January/February/March/April Disposables

This camera took forever to fill up.

The Alan Turing memorial looking creepy

I needed to fill it up

There's a crab there somewhere

This one looks like some distant planet

Manchester doesn't photograph so well

I had nothing to worry about but grass stains on my dress

PS Cecily is still alive I promise

The waves broke on the shore

"To be loved by Susan would be to be impaled by a bird's sharp beak, to be nailed to a barnyard door. Yet there are moments when I could wish to be speared by a beak, to be nailed to a barnyard door, positively, once and for all" - from Virginia Woolf's 'The Waves'

From my tumblr

Reading Fleur's post on how she is not ready to leave school has made me realise that for me the opposite is true. I'm over the school system. From now on it's just revising and doing past papers, which when done in a classroom just drags on forever, and inevitably ends with just having rather non-consequential conversation with whoever I sit near and then feeling guilty at the lack of progress I have achieved. I'm over having to leave to my house at 7:15 each morning, because it seems like the moment I get back in the evening I have to go back to school. The routine is mindless and I want to be free of it. I'm over being aware that it's going to end soon, but it not being the end yet.

 I sometimes forget that I went to a different school from years 7-11. The last year and half has been so much more happy and tangibly significant.

Easter Holiday reading list: Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf // The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald //  The Waves -  Virginia Woolf // Dracula - Bram Stoker // The Opposite of Loneliness - Marina Keegan

Dancing in the centre of a noun

Hey Readers,

 Here are some photos I took whilst on an a 10am walk a couple of days ago

 Rather a lot has happened since I last did a written post (which I believe was on New Year's Eve) due to the terrible neglect this poor old blog has had to suffer. I turned 18 that was happily insignificant but simultaneously most enjoyable. It was wonderful when Cecily and a friend from our old school were rapid firing questions to me on the train home as the final minutes of 17 ticked into the first of 18 to establish who I was at that moment in my life.

I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking

– 'Goodbye to Berlin' by Christopher Isherwood

Breathing Ritual by Globelamp

 I have an offer from my first choice of University, which is exciting, confusing and scary. There was a offer-holder's open day at my college last weekend and I have fallen in love with it. Now I am slightly regretting applying for a gap year, but at least if I don't get the grades I need I will have a whole year to mature, reflect and hopefully come to the realisation that I'm in the lucky position of being middle-class/well-educated/white/living in the West and therefore probably whatever happens my life will be ok, and I can work to make it fabulous.

 The people there were also pretty rad. There was a biologist and medic who spent a five minute conversation ignoring and interrupting me which wasn't so great, but then I found some of the girls I had met at interview as well as other English/related subjects people and we all got on so well so quickly it was a bit scary. I can't help but feeling that any friendships I make at University will not be as beautiful as the ones I have now. In a few years I'll look back at this and pity myself for lack of knowledge of the wonders that await me I'm sure. But what if I don't look back and think that?

Dann fand ich nicht die richtige Gelegenheit, die richtige Stunde, das richtige Wort. Schließlich war es zu spät

– Der Vorleser by Bernhard Schlink

 Eight weeks or so remain of school. I keep on telling myself I will write more journal entries just recording school days or take pictures on my disposables of everyday school moments, but I never do

Gwendolen

A short story by my much younger self

The Tunnel

Once upon a time, in a magical village, there was a long tunnel. There were lots of families and two of the children were very famous. There was a little scaredy boy, and a tall brave girl. Everybody was taking the mick out of the boy. So he went into the tunnel. It was really dark in there, and whoever went in never came out.

 There are also lots of doors in there. And they each lead to something. One of them leads back to the village again. When the little boy opened the first door, he found a beautiful garden. And he played and played in it. But then he found a bomb! So he ran out of the garden as quickly as possible. Then, he found a unicorn in the tunnel, and it helped him find the door that led out of the tunnel. But the unicorn was quite slow.

Meanwhile, back in the village, everybody was getting worried about the little boy. So, the tall girl went into the tunnel to find him. She searched and searched - after a couple of hours she found him. And they both went looking for the door back to the village. The unicorn had forgotten which door it was. It took four days to find the right one. When he came out, everybody was really happy. They have the unicorn a rosette, and the boy and girl a medal each.

The End.

