BBB Issue #1 June 2014

welcome to the very first issue of

BLEAK BLEAK BLEAK, a place for debate. edited by Alice Seville & Emily Watkins. all uncredited photography & illustration, Alice Seville. many thanks to our contributors:

Harriet Squat, Rosie Seville, Max Holmes, Jack Bartrop, Hollie Pycroft, Alex Foley, Iona Campbell, Esme Armour, Johanna Stenson, Calum Bannerman, Sasha SilbermanHanks, Sophie Renouf, & Louise Worrall. thanks also to Nรกstio Mosquito for granting us an interview, and to Elin Dowsett for modelling.

If you would like to send us feedback or contribute, please e-mail us at bleakzine@gmail.com

+ Commentary  ‘An Outsider in the City’ ~~ written by Harriet Squat, with photographs by Rosie Seville + Commentary  SHUT THE FUCK UP THIS IS NOT A POP CONCERT ~~ an interview with Nástio Mosquito, by Emily Watkins + Commentary  FARAGIFICATION / A UKIP SATURATION SPECIAL ~~ ‘UKIP and the Black Widow Effect’ by Hollie Pycroft, illustrated by Jack Bartrop ~~ ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Racism in the UK’ by Alex Foley + Review  The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) ~~ Iona Campbell + Creative Writing  ‘Soup, Lamb, Posset.’ ~~ written by Emily Watkins and illustrated by Esme Armour + Creative Writing  ‘There’s No Place Like Home’; 3 vignettes on homelessness ~~ written by Johanna Stenson, with found art by Judith Beevor. + Poetry  ‘Sunset Strip’ ~~ by Calum Bannerman + Poetry  ‘Riding the 25 with Emily’ ~~ by Sophie Renouf, with artwork by Sasha Silberman-Hanks. + Art  ‘Blessed are they…’ ~~ sculpture by Louise Worrall

AN OUTSIDER

IN THE CITY

HARRIET SQUAT

September 2011, and most of my school friends were embarking on debauched Freshers’ weeks all over the UK. Meanwhile, I was apprehensively starting a sevenmonth internship at a financial company in the City of London. With the induction day’s emphasis on networking, I imagined that at least in terms of forging new relationships and starting anew, it would be a similar experience to that of many First Years’. Sadly, no.

The separation I felt from my peers was palpable; made evident by the odd experience of watching the student protests from inside our glass, inner-city office while a colleague pointed out ‘What are you doing in here? You should be out there representing the students.’ I had applied to the position to experience the real lifestyle of an office worker; to fund my university studies; to gain insight into an industry many people and students rail against. Yet so many young people have very little idea what function bankers or accountants actually fulfil, beyond the damning headlines seen everywhere since the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the total loss of trust in our financial institutions. I knew I was not there to represent myself. In contrast, I now stand to represent them.

It was a steep learning curve. I worked every day with graduates and seasoned experts as the youngest member of a two-hundred strong department. Much of the job was analysing Excel sheets charting the movements of indescribably huge amounts of money. The desensitisation to this excess was quick to set in; within weeks of starting, I was no longer awed by the unattainable wealth we were dealing with. It is no wonder those who work with these numbers feel an entitlement to amounts far beyond their worth.

I was one of the few female recruits, and was placed in a male-dominated department. While I was there, an email scandal at another firm hit the news, where an email chain containing photos of a ‘top ten’ of recently recruited women had been circulated by male colleagues under the comment ‘FYI. New clunge.’ When the story broke I was working in a team of nine men and myself. I had to listen while they compared the women who had just joined our firm – of whom I was one – to those pictured in the email, and complained that we were ‘not as high calibre’.

Being a teenager fresh out of ten years of girls’ school and oblivious to such societally prescribed gender roles, I was unprepared for this casual objectification. I never called them up on this, feeling much too junior to have an opinion. Only in hindsight do I feel the indignation I should have felt then. When you are experiencing first hand subordination from a senior, part of you wonders whether

it is worth addressing. Maybe it is your fault for being overworked/stressed/anxious and therefore humourless? I was also made aware for the first time of the vast sacrifices senior women had to make for their positions in the company; they were often single, childless and highly strung. The opposite was true for their male counterparts. However, this firm was named one of The Times ‘Top 50 Employers for Women’ in recent years. Clearly this is the status quo for women across the board. I know now about initiatives like the Fawcett Society, who campaign against such inherent inequalities, but it will take a long time to alter the mind-sets and legislation that underlie it all.

Maybe the part that I could relate most closely to student life was the nights out.

This was my first experience of the university legacy; an impressive capacity for alcohol, even in the presence of a free bar. The level of drunkenness appeared proportionate to the pressure your role in the firm involved. Senior Managers were the worst, requiring by 11pm the kind of first aid normally afforded to a newly legal fresher at their student union. The emotional and physical exhaustion inflicted on staff in the middle echelons of the company’s structure is crippling; if you are working until midnight and take a taxi home just to get up again to be at work for 8am the next morning, you’re living to work. You’re not really living. Tales abound that in one investment bank’s offices they have rooms of beds, to allow workers to fit their deadlines around, er, their sleep and nothing else. Imagine the stress of exam season, but every day, with only 25 days annual leave to break the waves of deadlines crashing onto you.

Those I worked with were unequivocally in pursuit of financial reward over job satisfaction. Money as the ultimate goal led to a total loss of perspective. Colleagues complained to me that their starting salary ‘is just not enough to live on in London,’ while online shopping on their iPhones. Pride in your work was an unmentioned concept, as was sharing knowledge and experience with junior members. Work became a necessary evil, and a strained atmosphere of urgency was pervasive beyond the office. One manager put it succinctly: ‘Oh, tonight I’m working. Well I mean I’m maintaining my relationship, but that’s basically work.’

