eddie hammmond

Totally Tatler

2007-02-15T13:29:00.000-08:00

Before I go anywhere with this I think it is worth mentioning that my work experience would find better linguistic summery were the words switched round. I’m not entirely sure why and perhaps you’d need a linguist to explain the way syntax affects the mind, but I think ‘experience work’ provides a more fitting description of my last three weeks. Now, arguably I had too much time on my hands if I was able to sit about and mull this question over, but in the brief moments I got when I wasn’t eyeball deep in the upper-class twit social scene it would always strike me that all the work experience I had ever done had been more about work and less about experience. Before anyone thinks of commenting and saying, “but Ed, this doesn’t make sense, you are there to experience work, and thus working provides you with the experience of doing work and therefore your work experience of course involved the process of you experiencing work” I know all of this, and am seriously considering the possibility that I have suffered some sort of mental health meltdown.

Week One:

I arrived at the bastion of high society fashion that is Vogue House on that first Monday with absolutely no idea what to expect, I had been told to watch the Devil Wear’s Prada, but instead had stayed up till the small hours watching America’s Wildest Police Chases (AWPC) and the Mint. One of the things I love most about AWPC is that the presenter is always mincing about in front of a team of swat guys apparently involved in shoot out, whilst calmly explaining the dangers faced by the police from law breakers. I was going to take a leaf out of his book, put myself in the firing line, get noticed and above all get some experience of what it was ‘really’ like.

The first assignment I was given was to ring around the gentry of Sussex and ask them questions about the county and why it made them tick. I was quietly getting on with this task of speaking to people, mostly with at least two surnames;

“Well, I don’t know exactly, but the totty’s really top hole”

“And who throws the best party’s?

“The Norfolk’s, there’s always plenty of scantily clad totty there”

when I came across someone I vaguely knew. The problem was he was about the last person in the world you would want to ring up with a list of half-baked questions about his local area. As famous for his crushing insults as he is for consuming gull’s eggs and Dom Perignon for breakfast, Nicholas Soames is a truly fearsome man to irritate. The conversation went a bit like this:

Hello Mr Soames, it’s Ed Hammond here. I’m ringing from the Tatler to ask…..

WHAT!! What are you doing working for that horror show boy?

Well, um, I’m so much working as doing work experience, and anyway they wanted me to ask you some questions about Sussex and what it is like to live there.

(It is worth noting that he is the MP for Mid Sussex, see more here www.nicholassoames.org.uk)

No, I don’t want my name anywhere near it.

Not at all?

No, and don’t ask me again.

Ok, what about a little anecdote about the county, come on you must have a good story to tell?

Listen Eddie, you’re marvellous, really a splendid boy, but I’m not being put in that magazine. Is that all?

Um yes, I suppose so.

Right, come shooting with me next weekend. Good luck with Tatler, you’re a marvellous sport. Bye

Hangs up

Bye.

My top lip was covered in sweat, and I had gone a sort of damson colour, but luckily my editor had an idea of who I been speaking to and came over offering a comforting hand on the shoulder and a, “was that really unpleasant for you?”

Researching the Sussex feature took up most of the week, and was actually a very good way of learning a lot of completely pointless trivia about a place I used to reside in. It also gave me a good lesson in the value of following leads. A nice man who owned an organic Cheese shop near Worthing told me that he had heard through a friend of a friend of a friend that Sussex was the UK swinging capital. A few phone calls later and I had my very own membership to a swinging/swapping group on the south coast, an invite for the following Saturday, which I could maybe squeeze in after my shooting, and rather too much information on the practices of sexual dissidents of Sussex. Why is it people who do things others see as a bit offbeat are always so keen to talk about it, where as people who do seemingly normal things often behave like the security of the nation depends on their diffidence when questioned?

Week Two:

I played a little game with the press over the weekend, so I started the week in very high sprits. I figured if I completely misrepresented myself the paper would be powerless to misrepresent me, turning up draped in gold seemed like a great idea on the day, less so since.

I had to get into the office early on Monday as I was going out on a photo shoot with the actor Rupert Friend. I was twitching with excitement as I had been told I might get to play with Keria Knightly’s boyfriends hair. In the car on the way over I was briefed on the questions I wasn’t to ask him

Which of Keria’s body parts do you like the most, tits or arse? (I’m not sure if this was supposed to be a joke)

Are you and Keria planning on wedding?

