Baby Bar
30 Walton St
(01865) 515910 Baby Bar is one of those amazing places where you arrange to
meet a friend for coffee in the afternoon, and find yourself
emerging several hours later, having whiled away the hours in an
excellent atmosphere accompanied by delicious cocktails and
fantastic food, lulled by laid back yet upbeat music. Baby offers
a huge selection of tempting cocktails – there is always at
least one house special. As ever, it is not just the drinks you
are paying for, but the surroundings, and baby is one of the best
bars/restaurants in Oxford in terms of ambience and staff –
it is relaxed, unpretentious and has excellent service, as well
as benefiting from a terrace overlooking Walton street. It is
idyllic to sit on an early summer’s evening with cocktail in
hand, watching the world go by. Baby serves delicious food – it is testament to the
tantalising nature of the menu that we went in for a drink, had a
glance at the menu, and could not resist what was on offer. It is
just the right size, with enough choice to please everyone, but
not so much that you are overwhelmed; overall it fits in with the
ethos of bar baby – simple, classic food with a modern
twist. I had spaghetti with grilled gambas prawns in a lime coriander
and chilli sauce, and my friend had steak with mashed potato
– both were excellent. Other delights on offer include tuna
rostis with mango salsa, lamb, fish of the day, pizza, as well as
various salads, side dishes, starters, puddings, and there is
even a children’s menu and breakfast. It is quite expensive at £10- £14 for a main meal, and about
£5-£6 for breakfast, but definitely worth it for a special
occasion. Overall Baby Bar definitely needs to be visited, and
having been there once there is every chance that you will become
a regular part of the clientele, enticed back by the excellent
food, cocktails, atmosphere and service.ARCHIVE: 2nd week TT 2004 

If you read last week’s article, those glorious hats
should now be adorning your rain-drenched hair. Do not think,
however, that just because it is cold, and you have a big bright
hat on, you can hide away from having a suitable top. Tops are one of the hardest things to get right. The colours,
the shapes, the sizes – there is so much that can go wrong
– and so little that ever goes completely right. Boys: It is important not to assume that
every t-shirt that looks like your size is your size. Having
found the appropriate chest size, look at the length. With your
arms in the air, the t-shirt should just reach the top of your
waistband (assuming you aren’t wearing your trousers half
way down your bum, or around your rib cage). The colour really can be anything you like, but originality is
key, so try your best. As it is chilly, a nice jumper always
looks good. Preferably vnecked, and non-stripey. Stripes are
everywhere, as Gap goes on sale. Shirts look good, but I am not a fan of the ‘I look smart
casual, because I have a smart shirt but haven’t tucked it
in’. I think there is definite evidence to show that tucked
in shirts, pulled out (so it doesn’t look like a skin tight
body warmer) look very good. With rolled up sleeves, they
definitely suit those of you with boatie hats, or fedoras (I like
to think I can advise the minority too). Girls: Watch out for the size. Your breasts,
and for that matter your bra, are very important here. If you are
going to wear a tight top, don’t wear a ruffled bra, and
make sure your bra fits – no one wants to see back spillage.
If you have big breasts DO NOT be overly summery, i.e., avoid too
much ornamentation and busy patterns. Halter necks can look good,
but if you have big breasts, do some damage limitation. If you are less well-endowed in the chest area, then you can
get away with anything – I think loose tie halter necks look
especially good. Colour, shape, design – paying more
definitely means getting more. Even if two t-shirts look the
same, always get the more expensive one – it will have
subtle tailoring that makes the top look like it fits. Beware of
the mass produced t-shirts – vintage style is only vintage
if it isn’t worn by anybody else. I also offer a caveat about strapless bras. They have a
tendency to pre-occupy the wearer, causing them to
‘hoist’ at every opportunity. Also, they tend to pull
your breasts down, making them look saggy. Two essential
accessories: double-sided sellotape – keep those boob tubes
over your breasts. And duct tape: keep those breasts in check (I
have not tested the duct tape advice – it seems intrusive
and painful. I just stick to bras). And if you are going to wear spaghetti tops, white bras with
black tops are not attractive. Be subtle – yes, the boys do
look at your breasts, regardless of what you wear, or how you
wear it.ARCHIVE: 2nd week TT 2004 

It’s an age old question: what influences a person’s
character? Is it nature or nurture? In a new book released this
week Helen Morrison, a forensic psychiatrist who has interviewed
over 80 murderers, adds her own slant to the question. We are a nation currently obsessed with serial killers. Every
new drama programme seems to be an off-shoot of Cracker, Prime
Suspect,or the like. The popularity of CSI is what made Channel 5
respectable, so popular in fact that it spawned CSI Miami, and
CSI New York. The latest film to depict the life and times of a
serial killer, Monster, was a hit with critics and audience
alike. With its detailing of the minds and behaviours of some of
the world’s most horrifying serial killers, no doubt
Morrison’s book will hit the bestseller lists. So, what is this morbid fascination with complete inhumanity?
