Scotland Decides

September 18th 2014 is a seminal day in the history of British politics. All day the people of Scotland have been voting on whether to remain part of the United Kingdom or to go it alone as an independent nation. As I type this, the TV spools on as a number of talking heads debate the implications of each outcome, whilst in halls all over Scotland people are set for a long night of counting the ballot papers that will determine the outcome. The last couple of weeks have stressed how finely poised the outcome is: various polls have, at one point or another, put each camp marginally ahead of the other.

It's being reported now that the 'No' campaign might just have done enough to take it (though, of course, without any results in at the moment, and the fact that no exit polls have actually been commissioned, this is all speculation), which, if it proves to be the case, I personally am glad about. I can't confess to having thoroughly researched all the issues, but from what I have read, I think that the case for a successful independent Scotland is, at best, in the words of the Scottish legal system, Not Proven. From where I've been sitting, the 'Yes' campaign seems to have assumed that a lot of things will go the way they want them to in any post 'Yes' vote negotiations, but failed to provide enough solid evidence to back their case up. Moreover, in a world that is full of borders, both geographical and metaphorical, it'd be somewhat disheartening to think of one being willingly erected so close to home. Of course, at this point in time the result could still be 'Yes', in which case we are in a brave new world, and it could very well be a bumpy next eighteen months or so for those of us who reside in the British Isles.....

On the joy of a good bookshop

Sometimes novel reading seems like a dying art. I know I find myself reading fiction much less than I used to do. Partly because at times there are not enough hours in the day to get what I'm being paid to do done let alone sit down and read for pleasure, and partly because when I do have free time there are so many more things available to read nowadays. I remember when I was growing up, I would read the side of the cereal packet just to have something to read at breakfast (books were forbidden at the table) and because, newspaper and books aside, that was the only way I could read. Nowadays, thanks to my laptop and phone, words are everywhere I could possibly want them, and more. So, whilst I'm probably spending more and more of my time reading - something which is pretty much ideal for me - I'm spending much less of my time reading novels, which isn't.

This scenario isn't exactly new - people with much more cultural weight behind them than me have discussed this - and what I'm really more concerned about discussing in this blog post is the knock-on effect of this. Reading novels less means visiting bookshops less, and for someone whose idea of heaven used to be spending an hour or two wandering around a bookstore seeing what new worlds I could discover between the covers of a new book, this is a fairly significant lifestyle change. This lifestyle change began, I think, around about the time that I returned to university to do my Masters. As a graduate student in English Literature, the most obvious place to source your texts is a bookshop. Yet, when the texts that you are studying are not in the canon, you tend to have to get a bit more creative to find some of the texts that you are looking for, and that usually requires resorting to the internet and people looking to pass on 20-30 year old copies of Virago editions that they no longer want and the like. Success in sourcing difficult-to-find material, and the lure of cheaper-than-on-the-high-street editions of that material that is easily accessible (please don't judge: I was poor, and didn't about the tax-dodging) led to mission-creep, and before I knew it, the amount of time passing between me entering the doors of a bookshop was getting longer and longer.

Over the last couple of years I've sought to rectify that, and although it means the novels I buy are a bit more expensive than if I'd continued with my internet shopping ways, I now buy them from a person rather than a computer screen. This mostly consists of shopping in the local Waterstones of wherever I happen to be, although if I happen to be in the vicinity of a book fair I'm quite happy to pop in and see if they have anything of interest (sadly the answer is almost always no). Whilst Waterstones is usually perfectly adequate at worst, and decent enough at best (even if they have removed the apostrophe), it's not usually the place for discovering a book that you would otherwise never have happened on. Whilst their bookseller recommendations are useful, there's never really the sense that I could strike up a conversation with one of those booksellers and be led to discover a book that I've never heard of before but that is probably perfect for me or someone I know. The answer to this lies most obviously in the independent sector. But with even chain bookshops struggling - Waterstones only survives thanks to the decision of a Russian billionaire to rescue it from administration in 2011, and just last week, a friend posted on Facebook that Blackwell's in Charing Cross was about to close its doors - it's often quite hard to find an independent bookstore at all, let alone one that you happen to like. As might be obvious given that this post exists in the first place, just recently I was lucky enough to do that.

