Irish Noir

Most academics love the idea of time off from teaching to write up long cherished projects, so when I was awarded a research grant to finish Shadows Are My Friends (a book about British film noir) I was considered very fortunate. But this was going to be my tenth book and I had no illusions about the joy of writing. I lived in a pleasant house in Sheffield but I had spent too long working on a mammoth reference guide – Directors in British and Irish Cinema – so I needed a change.

I was divorced, with a daughter halfway through medical school and a son about to start university, my job was

in Leicester, fifty-five miles away, I’d had a heart attack in 2005 and it wouldn’t be long before I retired. I had bought a horse while on holiday, and as she never seemed happy in England, I decided to take her back to Ireland and live there myself, at least for a time. For a year I’d be able to ride the horse every day and spend the rest of the time writing, with nothing but Guinness and leprechauns to distract me.

****************

The noirish British films of the 1940s – Brighton Rock, They Made Me a Fugitive, It Always Rains on Sunday, The Third Man – owe less to German Expressionism and post-WW2 angst than they do to gloomy French poetic realism and the blood-curdling excesses of Victorian stage melodrama. Le jour se lève and Le quai des brumes combine with Maria Marten or The Murder at the Red Barn and The Face at the Window to produce strange amalgams like Obsession, where Robert Newton’s cuckolded husband methodically empties hot water bottles full of acid into a bath to dissolve the remains of his wife’s latest beau while carefully explaining to him how he has devised the perfect murder. Or Temptation Harbour (based on Georges Simenon’s Newhaven–Dieppe) where Newton – eschewing eye-rolling villainy – plays a railway signalman who dives into the dock to rescue a man but comes out clutching a suitcase full of stolen money. He dreams of a better life but squanders the money on a fairground mermaid and murders the man who comes looking for it.

In Victorian melodrama, injustice and villainy are balanced by kindness, gallantry and unlooked for good fortune. The two world wars of the twentieth century shattered such rose-tinted expectations and stirred up a miasma of pessimism. Greene and Ambler, Chandler and Hammett, Sartre and Camus, displayed a bleak grey world where right and wrong, injustice and fairness had become confused and no-one was certain how to disentangle them. It was this ethos that permeated the 40s American thrillers we now regard as classic film noirs. Authority is corrupt or at best ineffectual; friends betray you; sexual relations are a snare not a solace; and the world, if not actively malevolent, is tarnished and cruelly unpredictable.

What has come to pass since has been a gradual opening out of film noir to embrace the pastiches and homages of neo-noir, and a search for noir sensibility in other national cinemas. Meanwhile, noir literature was stretched beyond American detective fiction to encompass British low-life novelists like James Curtis and Gerald Kersh and the gutter modernism of John King and Irvine Welsh; the French noir of Léo Malet and Boris Vian, bizarre offshoots like the country noir novels of Daniel Woodrell set in the Ozark Mountains, where crystal meth laboratories have replaced the moonshine stills and out-of-their-heads rednecks exact awful violence on each other and any stranger foolish enough to stray into their territory.

****************

Ireland has a tragic history of English oppression, of massacre and famine, of treachery and internecine conflict, of religious bigotry and bitter feuds. The legacy of the War of Independence and the Civil War of the 1920s is sufficiently murky to account for Beckett’s abstruse absurdism, Flann O’Brien’s surreal humour, Neil Jordan’s constant returns to the dark repressed. But that was the old Ireland. By 2007 the Celtic Tiger was in its prime and the blandly cheerful face of Bertie Ahern beamed from every lamppost in anticipation of another election victory and more golden years of Fianna Fáil prosperity.

It seemed that Ireland had been blessed by a miracle, retaining its reputation for lovable leprechauns, slow-poured Guinness and the lush greenery that made it the Emerald Isle, but enhancing it with European riches and sophistication. Modern but still in touch with tradition; wealthy but ecologically aware; dynamic but socially responsible.

There were worrying signs for those who cared to notice: the rubbish bags dumped in country lanes, the recklessly driven SUVs, the old mattresses thrown over garden walls, the countryside pock-marked with ugly new houses. And accusations about Ahern’s financial affairs, which did him no harm whatsoever in the 2007 election, make British MPs’ expenses look like bargain basement chickenfeed.

****************

In the noir world, everything is arbitrary and unpredictable. Those plunged into it are often bemused, unskittled, never quite aware of what is happening to them. Orson Welles’ Michael O’Hara drifts through The Lady from Shanghai as if he’s in a dream, entranced by Rita Hayworth’s femme fatale but never quite believing in her. John Mills’ Phillip Davidson, the one honest man among a group of low-life no-goods in The Long Memory, finds himself signalled out as a dastardly murderer, and before he knows what’s going on he’s serving a life sentence in Dartmoor. The same with Trevor Howard’s Clem Morgan in They Made Me a Fugitive, who being a war hero thinks he’s a tough guy until he’s framed for murder. No wonder they’re bitter men when they get out. Even the less than innocent – Fred McMurray in Double Indemnity, Jean Gabin in Le jour se lève are good men tricked by an unlucky twist of fate into becoming murderers. Like Robert Newton in Temptation Harbour, they look back with bitter nostalgia to lives that were mundane but comfortably secure. What had looked bright and happy becomes in a moment tragic and terrible.

