Fighting Prejudice with Johnny Depp

Modern Britain has become a melting pot for international peoples to come together as one, intermingling with each other in a delightful rainbow of creeds and cultures moreso than any other country in the world. After centuries of colonial rule and global trade, a walk down the street of twenty first century England now reflects the world in which we live; connected not only by the glories of technology, but also by people coming together to form a multi-nationalised society.

As a teacher of English as a Foreign Language, I have the pleasure of meeting people from all walks of life on a daily basis; take just one of my classes and you'll be introduced to Korean animator a, Turkish teachers, Saudi Arabian dentists, Libyan IT consultants and Italian nurses within a one hour period. For me, this is one of the greatest perks of the job; not only do I get to meet a wide array of fascinating folk, but I also get to learn about cultures as to which I had no prior knowledge, and get to hear about the interesting ways that other societies live their lives.

Today, however, I heard some rather disheartening news. At a school in Carlisle, a Romani girl has joined a kindergarten class, much to the distaste of the other parents. Apparently they are so agitated by this five year old girl being accepted into the class that they are telling their children to stay away from her and not to talk to her during play time.

Now, I'm no expert on Romani folk, but I do know they have a rich tradition, and in my eyes to exclusion of this child, especially, may I point out, of a five year old child, who has no real idea that she is any different from the rest of her peers, is no different from a group of parents telling their kids to stay away from a child of any creed or religion. Tell a child to stay away from a Romani, apparently that's fine, but tell them to stay away from an Islamic boy and the papers would have a field day.

If and when I have children, I want more than anything for them to mingle with other cultures; they themselves are going to be a unique mix of English, Indian, Irish and Japanese, so why on earth shouldn't they revel in the opportunity to learn about how other children live? This young girl is probably more socially advanced than many of her peers; whilst they are playing with Barbie or Action Man (actually, let's face it, they've probably all got iPads already), chances are she is already an integral part of the family group, helping with chores and learning useful skills that most kids don't even touch upon until their preteens.

And, most importantly, they're kids for crying out loud! They should play together. They should learn about how other children live their lives, and at the end of the day, make their own choices. In excluding a child simply because of the way their family live, you are encouraging classism, racism, and all sorts of other "ism"s that should no longer exist in the world today.

So let the children play, and take your prejudices elsewhere. If you don't like it, leave the country, because who today can say they are 100% British anyway? And if you still have any prejudice towards Romani people, go and watch Chocolat, 'cos Johnny Depp'll melt your bloomin' heart!

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo! with Ron Stoppable

From an early age, I've had something of an affinity for Mexico. I remember my friend Tom and I when we were about seven planning to sail across the Atlantic in order to reach Mexico City. My year four geography project was also on Mexico, back in the days when a thousand word project seemed like an unsurmountable climb, rather than the mere introduction of an all-nighter in the college computer lab.

My love of Mexican cuisine flourished during my tenure at a tex-mex restaurant in Durham, where my teenage self not only cut his teeth in the culinary world, but also developed an addiction to quesadillas and burritos. And also chipotle, much to the begrudgement of my poor bottom...

During my time at Leicester Square School of English, I had the utmost privalage to meet one of the loveliest families in the world. I don't often name names in this blog, but César Fernánadez, his sister Dani, step-mum Yadira and family friend Zara are probably the warmest and most welcoming family I have ever had the honour of meeting. They took me, not only to one of the most amazing bars I've ever been to, but also into their fold; I now have an open invitation to Mexico at the drop of a sombrero. The bar, a grungy underground dive named Mestizos (the term given to a half-Spanish, half-Mexican child) was packed to the rafters with Latino party-goers, dancing like their lives depended on it to Mexican tunes as they filled their faces with mouth-watering tacos and knocking back shot after shot of warming tequila. It was, quite honestly, the most life-affirming evening I have ever had.

So today we celebrate Cinco de Mayo, the day on which, in 1862, the Mexican armies overcame French rule at the Battle of Puebla. Since then, the day has represented the passion and heritage of the Mexican people, giving us a reason to celebrate the rich cultures and cuisines of these truly hard-working and caring folk.

So go out, listen to some mariachi music, cook yourself some fajitas (or a naco if you're feeling adventurous!) and revel in the awesomeness that is Mexico!

May The Fourth Be With You with Princess Leia Organa

Amidst all the terrible puns that arise on this day every year, it's easy to forget the importance of the original Star Wars films in our popular culture. Over the course of the last forty years the most iconic sci-fi fantasy of all time has unfortunately been diluted by terrible prequels, even more terrible animated tie-ins and a constant stream of parodies and references that have somewhat diminished the impact for modern generations viewing it for the first time.

