Five Favourite Films

As someone who claims to like cinema (sometimes arguably too much), I always come up embarrassingly short whenever I am asked my favourite films. So here are five favourite films (and then some) for me to frantically refer to on my phone next time the question is asked.

Rebecca, dir. Alfred Hitchcock

If the unfortunate majority of the world didn’t hate horror, and the unfortunate majority of horror films weren’t awful, scary cinema would form 90% of my recommendations. I love to be scared. In lieu of properly horrifying recommendations  Hitchcock will have to do, an undisputed king of making you feel afraid. And although Rebecca unlike Psycho is more of a slow-burning thriller than an outright horror film, I actually think it does its job of terrifying a lot of better than his more famous screamers. Based on one of my favourite ever novels and part of Hitchock’s love affair with adaptations of Daphne Du Maurier, that creeping fear of people past and present translates perfectly from page to screen.

I love Hitchcock, and to be honest I rate Vertigo, Dial M For Murder and Rear Window just as highly. (Not The Birds though. The Birds is bad.)

The Grand Budapest Hotel, dir. Wes Anderson

This isn’t necessarily my favourite Wes Anderson film, but all Wes Anderson is fabulous so it seems as good a place to start as any. Colours, actors, whimsy, humour – he’s got it all, and he also still shoots on film but in the least dogmatic way possible:

“In a year, in two years, I don’t know if it will be a reasonable option to shoot on film. Sometimes I see a movie now that is shot digitally and I don’t even know. I am interested in all different kinds of filmmaking. I don’t know if I see something slipping away. There are lots of very strong-minded, personal filmmakers and they will always do what they believe in.”

(Source)

Three Colours: White, dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski

French and Polish cinema are my all-time faves, and Kieślowski combines both in his Three Colours trilogy of fab cinema. Three Colours: White is the one I have been drawn back to again and again, a strangely sympathetic tale of loss and revenge set between Paris and Krakow. It is understated and beautifully shot, and has more in common than a language with one of my favourite pieces of cinematography of all time, Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida. Like Fish Tank’s Andrea Arnold, Pawlikowski lifts non-actresses off the street to find the most magnetic faces out there, and by gosh it works well. (Seriously, every frame is gold.)

Samsara, dir. Ron Fricke

Samsara is a non-narrative documentary film about nature, humanity, life, the universe and everything etc etc, and that may not sound tempting but it is life-changingly excellent. My hard-of-hearing aunt and I stumbled across it at the amazing Eye cinema in Amsterdam, as a conveniently dialogue-free viewing option. It has soaring images and a soaring soundtrack, and I recommend it and its prequel Bakara as feasts for the eyes and the mind. They examine the ways – good and AWFUL – that humans interact with the planet in a refreshingly un-didactic manner – this is no An Inconvenient Truth.

(For watching on as enormous a screen as possible.)

Mean Girls, dir. Mark Waters

I don’t care what you think, I don’t care, this is probably my no. 1 film of all time.

Brainchild

I spent last weekend at Brainchild Festival, a DIY festival of art, music and performance in the arcadian grounds of the Bentley Wildfowl and Motor Museum in Sussex. It’s a volunteer-led festival with few attendees outside of the 20-26-year-old-creative-persuasion demographic beside the woman who owns the land. And her small fat dog who hates men and barks at them if they get too close. I took up the option of putting in 10 hours of work across the festival to halve my ticket price, doing everything from deep-frying in the kitchen to litter-picking to bar-tending to guarding the showers. It was a lovely three days, even if I came across even more art students dressed from their own childhood 90s wardrobe than I might in an afternoon on Dalston High Street.

One of the best parts of the festival were the myriad art installations to interact with (and mainly sit on). A giant cereal box that opened on the second day to spew giant foam Lucky Charms; a maze of hula hoops and coloured yarn that over the course of the festival become more and more complex and difficult to navigate when drunk; a rainbow-painted wooden living room complete with wooden pond, pot plants and window out onto the rainbow sunsets. Our favourite was the giant colouring wall by illustrator Betty Woodhouse, complete with pots of felt-tips and excited gaggles of 20-somethings. Performances ranged from the usual bands and DJs to stand-up comedy and short film screenings to group yoga classes and interpretive dance. Too much of the music featured wailing ghostly female vocals for my taste, but there were some real stand-out acts; drum and saxophonist duo Binker & Moses stole Sunday evening, and Jess Murrain’s spoken word mixed in with double-bass accompanied vocals was a highlight of Saturday. (She was followed by a puppet show called “Miss Clitoris and the Bejazzles”.)

