melter
issue 1
melter @melterzine
Illustration by Jacob Stratfold
editor's note First things first, you might be asking, what is a melter? Unless you’re Northern Irish, you probably won’t know, and even in Northern Ireland, the definition can vary. After asking around my hometown pals, I think I can sum it up in a few sentences. Simply put, a melter is an annoying person. They might go on and on about something in particular, they might drain your energy with shite conversation or never-ending Instagram stories, or their presence may just fucking exhaust you - hence the name, derived from the saying ‘you’re melting my head’ and most commonly used in the sentence, ‘you’re such a melter’. Doesn’t particularly sound like the kind of person you’d want to be around, right? Well, MELTER is here to change that. This begs another question you might have, what is MELTER? MELTER is a publication full of passion - passion for life, passion for being excessive and extra and annoyingly you. Mainly because life is far too short, and why shouldn’t we enjoy things as much as we can? Just because some people may get annoyed by it? Of course not. Through the insightful conversations included in this publication, both with people I somewhat know, others complete strangers, and even my own dad, I’ve had the privilege to candidly peek into what makes them tick, what keeps them up at night and what they wish they could talk about forever if they got the chance. To be honest, I truly believe there is a melter inside us all. So as you read, I invite you to ponder, what makes me a melter? Everyone has something. Whether it’s a love for climbing trees or speaking about how the vessel you receive a drink in changes the entire drinking experience. Maybe you just have an annoying behavioural trait, like never being on time for anything. Like ever. Or maybe you take it too far every time you drink and get absolutely paralytic. Whatever it is, I hope you enjoy the words of those featured in MELTER, and I hope I’ve been able to do their passions justice. Quoting one of the featured melters themselves, Cate Cheung-McMullan, who when speaking about documentary filmmaking spilled this nugget of wisdom that deserved to appear somewhere among these pages, “isolated stories from people are quite beautiful in a sense, because when they’re talking, there’s hate and passion and love and joy and there’s all these things behind it. That’s a whole person that’s had this experience and they’re wanting to share it with you, and you want to do it justice in showing it to other people.” Furthermore, I hope by reading MELTER you learn something new about a topic you’d never even considered worthy of your time or attention, and when you’ve finished I hope your own head is melted. Most of all, I hope it helps you come to terms with being a melter yourself because let’s be real, someone probably thinks you are one. Plenty of people think I’m one, but I’m cool with that because if everyone is a melter, is anyone?
Katie Donaghy
ONE MAN'S TRASH
On a bright April afternoon in Northern Ireland, ALICIA PRICE took me on a tour of Newcastle’s best charity shops, disclosed her top tips for thrifting and revealed how she believes giving to charity shops results in finding diamonds in return. Literally.
The sun is shining as Alicia picks me up and we head towards Newcastle to scavenge through her favourite charity shops. “I like coming to Newcastle because people are coming here on their holidays,” she discloses, “a lot of people will actually, when they’re going back home especially if they’re travelling from another country, they’ll leave clothes behind that they’ve brought from home that they don’t need anymore so you’ll get stuff like that.” Being a beach town, another benefit is the influx of summer clothing donated all year round, no matter how abysmal the weather is. As we drive past Castlewellen, Alicia points out a tiny building to our left, The Mission Shop. While it helps to have an open mind to charity shop clothing, she reveals a situation where she had no choice in the matter. “One time when we were coming here to Newcastle, I was carsick and literally needed a whole new outfit, so we called into that charity shop and I got jeans and a top. So it definitely comes in handy.” Laughing as she recalls the story, Alicia credits her parents for her lifelong love for secondhand clothing. To the Price family, it was never looked down on to buy from charity shops, it was just another place to go get clothes. It’s this mentality that’s led to Alicia not only volunteering in her local charity shop for the past few years, but also becoming an advocate for giving clothes another chance at a new life. “The fashion industry is so dictated by one group at the very top and obviously you know yourself, it trickles down to the bottom,” she emphasises, “but I think charity shops are able to break that loop, they’re just on the side doing their own thing, you know?”. Not only this, visiting a charity shop is a full-on experience. Finding gems amongst the rails of £1 clothing can be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but when you land upon that piece that makes it all worth it, the serotonin is unmatched.
“You’re not just going into a shop and being presented with the nicest thing, you actually have to go in and have a look and get your hands dirty. I think that makes it more rewarding when you actually find something, it’s like a little piece of treasure.”
At the mention of treasure, Alicia proceeds to reveal the most valued item she’s ever found whilst thrifting. “The most expensive thing I’ve found was a money clip, it was in an American thrift store. It’s a little money clip which has two pen knives that fold out from the sides, and on the front it has a little emblem which is a little ’T’ and a telephone, and it had three gems in it and it was also stamped on the back.” Unsure what this meant at the time, Alicia brought the money clip back to the family friend she was staying with who deduced it was definitely worth something. After taking it to a jewellers in Bangor once she was back in Northern Ireland, she was surprised to find out that not only was it gold-filled, the gems consisted of two rubies and a diamond. “So I have a gold-filled money clip that has two rubies and a diamond on it, and I got it for $2! Literally sitting on a shelf, in the middle of random bric-a-brac, and I actually picked it up and looked at it but I didn’t really know what it was so I set it down and walked away,” Alicia admits, “then I was like wait actually, I really want that so I went back and grabbed it! I paid two dollars for it and I don’t know how much it’s actually worth but it’s priceless to me because I found it and I love it.” After perusing a few more charity shops along the coast, Alicia has picked up a forest green outdoor coat for £1 (!) and tried on a very alluring pair of bright pink ski trousers. She tells me about a recent trip to Dublin where the charity shops were less than impressive. “They weren’t great, and to be honest the charity shops in Belfast aren’t great. Like the ones on Lisburn road and in Botanic, because it’s all students around there, you’re just going to get student crap and the local people around there will just throw in a lot of stuff from Primark or Topshop, and all that kind of stuff.” However, Alicia doesn’t completely discredit the charity shops of bigger cities, she just stresses they take a lot more digging through, or hoke-ing as we call it in Northern Ireland. “They very much make use of the ‘vintage’ label in Dublin, they had a St. Vincent De Paul but it was classed as vintage so it was obviously overpriced and some of it was not even really vintage, it was just gross.“ Voicing that you can often find out a lot about a place from what they have in the charity shops, Alicia divulges that small towns are surprisingly full of discarded wonders. “The ones in Dublin weren’t really great because not a lot of people
“Yeah, I think more people should shop in charity shops, but I think more people should actually donate to them. I believe that if you give to charity shops, they will give back to you.”
live in Dublin, a lot of people just visit Dublin and yeah, they were a bit disappointing. In Ramsey, well the charity shops in the Isle of Man in general had nicer things because everyone in the Isle of Man is quite well off, so if you go somewhere that’s quite rich but full of local people, it’s usually good.” Vividly describing a chocolate brown A-line leather coat she saw for £10 while visiting recently, Alicia’s face drops when she remembers the overly voluminous shoulder pads that stopped her from purchasing it. Regarding the recent popularity that’s swarmed secondhand clothing, perhaps made popular by YouTubers who vlog their thrift hauls such as Emma Chamberlain, Alicia’s in two minds about the sudden change of heart. “I’m not gatekeeping, but also, if I’m with someone especially, sometimes you’ll maybe both see something and you’re like, oh I like that! Like if I’m with Helene, my sister, sometimes we’ll both see something and it’s like, ‘I want it but you want it, who gets it?’ sort of thing.” Sibling rivalry aside, Alicia thinks more focus should be put towards donating clothes amid concerns of overconsumption. “Yeah, I think more people should shop in charity shops, but I think more people should actually donate to them. I believe
that if you give to charity shops, they will give back to you.” Furthermore, she maintains her belief in charity shop karma, especially as those who are less fortunate rely on charity shops as their only point of purchase.
“I just think it’s kind of a circle because I know there are people that genuinely need charity shops because they can’t afford anything else, so I don’t really want to be going in there and taking all the good stuff without giving back to it.” Not only this, Alicia doesn’t believe the life of a clothing item has to stop after just two chances, “I think it can be fun, when you’re done with something from the charity shop, well, you can just give it back! You know, I’m done here, you can have it back. Then, someone else gets to buy it and have their experience with it. It’s a nice cycle of different lives, experiencing the same item of clothing.”
ALICIA'S TOP CHARITY SHOP TIPS KNOW YOUR FABRICS “Know what’s a cheap fabric and what’s more expensive. Not even expensive, but know what’s a better quality fabric! Look at labels of items to see what the materials are, if you’re not sure. Sometimes there’s very good mimics of materials but it’s not actually the real deal. Especially bags, I bought a little leather bag from the Isle of Man in a charity shop and it’s like an ostrich leather, the kind of leather that has dots, and on the inside it says genuine leather, so things like that - look at the labels and see what they say.”
KNOW YOUR BRANDS “Don’t waste your time buying things from Primark or New Look, or to be honest even Topshop or H&M. It’s not good quality and although they’re fine if you buy them new and take good care of them, you don’t know if who’s owned it last has been doing that. Something I do a lot is look up brands, I’ve done that so many times. I will stand in the charity shop with my phone out, and google the brands. I found a Pringle jumper
and I didn’t know what Pringle was but it looked like a good brand. See if something has a good label, like a good thick label, it’s probably a good brand so look it up!”