The sad thing is, amidst all this gradual dilution, and the somewhat obsessive fan base, it's sometimes easy to forget just what inspired all of this galactic madness in the first place. It was, of course, 1977's Star Wars.

Before it was "A New Hope", before it was Episode 4, Star Wars was nothing more (and indeed nothing less than a fantastic fantasy epic, taking the Hero's Journey across the universe to a galaxy far, far away to create a by-the-book narrative featuring every element that a great film should. Action, adventure, comedy and romance (albeit, as it turns out, somewhat incestuous) are accompanied by iconic villains and swashbuckling heroes. All this encapsulated by a rich mythology that has been studied and worshiped in the decades since, Star Wars truly was a game changer.

So it's not a surprise really that the world of popular culture has never been the same since. It is, however, something of a shame, that in this world of CGI and Michael Bay, children will never again feel that same spectacle when they are introduced to the series. Perhaps that's why Lucas felt that the total green-screen approach was the way forward with Episode 3. Or perhaps he's just a douche. I tend towards the latter.

I'll never forget the first time I found myself in the Satr Wars universe. I was about six and, on a rainy bank holiday Monday, sat in front of the television with my parents when The Emprie Strikes Back came onscreen. From its snow-capped opening sequence to the final reveal (one that no-one can now escape the knowledge of... thank you Family Guy...), I was utterly hooked. I realised at this young age the importance of what I had just seen, and probably, subconsciously, the thrall it would hold over me for the rest of my life.

Over the years that followed, I viewed and reviewed the trilogy, collected the Tazos in Walkers crisps, eagerly anticipated Episode 1, grew ever more apathetic at the films that followed (despite rather falling in love with Princess Amidala... In many ways a more delightful royal than her predecessor/daughter) and ultimately sighed in disappointment at Episode 3's climax. 

Throughout the ups and downs, however, one thing remains; the original three films make up one of cinema's finest trilogies. Luke Skywalker remains a hero for the ages, Vader a true tyrant, the Emperor a villain to end all villains, Han Solo the greatest swashbuckling pilot in the universe, and Princess Leia this millennia's Helen of Troy.

May the force be with you, always.

Friendship is Magic with Apple Jack

I've always believed that once you reach a certain age, your circle of friends elevate in importance to take on a much more familiar role. As we move away from home and begin to become the adults that will eventually replace our childish selves, we start to create close comradal units that in many ways replace the roles that had once been held by parents and t siblings.

The turning point for most is university, when you suddenly find yourself thrust into unfamiliar territory with unkown people, each of whom is in exactly the same boat. And so you latch on to the first few people that show a vague interest in your interests. You party with them, you study with them, and chances are by second year, you'll be sharing a house with them. If you're lucky, they won't turn out to be complete weirdos the moment you move in, and you'll spend the next few years happily cohabilitating with people who will eventually be stood next to you at graduation, hold positions of importance at your wedding, and probably stick around for decades to come.

As the fairytale that is university comes to an end, you'll find yourself moving away, possibly to a different end of the earth, and many of those who made up your cadre of everyday drinking buddies will become little more than a fond memory, mentioned at dinner parties. A select few, however, will remain a huge part of your life, and should be held on to; these are the people who would ride side by side into battle with you, and should be considered sacred.

As you move from town to town and job to job, you will soon accumulate a disjointed collection of confidants, many of whom may well disappear once you inevitably move on, but some, like a tattoo on your soul, will stay with you for life, no matter the distance, no matter the time.

This morning, due to the miracle of Skype, I was able to speak to two of my best friends in the world (literally). Both of them live over ten thousand miles away; one of them I have not spoken to since Christmas Day, and not seen since I left Japan a year and a half ago, and the other I have not seen since three years ago when he provided shelter after the Fukushima tragedy. But is it odd to talk after such periods of time? Of course not! You simply pick up from the last conversation and find yourself kicking yourself for not finding the time to speak more often!

My best friends from school (indeed I feel blessed that ten years on I am still very much in contact with friends I've known since before puberty) I see very rarely these days, but whenever we're in the same town, we make sure to meet up for a drink, and for a brief while we're teleported back to sixth form.

But that's the magic of friendship; friends not only provide you with an endless amount of support, they also remind you of the best times in your lives, the crazy stuff you did, and occasionally, just how good it feels to revel in your communal awesomeness.

So to my friends in Durham, in London, in Leeds, Stilton, the midlands and in Blackpool. To those in Cardiff, in Hamburg, in the Tokyo area and that town near Kobe that I can't recall. The the weird one in California and the even weirder one in Istanbul. To all of you, I extend my thanks and admiration. The journeys we've had and those to come. You're all freakin' awesome.

