Frydmania

Alter ego

I’ve not ventured into Second Life - first life quite occupying, thanks.  But there are still some attractions to having an alter ego, maybe particularly online, but perhaps a few variations in the everyday too.

Before this all starts sounding too ‘multiple personality’, we all do it - because we all fit into each others’ lives in different ways.   I’ve sat in on those team build-y type exercises where you have to describe who you are - and often it’s in terms of labels, many we give ourselves and some we let others give us.

Back to online: I was expecting a few more pseudonyms in some of the Facebook applications, particularly the ones which allow you to beat up people who have (probably unwisely) agreed to be your friend.  Given that a lot of superheroes do have alternative names, I decided to be Superfrau for the purposes of the game.  (Superfrau has a real life aspect too: it’s written on a small soft toy key ring I was given by the German interviewer of the students I send abroad.)

Sadly, only one other person I knew picked out an alter ego, although there are plenty of others out there on Facebook who are perfectly happy with their pseudonyms, mostly nicked from the TV show Heroes (which seems fair enough, as the game I play is based on that premise).  But it got me thinking about which of our alter egos we keep as we go on in life.

When I was 19, I did the gap year thing, went to Poland for half a year.  And yes, it was the life-changing experience that gap years are heralded to be - in loads of different ways.  I hadn’t expected to, but I linked myself with Poland.  It influenced how I decorated my room at university, how I cooked, the kind of music I listened to.  It had a major impact on how I viewed things like hospitality, and other positives I wanted to emulate, when back in the UK.

Part of this was also what I told others about myself.  For some time, any connection with Poland - even if it wasn’t the exotic gap year that some had had - seemed unusual for a UK citizen with no family ties there.  I enjoyed a perspective that was European, but a different kind of Europe.

Now, over 15 years since I first went there, I find myself identifying myself less with Poland.  It’s not that the significance has faded.  But Poland is less part of my life than it was.  My point is, it is unlikely to regain that position it had - because I have moved on too.  Other identities have entered my life, many of which get lived more on a daily basis than the Polish aspects I hung onto.

So what?  Life today offers vast amounts of change, choice, alternatives.  Perhaps I put more stock in particular identities because I don’t have the consistency of belonging that some do.  I don’t come from one particular place - though Edinburgh does offer the best option, having been home for a good number of years. 

There are other identities that we gradually realise have been passed on to others.  Mid thirties, the desire to change the world quite so much, the capacity for large amounts of caffeine, these seem to have slipped quietly out the room, probably when I was doing something significant like hanging up washing. 

Perhaps what I’m struggling towards is a notion of letting go of some aspects of who I’ve been - but not feeling diminished in the process.  Quite enjoying a little more space - equally, not rushing to fill it. Meanwhile, can I recommend Captain Fantastico for your day to day superhero requirements?  

Add comment December 21st, 2008

Cheese, Gromit

You know it’s Christmas when the fridge is full of cheese (a slight exaggeration, but happily, only slightly) and Aardman has decided to issue a new Wallace and Gromit.  My cup, mulled or otherwise, runneth over.

We’ve got rather used to Wallace and Gromit now, but what the animators achieve, painstakingly, lovingly, is indeed a present of great proportions.  Yes, they’ve done a film, but really, it’s in the half-hour special that they truly come into their own. 

Flicking through the TV section in the bumper two-week listing (more on that later), I discovered that I had shared a ‘Wal and Grom’ moment with Russell T. Davies, no less (a chap also somewhat linked to Christmas, what with Dr Who specials). 

It’s the moment in the second animation - the one with the dastardly penguin - when Gromit is chasing the penguin on a model railway, runs out of track, grabs the box and starts to lay new track.  I too remember that delighted ‘no!’ moment, when you don’t know what is coming next but you know that it is going to be amazing…

Part of the enjoyment is an opportunity to rediscover my inner Yorkshirewoman, and soak up all the deadpan jokes.  Wallace allows us to remember how British the slightly potty inventor is - British too the elevation of pets to equal, if not greater, characters.

We’ve become used to televisual sweetmeats, TV treats at Christmas time.  But amid all the reruns - and reissues of previous comedy programmes - Wallace and Gromit are, like cheeses at Christmastime, something you can always take a little more of.

Add comment December 21st, 2008