FEATURE - Jared Henderson - The New Luddites

Jared Henderson -The New Luddites

As ever, I find Jared Henderson's mind and way of approaching a topic very refreshing. Here in this video he is exploring the whole idea of The New Luddites, what the original Luddites were fighting against, what is good and bad about this resurgent approach now. And trying to tease out a way of assessing technology, what makes a technology good or bad? Is it unhelpful to give only black and white responses? He also gives his sceptical review of Paul Kingsnorth's book Against The Machine. Describing some of his ideas as so unclear and vague about their consequences, to the point of being dangerous. He leaves us with a check list of questions that he asks himself before adopting any technology into his life. And I guess the answers to these will be different for everyone, and we may find we have other things to consider than these four. But they are a great place to start the enquiry.

1) Does this technology expand or contract the realm of human freedom? (because I only want to use technology that help us live freer lives)

2) Does this technology contribute to human flourishing?

3) Does it make it easier to pursue human projects and live in accordance with my values?

4) Is this piece of technology primarily a way for other people to get rich or powerful off my attention?

ART 'N' AB ART - Phyllida Barlow & Daisy Parris - Wolterton Hall Exhibition

Phyllida Barlow's sculptures appear to be forming a precarious and temporary balancing act. All the elements whether wood, metal, scraps of paper, plastic, slathered in plaster, dust and paint, sometimes are held together with duck tape, or rooted in a tin full of cement. They possess an improvisatory feel. That this is only one way these elements could be assembled, turn your back and they might reconfigure completely their current form and emphasis. 

In the magnificent lofty heights of a Georgian mansion, with it's grand self concept, built to impress, Barlow's sculptures feel even more like rough and uncouth rebels, coarsely protesting, refusing to submit to the language of classical proportions, its implied refinement and sense of self importance. This chaotic intervention, anarchic even, confronts us in the gallery spaces at Wolterton. Sculptures cluster together, these like minded figures in a three or four-way conversation on plinths. Some are freestanding, with an unbearable weight perched atop precariously pointy stick legs, elements stacked in layers or clustered together as dildos moulded in plaster. 

There is always a wildly pagan earthiness, from the grounded humdrum ordinariness of Barlow's material choices. These disrupt any expectations of grand statements, or monumentally elevated perspectives. The rattling argument of wood chairs in the stairwell are a case in point, they are a riot of imprecision and informality, their surfaces skimmed with plaster and paint, as though marked out for destruction, not to prettify them. Something monstrous could emerge out of this mess of disabled angles and planes crawling out from underneath this elegantly executed staircase. Other rooms are filled with Barlow's sketches, similarly they look dashed off, rough suggestions, preparatory sketches for future sculptures. These drawings are an explorations in her imagination flying free of the limitations of actual three dimensional material. Barlow's work extends whilst working within the German expressionist tradition of Joseph Beuys, Dada assemblages and Art Povera. These are not comfortable works to find an easy relationship with.

Daisy Parris confronts the exhibition space in a different manner. Her exhibition's title work Fist Full of Dreams, is a series of textile carpet panels lashed together, made to Parris's design that they have embellished further afterwards, with their rough free hand embroidery of the surface or affixing slogan bearing cloth panels to them. Words, cloth and form sit in an uneasy juxtaposition as a partnership. The lurid quality of the paint colours, and slashy handling of it resist being called beautiful or delicate. Sometimes the slogans repeat till they fragment, or even become partially absorbed into the paint surface. All the works on display here were created in response to her visiting the hall and the room where they were to be exhibited. Some of the paintings fit neatly into the wall panels, others like Fist Full of Dreams defy such an easy incorporation into the appointed space, hung across a framework of pink painted scaffolding poles of its own making.  Hanging free of convention and stereotypical interpretation.

Both these exhibitions are well worth a visit, you don't get a chance to see modern work of this range and quality in Norfolk very often. Viewing is by appointment only, you can't just rock up expecting to be allowed entrance. Details are on their website.  https://wolterton.co.uk/art-and-culture/

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

PROTEST & PROGRESS - The Cade & Cornish Rebellions

My purpose in writing this Protest & Progress blog post, is to explore for myself the history of English Protest Movements. What effect they had, and the changes they may ( or may not ) have instigated. Today, it's The Cade's & Cornish Rebellions.

1450 CADE'S REBELLION 

Was Jack Cade his real name?, this is hard to ascertain. He was also referred to as Mortimer, with the swashbuckling nickname of - The Captain of Kent. It was common place for rebel leaders to use an alias. It created a useful anonymity. An elusiveness over who you really were, when the authorities were trying to capture and charge you. Cade became the figurehead of one of the largest rebellions in 15th century England. This rebellion has very self conscious echoes of the Peasants Revolt, nearly eighty years previous.

