Love thy neighbour

Do you like your neighbours? Actually, scratch that. Do you even know your neighbours? We've all heard our parents talk about the good old days, when they could head off for a week at the seaside and leave the front door wide open, without a second thought. Back then, everybody knew everyone else's business and watched their comings and goings through a set of immaculately kept net curtains. How times have changed.

Back in April, when Kate and William tied the knot, the papers did a great job of trying to convince us that the entire country was going to be hosting parties in every street. Trestle tables as far as the eye could see, laden with the finest party foods that twenty quid and ten minutes in Iceland could muster. The only flaw in their plan was the fact that these days, we know more about the Orange call centre employee who activated our new number, than we do about the people next door. For most of us, the neighbour's name is "that fucker who's taken my parking space again".

Barry Crocker used to sing that "everybody needs good neighbours". It's a sentiment that might have suited the temperate climate of Melbourne, where the biggest worry on anyone's mind was the occasional exploding caravan. Here in the real world, it takes more than the Ramsay Street Olympics to bring neighbours together. 

It probably doesn't help that, as our population continues to grow, we're finding ourselves living on top of one another, which makes comfortable cohabitation that much more tricky. Especially when we view the people next door with the same kind of distrust that a Daily Mail reader would reserve for a halfway house full of ḥijāb-wearing single mothers.

Strangely, the closer we find ourselves, the further apart we seem to be. If you've ever lived in a terraced house, you'll know what I'm talking about. When you're separated from the family next door by a wall that's thinner than the plot of Twilight, you find yourself kept awake by the sound of their sickly kids trying to gulp down their Benylin. 

God forbid you ever find yourself, as I did, sharing a party wall with a house-full of Afrikaans-speaking backpackers. I say speaking - in fact every mangled syllable was yelled at a volume that could drown out an air-force fly-by. And if that doesn't drive you mad, the twat who decides to show off his bongo-playing prowess at three in the morning just might.

And yet, despite having endured more than my fair share of problems, it still gives me no comfort to read that Which? has published a new report suggesting that five million other UK households are blighted by troublesome neighbours. Apparently, four in ten people have their sleep disturbed by inconsiderate shitheads, with many of them choosing to fight fire with Earth, Wind and Fire - attempting to drown out the din with their own music collection. 

Occasionally, the animosity even spills over into violence. One Swedish man decided 'if you can't beat them, stab them', and murdered his teenage neighbour. As Which? executive director Richard Lloyd observes, "Three in ten Brits get annoyed with their neighbours. That so many people are losing sleep, getting stressed and struggling at work because of noise from next-door shows the damage this does."

However, it doesn't have to end in bloodshed. If you want a peaceful life with the nobheads next door, you could always extend the olive branch. Or at least offer to cut it back if it's overhanging their pergola. Lloyd's advice is to work on a resolution face-to-face, but in order to do that, you probably need to be able to pick their face out of a line-up. 

If you're lucky enough to have a garden, try inviting the locals over for a barbecue. And keep an eye on what they bring to the party. If they rock up with a couple of cans of lager, then head straight for the nearest bottle of champagne, just don't invite them back. Either way, at least you'll know their name in case you ever need to scream it through their letterbox in the middle of the night. 

Playing it safe

The other day, flicking through a film magazine, I was reminded of the fact that it's not just Harry Potter who's had his final adventure split into two films. Sensing the opportunity to milk, slaughter and process their cash cow into delicious money burgers, the producers of the Twilight series have decided to make two movies out of Bella and Edward's final bow.

Anyone cringing in dread at the prospect of four hours of Breaking Dawn, can at least take solace in the fact that our perpetually perturbed pair finally get to satisfy their lustful urges. Within the bounds of unholy matrimony of course, but hey, it's a start.

Like countless millions of other viewers, I'm continually perplexed by the enduring popularity of the series, primarily because it neglects the two key components required in all vampire literature and film. Sex and blood.

For a moment, it looked as though Eclipse might finally do something right, when an epic battle took place between the good vampires, evil vampires and Native American werewolves. The trailer hinted at beheadings and limb removal on a scale that would make the battle of Helm's Deep look like a scuffle in BestBuy on Black Friday.

Instead, what we got was a bunch of vampires that shattered like Swarovski crystal animals. And the closest we came to sex was a bit of homoerotic interplay between vampire Edward and lupine Jacob, that came across like an elderly businessman trying to hook up with a plushie.

Thankfully, the producers of TV's Vampire Diaries have a much better grasp on the relevance of sex when it comes to fanged creatures of the night. Try googling 'vampire diaries sex' and you'll see stories about "hot cougar sex", "awkward sex" and "hot cave sex". That's a lot of sex.

