CHURCH LARKING - Appleby in Westmorland Parish Church

Built in local red sandstone St Lawrence's appears like many churches in this district to be excessively worn. The stone seems not sufficiently durable enough for the weather it encounters. And the finesse of the carving of its porches and window tracery is a little lumpen and solidly executed.  It's not the sort of stone you would normally make a church out of. It is rather poor in quality. But if it's the best you've got available, then here it is. It is not then unexpected that St Lawrence's has had repeated restorations and revamps over it's nine hundred years history.

It sits squat and low in the valley. It has a clerestory and tower, both heavily crenellated. The tower is the oldest part of the church, it's lower level dates back to the late 12th Century. The majority of its nave and chancel were rebuilt in the 14th and 15th Century.  With some late perpendicular window insertions. In 1655 the ubiquitous Lady Anne Clifford, very fond of splashing her wealth around this district, spent money on restoring the church. 

The Victorians had two further goes at improving it's interior. In the 1830's when the unusual, and very fine plasterwork ceiling was installed in the nave by Christopher Hodgson. Further restorations were made in the 1860's that included the insertions of some rather splendid stained glass windows by Heaton, Butler & Bayne or William Wailes, both Gothic revival specialists. There was extensive restoration work done in the 1960's and again in 2015 after severe flooding from the River Eden that snakes around the back of the land the church rests on.

The interior is largely decorated in style, It has a quiet and humble appearance with little sense of architectural loftiness to its nave. The most notable object in the nave is the beautifully carved organ with its cherub heads and dramatic three turrets for its pipes. This is sited against the west wall and seems enormous and far too dominating for a church of this size. It was originally a gift to the church from Carlisle Cathedral by its dean in the 17th century.

The chapel in the north east is dedicated to the Clifford family, and you'll find there funeral monuments to Lady Anne Clifford. A black marble plaque with an extensive display of her lineage displayed in heraldry shields. For someone whose inheritance was seriously curtailed by this lineage You can't help thinking that even in death she was not above labouring the point. Her monument is accompanied by the effigy in alabaster of her mother Lady Margaret.

Generally St Lawrence's is architecturally modest, but is nevertheless a warmly welcoming medieval church, worth a visit.

FINISHED READING - Handmade by Anna Ploszajski

Subtitled - A Scientist's Search for Meaning through Making, I don't know what I thought this book would be like when Hubby thrust it towards me in the Library, as a possible book to read on holiday. As it turned out, I chose not to take it with me, something about it made me think it wasn't a good fit for holiday reading. So I've only started reading it on my return. It is quite an easy approachable read, so I've zipped through it. It's not quite what I expected it to be. But quite what I expected I don't know, but it's probably covered by the words -  more of a philosophically deep enquiry into the creative process of making objects. Whilst it touches on this in the concluding paragraphs of a chapter, I could have done with more reflections. It seemed frequently to get caught up in the inadequacies of being a novice at a skill, and learning from one's mistakes. All of which is fair enough.  It took me a little while to adjust to this being what this book actually is. 

Anna Ploszajski is a material scientist, and during the book you do get glimpses into her own personal and family history, and how it is relates to specific materials. She sort of stumbled into material science and the Institute of Making. And literally grapples in trying to understand and actually utilise the properties of materials with her own hands, which all the information in her head cannot really help her with the actual dexterity of the doing.

"Even though the process of softening both plastic and glass with heat and shaping them by hand were similar, the lack of material personality of plastic was enough to leave me artistically stumped. Is the neutrality of plastic, though, not a characteristic of sorts? ......Perhaps all materials embody inherent characters, some more strongly than others, gifted by a combination of how they look, feel, smell. Sound and move. It might be the skill of the craftsperson is to notice and tap into these inherent material personalities, to make the best of them when they transform materials into objects.'*

Each chapter takes a particular material starting with glass, then plastic, steel, brass ,clay sugar,wool, wood, paper, and ending with stone. Some of these materials humanity has had a long and very fruitful relationship with. She explains a bit about the qualities of the material and how this is related to it's structure on a microscopic level. So we learn what makes glass transparent, so fragile, and yet so useful, for instance. But Ploszajski is also wanting to get more hands on with these materials and move her experience from the theoretical towards the practical and experiential. So she meets up with various crafts people, attends workshops and receives one on one teaching, which demonstrates to her how when you are dealing with a material on a practical level, knowing why on a theoretical level it's behaving or responding in this particular way, isn't really that useful when your working with it. There is often a hands on technique to be learnt,, a skill, that an experienced crafts person acquires and knows, that controls or gets around a weakness or turns a problematic quality in a material to creative advantage. This can really only be taught hands on, and that is what the handing down of a legacy of centuries of skilled craftsmanship and experiment is. 

' We appear to have started into philosophical questions unanswerable by material science - is an object still and object if it's not made of anything? philosophers of the materialism camp would say that even ideas are material in nature, since they cannot exist without the physical human brain. Idealists would argue the opposite, that material objects are merely collections of ideas, which require the mind in order to exist. ....I wonder whether the physical act of making with materials can be harnessed to influence or change our emotional state.'*

I read all the explanations that material science has for why glass is so pliable when heated, which I thought I'd grasped, in the moment of reading it. Though I find I've retained very little if it in my memory bank. But then I am a hands on learner primarily. I get the jist of the theory, that these qualities are often to do with the nature of the molecular gaps in a materials structure or chemical reactions, but holding the precise details tends to elude me. I enjoyed reading the book, even though, for me, it never quite set me fully alight with insightful revelations.

CARROT REVIEW - 4/8

* Extracts from Handmade by Anna Ploszajski, Published by Bloomsbury Sigma 2021.

THE PAST IN RUINS - Brougham Castle

Brougham Castle was one of five castles that spanned in a close series the Western Marches. One of the border areas of England which were for centuries contested land. Cumbria had been under Scottish fiefdom until 1157. But opportunistic raiding parties, mainly issuing from the direction of Scotland into England continued to be commonplace in medieval times - stealing cattle, burning villages, rape, pillage, capturing castles in order to destroy them, were just some of the things that were got up to. So the maintenance of this line of fortresses running from Penrith Castle in the North, through Appleby Castle, Brough Castle, Brougham Castle, Pendragon Castle, down to Skipton Castle in the South, was a vital line to hold. Until of course it wasn't. Once James VI of Scotland also became James 1st of England, raids no longer had royal approval, and so the whole raison d'etre for them fell away.