Mid-festival we ventured round the corner to the Bentley Motor Museum itself. It’s a strange combination of a warehouse full of chronologically exhibited cars (and some scary mannequins challenging stereotypical gender roles), displays of questionable of history, a dolls-house workshop, and a gift shop selling seemingly completely non-related items. Mainly soap. MORE exciting is the Bentley miniature railway, which everyone from completely spaced-out students in harem pants to off-duty security guards hopped onto at some point over the weekend. It’s run by retired men in train conductors’ hats, and a small dog in an official uniform. Your ticket is stamped at both of two “station” stops, in a journey that lasts approximately 15 minutes. Puffs of smoke from the tiny steam engine remained visible above the trees for the whole weekend, reminding everyone where the real fun was happening.

Although there were plenty of fab acts and DJs and workshops happening across the weekend, the best part for me was being able to spend time with good friends and interesting new ones in a beautiful setting. The weather held and I took a fantastic book to sit and read on a cushion under the light-up jellyfish, or on a sofa under the giant central tree, or in The Steez Cafe in front of some strange piece of performance art. The sunsets were glorious and the loos weren’t even too horrible by the end, and I’d recommend it as £35 very well spent.

Kids In Love

I recently bought photographer Olivia Bee’s first book, Kids In Love. I’m not sure I’d recommend it as a piece of curated art; the editing is minimal and it’s more of a collection of all her most popular Flickr snaps from the very beginning of her internet-driven career. But on a personal level, I love it. I can pick it up and let it fall open and every page seems familiar. Her dreamy analogue photography of her friends and lovers was really what pushed me to pick up a proper film camera age 16, after a year of attempting to document my life on disposables. She’s about a year younger than me (and about ten years ahead photographically), and although her adventurous teenage years in Oregon were a far cry from mine and my friends’ comparatively docile existence in west London I always felt a great affinity with her visual experience of youth. (As did most of the internet).

Although often a little too hip and pretentious, I find that Olivia often manages to articulate those things about photography that are hard to pin down. In an interview about the book with Tavi Gevinson recently she said:

“When I take someone’s photograph, it’s very difficult for me to lie about how I feel about them. I think my photos reek of love. It’s almost disgusting.”

And looking back over my own favourite photographs of my favourite people, my favourite places, my favourite memories and experiences, she really hits the nail on the head.

Fear Itself

“Time after time I never see fear coming till it swallows me whole”

I love horror films. I’ve loved horror films ever since I watched The Ring age 9 and had to sleep with the light on for a month. My next door neighbours and I used to descend on our local Blockbusters every weekend and stalk the aisles in search of the DVDs with the scariest covers – checked out by my father, obviously. Movie-rental stores were a defunct concept by the time we looked anything close to R-Rated age. We sat in their cellar under a pile of duvets, screen barely visible through gaps in our fingers, listening to our hearts beating their way into our mouths as the camera slowly pans around a darkened room; the heroine painfully rounds a corner; the hero twists a key in a lock. Because it’s that excruciating second right there – not the moment when the music crashes and the protagonist’s screams are drowned out by your own – but that preceding eternity in which every muscle in your body is coiled like a spring and your breath and heart are frozen in your chest. That is the true Nirvana of horror cinema.

“When you only have so much to go on, you tell yourself the worst story you can possibly imagine.”

Those neighbours have since moved away, the B and the K have fallen off the empty Blockbusters store, and I’ve yet to find anybody who will sit through a horror film with me. People just don’t seem to like being terrified half as much as I do. I’m asked by everyone from my housemates to my other half how I can possibly enjoy being scared witless time and time again – because it really is the fear that I enjoy, and not the more absurd trappings of horror films that suck me in. I don’t keep coming back for more because I find them funny; I don’t love to laugh at the special effects and the absurd overacting (as prevalent as these are in both the modern and the old-school). It’s because I love the feeling of fear. I sometimes try and explain my desire to live in fear as similar to people who love roller coasters or extreme sports: pushing yourself to the limits of physical and emotional feeling and seeing how you react. Isn’t it only in moments of extreme fear or panic, buzzing off adrenaline and shaking head to toe that you know who you really are? Unless you’re a soldier or a Ghostbuster (or possibly a parent), there are very few moments in which you can claim to have been gripped by an overwhelming, all-encompassing, absolute fear. In my own life I can think of but two instances, discounting the artificially manufactured fear of haunted houses and horror films. It’s a visceral, physical rush that I find endlessly tempting to attempt to recreate. Putting on a horror film in full knowledge that those images will come back and haunt you when you’re alone in bed at night is effectively just taking that power in hand. Some people do drugs, some people jump out of planes, some people watch The Descent and lie awake every night for a month. It’s empowering; it’s ridiculous.