The Peasants Revolt had moved from living memory, into being an exemplary folk tale. This informed the rebellion about to arise. And where did it arise? In the self same south east of England, as did the Peasants Revolt. And from there too they marched on London, with a series of demands. There were grievances over local corruption, but quickly they began to see their local situation was a symptom of much larger maladministration and corruption coming from the king's ministers. They wanted reform of that administration and the removal of the 'traitors' as they called them. Also the exorbitant cost of that seemingly endless Hundred Years War with France, an aggregating factor in the Peasants Revolt, was still disrupting the economy and increasing the tax burden upon the people.

Rebellion broke out in April, and ran on into the early summer. Once the rebels reached London, Cade's disciplined control over them slipped, and widespread looting broke out. So, rather than garnering the support of Londoners to their cause, they aroused their wrath instead. Londoners quickly formed a militia that cleared the rebel army out, decimating their numbers in a horrendous blood bath at London Bridge. Cade was caught, but died before he could be brought to trial. Popular unease with the nobilities manner of administering the country, made the rebellion feel a precursor to the War of the Roses, which broke out five years later.

1497 THE FIRST CORNISH REBELLION

The War of the Roses ended in 1487, after which medieval Plantagenet England came to an close. A feeling that the economy and in the country, was that England was overdue a period of financial stability, after over a century of wars and perpetually stretched expenditure. Henry 7th, though of royal descent, was of an extremely weak line in terms of right of succession. With years of turbulence between two royal houses fighting over prevalence, Henry needed to avoid causing unnecessary dissent, lest the whole question of his own legitimacy kicked in. Within a year of ascending the throne he'd already had to crush the rebellion of Lambert Simnel, a pretender to the throne, who is said he was a surviving son of Edward 4th. Having successfully stifled that challenge , Henry adopted a steady safe pare of hands approach. Which appeared to become financially more tight fisted as his reign progressed

However, in 1497, their two Cornish Rebellions broke out, which did exactly what he had most feared. It all started, as ever, over taxes, this time on tin mining. There were privileges and exemptions with regard to tax, that had been granted by Edward 1st to tin mines. Henry wanted to scrap these, a d when he encountering opposition  decided to suspend tin mining licenses indefinitely. This was a serious misjudgment on Henry's part. Tin mining was a major engine of the Cornish economy, and had been so for several centuries. At the same time, there was an increased threat of invasion from Scotland and there was the recent arrival of Perkin Warbeck, yet another pretender to the royal throne. Suddenly Henry needed to mobilise troops in three directions at once. This required money. The double whammy of the suspension of tin mining, plus war loans, taxes and levies, tipped Cornish men from disgruntled into outright revolt.

An army of around 15,000 left Devon, progressed quickly through Somerset and onwards in the direction of London. Henry's attention, primarily focused on preparing for conflict with Scotland, suddenly had to change tack, and deal with this rebellion moving at pace from the southwest. Skirting around London the rebels headed towards Blackheath, where they expected a rebel contingent from Kent to join them. The men of Kent did arrive, but to oppose, not to join them. With the King at their head they vastly outnumbered the rebels. The ensuing battle was a rout in which the rebel leadership were captured. Though a he'd defeated the Cornishmen, this was not enough for Henry. His vindictiveness revealed itself, through not lifting his prohibitions on tin mining for a further eleven years.

A drawing allegedly of Perkin Warbeck

1497  THE SECOND CORNISH REBELLION

This echoed the first rebellion, later that same year. Perkin Warbeck observed the dissent in Cornwall and thought it an ideal base from which to stake his claim to the throne and march on London. He arrived by boat in September. Taking a populist tack. He declared he'd remove all the offending extortionate taxes. Unsurprisingly, he was made very welcome in Cornwall, quickly garnering the backing of local aristocracy and surviving rebels. A Cornish rebel army numbering 6,000 men mustered in Taunton, Henry's response this time was swifter. Sending his chief General Lord Daubeney to staunch the rebellion. Warbeck panicked and found himself arrested, taken to the Tower and quickly hung at Tyburn. Henry arrived in Taunton in time to accept the rebels surrender. They were either executed or compelled to pay cripplingly heavy fines.

