Here is the trailer to the True Brit Grit short story anthology, of which my story 'Meat is Murder' is number 22.
Wednesday 30 May 2012
Friday 25 May 2012
Bosnia, 20 Years After the Wars: Movies, Memoir and Memory
Bosnia,
20 Years After the Wars: Movies, Memoir and Memory
Anyone who has ever watched any films based on the
wars that ravaged the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s will come away battered
intellectually and emotionally, I would bet. Because few of them pull any
punches. Okay, 2001’s ‘Behind Enemy Lines’, with Owen Wilson in the starring
role, overdoes the pyrotechnics somewhat and its lack of adherence to the facts
of a recent reality do irk, but others are genuinely brilliant. Take ‘Nicija
zemlja’ (No Man’s Land) also released in 2001 or ‘Niciji sin’ (No One’s Son), which came out in 2008, for instance. Both
will shake you to the bones but they were made by local film makers, so the
fraught realism is to be expected.
Others, foreign-produced,
equally assail the emotions, however. ‘Harrison’s Flowers’, for instance, released,
once more, in 2001, takes us from a genteel New York world of back-slapping
journalists to the death and destruction of Croatia in the early 1990s, when
taking a left turn after a serene road trip through the mountains could lead to
a tank mounting your car. Then there is ‘Savior’ (1998) about an American
mercenary on the Bosnian Serb side, who hates and slaughters Muslims for deeply
personal reasons, then rails against the barbarity that he both causes and confronts.
This is unflinchingly depicted throughout the film’s 103 minutes.
Second World War films,
on the other hand, only began to become uncompromising in the 1970s, when some
distance had been measured between the end of the conflict and a new era. ‘A
Bridge Too Far’, made in 1977, might have had an all-star cast but the
brutality of war was not eluded, even if one particularly murderous assault did
include the perfectly-groomed Robert Redford.
But as far as World War
II is concerned, the major contrast to be noted is that between 1962’s ‘The
Longest Day’ and ‘Saving Private Ryan’ made by Stephen Spielberg in 1998. Both
are exceptional but the key difference is in the boat landings made by the US
troops on the beaches of Normandy. In the 60s’ version there is banter, in the
90s’ there is vomiting.
So why have the films
showing the Yugoslavian wars been so unremittingly brutal, despite being made
only a handful of years after they ended?
Television is the reason.
Film makers addressing
the madness of the Yugoslavian Wars had to go all out to show the mayhem,
because the TV cameras had been there first. During World War II, there may
have been a few rifle shots on Pathe News but not the scenes of carnage after
mortar attacks on markets in Sarajevo in the 1990s, for instance. The hideous
drama was already out there. Film makers had to catch up.
This year marks the 20th
anniversary of the outbreak of the war in Bosnia, which saw the Bosnian Serb army
lay siege to the capital Sarajevo, with mortar attacks and sniper fire
tormenting the city’s population on a daily basis.
Into this mayhem stepped
Martin Bell and his crew, along with a number of other intrepid and, arguably,
barely sane reporters, to cover a war which Bell called the “most consequential”
of our time.
To coincide with the
international remembrance of the start of the conflict in Bosnia, Icon Books
has this year published a revised and updated edition of Bell’s memoir ‘In Harm’s
Way’, which charts the terror and destruction that had the tiny nation in
flames between 1992 and 1995.
Originally printed by
Penguin in 1995, then 1996, Bell’s book addresses the predicament of being a
journalist in what was an unprecedented war since 1945, with families torn
apart and children seen as legitimate targets, along with anyone else crossing
the street.
Martin Bell became a
household name because of the Bosnian war, to such an extent that one UN
General’s wife told him to stop looking “so miserable” when on air, as if a big
cheesy grin would have been more appropriate.
The white suit, his somber
voice narrating the latest atrocities committed by the troops up on the hills, the
fact that he risked life and limb doing so, and was indeed wounded for his troubles,
were all factors that seared the Bosnian conflict into the world’s
consciousness.
Things didn’t always run
smoothly, needless to say, in that quagmire. Bell’s reminiscences are fraught
with the frustration of being a TV reporter, having to lug equipment around
when print reporters were able to hop on buses with just their notebooks in
tow.
