LIFE AS PILGRIMAGE - 2 - The Performance & Dressing Up For God

Down hill from the family home in Dyson Road, a mere ten minute walk away, was St Augustine's Church of England Primary School. There I was presented with a daily assembly of hymns, prayers and readings. I don't remember this being particularly churchy or solemn, though perhaps a child never sees these things with such a jaundiced eye. St Augustine's had a monolithic Victorian stone built church, looming massively right next to it. In amongst the surviving momentos of my early education is a small exercise book. At some point in my early childhood, I wrote and illustrated this. And it contains  Christian religious instruction, a standard part of a C of E Primary School's curriculum, And this booklet definitely tilted more towards the Anglican, than the Non Conformist approach. Complex ideas of sin, original and actual, written out on a blackboard for me to copy in my rudimentary understanding of English spelling.  I learnt I was primarily a Child of God, though it's never explained what surrogate role my parents played in this.

I believe, because I was brought up Methodist, with chapels and services so plain and scarcely adorned, I had an appreciative response to Anglican, even Anglo Catholic, churches, rituals and ostentation, that was an eye opener to wonder and awe. After an upbringing starved with restrained aesthetic stimulation, you just blubber your face in the luxurious bubble bath of it's sensory stimulation. By comparison this felt life enhancing, conjuring up a response of being giddily thrilled. 

Whilst at Primary School, around the time I was eight, it was discovered that I had a passably good boy soprano voice. And the music teacher, Miss Gilliat, told my parents she thought I was good enough to be a chorister in Halifax Parish Church. Being good at singing, is something of a wasted talent in a Methodist Chapel. There was nothing more to offer a boy soprano than sitting up in the gallery singing along with the buxom ladies in the ad-hoc, who ever turns up sings, choir. Anyway, after a thorough audition by the Parish Church choirmaster, I was in. 

Being in a leading part of Church of England services, with it's candles and incense, felt rather exotic. It also gave me permission to dress up in a burgundy cassock, white ruff and surplus. There was an heightened sense of beauty, elevated through singing anthems, hymns, Festivals of nine lessons and carols, and on one occasion Bach's St Matthews Passion. All this was utterly exhilarating to a pre-pubescent choir boy, from a non-conformist background. From these experiences was born enduring lifelong loves - for church music and architecture, to name but two. The power of the human voice in song, to connect you, lays out a more transcendent relationship with divinity, however briefly experienced in the full flow of a performance.  Singing was the first thing I'd discovered that I was confident in knowing I was actually rather good at, 

And this flipping between austere almost minimalist aesthetic and the effusively baroque over the top coloured maximalism, remains a dynamic pull within me still. My Methodist upbringing, plus my art and design training, pull me towards the former, whilst my instinct, and the thing I adore most is the latter. Over the years, in my own artwork, I've learned to intuitively place more trust in the maximalist in me, and ignore any inculcated tendency to temper my expressiveness back to a more restrained, less emotionally indulgent form. You are taught at art school, that this is what serious artists do. The pursuit of beauty was an inherently distrusted motive, it was manipulative, even untruthful. And a similar dichotomy existed at times within my relationship with Buddhist practice. Either refined to the essentials, like a Zen monk, or the rich exuberance of Indian or Tibetan rituals. Restrain your engagement with emotionality, avoid cultivating intoxication or excessive indulgence. There was my habitual English upbringing in the Protestant moderation in all things, which became further reinforced by meeting a familiar friend in Buddhist restraint.

As a child, I had a passionate and exuberant side to my character, that I tended to suppress because I felt that it was unacceptable. But in my choices of music, my love of art, for performing, for OTT camp, and having made in later life friends from Latin American and Indian cultures, I discovered a way of being human, a joyful light hearted exuberance to be enjoyed in an uncomplicated way. I think if I'd been more self confident earlier in my life, this outgoing side of me might have found space in which to fully manifest. Instead I retreated into myself, and concealed this side. There has been times when I instinctually felt In had betrayed my personality. For within every closeted introvert, is an misdirected extrovert trying to find their way out of the cupboard.

PROTEST & PROGRESS - Peaceably if we May, Forcibly if we Must

From the perspective  of the 21st century, we have little remaining sense for just how ground breaking the upheaval of the British Industrial Revolution was. As the first Western country to become fully industrialised, people from other countries were flocking to visit Great Britain to observe for themselves, to learn of the latest innovations, see what was actually going on in its streets and market places.

Whenever you are the first to do anything, you are the one who makes the mistakes that others learn from. The ones you have to go back on later to correct. Things happen that you do not anticipate. It's you who encounters unexpected economic consequences. How do you respond to increased social tensions? What happens when your drive to modernise the economy, ignores the welfare of its own working class citizens? When riots or disease break out in the insanitary conditions of cheap urban slum housing? Britain was the first country that had to find answers to these questions. Essentially, how do you maintain social order in a rapidly developing technologically led economic boom? And the rule of the British Parliament at this time was definitely not fit for that purpose. It was basically a closed shop of privileged, extremely well off individuals, looking after their financial investments and property portfolios. Their responsibilities towards the social fabric and collective cohesion came very low down the list of its priorities.

Marx and Engels

Frederick Engels arrived in Manchester in 1842, sent by his family to work in the family mill there. This move had been designed to extract him from the political radicalism he'd become actively involved in back in Germany. Though Engels spent his days dutifully working in the family firm, in the evening, with the help of Mary Burns who knew the city well, he ventured out to investigate for himself how working class factory workers lived and survived in these newly urbanised conditions. What eventually resulted from these nocturnal adventures was a highly influential pamphlet - The Conditions of the Working Class in England. One of Engels newer politically radical friends, Karl Marx, inspired by this document, came to stay with him. And together they began formulating a more radical socialist alternative to the rampant capitalism they saw ruining and debasing working people's lives in Manchester. This project eventually produced the Communist manifesto.

The Luddite Riots in the early years of the nineteenth century, were notable because they were the first real sign of the working class protesting their dissatisfaction with the conditions of their new urban life. The industrialised northern towns were becoming the magnet for a wide range of radical political, economic and social theories. Ordinary working people were politicised on the streets by reading pamphlets and broadsheets, and hearing public talks, about these ideas. They were increasingly more prone to noisily demanding better work conditions, pay, and the right to vote. Manchester, became a particularly intense hot bed for a broad range of these radical campaigning groups, and politically out of the box thinking. The sort of ideas being proposed by Engels and Marx, would eagerly feed into this.  A new economic reality demanded a new politics, and a truly representative people's democracy lay at the centre of that.

In the aftermath of the Peterloo Massacre of 1818, voting and electoral reform continued being campaigned for. They initially held out a hope for the Reform Act of 1832, but this failed to extend voting rights. It was also followed by The Poor Law of 1834 which robbed the poor of the most basic access to financial support, and made the workhouse their only option if they fell on hard times. So in 1838 a new and more politically astute voting reform group was formed, The Chartist Movement. This very quickly became a huge nationwide campaigning organisation. Initially focusing on staging large and impressive mass protests in Salford, Birmingham, Glasgow and London.  

Chartist meeting Kennington Common 1848

They presented a petition to Parliament asking for universal (male) sufferage, the abolition of the property qualification for candidates, regularised elections every four years, equal sized constituencies, yearly Parliaments, MP's to be paid a statutory salary. These may sound perfectly reasonable to us today. But from 1838 to 1848 the Chartists presented three such petitions to Parliament to no discernable response from government. The Houses of Parliament in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth, was stuffed to the gills with nobility, landowners and businessmen. It was inherently corrupt and self serving. Getting this legislative assembly think in a visionary and democratic manner about its own electoral reform, was always going to be a tall order. 

