The Battle Of The Titans

By Julian Sudre

Pitting Amy Winehouse against Shakespeare is certainly at odds in the literary world, but now an illustrious university is using the singer’s lyrics against the works of Raleigh in an exam.

The main thrust of the exam was not to compare the incomparable but to distinctively pore over the specific resemblances of the Elizabethan-age poet and contemporary drug-addled pop star. And it’s not the first time that students are required to apply their analytical skills to such eyebrow-raising exam questions.

Both individuals pertain to an artistic background that wants expressing itself by conjuring words of cathartic importance. While Sir Raleigh calls forth imagery of religious undertones with the tactful pen of a genius, Winehouse relates to her troubles with less philosophical obscurity but nevertheless punches her words with mellifluous catchiness.

So when Cambridge University surprised its students with Winehouse prose during an exam, clamour and outcry resounded as a result. As it was noted by one student, no one could have expected and well, cheated the final exam questions. But a spokesperson from Cambridge University added that it was not unusual to compare pieces by different writers. "Love Is A Losing Game" by Amy Winehouse and "As You Came From The Holy Land" by Sir Walter Raleigh were not meant to be eye-rollers or to dumb down savagely the elitist capacity of the school that reflects an air of rigidity. Tactfully, Cambridge knows when to doff his rigid PC straitjacket and pepper his exams with a pinch of coolness.

A kind of subliminal message that conveys it is getting "with it" and understands its students better than we would think. But at the other end of the spectrum, the eeyorish vision of pop star that can barely handle herself sends a Dantean shiver of discomfort down the education panel's spine.

Having Ms Winehouse on the literary throne may perform erroneously a second-rate publicity stunt and without attempting to raise her standard from half-baked writer to class-act prima dona, it should be sensibly added that, on the whole, the main focus here is on the lyrics of her song not on the person. Taking into context her talent as a singer leaving aside the ambiguous correlation between her persona and Cambridge simply proves that it is possible to peruse diametrically opposed artists which perhaps, in a way, are not that different. Of course, Winehouse won't begin to be a patch on the likes of Raleigh, but what she does well, and so does Cambridge is the connection with a wide public. Both have the ability to provoke mixed feelings of mockery and honour.

Cambridge is smart. It retains the faculty to bait and titillate the spectators and its selective appetite adorns its idiosyncratic intelligence. There is no denying that it knows fully well it can't afford to make a mistake. The Winehouse tack is a disguised way to preen itself.

After all, Oxford university - its competitor - is watching every single move and it would be too delicious a victory if it had the opportunity to checkmate it.

LAND OF MARMITE WITH BITTERSWEET MELANCHOLY

By Julian Sudre

Once upon a time, the idyllic chocolate-box picture of a suave island with her gentleman-like manners conveyed British-ness with grand standard. Now the palette of behaviours has been splattered into anarchy with the most vivid colours of 21rst Century England.

If anything, one would wonder who let the dog out in this frabjous country that Bill Bryson has been standing four-square behind. Well, in all fairness, I would not derisively fill this column with words freighted with cynicism because I for one, have enjoyed many a thing here despite the abysmal weather and Marmite. But I have nearly felt addicted to this cynic pleasure of moaning about the weather forecast while I would sip on a cup of tea and wish I was in sun-drenched California. And again the grim reality of espousing the gritty approach to stiff-upper lip holds fast to my beliefs.

Nevertheless, it would be a lie if i had omitted my unerring displeasure of English cock-a-hoopness, the disdainful pride of being English wells up dangerously during football matches. Lager louts invade touristic towns in Europe and turned them into stag party hot spots. Ladettes proudly have their Saturday night "events" photographed and plastered on Facebook. Obesity is ballooning and we have become celebrity-obsessed. I am worried about modern England with the barbarous demeanour and the sloppy, inward-looking attitudes of working classes that has started to spill into pockets of violence and self-destruction.

The British empire exuded the thew of an athlete that fought, with grace and talent, all manner of territories; now englishness has fallen from grace. Sometimes I wonder if a touch of decadence has rendered England too wild to be controlled.

Yet, patriotism since times immemorial always has pervaded through the psyche of nations. And that of course, is the main driving force that elicits a sense of identity. The flag-waving spirit and the go pit-a-pat thrum of self-drunken nationalistic acceptance ripple on down human generations through basic osmosis. Then history comes in to reinforce the distinctiveness of one’s kingdom; as colonised countries entertain the inner child in all of us, we have learned to play tic-tac-toe or nought and crosses with almost an air of derision that has turned us into grown-up kids who get a kick out of winning. And winning diagonally or horizontally by ticking the music box, the food box or the cinema box is what distinguishes the personality traits of a country.

But the tenor of the debate here is to distinguish that positive patriotism can hold hues of negative patriotism. Let’s call it the National Giddiness, shall we? England has got carried away in a contentious, chin-out way. It is almost revolting, perhaps unconventional, by any stretch of the imagination to turn into an over-confident person that forgets about himself. Dear England, ye shall not burst with too much vanity and learn to contain your hauteur before the karmic laws cut you down to size.

Drunken football fans and riots were the scene of a war zone a couple of weeks ago during the Uefa Cup final in Manchester. A police officer almost lost his life had it not been for a former soldier to rescue him. Why those horrendous explosions of madness happen specifically in England? and the stabbing culture is now endemic. All in all, the creativity and eccentricity is at its best but like any madman or genius, England can't stay for too long two sandwiches short of a picnic. Otherwise, it will burn itself out.