There are countless other
difficulties documented, such as the unwillingness of the armies to grant Bell
and his colleagues access, something he wasn’t used to, the warring parties’
bloody-mindedness being exactly that, bloody. That and the fact that he and
other journalists had to just stand there and record slaughter, helplessly and often,
in their own minds, culpably.
I myself am a journalist though
not one who has ever worked in a war zone, so I can only imagine the travails
that Bell and his counterparts had to endure during the 1990s war, let alone
the general population. But the irritations of the job recounted by Bell, I
know well. The effort unrewarded, thinking you have a great story when
something else crops up meaning yours is ditched at the last moment; the sheer
chaos of it, that maddening source of despair and at the same time adrenalin,
which gets you doing the job in the first place. That’s all familiar to me, but
without any bullets flying in my direction.
I have also been to
Bosnia, post-war, twice in fact. Both occasions were very educational. The
first visit was to Sarajevo by coach from the Montenegrin capital Podgorica,
the vehicle bursting into flames in the dead of night just as we were
approaching the mountains. We rushed off in fear that it was about to explode.
It didn’t and a replacement bus turned up eventually after us standing around
in the pitch black dark for a couple of hours. Then came the climb up the mountains
and the temperature dropping to freezing.
We arrived in the
Serb-run bus station at dawn, in the East of the city, with it shrouded in fog.
I was with two Americans, one a work colleague, the other a traveller we’d met outside
the bus after it had gone up in smoke.
The taxi journey into the
centre was stunning, in the worst sense, the grim weather augmenting a general sense
of gloom. Almost every apartment block we passed was riddled with bullet holes,
though other armoury may have also been responsible for the damage.
Conversation stopped while we gawped.
The visit was also
clouded by a sense of foreboding, though the danger had long passed. The sight
of the burned out museum caused by the Bosnian Serb bombardment was harrowing,
although the history of its assault was given on posters in the Serbian
Cyrillic, as well as Russian, English and other languages. Serbs were being
called ‘bandits’ in Serbian.
There were the calls to
prayer from the minarets, while the mainly Muslim population ate their cevapi
and drank beer and wine and also danced like mad in the bars. I’d seen far
stricter Islamists in Birmingham. Yet religion had supposedly underpinned the
fighting from the off.
The trip back taught me a
lesson about the fragility of life, appropriately enough. From Podgorica to
Sarajevo we had veered towards our destination in complete darkness and thick
fog. The return journey was done in clear daylight. Gingerly, the coach
negotiated mountain ledges that threatened a drop to our deaths should the
driver’s hand slip for a second. The curves in the road were an invitation to
tragedy, a word that had engulfed Bosnia of late. But it came in stark contrast
to the stunning mountainous view. Majesty versus death: Bosnia defined, you
could say.
Over a year later I was
in Banja Luka, capital of Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb enclave created by
the Dayton Accords of 1995. Then the temperatures were around 30-35 degrees Celsius
and I traipsed about town doing guide book work while melting in the heat. I
was made feel very welcome despite the fact that NATO had bombed the Bosnian
Serb army to prevent it causing the citizens of Sarajevo any more suffering.
Part of the job I was doing was to visit and write about the nightclubs in the
city and because of the weather I went to one in shorts and trainers. I was
told by the bouncers that my clothing was inappropriate but when I said I didn’t
understand they let me in, as I was British. Balkan hospitality once again
transcended politics.
But the politics was
still out there. You only needed to look at the souvenir stands to see that,
draped as they were in t-shirts and other paraphernalia celebrating the likes
of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, then at large and out of range of the
security services hunting them down. No one seemed to entertain the fact that
there was a contradiction between hailing suspected war criminals and being
utterly courteous to a British guest.
There was another surreal
moment when I passed a drinking hole called the ‘Peckham Pub’. I almost had to
rub my eyes to confirm what I was seeing. I walked in and discovered a shrine
to ‘Only Fools and Horses’, massively popular in the former Yugoslavia. There I
was in a part of the world much of the UK considered beyond the pale and
staring back at me from the walls were Del Boy, Rodney and Uncle Albert.
It was a world away from
savagery, yet I was right there, in Banja Luka, at one of its many sources.
Watching films about the wars in the former Yugoslavia was more harrowing than
actually being there, at that time, post-war.
Life does move on,
extraordinarily, even in places oozing with death and it does so more brightly,
arguably, than elsewhere. The glistening Vbras River flowing through Banja Luka
under a beating sun, with its swimmers and rowers fleeing from the daily grind,
the partying Sarajevans, celebrating a Muslim holiday in a flood of wine and
beer: that was the Bosnia I saw, without the TV screen getting in the way.
