My experience writing for a national paper.

As a student of literature, and an aspiring journalist, I was able to wrangle myself a short internship at The Times in London. As I’m sure a lot of you are also writers, you will be aware that work experience like this is incredibly rare, and very difficult to come by. I thought it could be useful to share my experience, and paint some sort of a picture of what life at the heart of a national paper entails.

First and foremost, the atmosphere would be best described as busy, hectic, or to people like myself, exciting. I found myself sat among respected journalists, who at one moment were tapping away at their keyboards, and the next sprinting out the door to meet with contacts whom had whispered of potential stories. The pace did however differ depending on which department you were based. Naturally, the stress of the news desk was a little more noticeable than perhaps one of the departments that contributed exclusively to the Saturday edition.

One of my primary questions heading into the News Building at London Bridge, was where I would fit into this bastion of journalism? Eager though I was to get behind a keyboard and publish my own pieces in a national paper, the notion of this did become slightly more terrifying when I was actually sat down at my desk. It seems quite silly in hindsight to assume that I was going to be scribbling about scandals and covering headline crime stories. No, as an intern I played more of a support role. I was shown a side to journalism that isn’t just ink on paper, the wonderful world of fact checking and proof reading. I suppose I hadn’t considered how thorough journalists needed to be when publishing to a nationwide audience. I spent a good deal, if not the majority of my time, making calls to check figures were correct and up to date, compiling images for pieces, and scanning endless lines of texts for grammatical mistakes. What was particularly fascinating, is just how heated a debate can get over whether a comma deserved a place in a headline.

Although this was a large part of my experience, I did have the opportunity to get a few words published, and even snap up several by-lines in the process. When you do become a journalist, you get fed hundreds of stories a day from prospective people thirsty to be branded eye witnesses. It becomes less about finding a good story, and more about filtering out the bad ones. This meant that I was given a handful of pieces to write, which actually turned out to be not as nerve wrecking as I originally thought. Although graduate bank accounts aren’t my passion, nor is the level of students living in privately owned halls, having the confirmation from the editor that the substance of the stories was good enough to publish gave me a lot of confidence. It was a presumption that I would have to manufacture these exciting stories that made me so nervous in the first place. The concept of essentially becoming a vessel to convey these pre-assigned stories had me far more optimistic. I believed I coped well, and was even fortunate enough to get a spot on the cover of my departments insert.

I really enjoyed my experience at The Times, and it has fuelled my ambition to continue down the avenue of journalism. Having a few by-lines published for the portfolio has certainly boosted my own personal confidence. I also can’t stress enough how grateful I am to have to worked among such inspiring and polite journalists. From the junior reporter to the Editor, everyone was lovely, welcoming, and accommodating, despite their busy schedules. It was truly encouraging to have such a busy organisation take genuine interest in a student’s career.

My Student experience in London

Hello

So I’ve realised that this blog has become horrifically impersonal, so I thought I would do a post to help you guys get to know the person behind the keyboard.

You may have noticed in my little profile section that there is a slight snippet about myself being an English Literature and History student in London. I thought I could expand upon this, and tell you a little about my experience studying in the big city (Especially as I have spent the majority of my life in the quiet security of the countryside).

I would be lying if I said the prospect of living in the capital, and being able to brand myself a “Londoner” , didn’t excite me.  However trading the trees and fields of the Shire for the concrete buildings and interminable sirens of the city wasn’t quite what I expected.

The first pre-conception I had was that Londoners were innately and unnecessarily rude. Well this notion hasn’t necessarily been shattered, overtime I have almost learned to sympathise with the behaviour of those “rude” Londoners. If you’ve ever visited London, you might have found yourself shoved to one side of the tube, or pushed past in the street by a herd of businessmen clad in suits. Well I can agree that this is annoying, their behaviour is not entirely unjustified. The truth is, naturally the people in London are just far busier, or at least there’s a higher concentration of the busy people in comparison to most areas. Given the environment, it’s rare that you’re going to walk past people that are out for just an aimless stroll. Almost everyone has somewhere to be. Countless times I have been halted by a blockade of naïve tourists gawping at our architecture. We do have some impressive landmarks, but come on…stand to one side. Of course it would be unfair to generalise this to everyone in London, but let’s be honest, you would be pretty annoyed as well if your daily routine was continuously slowed down by people who are simply ignorant to the regular customs. It can be frustrating living in a tourist destination to have to wade through unpredictable traffic to go about your daily business. But hey, I suppose it’s what you sign up for. I should also add that many tourists are actually very mindful of our customs, but all it takes is the odd few to have Londoners cursing through their teeth. Must be something in the water.