In Bath for a weekend away with the other half, we were fortunate enough to stumble upon Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights. As Bath is a wonderfully compact city centre, with shops and restaurants all located upon the main thoroughfares, there's very little to tempt you into the little roads off down the side, and this is especially true of the side of the city that is away from the river-front. Yet on our way in to the centre from the car park, we saw this bookshop advertised and decided to pop in (one of the best things about His Nibs? He loves bookshops too - every time we go in one, even if it's just because I want to have a browse - he ends up leaving with at least a couple of books. He now has more than enough unread books to last him a couple of years worth of reading even if doesn't buy any more for the foreseeable!). The last independent bookshop I was in - just a couple of months ago - had left me a bit cold. It had a few potentially interesting-looking books in, but as neither I nor my friend were looking for anything in particular, we soon drifted out again. Mr B's was different. Whilst browsing the displays, looking at what there was on offer, I was soon asked very pleasantly if there was anything I was looking for in particular. After saying that I was just browsing, I was then left in peace to check out what they had to offer. The answer to that was, a lot. Spread over three floors (although a gammy knee prevented me from exploring upstairs and finding out what exactly was in the bibliotherapy room), the shop had all sorts of nooks and crannies in which books dwelt. Whilst some of them were organised around categories that you'll usually find in a bookstore, such as classics or young adults, others had more current cultural relevance. The selection of books throughout the store was quite wide one - as well as the standard books, there always seemed to be popping up books that you suspect wouldn't quite make it onto the shelves at a chain store. The number of each book stocked appeared pretty low, but as this is to no doubt encourage the variety held this is no bad thing. Having spotted a number of books we wanted to buy, at that point we left, reasoning that wandering around with at least one bag full of books all day was probably not the most sensible thing to do. We returned at the close of the day to pick up the books that we had our eye on, and as it was at the quietest point of the day we entered into conversation with the staff on duty. It was at this point that our visit there really took off. The staff member we were talking to was not only friendly, but knowledgable about what we might like and recommended several more as potentially suiting our tastes. 

Having thoroughly enjoyed both pottering around the bookshop and talking books with the staff, we finally left, laden with even more books than we had originally planned to buy. It also sparked in me a determination to make sure that not only do I go to Mr B's every time I come to Bath but that I make more of an effort to visit my local independent bookstore. For as well as helping to financially support someone most probably swimming against the business tide - retail independents in all walks of life are struggling to compete against the chains, whether they be national or international - I just might reap the ultimate reader's reward: that of discovering worlds I never knew existed and that I cannot now live without. And, ultimately, that is what I want from a bookshop.

Liverpool FC, 2013-14 Season Review: The agony and the ecstasy....

A couple of weeks ago, as the final whistle blew on the Liverpool-Chelsea match, I tweeted the famous John Cleese quote from his 1986 film, Clockwise. Today, as the faint hope of the title that we possessed at the start of the match was extinguished by Manchester City's inevitable victory over West Ham, I felt like this:

But should I, really? After all, 9 months ago, before a ball had been kicked in anger, Liverpool had been virtually written off as Top Four contenders, and certainly weren't being thought of as title contenders. Instead, thanks in no small part to the free-scoring exploits of Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge in helping the team amass 101 goals this season - a huge improvement of 24 goals on their previous best for the Premier League - and an 11-game winning streak that started with the 5-1 demolition of Arsenal and included a 3-0 win away at Old Trafford and a 3-2 defeat of the eventual champions Manchester City, Liverpool have ended this season second. Second! A position that, in the twenty-two seasons of the Premier League, Liverpool have only reached twice, and certainly one that according to both those in the media and in management we shouldn't have achieved. 

So why, at this moment, am I not thrilled with the final outcome of this season, a season in which my club once more challenged for top honours, honours that have been sadly scarce for the adult years of my footballing life? It's at this point I'd like to refer you back to John Cleese....


Part of the thing that draws me to football over pretty much every other sport that I enjoy watching - and I enjoy watching most sports - is both the emotional range that football is able to draw out from me and the intenstity with which I experience those emotions. In the course of 90 minutes I can go from the depths of despair to the highest heights and back again, depending on the skill and dexterity (or lack thereof) of 11 men kicking around a ball for 90 minutes. It's insane when you actually think about it in any sort of logical terms, but there you go.

This season is not the only season when Liverpool have performed well on the world club stage - that night in Istanbul in 2005 springs to mind - but it's certainly been a while since we performed so well so consistently. Winning the league makes you the best in a way that winning a cup competition does not, so to perform well in the league is what any football fan craves. That 11 league game winning run, completed as it was with swagger, artistry and breath-taking moments, took us to the point that the dream was within touching distance. It wasn't a half-baked hope; it was entirely feasible that Liverpool FC could win the league. It wasn't like 2008-9, when our chances depended entirely on another team dropping points. This time, with just three games to go, it was in our hands. It didn't matter what other teams did; if we continued to play as we had done, we would win the league. The dream was becoming reality. It felt like we were running on autopilot: having forgotten how to lose, it seemed like we couldn't lose. Only we did. We were still in with a shot at the title, but now it wasn't in our hands. We still could win both of our remaining games, but because of an inferior goal difference, we had to depend on another club slipping up somehow in order to be crowned Champions. That was still possible though - just as we had to win every game, so had they. And pressure does funny things to people.....