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Archive article – Big-Brain Polish Band Goes Spontaneous
Originally
published by the now-defunct WiK English Edition, part of Poland’s reputed
Wprost publishing house, in April 2007
Lao
Che -Big-Brain Polish Band Goes Spontaneous
Lao Che, the band that brought rock and roll to the
library with its first two albums, has lightened up. With Gusła (‘Witchcraft’)
in 2002, and Powstanie Warszawskie (‘Warsaw Uprising’) in 2005 the group broke
the mould with their painstaking research into crucial periods of Polish
history. With the debut record a study of life in medieval times and the second
a raucous tribute to the young fighters who lost their lives battling against
the Nazis on Warsaw’s streets during the Second World War, Lao Che proved that
the cerebral and visceral could be entwined in a powerful, ground-breaking
manner in the studio.
But now, after the huge success of the second album
– hailed by many critics as a seminal work in Polish music history – the band
have decided to re-invent themselves. The dusty tomes have been cast aside and
instead they have reached immediately for their instruments to see what comes
out. When they play at Warsaw’s Proxima club on April 15th, they will be
showcasing around four new songs, each of which will represent a significant
departure from the old Lao Che sound, which while fascinating, was at times
held down by the weight of its own intellect.
“We feel that to produce a third album based on
historical events would be boring and a bit of a cliché,” said Mariusz Denst,
the group’s drummer. “This time no topic was figured out before we created the
music. We have done things completely at ease, by just sitting around and
discussing our ideas and choosing the ones we feel are the most appealing.”
The only catch could be that this next record is so
radically distinct from the previous two that some fans might struggle to
recognize who is playing the songs. With Gusła, the tone was one that evoked
images of agrarian filth, violence and the bleakest debauchery. With Powstanie
Warszawskie, we received a right old earful of the rage that the Varsovian
insurgents unleashed against their Nazi oppressors. Neither album contained
much that erred on the brighter side of life and, in truth, they were better
for it. But now, it seems, Lao Che have gone all chirpy on us.
“Probably it will be quite difficult for people to
realize that it is Lao Che who are playing when they first hear the songs,”
said Denst. “The first two albums were quite mood-oriented and a bit somber. So
we have turned everything upside down and done something very happy and full of
positive feelings. There is a lot of humour in the songs. The melodies and
arrangements sound like something from the circus and there are also a number
of jazz influences.”
How comfortably these new tracks will play alongside
the older songs will be intriguing to find out and the only way to so will be
to catch the band live, as none of the songs will be downloadable any day soon.
But whatever they sound like, to depart from the
successful and extremely daring recipe of the ‘Powstanie Warszawskie’ album
just goes to show what a brave group Lao Che are. In the eight years they have
been together they have only released two records, such is the rigour they have
applied to reading up on their subject matter. It is difficult to imagine a
band in the West having any such nerve, and just as mind-boggling that a record
company has been prepared to take them on.
So that we don’t grow complacent, however, the group
say that the abundant cheer on the next album should not be misread as a sign
of intention over the longer-term.
“This third album has been dictated by the reception
of the Warsaw Uprising album. However, this does not mean we will be sticking
to the same course from here on in,” said Denst.
Saturday 19 May 2012
Archive Article – Irvine Welsh on Dorota Maslowska
Originally published
by the now-defunct New Warsaw Express on May 12th 2006
Sounding Off in Translation
Polish literature was
turned on its head in 2002 when 20-year-old Dorota Maslowska published her
novel ‘White and Red’, (or ‘Wojna Polsko Ruska Pod Flaga Bialo- Czerwona, as it
was then known) to universal acclaim.
Translated into English
only last year, the book brings us into the unhinged world of the Gdansk-based
wanderer Andrzej ‘Nails’ Robakowski who, constantly high on amphetamines,
lurches through incidents with a series of other characters in a fit of
misanthropic despair.
What gripped Polish
readers when they picked up ‘White and Red’ was that it was the first novel in
the language to employ the street vernacular of the post-communist period. Gone
were the long strokes of literary introspection beloved by classic writers such
as Witold Gombrowicz.
Here was something raw and
immediate, analogous to the bewildering pace of change in the real world of 21st
Century Poland.
