Tearing the city at the seams #12 - Why Harrogate doesn't really exist

I lived in Harrogate for nearly 18 of the 24 years of my life to date. From 1990 until 2007 when I spread tentative wings and departed for university, only returning home sporadically until leaving more or less for good in April 2012. So it is that I write this travelling back perhaps for the very last time, to say farewell to the house I grew up in as my parents undertake their similarly avid escape; all the while embroiled in a Newton's Cradle of conflicting emotions, buffeting between nostalgic melancholy at one pole and profound ambivalence at the other.

For better or worse, Harrogate has always seemed like a Northern anomaly, an outpost town embedded in the heart of North Yorkshire; its the Falklands Islands still under sovereign ownership by the imperialistic South of England. With its bucolic gardens, Betty's Tea Rooms, spa history, and floral crescents, Harrogate could so easily have been lifted straight from somewhere like Hampstead or Dulwich Village and plonked down as the 'golden centre'of the Leeds, York, Bradford triangle. Its ageing population, highly-ranked schools, plush public gardens and cocktail of tranquil affluence, all coalesce to form a town that was recently voted 'the happiest place to live in the UK' (according to a Rightmove survey).

I would like to contest this very dubious piece of propaganda, to prise out its flaws and assert my new-found conviction that Harrogate exists in a purely ambiguous state of being, if at all; representing nothing more substantial than an idyllic suburban mirage.

This sensation was one that first began to dawn on me upon returning after 4 months travelling across America in 2011. So accustomed had I become to vertiginous skyscrapers, horizon-breaching highways and expansive geography, that my entire sense of scale and distance had become completely stretched into new configurations. Walking round the town centre was like a depressive epiphany; never before had everything and everyone appeared so Lilliputian, quaintly cloistered and, above all, illusory. Even the hue and textures seemed, on a dreary November day, as though I'd been immersed in monochrome once again after so long in bright Technicolor. The quiddity of the place appeared entirely flimsy and capable of dissolving into abstract disarray at the slightest change in the weather.

Essentially, this sums up the experience of growing up in Harrogate. It is a wealthy town - according to the ONS, the average household income is nearly £42,000, around 15% higher than both North Yorkshire and the rest of England. It is also a long-time Tory heartland, until the prevailing winds of 1997 provoked the stiff barometer shift to Lib Dems, which, realistically, was as radical a change as Harrogate was ever going to engineer (it has since returned to Tory type). The ethnicity of the populace is predominately upper-middle class and white (ONS - in 2009 White British accounted for over 90%). Indeed, I vividly remember a primary school trip to Bradford (a mere 20 miles away), and feeling like we'd arrived in an entirely foreign country, as though I expected the Ganges to be in full flow on the other side of the car park.

Growing up in an often ramshackle semi (given my Dad's predilection for DIYVS - do-it-yourself-very-slowly), I would go round to school-friends' houses that to me appeared as veritable mansions, like something from a period costume drama, in which they often had an entire wing for their exclusive use. As I grew older and attended secondary school, I began to discern the sense of entitlement and premature arrogance that inflated so many of my peers. That distinct brand of Saturday rugby club, designer boutique, rah-rah pomposity that follows the logic that anyone with a penny less than yourself is to be viewed from a down-the-nose vantage point.

When I first moved away I found myself almost embarrassed to inform new acquaintances that I came from Harrogate, feeling myself being immediately labelled as an effete posh-boy who had, up until then, languished in the comfortable womb of privilege and serenity. Instead, I began habitually opting for the more obliquely urban reply "somewhere near Leeds". This dearth of personal geographical connection persists; I spent 18 years growing up in Yorkshire and yet feel no affinity to the district or class myself as being a Yorkshireman in any way, shape or form, because the notion of Harrogate being assimilated to Yorkshire is frankly laughable.

The famous polemicist Christopher Hitchens said that,

"for a lot of people, their first love is what they'll always remember. For me it's always been the first hate, and I think that hatred, though it provides often rather junky energy, is a terrific way of getting you out of bed in the morning and keeping you going."

