…besides, I am not unkeen on shopping either…

My name is Chris. I am a 42-year-old man. I went shopping for clothes yesterday for 3 hours, and I had a good time.

Last week my very lovely wife and two adorable daughters decided that for my Father’s Day ‘Treat’ they would take me clothes shopping. It’s probably about 3 years since I last shopped ‘properly’. However, the recent wet weather in the UK has reminded me that my shoes are wearing out and are no longer watertight.

Another major reason for my lack of retail therapy has been that I haven’t liked shopping in the past couple of years (even less than normal), as my middle age had spread somewhat. I’d loosened a belt notch, gone up a jeans size, untucked my shirts to avoid the Jeremy Clarkson look (I’ll spare you those pictures)…

I also don’t usually like shopping with my family as they are all female. It’s a well-known stereotype that women shop and men buy. I’d go out to buy a shirt. So I’d look for shirts; not shoes or trousers, not watches or curtains, but shirts. Apparently that’s not how the female mind works.

Thanks to http://karlenepetitt.blogspot.com/ for this fantastic map (from her post of 27 May 2010)

But, as I’ve no doubt already bored any regular reader into submission, this year I’ve been on my own small mission to lose weight and get fit. I’ve lost more than 15lbs, I’m feeling much fitter, tightening my belt at least one notch and tucking my shirts in again, almost revelling in the fact that I have some kind of shape. My previously favourite jeans are now properly too big and I can actually slide them down over my hips without unbuttoning them (isn’t that how The Kids wear them now…?!). Even I could admit, that with my saggy jeans and soggy feet, Something Had To Be Done.

We went to the shopping Mecca of the Southwest, Cribbs Causeway, usually my idea of Hell on Earth. And it didn’t start well. Within 90 seconds of arriving in the enormous Marks & Spencer at one end of the mall, we were looking at towels, bath mats, and cushions. To be fair, there were some very nice cushions, but (a) we were supposed to be shopping for me!! and (b) this cushion cost £40.

It's lovely, but does it look like a pair of shoes?!

At this point I flinched involuntarily, like I might if I had just swallowed a wasp. £40 for a cushion. This is why I don’t shop. We moved on, and actually started shopping for shoes. Then I discovered that the concept of ‘sizing’ for shoes has changed. For the first 40 years of my life a shoe size was an indicator of the size of the shoe. I ‘knew’ that my right foot was nearly a whole size bigger than the left, but that a size 9 or possibly 9½ usually fitted well. Not any more.

I tried on a size 9 in one ‘style’ and they were fine, but another ‘style’ was too tight even in a size 10. The shop staff basically admitted that different styles fit very differently, that the sizes aren’t consistent. So I could actually need anything from an 8½to a 10½. Thanks for making it easy.

I’m not a fan of changing rooms in shops. They’re almost invariably too small, about the size of a toilet cubicle, always the most comfortable place to get changed. There’s usually nowhere to put anything that’s not on a hanger, and even then there are only a couple of hooks, so God Help You if you’re wearing a coat or have more than one item to try. There are often hot lights overhead, and  crowds of wives, mothers and girlfriends hanging around the entrance area like runners in a 4x400m relay team awaiting the baton. They’re there usually because they’ve had to force the men to go shopping, and (probably rightly) don’t trust the men to make a decent decision about what they’re trying on. After all, it’s those women who will have to be seen in public with them…

But yesterday, despite the changing rooms, I had some pleasant surprises. I’ve gone down a waist size. I even tried on something that said ‘slim fit’, and it didn’t look ridiculous. I was getting into this shopping lark. We went for a coffee and I had a caramel latte with an extra shot. The combination of sugar and caffeine kicked in and I was away. The girls were choosing things for me and I was trying them on. More shoes, jeans, a couple of shirts, and we even looked at some very nice-looking suits. I haven’t bought a suit since I got married in 1998.

By the time we left (considerably poorer) I may even have outlasted my family (that’ll be the power of caramel & caffeine). But I’m under no illusions that there are clear rules for my new-found acceptance of The Joy of Shopping.

