nutrients. Keep up the good work! Piney x

New Facebook page for The Anoraks

So we decided that life is really too hard. It's too stressful to tie your shoelaces, too busy to put your hand out for a bus so we've decided to make it really, really easy. Stand by for life changing news. Yes, The Anoraks have hit Facebook. The fortnightly show Alex Lawson, Alex Burnard and Tom Bonnett present for Shoreditch has hit your favourite social media site and is getting settled in with a cup of tea and a comfy Karrimor here. Hope you enjoy, if you want to make sure you never miss a show then subscribe to our Mixcloud page here, just nip to the bottom of the page and enter your email. You can subscribe to iTunes here.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Anoraks/174534165938968?ref=ts

ShadowPlay Interview: Ólöf Arnalds

Icelandic singer and multi-instrumentalist Ólöf Arnalds has collaborated with the likes of Múm and Björk while carefully carving out a fledgling solo career. ShadowPlay caught up with the diminutive arts graduate ahead of the release of her new single Surrender

“There seems to be some sort of idea about Icelandic music that it’s something that’s magical and mythical and so Icelandic musicians get a lots of questions about whether it’s the nature, or the water, that creates so much good music. These questions are asked over and over and I feel like cutting to the chase that the most important acts that have come from Iceland have been noticed for their individuality and their hard work.”

Refreshing words from a musician not afraid to burst the often sickening media bubble surrounding certain countries, ‘scenes’ or genres which take their fancy that month. What makes Ólöf Arnalds even more refreshing is her acknowledgement that without these musicians she would not be sat in the Vortex in Dalston preparing to play a second consecutive sold out night at the venue. While expressing a feeling of guilt that the playing field is not level, the 30-year-old readily accepts that her associations, firstly as a touring “hired gun” for electronic experimentalists Múm, and then in working with Björk on the ethereal new single, she has raised her profile.

In fact her debut solo album Við og Við, released in 2007 on 12 Tonar, was produced by Kjartan Sveinsson of Sigur Rós, a band whose success appears to be escalating faster than a rickshaw driven by Usain Bolt munching on a particularly large box of chicken nuggets.

What’s clear is that in any language Arnalds will command the stage – as she did at the Vortex – with a quiet, jovial authority, stopping to make jokes, steward the crowd and even lead some birthday celebrations. Her lilting tones are evocative of a harsher Cat Power or a toned down Kate Bush while her musical versatility across various instruments belies the fact she was classical trained and harbours busting pocketfuls of intuition. There’s little doubt it soon won’t matter what language you speak, you’ll have heard of Ólöf Arnalds. 

Arnalds released her second album Innundir Skinni – Under the Skin – on One Little Indian last year and revealed she could take a radical step forward and sing in English in future. “When I made my first record I was going through grief after losing my father – it was a healing record. The birth of my son was a big inspiration on the second – only these little things like life and death hey. But I want to make a joyful, blissful record now. I’ve started writing a few songs in English for this new record so I can interact with the audience in a different way, I live increasingly in an English-speaking world and play one out of 50 concerts in Iceland but some people have said I may lose the mystique of the Icelandic language.”

Go Crease Lightning: An evening of intense folding

It’s not often you’ll find me in a seminar room learning about maths. Yes, that is an understatement. But last night I went along to the London Knowledge Lab’s rather swish HQ off Lamb’s Conduit Street to hear the fantastic Mark Bolitho impart his knowledge on origami to students and members of the British Origami Society in the session. Bolitho is a pre-eminent origami exponent who gave up his job as an accountant to pursue a passion that has taken him all over the world.

Bolitho showed the group how to create small animals (classic origami), pyramids and interlocking geometric cubes. He also ensured plenty of maths was covered, displaying tricks to create shapes with ridiculous numbers of sides as well as some informative stuff on tessalation. Bolitho (above right, with me) is the man behind the glorious range of Muji origami packs and an inspiring figure, not least because he owns the best domain name ever – www.creaselightning.co.uk – do check it out. 

Time to get creative

Creative energy is an interesting entity. It manifests itself in so many different ways, is expended at vastly varying frequencies and means so many things to so many people. The one thing that is widely acknowledged is, it ain’t easy.

Despite the fact I don’t see myself as a creative person and am, objectively shit at drawing, presentation or writing in long hand, in the eight years that ShadowPlay has been in existence the increasing hold television, new media and most importantly, phenomena like the invention of Facebook have created a nation of young people that make bashing out some words, stealing artwork and photocopying them look vibrantly expressive. There are two elements at play in this conundrum: dedication and raw talent.

I see and envy people with the latter all the time, marvel at the way they can find a creative spark and envisage an idea instantaneously. What makes me turn even more green is that, on the whole, many people who turn their hand to one thing – say drawing – and succeed usually find themselves a consummate Jack of all trades at a number of skills.

The central conceit of my day job, journalism, works on this basis. That artists are somehow set apart, that their work means they have achieved an ‘otherness’ and the more lauded they are the more license they have to talk about more quasi-psychological and social matters. Whether it’s just more convenient to work this way is another matter but certainly a few notable examples of artists interviewing each other in music magazines have yielded eminently readable results.

As for dedication, that implies that you can learn to be creative. That absorbing enough information will help bred the skill forcibly but this is a flawed concept, assuming that creativity comes from the conscious, rather than the subconscious.

In truth, their co-dependent. There’s no point having raw talent if you’re not prepared to work for it. I have recently started working on two fledgling projects run by dedicated an admirable Londoners – as reviews editor for football website footymatters.com and as a presenter on shoreditchradio.co.uk (The Anoraks – stream and download at http://shadowplayboys.podbean.com). The dedication of the volunteers who work for both projects has been promising but not always consistent. Personally I find myself compartmentalising creativity outside of my 9-5 life, thinking it’s not possible to think in a more expansive manner when concentrating on busy day-to-day tasks, which is pathetic. So how can young people be convinced that it’s work putting in the time and energy to find a creative release outside study, work or an increasingly common unemployed malaise?

