London: The Modern Babylon

Yours truly volunteered at TIFF12 (Toronto International Film Festival) and saw some great films this year. Of particular interest to the readers of this blog will be the doc London: The Modern Babylon (directed by Julien Temple).

The film has been described as an "inspirational," "affectionate," yet "unsentimental" ode to the fair city.  The Globe and Mail picked it as one of its top six films of the entire festival! The film is a survey of the city's history since 1900 and focuses especially on the transformation and the tumult that has rocked the capital in a collection of rich archival images and video as well as interviews with those who lived the history. Including 106 year old resident Hetty Bower, "life long Londoner" Tony Benn, and poet Michael Horowitz. Perhaps most striking is that the film does not gloss over the street violence or racial tensions that have an all too prominent role in the history of the city.

The soundtrack opened with the Clash and included the Pet Shop Boys, the Kinks and the Sex Pistols. The electronic hum of Underwold (famous from the Trainspotting soundtrack) perfectly highlights the black and white images of horse-drawn carriages and trams on the ever busy streets of London at the beginning of the century. The very English hymn"Jerusalem" made its way into the doc in two spots: recited by a black poet and emanating from a waling electric guitar. This collection of music is modern, loud, disorienting and mirrors the cultural clash/ fusion that took place in society. This was the soundtrack all the "cool kids" grew up to in London. (Check out the soundtrack on Spotify)

We get flashing images of Edwardian debutantes, the monarchy and 1980s yuppies. 
But, the real driving force of London has been "the people" (mischaracterized as "the mob") and popular protest. The narrative of this documentary is punctuated by moments of street violence: the fight for suffrage, Cable Street (1936), Notting Hill (1958), workers strikes, Brixton (1981), Poll Tax riots, August 2011 as well as the Occupy movement. In each instance, Temple seems to argue that the people have only ever protested in the face of inequality and injustice. The people have never been an unruly and irrational so-called mob. 

One of the recurring themes of this doc is that London is an ever changing city. Physically, the city has been destroyed and rebuilt by war and, more recently, further changed by gentrification. Socially the population has been transformed by industrialization, urbanization (and the exodus from London to its suburbs) and immigration. Culturally, London is now home to people who speak over 300 different dialects and practice a multitude of different religions ... and, as one man in the film pointed out, people who don't believe in God at all. 

Yet, with all of these transformations the structure and spirit of the city endures.

The city has always been busy, noisy, dirty. It always will be. It is a place of work and generates vast wealth even in these uncertain economic times. Different groups of people (religion, ethnicity, and class) have always lived side by side. There has always been a gap between the wealthy and the poor. The only difference now is that this gap continues to increase and, as the street riots in August 2011 showed, these tensions are at a boiling point. 

Julien Temple's documentary is an important, real and thoughtful portrait of London. There's little nostalgia but the city has never looked more beautiful. It complements the harmonious and triumphant images of London that we have been served by the recent Jubilee and Olympic celebrations. For anglophiles and general film-going audiences alike this documentary is well worth 1h15 mins of your time.

@SloaneScholar1

Zadie Smith: NW

Recently, I won a contest on Twitter for an advanced copy of Zadie Smith's new book NW (thanks to @PenguinCanada!). I was ecstatic to say the very least and I would have posted a review here earlier ... if it didn't take me forever to get through it. I wasn't truly invested in the story or characters until p. 184!!