Certainly I learned to resent a great many of my school peers with a perhaps unwarranted zeal during those angst-ridden teenage years. In fact, several firm and lasting friendships were built on the bedrock of this shared animosity.

I suppose the crux of my resentment stems from my firm conviction that nothing of any cultural import or significance could ever be nurtured from Harrogate's teat. Nothing of any innovation, exhilaration or audacity could be coaxed into active being from its consciously supine state. As much as it pains me to propose (as someone of some ambition), the notion that anyone of any expansive influence could be born and raised in Harrogate is absurd. The very nature of the environs would not be conducive for the fostering of a civil rights champion, a statesman, a truly creative artist, a revolutionary, or a radical free-thinker. Instead, Harrogate is exemplary at producing a pantheon of ready-made solicitors, accountants, middle managers and chartered surveyors.

Of course, many would claim that there are many far worse places one could grow up in, that one should feel lucky to have grown up in such auspicious an environment, and of course they would be right. But it is precisely this intrinsic truth that, I believe, by the very measure of its conviction sends the alternate argument rushing to the fore like an antagonistic bungee jumper.

Growing up in Harrogate is to be largely sheltered, feather-bedded in seclusion from any of the character-building hustle or strife of growing up in a city environment or somewhere with a beating commercial or cultural pulse. It's hard to gain any real sense of the pressures and strains of the external world when your hometown appears able to prosper resplendently on Turkish spa packages and afternoon cream teas. Only with hindsight do I realise quite how shrouded in fakery and artifice so many of my demographic really were (is it not predictable that Harrogate also has a tradition of high alcohol and drug abuse amongst young adults?); almost as affectless as the Los Angelenos in Bret Easton Ellis' 'Less Than Zero'.

Naturally, I deign to elevate myself too far above this myre of character besmirching; that of being sorely ill-equipped by the mundane ease that invokes the delusion that the rest of the world, and life as a whole, must be just as otiose and carefree. I stress that I don't believe this to be a fault of parenting or of schooling, but the necessary condition to evolve from having had to cultivate an identity in such a cozy flower-bed of suburbia. Indeed I contend that Harrogate is a superlative place to move to as an adult, but not one to grow up in as a child.

Shrouded in this naive impression of the world and its true vagaries, by the time I encountered my first real physical violence at the age of 16 (so ludicrously advanced an age that by itself speaks volumes), it was as though I'd been plunged into an ice bath of reality that awoke every sensibility as to how life really operated. In many ways it was one of the most profound experiences of my formative years, and although distressing at the time, so much so that I languished in a paranoid funk for several weeks after the event, undoubtedly it was a vitally necessary one. The brief assault was like electrotherapy convulsing me out of the all-too-comfortable confines of my teenage perceptions that the spinning jenny of Harrogate's illusory powers had so effectively woven.

The place I have been that most reminded me of Harrogate, aside from the extremity of both landscape and climate, was Palm Springs in California. Whilst long being a place of leisure and exile for Hollywood’s glitterati, it was striking in its lack of tangible identity or of anything to warrant its actual settlement in such a barren desert. It felt like a hologram town, or a place that should be constantly on the move in search of an unambiguous identity that could it appropriate for its own ends. It felt like it was purely an illusion, rippling out of the desert heat; and, like Harrogate, I became convinced that in a sense it didn’t actually exist.

As you may have guessed by now, there is little love lost between myself and my hometown. I appreciate it for all the benefits and opportunities it afforded me, whilst condemning it for its flaws and deficiencies. This distinct dichotomy is how I will forge the place into my latter-day memory as an adult. I’m sure there are many who will strongly disagree or take issue with the points I have made. If that is the case, then so be it. If I had to conclude with an overriding aphorism I would state that:

Harrogate is a fluffy pillow of a place that so many had plumped up warm and ready for them.

Shakespeare and Education - An Iatrogenic Relationship

You know you're getting steadily older when certain cultural tropes begin to sharpen into your perceptive foreground from a previously low-resolution haze of disinterest. This has happened to me recently with classical music, which has swelled from an everpresent yet subdued intrigue, as well as with the works of William Shakespeare. I have been caught by the riptide current of the Bard's colossal ouevre, willfully aiming to purge myself of my shameful ignorance of Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, et al. Such an urge coincided in June with visiting London's Globe Theatre to watch a magnificently exuberant performance of 'The Tempest'. Finally, I realised, I had been converted.

