Box set of the week: Masters of Sex

Masters of Sex is currently available to watch for free on Channel 4's on-demand service, 4OD. There are also a limited number of episodes available on RTE Player.

This is one of the best new series of the Autumn season. Following in the footsteps of the popularity of period pieces such as Mad Men and The Hour on the BBC, Masters of Sex is set in 1950's America as a successful gynecologist, Dr. William Masters embarks on his pioneering study of human sexuality.

His unlikely partner in crime is A pretty young mother of two, Virginia Johnson who is initially intrigued by her boss's study and then becomes fully enveloped in the research.

This show could have been an exercise in soft porn but, in fact, it turns out to be an excellently written portrait of how society began to open itself up to the exploration of sexuality and what it means for each individual.

The period detail is exquisite, as it was in Mad Men. The acting is also superb with terrific turns by Michael Sheen as the Doctor and Lizzie Caplan, best known for New Girl, also carrying her pert very well indeed.

What is interesting about the show, and indeed what holds the narrative together, is the complexity of Masters' character. He is not immediately likeable. He is thoroughly ambitious and rather cold. What we learn as the series develops is that he has been harboring a difficult burden relating to his own sexuality which creates layers of interest in the programme, especially in relation to his wife Libby, played by Caitlin Fitzgerald.

Recommended.

Keepin it Reel: Movie News

- The Wolf of Wall Street & Charlie Countryman Debacle: 

Both upcoming movies, Charlie Countryman and The Wolf of Wall Street have trimmed their sex scenes considerably in an attempt to get a lower censorship rating. Actress and star of Charlie Countryman, Evan Rachel Wood, has vented her anger at the MPAA who dispense the ratings for American releases. She believes that their is a hypocrys at play with the MPAA. A scene in her film in which a woman is receiving oral sex was cut yet the scenes of people getting their heads blown off remained intact. She believes that the MPAA would not have cut the sex scene if the oral sex was being given to the man. This raises interesting questions about the ways in which our rating boards censor the films we watch.

- Spike Jonze's 'Her':

Spike Jonze's feature, Her, stars Joaquin Phoenix as a lonely man who becomes enamored with his new computer operating system who is voiced by Scarlett Johannssen. This film, from the director of Being John Malkovich, is hotly anticipated. It has also caused some controversy as Johannssen has been designated as ineligible for the Golden Globe awards, even though she is the lead actress in the movie. The reason is because she is disembodied: she never appears on the screen. All her acting is done with her voice. This raises difficult questions about what acting is...Does this mean that an animated character could not win an award?

Coffee & TV - Sunday Breakfast with Dee Reddy: Simon Tierney on TV and Movies

Box Set Match

Love Hate - Series 4

Love/Hate is Ireland’s answer to Breaking Bad. It is our most expensive programme. It is about crime. It is highly addictive. Oh, and it makes me wince when I watch it.

While the season opener of Series 3 featured a rape and a murder, this years reintroduction to the world of Nidge and his motley crew showcased a much less horrifying episode: a cat was shot dead by a young boy. Sure, that’s grand.

The uproar caused by this incident made many front pages over the past week, including a shaming from ARAN (Animal Rights Action Network).

There is something rather perverse going on here. No one seems to complain when a human is shot dead on screen. But a little pussy cat? That’s just too much. Beyond that, ARAN believes that showing this sort of abominable behaviour on screen can only add to the problem of animal abuse. One of the functions of good televsion and film drama is that it casts a light on what is going on in our society, but which we may not be aware of. Surely Love/Hate has brought to our attention the horrendous things that people do to animals rather than encouraged us to take a rifle to little Felix?

What makes the scene so powerful is the fact that it is a child who perpetrates the crime. He laughs afterwards. Writer Stuart Carolan is making a point here; a child may begin shooting a cat but it is the first rung on a ladder which reaches up to the ignominy of Nidge.

Tommy is brain-damaged from the beating he received from Nidge at the end of Series 3. Killian Scott does a great job of portraying the infantile naivety of Tommy, with his line, “Can I have a fizzy orange”, now gone viral.

Nidge is a haunted man in this opening installment. The episode begins and ends with his visits to the grave of Darren. He has a new nemesis in the guise of DI Moynihan, played by acclaimed Irish actor, Brian F O’Byrne. Things are threatening to spiral out of control for Nidge as he attempts to keep a handle on the ever-increasing complexity of his relationships.