Chartism's peaceful protest marches began to regularly get more out of hand. Frustrated fringe groups within it began to advocate taking more violent action. This appeared to play into the governments agenda to discredit Chartism and to ignore the eminently reasonable requests of its aims. After the 1848 petition failed to be adopted by Parliament for the third time, the whole Chartist Movement seemed to lose heart and slowly faded out of existence.

Manchester had always been the powerhouse stronghold of Chartism. Chartists there had successfully blocked some of the actions of the cities Tory dominated civic administration. Seen in retrospect, Chartism was in many ways the political precursor of the Labour Party. Many former Chartists did later become active socialists. Another legacy of Chartism was that it introduced and trained many ordinary working class people in how to be politically active and to campaign effectively for change. 

Though it did not appear to achieve it's stated aims within the ten or so years of its existence, all but one of its original proposals did eventually become law, the last being achieved in 1911. Parliament then and now, likes to think of itself as being the primary instigator of legislation, and does not wish to be seen being pushed or coerced into action by external protests or pressure from its own citizens. So once the Chartist Movement had dissolved, piecemeal legislation did begin to slowly appear, that were almost word for word what Chartism had demanded. Chartism's mass protests and strategy did succeed in changing the legislative mood within Parliament, leaving an abiding influence upon the future direction of electoral reform. It was the first modern movement to pioneer mass nationwide protests as a way to keep applying political pressure, for demanding social or political change, and this became the blueprint strategy for subsequent protest groups.

Next Episode - Fetter Not A Brother's Limbs

PLAYLIST 2026 - No 20 - Edge of Saturday Night by The Blessed Madonna & Kyle Minogue

Edge of Saturday Night by The Blessed Madonna & Kylie Minogue

Well, it seems The Blessed Madonna can call upon some pretty big names to bring their talents to the service of her dancefloor. Here it's Kylie,who is no stranger to this sort of electro woofer busting disco banger. Here she is slumming it with this very noticeably mock sleazy looking gay crowd, whilst Kylie is trying to look a bit more bedraggled, wrecked and edgy than is usual in her own videos. 

Goodness knows what this song is about, making everyday a Saturday and getting plastered perhaps.  I mean this woman is 58 and can't possibly do late night clubbing anymore, she needs her beauty sleep. Otherwise liposuction and the porcelain doll like tragedy of Madonna's pension years beckons. This has some very uplifting beats, providing a more than pleasing way to spend three minutes and thirty one seconds with this enduring legend.

FINISHED READING - John of John by Douglas Stuart

It is probably a universal experience of anyone who has gone away to college, that when they return to their parental home, they come back a subtly changed person. Everyone may treat you as though you are exactly the same person who left. Families feel like they know the truth of you, and are often reluctant to update their perceptions. The experience of leaving, and learning who you are whilst you were away from home, from parental supervision, and the framing context of your upbringing, adjust you and your outlook on your life, both past and present. The dynamics of relationships at home, may feel familiar, but not necessarily comforting. It can feel like you are returning to a way of being you no longer wish to inhabit. This disjuncture can be hard to live with. And the story, as told here by Douglas Stuart in John of John, captures that state of returning to a situation where you feel instantly trapped. Finding yourself rebelling in major or petty ways, against the reasserting of old constraints. Here, the desire to leave almost overwhelms it's central character Cal from the very moment they arrive back on the island of Harris.

For Cal, has been away to Art College to study fashion. He's attained his degree, but not his fully adult independence. He's been sofa hopping and living off the kindness of friends for months. His future career has yet to take off.  A lack of perceived inaction or ambition, hence makes Cal reluctant yet, to return to the island of Harris and to Falabay. He phones home every week to speak to his Father. They talk little about what he is actually doing. It's more like a Bible class, a religious instruction, in order that Cal does not stray from the straight and narrow of his Father John's faith. 

Cal is gay, but cannot even contemplate telling his father, because the consequences, well, they don't bear thinking of. For John, has a deep well of frustration and anger within him, which is horrible for everyone when it erupts. It's origins Cal frequently misdiagnoses. He has never understood why, when Cal was only ten, John seperated from Grace, Cal's Mother. Something went wrong in their relationship. Cal's Mother largely takes the blame, just because it was her that left. Though this is clearly not the whole story. There is hidden knowledge here, and it is not getting any better for being kept so secret. John indicates in one phone call to Cal, that his Grandmother Ella does not appear well to him, and this convinces Cal this is the time when he should return to the island and people of his birthplace.

Stuart describes island life, in evocative small details, the colours and sensory qualities of the landscape, the air, the sea, it's deceptive but cruel beauty. There are sensitively aesthetic descriptions of the process of choosing the mix of colours when weaving tweed cloth. Falabay appears to uphold ancient traditions and conventions, if judged by the externals alone. Though in a small intimate population where everyone knows everyone else's busines, keeping secrets you don't want other folk to know, means maintaining a stern stoney unknowable exterior. Island inhabitants always have something tucked away, they've never told anyone. The island economy runs on sheep farming, the weaving of tweed cloth and increasingly tourism. The latter is gradually changing the island and it's people, from a community into a commodity. The old traditions and beliefs of the islanders, though they are desperately clung onto, are teetering on the edge of becoming uneconomic to maintain. 

In the dwindling faithful of a church congregation, there is a clear demarcation between those who have taken Christ into their life, and those who have not.  Everyone knows which side of that line they are currently standing on. The Minister's gentle soft voice might seem benevolent in its intent, but his level of control over his congregation is coercive and invades the privacy of islanders inner lives. And beneath their subservience to the word of God, many of the island men inhabit conflicted and unfulfilled existences of disquieting loneliness. Some of them may indeed be gay, but no-one takes the risk of stepping outside the perceived shadow of shame and exile.

The feeling woven through this novel, is of an over hanging weight of despair and sadness. Of people struggling with unfulfilled lives, self betrayal and guilt. Of men trying, but often failing, to enforce a firm level of control over their inner lives, desires and impulses. And the sense is that so easily, and quite soon, the lid could blow off all these scrupulously maintained stand offs between what men say and don't say, what they feel they are, and what they actually publicly do. All of it buried under unchallenged moral expectations of them. 

The feeling that something personally tragic is being revealed to you here, makes this novel often a heartbreaking story to read. I found I had to space out my reading as I got nearer the end, just in case I couldn't bare where the story was heading. It is that good. Stuart slowly and almost imperceptibly feeds you snippets of information that lead or mislead you into thinking you know where the characters may be headed, and then it doesn't go there, but to somewhere else close by. Will exposing the truth, clear the air, or resolve anything here? Or is there bound to be a dark peaty clod of brutal tragedy discovered in some ditch or on the harbour foreshore, somewhere on this island? 

The Booker Prize winner, Shuggie Bain was like watching a slow motion car crash happen. His second novel, Young Mungo', felt a bit heavy handed and overly contrived in its evocation of grooming and abuse. John of John, takes you far away from Stuart's lived experience of working class life in Glasgow, to a much older geographically isolated rural culture on the Scottish islands. Its written with descriptive and emotional fluency, peppered with flashes of quite subtle perceptive brilliance. However reprehensibly some of these people may behave at times, you still appreciate, love and have some feeling of care for these people. So much is so gently inferred here, of truths understated, briefly mentioned casually in passing, rather than double underlined. It is a superb evocation of the nature of a people, landscape and the predicaments of an island existence. 