There is something of the car crash phenomenon in it. We are
compelled to watch something tragic, something out of the
ordinary. We are drawn to view death, in all its gruesome forms.
Perhaps it makes us feel more alive, more grateful for life.
Someone stuck in the rut of mundanity can tell themselves that no
matter how much life sucks, at least they haven’t been
dismembered and buried under someone else’s porch. It’s
a life affirming thing. But even more compelling is the desire to make sense of
something so completely senseless. How can members of our own
race be capable of such evil acts? How is it that people,
possibly people we know, can take actions which revolt against
every moral, ethical, and emotional code that we follow?
It’s like watching a freak show, a version of the circus
displaying the Elephant man, the bearded lady, the Siamese twins
joined at their skulls. They are like us but unlike us, part of
the same species but seemingly a different strain of the race.
Serial killers distinguish themselves by the horrific nature of
their behaviour. Yet they still look like us. While television shows mainly focus on the killing rather than
the killer, films such as Monster invariably draw upon the
killer’s history, their invariably extreme childhood abuse
and severe mental anguish, in an attempt to begin to explain
their actions. We don’t like things we can’t explain;
they are more dangerous, less controllable and by that reasoning,
less preventable. This is the appeal of the nurture argument. If
it can all be put down to life circumstances, then maybe we can
undo it, even catch it before it’s too late. If we take more
care of our young people, our abandoned, rejected, neglected,
then perhaps they won’t grow up to do obscene things. The
argument against this, of course, is that while killers, without
exception, have suffered abuse in their lives, only a very, very
small minority of abused youngsters grow into killers. This is a
point made by Morrison, who’s firmly on the side of Nature.
She suffered serious abuse in foster homes as a child. If abuse
was the link in serial killers “then why are not all abused
children serial killers?” She writes, “I was physically
abused. I am not a murderer.” It’s certainly a good point. Perhaps while abuse is a
necessary factor, it is not a sufficient one. Morrison believes
that the cause is purely nature; that the killer’s addiction
to killing stems from a genetic anomaly. More specifically, she
contends that there is a fault in the hypothalamus – the
section of the brain that regulates emotions and moods. She also
draws attention to role played by chemicals in the body, such as
oxytocin and vasopressin, which instigate emotions. The idea that evil behaviour stems from nature, some kind of
chemical imbalance, appeals because it sets such people apart
from the rest of us. ‘They’re crazy’ we’re
reassured; no one we know could possibly act like that. Watching
the activities of serial killers on television is one thing.
Thinking they might live next door to us is quite another.