LOOK IN ALL THE SECTIONS “Men’s, women’s, children’s - look in all the sections because you never know. Sometimes people in the charity shops put things in other places, even if it’s in the right place but not necessarily your section - if you like it, it doesn’t really matter. Look past the sizes definitely, sometimes it’s nice to have sizes if you’re looking for something specific, but if you’re not or you’re just having a browse - look past the sizes.”
TAKE YOUR TIME “Don’t be afraid to stand there, take your time in charity shops! Allot a decent amount of time because it does take a bit to go through everything and look through it all. Try things on! You never know if you’ll like it more or even less when you try it on, and you never know if it’s gonna fit or not!”
ABOVE IS THOMAS’ FAVOURITE FONT, KNOCK MOST FAMOUSLY KNOWN FOR BEING USED IN PROMOTION OF HARRY STYLES’ ALBUM, FINE
OUT, THE LINE.
Affectionately (or not) dubbed a ‘font-nonce’ by his sister, Sunderland-born Graphic Design student THOMAS HALL loves all things typography. I sat down with Thomas in the Northumbria University Design building, coincidentally in a room filled with a variation of fonts, to discuss his devotion to impactful type and his downright hatred of Helvetica. KATIE DONAGHY: To be honest, I reached out to you and essentially decided that you were a melter for typography, I didn’t actually ask you, but I know you have a strong interest in typography. What is it that you like about it so much? Because I stalked your website-
THOMAS HALL: You did? Nice.
Yeah, I have no shame. On it, you say that you like to focus on typography-based design. Was it something that naturally came about? How did you get into that area? Well, I always joke about this, but I say that I love typography because I can’t draw, so I would never be an illustrator. But nah I think I like typography because it’s everywhere, but you don’t really realise that it is. So I like to do work that kind of gives the typography the attention. So you realise that it’s there and, I don’t know, I kind of see it as illustration in a way because it is essentially just a lot of different lines and shapes, just like a drawing is.
Do you catch yourself noticing different typefaces, and their design a lot in everyday life? Yeah, so it’s kind of awful as soon as you start having a Graphic Design education, you can’t unsee it. So even in this room, like there’s loads of different fonts and like, it’s lame, but I’m also kind of proud of it, oftentimes I can tell you what a typeface is. So the Cartier one there, [gesturing to a poster to the left of us], is a typeface called Snell Roundhand, and yeah, I don’t know how I can recognise them. I don’t know if this can go on record, but my sister likes to call me a font-nonce, or a fonce for short.
[Laughs] A font-nonce? That’s kind of brilliant. Yeah, I’ll take it as a compliment.
What inspires you for your own typography-based design work, is it you see something you’re inspired by and you want to replicate something similar? Or maybe you see something and you know you can make it better? I have quite a few sort of design heroes whose work I quite like. One of them would be a guy called Matt Wiley, who was the art director of New York Times for quite a while. His work is pretty cool, like sort of big type. I really like big type. Also, a really old guy, who I think is dead now, called Willy Fleckhaus. He was the art director for Harper’s Bazaar back in the day. He pioneered that style of big, strong, block type. They’re the sort of people that if I need a bit of inspo, I’ll go and look at their work and be like that’s nice!. But I also just kind of get inspiration from lots of different random things I see. So like signage, if there’s an old bit of type, or like a kind of shit bit of type that’s also kind of cool, I’m like, yeah I like that.
Like the main high street in Byker, it’s just full of shit shop signs but it’s also kind of cool. Yeah, so it’s kind of a mix between design work and then just natural stuff that I see.
Do you think typography is something more people should be appreciative of? Do you think it gets overlooked? Yeah, I think because a.) it gets overlooked. But also I don’t think people understand how difficult it is to make a font or a typeface.
Like you get the sort of common stereotype of Comic Sans, it’s a shit ugly font that shouldn’t get used, but someone still made that and a lot of effort went into it. So, I feel like if people had more of an awareness of type, they would see a lot more. Well, at least that’s how I see it. I feel like if everyone else had that sort of awareness, then they’d see more. Like that typeface there, [pointing out another poster in the room], where it says ‘Reminder’ is called Didot, which is what the Vogue logo is. Fun fact. God, I sound like such a freak.
No, you know, it’s actually perfect. It’s perfect for MELTER. Do you have any favourite fonts? Oh, favourite fonts. So many. I’ll say one that I don’t like very much, and that’s Helvetica because, well, I’m probably just saying I hate it to be different. Just because it gets used so much, and there’s so many others that are like really, really similar that you could use. It makes me like, you know, someone that just can’t do anything wrong, no matter what they do and is so heralded, that’s how I see Helvetica and it kind of pisses me off.
[Making a mental note not to use any Helvetica in this interview...] Favourite font, hmm. There’s a font called Knock Out, which I think was used on Harry Styles’ Fine Line album, and it’s inspired by vintage boxing posters. So I quite like that one. It’s very sort of chunky and cool. Also, you know how typefaces have weights? So bold, regular and italic or whatever. So the weights of this typeface are the divisions of boxing - so welterweight, lightweight, which is pretty cool. It’s a nice font and it’s also quite clever. Yeah, that’s probably my favourite font that I could pick.
Would you ever try to make your own? Yeah, I really want to. I started over, was it the first lockdown? Maybe it was the second. Tried it. It’s very hard. I have this book at home, it’s a type design book and as you can imagine, it’s thrilling. I started it. I think I did a couple of letters roughly but they’ve all got to be different but overall the same, which is very tricky. There’s a really old amusement sign in Sunderland that I want to do a typeface of. So I did Roker, which is the place, so I did the R O K E R and it was just so hard.
Especially when it’s not simple, some fonts like Helvetica or Futura or whatever are just shapes essentially so they’re quite easy to do. Whereas when you do cursive or like really elegant fonts, they are very complicated. But yeah, I definitely, at some point, probably after uni, when I’ve got time to just do it at my own pace. I’ll probably do one.
Do you like to look at the history of how, because obviously it takes a lot of effort and skill to actually make a typeface, do you like to look into the history of how those things are done? Yeah, I do. When I’m picking a font, I do look at whose designed it or where it’s come from, or what it’s inspired by because that kind of gives it a certain feel. Yeah, I do tend to explore the history of typefaces for projects mainly, not as a sort of hobby. Well I mean, maybe I do, who knows. And also, for my dissertation, I did typography as a form of activism and that involved a lot of research looking at the history of typography. Because typography developed during a time where there was more misogyny and inequality between genders, typography in itself has become gendered. So the fact that a really strong font is classed as masculine and then a really sort of elegant script font is called feminine, that stems from the social discrimination of women being weak and men being strong. So like, it’s quite interesting to explore that and then realise that even by saying ‘Oh that font looks really masculine!’ because it’s bold, you’re sort of perpetuating a societal problem. And it’s quite interesting just to see the stories behind the type as well. Like the designers, like the London Underground font was designed by a guy called Eric Gill and a very talented type designer, but he also abused his kids and his wife and even his dog. So there’s a debate within graphic design at the minute about whether he should be heralded anymore because his work was good, but he wasn’t very good person.
So, yeah, there’s more to a font than just the letters. I know you said about your sister already, but do you think people get sick of hearing you speak about typography? So within graphics, we don’t. We all chat about it, it’s really sad, but we’ll talk about it amongst ourselves. But it’s if we go to the pub and there’s a few graphics people and a few non-graphics people. Like my brother, I’m a twin, and my brother comes out with us a lot. He doesn’t do graphics at all, and a group of us will start talking about fonts and stuff or like graphics or whatever, the rest will all get really agitated because it’s like ‘can you not just have a day off?’. So within graphics, no, no one gets annoyed. But then outside of it, it’s just kind of like, I don’t know, I guess, cringy, but I don’t really care. And yeah, obviously ‘fontnonce’, that kind of tells you all you need to know. Have a look at Thomas’ typography work at thomashall.co or on Instagram @thomashall_
PLAYING HIS CARDS RIGHT
Headlining cardistry conventions in Berlin, Portland and L.A., for SCOTT BLACK, what started as a fondness for magic in his adolescence has flourished into so much more. For those who don’t know, what is cardistry? Cardistry is essentially card flourishing. It’s almost like how people do skateboard tricks. It’s not really doing magic, it’s more juggling cards and doing cool things and visual tricks. I think the difference is if you’re doing a magic trick to people, some people want to find out how it’s done or they try to interrupt you. With cardistry, it speaks for itself. There’s no strings or anything, it’s just skill.
How did you get into it? So most cardists start doing magic. I learnt magic as a kid because I thought it was cool, and I saw Dynamo doing it and a bunch of other magicians that I thought were cool. But I sort of drifted from magic a few years after that because it started getting a bit cringe, and then just online on YouTube I’d come across videos when I was learning magic, there would be card flourishing tutorials coming up and I just thought it looked cool. I was like, the people in the videos look like they’re having fun and it’s just a big community vibe. So, I got into it through there.