The characters, plot lines and dialogue of Shakespeare are so ingrained in the DNA of the English language that its almost impossible to envisage any literary works since in any sort of context without such an influential beacon guiding a safe passage across the enshadowed narrative plains. Yet, by the same token, it is almost absurd to comprehend that his work is still held in such high esteem some 400 years hence, as though seemingly nothing of any comparable accomplishment or worth has been achieved since. The incalculable wealth of Shakespeare’s legacy and his continual resonance make a mockery of our supposed cultural progress.

As part of yet another curriculum reorganisation initiative, Education Secretary Michael Gove has stated school children should be made to study even more Shakespeare than before (including introducing his works to children as young as five), as part of his ultra-conservative personal manifesto, stripping away the ‘fluff’ and grounding things again with the core ‘English heritage’ foundations.

This, I would like to argue, is a mistake. It is my belief that enforcing Shakespeare on school children is almost as anachronistic as enforcing the learning of Latin. It is an iatrogenic relationship – that is, one in which a disease is inculcated by the thing that professes itself as the cure. The ‘disease’ in this analogy is that worrying benchmark - children’s literary levels.

Teachers and parents have an increasingly arduous task it seems, to instil in children an enthusiasm for and love of reading; to find pleasure and enthralment from the written word as opposed to the tidal wave of distraction, packaged as the 'entertainment industry', that now abounds in the digital age. If, being faced with something so linguistically archaic and structurally challenging, children make the stubborn decision that reading is an activity from which little enjoyment can be gained and is only to be endured under duress, then this is a great tragedy which is likely to be instilled throughout their formative years and on into adult maturity.

Indeed, I’ve known several personal friends who would happily promote their meagre literary credentials as though this were an asset to be coveted and aspired to. It is this mentality that truly concerns me; the blanket refusal to engage with the truest means of attaining a clearer and more enlightened impression of the world around them and what it means to live in it as a human being. That very literary band Manic Street Preachers sum it up very well in my view with the simple lyric ‘Libraries gave us power…’ Only by absorbing a wealth of stories, opinions, interpretations and voices are you able to inspire true creativity on your own terms. Each book is like a handful of seeds sown in the garden of your own imagination.

From my own experience, I resented studying Shakespeare at school as much as the next person. The difference was that I was already a prolific reader and therefore, wasn’t provoked into turning my back on reading in defiant rebellion. I knew there was more out there for me. As a 6 and 7-year-old I read Roald Dahl until the pages were dog-eared and yellow; I immersed myself in the quaint adventures of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and ‘Mr Galliano’s Circus’. As a 9 and 10-year-old I enjoyed Michael Morpurgo, Anthony Horowitz, and R.L. Stein’s ‘Goosebumps’ series, something that would later compel me into a monogamous Stephen King literary exile during the ages of 15 and 16.

My point is that, first and foremost, the lesson children should be learning, instead of Shakespearean sonnets, is how much can be gained from the simple act of reading itself. Literary snobs may huff, puff and stamp their feet, but it cannot be denied that writers such as Jacqueline Wilson and J.K. Rowling have played an enormously beneficial role in inspiring children and teens to pick up books over the last decade or so.

Of course, I am not advocating a removal of Shakespeare from the curriculum, he is a pivotal figure in English history and should rightly be taught. Instead, I would argue for a reduction in prevalence placed on teaching his works and certainly argue against the increase on which Gove appears to be intent. Indeed, one could also argue that the work of Dickens is similarly likely to alienate schoolchildren, or any of the books aside from Shakespeare that I personally was made to study – ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, ‘Of Mice and Men’, ‘Lord of the Flies’. I would respond to this point by saying; firstly, that all the aforementioned books are far more contemporary than Shakespeare, their language and dialectics far more familiar; and secondly, that they convey a more explicit sociological message that is more easily discernible and hence, of particular benefit to schoolchildren.