All but one of these six fortresses ( Penrith Castle ) were in the hands of the wealthy and well connected Clifford Family. At various points all these castles had been attacked, elements burnt or destroyed.  Five castles all in close proximity to one another could not have all been fully inhabited or adequately maintained and defended simultaneously. And by the succession of James 1st their viability as a defensive deterrent was also diminishing. In the coming age of peace, the elegant stately home and estate, rarely fitted a castle's lofty prominence, cold stone walls, floors, and draughty castle towers. One by one they'd fallen into disuse and bad repair. They faced the future as a romantic ruin.

Brougham Castle guards a strategic river crossing. Built in red sandstone,and partially broaching onto the previous site of a Roman fort. It was constructed in the early 13th century by Robert de Vieuxpont, acting on behalf of King John. The solid massive keep he built still stands and can be climbed up to near its original height. From there you can see the River Eamont beneath and for miles in any direction you look. The Clifford's, as Lords of Cumberland and Wardens of the Marches, further developed the castle's defenses. The double gatehouse that runs along the entire length of one side of the keep is one unique survival of its medieval fortifications. By the late sixteenth century these castles were already becoming militarily semi-redundant edifices, more easily captured and damaged by powerful cannons and explosives. They began not to be well maintained and were considered more of a drain on the Clifford finances.

And this was how it had remained until Lady Anne Clifford. At her father's death in 1607, though only fifteen, she should have inherited his whole estate. Instead her father passed it to his brother Francis, and he to his only son Henry. Though she continued to fight for her inheritance. It was only after Henry's death in 1643 that she was finally able to fully claim her rightful inheritance. At this point she went on a spending spree, executing philanthropic good works in the local towns. Renovating churches and more importantly repairing and redeveloping each of the castles she owned. Brougham being just one. 

Afterward, once these restorations were completed, she was on a constant circular progress, visiting each castle in turn, three months here, six months there. This proved to be the last flowering of Brougham Castle, as one of Lady Anne's favourite places to live. She seemed a very determined person, with her own particular eccentricities. A woman who appeared to prefer living outside the fashions and trends of her own era. After her death in 1676 at the age of eighty six, the previous neglect and slow decline of the castles simply resumed. Two and a half centuries later the remaining ruins were passed into the hands of the governments Ministry of Works & Monuments in 1928, the predecessor of English Heritage which now manages and maintains the site.

PLAYLIST 2026 - No 21 - The Moon & Stars by Radie Peat

The Moon & Stars by Radie Peat

Whilst Lankum have been in a bit of a hiatus since the world wide success of False Lankum in 2023. Radie Peat has since become the totemic folk voice of her generation, and together with John 'Spud'Murphy partnered up on the dark majesty of the  OXYN album and are together again here on a pre- release track from her upcoming solo album No Human Tongue Can Tell.

'For your favours like a feather that's blown on every wind.
 You promised me the moon and stars.
 Just to leave me now behind.'

The Moon and Stars, fully embraces all that is good and slightly unsettling in the raw soft keening tone of her vocals.  The atmospheric music, the doom- ladened military drum rat tat tatting in the background, draw out of the folk tradition, to combine it with an apocalyptic drone of dread and mournful portent. Over which we have Radie's torn uneasy vocal, with it's final lyrical lament of resignation at being abandoned:- 

' the moon and stars were screeching, roaring in the sky.
  I laid my head upon a stone and then I closed my eyes.'

Absolutely terrific stuff.

SHERINGHAM DIARY NO 143 - The Fundamental Purpose of Creating Art

The latest artwork I've been working on, has reached the end of its construction phase. I'm already pleased with how it is turning out. I thought I knew what the colour scheme would be, which in my head worked. But once I started painting a growing unease developed, until I had to reluctantly admit I didn't like how it looked. So, I created some colour swatches and settled on a new scheme. I can now progress with more confidence on to the painting stage. This can, in itself, be quite laborious, as the painting of these pieces is fiddly and producing a good solid colour can require a few coats, and a full reservoir of patience. Which I'll admit I don't always possess. 

I am not dwelling on why I am spending so much of my time on these artworks, as I'm finding the time spent on them enriching and reward enough.  I have no idea if this current piece is for display in the house or whether it will be stored in the garage. (Note to self - sort out the mess that is the garage before the winter sets in.) The value and the validation of creative work for the artist, is in the act of creating and the completing of it. What you do with it afterwards, well that has nothing to do with the artistic process, or the fundamental purpose of creating art, in the first place. 

Recently overheard in cafe in Holt- 
'I mean to take Geoff round just to show him. Cos what they've done with their guttering is lovely.'

I continue to look for new ways of getting fitter, improving my physical mobility and easing the discomforts of an increasingly aging body. I recently found a You Tube channel Discipline Drive. It's made by Ben. A window cleaner who lives in Wales. In the last year or so he has lost huge amounts of weight and become increasingly buff. On his site he usually attempts to do a minute each of nine exercises every day. Let's be clear, he has not made the physical change he has achieved without also spending regular hours in the gym. He learnt these exercises off another You Tuber, and he sometimes refers to them as Tai Chi inspired exercises, they might be more Qi Gong at a push. Though the nomenclature feels tenuous. I've also seen exercises like them used as part of a Fascia exercise regime, which is a current fad on Tik Tok. But the million dollar question is do they work? Well. In my experience they do greatly improve your general level of fitness, get your energy going in the morning, and have in the three weeks I've been doing them everyday, considerably relieved neck and shoulder stiffness.

The problem with any such fitness regimes is they can quickly turn into a form of body fascism, falling fowl of becoming 'the tyranny of the six pack'. Where the pursuit of an ideal body form, ends up taking over your life. Requiring a huge amount of time devoted to developing and then maintaining it. Undoubtedly this improves self esteem. Ben himself is evidence of that. However, if you take these exercises simply as a base line, as Ben recommends they are, then how far you want to go down the road to full buffdom is entirely up to you. There are many ways to be healthy, and only one of them requires abs like a radiator.