All these rebellions seem similar in nature, modelling themselves on the Peasants Revolt template. Always the usual mixture of unfair practices, unpopular wars and extortionate tax regimes. The rebels tended to blamed the corruption on the people around the king, not the king himself. No one risked open criticism of the monarch, nor called for Henry's removal. That would be treasonous and lead to certain death. Perkin Warbeck, however falsely, presented himself as a claimant to the crown. A direct attack on Tudor legitimacy. Once a monarchs divine right to rule becomes questionable, then rebels diplomatically avoiding criticising the king would become a less respected position. And the issue of legitimacy and succession would become the Tudor's neurotic preoccupation for the next century.

As we move into the 16th century, a whole smorgasboard of treachery, rightful succession, religious disputes, wars, taxes and criticism of the monarch, all became easier to hear sotto voce in the backstreets of England - with the arrival of the printing press.

Next Episode - 1536 The Pilgrimage of Grace

SCREEN SHOT - Project Hail Mary

Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up, his hair and beard are long, and he is on a space craft. He doesn't remember why or where it is going. Two fellow astronauts on the mission are both already dead. He has to slowly piece together his own past and his role in the mission they were on, with only the ship and his own slowly returning memories to guide him. What becomes clear is the Earth's Sun is dying. Small particles of unknown origin, are eating away at its energy. He identifies what they are, and where they are coming from. A space mission is launched to hopefully find out more and discover a way to neutralise these particles. And he is the only survivor of that mission. He encounters an alien spacecraft, and befriends this rock like alien form, whose own galaxy is being destroyed by the same particles. Together they come up with a plan.

This is Ryan Gosling's movie. He is the lead actor and is in most of its two and a half hour running time. He was a big fan of the book by Andy Weir, hands on in its adaption for film, and was one of its producers. In an age preoccupied with dark fatalistic dystopia's, this is an extraordinarily optimistic sci fi movie, with a sharp witty script to boot. This also brings out, quite the best acting performance I've seen from Gosling, since some of his early independent movies. It plays to all his strengths as an sctor, the slight nerdiness, the dry quick wit, the ability to speak volumes with a telling look in the eyes. The part of Grace is really one of an ordinary person who becomes extraordinary through the circumstances they are thrown into. The unlikely friendship that develops between Grace and 'Rocky' sets the film's core emotional tone. And unbelievable as it might seem, this friendship becomes really emotionally touching, bringing a lump to your throat and a tear to your eye. If there was ever a danger of this movie becoming overly sentimental, it's the honesty of Gosling's performance, and the dialogue between Grace and 'Rocky' that deflates time and again, any tendency to take itself too seriously. This is just the most hopeful and delightfully playful movie I've seen in a long time. Highly recommend it.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8 

QUOTATION MARKS - Robert Bly

'If we've come to a bad end, 

let's make it beautiful'

Robert Bly

FILM REVIEW - Born Into This (2004)

 

This documentary Born Into This, tells Charles Bukowski's life story mostly via the filmed record of the great man speaking. Of all modern poets and novelists, Bukowski exploited the subject matter of his own life to the full. All his flaws and virtues are on show, and we are not spared his occasional unpalatable excess, his compulsive drink fueled behaviour. The violent, self-destructiveness and womanising, that was often misinterpreted as unrepentant misogyny, when it really was an expression of his sensitivity and sentimentality, to a feeling of being unloved or rejected. He didn't have to live up to his wild drinking and debauched image because that was how he often was. The discomfort of the almost daily childhood beatings from his Father,and his Mother's complicity in it, appears to have turned him into the archetypal non-conformist for the late sixties. Many of his fans live off this stance voyeuristically. He,however, lived an extraordinarily plain and ordinary working mans life, whilst continuing to write. He spent years working as a carrier for the Post Office, until his growing fame suddenly made it possible in mid-life to make a living from his prolific output.

There is a quality to his writing, sometimes swaggering, sometimes so frank about his own moral turpitude it is shocking, yet there is a huge warm human heart beating in broken voiced sympathy underneath it. He describes the effect of living on the low life edges of West Hollywood, its humiliations and the corrosiveness of this suffering on the human spirit. This is where Bukowski's writing frequently transcends the specifics of his own experience, and gives voice to something with more universal resonance. His poetry is never wilfully obscure or filled with literary references, a style best exemplified by Elliot, a fellow American, but someone who could not be further away from Bukowski. Elliot was part of the literary establishment, that was the cultural authority for the middle class intelligentsia. In Bukowski we hear the genuine voice of the American working underclass, simple, direct and unaffected.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

FINISHED READING - Of Boys And Men by Richard V Reeves

"The iron rule of politics is that if there are real problems in society and responsible parties don't deal with them, the irresponsible parties will jump on them."