He is a different man to previous series. Before, there was something likeable about this character. He was a sort of clown despite his ever present menace.

What we have now is a man who is clearly miserable and disillusioned. In one scene he is using the services of a prostitute. He lies there, motionless, his thoughts a million miles away while his prostitute rocks back and forth on top of him. A part of him has died.

This has the effect of removing our sympathy for him. Is he just a killer now? What is the point of his life?

One of the successes of Breaking Bad is that it makes Walter White normal and human and steeped in the context of domesticity. We need more of the domestic in Love/Hate and less of the gangland violence. Otherwise what is the point? We need to see glimpses of the normality of their lives in order to justify and heighten the criminal aspects.

Keepin’ it Reel

Blue Jasmine goes up in smoke

Woody Allen has pulled his latest movie, Blue Jasmine, from the Indian market, just before its much anticipated release. Censorship laws in India are very strict. Any films which show characters smoking cigarettes are required to have a scroll running at the bottom of the screen throughout the scene. This warns viewers of the negative effect of smoking on their health. The film would also require a graphic anti-smoking advertisement at the beginning of the film. Not only that, but the film would need to be interrupted half way through for another anti-smoking advertisement to ensure that the viewers are quite clear of the most obvious message in the world: Don’t try this at home, kids!

What sort of precedent is this farcical endeavour setting? If this is happening, should there not also be a warning scroll during a violent scene (“violence is bad for your health”) or a sex scene (sex is bad if you’re underage”)? What about if a character uses a knife to cut a birthday cake (knives are sharp and can be dangerous”). Eventually the entire film screen will be filled with warnings..I can envisage a giant flashing text warning now…”EVERYTHING IS BAD! DON’T DO ANYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THIS MOVIE!

New drama about Charlie Haughey

RTE’s production on Charlie Haughey’s political career goes into production this week. Aidan Gillen of Love/Hate and The Wire fame will play the late Fianna Fail leader, while Tom Vaughan Lawlor, AKA Nidge, will play PJ Mara, Haughey’s political adviser. The show is written by Dublin man Colin Teevan. It will be a trilogy of 90 minute episodes. The current working title is ‘Charlie’...while other sources say its going to be called ‘Citizen Charlie’. The show has a budget of 3.7 million Euro.

David Jason and Bridget Jones: a match not made in heaven

David Jason’s autobiography, My Life and the new Bridget Jones novel, Mad about the Boy, both came out on the same day last week. Fans of the Helen Fielding series will have been surprised half way through the book however, as there are forty pages of David Jason’s book accidentally inserted in the middle. The publisher, Vintage Books, said, “The printers have had a Bridget moment”.

Coffee & TV - Sunday Breakfast with Dee Reddy: Simon Tierney on TV & movies.

Homeland - Season 3

One of the most appealing aspects of the first season of Homeland was the secrecy surrounding Nicholas Brody. What had happened to him during his incarceration in the Middle East? Had he been turned? Is he a Muslim? 

In this latest season, which premiered on RTE Two on Tuesday evening, the secrecy is of a much broader and less intimate kind. The CIA is fighting for its own survival, in the wake of the bombing of its headquarters. "How can the American people expect the CIA to protect this country when it can't even protect itself?" asks one of its critics in this rather disappointing season three opener. 

Carrie Matheson, the bipolar and desperately unstable CIA agent played by Claire Danes, is testifying at a Congressional Hearing which is attempting to establish why the CIA let the biggest terrorist attack since 9/11 happen. She cannot account for why she and Congressman Brody were seen leaving the auditorium together, just minutes before the bomb detonated. 

Saul, on the other hand, is now the Acting Director of the CIA and is under pressure to carry out a series of reprisals against Al Qaeda in order to create a sense that the agency is actually achieving something other than its own self destruction. 

The problem with Homeland is that it has retreated from its original sense of intrigue. In the opening season, Brody's secrets were immersed in the intimacy of humdrum domesticity. The kids went off to school and Brody went to meet his accessories. His wife fell asleep and Brody went to the garage to pray to Allah. And all the time, Carrie Matheson watched it all unfold and tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together, just as we the audience did too. It was these wonderfully dark yet intimate contrasts that made the first season a thrilling cat and mouse chase. 

While the second season had its detractors, I found it to be almost as riveting. Once again the intimate secrets were there, but this time we knew the secrets and were accessories to Brody as he attempted to conceal his actions from an increasingly perplexed family. The stakes grew as he climbed the political ladder on Capitol Hill. 