I was left hugely moved and often impressed with the depths this novel was prepared to go to. John of John, is Douglas Stuart's best novel yet. It haunted me, and held me in a state of tension, even whilst I was reading it, and lives on vividly in my mind still. It will be hard to find another novel published this year, to beat this one.

CARROT REVIEW - 8/8

FINISHED READING - Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

"What I am claiming here is not that television is entertaining but that it has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience."*

Neil Postman, once a Professor of Communication Arts & Science at New York University, published this book Amusing Ourselves to Death in 1985 ** It has the subtitle Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.  It's a detailed, thoroughly engaging examination of how technologies, and specifically television, have altered the nature of our communication and culture. Turning it from one based on printed communication and the authoritative written word, to one, which through the medium of television, sacrificed intellectual depth to immediacy, with little need for context or comprehension, why this is being communicated, or what this might mean in terms of how we respond. What we must do as a consequence, is a question rarely posed. 

Postman's book paraphrases Marshall McLuhan's maxim, that ' the medium is the message', and turns it into ' the medium is the metaphor'. The prevailing metaphor of elevision programming is entertaining, and is primarily focused on retaining your attention through constant visual stimulation. Anything educational or informative that it says it's imparting is entirely coincidental, irrelevant as a justification for its existence. Television isn't about encouraging thinking at all, but emoting, and the necessity for everything you watch to be enjoyable.

"And there is no Newspeak here. Lies have not been defined as truth nor truth as lies. All that has happened is that the public has adjusted to incoherence and been amused into indifference."*

Imagery, how things look dominate our daily perceptions and political discourses. Television has made the conveying of information a subservient quality, it has turned us into passive receivers of insufficient information, that we can do little or nothing about. It has made us feel impotent. The expression of opinions has changed from a rational carefully worded statement into an irrational emotive sensationalism. That Postman's book is still in publication forty years later, demonstrates how his analysis has found a continuing relevance in describing the causes and effects of our internet social media age, which was presaged by television.

" If on television, credibility replaces reality as the decisive test of truth-telling, political leaders need not trouble themselves very much with reality provided their performance consistently generates a sense of verisimilitude......For the alternative possibilities are that one may look like a liar but be telling the truth; or even worse look like a truth-teller but in fact be lying."*

It is to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, that Neil Postman looked to speak of the zeitgeist of our time, and the perils our civilisation is currently facing. In Huxley's imagined future people become addicted to technologies, that subtly and quietly take away their capacity to think, their ability to form a critique or retain any sense of history, and the perspective that can bring to the present. Now, doesn't all that sound rather discomfortingly familiar?

"Thinking does not play well on television, a fact that television directors discovered long ago. There is not much to see in it. It is, in a phrase, not a performing art. But television demands a performing art, and so what the ABC network gave us was a picture of men of sophisticated verbal skills and political understanding being brought to heal by a medium that requires them to fashion performances rather than ideas."*

Postman uses famous debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A Douglas as an example for what has changed. In 1858 they engaged in a series of public debates.  At there height Lincoln would talk for three to four hours on a topic, Douglas would talk for a further three to four hours, to be followed by a concluding response of indeterminate length. And these talks were extraordinarily popular events, that were well attended. Thousands of people would stay engaged and listen intently. You could spend an entire day at these debates. There were breaks for meals where folk went home to eat, and then came back for the next bit of the debate.

American literacy and access to written information at that time was probably the highest it's ever been, The broad general population was well informed, and more than capable of following such long complex debates. Wind forward to modern televised political debates, where speakers get five minutes tops to state their case. This demonstrates how immediacy and the need to keep things moving lest the TV audience get bored, has changed our relationship with how much information we are presented with, or can take in. Add to this that every ten to fifteen minutes their will be the incongruous interruption of an advertising break and you have no clearer example of how television as a medium has messed with, and infantilises, our attention spans.

"And in saying that the television news show entertains but does not inform, I am saying something far more serious than that we are being deprived of authentic information. I am saying we are losing our sense of what it means to be well informed. Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?"*

Neil Postman undoubtedly was a very skilled and succinct communicator. ( He died in 2003)  Abjuring complex jargon, silly acronyms, specialist academic terms. He uses language and imagery deftly to aid comprehensibility and deeper understanding. And he was able to do all that without you ever getting a sense of being talked down to, or the subject matter being over simplified or dumbed down. This was a simulating book of ideas and perceptions, that took you on a journey into the inner workings of our modern communication media. He repeats several times that he is not implying what is happening is the result of a conspiracy or deliberate malign intent, what is happening to Western culture is a consequence of the essential nature of television itself, as a technological medium.

" Public consciousness has not yet assimilated the point that technology is ideology.....To be unaware that a technology comes equipped with a programme for social change, to maintain that technology is neutral, to make assumptions that technology is always a friend to culture, is at this late hour, stupidity plain and simple. "*

I found reading this book both compelling and curiously reassuring, simply because it nails quite precisely how we have arrived where we are today. When Presidents of the world's largest democracy are drawn from the world of entertainment, from film or TV reality programmes. Where a lack of seriousness, of being clearly ill informed, of blatantly lying, have become acceptable as just part of the political landscape. Because so long as you keep the attention span moving on, by bombarding the viewer with the next outrageous statement or provocation, people become increasingly numbed to the outrage. Advancing quickly on to the next sensationalised event that's just been generated. This would be a person that clearly understands the nature of modern tele- visual media, and how to exploit it. Enabling them to get away with dismantling democracy, create the foundations for a totalitarian state, and ignore climate catastrophe, whilst amusing the rest of us until we are all dead.

CARROT REVIEW - 8/8

* All quotations taken from Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman, Published by Methuen, 1987. 

** With gratitude to Jared Henderson and his You Tube channel, for first making me aware of this book.

PLAYLIST 2026 - No 19 - Mercy by The Blessed Madonna Ft Jacob Lusk

Mercy - The Blessed Madonna Ft Jaccob Lusk

In the seemingly long hiatus between the Gabriel's first album and its follow up, Jacob Lusk has been appearing to find time to do quite a bit of feature vocalist spots, mainly with Moby, but also here with the DJ The Blessed Madonna. This is a disco music at its most classic, and Lusk's voice gives it all the diva gloss you could hope for. I mean, if you had the opportunity to have that voice 'do your little ole song' you'd grab it with both hands wouldn't you. And The Blessed Madonna does not fail to fully embellish it with glitter..

LIFE AS PILGRIMAGE - 1 -The Creeds and Catechisms of the Infant

There are no pictures of me being baptised, but I do have one of me dressed in something approaching baptismal clothes. The ceremony would have been at West End Methodist Church, in Halifax. Like most Methodist Chapels, this was an unremarkable building from the outside. I have few recollections of its interior, other than it was dark. But if it went true to form, the interior would be plain, probably painted bench pews, an elevated organ and pulpit, with a small gallery. Nothing showy or smacking of ostentation or papacy. You were here to praise the divinity, not man. Turn up for God, be presentable, wear your best clothes. But it was undoubtedly here that I first heard the bible being read and commented upon. At some point in a Sunday service, the children would leave to attend Sunday School, whilst the adults received communion or a sermon was preached.

The God of my infancy seemed to me, to be a given. It came pre-packaged with my parents, and they presented it to me. And that God appeared to be an extension of them. God's relationship with me, felt very parental. God got exasperated with me, told me off, punished me for my behaviour, was pleased with me when I was good. I dutifully sang songs in praise of God, drew pictures of God, of the Infant Jesus, and generally absorbed the Christian teachings in their rudimentary child friendly versions. Encouraging me to behave better, and admonishing me when I was not. I learnt through this what you needed to be, to be considered good. The wrath of God was to be feared. The God of my infancy was definitely male gendered. And older boys and men I knew could be unpredictable and angry too.  I knew of no other way of perceiving God at the time. A child tends to absorb like blotting paper, who God is, how God is, what God does. They are passive receptors of teachings, imbibing unquestioningly whatever is fed to them. God seemed to me then to be similar to mother nature itself. God was just how it was.