Does Keria eat? Ever?

I got to be a proper little fashion boy, it was fabulous! Tried on a pair of rather fetching gold brogues, steamed some shirts, and even got a bit of a grooming by the make up artist. Didn’t get to ruffle Mr Friend’s hair.

My big project for the week was to find out as much as I could about a man called Naim Attallah, a one time society high roller who had gone off the media radar in the late nineties. As a person he wasn’t the most interesting of research subjects, but going through the archives of the magazine provided a fascinating insight into how little the cream of British establishment has changed over the last twenty five years. The same people who were snapped partying by Tatler in the eighties are still being snapped today; they just look older and occasionally have offspring in tow.

Week Three:

Not such a good start to this one. What with all the shooting and swinging the weekend got away from me and it was Wednesday before I scraped myself back into the office. The last three days flew by; it was a shame in a way because I was really getting mighty efficient at asking agents which dress their clients were wearing at a certain award ceremony. My work experience had allowed me to experience what it would be like to work in the weird and wonderful world of high society, and had done exactly what it said on the expensively designed packet.

The last job I was given involved finding out who wore which kind of corduroys and what the trouser said about the person. Top of my list was The Hon Nicholas Soames, who wears butter-wash medium wale cords, offset with salmon pink socks.

2007-02-06

In Music

2006-12-08T20:32:00.000-08:00

Darling Mummie,

I love my job, I get to meet all the stars, I love them, and they love me too. Kiss-kiss. Everybody wants to be in music, they might not say so, but they all do. Why wouldn’t they, they would get to meet all the stars too, and go to fabulous party’s with famous people. Also, we get to drink Champagne, which is special, even when you do it all the time, it still makes you feel more special than normal people.

Do you remember when I moved to London, how all the people in Bishop Stortford laughed when I told them that I was going to be famous. They laughed, but look who’s laughing now, I get to drink champagne with famous people whenever I want. Who are you, know body knows who you are, you are nobody. But I am, I am me, and everybody loves me, so you can’t laugh at me.

I get asked out by so many stars I’ve lost count, they all tell me I’m really real, and how special that makes me. I gave a dirty kiss to that black guy from X Factor, and last week I gave Paul Danan my phone number, I’m sure he’s going to call soon.

There are a lot of drugs down here in London, I know they are bad, I remember what they made Uncle Vincent do that Christmas, but everyone says that they help to make you more in music. I know it was naughty but I tried a bit of Coke, only a bit, and it’s true, people were much nicer to me, and it made me realise how very far I’m going to go in life.

I hope everyone is fab at home, I haven’t really spoken to many of my friends recently, we’re just on such totally different pages, anyway I’m sure they’d just be jealous. Sorry I missed Uncle Vincent’s funeral, we were launching ‘Sniffer Dog’s’ new single, he’s going to be so massive.

Hugs and kisses.

Chris.

P.S Can you send me next months allowance early, please.

Grumpy guide to London

2006-11-12T04:33:00.000-08:00

Although I’ve always lived here I still get pissed off with the place sometimes. For all that I love the city sometimes we just seem to have different agendas. Like when I’m in a rush to get somewhere and the road I use goes and becomes a pedestrian walk way, or my local suddenly closes and reopens as an über poncey, ‘we do poetry evenings’, wine bar, with a French sounding name. Today was one of those days, so here is a slightly grumpy old man look at London.

A is for:

Archway – Could be better, neglected corner of otherwise recently re-gentrified area of North.

Acton – Irritating place. I used to work here. Full of pigeons and chuggers. Nelson ain’t got shit on this place. Trendy fact: When Banksy wants to paint pictures of rats on tube trains he uses the district line depot behind Acton hospital.

Aldgate – One of the seven gates of the City. Very little going for it unless you want to ride the whole of the Big Met. The shops round here are always shut, and it got blown up not to long ago.

Angel – Nice, but so done.

B is for:

Bow – This area used to be quite fun, now, like almost everywhere else in east London, it’s become an overflow pound for Hoxtonite morons.

Black Heath – They say it’s Hampstead of the South. Yes but it’s in South.

Belsize Park – A safety net to catch the Hampstead toffs as they slide down the hill to the filth of Camden.