So I suppose other than a gradual growing impatience towards visitors to the city, another huge impact London has had on me as been the draining of my bank account. As I am entering my third and final year of study, you would think naturally that the drinking and partying would slow down as my maturity developed an appropriate level of seriousness for my work. You would be wrong…partly. My sensible work ethic has been forced by my economic struggles. In the majority of central clubs in London, you are extorted for the equivalent of your weekly food shop every time you want to quench your thirst. Accompany this with the mammoth monthly rent, and you have a whole city of students leaching off their overdrafts to survive. The student loan just doesn’t stretch.

My final comment on life in London is perhaps one of the main ones on the minds of the majority of parents. Crime. This was something I was never too worried about. Again, living in the countryside I’ve been fortunate enough to avoid the criminal grasp of gang violence. However I suppose I did underestimate just how easy it is in the city for “trouble” to find you. I mean, it’s a fairly regular occurrence on my regular route to campus to be approached by youths trying to sell me drugs. I must admit, the majority are fairly polite in the way they go about pushing their product. But I would be lying if I said that they all took rejection with grace. Furthermore, I have unfortunately been involved in a few situations that I fear were pushed right to the precipice of problems occurring.  But it’s a city, there’s going to be some nutters. The best advice I could give you is to keep your head down. If trouble comes looking for you, just walk the other way. I have since changed my route to Uni.

So those were a few of the things I found had the most impact on me when I first moved to London. I thought it would change the tone of my blog a little and make it that slight bit more personal.

Thanks for reading!

J J

Feminism in Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs Dalloway”

 

Many of Virginia Woolf’s works have been attributed with the promotion of feminism, and as such, the topic of feminism in her novels is broad and rich with content. To try and keep this relatively interesting, I’ve been very selective with what I’ve included, and picked just a small selection of points that I found to be the most interesting when I first read Mrs Dalloway.

I must confess that modernist literature, although refreshing, has never really been my thing. Furthermore, the plot of Mrs Dalloway at a first glance, wouldn’t be something that on paper would interest me. However when I started actually reading it, one character in particular that stood out for me, was Sally Seaton. Sally Seaton is perhaps the most obvious advert for feminism in the novel. She enters the narrative as the embodiment of 20^th century feminism, personifying independence and instinctively arguing over women’s rights with the patriarchal Hugh Whitbread. Peter Walsh reminisces “One of the things he remembered best was an argument on Sunday morning at Bourton about women’s rights (that antediluvian topic), when Sally suddenly lost her temper, flared up” (page 62). The narration in this passage aligns with the traditional and widely accepted consensus that women should be shackled by their gender. Describing the topic as “antediluvian” and suggesting that Sally was unreasonable in the way she “flared up”. During the early 20^th century women’s rights were still very limited, and Mrs. Dalloway takes place in the recent aftermath of women achieving the right to vote in 1918. That being said, the controversial argument of women’s rights would very much have been a large topic of debate, especially post factum of women’s suffrage.

Sally also adopts an open and liberalist ideology. She lives life in the moment, and appears not to be governed by politics nor politeness. She is a rare example of a woman showing independence.  However, in many ways the somewhat anti climatic subduing of Sally’s once free spirit is very much reflective of the tight patriarchal grip that was ever closing around women of the period. Sally portrays a very different image to the one Clarissa paints when she arrives at the party. Once idolized and admired for her outrageous and shocking nature, now seems to be tamed by the patriarchal society she once detested. Once sally referred to marriage as a “catastrophe” for women, now she has adopted her husband’s name, referred to as “Lady Rosseter”, a mother of five. Even Peter Walsh struggles to align with Sally’s new found maternal role, “he really could not call her ‘lady Rosseter’” (page 158) being shocked that Sally has surrendered to the male governed society. This is indicative of the way in which the culture of the early 20^th century overturned and consumed the spirit of feminism. Sally’s personality seems far more dry and dull now that she has been tamed under the thumb of her male companion, in comparison to her once exciting and engaging traits.

What is perhaps most noteworthy about the relationship between Sally and Clarissa, Is the way in which Woolf brings into question the pairs sexuality. Woolf writes “Sally stopped: picked a flower; kissed her on the lips” (page 30). During the period of publication there were still legal restraints on homosexuality, making this act shocking, for both the reader and Clarissa. What makes this moment so powerful is how Clarissa reflects on the kiss “Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life” suggesting that this was much more than just a passing moment of folly. Upon reflection she even says “had not that, after all, been love?” Woolf writes “it had a quality which could only exist between women, between women just grown up” (page 29). Here the relationship appears very matriarchal, having a bond that cannot be as strong nor as special with men, but one that can only exist between women. The focus between the relationship of Sally and Clarissa is representative of this concept. Woolf essentially uses her two characters attraction a form of feminist protest, rejecting the need for male involvement in a loving relationship.

One of the less obvious ways that Woolf promotes feminism, is not through her promotion of the female characters, but her criticism of the male ones. In particular, the physicians. Being a predominantly male profession, their arrogance and ignorance is almost comical.