Methodists are not particularly dour in their non conformism. At least, not the branch my family attended. My parents were quietly small c conservative, with distinct liberal permissive leanings. Tolerance and patience with others, were considered virtues. They were rarely strict disciplinarians about anything. Both were brought up within Methodism, and had imbibed it's prohibitions on drink and gambling, practicing moderation in all things. Very self disciplined about being respectable, and being seen to be by others. It was clear that my Mother was far too concerned, to the point of social anxiety, about what other people thought of her or her family. She felt the shame deeply, if her children misbehaved in public. When I came out to my parents, though actually quite understanding, my Mother became mortified by the thought of other people's judgements of me and of her, should they find out. 

Showing off, or being proud of something you'd done, were considered as you getting above yourself, and discouraged. Both my parents, though kind and loving, were pretty hopeless at openly praising or encouraging you in your abilities or talents. Talents ran the danger of making you bigheaded or worse than that vain or conceited about your self importance. There was a tendency in my family to ridicule or pull you down a peg or two, if ever you were to be proud, positive, enthusiastic or confidently enjoying something you were doing in your life. These are all things I have had to patiently learn to be for myself, and to be actively open to accepting praise and admiration from others when it is given. Though I can still feel myself inwardly cringe first, before I graciously and happily acknowledge it positively with a thank you. This remains a place of practice.

ART 'N' AB ART - Birkin Hayward & Ben Johnson - Salthouse Exhibition

Two artist's both from architectural backgrounds, have develop two very highly polished, but individually different manners of presenting structure and colour. 

Birkin Hayward paints confidently in slabs of gestural paint, that convey mass and stability, or the play if light in a particular location. Some of these are recognisibly North Norfolk, others are further afield in England or in and around the Mediterranean. Many if these paintings are so astounding from their s8mplicity of execution, but they convey so much about the place. Sometimes the scale is large and has immense heft and weight to the use of a paired back monochrome. Then. It may be as small as A4 and the smallest turn of the brush stroke the white spaces between colours suggestive of the light quality on that particular day. This is an artist who has acquired the skill to make such confident mark making. It is very impressive.

Ben Johnson's artwork is complimentary to Birkin Hayward despite his use of hyper realism. The gallery attendant has to make a point of telling you these photographs are taken of paintings Johnson has previously executed. This is phenomenally detailed and skilled work. Some works are like screen prints and are exercises in how slabs of tone can convey architectural mass and structure. There are also photographs of large wall paintings he executed in Hong Kong of the harbour. The precision in his original drawing is impressive, there is one drawing inside a cathedral which is particularly striking.  Other work has been done using computer aided design, and reaches a level of intricate detail only achievable through that means. 

I didn't look know what to expect when I read the Salthouse programme. So this gallery show was a particularly wonderful surprise, ideally suited to the light and architectural echoes of this church space. This exhibition runs until the 6th of September 2026, a must see it if your here on holiday or local.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

PROTEST & PROGRESS - Unsettling Revolutions

The Stuart dynasty ran out of legitimate Protestant monarchs, with the death of Queen Anne. Parliament pro-actively searched across Europe for likely candidates, settling on George the Elector of Hanover, whose mother Sophie was James 1st's granddaughter. The Act of Union in 1707 had inveigled Scotland of its sovereignty. So George 1st's controversial accession in 1714 provoked a series of Catholic Stuarts from 1715 to 1746 to return to claim the throne. Whipping up rebellion in Scotland against becoming the obedient lapdog of England. All these Jacobite rebellions ultimately failed. With the death, in 1788, of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Stuart dynasty finally came to an end. The era of the newly concocted entity 'Great Britain' began.

Succession became the least of the Hanover dynasties challenges as the 18th century progressed. The imposition of a Stamp Tax upon tea imported by the British East India Company, proved a huge misjudgement. American colonists, fearing that Britain was about to unleash the depredations of the East India Company upon them. A company with a reputation for unprincipled and corrupt trading practices. Proud in their independent non-conformist origin, Americans were not going to accept being preyed upon or penalised in this way. A delivery of the equivalent today of a million pounds worth of Indian tea was thrown into Boston Harbour. In short order, such righteous indignation quickly accelerated into an all out revolutionary war. America declared its independence in 1776, and the ensuing seven years of war ended in an ignominious British defeat. By 1783, America was a nation permanently separated from the auspices of British control.

Six years later, revolution came closer to home, across the English Channel in France. Where economic and political crisis was tearing that country apart. As ever, it was the imposition of taxes upon its citizens by a high handed insensitive monarchy, that triggered the initial revolt, stirring demands for representative people's democracy. That this ended in the monarchy being sent to the guillotine, spread alarm across all the other monarchies of Europe. As France descended into anarchy, the government of privileged landowners and nobility that ran the recently launched capitalist economy of Great Britain, feared a copy cat revolution erupting here.

Back in the leafy green rural countryside of England, there were simmering resentments, but mostly of a different origin. A revolution was brewing, but a technological one. For many centuries England had a vibrant trading economy within Europe, mostly through the superiority of its wool and weaving industries. The working backbone of this industry depended upon a vast army of compliant peasant spinners and weavers working in there own small holdings, or doing piecework for local farmers. This was labour intensive, poorly paid, but nevertheless integral to the functioning of a local, and distinctly rural based economy.

In 1764, James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny, a machine that could spin multiple threads of yarn simultaneously. Vastly increasing production and reducing costs, this one single technological innovation had dramatic consequences. A huge increase in the production of spun yarn, led to increasing demand for any remaining 'common land' to be enclosed.  Enclosure of common land, as we have documented in earlier episodes in this series, had been a long running sore of discontent amongst rural peasantry. This process had, until now, been executed in an illegal ad-hoc way for centuries, as common land was stolen by powerful influential landowners simply performing a land grab. The difference in the eighteenth century, was that you could legally apply to Parliament to enclose the land. And, as Parliament was literally stuffed to the gills with self serving landowners, thousands of such appeals were easily granted over the 18th and 19th centuries. All in order to meet the burgeoning demand for more profitable grazing and arable land.

Besides technological there were procedural innovations like crop rotation systems. Further enabling enclosure, these processes revolutionised the efficiency of the wider arable agriculture economy. Putting additional economic pressures on rural peasant workers as they fought to keep their poorly paid jobs, in the face of a rapidly declining need for them as a workforce. What started as the 18th century Agricultural Revolution evolved into the 19th century Industrial Revolution. It then became easier to relocate the entire spinning and weaving industries into the innovative large manufacturing factories, based near or in towns. Where access to energy and transport was easier to obtain. And the poorly paid cheap labour would simply have to follow.

All of these 'revolutions' in agriculture and production led to the collapse of the rural economy in the late 18th century. Poor people gave up the fight over enclosures and left the countryside in huge numbers for the towns, simply in order to survive. In the early decades of the 19th century, these former rural farm workers were further disaffected by the conditions they found they were expected to work in, in these new factories. They formed themselves into gangs that went around destroying the spinning and weaving factories that had sprung up. The new machinery being literally smashed to bits or incinerated. Was this the begining of a similar revolution kicking off in England, to those in France?