Thinking they might sleep next to us is inconceivable. Yet, as
Morrison points out, most serial killers have families. This, she explains, is precisely because of the very normality
of it: “Most serial killers rarely abuse those very close to
them because the very idea of a wife and kids is part of a
structure that keeps them ‘normal’”. Nor do they
look particularly crazy on the outside. The Yorkshire Ripper, for
example, spent hours grooming himself and, like many others, was
polite, even charming, on first meeting. It is scary to us that
we may not be able to identify a resident evil residing close to
us. Morrison doesn’t know exactly what it is inside the brain
that drives serial killers, but she believes that with the
advances in medical testing we one day will. This is the reason
that she keeps the brain of notorious killer John Wayne Gacy (who
killed 33 young men and buried them under his house) in her
basement, in the hope that it will prove useful in future medical
research. Morrison likens serial killing to drug addiction. While
interviewing the Ohio killer Michael Lee Lockhart (who murdered
and eviscerated 20 women) she had a breakthrough of
understanding. She asked him about his first victim; what led him to kill for
the very first time? He told her how he had got up late in the
morning, and while in the shower: “It hit me. I had to go
out and get me one.” “That was the one sentence that
made everything gel,” according to Morrison. “In my
psychiatric practice, I treat drug addicts. I know when they need
their drug, they have to get it and nothing else exists. The
drugs for people like Lockhart are the people they murder. They
are addicted to killing.” Perhaps one day we will be able to
identify a gene that drives people to compulsively kill. We will
isolate and treat it. One can only hope. But we should not let
our search for this make us overlook the less obscene, but more
prevalent, abuses that continue unabated in our world.ARCHIVE: 2nd week TT 2004 

As we belt down the autopista from Jose Marti airport towards
Havana centre, crammed into our Soviet-built red taxi, this long
hidden corner of the world opened up before us. 1950 Chevrolets
and Cadillacs ploughed past us as our driver effortlessly dodged
the bustling crowds huddled around nuclei of domino games set up
in the slow-lane. Like moths the people of suburban Havana were
waking from their siestas and heading out to the lights of the
motorway. We pulled up outside a crumbing building in a warren of
apparently deserted streets just off the seafront, and it took us
a moment to realise that this was our destination, the Hotel
Lido, gloriously sold to us in the brochure. Stepping out into
the dark humidity of the street we were mobbed by a crowd of kids
who had been playing football in the shadows and now smelt
profit. They showered us with questions: Where you from? You want
dinner? You need a room? In our first few days in Havana we were offered every product
or service imaginable. The large numbers of police no doubt
controlled over enthusiastic sellers but most of the time they
sat on steps with the same people who offered goods, often
sharing a cigar. A casual “You want a cigar?” would be
thrown at us by every passer-by to such an extent that it became
an expected greeting: “You want a cigar?”, “No,
gracias.” The sellers soon became part of the background scenery of the
bustling city and indeed were vital for a little greediness of
our own. Large boxes of cigars even in Cuba went for $120 in the
shops, in the UK this price trebled. On the street, however, the
same boxes went for $30 and searching out the best bargain became
a game that we indulged in with glee. The dilapidated area around
our hotel proved to be a heavily populated and classy area of the
city full of large houses with paint-pealing facades, balconies
and high–ceilinged rooms, not great for dodgy trading. One thing that we soon learnt about Cubans was that they loved
to play gangster with elaborate code words, pick-up points and
hidden store rooms commonplace. Soon we were following, as
instructed, a scruffy local lad who scampered 30 metres ahead of
us through the winding alleys of one of Havana’s more
salubrious quarters. This was the standard game to avoid being
spotted by the police who, in truth, didn’t really care that
the legality of the trade was questionable. Eventually reaching a
little bar we were subtly directed with a veiled nod from the
waiter through a curtain at the back of the shop. Two of us were
then told to follow while two waited for ‘security
purposes’. We were led ever-upwards along a maze of walkways
that circled the interior of the building and led into a room on
the sixth floor. Up to this point I will admit we were scared, and these cigars
were beginning to seem just that bit too expensive. On entering
the little room, however, all fears were dispelled: three kids
sat on a plush sofa watching a pirated copy of Stuart Little with
Spanish subtitles while Grandma baked in the kitchen before
offering us a couple of beers. Before long we were well settled,
sipping beer and watching TV on a Sony widescreen: good times in
a cigar smuggler’s den. Enlightened by the amiability of our
first deal, the street traders took on a whole new aspect: no
longer irritants, they were now colleagues. To the west our quarter faced the sea, bordering the famous
Malecon, the seafront of Havana and one of the most photographed
views in the Caribbean. The regular hurricanes that rush through
this area, on their way to more profitable grounds further north,
have beaten the houses along this road in a beautifully haunting
vision of faded glory that no amount of designer distressing
could ever have achieved. The endless noise of the capital and the pollution soon forced
us into the countryside and we managed to secure an illegal
private taxi to take us south-west to the sugarloaf- shaped
mountains around the small town of Vinales. Our driver was a
middle aged tobacco picker named Armando who procured a bit of
extra income driving his car to Havana and back every week.