Despite this, I feel I have gained an intimate understanding of, and even a sympathy for, the City. Office workers are easy to demonise en masse, but are in fact emotional, intelligent and relatable individually. They are victims of a group mentality and a disconnection from normality that asserts itself in the workplace daily; power and respect become equated to professional seniority. Through generations of sons, the idea is perpetuated that the salary tier is a measure of success – professionally and in their role as provider and protector of the family. My

success – professionally and in their role as provider and protector of the family. My father is one of these men: bound to a job they hate out of duty to the lifestyle their families expect. While these values are archaic, so too are the structures upholding the institutions that sustain them.

Such services are legally necessary. However, it is a shame that so many sharp scientific minds are enticed into this environment, where nothing of benefit is produced and digital money is simply moved around to create more for those who have too much. These minds could be better put to work and are sorely needed to teach and research. It cannot be denied that those who work in this industry sacrifice their families and themselves to the hundred hour week in the name of status and security – either social or financial. The hard work ethic many uphold is something I deeply respect. They deserve to be recognised for what they do – just not so disproportionately. Especially not at a time when our government is paying for their mistakes.

Interestingly, I worked with numerous people in my seven months who had been on the same gap year scheme, and although initially many had been sure they would never return, ultimately they had found themselves drawn back in out of apathy, financial temptation or simply lack of another option. It seems that even despite moral objections or work-life balance reservations, the draw of the city and its trappings is one that seems hard to resist. Time will tell if I can keep my distance.

photography, Rosie Seville.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP THIS IS NOT A A POP POP CONCERT

UP THIS IS NOT

CONCERT.” Emily Watkins interviews Nástio Mosquito

Nastio Mosquito is a vibrant, energetic and sometimes controversial young artist, who works with video, performance, music and other mediums to realise his pieces. Recently exhibited in Minneapolis (2013), London (Tate Modern, 2012) and São Paulo (São Paulo Biennale, 2010), Mosquito’s work often centres on questioning African stereotypes within a Western audience’s parameters. Generally, it is he himself who takes a central role in his (often visual/performance-based) work. Mosquito regularly utilises/assumes another character, “Nastia”, and, below, he explains part of Nastia’s development, history and purpose. In our interview, he talks about identity, navigating the politics of the art world and what he’s working on now.

Emily: I’ve been watching some of your work online. I’ve seen “Nastia Answers Gabi”, and I watched “African I guess”. (http://vimeo.com/64679934) As far as I can tell, quite a lot of your work appears to be playing with the idea of race, and, at the same time, rejecting it as something important. So the first question is: Where are you from? Does it matter?

Nastio: Well, yeah, I am from Angola – at least, I was born there. And, does it matter? I don’t know. I guess for different individuals that question becomes important, and at different moments I guess it has different levels of relevance, you know? My answer to the question is always - connecting it of course with this business of identity in art – of course, identity is something that is important, it’s even more than important, it’s relevant, but it’s not crucial. So I’m not trying to deny that context. Where you come from, it gives you a rhythm, it gives you, I don’t know, a particular perspective, in a way. It gives you a language, gives you a group of friends, family, eating habits: all kinds of things that are part of who you are, and of course that is important, that is relevant, but it’s not crucial. So it’s not about denying the relevance of where you are from, but it’s about establishing something that is more crucial than that, which is, I think, where are you going? Where do you want to go?... Because there’s not a lot you can do about where you are from. But the exciting thing about being alive, if there is anything exciting about being alive, is that you can indeed establish a relationship with people, a relationship with a geographical location, but more importantly with your dreams, you know? Your sense of contribution, with your sense of service, with your sense of participation, and that for me is crucial. So I’ve come to a point where I’d like to establish motivation… And that is what I think is crucial, you know? Because once you speak about what moves you, you can start finding out how it is you’re going to engage with that, and with whom you’re going to do that. So for me, that is what I find to be crucial, to locate and to activate.

E: The character “Nastia” – coming back to the question of where people are from, because Nastia has an accent that you don’t have - is Nastia from somewhere specific, or is Nastia meant to evoke some idea of a sort of generic foreignness? What’s going on with Nastia?

N: Well. Nastia doesn’t have a particular birthplace, not that I’m aware of. Sometimes he says that he has an American father and a Russian mother, and sometimes he says that his mother is American and his father is Russian, and the departure point for Nastia is the Cold war, and those players. Of course, again, for context, he has lived the Cold War from a perspective which was not cold at all, within the African continent, you know. Very terrible and brutal conflicts were occurring, and they were occurring fed by this Cold War context, and so that’s the departure point of Nastia.

E: In “African? I Guess”, you sing, “Be my whore”, and “be my wife”, and you say “be my nigger”. Is the idea to align the historical/societal oppression of black people and women?

Is that the idea, to talk about two oppressed groups at once?

N: I don’t know. My ability to answer that question - I can only express, you know, that it is about people. And I am interested in people’s position, and my hope - and I invest my time in this - that regardless of whether you are a woman or a man, or a black man or a white woman, whatever…that you can relate to it in one way or another. So my hope and my departure point, is always to deal with more than one perspective of this limited truth that is human life, and to pare it down... I don’t know how to answer that question objectively I guess.

E: Later in the performance, you sing another song, in which you compare the art world to a beautiful whore. I’ve seen in other interviews you’ve done that there’s perhaps a conflict going on, that the institutions provide a valuable platform but then they have the potential to sort of stifle, perhaps even censor, or regulate something creative. How do you strike a balance there?

