2026 PLAYLIST - No 5 - God, Protect Me From My Enemies by SAULT

 

Every now and then, and usually unannounced, SAULT releases a new album. Initially the albums were numbered, these appear to have have gone beyond needing curating their sequence. Unless that lit match is meant to be a 1. You do sort of know what to expect with SAULT, some beautifully arranged soul, that reflect and reinvigorate the past and current music of the black experience in some way. Their producer/ svengali/ facilitator -Info, has found himself in some deep shit a lately over the non-repayment of a huge loan from Little Simz. Good as this track is, it does feel a little low key and safe. Even the title could be interpreted as defensive.

Here after a few albums that digressed from the successful SAULT formula so far, they return to it, but in a slightly more sparsely and less lush manner. God. Protect Me From My Enemies, is a slick sinuous song, sung by Cleo Sol so keen heartedly, and succeeds in gently ingraining itself in your psyche. I've heard other tracks from the album, and this appears by far the best. From an admittedly cursory listen the rest lack the zesty fire and exuberant excitement of some of its predecessors, but this one gem is welcome none the less. 

ARTICLE - Veils of Suffering

As human beings we suffer. We all believe we understand what that means, the excruciating angst of being slowly broken by some physical, mental or spiritual pain. Because of this, finding a reason to extirpate suffering, a way to relieve or spiritually go beyond suffering, form foundational base motifs of most world religions. It is one reason why atheism will always find itself existentially falling short, because it cannot offer anything more than pills and sympathy to alleviate human suffering. 

The fundamental issue asks why we suffer in the first place? And the many answers that have been offered have been endlessly debated and quarrelled over - it's due to godly intent or punishment, the result of past sin or karma, as an existential teaching, or simply the inescapable nature of how reality is. To name but a few.  Most of these do not make a precise fit as an explanation. Nor exactly make you warm towards the idea of any deity who would play such games with their own creation. And yet, humanity continues to reach out to a wide panoply of gods, saviours or spiritual gurus, who profess to be able to teach us how to transcend this suffering world. 

In times past, when a woman suffered a bereavement, she took to wearing widows weaves. It was a signifying outward expression, that everyone else recognised. She had suffered the loss of a loved one. Dressed all in black, her face shrouded in a dark lacy veil, to conceal the widows face from public view. It hid her suffering, so no one need see the pain, the tears, the person wracked with grief. Society could, nonetheless, acknowledge and mourn her loss. And the bereaved woman didn't have to risk the embarrassment of having her grief erupt and be exposed to public consternation. This prohibition to hide sorrow behind a veil, was placed on the widow alone. Men wore black, or black arm bands, their faces could still be seen. The perceived potency and unpredictable nature of female emotion, was considered far too unsettling and perturbing. Attitudes in the wider society, at that time, did not wish to see nor hear of any of that, thank you.

Veils continue to be used to this day in some societies to completely conceal a woman's face. To demonstrate modesty or lack of vanity, or to beguile, or that the woman is the possesion of their husband, and therefore not available for male fantasies or sinful desire. A bride can wear a veil before her wedding, as a virtuous metaphor for the mythic virginal chastity supposedly about to be revealed to her betrothed. People in the medieval period, who suffered from a disfiguring disease like leprosy or syphilis, could conceal themselves behind veils, so no one has to see the extent their bodily flesh was rotting or being eaten away.  Veils do that, they possess a self evident utility. Veils shield and protect. Veils mark in symbolic dress a human state or transition. Lives are transfigured behind the mysterious curtain of them.

There is a sense then that suffering is a response laid over the human pain, in a blanket of turbulent disruptive feeling. In ancient societies, and in some cultures existing today, it is not uncommon for wakes and funerals to be accompanied by an extravagant amount of wailing, crying and heavenly beseeching. You can see them vividly portrayed on ancient Egyptian wall murals. This public eruption of sorrow and grief, was frequently carried out by 'professional mourners' on behalf of the bereaved families. Private grief was kept behind the walls of their house, whilst the outward expression of suffering and the public process of grieving was in this case, a performative one. It was put on for show, often expressive of a certain degree of status.

All of which causes me to raise a slightly troublesome question - is suffering then entirely or at least in part a performative human behaviour.? Can we fully feel the pain of sickness and loss, allow ourselves to grieve, without the effusive eruption of suffering?  I know this may seem a tad absurd, if not insensitive.  And I emphasise at this point, that I'm not saying outpourings of suffering are faked or not genuinely felt. And yet, I can recognise in myself, that I do actively work myself up into crying. I hunt down the tenderest point of the suffering and exploit the moment, where I can become gushingly inconsolable about an issue. It's a bit like vigorously shaking a bottle of fizzy water, and then finding a way of letting it all burst out. It all feels better out than kept contained within.