You have over 12k followers on your cardistry Instagram account, was there anything that particularly blew it up? Yeah, I’ve got a friend called Zach who runs a cardistry brand called Fontaine. When I started cardistry, I was obsessed with his videos of him and his mates. I was like, I want to be part of that but I’m only some kid from Scotland. He’s in L.A., so there’s a big difference there. But I just started creating, so in cardistry you can learn people’s moves or create your own, and I just started creating things and posting it and started getting attention from them through that. Yeah, just started talking to this Zach guy and to sort of make it big in the community, you have a performance video. So I got to do a video for Fontaine, which I think was in 2016. So
I was 16, some kid from Edinburgh, and then this guy in L.A is like yeah, we want to do a video with you and it’s sort of like, you know, brands get sponsors. Supreme sponsors skateboarders or whatever, it’s kind of like that. He sent me some cards and I just did a video that went on his channel and then it gave me a spotlight in the community. People started to know my name, like some of my moves were becoming recognisable. There’s a convention that I go to, Cardistry Con, and I headlined that, which was cool. It travels around the world, so I’ve been to Berlin, L.A., Portland and headlined the conventions there. I’ve missed a few. They’ve gone to Hong Kong, New York and they’re in San Diego this summer.
I know you released your own card deck as well, how did that come about? When I was doing work for Fontaine, I was doing videos and was the sponsored kid or whatever for him for a while. Then you just want to make your own step beyond. Like also working for him, he’s in L.A., the time difference was a bit bizarre. But no, I do graphic design as well so I had this idea for the illusion looking deck for a while, and it was just like, let’s just do it now. What is the point in wasting time? So I made the brand, and then designed the whole deck and did a Kickstarter, and it went really well. I have to give credit to who I am in the community, that’s what probably got me all the funding and that. Since I’ve got a big name in the community, everyone’s like, oh, we want to support Scott and help him make his deck. So that’s how that happened.
What is it about cardistry that you like so much? I mean, I’ve been doing it for about six years now, so it’s very second nature. Could do it in my sleep, or whatever you want to call it. But yeah, I guess when you start learning something new,
“I’ve not been part of many communities other than cardistry, but I can literally go anywhere in the world and hang out with people who have the same interest. It’s not awkward or anything, you just start jamming out with each other.”
“If you’re doing a magic trick, some people want to find out how it’s done or they try to interrupt you. Cardistry speaks for itself. There’s no strings or anything - it’s just skill.” it’s frustrating. You’re always dropping cards, your fingers can’t reach the grips or whatever. But the dexterity I have now, it just happens really. I don’t really think about it. It’s quite strange, it’s more so the people. I don’t know, I’ve not been part of many communities other than cardistry, but I can literally go anywhere in the world and hang out with people who have the same interest. It’s so smooth, like it’s not awkward or anything and you just share the same interests and you start jamming out with each other. It’s quite fun. But yeah, only the other week, this guy from New Zealand is travelling the UK and he just came up to Dundee to see me and there’s this girl in Dundee who does cardistry as well, so we had a little jam at the V&A, it was very good fun.
Do you like that it’s this smaller, intimate community or would you want it to be bigger? That’s a good question. I enjoy people I know. Honestly because I’m not going to the convention this year, I’m going to miss out on so much, all these new people that are part of the community since COVID. As we’ve not had a convention in two years, it’s a shame I don’t get to meet them. But yeah, I guess in the UK
there’s not actually many cardists, so I would like there to be more people taking interest in it in Scotland, let alone the UK. Definitely needs to happen. Although, I think because it maybe looks easy, that’s quite a problem. People watch videos of these guys and they’re like, oh I could do this. They try it out for a week and give it up. It’s not as easy as it looks, but it’s just the dexterity I have, and I just know where everything’s going to happen. So it’s comfortable to do as well. There’s a style of cardistry called ‘comfy cardistry’ which is what I do now, and it’s just more focused on what it feels like, rather than what it looks like.
When you meet new people, do you ever tell them, oh I do card tricks? I used to, when I was a lot younger. That’s all I remember from Freshers Week, the first night you open your little box the uni gives you, and there’s these GiffGaff cards. It’s like, fuck sake, I’ve got to do a trick, haven’t I? But it’s just part of who I am. It didn’t weird Helen, my girlfriend, out or anything, so that’s a good thing. She thinks it’s pretty cool. I think the community are just so friendly. That’s another nice thing about the convention is you’re just there to hang out, like these people are people you know already through the screen. So it’s not like you need to introduce yourself or anything. At the convention, you shuffle cards maybe 20% of the time and the other time, you’re just chatting to others, taking photos with people and signing their cards. It’s pretty cool.
I suppose a bit like skateboarding, it’s a subculture of its own, especially as it continues to grow. Yeah. I’ve got a lot of close friends who obviously I’ve only met once to three times, but we chat every day and it’s beyond cardistry. We share the same interests in fashion and design and music anyway. So it’s just nice, they’re online friends but it’s nice. It’s not weird.
Check out Scott’s cardistry on Instagram @scottwithcards
watching movies with the sound off
When CATE CHEUNG-MCMULLAN was introduced to the work of Chantal Akerman in her first year of university, her whole view of documentary filmmaking changed. Now a recent Film Studies and Production graduate, I chatted to Cate about the life and work of Akerman, finding solace in the silence and that unforgettable feeling when you find an artist that speaks to your soul.
When did you first come across Chantal Akerman’s work? I first came across Chantal’s work during my uni course, Film Studies and Production, we were looking at idea of spaces and time. Basically the film that they showed was News From Home, and the context of that film is that she left Belgium, where she’s from, and went to study in New York City and her mother would send her letters maybe every month or every few months and the film was just her reading out her mother’s messages. They didn’t even have a specific story, it was just getting the feel for the idea of the relationship between a mother and daughter. When you watch it, it kind of makes you feel like you should call your own mum, or something like that. A lot of my friends found it really boring and wouldn’t watch it again, but I really enjoy her long cinema, which is just shots, not of nothing, but filled with maybe a silence that might make you feel uncomfortable. She kind of wants you to feel the time passing in her films so it’s important that you really sit there. A lot of people watch films to pass time and suspend their disbelief but with her, she forces you to sit there and look.
Do you have a favourite film of hers? I would love to say News From Home because that was the first, but whenever I wrote my final year dissertation on her, I watched all her films, or at least most of them. One of the ones I watched, it was called Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 60s in Brussels. It was kind of a reflection of herself, and it was made for a series they were doing in France about coming-of-age. So her coming-of-age that she implemented into it was her relationship with a friend, and how she toyed with the idea that she loved her. I think when I saw that, it was kind of like you wish you had seen something like that when you were younger so you felt more comfortable with yourself. Obviously that was made in the 90s, and it’s not that long ago, but you get some reassurance especially if you see someone that you look up to being their authentic self. It’s probably between that film or another one called No Home Movie, which was her last film. She’s basically looking after her mother who was ill and dying at the time. It’s a film that focuses on the visual rather than the narrative.
It really makes you think about your own mortality or your own family’s mortality. It’s weird how a simple shot of a living room can do that. I remember I wrote a poem quite a few years ago, and it was about my own grandmother’s living room and it was about how the lamp in the corner sees everyone come and go. It reminded me of that, this is such an isolated space that is never going to change, or at least in your memory is never going to change, and as much as you don’t want it to change, it will change once that person moves on. I think that’s another one of my favourites.
As someone who’s studied film, would you say her work is of inspiration to you for your own? Definitely. I was already interested in documentary filmmaking, but I knew that the documentaries that I had seen were not really something I had a feeling towards or a connection to. But when I saw her documentary, which wasn’t necessarily about anything public, it was literally about her relationship with her mum, it was like, well, documentary could be anything and it can look like anything. It can just be a still shot of a road for five minutes, I know that sounds boring but each shot, they’re not just random. They’re specifically chosen, and she’s choosing how much you see and there’s a reason behind all of it. It’s not just because, oh, well I need to make time or something. Whenever I saw her documentaries, I did start being a wee bit more ambitious with my shots, keeping them rolling, seeing what happens and having three minute shots in my films. Three minutes isn’t that long but when you’re sitting there looking at something, and there’s no talking or no real actions, you are kind of like, what’s happening here? But when it passes, you understand or you feel the emotion that they’re trying to get across. And her silences that she has in films, I always like to put silence in my films but I didn’t think I was that good at it so whenever I watched her films a bit more I was like, oh, okay that’s how you do it.
I feel like with those almost uncomfortably long shots while a lot of people may sit there and think what is happening? That’s an emotional response in itself, rather than just glancing at it and thinking nothing of it. That’s a really good point because emotions, they’re not just a one shot moment. They’re not just something that lasts three seconds, your emotions can linger for days and days. I feel like after I watched her film, since each shot was so long and so calculated, I felt like I remembered a lot of it more. I kind of remembered the letters more, not that the letters were that important but obviously there’s a sentimentality behind it. It felt really good to watch but it was also quite depressing because you think about messages that maybe your own parents have sent you and you think oh I’ll just reply to it in a few hours or whatever, and it’s like, they didn’t have that choice, they had to write letters and sometimes wait months for a response.
I think as well it sets the scene, it’s been chosen for a reason, to emote a feeling or capture a mood and it’s so necessary whereas I’m sure a lot of people overlook that and don’t really see the importance of it. Yeah definitely, I think that feeling the mood of a scenic shot is important because there’s stuff that goes into that that you don’t even think of. Even the weather, it’s kind of like, well what does that mean?
Everything you see in a film, everything was chosen. Nothing really is coincidental. They always want something very specific because they have a certain vision. Whenever you think about that while you’re watching a film then everything else will become so much more important to you, not just the narrative.