N: Yeah, I don’t know, that particular song... I guess that it is somewhat frustrating, I believe, both for artists and curators - but I don’t know, I’m not in that position myself and I don’t want to be detrimental to the job that they have and the relevance they have - I do think that all of us have a role, you know? And sometimes us doing the job that we do, there is a promise, at least because I come from a different kind of professional background. There is a particular promise, when you are working, for example, with television or theatre, that it is directly something audience driven, and you have to be a little bit more concerned, and you need to cater, to a some extent, to what it is that an audience wants to see. When you come to art, when you look at art - it’s very general to speak of it that way, but when you look at it - you expect it to be free, and a medium, or a metier, or a structure, where the sense of freedom of creation can be exercised. And for me… like a lot of things in life… it has its politics, you know? So it’s just that sense that it is just like everything else in human life - there is a hierarchy, there is a system… in place, whatever the parameters. And having said that, we need to navigate that, we need to make things productive. I don’t have a particular energy to change how art behaves, or how the different players in the art industry behave, but one thing I know is that I want to produce work and I cannot do that alone. And this seems to be a very good moment for us to discuss and propose different ways of engaging, to produce work and establish a relationship between the work that is produced and the people that may enjoy that same

discuss and propose different ways of engaging, to produce work and establish a relationship between the work that is produced and the people that may enjoy that same work. At the end of the day, what I believe artists want to do is provide a perspective that can, in consequence… have an impact on people’s lives, provide some kind of perspective that can connect with people and that be a proposal of change, a proposal of alternatives, a proposal of an experience, whatever the motivation might be. And for that to happen in the first place we need a stronger and more consequent relationship with people, I believe, and I think that’s what that particular moment, that particular song is about.

E: We’d love to know what you’re working on now, what you’re thinking about now.

What’s going on?

I’m thinking, now, about being the best husband I can be, that’s what I’m thinking about now. In relation to work, I think I’m trying to be consequent with all that “bla bla bla” you were investigating about my work, I’m trying to make sure I learn the best way to bring ideas and perspectives to people.... And be consequent with the community that I’m part of, and that starts with my family, with my close groups, with my friends, all of that. So I want to continue to produce work, and I want to become better at what I do, and I want to have the opportunity to structurally be able to serve people better.

For more Nastio, visit his website at: nastiomosquito.com. If you are in Birmingham, you can also watch out for his site-specific installation at Ikon Gallery next year.

Photograph 1: courtesy of Ikon Gallery: Nástia Answers Gabi (2010). Video still.

Photograph 2: courtesy of Ikon Gallery: Nástia Answers Gabi (2010). Video still.

Photograph 3: ‘African? I Guess’ – Live Performance / Screenshot (Former West, Vimeo)

FARAGIFICATION two Bleak contributors analyse a case of UKIP-saturation.

UKIP AND THE

HOLLIE PYCROFT

BLACK WIDOW EFFECT

ILLUSTRATED, JACK BARTROP.

Recent months have seen Britain struck by what might be called UKIP-mania. You’d have been hard-pressed to miss it – Nigel Farage’s face was rarely missing from front pages, UKIP ‘trended’ daily on twitter, and 24 hour news was basically a rolling commentary on the astounding success the party were enjoying.

Of course, all this media attention was trumped-up. While UKIP did achieve a great deal of success in the European elections, characteristically low turnout proves that while they won the plurality of 37%, they failed entirely to inspire the roughly 63% of the population that didn’t, or don’t, vote.

Journalists and talking-heads have been beside themselves trying to dissect UKIP’s success, and have seemed almost entirely unable to put their finger on it. Granted, the issue is complex – for many, a UKIP vote was merely a middle finger to the mainstream parties; for others it was a racist statement, a middle finger to immigrants (something the BBC surely wants to avoid saying).

An issue rarely discussed, though, was how and why the major parties decided to stop branding UKIP as a bunch of closet racists, loonies and fruitcakes, and started taking them seriously. Surely, you might think, if Lib-Lab-Con continued with that mantra, they might have managed to keep UKIP on the fringes of the political landscape? Surely, by listening to the concerns raised by UKIP, and altering their party platforms in order to give more focus to EU membership and immigration policy, the major parties have legitimized UKIP? Surely they have offered UKIP a golden ticket to credibility?

The answer lies in what Queen Mary, University of London’s Tim Bale has called the Black Widow Effect. It is a tactic we see time and again in politics across the world – faced with a smaller party who are gaining momentum and threaten to steal votes, major parties respond by drawing the newcomers in, incorporating their agenda in fear of losing votes. It is all too evident in our case – by addressing immigration, the EU and ‘British values’, the major parties are incorporating UKIP’s favourite issues into their own verbal manifestos, drawing Farage into their web like a less-powerful insect. In this way – rather than lose votes to UKIP – Labour, the Tories and (to a lesser extent) the Lib Dems can eat them up, incorporate them, devour their political energy and metabolize it into their own votes.

By saying ‘UKIP supporters have legitimate concerns, and we are listening’, our major parties are weaving a web to draw UKIP voters in. By offering EU referendums and discussing European reform as if it has always been their number one priority, they are exposing their fear that voters are crawling away. And, by promising to ‘get tough’ on immigration, and praising ‘Christian’ or ‘British’ (read: white) values, the major parties are sending out a panicked message – that they are terrified of UKIP, and that distancing themselves from these UKIP issues would be too politically dangerous. It comes down to a

very worrying situation – our main parties are playing politics so deeply, and are so afraid of losing votes, that they don’t even try to gain political capital out of condemning racism.