Often when we are bereft, we feel at a loss what to do with the pain we experience, and might wish to find a way to diminish it, or a least find a consolation. The suffering desire only grows worse because you feel alone with it, because indeed you are always alone with your pain, upset or grief.  And there is an element to this suffering, I recognise, that could be viewed as artfully contrived, however functional it maybe. Simply so the build up of pain you don't know what to do with, that has nowhere else to go, to allow all that to be vented or expelled. It's how we as humans attempt to manage and cope with our internally turbulent emotions. We feel this compelling urge to expell this deep well of pain. We search for consolation in ones faith, or in familiar friendly company or a listening ear. I don't wish to trivialise the expression of suffering, but to view this as a veil we habitually assume the wearing of. It is not the fundamental pain, suffering is our distraught response to something that has occurred, which we have had little or no control over. Suffering is a bit like coughing up the pain filled residue of phlegm. 

What we chose to do, or not do, in the expression of our suffering, this changes our relationship with the original pain that lies beneath it.  That pain inevitably becomes self mythologised . We make it our individual unique pain, that we alone can understand the qualities and depth of.  And it is true, that no one else can really know what our pain feels like. Empathy requires exercising our emotional imagination, and supposes what that pain must feel like. The pain is certainly real enough for the bearer of it, even though most pain is not visible to the naked eye. Though other people can become disbelievingly sniffy about the existence or otherwise of some forms of psychological distress or chronic physical fatigue. Yet there are aspects in how we choose to express our suffering, that could be seen as unhelpfully dwelling upon it, and perhaps indulging in the unique specifications of our personalised pain. 

If I were to describe suffering as an emotional intoxication between our sense of our self and our bodily pain, this puts it extremely coldly. Perhaps to the point of being unhelpfully blunt. Because it's all very well for me to pontificate in the theoretical abstract about what the true nature of suffering is, when this poor suffering soul that is confined to bed. just wants you to listen, to care, to comfort, to have some empathy for them. Suffering has in most religious traditions been met with compassion not categorisation. No one wants to be prejudicially judged simply for being in pain, and hence suffering. As Dogen once said, you should never get too carried away by either the abstract or the practical. To attempt to keep our responses grounded and real, without losing empathy or perspective completely in the process.

There is not a faith in the world that does not have something to recommend to us by way of the transcending or at least the relief of suffering. Sometimes the relationship between our suffering and some form of original sin, seems inescapable. The redemptive nature of Jesus's suffering on the cross, works for me purely on the level of metaphor, but I cannot get my head around how it realistically operates salvifically for everyone who believes in him. In Buddhism it's about going beyond suffering, a truly hard thing to concieve, let alone achieve. Suffering is couched in terms of a human response to an experience we do not want or desire. And in its characteristically plain manner of expression, points out if we desist in desiring for it to be otherwise, the suffering will gently part company from the painful experience. It can all sound like we are following the intricate instructions of a car maintenance manual. That with a bit of minor tweaking you can reach the destination of a world without suffering. Ah, if only that were so.

When Jesus said ' suffer the little children to come unto me' he was asking his disciples to endure or indulge these children's exuberant natures. To 'bear with' any discomfort or irritation arising from being around the chaotic ebullience of youth. So there is a way of couching human pain and discomfort as something you 'bear with', you endure it, you inhale your grief deeply, but resist being completely carried away by the surging paroxysms of it. To attempt to suffer the pain behind a veil of calmly contained silence. Its more usual, however,for the line between the pain and the suffering that arose from it, to become so blurred, that the two experiences burn together to the point of becoming indistinguishably, one all consuming flame that torches everything. Life can often become about the ' bearing with' the ' bearing with'.

Both Jesus and the Buddha, left this mortal coil, with what would have been for us ordinary folk, an excruciatingly painful demise. Jesus by being hung nailed like a piece of crudely processed meat to a high wooden cross, and the Buddha, reputedly by a culinary mishap, of being poisoned by some badly cooked mushrooms. In both cases, we must assume, they endured the painful experience, quietly resigned to their fate. These highlight the raw experiential quality of suffering as a veil that we find ourselves wearing. A more sage like perspective might allow us to put that to one side. However insubstantial it may be when viewed in absolute ultimate terms, however overshadowed it can sometimes be with sentiment and enforced pathos, suffering is still extraordinarily real to us, and resolutely human. If it teaches us to be compassionate and not indifferent, that's a step forward.