“I think it has been worth
living 40 years to finally read something so interesting,” wrote critic Marcin
Swietlicki, after reading the book when it first came out.
The English version -
translated ably enough by Benjamin Paloff – captures much of the frantic
impatience of the original but one constantly feels a nagging sense of distance
from the essence of the book. One
oft-quoted parallel for Maslowska’s work has been the impact of Irvine Welsh’s ‘Trainspotting’,
written in the harsh working-class vernacular of his native Edinburgh.
In Warsaw in March, Welsh
summed up some of his reservations about ‘White and Red’.
“I have a problem when I
read any European novel translated into English,” he told NWE. “They either
sound as if the characters come from some small American town or somewhere in
inner London. Translation often has the impact of taking something that you can
tell is fairly specific – and has its own vitality and culture – and homogenising
it. I think that translators could sometimes be much more creative.”
Yet he said he appreciated
‘White and Red’ despite all that.
“I enjoyed the book but kind
of felt I was missing out by not reading it in Polish. I could feel there was
much more to it than I was getting,’ he went on. “It was like seeing the top of
an iceberg.”
Since ‘White and Red’ was
published in English, reviewers have been queuing up to compare Maslowska to
Welsh. Even with the limitations inherent in the translated version, readers
are still treated to much the same urgency and high-octane bile in ‘White and
Red’ as they experienced in ‘Trainspotting’. It is in that feature of the novel
that lies both its strength and weakness.
Nails’ rant begins after
being ditched by his girlfriend Magda. The tirade continues as he careers
around town, slipping the odd nugget of texture – that the city is up in arms
against the ‘Russkies’ – the traders from Russia who are supposedly violating
Polish soil - and that Nails has himself
had it with Poland’s brand new model of capitalism.
His response is to get
off his head on speed and try it on with various women, at turns a goth, who
pukes up stones into his bath, a psychotic amphetamine freak who tears around
his flat looking for a fix and a truly scary arch-Catholic, who lectures him on
the evils of tobacco and alcohol. Nail’s angst intensifies when he fails to have
sex with any of them and as a reader you experience it as if he is shouting in
your ear.
Welsh’s prose is often the
same. The characters reel off a litany of tales and complaints without taking a
breath. In neither Maslowska nor Welsh does there seem time to take a pause for
thought. This is because of their preoccupation with how a novel ‘sounds’, as
Welsh himself said.
But we do not read with
our ears. Sometimes we need to switch off from the din and feel prose seep into
our minds without any noise, taking us from the daily grind and leading to the
gradual throb of enlightenment. Maslowska and Welsh, products of our
high-volume times, could do with turning it down just a touch.
Thursday 17 May 2012
Fashion, Music and Theatre Fused - Crossing Boundaries – Battling Mediocrity
Taken by Darron Palmer |
Let’s be in no doubt about it, we live in philistine
times. With the television show Britain’s Got Talent - already a shrine to
mediocrity - awarding its first prize to a dog we can safely say that the UK
has got issues with intellect and aesthetic taste.
Yet glimmers of inspiration do appear every now and
then, even on this often silly, sceptred isle.
On May 13th at the Adrian Boult Hall in
the Birmingham Conservatoire, an attempt was made to wake Britain up to its
real talent, with not a canine in sight.
A play, concert and fashion show, all-in-one, with
the proceeds going to charity, the ambition of the ‘Crossing Boundaries’ show
attracted skepticism, particularly from the local media whose support was
notable for its absence. You wonder what they were thinking when you take a
look at their often unreadable pages and unwatchable local TV programmes. Dross
is their watchword, the lowest common denominator their apparent guiding
principle, which is probably why they failed to turn up at the conservatoire on
Sunday.
The brainchild of local fashion designer, musician
and composer, Jojo Remeny, the ‘Crossing Boundaries’ extravaganza began with a
play addressing the prejudices of the 1960s, taking as its cue the experiences
of George Saunders, an immigrant and master tailor from St. Kitts who struggled
to find work in his trade because of the colour of his skin. He ended up a
factory worker when he should have been measuring up the rich and famous.
Consummately acted and brimming with humour, the play – written by Stephen
Moran – made an acerbic dig at the dying conservatism of the decade that
wrought so much change.
