To film or not to film?

I have an unusual celebrity neighbor. Living across the road in my quiet village three miles outside of Brighton is Omar Deghayes. Omar is a quiet man with a big story. He previous residence of five years was Guantanamo Bay Penitentiary, and prior to that one of the CIA’s “dark prisons.” During his incarceration, he was allegedly blinded in his right eye by his interrogators, witnessed a fellow inmate beaten to death, and was tortured in all manner of illegal ways. I have long since contemplated contacting Omar with the intention of interviewing him on camera, and making a film about his horrendous plight, and I am not one hundred percent sure what is holding me back. Do I mistrust my own intentions in making this film? Deep down, do I suspect this man of being a terrorist? And am I paranoid to worry about possible repercussions for my own U.S. visa? Would you interview Omar?

La musique pop britannique est morte!!

This sounds so much deeper and more dramatic in French … I usually return home to the U.K. just in time for the finale of X-Factor, and this year was no exception. X-Factor is a Simon Cowell sponsored television lunacy which my entire family has become addicted to. Cowell has already been castigated by the few remaining smart journalists writing on arts and entertainment ("heartless, thoughtless and superficial – the flotsam and jetsam of the polluted seas of celebrity that is likely to sink without trace into toxic foam” writes Minette Marrin in The Times), and so I will save my scorn and wrath instead for Paul McCartney. McCartney was clearly having the time of his life as he skipped through “Drive my Car” and “Live and Let Die.” Oddly, no mention was made of his comments last year when he reportedly likened the show to a “traffic accident,” a waste-of-space forum which does not encourage creativity, which itself has to be considered as a total understatement. There was something pathetic about this great pop legend dancing like a cheese monkey, an invisible sign around his neck saying “PLEASE STILL LOVE ME!”, and on his back, “I’M COOLER THAN YOUR GRANDAD!” John Lennon, we miss you so ...

Blog One: An enterprise that has many precedents, untold imitators, and is banal in every way ...

Sorry Rousseau, but you were a bit of a ponce.

Haha, in real life, yours truly shares only an accent with Clockwork Orange’s Alex... These are scribblings of a doctoral student, at the threshold of writing his academic magnum opus.

This blog is also about being on the threshold of new things. In the humble case of yours truly, this means city-swapping: after four heady years in L.A., I am heading to the cooler climes and more ambient chic of San Francisco. As well as scouting for new places to hang my hats, it also means turning thirty and WORKING IT ALL OUT, etc. etc. “There's a voice that keeps on calling me / Maybe tomorrow, I'll want to settle down / Until tomorrow ...” The Littlest Hobo, haha.

I was a blog snob until recently. For the record, I do think sites like Twitter are the enemy of smart writing. They are churning out heaps of verbal junk into a seriously over-clogged cyberspace. However, I began to reevaluate my blog snobbery when N.___ a girlfriend whose taste, writing and person I admire ... began a blog on this here same site. N.__ and I have this in common that we have clocked up more years in university than Lisa Simpson has in middle school. And yet, we seek forms and forums outside of academic discourse, which granted has its place and yet has its limitations.

This blog is about clever, provocative writing which yours truly is hoping has a place in the big, bad world that lies at the edge of campus. And failing that, to amuse and exasperate a many great friends living on five continents.

That's all for now folks! But hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable, mon frère, I know you don’t really exist. Or do you..? Go on, I dare you, leave a comment!