Despite the excruciatingly long list of animals that he managed
to run over along the way, Armando was an honest and genuinely
friendly guy. He sold us nothing but the taxi ride and even then
refused to accept a tip from students. Two days later he returned
to take us to a little beach he knew where we spent a day on a
boat catching jellyfish, smoking cigars and discussing American
foreign policy. As we entered customs at Heathrow on our way home, grubby,
tanned, with bottles of Havana Club and boxes of Cohiba stashed
in our backpacks an official asked us if we had anything to
declare and without thinking we replied, “No, gracias,”
before sharing a last cigar on the pavement outside.ARCHIVE: 2nd week TT 2004 

Summer is here (finally). Time to join every other Oxford
student in the University Parks. For those of you who enjoy
spending your afternoon in close proximity to a hundred sweaty
bodies, I highly recommend it. However, others of us seek more
space, more solitude in our escapes. For such spatially conscious
folk, I suggest taking a little trip to Port Meadow. This beautiful bunch of fields has much to recommend it. First
of all it’s not too far away. In Oxford student terms it
might be unreachable but, for those of you who can walk more than
a few metres without having a coronary, it’s just past the
Phoenix Picture House. Go to Peppers (and pick up a kebab to
rival the offerings of that greasy van opposite St John’s)
and turn left. There you’ll find a vast expanse of green, flowing rivers
populated by geese and swans, and long paths that lead to the
Trout, itself a haven too oft missed by many an insular Oxonian.
The walk to the Trout is a lovely one. A few miles along the
river, past the ruins of a twelfth century abbey, and over an old
stone bridge. And at the end of that all the Pimms you can drink
without passing out. A sweet way to spend a Saturday afternoon. But the best thing about Port Meadow is that, while in reality
you are only a stone’s throw from the city centre you feel
as though you’ve been transported to some distant location,
a tranquil piece of the countryside. It’s expansive,
beautiful and, best of all, empty. So make haste. Get there
before word gets around and Port Meadow becomes more packed with
the upper middle classes than the south of France.ARCHIVE: 2nd week TT 2004 

Private Eye raises hell. Always has done – it’s been
sued more times than anyone can count and provides much weekly
amusement, from titters to belly-laughs, at the expense of the
famous, the pompous and the crooked (preferably all three in one
person). You’d expect the former editor-in-chief, Richard
Ingrams, would not have gone gently into any future jobs. So what
controversial, high-profile publication does he currently helm? He’s now editor of The Oldie magazine, which caters for
those advancing in years. Does he think he’s done anything
to improve the image of old people through the magazine?
