Desperately Seeking Banksy: Part One

 

About six months ago, I bought the Banksy London App on my iPhone for the princely sum of £1.99 with the full intention of channelling my outer (not inner) mainstream-graffiti-artist-loving self and challenging said self to walk around and see every single one. 

Because they're in the city that I live in and because it's important to break up the bed-tube-international coffee chain-office-pub-bed routine that we commuters all indulge in; whilst ignoring fabulous, touristy, sparkly London. 

Sometimes in life you just gotta take a deep breath and get out at Piccadilly Circus, ignore the cringe, buy a paper day travel card and stand stationary in the middle of Oxford Street. Go on, I dare you.

Plus the reason I love Banksy is that he is challenging and subversive and satirical, whilst still being popular. So it's OK to be a little touristy right.. 

We're All Going on a Much Documented #Selfie Saturated Summer Holiday

I have a question for you, or a few if you don't mind. If a modern guy or gal goes on holiday and no one sees a #selfie from it, has it really happened? If a person enjoys good weather, ice cream and super strength cocktails at an achingly cool bar and no #hashtags are employed, was it worth it? If a beach view is enjoyed and marvelled over on vacance, but not snapped and shared and Instagrammed the crap out of, is it as beautiful? I think you know what I'm getting at kids.. The holiday overshare, the boastelfie, the validation vacation, the inherent obsession that the modern generation have with documenting our leisure time, with making sure everyone knows that we are having FUN in the sun or other, around the world. Check out our beach bodies, how cool we are, you're in the office so...

I do not protest my innocence in this. My Instagram feed is choc full of exotic check-ins, #Ibiza selfies, sponsored by aviator, here I am chilling on the slopes, at a sunny English seaside town, cityscape of #HongKong. It's all there. I work in the travel industry, I understand the power of an image believe me.. Half of my job on the online side relies on the fact that people love to take a piccy on hol. In our image-obsessed, digital society that shares life's highs everyday, holidays are the most aesthetically pleasing and probably flushest time of our years...

But how much is too much? Do we miss out on actually absorbing the experience as we view it through a lens and worry about the lack of fucking wi-fi? When does it go from fun to irritatingly irksome.. Or is it simply the present day diary and a given in our social world. Inspired by a recent group of some of my bestest friends (they know who they are) who seemed to narrate their recent holiday from start to finish with images of them looking absolutely gorgeous and sun-kissed and oh so desirable. Here are my rules:

1) Bikini Overload

A couple of casual bikini shots with your friends or a kooky pic of you on the beach is fine.

However, an entire album of you posing, pornstar/fashion model-esque on the beach in a variety of poses is not..

Rihanna and Kelly Brook are prime examples... okay okay, they are models and singers who make money from their looks, so perhaps we can forgive them for it. However, when I see "normal", yet perhaps unfairly aesthetically gifted girls posting picture after picture of themselves in their bikinis, I just cringe. Sure, we may marvel at their insane bodies that they have probably worked extremely hard for, but eventually it just seems a little sad.. the need for that constant validation from your friends, followers and random #pervs screams lack of self esteem and real love of your own body.

2) The excessive "Check-in". 

I learnt this the hard way.. see examples below..

 

Whilst it may fun to share your enthusiasm once that you've arrived in Mykonos, are swimming in Maya Bay (is there 3G there?) or have climbed Kilimanjaro, numerous check-ins narrating where you are every moment of the day is bloody annoying and to be honest, no one cares. They are not there. Whilst your Facebook friends may "like" one or two check-ins when they know you deserve a holiday, five per day on a week's holiday that include Nikki Beach, VIP Champagne bar, Les Caves Du Roy etc, just makes you look like a tool, a gold digger or an alcoholic. Do you even like half these places or are you just worried that you won't remember where you've been. :P

3) Couples, again, calm down with the sick-making holly snaps. 

Yes you're both gorgeous and having a wonderful time, but stop taking photos and actually enjoy each other. 

This is sweet:

This type of thing (below) on the other hand is cringe... fine for your personal collection or on the wall of you house, but not for sharing.. We get you're happy, tanned and attractive.. we don't need to see your pre-coital beach moments...

4) Group shots should be relaxed and natural or in action...

A couple of my holiday snaps...

You are not models on a beach... unless you actually are.

How long did it take you to get in those poses anyway... surely spending half an hour getting just the right shot with you all looking fit and hip and unbothered by life or having a v posed HILARIOUS time could be better spent actually partaking in your holiday. This leads onto...

5) The timing rule.

This basically says that it is acceptable if you go on holiday and upload maybe one or two photos whilst you're there, then an entire album of mildly-cringe shots, mixed with some pissed blurry ones and a few scenery/artsy snaps once you return. This was one album that you spent five minutes uploading in the hours you returned with a major case of the holiday blues.

Updating your Instagram with hashtags whilst you are on holiday, putting every photo up and replying to comments.. just ain't. Again, I reiterate, are you bored by the company you are in, or so addicted to networking that you can't leave it alone.

