My Week With James McAvoy: A Story In Screenshots

This has probably been the weirdest week of my life.

Before I begin, I should clarify that at no point during the week did I actually meet James McAvoy. If you want to read a post about meeting famous people, I did see the Duchess of Cambridge in person last month, and I still haven't stopped bragging about it. But I didn't even leave my house this week, so this is going to be a story told entirely through screenshots and links to YouTube videos.

Just in case you didn't already know, this is James McAvoy:

He's played Mr Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Wesley Gibson in Wanted and the younger version of Charles Xavier in the X-Men movies. He's also kind of pivotal to this blog post, so it's very important for you to know what his face looks like.

When the week started, I'd just returned from a long vacation, and even though I was still on holiday, I was determined to be productive. I dusted off my Bullet Journal (which I still occasionally use! Didn't quit after two months like I initially thought) and made a list of all the things I could do: I could learn how to use Photoshop; I could write a research paper; I could apply for an online internship; I could read all of Shakespeare's works and direct a modern day adaptation of Hamlet for my college's drama festival!

Five minutes later, I was scrolling through the list of recommended videos on YouTube.

Somehow, I ended up on an episode of the Graham Norton Show with Johnny Depp, Benedict Cumberbatch, James McAvoy, Daniel Radcliffe and The Corrs. I clicked on it because of Benedict Cumberbatch, and I stayed till the end because I absolutely love The Corrs. I didn't really care much about James McAvoy at this point, so I just listened to him talk about Victor Frankenstein and laughed at his story about not being as attractive as Channing Tatum. And then The Corrs came on, and up until that point in my life, I was relatively normal.

Now, while I was watching, my friends were having a conversation on group chat about their favourite Jane Austen heroes.

I thought it was a hilarious coincidence that James McAvoy just happened to come up in the conversation at the very same time that I was watching him on Graham Norton, so I decided to go and watch a video of him giving an interview to promote Becoming Jane. I don't know what possessed me to do it, but at that time I was very glad that I did. I thought he was quite charming, with the noises that he made with his mouth and the way that he spoke to the cameraman and everything.

So I Googled him, and I saw the list of movies that he'd done, and I saw that he was in Atonement with Keira Knightley, who I have quite a girl-crush on, and so I went an watched an interview that the two of them did together while promoting Atonement.

It kind of snowballed from there. I don't remember the details, but I have realised that YouTube's "Up next" feature is a very dangerous thing. By just clicking that play button over and over again, I managed to watch practically every single interview that James McAvoy has done in relation to Atonement.

Spent the whole day watching old interviews with James McAvoy #productivity

— Nikita (@NikitaWhoWrites) May 11, 2016

And it got worse. Over the next 36 hours, I traversed James McAvoy's entire career through interviews with the man. I watched interviews about The Last King of Scotland. I watched interviews about Wanted. I watched interviews about X-Men, and there were many, many of those. I watched interviews about Victor Frankenstein with Daniel Radcliffe, and I loved those so much, I watched them again.

By the end of it, I was going a bit mad.

Suddenly, inexplicably, James McAvoy had become my whole life. I did see his face when I closed my eyes, and the voice in my head had an unmistakably Scottish accent. It was the strangest thing, and instead of discouraging me, which was the only sensible thing to do, the Universe egged me on, and every coincidence that could possibly take place did take place, and with me.

First, this happened:

Going to spend the weekend watching a new interview with James McAvoy #productivity https://t.co/NHyWWBdUhv

— Nikita (@NikitaWhoWrites) May 12, 2016

Which was understandable. After all, X-Men: Apocalypse is coming out in a few days, it makes sense that its actors are going onto talk shows to promote the movie. It still doesn't explain why I began this obsession with James McAvoy, for a completely unrelated reason, in the very fortnight before his big movie releases. It also doesn't explain why they couldn't have sent Michael Fassbender with Jennifer Lawrence, but this wasn't that weird.

What happened next was.

If you can't see the attached image clearly, this is what it was:

Really, though.

So, on Friday, after making sure that I had the TV all to myself that night, I was at a bit of a loss about what to do. I'd already seen every YouTube video that had James McAvoy in it, and given what I had planned for the evening, I couldn't just go about my life as normal. Now, I knew that James had a wife, Anne-Marie Duff, and I knew that she was an actress, so I figured that she'd have some interviews too. So I searched for them, and she did! I watched them all.