What we are left with now is a situation where Brody's identity has been revealed and he is the most hated and wanted man in America. The only cause now is that of an injustice being thrust upon him. The audience knows that he was probably not responsible for the CIA bombing. But where is he? He does not appear once in this opening episode. Has he gone back to Iraq? Is he camping across the border in Canada? Or has he perhaps shacked up with some poor unsuspecting woman elsewhere? 

There were of course moments of intensity in this episode. Agent Quinn is back as the CIA's go to tough guy. In fact, his five minutes of screen time were about the height of the thrills, as he is sent on a covert mission to track down a target while suffering a grave misfortune in the process. 

We need Brody's storyline to play out for the audience or else we will all lose interest by episode three. Bring back Nicholas Brody, not least for the fact that Damian Lewis is such a superb actor. 

Keepin’ it Reel

US Box Office

Taking a peak at the US box office gives us a really good idea of what is in store for us on this side of the pond in the not too distant future. The big movie in the States this weekend is the new Alfonso Cuaron movie, Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as two astronauts working at the International Space Station. They suffer an accident which casts them adrift in space. Sounds absolutely terrifying but getting great reviews stateside and is proving a well needed boost to 3D bookings.

The Ronan Farrow Controversy

The Woody Allen/Mia Farrow saga continues…Mia Farrow told Vanity Fair that her son Ronan could be the progeny of Frank Sinatra but she says that a paternity test was never undertaken. Up to this point it was believed that he was the son of Woody Allen. Farrow was married to Sinatra for a year and a half but says she was still sleeping with him even during the beginning of her relationship with Woody Allen. “We never really split up,” she says in the interview. Woody Allen’s representatives said, "The article is so fictitious and extravagantly absurd that he is not going to comment."

It has to be said that Ronan, a 25 year old former advisor to Hilary Clinton in the State Department, looks astonishingly like Frank. Old Blue Eyes to Young Blue Eyes, if you ask me.

Upcoming Biopics

There are a number of interesting biopics in the pipeline, not least the film about Freddie Mercury from Queen. Originally Sacha Baron Cohen was due to play the title role but was then axed as the remaining band mates were afraid he might turn it into a joke. The latest name to be thrown in the hat is Dominic Cooper of An Education fame.

The long awaited Pele biopic has just started filming in Brazil. The film charts the rise of the great footballer and climaxes at the 1958 World Cup, where Pele, then 17,  played a crucial role in Brazil’s victory over Sweden. Our very own ubiquitous Colm Meaney will be playing George Raynor, the English coach of the Swedish team. Pele himself will be played by newcomer, Kevin de Paula.

Of particular interest is the upcoming biopic of Julian Assange, the man currently in hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The Fifth Estate follows Assange and his collaboration with the Guardian newspaper as they prepared to launch hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables and war files into the cybersphere. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Assange and looks unbelievably like him in the press stills, long blonde hair and all. 

Coffee and TV: Sunday Breakfast with Dee Reddy

Review: Blue Jasmine 

Woody Allen often uses a variety of devices in his storytelling. In Blue Jasmine he employs a similar trick to that used in his 2002 film, Melinda and Melinda. In that picture the audience sees the two lives of one woman. In Blue Jasmine we also see the former and the present lives of the central character, Jasmine, played out side by side in the film. The difference is that in the older film the narrative is dealing with a 'what if' hypothesis whereas in his latest film he is looking at the consequences of a life-altering event, the before and the after. 

Cate Blanchett plays the title character, a hyper and neurotic Manhattan socialite who has recently separated from her rich husband, played by Alec Baldwin. He has been evading tax and the family is now bankrupt. As a result, Jasmine has had her indulgent Park Avenue life torn from her and has moved to San Francisco to live a much less salubrious life with her sister Ginger. 

Much has been made of the similarities between this film and the iconic play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. Indeed, William's Blanche du Bois and Allen's Jasmine are both tragi-comic figures, both lost in a new world which they are not comfortable in. Cate Blanchett is excellent in creating a character that is hopelessly and haughtily out of her depth in the world of ordinary people. At one point she declares that the thought of moving from Manhattan to Brooklyn had been insufferable not so long ago but now she has reached new depths living with her sister in a dingy little flat in a San Francisco suburb. 