Woolf herself suffered a history of mental illness, and there is no doubt that her own experiences with the ignorance of male physicians had inspired her writings. She has been described by Stephen Trombley as being a “victim of male medicine”. Her own failure to have her depression successfully treated is arguably what lead to her suicide in 1941. This male dominated profession is an ill image representative of a particular sex and class. Through Doctor Holmes and Sir William Bradshaw, Virginia Woolf promotes her own feminist views, by presenting these characters in an unfavourable light. It is the hounding from the male Doctors that drives Septimus to suicide, as the narrator says moments before his death “he didn’t want to die”. There is almost a predatory aspect to the encounter that the Doctors want to devour his soul. Behaviours that are inherent of a primitive desire to peak their masculinity. Woolf describes Bradshaw as “the brute with the red nostrils” and uses aggressive verbs such as “he swooped, he devoured, he shut people up”, giving him connotations to a predatory eagle. Sir William is a powerful representative of the masculine aspect of human nature. When the two strands of story intersect at Clarissa’s party, she too instinctively knows that Bradshaw has caused Septimus’ death. “Suppose he had the passion, and had gone to Sir William Bradshaw, a great doctor yet to her extremely evil”, and continues “If this young man had gone to him, and Sir William impressed him, like that, with his power, might he not then have said (indeed she felt it now), Life is made intolerable; they make intolerable, men like that” (page 157). Here Woolf presents very plainly that male ignorance and arrogance has caused the suffering of the otherwise innocent.

Despite obtaining the vote in 1918, women’s rights were far from equal. In the wake of the suffragette movement, feminist literature was becoming more and more integral in the promotion of equality. Woolf draws from her own experiences of male oppression, be it from the male physicians she suffered in her own life, to living through and seeing the horrors of the First World War, and the destruction that men caused. Since its publication in 1925 by Hogarth Press, Mrs Dalloway has remained an important and inspiring piece of feminist literature.

 

Some writing on Woolf that I found useful when writing this:

Barrett, Eileen, Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings, NYU Press, 1997

Montashery, Iraj, A feminist reading of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, Univeristy Putra Malaysia, 2012

Trombley Stephen, All that summer she was mad Virginia Woolf and her Doctor, 1981

 

The Cold War in The War of the Worlds

Although written before the Cold War, HG Well’s The War of the Worlds is almost clairvoyant in the way it echoes the foundations of the tense conflict that took the earth to the brink of nuclear annihilation. The Cold War brought with it the same suspense that the Brits endured in War of the Worlds, only the world was threatened to be destroyed at the hands of men wielding nuclear power as oppose to a Martian invasion. One of the most interesting comparisons between the factual and fictional conflicts is the importance of information, and misinformation.

Partly what made the Cold War such a terrifying experience for the majority of civilians, was the harrowing silence. On both sides, the USA and the USSR, a silence descended as the iron curtain was drawn closed. In retaliation to this silence, both sides prepared for the worst. War. In The War of the Worlds, a similar silence creates an equally frightening experience. The intensity that is created while the inhabitants of Woking wait for their extra-terrestrial cylinder to open is nail-biting.  At the moment the cylinder opens, “The little group of black specks with the flag of white had been swept out of existence” (page 27). Marking the swift incineration of peaceful civilians. It was a similar real fear for the people living through the political instability of the cold war. The fear that out of the silence would emerge a nuclear heat that would to sweep them from existence.

Sight plays an important part in the narrative, with the harrowing opening “this world was being watched” (page 1).  Wells writes, “intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us”. Although written about the Martians, you can almost imagine both the Russian and the American governments of the time secretly drawing up their own schemes for ideological domination. Both the USA and USSR employed espionage tactics by using spies to uncover secrets and information, silently observing their enemy. The idea of being watched continues throughout the narrative when the Martians are concealed in their pit “the Martians did not show an inch of themselves…apparently they were busy getting ready for a struggle” (page 40). This continues the idea of not being able to see your opponent, but being aware that they are plotting against you.

Furthermore, newspapers are a fundamental part of the novel, representing the importance of communication and information in a modern society. As the novel moves forward, the mention of newspapers shrinks drastically. You can measure this using the Voyant tool. This is the result of the Martians invading British information, and sabotaging their main forms of communication. By limiting what information the humans could convey to one another, the Martians were able to come so close to global domination. This highlight the importance of information in fighting modern day wars. They are more effectively won through collapsing the others infrastructure than storming the gates.

The similarities are numerous, despite Well’s novel pre-existing the cold war. Perhaps this is due to humans sharing with the Martians an innate desire to conquer other civilizations. After all, Wells highlights at the beginning of the novel the dark history that shrouds British imperialism. I don’t know what is scarier, heat rays wielded by Martians, or nuclear weapons in the hands of men.