A Frog Reviews: The Harry Potter Portraits of Jim Kay

Tags

draco malfoy, Harry Potter, illustrated editions, jim kay, portrait painting

There are now four illustrated editions of the main Harry Potter books by JK Rowling and Jim Kay. These are available in hardback, paperback and large format deluxe editions. A notable feature of all of them have been the full page high quality portraits of the characters. So far we have…

In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone…
Page 16: Harry Potter in the closet under the stairs. The angle is poignant, Harry looks small and delicate in this book. The surrounding spiders and webs highlight his unimportance.
Page 23: Harry Potter talking to the snake. Sweetly illustrated from the snake’s side of the glass, Harry glows in this close-up.
Page 36: Vernon Dursley rowing away from any more Hogwarts letters. You really feel the wetness of the sea and the sky and I particularly like the calm look on Vernon’s face as he sails away from his problems.
Page 39: Hagrid enters. Despite there being nothing else but a bare bulb in this image Hagrid looms over you, head slightly bent to show he doesn’t fit in the space. He manages to be mildly threatening in posture, but kind in face.
Page 67: Draco Malfoy. I love this image, the looming dark that fills the top of the image shows how young and small Draco is while intimating the darkness of his family background. The underlighting gives him a faintly sinister and yet somewhat lost look. The eyes are cold and grey, he looks sad but unapproachable. The measuring tape echoes a snake coiling around him.
Page 84: Albus Dumbledore. One of the stand out images of the book, a traditional portrait in the style of the medieval period (particularly the artist Holbein, see portrait below). Portrayed eating his favourite sherbert lemons with some knitting set to the left side and a vase of dried honesty seed heads to the right. On the honesty stands a preying mantis and next to it is a glass bottle full of what almost look like pomegranate seeds. The symbolism is heavy and ambiguous, as suited to such a complex character who may be seen to betray Harry to death as did Judas Escariot (the honesty plant is also known as “coins of Judas”). The pomegranate seeds may symbolise Persephone’s trip to the Underworld, as Dumbledore has certainly spent time in dark places. His face is at once tired and foreboding, gentle and stern.
Page 99: Harry wears the Sorting Hat. Another whimsical image with the multi-coloured, befeathered hat dwarfing Harry as the focus of the portrait.
Page 103: Nearly Headless Nick. A dramatic, almost Shakespearean, pose and angle. The viewpoint reveals the inside of Sir Nick’s servered neck and a beautifully realised skeletal ghost bird leads the eye up and right to the heavens that Nick has chosen not to enter.
Page: 110: Snape with potions ingredients. Surrounded by jars of indescribable ingredients, including an entire human head on the bottom right. He is lit from below by a glowing vial with a winged stopper. His head is almost haloed by the large round bottle behind him giving intimations of his split devil/angel persona in the books.
Page 150: Hermione with lantern. Not quite a portrait, the intense concentration on her face is palpable. Although it’s not on that page I always think that this is Hermione going to the library to search for Nicholas Flamel.
Page 160: Ron Weasley. Quite a sketchy watercolour (I think) portrait with a lot of pencilwork visible in the face. Lopsided and freckled and very very ginger with the long stretched face of a boy who is growing vertically faster than his body is ready for. Kay does some great Weasley faces.
Page 200: Minerva McGonagall. Another medieval style oil. In her hands she holds a book and on one hand perches a toad, perhaps symbolic of the fact she is a witch. Her face is as enigmatic as the character in the book, how well do we really know the stern Minerva McGonagall?
Page 234: Quirrel/Voldemort. Our first view of Voldemort as Quirrel is seen from the back unwinding his turban.
Page 238: A simply stunning head and shoulders pencil and watercolour wash portrait of Harry. His face is soft and wistful, his clothes and hair suitably messy.

This book set an impossibly high standard for books that were from then on going to be put out yearly. They have never come close to the quality of this first book, and it’s existence weakens them by showing just how amazing they could be if the artist were given more time. The finest image by far is the Holbein style painting of Albus Dumbledore, also of particular quality are the portrait of Draco, the painting of McGonagall and the pencil portrait of Harry on page 238.

