The Bubble Columns: Cameraman

Originally published in The Bubble Columns, available here.

‘Art’. It’s a nebulous term at the best of times. Nobody can agree on what it actually means, never mind what it does – or, for that matter, if it does (or should do) anything at all. Sticking with visual art (in itself quite a slippery concept) and leaving literature, music, film and the rest aside, there’s no better example than that thing we call ‘contemporary art’ – the realm of unmade beds, formaldehyde-treated sharks and everything on the Turner Prize shortlist which makes older members of my family repeatedly shout “What is that!?!” In a sphere where a blank canvas can be considered a finished article rather than a resource, it’s harder than ever to agree exactly what constitutes ‘art’.

Well, consider this: Wafaa Bilal, a professor of photography at New York University’s Tisch School of Arts, is taking one photo a minute for the space of a year to be relayed back to an exhibition in Doha, Qatar, with his position tracked by GPS. This week, however, the project has encountered problems – because his body rejected one of the metal posts keeping the camera bolted into the back of his skull.

Bolted. Into the back of his skull.

When interviewed about the thinking behind 3rdi at the end of last year, Iraqi-born Bilal recounts his escape from the war-torn country in 1991 (how times change). Fleeing his home in Najaf as bombs fell around, he had no way of recording what he was leaving and no connection to his former life: at least this is one year of which he has a full and permanent record. However, he also intends to make a quite serious comment on the “surveillance society” in which we live, forever followed and recorded by CCTV to the point where our lives can barely be considered private any longer.

After doctors refused to perform the procedure on the grounds of excessive risk, Bilal had the camera attached at a body-piercing studio in Los Angeles. Despite treatment with steroids and anti-biotics, he was still experiencing pain and, as the risk of infection grew, it became necessary to remove the device. Hoping that the wound heals quickly so that the camera can be restored, he is maintaining the flow of images by leaving the camera attached by a strap around his neck.

I don’t think I really need to state that I think this man is insane, but I just did. We’ve all heard of people who have done extreme things in the name of art, but this goes a long way beyond Method acting or, for that matter, everything else I can think of.

One of the many, many embarrassing anecdotes that my friends pull out on occasion was directly instigated by contemporary art. During my second year, my housemates and I visited Yoko Ono’s exhibition at the Baltic in Newcastle, and amongst the exhibits was a large, transparent plastic maze. Like many other visitors, I filed in through the narrow gap in the wall – but promptly got lost. This was not helped by the fact that, the maze being transparent, it had not occurred to me that there may actually be a wall in the place where I was about to walk. Needless to say, when the whole gallery resounded with a crash, I shouted “OW!” and the couple of hundred serious art fans in the building all turned to stare at me in outrage as I desperately tried to escape, I learned my lesson. Cringe as I might, and laugh as I know you will (it’s fine – my housemates are still giggling over a year later), this basically sums up my relationship with art: getting drawn in is easy, but I can’t negotiate it with any dignity whatsoever.

Bilal’s current work must be problematic even to people far more artistically aware than I. On the one hand, he does raise some serious questions about the world in which we live; the importance of memory as well as the ways in which Big Brother watches us every second of the day. The dominance of CCTV everywhere we go is a form of socially mandated stalking, to be used to our cost as well as our benefit, endemic to the point where we may as well carry our own camera around with us. Still, the extent to which Bilal has gone is quite disturbing – the extent of the danger and the pain he has put himself through may liken him to many great artists, but they were all somehow mad too. Moreover, it’s difficult to reconcile his ideas about privacy and observation with the fact that, though his girlfriend hasn’t yet imposed any limits, his institution has. To protect the rights of students at the Tisch School of Arts, while Bilal is at work he has agreed to keep the lens cap on. It may be art, but it would seem that it isn’t above compromise.

The Bubble Columns: Blue-rovision?

Originally published in The Bubble Columns, available here.

I should start with a confession. I’m sure you have mental images of me as the highly refined, serious intellectual who slaves to entertain the masses with her astute and serious observations. Alas, these are illusions of which I must rob you. Ladies and gentlemen, I love the Eurovision Song Contest.