You said you wrote your dissertation about her, can you tell me a bit about that? So my dissertation was called A Dislocated Identity: A Critical Look at the works of Chantal Akerman, and I called it ‘A Dislocated Identity’ because she always kind of felt like she didn’t
know herself. She didn’t like to label herself as a lesbian filmmaker, a Jewish filmmaker or a Belgian filmmaker, she actually called herself ‘a daughter’. I looked at that quite a bit, what a daughter meant. It kind of goes back to this idea of mutual respect, and mutual love and not so much desire but an understanding between each other. It’s almost the same as if you tell your friends you’re on your period and they all instantly know all of your symptoms. But yeah, she called herself a daughter and her father died when she was quite young so it was just her, her sister and her mum. I looked at their relationship, and when No Home Movie was filmed which was her final film, her mother died. Her death was very unexpected, I think she died before the film actually came out, and then a few months later Akerman took her own life. It sounds really strange but I felt, not a connection to Akerman when I was writing it, but I had all of her stuff laid out in front of me and you’re connecting things and you’re like, oh she did that because that happened a few years ago. It made me cry a few times, not because I was writing a dissertation! I really enjoyed writing it, but I felt so sad that I could see basically her life on a page, and it ended abruptly and it didn’t end peacefully. There was no peace behind what happened to her, and it’s just upsetting because with any artist that you look up to, you want to see them succeed. Obviously she did succeed, she was a massive filmmaker but it’s the emotion behind that, all the context.
She’s not just a filmmaker, she’s a daughter. She’s had these experiences which are so normal and in her book, she talks about how she met her girlfriend on Facebook and I was like, oh my god that could’ve been me if she waited a few years. I don’t know, I feel very emotionally attached to her. It’s interesting, she didn’t see herself in her films, she actually thought she saw quite little of herself and whenever she was asked in interviews about seeing so much of her life in the films, she would be like, oh I didn’t realise. It’s kind of like, right c’mon Chantal I think you’re joking with me here.
I suppose when you’re writing something like a dissertation on someone, you do gain a deeper level of understanding of who they are and why they did what they did and what inspired their work. Yeah exactly, and you think about your relationship with her films and at first what you thought of them, and what you think or what you noticed afterwards. It’s kind of like this is such a change. I did talk about News From Home in my dissertation but not as much as the other films because, it’s not like I’ve moved past it or whatever but I don’t know, when you open up her character a lot more she’s more than just this one film that she did when she was alone in New York. I was surprised that they showed that film of hers, it’s quite a weird choice because I feel like a lot of my classmates, they would talk to me about it and they would say ‘I don’t know what to write’ and I’m like, I could write about this forever.
Do you think as a filmmaker she’s quite overlooked? I think quite a few of her films are perhaps overlooked, I think actually a lot of cinema that’s coming to festivals at the minute reminds me of her but it’s in the sense of, a lot of people make things for the masses and a lot of people make things for themselves, and I feel like she definitely made things for herself. I don’t know, if I didn’t study film, would I still like her? When you study film, you look at stuff a lot differently. I would always try to salvage a film, even if it was the worst narrative you’ve ever seen, I’m like ‘well the lighting was good!’ The lighting was good, the colour was good, the editing was good - I would try and find something.
With her films, I’m not trying to find things, I just enjoy it for what it is. You know, other people enjoy it for what it is but wouldn’t like her as much as I do, and then whenever I see people online that like her just as much I’m like, oh my god we should be friends! I feel like if I was to show my brother, or even show my mum her films, she would not enjoy it and she would not sit there. She would be playing Toon Blast on her phone or something
like that. I feel like if you have friends around you that are the same, they kind of like the same things or they understand what you like about it, I feel like they could enjoy it. Maybe give her a go.
Maybe go into it with an open mind... Yeah, maybe don’t open with the fact there’s a whole load of shots that are ten minutes long. Just let them get on with it. I feel like if you talk about a movie too much then they’re thinking of your perspective and they’re sort of worried that they don’t feel the same. But when you’re watching a film, people have different interpretations and it’s your own personal journey, so someone else can’t tell you how to experience that. I tried to get one of my closest friends to watch her work and they were like ‘I literally made it twenty minutes through News from Home...’ and I was like, that was the one that made me fall in love with her! So maybe she isn’t for everyone.
SOLITUDE AMONG
THE SYCAMORES
While most people gave up once they couldn’t climb the tallest of trees in their youth, ARTHUR WRIGHT, a self-proclaimed ‘local monkeyman’, just kept going. “When I tell people I climb trees, a lot of people say ‘Oh I used to love climbing trees!’ or ‘I did it a lot when I was younger!’ and I agree with them because me too, I just didn’t stop.” For Arthur, the excitement of adventure and need for exploration only continued to grow as he got older. Now twenty three and a Fine Art student at Leeds Arts University, Arthur climbs a tree everyday that he can, especially if he walks past one that he really likes the look of, “if I’m busy, I don’t worry about not doing it but if I’m free or if I go for a walk and go past a tree that I really like, you know, it would be rude not to sometimes to be honest.” Speaking with pure adoration, his dedication to climbing trees is clear as he goes on to tell me on a hot summer’s day when his friends are sitting in the park drinking tins, he’ll often nip off to climb a tree when nobody’s looking. Gaining an exclusive perspective on Jesmond Dene is never his main goal but it certainly adds to the experience of getting a little bit out of breath and being closer to nature, “it’s funny, you’re miles away from anyone else and from anywhere that people end up, with a view that’s within everyone’s reach but that rarely anyone sees.” Not only this, peering in on something that not many people get the chance to witness only makes the sights all that more impressive, Arthur’s voice lights up with passion as he poetically describes how “the light in the summer through the trees, that dappled, really iridescent glow, and the hot sun beams shining is just unlike anything else.” Whilst being amongst nature is often considered a place of deep contemplation for some, Arthur believes the opposite when you’re up a tree. “A couple of years ago, I remember living with my lass at the time, she had just got some bad news recently so I just went and climbed a tree. You can’t have much more on your mind when you’re up a tree. It definitely gives you the headspace to just bear things in mind, and I don’t feel like
you can overthink things because you can just climb a different tree and your brain focuses on the task at hand.” If anything, climbing a tree allows Arthur to be more present, despite any fear he may have. “I do think it’s good for your mental health and I think it’s probably good for your mental fortitude to have a smidge of fear,” he divulges.
“I wouldn’t say I’m scared, but the risk of it is quite exciting because it feels triumphant to be at risk but not feel worried, and know that you are still safe even though it’s dangerous.” For the most part, Arthur tends to stick to trees that he knows like the back of his hand. “A lot of the trees I climb are ones that I’ve climbed for years, but the challenge is still present and it’s still dangerous, I mean you’re climbing like fifty or sixty feet and you can’t really afford to fall out.” However, he maintains that the mental block is the hardest part to overcome, “I suppose the challenge is often just the effort of doing it, I think most people could do it physically but it’s more the fear of falling, or you know, coming down that scares them.” When questioned if he worries about falling himself, Arthur reveals his feet have yet to betray him whilst climbing. Although, he has had his fair share of close encounters, “I’ve climbed a couple of trees with my mate Joe, like a couple years ago, and it was some intense storm and the whole tree was like writhing around, proper ragging from left to right. It was quite nervewracking, but it was quite exciting - I suppose there’s times that you shouldn’t do it, even if they make it more fun.” Arthur’s love for climbing trees and his artistic pursuits don’t often go hand in hand, beyond a few quick sketches while he’s in the treetops,
until recently when he was tasked with investigating a personal passion for a university project. Knowing his affinity for being amongst the branches would come in handy to set him apart from his peers, Arthur headed back to Newcastle to visit the trees he’s been climbing since he was a kid. “I just knew they were the ones I wanted to talk about,” he emphasises, “they’ve all got names, and they’ve all got a bit of a history I suppose as I’ve been climbing them for so many years.”
“I’ve climbed some of them maybe a thousand times and they’ve got varied memories through the different seasons, different times of year and different stages of my life.” Aptly describing his project as a love letter dedicated to climbing trees, Arthur interviewed a multitude of people to hear their opinions on the matter - from friends of his that work as tree surgeons, to his friends who also enjoy climbing, he laughs and states “admittedly that isn’t many of them”, to friends and family of his with no interest in this recreational activity at all. “Obviously people who work with them have a certain amount of kinship to them, and then people who don’t climb them, a lot of them still wrote really eloquently and articulately about
“The light in the summer through the trees, that dappled, really iridescent glow, and the hot sun beams shining through is just unlike anything else.”
how and why trees are still really important to their life outdoors. It was fun, it was actually really interesting.” Whilst tree climbing has always felt like more of a sport than an art to Arthur, showcasing his favourite pastime through an artistic lens allowed him to peel back the layers and reflect on something he’s been doing for as long as he can remember. In his efforts to get others to join him on his adventures, oftentimes they agree before they’ve truly realised what they’ve gotten themselves into. “A lot of people say they want to climb trees and then when I take them, they’re not so keen or when they actually look at it, they’re like ‘ah yeah maybe this isn’t a good idea’,” Arthur discloses, “and yeah, the few people I have gotten up have always liked it but I think you can tell when they start to feel a bit more nervous and those are the situations where I’ve felt a bit more uncomfortable because there’s a sense of responsibility there.” Nevertheless, his friends’ apprehension hasn’t stopped him from coming across those with a similar passion whilst climbing. “I remember I climbed a tree once in Heaton Park. I was just smoking at the top and I seen this kid, just latching a rope up to the tree next to me, and he was climbing up with his rope and I was like ‘dude, dude!’, shouted him over and he quickly hopped up the tree I was in.” Reminiscing on this unexpected encounter, Arthur highlights that although they were complete strangers, meeting someone with a similar ethos and mindset allowed them to hit it off immediately, “I even gave him the end of my spliff and said, ‘There would’ve been more of that left if I’d known you were gonna be here!’. The people you do meet doing it, it feels like a really unique, special bond because it’s such a rare hobby.” Once questioned if he thinks more people should take it up, Arthur pauses to think for a moment. “It’s a weird one. In a way, I like that it’s niche. I quite like that when I go out and climb a tree, I know that no one’s gonna be up there.” Unlike going to the park to play football, he stresses that a benefit to climbing trees is that rarely do you find someone else in your spot, “try and do anything without people being there, it’s easier said than done. The beach, the park - there’s people everywhere.”
