Saving Mr Banks ...

It's hard to know what to say - what to start with - when trying to describe this film. I could tell you that you definitely need to see it; that you will laugh, cry and want to shout at the screen; that by the end, whatever your feelings on Disney, you will love and adore the characters and hope that Emma Thompson writes all future scripts for all movies. "Saving Mr Banks," as well as being the story of how the much loved children's book "Mary Poppins" was made into an equally - if not more so - loved Disney film, is about a (now grown up) little girl and her relationship with her father. It is about how your past haunts you into adulthood, and if you aren't careful and willing to let it go, all through your life. It is about love and loss, about watching your parents screw up their lives and, by extension yours. 




I have to confess I didn't cry while watching it. I didn't cry as two small girls watched their father drink himself closer and closer to death and then eventually, gently even, slip over the edge. I didn't cry as the oldest daughter saved her unstable mother from a suicide attempt. I didn't cry as P. L. Travers, now a fully grown-up woman and a successful writer, crumpled into tears watching her childhood brought to life in a magical, moving film that somehow made all of that pain as close as it would ever be to alright. In fact the closest to tears I got was as she hugged a Mickey Mouse cuddly toy all alone in L. A. and realised how just how very lonely she was.

 

Trust me, you need to watch this film. If you love the story of the nanny who blew in with the east wind, carrying a magic carpet bag; providing the spoonfuls of sugar needed to help the life lessons go down, then you will enjoy seeing a whole new element to her creation brought to life. If you are yet to be won over by the singing and the dancing, the mystery and adventures - the dancing penguins and the flying kites in London skies, the suffragettes, the chimney sweeps and the echoing cathedral with it's swooping birds - prepare to have your opinions changed. Emma Thompson is totally magical and has written a movie that will sweep the most hardened Disney haters off their feet. Tom Hanks is ideal as Walt Disney - the storyteller who makes dreams come true and characters dance off the page and into imaginations all over the world.
 

 

The songs that make "Mary Poppins" so wonderful are all here. From Chim-Chiminey to Supercallifragilistic to Feed the Birds (sobs) and Fly A Kite, you can easily spend the whole film singing along and will come away feeling oddly reminded of your childhood, however distant it seems day to day. Personally, among others such as Annie and The Sound of Music, Mulan, Peter Pan and Pocohontas, "Mary Poppins" was one of the films I watched with my sister about 743682 times when we were little. It's really rare to see something that perfectly appreciates what's so wonderful about the original, but adds to it beautifully, expanding on the themes you were only partially aware of, when watching curled up on the sofa, having begged to stay up past bedtime to finish the ending. It allows you to love it again in a whole new way; seeing it with fresh, grown-up - or at least closer to it - eyes. 

 

And finally, no. She didn't come to save the children. She never did. Excuse me while I go and cry over how perfect "Saving Mr Banks" is, re-watch "Mary Poppins" and spend the next three weeks raving about it to everyone I know.

xox

Procrastination....

It's a truth (pretty much) universally acknowledged that the only time I ever want to sit down and write on this blog is when I should be revising/writing an essay/insert activity that I'm supposed to do to pass exams, leave sixth form and be allowed to live an adult existence. (Yes, that was a Jane Austen quote... sorry.)

 

It feels so strange that in just a few weeks I'll be 18 - and legally allowed to do basically anything - but still live in exactly the same way, going to lessons, arguing with my family, being stressed about UCAS. Life isn't going to change dramatically in any way at all, which doesn't help to explain why I'm dragging my heels so much right now.

 

Learning things - for some reason - feels entirely pointless. This is an incredibly bad time for this to happen. In September, I and everyone else currently aged 17/18 and wrestling with the annoyingness of the UCAS track and admissions offices, will supposedly be heading off to university. Towns all over the country will be filled up with new students, cars full of families dropping them off and driving away waving goodbye, anxious parents, brand new friends, duvet covers, posters on the walls of new rooms.

 

Nights out in cities seen with fresh eyes because the high street isn't the same one you've been wandering up and down since you were 14. Cooking meals and doing laundry feeling exciting for some bizarre reason - because you're doing it all by yourself. Lectures, independence, student loans, new experiences and homesickness (even if you won't admit it...) On one hand I wish it could all start next week, but on the other I am honestly, really, completely freaked out.