It might be the cheesiest, tackiest, and generally most pathetic arena in which our great nation has ever allowed, and in fact paid for, its own humiliation. It may be the site of some of the most disturbing and confusing scenes you’ll ever witness. It is certainly the most ludicrous way the people of Europe have devised to tell Britain that it has no friends (except for Ireland, and sometimes Cyprus or Portugal if we’re lucky) and reinforce trade links between neighbouring countries. But for all that, it’s obscenely entertaining, and those who watch every year admit it with a mixture of pride and shame.

As a nation, though, we approach the Eurovision with the most cynical of attitudes, chiefly because we always know that we will lose. Britain being isolated from Europe in both geographic and figurative terms, we have nobody to give us those all-important points out of a sense of regional camaraderie (which is why so many obscure Baltic and Balkan countries have done well in recent years).  Less important, but more easily changed, is the fact that we keep entering diabolical songs. Last year’s entry was written by Pete Waterman – a man who hasn’t been cool since the late 1980s when he worked with Kylie Minogue – though before that, Andrew Lloyd Webber had written a ballad that came fifth. The woman who sang said ballad is now a Sugababe. Everyone lost.

Luckily, however, it seems our Eurovision despair may well be coming to an end. We have an entry for this year. The news that made my week: the United Kingdom’s Eurovision 2011 entry is entitled ‘I Can’, and it’s by a little boy band called Blue. Yes, Blue. Just in case you haven’t had your fill of reformed boy bands in the past few years, the early 2000s group consisting of Duncan James, Lee Ryan, Antony Costa and Simon Webbe, who reunited in 2009, intend to stage a comeback with the performance of the song, penned by Duncan and Lee (the blonde ones), in Dusseldorf in May.
 
BBC One will be airing an hour-long documentary in April following the band recording and promoting the single, as well as getting advice from fellow musicians (who I desperately hope will include these former Eurovision winners), as part of the run-up to the contest. Head of entertainment and events Katie Taylor said of the announcement “We’re enormously pleased to have found an act that not only meets but exceeds all the criteria for a great entry… Blue are the perfect choice”. Duncan claims that this will be “a great way to mark the occasion” of their tenth year together, while Simon has said that he has “always wanted to represent my country, so this is a truly exciting experience for Blue”.


They do have a better resume than most entrants – 13 million album sales, three number one singles, and insanely catchy tunes like All Rise, Fly By, and One Love, all of which could stand us in very good stead come May 14^th. That said, they are also responsible for some pretty terrible covers; they even managed to enlist both Elton John and Stevie Wonder to help them mutilate Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word and Signed, Sealed, Delivered respectively. Either way, though, Britain at least is in the grip of a mania for returning old-school boy bands; if Europe shares this nostalgic sentiment then we could be on to a – well, not a winner, but maybe a little less of a loser.

Still, it does beg the question of how successful this comeback will be. Entry into the Eurovision is widely acknowledged as career suicide- the vast majority of UK entrants are neither seen nor heard from again. Former Blue manager Daniel Glatman has described the decision as “reckless insanity”, insisting that “they will have to win. Anything less and their reputation would be in tatters”. I disagree- Blue are a cheesy boy band whose fan base now regard them with nostalgia rather than genuine adulation, and since nobody ever expects a UK entrant to win, they have little to lose if they don’t win. If anything, the damage will come from the stigma of being a Eurovision contestant, which basically means that they will never be taken seriously again. Still, they’re Blue. Who would take them seriously anyway?

Maybe it will just add to the cheesy kitsch we associate with reformed boy bands like them. Take That may have managed to break out of that category, but they did so by producing some genuinely brilliant new music- and coming from someone who would rather listen to Led Zeppelin or Nirvana, that’s saying something. Maybe Blue can do the same. Either way, we’ll find out along with the rest of Europe on May 14^th.

The Bubble Columns: The Man Who Would Be Kick-Ass

Originally published on The Bubble Columns, available here.

Gentle readers, I crave your pardon. It’s been a while. No doubt you’ve all been sitting at your computers every Wednesday since my last column in the desperate hope of further strange news-based musings. Your disappointment must have been, I am sure, too great for words, but you may rest assured that the hiatus is officially over. I return with the kind of news that could only come from the USA – a man acting like Batman.