The image of London (Britain) I grew up with was, as discussed in our earliest post, ancient and filled with (mostly) posh sorts running around in leather shoes and well fitted suits (so mostly men too). Or, I imagined Jane Austen's England - rolling country side, garden parties, elaborate group dances, and sewing in manorial salons. This image was entirely based on PBS/ AE (pre-Dog the Bounty Hunter) tv programming. As I explored British culture in my teens and twenties, I realized that English/ British culture was much grittier and erratic. Never in my television education of British culture (or even my first university survey course) did I encounter workers or immigration (post-colonialism). But, in fact, a whole generation of authors, academics, and artists had recuperated the life of ordinary Britons and declared it to be the more authentic experience/ identity. It was a badge of honour to speak with a thick Cockney/ Mancunian/ Scouse/ Geordie accent and terribly embarrassing to admit that one had a public school education. It's the reason, I believe, that shows like Eastenders, Coronation Street, Life on Mars, and The Only Way is Essex have such a prominent place alongside the depictions of Britain/ England that emphasize the gilded life of the landed aristocrats (Downton Abbey, Upstairs, Downstairs, Made in Chelsea). Interesting fact: in 2001, Foreign Secretary to the Social Market Foundation in London Robin Cook declared that Tikka Masala was the true national dish of the UK!

Zadie Smith has been one of the young British authorial voices that have challenged readers to futher complicate their understanding of British identity by considering the experiences of the different immigrant communities that make their homes in every section of London. In NW, we follow best friends Leah Hanwell and Natalie (Keisha) Blake as they grow up on and each move away from the Caldwell council estate in North London.

Both characters are held as examples of how one "successfully" makes something of themselves coming from disadvantaged circumstances. Natalie, unlike Leah, is determined to escape her humble beginnings. She doesn't waste time with romance or socializing. Like her boring first boyfriend Rodney, she's decided that the law will offer her refuge and nothing will deter her from her goal. This single-minded focus on fleeing a life of poverty, however, leaves her feeling empty and with a lingering fear that she doesn't have a personality. These feelings fester and keep her from enjoying the fruits of her labour (gorgeous posh husband, kids, and financial stability). Leah, in contrast, seems to drift effortlessly away from life on the estates but that doesn't mean she feels any more satisfied with her adult life than her friend. Alongside Natalie and Leah, we also meet car mechanic Felix Cooper who, unlike the other characters in this novel, is an example of someone who tries to leave the housing project through film making but doesn't quite make it.

As the lukewarm review in the New York Times pointed out, Smith's latest effort asks readers to consider questions of luck and choices in one's fate especially as it pertains to class and identity. Unlike the dominant ethos of meritocracy of postwar British politics and society, reality is much more random and class barriers remain. This theme is especially pertinent to a Britain that last year weathered days of riots in the street and continues to hear David Cameron's Tories tell that that Britons "are all in it together."

Smith's depiction of NW London is vibrant but it's also sordid and dangerous. The neighbourhoods in which these characters live are spaces in which the rich and poor (young and old) quite literally fight over space on the streets and in parks. The book opens with a young woman called Shar who knocks on Leah's door supposedly desperate for cab fare to get to the hospital. Only we learn that the story was an elaborate lie employed by the young (dirty) woman to fund a drug habit. This original meeting leads to a much more dangerous physical altercation. Later on, Natalie finds herself amongst a crowd of adults berating a pair of youths who decide to smoke on a playground. These youths are less threatening that those encountered by Leah but they are no less insistent on their right to occupy the public space with these yuppie mums.

Smith's new book is challenging in structure as well as subject matter. She swaps between narrative voices and adopts a stream of consciousness technique for a substantial portion of the book. This method is effective in conveying the real way that people speak, think and live (haphazardly rather than in a clean perfectly organized and poetic paragraphs). It is not as clear, however, why Smith manipulates the text in certain spots to mimic a text or email message a character receives. It's not a method she employs enough (as in Jonathan Safran Foer Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close for example) to convince the reader that it's essential to the story that she sets out to tell.

I can't decide if NW is a must-read. It was passed over by the Man Booker prize committee this year and I can't disagree. The story and characters feel half-baked. This is not Smith's most evocative portrayal of immigrant lives in London or modern British identity. However, Smith's insight into modern London life is unique and required reading for those who want a richer understanding of British culture.