The literary palate, like food, music or film, needs time and space to mature without being prematurely overwhelmed by complex influences. Again, from my own experience, my reading habits became more and more developed, through Stephen King to more contemporary writers Irvine Welsh and Bret Easton Ellis; further back to Kafka, Dostoevsky and Hardy; to writers like Milton, Swift, Bronte and Defoe. To the point at which it would be sheer folly for me to ignore Shakespeare any longer. Given time for taste, preferences and abilities to gestate naturally, inevitably readers will of their own volition navigate a course to the Bard’s work. When they do, the chances are that they will discover how much they can revel in its brilliance, as I did recently on reading ‘The Tempest’ – the first Shakespeare I had read since ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, aged 16.

Stood in the Yard of the reconstructed Globe Theatre, it's hard not to feel like you are participating in a uniquely 'London' event, largely unaltered since the 17th century. A glimpse of the occasional mobile phone or plane floating across the polygonal window onto the sky were the only glaring indicators of modernity. Try as I might, I was hard pressed - and still am - to call to mind another experience with equivalent timelessness to be had in the capital.

As already stated, the play was something of an epiphany to me; I'd had no conception of how enjoyable Shakespeare could be if done well. Roger Allam (of 'The Thick Of It') was wonderfully acerbic as Prospero, and the whole play was bursting with invention, humour and energy that never waned throughout the nearly 3-hour running time.

Culture - July

Books read:

Alan Sillitoe - 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner' (short stories)
David Hume - 'On Suicide' (non-fiction)
Owen Hatherley - 'A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain' (non-fiction)
Virginia Woolf - 'Mrs Dalloway'
Anais Nin - 'A Spy in the House of Love'

This month I waded through Owen Hatherley’s weighty yet absorbing ‘A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain’; an acerbic and intelligent traipse around the UK - from Glasgow to Milton Keynes to Liverpool – taking urban planners and architects firmly to task. Hatherley, an unapologetic student of socialism, works hard to scorch architectural follies and Blair-ite trends that he coins ‘pseudo-modernism’; that of soulless shopping centres, precincts, industrial parks, identical leisure outlets, generic apartment developments. He laments the proliferation of ‘starcitects’ (Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano, et al.) designing buildings as easily-identifiable logos – the ‘Shard’, the ‘Gherkin’, the ‘Cheesegrater’ – where function very blatantly comes a poor second to form.

Hatherley’s insight into architectural theory and the socio-cultural impact of urban schemes is impressive and at times overwhelming, and his prose is consistently energetic and engaging; but by the end I found myself dogged by the ponderance of ‘what exactly should planners be building?’ and ‘what would work better?’ The problem is that Hatherley appeared to be very informed on all that was wretched with the built environment and rather more obscure and foggy on the details of what kind of ‘ideal’ he would instead espouse. Despite this though, I would recommend this book to people, regardless of their interest in architecture, for the reason that it may well refocus attention on entire aspects and features of urbanity and the environs that we so readily (indeed so much so that it could be said to be an intentional design specification), turn a blind eye to.

From a critique of modernism to a literary touchstone of the movement; Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel ‘Mrs Dalloway’ was my first dalliance with the author’s work, and one that I found particularly enjoyable. Set entirely within the timeframe of one day in London, the book explores the stream-of-consciousness narrative approach that had been thrust into the limelight by James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ just a few years earlier. Having yet to tackle Joyce’s modernist epic, it was impossible for me to gauge the debt Woolf’s work held to it, but what was clear was just how influential the 1920s modernist movement as a whole was to a whole swathe of later writers like Burroughs, Faulkner, and Nabakov, in its attempt at establishing a fresh and exhilarating paradigm shift away from the classic 19th century novel format.