Phoenix Jones – a name which bizarrely isn’t actually his pseudonym – claims to be making the streets of Seattle safer since taking up his unconventional hobby about nine months ago. He disappears into the back room of a comic-book store (yes, really), dons tights, black and gold Lycra and a mask, and emerges as a crime-fighting force to be reckoned with. Bearing a bullet-proof vest, stab protection, tear gas and a taser for aid in his all-but-caped crusade, he has already prevented car thefts among other crimes. He’s not alone: apparently there are eight other members of his Rain City Superhero group doing the exact same thing in Seattle, though less is known about them. Presumably this is because they actually understand the nature of a secret identity.

Speaking to CBS, he claimed that “When I walk into a neighbourhood, criminals leave because they see the suit. I symbolise that the average person doesn't have to walk around and see bad things and do nothing”. For all his protective gear, though, there has been a physical cost- he has been stabbed, repeatedly threatened with guns, and was recently kicked in the face while trying to break up a fight, resulting in a broken nose. Still, as you can probably guess, this hasn’t put him off- he told one news website that “I endanger my life with a reason and purpose”. As you might expect, local police have publicly encouraged Jones to hang up his mask before he is seriously injured, and insisted that citizens do not put themselves into violent situations unnecessarily but contact the police instead. The fashion police said something similar, but they were more upset about the Lycra.

Many of us by now will have seen Kick-Ass, and if you haven’t, you should. A comic-book adaptation itself, its central character is a teenage boy who wonders why nobody has ever tried to dress up and fight crime like the superheroes they admire so much; seeing plenty of opportunities to protect and serve where the police can’t or don’t, he dons a bright green wetsuit and does exactly that. It’s a brilliant action-comedy, but it also raises plenty of questions about justice, apathy and vigilantism: in what will one day become a classic scene, Kick-Ass picks himself up from the ground after being beaten by a gang,  looks around at the circle of people filming him and pants “Three assholes, laying into one guy while everybody else watches? And you wanna know what's wrong with me?”

That scene, for me, hits the nail on the head. Vigilantism, for me, is intrinsically wrong. Breaking the law in the name of preventing others from breaking the law – using the threat of violence to prevent violence – is not only paradoxical but risks reducing the perpetrators to the same level as the criminals they supposedly suppress; it’s impossible to claim any moral high ground. Moreover, it undermines the authorities who have been entrusted with responsibility for law and order and do work extremely hard to enforce it. Of course, it’s also extremely dangerous.

Still, it’s hard not to see where people like Jones are coming from. When citizens are surrounded and intimidated by crime everywhere they go, and the police are so overstretched and mismanaged that they can’t possibly deal with the number of incidents coming their way every day, it makes sense that individuals move in and attempt to fill the void in their own way.  People who are genuinely angry enough will inevitably want to intervene. But beyond that, Kick-Ass summed it up nicely: when so many of us allow injustice and cruelty to carry on under our noses and do nothing to change it, do we really have the right to judge the odd person who does something about it?

I’d still maintain that vigilantism is born of a revenge instinct. Coming out of anger rather than respect for the rule of law, it’s understandable but never commendable- and unless you happen to have been bitten by a mutant spider, turned green and angry by radiation or sent to Earth from a dying planet called Krypton, it’s highly dangerous. But then, there’s a reason that Batman has been so successful in recent years relative to other superheroes, and I’d argue that it’s the fact that he has no actual powers. He may be intelligent and rich, but ultimately he’s an ordinary man who is moved to act against the huge crime problem his community faces – deep down, a lot of us can relate to that.

Well, apart from that time when he fought Arnold Schwarzenegger.  I mean, Batman and Robin, honestly…

The Bubble Film: The Rise and Fall of John Landis and the 80s Cult Classic

Originally published (in an edited form!) on The Bubble Film, available here.