In the end, the pressure did funny things to Liverpool not Manchester City. We ended up throwing away a 3-0 lead with 12 minutes left to end up with only a draw away to Crystal Palace (the curse of Tony Pulis teams continues), and we were left with only the slimmest of hopes going in today. Perhaps today would finally be the day that Andy Carroll would guide Liverpool to glory, albeit in a West Ham shirt? Rationally speaking I knew that this was somewhat clutching at straws. But when has football ever been about rationality?

City duly won, and all that Liverpool are left with is second place. When I think about this, I feel slightly hurt. I believed. I believed that the title was finally coming back to Anfield, and then it didn't. I have coped with the various league disappointments of Graeme Souness, Roy Evans, Gerard Houllier, Rafael Benitez and Roy Hodgson's managements. This, being the freshest, inevitably feels the worst right now, and the dashing of the hope that only 15 days earlier had burnt so brightly only serves to increase it. Agony is the only word to describe the season at the moment.

But, on the bright side, we finished second. Second. We were in the title mix until the final day of the season. If someone had offered me that on the day before the season kicked off, I would have snatched their hand off. Back in the Champions League, and because of the finishing position we won't even have to play a qualifier to make certain of it! Our strong performance this season and the guaranteed Champions League place makes Liverpool a much more attractive proposition to the quality players that we knew we would have to sign in this close-season anyway, so that's all good. Sign those players, and who knows? Perhaps we can turn second to first in twelve months time and truly return to our perch.....

Maybe John Cleese was wrong after all. 

Feminism is not a dirty word.

*To mark International Women's Day I thought I'd post this. I composed it over a period of time several months ago, and have been waiting for a good time to post. Today seems as good a day as any!*

Being a (female) feminist in the early twenty-first century isn't easy. No sooner do you put your head above the parapet to declare your allegiance to the cause than you make yourself a target for all the misogynistic trolls lurking anonymously in the electronic ether, fingers poised at the keyboards ready to make your life a misery by posting hate about you and threatening to rape and kill you. That this is actually happening, as opposed to something made up by misandrists with an agenda to push, has been highlighted over the last year by the online abuse suffered by feminist Caroline Criado-Perez after she successfully campaigned to ensure that the accomplishments of women continued to be represented on British currency, as well as violent threats made to British MP Stella Creasy, the academic Mary Beard and other high profile British liberal women. (To be honest with you, reading about just some of the abuse that they encountered - and, despite the intervention of the police and the invention of a 'report tweet' Twitter button, continued to encounter, to the extent that Criado-Perez felt the need to close her Twitter account - made me a bit nervous about writing this post and publishing it, let alone publicising its existence to the wider world.)

Hopefully, people like that are in a (very vocal) minority. But if it's unlikely that the people that you declare your feminism to aren't overtly hostile to you, then chances are high that they will be dismissive and/or derisive of your way of thinking. Close female relatives of mine roll their eyes at me should I try to begin to make any point about sexism or issues relating to gender, whilst I believe one of them to have once described my postgraduate research as being on 'feminism and other such rubbish' (a precis that was as factually incorrect as it was mildly insulting). Given that the feminism of the last 150 years has, amongst other things, given them a civil existence separate from their male relatives, allowed them to have meaningful employment and enabled them to bear children out of matrimony sans (most of the) social stigma, you'd think they'd be more open to the idea wouldn't you? But then again, if women such as Mary Berry, who would have experienced the limited opportunities of life as a young woman in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and the changes that second wave feminism would have wrought in it at first hand, can still claim that feminism is "a dirty word", why should my younger relatives who have never experienced the worst of it first hand be any different?

Just as frustrating as my relatives are the friends who tell me that they "are not feminists" because they "believe in equality" between men and women. These friends would not, as far as my acquaintance with them leads me to believe, describe themselves as being particularly politically right-wing. But in so implying that feminism and equality are mutually exclusive, they are articulating one of the right's favourite tenets about feminism: that the movement is all about valuing women over men.

That right-wing beliefs about feminism appear to have been unquestionably adopted by those who would eschew other right-wing dogmas shows how important it is for feminists to speak up on this point, to continually remind people that despite the progress of the last 150 years (for white, Western women anyway), women still don't have a civil existence that is the equal of men's. As feminists, the responsibility lies with us to continue to tell truth to power, to speak up whenever we find women being disadvantaged, belittled or limited in any respect. It's never been easy to do that, and in today's world, where, with a few strokes of the keyboard, vitriol can be swiftly poured into the eyes and minds of those that dare to voice their opinion, it becomes, in some sense, an even braver step to do so. But do so we must. Because we owe it to the women who have gone before us and fought for the freedoms that we do have now, and we owe it to the women who will come after us and will reap the benefits of the freedoms that we gain for them in the future.