For the most part, however, it’s the views he wishes he could share with others. “I’d love for some of my friends who maybe have less prowess at heights or aren’t comfortable climbing, I would love for them to actually see some of the views.” In particular, Arthur mentions a bench by Paddy Freeman’s [Park] that looks through the valley towards Jesmond.
“Right next to it, there’s a Sycamore that’s maybe thirty or forty feet tall, and like the view you get up there - it just shits all over the view from the bottom of the tree.” Watching everyone take photos from the bench, Arthur acknowledges, “I like that I’m up there and I’m like, oh they don’t know what they’re missing, but then in a way it’s like, nah I would like to share more than just my own photos because it really is breathtaking when you see it for yourself.”
Photographs Provided by Arthur Wright
stories from beyond the grave Since the earliest stages of MELTER, I knew I wanted to feature my own dad for simply no other reason than the fact MICHAEL DONAGHY could talk for Ireland. Describing himself as an ‘amateur historian’, he’s never short of an unexpected fun fact pulled from the depths of his brain. During a brisk walk in our hometown of Banbridge, we decided to cut through the graveyard and my dad pointed out a few gravestones that had caught his attention over the years. Life stories held in singular pieces of stone, summed up with only a few words engraved in gold, Michael believes cemeteries are a sanctuary for a slice of the past that the history books don’t care to write about.
What is it about reading different gravestones and coming across them that you find so interesting? I think as a historian, or a pretend historian, you’re finding real lives, real people. I mean, a graveyard or tombstone, particularly the older tombstones, tell you so much of death. You know, people have lost babies or lost children, or their sons have died in a war or died at sea in a fishing accident. There’s a lot of history on those, history of real people, you know, not just the grand projects of the world. That’s reality.
A lot of life stories just held in one stone really. A lot of life stories. Again, as a historian, you draw back from that and you see, I mean, the one I showed you today about the three grandsons, one died in the Australian army in Flanders, the other two, in different ships, went down. Well, that gives you hints. Then you go on the websites these days, I can actually pinpoint where each of those boats went down on a map.
Is that something you do a lot? Maybe see something and think, oh, I must look that up later? Oh, very much so. I mean, something catches my eye all the time. Not just graveyards. I mean,
things along roads, things in London that that are historical, blue plaques. Anything that catches my eye but I want to get the full story behind that. So graveyards are full of wee bits, snippets of information, and snippets of mystery. What happened to his first wife, you know? The older ones are better, there’s a certain Victorian and Dickensian melodrama about some of them, particularly as they went through wives and children at a hell of a speed.
What’s the most interesting gravestone you’ve seen? The one that stands out for me is one I showed you today for Colonel Ferguson Smyth. He was a British army commissioner who introduced the ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy during the Irish War of Independence, in which many men resigned as a result. This then put him in the attention of the IRA, who approached him in a social club saying ‘Colonel, were your orders not to shoot on sight?’ and then did exactly that. There’s so much history behind it. So much history, and so much encapsulates the problems of Northern Ireland. I mean, his funeral ended up in more people dying and people losing their jobs. When you talk to Unionist politicians, they don’t remember the fact that the Catholics were all chased out of the mills. They talk about, oh
that was terrible that, you know, Billy Sterritt was shot at Monaghan’s pub but the reason Billy Sterritt was shot was that at that time he was trying to break into Monaghan’s pub. So the angles of history are very interesting there, there’s two sides, maybe three, to every story.
I guess, it is more than a gravestone. It’s symbolic of a lot of conflict in this area. There’s so many people who would probably walk past that and not even know. 99% of the people who go to that graveyard have no idea because it’s an area of history that both sides don’t want to highlight. The Unionists don’t want to highlight the fact that it turned into a pogrom, and the Catholics don’t want to highlight the fact that the guy was shot, not on the battlefield, but sitting in a club, having a whisky and a cigar.
I know you like to visit gravestones in different countries and see those? Very much so. Last time, I made a personal journey to Huelva, to visit the gravestone of Major William Martin, the man who never was. Also known as Glyndwr Michael, it was an attempt by the British during the Second World War to persuade the Germans that they were interested in entering Europe by Greece. So they got a body, dressed it up in uniform, connected a briefcase to his wrist and then put him off a submarine as though he’d been in a plane crash. There was everything inside the briefcase. Letters, they had ordinary letters, but more importantly, they had personal letters from colonels and commanders to their friends and wives. Tickets to the theatre, a bill from his club, a letter from his bank manager saying he owed money. Everything was done to create this image. Did it work? Nobody is quite sure. We know that a number of German allegiance or regiments were moved into Greece, so it may have worked. It’s one of those things you never know. But as a ruse, it has been used many times since. The idea of the guy with the fake I.D. I mean, we’ve now had two films and one book about this grave. When we were there, I went and bought a little posy of flowers from the flower seller, as every decent Spanish graveyard has, and put it on the gravesite.
It’s fascinating that on his gravestone, they’re crediting him to that but obviously he had no idea that he would play such a part in a military operation. Well, you know, of course he didn’t, he was just a vagabond that they found. Now at the end of the war, they said that they had found this guy who had died of pneumonia, and his father gave permission for him. What they didn’t say, and later evidence proves this, is that they really found a guy called Glyndwr Michael who appeared to have committed suicide by eating rat poison. The idea was that they had to have a body that looked like it died of drowning.
It’s nice that he was given his dues. Well, the original grave just said Will Martin, but in the last number of years, they’ve redone it and put his real name, Glyndwr Michael, below it.
I think it’s interesting when we were there today, that it’s very apparent that it is a show of who’s got the most money. Very much so, if you’ve got money, you make the show of it. I mean, not just us. What’s the greatest example of a show? The pyramids, the Pharaohs. Remember they also buried their slaves alive with them, some buried their wives alive with them. Because, obviously, they were heading to the next life, they couldn’t arrive without servants. All your gold and your chariots. You feel sorry for the poor peasants, buried alongside them. But the show of money in a graveyard, yeah. Also, the people who had no money. In every graveyard, there would be a pauper’s section where people were buried by the council for nothing at all. A Potter’s field, because Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, but out of remorse, he went back to the High Priest to give him the thirty pieces of silver. They said, we can’t take this, this is blood money, so we’ll use that money to build a graveyard for non-Jews in Jerusalem, and so it became a Potter’s field.
“There’s a lot of history on gravestones, history of real people, you know, not just the grand projects of the world - that’s reality.”
back on the road again
When he’s not busy serving drinks at Zerox (heavily discounted for those special few) or 3D modelling his dreams, you can find proud Pisces and Fashion Communication student JACOB STRATFOLD watching videos from Danny Malin’s YouTube series Rate My Takeaway, often eating alongside him.
KATIE DONAGHY: Do you remember the first Rate My Takeaway video you watched? JACOB STRATFOLD: So there’s this other YouTuber called Stephen Tries and Stephen Tries has a second channel, called Stephen Tries Less, where it’s just kind of a reaction channel where he looks at rogue Youtubers. At the time, Rate My Takeaway only had about 100k subs or a couple 100k subs, which is still pretty big for its niche gap in the market. I think there was a Facebook page called Rate My Takeaway which he gained fans from, or a following but I’m not too sure about that. Basically they reacted to his channel, because his most famous video is when during lockdown, this old woman, she was selling takeaways from her kitchen. So obviously it was just her home, so people would order it online and come collect it at her house door. And with the Rate My Takeaway format, Danny always carries around this folding table and a camping chair which he puts outside people’s places, so he’s just on a residential street and he orders it online then comes to collect, puts the table up outside her house and puts his chair out there. So he’s just in the middle of a residential street, people walking past, with his table and with his takeaway, his breakfast from some nan in Bolton or something. So they reacted to that, and they were laughing. I was laughing. and his energy was just so uplifting and optimistic.