C is for:

Camden – Covered in aforementioned filth, also famous for drug dealers, and low level crime. The previously civilized bastion of Inverness Street has been taken over by Somalian gangs who insist on kissing their teeth at me whenever I am waiting for my bus.

Canary Wharf – Poor cousin of The Square Mile. In this case Canary means dog.

Covent Garden – Full of wankers on stilts trying to take your money.

D is for:

Dagenham – A real dive. Full of unemployed Ford workers, also thousands of roundabouts, maybe for testing cars, but very annoying if you’re in a rush to somewhere else, which you would be.

Dalston. – Better than it used to be, but that’s not saying much is it.

E is for:

Earls Court. – Great if you love Walkabout style pubs, and cruising.

Ealing. – Much like Acton.

Elephant and Castle. – Shit hole. Home to the worst pedestrian underpass imaginable. Couldn’t be further from being a castle if it tried.

F is for:

Finchley – The name is an abomination on the English language, the place is just an abomination.

Farringdon – Always full of tourists looking for Fabric and pills. It’s always windy along Farringdon road, doesn’t matter what the weather is elsewhere, and the dirt from the gutter gets blown in to your eyes. Geek fact: Plague victims are buried in pits under the Farringdon tunnels, said to be the most haunted place in London, you can definitely feel something down there.

G is for:

Gunnersbury – Looks like some sort of ghost town, wide roads with nobody on them.

Golders Green – Great for Kosher food, shit for everything else.

Greenwich – Nothing to do once you’ve looked round the Cutty Sark, unless you like steep hills and wine bars, in which case you may as well go to Hampstead.

H is for:

Hampstead – Like a mini police state, neighbourhood watch and residents association galore. Get arrested for not being rich enough to live round there, or run over by a fake tanned, yoga fatigued mum in a jeep.

Hoxton – If the English language was rolled out like a giant carpet, there wouldn’t be enough stains and scuffs on it to illustrate this place. Hell. The closest thing London has to Satan’s kingdom. The people that hang out there do so because they wouldn’t fit in anywhere else. Interesting fact: Hoxton is unofficially twinned with Williamsburg in Brooklyn, it too is full of wankers.

Harrow – Needs an ‘ing’ on the end to describe what it must be like to live there.

I is for:

Ilford – Very close to Essex, in fact it is Essex, and somehow pointless.

Islington – Fine until people start referring to it as ‘Issie’.

J is for:

Judd Street – Not an area I know, just a street I find particularly annoying, very slow with the CTRL work going on around it.

K is for:

Kensington – Posh, expensive, ultimate address of aspiring slone type. You will get dirty looks for not having head to toe cashmere.

Kentish Town – They should take it out to the countryside and dump it, then it could be a real town. People always say it’s great because capitalism hasn’t come and taken over the local feel. True, but the local feel is shit.

Kings Cross – You only ever go there as a way of getting somewhere else. It’s a dirty, whore ridden hole and thoroughly deserving of its reputation.

L is for:

Lewisham – Just downright nasty, there used to be lots of race issues but I think they may have moved down the road to Eltham.

M is for:

Manor House – Basically a main road intersection between Finsbury Park and Green Lanes, neither of which you would want to go to.

Mudchute – At least it makes no bones about what it is.

Muswell Hill - Not much to say about this. Aside from providing a spacious stomping ground for Chris and Alexis I just don't see a lot of point in it.
N is for:

Northwick Park – I can never work out if this is supposed to be London

Norwood – A strange place, very very far South, other than its railway junction it has little else going for it.

Neasden – Suburban and very dull, no one will admit to coming from here.

O is for:

Oval – Jack Straw lives here, and so do a lot of other not very interesting people.

P is for:

Park Royal – Ironically named, can’t imagine anywhere less lightly to see a royal. Other than bowling alleys and carpet warehouses there is nothing.

Piccadilly - Noisy, dirty, nightmare to drive through, the second worst place in London to spend New Year after Trafalgar Square

Putney – Like Gunnersbury, just the other side of the river.

Q is for:

Queens Park. – No park, and even if there were, there’s no way you’d find any Queens in it, of either variety.

R is for:

Richmond. – Very very expensive, very very pretentious. A place where people from the sticks go to say they have been into ‘town’.