@SloaneScholar1

On London 2012 & patriotism

Boris in Beijing 2008

With the Olympic games coming up in London 2012, we here at Love (...) in a Cold Climate will have much to muse upon. I thought I'd start things rolling with an informal discussion on "Britishness" and identity. As @IdleHistorian has mentioned in a previous post, when Canada hosted the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, we celebrated the successes of our athletes with such gusto that we managed to change a lot of minds regarding our "niceness." It's hard to forget all the flag-waving (I'm sure there's video evidence of the entire country cheering when Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal v. USA in the hockey gold medal game) or Nikki Yanofsky's "I Believe" on repeat for 14 straight days (NY's song still triggers a Pavlovian response of tears and swelling pride in me. Congratu-well done CTV). While others grumbled, many in the Canadian media were unashamed of the overt expressions of patriotism. In fact, the consensus seemed to be that those two weeks in February became a pivotal moment in nation-building. Canada emerged from a games with greater national confidence than ever before.


Will we see the same sort of unabashed chest-beating to "Rule Britannia" in August? Will Great Britain emerge from the games refreshed and feeling "all in it together"? It's hard to say. From the moment Boris Johnson received the Olympic flag at the 2008 games in Beijing, the public/ popular discourse seemed to express a sense of dread for 2012 more than any other sentiment. The chorus of doubters predicted doom. How would everyone cope with the eternal queues at Heathrow, the increased traffic congestion, and what exactly will the games cost? Many of these anxieties are on display in the BBC series Twenty Twelve starring Hugh Bonneville (who plays the frustrated and ever diplomatic Ian Fletcher) among other stellar cast members each skewering an aspect of the (poor?) planning and (dis-) organization that goes into making the games possible. It's a sentiment that is so well known that they even penetrated American pop culture as seen in an episode of 30 Rock where Wesley Snipes (Michael Sheen) revisits (reluctantly) his "settling-soul mate" Liz Lemon because he can't face returning to London for the Olympics. 


Are those who are anxious/ grouchy about the Olympics the same contingent that grumble whenever the royals decide to celebrate lavishly a birthday/ wedding? Or, is this like complaining about English weather? If the forecasts are correct, there will be a great deal of talk about the "rainy isles." Is this about managing expectations? Or, is the general population actually quite happy to have the world descend on the capital for two weeks? It will be interesting in the coming weeks to see the narratives that are constructed because, unlike Kate & William's wedding or the Jubilee, the Olympics steer the attention away from the upper echelons of British society to that of ordinary people who accomplish extraordinary feats. What image of Britain/ Britons will be on display? How will these Olympic games change those images for years to come?


@SloaneScholar1


My friend brings up many excellent point about how British character is intersecting with the Games in very interesting ways. (I particularly enjoy "Wesley Snipes" from 30 Rock ...)


I do think that grumbling and a general Eeyore-ish attitude are classic British. However, in reading the news as of late I note that there are many of the same complaints that riddled the pre-Winter Games here in Vancouver in 2010: corporate intrusion and copyright issues, worries about traffic gridlock and resentment at the special lanes devoted to VIPs and Games participants, concerns over security, general preparedness, and the readiness of the venues and logistics. There have also been some unique challenges in the UK - the security debacle with the private firm G4S and the weather to name only two. It all provides the British with reasons for even more hand-wringing; an excuse to decide ahead of time that it will all be rubbish and to make a joke of it. (See this episode of the great BBC segment OddBox about the rather fun Chap Olympics. One of the participants explicitly repeats the received wisdom that Brits are "rubbish" at real sport and therefore must succeed at making humour of it.)


I don't believe the whole enterprise will be rubbish at all, but the British compulsion to disavow all that is too earnest or serious, and to make a joke of everything, is deep-seated. As SloaneScholar1 reports, this approach was evident from the first instance of Boris Johnson's appearance in Beijing (apparently discombobulating his hosts with his unbuttoned suit and the famous disheveled hair). We won't try too hard, was the general feeling, but we will have fun and eccentricity and put a truly British stamp on the proceedings. And why not? "Team GB" may even manage the very unBritish feat of excelling at sport.