And friendship is ruddy magic!

A Bit on the Side with Brian Blessed

Being creative in the twenty first century is something of a curse. Despite what Glee would have us believe, no matter how big fish we were at school, when it comes to the real world we are not going to fall immediately into our dream jobs in the arts. In fact, there is no falling involved whatsoever. It is a long, painful climb punctuated by broken bones and landslides. And how many of us actually fulfil our creative potential? Very bloody few, Glee, that's how ruddy many!

So we need to make a living. It's interesting to note that many other creative types I know have, like myself, turned to teaching as a career. Education seems to attract performers for many reasons, but one of the largest perks is that you always have a captive audience. No matter what I going on in your life outside of the classroom, the moment you step in front of a group of students, you ready your jazz-hands, put on a smile and deliver a cracking lesson.

The thing is, there still remains that little fire in the back of our souls that longs for a little more. No matter how much we love the job (indeed it's difficult to find a job that is more regularly rewarding than seeing students progress under your nurturing), we still find ourselves longing for a little extra creative release.

Luckily, I have been fortunate enough to find the time to keep those passions alive through a steady stream of hobbies and side projects. Obviously this blob provides me with a daily dose of literary output, whilst the sketch pad that lives in the magazine rack is home to not only my general sketches and manga ideas, but also my more recent recurring cartoon, Teaching Training. Musically I've found comfort in local bars at regular open mic nights, and I have also just this week been invited to join the writing team for a popular lifestyle magazine.

So there are always avenues to take for those willing to search. I'm under no illusion that I could someday make a career from my arts; if it were to happen that would be a fantastic bonus. I shall keep singing, keep writing, and keep doodling down ideas for children's books, but for the most part it serves only as a release. I love my job more than anything, and despite difficult students and ridiculous amounts of paperwork, it certainly beats the years I spent in kitchens. If someday some agent is daft enough to throw money at me for whatever reason, then great, but until that day I'm more than happy to be a renaissance man. Like a skinnier, less beardy Brian Blessed. 

At least that's what I'd like to think...

Breaking Out The Other "L" Word with Ellen Wong

If you'd asked me five years ago what my favourite film was, I would've said, without any hesitation, Spielberg's classic Jurassic Park. A delicious blend of nostalgia and believable science fiction, with a spattering of the greatest and most realistic special effects that have ever hit the silver screen. For almost twenty years of my life, Jurassic Park held its place as my rainy day film, the film that would cheer me up whenever needed.

And then along came Mr. Scott Pilgrim. Over the last four years since it's release, I must have watched Scott Pilgrim Vs The World almost thirty times, and as I sit here this evening watching it after a long day in the classroom, I still find myself noticing new things, giggling at jokes that had previously eluded me, and falling once again in love with the wonderful Ellen Wong as the tragic Knives Chau.

An eclectic mix of musical, action adventure, comedy and romance, Scott Pilgrim manages to present itself as the chimeric love child of film, video game and comic book, lovingly crafted with all the directorial finese that a British geek named Edgar Wright could muster.

The story, for those uninitiated, revolves around the eponymous Canadian as he fights against an evil league of exes in order to win the heart of kooky delivery girl Ramona Flowers. The plot itself is pretty daft, but it is delivered with such ridiculous aplomb that one cannot help but find oneself at the edge of the sofa waiting for each battle to unfold. 

Michael Cera as the lead is a beautiful mix of hopeless hero and even more hopeless romantic, delivering the most delightfully dead-pan performance since Lorenzo Music first voiced everyone's favourite lasagne-scoffing feline. The supporting cast meanwhile each add their own spice to proceedings, from Keiren Culkin as Scott's world hating roommate to Mary Elizabeth Winstead as eccentric love interest Ramona. Each evil ex is hilariously cast, and each of Scott's hopeless band mates perfectly seasoned. It all adds up to a cordon-bleu dish of a cast, expertly finished by the delectable topping that is Ellen Wong as the ever-lovable Knives who, depending on which ending you watch, will either break your heart, or fill you with utterly life-affirming joy.

Every scene thrives with vibrancy, crafted with such loving care that like each of Wright's other films, it can be endlessly rewatched without ever losing its freshness.

Scott Pilgrim was a flop in the cimema, and remains to this day an underground sensation, but frankly, if you don't like it, you're missing a heart, tin-man. Warm, hilarious, and ultimately reassuring, it's going to take one hell of a movie to knock this one off my top spot.

And then of course, there's Knives...