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets…
Page 8: Dudley Dursley. Nothing special.
Page 13: Dobby. A wilting creature, eyes brimming with hope. He sits on the edge of the bed with his shadow and the carpet below him taking up a large section of the image, he is on the brink of danger, walking a tightrope. There is also a small sketch of Dobby running down the stairs on page 15 that I absolutely love.
Page 43: Draco Malfoy in Borgin and Burkes. Only a vertical half page pencil sketch, but really beautifully done.
Page 113: sepia pencil sketch of Hermione Granger, her books bigger than her head. Very much in the classic style of Michelangelo. I can see this Hermione clearly as the same Hermione I see in the illustrated Goblet of Fire.
Page 119: Moaning Myrtle. The face in this just doesn’t do it for me, aside from that the background and painting are nice. I think Myrtle looks too old.
Page 124: Gilderoy Lockhart. Although it has the same layout as his previous Holbeinesque oil paintings, with the gold lettering and the figure from the waist up seated at a table, this does not have the same feel as his previously styled portraits. The painting is a little too cartoony, probably indicative of it being done more quickly than the others. Or it may be intentional, to reflect the superficiality of the character. The symbolic items remain though, he writes with a peacock quill, and one hand rests on a mirror. There is also a spider on his desk, perhaps indicating that behind his facade lurks something darker and more dangerous.
Pages 130-131: Harry Potter playing Quidditch in the rain. A double page spread against dark clouds with the small figure of Draco Malfoy coming after him to the right. A hint of a rainbow shows to the left. The brush strokes are rough and large, but the face is well detailed and clearly the same boy we have seen in his other portraits. A good energy.
Page 169: Draco Malfoy. This is a very odd portrait. Draco’s head hangs low and he looks defeated and wary, in contrast to the proud and voluble Malfoy in the pages where Harry and Ron are polyjuiced as Crabbe and Goyle. His eyes are the palest blue grey and his eyebrows as fair as his hair. A boy trapped by his own facade perhaps?
Page 190: Professor Sprout. Her face kind, she is crowded by partying mandrakes. In the top left corner flies a bee. Rough but pleasing.
Page 199: Rubeus Hagrid. Similar in style to the portrait of Draco, drawn as if it were in a frame with his name on it. Hagrid also looks sad, understandably as this is the section where he’s dragged off to Azkaban.

There are only 10 portraits in this book compared to the 14 in Philosopher’s Stone, and none stand up to the quality of the best portraits of the first book. The strongest images are probably the pencil portraits of Draco on page 43 and Hermione on page 113. I think this illustrates the time issue, it is far quicker to do a skilled and realistic pencil sketch than a painting.

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban….
Page 22: Aunt Marge blown up. Quite crude.
Page 63: Remus Lupin and Dementor. Not really a portrait as Remus is very small in the corner reflected in a mirror, his face lit by the flames in his hands.
Page 79: Professor Sybil Trelawney. One of the better portraits, he shows Trelawney gazing up to the heavens in excitement, her face luminous against the dark red background of her smoky room.
Page 94: Severus Snape. The best portrait in the book, another medieval style symbolic painting. On the table before him we see lily of the valley to remind us of his love for Lily Potter, also a mole in a jar as Snape is quite literally a mole. The scissors also indicate the two sided blades of his position. In his hands he holds the stopper of a vial and he is using one finger to mark a place in a book his hands rest on, perhaps indicating his inability to move on. He seems to have a scar on his chin.
Page 102: Parvati casts Riddikulus. A strong, energetic portrait of a determined young witch.
Page 256: Sirius Black. A very shadowy portrait with his face hidden by hair and beard.
Page 270: Severus Snape casting a spell. Quite sketchy.
Page 277: Peter Pettigrew. A full length single page painting, rather than a portrait.
Page 318: Remus Lupin, three quarter portrait in pencil. Non-descript, which I suppose Remus is. But with his face quite small,turned down and to the side, the picture doesn’t engage, the figure remains distant.

Only 9 portraits in this book, the two strongest are clearly the paintings of Snape and Trelawney. Many of the others are sketchy, or dark. There are some nice miniature oval portraits through the book however; Harry (pg 2), Dumbledore (pg 174), Harry (pg 196), Cho Chang (pg 197), and Ron and Hermione (pg 220). I was particularly disappointed in the weakness of the images of Sirius and Remus, two of the most important characters in the book and deserving of better.