[Laughs] That sounds hilarious. After I watched that, with the Youtube algorithm craziness, I started to see Rate My Takeaway coming up. Other Youtubers they’ll have thumbnails with bright colours or shocking faces, his thumbnails are just the first shot of the video most of the time or a photo of him sitting next to his food, giving it a thumbs up. You know, to be honest, that was quite alluring. I started to just watch more and more because his titles are so straight to the point, like ‘Rating Chinese Takeaway in Sheffield’. His energy, they’re such long videos. You know he doesn’t just start with the food, he starts in the car always. He’s like, ay-o guys! Back on the road again! Back with another video, today we’re in Manny! You get to hear him talk to the cameraman for a bit, chill, then he walks to the takeaway. There’s always people on the street being like, you alright Danny? Ay up? The way he interacts with the staff in these places is always very friendly, he’s always very lighthearted and wholesome. Family friendly fun. He’s always very polite, even at this point where he’s quite big and he could probably get quite a lot of this food for free, he always pays. Still pays for it, and yeah that’s how I got into him basically.
Do you think it is his authenticity or you know, because you do get a whole experience watching it, you get to see him drive there, order, sit and wait, set up his chair. What is it that you like the most? Well, this is gonna sound quite sad really but you know, when I eat my dinner, I like to do it on my desk, in my room or something, and I always have to watch something while I’m eating my dinner. So quite a lot of the time, twenty minutes is the perfect amount of time to eat my lunch or eat my breakfast. I kind of time it so it’s like I’m eating with him, I resist the urge so when he gets the food, I’ll start so we’re eating together. He’s just so happy! You know because his wife died a few years ago, and he used to work in the Leeds market as a butcher, so he’s a single father with young children and this Youtube channel of him just driving around the country is able to, you know he’s making a good living and his kids can live a happy life.
I suppose, as a butcher, I guess he does know what he’s speaking about as well. Well you can see every time he orders meat, he always, you know, gets excited. And every time he goes to a fish and chip shop, he’s always like, oh, I wish these chips were fried in beef dripping, which is like the traditional way to fry fish and chips. But I’m a vegetarian, I’m like ‘Danny don’t get any takeaways to start frying their chips in beef dripping again!’ Chips are the one thing I can always go for in a chip shop.
It’s interesting, it isn’t just like mukbangs that people would watch and they’re just someone sat there eating. Mukbangs, they started off kind of chill, just normal meals and now they’ve kind of got mental. But the most vile mukbangs are like Nikocado Avocado or whatever, just eating 16 McDonalds. It’s like a huge table. Or it’s eating a live octopus, there’s like a lot of really disgusting mukbangs.
Yeah, I think they are more clickbait-y, you know, they want people to watch. They want to go viral. That’s part of the appeal of Rate My Takeaway. YouTube these days, no matter the genre whether it’s reviews, whether it’s vloggers, beauty people or gaming, it’s all clickbait. It’s all like, what’s up guys? Back at it again with another video! Or like gone wrong, or prank, or gone sexual. It’s all really to the extremes. And you know, I don’t know when you first started watching YouTube. For me, it was in first school where YouTube used to be so amateur. It was like the Fred days, the Smosh days. It was all very small, Smosh was at the top of production value. The rest is just so amateur. You know, Alfie Deyes, Marcus Butler, it was just people with cameras. There wasn’t that kind of clickbait, you just watched it for them.
With Rate My Takeaway, you just watch it for his personality. He doesn’t seem like he puts anything on. Do you think if anyone else was hosting it other than him, it would be as good? It just wouldn’t be the same. You know, you want a middle aged Yorkshire man, that’s part of the appeal. If I did it or someone younger, it just wouldn’t be the same. He brings this old energy, the way he interacts with people. It’s very, very familiar, especially if you grew up in the UK. He seems like someone you would have known or someone you’d meet in the pub or something. He’s someone you would see in the takeaway. If you’re waiting for your fish to be cooked in the chip shop, you can imagine him just sitting there with his arms crossed, looking at the menu. I always find it weird though, I always read the comments and it’s like, oh, you know, I’m watching this from Canada, I’m watching this from America
and I’m watching this from Australia. Some of takeaways he goes to, I could actually go to. They’re in walking distance, they’re in Newcastle. But these people, they can’t go to any of his takeaways. They’ll probably never, you know, if you’re living in America, you’re never gonna come to Yorkshire and go to Gucci Chip or whatever.
Maybe that is part of the appeal, you get to see that insight into, I guess, UK culture. Because I don’t know, do they have takeaways like that in America? I feel like, at the core, most YouTube content we watch is just to see a reaction. Whether it’s a reaction of someone to a new make up product or a reaction of someone to food, or reaction to a clothing haul or reaction to a new game or tech product. It seems strange. Even if we already have the thing, or already know what it is, we want to see how someone else reacts to it. It’s quite interesting. People just like to watch other humans interact.
I’m sure within the Rate My Takeaway viewers, there’s a community there that know what he’s going to do or, you know, what signals that maybe he’s enjoying it? With the Rate My Takeaway commenters, you can tell quite a lot of them are older people. A lot of YouTube comments from our age are very crude and to the point, but the RMT comments, they write them like emails. They’ll be like, hey Danny I really enjoyed this! And they’ll do a full paragraph. But he always gives a rating from one to ten at the end and they always get annoyed, because I think Danny now has realised that he’s got quite a lot of influence. If he doesn’t enjoy the food but the service is good, he doesn’t want to give it a five because he’s got so many views that he knows that could really hurt a takeaway. So a bad rating from him is like a seven or an eight, because unless it’s god awful and it’s like raw and uncooked, he might give it like a five, but he never gives one or two because he realises that could really damage a business. Once you start watching more videos, you can tell when he doesn’t like something because when he really likes something he’s like, oh my god that’s amazing! He’ll just keep saying compliments. But when he doesn’t like something, he’ll take a bite and be like, hmm interesting flavour. He says things which are not negative but you know, not super positive.
I think there’s something heartwarming about it when it’s something that’s that real. With so much bad news, so much content which is so intense, you need that escapism. Yeah, I think recently we’ve seen the rise of creators based on their personality, just doing things which you might not find interesting that they enjoy authentically, like Francis Bourgeois with trainspotting. Where people like him for his personality, and his content is also very low production value. It is just his face, with a GoPro in his head. There isn’t any written in advance scripts, sketches, other people involved - it’s just him. It’s the same with Rate My Takeway, it’s just him. It’s doing something we don’t overthink. Takeaways in this country, they’re just there. Check out the full interview with Jacob on the MELTER podcast, available on Spotify!
Ever got a Guinness served in a Carling glass? Or a flat white in a latte cup with about two ounces more milk than there should be?
Although insignificant to some, this is the kind of thing that drives PADDY DUNLOP up the wall, so much so that after hearing about MELTER, he sought me out to share his thoughts on the matter. As a Design for Industry student with a love for coffee cups and glassware as it is, this was perhaps because no one else could be bothered listening to him talk about them anymore. After briefly bonding over being Northern Irish, I was all ears to hear what Paddy had to say over a nicely poured pint, served in the correct glass of course.
What is it about drinks being in the right glassware that you’re so passionate about? It’s just right, that’s just how it’s meant to be. It’s meant to be drank some sort of way and the way that people are told to serve a drink would be because of the thermodynamics and shit of the glass or the cup that it’s in, and it has to be right.
Do you come across drinks being served in the wrong glassware a lot? Yeah, I have. It’s the likes of coffee, people serve you a coffee, they’ll put a flat white in a latte cup and there’s just way too much milk in it or it’s half empty and it just looks wrong. Or the place I work at back home, because I work behind a bar, whenever you get new people in and they’re serving a glass of wine in a gin glass or some shit like that, it’s like, what are you doing mate? Yeah, and going out somewhere and seeing stuff in the wrong glass, I don’t know, it’s petty but it just irks me. I get the whole if you’re in a rush and you don’t have glasses, people will say, aw put it in anything but then it’s just not right.
Certain drinks are meant to be in certain glasses, their flavour profile comes out more in their glass because it’s the right shape. Do you think it changes your drinking experience? Oh for sure yeah, it’s like up until Christmas I would only drink a coffee out of a glass because if you can see something you can enjoy it better, I think. I’d talk to the guys in work about it and you need to have something being sent out that looks nice, because someone’s going to appreciate it and enjoy it.
Is this something you speak about a lot with other people? More than I should, yeah. There’s definitely people who just think I’m talking shit but I’m self aware about it, but also it’s just nice. With coffee especially because I’ll go and have a sit in a nice coffee shop during the day and just take a break from doing work. If something is served in the wrong thing, it sort of ruins it for you. The whole ratio of your drink is wrong so they just pour
more milk in it than there should be, and now my day’s ruined mate. Why have you done that?
Would you say it is day-ruining? Yeah I would! There’s a coffee shop at the top of Northumberland Street called Anyone and their cups that they use are really really nice, they use these hand-done ceramic ones from this place in New Zealand called Acme and everything is always just right there. But you would go somewhere else, say you went to the Starbucks in the union, and it’s just like there’s gonna be an inch or two of dead air at the top of it, someone’s gonna put a bit too much milk in but also that’s just the barista or the barman or whatever not caring much about it, so I guess there’s a bit of that in it.
To be honest I feel like even regardless of this, you just seem to like cups a lot in general? Oh big time, yeah, I just love nice cups, I’m always stealing them whenever I’m in a bar and something comes in a nice glass. Me and my mates, last year any time we would go to the bar, I think we went maybe eight or ten times in the Spring term and I took a glass every time because I was like, oh well that one’s nice! Then we were in Blanc over the weekend, stole a coffee cup for no reason but I just really wanted it.