The Not-So-Fantastic Four with Jessica Alba

When it comes to superhero teams, I've always been an Marvel man. Although DC presents us with kick-ass heroes who can take on the world, they are usually of alien or supernatural origin, thus placing them outside of the sphere of normal human beings. The epitome of this, obviously, being Superman, who is so far beyond normality that his alter-ego is in fact the bespectacled Clark Kent. Most heroes put on a suit in order to become their powerful personas; Kent meanwhile does the opposite. Relatable? Not to the angsty teen that resides within my soul.

As such I've always turned more towards Spider-Man and the X-Men; everyday teenagers who for whatever reason, be it genetic mutation or radioactive spider bite suddenly have their world turned upside-down as great power endows them with great responsibility. Struggling with the forces of evil whilst at the same time dealing with the mundanity of everyday life is something that we all dream of once in a while.

Whether it's the real life issues of Spider-Man (maintaining a job, struggling with relationships or looking after ailing relatives), the political agendas of the X-Men (racism, prejudice and, more recently, homosexuality in the form of Northstar and his newly-wed husband), or even presenting wartime America with a much needed "captain", Marvel has always done its utmost to provide comfort to its readers in the form of the fantastic.

Which is why I've never understood the appeal of the Fantastic Four. As I sit watching what is in fact the third FF movie, Rise of the Silver Surfer, I find myself questioning Marvel's continuous adamance in getting us to like this rather bizarre group. The first film, a delightful Roger Corman produced b-movie was watchable merely for its godawful special effects. The reboot was undoubtably terrible, made only slightly redeemable by the terrible miscasting of Jessica Alba (who I could happily just watch eating a sandwich for ninety minutes), and its sequel is made only marginally better by the addition of everyone's favourite galactic surfer dude. So why, oh why, Marvel, are we now expected to sit through next year's reboot starring Billy Elliot as the gravelly Ben Grimm??

So why doesn't the Fantastic Four work? Let's first have a look at the characters for a start;

Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic)

The leader of our team is know to be the smartest man on earth. A super-genius with the utterly lame ability to stretch himself into any shape imaginable. His secondary power is to be strangely attractive to really hot women. And he has salt-and-pepper sideburns. All in all, how many kids want to be a physicist with all the power of a rubber band? I know I certainly didn't.

Sue Richards (The Invisible Woman)

Sure, Sue is one of the sexiest women in the Marvel Universe, and made all the sexier when played by Miss Alba, but she had a power that everyone knows should only be given to horny boys in their teens; invisibility. The ability to disappear from sight has only two uses in this world; sneaking into the girls' locker room, and bank robbery. So why on earth give it to a girl? And one that works for the good guys at that?

Johnny Storm (The Human Torch)

Now, the Human Torch is pretty cool. Ability to control fire has always been on my wish list, and one of the best superhero catchphrases of all time make him the one actually appealing hero in the troupe. That said, making him a super cool stunt racer and ladies man with an attitude problem make him little more than a slightly less cool Tony Stark. I half wish they'd made him gay just so "flame on!" Had a hilarious double meaning.

Ben Grimm (The Thing)

The Thing really drew the short straw in the comic book world. Not only does he have one of the lamest names in comic history, his power is that he's so hideously gravelly that he's only attractive to blind people. I'm sorry, Ben, but sucks to be you.

Not only are their powers and characters weak, the Fantastic Four are also "out" in the superhero world. Sure, during the Utopia story arc the X-Men walked freely around the streets of San Francisco in a state of mutant acceptance, but that soon fell apart and now they're treated once again as terrorists against humanity. The Fantastic Four meanwhile have been open to the public about their powers for decades and never run into any problems. Life is simply too cushy for us to really ever see any danger for them.

And then there's the kids. Kids in sci-fi suck. Fact. The one exception is Runaways' Molly Hayes. Franklin and Valeria Richards not only have rubbish names, they also fall into the inevitable pantsness of fictional children. Spider-man doesn't have kids. Just sayin'.

The one redeeming feature of Fantastic Four books is their villains. Victor Von Doom is an awesome antagonist, harking back to gothic villains of Victorian horror, whilst Galactus literally eats planets for breakfast. For good measure, we'll ignore Mole Man and Puppet Master.

All in all, I simply feel that of all the heroes in the Marvel Universe, the Fantastic Four make for the dullest team. Individually, they aren't that great, and as a quartet, the fall far from Fantastic. So why, Marvel, don't you stop trying to ram them down our throats. Why not concentrate on making that Runaways movie you've been promising for the last decade? Or a delightfully dark Dr. Strange? Christ, I'd even settle for a decent Howard the Duck reboot!