Suddenly, the show's new ad campaign makes a little more sense. Along Sunset Boulevard and in Times Square, new billboards have been appearing to publicise the show's mid-season return, encouraging viewers to 'Catch VD'. Perhaps focus groups rejected the more explicit "Our show is so great it'll make your pee sting".

I suppose we could quibble about the appropriateness of encouraging sexually irresponsible behaviour amongst its target audience, but that's not really the issue. The campaign is certainly creating word-of-mouth, but I can't see too many people making a positive association between their favourite teen drama and gonorrhea.

Then again, maybe this is just the final point on a journey that began in the mid-eighties, when vampirism was raised from the story-telling dead and reappropriated as an AIDS analogy. High risk sexual behaviour, a condition transmitted by blood, an ostracised sub-culture - the stories practically wrote themselves.

If that all sounds a little too real world, you can always stick with the Twilight franchise, where the closest Kristen Stewart is going to come to a herpes sore is by chewing her own lip. Alternatively, if you enjoy the mix of sexuality and death, just wait for Lady Gaga's forthcoming fragrance, which promises a heady bouquet of semen and blood. A couple of dabs and you'll smell like Lestat in a bathhouse.

Boys will be boys

Writing a blog is a funny old business. Night after night I sit at my laptop, searching for inspiration and sharing my thoughts on all kinds of pointless ephemera. Although I find writing to be cathartic, my enthusiasm is always tempered by the need to provide readers with something engaging or enjoyable.

I imagine that's how writers of slash fiction must feel too - balancing the need for creative expression with the desire to produce something that others will enjoy. If you haven't read slash fiction before, you should give it a go next time you feel like you need a dose of badly-written porn featuring some of your favourite TV or movie characters.

Frustrated that the sexual chemistry you picked up on in that movie wasn't fully explored? Simply write your own version where Robocop and Lewis make the beast with two hard-drives. Or create the scenes where we find out exactly what Iceman meant by that whole 'wingman' offer.

Given the level of devotion needed to write 'expanded universe' material, slash fiction tends to originate around cult properties. For instance, there must be thousands of stories out there about how Spock and Kirk spent those lonely nights stranded on lonely planets.

Unsurprisingly, Twilight has also spawned its fair share of imaginative fans with their own unique take on the Bella-Edward-Jacob love triangle. The archive on FanFiction.net currently lists over 154810 stories (many of which are probably better than anything Stephenie Meyer could conjure up).

Since the Twilight series is one long metaphor for abstinence, it's interesting to see the sexual frustration spilling out from the franchise's fanbase. They may be happy watching Kristen Stewart chewing her lips over a chaste kiss with the sparkly vampire, but when it comes down to it, they're more interested in what goes on between the two supernatural men in her pre-afterlife.

Now, it seems, these wannabe writers don't have to imagine any more, since Robert Pattinson is more than happy to fill in the gaps. In an interview with Now! magazine, the bequiffed boy wonder discussed the shooting of a tent scene between him and fillet-steak-with-hair Taylor Lautner.

"I liked the tent scene because I have to grab Taylor’s chest and his nipples get hard really easily. We had to re-shoot the scene basically for that reason!" And I can imagine just how many times they needed to zoom in for a close-up. You know, just in case there was a problem with the tape. Or the lighting was bad. Something tells me the B-roll footage would sell better than the actual movie when it hits DVD.

Robert seems to enjoy the homoeroticism that comes from tusssling with a constantly shirtless slab of beefcake - adding "It seems like I’m always picking on Taylor, but the funniest moment was when he was in this little grey Spandex suit he sometimes had to wear for the CGI. Taylor quite frequently out-mans me, so seeing him in that little Spandex outfit made me feel much better about myself. He looked great in it, though. Very sexy!"

The Twilight series has made over a billion dollars off the back of a load of sexual frustration and unconsummated relationships. So don't be surprised if Stephanie Meyer takes the logical step of resurrecting her best-selling series, and creates a fifth volume where Bella realises she's Forks' first fag-hag. Jacob and Edward buy a condo overlooking the river, Bella moves in next door and spends the next thirty years lusting over the men she'll never have. Truth is stranger than fiction.

It's my night to howl

It's not easy being a teenager. Exams, peer pressure, Justin Bieber - sometimes it can all get a bit much. So it's hardly surprising that young adolescents try to forge connections with like-minded people, even if the rest of the world doesn't understand.

In San Antonio, Texas, a group of kids have found an unusual way of bonding. And one thing's for sure, the Twilight series has a lot to answer for.