What do you think of when you think of film in the 1980s? Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, Top Gun? They’re all classics, of course. But the truth is that some of the most definitive and influential 80s movies didn’t bust quite as many blocks. There are, in fact, two directors without whom the 80s would not have been what they were. One was John Hughes, the late auteur of The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off among others, who perfectly summed up teenage life for a generation. The other, much less well-known today, was John Landis.

Landis might not be the most renowned compared to the Spielbergs and Burtons of Hollywood, but he comes with a pedigree of his own. After various minor jobs on films such as One Upon a Time in the West he was offered his first directing job for Universal, the supremely immature, bad taste and yet hilarious campus comedy National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978).  From there began an impressive run of Hollywood success.

The 1980s were easily the peak of Landis’ career. The Blues Brothers (1980), which he co-wrote with Dan Aykroyd, features classic soul artists including Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles in acting roles in which they perform their own hits. It’s endlessly quotable: "It's 200 miles to Chicago; we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's night time, and we're wearing sunglasses.” “Hit it.” Part road movie, part buddy movie, part musical, it boasts a mixture of seemingly disparate elements held together by flawed but endearing characters- and Carrie Fisher trying to kill James Belushi by some of the most ridiculous means you’ve ever seen.

More than this, however, he redefined a genre with arguably his best film, comedy-horror An American Werewolf in London (1981), which boasted groundbreaking special effects- makeup impresario Rick Baker created some of his finest work in the transformation of David Naughton’s hapless tourist into a terrifying hound of hell. What often marks out Landis’ films is music: Landis’ sense of humour shines through. This particular soundtrack includes ‘Moondance’, ‘Blue Moon’, and ‘Bad Moon Rising’, which may raise a laugh with their all-too-appropriate titles but also fit perfectly in their context in the film. Gloriously bad geography aside (apparently you can pass out in the Yorkshire Dales and wake up in a London hospital), there are few films that have better exemplified the term “cult classic”. Just try to forget the fact that anyone made a sequel set in Paris: that’s frightening for all the wrong reasons.

There may have been misfires in the same period- you can probably guess from the title of Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) - but his star remained in the ascendancy with numerous more popular comedies throughout the decade. His impressive résumé as a director of adverts and TV continued to grow, American Werewolf having inspired Michael Jackson to hire him to write and direct the most famous music video ever, Thriller, in 1983. The 80s zeitgeist, however, eventually faded away, and so did Landis’ film career. The same is true of the kind of film which defined him.

Landis’ greatest films belong to that unique category of the cult classic. In this instance ‘cult’ doesn’t have to mean ‘low budget’- The Blues Brothers was the most expensive film Universal had ever made at the time- or even ‘unpopular’- though it could be argued that American Werewolf fits that profile better. It’s ultimately a title reserved for those slightly quirky, unconventional films which don’t perfectly fit into the mainstream of the industry. ‘Classic’, of course, is a matter of taste and the test of time, but I would argue that neither of these films has dated badly: they are clearly of their time, but not to an alienating extent. In fact, for modern audiences that’s part of their appeal. Many films popular at the time have since fallen into this category, such as John Hughes’ oeuvre, as times and the industry have changed.

That change has been demonstrated in the type of films being produced for the same market. Hughes’ teen comedies have been replaced with the gross-out humour of American Pie and Superbad, films which borrow more from Landis’ Animal House; but it’s hard to think of another film which occupies similar territory to The Blues Brothers and American Werewolf on the margins of the cinematic canon.

It may be this unique but limited success that Landis will hope to build on with his return to the big screen in Burke & Hare. For inspiration it takes the true story of the eponymous grave robbers in Victorian Edinburgh whose business is booming - until they start running out of fresh bodies to sell to the medical profession. Then they turn their hands to murder to meet demand. The production has been taken on by the new incarnation of Ealing Studios: its earlier form was responsible for The Ladykillers (1955) and Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), which Landis has always claimed as major influences (and significantly, both of which are comic expositions of murderers). The tone of Burke and Hare is intended to recapture the none-more-black humour of these films which also comes through in American Werewolf: the shocking things the protagonists do are always offset by snappy dialogue and an abiding affection which wants them to get away with it.