Mr Ben

Anyway, if you want to give them a try, here's a link. -  9 Tai Chi Inspired Exercises

Bad Byline Pun of the week - Stamford Hi-Fi - The home of 'Sound' advice

Great Asby Hall

Hubby & I in the gardens of Dalemain House

Hubby and I took off on our usual late September holiday, this time to Great Ashby in the Eden Valley, which is on the border between the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District. It proved to be a very long journey up, mostly on the A1 motorway for five to six hours. Including much needed comfort breaks and leg stretches, it took most of a day to get there. It was a further day before we felt we'd begun to recover from the constant travelling. I don't think we'll attempt that length of journey again. The place we stayed in was a barn conversion in grade 2 listed Great Asby Hall. Two large bedrooms with en suite on ground level, either side of a staircase up to a timber beamed open plan kitchen - dining - lounge area. It was all a very spacious place to relax and unwind in.

Whilst travelling up to Great Asby we were following a van which said :-
The Tiffin Sandwich Company - for mmmmMunch Munch More

Penrith Booths

Asby is a small village with a  local pub The Three Greyhounds, which does excellent pub grub, with a reasonable choice for veggies such as us. We went twice during our week there. Appleby in Westmorland, ten minutes drive away, with its castle and ancient moot hall, is your archetypal conservative traditional English town. Apart from a really good curry house, Seventy One, which we sampled to mark our wedding anniversary, there wasn't much else of culinary note. And we found that to be the case in Penrith too, which has a sprawling, very gappy retail offering, a town centre layout that's hard to get your head around, and a nightmarish road system to negotiate. But like most major towns in this area, it's main saving grace is that it has a Booths. There are also Booths in Windermere and Kendal. With no piped music, it's clear, broad aisles with a great stock range, it's general clean lines, calm and relaxed ambiance, it has really to be experienced to be believed. It's like you've gone to a supermarket but found heaven.

We were sat in a cafe in Bowness by Lake Windermere. a little boy came up to the table behind us and asked:- ' Is anyone going to come and be a nuisance with me?'  

Homeground in Windermere

We went to Windermere, because last time we in the Lake District, a new cafe called Homeground had just opened that was really excellent. And ten years later it was still thriving, offering the same quality of superlative food, and the best flat white I've ever had. This time, it constantly had a queue, we had to wait forty minutes outside before we got a table. That may sound daunting, who would queue all that time just to get into a small cafe, well we and dozens of others did, because believe me it really is worth it.

The View from Brougham Castle keep

Hubby at Brougham Castle

Sizergh House gardens

Hubby with an extravagant piece of ceramic and shirt

The Dragon Topiary at Dalemain House

A restaurant in Windermere proudly announced it's - Croquette of the Week.

So, besides struggling to locate the best food and cafe offerings in the area, we eventually got into the flow of culture vulturing. Visiting the ruins of Brougham Castle and taking in the superb views from the top of its keep. The house at Sizergh, filled with the dark magnificence of 16th century carving and panels, and some truly beautiful ceramics in its collection. Dalemain House, with its interminable guided tour, international marmalade competition, gorgeous gardens, and a cool topiary dragon. We took in the grand landscape of the area, part green grazing and the bleaker moorlands, which are really stunning to drive over or through. 

The weather was classic North West, drizzle and sunshine quickly changing within a day or overnight. On our last full day, it was gloriously sunny with a cool wind. So we did a two hour + circular walk out to Rutter Force, following a stream across grazing meadows and through forests filled with pheasants from a farm madly flapping up all around you in alarm. We did enjoy this holiday, but it felt like we'd really had to work to make it so. We never found a place we instantly fell in love with, and would instantly want to return to. It's not that sort of area it seems.

The Hoff Beck

Rutter Force on the Hoff Beck

FINISHED READING - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

'An unhealthy soul requires a healthy body. This might sound paradoxical, but it's something I've felt very keenly ever since  I became a professional writer. The healthy and the unhealthy are not necessarily at opposite ends of the spectrum. They don't stand in opposition to each other, but rather complement each other, and in some cases band together. Sure, many people who are on a healthy track in life think only of good health, while those who are getting unhealthy think only of that. But if you follow this sort of one-sided view, your life will not be fruitful.'*

Written between 2005 and 2006, and published in 2008, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, is the nearest thing to a personal memoir murakami has so far written. It reveals a very different person to how one might assume a world famous successful novelist of Murakami's standing might be. Someone who is a lot less sure of himself and his capabilities, and as he ages, has to accommodate the diminishing of his abilities as a runner.

In early adulthood Murakami ran a successful cafe/jazz club. It was only after his first few stories were well received and sold well that he took the decision to refocus his life around writing.  And, with the arrival of a more settled, sedentary and less topsy turvy life, he took up running. Knowing that shorn of a busy lifestyle, his predilections for junk food would settle around his waist, so regular exercise became an essential part of keeping his senses alert and capabilities lively. The writing and the running, in this sense were always considered as mutually supportive.

In What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, he uses the history of his engagement with competitive running as a metaphorical mirror that reflects the evolution of his own writing, his confidence as a writer. Interwoven into this are glimpses into the ordinary everyday life of Murakami, how he utilises his days, how running supports so much of it. And then there are the examinations of his motivations whilst running, the philosophical ruminations upon his physical health and experience whilst running, the exaggerated worries about his complaining knee failing him as he attempts a New York Marathon. And as his capabilities and running times diminish over the years, adjusting his expectations and aims for himself from long distance running. The bottom line becoming not to ever be reduced to walking to the finish.

Unexpectedly I really loved reading this book, it is full of personal reflections and perceptions that I personally resonated with. And you can't help but warm to Murakami's humanity, his frankness and honesty about his own petty vanities and expectations of himself. How he keeps himself on top form both as a writer and a runner, by the regular focus on the practice of his craft. He comes across as quiet but quite admirable person.

'There was no wind at all. Many of the other runners around me were just silently trudging towards the finish line. Being among them gave me a quiet sense of happiness. Breathe in. Breathe out. My breath didn't seem ragged at all. The air calmly went inside me and then went out. My silent heart expanded and contracted, over and over, at a fixed rate. Like the bellows of a worker, my lungs faithfully brought fresh oxygen into my body. I could sense all these organs working, and distinguish each and every sound made. Everything was working just fine. People lining the road cheered us on....their shouts went right through me. Their voices passed clean through me to the other side. 