1. It’s all about me. Really, this was a trip to buy stuff for me.
2. I do need refuelling half way around.
3. When I’m done, we’re done. No ‘can we just have a look in…’, because the answer is NO (see point 1 above).

So on this Fathers’ Day, I would implore more Dads to search within themselves and discover their Inner Shopper. Embrace the Shops. Your families are probably very good at shopping. Put that talent and that energy to good use, if only once a year. Let’s face it, once a year is probably enough. You might enjoy it, and you’ll probably look better too.

I’m already looking forward to the next Fathers’ Day…

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I’ll stop the world and melt with you…

I’ve only recently written about trying to live more in the moment, about trying not to be overwhelmed by what I haven’t done, and it’s not getting any easier.

We recently enjoyed a great week’s holiday in Dorset, staying in a lovely farmhouse cottage in a very pretty, beautifully quiet village. I forgot to bring my iPod charger, so after the first evening I was bereft of music and podcasts, we didn’t take the laptop, and with my archaic mobile phone, I had very limited internet access. I could broadcast by text, but that was about it.

It was fabulous. We discovered, or rather re-discovered how to live, how to talk to each other. We had time to do all the things that everyday folks used to take for granted, because they simply didn’t have the options that we have today. These luxuries of synchronised devices and multiple channels, of always-on connection and near-constant alerts and reminders are not luxuries at all: they can be like the proverbial albatross around our necks, ever-present and inescapable.

Instead of staring at a screen waiting for something to happen, clicking ‘refresh’ and ‘just checking Twitter’, we got on with having a good time. We’d go for a walk through the woods on the farm, wander up the footpaths into the village for a pint – in the middle of the afternoon! We’d go into the field behind the cottage to fly a kite, just for 20 minutes or so. We’d luxuriate in an icecream, or just sit and watch the sea. We’d read the paper, read a book, do the crossword, play cards. We even did a 1000-piece jigsaw that was in the cottage.

It was fabulous. The lack of distraction was brilliant.

Back in the workplace, I’ve been trying to apply myself to doing one thing at a time, to avoid falling back into the habit of opening up Facebook or just reading someone’s blog. It’s a very noble cause that has much to commend it, but it’s not easy. As I do work in social media I often ‘have an excuse’ to have those things on the go, but I really shouldn’t. It’s a proper #firstworldproblem, but I do need to learn how to concentrate again. At university I was quite proud of how I could really dive into an essay, head in the books, reading, learning, digesting, compiling arguments and evidence for hours at a time, focused and productive.

What happened?

Each layer up the pyramid trumps anything below it...

More and more I like holidays that are a proper mix of being active, for doing things with our children, and being inactive. That week in Dorset we went out mackerel fishing (we only caught one, but I did then gut it and cook it for tea!), fossil hunting at Lyme Regis and we walked up The Golden Cap.

The Golden Cap, from Stonebarrow Hill

But we also spent time just ‘being’ with each other, not doing very much. You should try it sometime.

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I’m a HUMAN BEING, Goddamn it! My life has VALUE!

How can I have made it to be a 42-year-old, so-called cinephile, and yet I have only just watched Network? Lauded by critics, winner of 4 Oscars and nominated for plenty more, directed by Sidney Lumet at the top of his game, with brilliant performances throughout, this is a bona fide classic.

It surprised me even more that this had somehow eluded me until now, as it’s a coruscating commentary on the state of US Television in the 1970s, and an ominous projection of what it could become in the future. There’s not that much to choose between the fictional UBS network of the movie and contemporary stations. This is usually prime territory for what I reckon, and I’m almost ashamed I’ve written posts about the media and journalism in recent months that didn’t reference this film.

Network is perhaps even fresher and more challenging today, as we can see even more clearly what the box in the corner has become.

This review contains clips and spoilers throughout. So if, like me until last week, you haven’t yet seen Network…

I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs.
I want you to get up right now and go to your DVD rental list, or Amazon, or your local library, or wherever you usually go to get films to watch.
Get hold of Network. Watch it.
Then come back and see if you agree with me…

Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) is a veteran TV newsman whose Ratings are down. On discovering he’s about to be let go, he announces on live TV that he plans to use his last broadcast in a few days to commit suicide. His long-time boss and friend Max Schumacher (played marvellously by William Holden) argues against the executives to allow Howard a dignified withdrawal. But it’s clear that all is not well with Howard’s mind when, instead of apologising the following night, his ranting goes from bad to worse.