Instead, they say ‘we understand’.

What, though, of those of us who do not believe immigration is ruining our country? What about those of us who believe that in fact, as every statistic and study proves, it enriches us personally and economically? What about those of us who are gazing, open mouthed at our TV screens, utterly appalled by the racist, extreme-right rhetoric being spouted? What about those of us who are (quite rightly, empirically) terrified by far-right, nationalist hatemongering?

And there are lots and lots of us. Indeed, a recent Yougov poll showed that, when asked ‘Do you feel generally negative or positive towards UKIP?’ 53% responded ‘negative’, and 22% ‘positive’. That’s compared to the same question asked in 2009, to which 37% responded ‘negative’, and 29% ‘positive’. If this poll is even vaguely indicative of the truth, then around half of Brits feel negative towards UKIP. By refusing to stand up to the party, then, Labour and the Tories are surely missing a trick. Thousands of Brits are shocked and appalled by the racism we see unfolding across the country. When George Osborne says ‘I respect Nigel Farage’, he may appease the small proportion of voters who agree, but he turns his back on the 50% of us who vehemently disagree.

The Green Party have played an interesting part in all this. While they ostensibly might be thought of as UKIP’s antithesis – strongly supporting immigration, diversity, equality, social justice and a strong relationship (after a referendum) with Europe – their arguments against UKIP have been, at times, tentative. Leader Natalie Bennett has, on the one hand, condemned UKIP’s rhetoric as dangerous, racist and divisive, and on the other has seemed to pacify them as a manifestation of general, vague dissatisfaction with the ‘big three’ (and nothing more).

Of course, many UKIP voters are just generally dissatisfied with ‘politics as usual’, and the Green Party could stand to steal such votes. But unless the Greens take a stronger stance against UKIP’s racism and xenophobia, they risk aligning themselves with the mainstream parties, and becoming part of the very establishment they purport to oppose. If they were to actively condemn UKIP’s racism, and push for tolerance, acceptance and the real facts about immigration, the Green Party could frame themselves as the alternative to UKIP that they really are – a vote against the political establishment, but also a vote against racism.

In the meantime, I suspect any great number of racist scandals from UKIP politicians can occur (and they will) without supporters turning away any time soon. This has happened time and again. If the BBC is afraid to say it, I will – many, many UKIP supporters are racist, and are not turned off by racist rhetoric. Many more Brits, however, are not racist, and in fact are strongly opposed to the scapegoating of immigrants. Racists have found a new box to tick at the polls – it is up to our other political leaders to decide whose box nonracists will tick in May next year.

& OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND: RACISM IN THE UK

ALEX FOLEY photograph, Rosie Seville

I was struck while watching the episode of Question Time immediately prior to the European elections by the panelists’ unwillingness to answer one of the questions. When asked whether UKIP’s imminent success betrayed underlying racism, presumably of the electorate, nearly all of the panelists deflected by condemning UKIP as a racist organisation.Tristram Hunt MP and Chris Grayling MP in particular seemed unwilling to entertain the idea that the people of the UK might have racial prejudices, deciding instead to paint them as disillusioned and frustrated; that old chestnut. It is high time we accepted that, while for many a vote for UKIP may have been a protest vote, a significant portion of UKIP voters do indeed harbour racial prejudices and see voting for UKIP as a more palatable way of expressing these views than, say, supporting the BNP. Should anyone doubt that endemic racism exists within Britain, even after the recent polling done by The Guardian, I need raise but one example: Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson’s repeated displays of overt racism function as the perfect lens through which to see the latent racism that permeates our culture. After his latest gaffe, muttering ‘nigger’ while filming an episode of Top Gear – almost before any Guardian columnists could waggle their fingers – a torrent of support from his fans and fellow racists came gushing forth. One fan I know even went so far as to tell me, unwittingly astutely, that Clarkson is not racist, he is simply an entertainer and is giving the people what they want for a laugh. I don’t think for one second that Clarkson is anything other than a racist cad who makes money off of exploiting minorities (see the jam boy incident).

However, I think my acquaintance was quite right in pointing out that he continues with this buffoonery and continues to get away with it because he and the BBC know that Britain is in fact rife with racism.

But back to Question time. It is unsurprising that the MPs were unwilling to suggest that any of their constituents could be racist, even the ‘soft’ variety of racism the audience member who posed the question described encountering in Britain, and yet it is vital that we and the political class address this serious issue. It is perhaps telling that the only panelist to truly attempt to answer the woman’s question was Kirstie Allsopp, who has proven even more recently that she has no qualms offending large swathes of people. Her answer, unintentionally, also struck at the heart of the problem: the self-congratulatory sentiment which has allowed latent racism to fester. ‘... In comparison to other countries we do reasonably well here... A lot of the time people in this country are sensitive to other people’s feelings and cultures and we try to get it right,’ Allsopp said, exemplifying why it is so difficult to have meaningful discourse regarding race relations in the UK: Sure we might have problems with race relations, but we do so much better than other countries, so why bother bringing it up?