I'm me, and at the same time not me. That's what it felt like. A very still, quiet feeling. The mind wasn't so important. Of course, as a novelist I know that my mind is critical to doing my job. Take away the mind, and I'll never write an original story again. Still, at this point it didn't feel like my mind was important. The mind just wasn't that big a deal.'*

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

* Extracts from What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
   by Haruki Murakami, Published Vintage 2008 

FINISHED READING - The Ultimate Hidden Truth Of The World by David Graeber

'Imagine that the experience of lockdown and economic collapse actually allows us to see the world as it really is and we acknowledge that what's referred to as "an economy" is simply the way we collectively keep one another alive, providing one another with the things we need, and generally take care of one another. Say we also reject the notion of social control.'*

David Graber unexpectedly died in 2020 at the age of fifty nine. He was an American Professor of anthropology, who made a study of modern social and cultural phenomena, and was an extremely influential commentator and theorist. A life long anarchist, he was also deeply involved in the political and financial protest movements that became Occupy Wall Street. He coined many terms still in use today such as 'We are the 99%' and 'bullshit jobs'. 

As a theorist, he was adept at disrupting common assumptions by presenting a whole new way of looking at an issue. In the first essay in this book There Never Was A West, he subverts the whole notion the West has of itself as the originators of democracy. By questioning whether some form of basic democratic decision making and consensus seeking actually was prevalent in most early civilisations. That the whole notion or a civil urbanised society could not function without it in some form.

He also re-examines the whole notion of Athens and it's demos as the source for Western notions of democracy. First, the demos didn't extend its political participation to women nor slaves. And Second, when the Renaissance rediscovered classical civilisation, or the French and American Revolutions happened, they chose to model themselves on the Greek and Roman Republics, and if anything they despised the ideals contained within democracy. Only much later on, in the early decades of the 19th century, in the middle of the age of empires, did a more noble presentation of democracy slowly form itself in the Western mind as it's 'gift' to the world. 

In The Phenomenon Of Bullshit Jobs, he asks where the increased leisure time went, that we were once promised would appear as technology improved. He discovered there was the hellish creation of empty 'bullshit jobs' that even the people who execute them know  have no substantial meaningful purpose. Jobs in telemarketing, human resources, public relations, financial services, academic and health administration. What is now broadly known as the service sector. The definition of a job being 'bullshit' is - if they were to go on strike would anyone notice or their lives be seriously inconvenienced by this?

His involvement in the Occupy movement, caused him to study policing strategies. In the essay On The Phenomenology of Giant Puppets, he enquires why the first thing police do during any demonstration is to take down 'the puppets' and other Papier mache made mocking figures. And why is it when demonstrations are planned with the police, the ones who first break the boundaries and agreements made, are the police themselves?

In What's The Point If You Can't Have Fun, he suggests that most animals have behaviours which are not necessary for their survival, but they do them simply to have fun. We need to reassess the purpose of our human need to be playful, and how having fun can actually be the source for real boundary breaking creativity, and thinking outside of the box, That a single minded serious focus simply on profound meaning, purpose and productivity sort of misses the point of.

'Imagine we jettison the idea of production and consumption being the sole purpose of economic life and substitute care and freedom.' *

I found this an extremely stimulating book to read. It was such a joy to simply watch an intellectually flexible mind take things apart, examine all the inner workings and then put it all back together, sometimes into an entirely different shape. Graeber had a playful wit, that even in an apparently dry dissection of the finance industry or economic theory flashed it's mischievous brilliance.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

* Taken from the essay The Museum of Care, in The Ultimate Hidden Truth Of The World by David Graeber, Published by Penguin. 2024.

PROTEST & PROGRESS - Fetter Not A Brother's Limbs

Slavery goes back into prehistory. It was a part of the social structure of the ancient empires of Greece or Rome. And a slave class of some sort continued to exist within America and European countries. And it's hard to say, as each rapidly pursued colonising and industrialisation, who first started to upscale the transatlantic slave trade. Without a cheap and easily replaceable labour force, no large empire has ever been created or survived for long. The cost of finding your slaves and transporting them to where you needed a workforce, had to be factored into profit margins. When you could no longer find enough of your own poor citizens or imprisoned criminals to subordinate into slavery, other sources had to be found. Generally, the Western Empires looked to Africa or Asia as places and peoples they found easy to dehumanise and dragoon into slavery. Becoming skilled in the dubious exploitation of already existing tribal or hostile rivalries, to get one tribe to find and sell you slaves from another tribe.

Any moral qualms about slavery, tended to be soothed by a judiciously selected Biblical quote of two, that appeared to either condone or at least shrugged a resigned shoulder to the existence of slavery. It seemed, like the poor, slaves would always be with us. So the arising of a protest movement to abolish it in the late eighteenth century was a pivotal moral reversal. And we find it's origins on the fringes of the broader Protestant Reform movement. Primarily anti-slavery was pioneered by the Quakers, who first protested against the practice of slavery in the American colonies in 1688, in Germantown, Pennsylvania, The Quaker movement in England banned the members of its congregation from owning or trading in slaves in 1761. 

The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was founded in London in May 1787, by nine Quakers and three Anglicans. This included Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp, who launched cases that aimed to set legal precedents over the rights of slaves. From the start the movement protested, informed and petitioned for legislation. The US anti slavery society launched the following year. The Anti Slavery Movement also found significant supporters within the members of the eighteenth century Enlightenment, which held the inherent dignity of all humankind as a fundamental tenet. It was through the Quakers that this ideal became established as a Christian one. 

An increasing level of unrest amongst the slaves themselves was also a factor. The 1st and 2nd Maroon Wars were where slaves rebelled and overthrew their owners in the West Indies. And in The Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804, African slaves rose up, and having brought an end to the French presence in the colony,  successfully captured the whole island and turned it into the first independent black led republic. This three pronged combination of Protest Movements, Slave Revolts and Growing Moral Repugnance, created a slow building momentum for the mass trade, and slavery itself to cease.