 

2026 PLAYLIST - No 4 - For All Our Days That Tear The Heart - Jesse Buckley & Bernard Butler

I'd not heard Jessie Buckley's voice before,, What a revelation that is. Boy her singing has got a captivating punch to it. A mesmeric tone, with a dextrous command of vocal expressiveness. An almost uncanny ability to make the most minor of vocal pause or inflections, very telling. This collaboration with Bernard Butler, once upon a time the guitarist from Suede, is the title track from an album packed full of similarly heart renching songs. The album was made three years ago and it is an absolute beaut, I highly recommend seeking it out.

2026 PLAYLIST - No 3 - The Death of Love by James Blake

I really don't know how he does it. Ostensibly the form and approach to James Blake's music appears on the surface not to radically alter much, but somehow he manages to still conjure it to sound fresh and innovative. He has this way with a ravishing melody though, and the soulfulness of his voice, carries any song a long way. Particularly here, on The Death of Love, which may sound like it's a broken hearted love song, on one level, but on another it appears to be bemoaning the parlous state of the times we live in. This video. has him lying, unmoving in bed gazing at himself in the mirror, which is a very cogent metaphor for our visually self obsessed civilisation. Amusing Ourselves to Death, indeed.

FINISHED READING - The Less Dead by Denise Mina

Margo Dunlop is waiting in a room to meet Nikki her birth Mother's sister. She is very late. Margo's councillor Tracey begins to think this might be a no show. Margo is a successful Doctor, who has a nice new flat of her own, and is currently emotionally bogged down in clearing out the house of Jeanette, the Mother who brought her up. Her death has triggered a desire in her to find out more about her birth Mother, Susan Brodie, who was murdered shortly after she was born. When Nikki finally turns up she is an extremely rough cut street wise woman, whose spent her life in prostitution. She is obsessive in her conviction that her sister was murdered by a former police officer Martin McPhail. The injustice of it all still angers her. This meeting is not an emotionally smooth one. Though Nikki and Margo are related, class and life experience wise, they are several miles apart. 

What she does learn is that Susan had been making moves to leave her lover, and Margo's probable Father, Barney Keith, who had groomed Susan from the age of thirteen, when he was thirty two. The birth of her daughter appeared to have been making Susan take charge of her life, to plan to move on, just prior to her murder. But the deaths of prostitutes are never persued by the police with any great desire to ascertain the culprit. They are considered 'The Less Dead' because an early demise was thought an inevitable risk of the moral territory they lived in. Though initially reluctant to take things any further, Margo's enquiry kicks off death threat letters, her flat is trashed, her Mother Jeanette's house is broken into, and a green Honda car begins to follow her every move. Finding out what really happened to Susan starts to become ever more precient and urgent.

Denise Mina has done her research here, to fairly represent this whole underground world of woman who work the streets of Glasgow. There are many reasons why women fall into this lifestyle. Though they are commonly from poor backgrounds, or brought up in care homes. Prostitution maybe a choice, but in a world where the options are few and most are financially insecure. Constantly hand to mouth to feed their addiction habits, and living by their wits, Mina captures the psychological costs of the life of a prostitute, and this is not pretty. The character of Margo, has been brought up in a very different world to that of her birth Mother, one that had plausible aspirations and very real career prospects. Mina captures the clash of cultures and world views well, that lies at the heart of this story. As Margo flounders in trying to understand what is going on. She might have a growing respect for the tenacity of her birth Mother, but she comes to realise she might not have liked her, nor found her straightforward as a person to actually deal with. And that is an uneasy tension. Mina is extraordinarily good at placing very real human dilemmas and conflicts as the central driving mechanisms in her stories.

The Less Dead is a slow building crime procedural, told from an unusual angle, that keeps you guessing almost to the very end what really happened to Susan Brodie. As always with Denise Mina, its a vividly conceived story, rich with the detailed minutia of a lifestyle few of us are familiar with. Its not a fast paced novel, but it's an absorbing read nonetheless.