Films Watched:

'The Act of Killing' (Joshua Oppenheimer) (at the Ritzy Picturehouse, Brixton)
'Serpico' (Sidney Lumet)
'Possession' (Andrezj Zulawski) (at Roxy Bar & Screen, Borough)
'The World's End' (Edgar Wright) (at Ritzy Picturehouse, Brixton)
'Repulsion' (Roman Polanski)

Easily qualifying as the most innovative film I've seen so far this year, 'The Act of Killing' was a cinematic experience I am unlikely to forget in a long while. Compelled to go and see it by the buzz that surrounded its release (when Werner Herzog says that it is the most disturbing film he's seen in a decade you know something special has arrived!), it seemed to infect my consciousness for several days afterwards.

It is essentially a documentary highlighting the shamefully overlooked genocide of incalculable numbers of suspected Communists by state powers and hired 'gangsters' in mid-1960s Indonesia, and the prominance and high-office still held by them to this day. It was a bizarre, disturbing and thoroughly challenging film to witness (the final five minutes surely ranks as the most uncomfortable I've ever felt in a cinema screening), but it was certainly one of the most original of recent years and an astonishing achievement.

‘The World’s End’ I found to be a sufficiently enjoyable, if considerably flawed, final part of the Wright/Pegg/Frost ‘Cornetto trilogy’. The opening 30 minutes boded well, with plenty of sharp dialogue and witty one-liners – “you’ve got an appointment with Dr. Ink” being a particular highlight). However, once the action started to kick off and the ‘conspiracy’ plot developed, I felt it began to unravel somewhat, even plodding at times until its particularly lacklustre finale.

My primary gripe was that, unlike the previous two films (‘Shaun of the Dead’ – zombie horror, ‘Hot Fuzz’ – police action), it appeared to be following no particular lineage of films on which to spark ideas and gags. Where the previous films had a wealth of ‘spoof appeal’ for the discerning film fan, by contrast ‘The World’s End’ appeared sadly bereft on this intrinsic element that I felt bound the others together so successfully.


Albums Played:

David Lynch - 'The Big Dream'
The Rolling Stones - 'Live at Hyde Park 2013'
Bob Marley & the Wailers - 'Legend: The Best of Bob Marley & the Wailers'
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - 'Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven'
Pond - 'Hobo Rocket'
Fuck Buttons - 'Slow Focus'

On the music front July was oddly quiet, with a real scarcity of new releases worth getting excited about. I really enjoyed Pond's 'Beard Wives Denim' album from last year, and on first impressions 'Hobo Rocket' seems like a fairly faithful continuation; nothing revelatory but enough quirky psychedelic sounds to sustain interest.

On the electronic music side, for the first time this month I began listening to the dubiously named Fuck Buttons who have risen in prominance exorbitantly since Danny Boyle used their music for his 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony. Their third album 'Slow Focus' is, by all accounts, a lot darker than their previous two, and is one of the most captivating albums I've heard so far this year; it ripples with subterranean hypnotic energy and undulating rhythms.

Gigs Attended:

The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park, London
(support by King Charles, Gary Clark Jr., The Temper Trap, The Vaccines)

Having managed, against the odds, to secure tickets for my Dad and I to The Rolling Stones playing Hyde Park for the first time since 1969, the triumph of the gig itself was almost assured. Seeing a band like the Stones, who are more of an institution than any other alive, a tremendous 'rock n' roll circus', is something truly special. Not to labour the dour axiom, but in 15-20 years time, these guys won't be around any longer and I know that despite seeing them play in their dotage rather than their prime, it was a real honour to have been able to see Jagger strut his stuff and Richards crank out the riffs whilst still possible; as it's only inevitable that we will still be talking about their almost unrivalled legacy for as long as people are still listening to rock music.

Exhibitions:

'David Bowie is', Victoria & Albert Museum, London
See full review here

Review: The Spectacular Insanity of 'Possession'

Think, if you can, to the film that most successfully embodies the abstract perception of madness. Perhaps Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’ or ‘Mulholland Drive’ might come to mind; the demented ‘Ichi the Killer’; or Ken Russell’s ‘The Devils’. Chances are that you will never have seen a film quite so unhinged and unsettling as ‘Possession’, the 1981 Andrzej Zulawski film that was notoriously added to the Video Nasties List of banned films; an extraordinary knee-jerk response to an arthouse film that quite literally defies effective categorization or easy explanation.