The impressive cast list should help him perfect this affection- Burke and Hare are played by Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis respectively (Serkis stepped in after David Tennant had to pull out), who must be among the most lovable actors Britain has produced. Hardly the Anthony Hopkins school of serial killers. The interesting thing is that although the subject matter is more reminiscent of American Werewolf, the endearing, hapless double act at the plot’s core ensures that the film plays more like The Blues Brothers, with moments of genuine farce into the bargain. See, for example, a scene where they break the back of a dead body to force it into a barrel and then roll, drop and chase it down the street until it crashes into a shop window. Perhaps this hybrid’s lack of success (gross to date is less than £2 million) is proof that the appetite for new films of this nature has faded; or maybe that the public objected to Isla Fisher’s Scottish (?) accent. Still the enduring appeal of its ancestors shows that there will always be a lasting nostalgia for the great 1980s cult classic- just so long as it isn’t Amazon Women on the Moon.

The Bubble Columns: Porn and Prejudice- A Catalan Election

Originally published on The Bubble Columns, available here.

Unless you hid under a rock for the first six months of this year, you’ll know that elections can be complicated things. What always amazes me is that, largely thanks to the media, the political issues themselves usually matter less than the people who argue about them, and both are subject to copious levels of spin. In Britain this spring almost every billboard in every town featured a party leader staring down at us beside some sort of slogan explaining why they were either Satan’s lovechild or God’s gift; party political broadcasts costing more than Ireland’s current bank balance begged us not to condemn our country to the other parties’ reigns of terror; Facebook and Twitter became political weapons. Thank God, most of us said, we didn’t have TV adverts as well.

If you’ve seen any of those cringe-worthy American adverts where an ‘authoritative, genuine family man’ type talks about how his values make him different, you’ll understand just how painful that could have been with, say, Gordon Brown. But there is an alternative path for political TV advertising, and the Spanish have demonstrated that it can make you shudder for entirely different reasons. According to a new advert by the Young Socialists for the regional elections in Catalonia, “Voting is a pleasure”: so much so that the young voter actually has an orgasm.

You’d never see that in the middle of Emmerdale, now, would you?

Responses have, predictably, varied. Alicia Sanchez-Camacho, candidate for the conservative Popular Party of Catalonia, called it an “attack on the dignity of women”. Even within the Socialist Party of Catalonia, opinion is divided: health minister Leire Pajin called for responsibility and respect for women from all political parties, while the leader Jose Montilla (who is standing for re-election) supported the ad claiming that “if it encourages people to vote, it’s a good thing”. Honourable mentions must go to Socialist equality minister Bibiana Aido, whose biggest concern was not the ad’s potential sexism or suggestive content, but deception: “If it was true, electoral participation would go up greatly, but I think we are dealing with a misleading advert.” Still, the best response by a country mile came from Joan Herrera, leader of the Green coalition in Catalonia, who admitted it would be “very difficult to reach orgasm voting for any of the candidates, myself included”. Honesty is the best policy, I suppose.

I don’t think I need to explain why this is my favourite news story of the week. But the best thing about this advert is that it isn’t the only controversy of this election. Sanchez-Camacho, who was so critical of the ad, is probably glad the electorate have someone else to focus on: a videogame which depicted her flying on the back of a seagull and bombing immigrants as recently removed from her party’s website. Yes, you did read that correctly. The game was removed after a few hours amid party claims that the developers had made a mistake – the bombs were apparently meant to fall on the gangs who traffic the immigrants into Spain – but only after the website had crashed due to overwhelming popularity (and you thought Call of Duty was serious). On the same day another candidate, Montse Nebrera, appeared in only a towel at the end of an ad which seems close to soft porn; before that the Catalan Solidarity for Independence Party recruited a porn star to appear at their rallies. It’s starting to look like the candidates are in a race to get their whole campaigns banned for offensive content.

