Tim Burgess - Live Music Review for Journalism Diploma

Tim Burgess – review, Union Chapel, London

“It is good to be back in the chapel. We are all friends here, right?” Tim Burgess states and pleads at the same time. Of course, he doesn’t have to worry, Burgess has lots of friends here, he has brought them all with him.

Burgess’ backing band comprises of Mark Collins, the guitarist from his regular band the Charlatans, members of the night’s support band Hatcham Social and Duffy, the organist from Primal Scream and ex-member of the Charlatans.

Throughout the night Burgess acknowledges this support, and shows a little of his vulnerability, by regularly stepping aside so the audience can see the band in the spotlight.

It is the open spaces of Union Chapel that showcase Burgess’ new album, Oh No I Love You, almost ten years after the release of his first. Anybody expecting any material from the Charlatans back catalogue will leave disappointed but also, appropriately for a chapel, enlightened.

The slow building Tobacco Fields opens proceedings and immediately highlights the expediency of an organ in a chapel as Duffy fills the spaces with his swirly, textural patterns.

Burgess’ set begins to build and the inter-band love-in is heightened further when Sean O’Hagan of the High Llamas’ joins him on stage with a couple of violinists for a stirring rendition of Hours.

When the cover of the Beach Boys’ Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on my Shoulder) goes horribly awry, as Burgess not just misses the high notes but gets nowhere near them at all, then a sympathetic round of applause from the band and the audience shows that yes, we really are friends here. He is just coming back from a bout of concert cancelling laryngitis after all.

This puts a full stop on part one of the show and far from stumbling Burgess just gets better. Teach me How to Live emphasises the maturity of his new tracks and Thinking of You reveals the Nashville influences at work on the new album.

The set closer, the new single White has the loudest cheer of all as its indie pop groove, similar in sound to the Charlatans, sends his oldest and newest fans happily into the freezing night air of Islington.

Tonight Burgess has shown how making friends can influence people. But perhaps instead of a Beach Boys cover, a cover of the Beatles’ With a Little Help From My Friends would have been more appropriate.

END

A Profile of a Thai Person Living in London - for Journalism Diploma

A desire to obtain a master’s degree and live in the England she has seen in the movies of Hugh Grant brought Parita Tulyasingha here. It hasn’t quite met her expectations though. Robert Davies reports.

Her face is horizontal and flat on the café table; she opens her eyes wide, puffs out her cheeks, leans back on her chair and then sighs. “I thought they were going to be nicer. Like how they are in the movies. Like in Notting Hill and Four Weddings.” She then rolls her eyes.

I wanted to know what Parita thought of English people before she arrived here. The body language and facial expressions say it all to me. The verbal explanation confirms it. “They weren’t what I thought they would be. I thought they would all speak like Hugh Grant. They all spoke too fast.”

Pla, as she prefers to be called, is talking to me in a café near her home in Earlsfield, south London. Pla is 34 and from Thailand. She has been living in Earlsfield for 18 months now. In January 2010 she came to the UK to complete a master’s degree in Fashion and Entrepreneurship at the University of Northumbria. When she completed her degree she decided to stay here to look for work in the fashion sector.

Today is a good day for Pla. She has just heard that after more than 300 job applications, she has found work in her chosen industry, albeit as a sales assistant at a popular high street clothing store. “It is only for four hours a week and just for Christmas, but I am happy.”

During completing all these applications Pla has financed her stay in London by working as a Thai massage therapist. Despite working for a reputable spa, there are still many people who want something ‘extra’. “I tell them ‘no’. We are professional people. We don’t do that. ‘I will give you more money’ they say. I tell them that we don’t do that. My mom says she wants me to stop to do this job, as she is worried about me. I have no choice if I want to stay here.” She smiles at me, raises her eyebrows to indicate that she has finished talking and then sits on her hands, in preparation for the next question.

When I ask her how she felt when she came to England, she grins. “I wanted to go back straight away because the immigration lady was so rude. She was, how to say, very fierce. She said ‘why do you come here? When does your course begin?’ I was scared, as I had come here alone. I landed at five in the morning. I left the building at nine. I was with immigration for almost four hours, because of a long queue.”

It wasn’t the most comfortable of beginnings in this country for Pla but even when she is describing this experience and all her other setbacks, she does it with a beaming face that indicates she takes all stress in her stride. Pla smiles and laughs a lot through our meeting. She is definitely a happy person but perhaps the jollity masks her lack of confidence speaking English. She checks a dictionary on her phone now and again to confirm that what she is saying is correct. A lot of my questions are greeted with a blank face. I have to tone down my Black Country accent and try to adopt a newsreader’s inflection.