I found this when I was searching through some old school reports at the weekend. Rereading this alongside my reports was odd. They both present a version of myself which is acutely similar to the person I am now, yet seem to tell a different story to the one I remember, or at least perceived to have occurred. I wasn't an unhappy child, and certainly I had (and still do) a lovely home life. But I never had stable friendship groups during primary school - I always, as many of us do, felt like a constant outsider and never felt particularly (eurgh, to quote Willy Loman) well-liked. So it was weird to read that I was apparently a 'popular' child.

 Then there is all the psychoanalysis you can do on this story. On Sunday, the story struck me as a metaphor for depression. Typing it now, in some ways writing it alongside my former self, it still has that tone, I began to notice other things. Firstly, that the presentation of the girl as the savior means it's quite clearly feminist (woooo!). Secondly, that it centres on a sibling relationship. As much as I hate to admit it, my relationship with my older brother has been one of the biggest influences on me. Namely, it's made me into the slightly too competitive young woman that is writing this post. I wasn't imaginative enough as a child to not be writing this about me and him, and in that context it's interesting that our relationship to each other is completely reversed: I'm older and taller, and I'm the one who is brave and saves the day. Then depressingly at the end, it is not the actions of saving her brother that makes the story worth telling, but rather being given medals. It's this desire for award that I need to get out of my system, and this again ties into my competitiveness. But I am getting much better.

Gwendolen

August/September Disposables

The rather grim view from my room in Sidney Sussex

The time we found teapots in Fleur's sink

I got experimental with hairspray, toothpaste and disposable camera lenses to variable success

Gwendolen

PS I shall be haranguing Cecily to post

Book Review: 'A Dead Man in Deptford' by Anthony Burgess

Hey Readers!

 I guess I am now on my summer holidays. But I won't do my end of year post just yet due to the way school ended: it kind of dissolved into nothing. Technically the last day of school is tomorrow, so I shall do that post at the weekend. For now, I shall do a quick book review (my laptop has 17% battery).

Source

 As none of my friends (or indeed anyone who has mentioned anything to do with books near me) have been able to escape my gushing speeches of love for Burgess, it doesn't seem right that you, my Fair or Foul Readers (but where's the difference?), should either. However I must admit I have only read two of his books - A Clockwork Orange and A Dead Man in Deptford - but I shall be doing a Burgess Binge (dat alliteration) this summer. And when he titles his books like "Mozart and the Wolf Gang" or "1985" (which is a tribute to Orwell's 1984) I feel I can be pretty sure the rest of his writing shall live up to wonders I have already read.

 A Dead Man in Deptford is an re-imagining of Christopher Marlowe's life. Marlowe was a playwright who grew up in Canterbury and studied at Chorpus Christi College, Cambridge before becoming a playwright, who many critics feel would have outshone Shakespeare, had he not died in a pub brawl with a dagger to eye (don't cha just hate it when that happens???). The image of the eye recurs throughout the book and often sparks musings on solipsism. However Burgess' real point of interest in regards to Marlowe is the more dubious aspects to his life: his addiction to sex and potentially working as a spy for Queen Elizabeth I. 

 Although the book is about Marlowe, it is told through the eyes of an unnamed narrator who didn't witness many of the events in the book. The way Marlowe drifts in and out of his life is sometimes unclear, but I quite like the tone of confused memory this gives the book. The narrator is one of the most interesting aspects of the book, and I feel it places the role of the author as one of the central questions of the book (Barthes would not be happy), especially in terms of how historical fiction influences our understanding of past events. And then there is the last paragraph, but I don't want to give away the ending because you are all going to go and read this book.

 As always the Burgess, his use of language is simply divine. He writes in a way that forces the words off of the page and into your imagination. You have to sit up and take notice. The opening paragraph is more opaque than the majority of the book, so don't be put off. Instead, spend some time just admiring how he mingles poetic techniques with prose. Burgess also presents speech in a different style to that which we may be used to: speech always begins on a new line, is indicated by a '–' and it is not clear when the speaker finishes. This was alienating at first, but in true Burgess style, this alienation makes you part of the book's world, by clearly differentiating it from our own.