I’m the first person to advocate increasing political participation. My thoughts have always been that apathy is so serious in so many countries, including Britain, with young and minority demographics presenting the lowest electoral turnouts, that it makes sense to use every available medium to engage them in public affairs – but I meant Facebook and education, not porn and prejudice. Catalonia’s election campaigns are symptomatic of a failure becoming endemic in Western societies: something is going very wrong when people are so disinterested in political affairs that officials have to use sex and xenophobic shoot-em-ups to lure them in, or, when officials think they need to use them because they don’t think people will respond to anything else. If it’s the former, we need to ask ourselves why we’re not more interested in our rights, but politicians should also think about why people care so little; someone, after all, is to blame for our disillusionment with politics. If it’s the second option which is true and the officials are right, that’s a damning indictment. If they’re wrong, people who misunderstand their voters to that extent shouldn’t be representing them.

Above all, I just don’t see how it will work. If parties and activists want to encourage people to vote, they need to do it by making them aware of issues and how they will affect people’s everyday lives, so that they can form opinions and act on them. Otherwise, no amount of misleading sexual advertising or look-at-us-we’re-down-with-the-kids-homie games will fill the apathetic void at the heart of most modern democracies.

The Bubble Columns: The Renault Zoe and the Zoe Renaults

Originally published in The Bubble Columns, available online here.

There’s a classic series of books called The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams in which one of the major characters, a visiting alien, had “skimped a bit on his preparatory research” and chosen what he believed would be a nice, inconspicuous name. Ford Prefect only realised after choosing this name that it was actually one of the most popular cars in Britain. As Adams joked in later interviews, he’d “simply mistaken the dominant life form”.

That’s all very well if you’re from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, but for we terrestrial beings it may not always be so funny. At least that’s the claim of the lawyers in a recent court case in France, where the parents of two girls called Zoe Renault have just lost a legal challenge to prevent Renault from naming a new electric car… yep, you guessed it.

The two families have argued that their daughters – and to an extent all women with the same name – could be subject to a lifetime of mockery for sharing the name of a car, beginning with playground teasing and developing into comments in bars along the lines of “Can I see your airbags?” and “Can I shine your bumper?” (at which point, I hope, there were repressed giggles around the courtroom). David Koubbi, representing the families, told the Associated Press that “There’s a line between living things and inanimate objects” which is defined by the first name: the simple message for Renault was “first names are for humans”.

It’s a message, however, which has fallen on deaf ears. The all-electric Zoe ZE (Zero Emission), expected to be launched in 2012, was apparently named for the original Greek, meaning “life”, to emphasize the car’s environmental credentials. In his ruling, the judge accepted that for this reason, the word was simply a common noun, rather than a name; he also saw no evidence that it would cause the girls “certain, direct and current harm”. Koubbi claims that this logic is perverse, and the families intend to appeal the ruling as soon as possible.

The same lawyer is representing other Zoes across France attempting to challenge the name, claiming that it impinges their rights. A 23-year-old Zoe Renault told Le Parisien earlier this year that she couldn’t bear to be associated with the car for the rest of her life and hear such sarcastic remarks as “Zoe’s broken down again” or “we need to get Zoe overhauled”.  The question is: are all these Zoes being overly sensitive?

Names are a part of our identity. They’re one of the ways that we separate ourselves from everyone else, and central to our sense of self. The connotations of our names will follow us around too, especially if they include a level of irony or humour. I, for example, am from Yorkshire, and my surname is also a cake, traditionally associated with said motherland and eaten on bonfire night. A cake I can’t stand, which is apparently mildly amusing to a few people. Zoe Renault is considerably more obvious, and after a while the mockery would conceivably begin to be irksome.

In addition, France as a nation takes names very seriously – until not so long ago parents were legally required to choose from a list of agreed, acceptable children’s names (probably to preserve the French nomenclature from the evil influence of Anglo-Saxon). This is no longer the case, but officials can argue against parental choices if they feel it may result in the child’s harm or ridicule: perhaps one day Zoe Renault could become one such name.

Still, perhaps the time, effort, expense and above all , the added publicity involved in a legal challenge just isn’t worth it. Parents attempting to protect their children are one thing, but the adult Zoes? In announcing to the whole world that you’re so sensitive to mockery that you would go to court to prevent any potential for it, you leave yourself open to so many people who enjoy poking fun at people just to get a reaction. Anyway, as a reason to tease someone, isn’t “the one who didn’t want a car named after them” just as bad as “the one with the car named after them”?