The journey from those first protests to complete abolition, took around a hundred fifty years to complete. In Britain, hundreds of public protest meetings were held across the country in town and mission halls, public lectures by politicians and former black slaves were given, sermons preached in churches and chapels, and relentless publishing of campaigning pamphlets, treatises and articles in broadsheet newspapers. This better informed and changed the general mood in the country. 

It is clear from surviving documentation how deeply embedded in society financial investment in the slave trade was. The English plantation colonies in the West Indies frequently worked their slaves to death. Importing further slaves was crucial to their survival. So in Britain, investing in the purchasing of slaves for the colonies was comparable to becoming a share holder in a new enterprise. Only when it came to abolition, did how pervasive the extent of this shareholding ownership within the good Christian folk back in Britain fully reveal itself. 

Ending The Transatlantic Slave Trade
The Slave Trade was an international one, spanning oceans and continents. Individual countries banning the trading in slaves simply re-set the moral bar. The dismantling of the infrastructure that facilitated it required a range of further international agreements and resolute policing. Denmark became the first country to ban the trade in slaves in 1803. Britain in 1807, USA by 1808, France. Dutch, Spain, Portugal and Brazil by 1836. Within three decades the legal international trade in slaves that had lasted three centuries came to an end. 

That did not, however, stop the illegal trade. By the 1850's a campaign in the southern states of the US to restore the slave trade was building. It was the fate of one illegal slave trading ship The Echo, to be a reminder why the trade was made illegal in the first place. From the moment it embarked there were slave uprisings, outbreaks of disease during the journey killed huge numbers of slaves, the level of deaths becoming so large that they'd lost any hope of making a profit from the trip, the ship ran aground and after freeing itself, they were stopped and arrested by an anti slavery patrol. After a farcical trial of Echo's captain and crew they were all freed on 'technicalities.'

The Abolition of Slavery
There was a twinned moral path to be followed here, trading in slaves was indefensible and wrong, and slavery itself was indefensible and wrong. In the US contentions over the moral rights or wrongs of slavery and its trade, formed a rough North - South divide across it's states. And these disputes brought the country into Civil War, between 1861-65.  It was only after the end of that conflict and Lincoln became President, that the abolition of slavery was incorporated as a 13th Amendment into the US constitution. Though elements in the US have seemingly never fully coming to terms with this. 

William Wilberforce 1794

In Britain, the first bill in 1790 proposing the Abolition of Slavery, instigated by William Wilberforce failed in the face of a concerted effort within Parliament to uphold the economic rights and necessity of slavery. It is to Wilberforce's credit that he persisted and saw it through to the Act of Abolition being passed in 1833. What got that bill finally over the line was adopting a morally dubious reimbursement of the slave owners for the full loss and cost of their property, ie, the slaves. The government had to commit to paying out to forty thousand slave owners a total of £20 million, which at a conservative estimate would be £17 billion plus today. This must have stuck in the craw of many abolitionists. This government debt in the form of bonds was not completely paid off until 2015. What happened next was that some slave owners simply took the money and then turned their former slaves into 'indentured apprentices' which re-tied them to their plantations and removed their ability to act freely and without duress. After this loop hole was closed in 1838, the abolition could be said to be complete.

The Consequence For Human Rights.
Alongside the US Declaration of Independence, the abolition of slavery became a self evident principle, and provided the first legal foundation and origin for the idea of their being basic human rights. How any human should expect to be treated, and things no human should have to endure. What would eventually become the United Nations - Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Today all 193 countries have ratified it, which is really only a statement of a non binding agreement. Most countries have enshrined at least one of its nine treaty elements into the law of their own country. 

The UK put the entirety of Human Rights Law into its own legal framework in 2000, and their has been much acrimonious debate about the way this is being applied ever since. With calls to withdraw from it coming primarily from the extreme political right wing, who see it as a restriction that compromises our own sovereignty. The whole idea of their being inalienable human rights remains a contentious one. Some argue that making them rights that require political installation and approval, makes them subject to political disapproval and their removal too.

Modern Slavery
If you are poor or are an Illegal migrant, or unfortunate enough to be both, your range of choices over how you earn your living can often be quite limited. Falling prey to exploitative employers or people who will coerce you into working in slave like conditions. Employed below the radar in illegal sweatshops, factories, prostitution, or in facilitating the drugs trade. Trafficking Illegal migration can often be tied into supplying a workforce for these types of black market 'trades'. This is the form that 'modern slavery' takes, it is also international in its scope, and present in some form, acknowledged or otherwise, in most states across the world.

FINISHED READING - The God We Never Knew by Marcus J. Borg

Phllip Goff, in Why, The Purpose of the Universe, credited this book by Marcus J. Borg as being the spiritual progenitor for some of his ideas about Panpsychism. That everything in the world is conscious to some degree. In it he proposed a whole gamut of possible explanations for the evolving of consciousness in the universe, none of them particularly orthodox from a traditional Christian God perspective. In this he shares a similar perspective to Borg, who appears to be someone on the free thinking wing of American Christianity. And, if judged by this book, he is also a clear thinker that values clear expression. Presenting what are often quite complex ideas in a remarkably practical straightforward manner. 

Borg opens this book with the question - How are we to think of God?, because how we think or imagine God, or Enlightenment for that matter, sets the agenda for how we practice and orient our lives. He spends much of the first half of this book explaining the evolution of his way of imagining, thinking about, and relating to God.  Built initially on a childlike view of God as a being 'out there', 'somewhere else,' the God as disapproving 'finger shaker'. The classic supernatural theism of an interventionist God, apparently picky about where, who and how to interact with his 'creation'. There are two major threads in Christianity,  that of a transcendent distantly placed God 'out there' and an Imminent closely placed God 'in here.' This dichotomy has over time been replaced in Borg's case with a Panentheistic viewpoint. This is not a mis-spelling of Pantheism, where the universe and God are indistinguishable as one entity. Panentheism posits a God who is both transcendent and imminent, and Borg believes this accords more with what early Christians actually believed. It's a sort of half way position between the unpredictable paternal interventionist on one side and a more diffuse sense of a divinity, the apophatic viewpoint of the unknowableness of God, that can be harder to grasp or directly relate to.

' Running throughout the biblical tradition is a conflict between two different social visions, two different understandings of God, two different theologies. Both claim the same religious tradition, told the same stories,and use the same language. But each told the stories and used the tradition differently. The theology of the elites used the tradition to legitimate the existing order. The passionate champions of God's compassion challenged the present order and dreamed the dream of God.'