These weaving machine wreckers were referred to as 'Luddites'. Used at the time and ever since as a pejorative term, for someone mindlessly destroying the machines of human progress. But that was far from the whole truth of the matter. A large section of society, the newly urbanised working class, were being routinely mistreated. Their former rural lives had already been ruined, their lifestyle destroyed by the juggernaut of technological progress rolling over them. The Luddite revolts were driven by a demand for their contemporary plight to be taken notice of. Truly atrocious working and living conditions, low poverty wages and the erosion of any skilled workmanship, was rife. Rather than being anti progress, they were anti the wilful degradation of their humanity in the pursuit of this progress. But the greedy desire for increased profit and efficiency in this newly industrialised capitalist economy, was not going to be so easily derailed.

It simply exacerbated centuries old inequalities, long held resentments over how ordinary working class people had no real say in what happened to them. Not allowed to vote, they found they had little option but to take to the streets in protest and these could easily tip over into violent affray. In the aftermath of the Luddite rebellions, a campaign for democratic representation did step up. An economic slump after the end of the Napoleonic war, the failure of the harvest in 1815, made worse by the Corn Laws artificially keeping the price of bread high, and anger over less than 2% of the population having the right to vote, lay festering at its core. A large rally was organised, attended by 60,000 people in Manchester, on St Peter's Field. Local authorities, nervous at such an unusually large number of protesters, sent in the military to break up what had actually been a largely peaceful gathering. In the ensuing panic, as soldiers charged through the crowd on horseback, their swords in their hands, eighteen people were killed and up to seven hundred injured. This was the infamous Peterloo Massacre.

This level of fatalities and the disproportionate nature of the response, caused a public outcry. Fearful of giving further credence, and hence purpose, to such large protests and rallies, the Tory government simply cracked down harder. Banning all unauthorised gatherings, plus manufacturing an alleged insurrection, in order to justify this suppression. Stoked up fears of revolution being on the edge of breaking out. The Peterloo Massacre was to become a truly potent symbol for the injustice and plight of ordinary peoples lives. It clearly highlighted what was truly rotten and morally indefensible in how the governing elites ran Great Britain. Voting reform slowly developed an inevitable momentum, that had its totemic beginnings in what happened in St Peter's Field, Manchester on the 16th August 1819.

The Next Episode - Peaceably if we May, Forcibly if we Must.

FINISHED READING - The Anarchy by William Dalrymple

" The East India Company remains today history's most ominous warning about the potential for the abuse of corporate power - and the insidious means by which the interests of shareholders can seemingly become those of the state."*

The Anarchy, The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, is a part of William Dalrymple's quartet of history books about the British in India. This reads like an exciting, but particularly tawdry adventure romp. It demonstrates how without moral principles underpinning it, everyone was cravenly in search of making themselves insanely rich, very quickly, then taking the first ship home. The whole idea of sending your delinquent, depraved and troublesome offspring out to the colonies to make something of themselves, starts here. So much of Edwardian hero worship and daring do, on show in Boy's Own Annuals and Rider Haggard stories is feeding off this type of Colonial Empire behaviour. 

How did a small venture set up in the last years of Elizabeth 1st's reign, modelled on, and as rival to, the Dutch East India Company, become this gargantuan Corporation? Single handedly building itself a complex civil service and administration, to construct the London Dockyards we see today. Add to that the creation of its own city and trading centre in Calcutta. The company came near to generating half of Britain's trade, spending eight and a half million pounds a year in Britain alone, funding a quarter of the British government's total expenditure. They referred to themselves without any sense of irony as ' the grandest society of merchants, in the Universe.'

The history that Dalrymple lays out in this volume, shows just how much the East India Company initially had a completely free hand wherever it went to trade. British governmental oversight was extremely hands off. As long as profits came home, no one thought to check how they had come about, nor how much was syphoned off to enrich a Company employees pockets. The Company was extraordinarily lucky in that it arrived in India, just as the supremely rich and opulent Mughal Empire was at its most fragile, and would fragment, if given a little push. And in the anarchy which ensued, the East India Company became very effective in seizing, but more often creating, opportunities for business advancement when they came it's way. 

The French, were there too, playing one Mughal prince off against another, as were the British, both angling to obtain, extend or retain influence. The British government became concerned the French would use their superior military force to push the East India Company out. So they encouraged the Company to hugely increase the armed capacity of the East India Company itself.  Which overtime became 200,000 strong, twice that of the British army at the time, and with little to rival it in any other  country. Through this initiative, they became the first Corporation in the world ever to hold its own military force. 

As the Mughal Empire slowly imploded into precarious vassal states, the Company opportunistically stepped in offering protection, with the obligatory trading arrangements on the side. Mughal princes and Emporers became puppet administrations. Whilst in the background reprobate individuals like Robert Clive, fought battles for control of territory that further enabled the asset stripping of the Mughal economy. Over a series of adventures in India, Clive amassed, then lost a fortune, and then proceeded to amass yet another fortune. Each time becoming ever more pumped up and self aggrandise, until he attained the top job in the Company - Governorship. Through sheer moral indifference and brutality, combined with luck and military chutzpah, Clive kicked off the process whereby the Company could take full control of whatever it wanted, in what was left of Mughal India. Able to pick up the priceless pieces of its broken states, and then run the rest it into the ground.

The Company taxed the citizens mercilessly and despite warning signs that the Bengal economy was at the point of collapse, as famine struck, they continued taxing the poor starving Indian population. So long as money was still funnelled back to Britain, no one investigated how in the middle of a catastrophe, this was even possible. As the famine bit deeper and wider, the Company found itself with unmanageable debts and had to go cap in hand to the British government for huge loans. The Company was by then, far too big to fail. The government could do nothing else but cough up the money, but did demand it take charge of the Governorship and administration of the Companies operations in India. This move would eventually lead to the the East India Company's closure, the founding of the British Raj and Queen Victoria becoming Empress of India.

What they soon discovered, was the Companies financial rape of Indian resources, the standard but essentially corrupt practices of the Company, and the greed, immorality and cruelty of its administration. This was exposed for all to see, shocking and appalling the gentle folk back home. Robert Clive came close to being imprisoned over the inhumanity of his transgressions, retreating to his multi million pound estates in Claremont and Walcott, his reputation left in tatters. No longer the poster boy for the superiority of the East India Company and Empire. The Company's trading activities were directed increasingly via government dictat.The precedence of military interventions, taking over areas of India in order to secure their trading market and investment, did, however, continue. With the rise of Napoleon's interest in India, they sent Richard Wellesley to be the new Company Governor and defender of its Indian assets. He came with the deliberate intent of clearing the French out of India, and placing the entirety of the country under the Company's rule and military control. This he proceeded to do.

Though you might be inclined to think of Dalrymple's history as another example of British Empire revisionism, think again. This sorry tale of capitalist entrepreneurship and moral depravity is salutary and uncomfortably true. Heavily documented by people at the time, in the British press, within the Company, the Mughal Empire itself, and the British government. All expressing their disgust at the moral depravity the Company had sunk to. And though there was certainly a campaign that generally cleaned up its trading operation, the asset stripping 'mafia lite' protection racket continued, but in a more gentlemanly manner. Because everyone understood that the money the East India Company generated was keeping Britain, and the British Empire, in the status and manner to which it had now grown very accustomed.