One cannot end such a post with anything other than a video of Boris Johnson proclaiming that "wiff waff is coming home to Britain":




@idlehistorian


The Great Exhibition of 1851 is often featured in history books as a singular event that showcased Britain’s pre-eminence on the global stage, while reflecting the state and character of the nation. (Spoiler alert: Britain was imperial, modernizing and ambitious. Oh, and obsessed with free trade capitalism, and not wild about the poor.)

Will future historians use the London Games in the same way? When scholars interrogate and mine this event to learn about the culture and politics of Britain in 2012, will this be they’ll find?

A reluctant patriotism?

Are celebrations of Britishness doused by a general feeling that it is rather ‘American’ to be overly ‘sentimental’ about such things, or is it the ghosts of imperial past that make chants of Rule Britannia seem inappropriate? The Royal Wedding and Jubilee saw Union Jacks out proudly, but those symbols are in keeping with monarchy in a way they have begun to conflict with ‘nation’ – especially as ‘Team GB’ contains three separate nationalisms.

A sense of nation may not be as strong now as in 1851, but neither are the actual workings of the state to physically pull these Games together.

Government Inadequacy

The security failings by the Home Office that have come to light this week are absolutely staggering. After seven years of planning and millions of pounds spent, two weeks out from the Games there are reports of MASSIVE failings in security. After being rushed in from other departments to ease the massive immigration queues at Heathrow, new Border Patrol agents have failed to screen active terror suspects. The Guardian reports that they missed as many as five in one day of actual (not test!) screenings. The G4S debacle would be comical if it wasn’t so potentially dangerous. But the biggest nightmare of all is the impending transport apocalypse that is about to descend on London. One minister said that it would be like 16 consecutive days of New Years Eve, football finals and Royal Weddings.  This can only have a dousing effect on Olympic festivities, and should lead to many outcries about how a system that already operates at nearly peak capacity was expected to cope with such a massive influx of athletes and tourists and journalists. Seeing the ramp up in transit usage two weeks out from the Games has turned me from excited ticket holder to firm believer that Tessa Jowell is The Biggest Moron Ever To Sit In A Labour Cabinet Ever for actually thinking London could host an Olympics. The infrastructure simply cannot cope.  

When the world comes to London, they may just find a city stretched to the brink.

London’s confused twenty-first century identity

I think they will also find a few different Londons competing for definition. There’s the Victorian skeleton of a former-imperial metropolis, an extraordinarily vibrant multi-cultural and multi-ethnic cosmopolis, and a busy hub of neo-feudal, global capitalism.

Whoever selected the terrible LOCOG logo seems to be trying to align the games with my favourite London: the multi-cultural cosmopolis. It kind of looks like it’s supposed to be a graffiti hash tag? Kind of? The fact that it resembles not much of anything points to the difficulty of defining contemporary London. Vancouver used the Inukshuk as its symbol (conveniently overlooking the repression of the native culture that created it) to represent Canada’s history of friendship. But London 2012 doesn’t want to be tied to a lion or union jack or any other symbol of obvious patriotism, it is a place with new ideas and new art and new cultures emerging out of the collision of old ones. Except that every time I look at the logo, I don’t get a sense that it is a genuine reflection of this spirit of the city.  I see the spirit of The City. I imagine a room full of corporate group-thinkers deciding, “Hmm, this looks new and different, and maybe even passably vibrant. This is the deliberate, generic brand we want use to market our city for global consumption.”  

And this is the side of London that will seem preeminent during the Olympics. The vehicles of corporate sponsors will be seen whizzing by the plebs in the designated Olympic Lanes, army officers will confiscate your off brand snacks and gear and credit cards at entrance gates to events. Pubs using the words “Summer” and “Olympics” in their sidewalk signs advertising that the games are playing inside will be liable to suits from theIOC for copyright infringement, and British chips will not be sold on Olympic grounds because they infringe on the rights secured by McDonalds to be the only fried potato vendor on the planet.

With the ominous Shard looming over London, there will be no confusion about who owns this city.

And with that… I’m going to try cheer up before I go see tennis at Wimbledon and get to stuff my face full of corporate sponsored strawberries & cream.

H.