6) I don't want to see every meal you eat... (this goes for non-holiday life, for some people too)

Unless you are offering me a recipe, then I'd be quite keen. Yes the tomatoes are plumper in Provence and you're eating a real Italian pizza in Tuscany, fabulous for you. But I can't fucking have it. You are just wanting people to be jealous of you again.. aren't you... Why is that?

*Note, extremely aesthetically pleasing images, or great photography can be forgiven.

7) Keep the "in-jokes" n #holidaybanter to a minimum.

Wittily titled albums and smartly captioned twit pics are only funny for people who are there... We've all been on one of those holidays, where we spent the whole time laughing and wanted to spread the joy when we return. However, other people won't get it...and again most of the time.. they'll just cringe or think you're a dick.

To be honest, there's hundreds more I can think of.. all of which by the way, I have certainly done. Writing this post has simply made me ask why we do it.. why we overshare our most precious time away. There seems to be three main reasons to me:

1) To make other people jealous: So we all may do this occasionally, but constantly throwing your fabulous life in other peoples faces is just so unnecessary, do you want to make people feel bad.. Something we should all grow out of before our 25th birthdays..

Similarly

2) Validation: Look how great I am, look how attractive I am, look how happy I am, look what hip places I go to APPROVE of me... PLEASE. Need I say more. Do you approve of yourself darling?

3) For laughs: This I comprehend more, because videos of you and your friends drunk dancing or belly flopping in a packed pool probably will be funny to other people, not present. As long as your not just showing off (see 1 and 2).

Having said all this.. maybe I'm just being a bitter, singleton with a far from perfect bikini bod who isn't going on holiday till September (watch for the selfies). Who knows???? :)

#BeachSelfie

Champagne and La Plein Soleil

On Friday, I took one of my girls to a screening of the 1960 French film, La Plein Soleil (directed by René Clément) at the Working Title premises near Bond Street. I'd acquired the tickets through an Emerald Street promotion, which I signed up to and promptly forgot about.

 

To be honest, I haven't watched a foreign language film since school aside from the obvious Amelie and the odd few obligatory Alfonso Cuarón titles at Uni when lustful Spaniards and the beauty of Gael Garcia Bernal managed to persuade me to stray - albeit fleetingly- from my diet of chick flicks, Harry Potter and anything with Joaquin Phoenix in it. 

In art, literature and even television I like to think of myself as quite cultural, but for some reason when it comes to films, I seem to sit quite happily in the comfort food sort of arena, period dramas and happy endings. Not particularly used to applying my shaky French, whilst trying to read at the same time.

La Plein Soleil had piqued my interest due to it being the original adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley - a film which I enjoyed, largely due to the impressive acting skills of the entire cast but specifically Matt Damon who proved his great versatility as an actor. 

I must admit too that there was free champagne on offer and free wine and free nibbles and after weekends of hitting it too hard, a nice Friday with a French film and free champagne seemed quite the pleasant option. Of course what ended up happening was that I was late out of work and my friend went shopping and we managed to miss most of the free stuff, helper-skeltering in at the last moment....

"Aha yes.. You two are the last to arrive" said the lady on the door on hearing our names "you have five minutes to get a glass of something.."

Of course five minutes didn't slow my thirst and I managed to very un-surreptitiously slug my two glasses before they called us in to the screening room.

And the film.. What do I have to say of that? It has taken a significant amount of paragraphs of my languid, self-obsessed scene-setting to reach even a hint of the film. Shock me. Well firstly the actor, Alain Delon, who played the lead role of Tom Ripley is dreadfully good looking, in the way only the French can be - all arrogant blue eyes and pouting. Apparently it was his first major film role, remind me to look at more of his work... 

Secondly, the scenery is absolutely stunning. Set in all the beautiful parts of Italy and swathed in the scratch sixties film roll, it all looks impossibly picturesque and glamorous. The actors playing Marge and Phillippe (Marie Laforêt and Maurice Foret) are just as attractive and beautifully dressed as you would expect them to be and they play the parts well, though one can't see why Marge adores and Tom obsesses over Phillippe so much as we can with Jude Law in the Minghella-directed modern adaptation. 

The plot is much slower and to be honest not as gripping, the defection away from the original book by Patricia Highsmith, which clearly depicts Tom having a homosexual obsession with his friend threw me a little. In Plein Soleil, a non-homosexual Tom seduces Marge after killing Phillippe in order to totally take over Phillippe's life. I just prefer the original story and believe it fits better with Marge and Phillippe's ridicule of Tom.

However, Alain Delon is a wonderful actor, depicting his version of the cold character of Tom Ripley with a casual nuance. He radiates an easy arrogance and a calculated body language that depicts Tom's lack of morality perfectly. He is so unbelievably sexy that you wouldn't question Marge jumping into bed with him so swiftly. 

The ending of the film is deliciously French with a hint that Tom is about to be caught and committed for murder as the police descend on a beachside bar that he lays sunning himself in. However, the audience never knows, as the credits role just prior to this scene, leaving us with the feeling that just maybe he escaped.

Overall, I liked the film and I enormously respect Delon, but I still prefer the Minghella directed Hollywood version. So populist, I know....

Buy the DVD on Amazon: Plein Soleil Special Edition *Digitally Restored [DVD] DVD ~ Alain Delon