Pla tells me about what life was like as a student, which confirms how she has struggled with English. “In lectures it was difficult. I didn’t understand everything that was said. Luckily everyone on my course spoke English as a second language so the pace was slow. I would wait until the end of the lesson then ask my Thai friend who spoke better English about what was said.”

“I enjoyed the course a lot. My favourite project was about Fred Perry, which is an English brand I like. I made friends with other Thai students and also girls from Korea and Taiwan. We all spoke English together. We had lots of good times. Many have gone back home, but I am still here.”

Despite Pla’s cheery nature I don’t think that the questions have allowed her to express her happiness in words, so I enquire about the highlights of her stay in England. “I have enjoyed shopping in Harrods, seeing where Harry Potter has been filmed, meeting my English boyfriend and seeing snow then making snowmen for the first time. I wanted to see snow when I lived in Thailand.”

I end by asking if her boyfriend speaks like Hugh Grant. “No,” she screams with laughter. “He says buzz instead of bus.”

END

Compliance - A Movie Review for Journalism Diploma

.    Compliance

.    Production year: 2012

.    Country: USA

.    Cert (UK): 15

.    Runtime: 90 mins

.    Directors: Craig Zobel

.    Cast: Ann Dowd, Dreama Walker, Pat Healy

When a film is based on true events it often has a tenuous grip on reality. Plotlines are embellished to add tension to what would otherwise be a straightforward narrative. This has become such a standard practice in the film industry that in the case of Argo, the truth is seen as that unimportant it doesn’t prevent an Oscar victory. Compliance is refreshing, as it never strays far from actuality, because the absurdity of the story doesn’t need any enhancement.

For a period of ten years from the mid-Nineties a hoax caller posing as a police officer targeted fast food restaurants in rural America, persuading staff to perform various tasks for his own perverse pleasure. Compliance tells the story of the most successful of these hoaxes that occurred in Ohio in 2004.

Sandra (played by the excellent Ann Dowd) is the middle-aged, harassed, manager of ChickWich, struggling to gain authority over her young, uninterested staff, one of which is the blonde and pretty, Becky (Dreama Walker). At the beginning of a shift Sandra receives the hoax call informing her that a customer has complained of a theft and Becky is the only suspect.

It is from this point that Sandra becomes compliant to all the demands from the fake officer, with Becky the hopeless victim. The desires of the hoax caller start off tame and then over the course of the three and a half hour ordeal, get increasingly sadistic.

The attractiveness and vulnerability of Becky could have lead to some directors taking advantage, in order to produce a gruesome and exploitative film. It is credit to Craig Zobel that exactly what does happen to Becky is conveyed in a subtle way, meaning that we are completely aware but do not end up feeling like voyeurs ourselves.

In Zobel’s hands Compliance becomes a terrifying, unusual and absorbing film, which uses the fast food industry - where the nature of the work is repetitive, unthinking and unquestioned - as a backdrop to examine how society is reluctant to challenge authority.

END

A Cricketing Passage to India - Travel Feature for Journalism Diploma

A Cricketing Passage to India: Watching and playing the national sport

“Woooosshhhh” goes the sound of the red painted tennis ball as it flies past my head. The laughter from the boys standing nearby, when I swing my arms round and try to hit the ball that has already passed me, is thunderous. Welcome to Indian cricket. Street style.

I had come to India to watch England play two Test matches and then, in an effort to gain an understanding of the country, to see a few of its sights. Street cricket wasn't on the agenda. But the sights, though beautiful, had left me empty and the freneticism of Indian life bewildered me. I needed to connect with India in another way, and found cricket was the answer.

You can forget the Taj Mahal anyway, if you are a fan of cricket. The sight you want to see is Eden Gardens, Kolkata; cricket’s answer to that great palace. I was there for the third Test against England and it was from the upper tier of the pavilion end that I could appreciate its splendour. The panorama of Kolkata lay before me, visible through a misty sunset, creating a spectacular backdrop for the serenity of the game itself, which England won easily.

Next stop was Nagpur. "Nagpur. Where is that?" Not even the travel expert in London giving me my jabs knew where it was. Having now visited I am not surprised. It is called the city of oranges on account of it being a major trader of the fruit. Unfortunately, I only saw one. And that was concrete.