“No, not really. I don’t think I’ve done anything
– I’m not in the business of campaigning for certain
causes. It’s a bit of a joke.” This doesn’t sound
like someone who used to run a magazine famed for strong views on
people. The killer streak always perceptible in Private Eye’s
style seems to have mutated into the irascibility not
unassociated with the elderly. Does he think The Oldie has any
other purpose than to entertain, then? Another ‘no’:
“The purpose of all journalism and writing, I think, should
be to entertain, rather than to have some crusading ambitious
aim.” This seems strange given Private Eye’s
longenduring vendettas. Is he proud of what he did at Private Eye? He laughs. “I
certainly had a lot of fun when I was there. I’m very
pleased it’s survived so long, you know, forty years now. In
the life of any magazine forty years is impressive; most are gone
very quickly. It’s a cause of pleasure.” This pleasure seems to derive from the smugness of getting one
over one’s enemy; Ingrams‘ favourite stories from his
years at the Eye are “running campaigns against Robert
Maxwell, James Goldsmith, Jeremy Thorpe. Those are
memorable.” Private Eye was a major irritant to those
figures, who made perfect targets for the magazine’s
particular brand of pompbursting satire; in Maxwell, fame,
self-importance and criminality combined to make him a legitimate
mark (in the magazine’s view) for their unrelenting attacks. Was Private Eye a valid forum for such campaigns, in his
opinion? “It was certainly very useful for ridiculing public
figures. It’s an entirely independent organism, unlike
others which are owned by newspaper or media conglomerates; the
editor has total control, which is rare nowadays. I was there
when Peter Cook was proprietor and there was complete freedom;
Ian Hislop now has complete freedom.” Despite fond recollections, no journalist escapes without
regrets, especially true for Ingrams since Private Eye could cut
deeply. “There were lots of mistake in that long period, but
when you consider that it was such a long period, it’s not
to be wondered at. Of course, my memory’s bad now so I
can’t remember too specifically. Take the Hitler Diaries
– we were taken for a ride with those. There was nothing
else on that scale – mainly details were wrong. When I look
at it again, the Eyewas right, the people it went for were right.
There’s a danger when you attack small people who don’t
have the money to sue or defend themselves.” We move on to what seems to be a national pastime these days
– taking people to court. It is not, however, as prevalent
here yet as it is in America, where it’s practically been
written into the Constitution. On the subject of suing, does he
think the media culture today is becoming overly litigious?
“No, in fact I’d say it was the other way round when
compared with the old days. Jeffrey Archer, going to jail for
lying, has put people off suing and litigation. The media has
always been litigious, on the other hand. Journalists are far
more selfimportant than politicians and so are more likely to
sue. Take Sir Harold Evans, the former Times and Sunday Times
editor. He came to think of himself quite highly.” I sense a high–profile rivalry of the sort which
newspaper barons used to have, channelling their views through
their papers. This is an interesting line worth pursuing, and
Ingrams doesn’t seem like he will hold back. I plunge in:
does he have any schadenfreude over what’s been happening to
Harold Evans and his wife, Tina Brown (former editor of The New
Yorker and Vanity Fair whose latest effort, Talk, folded
ignominiously)? “Oh yes, tremendous schadenfreude,
tremendous. I knew her when she was an Oxford student. The way to
get in to journalism was to interview, and she was a fetching
young blonde lady who charmed many old men. She’s now a
queen bee.” Does he think her fame is commensurate with her
ability? “Well, I never had a high opinion of her as a
journalist. She was socially very ambitious. Vanity Fairand
similar, they’re puff magazines doing publicity for people
you’ve never heard of. If you become rich and famous in
America and then fail, they turn on you.” I think it’s best to move on in case the
Evans-Brown’s lawyers decide to pick up this week’s
Cherwell. An innocuous – well, less sensitive – topic
suggests itself: does he think a magazine like Private Eyewould
go down well in America? But Ingrams is in full swing. “The
thing about America is that American magazines are all about
people you’ve never heard of – rich businessmen, movie
stars and so on. Americans don’t like satire and gossip.
Graydon Carter (current editor of Vanity Fair) started Spy, which
was like Private Eye. I admired it, but it didn’t last that
long. Graydon Carter’s now a prosperous- looking man running
Vanity Fair; that’s what happens – you go from
satirical to businessman.” Moving away from America (I pray), we turn to the home front.
Is there anyone he thinks has a big future in journalism? Anyone
he currently admires? “I don’t tend to follow young
careers. I like the journalism of the Independentand particularly
its coverage of the Iraq War. Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn
– they’re extremely good.” Some positive comments.