 In short, this is a truly fabulous book by a truly fabulous writer. Probably not that great if you're a raging homophobic as a lot of the sex takes place between Marlowe and other men (sometimes in Latin which led to a fun hour of translation). However you do have to pay attention when you read it, there are a lot of characters and the relationships between them are not entirely clear if you zone out for a moment. But if you are zoned in, as you should be you diligent reader you, then I promise you will have a most pleasurable reading experience when reading this book. 

Rating: *****

Gwendolen

Now I have a chance to breathe

Hey Readers!

 I am finally blogging. After months of begrudged silence, my fingers are finally tapping across the keys talking to people who maybe care a bit more than most of the people I see everyday but in reality still not that much. My show is over, my English coursework is in and my physics ISA is successfully retaken. I'm doing ok in German*. But the foot high pile of books by my bed remains untouched. It's one of the most depressing/exciting sights in the world.

MØ - Slow Love

 So what has happened in my life? Jeez. Where to start? Well, we have had three meetings of my school's new FEMINIST SOCIETY founded and run by yours truly (plus Fleur). Our last meeting was a talk on "Militarization and Patriarchy", which was our best attended (24 humas/uncountable numbers of bacteria) yet, and also longest (didn't actually leave the school building until quarter to six). As my school's Prof of Arts and Humanities likes to say - "we're beginning to shake things up around here". I've even been asked to interview the potential new physics teachers as a sexism scout.

 What has basically been my life

 I also got Head Girl! Sort of yay. I never really got the high that you normal get after something like that. It was probably partly because I was feeling disgustingly ill, but it wasn't even that kind of neutrality of an anti-climax, if anything I was just feeling a bit down. Whenever my life has been crazily busy and stressful, when it finally stops and I can have time to bond with sofa, the next day I'll always get into this introverted mood, where my thoughts seem to continuously compete with the external world to be the main part of my consciousness. But this time it was so intense and persistent. And it lasted for days, until I just ended up having a really horrible day on Wednesday.

Prinzegeorge - Victor

 Despite the fact exams are next month I managed to swindle doing nothing yesterday. It was the end of term so my school had Dong Chen (Sixth Form football competition where the lower school get to goggle at sixth form girls running about in almost nothing**) to raise money for Leukemia research. I'm now wearing my "Can you handle this Dong?" T-shirt. Then I popped down into town with Max and Fleur, the latter of whom we discovered as a phobia of topless men. In the evening it was Fleur's 17th party, which was most enjoyable and teenagery.

Claiming my brother's wall

Gwendolen

*88% IN MY GERMAN MOCK. EIGHTY EIGHT PERCENT. LIKE WHAT.

**Year 12 and 13 choose a theme each along the line of slutty-[insert generic predictable theme here]. We had sports, so Fleur and I rocked the Gothic Lesbian Cheerleader look.

Book Review: 'Steppenwolf' by Hermann Hesse

FOR MAD PEOPLE ONLY

The book and the man himself. At least I hope it's the man himself. He might just be a guy who enjoys posing next next to covers. [source]

Hey Readers!

 I feel it's time for a little cheeky book review! I haven't done these in a while...

So yes. Steppenwolf. Steppenwolf is one weird book.  It's like Hermann Hesse has taken a piece of art from the Weimar era and put it in words; which is not a coincidence as it was written during the Weimar period. You can't deny the fact that it's weird: it's about a guy who thinks he's a wolf and ends up in a theatre where he runs people over in cars during the war between machinery and man and the such like, with the odd threesome along the way. That said, it's also one of the sexiest, most intelligent and by far the most openly intellectual books I have ever indulged in.

Hesse weaves in references to other German authors (with the odd medieval German poet thrown in there for good measure) which I'm sure would be very symbolic if I actually had any idea of who they were or what they had written. The most important of the writers talked about was Goethe, so if you don't know who he is, I suggest you take a glance over his wikipedia entry prior to reading. He also whacks twenty pages of character psychoanalysis in the middle. Just because he can.

Throughout the whole book there are essentially five characters, one of which is never named. This character introduces the book, and you begin under the impression that it is Hesse speaking, until you are thrust into the main part of the book, where you can't help but feel that Harry Haller is actually the confessions of Hesse. Notice how they have the same initials.Upon reading the essay bit at the back after finishing Steppenwolf, I discovered that this book was indeed written while Hesse was having a full-on crisis and tended to write autobiographical work. Then you have Hermione, who is rather unlike the Hermione we know, as well as Maria and Pablo. Each young, beautiful and bisexual; the three traits that I associate with Germany (or more specifically Berlin) during this period. All three contrast beautiful with the misanthropic and isolated Haller as they propel him head first in to the life he systematically fails at rejecting.