The concert began after a ten-minute break and made
one’s heart soar like a hawk. Fusing Indian music, classical and jazz music,
Jojo Remeny’s exquisite symphony took you on a journey through the continents
and the emotions too. Tabla, violin, guitar and horns conjoined here and there
in subdued harmony, rising temper and threatening crescendo, without the latter
yet coming to pass.
I had my doubts about fashion and serious music
being intertwined, if I am being honest. Clothing, however sophisticated,
bespeaks brand names and the high street; orchestras an escape from all that.
Others had reservations while watching the show, with some saying the models
should have made their presence felt earlier. I, for one, thought their
entrance perfectly timed.
The dancers in their monochrome skirts and dresses entered
the scene and glided down the stairway at a moment when the audience was
entranced by the music. At just the right time, that is. Their femininity with
its swaying hips and limbs flowed in tandem with the soft notes of the
musicians until the moment came to up the ante. Strictly choreographed, the
dancers/models responded in kind.
The show started with a play and ended with pure
epic theatre, proving that individual talent can meld brilliantly in abundant
directions.
Eclecticism is commonly frowned upon in our culture,
thinking it “too clever by half”. The ambition displayed by the ‘Crossing
Boundaries’ show won’t work, the cynics insist. There seem to be plenty of
those taking up office space at Birmingham’s media outlets right now.
Despite its apparent multi-culturalism, the UK has
developed an attitude of late that you have to be one thing or another when it
comes to artistic expression. Pigeon-holing is a national pastime and it is
unremittingly dull. Look out of the window, walk the streets. There is a world
of variety out there. Embrace it, and more importantly, get it into your skull.
Sunday 13 May 2012
Saturday 12 May 2012
Guest Blogger - Paul D. Brazill - Charlie Higson - The Godfather of Brit Grit?
Charlie
Higson - The Godfather of Brit Grit? by Paul D. Brazill
At some point in the ‘90s, I was on the guest list
for a press screening of Robert Benton’s crime drama, Twilight. The screening
was in Mr Young’s Preview Theatre in the heart of London’s Soho.
It was a dangerous thing to invite me to; there was
free food and drink. But there you go!
Various press types were there, including an
American with a grating voice and the great Kim Newman - who was being as
witty and funny and clever as you’d want.
Just before the film was due to start, a figure in a
shabby raincoat and carrying a rattling, clinking plastic bag turned up.
It was Charlie Higson, who at the time was film critic for Red
Magazine. Higson sat behind me during the film and, it seemed to my booze
sensitive ears, worked his way through a fair number of the bottles of beer
that were in the carrier bag.
Higson, at that time, was best known as one of the
stars and writers of The Fast Show – a brilliantly funny
and bitter-sweet comedy sketch show that has been much imitated and
never bettered. Now, he is probably best known as the author of the hugely
successful Young James Bond YA books.
But he is also the writer of a bunch of dark and
funny urban crime/ horror novels that led him to be described as “The missing
link between Dick Emery and Bret Easton Ellis”.
King Of The Ants, his 1992 début novel, is
the story of Sean, a pretty useless builder’s labourer, who covets the rich
peoples’ homes that he works on and is offered a dodgy surveillance job which
then turns into a contract kill. And worse.
King Of the Ants was praised by the great Patricia
Highsmith, no less, and the praise is deserved. It is a classic piece of Brit
Grit noir, full of bitterness, resentment and underachievement. And humour.
This was followed by more cracking books, including The
Full Whack, the cruel and hilarious story of a former football hooligan who is
trying to sort his life out when he encounters a couple of blasts
from the past that are positively seismic.
Charlie Higson will probably be up for an OBE or
something soon but don’t worry ‘bout the rocks that he’s got - Charlie Higson has TRUE
BRIT GRIT.
Paul
D. Brazill was born in England and now lives in Poland. He left school at
sixteen, played bass guitar in a couple of early '80s post-punk bands and once
saw Bert Kwouk very, very drunk.
He
started writing flash fiction & short stories at the end of 2008 and has
had them published in various magazines and anthologies, including The Mammoth
Book Of Best British Crime 8.
He
has since had two collections published -13 Shots Of Noir (Untreed Reads) &
Snapshots (Pulp Metal Fiction). Pulp Press will be publishing his novella Guns
Of Brixton soon and he has put together two anthologies, True Brit Grit,
published by Guilty Conscience, and Drunk On The Moon, published by Dark
Valentine Press. His blog is You Would Say That Wouldn’t You?
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