Daniel Schwammenhal

A former UK government strategist and Director of Demos, Richard Reeves now lives in the US and has become a prominent spokesperson on the current situation men now find themselves in. This book for two thirds of it is quite heavy on the statistics which demonstrate just how deep that crisis has become. In essence, policies have expanded women's opportunities and range of options in life, and there has been very little reciprocal political will to do the same for men. The traditional male role of being the main bread winner is all but dead in the water. And without a distinct alternative role and path being cogently portrayed and laid out, men are just floundering, and their frustration is now taking some of them into darker and more extreme reactionary places. By far the largest proportion of MAGA supporters are male. Trump, and the likes of Andrew Tate have been able to talk to this disenchanted generation of men, and co-opt their anger into their own perverting agenda. There is a sense of an existential ennui hanging over masculinity that mainstream politics is not addressing.

The problem is not due to women taking all the formerly male professions. it is that many of the traditionally male professions are in decline, contracting through environmental and technological developments, something which AI is only going to speed up. A lot of effort was successfully put into encouraging women to see themselves as being able to enter STEM professions, (science, technology, engineering and maths). A reciprocal push to make HEAL professions (health, education, administration and literacy) where opportunities are expanding, more appealing to men, just hasn't been given enough emphasis. The idea that men are privileged by their gender and therefore don't require help, is pernicious and fails to see the consequences of ignoring men's needs. That men doing well, as a benefit to everyone.

However, it is clear that men are not thriving in education and training either, women are outstripping them in both engagement and attainment. The sense is that young men do not see the point, have lost the drive and will to succeed, that women are fully grasping. If men do enter higher education they are quite likely to under attain, or drop out within a year. Male morale is low. Reeve points with particular loathing to the term 'toxic masculinity' which has become far too broadly and indiscriminately used, on literally anything men do that someone does not like. The despair that this creates, that there is nothing a man can do about it, that they cannot win. This is just really unhelpful. It's comparable to disparagingly refering to women as 'bimbos' all the time.

When it comes to solutions, Reeves lambasts both political left and right for the blinkered narrowness of their focus, The Right puts far too much emphasis on biology and implies a return to more traditional male norms, is the best solution to the 'male malaise'. The left refuses to consider that anything about gender behaviour might by biological in origin, and sees male roles in life as entirely culturally nurtured, so capable of change. Neither approach is either credible or in line with a fuller spectrum of the truth. There are professions which both men and women are less likely to do, not because of social prejudice or gender specific obstacles, but because they just do not appeal that much to them, period. So looking for ways to increase take up will fall short. The bias might be biological not systemic, and we have to be open to that as a possiblity. There is also the sense that feminists can view any initiative to help men, as diverting the focus away from women's needs. But as Reeves emphasizes this is false premise, it is perfectly possible to do both well, and they be complimentary. The emphasis here is not equality, but equity.

" True equality between groups that are different in any way can be attained only by providing for the differences."  Margaret Mead.

He concludes with a series of policy suggestions. That he thinks could help. Boys tend to mature at a slower rate, it could be helpful for them to delay by a year moving children to higher class. There need to be more male teachers generally, but specifically in primary education. Gender exemplification being important, particularly in early childhood. Encourage more men to go into HEAL professions, which is an expanding sector.  To bring, not just more attention, but more active policy to male education and employment needs, because simply ignoring them is not a secondary option anymore.

" In the U.S. a third of men of all political persuasions believe that they are discriminated against, and among Republicans, the number is rising. This is false. While the problems of boys and men are real, they are the result of structural changes in the economy and broader culture, and the failings of our education system, rather than deliberate discrimination. But on the political Right as on the Left, attitudes on gender issues float free of the facts."

This is a thought provoking read. He backs up his opinions with a veritable barrage of facts and statistics. Though I found the constant statistical emphasis began to pall after a while. It became much more engaging once he began talking about solutions and ways forward. 

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

THE PAST IN RUINS - Blakeney Guildhall

English Heritage themselves seem unsure about this ruin. What exactly are the origins of it? They call it a 'guildhall', but does this create a mistaken impression that as a building it was much more important than is perhaps appropriate. This could easily be a simple undercroft of a merchants house or a monastic Cellarers Chequer of some kind? The history hasn't really give you an awful lot to go on. 

The Guildhall is sited to one side of Mariner's Hill. a large man made mound, which has served as both a look out and a beacon point for guiding ships into the harbour.  The mound itself is a bit of a local curio, with an unclear sense of when it was constructed. That the 'guildhall' cuts into the side of it might indicate that the hill predates it. And stylistically the building is 15th century. A few hundred yards further to the left is the entrance to the former site of a Carmelite Friary. 