Naming machinery, be it cars, ships, or Eddie Stobart lorries after women is nothing new. Now, whilst I would have the deepest sympathy for a little girl called Titanic, at least Zoe Renaults across France won’t have to listen to jibes about their carbon emissions. Their electric personalities, however, may still be fair game.

Palatinate Features: Is Staying Sober Social Suicide?

Originally published in Palatinate 722 Features, 9th November 2010.

Whenever I’m on a night out in Durham, one event occurs with clockwork regularity. It’s somewhere between 1.30 and 1.45 am that one of my friends, normally in a rather slurred and slightly incomprehensible manner, is guaranteed to declare, “I’m so impressed that you’re sober!”

According to one survey, on average one third of Europeans and 4 out of 10 Americans are teetotal, including numerous celebrities including Ewan McGregor and Leona Lewis. These statistics may seem surprisingly high, but maybe that’s because drinking has become so much a part of our culture that we assume everybody partakes, at least occasionally- indeed, many of the most well-known abstainers from alcohol are recovering addicts, like Samuel L. Jackson. As a result it can be surprisingly difficult to convince people that you’re one of the few who choose a life of sobriety.

It’s all too common, upon telling friends that you are teetotal, to be met with either scepticism or shock. The expectations about the drinking habits of students never go away, and chances are at least one person will accuse you of lying, while others will ask you how you could possibly have enjoyed a Monday night in Studio without any “liquid courage”. Some people’s attitudes might be harder to swallow- at least one of my friends has announced that his only goal before graduation is to get me drunk, while on one occasion I bought a cranberry juice which arrived containing vodka, because the bar staff assumed I’d forgotten to ask for it. Still, the vast majority are perfectly accepting after their initial surprise.

So how does a teetotaller perceive drinkers? To an extent that depends on their reasons to choose to do the opposite. Personally, I have no problem with other people choosing to drink- I frequently have nights out with friends at varying stages of inebriation, and have rarely had what could be considered a “bad” night. Though people frequently ask whether drunk people annoy me, most of the time the answer is ‘no’- but that tends to be when they are the enjoyable type of drunk who doesn’t hinder a fun night.

More difficult to deal with are those who for one reason or another make life harder. The teetotaller in a group often ends up responsible for taking care of all of those who become overly emotional, ill or incapable of supporting their own weight. After a while, putting people to bed, holding back their hair or holding them up on the walk home- being de facto nanny- can be somewhat irksome.  That might be a position that can be resigned if it isn’t wanted, but sometimes it can be unfairly expected.

On the whole, a teetotaller’s social life doesn’t have to be any different to those of their alcohol-drinking counterparts. In fact, it can have its advantages- they can go out and have a great night like anybody else. The next morning there will be fatigue, but no hangover. They will remember everything that happened, potentially relishing the opportunity to remind everybody else. Significantly, usually they will have spent less money (I have had great nights out costing less than £5), which they may even spend on going out more often. Should they encounter problems, it’s usually more to do with attitudes towards alcohol itself.

Probably the biggest problem for some, especially those who have never been drinkers, is the difficulty of understanding the culture that has sprung up around alcohol. It can be baffling when people say that they need to be wasted to have a good time in a club, or talk about things they’ve done under the influence as though they were badges of honour. Equally perplexing are the suggestions that stumbling around in the street is somehow fun, or that hangovers are worth it.

This is a question which can never really be resolved without that experience; even most of the drinkers I’ve asked have not been able to answer it themselves. But I think it’s enough, whether you understand or agree or not, to accept drinking as another lifestyle choice, just like teetotalism or anything else, to be respected unless it begins to impinge on the rights of others.

Every non-drinker has their own reasons for this choice, from religion to health to the fact that it tastes bad. Whatever they may be, the resulting sobriety is not something that separates them from people who enjoy alcohol. Studio, Loveshack, and the rest are all perfectly enjoyable sober, so long as you’re in good company and inclined to appreciate the cheesy joys they usually offer. An alcohol-free existence, based on my experience, certainly doesn’t mean a boring one.