Merry Christmas Twilight

Sat here in the twilight of the inter-christmas/new year period its difficult to think of a more confusing time. Christmas, however entertaining or predictible passes by quickly to leave you bloated, heavier and probably slightly diabetic. Christmas is great though, even for someone who is, much like alot of us nowdays, extremely unreligious it is hard to find a more exciting and care-free time of the year when excuses are thrown out of the window and ever so slight friendships are rekindled, embarrassingly or not. Christmas has and will continue to lose its meaning in a world masked by advertising, consumer greed and material gain but even so it is hard not feel some enjoyment at eating and drinking a hideous amount of food and drink and glowing in the contentment of another great present. For a brief moment even the most cynical of realists can sit back and forget that the gap between rich and poor continues to grow at unmittigating rates and that the world is probably going to boill itself alive with us as the proverbial sprouts. Christmas is a brief wormhole that opens for a brief second to let older people peer into their childhood, it can and should be a time when that irritating 'conversation' with someone you dont really like can be forgiven and you can talk about every bland topic he or she wants to. It is happiness personified, even after a terrible year with every personal disaster imaginable taken place Christmas gives us the opportunity to take a brief restbite from it. I hate the fact Christmas is now 'advertised' from the start of October to entice people onto the high street but once it has quietly sprung upon us the joy of eternal youth can once again excusably reappear. If you are in Chesterfield for the New Year, unlucky, and watch out for the 'clones', unbelievably and dangerously bland.

Southsea

Take a cross-section of British society in its basic form, take the uniformity of the modern High Street and the mundane nature of the modern music fan and none would be found in Southsea. Quite a bold statement for such a small town located inside its uglier and often harder working older brother, Portsmouth. Southsea has and will undoubtedly continue to be an anomaly in an otherwise generic part of the south with some of the greatest cultural potential this side of Brighton but unlocking it will be the biggest quest the people of this town will ever have to achieve. Some would say that this has already been achieved and that Albert Road has fast become the street of choice for eaters and drinkers alike city-wide but I would say that the potential is far greater than people could imagine. In an age where the vast majority of the UK suffers from cultural stagnation it is refreshing to see that a small enclave of an island off an island can claim to be at the very heart of hedonism, a true gem of eclectic citizens all with the same relative ideas of live music and great atmosphere. You can go to very few places in Britain and feel part of something truly unique where, particularly along Albert Road, you are faced with an almost enviable mix of pubs, quirky shops and restaurants that haven’t sold their soul to corporatism and will probably continue in this same fashion for generations to come unbowed by the modernist’s dream of pedestrianisation and plastic facades.

Southsea truly holds the ultimate sense of eclecticism, a place that has been relatively well-hidden from the outside world as a place of character with an alternative vision. Walking amongst the Stella-boys migrating south from Guildhall walk you can still bump into the several thousand of students all vying for a place at the bar dressed in their golfing attire. Meanwhile you can still hold that drunken conversation with a member of the Old Conservative Club about the state of Sunday League refereeing whilst being heckled by twelve Pompey fans buoyant after Fulham away. This truly is the cosmopolitan mix that the Blairite years fascinated about, albeit without the middle-England blandness and wannabe’s drinking espresso’s on the pavement because they think it’s the done thing. One thing Southsea can claim is that it doesn’t subscribe to recent fads or trends in popular culture in so much that you can be 99% sure that whatever is popular in the rest of the country Southsea refuses to follow suit. The scene-ista’s that give any town or city its edge have found their home in Southsea too through the recent indie-girl converts hanging around the bands in Jonny Russell’s to the Fred Perry mopheads reliving a mod-revival moment because you can add a swagger and a Marlboro Light and be someone else. With only two credible live music venues dotted around Albert Road its hard to believe that so many bands have had the chance to showcase their talents and this has always been the real let-down with an otherwise up and coming scene. With more and more places to eat and drink opening all the time surely it is time to really showcase the talent and solidarity of such a fascinating corner of the world and provide the places and nights with which the potential truly deserves.

High Street Clones

Has individualism been eroded? For the past few years, following trends in music and popular culture ive genuinely found it exciting at the prospect of the generic excesses of the so called hip-hop generation being replaced by a more care-free attitude intertwined with indie credentials. Its good to see more and more people ditch the glitsy clubs for sweaty pubs and live music but distressingly what has happened is people have become confused as to what they have become. It used to be easy to spot the pretenders from the genuine article but what we have seen now is this uniformity start to take hold once again. Everywhere you look people are afraid to truly commit to something uniquely individual. People feel forced to follow the crowd and in some respects feel they are being truly original by wearing or listening to something different but what they in fact doing is wearing or listening to something that is a by-product of the current trend. This has always been the case through passing subcultures from the arrival of rock and roll from america at the start of the fifties, to early mods and rockers, the original skins, mod revival, new romantics and lad-mag britpop. What is different today is the fact it isn't possible to pigeon-hole any existing movement, some could say that this is absolute individualism, I would say that people are more confused than ever and are looking at their parrot-top hairstyles for answers. The answer to the majority is to wear your cardigan without knowing what it truly represents. Walk around any provincial town on a Friday or Saturday night and you wouldn't be inspired, you would be bored, bored by seeing nothing but comfort-zone fashion.