Whether it's a Transcendent or an Imminent model of how to view God, has repercussions for how not just God, but the world is related to. How you might view and practice Christian teachings. And Borg is very good at delineating how this division between the Transcendent and the Imminent view of God, also informs how this split in approaches to Christianity appears within the United States. How that manifests as a politics of righteous individualism on the right and a politics of compassionate collectivity on the left. Opposing political standpoints of Christian exclusivity or inclusivity, which we see today in probably their most extreme positions. Though Borg was writing this book in the mid 1990's, that religio-political dichotomy was strongly apparent even then. And since then the gulf between extremely rich and destitute poor has continued to widen, into a bleakly intransigent hostility.

' What does a community commited to a different paradigm (compassion) and living by a different imperative ( the dream of God) do in a cultural situation as our own? Do we dare, in our time and in the church, to talk about elite-driven politics? Are we persuaded that's the case? Do we dare to say that social policies are central to becoming a more compassionate society? Are we willing to consider that economic policy is the central political question of our time? How large do we think the gap between the richest ten percent of our population and the poorest ten percent should be? And is that decision for the community, the body politic, to make, rather than a decision to leave to the elites? Just as we as Christians need to learn how to pray, so also we need to learn how to see and think and live compassionately.'

I personally have always been quietly impressed with how effectively Christianity can muster its resources to campaign and support the development of a social good it believes in. To put compassion readily and practically to work. In a way that, in England at least, Buddhism consistently falls rather short of. How would you manifest the Bodhisattva Ideal in practical policy initiatives? And this too is a result of how we as Buddhist's view and relate to the world, the spiritual work has a distinctly individualistic focus, that is all 'in here' and the extent that it manifests 'out there' is a somewhat less considered outcome. 

Borg takes an approach to the whole idea of Christian salvation, that asks, is it salvation within this life or after life? Originally the whole idea of purgatory was to provide extra time for you to perfect your salvation within, before ascending towards heaven. The focus was not on punishment, but a cleansing purgation. Enlightenment and karma can hold a similar dynamic. He is skeptical about firm declarations about the nature of that after life, which we could all do with bearing more in mind.

' I mention these diverse beliefs and puzzlements about the afterlife not for the sake of undermining the notion but to suggest why it is that I am agnostic about the details of an afterlife. I can't imagine knowing the answers to these questions, and choosing to believe one way or the other has nothing to do with how things might really be. We cannot solve not knowing by believing.'

Borg is strong on the communal dimension of spiritual practice and progress, that rampant individualism makes increasingly difficult to relate to. There is a lot in this book concerning the social and cultural consequences of beliefs and perceptions, which I found quite easy to relate to my own Buddhist perspective. I have found reading this book more approachable and comprehensible than some Christian books I've read. His approach felt very human and realistic. He holds a firm understanding of the underlying theology, but does so lightly, and generally translates that theology into practical consequences and outcomes that are readily comprehended. Whilst, I remain fundamentally not a Christian, I found his exposition of it gave me a better understanding of how fundamental Christian beliefs can underpin and feed through into everything else, socially, economically and politically. However you envisage what your goal is, this colours the nature of all your future actions and the landscape you believe you inhabit.

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

QUOTATION MARKS - Martin Buber - A Necessary Iconoclasm

'Time after time, the images must be broken, the iconoclasts must have their way. For the iconoclast is the soul in us which rebels against having an image that we can no longer believe in, elevated above our heads as a thing that demands to be worshipped. In longing for a god, we try again and again to set up a greater, a more just image, which is intended to be more glorious than the last and only proves the more unsatisfactory. The commandment,"Though shalt not make unto thee an image," doesn't, of course, refer merely to sculptured or painted images, but to our fantasy, to all the power of our imagination as well. But we are forced time and again to make images, and forced to destroy them when we realise that we have not succeeded. The images topple, but the voice speaks in the guise of everything that happens, in the guise of all world events; it speaks to all generations, makes demands upon us, and summons us to accept responsibility.......It is of the utmost importance not to lose one's openess. But to be open means not to shut out the voice - call it what you will. It doesn't matter what you call it. All that matters is that you hear it.'

Martin Buber - taken from The Way of Response, Ed. N N,Glazer, Published by Schocken Books 1971.

MY OWN WALKING - September Journal 2026

I recently read Neil Postman's book Amusing Ourselves To Death ( You'll find my review else where on this blog )  In it he takes Marshall McLuhan's aphorism that 'The Medium is the Message' and parses it as  'The Medium is the Metaphor'. Proposing that the medium through which we communicate or are communicated too through, has things that it is suited to and things that it is not. The medium through which that communication takes place, can become the dominant metaphor and hence the way we comprehend reality.

This has caused me to ponder on religions as both mediums and metaphors.  Now if the Medium is Buddhism, it communicates it's message largely through it's own particular concepts, words and imagery. Practices and ways of looking at reality, which are pointing you in that general direction, or are in some way considered a preparation for a state called Enlightenment.  Enlightenment is a metaphor for 'a turning in the seat of consciousness', that spawns a multiplicity of further metaphors.

I've been gently reflecting on the usefulness, or otherwise, of Enlightenment as a metaphorical term. Whether Enlightenment is conceptually too neutral, too removed from ordinary experience to function as a motivational ultimate goal. I've had a number of goes at trying to write something useful about this, but on previous attempts ( there have been a few) I was not happy with how they came out. They often ended up with me simply venting a series of personal gripes and long held frustrations. And whilst this was useful for me to know, this was not what quite I was aiming for. I'm hopeful that this time might get nearer to my imagined vision for it.

In the West we bandy the term Enlightenment around as if we understand what that means. As if Enlightenment exists somewhere out there as an entity that can be made knowable. It is literally only one word, that metaphorically stands for something that appears cannot be summed up in one single word. One of the difficulties for us, in using the word Enlightenment is that it shares, an etymological home, with the 18th Century Enlightenment movement. A rational and scientific approach to the search for human fulfilment, and discovering the way reality works. One that does not require a creator God, to explain it. We currently live in a world that is the living expression of that European Enlightenment world view.