I'm so ashamed of myself.

I hated Anne-Marie at first. I was inordinately jealous of her, in the same way that I'm jealous of Sophie Hunter, Susie Hariet and anyone who has ever dated Prince Harry. But as I listened to her talk, I started to grow quite fond of her. She seemed quite intelligent and socially conscious, and I could see why James would like someone like that. Besides, I appreciated the way that he was so loyal and faithful to his wife and how always wore his wedding ring everywhere he went. And so it was that by the time I settled down to watch Atonement, I didn't hate Anne-Marie Duff anymore.

Over the next three hours, I watched Atonement and cried, and then I watched the Graham Norton Show and chuckled at Jack Whitehall's ridiculous costumes, and as I was going to bed, two thoughts floated through my head. The first was about James McAvoy's marriage. Despite the age difference, despite the fact that he acts opposite so many attractive women all the time, they'd managed to make it work, and for so long, and I thought that was just lovely.

The second was that the realisation that I was possibly being quite ridiculous about the whole thing with James McAvoy. After all, he's an A-List actor who has been in a lot of films, and it's perfectly reasonable for one of his movies to come on TV. And actors go on talk shows all the time. It was a coincidence that these were shown on the same day, sure, but coincidences happen all the time. Besides, I thought as I drifted off to sleep, it wasn't as though any of this of a major event in the life of James McAvoy. It was just a part of his routine - nothing to write home about. 

The next morning, I woke up, turned on my computer, and, as has been my custom of late, typed "James McAvoy" into the search bar on Twitter. And this is what came up:

I think my heart stopped for a moment. I just gaped at the screen like an idiot. 

And then I stumbled over myself to get to my phone to text everyone and let them know that James McAvoy was getting a divorce, and that I was possibly a sorceress.

I proceeded to spend the rest of Saturday scrolling through Twitter, trying to work out if it was just another one of James McAvoy's pranks. But it wasn't, and they were really splitting up, and I cried because it made me really sad to think that I might have jinxed it. Or perhaps it was just residual sadness from the end of Atonement. Either way, James McAvoy reduced me to tears. 

The upshot of it all is that I've had far too much of James McAvoy, and am no longer obsessed with him. And just in time too, because I was fully intending to go and watch X-Men: Apocalypse in 3D. That's money that I can now spend on books.

I hope you've enjoyed this story of one person's obsession and some sort of black magic, maybe. Here, have a GIF.

N

Random Reflections About A Reburial

My exams are over, and I'm back in front of my computer - just in time for a very special reinterment!

I started watching Emma Approved sometime during my exams, and I have been obsessed with it ever since. I'll write about it later, but now is not the time to talk about an excellent web series. Today is all about, and only about, a certain King Richard.

For those of you who have been living under a rock, or just too busy watching the cricket World Cup to notice anything that doesn't have to do with bats and balls, King Richard III was reburied today. Or will be, anyway. At the time that I'm writing this, it's still very early in the morning, which means that it must be slightly after midnight in Leicester. But I will keep this window open all day, and whenever I have a thought that is related to the reburial, I will write it down. And then I'll post it. This is what I do for fun.

~

To quickly summarise: King Richard III was the youngest son of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and the younger brother of the Yorkist King Edward IV. Edward seized the throne from Henry VI during the Wars of the Roses, and ruled for over 20 years, albeit with some hiccups along the way. When Edward died, his son, Prince Edward, was only 12 years old and became the new King. But Richard wasn't having any of that. He booted the young King Edward off the throne by claiming that his father's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was a sham (and therefore Edward and all his siblings were illegitimate), and locked the boy in the Tower of London with his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York. Then the older Richard had himself crowned King.

But the people weren't happy that Richard wasn't following the order of succession (apart from the two boys, he had also bypassed Edward, Earl of Warwick, the son of his older brother George), and the situation got worse when the two Princes in Tower suddenly disappeared. No one knows what happened to them - maybe Richard killed them; maybe Henry VII killed them when he came to the throne; maybe they just caught some common disease and died; maybe they escaped and fled to France - but they were missing and it was all Richard's fault.