This is a film about the clash of two worlds. Jasmine uses an endless cocktail of Xanax and vodka to deal with her new circumstances. Blanchett is a sort of female incarnation of Woody Allen; neurotic and can't stop talking about herself and her own concerns. While the Australian actress plays the role with nervous abandon and comic aplomb, the problem with the character is that she is not likeable. In fact she is a monstrous incarnation without redeeming qualities. Without compassion for her, the viewer ceases to care about her fate. 

Blanchett has been singled out for her fine performance, and well she should be. However, the real star of this film is British actress Sally Hawkins. Having excelled in former roles including her break out part in Mike Leigh's Happy Go Lucky, she shines as Jasmine's affable and kindly sister Ginger. Hawkins brings a lightness of touch and a genuine charm to the role, especially when she is pitted against the nastiness of Jasmine. She is a simpler person who works in the local grocery store and is the perfect foil to Blanchett. 

Woody Allen occasionally forces plot over character in his work and this film is no exception. There are times when he make his characters do things which they just wouldn't do, in order to drive the plot in a different direction. This has the effect of emptying a character of their sincerity and leaving the viewer somewhat perplexed. However, on the flip side, he has once again created some wonderfully truthful characters. Ginger aside, her boyfriend Chili, played superbly by Bobby Canavalle, solicits real compassion from the audience. Though he can be violent, he is put upon not only by Jasmine's disdain and condescension but also by Ginger's wavering commitment to their relationship. 

Blue Jasmine is an engaging and witty film which suffers occasionally from Allen forcing his narrative on his characters in order to achieve the story that he wants rather than the outcomes that his characters desire. It is certainly not on a par with his great films of the eighties such as Hannah and her Sisters or Crimes and Misdemeanours. 

Blue Jasmine is on general release across Dublin. 

Keepin' it Reel...movie news

The Farrelly Brothers have finally got around to the much anticipated sequel to their 1994 smash hit Dumb and Dumber. It is striking to look at the contrast in career paths between the lead actors, Jeff Daniels and Jim Carey, since its first incarnation twenty years ago. While Carrey has gone on to produce an endless line of comedies, Daniels has pursued a much more serious line of dramas, including The Hours and the recent Emmy winning Aaron Sorkin-penned The Newsroom, for HBO. 

For their new adventure, Harry and Lloyd set out on a road trip to find one of their long lost kids, in an attempt to procure a kidney. 

In her January appearance on Jimmy Fallon's chat show, Jennifer Lawrence talked about how much of a fan she is of Dumb and Dumber, Anchorman and Stepbrothers. It has now been confirmed that the Oscar winner will make a cameo appearance in the Farrelly Brother's sequel, since she is currently shooting the third instalment of the Hunger Games trilogy next door to Dumb and Dumber in Georgia, USA. 

The movie is entitled Dumb and Dumber To and is set for release in 2014. During the week the pair uploaded a picture to Twitter of themselves on set...

Box, Set, Match...the must-have boxset

This week’s must-have boxset is the BBC drama Top of the Lake. Created by Jane Campion of The Piano and Bright Star fame, this lonely and chilling detective series is a complex and richly satisfying watch.

Written by Campion and Gerard Lee, the show is set in a small and isolated community in the mountainous south island of New Zealand in the present day. Odd characters and a possibly corrupt police populate this idyllic setting. The lake of the title refers to the topography in which the action takes place. The cinematography takes the breath away while the story will make you tremble. 

Elizabeth Moss, best known as Peggy in AMC’s Mad Men plays the leading role as a detective drafted in to solve the case of a 13 year old girl who appears to be pregnant and then disappears. However, not only must she find the girl and her rapist but also come to terms with her own demons at the same time.

Peter Mullan delivers a tour de force as the local drug lord who has a tight hold over each section of the community. He is the daughter of the lost teenager, Tui. Mullan steals every scene he is in, at moments sweet and calm and at other times exploding in a fit of violence. He treats only his his dogs the way most attempt to treat people...with kindness. At the other end of the spectrum, Holly Hunter plays the aloof role of a sort of female shaman who shelters female victims of domestic abuse. It is the conflict of interests between these two groups and their uncomfortable co-existence which creates some of the most sizzling scenes. 

The first two episodes are a little tough going as the writers establish a detailed map of the people within the community. This is slow storytelling which rewards the viewer who perseveres. By the end of the season you know the community intimately despite the secrets which they are intially shrouded in. 