As a translation, the language can feel and bit clunky and doesn't have the natural rhythm of a book written in the language that it belongs in, but hey. The Germans have a reasonable number of tenses (although I can't forgive them for the number of cases they deem as appropriate) so it's never going to translate easily. Moreover, I can't really comment on the writing style because, as Cecily and I were discussing, I'm not sure whether that was Hesse or the translator.

If you are up for feeling rather cultured or taking on a literary challenge or want to experience more of the Weimar period (I'm talking to you Fleur) then go and read this book. If you can, take a trip to Berlin, it does help set the mood. I was discussing it with my Uncle and he said he never enjoyed Hesse's work more than when he was my age, so by not reading it now, you're just loosing out on more pleasure.  Five Stars.

Gwendolen

P.S. If you're wondering what I mean by "FOR MADE PEOPLE ONLY" your just going to have to read the book. But oh my Lord, wouldn't that be a fantastic name for a blog? I might consider going solo, just so I can call it that...

Coffee, books and Capaldi.

Hey Readers!

 You find me at midday, in a cafe and writing this post in a very old school way, a.k.a. on paper. Being up at my Granny's and having limited access to the internet has made me confront that fact that despite the short time I have done it, blogging really does play a large role in my life, and when it is withdrawn a resort to just making posts up in my head.

 I love spending a week with my Granny every summer (although this year looks like the last) purely for that I can go down into town (think stereotypical small, affluent, very middle class town on the Thames) for a hour or two by myself in the mornings. I always start in a small local cafe with a regular Americano, plus room for milk (the volume of which seems to vary every day [but at least they know my order now {which is such a good feeling}]) before moving onto the highstreet to poke about in the same old shops. Sometimes I will walk upon the Thames*.

 However this morning my routine was interrupted by a lack of reading material, which caused me to frequent the Oxfam bookshop. This is by far my favourite shop, and it would be a rare occasion indeed to find me leaving there without something (all Penguin books 99p – who could resist?). I was hoping to find "Brighton Rock" and "A Clockwork Orange" (In preparation for next year for next year may I add, I'm not some psychopath with a sick interest in rape [Dear Lord, what does that say about the school I'm going to next year though?]) as well as Cecily's leaving present (the name of which shall not be revealed for obvious reasons). I did leave with three books, however the only planned one was Cecily's present. Apparently they usually have the other two, but today they didn't (clearly this small middle class town is full of psychopaths who have a sick interest in rape). This meant I could enjoy some guilt free browsing and ended up with "The Grass is Sining" by Doris Lessing (just for the cover, books about racism and farming are usually not my thing) and a collection of poems called "Touchpiece" by Elizabeth Whyman. I am yet to read any of the poems, but I have started "The Grass is Singing". As Lessing's first novel, there is something immature and un-formed about her writing, that rather gives the lovely feeling she is across the table talking to me.

 To finish, I shall focus on the big news: Peter Capaldi is to be the new Doctor. I think this is a f****** brilliant decision and should bring some f****** darkness to the f****** show. I have also been lucky enough to see him live on the f****** stage in the Lady-f******-killers; he's a f****** fantsatic actor.

 Hopefully anyone f****** old enough to watch The F****** Thick of It will get my change in tone.

Gwendolen  

*Like Jesus, some may say.

Book Review: 'The Origin of Our Species' by Chris Stringer

Source

Hey Readers!

 Today a very rare event has happened... Almost as amazing as Jason selling a caravan (for The Apprentice fans only)... It's above twenty degrees!!! I know it might seem immature, but I think a fabulous event such as this deserves more than one exclamation mark. Therefore I have taken the opportunity to sit out in my garden and write a post, instead of doing useful things that I said I would do, such as clear out my stuff from my brother's room in preparation for his return home from University this weekend. 