Phew. Does he like them for their political views or for the
quality of their writing? “It’s probably a bit of both,
I suppose. I really admire oldfashioned journalists – the
problem with journalists today is that they sit in front of
computer screens. It’s old-fashioned going out and talking
to people. The problem was when all the newspapers moved into
Docklands – they went out of the centre of town and now
they’re isolated from the city.” So is journalism more
impersonal now? “It’s much more impersonal and not such
fun. Back then, the hugga-mugga journalists mixed with one
another and with MPs. It’s a very different scene.” As we’re finishing the interview, Ingrams offers the
following: “I hope that was suitably Victor Meldrew-ish for
you.” Quite.ARCHIVE: 2nd week TT 2004 

Phobias are, by definition, irrational fears, though it would
seem that some are more irrational than others. A fear of heights
on the top of a skyscraper could certainly be deemed rational. A
fear of spiders, especially in the outback of Australia,
doesn’t seem too crazy. Triskaidekaphobia, fear of the
number thirteen, or fear of antique furniture (Billy Bob
Thornton’s personal nightmare), would appear to be a little
farther down the wacky scale. I used to be terrified of sharks.
At the time though this seemed perfectly rational to me, evil
little killing machines that they are, the mockery of my family
told a different story. They weren’t much better though. My mum couldn’t go
within ten feet of a caterpillar and my dad wouldn’t
accompany me on a big wheel when I was a kid. My brother
wasn’t scared of a thing. As I grew up and began to delve into myself a little more, I
learnt the truth behind fears – from phobias to totally
rational terrors. Phobias are, of course, a fear of life
manifested as a fear of death – Woody Allen told me this
himself. But seriously, phobias keep you limited, they keep you
from taking risks. The fear of death keeps you from feeling fully
alive. If you overcome these fears, you feel levels of excitement
in areas you haven’t touched before. Overcoming my fear of
sharks certainly made taking baths a lot more fun. All phobias are the same, they all come from the same fear,
and the way they manifest just demonstrates the level of that
fear. So a phobia that isn’t very restricting, like
Triskaidekaphobia, doesn’t affect a person’s life
significantly, there isn’t much they won’t do.
Agoraphobia, on the other hand, speaks of a much deeper level of
fear, since it thoroughly stops the sufferer from participating
in life. In a sense all fear could be defined as irrational.
Rationality is measured by the degree of correlation between the
internal and external state. So a fear of sharks that stops you
taking a dip in the local swimming pool seems significantly more
irrational than the same fear that makes you think twice before
testing the waters in Brisbane. But the fear is the same, only
the external circumstances have changed. If you were to walk
through a field and see a snake, you’d probably feel a
little scared: your pulse would quicken, you’d remain still,
you might worry about extricating yourself from the situation.
Then, on second glance, you realize it was a rope. Suddenly
everything changes, you’d step over it and keep walking. It is only ever your internal thoughtthat define your fears.
If you never learnt to be scared of anything you wouldn’t
be. Of course it’s quite right, people tell you, to be a
little scared of some things – it’s called being
sensible. But you can still be sensible while realising that fear
– all fear – stems from your own thoughts about life
rather than life itself. Life is straightforward. It will tell
you that if you jump into the lion’s den you’re likely
to get mauled to death. So if you don’t want to die,
don’t do it. That doesn’t mean you need to be scared of
the lions. And since we encounter lions in life about as often as
we encounter sharks, you might find that fears in general are
pretty pointless. And, if you challenge your fearful thoughts
about life, you’ll find you’ve got nothing to fear.ARCHIVE: 2nd week TT 2004 

There are very few things that are seriously wrong with
Britain at the moment. OK, so the weather might be crap, the food
nowhere near as refined, or varied, as continental cooking, and
our standing on the world stage after the war in Iraq might be
lower than an earwig’s jockstrap. However there is hardly
anything that is seriously, grievously, and disturbingly wrong
with this country. In fact, the only thing that gives me serious
cause for concern is a newspaper. The Daily Mail’s reputation is well known. To anyone who
knows anything about the press, the mere name of the paper will
conjure up images of full-page, attention-grabbing headlines, of
lurid tales of celebrity “scandals”, of clumsy
“lifestyle” articles, and, most distressingly, of the
neverending stream of articles telling the reader why immigrants
are a bunch of sweaty, ignorant, thieving, disease-ridden
freeloaders. Barely a day goes past without an article of this
sort wriggling its noxious way into the Mail. If you go into a
newsagent’s today and pick up a copy – don’t buy
it, you’ll only encourage them – I’d be willing to
bet that somewhere inside its pages, either as a news piece, an
editorial, or a column, is an article attacking immigrants.