I should probably also stop dealing with the anticipation of this by refusing to be motivated to work. You can tell its a real bad mood when inspirational quotes aren't helping...

xox

LES MIS

Ever since I first heard of Les Miserables, I have been fascinated and a tiny bit obsessed with it. I sobbed my way through it more than once in the cinema, insisted on helping out with every show when my school performed the musical - just to get to be there and watch it each night - and was given both the film soundtrack and a copy of the original book for my 17th birthday. Although at the moment the (huge) chunky text is sat being quietly ignored on my bookshelf - its about 7,000 pages long, okay?! - I've definitely been inspired to attempt to read it now. Maybe when I've watched the movie once more...

 

Anyway, yesterday, December 23rd, I was lucky enough to go and see the musical in the West End. I've been hoping this would happen for about two or so years now so it was a completely amazing experience. The show recently moved to Queen's Theatre and is now the longest running musical in the world. We booked tickets really last minute so ended up being sat at the back of the stalls, which isn't ideal as you can't really see the top of the barricades from there. However, the singing, the actors, costumes, sets and everything else about it made it so incredible that I stopped noticing the fact that some of the characters looked like they didn't have heads and I'm already planning to go again sometime.

I think the reason so many people all over the world love this show so much is because of how relatable it is. That may sound strange, given that the whole thing is set in revolutionary France, and we like to think the world has moved on since then. But all of the different bits of plot, the complicated lives of all the characters, mean that whatever you have experienced in your life, you can see a little bit of it in Les Mis. There are so many different relationships, so many themes going on, and the story is universal, ending with a message of hope, even when surrounded by death.

It's fair to say that Les Miserables isn't the most "happy" musical you could imagine - it's name is basically French for: "The Miserable Ones" after all - which is why the comic parts of it are so important. The audience sat up a bit straighter when the Thenardier's came on stage and their songs are the most entertaining by far. The contrast of laughing at them and enjoying the humour in their scenes makes you appreciate the sadness of the deaths of several characters and feel that you are on an emotional rollercoaster - everything from danger, fear, love, anger, redemption and finally hope are explored throughout the nearly 3 hour running time. It might be a long musical but it seemed to go by seriously fast. I felt like the curtains had only just risen when the actors started taking their bows to a standing ovation. My eye makeup was cried off down my cheeks by the middle of Act 1, I literally had to force myself not to start singing along and I can honestly say I hoped it would never be over. If you ever get the chance to see Les Miserables, definitely say yes! It's an experience you will never forget; you'll find yourself humming the songs weeks later, wishing you could see it for the first time all over again.

Some lovely little questions...

Ages ago I was tagged in one of those chain blog award things by another Jessica. So thank you Jess - and have a look at her blog because she does some amazing artwork! I've finally got round to writing the post - because who doesn't love answering some questions about themselves...?

The rules of this tag are:
1.The tagged/nominated blogs have to have under 200 followers.
2.Tag the blog that nominated you.
3.Tell the people you tag so they can respond.

And here are my answers.........



1. What inspired you to start a blog?

I was inspired to begin blogging after reading other people's blogs, which I know is a really boring response. It was also because I love writing and at the time I wasn't really that into using Facebook or Twitter so it was sort of a way to create a space for me to be creative and talk about things I was into, which I didn't really do in any other way on the internet at the time I started it.

2. If you could go back to any era for a day which time era would you go to?

I would visit the late 1960s and either go to London and see the Rolling Stones playing or I would want to go to one of the huge music festivals in America, either Monterey Pop or Woodstock. Honestly if I had a time machine seeing bands would be the only reason I would use it; the idea of mucking up the course of human history by accident really freaks me out and as much as we'd all like to think that *killing Hitler* (or insert other mass murderer etc.) would be a good thing, we can never know what effect changing things would have - it could be worse after all and that really scares me.

3. Cats or Dogs?

I'm not much of a fan of either but if forced to pick I'd say cat. I can't handle the level of emotional commitment a dog needs; sums up my life really.

4. What is your must have clothing item for Autumn?

A coat? Does that even count? I don't know really, I have some lovely new ankle boots but I can't walk properly in them and they're too pretty to take outside in the rain and puddles and ruin, so I'll go for my nice warm coat. That or a really snuggly jumper.