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

2026 PLAYLIST - No 2 - When It's Cold I WantTo Die - Moby ft Jacob Lusk.

This is an old tune from Moby's 1992 album The Story So Far, that over the decades has become something of a slow burning classic apparently. Here he has produced a special arrangement with sparse keyboard and strings, further embellished by the beautiful lustre of Gabriel's lead singer Jacob Lusk's voice. The tune itself is quite extraordinary in its pared back simplicity, with an effect that is quiet and utterly haunting. Consumed as it is with a chest full of bleak melancholy and regretful ennui. At times you wonder if this is going to take you anywhere else, to do some dramatic rising flourish at its peak. However, When Its Cold I'd Like To Die, holds you steady and spellbound by the fragility with which the orchestration supports Lusk's intonations. It cups a tragic delicate beauty in its hands.

UNFINISHED READING - Beliefism by Paul Dolan

Paul Dolan is a Proffessor in Behavioural Science at the LSE, a podcaster and author, whose central topics have been happiness and are beliefism. This book covers similar territory to Jon Yates's book Fractured, but to my mind it does so far less effectively.  They are both really examining how homophyly ( People Like Us Syndrome ) is operating in our society, and how an excess of it is deleterious to the performance of a democratic society.

I have given up on this book, mainly because I didn't respond well to the manner in which it is written, and I could feel my hackles rising every time there was a new checklist. Dolan is very fond of a mnemonic ( eg. EMBRACE - goodness my life is too short to explain that one) as an aid to practicing breaking out of beliefism. It may be some folk do find these useful, but I do not. The only list I find useful is for shopping.

Coming, as he does from a social science background. Dolan's thesis is littered with niche jargon that is largely not self explanatory. Here are a few examples - The hot and cold empathy gap - The somatic marker hypothesis - FAE Fundamental Attribution Error - Safety Net Libertarianism - Exposed Cognitive Diversity - AP Affective Polarisation - Negative Utilitarianism - Feeling Thermometer. I mean, feeling thermometer, I've definitely got one of those, and it says specialist language for special people.

One of the main virtues of Jon Yates's book was that it strenuously avoided using this sort of pseudo scientific language, and chose to make writing plainly and clearly a self evident necessity, in order to be intelligible to a much wider readership. Even the term Beliefism, I would suggest, is not that helpful either. Just stick an ism on the end doesn't make something more understandable.

So, I've abandoned this book at page 131, with sixty five pages to go. It's no good regretting my impulse purchase now, nor of the waste of paper that this is a hardback. But there are becoming some recurring themes in the books that remain unfinished by me, and impulse purchasing is one of them. Dolan is. I assume, a sincere man. With a laudable aim to fight back against one if the most pernicious maladies affecting our civilisation and its future. So I applaud his efforts in that regard. But, I just found this book unnecessarily heavy going. 

His choice of frames for his spectacles was not an issue for me until I read his book. After that I was subject to a cascade of my own personal prejudices.

CARROT REVIEW - 2/8

FAVE RAVE - Banjo & Ro's Grand Island Hotel

After two series of Banjo Beale, blagging his interior design wares across the Hebrides. Here he is, now together with his long suffering husband Ro, taking on rejuvenating an abandoned hotel on the Isle of Ulva. It's a hugely ambitious project, very carefully structured and edited here in a reality documentary format, with it's necessary peak dramas and crisis points. The weekly decorating of different rooms, ignores the primary necessity of stopping the roof leaking, getting the water, electric and heating to work, and replacing the windows. This only makes sense from the perspective of a makeover renovation programme. This is not how you would start a project of this scale. But that wouldn't make for such watchable television

What makes this programme essential viewing and so deeply lovable, is Banjo and Ro's relationship. Banjo the perpetually inspired designer, with an irrepressible urge to buy that rather too expensive piece of tat he sees some potential in, whilst Ro, yet again, points out the essential impracticality of his whole approach. As a period enamel bath appears over the horizon dramatically flown in under a helicopter. Ro has repeatedly to row back on his sensible doubts, when the room is finally and triumphantly finished. Undoubtedly this project will not have been straightforward, not just financially, but emotionally. But the cheque from the Beeb will help. This project is very far from finished, so there is at least another series in this. I certainly hope so, because this one was hugely enjoyable. The landscape of the islands is so ravishingly beautiful as a backdrop to their renovation shenanigans..