In 1485, Henry Tudor, a direct descendant of King Edward III and a Lancastrian heir to the throne, returned to England after years of exile in Brittany and claimed the throne for himself. He challenged Richard to battle, they fought at Bosworth, Richard was thrown off his horse and bludgeoned to death, Henry Tudor won and he was King. Richard was buried in a priory which was destroyed under the rule of Henry VIII, but then his body was discovered under a car park in Leicester three years ago. The rest is history (Well, all of this is history, but the rest is recent enough history that you should have read about it in the papers).

Richard III was a good King. He was a good military commander, he made fair laws, his economic policies were quite good, and, mostly importantly, he was not a twelve year-old mama's boy. He had real world experience, and had lived through most of the Wars, and made a much better ruler than Edward ever would have. It's a pity he had to have his head bashed on the battlefield.

~

Note: I follow Indian Standard Time, which is UTC+5:30, or five and a half hours ahead of GMT.

10:30: My father pointed out a column about the 'Car Park King'. I read it, and then I read it again, this time with a pen, which I used to circle all the factual errors. There are lots. I understand that British history may not be the columnist's strength, and I forgive her for that, but is it really acceptable to be making such basic, factual errors when it is SO easy to just Google things like dates and titles.

You can read the column here, and if you can identify all the errors, you win. There's no prize - you just have the satisfaction of winning.

11:30: I have mixed feelings about Benedict Cumberbatch giving a reading at Richard's reburial. On one hand, I'm glad that they've got a prominent actor who understands the gravitas of the situation (Cumberbatch will be playing Richard III in the upcoming series of the BBC's The Hollow Crown, and is also distantly related to the King... what!?) and not just some random person, but on the other hand, does Benedict Cumberbatch really know Richard or does he just know him as Shakespeare's hunchbacked, villainous, nephew-murderer? I can't be sure.

11:45: I have to write a piece for Royal Central about the descendants of the Battle of Bosworth meeting at Leicester for the first time since their ancestors met there 530 years ago. I don't feel like writing it though. I'm getting very jittery about this whole reburial thing.

12:45: Done. Here.

14:00: I've been texting my mother fun facts about Richard III all morning. I don't think she's reading them, but that hasn't stopped me in the past.

15:30: I've decided to take up another article about King Richard. I don't have anything to do until the service starts, and I'm determined not to write about anyone other than Richard because, like I said before, today is his day.

17:00: Finished. Here.

17:30: I spent the last half an hour thinking about whether Richard would have ever, in his life, imagined that this would be his future - a miserable defeat and burial, and then such a splendid ceremony 500 years later. The answer is 'Of course not. Why would he possibly think that?'

On a side note, I have no idea what time this service is supposed to start at.

17:45: It's already started. It's almost over, too. The Countess of Wessex is here, along with The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. There are two 'Richard, Duke of Gloucester's in this Cathedral - one sitting on the side as a guest of honour, and one in a hole in the ground.

18:00: Benedict Cumberbatch is looking very dapper. The white rose pin in his lapel is actually for sale online, and if I find the link you can go to it by clicking on this sentence. I actually wanted to buy it, but it was too expensive after shipping, and I would never have had an occasion to wear it anyway.

This is so great. I wish they would dig up a few more Monarchs and rebury them, just so that we can have ceremonies.

18:15: If they reburied Henry V, would they call Tom Hiddleston to give a reading? I wonder.

I do wish they had invited Aneurin Barnard to this. He's Welsh, so he's probably descended from one Tudor or another, and he's played Richard III on television. A more accurate depiction of Richard, not Shakespeare's evil version.

18:30: Fun fact - The Archbishop of Canterbury sprinkled the coffin with soils from Fotheringhay, Middleham, and Bosworth. Richard was born in Fotheringhay Castle in 1452, Middleham Castle (a possession of the Earl of Warwick before his death) is where is lived after her married Anne Neville, and where his son Edward was born, and Bosworth, of course, is where he died. So soils from every phase of his life.

19:00: I've finished looking at all the pictures, and reading all the tweets, and watching all the guests leave. I guess this is it, then. He's finally buried.

Rest In Peace, Richard.

You'll always be my favourite Plantagenet King.

19:45: Another one! "A search for bones of Henry I is planned in Reading"

Oh, this is going to be fun.