Maybe people aren’t able to serve them in the right ones because you keep stealing them! You’re part of your own problem here. Yeah that’s probably true. I steal them from work all the time as well, and I’ll need to serve a specific cocktail and I don’t have any of those glasses because, well, I have two of them at home...
Do you think people get sick of hearing you speak about them? Yeah, for sure. The amount of times my regulars in the bar have heard me say, ’oh do you know what year that pint glass is from?’. See on the side of it where it says M and then a number, the number is the year. But they’re always like, ‘yeah Patrick you’ve told us before, it’s M and then the year...’ and I’m like, yeah isn’t that class? People
definitely do get annoyed but I don’t really care, I just like the intricacies of it. It’s funny, I don’t know if you watch Peaky Blinders, but there was an episode a few weeks ago. I think it was the first one of the new season, and the main guy Tommy Shelby puts down three glasses on the table and it zooms in on them, not that much but as much that you can focus on them, and then you know on glasses now you’d have a FairTrade logo on them? It was on the bottom of those glasses because they’ve obviously just bought normal glasses, but no this is meant to be 1930-something so there shouldn’t be FairTrade logos on your glasses. It just breaks the scene for me, I turned around to my friend and goes, ‘did you see that? did you see there were FairTrade logos on those glasses?’ and he was just like ‘would you actually shut up?’.
Have you ever met anyone else who cares about this as much as you do? I don’t think so, I think I make people sort of half-care, if that makes sense. All the cups in my house at home now, my mum just has nice cups and nice glasses but that’s just a byproduct of me not shutting up and every time we go into Ikea, going ‘oh that one’s nice, isn’t it? We should probably get that one’. Yeah I think, not that they properly care, but they just entertain it.
I mean now I’m gonna tell everyone about the M number thing... Isn’t that class? That’s my pub trick, I’m like ‘here mate do you know when that glass was made?’ Even just the differences in the old-style and the new-style Guinness glasses but they’re all actually still made so none of them are actually old-style. Mega. It’s just mega.
LIVIN’ LA VIDA VAN LIFE
Unimpressed by the overwhelming expectations to get a mortgage and climb the traditional life ladder, COURTNEY STEVENS and her partner James quit their jobs and packed their life up one day in October 2019 to explore the world in their newly renovated van, DeeDee. Almost three years of highs, lows and GoogleTranslating their way around Europe later, they haven’t looked back once.
KATIE DONAGHY: How did your van life journey begin? COURTNEY STEVENS: I remember we were both working full time, long commute, living in the centre of Leeds, kind of not feeling that fulfilled in our jobs. Just feeling like, I don’t know, itchy feet, maybe. We wanted a bit of a change and we always wanted to travel, then we came across this idea of van life. I think just on Instagram, something popped up and not to sound too wanky, but it was inspiring and we thought, yeah we could probably do that. Initially, we thought we would just maybe get a van for holidays and go away for part of the year and then still work. But once we committed to buying a van and building it ourselves, doing the whole conversion, we kind of thought, why would we not do this full time? We both work in marketing roles, which is an industry that is easy to do remotely. As long as you’ve got a secure connection, you can log on to client calls so it’s not really an issue. So we quit our jobs and said, okay, let’s go away for a year! I think it ended up being ten or eleven months we were away for the first time and then we were hooked. We were like, why would we ever stop doing this? We went down to part time work so we work three days a week and then explore for the other four days and yeah, it just works.
What’s your favourite thing about van life? Is it the freedom of being, I guess, anywhere and being able to do your work as well? Yeah, absolutely. What we always talk about with other people who live in their vans when we meet them is that your day-to-day decisions are based on much simpler things. Rather than being dictated by a job or where you live because rent is so high and you have to then have a long commute, those obligations kind of go out the window. We travel by how we’re feeling that day.
Did we wake up feeling energetic? Did we wake up feeling like we want to chill or do we want to swim that day? Do we want to go and do something adventurous? Which I think we weren’t doing when we were working full time and living in the city centre, planning your day based on how you feel seemed like a strange concept. Like the weather, is it nice where we are? No, it’s raining, but two hours drive down the coast, it’s sunny, so let’s drive and go and find the sun. It’s just the simple things. We started to notice a lot more and appreciate being out in nature a lot more, just by parking in beautiful locations. Meeting people around the world who live similarly to the way we do, and then meeting and experiencing the local culture in all of the countries that we travel is just amazing.
I suppose there’s a real sense of community with other people who have done the same or people you come across on your travels? We’ve built up a really nice group of people that we’ve met a lot of times face to face, and also people that you randomly pull up to a beach and there’s three other vans there. One’s from Germany, one’s from Switzerland, one’s from, you know, Denmark or something and then you all sit and have dinner together or chat and discuss where you’ve been. It’s a really, really nice way to connect with people from all over the world.
Would you say it’s quite challenging at times, do you ever think, should we have done this? Yeah, it’s definitely challenging at times, because you’re driving your home around with you everywhere. So there are concerns about if you break down or if you leave the van and it gets broken into or anything like that. Everything we own is in here. You just have to keep your wits about you, have security in place and hope for good people that they’ll help during your time of need. We have always felt that really. We’ve broken down a number of times, people have helped us in different countries. We had a crash as well, we crashed with a wild animal which is awful, a couple of months ago now. A wild donkey ran out into the road as we came round the corner and we hit the donkey. It was fine, it got up and walked away, but it was very scary. The van was smashed up on the front and we had to have it in the Mercedes garage for around three weeks. So then we had to find an AirBnB, pack all of our stuff into plastic bags and hot tail it somewhere.
It can be stressful, but in a good way because it just teaches you to be more resilient and learn to think on your feet and those things are massively outweighed by all the positives.
Photographs Provided by Courtney Stevens
Do you think it’s something that more people should take the chance and try out? 100%! There’s so much you can learn from other people from seeing the world and how different cultures navigate the world. But, van life in particular, it’s like camping but luxury. You have everything that you want, all of your personal belongings. Obviously, you live a much simpler life, so we don’t have that much stuff because we can’t fit it in the van and there’s a weight limit. You can only have three and a half tonnes that you can drive around. That’s the vehicle included, and yourselves and everything in here. But yeah, I would highly recommend anybody does van life because it’s the best thing that we’ve ever done. It’s the freedom, the freedom is just empowering.
I suppose it’s much more different than going to the most popular place of a country and staying in the one area, you’re seeing the real side and the authentic side of a country. Absolutely. Quite often we avoid the big cities or, I was going to say touristy places, but we’re currently in Cappadocia in Turkey, which is possibly one of the most touristy places you can go. But yeah, you see off the beaten track, you see how people actually live in those countries. We definitely get to see the more real side of things. Sometimes we just stumble across stuff just by driving around or looking on Google Satellite. Okay, we don’t want to travel much today so where can we go, park and chill out? Or if we want to go for a walk somewhere and we’ll go on Google Satellite and zoom in and look around and go, oh, there’s a river. Okay, and then we follow the river and see there’s a road and go, okay, let’s go down there and see what’s there.
No one’s necessarily written a blog post about it that says the five best hidden gems to go to, but we just kind of stumble across beautiful places, which is amazing. You have quite a big following on Instagram and YouTube, do you think anyone been inspired to start their own van life journey from you?
Check out Courtney’s travels on Instagram @courtsandmeeks or on YouTube, Courts & Meeks
I don’t know, maybe! We do get a lot of lovely comments from people saying that, you know, they love seeing our version of travel. And by vlogging it, obviously we’re sharing every day with people. Highs and lows, like when we crashed, we filmed all of that and the aftermath of it and the stressful side. But yeah, I think we have had a few comments where people have said, oh, we’re going to get a van or we’re currently building a van and we’ve loved watching you. I don’t think it’s necessarily just down to us, but definitely a nice thought to think that maybe we played a part in that decision.
FOR THE LOVE OF THE BEES
One delightful morning in Newcastle Upon Tyne, I headed to Saltwell Park to speak with the chair of the Tyneside Beekeepers, SUZANNE FOSTER, pictured here with the club’s secretary Keith, about all things bees. From the surprisingly vast community of beekeepers in the North East to the intelligence behind their ‘waggle dance’, there’s more to these magnificent creatures than just a jar of honey.
How did you get into beekeeping? How did it all begin? I started my degree at Newcastle University in 2016 and there was loads organised for Freshers Week, loads of things. One of the things I went on was with the Students Union to Cockle Park Farm up near Morpeth. Where we were shown, it was pointed out to us there were some beehives and the students who used to look after them, they graduated, so they needed a new set of students to be involved in that. You had to have fifteen people sign up and then it’s officially acknowledged as a proper student society, we managed to get enough people together to start a bee society. They paid for us to do a course at Kirkley Hall college in Northumberland, a ten week course on basic beekeeping so I went there every Thursday night for eight weeks and then two Saturday mornings for two weeks for the practical side. I just got hooked. There’s just something about bees, I don’t know, I can’t explain it.