" In both India and Britain, people still talk about the British conquering India, but, as this book has attempted to show, that phrase disguises a much more ominous and complex reality. Because it was not the British government that seized India in the middle of the eighteenth century, but a private company. India's transition to colonialism took place through the mechanisms of a for-profit corporation, which existed entirely from the purpose of enriching it's investors."*

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

* Taken from the Epilogue of The Anarchy, by William Dalrymple, Published by Bloomsbury 2019

PLAYLIST 2026 - No 18 - Crisps by Getdown Services

Crisps by Getdown Services

This track from their first album Crisps, is still on my morning shower playlist. Getdown Services music, is hewn with authenticity, which largely comes from Josh Law, the main songwriter and production ideas man. Though the ethos of this junk food obsessed band, is a collective one, shared between Law and his best mate Ben Sadler. As friends from childhood, there is sense for the in joke, boyish foolishness and what larks they get up to, about them still, even though they in their thirties. They don't remotely mind they're overweight and will happily perform with their shirts off. Crisps, is one of those songs that you can't quite pin down what it's about, there is a certain scattergun quality in its lyrical direction and wit, but the well turned phrase is one of their distinguishing qualities - 

It's a good job it's not a competition mate, or I swear you'd fuckin lose it - I'm having a party and your not invited, I'm building a castle and your not getting in, it's Mott and Bailey - Your not the enemy, your somewhere in-between a childhood dream and a pyramid scheme - I'm thick as shit, I'm not, but I look it, I got apps, I got a phone and I know how to use it, I got audio books.

They musically draw from quite a wide pool of styles, anything 80's or 90's rock or electro. There are times when the elliptical nature of their lyrics and delivery evokes the stridency of Mark E Smith & The Fall.  Law, increasingly has this air of world weary pathos about him, and looks like he's been on one too many benders lately, whilst Ben Sadler appears to just love the larking about. Considering the gig schedule they keep up it's no wonder they've got bags under the eyes and look tired.

FINISHED READING - Why? The Purpose of the Universe by Philip Goff

Philip Goff is a philosophy Professor at Durham University, specialising particularly in mind and consciousness. Becoming more widely known in recent years as a proponent of Panpsychism, which, put simply, is the belief that everything in the universe is conscious. This book explores ideas that underpin Panpsychism, concerning the origins and nature of consciousness. And argues by the end of it that probably physical science may never have the language or concepts sufficient to fully capture the nature of its qualities, and how consciousness works.

What is admirable is how he structures this book, Writing an accessible presentation of his ideas, followed by more complex academic addendums that Dig Deeper into the arguments pro and against his viewpoints. He guides you through these, telling you when he is about to enter difficult terrain, advising you when skipping specific chapters may be helpful. Giving you permission to hop around the book, whilst remaining engaged with the general thrust of his arguement.  I know I can easily lose the plot in closely argued jargon infested territory. So feeling free to miss out some of the complex theoretical sections, was liberating, and strangely reassuring. As a philosophical exploration, it is designed to be relatively user friendly.

We all may think we know what consciousness is, from personal experience. Though we posses it, we don't fully understand the what or how of it, at all. This has particular contemporary relevance, when tech developers of AI are in rapid pursuit of producing a synthetic version of it. What sort of consciousness is it, they are trying so earnestly to mimic?  Consciousness is a whole lot more than a data enriched calculator. From the start Goff makes it clear just how limited our understanding of our own consciousness is, how it may have come into being, and how it operates:-

 " Science is used to dealing with unobservables; fundamental particles, quantum wave functions, perhaps even other universes; none of these things can be directly observed. But there's a crucial difference when it comes to consciousness. In all other cases, we postulate unobservables 'in order to explain what we can observe.' In the unique case of consciousness 'the thing we are trying to explain' is not publicly observable"

Goff begins with a distinctly small observable positioning in the fundamental particles of the universe. As scientists developed an understanding of particle physics they produced a standard model, this contained 'constants' fixed numbers.masses and forces that were required in order to make it function. Having done that they postulated how much variance in these was permissable before the whole thing might evaporate or blow up. The nuclear force that binds all the elements in an atom together is represented by the number 0.007.  If that figure became 0.006 then there'd be nothing but hydrogen, if it were 0.008 or more then there would be the equivalent of an almighty bang. So, when you hear people referring to the 'fine tuning' of our universe, this is what that means. These particles found value in positioning themselves in this particular way, and it is extremely delicately balanced. He does not imply that this is 'intelligently designed' only that at a particle level things appear to have a purposeful direction.

" The essence of the Value Selection Hypothesis is simply that, however the numbers associated with these constants were determined, it was done in order to allow for a universe containing things of value.....at a fundamental level certain things happen 'for the sake of some future good.' "

Goff refers to these particles as having 'proto-agency', and from that state the sense of having purpose further evolves into an experiential understanding, that gradually becomes 'having agency,' what humanity calls conscious 'free will'. Although this process could be interpreted as purely instinctual, this changes with the arising of free will. Where we are able to chose to do things which are for some higher good, that is beyond any immediate need for survival. A particle, according to Goff's hypothesis contains the potential for this.

"There is not some magical capacity that appears out of thin air. Rather,the basic capacity to respond rationally - that very capacity possessed by the humble particle - has latent within it all of these possibilities. But these possibilities can be realised only when conjoined with the right kind of conscious understanding.'

So attention is a vital element. This is the foundation for his understanding of Panpsychism. This doesn't necessarily mean we are back to an omnipresent God as the answer to why the universe appears to have cosmic purpose. Omnipresence cannot adequately explain the purpose of consciousness, and why there is evil and suffering in the world if God created it.  In some respects the quarrelsome contentions of the Greek pantheon of gods, or the Manichean battle between evil and good gods, do a better job than monotheistic theology in providing an understandable context for why suffering happens. As a professor friend of Goff expressed it-' You've seen Luton airport, right? Why would an all powerful being motivated by beauty allow humans to create such monstrosities as Luton airport.' 

Recognising that humanity tends to get trapped in dichotomies of - its either God or atheism - an all powerful loving creation or a meaningless universe, Goff opens up some wilder alternative suggestions, for why this universe is manifested in this particular way. A much neglected area for philosophical speculation in Western thought. Some theoretical physicists are now proposing that those fundamental particles could exist within universe wide fields, the particles being localised vibrations within it. This may start to summon up ideas of a universal mind and guiding entity, but let's just park that there for now. 

Most ideas for why a universe of consciousness exists do entail some being other than us, creating it. The universe and humanity within it, being part of some eternal experiment, run by a higher being, in order to explore how consciousness develops. Though this doesn't necessarily have to have an all knowing God at the helm of it, though it is a notion we tend to forever cling to. The opposite of a good beneficent God, an evil God with malevolent intent, well, this runs into contradictions too that are the opposite of the former model, in a world of evil, why would there be good ? why would there be altruism? So is the universe then a creation of a completely amoral designer, who is deaf to the suffering they've created? There is the interesting idea we may all be part of an experimental simulation, run from a parallel universe. Or are we the creation of a God whose creative abilities are limited, hence the rough and ready, chaotic aspects of existence. Though quite why anyone would put much faith in such a God is another question. Then, as HL Menken once pithily remarked, 'Why assume that the God who presumably created the universe, is still running it?

Then there are suggestions that don't require a godlike being of any kind. Goff explores the ideas of Thomas Nagel, that cosmic purpose without a creator God is feasible, if we broaden our understanding of the laws that the universe is governed by. Most of the laws of nature we know posit a linear movement from past to future, what if that could also work from future to the past, to ensures the present remained on track for the emergence of life, for instance. This began to remind me of Dogen's writings about 'firewood and ash' in the Genjo Koan, that transcend linear ideas of time, where both time past and future remain factors in how the present moment manifests. The idea of a godless universe is also an old one. Goff cites Aristotle.