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

2026 PLAYLIST - No 1 - I Hit My Head All Day by Dry Cleaning

About to release there third album in almost as many years, Dry Cleaning are a distinctive, but very droll odd band. At one end you have Florence Shaw with her 'found dialogues' and consciously contrived pedestrian imagery  carved into gnomic lyrics. And at the other, are three very skilled tight musicians, Tom Dowse (Guitar) Lewis Maynard (Bass) and Nick Buxton (Drums), who turn out really hard edge, catchy riffs and grooves. Somehow these two elements aught not to meld together. And the truth be told, for me, they don't always. The lyrics can frequently seem far to indulgent in their insubstantial whimsy, too other worldly to be about much at all. Delivered as they are in this neutered, drily sardonic manner. Whereas the music emotionally kicks ass with the best of them. As this dadaesque oblique social commentary yabbers on over the top.

Since 2021 when Scratchcard Lanyard was a minor indie hit, the novelty value has worn thinner. And yet on this track Hit My Head All Day, these two opposing strains live happily together for about six or so minutes, but feel that at any moment they might drift off and go their separate ways, the tune evaporating into the ether. This one, however really does work well, but god knows how. Maybe its the breathy drum sound she keeps hitting.

RANDOM SNIPPETS - No 5 - Weeping In The Ruins

'Discerning whether a desire is a healthy one to encourage, or not, is a life skill to be learnt. It's one that I find always requires my conscious practice, because I've yet to  master it. I notice in myself when a desire has become particularly sticky. When I ardently want something to happen, to buy something, to find something troubling me that won't go away. There is a subtle shift, when it flips from being a passing maybe pleasant thought, into this betrothed willed for thing. What then follows are the incumbent anxieties, stresses and strains derived from my yearning.  The weightiness of carrying this desire around with me, as though its a gall stone I cannot expell. 

And yet, as soon as I can release my grip, relax the need for something to happen, and breathe more with the ebb and flow of life. Then the mind turns that little bit looser and away from the tight control of destiny. I commit myself to further suffering through desperately clinging.  And yet, losing something I've grown fond of or loved, it can be painful. To grieve for what has now gone from your world, it is a saddening experience. These wounds can go deeper and sometimes can last longer than even my one little lifetime. As every time I visit an old monastic ruin, I'm reminded and once again lament for what has been lost. For in the ruins of our desires, of what remains, can be our grieving for centuries old unhealed wounds, but also for our wish to be at peace with them. I cling onto a memories as I stand right in the midst of their ruins. And here as I'm weeping in the ruins of what was, I start the process of washing away the residue of accumulated pain, to set my desire for restoration to rest. To learn how to let this thing be.'

Taken and further adapted from my Morning Study Journal the 13th January 2026.

SCREEN SHOT - The Last Showgirl (2024)

Shelly (Pamela Anderson) has been a performer at the Razzle Dazzle review on the Las Vegas strip for most of her life. Working her way up to being the central dancer, in what twenty odd years later has become a distinctly old fashioned, and seedy semi nude revue. She always talks it up, about how it is in the tradition of the Paris Revue, as if this was high art she was involved in. This show she believes creates beautiful tableaux not crude sensationalism. Then one evening at a dinner party with the other showgirls, Eddie ( Dave Bautista ) turns up to tell them the revue is being cancelled and will close in a fortnight. For Shelly this news is devastating, she's never known any other life. Surrendering her daughter Hannah (  Billie Lourdes ) to fostering, so she could continue her important work on the strip, The film covers the period up to the final show, and how she slowly goes to pieces, and has to face some painful truths about the shallowness of her life and the supposed 'art ' she has created. In this she is aided by Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis) whose life has already transitioned from retired old showgirl to spunky casino waitress, who is approaching old age with nothing in the bank financially or emotionally.

The Last Showgirl is a beautifully written and composed film, that is extraordinarily sad and touching. Pamela Anderson is the vivid heart of it, in a career defining performance. Shelly is shown warts 'n' all, how she has lived an essentially deluded and selfish life. Exhibiting both the good and the bad in her character, and yet still you feel for her. Like many Americans, she's unable to retire, because with little or no pension, she needs to keep working till she dies. There are many gut reaching moments, that ring painfully true. Eddie, is the shows floor manager who has been there since Shelly began, and is, unbeknownst to Hannah, her father. Bautista plays him sympathetically as a good hearted soul, who unfortunately has this habit of unwittingly putting his foot clumsily through his own best intentions, so the showgirls don't ever respect him. Jamie Lee Curtis, appears to no longer mind how she looks in movies, and plays Annette as this profoundly embittered woman who has lost respect for most people, but feels for Shelly's predicament because it has been her own.