In the second movie (which was about as entertaining as trying to read a water-damaged Haynes manual), our lip-bitey heroine Bella hooked up with Jacob and his often-shirtless gang. As she eventually discovered (about 90 minutes after everyone else), it turns out that they're not just homoerotically charged pals.

These boys also have lupine tendencies, turning into poorly-rendered werewolves ever time something got their dander up. After several months mooning over a clinically depressed vampire, Bella found a new lease on life with her animalistic chums.

Something in that turgid movie must have struck a chord with the kids in San Antonio, as they've established their very own wolf-pack.



At first glance they look like any other group of badly-dressed emo kids with too much guyliner and lank hair. But on closer inspection, you notice their contact lenses, pointy teeth and wagging tails. OK, the lenses and teeth aren't too bad, but the tails are ridiculous, looking like they've stuffed Basil Brush down the back of their Diesels.

Oh, and they sometimes howl. Seriously. Thankfully, the kids' mums don't seem too concerned by their lycanthropic larks, and even the school counsellor reckons it's all just a healthy form of social expression. Then again, their worst crimes seem to be an astonishing lack of self-awareness and a propensity for hanging out at the mall.

If nothing else, this news story will at least give the writers of the new Teen Wolf remake plenty of useful reference material. Van-surfing is so twenty years ago.

Enjoy your stay

After what seems like the longest, most depressing winter on record, it's hardly surprising that people's thoughts are turning to holidays. A chance to get away from it all and soak up some much needed R&R.

But with the recession still biting like Edward Cullen with the munchies, many people will be forced to take their vacations a little closer to home. So it's depressing to see, based on a couple of high profile news stories, that English guest-houses can't always guarantee a warm welcome.

Michael Black and John Morgan had planned on a nice Friday night away when they booked a double room at the Swiss B&B in Cookham, but when they came to check-in, the greeting they received was less than cordial.

The B&B's owner, Susanne Wilkinson, turned the middle-aged couple away because it was against her Christian beliefs to allow a gay couple to stay in a double room. Speaking to the press, Wilkinson argued "They gave me no prior warning and I couldn't offer them another room as I was fully booked."

Presumably, when she studied the Bible she missed the bit where an over-subscribed innkeeper found lodgings for a couple with an unborn illegitimate child.

Indignant at the fact that the gay couple reported her law-breaking discrimination to the police, Wilkinson argued "I don't see why I should change my mind and my beliefs I've held for years just because the government should force it on me. I am not a hotel, I am a guest house and this is a private house." Her delusion runs deeper than the fact that she thinks she is a 'guest house' - she also seems to think that her personal preferences (or lack thereof) overrule matters of law.

Sadly, she's not alone in her misplaced sense of 'injustice'. Private hoteliers Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang have also fallen foul of those pesky progressive politics. Apparently, these days you can't even hurl religiously motivated invective at a paying guest over poached eggs without the moral police getting involved.

The Vogelenzangs have been charged with using "threatening, abusive or insulting words" after they had a heated conversation with a Muslim guest at the Bounty House Hotel near Aintree. The woman's crime? Having stayed at the hotel for four weeks whilst receiving treatment at a local hospital, she came down to breakfast on the final day of her stay wearing a hijab.

The fact is, she could have entered the dining room dressed as Colonel Sanders and it would have been no-one's business but her own. And yet somehow, "pass the ketchup" quickly devolved into a 'debate' that ended with the hospitable hoteliers suggesting that "Mohammad, the founder of Islam, was a warlord" and that the unnamed guest's choice of outfit was "a form of bondage." Checkout's at noon and let us know if you used the minibar.

Of course, the Christian couple argue that they were simply defending their beliefs and deny the allegations, despite the fact that they are, by their own admission, "fully aware that a robust exchange had taken place and the woman had been perhaps a little offended". At the same time as fighting the prosecution, they're facing up to the fact that their bookings have dropped by 80%.

Apparently, the local hospital which had previously referred outpatients to the hotel felt that it was an unsuitable venue for convalescence, given the management's vocal take on personal faith. Now the self-righteous couple may have to sell the hotel to make ends meet - a handy way of turning the story back on Islam, which should always be the villain in the story.

In both instances, personal religious beliefs have crept into the workplace and ultimately resulted in discriminatory conduct. These 'wronged' hoteliers might defend themselves with cries of "religious freedom" but their first obligation should always be the provision of services to the guests.

Just like the registrars who refuse to officiate over civil ceremonies because of their faith, they're ultimately failing to fulfil their role. More importantly, they're hiding behind a wilfully misinterpreted belief system in order to validate ugly bigotry and intolerance.