" Aristotle thought that organisms had essentially goal-directed natures, without feeling the need to postulate a designer who put the goals into things. That view was coherent although arguably disproven by the discovery that biological organisms had been shaped by blind process of natural selection. However, perhaps the evidence for cosmic purpose....gives us grounds for thinking that the universe as a whole is a kind of Aristotelian organism: it exists, in part, to fulfil a good purpose, despite the fact that nobody created it for that purpose. Perhaps the universe is like a plant that, in the fullness of time and with a bit of luck, will grow and blossom into something beautiful."

This is a thought-provoking book, which I certainly gained from reading, in amongst the many explications that were lost on me. The final chapter on Living With Purpose I found particularly useful, and resonated with some of my own conclusions, whilst giving me further pause for thought on how these ideas might relate to Buddhist views of consciousness and reality.

CARROT REVIEW -5/8

CHURCH LARKING - Burnham Norton Parish Church

 

The one of the six churches in The Burnhams, this is most likely the one with the oldest surviving structures. Dedicated to two female saints St Margaret of Antioch and St Margaret of Scotland, it's an extremely well maintained church, with an ornate galvanised metal modern gate. 

The original site of Burnham Norton village was most likely between the church and the friary, as the present day village is half a mile away from the church. Why the village relocated is unclear, it maybe as a result of the Black Death, the River Burn silting up and marshes forming, meaning the village Staithe had to move further out towards the coast. 

The close proximity to the Carmelite Friary down the hill, maybe of significance in why there is such a tightly bunched proliferation of Burnham churches. All that survives of the friary today is a rather fine 15th century gatehouse, which on this visit was surrounded by scaffolding, as its present state seems in dire need of stabilisation and conservation work. You can still see the actual boundary of the monastic precinct, which may indicate that this was probably a moderately well off, but actually quite small foundation. 

As round towers go, Burnham Norton's is one of the finest examples I've seen. A sturdily constructed tower, that tapers gently as it rises to a belfry and crenellated crown. It's the oldest surviving part of the church, with a likely early Norman date post 1086, as neither a church or tower is mentioned in the Doomsday Book. The church exterior generally has the overly neat look of a careful Victorian restoration project. It does possess a fine range of matching 15th century perpendicular nave and clerestory windows.  One of the benefits for many North Norfolk churches when perched on top of a hill or escarpment, like it is here, is the quality of light such windows illuminate the interior with. 

The interior is unusual with a small central area of pews separated off from the side aisles and font by relatively modern strip pine screens. Forty years ago when I first visited this church my recollection is of a slightly more open interior. This current arrangement demonstrates the medieval processional nature of its side aisles. There are a number of piscina, and a former communion bread oven in these aisles, which would indicate they once had side altars to saints, usually supported by donations from local medieval guilds. The pillars in the nave are 12th century Norman round in the north arcade and 14th century octagonal in the south. As with most North Norfolk churches, windows are plain diamond patterned glass. Surviving medieval stained glass is a rarity, and coloured window glass is generally, as here, 19th or 20th century in date. The east windows in the chancel are from the 1920's and feature depictions of the two female saints to whom the church is dedicated.

One reason to seek out this church is it's surviving medieval furnishings. It has a unique North West Norfolk style of Norman square font, which is quite low and chunkily carved, with deeply incised decoration on all its sides. 

East Anglia, post the Black Death and Famine in the mid 14th century, was in the middle of an economic boom, courtesy of its wool and weaving manufacturing. So it is not unusual that people who became wealthy during this time would become patrons to their local church, fund improvements to its interior and religious furnishings. There is an extremely rare survival of a 15th century wine glass wooden pulpit. Provided originally by local patrons John and Katherine Goldale, who are depicted kneeling on two of its panels. The standard Four Doctors of the Church, St Gregory, St Augustine, St Ambrose and St Jerome, are all seated at desks in the remaining panels,  With an inscription in Latin saying ' Pray for John Goldale and Katherine.. they had it made' then the date of 1450. Insensitively restored in the Victorian era, a more appropriate restoration was completed in the 1970's which revealed the original colouration and decorative scheme.

Alongside the pulpit is the remains of a medieval rood screen. Donated to the church by William Groom and his wife in 1458, so contemporaries of the Goldales. Most of the painting on the screen panels is now indistinct. Three panels had saints painted and the fourth was one of the donors. In the 18th century you could still make out some of the saints, The Virgin Mary, St Gregory and King Ethelbert. To the far left of the screen is the remains of a stairway that led to the rood loft, from which lessons from the Bible would have been read. Some remaining socket holes in the chancel arch indicate a crucifix, the rood, once hung above but separate from the screen. The screen itself was restored in 1953, when it was given a new rood loft replacement. The carved heads either side of the porch doorway most likely depict medieval people who also donated money for this to be built. 

St Margaret's has a quietly understated atmosphere, which somewhat downplays the medieval treasures it holds. It's unique semi open layout, may be more how rural medieval churches were once arranged.

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 142 - A Prickly Chaise Longue

Al created a beautiful but unusual word suggestion recently - I typed out the phrase ' not a God per se' which AI instantly changed to ' not a God jersey'. I love the idea of a 'God jersey.' Jasia Reichardt once said that 'one thing foreigners, computers and poets have in common is that they make unexpected linguistic associations'. So maybe embrace the creative possibilities AI random word changes suggest. Who knows where they might lead.

I've finally finished pruning back the pyracantha hedge. Our front window is now free of verdant obscuration. It now resembles a rather prickly Chaise Longue, or an elongated pram. The small section I cut back a week or so ago, has already begun sprouting tentative leaves. I've been dutifully watering and feeding it since, to encourage this revival. So, It looks as if it will survive my hacking away at it after all. Hurrah to the pyracantha! Hurrah to the pyracantha! Hurrah! Hurrah!!

Walking along a road in Wells next the Sea, there was a small bright yellow car with a sticker on the back in pink psychedelic letter font saying - Tailgate Me Harder. Daddy! Also a sign on a building for a company called Norfolk Sealants, with the byline -.You do your best, we'll masticate the rest!

In the process of chatting with one of our very lovely neighbours, we were collectively musing, as you do, on the bizarre behaviour of fascists. She confessed she had difficulty saying the words Neo Nazis, that it often came out sounding like Neo Nancy, and we riffed for a while on an activist group called The Neo Nancy's, open to both ladies and gentlemen, dedicated to ikibana and all things floral, the obligatory wearing of flamboyantly frilly pastel aprons in the street. Material Girl playing discreetly in the background. Like some pastiche wet dream from the 1950's. The Neo Nancy's, you heard it here first. 

I see the phrase Ambient Buddhism used a lot these days, and in wondering quite what that meant, realised - it's a spirituality that plays blandly in the background without overtly distracting your attention. If the Buddha knew what his realisation beneath the Bodhi Tree had been reduced to, maybe he'd have had more than second thoughts.

In our terrace there are six houses in the row, only two of them have house numbers on them. So sometimes you see delivery drivers anxiously walking up and down the terrace trying to work out the numbering. I mean, it is a miracle we don't have more things misdelivered or not delivered at all. We are one of the numberless houses. For the last year we have prevaricated, as only two gay men could do, over what style of colour of numbering, whether it should be in wood, metal or ceramic, but have failed to commit. But whilst recently in the Norwich Hobbycraft we saw some numbers in thin plywood for a £1 each. Which I have stuck to a stable wood backing, painted, varnished and now mounted. It turned out that what we really needed most,  was it to be cheap.

