Years from now...

Good Afternoon folks.

This week's theme is Sci-Fi which, I'll admit, has been a struggle. Not only was I up at 5.30am today trying to write something- I realised about an hour before work that I promised you all a poem.

Until that point I had drawn a picture of the pope shooting a bazooka into the sky (with a cross and swastika on his tunic) and made a surreal news feed idea about him shooting down an American satellite. This all came from a piece I read the other day about the Church of England threatening to cut their huge investment stakes in our internet providers. In the wake of the Jo Yeates murder trial- this made the headlines in some papers and it got me thinking- do they really believe censorship is going to change people's behaviour. In the wake of all the troubles we have in the world, can they not see that there may be slightly more outside influences on us than extreme porn and some propoganda. Anyway, I thought maybe the nightmare dream of a future in which the Church calls on its power to rule was worrying enough- and the idea for my promised poem eventually surfaced.

Influenced

A poll commissioned for TV

with texts all charged at 20p

sent shudders through the soul of me

The thought of Intervention.

Was it this dystopian dream

that shook me as I slept, or screen

after screen of trailed gun fire

on an unwatched streaming news.

How paranoid must the Church be

to invest in our ISPs

to block our viewing on TV

in case we do discover,

that what goes on behind our backs

the endless terrorist attacks

are not about who's white or black

but through misinformation.

So those who claim a right divine

and see the other ivory shrines

collapse under the weight of minds

in Middle East uprisings

they seek to censor truth rebuked

to deny nudity from youth

to confiscate and take away

then masturbate upon it.

We make decisions every day

on what to hear and what to say

the violence will not go away

if we don't see more pictures.

The blind man plays no violent games

reads no news feeds of children maimed

but still won't call out Jesus' name

for fear of dark inside him.

He sees the things we do not see

and looks inside for sanctity

believes in what he knows to be

and with that feels empowered.

Thanks for reading guys. A little rushed but I couldn't let you all down- a slightly more polished version of this will be read on Friday at the event. Speak soon, S.

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Roald Dahl: Slutty Cinderellas, Ugly Twits, Filthy Little Maggots and a Splattering of Controversy

Last week, on the 13^th September, it was Roald Dahl Day. I, along with many other Twitter users, was slightly surprised and aggravated by the lack of a Google Doodle to mark the occasion. It irritated me because – from my perspective, at least – it seemed like a fairly simple task to undertake. Roald Dahl left behind his imagination: vivid descriptions, brilliant neologisms and characters that remain with us long after we’ve closed the book – not to mention the perfectly apt illustrations of Quentin Blake. Yet Google said, NO! And as a consequence, the geeky part of my persona was left disappointed.

Yes, Google did honour Dahl in 2007 with a Doodle (which can be found here) to mark what would have been the author’s 91^st birthday. However, this year – which marked both his 95^th birthday and 50 years since the publication of James and the Giant Peach – there was nothing more than the ever-so-familiar Google logo.

It was also last week (and on the same day) that Dahl’s Granddaughter, Sophie Dahl, featured on the Today Programme and spoke about the £500,000 needed to preserve / move Roald Dahl’s writing shed. The appeal caused uproar among Radio 4 listeners, and quickly spread to Twitter where one annoyed tweeter wrote: “Have I got this wrong? The international model and TV star Sophie Dahl is asking us for money to restore a shed.” Even Times columnist Janice Turner felt she needed to throw in her shrapnel bit (and a few typos), writing: “Roald Dahl’s shed needs £250K to be renovated. Sophie Dahl could earn that on a single advertising modelling job., the Big Stingy Giant.”

I, however, did not find myself bitter or angry. I realise that we are in difficult economic times. I – like many others – have undergraduate debts. I have a cleaning job to cover living expenses and MA fees. But, if the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre wanted a donation from myself, I would gladly give what I could afford. Because to me, culture and heritage have a great importance; they’re the things that cannot be replaced once you’ve lost them. You can’t find them on Amazon or inside the mammoth Argos catalogue, because their worth derives, in part, from their singularity. Dahl’s shed is how he left it: the wastepaper bin has not been emptied, his last Marlboro rests on the edge of a full ashtray, letters and photographs still adorn the polystyrene tiled walls (complete with nicotine stains). And to lose a piece of literary history, such as this, would be like erasing the Ommpa Loompas from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or replacing Matilda’s love of literature with a PS3. Unthinkable, mindboggling, unimaginable, absurd, inconceivable and unbelievable.

As you are probably aware, Dahl’s work – rather than the preservation of his writing shed - also received much criticism. The portrayal of adults, his use of language, and themes that have been classified as anti-authoritarian, anti-sentimental, misogynistic and racist have caused great debate amongst literary critics, parents, teachers, librarians. Two of his books, at one time or another, were even seen as so “dangerous” that they were banned in parts of America. But children kept reading, and continued to be fascinated by Dahl’s imagination.

I won’t go into a discussion about censorship within children’s literature (a blog post does not afford me the space), but I will say this: I stumbled across a copy of Matilda in the local library when I was 6 years old. I read the first two chapters before I left the library. I finished the book before going to sleep that night. I continued to read Roald Dahl’s books throughout my childhood. And, as far as I can see, they did me no harm – other than equipping me with a love of literature (which can be expensive).

So, even after his death, it would seem that Dahl cannot escape controversy – his writing (or his shed) will continue to divide and prompt debate.

Thank you for reading,
Lar

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