I remember tracking the film down after hearing about it through the online blog of film critic Mark Kermode. My first viewing was as utterly arresting, baffling and horrifying as I dearly hoped it would be, and succeeded in redefining all my own perceptions of film madness. I’ve since seen the film about 4 or 5 times and still its overall impact remains undiminished; its mystery still remains shrouded in the face of yet more questions being raised.

Ostensibly classified as a ‘psychological horror’, this attempt to impose a strict label can only fail to do justice to the multifarious levels on which it can be analysed. The film works as an allegory for the disintegration of a relationship; indeed, Zulawski wrote the film amidst the turmoil and anguish of his own divorce. However, the film cartwheels away into tangents regarding sinister conspiracy plots, a sordid love triangle, grotesque ‘body horror’ and doppelganger existentialism.

The main thing to draw attention to is just how infernally high-octane a level the film is cranked up to. The performances of the lead actors – Sam Neill as Mark, and the astonishingly beautiful Isabelle Adjani as Anna, not to mention Heinz Bennent as the ludicrous love rival – are delivered at a pitch that is at once demented and fundamentally disorientating. They deliver dialogue that is so leftfield that you are consistently side-swiped (one great example is during a dispute early on in the film, Mark proceeds to slap Anna repeatedly across the face crying “do you know what this is for?! The lies!”, to which Anna’s penetratingly audacious response is “then you must add much more.”)

Adjani herself gives one of the most mind-bending performances I think I’ve ever seen from an actor; hyper-ventilating and self-destructive in one scene, suave and seductive in the next, innocent and puritan whilst playing Helen the school teacher and ‘perfect ideal’ to which Mark can’t help but be attracted. The zenith of all this hysteria culminates with the subway ‘miscarriage’ scene, a 3-4 minute holocaust of a performance that I challenge anyone to sit through without their sensibilities splintering into confused disarray.

Aside from the shriekingly-intense performances, and the more shocking Cronenberg-esque ‘creature’ sequences, Zulawski utilises a vast array of innovative and daring techniques and cinematography in order to orchestrate and maintain such a feverish level of insanity. Even after 4 or 5 viewings I’m still unconvinced as to the strictly linear nature of the narrative; some scenes appear to offer more logic if shuffled into an alternative chronology. Almost every scene is cut with irregular harshness, there are certainly no comforting edits or easy transitions. Even the score – suitably schizophrenic and sinister electronica by Andrzej Korzynski – is hacked bluntly away as scenes change. This has a relentlessly jarring impression on the viewer, perpetually dislodging them from any notion of familiar cinematic or narrative grounding, maintaining an aura of disjointed unease.

The East German locations play a pivotal role in embedding an alien, almost dystopian atmosphere; the generic, plattenbau terrace blocks and open municipal spaces all appear to be deserted and devoid of other people. The foreboding Berlin Wall plays a ubiquitous symbolic role running through the dark heart of the film, emblematic of the conflict and the insuperable barriers that have been erected between Mark and Anna that they can do nothing to effectively resolve.

Of equal importance is Zulawski’s endlessly inventive camerawork and direction. In Mark’s interview with a board of mysterious businessmen, the camera completes a 360-degree circumference of the expansive room; disorienting angles and tracking shots permeate through, each helping to augment one masterful scene after another.

Overall though, it is the sheer sense of the bizarre and surreal that gives the film its tortuous strain of insanity. Characters collapse or dissolve into paroxysms at random; having just had a violent row with Anna and caused a traffic accident, Mark inexplicably starts playing football with a gang of children.

The closest literary comparison that I can think of in terms of inflecting narrative synergistically with an air of freewheeling madness, is William S. Burrough’s ‘Naked Lunch’. Certainly, as an aspiring writer of the surreal, I would someday love to try and write a book in the same hysterical and disturbing dialectics of ‘Possession’; a disgraceful carnival of a film that I would recommend to anyone, purely as a means of realigning the contour lines of their cinematic topography that (in the era of superhero epics and CGI Hollywood blockbusters), perhaps sit far too comfortably.