It’s as inevitable as finding maggots in a dead body, or
finding tossers in the Union. You just can’t get away from
it. What came as a surprise to me was to find out that attitudes
that would clearly offend modern morality, not to mention the
Race Relations Act, were prevalent in the Daily Mail quite some
time ago. Go back to the 20 August 1938, when the Mail declared
“the way stateless Jews from Germany are pouring in through
every port of this country is becoming an outrage…a problem
to which the Daily Mail has repeatedly pointed.” Or perhaps
3 February 1900, when the Mail described Jewish immigrants thus:
“When the Relief Committee passed by they hid their gold and
fawned and whined in broken English asking for money for their
train fare.” Or how about the headline they ran just before
the Second World War, “Hoorah for the Blackshirts”, in
praise of Mosley, Mussolini, and Nazi Germany? Today, such reporting would come nowhere near the presses, and
to judge attitudes from the early part of the last century by
modern standards is perhaps not entirely fair. Yet given those
modern sensibilties, which we are entitled to see respected, the
paper’s current stance is clearly unacceptable. When presented with a wave of immigrants that they think pose
a threat to “the British way of life” (even though
British history is itself a history of immigration, rather than
the ancient, staid, traditional history that they would like it
to be) the Mail has always placed itself firmly on the side of
the average, self-respecting, middle class homeowner – the
classic “Middle England” stereotype – and has
attacked the immigrants, whether they be Jewish, Caribbean,
Indian or, more recently, asylum seekers, with a ferocity that is
simultaneously astounding and alarming. Barely controlling their
rage, barely managing to swallow the bile that is oozing between
their lips and onto the page, Mail writers tear into their chosen
target like a famished tiger tearing into a goat. It’s not
pretty to see. So why is this piece about “Phobia”? What’s the
link? Simply this: by constantly attacking foreign immigrants in
this way, the Daily Mail is tapping into the fear of outsiders
that is so powerful in an island nation. The image of foreigners
arriving on this island, a crafty smile on their lips, eager to
make a fast buck for themselves either by begging money for their
train fare from the Relief Committee or by milking the benefits
system, is a powerful one, and it hasn’t changed since the
Mail started using it. People who live on an island are bound to
be wary of outsiders, since foreigners who come from overseas
seem somehow more outlandish than someone simply trotting over a
land boundary. The Daily Mailtaps into this fear and milks it for
all its worth. One way they do this is by setting up basic stereotypes of the
people they tend to deal with. Asylum seekers, for example, are
all devious, grasping, cheats. Tax-paying single mothers are all
hard-working heroes, nobly refusing to bow to reality, stoically
struggling on. Young people all wear baseball caps, hang around
on street corners, steal cars, and mug grannies to raise funds to
pay for their drug habit. Princess Diana was a saintly, flawless
Princess of the People, who was treated horribly by the
stiff-lipped, inbred, fools of the Royal Family. And so on, and
so forth. By constantly referring to this wellthumbed album of one
dimensional, grotesque, stereotypes, the Daily Mail ensures that
their articles can be understood by absolutely everyone because
their aims are so blatantly obvious. The Mail lives in a
pantomime world of heroes, villains and good and evil, except
their world isn’t as funny as a pantomime, nor as logical. As I said at the beginning, the Mail’s reputation is well
known. What concerns me is that it is one of the most popular
newspapers in the country. Its circulation figures for March this
year are disturbing: almost 2.4 million copies a day. That’s
2.4 million people being spoon-fed a one-dimensional, misleading
and poisonous diet of middle- class, knee-jerk xenophobia every
single day. What concerns me even more is that there are 2.4
million people in the country who are willing to believe this
sort of tripe, and willing to pay for the privilege of reading
it. The Daily Mail, clearly, is immensely successful at what it
does: targeting its audience and tapping into the fear that they
feel, which is, after all, one of the most powerful emotions
humans can feel. And unless Middle England has a freakish
collective change of heart and decides that foreigners are
alright after all, we’ll be seeing a lot more of Lynda
Lee-Potter and her poisonous ilk for some time yet.ARCHIVE: 2nd week TT 2004 

How did you get into journalism? Slogged my
way through local papers from the age of 21, sleeping with
anybody who could help me (I was beautiful then, of course) until
I enjoyed overnight success at the age of 47. You can meet anyone living or dead. Who do you chose?