For what was, and still is, a gaggle of small former fisherman's cottages around a narrow tidal port, the 'guildhall' is probably it's most significant surviving medieval construction after the parish church. Tucked behind one of the main streets in Blakeney. The English Heritage signpost directing you to it, was so rusted it's given up it's post. The building hasn't been open to the public on a daily basis since COVID. It is an overlooked and slightly dingy looking building from the outside. Though in 2026, it appears to be regularly accessible again.

You enter down some rough steps, relatively short but steep. You can see, once you are in, that though this is poorly lit, it is a quite impressively built crypt like building. This wasn't knocked up carelessly. It would have been relatively expensive to have constructed, beneath what must have been a substantial building above it. There are indicators in the walls of entrances, staircases and blocked up windows. The floor has been roughly paved with flint and brick cobbles, but a lot of it is compacted with dirt these days. The columns are very typical of the late medieval, octagonal in profile, branching out into simple, but elegant brick arches and transcepts. 

The question that really comes to mind is, did Blakeney really need a 'guidhall '?  You certainly see them in the much larger towns like Kings Lynn and Norwich. I know the North Norfolk coast was once a much more thriving sequence of competing shipping havens in medieval times. Cley just up the road, was by far the wealthier and busiest harbour on this length of coastline. They never had a 'guildhall', which makes the attribution of 'guildhall' to Blakeney somewhat questionable. 

It has traditionally been referred to as a 'guildhall', but that may be a local pretension, or for want of a better term. The strongesr suggestions are that this was originally built in the late 14th century simply as a wealthy local merchant's house. What is certain is that that house by the 15th century thebuilding had been adopted by a local group of Fish Merchants, not a 'guild' as such, but this might explain the 'guild' association. This undercroft was perhaps only ever used as a place for the storage of grain, fish and cloth. The living spaces up above, because they were not needed have not survived. That the undercroft has remained intact may be a testament to its continued usefulness as a place of storage over the past centuries. The building is an interesting anomaly none the less.

SCREEN SHOT - Living ( 2022 )

Living has a script written by Kazou Ishiguru, that is adapted from the Kurosawa 1952 film Ikiru. It has been re-set in an archetypal post war Britain, so this has a very similar period vibe and portrayal of constricted masculine self expression, as Ishiguru's Remains of the Day. Bill Nighy's style of buttoned up restrained acting is, in this sense, tailor made for the central character of Living - Mr Williams.  And he plays it with a consummate subtlety, understating the emotion whilst providing all the visual physicality that suggest a more disquieted and deeper unease beneath.

Mr Williams runs a department in the city council. Most of the time he is warding off or delaying work being approved, by referring it to other departments, who refer it to other departments, who refer it back to Mr Williams desk. At which point he'll place it in a tray saying, 'I think we'll hold that here for a while'. The whole departmental appears set up to bureaurcratically procrastinate, delay  prevent or cancel projects. Very little gets the thumbs up to proceed. It is a nightmare run entirely on stuffy minded prejudices of class and gender. Then Mr Williams is given a fatal health diagnosis, that he is suffering from a terminal cancer. This awakens him to what the reality of his life has been. He tells his family nothing about his imminent death. But his whole approach to life alarmingly changes, and the effectiveness of his department is consequently transformed for the better.

The opening credits evoke a Pathe News visual style and colour palette, Living is soaked in nostalgic sentiment and lovingly recreated period details. Mr Williams becomes a representative of an every man or every woman, who devotes their working life to doddling through a meaningless job, producing little of long lasting worth. It provides them with no satisfaction, or any feeling that they can achieve anything remotely good. This is something most of us will have some experienc of at some point in our life. The moral of the tale, does get over egged and a tad laboured by the end. It remains, however, a deeply affecting film, with a central superlative acting performance that single handedly brings real heart to it.

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

POEM - The Tawdry Reaping

In a time requiring judgement

for it to end in profanity, 

is a defect of my soul-searching 

but these are the cracks 

in the crazed pavements 

we walk upon

this is a time that is deluded

about its own delusion

it is the smelly slime

from a pond, aggressive jack boots

have stamped in, dredged out, 

then renamed it clarity, 

I swear, I do swear, it is the swearing, 

that I do, in order to release the constraints 

upon my tongue, the nervousness of lips

out of a charitable need for my mind

to speak free of polity, off message,

frankly, I cry out fuuuuck, far too loudly,

too often, with a rage ignored

by the la la la of eardrums

so I doubt these caustic words, 

their construct and cognisance

their sentences, can they ever match the mood

or capture the collective geist 

of a succulent stupidity 

already presenting itself for crowning 

what is it, that we think we are doing

hunting down the scent of a putrid lure

across wild clawed countryside?