5. What is your favourite book?

Ugh so many! The Harry Potter books are probably my all time favourites as my entire childhood is measured in terms of waiting for the next books and films to come out. There are so many quotes that I love and the whole series means so much to me. One of my favourite places in the whole world is the Elephant Café in Edinburgh where J K Rowling wrote, and where I insisted on spending ages in when I visited Scotland! But I also love anything by John Green, The Perks of Being A Wallflower, The Great Gatsby, ummmm The Book Thief and On The Road are also two of my favourites, there are just far too many really! And don't mention I Capture The Castle to me and expect me not to get emotional... I sometimes think I prefer that book to reality.





6.What is your dream job?

A writer. Can you tell?

 

7. Is there anything you do that other people find weird?

I tend to be quite quiet... that is until you get to know me well. I can bend my thumbs back at a weird angle, apart from that I don't know, can't think of that many things. Try asking my friends.... they may have a different answer.

8. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?

Oh My God, so many places. Firstly, its obviously a huge cliché, but New York City. Then Paris, anywhere in Italy, Australia, India.... there are so many millions of places I want to go to, to be honest. I'm a bit in love with Scotland as so many of my favourite bands are from there, and there are also random places that I just want to travel to for no particular reason - like a particular lake in Russia, for example, or Seattle in America, and I also really want to go back to Poland again. Finally if I really could only pick one place it would have to be somewhere in Asia - maybe Japan, China or Thailand - because I lived in Hong King when I was little and have always wanted to go back there.

9. Must have make-up item?

I have to say eyeliner comes close, I love doing pretty winged or really messy smudgy eyes, but if you told me I could only use one make up item ever again it would be lip balm. My pet hate is having chapped lips and I'm constantly smearing on different flavours; my favourite at the moment is the Body Shop Spiced Vanilla which tastes exactly like Christmas. However, I probably couldn't live for long without most of my make up bag to be honest.

10. Favourite quote?

My current favourite quote is this one. I just think it makes a lot of sense and makes me feel better about being permanently in a bad mood about something.



 

Hopefully you enjoyed reading this post, a bit different from the usual really. I'm going to ask Lucy and Robyn to answer the same questions I was asked (because I'm too lazy to think up more but ssshhh.....)

 

xoxo

Things I Know Today.

Sometimes a week off is what we all need. A few nights spent drinking too much and laughing with friends are the most perfect things. It doesn't matter if the film is bad, as long as the person you watch it with doesn't mind you providing sarcastic commentary. Pizza is all I need to cure any hangover. Really cold coke optional but preferred. Burning incense in my bedroom is filling it with thick sweet smoke but its worth it, even just to save money on my scented candle addiction.



Christmas is beginning to feel just around the corner, and bonfire night is even closer. My favourite time of the year has definitely begun. Towns full of students are fun towns to visit - especially if they look like a setting from Harry Potter; complete with castles, gothic cathedrals and shops full of beautiful old books. Six hour train journeys are bearable with an iPod full of music and a phone full of people to text and complain to about said journey. Vodka and coke is the one. Waking up to cider spilt over your bedroom floor and last nights outfit is not.

Halloween is incredible, so is face paint, so is going to church on the night of October 31st - as an atheist - I've never felt so spooky in my life. Dracula is good reading material for giving you nightmares and skies full of stars are suddenly quite scary. The music I'm listening to changes as the nights get longer and the evenings get darker earlier. All I want to do is curl up under my duvet and wait for it to start snowing; the disappointment when this doesn't happen until February is just as much of a yearly ritual.



In other words: autumn is well under way. The high street coffee chains have brought out their seasonal specials, everyone I know is bundled up in coats and hats every time we set foot outside, I've got some new snuggly warm boots to wear and a pile of books to read. I've switched back to my "wintry" perfume, and started longing to buy new jumpers, as if Topshop needed any more of my hard-earned cash. A very happy girl really.

Memories need to be made, photos need to be taken and life needs to happen while we still have time left living here. This is how I look today. Tired, yes. Piles of work to do before next week starts, yes. Regretting not spending more time studying, definitely not. I could get run over by a car tomorrow or fall under a bus and I wouldn't want to feel like I had missed out on anything.

Did I Ever Mention That I Love John Green?

It happened again. Don't expect me to be capable of using Amazon to order all my Year 13 books without sneaking in something I actually want to read as well... Sorry A2 Politics textbook but you don't really fit that definition. I don't think there's anything I would prefer to arrive in the post on a Saturday when I don't have to get up to do anything than a new (to me) book that I can dive into and read pretty much in one go. This one was no exception. According to Wikipedia Paper Towns is Youtuber John Green's third novel, but I know this is true because I have also read AND LOVED Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines. And don't even get me started on The Fault In Our Stars. I love this book so much it feels like a tiny piece of my soul.