And the question on most mens minds according to one You Tube channel is - ' How to become glute dominant in a week'. Basically these are exercises for men who want to cultivate a really plump arse. The instructor guy wears only his dark stretchy briefs, has a blackboard, a pointy stick, and a moustache that wouldn't be out of place in the Village People. So he is a serious legit gym instructor.

Life is pootling along at a pace at present. Craft wise the gallery in Blakeney is doing very well for us, which puts a certain degree of pressure on to keep up with sales. Generally we are, but there is the desire for doing short intense dashes, rather than a long sprint. Which is OK. Ideally it might appear better to be on top and ahead of the curve. But that does not appear to be our way. A series of short periods of making, just about keeping up with sales, rather than aiming for far too much which may burn you dry, or overwhelm you. My role and strategy in all this is to make sure there is just enough fabric cut for Hubby to top up our biggest selling items. Fitting this around periods set aside for my own artwork. Getting the balance right is forever tricky, and I have to be prepared to drop whatever I'm doing in order to meet the urgency of a sudden sales surge.

Idly wandering out of QD I noticed a large sign hung from the ceiling that declared very proudly The Home of Quality Discounts. Discounts are just discounts surely.  I've never thought of discounts as having a quality before and pondered on what the opposite of 'quality discounts' might be. I came to no firm conclusion.

In the continuing heat, it's been a struggle to get a good night's sleep, as I presume many people have been finding. I've been aware for sometime of waking either with lower back pain or a cracking stiff neck/headache. And I know this is because my sleeping posture is incorrect. The mattress and pillow are not aligning my spine correctly. But whenever I've attempted to resolve this before, the solution generates another problem. Memory foam pillows, appears tobe ideal, but these make me incredibly over hot when all my body heat is thrown back at me. I tried a buckwheat pillow, and this seemed, like a lot of alternative solutions, to work momentarily, but not for very long. I've also consulted You Tube videos that suggest elaborate pillow solutions involving the creation of a veritable nest of them, propping up legs and arms in a supposedly correct alignment. I take one look and know this is not a practical solution. I'm a fidgety restless sleeper and have been since I was a child, where my Mother would often remark that I'd completely destroy a bed in one night. So some Jenga pillow rigmarole would last barely an hour with me.  It turns out one nicely stuffed, reasonably firm but yeilding, pillow is currently the best solution. I am wary to say more, as it wouldn't be the first time an apparent solution to this problem lasts a few days, then all the supposed improvements evaporate. But three nights in, I have woken up feeling rested and relatively discomfort free for the first time in an age. But then another heatwave arrives and I'm kept awake, sweating like a pig, even though every vestige of night ware has been divested.

Walking away from Tesco towards the car park. I overheard a mother who was bending down to talk to her child in the buggy, and saying in quite a matter of fact manner of delivery - 'and over there is the pub where your Dad and I blew £750 in a one night binge.' - I'll bet the kid will remember that and feel proud.

You Tube appears to use a somewhat crude, but essentially stereotypical 'gay' algorithm. And I have at times, as a gay man, undoubtedly triggered this. It emerged most strongly a while back when I was trying to find resistance band exercises for a troublesome shoulder, and has resurged again recently when I was again investigating beneficial exercises for strengthening hip muscles. My search found the helpful exercise advice videos, but mixed in amongst these were more than a scattering of what were basically soft porn. I've read recently, that even your average young straight man gets bombarded with imagery of the ideal male body, and videos about exercises you must do to obtain the perfect body form. I now get a lot of supposedly 'instructional' videos of outrageously pumped up men, young to middle aged, ready to abandon their T shirts and flash the pertness of their nipples at you. It happens in the drop of a hat, the shirt is whipped off, and they're jogging their pecs like horses. Displaying what is obviously the prime achievement of their life so far, a beautifully sculpted musculature. But what this most resembles is 'exercise porn'. Once you've seen one carefully posed armpit or crotch to camera, have you not seen them all? Take it from me, it may be tempting, but do not get drawn in.

 

Be aware of the seemingly innocent opener. There are those chaps making sincere heartfelt confessions about how much better they feel now they've come out as gay, or how beneficial taking a beautiful walk in the countryside is round here, whilst just casually displaying their handsome hairy bear bod, in a corn field, by a babbling brook, or relaxing across a rustic bench. Are they simply not getting enough real love and attention? Some of this undoubtedly is designed to be titillating, but not all of it. It becomes bewildering when even the straight guys appear to be having body buddies to show off there muscles too. It feels as though there's more than a gay thing going on here. An increasing insularity and narcissism in men, perhaps. A self preoccupation with their own idealised body beautiful. None of this is done to gain women's admiration. At best it is to bolster self esteem and catch the envious eye, a need for masculine attention and approval. Feeding the nascent aspirations of young men to also become painfully self preoccupied and obsessive about being visibly fit. It would be mistaken to couch this solely as sublimated homo eroticism, there is also a profound need for brotherly masculine camaraderie buried within this too.

A Norwegian guy makes these videos, which start out doing the innocent extolling of the virtues of being outdoors in nature shtick, but ends up with you voyeuristically watching him. He takes his camper van to a very remote place in the countryside. Mostly we view the proceedings through leaves on gently waving tree branches. He films himself from a suitably discrete distance, as the morning sun rises, undressing down to his undies, before going for an undoubtedly vigorous but chill wild swim in the lake. Then comes out Adonis like, backlit by the melting wet dream of dawn, to discreetly towel himself down. Then eat a very hearty meal cooked over an open fire, fully dressed in a parka, a wooly hat, with a cuppa coffee warming his cold numbed hands. His idyll has now become yours. The exact same thing happens every time, in every place he visits. Yes, I have checked this out! The border between male body positivity, outrageous showing off, vain preening, and simply being a titillating cock tease, is extraordinarily narrow these days. Though I guess these muted 'not quite porn, but close' videos, studiously avoid being censurable, but does earn this guy a living. How do you make them go away? - Ignore them for an extremely long time, and don't allow any of them ever to 'peak' your interest.  And puritan -  do not try to tell me your interest has never been peaked.

Within days of me writing these last paragraphs, and before I actually published the blog post, all the stuff I was talking about has now disappeared from my You Tube feed, except for the Norwegian guy. It's almost as though You Tube were aware of my draft post. It may of course be coincidental, and You Tube were already in the process of cleaning out this sub porn stuff. But interesting, is it not?

Greatly saddened to hear this week that Jason Arday took his life, and if I'm honest really angered by it ending in this way. Watching him being set up to be disgraced and his career sullied and trashed by the right wing media, has not been at all pleasant to watch. Any integrity or achievements he had,  being literally ripped to shreds in public. I doubt many of us could stand that level of lacerating scrutiny. And even when he resigned this didn't stop. The press never really cared about him, but simply wanted to make an example of him. Jason Arday was used to blow up a culture war bete noir, much beloved of the far right - DEI initiatives. His alledged plagarism could have been looked at within the broader framework of how academic standards might generally be being weakened, not just by DEI, but increased internet and AI usage. Plagarism is rife in academia.  I'll bet there are white Professors out there already shitting themselves, lest their CV or academic credentials now get a serious look at. But here it was specifically weaponised against one psychologically fragile black academic. Turning this one man's alleged untruthfulness into an all out attack upon DEI, by people who don't remotely believe in it's aims. They would prefer DIE - Deliberate Insular Elitism - which appears in this case to look more like white supremacy, given the protective gloss of upholding academic standards and rigor. Arday's suicide brings shame on them, and unfortunately also upon us all, because it happened during our watch. Jason Arday may indeed have been a needy fantasist, ( Who hasn't been at some point in their life? ) but did he need to be excoriated for public shaming in this way?

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