And yet, it is vitally important that Westminster does firmly address racial prejudice among the British people. If politicians continue to dodge the question as they did on Question Time, how will this mounting tension ever be resolved? For the truth is, racism in Britain does not always remain latent, it flares up, sometimes becoming even more unwholesome than Clarkson’s arsery. There are an average of 154,000 recorded hate crimes committed each year in England and Wales where the primary motive was race, and these figures are likely to be on the low side. How can MPs hope to protect their constituents from these crimes when they

can’t accept publicly that the racism which motivates them exists? What is more, racism is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon which requires frank discourse to resolve. These incidents of hate crime are not homogeneous, but vary across the country and thus require the integration of action from both Westminster and local councils. Most broadly, Westminster needs to facilitate the building of schools and housing, the shortage of which the “immigrant horde” is regularly blamed for. Such collaboration between various levels of government will simply never occur if politicians continue to avoid public discussions of racism. But even more salient for the political class, MPs need to address racism among their constituents to prevent institutionalised racism in the smarmy, pint-swigging guise of Nigel Farage and UKIP. As someone who has wanted desperately for some time to emigrate to the UK, UKIP’s win was a rather personal blow. Not because I feel I’m part of the faceless (imaginary) immigrant horde they have scared the electorate with (as a white, middle-class American, I think I would be lumped in with Farage’s German wife in the exceptions pile), but because I have seen the ilk of UKIP and their supporters in another party back in America. In recent years the Republican party, analogous to the Conservatives (although considerably farther right, if you can believe it) has been hijacked by the UKIP-like Tea Party with occasionally laughable and consistently unsettling results.

The GOP is now a party where homophobic, racist, and misogynist remarks are not gaffes with resultant resignations but rather recitations of party doctrine. This is the party that has declared it open season on minorities and school children (I’ve lost track of where the latest mass shooting took place. At the time of writing, I think Seattle bears the honour.). For a long time, Rick Santorum – with his constant deluge of homophobia – was a frontrunner in the primary for the GOP presidential nomination, along with Michele Bachmann, whose husband runs clinics which aim to convert gay men to heterosexual lifestyles. Former Vice Presidential nominee and Living Onion Article Sarah Palin recently introduced us to her charming take on foreign policy: baptism by waterboarding. This is the party that spews anti-immigration rhetoric so hateful, it would make many UKIP counsellors blush.

There are certain parallels between the meteoric rises of the Tea Party and UKIP, chiefly the way the Tea Party drove the conversation to the right in order to legitimise themselves. Both parties were born out of antipathy towards immigrants; the term “Tea Party” was first applied to anti-immigration protests in 2005. From there, the Tea Party protests organised into political groups and began funding certain far right political candidates, some of whom began to identify themselves as Tea Party candidates. 32% of Tea Party backed candidates won elections, particularly during the far right swing during the 2010 midterm election. During the 2012 elections, the Tea Party did significantly less well, and their performance in recent elections has suggested a continued downward trajectory. Likewise, even after their success in the European elections, UKIP are unlikely to receive more than one MP seat.

The true shared danger of both of these parties, however, is their ability to drive the discussion to the right, regardless of their success at the polls. Once moderate, sensible Republican politicians have had to take hard-line stances on a range of issues from gun rights to abortion

to appease the Tea Party contingent. But more worryingly, the GOP has been driven to becoming a party bereft of reason and common sense. To acknowledge the existence of climate change, as a member of the party, is to risk ostricisation. The most salient example at the moment of this requisite senselessness is the fervent attack from the right on the recently released prisoner of war Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and his family, in an attempt to undermine the foreign policy of the Obama administration. In an attempt to understand his son’s captors, Mr. Bergdahl learned some Arabic and has grown his beard out. After addressing his son during a press conference in the White House rose garden in Arabic (Sgt. Bergdahl reportedly was having difficulty speaking English after five years in captivity) Mr. Bergdahl was accused of having, ‘claimed the White House for Islam,’ by a Fox News contributor, and many others on the right have condemned him for his unkempt beard, which made him look, ‘like a Muslim,’ according to Bill O’Reilly. Some of the right’s vitriol came in response to unsubstantiated claims that Sgt. Bergdahl was a deserter, that six other soldiers died searching for him, and that a celebration that had been planned in his hometown for his return had to be cancelled. For the American right, it is now repugnant even to attempt to empathise with Muslims, let alone to be one. All this, from the party that was once the champion of the civil rights movement.

So, too, has UKIP managed to shift the conversation in the UK to the right, irrespective of the number of seats they pick up next year. The referendum is a testament to this. Where once Tony Blair was able to not only justify its existence to Farage, but emphasise its merits, now the three stooges are only able to say that it’s best we stick to the evils we know rather than rush off to seek the ones we don’t. ‘We’re not fighting each other any more,’ Blair said: These are our partners. They’re our colleagues and our future lies in Europe. And when you and your colleagues say ‘what do we get in return for what we contribute to enlargement?’, I’ll tell you what we get. We get a Europe that is unified after years of dictatorship in the east. We get economic development in countries whom we have championed. We get a future reform that allows us—once and for all—to put an end to discussion about rebates, common agricultural policy, and get a proper budget for Europe. That’s what we get if we have the vision to seize that opportunity.

Where was this oratory mastery when Clegg decided (foolishly) to engage with Farage in debate? Simply by giving Farage the platform and the opportunity to embarrass Clegg further, the political class has validated him and his views. Farage has managed to change fundamentally how an anti-immigration stance is perceived. Once considered extremist/fringe views, now the major political parties all concede that they are ‘legitimate concerns.’ So much ground has been lost already by Cameron’s attempts to appease the far right and to stop members from breaking ranks. How can they expect to move the conversation back to sensible ground if they cannot identify and condemn racism among their constituencies openly?

If Kirstie Allsopp is the last bastion of truth when it comes to endemic racism, then I fear we are well on our way to becoming America-lite. Soon we will be a country where sending black people back to Bongobongo Land and defending farmers from homosexual weather shamans are issues seriously debated by our established political parties.