“Maybe when we indulge the things that scare us we stop becoming the innocent victims of fear, and become co-conspirators.”

I don’t think scaring myself silly with horror films is something that I’ll tire of as I age – I think it’s about as likely as growing bored of love, ecstasy or grief. I’ll continue on my quest to convert people to the joy of the horror film, even if current horror seems to be 90% torture porn and Blaire Witch found footage rip-offs (go back to Hitchcock, Italian black and whites, The Babadook – BE PROPERLY TERRIFIED). Because we may all be scared by different things, but the feeling of fear is something that we share, across cultures and across species. It is universal, it is primal, and it makes us feel alive.

“Over time you’d think that some kind of immunity would start to build up; but the effect is still just as strong as it ever was.”

(This was prompted by Charlie Lyne’s haunting BBC documentary Fear Itself, charting the history of horror films and the history of being horrified. It’s where I’ve pulled all the quotes from, and if you’re into horror it’s really worth a watch.)

Restaurant Review: The Whiskey Jar

Last summer I travelled round the Deep South, interning for Morgan Murphy on this book. I wrote an extensive blog when I was there, as well as snapping a lot of pictures, and since the book is finally out I am publishing a few of them on here.

The Whiskey Jar

Charlottesville, Virginia

Mason jar cocktails and exposed brick walls mark this place out as a hipster haven from the get-go, and its sanded wooden tables and farm-to-table menu seal the deal. As does its edgy bearded owner, keen to tell us all about making his son’s baby food from scratch and their seasonal dessert changes. Sneer as I might, it is he who is laughing because this affected approach clearly works – The Whiskey Jar is just great. Located in a shady, pedestrianised walkway in the student town of Charlottesville, it rocks sun-drenched tables near its French windows and booths cloaked in shadow the further you advance into its depths. A well-stocked bar occupies a pleasing middle ground, and produces even pleasinger concoctions with a speciality in moonshine based delights. Yes, moonshine is marketed as a spirit in the south, and it’s great.

The food, however, may well surpass the alcohols on offer. We sat down to a smorgasbord of fancy yet wholesome dishes like one big hungry family whose father figure gets the first bite of everything before the kids fight over the remains. A glassy-eyed trout served whole with the bones looked amazing on the plate and the camera screen, and tasted even better. Stewed ochre and tomato soup, slightly spiced and perfectly warmed. And the greatest tomato sandwich I have ever consumed. I don’t even like tomatoes. This sandwich was out of this world, I cannot even describe it (some food critic I am). But the crowning glory of the whole meal was a cobbler that has taken resident baker Rachel Pennington three years to perfect, and disappeared within minutes of first taste. Filled with in-season peaches, bathed in vanilla ice-cream, and topped with a crust that was literally a giant cookie, I have never seen such aggressive fork-work on this trip before or since. That thing was phenomenal, and she was persuaded to share her closely guarded recipe so we can all take turns in failing to replicate it.

The staff at The Whiskey Jar are friendly if reserved, and one of them sports a fab little mason jar tat that graced Morgan’s Instagram (courtesy of your’s truly’s overactive iPhone). Owner Will was more than happy to point us towards the best bars in town – one of which is conveniently owned by him – and we spent the rest of the golden hour wandering through Charlottesville’s twee little shops and sipping margaritas. Very civilised.

Eating Oxford

Following on from my Oxford coffee-journal round-up, here’s a small selection of my attempts to eat my way through Cowley from back when I was funnelling my student loan directly into my small intestine. You can find other bits and pieces on my time at Oxford over here.