Russell Square. – Has some of the most overrated hotels in London on its sides. Not much reason to go there if you’re not a doctor.

S is for:

Shoreditch. – As they say in Leeds ‘I wouldn’t touch it with yours’. Almost as bad as Hoxton.

Stonebridge Park. – Officially the most dangerous part of North. If you want chicken cooked over a rubbish filled barrel on the street it is a must.

T is for:

The Thames. – I know it’s not really a place, but as urban rivers go it’s pretty shit.

Tulse Hill – It’s a bit like Lewisham.

Tottenham - Shit football club. Shit place. Full of tight shirted tossers.

U is for:

Upminster – The closest thing London has to the countryside, because it is the countryside. You might as well go to the real countryside.

Uxbridge – Like Upminster it is basically countryside, it seems this is a theme amongst places whose name begins with the letter ‘U’.

V is for:

Victoria – I really don’t like it round here, people always trying to get you to go and stay in their backpackers hostel, or cheap hotel. Also a real fucker to drive through, the roads trap you into going into the congestion zone.

W is for:

Wood Green – On all counts this is a shit hole, the Holly-Wood Green cinema complex is the only thing standing between the young of the area and habitual crime. The place can be compared to one of the many doner kebabs sold on its streets every day. Unhygienic, cheap, and something you’d only consider at the end of many drinks.

The future’s bright, the future’s high resolution.

2006-11-05T14:13:00.000-08:00

I went along to the Guardian last week to see what I could find out about online journalism. It was a drizzly afternoon, and I was nursing my first cold of the winter by eating codeine at far too regular intervals (by the way, this doesn’t work, it just stops you coughing, but plays havoc with the rest of your functions). Still, I was excited, maybe they’d just give me a job.

Sarah Crown, a fantastic editor of the new arts and entertainment blog, was brave enough to risk any contagion, and kindly offered to take me out for a cup of coffee and some cake. It quickly became obvious that our award winning online guru was spot on with the seemingly harsh warning he gave to us wannabe print journo’s.

Reiterating David’s point about the bleak future of paper journalism, she said the nationals are already beginning to axe jobs, and that for fledgling journo’s, resisting the tide of online is career suicide. She told me that the Guardian not only expect all potential employees to have a blog that’s been hit black and blue, but also to know about other interesting blogs out there.

One question she said to be to always be ready for in interview is ‘which websites are you interested in?’ Apparently this is likely to come up for most newspaper jobs, and must be answered by showing a good knowledge of certain websites. As everyone knows a bit about the web, we as journalists have to show not only that we know about it, but that we know how to use it as a tool.

Still, it’s not all doom and gloom, she reassuringly explained that even the hardened bloggers down at Guardian towers don’t know exactly what’s going on all the time, and that everyone is still learning about online and its potential.

Book Review

2006-10-23T02:57:00.000-07:00

Hugo Young’s Supping with The Devils.

Supping with The Devils brings together a selection of political journalist Hugo Young’s incisive and broad reaching commentary and analysis. Covering the last three decades, it interprets the major events that have punctuated British political life, from the Thatcher reign to the rise of New Labour.

Young considers the nature of the British state, looking in particular at its complex triangular relationship with Europe and the USA. Although focusing mainly on party political issues, Young muses over subjects ranging from the murder of Stephen Lawrence, to the future of fox-hunting.

Writing with great lucidity Young manages to pour a factual melting pot over his reader whilst avoiding a lot of the moralistic conventions of political writing. He provides a detailed exposition of the changing political climate, using well measured writing to set the tone of the periods he covers.

For those of us who are not well versed in the finer points of politics, this book provides an invaluable between the lines reading of what is often a cloudy and enigmatic sphere. Breaking down the key figures and events of contemporary politics, Young creates digestible, often humorous commentary.

Supping with The Devils also provides a fascinating insight into the changing nature of the British press, particularly in regards to political journalism, which Young tells us was a non entity when he started out on Fleet Street. Regarding the difficult relationship between politicians and the press, it explains the shift of power, whereby the press has in many ways become the master of the state.

Young occasionally digresses into the academic format of over writing a subject, drawing out analysis, and wallowing in his own extensive knowledge. Despite this, the book is an interesting and unbiased commentary, and the reader will come out its covers better informed and refreshed to find such accessible political writing.