Buddhist Enlightenment can, in the Western mind, become entangled and misinterpreted by this rational endeavour. Buddhist practices becoming the religious equivalent of scientific experiments, that if conducted correctly will automatically lead into you becoming Enlightened. This casual relationship obviously is not really how it happens, but I think each of us holds at least the residual concept of such an idea in our imaginative background. Some of the appeal of Buddhism to the Western mind can rest upon it's so called 'rationality'.

There is another question that Enlightenment raises. If Enlightenment is when you see reality as it really is, this is outside the normal everyday experience, so how could you ever adequately linguistically or visually represent that? Particularly to a person who is not yet Enlightened. Well, the truth is, you cannot. And the Buddha himself acknowledged that. There are phrases such as 'being nobody, going nowhere' that encapsulate one presentational approach to spiritual practice. A Zen saying that 'if you see a Buddha on the road, kill him' is another way of saying our ideas about Enlightenment and what an Enlightened being is like, are obstacles that need removing. Whilst Krishnamurti once said that ' becoming Enlightened is a horrible idea'. Thinking you understand what Enlightenment is literally, can be not just perceptually, but spiritually obscuring. In early Buddhism you did not even represent the Buddha. After his death, the Buddha was portrayed by things that represented his absence, like his footprints or an empty throne. His visual representation came much later, in carefully curated archetypal forms, when the need to have a devotional focus in some form, appeared to become overwhelming. Our visual ways of imagining what being Enlightened looks like, became then literally set in stone.

The state of Enlightenment cannot be given anything other than this metaphorical archetypal form. Fundamentally it's not knowable, ineffable to the unenlightened mind. And all the plethora of visual imagery and Rupa forms that Buddhism has developed over the millennia, either work for you as evocative representations of that, or they do not. But they do lead one into behaving as though they are ghostly representations of the Enlightened state. And all the God like devotional practices that these can associatively conjure. Human beings apparently need a visual focus for where they are headed. However, illusory or inaccurate those imaginative horizons might prove ultimately to be.

Judaism and Islam have both stuck to not portraying their God. It's a prohibition, but also a recognition that a true representation is impossible. Christianity and Daoism, like Buddhism, began by forswearing representations for very similar reasons. Though gradually accrued depictions, ofJesus on the cross, saints, sages or archetypal 'God like' figures over the centuries. And I cannot help but believe something rather important was lost at that point. Though this struggle to find potent visual metaphors to represent what is your ultimate aim, appears to be a universal one. Whether this helps or hinders depends upon how spiritually mature the eye of the beholder is. Paradoxically, the notion that ultimately any representation of the Enlightened state is a narcissistic hindrance, is another notion that can become a narcissistic hindrance. But simply sitting with that, like some koan that we need to find the key too, can just be to dispiriting. Graven images, are so inherently problematic.

But then you do have Dogen very clearly stated that even the images and metaphors we use, are as much a manifestation of Enlightenment as anything else in the universe is. Which seems a very pansychist way of looking at reality. Buddhism imagines ultimately that Enlightenment as neither 'out there' nor 'in here' it's not locatable like a hidden treasure chest.  Christian views of where God is, developed a similar dichotomy, for quite similar reasons. How you imagine and conceptualise your goal or divinity, can both aid and get in your way. 

I have to wonder then whether the term Enlightenment itself, is entirely fit for purpose.  Though there is always the background suggestion that nothing ever will be. Whatever terminology we choose to use can be misleading. As can where you place it in relation to you. Enlightenment, is to enlighten, it's like turning on a light in a darkened room. The Buddhist sutras tend to prefer the word Awakening, as though we are asleep to how the world really is, to which we are then awoken. I tend intuitively to lean towards the latter, that anything that places the focus 'in here' rather than 'out there' will prove nearer the truth.  Enlightenment places that truth 'out there', whilst Awakening places it 'in here'. But this is most likely my own prejudices manifesting, where something being 'out there' and remote from my experience, I tend to find unhelpful to me. But then as an unenlightened person, am I really the best judge for what really is helpful to me?  I can't, it appears, help myself from intuiting that Awakening, will start with developing a personal relationship with whatever it is. If there is an obscuration embedded in my current way of practicing it is that it's often far too bound up in the self regarding focus of an inward selfish love. To be it's opposite, which is other regarding, is to focus outwards, to become attracted to a selfless empathic love without any boundary.

Is Awakening just down to me, or is there something much more interactive and multifacted going on in such moments of transformative clarity?  Perhaps we slowly come into alignment, into a relationship with whatever the 'vivid soul of Awakening' is, and this is both within us and universally everywhere. We might see Awakening as this dormant part of us that needs to wake up, that maybe it has always been an active presence in every spiritual impulse we've ever had. Awakening, as a deepening of the human consciousness might easily be the entire purpose of the Universe. Awakening acts as a fortuitous magnetic attraction for faith. Faith being a form of love, a slow burning love affair with Awakening. Once we allow ourselves to surrender and fall deeper into the romantic pull of Awakening, then a fully realised conjugal reciprocal universal love opens out, infinitesimal and vast, with a scope that goes completely beyond all the limitations of our nit-picking small imaginings. We call it numinous, ineffable, an unknowable beyond, that were we to actually experience it, would shake awake our sleeping consciousness from its self fettered dreaming. To see the dawn of a new day as if for the very first time. An experience where terms like Enlightenment or God, don't remotely cover it.

LIFE AS PILGRIMAGE - 3 - Breaking the Voice

During the years of being a chorister, my belief in God appeared to be solid, if not flourishing. I had a simple wooden crucifix on the top of my child sized writing desk, bookended by two tiny brass candlesticks, without candles. My parents had bought both my sister and I brand spanking new Bibles.  Frequently I imagined myself in the future becoming a Vicar. Such was my seeming devotion and youthfully naive aspiration. Meanwhile the chorister singing was proving ever more satisfying, as I was now one of the most experienced singers in the choir, and had begun to take solo parts in anthems. The choir master at Halifax Parish Church, recommended I attend a residential week for choristers, run under the auspices of the Royal School of Church Music at Rosall School, in Fleetwood, Lancashire.