In the real world it’s worse. Gabin and Newton, Mills and McMurray retain an aura of dignity when fate lays them low. When everything goes wrong in real life it’s difficult rising above being a victim. Buying a rundown cottage at the height of a property boom was asking for trouble. Builders had got used to big money and short hours – after all they were doing you a favour by increasing the value of your property. Engineers, architects, solicitors were busy dealing with clients with money to burn and sent along the office junior or the not very bright nephew to botch something together. When chickens came home to roost they were disingenuously disowned. Modern sloppiness combined with traditional vagueness about boundaries, regulations, land titles to make everything slippery; honour, professionalism and honesty were bargained away in the pursuit of easy money. Nothing new about this. Handel’s wrote Theodora as Britain began its industrial revolution and had his Christian matriarch blast prosperity as ‘bane of virtue, nurse of passions, soother of vile inclinations.’ I’m naïve and trusting but I don’t approach the world with Candide-like innocence. I might be a professor but I was brought up in Grimsby, not in an ivory tower. Building workers? I’d misspent my youth working on London building sites in the 70s, when every ounce of ingenuity went into doing as little work as possible. Crooks? I still have hours of recordings of Jack Spot recalling his time as ‘King of Soho’ and I’ve written a book on the London underworld. Difficult neighbours? I spent six months living in a Stepney squat, next door to the Angry Brigade, and two years in a hard-to-let council flat on the Larkhall estate, where black rubbish bags festooned the trees and junkies cluttered the stairwells. It’s still a shock though, when you retire to a pastoral idyll, to find yourself standing on a lonely street at 11 ‘o’clock at night with a woman looking like a deranged version of Mr Blobby rushing at you, waving her arms, sticking her chest out and shouting ‘Don’t touch my breasts, you paedophile!’ while her husband, a giant Goblin-like figure lurks behind her swinging a pick-axe.

Forget it. This isn’t Chinatown. This isn’t even the 70s Cornwall of Straw Dogs. In West Cork it’s never been a poor locals versus rich outsiders issue. There’s far more resentment against the nouveau riche. Five years ago my miscreant neighbours had a huge windfall, and having squandered that they were looking for more easy money. Most of the local people here regard them with contempt. Intimidation and sullen persistent obstruction ruin harmony and peace of mind, but their liveable with. In line with the noir code, nemesis only threatened when the law got involved. Nobody could accuse the genial Bantry police of corruption or even partiality. But lawyers are a different matter. Arrogant, pompous, incompetent, duplicitous, dishonest, evasive, selfish sums up my experience of them. Everyone in Bantry seemed to have a story about being persuaded to go to court and then railroaded into an out-of-court settlement that left them financially crippled but the lawyers handsomely rewarded. The sort of nightmare where people who you thought were on your side suddenly turn on you. Believe me, it’s worse than confronting a couple of mad people on a dark night. There’s no adrenalin rush, just the dull thud of the knife in the back.

Anyone who decides to represent themselves is taking a big risk. The stakes get higher, the level of expertise required increases exponentially. But for my next and fourth court hearing at least I don’t have to spend hours trying to get hold of my solicitor, or look forward to a never-to-be kept appointment with my barrister. It’s a lesson of noir: nobody’s going to pull you out of the hole. Try to get out yourself, though you might find too late that you’ve only dug yourself deeper.

People are murdered, raped, robbed; homes are bulldozed or repossessed, pension funds evaporate, careers are cut short, people die from dreadful diseases. Having to eke out my pension and pay off my debts by working in B and Q, while my ex-professorial colleagues sip wine in their Tuscan villas or their Dordogne chateau is not exactly a fate worse than death.

Maybe it’s a good thing that if I’m writing about film noir, I’m doing it less from an academic point of view than as someone who has been touched by the evil of the world. But don’t expect me to say thank you. The realisation that everything is not for the best in the best of all possible worlds might be character building but it is also demeaning and destructive. I always thought Chandler’s ‘Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid’, wonderful though it is, was always a bit too sentimental.