 

Anyway. Thoughts. It would be wrong to say that Paper Towns is a love story, not because it isn't, but because its so much more than that. Its a growing up story, a coming-of-age tale of life in a small town on the edge of a huge country full of futures. Its about friendship, knowing who you are while accepting that all that could change at any moment. Its about road trips, adventure and mystery. Its about “a lovely, eccentric girl; a mystery that begs to be solved by clever, quirky teens," but also about a boy. A boy who believes in college and jobs and the future and spends his final days of high school questioning all of those beliefs. Paper Towns is all about confronting what is and isn't real. The imaginary towns drawn onto maps that don't really exist are "paper," but so are the suburbs and the communities full of houses that all look the same, containing the cookie-cutter lives of people who grew up accepting "the whole allure of a life rightly lived." There probably isn't anyone alive who hasn't found themselves, at some point, asking these questions and it helps sometimes, when you feel like you're struggling to decipher the point to existence, to read a book like this.

 

I liked it a lot, but I'm kind of struggling to put into words as to why. I think it may be one of those books that you read fast and then put down for a few months while it simmers away in the back of your head until you pick it up again and go Oh I Get This Now. This Is All So True And etc. etc. One part I really liked was the idea that "the metaphors have implications." The way we decide to perceive things does affect the world and the way things are. The whole book felt full of little moments like this; tiny sentences of wisdom, in between the drama and humour and car crashes, after-proms and midnight break-ins of the plot. Drunken chats in empty bathtubs at parties with people you had never spoken to before. Falling asleep on long drives. Maps on bedroom walls, highlighted bits in books, messages to your friends, lying to parents, sneaking out and back in again. All of these things are so recognizable as parts of growing up: everyone can find a memory of their teenage years in here.

 

Much of Paper Towns is structured around this incomprehensible poem by Walt Whitman. I searched through the internet for a bit and eventually I found one quote that I liked from part of Song Of Myself: "My words itch at your ears till you understand them." I might have to let Paper Towns itch at my ears for a while until I get it but I would still definitely recommend reading it. I think its quite rare for books aimed at teenagers and young adults to be about stuff that actually means something. It can feel like if you want to read something that understands the questions that are nagging at you about life or the future or whatever your choices are limited to books written in the past. Obviously there's nothing wrong with this, but equally it would be wrong to limit philosophical questioning and stuff to *old* books. We should be doing it today as well, because sometimes it feels like there's more and more options and more and more to question than ever.

Okay I'm done. If you've read Paper Towns or any other John Green books, what did you think?

Who am I?

It is crazy really, this pressure put on everyone to define exactly who they are. What you makes you unique, special, different from the hundreds of other people with the same age or hair colour or even who share your name?

Is it the bands you listen to and the albums you buy? The concerts you attend and the posters you display on your bedroom walls - telling anyone who comes in: This is me, this is what I like, therefore this is who I am.

Is it the books you read, films you watch or TV you like? Is it the characters you care about or the movie adaptations you slate for being "nowhere near as good as the book!"

Is it the social media you use - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, the list soon to be never ending? The photos you share, the things you retweet, the blog you write too infrequently?

Is it your friends, the memories you share and the things you have in common? Is it your family, your interests, pets, favourite colours and smells, way you drink your tea or coffee or whether you drink it at all? Or whether you drink or smoke, whether you love going out or prefer staying in, whether you are one of the loud, chatty ones, or the one they always say "needs to speak up a bit more?"

Is it whether you like science and numbers or would rather be reading and writing? Is it if you want to go to university, or get a job or start a family or have no idea at all?

Is it all of these things? All of them and the many millions more that go into making up a person: a completely unique individual. Exactly like everyone else - with skin and lungs and legs and eyes - but at the same time a total original, never again to be repeated genetic fluke.

What is about society that insists we have to know the answers to all of these questions. What if the choices you make change, the stuff you used to love no longer makes you happy? Have you changed who you are? Why do I have to define who I am right now, when I and everyone I know are all still trying to work it out?

Don't Forget To Be Awesome...

