This next theme falls under the title of ‘wartime’ with the more trepidatious and bashful subtitle in extra small writing ‘funtime‘.

War is surprisingly easy to talk about apolitically. It is a subject that is media savvy, universally present in entertainment and saturated with a duality of ambivalence and patriotism. England and Britain at the beginning of this sentence has been in approximately 109 wars and, according to my rashly researched sources, invaded around 9/10 countries: two statistics that are often read with the same pride as your football team winning a match.

In 1984, Orwell colourfully described a forever ongoing war between the three empires to distract away from internal struggles.  This idea was to create solidarity with a central cause to suffer personal grief’s for a more benevolent whole; a removal from reality under the ironic maxim “war is peace”.

And it is peculiar the sort of fetish we embellish war with as distractions to its own brutalities. History is jazzed up, polished and dressed by a fetish for stories and a fixation on the quirks of historical figures like Churchill or Napoleon. Its ultimate distraction is in reference to itself, and as good an example as any is the propaganda or war comics of the 1940′s (and they are right, a good comic with Captain America or the Human Torch pummeling Hitler is a good read).

Today, you still find on playgrounds the game of war, where you dramatically fall to the ground to the kid who makes the best machine gun noise, and roll around in mock agony channeling Shakespearian tragedy. I still laugh at the Sergeant in Full Metal Jacket, (“How tall are you, Private? Five-foot-nine, I didn’t know they stacked shit that high”) and I have never touched the button which turns off the blood in videogames.

All this is, terrible really. I don’t think the poet Owen Wilson would have enjoyed the carnal glee we get in the consumption of war. But then, I should say that I do like it, and it’s in my mind a great privilege to be accidentally ambivalent. To actively like watching documentaries and reading books on war is because it is so removed from my reality, and that is all made possible by people who have had war as part of theirs. That freedom gives me the greatest respect for soldiers who protected that right.

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The Life Aquatic

If I could choose to live in any movie, it would be a Wes Andersson movie (probably Fantastic Mr. Fox – I would be Mrs Fox, painting badass landscapes, having a utility belt filled with paintbrushes and making snappy deadpan comments all day), but this scene from The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is just beautiful. It’s a playful, nostalgic, dolls house world with a science lab, dolphins and Bill Murray’s wonderful monotonous descriptive narrative. I say no more.

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

I don’t trust anyone who wouldn’t want to visit the candy world in this film. Yes I want to eat those plastic lollypops and giant balloon gobstoppers, and jump in the definitely-too-runny-to-be-chocolate water.

I also enjoy singing this song with my sister every time we happen to be going down a flight of stairs together.

Little Miss Sunshine

A film about a dysfunctional family, death and personal failure – not your traditional feel-good storyline! Despite this, it is a delightful, charming and hilarious movie. Also, I love comedy dance scenes. I couldn’t find any online clips so here is my illustrated interpretation of Olive’s dance to the song ‘Super Freak’ at the beauty pageant.

*I will, and do, watch rom-coms, but they are not feel-good movies. They are movies I watch when I’m hungover and I always end up crying and feeling terrible, or so happy that I cry, and then feel terrible.

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Click more to see the full list of tracks.

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My drawing of the week for this months theme of ‘fuzz’. This is particularly dedicated to my hairdresser ‘Mad Mick’, and any other hairdresser who doesn’t ask questions or does not complain, presumably because they enjoy the challenge i present to them.

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This months theme is FUZZ! I don’t have much to say about it other than it being one of my favourite words, and also, here is Johnny Ramone fuzzing about with his guitar!

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On the theme of Weather, I present to you this delightful waterproof garment of the month; The gut skin parka.

Staying warm and dry is essential to survival in the North American Arctic. People have lived in these frozen and remote areas for millennia, and with no umbrellas or pac-a-macs in their igloo walk-in wardrobes, they used their ingenuity and resourcefulness to create incredibly efficient waterproof garments. The guts of seals and sea lions were used to create lightweight overcoats. I bet these would keep you dry at Glastonbury. You might not make many friends though.

You can see one for yourself in the North Americas section of the British Museum.

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