Major breakthrough for ‘Save Linguistics’

There has been a major advance in the intense ‘Save Linguistics’ Campaign, providing another flash of hope for those desperate to reverse the University’s decision to withdraw the prestigious degree programme. Read more

Sussex student wins prestigious national award

Ellie Hopkins, a student at the University of Sussex claimed the prestigious ‘Student Unionist of the Year’ award at a glitzy awards ceremony on Friday 12 June 2009. The NUS Awards celebrate excellence and achievement in the student movement. The winners were announced at a ceremony held at the Brewery in London hosted by comedian and former Bristol University student, Marcus Brigstocke. The finalists were selected from almost 200 nominations from over 60 students’ unions across the UK. Read more

Project Sand

Last summer I spent 6 weeks in Accra, the capital of Ghana, doing an internship in human rights law. I did this through a large reputable volunteering agency that organised my placement and my homestay accommodation and also hit me up for £2,500, for my troubles, and that wasn’t even including the additional expense of my flights, my malaria tablets, visa and vaccinations. I was officially broke.

And since handing over that large wodge of cash, ‘trouble’ has indeed been the operative word. My homestay was a two hour journey out of the capital city of Accra where my office was supposed to be located and thus meant that I had to be on the roadside at 6.30 every morning to arrive in the office for the designated time of 8.30.  Now, I use the term office loosely, as it was merely a room with no facilities, excluding the luxury of running water for a toilet. No office manager was present, and we were all emailed obscure topics to write articles on with no focus, deadline or imminent purpose. It soon became apparent that we had all been lured here under false pretenses through the greed of supposed charitable beaurocracy.  The upshot: The volunteering organization didn’t cap volunteer numbers and thus we were just ‘overspill’ as there was just not enough work to go around.

As you can imagine, I therefore chose to spend the majority of my free time, away from the office and out of the bustle of Ghana’s demanding capital city. On such a weekend, I came across the estuary community of Kewunor (pronounced Kay-oo-noo), whilst exploring the banks of the Volta River. Kewunor in Ewe means ‘Village of Sand’ and the community is entirely dependent on fishing as there is no possibility for any sort of agriculture.  The sand dominates, and consequently the people are condemned to extreme poverty and a complete lack of amenities.  Kewunor, 6 kilometres from the nearest town, is virtually an island. It is only accessible by foot or boat, and as all medical, educational and nutritional needs have to be gained from this town, the village community is somewhat isolated. Whilst there, I met a local man called Winfred Dzinadoh who had great vision for the community, and in line with this, started his own form of an eco-lodge 3 years ago.  Kewunor is the perfect place for an idyllic getaway; sandwiched on a sandy palm-lined estuary with the gentle river lapping on one side, and the seaside-nesting site for the local marine turtles on the other. Winfred runs this hotel with the design to support and include his fellow local inhabitants. In addition to the setting up of the hotel, he has used its profits to start a number of projects to benefit the community. All too aware of the woefully inadequate education provisions in the area and with the nearest school miles away and only accessible by foot, Winfred decided to establish his own nursery school in the grounds of his hotel.

Due to the great potential of the project and my admiration for the fantastic work Winfred was doing, I hung up my African office suit, jacked in my internship and moved out to Kewunor for the rest of my summer. I spent the most amazing two months of my life there, as it is not only the most beautiful place I have ever visited, it was the most welcoming. I had never conceived that I would actually want to wake up early in the morning out of sheer excitement for the day ahead, but for two incredible months, that became my mindset. I showered with coconut husks in the river, built epic sand palaces with the local children, shared a beach with gigantically graceful marine turtles and learnt how to fish, drum and dance like an Ewe warrior. And, best of all: I survived without my GHDs!

In an attempt to steer away from sounding like a pretentious and irritating asbestos-under-the-skin backpacker, who after a year of sitting in a tent in the jungle playing a singular drum declares they have ‘found themselves’; I shall try and explain my enlightenment differently.  But I can’t: I truly ‘found myself’. So, armed with an unruly barnet and newly found sense of self-knowledge, came the birth of ‘Project SAND’. SAND stands for Sustainable AfricaN Development, a charitable initiative set up by Winfred and I, for the purpose of continuing the sustainable development of Kewunor, and other isolated waterside communities with a specific focus on sanitation, healthcare, education and conservation.
In light of my dreadful volunteering experience, we have set up a low cost, grass-roots volunteering scheme with placements in teaching, conservation, catering and construction and it has been going from strength to strength since January of this year.

We are currently working with the aim of registering Project SAND as a charity in the UK by summer 2009 and as a NGO in Ghana by December 2009. Registering as a charity with the UK Commission has proved to be less romantic than I naively believed, with lots of CRB checks, child protection policies, trustee boards, and the worst thing of all is that I might not even get approved.

Fingers crossed.

Website: www.projectsand.org
Email: info@projectsand.org

Bomb threat called in to campus

An anonymous individual made a phone call to the University of Sussex around 7.45am on Friday 5th of June claiming that there was a bomb on campus. They told the University that the device was in Falmer House or the Sports Centre, where examinations were due to commence at 9.30am. All examinations began on time. Read more