In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire….
Page 28-30: Arthur Weasley. Dynamic image, great clothes, wonderful expression.
Page 36: Ron Weasley. Quite a small portrait against the larger backdrop of his bedroom wall covered with quidditch books and memoribilia. Love his quidditch jumper.
Page 59: Poster-boy Viktor Krum. Very smoldering.
Page 87: Draco Malfoy in the woods. Who is this boy? Because it is 100% not the boy we’ve seen in the past three books. Heavy jaw, dark eyebrows. At a careful look the eyes are the same colour, but this looks like a complete stranger. Very disappointing as all his previous portraits of Draco have been cohesive and striking.
Page 172: Albus Dumbledore and the Goblet of Fire.
Page 192: Rita Skeeter. Another quite cartoony image. Full length, just about. Nice enough, lots of background detail which seems to have become standard in a lot of his portraits after book 1.
Page 254: Ginny Weasley. The stand out portrait of the book.
Pages 391-392: Lord Voldemort as scaly red child monster, then rising embodied out of the cauldron. The depiction of the child version looks more like a goblin from Labyrinth than how I imagined him to actually look. The other image is very sketchy, atmospheric but not really a portrait.
Page 421: Mad Eye Moody unconscious. A nicely detailed full length pencil drawing.
Page 442: Mad Eye Moody. A more standard portrait layout but the picture is too comic book for me.
Page 447: half page pencil sketch of Hermione Granger.

A count of 11 portraits for this book, of which only a few stand out. My main beef here is the boys, let’s take a look…

Harry and Draco look nothing like their previous portraits, and while I understand that teenage boys change, these just don’t feel like the same people, especially Draco. Also Cedric and Viktor look too similar and with Harry also having black hair it gets really repetitive. The Weasleys and Hermione stayed strong, Hermione is noticeably the same person through all four books, as is Ron.

I bought the deluxe editions of the first three, but I doubt I will continue to as I’m just not impressed enough by the illustrations and they take up a lot of space.

In my next post I’ll take a look at some of the other aspects of the illustrated books, but to finish up this one here’s my top 10 full page portraits over all four books…

1. Philosophers Stone, page 84: Albus Dumbledore.
2. Philosophers Stone, page 238: Harry Potter in watercolour and pencil.
3. Philosophers Stone, page 67: Draco Malfoy being measured.
4. Prisoner of Azkaban, page 94: Severus Snape.
5. Chamber of Secrets, page 113: Hermione Granger pencil sketch.
6. Philosophers Stone, page 200: Minerva McGonagall.
7. Goblet of Fire, page 254: Ginny Weasley.
8. Prisoner of Azkaban, page 79: Professor Sybil Trelawney.
9. Prisoner of Azkaban, page 318: Remus Lupin in pencils.
10. Goblet of Fire, page 28-30: Arthur Weasley.

A Frog Reviews: The Illustrated Goblet of Fire

Tags

goblet of fire, Harry Potter, illustrated editions, jim kay, jk rowling, review, reviews

This is the first of a series of reviews and thoughts on the illustrated books by Jim Kay. Any images I use will be intentionally low quality photos with my phone, if you want to see the pictures properly you’ll have to buy the book 😉

I must admit I wasn’t looking forward to this release. With such a massive jump in length and the decrease in quality that has resulted previously from rushing the editions out at a speed of one a year this was sure not to live up to my hopes.

But let’s look at the best and the worst of this particular issue, without comparison to what came before. The book contains 31 full page or double page spreads as well as other smaller drawings and graphics. I particularly liked the border and heading illustrations at the start of each chapter.

The best full size portrait is undoubtedly Ginny Weasley on page 254. Probably the second best portrait is Arthur Weasley flying out of the Dursleys fireplace on pages 28-29, but it does not compare to the quality of Ginny’s image which is particularlybeautiful. I also liked the pencil drawing of Moody lying in the bottom of his chest on page 421, and the pencil sketch of Hermione on page 447. The pencil work is often nicer than the colour or pastel/chalk images.

