Nostalgia

Nostalgia: the British disease. A longing for a past that never was. A misty look back at sunlit hills, winding lanes and church bells; a pre-industrial, pastoral idyll. Steam trains, cream teas, thatched cottages, picnic baskets, red checked tablecloths...An Ambrosia Devon custard advert. I’m all too guilty of this kind of nostalgia myself - I love a steam train! I also love costume dramas where the characters use cigarette holders and wear vivid red lipstick. It’s an escape, make no mistake.

Bette Davis Beyond the Forest: Wikepedia

We are also nostalgic about our own past and, in a society that fetishisises youth, this is no surprise. The scanning of photos; the obsessive analysis of the unsullied, un-creased skin, the constant reminiscences. A look back at a time when your friends were your family; when you were a tribe, a gang, and together you could take on the world.

I went to see T2 Trainspotting, the other day. I was worried about it. The original film was so good. Would this follow up be an ill-advised nostalgia-fest? A cashing in on a franchise? Would it be like those terrible Jane Austen spin offs - the ones that seemed more like a hollow mockery than a loving homage?

I think they pulled it off, though. T2 Trainspotting addresses the whole nostalgia trap head-on. A younger character berates the middle aged (Mark) RENTON and SIMON (Sick-Boy) for being 'tourists in their own pasts', as they reminisce, watch old video footage and sift through photos. Director Danny Boyle has a overlay of footage from the original Trainspotting film, obtruding onto the present-day experiences of the characters. Present day SPUD hallucinates Renton and Sick-Boy of the past, running past him in Princes Street. The characters, perhaps with the exception of Mark*, are looking a little worse for wear; they are blurry round the edges, less doe-eyed and have less hair. *Even Mark (Ewan McGregor) isn’t all he seems; he looks good but his body is bearing the legacy of the past and of his advancing years. His reworking of the ‘choose life’ speech, which functioned as the heartbeat of the first film, is genius and resonates heavily.

Of course the nostalgia of Trainspotting isn’t the pastoral-idyll type that I opened with; it’s the nostalgia of pumping music and fast-paced, erudite dialogue and the original glamour of the beautiful cast (They don’t look too shabby now; look out for the scene where Mark and Simon have to wear farm sacks as kilts to protect their modesty). The original film was criticised for glamorising drug use (although anyone who saw the death of baby Dawn might refute this). The film’s defenders said that it gave an underclass of people a voice.

What the follow up does is gives a believable portrait of what those characters might be doing now. There isn’t a lot of glamour; one of the prominent, recurrent shots is of a massive rubbish dump which sits beside the estate, but there is heart.

And, like the first film, the enduring impression is curiously life-affirming, if in a more slow-moving, domestic kind of way.

I watched the first Trainspotting film when I was at University; it’s a time I often look back on through a rosy-tinted filter. (I miss my Adidas Gazelles!) But I do realise that it wasn't all clubbing and laughs then and that right here is where it's at (man). (Global politics notwithstanding) You can run into danger if you're always looking back.

The Perils of Parenthood

I think my children are trying to kill me. That might sound over dramatic; histrionic even, but let’s look at the evidence:

1. The perilous placing of toys - in the middle of the floor, in dark corridors, if we had any stairs I dare say they’d put them at the bottom or the top - wherever was calculated to cause the most damage. Whoops!
2. The glacial pace at which they get ready in the morning which seems to be a deliberate ploy to induce either a nervous breakdown or heart attack or both, in their parent. Picture the scene - everyone is ready, clothes on, teeth brushed, snot smear removed from cheek. They are suited, booted, gloved and hatted but, BUT, despite the fact that you urged them both to the toilet in good time, before you left, you are halfway down the street when one of them suddenly, urgently needs the lav.

And they are creative in their stress inducing wiles, they don’t want you to get bored, they like to mix things up a bit, so one of them - the younger, more troublesome one, decides that she wants to walk to school backwards!

3) Same troublesome younger child tells you that she wants you to die. Yes, she’s only four years old, she (allegedly) doesn’t understand what she’s saying, but how old was Damien? She’s capable of glaring like him, too. And baboons go mad around her. (OK, I made that last bit up and I am starting to feel guilty for comparing my child to the one in The Omen*). But, despite the fact that I got up earlier, got everything ready the night before, used the behaviour charts to induce them to get dressed, we were still borderline late this morning. We covered the last leg of the school run so quickly that the kids were almost levitating. Left younger child at the nursery door, trembling with rage (her - not me, she objected to the pace we were going at). Gave an evil, internal chuckle.

*The old man watched the Omen the other day and looked it up afterwards, to see what the kid who played Damien is up to these days. ‘What does he look like?’ I asked. ‘Just a boring, middle aged man.’ He replied. That can’t be right - surely the actor should look like a middle-aged Sam Neill, right?

4) Their seemingly incessant fighting; involving biting, scratching thumping and walloping. (Please see above re. stress.) I might have a selective memory here, but I’m sure my brother and I didn’t fight this badly (sound of grandparents cackling all over the globe).

So, what do we reckon? Demonic children or just standard family life?