On my travels.....

2006-10-23T02:50:00.000-07:00

I thought I’d set this up, as it might be useful to anyone else who’s as bad with the internet as I am.

I am, for want of a better term, a cyber xenophobe. I have an irrational fear of the three W’s, especially the World and Wide ones. I like to stick to the sites I know and trust, mainly my email and the BBC. Anything else seems a bit daunting.

Recently, a certain online teacher has convinced me that it is a choice of becoming a cyber tolerant being, or perishing in the increasingly barren wasteland of offline communication. So I have decided to set out on an exploration across the fibre optic threads. I hope to broaden my horizons, and maybe even discover something about myself.

I’ll circumnavigate close to what I call the ‘Eclicktor’, a central line along which the hottest sites of the moment gather, but I’ll also try to explore the backwaters. I’ll write up my findings on this page.

I thought I’d better start close to home, and the thing everyone in north London keeps talking about is Myspace.

Myspace

Surfing the internet for friends used to be reserved as a social function for the more introverted amongst us. It’s not coincidence that the same guy who can tell you the power to weight ratio of the space ship used in the original Star Trek series, is also pretty nifty when you need help fixing your wireless connection?

Well it seems the tables have turned, the same people who wouldn’t have even made the ‘just-to-make-up-the-numbers’ list for any teenage get-together, are now throwing the coolest parties in town.

I was feeling rather left out, because not only did everyone seem to know about it, they all seemed to have a view on it. So I filled out my application form for a ticket, and surfed on up, fashionably late of course.

It was all quite welcoming, there was no awkward moment of do I know anyone here, or does everyone think I’m one of those slightly scary people who go out with the sole purpose of ‘networking’.

Tom Anderson came over to say hello before I had even had time to add a photo to my personal profile, great, they’re not judgemental. I felt quite touched, considering Tom has 75322125 friends not counting me, it was good of him to make the effort, he’s obviously what the Americans call a ‘people person’. It’s Tom’s party and being greeted by the host somehow puts one on equal footing with the rest of the guests, a sort of acceptance of your presence, giving you a currency with which to mingle.

Perhaps understandably Tom doesn’t want to talk much, but then this party has been going on for the last 3 years, so he could be forgiven for being a little drained and less than enthralled by the prospect of some idle chit-chat, I don’t think they’ve invented cyber coke yet, and anyway there’s almost certainly some more guests waiting to be greeted.

Back in July 2003, along with his friend Chris Dewolfe, Tom, wanted to create a social networking site for new bands to profile their music on, Myspace.com was born. Those for who the idea has worked include Lily Allen, slightly grumpy singing daughter of comedian Keith, who if you’ve picked up a newspaper in the last 3 months you’ll doubtless be aware of. Using Myspace.com as a spring board she’s launched what looks to be a successful career in pop music.

As of March 2006 Myspace.com became the worlds most popular English language based website, with over 20 million users in the UK alone. The site boasts a new user rate of 230,000 a day, and was bought in July 2005 for a reported $580 million by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

The first person I meet is Tams, she’s twenty, Canadian (a fact she’s “very proud of”), and tells me assuredly that ‘The only difference between martyrdom and suicide is press coverage’, profound, but not really my kind of person.

So I go in search of someone I know to have a profile on Myspace. His space is fairly happening, there’s music, photographs, a personal profile, which isn’t wholly consistent with what I know of him, and some explanation of his opinions, particularly on London. The little bar at the bottom tells me that he has 47 friends, that’s many more than I have in cyberspace, or anywhere else for that matter. Also, they all seem to quite like him, or at least they all have thoroughly nice things to say about him, according to one of them he is the undisputed king of the London graffiti scene, who’s been ‘merking (the capital) from day’, quite an accolade.

A little jealous of his eminence, I go in search of some new friends of my own, better yet, why not look through his and poach some of them. This is where the experience begins to take a worrying turn, within five minutes I have found about two thirds of the people I grew up with. I have an encyclopaedic stew, although this is north London, so probably a risotto, with all the ingredients for learning who’s doing what, or who.