The best picture of Harry is maybe page 16 where there is a small illustration of Harry receiving Sirius’s letter, or possibly the sepia tone sketch of him with the castle portraits on page 176. Overall he is poorly portrayed in the book.

The best mini portraits are Barty Crouch Sr (page 63, I particularly like the sign above his head), Nearly Headless Nick (page 121), and Winky (page 331). Fleur also gets a couple of nice portraits on pages 164 and 194, and there are some nice sketches of the Hogwarts house elves on pages 241, 251 and 257.

For those who are curious exactly whom they are getting here is a breakdown of character appearances…

Harry Potter 15, Cedric Diggory 7, Ron Weasley 4, Viktor Krum 4, Draco Malfoy 4 (counting the ferret), Mad Eye Moody 4, Voldemort 4, Fleur Delacour 3, Frank Bryce 3, Arthur Weasley 3, Hermione Granger 3, Ludo Bagman 2, Ginny Weasley 2, and Winky 2.

Cedric’s seven appearances are deceptive as they are mostly towards the end in images with Harry and a lot of them are sillhoettes or small parts of larger images.  I don’t thinnk Cedric is well imagined in this book at all.

Single appearances: Vernon and Dudley Dursley,  Molly Weasley, Barty Crouch Sr, Fred and George Weasley, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, Bill and Charlie Weasley, Percy Weasley, Hassan Mostafa (quidditch referee), Nearly Headless Nick, Albus Dumbledore, Rita Skeeter (or 3 appearances if counting her beetle form), Ollivander, Hagrid, Madame Maxime, Dean Thomas (I think its him anyway), Dobby, Pansy Parkinson, Fleur’s sister, Nagini, and finally the apparitions of James and Lily Potter.

What I liked least visually were the portrayals of Harry, Cedric, Draco, Krum and Viktor. They all looked a bit like the same person, particularly in the heaviness of the jaw and Cedric was virtually indistinguishable from Krum aside from styling. Also all the images of Krum but the first (which is a very nicely done Quidditch poster of him on page 59) seemed to be the same picure repeated. Especially disappointing for me, as he’s one of my favourite characters, was the double page spread of Draco Malfoy on pages 86-87.

Notable absences on the character front were Hermione at the Yule Ball, Cho Chang, Neville Longbottom, Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall, Karkaroff, Wormtail, and Barty Crouch Jr. These characters should have been given some space. Especially given there were plenty of instances of empty space at the end of chapters, I counted nineteen half to almost full blank pages at the end of chapters.

Overall the Yule Ball was particularly badly covered with only one two page spread (262-263) that was mostly unidentifiable characters and not very well realised. In the spread Fleur looks like the Portrait of a Girl with a Pearl Earring, Krum looks identical in clothing and posture to most of his other images and Draco is a throwaway sketch. Only Ron is quite nicely done, the illustrator seems to have a strong grasp of the Weasleys overall.

But what about the other images. Notable large illustrations and locations are The Riddle House, the kitchen and Ron’s room at the Burrow, the tents at the World Cup, the Hogwarts Express, the Beaubaxtons flying carriage, many images of dragons, the Durmstrang ship on the Black Lake with Hogwarts in the background, the centre of the Triwizard Maze, and the graveyard.

Particularly nice is the inside and outside page turn over of the Weasley’s kitchen on bottom of pages 38-40 and the two full page spreads of the Beauxbatons carriage (pages 156-157), and the Durmstrang ship (pages 280-281).

I think some of the nicest images are the smaller illustrations. In particular I liked Mrs Weasleys letter to the Dursleys, and the various SPEW and Potter Stinks badges.

I think Jim Kay really needs to work on his young men, they were the weakest thing in this book. I’d like to see more full page high quality painted portraits, although obviously these are very time intensive to create. I would much prefer these books to come out more slowly with a higher level of illustration than be churned out on a yearly basis.

In my next article I will look at the best and worse full page portraits over the four books released so far and discuss Harry’s portrayal over them.

More Money and Stress Saving Options For Politicians

By the argument of several European political parties and countries by allowing Syrians the option of leaving their country and moving to Europe we are causing the problem.