 To many of you, this is going to be a particularly boring review as I'm reviewing this strange thing called a 'non-fiction book'. This isn't just any non-fiction book though, this is one that talks about mtDNA, neutral drift and electron spin resonance. Yes, this book indulges me in my really geeky passion: Human Evolution. Just typing those words makes me happy.

 Chris Stringer, the author, is an incredibly intelligent guy and Research Leader of Human Origins at the Natural History museum in London (here is his page – it's rather nice to see somebody who didn't study at Oxford or Cambridge). My point is – as far as human evolution goes, this guy is the bomb. He also clearly likes skulls, judging by the pictures that come up on Google images. However this one [source] is my favorite, as he is clearly pondering which budding paleoanthropologists he is inspiring, and clearly thinking that the perfect one would have a blog and a slight crush on William Shakespeare. Cough cough.

 Originally I wasn't planning to read this book, but another of his: Homo Britannicus. I was pointed in that direction by the anthropologist teacher at my school when I told her about the fascination with human origins. So I wandered off to Waterstones and this was the only one of his I could find – I count that as a blessing. This is a pretty awesome book. Heavy stuff for somebody who is only doing their GCSEs. It was rather lovely for me as I already knew about 30% stuff from other reading, so I could really focus on and learn the really brilliant stuff like this:

 "Many domesticated dogs have an accentuated white scelera [the white of the eye], compared with their wild wolf ancestors, which perhaps evolved to augment the close relationship between dogs and humans"

 You have to admit- that's pretty cool. That was then followed by:

"Another remarkable feature of modern humans is the large size of the penis."

 The book covers a huge variety of topics: methods of dating objects (not like that you cheeky thing), art, communication, life ways,  genes, and the future evolution of Homo sapiens (us). The last topic was really interesting- Stringer offered up two opposing points of view: we have stopped evolving, and we are evolving at a very fast rate. The former, I imagine (although if not do comment below), is rather clear in why, but the latter argued that humans are having to constantly adapt and evolve to the different and environments and cultures we have found ourselves in of the last multiple thousand years as they have constantly changed.

 I do, however, have two issues with this book. The first being that I really needed a notebook, so I could jot down all the important and interesting facts Stringer splurges out of me as I had a habit of forgetting them quickly, so there were great swathes where I had no idea what he was taking about and found myself just nodding along and going "Yes... I know exactly what you talking about...". My second issue being whatever material the cover is made from- please could the publisher stop using it! It's rather rubbery and terribly distracting. 

 So reader, if this summer you're up for something a bit (hugely) interesting that will keep the cogs of your mind turning while you switch off from education, then why not go with this? It's fascinating, surprisingly amusing, and full of facts to sprout out at your friends (you could dazzle them with your knowledge of the human penis) then I would recommend you have a go at this- which I have given four stars.

 On a side note, if you managed to get to the end of this post, then you deserve a prize. Which comes in the form of this charming summer ditty that I had on repeat while writing this blog:

 

Have a lovely day!

Gwendolen

Sure- this counts as Maths revision....

Hi!

 This one will only be a quickie- but when this video from Upworthy came up on my newsfeed I knew I had to share it with you all. This is a video by Hollie McNish performing a poem (I assume she wrote herself) called 'Mathematics' confronting the reality of immigration- enjoy!

Gwendolen

Book Review: ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ by John Green

'The Fault In Our Stars' by John Green- original image here (if you want to read the book, the author and vlogger, John Green, has done a reading that features on this page)

 A couple of evenings ago I finished Jane Eyre, and before continuing where I left off with Stringer's 'The Origin of Our Species' and going onto a book about an Ancient Greek war as prep for next year (and fun), I decided it was probably time that I read a 'light' read; by which I mean the books any sixteen year old girl probably should be reading. Therefore yesterday evening,  I asked my Mum if I could look through her bookshelves, when she suggested I read 'The Fault In Our Stars', a Book Club book from a few months ago. Part of me was like 'Awww... Come on girl.... It's a book about cancer... Find something less cliche' and the other part was like 'Girl, it be very late, none of the books you chose are going to be life changing, just go with it'- and so I did.