Looking at my monthly night Come Get Felt Up (run at the Book Club along with the legendary Anna Harding, Nathan Crawley and Tom Whalley) each month, the small release that participating in a silly competition in which people craft Blue Peter style for naff prizes get from the creativity is particularly evident. So unleash your creativity – glue an egg box, write a letter or build a wonky boxcar – you might just feel better for it.

Keep calm and carry on waiting

Coming home today on the tube, I got angry and distracted from my paper by the fact the train didn’t move for a full three minutes. When I got home, from where I didn’t intend to leave this evening, I promptly sat down and waste 20 minutes watching some pap on the telly.
Opposite me in the carriage a bloke sat, slumped down in this big brown coat, looking really content despite the fact it was an infuriating and unexplained stoppage. I envied him. So how can he left go and let it wash over him and I’m a nervous, furious young man?
I’ve always been uptight, a worrier, I mean that’s par for the course in fanzine circles. But do actions belie happiness? In the last three months, for various reasons, I have felt happier than I have in five or six years, happier at times than I have ever been. But this is not about being smug, and I certainly easily get down at times too. No, this is about how happiness manifests itself.
Surely, if you have an underlying feeling of happiness, of being content with how life is moving, that should superceed the day-to-day anger, or at least temper it? I’m yet to discern whether this is a personal thing, whether others, while essentially happy, still get wound up by very small things and are wound tight.
The reality is there’s always going to be hang ups but if you can find ways to distract yourself from certain common sources of irritation – wheelie suitcases, poor grammar, a shocking ignorance of basic defending (see Sheffield Wednesday’s defence in the last four months) – and pressure points then perhaps it’s possible to alleviate some of that irrational, stupid stress. Sometimes knowing yourself inside out and facing up to your largely unchanging personality is the only option.

East End Film Festival arrives

Now in its tenth year, the East End Film Festival (EEFF) has established itself as an event not afraid to flex its muscles beyond the boundaries of simply seats, screens and popcorn. It is perhaps unsurprising then that EEFF HQ is home to a hive of ‘to do’ lists longer than an Elizabethan skirt on visiting just two days before the gala opening. Besides the weird and wonderful of contemporary and revived cinema, the five-day festival (27 April – 2 May) features live music, exhibitions, DJs, VJs, masons, stars, bars and, yes, popcorn.

Under the stewardship of artistic director Alison Poltock, the festival has landed some impressive names. Portishead’s Adrian Utley is to give a presentation at the UK premiere of the digitally re-mastered version of Martin Scorsese’s iconic Taxi Driver at the beautiful Aubin cinema; St Etienne and the Guillemots are to curate two afternoons of music and cinema as part of the Sonic Film programme in conjunction with fellow decade-old hedonists Camden Crawl and the festival is open with a world premiere of The Libertines – There Are No Innocent Bystanders. The debut feature from music photographer Roger Sargent is an all-access documentary into a band that only a glance at will reveal are an intriguing car crash of moderate talent crushed beneath the weight of expectations and, well, large quantities of drugs.

The event is backed by Tower Hamlets council, Film London, National Lottery funding and sponsors including the likes of Clash magazine, Sheffield Doc Fest and Old Spitalfields Market, which is to host an orchestra made of people turning up chiming bicycle bells.

The festival’s enthusiastic head of marketing Andrew Simpson, who has experience of both the Edinburgh and London film festivals as well as moving up from an internship at EEFF last year, is bristling with excitement ahead of the event. “The EEFF started ten years ago funded by Tower Hamlets council as a community festival. The area has more filmmakers than anywhere else in the UK, it’s such a hive of activity, such an incredibly vibrant, creative, productive area,” he says.

“It’s very much about grasping the nettle of the potential the area holds,” Simpson (pictured) continues. “There’s an audience for local output and every type of cinema from around here which makes the festival what it is. We can pick up the pulse of what’s happening around the globe and it’s amazing how coherent the programme comes together but that’s often the artists reactions to what’s happening around the world.”

Simpson cites several particular highlights. In conjunction with The Romanian Cultural Institute and award-winning filmmaker Bobby Paunescu, the festival has put together a strong line-up of Romanian films and events including the UK premiere of Bogdan George Apetri’s Outbound. Beyond this, there’s atmospheric horror in Sir John Soane’s church in Bethnal Green, films on secret societies in Masonic haunts and a swath of free activities on 2 May across 88 venues.

“It’s a real group effort, everyone pitches in, there’s no real hierarchy. It’s hard work, but very, very rewarding. It’s going to be a lot of intense fun,” concludes Simpson. An accurate statement one suspects, don’t forget the popcorn.

www.eastendfilmfestival.com

27 April – 2 May

Various venues, London

ShadowPlay #28 comes out

ShadowPlay returns with a blockbuster issue featuring more intrigue and excitement than a distant-sounding ice cream jingle.
The likes of Icelandic starlet and Bjork collaborator Olof Arnalds and downbeat techno DJ Chloe Thevenin hone into ficus with interviews in a zine jam packed with characters.
Elsewhere our resident Agony Aunt Piney Gir returns to deliberate romantic troubles and debates over fish-based TV; graffiti artist Baron tells us about his new film Dots and we send Emily Mac under cover in the European parliament.All that and the usual rambling,short stories and musical musings.

Email shadowplayfanzine@hotmail.com‏ for a copy.