Surely we can apply this genius concept to many other troubling areas. For instance by offering child abuse victims the option of reporting their abusers and being able to leave the situation or be protected in some way by social workers we are causing untold numbers of children to do so leading to great expense in dealing with the allegations and trauma in those forced to hear about the terrible offences. If we were just to make it clear that we do not want to know and there is no recourse or aid they would just shut up and leave us alone to pretend it wasn’t happening.

This could surely also be applied to adult abuse victims, the poor and disabled etc and before we know it we will have solved the “debt crisis” all together and have successfully retreated back to the 1800s where we can presumably start Empire building again and feel big, rich and important all day long.

Or am I missing the point?

Space, The Final Frontier

I often say I never knew what I wanted to be as a kid. It occurs to me that’s not true at all. I just didn’t think I could be what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a fighter pilot or an astronaut.

You might think that as a woman growing up in 80s/90s Scotland I didn’t think I could be those things because I was female. But actually until I was in my 30s I didn’t think much about feminism because never in my life had it occurred to me that being female meant I couldn’t do exactly what I wanted to. In fact you might say that the loud modern existence of feminism had made me feel much more restricted than being female every did.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a feminist. I think these discussions are important and the research backs up the existence of the issue. But personally I was minimally impacted by it,  possibly cause I always assumed it was me personally that any issue was directed at rather than my gender,  which I don’t think I every massively connected with.

But I came here to talk about ambition and about space. I would estimate that 20-30% of my dreams are set in space,  which is a lot given I’ve never been there. I spent a lot of time reading and watching scifi from an early age. And I absolutely wanted to be a five pilot and/or astronaut. But around the age of 13 I started needing glasses and within a few years I was quite badly short sighted. And in the early 90s you could not be a fighter pilot or an astronaut (who seemed to mostly be pilots) if you didn’t have 20/20 vision.

So I knew I couldn’t be that. Literally couldn’t. You can’t study your eyes back to 20/20. I thought about being an astrophysicist (which I knew was a thing you could study cause my maths teacher had done it). I wasn’t really sold on it cause I didn’t really know what it was, I mixed it up a lot with astronomy. And physics and maths were both really hard and I thought you were only good at things and supposed to do them if you didn’t have to try at them. I also thought you were just supposed to know things without asking about them or it meant you were stupid.

There were a lot of things I didn’t understand about life when I was 16 and making all these decisions.

I dropped out of maths and physics in 6th year cause they were hard and took biology and geography instead with no real goal in mind other than the thought that I found those subjects really easy so that meant I should do them.

I wonder what would have happened if I’d had 20/20 vision.

The Statistics of Accidental Death wih Reference to 7/7

Tags

7/7, accidental death, england, statistics, suicide, terrorism

Why do so many people have a story of how they were nearly caught up in 7/7 or 9/11? I’ve been guilty of it myself with 9/11. A tendency to over relate to a story that in reality didn’t involve most of us. A tendency that plays into the atmosphere of fear these events hope to create and ignores the statistics. Though I think it is often more to do with our tendency to want to be part of the group discussion than any real fear that we could have been killed.

A lot of people died in both events, but statistically speaking a tiny number of people died. 52 people died in the 7/7 bombings, but the total of people in 3 full tube trains and 1 double decker bus would have been far far more. It is estimated 4000 people were directly exposed to the explosions in some way, of approximately 500,000 people travelling at rush hour. So only 0.8% of people travelling were in any danger, only 0.15% were injured and only 0.01% died.

So what is my point? It wasn’t you, it wasn’t even likely to be you. Even if you hadn’t run 10 minutes late, or left your wallet at home and gone back for it, or taken a different bus from usual. Yes, the people who died were just like you, but let’s remember them and their trauma instead of attempting to hang a little of our own on a hook that doesn’t belong to us.

And let’s stay realistic about the perils of life. We live in a phenomenally safe country, you are more at risk from your tendency to eat too many sweets and sit on your sofa instead of going for a walk than you are from terrorism, or indeed any other form of accidental death.