N

This Is Basically An Advertisement

It's been a boring couple of weeks, royal-ly speaking. No one has died, no one has gotten engaged (Well, no one royal anyway. I'll get back to this), the Duchess of Cambridge is pregnant, but we've known about that for a while now, so it isn't really news.

It has been confirmed, though, that the royal baby is due in April, which is the same month as I was born in, so hopefully, HOPEFULLY, Baby Cambridge No. 2 will share a birthday with me. *fingers crossed*

During this drought of royal news, I have been keeping myself otherwise occupied. You'd think that means that I actually did something useful with my life for once, like studied or cleaned up the disarray that is my desk, but no. I wrote a blog series about the lives of Georgian Queens (Also, I watched all 100 episodes of the Lizzie Bennett Diaries).

So, the wives of Georgian Kings. It's something that I'm actually quite proud of, and I'm pretty sure that's the only reason I was granted the title of Senior Reporter, so go and check that out, if you want. Links:

Sophia Dorothea of Celle, the consort (well....) of King George I.

Caroline of Ansbach, Queen to King George II.

Caroline of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen to King George III. Incidentally, while I was writing this, I realised that I'd been spelling Mecklenburg-Strelitz wrong all this while. M-E-C-K-L-E-N-B-U-R-G S-T-R-E-L-I-T-Z.

Caroline of Brunswick, the mother of King George IV's daughter.

Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, Queen to King William IV. I still don't know how to spell Saxe-Meiningen. I have to constantly copy and paste it from Wikipedia.

~

In other news, Benedict Cumberbatch is engaged to Sophie I've-never-heard-of-her-before Hunter (Based on the time-stamp, it may seem odd that I know this, but I'm not actually writing this on the date that it says, I'm writing it much later). I was most upset about this, as my friends will testify, but not so much because he was actually engaged, but more so because I didn't even know that he had a girlfriend. I didn't think celebrities could do that - have a relationship without every single person on the Internet knowing. Because if they can, it means that Prince Harry could get engaged tomorrow, without so much as a sign.

I don't think I'd be able to survive that.

~

I really don't have anything to do until the next royal baby arrives, but I do have a stack of books that I have yet to sink my teeth into. I've completely abandoned the 100 Book Challenge - there is no way I'm going to be able to read sixty books in the next two months - but I don't see why I can't make it to at least 52 books.

And when I read books, I type some nonsense about them on my blog. So on Sunday (the next post, because you really don't know when I'm typing this), after much delay, I will post my review of The Captive Queen, and then the Red Queen after that. I've also got Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, so if I ever tear myself away from YouTube and read, I'll review those as well.

It could be a while.

N

Blogging Is A Dying Art

I haven't written in a very long time. Nearly a month. But I figured that the post about royal babies would be enough to tide everyone over for all that time. Besides, I've been writing for a more bona fide source of royal information, and every time I sit down to do 'research' I end up spending four hours reading about Elizabeth of York or someone and hardly any work gets done.

Speaking of Royal Central, I wrote a piece for them a few days ago about the rediscovery of King Henry VII's bed. That may seem like an odd subject to a few of you, and it kind of was, but that's not the point. After it was published, I got an email and a couple of mentions on Twitter from people saying that they liked what I'd written. And I was chuffed. As a writer, even if only on a very, very small scale, I'm writing for other people, and when those people read what I've written, and like it, I feel like I've done a good job.

Of course, I couldn't resist showing off, so the next day I went and told a couple of my friends how my post had been so moderately well received, but they didn't think that that was any kind of achievement at all. It isn't, but that's not the point either. The reason that they thought that it was ridiculous that I was even telling them something as insignificant as all this was because they know people who have made YouTube videos, and, within twenty four hours of it going online received hundreds of views and tens and tens of likes, and they weren't even famous or anything.

[On a side note, I am well aware of what is going on within the YouTube community, but am choosing not to talk about it, because there are already a more than sufficient number of people with opinions, and it isn't even something that I would be able to add anything to. Shallow as it may seem, I'm more concerned about this new nanny the Duchess of Cambridge has hired and whether or not she is the kind of person who smothers babies in their sleep.]

Everyone who makes YouTube videos, but doesn't also have a blog, is going to immediately dismiss what I'm saying as ridiculous and untrue, but it is much harder to get views when you're writing a blog.