N.B. here at Bleak we aim to encourage debate, rather than stifle it, and as a consequence, all the views expressed by our contributors do not necessarily represent the views of Bleak’s editors. Your opinions are also valuable to us, so please send your responses to bleakzine@gmail.com – and next time, you may be featured on our Opinions page.

A REVIEW OF WES ANDERSON’S LATEST, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (2014)

In the last few years, there has been a certain buzz surrounding Wes Anderson films which made their particular brand of artificiality eminently appealing, but only to the initiated. The director has since gained remarkable mainstream success, and The Grand Budapest Hotel is his highest grossing film to date. His style is decidedly twee – but it would be a mistake to dismiss it as all chintz and no knickers, as the film creates a complex nexus of narrative and aesthetic. The multi-layered story is palimpsest-like, inspired by the works of Austrian author Stefan Zweig, who is portrayed as a character known only as ‘The Author’ – cast in the role of the ultimate storyteller. The design of the titular Grand Budapest is a work of pure magic realism – a feat of imagination lifted straight from Olde Worlde Europe. The hotel’s façade was created by filming a three metre high model, which seems to fit perfectly with Anderson’s dollhouse portrayal of reality, where every piece of minutiae has its place. If faced with the vulgar opulence of the hotel in real life, it would be enough to make anyone balk, but on screen it radiates warmth and old-fashioned functionality.

Anderson is clearly taken by such antiquated objects as the dumb waiter or the funicular which hark back to times of such quaint civility. The beating heart of the hotel, portrayed with infectious hilarity by Ralph Fiennes, is the camp and mercurial M. Gustave, who strikes up an adorable friendship with his protégé Zero Mustafa the lobby boy. The two set the tone of the buoyant and breakneck narrative, marked by

quick camera action and their peripatetic onscreen presence.

A painting, understatedly titled ‘Boy With Apple’, inherited

by Gustave, is a piece of stock European art, a passive participant in the film’s numerous chase scenes which lag after a while, sometimes feeling a little empty and unconnected. The film also contains many blink-and-youmiss-it glimpses of the Anderson gang, featuring old favourites such as Owen Wilson, Edward Norton, Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray. Tilda Swinton, made to look 84 by what must be some prodigiously talented make-up artists, was particularly missed after her brief turn as the illfated Madame D. Underneath the madcappery it is a film about rightful inheritance, descendancy and lineage, expressed by flashes of various concierges interrupted by a phone call who each tell their own lobby boy ‘you take over’, and they immediately do, inheriting tasks as wide-ranging as souptasting and CPR. Zero’s legitimacy in taking over The Grand Budapest is shown in his newfound ability to grow a moustache in mimicry of Gustave, no longer needing to pencil it on, which is also an evocation of masculinity and coming-of-age. The film expresses an anxiety for the loss of romanticised pre-war values, nostalgically endorsing a time when a lobby boy could graft his way to being a concierge.

This is placed in direct contrast to the peeling garishness of the hotel in the 1960s, whose melancholic guests are all ‘solitary’ – any connections between them long since severed. The film, witty and exquisitely designed, is also wonderfully funny, packed with swift moments of comedy which litter the film like a trail of treats. A beautiful and ambitious film, packed with the usual Andersonian comforts.

Illustration 2 adapted from original photograph by Martin Schoeller, Bill Murray, from ‘Close Up’ series (2010)

SOUP, LAMB, POSSET.

STORY



ILLUSTRATION & marbling

EMILY

WATKINS



ESME

ARMOUR

“Well, Love, they’ll be here in half an hour. And I’m sure everything is ready, and that we are happy to know that soon our dear friends will be here to regale us with tales of their families, their colleagues, and the details of all their little lives! There is nothing more interesting. I am never happier than when listening to a friend of mine, as he relates to me the details of some recent dream, some small epiphany had queuing to pay for a tin of tomato soup. Perhaps! Perhaps he realises, as I did, only two days ago while waiting to collect a parcel from the post office, that people are either lambs or wolves and that all one needs is ten seconds, looking deep into someone’s eyes – I do posit that the eyes are the window to the soul – to tell the difference.”

“Shakespeare said that, Dadda. Shakespeare said that the eyes are the window to the soul.”

“Well! And right you are, I expect! But just because he said it first, you see, does it follow that I must have copied him? Stolen the phrase from him?

Or, consider, Cassie, do, because it is possible – that two great minds, centuries apart, could have generated the exact same original thought?”

“I’ll consider it, but I’m sceptical.”

“You are! You may be! And so young, untouched by the majority of life’s battery – and yet so sceptical. I try to keep an open mind, a child’s mind, when I feel myself drawn to scepticism. I have been battered by life, oh, I have been roughly handled. Staying naïve, open, is all that has kept me alive.

Simple pleasures, Love. Watch, here now: I am very, very excited about the soup starter. In fact, I am very, very excited about the lamb to follow, and it surely goes without saying that the prospect of the posset is so divine that I can hardly bear to consider it before it is placed in front of me, or I fear I would lose control. I am as excited as a child! Callooh! Callay!”, he chortled in his joy.

“Yes Dadda. You are more excited than me, and I am your own child.”

“But you are a sceptical child. Is there anything uglier in the world?”

“I hope there may be. I really would rather not be the single most ugly thing in the whole world,” said Cassie, who was not the prettiest.

“No, that is part of the female condition. Where is Carter? He ought to have laid the table by now – Carter!”

Footsteps could be heard on the other side of the door. They paused, and Cassie and Charles could hear a sigh that they did not acknowledge, before the door opened slowly to reveal Carter, who stood looking at the floor with his hands behind his back.