11,000-12,000 people every year die accidentally (out of 53 million people in England, so 0.02% of the population). The biggies being traffic accidents, falling down/over/off things, accidental poisoning (inc drugs and alcohol) and self harm/suicide. Almost half of “accidental” deaths (about 5,800 in 2011) are via self harm or suicide. Add that to being clumsy on stairs and eating/drinking things you shouldn’t and you are a far far bigger danger to yourself than any terrorist.

Thoughts on a Referendum

Tags

indyref, referendum, scotland

I’ve had 4 hours of sleep, went to bed at 6am with only three regions still to declare.

My main thought is general. Referendums give people an experience of actual choice. They mobilise a population that wants to be political but feels disenfranchised by elections where individual votes rarely matter except in a few specific areas and where many of the biggest political parties involved feel as if they are too similar. The idea that people don’t care has been proven a lie. It should be standard practice to run regular referendums on important/larger issues to keep the population active, involved and aware… unless of course that isn’t what you actually want?

My second thought is this… 45% of voters in Scotland opted for a massively risky and revolutionary option with a turnout of 84.5% of the registered population. The last government that had 45% or more support of the electorate was in 1970, every government since then has had a lower level of overall support by voters. The last election that had a turnout equal or higher was … well not one election going back to 1945 had that size of turnout, there was 83.9% in 1950. In the last general election only 65.1% of the electorate bothered, and in 2001 we hit a low of 59.4%. This is in every way an enormous result for independence, so much so I find it hard to consider it a defeat for the Yes campaign. The very fact that it could have gone yes, that any areas at all in Scotland, let alone large population areas like Glasgow, shows how real this desire is.

The No vote won by just under 400,000 votes. One thing crosses my mind. In 2011 there were nearly 1 million (883,519) people living in Scotland who were born in other countries and around 1 million people who were born in Scotland who live outside of the country. If the vote had been held only among those who would be Scottish nationals, automatically eligible for a Scottish passport from birth, would the result have been the same?

I’ve tried to do a bit of statistical analysis using the %age no vote related to the %age non-Scots by region using the 2011 census results. I am slightly hampered by having paid zero attention in any of the very few statistics classes I have ever been in. Apparently a correlation coefficient will always fall between 1 and -1 with -1 being a negative correlation and +1 being a positive correlation. My figures show 0.03 which is positive but pretty minimal I admit. However knowing nothing I present the actual figures for your interest at the end of the article.

The question is how would non-domiciled Scots have voted? Is it even possible to get a reliable figure? Have there been any polls on this figure?

However I would like to make it clear I don’t think there was any correct definitive way to do this. In this referendum non-Scots who had only been in Scotland a short period of time had a vote while Scots who had not long moved away and may only have intended to be out of the country for a few years got no vote. But if only Scots “nationals” could have voted then people who had lived most of their lives in Scotland and had no intention of leaving would have been disenfranchised and Scots who may have spent only a few childhood years at home then emigrated permanently would have had a say. And the logistics of an in between position may have been prohibitive. But that doesn’t mean the question isn’t interesting given the numbers involved.

Graph below is %age non-Scots on the  vertical axis and %age No votes on horizontal axis.

AREA	VOTES	YES	NO	%age non-Scots (2011)
East Ayrshire	99664	47.22%	52.78%	2.26%
North Ayrshire	113923	48.99%	51.01%	2.49%
Inverclyde	62481	49.92%	50.08%	2.61%
Eilean Siar	22908	46.58%	53.42%	2.90%
North Lanarkshire	268704	51.07%	48.93%	3.00%
West Dunbartonshire	71109	53.96%	46.04%	3.13%
Orkney Islands	17806	32.80%	67.20%	3.32%
South Lanarkshire	261157	45.33%	54.67%	3.39%
South Ayrshire	94881	42.13%	57.87%	3.40%
Dumfries & Galloway	122036	34.33%	65.67%	3.47%
Falkirk	122457	46.53%	53.47%	3.63%
Midlothian	69617	43.70%	56.30%	4.03%
Clackmannanshire	39972	46.20%	53.80%	4.17%
East Dunbartonshire	86836	38.80%	61.20%	4.29%
Renfrewshire	134735	47.19%	52.81%	4.29%
Angus	93551	43.68%	56.32%	4.50%
East Renfrewshire	72981	36.81%	63.19%	4.81%
Argyll & Bute	72002	41.48%	58.52%	4.88%
Shetland Islands	18516	36.29%	63.71%	5.06%
Moray	75170	42.44%	57.56%	5.23%
Scottish Borders	95533	33.44%	66.56%	5.23%
East Lothian	81945	38.28%	61.72%	5.32%
West Lothian	138226	44.82%	55.18%	5.62%
Fife	302165	44.95%	55.05%	5.67%
Highland	190778	47.08%	52.92%	5.67%
Aberdeenshire	206486	39.64%	60.36%	5.95%
Perth & Kinross	120015	39.81%	60.19%	6.97%
Stirling	69033	40.23%	59.77%	7.09%
Dundee City	118729	57.35%	42.65%	9.00%
Glasgow	486219	53.49%	46.51%	12.24%
Edinburgh	378012	38.90%	61.10%	15.88%
Aberdeen City	175745	41.39%	58.61%	15.91%