nothing as laudable 

as an altruistic urge exists here,

I am left smoldering in regret

for we will be so double crossed

by the mean spiritedness

of their tinfoil minds, 

dressed soberly in pastel blue suits

those arsonists who point

at the fires they've ignited

then shake their moralising heads 

at the descent of England

as though they themselves

had nothing to do with the inflammatory fury

that they are merely pointing at

all destruction prefaces a future creature

and I fear the beast now being let loose 

to ethnically poison then cleanse the soil

preparing this land for the tawdry reaping

of a mutant political harvest.

Written June 2026
by Stephen Lumb 

FINISHED READING - The Blue Room by George Simenon

Tony is having an affair with Andree. They meet regularly on a Thursday, and if Andree leaves a pink towel visible from the street, all is clear. Her husband is out. They hold their secret assignations in a hotel in the blue room. Just after they've had some very rough passionate sex, where Andree has bitten Tony and he is dealing with the aftermath at the sink. The sex they have, is becoming increasingly risky and harder to conceal the consequences of. Tony thinks he sees Nicholas, Andree's husband, walking back across the street, and escapes out the back of the hotel. Frightened that their affair has been discovered, Tony decides that it has to end. That he loves his family more, and takes them off on a two week vacation to get away from Andree. Then it becomes apparent that this incident is being recounted in the context of an interrogation by the local magistrate. And that Tony is under arrest, but it's unclear for what. And as the novel progresses it's clear that someone is not telling the truth here. It maybe that Andree has carefully created a false trail of evidence that implicates Tony in a crime. It's either that, or between them Tony and Andree have together carried it out exactly as planned.

The Blue Room, is one of Simenon's later crime novels that have a much more unpleasant darker undertow. They are not your standard crime detective tale, built around Simenon's Maigret character. Here he has chosen to write as Tony in the process of giving evidence in a series if interviews. This way you hear his internal dialogue, know his feelings, his sense of panic.Why is he lying about not seeing the letters, they know he has received? It very cleverly drip feeds you information, whilst still maintaining a silence about what he's actually accused of. And through out you are left unsure. Is he being set up by Andree as revenge for him abandoning her, or is he fully complicit in it?  It's a really brilliantly constructed piece of crime writing. 

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8 

PROTEST & PROGRESS - The Peasant's Revolt

My purpose in writing this Protest & Progress blog post, is to explore for myself the history of English Protest Movements. What effect they had, and the changes they may ( or may not ) have instigated. Today, it's The Peasant's Revolt.

1381 - THE PEASANT'S REBELLION

You would not want to have been born into the 14th century. A century where The Great Famine was followed by The Black Plague, and it's estimated half the population of Europe died. If you survived through all of that you were either extraordinarily lucky, a wealthy recluse, or both. The consequences of these disasters upon social cohesion, was devastating. The feudal traditions of deference, the economic contract and hierarchy between lord and peasant, neared the point of collapse. 

For those who survived there were certainly increased opportunities. The pool of skilled workers was much reduced, this meant those with a trade could name the price for employing them. People found they were able to improve their status in life, through their own efforts. The wool and weaving trade in England was in the middle of a huge boom, and a new bourgeois merchant middle class arose. The beginnings of what was to become The Renaissance started at this time. So on the surface at least, Europe and England were on the way to bouncing back better.

However, the aristocracy, monarchy and religious institutions, behaved as if these social changes were immoral, needing to be halted and reversed. They introduced a cap on wage rises, and brought in sumptuary laws to prevent people from lower classes, however rich they were, from buying certain types of goods. Rural workers began exercising their new found economic power by banding together and refusing to do work at their lords bidding. Riots broke out in Bury St Edmunds and Norwich, over the high handed and exploitative nature of the monasteries in their local economy. Hiking up the price of tithes, and land rents. Strips of land that peasants had once farmed, if the family had died out, were often embezzled by other landowners and enclosed into much larger field systems. Some peasants, now without a means to support themselves, were forced into vagrancy. Vagrancy was then criminalised. If you were poor, you really could not win. The cost of the Hundred Years War with France rattled on, and pressure from increasing taxes made the people resentful. Not to mention the cost of living itself constantly rising. England was a tinderbox primed to explode.