My parents would certainly have struggled to afford this, but they did find the money, because singing was a talent my Mother understood and both my parents were prepared to support. Once I'd arrived at the school, I remember enjoying all the rehearsals and performances. The dormitories, the communal dining, the sheer number of people there, a lot of them quite posh, meant I felt very much a fish out of water. Being in the grounds of a public school, was a bit of a culture shock for a eleven year old boy from the terraced houses of Halifax, to take in. I had no friends with me there, I was really lonely. And I'd started to be picked on and bullied by some of the older boys. And I wrote a postcard to my parents. This was my first time living away from my parents, I felt homesick, and living in this strange place was freaking me out. And, in retrospect, I can see this was the beginning of a souring of my relationship with devotional singing.

As I progressed through my teenage years, people started preparing me for when my 'voice broke', as though this would prove to be of real significance. I'd never even thought of my boy soprano voice as having a use by date. This notion coincided with my new and burgeoning enthusiasm for glam and subsequently progressive rock music. Glam emerged after the late sixties hippie era, and was in part a reaction to the denim dressed idealistic worthiness that preceded it. Five years after gay relationships were permitted, being deliberately and ridiculously camp, suddenly made sense. In the midst of the 70's oil crisis, glam was light hearted frothy fun. And I fell in love with its sense of its own ridiculousness. Once I did become rather more earnestly into heavy rock, my having a sweet boy soprano voice, began to lose the kudos it might have once possessed for me.

About this time, I'd bought a copy of The Jesus Book, which was part of a late sixties phenomena The Jesus Movement in the US.  In response to the 'alternative' permissive culture of the era, this movement dressed Christianity up in some borrowed counter cultural garb and threw itself into the religious melting pot. And I'd thought  that this might be one way of, bringing both my music and Christian faith together. But I wasn't that impressed with it. For as my voice actually started to break, it began to dawn on me that my faith, such as it was, was rather strongly tied to my contribution to religious music. And I began to have doubts, whether my faith was based on anything more than just the love of singing. 

I was fourteen or fifteen I think, when I finally burnt my bridges with the Methodist faith of my parents.  Unconsciously, I was in the middle of some sort of crisis of confidence within Christianity. I booked myself on a Methodist residential study weekend, specifically aimed at teenagers. My parents must have paid for it, but my recollection was of it being at my instigation. I endured that weekend, like I have never endured anything before or since. I found myself reacting to the place, the leaders, other people, the way they dressed, the subject matter, the faux earnestness of it all, it really got right on my tits. My head got stuck in a groove of inner contention. At the time I was far too shy to voice a word of any of this, but internally I was a seething rebellion  It was going on that weekend which compelled me to tear up my card carrying membership of Christianity. On my return, I told my parents I no longer wanted to attend chapel with them on Sundays. My investment in the Christian faith appeared spent. What faith I'd had, left on a long round trip to Vegas.

LISTENING TO - Half-Told Tales by Arab Strap

With fourteen tracks and a running time of fifty six minutes, this is a substantial slice of music to release onto an unsuspecting world. And in a first casual listen what strikes you is it's episodic character and changeable musical tone. Aidan Moffat's lyric writing is, if anything, conjuring poetic lines more magnificent and vivid here. With perhaps a stronger autobiographical leaning, often bemoaning the awareness of his bodily discomfort and increasing decrepitude. Prompting in Glamour Magic, a grissly foreboding story of a face lift that 'takes years off me' that ends up in a quite macabre way in the accompanying video.

Glamour Magic by Arab Strap

And it is this style of song that makes you realise the albums title Half-Told Tales is informing you why the album has this episodic nature. Each short song is like a briefly sketched vignette, of a personal memory, early romantic relationships, bizzare darkly gothic tales, ruminations on what it takes to be a man these days, the compromises involved in making and promoting your own music. The subject matter is as varied as the musical approaches it takes, sometimes they exist half way between being songs and a dry caustic monologue. Now some reviewers have found this album irritating in the extreme. Once I clocked what they were doing, I appreciated the album for what it is - a lyrical montage of comments and snap shot perceptions of modern life. Imbued as these are with Moffat's pet obsessions, bete noir's, the things that make him concerned, angry, melancholic, even sentimental over the pace and passage of time. Both musically and lyrically this album crackles with inventiveness and energy.

I Get Noise by Arab Strap

The album opens with huge propulsive intent with the track I Get Noise. This is very strongly drum led, the percussive sound and brassy quality is hard, with a pronounced flat thwack to it. And for a good deal of the album, its the drums that are central and to the fore in the defining of each tracks mood. I Get Noise is about the impossibility sometimes to escape other people's noise, Moffat ends up wanting - 

'to mute your stupid conversation, I get noise, I want to float above and fly away'. 

And the album does race out of the blocks at this unrelenting pace, with five punchy memorable songs galloping in one after the other. Then with Gape they slow down this hectic pace for a couple of tracks. These are quieter, more ruminative, reflective pieces. And whilst there continue to be rockier abrasive songs subsequently, the character of this middle section of the album displays how strongly lyric driven this album is, with words upfront in the mix. This album is Moffat at his most literary and expressive, positioned as a cranky oracle storyteller, the weaver of some odd old tales. From the track Ampersand onwards we return to the distinct straightforward style of the albums opening. 

Fragments by Arab Strap

The penultimate track Fragments does in its own a way explain the ethos for the entire album -

' death and life are in the power of the tongue, 

  but now everyone is leaving so young, 

  the plugs are pulled before the swan song is sung, 

  leaving fragments, sketches, half told tales.' 

Beats Per Minute by Arab Strap

The last track Beats Per Minute, is an elegaic momento to the impermanence of life, and leaves us with the choral lyric of -

'We only have this moment and it's already gone.'

This album is a mixture of tracks you like instantly, and slower growing revelations. I expect I'll keep finding little lyrical phrases and pockets of illumination, that suddenly have their impact upon me.  I suspect that given time and sufficient replays of my attention, I'll like this album a great deal more in a month's time than I do now. My current pick of its best lines are as follows :-

Under Offer by Arab Strap

From the track Under Offer, which is about returning to a house that was once your home but finding it greatly altered, ends on the criticism - 

' With respect it's like they've sanded away it's soul.'

My current top favourite lines are from the end of I Get Noise - 

'And tonight when you touch yourself 

Remember all the angels are watching

So put on a good show.'

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8