“Sir?” “Table, Carter. Lay the table. Why haven’t you laid the table? Why is the table bare? How can we be expected to eat at a table with no glasses, plates, cutlery or napkins? Is there a reason that you have neglected to lay it, thus far? I have never seen our table look so naked, so unloved. It makes my heart swell with shame and pity, with horror at your negligence and fear of our guests’ disappointment. I am terrified that it will not be ready in time. If it is ready in time, I shall be appeased. Lay the table.”

“Yes, Sir.” *

*

*

After the guests had left, the evening having been of middling success, Charles and Cassie remained at the table.

“Carter! Clear the table! Is there a reason you have neglected to clear it, thus far? I worry that it will not be clear before bed time. Why is the table still laden?”

“I haven’t eaten yet, Sir.” Cassie smiled. “That’s right, Dadda. Think how terribly hungry he must be – standing in the corner, watching us fill our stomachs all evening, and without a scrap for himself. Sit, Carter. Sit next to me.”

Carter gave a long sigh that tasted of relief and desire, and allowed a slight smile to play softly, softly around his lips. Cassie breathed in his sigh and pulled him forward on it, until he reached the chair beside her and sat to eat.

“But Carter! You eat with the other servants. You eat with your own, in your own room. You eat your own food!”

Cassie picked up the ladle from the soup terrine, and nodded to Carter. He had never felt so happy in his life, he thought, as he leant backwards in his chair, tilted his head, closed his eyes and opened his mouth. The little woman moved the ladle towards his mouth and tipped it on its side, allowing the tepid soup to run into his mouth, and down his chin in rivulets.

The orange liquid made patterns like Rorschach inkblots on his white shirt and his white skin.

Next, she reached for the dish of lamb. She used her fork to pick up a small piece – all that was left – and deposit it on her plate. She took her knife in her other hand, and cut the meat for the man as tenderly, as finely, as the mother of an ailing child. Onto her fork and into his mouth. Onto her fork and into his mouth. Onto her fork and into his mouth.

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

JOHANNA STENSON

Living in a Socialist Paradise Warm grass, dark shades, blinding reflections from the little river in the little park in the little town. We’re laughing, he’s swaying, and you’re from the city so you take out your purse. The resonance of the coins clinking down into his palm cracks the tectonic plate and pulls the water away from the shore. Two steps later it turns around to crash into our quaint heart-to-heart in a sour breathed wave of cold sweat, sooty lungs, rusty needles and bad decisions, injustice and inoperable pain. Two unwilling therapists in summer dresses, necks frozen stiff to stop their eyes from searching the safety of the others.

“I’ll bugger off, this is not your goddamn problem, I’ll leave you the hell alone, I’m just an old fucked up addict, I’ll piss off now.”

And we say “OK” And just as his distance begins to thaw our faces, “You have no goddamn idea of how fucked up life is, your fucking blank stares and fucking…”

And we say “OK” again. And the murky tsunami water starts groaning after brains and bubbling with bloody intestines.

“You have no fucking clue, you know fuck all.”

And we say “OK”. The worst use in history of the world’s most famous word.

A saga from outside Iceland Little hollow pins, supporting the wave of metallic that stops cars from crashing when the driver falls asleep. You can see each one if you follow them past the window with your eyes, but it makes you queasy and hurts your head. The blurry half-transparent grey mass, swishing by thinking they are all someone, because they just came from somewhere and have somewhere to go.

That look is so strange. It comes from a wish not to seem like you think I’m not a person, through treating me completely differently to all the other strangers you happily ignore.

They see me before I see them. They were hoping I wouldn’t be there today, but I am.

Ten steps away, can you walk on the other side of the street or walk shielded by someone else without making it obvious?

Eight steps away, you’re a bit late to meet a friend Seven steps, who you haven’t seen in ages actually, you should hurry Five steps, and you’ve missed your friend, you’re actually on your way to be something more, maybe Three steps, I mean you’ve liked her forever and finally she might like you too but not if you’re late you should really walk faster One step away, you have to run to catch the love of your life before she’s gone forever! No one would stop in that situation, you can’t help it. You would buy the Big Issue in any other situation, of course, you’re an Altruistic Bighearted Compassionate Decent Empathetic Fair Generous Helpful person.

At the end of the day she finally drops that miserable look and calls her Criminal Ringleader Pimp to ask for a ride (in perfect English). On the way they stop to pick up her benefit check which she sends to her family who need it to remodel one of the new bathrooms in the castle they bought using the profit from the exchange rate. Back at the double-glazed thick-carpeted all-inclusive suburban villa her drug smuggler cousin is waiting, and she uses today’s earnings to restock her “for schoolchildren” range. Justifiably tired, she downs a bottle of vodka, laughs at the gullible fools who give her money, and falls asleep, dreaming of teaming up with the gays to start Armageddon.

On a warm San Francisco night Sometimes the shiny yellow vests are nice, but sometimes they push you like they want to push you into hell. You always know before, from the score of the game and the thickness of the fog and the sharpness of the breaks of the trams and the people streaming out from the escalator. It’s obvious, and you can always predict it. When the 49ers win and the air is clear and quiet and people all turn right I can sleep well.

The shaky man won’t last long.

I wonder if he stays in the doorway because he thinks it’s the world that’s shaking and not him.

You always know, but it’s hard to keep track, no one person could do it, because of the heat of the BART exhaust and the broken pixels on the billboard and what Barry told me on TV and people going left or right from the BART and the message in the stars. You can know as surely as I knew that the market would crash and that Barry would win and it was a girl and I would get the job and the dog was up to no good.