I’m terrified. It’s not the fact they’re all so connected that scares me, it’s impossible to grow up in north London, and I’m sure anywhere else for that matter, without being constantly reminded that, whilst the world itself might be quite a big place, yours is, and always will be, inescapably small. It’s their achievements, not that I am overly insecure about my own, but I’m still an un-known, and they, or at least the overwhelming majority of them, are not.

If they’re not musicians, usually a rapper, it is because they’re a hotshot in some industry, a documentary film maker, model, actor, graffiti artist, or all of the above, and if they fall outside of any of these categories it is because they are too busy ‘keeping it real’.

I thought Ali G was supposed to be a comic character, not a genuine persona on which to model ourselves? But it’s not just the employment details, it’s not even the Heat magazine just-stumbled-out-of-the-most-happening-party-in-town alike photo’s, hair beautifully ruffled in just the right way to show a perfectly made up, defined cheekbone. It’s the writing, the mantra’s, the ritual denunciation of anything that could be understood as normal. Considered language, normally reserved for the conversations of the intelligentsia, is cast about loosely, forming statements drunk on there own sense of original thought, that suggest their speaker to be an exponent of the very theorem of ‘coolness’, and therefore in a position to teach the rest of us about what is, or isn’t.

‘Thre’, pronounced three, has a page that plays tracks from his forthcoming album, it’s all very hip-hop, and while he sings out of the computer at me, informing me all about life’s hardships, and ‘keeping it raw’ (a sort of ghettoised version of keeping it real), I read about him, his music and his upbringing.

Now I know for a fact that this kid grew up in a quiet, predominantly Jewish, corner of north London, not ‘London’s notorious East End’. Notorious? I’ve been to his house for god sake, and there is absolutely nothing notorious about the area. But he apparently has been gaining notoriety, spending the last few years ‘moving through London’s anti-capitalist squat party scene’, where he found himself amongst the Underground Alliance crew.

Here again I’m confused, because Thre, along with most of the crew in question were at the same university as me, and living a good 60 miles outside of the capital. I guess it’s not cool enough to have met in a social sciences lecture.

Lots of the girls I went to school with are on here, people who I was sure would laugh hysterically at me if I told them I had become part of an on-line community, and what’s more they all seem to be doing a lot of pretty high brow socialising. One of them informs us all that she might not be able to join in until later, “Bugger and balls, might be late champs and shoes tomorrow, we’re signing a band and can’t not be there… :( ”. Another one when asked, presumably by herself, if she believes in herself, tells us “Yes copiously”, well good for her, but so would I if I had 107 friends.

After another half hour of mingling, I have polity introduced myself to eight people I went to sixth form with, the younger siblings of two of my friends, three people I have slept with, and have discovered a network more entangled than I could ever have imagined.

I found my friend Harry. Harry has never met any of my other friends, he lives on the other side of the city and I’ve only known him a short while. However it looks like I could easily be saved the trouble of introducing the two parties, He is friends with a rapper, who knows, amongst others, the girl who was going to late for champs and shoes, now she knows a girl who is friends with my friend who got me involved with this mess is the first place, who other than Tom, is the only person I am cyber friends with. The world really is shrinking.

I’m almost ready to leave the party, it’s not been a bad night, and the lack of a cloak room queue, the fact my clothes don’t’ smell like they’ve been borrowed by a chimney sweep, and that I don’t need to make the choice between a taxi and the night bus, are all big pluses, oh yeah and I won’t have a head-ache and bad breath tomorrow, just the sore eyes.

I’ve seen loads of people I had completely forgotten existed, some who I wish I had never met, and quite a few who made me nostalgic for the way that growing up loans us things but never really lets us keep much. All of them assure me are of an ‘eclectic’ personality type.

Myspace gives a fascinating insight into how people use a veneer, to develop themselves, both outwardly socially, but also in understanding themselves. I don’t think that most of the people I’ve met are lying, I think they have set up dubious personas, and have, or are least along the way to, realising that person.

In a world where celebrity and status are synonymous with the idea of success, and people will do increasingly debasing, and disturbing things to obtain these social commodities, Myspace seems to provide an important facility. In the real world our dreams and ambitions are subject to the worst sort of ridicule, but in the Myspace party we can be whoever we want, we’re all equals, even if some people do have bigger entourages than others.

I quickly went to say bye to Tom on the way out, and found he had posted a blog all about Myspace parties that were going to be taking place in different cities. He’ll need a big venue.