Big Society

I used to know Big Soc as that hipster American bar with over-priced cocktails and a ping pong table in the back room – and yes, it does have both of those things, but it also has a pulled pork bun to die for and some of the best fried chicken this side of Tennessee. Big Soc has prime Cowley Road positioning to attract both the Oxford and the Brookes crowds, and does so by attempting to rock that Deep South vibe; milkshakes and hot dogs and mason jars are ubiquitous, as well as trendy IPAs from micro-breweries and weird graffiti across the walls. And it’s not doing badly. The food is incredibly reasonably-priced for the quality, even if the drinks prices make it nigh on impossible to drown one’s sorrows of an evening (unless it’s in a milkshake). They soak their chicken in buttermilk overnight before deep-frying, and their chips may well be double cooked because they’re crispy as heck – and will admit that I a great deal of time for an establishment that provides you with a whole roll of paper towels before you chow down. There’s a patio and a conservatory, as well as a main bar area that gets pretty buzzing of an evening, and many tables of mixed heights and sizes – as well as, of course, the ping pong and foozeball variety.

There are downsides; it’s a bit of a carnivore’s paradise and there aren’t many options for the rabbit-minded among us aside from their enormous (and delicious) haloumi salad. And arguably the disadvantage to hiring only good-looking hipsters to work the bar is perhaps a less friendly and accommodating service than you can find elsewhere. But it remains a go-to for comfort food that doesn’t break the bank, and a sweet taste of summer for someone who spent her’s between Alabama and Virginia.

Tick Tock Café

Oh Tick Tock. Bastion of Cowley Road brunch. Haven for the hungover. Restaurant for the regretful. I can’t imagine ever visiting Tick Tock for anything except revival after a horrible/amazing night at the Wahoo/Purple Turtle/drinking too many little beers with your housemates. The owner always stares at you with the same utmost disdain and pity that you’re feeling towards yourself. If you don’t choose to pocket your breakfast bap and shuffle home to eat it alone with your hazy non-memories then you’ll spend most of the time shunted from booth to booth as the waitresses make their best efforts to show that neither you nor anyone else is welcome to stay more than fifteen minutes. Old men taking up whole tables with a newspaper and a cup of builders’ is obviously included in this greasy spoon package deal. The ticking of the thousand mismatched clocks across the wall is deafening, although only about two of them work. The hash browns are always great.

This is the ultimate morning-after-the-night-before hang, and the full English is obligatory.

Oxfork

Oxfork is run by the same crew as the Turl Street Kitchen, an Oxford coffee fave, and has only recently started serving evening food. And it’s gr8. It’s nestled in deepest Cowley and produces local earth-to-table fare, served by attractive young men with interesting accents in a kitsch candle-lit setting. There’s a chandelier made of forks. The menu is rotating and delicious, consisting of a variety of dishes in a Tapas crossed with comfort food format where everything comes out in small portions served in tea cups or on slates. There’s a decent student discount and all sorts of perks for ordering extensively – a free dessert with every three dishes ordered et cetera cetera. I can particularly recommend the walnut/squash/goat’s cheese salad, and the cheesy potatoes, and the fig and cream yoghurt pot. And the brownie. In fact I recommend everything, but most of all I recommend heading there for a hungover brunch because their charming waiters serve the best Blood Marys in the city. Really lovely eats and atmosphere, one of my top picks.

Atomic Burger

 An institution of the Cowley Road, you’ll rarely meet an Oxonian that doesn’t praise Atomic Burger. Having recently moved from a narrow little enclave in between Sushi Corner and a hairdresser’s, its new larger location explodes out of the Cowley Road line-up with its comicstrip facade and is beloved by townies and students alike. Burgers are listed on the menu by film character – my favourite is the Toy Story-themed Messy Jessie that boasts a killer pile-up of goat’s cheese and red peppers and other such deliciousnesses – and there’s a free side with every main. And though the burgers and hot dogs are pretty banging, it’s the fries that are the real stars of the show; the Sophie’s Choice between sweet potato fries and onion rings, or upgrading to the impossibly delicious mass of pulled pork, cheese and crispy onions that make up their heavenly Trailer Park fries is a regular dilemma. If spice is your thing then Atomic Burger’s signature (lethal) Fallout Sauce is worth a try – and if you’re really feeling brave, test your stomach against the Atomic Burger Fallout Challenge. Only three people have ever completed it, one of which I bore witness to. (I also bore witness to how he felt the next day, and I don’t think he’d recommend it.)

It’s a hot button debate, but I’d argue that Atomic Burger beats Big Soc, Byron and GSK to the title of best burger in the city; but, as with the true American Dining Experience, really it’s all about the sides.