The shaky man won’t last long.

Maybe he came to the fault line to find somewhere that could follow in his beat.

But one person can’t keep track of it all, no one could. If we coordinated our efforts it would be easy, an engineer at the tunnel, a veterinarian with the pigeons, a few interns to bring coffee and a secretary to report to me and to take Barry’s messages. I will sit on the left so people go right. The vest says I can’t sit here but the world says that I have to.

The shaky man won’t last long.

Maybe I can have his mittens and his blue hula hoop.

Watercolours found objects, painted in the 1930’s by Judith Beevor

SUNSET STRIP You’re so goddamn selfish said she to her he, a boy completely void of sexuality, trapped in the mind of she guessed a buffoon it was truly quite clear that she’d leapt far too soon.

They walked hand in hand down a sunset strip with tailored bars and luxury cars and punk noses pierced with alligator clips, blue lights and offshoots of flame ostentatious, alluring. Champing at the bit. Four blocks along and two blocks down, he promised they’d find that which alluded Doc Brown, a slice of time locked away just for themselves where they could be quite alone, held like sea inside shells and talk their problems out of limbo, he promised all this with his grin wide as hell. Two blocks along and she felt something wrong, his hand had gone sweaty, so too had his brow, teeth grit and ready she began to drag, but so did he, except on a fag, drained to the butt and flicked down a drain, his hold on her hand now resulting in pain. What’re you… doing? He finished it for her, don’t you see, right now we both are the foreigner and these people right here don’t want us to stay, stick close by me, or they’ll whisk us away. Then out of the dark loomed one thousand eyes all yellowed and sullied, cricket-like flick-knives clicked by the dozen and one man laughed and one woman shuddered.

The steady path beneath their feet broke out into rubble, no way, she thought, did Doc Brown go to such trouble to find what can never be down these streets, but she must trust her buffoon before they get themselves beat. So she does and she will and with a helping hand from lady luck they’re in the clear with the moon, singing silver songs to shaded pastures and rivers, forests, she shivers and looks on past city limits to a pocket of space, slice of time in tow. The grip on her hand softens, he stretches out and pulls her wonderfully with him over a field bathed in light, white-golden barley tickling their ankles, crickets playing violin-legs with deafening subtlety to drown out the clicks of knives long left behind. Up ahead grows a tree at a rate of knots, the old fellow’s withered fingers scraping the sky’s ceiling, tree-sap tears bleeding for the love of the pair skipping toward him.

CALUM BANNERMAN She mimics those tears with ones of her own, her beloved buffoon… who would have known he could be so thoughtful, so willing to change. At last we’re alone, just you and just me, he said and she thought at long last that she was his she, Of all of tonight this place is the best, he grinned whilst she spoke as they lay down to rest in the roots of the old man holding up the sky, he kissed her softly, on the neck, placed his hand on her thigh. She kissed his forehead, still damp, but the salt tasted sweet and he shuffled in close till their stomachs met.

Not now, she whispered, Come on it can’t hurt he retorted with zeal, his hand up her shirt. My love, she persisted, this isn’t the time, but his hands like the tree kept reaching, You’re mine. And I’m yours she promised, but let’s, just wait. Still out of the darkness loomed these eyes, filled with hate, she tried and failed to get up not one time but two, he pressed her face hard into his whispering I love you, I love you.

She opened her eyes once it was all done to see it smoking a cigarette, burning the night with a rough orange glow. She was not in a field of green grass nor of white-golden barley nor of mountainous trees, she was not there. She lay among a bed of disused electrical wires, copper pipe, long stretching guttering running up the walls of a ramshackle comms tower, topped with satellite dishes that blotted out the stars.

She sat up and saw the old town, covered in weeds, some knee high, some dead and decaying, all ugly, all sad.

She watched it drop a cigarette in the dregs of a beer can, hack up a globule of phlegm and spit it between legs scratched to buggery. She saw her own flesh, though it was not as she had remembered it.

I love you, it said dryly, over shoulder, I do.

I loved you, she said, it was belated, but true.

RIDING THE

25 WITH EMILY

SOPHIE RENOUF

If you have ever thought that one day you will have a child, or you know that one day you will have one, then you may experience the tender, violent murmurs in your stomach, that promise a thing unavoidable. It is a promise that you must be a vessel, a carrier, a home, a hotel. And then a passport, a keyhole, a door, from one small space in the universe to everything outside of it. And with this, though not miserably, you realise the utilisation of your body does not cease there. It is a thing for much longer: a food, a prison, a wall, a pathway, a bank, a church, a school. If you ever briefly, fleetingly, feel with any certainty that you will one day have a child, then you briefly, fleetingly, feel with certainty the wonderful damnation of that promise. Unthinkable pain and beauty; the female body that decides to give birth makes itself a promise of the most strange. Its knowability, its vigorous ascending shape on the horizon, its gentleness as it says: ‘I am waiting’.

(Nature is fearsome, just look at death.)

When you think, distractedly, sipping your coffee, of the future there are few things of ominous certainty. And it is not that we condemn raw loud nature, shrink from it, our power of choice – if we are lucky enough to have it. It is merely that the contract, the debt collected at the price of life, is pain. If I state the obvious, so be it. The obvious never ceases to terrify and amaze me. I know nothing of pain, yet. I will know it. And if I do not, or cannot, that is for another reflection.

Illustration, Sasha Silberman-Hanks

Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.

Camille Pissarro

SCULPTURE, LOUISE WORRALL.

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