In these enlightened times it's easy to look back at racist TV shows from the 70s, like Love Thy Neighbour, and laugh at their primitive take on modern life. But have we really progressed that far from an era when guesthouses often featured signs that said "No blacks, dogs or Irish"?

Everyone's a critic

After 24 hours on release, the next installment in the Twilight saga, New Moon, is breaking all kinds of records. There's even talk of the sensual sequel beating The Dark Knight in its opening weekend.

But although the fans are turning out in droves to get their fill of virginal vampire action, not everyone's over the moon (sorry) about the latest installment of the popular franchise. The critics have been predictably harsh about it, describing it as "tedious, long-winded" and "lamely unconvincing".

Fortunately, movies like this are as immune to criticism as Edward Cullen is to sunlight. Instead of bursting into flames like a traditional vampire should, the pouting hair-do simply glitters and sparkles like he just woke up under a drag queen. Likewise, the film's producers, Summit Entertainment, can sit back and watch the cash roll in as a result of all the free publicity.

So it's unlikely that anyone will lose any sleep over the latest negative review to hit the headlines - even if the critic in question is speaking on behalf of the Almighty himself. Displaying an incisive understanding of cinema second only to the inimitable Paul Ross, the Vatican has condemned New Moon as a "deviant moral vacuum".

Speaking on behalf of the Pontifical Council of Culture, Monsignor Franco Perazzolo claims that he's concerned about the film's reliance on the "age-old trick... of using extremes to make an impact..." Which sounds an awful lot like he's got an issue with the depiction of good and evil, although I can't imagine his boss would agree with him.

Ironically, the Catholic church may be dismayed by the series' lack of morals, but many other people are switched off by Twilight's 'over the clothes' approach to teenage sexuality. Written as a non-too-subtle metaphor for teenage abstinence, the books and subsequent movie adaptations revel in surging hormones and chaste romance. In author Stephenie Meyer's world, it's fine to fraternise with werewolves and vampires, as long as you keep your knickers on.

The problem is, modern teenagers aren't well-versed in the interpretation of metaphor and subtext. As a result, the overriding memory they'll take away from New Moon, is countless scenes depicting the buff boys of the Quileute tribe bursting out of their denim cut-offs to reveal their hairy animal side. If the movie's lead characters make a virtue of tearing off their pants at the earliest opportunity, what's to stop the impressionable audience following (birthday) suit?

This man doesn't want you to have sex

Pretty, plasticky Zac Efron, he of the sweaty torso and well-plucked eyebrow, has a new movie out. It's called 17 Again and stars Matthew Perry as a man who gets the chance to relive his adolescence in the body of the High School Musical Ken-doll. It opens in the US this weekend and will no doubt be a huge hit with the tweens who make the Jonas Brothers a viable musical act.

In amongst the reviews which have unanimously praised Efron's 'comic timing and charisma' and even the 'masculinity that belies his appearance', there have been a number of references to the film's pro-abstinence message. Apparently, there's a narrative thread running throughout the movie that focuses on Perry/Efron's character's lifelong regret at having impregnated his girlfriend at the age of 17.

Coming so soon after Catherine Hardwicke's adaptation of Twilight, starring the equally hormonally charged Robert Pattinson, it would seem that there's an impetus within Hollywood to carry the torch of George Bush's pro-abstinence movement. In case you missed it, Twilight is the publishing phenomenon responsible for 1 in 7 of all books sold in the first quarter of 2009 in the US. Mormon author Stephanie Meyer created the stories as a metaphor for the advantages of teenage abstinence - lead vampire Edward has to resist his most natural urges every time he's with the love of his life Bella, until they're married of course...

So anyway, the conservatives are all slapping themselves on the back because they've finally got some teen-safe entertainment to push to their kids. Which is great, except for the fact that abstinence programs have been proven time and time again to be unsuccessful. It's a bit like trying to cure obesity by telling people to save their pudding till after the main course.

Since 1982, the US government has spent over $3.6 billion on abstinence programs, with no evidence that they have any beneficial impact on delaying sexual activity or reducing the number of sexual partners that young people have. What they have accomplished, is the creation of an educationally backward generation with no clue how to protect themselves against unwanted pregnancies, STDs, or even merciless bathroom graffiti.

The cruel irony in all of this, is that Hollywood (or at least a specialist part of it) thinks it's helping by creating pro-abstinence message movies. The problem is, by casting hormone-twitching heart-throbs like Robert and Zac, all they're really doing is firing up the loins of millions of lusty young teenage girls, and releasing them into the wild without any idea of how to protect themselves. What an astonishing stroke of genius. Just sit back and watch those teen pregnancy rates soar...