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Two Thousand and Tyranny
1000 word extract of a novel I began writing this year, based on the London riots, Two Thousand and Tyranny.
6th August 2011
I flicked through my tattered notepad and tried to find her name. What was it? I had written it down yesterday and had painstakingly ensured her name was spelt correctly. There it was. Sumani Youlou Fransendger, age thirty-three and a protestor at Redham Court Flats last week. Pompous Paul had instructed me to find out all I could about her background as a protestor and find a creative way to angle “protester strapped to flats for three days, crumbles”. His eyebrows remained raised and pointed throughout the team meeting this morning.
For the past month of working at the paper, Paul had worn the exact same suit. His reliable grey pinstriped suit perfectly ironed with padded shoulders and no marks. He complemented this look with an off white shirt, black tie and impeccably shiny, grey snake-skin shoes. I imagined his wardrobe; identical outfits hung neatly from wooden hangers in chronological day order. Every day he manages to arrive ten minutes after everyone else: a Starbucks coffee in one hand, a briefcase in the other and always, without fail, a serious motionless face.
A distraught yell banished the images of my daunting news editor, snapping me back into reality and back within the walls of my red Fiesta. Outside Tottenham police station stood three figures in black surrounding a young, short male police officer. One of the trio, a girl easily identifiable by her curvaceous figure, was waving her arms frantically and her mouth was moving at an unimaginable speed. The other two were shifting from side to side and towering way above the police figure that now resembled a trembling mess.
In front of the station a huddle of protestors stood with banners offering support for Sumani. The older protestors in the group remained stationary clinging to their signs whilst the younger protestors reeled off numerous expletives and made disgruntled, animalistic noises.
The sound of screeching tyres came from a white Honda Civic that mounted the curb on the road opposite. Out of the front window a boy, no older than fourteen, stuck out his arm and chucked what seemed to look like a bright sparkler. I watched in horror as it fell in front of the young policeman and the trio scattered. An explosion of orange flames caught the officer’s trousers. Out of nowhere stones and bricks were being hurled at the front of the police station. Smashing of glass and cries of terror were the background noise to a high pitch alarm ringing indefinitely.
I froze. I was unsure whether to stay within the safety of my car or advance towards a scene of chaos and the unknown. Come on Joanna you need a good story after all. Breathe. I am a reporter, this is my job.
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Fashion website review: Jane Shilton
Jane Shilton offer a wide range of shoes (for both sexes) and handbags. Whether you are after a pair of comfortable sandals for your holiday or a handbag for an evening out or snazzy high heels, JS will most definitely have something to suit you.
Their website makes online shopping really easy and enjoyable, with clear categories and a simple design. They offer a gift card option which makes for a perfect present especially when time is limited. As a reliable company they are always engaging with their customers, with their website’s news feed and their social media, Twitter account (@JANESHILTON). On Twitter, they offer regular tweets to update consumers on company progress, run exciting product competitions and offer new product information (updates or changes).
Jane Shilton is based in London but does not limit its trade to the UK. They have presence worldwide from Europe through to China, Hong Kong and Singapore. This is good news for everyone (worldwide). They provide high quality, long-lasting shoes and handbags, and are highly recommended as a trustworthy company.
To stay one step ahead, see their latest shoe arrivals.
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Job title: STD ridden female graduates needed
After reading a recent (condescending) article from The Guardian I find myself flabbergasted. The opening line offers a complimentary label to the recent female graduates of 2012 as a “ ‘fuck it’ generation”. This seems to be an acceptable way to refer to the hardworking students who have just finished their final year of blood, sweat and tears and look forward to starting a new era, chapter or adventure. The majority of the ‘fuck it generation’ are frantically job hunting, starting a new job or are undertaking unpaid work experience to increase their chances of future employment.
Writer of the article, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, then begins to list three, near impossible, things female graduates will not be doing: walking into a job at Vogue, relentlessly partying and worrying about getting married. Her well-informed judgement is taken from the deep and meaningful plots of reality television programmes and mainstream films. Cosslett can be praised at this point for her in-depth research.
The first is not impossible nor an ambition or aspiration that should be so easily squandered. In Cosslett’s fierce words she argues, “But the chances of your waltzing into Condé Nast with a portfolio of clippings from your university paper and being offered a massive kudos-inspiring position on one of their magazines are exactly nil.” I beg to differ. Having applied to Condé Nast last year around winter time, I have just received an invitation for an interview. Just goes to show what studying and determination can get you these days: interviews at renowned companies.
Moving swiftly on, the subject of alcohol becomes a cheeky dig at the Sainsbury’s Basics range and a student’s preference for a cheaper bottle to get ‘wasted’. This inevitably opens Pandora’s Box and the free-flying debate surrounding students and binge drinking. Let us not go there but instead move onto the cynical tone surrounding marriage and relationships for us young, female creatures.
“Instead, you opt for a long string of brief and sexually unsatisfying one-night stands with guys who are every bit as clueless and lost as you – and don’t cuddle afterwards or make you breakfast. The good news is that marrying any of these guys is about as appealing as electric shock therapy, although at least with the latter you feel something.” Who said romance isn’t dead, certainly not Cosslett? Her vision of relationships really does leave something to the imagination. I wonder how much research she conducted to reach this conclusion…
This evocative statement promptly leads Cosslett to state how most female graduates are in fact more worried about; STDs, moving back in with their parents and finding out the difficulties of communal living. If there had to be one sole reason why female graduates face bad press, this article is living proof. It certainly does not give any positive exposure on how graduates are determined to find internships such as those offered by successful magazines such as Elle Internship 2012, nor does it attempt to report the competition facing graduate jobs and offer helpful advice or tips.
It is degrading, disgusting and in itself a disease for subjective readers to digest; spreading an awful picture of how female graduates are spending their days post university. As a fair judgement, some of these worries could be applicable to a small minority but instead Cosslett chooses to smear her distasteful tone throughout the entire article, addressing female graduates as nothing more than mindless, disease ridden and ambitionless.
Admittedly some graduates are blinded by ignorance and come out of university thinking they are ‘special’, however this is only a small proportion and this soon changes. Even so, aren’t twinkly eyed, overly enthusiastic graduates a god given gift to mould anyway?
Coming up next week: The Guardian compares graduates to their parents’ era of the ‘golden age’…
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