Jane Campion is a master of atmosphere and in this show she excels. There is a sense of foreboding which infiltrates the very sinews of this programme. The backdrop of New Zealand's Lord of the Rings-esque landscape adds to the menace. 

Campion has created a highly cinematic television programme. The scale and depth of the story, and indeed its consequences, are epic and linger with the viewer between its six installments. Just like its characters, the show reveals its secrets slowly, as the writers gradually peel away the layers of mystery surrounding the girl's disappearance. 

The show was filmed in the sleepy town of Glenorchy on the south island of New Zealand, by the shores of Lake Wakatipu. It is surly one of the most beautiful and melancholy landscapes you could imagine. Cinematographer Adam Arkapaw allows the camera to linger on the sad shadows which the mountains cast over the town. One feels closed in by this landscape. This is a highly isolated community at the end of the earth and there is a lawlessness at play which is frightening and dangerous. Rape and incest are commonplace. You feel that the town is so removed from civilisation that the rule of law and order doesn't appear to apply in this disfunctional community. 

ENDS

Culture Notes: Sunday Breakfast with Dee Reddy

I am a Netflix virgin. Or rather, I was until last Monday before I took the plunge and dived into a pool which has become very well populated of late.

Like sex when I was a teenager, everybody is talking about Netflix. At first, my friends were a little scared of it, not quite sure what it held in store. How do you do it? How does it work? And, just like my adolescence, I made sure my friends experimented with it first before I got involved at a safer and later stage. Mine really is the rock ‘n roll lifestyle.

The first thing I watched was a few episodes of Breaking Bad. It is almost impossible to sit through a dinner party without having watched it. If you do, you will find yourself relegated to the bottom end of the table, feeding scraps to the dog and longing for the evening to come to a swift end. 

Because Breaking Bad nearly killed me I followed it with an episode of Fawlty Towers. What I didn’t realise was that Netflix uses a complex algorithm, based on what you have watched, to create customised suggestions for your future viewing pleasure. It is now recommending I watch a documentary about cocaine and I’m Alan Partridge. I can understand their reasoning: hit him hard with some seriously debased concoction of the criminal underworld and ease his suffering with some classic British comedy for the inevitable comedown.

Television

Downton Abbey is back on our screens tonight for its fourth outing. Our appetite for period schmaltz has clearly not deflated quite yet as the show is currently the most internationally viewed program in the world.

Maggie Smith is returning as the Dowager Countess with the acid wit. Surely her character is now roughly 136 years of age, no? Still, she has the ability to add spark to the most mundane of scenes.

It is the roaring twenties and the Downton estate is facing new challenges. The trailer for the new season opens with the Dowager Countess feeding advice to the mourning Lady Mary: “You have a straightforward choice...you must choose either death or life”. No doubt Mary will wander the corridors of Downton like a moody teenager for the first episode and then shack up with Irish provo-turned pseudo aristocrat and fellow widower, Tom Branson, before the season is out. That’s my bet anyway.

Of particular interest is the arrival of Lady Grantham’s brother, played by Paul Giamatti. Giamatti is one of the most understated and exquisite actors working in Hollywood today, having put in sterling performances in the likes of Sideways and the Ides of March.

Gary Carr will play the first black visitor to Downton, as American jazz singer, Jack Ross.

Downstairs, Jonathan Howard will be playing the hot new gardener, Sam Thawley, setting the petticoats above stairs all aflutter.

Movies

The Toronto International Film Festival, or “TIFF” as it is know by industry insiders, came to a close during the week. This festival, second only to Cannes, is known as a hotspot for early Oscar buzz. The big winner this year, scooping up the People’s Choice Award, was 12 Years a Slave. From all accounts, Brit Steve McQueen, director of Hunger and Shame, has delivered another tour de force. Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and our own Kerryman, Michael Fassbender, the film also has a stellar supporting cast including Brad Pitt and Love/Hate’s Ruth Negga.

The movie follows the travails of a black man from the Union North being sold into slavery in the Confederate South during the run up to the American Civil War. There have been so many films on this subject of late, from Lincoln to Tarantino’s Django Unchained that the Civil War is almost a genre in itself.

Its release date in Ireland has been pushed forward to October.

Diana, the biopic of Princess Diana’s life, was released on Friday across the country to a widespread panning from critics. Donald Clarke, writing in the Irish Times, describes it as “stupefyingly dull”, while admitting that it is not quite silly enough to become a cult classic of ridiculousness. The Independent in London gave the film one star; saying it is a “flat biopic, failing to conjure interest, let alone controversy”.