What triggered the revolt was high-handed tax collecting. The king had introduced a poll tax, and one man John Bampton was employed to collect unpaid arrears in Essex. A revolt broke out, quickly spreading throughout the south east of England. They burnt county records and set people free from prisons. Wat Tyler decided to lead a contingent of rebels, that gathered ever more people as they marched towards London. They had a number of clear requests - they wanted the taxes upon them reduced, the end of serfdom, and the removal of the King's senior officials and the law courts.

On reaching Blackheath, they were met by royal officials aiming to persuade them to return home. This failed. The protest progressed through the city, destroying palaces, law books, buildings in the Temple and killing any royal officials they by chance encountered. The next day, the fourteen year old King Richard met the rebels at Mile End agreeing to all their demands. This only momentarily placated the peasants, who continued on their path of wanton destruction, taking the Tower of London. So the kings agreement of the previous day, was definitely off. Two days later a militia captured Wat Tyler and other rebel leaders, killing them all. By then the revolt was spreading into East Anglia, the Midlands and North as far as York. What followed was a swift and brutal suppression across the entire country to extinguish any remaining fires of revolt.

On the surface The Peasant's Revolt, achieved none of its stated aims. But what it did do was exemplify to ordinary people the power of collective protest. Also, it gave them a sense for how near traditional economic and social hierarchies were to collapsing. Social class began to feel it was not so rigidly fixed as previously. Deference towards nobility could no longer be assumed. This was of deep concern to the institutions of the establishment. There were now consequences for taking the compliance of their citizens too much for granted. 

As is often the case when those in authority lose public credibility, they never capitulate fully, as this might look weak and set a dangerous precedence. So they do only the absolute minimum to save face. The whole idea of the poll tax was in effect unenforceable, so was quietly dropped. The unpopular expensive foreign war was scaled back momentarily. And whilst serfdom continued, it was actually already in decline, as a knock on consequence of severe famine and plague. By the 15th century serfdom had totally vanished.

For the ordinary folk of England, the Peasant's Revolt, in the future, became the role model for what power, agency and acting collectively in great numbers, looked like. And increasingly over the next century they would return to flexing their right to protest in this way. To actively campaign for things to either cease, be restored or changed. Heads could now roll.

 Next Episode - The Cade's and Cornish Rebellions

FINISHED READING - North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

Caroline Lucas mentioned this novel in her book Another England, as being part of the sort of cultural forces that can contribute to effect change in society. I have never read a book by Elizabeth Gaskell before. It is also sometime since I've read a Victorian novel, and I had actually forgotten how intensely they can write, with so much tiny heightened detail into inner worlds and dialogue. 

This took me a while to re-adjust to, and I realised that for the task of getting into the world of North and South, I would have to devote considerable chunks of time to it. Otherwise I'd be doing it a diservice. This was not the sort of reading that could easily be digested and entertained in short snippets before slumber descends.  And this was, in itself, revealing about the sentence structure of a lot of contemporary novel writing, which, generalising madly here, is more sparingly efficient in the journey getting to the nub of things. Though Victorian novelists often initially wrote for 'part-works' in magazines, brevity was never Gaskell's or the Victorian way of composition. 

So this is a longer form style of writing, with lots on minor, but notable incident that slowly builds up an idea for what motivates a character. The central character here is Margaret, who feels like a sypher for Gaskell's approach to life. Margaret is a young woman, aloof, strongly self-opinionated and motivated by a sense of injustice, and the need to care for all humanity, regardless of wealth or status. Her father, the once Reverend Hales has had a mid life crisis, and unexpectedly resigned his parish. This entails the whole family moving from the quaint rural idyll of Helstone in the South, to the smoky industrial urbanity of Milton, in the North. The culture shock on all of them is evident from the start. Margaret's mother is seriously unwell, she complains about the dirt, the smog, of having to rub shoulders and to be dependent upon the charitable disposition of tradespeople, like the mill owner Mr Thornton.

It is a different class of person who thrives in Milton, entrepreneurial, less concerned with the well being of those who work for them. Margaret and Thornton have long discussions/debates, where they trade blows over the ethics of modern industrialisd society, and whether the care of his workforce is his responsibility or not. The picture Gaskell paints of the life of workers in the mills are forced to lead, is sobering. And when the mill workers go on strike, violent confrontation is on the cards. Strikes are a new very urban phenomenon. They are treated as a moral affront to the rights of mill owners. That workers are getting above themselves in insisting they have a say in the matter of their pay and working conditions.

Interwoven into this telling portrayal of Victorian moral and social attitudes of the time, the Hale Family is in mid crisis. The mother is ill. Her father tries to earn enough money through teaching and Margaret attempts to keep the household running smoothly. She has a brother Federick, living in self imposed exile abroad, because he was involved in a notorious mutiny, for which he could well be hung were he ever to return home. 