The Bucket List

For some reason today I was thinking about Bucket Lists and accomplishment.

There’s something about a Bucket List that I dislike, there is some implication in it that I am not living my life to the full, that I need a list of things I haven’t done to go and accomplish to make me a better, happier and more awesome person.

Well I have discovered a short cut to the stress, insecurity and expense of fulfiling your bucket list requirements. Write your list using only amazing things you have already accomplished that you think are the sort of thing someone might put on their bucket list.

Ta da, you have a bucket list, you’ve already finished it, you are therefore a success at life and can die without the stain on your ego of having failed to complete said list.

And I suggest also that when you compose your list in your head or perhaps write it on a bit of paper, you don’t bother sharing it. on facebook or twitter. Cause the people on your facebook and twitter are either your friends and loved ones who already know you’re awesome and have achieved brilliant things or they are completely irrelevant.

Let me make this clear once more, anyone who does not think you are awesome is not your friend and does not matter. Let me clarify that. Your friends may think you are bit of a twat when you’re drunk, they may totally disagree with your opinion on Star Wars, they may still not have forgiven you for that really funny joke where you locked them out of the flat until 5am and they may be patiently waiting for you to grow the fuck up when it comes to relationships, but they should still think you’re awesome and not require any sort of constant stream of exciting, exotic and sexy accomplishments to keep up your street cred.

And every time we feel like we need to post something like that we should remind ourselves, this is not really about them, it’s about us and our own insecurities.

So I have written my list, in my head, and despite extreme temptation to demand approval for my awesomeoness. I am not going to post any of it. But it is awesome, I swear.

Remember (poem)

Tags

poetry

Just because something was good
 doesn’t mean it could last forever
Just because something was real
 doesn’t mean it ran deep and true
Just because love can turn sour
 doesn’t mean it was never sweet
Just because someone can be cruel
 doesn’t mean they were never kind
Just because it burns like fire
 doesn’t mean it will consume you
Just because we were mistaken
 doesn’t mean we were a mistake
Just because there’s no more words
 doesn’t mean there’s nothing to say
Just because it’s in the past
 doesn’t mean that it’s ever over
Just because something is lost
 doesn’t mean it can’t return
Just because something can return
 doesn’t mean that it ever will
Just because you might forgive
 doesn’t mean you must forget
Just because your heart got broken
 Just because our hearts got broken

What has love got to do with it?

Tags

Love, relationships

(this isn’t an old draft, I wrote this new and then got annoyed at all the old drafts kicking around, I’ve now edited the publish date on the old drafts to yesterday so this will appear first)

Am I doing it wrong? Am I expecting too much?

For me, I think, where is that person that I can’t take my eyes off, that makes my heart swell every time I even hold their hand and that feels the same way about me. That would walk through fire for me, that would never doubt their love for me, no matter what I said, no matter how hard it got. That would never give up no matter how much it hurt or how frightened they were by how it felt. That always wanted to know what I thought even if it didn’t suit them. That’s what I expect of myself in love, is it wrong to expect that of someone else?

I look at the people I’ve felt that way about and how far they’ve been from the mark. How their allegiances have always been elsewhere, how low on their priorities I’ve actually been, how in the end they didn’t want to know what I thought. But they’re the ones I’ve felt that way about, that driving need to be near them, to make them happy.