At this point, the satire kicks in, as Network exposes the dark, dark heart of corporate television broadcasting. Instead of running away from Beale, they start to exploit him. They’re looking for ‘angry shows’ that could win the Ratings Wars, and he seems perfect: well-known and liked, yet truly, properly angry with the world in a way that seems to connect with people, that needs no audience research.

Indeed, after a day walking the streets in his pyjamas and overcoat, Howard Beale strides into the studio during a live broadcast to deliver one of the most famous speeches in cinema history.

I don’t have to tell you things are bad…

Beale has clearly lost his mind, and his friend Schumacher is horrified, but when it immediately becomes clear that they’re yelling in Baton Rouge, and indeed across the nation, he becomes a pawn of the CCA corporation, who own the UBS Network.

Faye Dunaway plays Diane Christiansen, the rising executive star of the Network, who takes over the News Division with a remit to deliver profitable audience share. And so she creates The Network News Hour, with Sybil the Soothsayer…

Fox News has nothing on this?!

Howard is hauled before the corporate bosses, and in a chilling scene with Ned Beatty’s ‘Mr Jensen’, we are shown the full scope of Network’s attack on the state of The American Dream. Is it just me, or does he provide a template for Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood…?

The world is a business, Mr Beale…

The corporate bosses from this 1970s movie speak the same language as the real bosses in the current documentary series by Adam Curtis, “All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace”.

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars … There is no America; there is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon.

From here you sense this story can only end in tears, and indeed it does, but there are all sorts of tears…

Network lays bare the dehumanising impact of television. Anonymous audience research is both quoted and ignored as suits the executives’ purposes: people, viewers just don’t seem to matter until they tune in. But even then the Network barely cares if they like what they see, as long as they keep tuning in. Even when the News Hour turns into a bawdy tabloid extravaganza, the audience are mainly silent, expressionless, mute. They move and make sounds only when told to by the studio teams.

Behind the scenes it’s even worse. The corporate board rooms are dark, the executives often shrouded in shadows, faceless. Mr Jensen speaks, and noone responds except to do his bidding.

Faye Dunaway’s character is “television incarnate”. She has the clothes, the glamour, the hair, the power. She has fantastic lines and basks in the adulations of her corporate partners at an Executive Dinner. But she is shown to be utterly soulless, emotionless, almost amoral. Even during sex she’s only thinking about the Ratings, the programming, the next concept.

In a truly biting storyline that elicited laughter from me that was more nervous than anything else, she seeks out another ‘angry show’ by approaching a revolutionary bunch of Communist Terrorists, and asks them to continue committing atrocities, if she can film them as the basis for a new series. Some of the scariest and most hilarious scenes involve the contract negotiations between these radicals and the Network legal teams (really!).

The dehumanising impact of this ‘new’ television is made very personal and very human. Howard Beale does end up being the first man to be killed for bad ratings, but really he is killed for making a hero of the individual against the machine, against the system.

Perhaps even more affecting is the way Max Schumacher, humanist and journalist of great integrity, is sucked into the gravitational pull of Diane Christiansen, like some terrible Death Star. He is obsessed with her, despite being painfully aware of her flaws. He leaves his wife of 25 years in a heartbreaking scene, then leaves Diane months later in something altogether more depressing. He is gone, but Diane (Television incarnate) goes on, unmoved, unaffected, oblivious.

Network is a tremendous film, an important film. It has been criticised for being overwrought and overwritten, and there were moments where it did seem just a little too self-aware, a little too conscious of how important it might be. It won its Oscars in the same year that Taxi Driver was largely overlooked (talk about angry…) and All The President’s Men also exposed the dirty underbelly of American Democracy. Like those other two unhappy explorations of America, I Reckon Network is also a masterpiece, and should be required viewing…

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