Margaret, almost despite her hostility towards Mr Thornton, finds he frequently intrigues and occupies her thoughts. But when he declares his love for her, up go her affronted bridges - how dare he? And this resistance to love, where each of them pretends indifference, and plays far too hard not to be got, runs throughout the novel. There are secrets and lies at work, that neither of them is fully aware of. There are also plenty of tragic events, murder, suicides and destitution. 

The revolution of a newly urbanised society, had not really been portrayed to quite this level of realism before. Gaskell's attempt to convey local dialect, is not always effective. I couldn't detect quite what accent she was aiming for most of the time. But generally I'd say she portrays working class people with considerably more honesty, than Dickens, who does tend to resort to the loveable caricature, too easily ennobling or sentimentalising them. Yes, there are moments when the drama tips into the stagey melodramatic set piece. 

Mr Thornton is certainly this novels 'Mr Rochester', the blunt yet mysteriously unknowable man, you understand early on these two will be living happily together by the end. Margaret is more a spirited example of heroine than you normally find in Victorian novels. And Gaskell does bring her two central characters together at the end as equals. Though women's options, even here, can be are as limited as the wives of destitute mill workers are, without a husband or financial independent means, any agency would still be ring fenced by marriage. Margaret is herself misjudged for having seemingly strayed from the propriety of what is deemed acceptable behaviour for a woman. 

North and South is an interesting book, from both a historical and social perspective, in the portrayal of a society in flux. Disruptive changes, where views and expectations of class, gender and lifestyle were shifting, dependent upon where in the country you lived. The North South divide we talk of in Britain to this day, has its origins in this period of the Industrial Revolution.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

SCREEN SHOT - The Backrooms

I'm writing this review tonight, because I saw a matinee showing and I need to start putting words down before I lose all sense of the film. Not that there is any sense to be made of it. Because this film is deliberately perplexing and has no consistent logic or framework to make sense of it with. It's a bit of a psychological tease, dressed up as horror.

Clarke (Chitel Ejenfor ) runs a furniture business. His life is a bit of a mess. His wife threw him out of his own home, so he has ended up living in the back of his own showroom. He goes regularly to see his psychiatrist Mary, to make sense of what has happened and try to move on. One day, whilst trying to discover why his shop lighting is flickering and going on and off all the time at night, he discovers there is a part of a wall in his basement display area that is permeable. He can walk through it into a whole complex of backrooms, corridors and doorways. With random stacks of furniture, on many different levels. Aspects of his own furniture showroom appear but are backwards, or chopped off half trapped in walls. The whole backrooms are a vast space, but it makes no logical sense. He brings in two employees to help him document it on film, so he can show Mary. But this goes wrong and they end up being killed by a malevolent creature that lurks somewhere in its depths.

That's about as far as I'm willing to go with plot, to tell you more would spoil the film. To be honest providing more information will not make the film any more comprehensible. The film appears placed very confidently in the world that is created. There are moments of real shock and tension, but most of it is not in what you are being shown, but in the terrific sound design that impresses a huge feeling of foreboding upon you, very loudly. This is undoubtedly a cleverly constructed film.  Previously it was a series of short films on You Tube, that went viral. It's director Kane Parsons, does appear to know how to conjure nightmarish surrealism out of nothing. 

This the sort of film nerds of all ages will absolutely love and get off on. Spending endless amounts of time theorising about what its meaning might be and knowing references.  I think this will largely be a complete waste of time, but it will happen regardless of my view. You will not discover some great profundity hidden in these backrooms. It is fundamentally a film that constructs a realm out of human emotional memories and the psychology of recollection, how through remembering them, things often become more and more inaccurate with each repetition. That we all live with some area in our psyche that we never want to look into, lest we discover some demon in the dark corners of our past. These are the sorts of themes the film attempts to explore. 

It's in the nature of this type of film, that nothing is without significance here. The film one family is watching is A Never Ending Story. The psychology book Mary has written is called The Memory Within. This story, for what it is, presents itself as though based on someone's psychologically mangled memories, it's just not entirely clear whose. I dare say, given its success, a sequel will quickly follow. But I'll give that one a miss. Seeing or knowing more will be of no help here. I began to find The Backrooms tiresome by the time we reached it's last half hour.  It's certainly diverting entertainment, but only the once. It is, just one long tease, that I found in the end, exasperating. That said, the Backrooms will probably be the highest grossing film of the year, primarily because it was also one of the cheapest to make.

CARROT REVIEW - 4/8