Well, if I had to meet somebody who was dead, I would prefer it
to be somebody who had corpsed at least 150 years ago, because
there would be no chance that they were still reeking of
putrefaction. Oh, I see what you mean; for entirely immoral
reasons Marilyn Monroe before Arthur Miller got to her. How would you advise a woman to respond to the
advances of a potential ‘microwave man’? Hey!
“Potential”? You either are a Microwave Man, or you
aren’t. I would advise her to sleep with people she wanted
to sleep with, and not to hang around waiting for men to make the
running, which is, frankly, an act of craven passivity which sets
back the cause of liberation by decades. What would be the perfect start to a day? The
phone rings. It’s my publisher. Not only does the UK love my
new novel, but it has taken the States by storm. David Letterman
wants me (in a media way), Tom Cruise wants to be me (in a
cinematic way) and Rupert Murdoch, shocked to learn of the meagre
salary I have been receiving from his faceless minions, and
determined to make amends for the years of wage slavery, wants to
court me (in a slacks-and-sensible- shoes way). Is a microwave meal best eaten shared? Hell
no; it’s best not eaten at all. Having said that, it is
pathetically easy to switch on a woman’s caring instincts by
inviting her round for a meal and then dorkishly
“preparing” something for the micro from Tesco’s
Finest range – it’s a short step to a post-nutritional
sympathy shag. Which fruit would best describe you and why? A
bruised peach, because it sums up the roughness of my surface
texture, contrasting so poignantly with my soft, internal
vulnerability. Or possibly an enormous banana (but not as
yellow). Do you ever worry about being too exposed? Hardly:
my body is a mausoleum. All people really want to hear about is
shagging. And you would be surprised by how upset a shaggee can
become when she reads an account in a national newspaper of how
much fun I have just had with a third-party. But hey, as I always
pompously say: invite an artist into your bed and you are bound
to get paint on your sheets. It’s no dejeuner sur
l’herbedown here in the gutter, I can tell you. Last words? Read me in T2, every Friday in
The Times, email me, offer me money and I will mention you in my
upcoming book. Unless you’re a bloke, obviously. Or studying
engineering.ARCHIVE: 2nd week TT 2004 

If asked to name a play by Yasmina Reza, surely every avid
theatregoer would suggest Art, the play that achieved global
success in the last decade of the millennium and cemented
Reza’s reputation as a talented playwright. But her first
theatrical work, written in her native French and only translated
into English after the triumph of Art, is just as intricately
constructed. Director Andrea Ferran has chosen a play which is rarely
performed, yet full of subtlety, and with the help of a competent
cast and an acute sense of the tragic, she has created a
production of unusual humanity. The play is concerned with the responses of two brothers and a
sister to the death of their father, coupled with the
complications developing from the unwelcome presence of Elisa
(Cassie Browne), formerly the mistress of one brother and now in
love with the other. The burial of the corpse has unearthed hidden enmities which
force themselves to the surface despite great efforts to conceal
them. The cast rise admirably to this challenge, presenting a
crowd of characters all unable to express themselves properly to
each other. Edith (Poppy Burton-Morgan), the wistful daughter, sits with
her knees clasped to her as if trying desperately to protect
herself, and her brother Nathan (Alex Baker) represses his inner
turmoil under masculine bravado. The stand-out performance is
that of Tegan Shohet as Julienne, trying to articulate
unutterable emotions in a faltering stammer that is
simultaneously funny and sad. The most poignant aspect of this play is that the
characterisation is instantly recognisable from reality.
Reza’s merciless portrayal of these men and women does not
sentimentalise family life at all. She has been attributed with
saying that “human beings are vile” – and judging
by this play, her insight is horrific and true.ARCHIVE: 2nd week TT 2004