So it was something you picked up and enjoyed straight away? I was just fascinated by how organised they are and how they take care of each other, how they’re a real family unit. There’s hives that can have 20,000 bees in it at the height of summer, or even more. You just get hooked on it. For BeeSoc, I was president the second year and then the treasurer. When I graduated in 2020, I told the students union I would still happily be involved to support any of the students who came on. Then I joined the Tyneside Beekeepers Association and I’m now chair of that. I’m into my third year as chair, but another member of BeeSoc is now the treasurer of Tyneside Bees, Philip. So it’s lovely that the two of us have kept with the bees.
“If you say you’re a beekeeper, the first thing people will say is, do you ever get stung? It’s about getting the message out that there’s more to them than just a sting or a jar of honey.” which has about 150 members, there’s one down in Durham, there’s another up in Alnwick. You realise there’s all these people. There is a website where you can register your hives, and it helps because the government view bees as livestock so there is a certain responsibility to look out for certain diseases and the like. But it also tells you how many apiary sites, that’s the places where people keep their bees, are around you within a five kilometre distance. So you click on that and think, oh, we’ll just be one or two. And it tells you there’s a hundred and fifty. It’s all these beekeepers people don’t know about.
What would you say is the best part about it?
I suppose because it is quite a niche interest, when you have people that like it, I’m sure there’s loads to share with each other?
Being able to switch off to everything else because you can’t be thinking about your shopping or what you’re going to have for tea. As soon as you open the hive, your whole concentration is on that. You forget all your worries and your concerns, and COVID and all
Yeah, you think, who’s a beekeeper? You don’t really hear of people who are, but once you join the community and you realise there’s a club in Newcastle for beekeepers, there’s ours here in Gateshead, there’s one up in Hexham
the rest. I think we need to switch off from time, we think too much, don’t we? We worry too much. The bees are a lovely way to just stop that for an hour or two, and just be totally absorbed by them. It’s good for your mental health.
Would you say it’s a rewarding hobby? Is there highs and lows? Yeah, it’s a mix. I mean, they’ll do what they want to do, especially if they’re going to swarm. That can be a worry. If you’ve got a new hive nearby and they fly into that, lovely. But if they go into somebody’s chimney or a little gap in the roof and end up in the rafters, you know, things like that, then it’s problematic. You’ve got to try and manage them so that doesn’t happen. I’m on the swarm call out list for British Beekeepers Association. So I will get members of the public saying, bees have arrived into the porch of my house, can you come and get them? So I do that as a voluntary thing to help the public and to educate them about bees. Rewarding? It depends what you feel the reward is, I suppose. Moneywise, it’s an expensive hobby and, okay, you can sell some honey, but my business model isn’t based on selling honey because I know I would need so many colonies that I probably stopped enjoying it. Whereas if I can have the experience days and making candles, that sort of thing, then you know, you can get money in without exploiting the bees because that’s it as well. It’s like, do you want to treat them like a commodity? And I don’t, I know some of these farmers do. You know, honey is the end reward for them.
For me, just being around them, being able to educate people about them is rewarding itself. Are they quite unpredictable, the bees themselves? Yes and no. I mean, a bit like owning a cat or a dog. You get to know their behaviour and their character and it’s funny, although you think of a hive as being, you know, the wooden box the bees live in, the colony in the box can also have its own personality like its own character. So you’ll have ones that are really laid back and are quite nice to inspect. And other ones that really don’t like to be bothered and are a bit like an old cat that will growl, or you know hiss at you, because it just doesn’t want to be bothered with. So it’s funny among the colonies, it’s not as though every box is identical. They’ve all got their own personality and traits and you sort
of know what to expect. Also, if you’ve got a lovely calm colony and inspect them one day and they’re really ratty, you’ve got to think, well, what’s upset them? Because there’ll be a reason because they’re not normally like that. So it’s funny, the personalities that you get to know.
Do they think they can be quite overlooked? Maybe people don’t realise the importance of them. Yeah, I think they’re starting to understand now. There seems to be more of a message going out. But the first thing people say, if you say you’re a beekeeper, they’ll say, do you ever get stung? And that’s their first thing in their mind, bees sting you. It’s trying to get them around that idea that actually, if they sting you, it’s because they’re threatened by you. It’s not their fault you’ve been stung, it’s your fault. You know, you should have been gentler around them or taken better precautions, worn your gloves and that kind of thing. So, yeah, it’s getting the message out that there’s more to them than just a sting or a jar of honey.
I suppose, many people if they see a bee, sometimes people are shrieking and yelling and running all over the place, I’m like, surely that’s not helping. To them as well, we’re massive compared to them. We are, it’s strange how people can be so terrified of this dinky little insect, that’s actually very calm. I mean, the way I describe them to people, when you’re going into a colony, into a hive, it’s like visiting a maternity ward because the queen’s laying her eggs and the other bees are raising the young and that’s all they exist to do, to bring on the next generation and to take care of the Queen. Because if she doesn’t lay eggs, then there’s no more bees. Yeah. So if you think of them in that way, they’re like midwives and nurses and respect the job that they do!
As well, they’re so much smarter than people think. They’ve got so many systems in place that they just know to do. They do, they’re so bright. They really are. I mean, how they tell each other where a food source is with the waggle dance is genius. Because they can’t talk to each other. You know, the way we can say, oh there’s some lovely
flowers over there. They’re in the darkness of the hive, but they’re able to tell each other where the sun is and where they should fly in relation to the sun. So, you know, the way that they do this little figure-of-eight waggle dance. Whether it’s up and down, you know, directly up and down, it’s letting them know go straight where the sun is or 10 or 20 degrees, you know, either side of it. Also how long the dance is, whether it’s a really short little squiggle or if they do this figure-of-eight for a really long stretched number eight, that’s telling them that it’s further away. By doing that, they can find this food source and bring it back to the colony. So it’s brilliant, it is.
They are so well organised, they put us to shame and they work so well together. It’s all for the benefit of the larger community. You know, they are not selfish. A bee that looks after itself isn’t going to survive.
Obviously it’s nice for people to have the experience days, but do you like that the community you have built, and you’re friends with, they’re all there for the same thing? They see it as more of a passion than people who are there to make money, they care about the bees. Yeah, I think the ones that do it as a hobby, they’re not in it for the money, because you don’t make that much. They might have started off thinking, oh, well, you know, when I sell honey, it will pay for everything and make it a free hobby and it’s like, no, it doesn’t work like that. So, yeah, it’s for the love of the bees. The ones that I’ve met in the bee community, at least, they’ve got a general respect for nature. It’s not just the bees. So they’ll know about honeybees and other pollinating insects and hover-flies, and all the like. So, yeah, they’ve got a greater respect for the whole ecology, not just their hobby.
Would you say that you still learn new things each time? Oh, yeah. I mean, there’s professors who study the honeybee and, you know, they’ve been doing it for twenty, thirty, forty years and they’re still learning things. So, yeah, I think it’s something that’s perhaps your own choice, how much you want to learn and how interested you are. I mean, the number of talks that I listen to. It’s ridiculous, it’s like having an extra TV channel. Now that Zoom’s so popular, so it’s not just the talks for the Tyneside Beekeepers that I’m watching on. I’m a member of the British Bee Breeders Association, it’s bee improvement in reading. BBBA, it’s called. So I watch all of their Zoom talks and there’s one called the Central Association of Beekeeping whose motto is ‘bringing science to beekeeping’. So that’s very much based on these professors and whoever across Europe, any time there’s something new to be learnt, they’re usually the first ones to have a talk about it. So, there’s a whole range, but I honestly could watch something every night if you wanted to. I’m not that bad but yeah, I would say a couple of times a week there will be something that I’ll enjoy. So I suppose it’s a bit like doing another degree, but it’s just amazing. Clever things.
They are so clever when you think about how they survive within themselves. I know so many people who are scared of them and I’m like, I think it’s fine guys. I don’t think they’re going to do anything! They’re so small! I think with them as well, people are realising the pesticides that are used on our crops, how that affects, not just the bees, but all the other insects as well. Also, it’ll affect- they’re like the lowest part of the food chain but if they’re affected by the pesticides, it’s then the birds that feed on the insects, how’s that affecting them? You know, so it moves on, it’s showing us that there’s consequences to our actions and we need to think of the environment more, be more respectful of it. That’s important.
Support Suzanne and the bees at thegentlebee.co.uk
“When you’re going into a hive, it’s like visiting a maternity ward. The queen’s laying her eggs and the other bees are raising the young and that’s all they exist to do, to bring on the next generation and to take care of the queen.”
WHAT MAKES YOU A To fully express the complexities of the word MELTER, it seemed only appropriate to exhibit its baseline definition - an annoyance. After gathering a collection of somewhat annoying traits from those willing to share, we gave some illustrators, namely Caroline Murphy, and featured melter himself, Jacob Stratfold, full reign to visualise these traits in the best way they could, alongside some photography and collage created in-house. After all, everyone is a melter in their own way so here’s some more examples of how.
MELT ER?
full credits PHOTOGRAPHY, WORDS, EDIT AND DESIGN BY KATIE DONAGHY MELTERS Scott Black Cate Cheung-McMullan Michael Donaghy Paddy Dunlop Suzanne Foster Thomas Hall Alicia Price Courtney Stevens Jacob Stratfold Arthur Wright
ILLUSTRATORS Caroline Murphy Jacob Stratfold MODELS Natalie Anderson Lesedi Aphane Jee-Yun Blenman Rocio Chaver Derry McClure Jacob Stratfold