When was the last time you read a book from cover to cover? The last time you read your way into a whole new universe, barely pausing to take a breath between chapters, the relationships and characters becoming as familiar to you as the people in the next room?

For me, it was over the last three days in which I read my way through Looking For Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines, both by the amazing author and youtuber John Green. While I consider myself a huge fan of John Green - Crash Course World History pretty much saved my life right before my exam on the Crusades, and god knows what I would have written about in my English Literature exam without having watched his multiple and brilliant videos on The Great Gatsby (thanks, basically) - it occurred to me the other day that I had only read one of his books.

Despite the fact that, in my opinion, if you cried as many tears as I did while reading The Fault In Our Stars, then you don't really need to read any other JG books to call yourself a number one fan, I decided, seeing as I was at the moment of this realisation, actually in a bookshop, with a giftcard burning a hole in my purse, looking at a sign announcing: "Buy One, Get One Half Price!" I decided that the universe was probably trying to tell me something.

So I bought the aforementioned LFA and AAOK, took them home, got back from work the following day and then had precisely no human interaction until I had finished them both. (Okay, I'm exaggerating slightly, I did have to, like, talk to my family and other people who were physically in my house or otherwise un-ignorable) but I literally could not put these books down.

I read TFIOS in November last year, around the time I read The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, and absolutely fell in love with it. This may be one of the reasons I didn't read any of the other available JG books for so long - the worst thing about discovering an amazing author is always the fear that the one book you loved so much happens to be a fluke and the rest of their body of work is nowhere near as good.

However, this was not the case this time. Although LFA didn't quite live up to the expectations I had for it (but to be fair they were pretty - extremely - high) once I had got into the characters and the story I found myself laughing, crying, full-on sobbing at one point, and basically just experiencing the emotional rollercoaster along with Pudge, The Colonel, Takumi, Alaska and Lara. The entire book is a whirlwind of excitement, drama, love, and the kind of high-school experience everyone (secretly) wishes, aside from the obvious exception, they could have had. Read it - I promise you won't regret it for a second. Cheesy as it may be: it will change the way you see the world.

AAOK was, surprisingly, just as good as the other two books, but in a way that snuck up on me. Colin and Hassan, Lindsey and Katrina, The Other Colin and his friends, not to mention Hollis and all 19 of the Katherines, are characters you believe in, laugh with, cry over and eventually matter to you in the way that makes you sad when you have to put the book down and realise there's no more story left. (PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE WRITE A SEQUEL, JOHN GREEN.) I felt that the power of the message hits you harder in AAOK, maybe because you don't expect it as much. The book appears, at first and in its many laugh-out-loud hilarious moments, to be more of a comedy than TFIOS or LFA, both of which are pretty much sob-fests for a good 75% of the pages, but surprisingly its just as poignant and touching as you would expect any good read to be. Read this one too - unless laughing and crying your way through a roadtrip, a mystery, a broken heart, a disastrous pig hunt and 19 crushingly disappointing relationships doesn't sound like a good idea to you (you freak.) And don't worry, understanding maths isn't in anyway essential to understanding the story, which revolves around the hopeless, but permanently hopeful, child "prodigy" Colin.


Never stop writing stories John Green. I now have to go and buy his other two books (Paper Towns and Will Grayson, Will Grayson) just to see if he can maintain this streak of writing incredible, heart-breaking, hilarious and unforgettable novels. Is it just me who wants to live in a world where these wonderful, unique people are real? I want to camp out in a forest with Alaska, explore Gutshot, Tennessee with Colin, and fly to Amsterdam with Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters. The actors have been cast for The Fault In Our Stars movie, my heart is already waiting to be crushed into a zillion pieces all over again and all I need now is for Kaya Scodelario to be given the role she was clearly born to play... (no prizes for guessing - could there be a better Alaska Young?)

To be honest, all I have to say to anyone, who, like me, is putting off the point when they have to admit to themselves that its time to read another John Green book is to promise them they won't be disappointed. Whether you choose to go on a road trip and attempt to convert love into an algorithm (confusing maths thingy) or go to a school where pranks are a way of life and the only crime is getting caught, discover rooms with books for walls and strawberry wine buried under the fields, whichever incredible world you choose to enter, the one thing you won't be is disappointed.

As John Green says: "Books belong to their readers," and TFIOS, LFA and AAOK now belong to me the way that I Capture The Castle, The Great Gatsby and all the Harry Potters do, earning their place as My Favourite Books.