Audiences find it a lot easier to watch videos where someone says 300 nonsensical words than to read a couple of paragraphs where someone writes 300 nonsensical words, and so they will always gravitate towards YouTube. I also suppose that seeing someone's face makes what they're saying seem a bit more personal and a bit less distant. Also, that sidebar. There is no normal person who can watch just one YouTube video, and not click on any of the proffered suggestions, because their work is more important.

I now have 6500 views on blog. This is after I've had it for nearly two years. Obviously I didn't write every week, because I only have 65 posts. That is a 100 views per post. If I had a YouTube channel, I could post a single video of Benedict Cumberbatch's face and get ten times the views that I have now.
You know, that might actually work for a blog as well. It's worth a try.

Here. Look at Benedict Cumberbatch's face. Whichever one you like the most.

Of course, it's not like any thought goes into this blog, so it could be argued that videos are harder to create. But that isn't entirely true. When I'm writing things that I actually care about, for people who actually care to read what I'm writing about, I do my research. A bit for Royal Central usually involves around two hours of research. (I probably shouldn't mention this, but only fifteen minutes of that is necessary. I do the remaining because I can't help myself.) And if you're making videos, but not doing the editing and sound mixing and that kind of stuff yourself, there is absolutely nothing to it. It is like talking a mirror. Which, I have no shame in admitting, I spend a large part of my day doing.

Blogging is a dying art. If someone is introduced to the Internet and wants to create something, they usually go with YouTube as their platform. Partly motivated by their love for video making, but mostly because they want to become crazy internet famous like Dan and Phil. No one reads blogs anymore. So, thank you, for reading mine.

To conclude, here is everyone's favourite baby, out with his mum in Mustique. I don't remember if I said anything earlier about not posting a picture of this because it was a breach of privacy, but if I did, I rescind it. Look at his cheeks!

N

This sentence is really a link to my article about the royal bed. Click it because maybe if it gets a lot of views I'll get paid for it. 

Why Do You Like Benedict Cumberbatch?

Thursday was the 62nd anniversary of The Queen's ascension to the throne. The Queen has now been reigning for over 62 years. The longer she reigns, the more I root for her to surpass Queen Victoria's record. It would be awful if she had to reign for nearly 63 years, only to go down in history as the second longest reigning British monarch. I really hope she makes it.

On Ascension Day a friend of mine asked me, on my Facebook status about Ascension Day, why I like the British Royal Family. I stared. Usually, when people ask me why I like the British Royal Family, it is a verbal question, asked in passing, which allows me to retort with something like "Why do you like Benedict Cumberbatch?" and walk away without answering their question. But this was a written question. On the Internet. I couldn't just ignore it.

I also couldn't answer in in a Facebook comment. I don't think Facebook comments have word limits, but it would be rather bothersome to read paragraph after paragraph when you aren't expecting more than a line. Which is why I decided to answer her question on my blog instead, and post a link in the Facebook thread. No one minds reading paragraph after paragraph on my blog. Well, maybe they mind, but at least they're expecting it. 

Why do I like the British Royal Family? I'm not British, so it isn't patriotism, and I don't particularly care about the other aspects of British (or any) history or government, so it isn't a thirst for knowledge. And my interest isn't just limited to William and Kate and George and other 'celebrity' royals, so it's not only because I'm obsessed with famous people. It's because I'm obsessed with things in general. 

Ever since I learned how to acquire information for myself, I've had a certain something that I was obsessed with. The Lion King. Enid Blyton mysteries. Boarding schools. I would spend all my time either thinking about or reading about or watching that one thing, and it would last until I found the next subject of obsession. The older I got, the longer each obsession lasted. 

When I was about eight years old, I read my first Harry Potter book, and I absolutely loved it. I found it impossible to wait for the new ones to come out, and while I waited I would watch the movies and, as I grew older, read the fanfiction. That obsession soon died; after all, there was only so much you could do after the last movie came out. But although Harry Potter was only temporary, it will always have a special place in my heart. From there began my love for all things British. 

(This is a song by Lauren Fairweather about being a fan of Harry Potter that I quite liked. Listen to it if you want.)