I was here for the fourth Test, which, sadly, was as dull as the city itself. But the lack of visual treats meant that I sought more conversational ones. This came in the form of a steward called Rahul whose seat was beside mine for the full five days of the game. In-between him unsuccesfully preventing people drinking bottled water – an example of crazy Indian bureaucracy - we were able to discuss an array of topics. Subjects like the Indian approach to life (don’t worry, chicken curry), the installations of ATM’s (his job) and the best vegetarian restaurants in town (his uncle’s) all passed the time as England won the series.

After the Tests were over, I moved on to the golden triangle (Agra, Jaipur, and Delhi) to take in the sights. It was at one of these, Fatehpur Sikri Palace, in Agra, where I came across a group of boys playing cricket. With a cardboard box for a wicket, the foundations of an old fort as a boundary line and a pitch that resembled the surface of the moon, it was time for my first game of street cricket.

Regrettably, I never managed to get my bat to connect with the ball. I was never much of a batsman anyway. Unhappily, as it turns out, I am not much of a bowler either. My bowling was despatched around the ground by a boy not much bigger than the bat he carried. This was my cue to leave, using an old back injury - which flares up when humiliation is close - as an excuse to shake hands.

After spending a curious day in Jaipur being bullied by rickshaw drivers into visiting sights I didn't want to see, I craved more cricket. I now realised that only when watching or playing cricket did I feel a kinship with this perplexing country. I scoured the local papers. The only game nearby was in the Ranji Trophy, India’s domestic competition. Finding the ground involved talking to several rickshaw drivers who had made me so miserable the day before. They all assured me they knew the way. I plumped for a driver who “1000 percent knows this place.” He drove off confidently before doing a three-point turn and coming back to his starting point, albeit on the other side of the road, to ask other drivers for directions.

Having gladly arrived at the ground, it took a few seconds to sink in that this was actually a cricket stadium. It wasn’t like the Test match grounds I had seen or the, razzmatazz of the IPL grounds. My arrival was greeted with bewilderment from the spectators like the scene in American Werewolf in London when the American backpackers enter a Yorkshire country pub. My lack of Hindi and the rudimentary English of the crowd wasn’t important though. We all talked cricket. My knowledge of the nicknames of the Indian players (Sachin ‘Little Master’ Tendulkar, Rahul ‘The Wall’ Dravid) brought smiles and meant I spent a happy afternoon altering my negative thoughts of the city.

When I checked into my hotel in Mumbai I realised that when Pakistan are playing cricket in India, everything stops. I was shown to my hotel room, and four people were sat on my bed watching the end of the Twenty20 international. When I informed the manager I was told they were cleaning the room and was sent elsewhere to wait. Coincidentally, when the cricket finished, so did the cleaning, and the manager showed me back to my room with a smile and a “very clean now, sir."

It is at Mumbai, at the Oval Maidan, where hundreds of games crisscross with each other within a confined space in front of the High Court. This is where I had my encounter with the red tennis ball and my battle with the blessed thing wasn't over. I was determined to hit it at least once on this trip. With the laughter subsiding from my first attempt, the moment the next ball was bowled I ran after it and got a great contact, sending the ball skywards. As I turned round truimphantly to face the hysterical boys, another boy, who I thought was playing on a different pitch, caught the ball near the boundary. The laughter of the boys then reached a crescendo.

I didn’t mind though. Cricket had proved to be a way of joining in with a country that had mystified me. And with games to watch almost all-year round and street cricket everywhere; it is the perfect destination for any fan of the game. Just try to get some practice in before you leave.

Travel Essentials

Getting there

The writer flew with Jet Airways (0808 101 1199; jetairways.com), which flies from Heathrow to Mumbai and Delhi.

Virgin Atlantic (0844 209 7310; virgin-atlantic.com) operates the same routes.

Air India (0871 781 3706; airindia.in) operates the same routes.

More information

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (for Indian national team fixtures and domestic fixtures): Bcci.tv

The IPL (for T20 fixtures): Ipl20.com

A Five Point Guide to Street Cricket

1.    Always keep your eyes on the ball (the pitches are awful so the ball will deviate from its path after it bounces).

2.   Expect a high bounce (they will be using tennis balls).

3.   Get to the pitch of the ball (to negate that dodgy bounce).

4.   Make sure you know where the fielders are (this is especially useful at the Oval Maidan, as several games intermingle).

5.   Play with a smile on your face (particularly if you are rubbish. It makes it look as though you are very casual about the whole thing).

END