Lost and Found
Follow me over to the Auteurs’ Notebook for this week’s Forgotten flicker. This being a very busy — and strange — week, what with three lectures to give, tutorials, a screening of A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, and an unexpected punch in the face from a teenage asshole in the street, I wasn’t sure if I’d get a column written in time, but I’ve managed a particularly modest effort.
October 22, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Hope that bastard didn’t do anything permanent!!!
October 22, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Sorry to hear about the assault, David. I had the same thing happen to me back in 2005. One of a half dozen just hanging out, punched me as hard as he could as I walked by and I didn’t even see it coming. The whole side of my face was out like a softball, from my lower eyelid to my jawline. And the revenge fantasies are still with me, they’ve never gone away. One of them asked me for money, but I’m glad to say that I had none on me.
October 22, 2009 at 10:25 pm
This wasn’t as serious as yours, I’m glad to say. Some provisional scientific reports indicate that revenge doesn’t actually make people feel better, which I suspect may be true. But revenge fantasies probably help.
October 22, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Any sense of why the creep punched you?
October 22, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Oh sure. Three of the little thugs were fag-baiting me, and I started asking them questions, responding in unpredictable ways, generally pissing them off in a way they couldn’t really process. I didn’t become aggressive, but I didn’t back down or act in any of the ways they could understand. They were so vile, I was kind of morbidly curious to know what the hell was wrong with their minds.
None of this was particularly wise. If you tell them to fuck off but keep walking it seems to be fairly safe.
October 23, 2009 at 12:19 am
Your own living remake of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Or is it THE DAMNED?
Stay safe. Seek counsel. Get healed as soon as you possibly can.
October 23, 2009 at 12:33 am
Indeed.
October 23, 2009 at 1:01 am
Well there’s virtually no physical damage. I got a tiny cut on the bridge of my nose from my glasses flying off. It shook me up a bit but I’m basically fine.
Apparently it was caught on CCTV and one kid has already been identified…
October 23, 2009 at 1:48 am
I’m sorry that happened to you, and in a small way shocked. I haven’t been assaulted since junior high school, nor have I been confronted like that for over 30 years, and I went to a ghetto high school. I’d get some baiting while riding my bicycle back when I was in college (whistles from passing drivers in trucks – no they weren’t hitting on me, they were too damn ugly to be respectable gay folk), but never a straight-out confrontation like that, let alone an assault.
October 23, 2009 at 3:44 am
October 23, 2009 at 5:47 am
In fairness David, it’s very tempting to punch you when you start doing that….in a nice way :)
October 23, 2009 at 9:11 am
David, sorry to hear about the assualt. It happened to me once in Stockholm. I was just walking along a main street at night when a guy walking in front of me suddenly swung around and punched me in the face. He and the other guy he was with then ran away. I had to spend a couple of dsys in hospital. These things can be traumatic at the iime.
Anyhow, on a more cheefrul note, you might like reading this piece in last week’s Observer. Armando Iannucci is writing about the films that taught him how to be funny:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/18/armando-iannucci-favourite-films
It’s hard to be a bit of ould humour for lifting the spirits.
October 23, 2009 at 5:29 pm
David, I was sorry to hear what happened to you. I don’t know if you’ve been offered the services of your local Victim Support scheme, but as a former employee, I would urge you to consider accepting. You might find it very helpful – even if there is no practical assistance they can provide – just to talk through your experience with someone outwith your circle of friends and family.
Judy
October 23, 2009 at 7:03 pm
The cops did offer that, and I sort of reflexively said no. It might be useful though. It’s not the sort of thing you should be asked to consider right away, actually — far more helpful if they left a phone number.
October 23, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Jeez. David. So sorry to hear about the three lectures! ….”We all live among fearful, superstitious, medieval peasants who somehow got a hold of contemporary clothing.”
October 24, 2009 at 12:04 am
I’m glad that the police have identified one of the people.
Leith has a terrible reputation but only once have I felt unsafe here. (lived her 10 years)Luckily the person was so drunk I think I could have easily outrun them.
October 24, 2009 at 12:37 am
Leith is generally pretty safe. Even these kids would have just been unpleasant if I hadn’t stood up to them, but I was sick of them and their ugly attitudes. I went to school with enough morons like that. I think the trouble is they lead such miserable, visionless and futureless lives that nothing is likely to happen to make things either better or worse for them, so they have no incentive to do anything other than express inarticulate rage.
October 24, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Yup I agree and its a depresing prospect to contemplate.