Still, if you’re interested in dresses and the paparazzi, I’m sure you will get your money’s worth.

Ends

Supermarkets are better than museums

I love supermarkets.

The supermarket is an icon of time and place. It is better than a museum. If you could see a photograph of a supermarket aisle, taken on the day you were born, that one photograph would be full of information about the way people lived at the beginning of your life.

If I had been born in East Berlin, that photograph would show you bottles of Vita Cola but no Coca Cola, as this only entered the East German market after the fall of the Berlin Wall. That one bottle of Vita Cola tells us alot: consumers had little choice and there was no free market.

If you had been born in 1982 in London the photograph may show you people avoiding the purchase of certain products as this was the year of the Chocolate Bar Ban and the Apartheid boycott. Rowntree Mackintosh’s association with South Africa was having an effect on the supermarket aisle.

If you were born in Moscow in 1972, the photograph may contain a bottle of Pepsi Cola, the first foreign product admitted into the Soviet Union.

Supermarkets and the products that inhabit them tell us important information about who we are and the world that we live in.

I had the recent good fortune to spend alot of time in American supermarkets. If you really want to learn about people, an hour in their supermarket will give you most of the information you need to sketch a portrait.

If you go to an Irish supermarket you will find several aisles of wine, beers and spirits. You will also find an entire aisle full of crisps. I know a supermarket in a posh part of Dublin which sells sixteen types of olives. I know another supermarket in a very different part of the city which sells sixteen types of cider. One trip to a supermarket and you can size up an area quite quickly.

The American supermarket is a cultural icon. Many famous scenes from movies are played out in supermarkets because they are the standard, everyday background of our lives. The supermarket represents the banality of our existence. They are places we have to visit and therefore the inevitability of things happening there is assured. “I bumped into David in the supermarket”. “I saw my ‘ex’ in the supermarket”. “The most embarrassing thing happened to me yesterday in the supermarket”. These are all things that we have probably heard because the supermarket is a place we regularly visit. It is a stage on which our actions take shape. The way we interact with the set, or in this case the supermarket, and the props which inhabit it, tells us a great deal about who we are and what we like or dislike as people.

Kathryn Bigelow’s 2009 film, The Hurt Locker, features a particularly poignant supermarket scene. The protagonist, played by Jeremy Renner, has just returned to America from his tour of duty in Iraq. He stares at an endless aisle full of cereal boxes. The supermarket become symbolic of the benign, comfortable and quiet of normal life compared to the maelstrom of violence he witnessed in the Gulf.

In Woody Allen’s 1972 comedy, Play it Again, Sam, the central character makes his way around a supermarket as he attempts to buy groceries for a date he is having later with Diane Keaton’s character. He puts some candles in his trolley. His alter ego, played by Humphrey Bogart, says, “Don’t get those candles. They’re for a Jewish holiday. Get romantic candles”.

With these images in my mind, I was excited about exploring the American supermarket.

The first thing that struck me was the choice of shopping trolley. Sure, we have basket, medium trolley or large trolley. But the Americans have a fourth option: the ride-on trolley. Much like a ride-on mower, the ride-on trolley is designed to make life as convenient as possible. I soon realised that it was favourited by the obese.

In the 2002 film, The Good Girl, directed by Miguel Arteta, much of the action plays out in a large supermarket. What struck me was that most of the products which the viewer can see in the background were alien to me. The way products are presented is vastly different. For example, a single portion of crisps which one might buy in London or Dublin does not exist in America. What we would consider ‘party size’ in this part of the world is deemed a single portion, stateside.

Aisles of sugary syrups, “American” flavour cheese, nappies for puppy dogs, double-size wine bottles, ground chuck, unrefrigerated bacon, yoghurt-covered pretzels and ‘cheese in a can’ were just some of the exhibits in the American supermarket. Large portions and endless choice.

A phenomenon known as ostalgie spread across Berlin a number of years ago. This compounded word essentially means ‘nostalgia for East Berlin’ and alludes to a desire for Berliners to access the simple products of the former Communist East. Products such as Vita Cola which had disappeared in the early nineties, once Coca Cola was finally allowed in, suddenly became fashionable again.