What has love been to you? What similarities have you seen through your relationships? What has made the difference between reality and fantasy? What holds you with someone while others fall away and what drives you back?

I think about the men I have loved and I wonder about each of them, would I want them here with me now. Would they make me feel loved, supported, safe? And I regretfully answer, no. Each one of them prioritised themselves over me, saw what they wanted to see and not what was actually there, and in the end what they wanted was to get more than they were willing to give.

I’d choose a myriad of my friends to sit in this room with me over that handful of men. Friends whom I can trust to see me as amazing and important even when they’re having a hard time too. I don’t need to run to them begging for support because I already know it’s there. Friends who would never describe me as needy because they’ve never made me feel like their friendship is conditional.

Why is it so easy for our friends to support us and so hard for our lovers or is it only the lovers that I pick?

I don’t ask rhetorically, I want to know what love has been like for you?

Want

Tags

relationships

(and the final old draft, all of these are over or around a year old whatever the date stamp on them from publishing may say)

I’ve been writing every day since my last post and before that. But finding a solid post with a purpose and a beginning and end that hasn’t descended into overly personal and pointless info is easier said than done.

What do I want to say and why do I want to say it and who do I want to say it to?

That I have a lot to say is certainly true, though a lot of it is repetitive. A battle is being waged inside my head between what I need and what I want, what I’m in the habit of doing and what I should be doing, what’s right and what’s wrong and what’s pointless and what’s important.

Between who I want to be and who I am.

Between my strengths and my weaknesses.

Between whether I can exist in myself or only by the acceptance of others.

What do I want to say? I want to yell at the people who’ve upset me until I’ve no voice left. I want to tell them exactly what I think of them and why. And I can’t. Because it will fix nothing, accomplish nothing. It won’t even make me feel better because I’ll say things that are true for me and not for them and I’ll say things that might not be true at all and they’ll say things back that’ll make me feel like a bad person and I’ll already feel like a bad person for saying anything in the first place cause I was brought up not to stand up for myself, not to show anger, not to be difficult or confrontational. And besides what I really want is for them to turn round and go yes, you’re absolutely right, we were unfair and unkind and inconsiderate and selfish in how we behaved. We thought we understood everything and we didn’t and we should have given you more of a chance to explain things and talk instead of making assumptions and cutting you out. We were disloyal and cowardly. You didn’t fail at poly, we did. And that is never going to happen.

I’m more likely to get that diamond pony than that.

And this is why asking ourselves what we want isn’t always useful. Of course you can always delve deeper. What is it I really want? But I already know that and basics are only vaguely relevant. I want to feel important and special. I don’t want to be ignored or disregarded or pushed aside by other showier pushier people. I want to feel safe, I want to feel cared for and I want to be able to look after people back. I want trust, loyalty and reliability from my friends and lovers.

So what am I fighting? I’m fighting the need to be loyal and loving to people that I no longer should be that way towards. There’s a strong line of not giving up on crappy relationships in my family, of holding decades long candles for people who’ve treated us badly and don’t deserve to still be thought of that way. Some feeling that says that being the wronged one who still cares for their persecutor somehow makes you a good person. Like jesus loving the world while dying on a cross. Bollocks to that I say. Unfortunately such early programming cannot be beaten by mere words no matter how much you think it’s a load of shite.

It’s also inherently selfish, as is most behaviour. It’s not about the other person, they’re over it, they don’t need you. It’s about what I need/want. I want to be the wronged one, somehow it feels like if I just get over it I’m a bad person. That I’m fickle, uncaring, how can it be love if you don’t die of a broken heart from it? Also it feels like giving that last bit of control away. I had no control over losing the relationship, the only bit of it that can’t be taken away from me is how I felt about him. And that was what he most wanted me to stop feeling, he wanted me to not care, to not react, to not get upset. So I’m strung over a barrel. I want to get over it and go on with my life, but he wants me to do that and part of getting over it is not doing what he wants me to do anymore. I don’t want to get over it almost to spite him. There’s a moral high ground to caring for someone more than they care about you.