"Music is art, and art is for all"

Today's post is a sort of continuation from a small piece I wrote a couple of months ago called "Age isn't a number in the world of radio", discussing the ongoing battle between ageism and the BBC. Older fans of Radio 1 have recently been banished and booted out in the hope of lowering the age of the average listener, and in all honesty it's a bit bloody unfair.

The notion of music in terms of what it represents and how it moves and influences us has always been a topic of interest to me, and I find it so fascinating that in its unknown abundance of power, it can quite easily change the way in which we think and communicate with one another.

But before I go off on a tangent and begin waffling about how music is more than just noise and sound etc. etc., I'm going to avert your attention to a matter of contention which has infuriated me a little this afternoon. Said matter relates to an article written by former Labour MP Tom Watson in this month's edition of NME, which is released tomorrow, who has stated he is "still cringing at the thought of Gordon Brown listening to Arctic Monkeys."

Watson, who discusses the relationship between musicians and politicians in his piece, further conveys that "we all squirmed when David Cameron tried to pose as a Radiohead fan. It just doesn't wash. Don't even go there with The Jam and The Smiths."

But if anything it proves he's a goddamn human - with excellent music taste. No individual should be subjected to judgement or bullying in relation to the bands and artists they listen to, and to base these judgements upon a person's occupation is even more ridiculous. David Lister stated in an article in The Independent earlier this year that "music is art, and art is for all". In essence, both David Cameron and Gordon Brown have just as much right to enjoy the music they love as any other person.

While it may not seem like it sometimes, politicians are people as well.

I would like to know who in the heck Tom Watson thinks he is to judge and discuss who and what other people listen to. He may be convinced he's one of the cool kids but his little whinge has merely proven that he is an immature and narrow-minded moron.

Fifteen minutes till the fame game ends.

2013 has seen the official birth of the media hate figure, and like selfies and the norovirus (the former abundant in egotism, the latter infested with germs), they are absolutely everywhere.

They are on your television, on your radio, in your newspaper and your magazines. They are the ones who jumped the queue to fame, the ones who took Andy Warhol’s “fifteen minutes” and chose to haggle for an extra thirty seconds. They are the ones who are willing to face hostility and belligerence from British public at whatever cost, all for the sake of that brief, unique flash under the spotlight.

Like the norovirus – their vulgarity is copious. Like the selfie – well, nobody’s seen quite that much vanity seen Narcissus discovered himself.

Current Queen of the media hate figures exists in the form of Katie Hopkins, who this month riled viewers of ITV’s This Morning by declaring that she would not allow her children to play with others who had “the wrong name”. Her comments sent the British public into an indignant frenzy, with the interview reaching a staggering 11 million views on YouTube.

“I am only saying what everyone else thinks”, she said.

Samantha Brick stimulated outcry on a similar scale in 2012 after writing a piece in the Daily Mail about being hated by other women “for no other reason than my lovely looks”. The article, which stocked up 1.5 million hits on the Mail Online website, saw Ms Brick whining about the detriments of her beauty as though they were on a par with physical deformities. Almost 5000 readers took to the website to share their thoughts on Brick’s egotism with the majority labelling her “deluded” with a “forgettable face”. 

But despite her narcissism it is crucial to acknowledge the true, underlying purpose of Ms Brick's article. It is, after all, her responsibility to produce pieces which not only promote the paper she is writing for but herself as a journalist. The writing world is a dog-eat-dog industry and working for a publication like The Daily Mail means you must fight tooth and nail for your place among some of the most controversial journalists in the country. It is, therefore, the big sell which lies at the forefront of her priorities, whether she believes herself to be good looking or not.

Let us of course not forget Liz Jones, the despondently cynical shrew who confessed in a 2011 Mail article to stealing sperm from two of her partners to get herself pregnant. The purpose of the article was to warn other men about the "dirty tricks" women can play on their boyfriends or husbands (as if men need another reason to think all women are psychotic, cheers Liz).

This piece is not the first of hers to have ruffled a few feathers, but it is for this reason that she has achieved such a successful career as both a columnist and editor. Like Samantha Brick, we don’t read her work because we like or agree with her, but because we are so engrossed by what she has to say.

And yet one tumultuous bout of public animosity still isn't adequately satisfying. These three love-to-hate figures have each scored book deals to have their tactless, brutal viewpoints bound, published and sold across the country. Katie Hopkins launched "The Class Book of Baby Names" shortly after her appearance on This Morning, which reached 10 million hits in just four days. Samantha Brick's first memoir, "Head Over Heels in France" hit book stores in April, while Liz Jones has released three autobiographies, among other books, disclosing her personal life onto paper.

These are women who know what they are doing and will stop at nothing to get what they want, regardless of who gets hurt in the process. In spite of the backlash, they are nearly always successful. But fads never last, and as with every fad the public will get bored of you.

It's called fifteen minutes of fame for that reason alone, and in retrospect, to waste it on cynicism is a bit damn foolish.

But who am I to judge?

"Books are the stepping stones of imagination".

I've loved books for as long as I can remember. As a child, my parents and I would read Shirley Hughes, Janet and Allan Ahlberg, Lyn Wendon, Michael Rosen and Val Biro, the latter of which visited my primary school when I was six and kindly signed my 'Gumdrop Goes To School' book for me.