Pomegranate

I’m not sure I should really review Pomegranate, because I visited when I was so hungover I wanted to cry and/or die and the world seemed like it was going to end. Apparently the atmosphere here is delightful, but I was very hungover so all atmospheres seemed equally bleak and terrible. Apparently the food is delicious, but I was very hungover so it all filled me with nausea and despair. Apparently everything is reasonably priced, but I was very hungover so I registered nothing but the endless thumping in my brain. Apparently the staff are helpful and the tea lovely, but I was very hungover so everybody and everything seemed awful.

In short I hear it’s very nice, I should probably revisit some time.

Restaurant Review: Salt’s Artisan Market

Last summer I travelled round the Deep South, interning for Morgan Murphy on this book. I wrote an extensive blog when I was there, as well as snapping a lot of pictures, and since the book is finally out I’m going to publish a few of them on here.

Salt’s Artisan Market

Charlottesville, Virginia

Morgan tells us that the internet barely ever produces good eating spots; he bases his schedule on hearsay and restauranteurs’ recommendations, and, less predictably, the advice of “air stewardesses and antiques dealers who always seem to know where to eat”. Salt’s was the result of a frantic morning web search following the eponymous owner of Big Al’s Seafood failing to call us back, so we rolled up to its crossroad location with few expectations and a car full of unsettled stomachs from Virginia’s winding country lanes. And how pleasantly surprised we were. Two steampunk city gals from the DC political scene headed rural, to convert an old gas station near Thomas Jefferson’s estate into a cafe that serves the most amazing chicken salad sandwich imaginable. The place is tiny and incredibly twee, all checked tablecloths and wildflowers in mason jars, but the people that run it are down-to-earth and friendly as can be. Picnic tables look out over Virginia’s rolling hills and vineyards that stretch as far as the eye can see, and a cluster of oaks provides gloriously dappled shade away from the brutal American summer.

Humble beginnings meant that half the furniture was either inherited from Salt’s previous incarnation or donated by its patrons, from the sanded down candy cabinet that displays home-made sauces and snacks to the painted stools on the porch left over from a barn dance. A rocking chair under the creaking farm sign was pulled from the boot of someone’s car. A bench is in fact an old pew from the pretty red-roofed church opposite. And although the location and the vibe are of course half the deal in a good place to eat, it’s the amazing sandwiches that seal the deal here – if Oxford has taught me anything it’s that a good sandwich can be a delight and a pleasure, and Salt serves GOOD sandwiches. The best (and only) tofu sandwiches I’ve ever tasted, as well as plates of cheese and cold cuts and perfect little blackberries that are no doubt organic and handpicked blah blah. And the most amazing cranberry-stuffed dark chocolate that melted across our hands and faces in the least dignified way possible.

We loved the food, and everything about the place down to Barrett’s exquisite belt buckle made by her chef and co-owner – best friends? lesbian lovers? – and it was unsurprisingly filling up for the lunch rush as we snaked away towards Monticello. A lovely little find – even if it was from the internet.

Caffeinating

When I lived in Oxford, I drank a lot of coffee. (One had to.) In my last year I wrote an extensive catalogue of every coffee spot I visited and why it was nice and/or nasty. It’s over on Bonjournal if you want to read the full whammy of twenty eight spots, but here I have compiled my top five, because ranking all things in life is important whether it is your preferred coffee corner or your children.

Truck Store

Truck Store is a coffee cum vinyl shop, and the sort of absurdly trendy establishment that I outwardly decry but in whose sunlit corners I secretly while away entire afternoons. The pros of such a hip establishment are a constantly evolving soundtrack of ambient beats and staff who really “know” their coffee (as well as presumably their 90s neo pop bands and their purveyors of vintage moustache trimmers). I still hold the top floor of Waterstones as home to the best chai latte in Oxford, but Truck Store’s comes pretty close, and its prices certainly reflect the student market it’s catering to in a way that central Oxford cafes do not. And although it’s true that the clientele is predominantly early 20s based, on my last visit I did get into an interesting conversation about romantic poetry with a very old woman in a dressing gown and slippers; unfortunately it swiftly evolved into an attack on language-censoring that left myself and the two Brookes students listening in desperately trying to reverse out of. The price Cowley pays for being a ‘real’ city is that it has its fair share of real opinions.