At some point in the middle of the Harry Potter period, I accidentally stumbled across the Princess Diaries series one day in the library and read it. As someone who had just turned thirteen, I was fascinated by Mia Thermopolis. She seemed so grown-up to me, with her high school antics, crushes and subsequent boyfriends, and, of course, tiaras. That didn't last long; I loved her boyfriend, envied her position and wished I was her for about a year before turning fourteen myself and realising that I was doomed to a lonely, tiara-less existence. From there began my love for all things royal.

Then, in 2010, Prince William proposed to his long time girlfriend Kate Middleton, and it was an event that combined my love of all things British with my love for all things royal (I should clarify, I knew that the British Royal Family existed long before William asked Kate to marry him. I have a vague recollection of asking my mother, when I was younger, why Prince Philip was not the King even though he was the Queen's husband. She told me that that was just how it is. My mother didn't have a clue.) Immediately, I Googled Kate and, after a perfunctory look through her Wikipedia page, I had a long decision with one of my friends about whether she or Diana had a better engagement dress. I stand by what I said about Kate choosing a better dress, but now I can see what a rookie mistake it was to compare every little move of Kate's with Diana's and I feel tempted to smack my head against something. 

I forgot about William and Kate in the months that followed, until February, when my school took my entire class to see The King's Speech, probably only because it was likely to win an Oscar. After the movie, we all had to write a report about Bertie's struggle with overcoming his speech impediment and how it gives serves as inspiration to everyone with speech impediments. For some reason, unlike the rest of my class, I did a little bit of research about King George VI and, as it would be every time I read about the royals, one page led to another, which led to another, which led to another. In less than a week, I had gathered enough knowledge about the royal family to make me glad that there was a royal wedding coming up.

I had a holiday on the day of the royal wedding and I was super excited about it. I woke up early, and watched all the royal wedding specials that they were showing on TLC, and watched the guests arrive, exclaiming whenever I recognised anyone. I didn't exclaim very often, and I probably wouldn't do the same if I were to watch a royal wedding now because I'd just be exclaiming the entire time. I didn't know who Princess Beatrice was when she stepped out of the car with her crazy hat, but that didn't stop me from Googling her - and Princess Eugenie too. In fact, I was Googling everybody whose name the hosts of the show mentioned.

And then Kate was on the screen, with her beautiful wedding dress and her dazzling smile and I was enchanted by the fairytale of it all. A prince was marrying a commoner and they would live happily ever after. I'm glad that I got to watch at least one royal wedding without a clue. I'm sure that at Harry's wedding I'm going to be trying to identify as many minor and foreign royals as I can and judging Cressida or whoever based on what I knew of them already. With Kate, I knew nothing. And it was wonderful.

After the wedding was over, I went into a frenzy to find out as much about the new Duchess of Cambridge as was humanely possible. I read about her past, I read about what was expected from her in the future. I couldn't stop. Looking for pictures of her led me to what had become one of my main sources for royal information; The Royal Order of Sartorial Splendor. Order of Splendor, introduced me to the world of foreign royals; Maxima, Charlene, Mette-Marit, everybody. The knowledge that royal families existed outside of the United Kingdom made me wonder if all the royals were somehow related. Spoiler: they are.

By this time I had amassed a substantial amount of royal information. I was leaps and bounds ahead of my peers, and it was evident to everyone that the British Royal Family (who were my favourite, owing to my aforementioned love for all things British) were my new obsession. At that point I figured if I was going to obsess over the royal family, why not go all the way?

What happened next is a bit of a blur, but all of a sudden I went from someone who couldn't tell the difference between Prince William and Prince Harry to someone who spent the entire week fangirling after Prince George was born, and who actually understood the implications of a birth in the family. I spent a lot of time reading and writing about them, either on my blog or on Royal Central, which has given me so much more insight into the royal world than I had earlier, and over time I grew to love the royal family as my own.

Of course, none of this explains why I like the British Royal Family. And honestly, I don't know. Maybe it was because I loved all things British and all things royal. Maybe the wedding just happened to take place at the time when I needed something to latch onto. Maybe I just like Kate's spunk but don't want to judged by people who think that she's a useless model with no better purpose than to produce heirs. I'm not sure. It's kind of hard to explain why you like something, isn't it?

I mean, why do you like Benedict Cumberbatch?

N