Books have always been a huge part of my life and I simply adored the way in which they would teach me new things and open up my imagination. Reading gave me the encouragement to write my own little collection of short stories, which I would jot down in a purple notepad and hide underneath my pillow. My stories would be about daft little adventures which I could only wish to be a part of - a girl called Jenny who was forever on holiday, travelling from place to place, hotel to hotel, never having to go to school. Georgina who lived with her family in a village on top of the trees in a forest (the technical impossibilities in this one were astonishing). My favourite and the most ridiculous of the lot was about a girl called Amber, who for her birthday had S Club 7 visit her house and announce that they were going to be moving in. (Judge all you want, S Club 7 were undeniably brilliant). 

Until I was about eleven years old I always thought I was going to be an author, and I had a plan that my brother would illustrate the stories I'd written because he was, and still is, so brilliant at drawing. We would become a dynamic and unstoppable book-producing team, creating beautiful and enchanting universes, magical creatures, and fantastically bold and enthralling characters. Reading was just what I did, and unveiling the depths of an author's creative mind is what fed me the passion to formulate and explore my own.

When I moved up to senior school I decided I didn't want to write fiction anymore, and I turned my interests to writing non-fiction. My magical stories and poems were discontinued and instead I fell in love with writing in a style suitable for newspapers, magazines and blogs like this one. In spite of this, my passion for reading was still strong, and I had become sucked into the Jacqueline Wilson teenage stereotype. Oddly I was never drawn to Harry Potter, but I had since become a fan of Lemony Snicket's works as well as Louise Rennison and Meg Cabot. In the words of my English teacher, "trash fiction".

A few years later, I chose to study English Literature at A Level, and then again for my degree at University. Literature was the only subject I was really any good at, and in truth selecting it had become a natural instinct. The irony was, I had started to hate books.

Reading had quickly become a chore. A piece of homework. A murky scribble on my To Do list continually put off time and time again just because I simply did not want to do it. It was heartbreaking, because something which I used to love so much had so rapidly become something I had grown to loathe. I wasn't enjoying being told what I had to read and how long I had to do it. Literature should offer the freedom to enjoy a book at a pace you find comfortable, without the overwhelming pressure of a deadline hanging over you. But sadly that's not how an English degree works - you have a target to meet and if you fail to meet that target, you get left behind.

So at the start of this summer holiday, I finally decided enough was enough, and I set myself a mission to fall in love with books again. And while it's a shame that re-reading my collection of Shirley Hughes and Michael Rosen would not be in my best interests, the beauty of imagination is that it is not an age-restricted privilege. The novels I read as an adult can be just as magical and enchanting, if I open my mind a little and give them the chance they deserve. With an alteration in my attitude, reading can and will become a hobby I learn to love again. 

All it will take is the right book to get me there.

July

It's July and can you believe the sun is shining?! ☼ ☼ ☼

This past month has been a bit up-and-down. A few weeks ago I decided to get a nose piercing, which has now gone after I accidentally knocked it out a week later. One Friday I had arranged to go for lunch with my best friend, and to cut a long story short, it concluded with me sat on a bench in the local piercing shop with a needle going through my nose. I had been contemplating having it done for a long while but I was finally plucking up the courage to go ahead with it - as spontaneous as ever - although from past experience, that's usually the best way to go about it. It was my tenth piercing so I thought by now I'd have adjusted to the pain a little more, but that was definitely not the case. It was still as painful as the first.

As you would expect, neither my parents nor my grandparents were particularly happy but I did receive the "I suppose you're twenty now and it's your nose blah blah blah" speech. And amidst all the chaos it ended up falling out six days later when I was washing my face and had forgotten it was there. I spent about half an hour trying desperately to fix it before acknowledging I looked better without it anyway.

It was also my best friend Alice's birthday last Thursday and like me she chose to go to the zoo to celebrate, because let's face it, there is no better place to spend your 20th birthday than surrounded by crowds of screaming children and animals that can kill you. We saw everything from giraffes, lions, hippos, penguins, otters, parrots, and all in all had such a fantastic day. My friend Rachel and I decided it would be a great idea to go into one of the little tunnels inside the meerkat enclosure, before realising it was full of kids and impossible to move around without flattening one of them in the process (the kids that is, not the meerkats). We both got into a bit of a fluster trying to escape, to the extent that at one point I forgot I was inside a tunnel, tried to stand up and cracked my head on the ceiling. Ouch.

The tennis came to a climactic end yesterday and what a way to finish with Andy Murray becoming the first British Men's Singles Champion in 77 years! 

Watching Wimbledon over the last couple of weeks has been the only thing keeping me from going mad with boredom, and to have it draw to such a fantastic close really was pretty special. It was also incredible to see Marion Bartoli become the Women's Singles Champion on Saturday afternoon; both her and Sabine Lisicki put in an amazing effort but in the end it seems the best woman won. 

More good news to report because somehow, I don't know how, I managed to get a 2:1 in my second year of Uni which is an absolute miracle. My organisation with assignments this year has been nothing short of shambolic because I'm hopelessly slow and picky when it comes to essay writing. I can spend so long composing half a sentence that I end up running out of time and all my other assignments start piling up around me. But regardless of that, I passed, and I'm very very happy. :). 

(Look this paragraph even gets a little smiley face, that's how happy I am). 

And finally, it's my fantastic Mum's birthday today so HAPPY BIRTHDAY Ali Keeler you nutter, have a super day in the sunshine xxx

Nats. X