Quarter Horse Coffee

I’m always won over by an attractive barista, and this place has at least five. It’s an artsy little cafe always bristling with MacBooks, tortoiseshell spectacles, and hushed philosophical conversation. If you’re into caffeine products for the taste as well as the buzz, then this place is the dream; they have a constant rotation of exotic blends (this week’s is deathly strong and Ethiopian), and sell various fancy coffee-making products that resemble alien possibly-sexual accessories to the tea-drinking proletariat. There’s also a great selection of toast and pastries for the breakfast market, which you can eat perched on stools against the window and stare/be stared at by Cowley Road’s 9am zombies. It’s also not just a coffee place; there a host of events that go on in this space in the evenings, from wine and cheese and conversation to talks from big dog writers and artists – although I’m not sure I’m cool enough to attend any of them.

Zappi’s Cafe

Zappi’s is a recent discovery – mainly because of it’s in-the-know location so sneakily hidden away above one of the myriad bike shops of central Oxford. Always littered with laptops and men in very form-fitting gear, Zappi’s attracts both the trendy student crowd and the edgier end of town. As well as plenty of extremely keen old cyclists – late morning on a Saturday you cannot move for lycra, if that’s what you’re into. The service is delightful, if slow, and the quality of coffee and conversation is always top notch. A nice little coffee nook for when TSK and the Missing Bean are just unbearable.

Turl Street Kitchen

A go-to. Ideally placed in centre-town and opposite a bank of that rare Oxford breed of the ATM, TSK is a favourite amongst undergrads and professors alike. It’s got squishy armchairs and oak tables, great coffee and tattooed staff, and there’s an upstairs lounge full of sofas and sunlight for quiet contemplation – or surreptitious gossiping. I
don’t know, you do you. A long-established favourite for those who eschew the Rad Cam for the coffee-shop-studying experience, this cafe is a hub for constant charity and social events; fundraising and music-making evenings galore, and a varied selection of artwork and photography can be found gracing the walls of the dining area. On writing, the front room is taken up with an installation for the Oxford Photography Festival, and Student Minds have their HQ in the upper storeys.

The culinary credentials are just as impressive as the caffeine side of things, and the kitchen flaunts its delicious and regularly changing selection of home-cooked food and varied wines on giant chalkboards – but that’s all beside the point. Because if you want a quiet coffee in the centre of town, whether it’s for a date with a dishy dude or a date with your essay on postmodernism, TSK is the place.

The Missing Bean

The Missing Bean is a tiny one room cafe in the heart of Oxford – a hipster’s dream that on your average weekday is furnished with two MacBooks a table and almost as many horn-rimmed specs. You’ll also find it packed with middle-aged tutors discussing romantic poetry, business types on their lunch break, and everyone else you can imagine because the coffee here is absolutely divine. There’s not too much to say beyond that; the hygiene rating is dire, so don’t try the food, but the atmosphere is always buzzing and you will be too after caffeinating here.

So there you have it; go forth and caffeinate.

What a load of wank. In James Franco’s masturbatory ode to youth, weed, and partying it up with attractive high school girls, he’s  managed to make life imitate art onscreen with a sleazy Lolita love story starring himself as Humbert-the-gym-teacher-Humbert. Equipped with the perfect director to peddle his pretentious autobiographical tales of growing up in suburban California (in the form of the latest Coppola to network her way into the industry), the whole thing is so up its own arse it probably can’t even hear the indie synth soundtrack. Eff off Franco, no one likes you.

2/5

Sometimes I aggressively review films in 100 words, and sometimes I tone it down for other publications. You can check out my more measured review of Palo Alto on the Oxford Film Journal.

We Should All Be Feminists

Yesterday I read We Should All Be Feminists, a short and sweet essay by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie based on her wonderful Ted talk. Like everything she produces it was beautiful, accessible and succinct, and I’ll be gifting it to my 15 year old cousin this Christmas alongside some of my less enlightened male – and female -friends. It summarises perfectly why feminism is a cause that’s still both relevant and necessary and one that we must all rally around, whilst rubbishing many of the myths and “but what about…?”s that surround the word and the movement. Do read it yourselves, it’s very short, but I thought I’d quote my favourite page:

“Some people ask, ‘Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?’ Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general – but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It woudl be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women. That the problem was not about being human, but specifically about being a female human. For centuries, the world divided human beings into groups and then proceeded to exclude and oppress one group. It is only fair that the solution to the problem should acknowledge that.”