 You may have realised that I had a little bit of bias reading this book. For one thing, I find the whole 'teenager with cancer, fighting her disease, finds more to life than she thought, blah blah blah' over done and boring. I kind of just want to yell at all the authors that by churning out this cliche, they are suggesting that life is better with cancer, in which case I might just go a give my money to a different charity, which is both good and bad at the same time. On top of this, I had just spent my evening reading a brilliant article in Vogue, 'Single Minded' by Hadley Freeman, in which she discusses life as a thiry-something single woman, and how there is this expectation that she must have a boyfriend and how she is apparently not worth anything without one. Within the article she discusses how many books with a female protagonist are mainly about 'getting the guy' and that they are almost entirely relationship drive. At the time I just nodded, but didn't really take in the full scale of her truthfulness until I looked on my fairly comprehensive-book-shelf-for-a-teenage-girl and realised that I don't have any books (including classics and other intelligent books) that have a female protagonist and aren't relationship driven. So when I opened 'The Fault In Our Stars' I was actively looking out for cliches and relationship driven story lines, and at the same time desperately hoping they weren't there.

 Now you have a fairly comprehensive back story to my reading of this book I can actually get on and review it. Essentially, as I may have already suggested, 'The Faults In Our Stars' is about a girl suffering from cancer. Her cancer is terminal and unlike the readers, the last thing she could possibly expect to do is fall in love and actually enjoy her life. Spoiler alert: she does. Quiet honestly, that is the story summed up rather well. Like most books about teenagers with terminal diseases.

 Hold up- there was something different about this one... It was intelligent? The relationship was mutually independent? She had a pretty normal relationship with her parents (honestly- if teenage books reflected our lives accurately, you would think it was some great human feat to not argue with your parents every other chapter)? The twist in the plot was actually unexpected? This is a very well written book. Which is no surprise considering the awards Green has won and his rather good YouTube Channel that my brother introduced me to. It was also a quick read- 312 pages in less than 24 hours baby!

 But yeah... It was entirely relationship driven. Essentially if she hadn't met this guy, then she wouldn't have been able to experience all of this great stuff and y'know enjoy life, because everyone knows no girl can smile until some hot guys wanders into life. Even when ACTUAL SPOILER SO I WILL JUST DO SOME DOTS AND SAY IT IN MY HEAD .......................... she still defines herself by him and he is needed to give her worth.

 Ok- maybe I'm being a bit mean here, and if I was studying this book for my English GCSE, then I guess I would say Augustus (the love interest) is tool to represent how Maslow's hierarchy of needs (pictured below) is essentially wrong:  despite not really having much of the second layer, she achieves everything else (via a guy. Seriously- explore the whole concept of 'best friends'. They can be pretty fun to). Suggesting that at the end day our relationships really are what keeps us going. Dang my low level analysis has just brought me back full circle.

 To conclude, if you want a good read on a lazy summer afternoon, then I would recommend 'The Fault In Our Stars'- it is intelligent, deep and funny. However, I can't enjoy it, because I'm me. And I had just read an article of Vogue that by chance was about women and relationships in literature. And I don't really like books about cancer. So rather annoyingly I'm going to give this book Three Stars. 

Ok. That's harsh. I'll give it Three and Half.

 

Gwendolen

P.S. Something that I did find intriguing is how British all these characters sounded, although Green made it clear they were all American....That did, I admit, add slightly to my enjoyment... Hmmmm.....

Welcome

Welcome Readers! (we're optimistic- it's highly likely that should be in the singular)

Let us introduce ourselves. We are Gwendolyn and Cecily.

If you immediately recognise those names from The Importance of Being Earnest, we already like you, probably (if you don't, shame on you, shame on you). Our names aren't actually those, but we liked them for several reasons that will probably be mentioned in a later post, possibly about how great Oscar Wilde is.

We want to blog pseudonymously because it holds a certain intrigue, and we like intrigue.

We decided on the name "Their Harangues and their Fancies" because you are likely to see harangues, "speeches or pieces of writing characterised by strong feeling or expression; tirades", on this blog as it is a way of us exploring what we think of things and, yes, having an occasional rant (in an amusing or interesting way, of course). "Fancies" as in things that we like. You will see lots of those. Plus who doesn't enjoy a fancy/eloquent/pretentious name?

We really hope you stick around or string along or tattoo our URL to your hand... So hopefully, until next time!

Au revoir,

Cecily and Gwendolyn

PS. Just to show how long we have been planning this, here are some conversations of ours (note the dates):