This type of retro retail is common as it brings back memories of former lives or indeed of one’s own childhood. I have often found myself in a conversation where the chat moves to the subject of the sweets we loved as kids which no longer exist. Discussion of old products becomes a way for us to share in our collective past.

In this sense, supermarkets can be seen as repositories of our cultural-consumer memory. When we occasionally come across a product that triggers a series of thoughts about the past, the supermarket is playing a role in the construction of that memory.

Look at a supermarket aisle today and you will see a representation of what we need and want as people who live in 2013. You will also see the limitations of our current capabilities. In ten years time, this aisle could look very different indeed. 

ENDS

To pink or not to pink: Man's relationship with a troublesome colour

Last week I wore my pink scarf. I was in a pub, meeting friends. It was not a particularly cold evening but I had decided to premiere my accessory and no amount of warmth in the night air was going to steer me off course. 

My scarf opened up a number of questions about sartorial choices; in particular, questions about the relationship between man and pink.

For many men, wearing a pink garment or accessory can be an audacious choice. For others it is a regular accoutrement. One man told me he wears pink boxer shorts. This is not adventurous, unless the man in question sleeps with many, many people.

In financial and banking circles a pink shirt is an essential thrice weekly affair. It is debonair, confident and associated with wealth and aspiration. For a farmer, perhaps it is a less obvious choice. Pink wellies are still the domain of the festival-going female.

I sit between these two stereotypes. I am not an investment banker in Moorgate. Neither do I know how to milk a cow. I am not wealthy and harbour few aspirations. Therefore why would I decide to wear pink?

My sister gave me the scarf for Christmas. She sees me as a metrosexual. But I’m not. I don’t moisturise.

Ella de Guzman, proprietor of Siopa Ella, a high-end swap boutique in Dublin, says, “I love seeing a man wearing a pale pink shirt but he needs to wear it with confidence. Bubblegum pink polo shirts are also great - especially if you're also sporting a tan”.

This advice deepens my unease. I have neither confidence nor a tan.

Nick Sullivan, fashion editor of Esquire magazine, has said the way we perceive pink now is contrary to opinion in the first half of the twentieth century. “It was traditional for boys to be dressed in pink (a derivative of red, thought to be the most decisive, masculine colour),” he writes. Meanwhile, blue was the consistent choice for girls because in Christian tradition it symbolized virginity.

The Virgin Mary is the most potent example of this. Apparently she hated pink. Few people know this but Mary was obsessed with the way she looked. She never left the stable without full makeup.

Beyond this, there was an aesthetic reason too. In 1918, the Ladies Home Journal wrote, “There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger colour is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl".

As the conversation about my pink scarf unfolded in the pub, I came to a realisation. The group was not actually worried about my choice of pink. Rather, they were troubled by the marriage of my pink scarf with the colour of my hair. I say hair. In reality, it is really more of a suggestion of hair at this stage. A whisper, say. Some people would describe it as “ginger” (that hateful word). However, I have been assured by an expert de coleur that it is in fact “sunset explosion”.

Does this mean pink and I must part ways?

Of course there are many, many different shades of this colour. Pink is a crude term which envelops an abundance, an entire spring meadow, of hues. The different shades say different things.

Fuchsia, for example, is a shade of pink which one rarely sees on a man. It is a noisy colour which punishes the retina. To wear this colour is to throw acid in peoples’ eyes. Exceedingly unpleasant.

Salmon is one of the most popular shades of pink for men. It is the shade which sits on the proverbial fence. Is it pink or is it something else? Men take refuge in this ambiguity. It is also the entry-level shade for pink virgins. It allows them to dip their toe in the sea without going all the way.

Ruby is to be avoided by men who blush easily. You will look like a lollipop.

One man I spoke with said that he owned one pink pair of trousers, two pink t-shirts and three pink shirts. That’s alot of pink. Many of the people who talked to me agreed that men should only wear one pink item at a time. A pink tie is good. A pink tie and a pink shirt may overwhelm. A pink tie, a pink shirt and pink trousers will make you look like a milkshake. Children will want to drink you.

However, de Guzman says that occasionally a pink cocktail can work. “I don’t think there should be rules in fashion but if a man is wearing a pink shirt, a pink tie would also look amazing accessorized with it”.

Where do I go from here? My research has led me to believe that pink, just like a sunflower, requires a specific set of conditions in which to bloom. Alas, I am not convinced that I am fertile ground for such a cultivation.

ENDS