The Director Gia Coppola ( Francis Coppola's  grand daughter ) had to pro-actively seek out Anderson for the central role. Which relies crucially on subverting our own expectations of Anderson, and her career and reputation, to end up completely transforming both. The acting trio of Anderson, Bautista and Curtis are what make this film believable and sing.  All of them play deeply flawed characters, with a depth and nuance that is rare to see in contemporary American movies.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

RISING UP MY DUCK PILE - January 2026

As is to be expected Christmas brought a few new books to the pile. It also brought me a Duck Light, which now sits atop the pile changing colour. It's quickly become a much loved accompaniment to my regular bedtime reading.  So much so I have now rechristened this my Duck Pile.

DENISE MINA - THE LESS DEAD

I'm just over halfway through reading this at present. It is, as ever with Denise Mina, an extremely compelling read. It's short chapters ideal for bedtime reading. A story that begins with a woman Margo innocently trying to reconnect with the world of her birth mother, who was murdered shortly after she was born. But her digging allows a whole lot of unresolved stuff from that time to start bubbling back up to the surface, and most of it is not pleasant.

Charity Shop

Currently Reading

BERNARD McGINN - THE MYSTICAL THOUGHT OF MASTER ECKHART

In the realm of medieval Christian mysticism Master Eckhart is thought to be somewhat seminal. McGinn's book comes highly rated as an introduction to his controversial, but none the less  influential writing. I am quite looking forward to getting round to reading this. But I suspect I will really have to be in the right headspace for it.

Christmas Present 

PAUL DOLAN -BELIEFISM 

Halfway through reading this book. Which in many ways covers similar ground to Jon Yate's book Fractured, but comes at it from a distinctly social science perspective. This I'm finding is jargon heavy at times. His arguments feel less humanly approachable, and hence I am not finding it compelling to read. Rapidly losing interest, here's hoping I make it to the end. His solution to the problem of 'beliefism' comes in the form of a mnemonic EMBRACE which is enough to put anyone off their morning cereal.

Hive Bookshop, Alysham

Currently Reading 

 

OWEN BARFIELD - POETIC DICTION

This is one of those books that at the time you bought it, seemed like an interesting prospect. Sometimes books do have their moment, and I'm beginning to get the feeling this one may be in danger of passing it. It's been in my book pile quite a while now. Seminal though it reputedly is, this might I suspect prove interminable in the end.

Holt Bookshop

Yuval NOAH HARARI - SAPIANS

Another book which I'm looking forward to getting around to reading. I've been impressed with the clear headed nature of his mind when interviewed. So I'm hoping he writes in a similar vein.

Waterstones

ANNIE GRAY - THE BOOKSHOP, THE DRAPER &THE CANDLESTICK MAKER

As someone who spent most of their working life in retail, and I love history about the ordinary everyday things of life, this book seemed right up my street. Annie Gray is also a regular TV and radio presenter, particularly in the area of culinary history. I expect this will be a good read.

Hive Bookshop , Alysham.

JANINA RAMIREZ - THE PRIVATE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

A favourite TV  history presenter. Her speciality is the early medieval. I found her earlier book Feminia really illuminating. It opened out the era for reappraisal for the role of female presences within it. This one will be a joy.

Christmas Present

RICHARD V REEVES - OF BOYS AND MEN

I've seen him being interviewed and he delivers a quietly eloquent and right on the ball explanation of what the masculinity crisis actually is. Without a hint of the casual mysogyny or outright toxicity that can often accompany the discussion of subject matters such as this one, on the internet.

Christmas Present

BEN CONNELLY - INSIDE THE FLOWER GARLAND SUTRA

Recently listened to a talk by this guy as part of the New York Zen Center -  Commit to Sit season. Speaking about aspects of this elaborate and lengthy Mahayana Sutra that I found engagingly expressed. I'm hoping the book lives up to my expectations.

Christmas Present 

DIARMAID McCULLOCH - LOWER THAN THE ANGELS

McCulloch is always a really peachy historical read. This one is all about sexuality in Christian theology and how it's terribly oppressive response is not always supported by what you actually read in the biblical source material. I expect this will be regularly punctuated with his usual dry witty commentary.

Christmas Present 

WILLIAM DALRYMPLE - THE GOLDEN ROAD

Yet another historian I've seen being interviewed, who I'm hence interested in reading. This one being a history of India, Pre, Post and during the British Raj. He is an expert on the British East India Company, the first historical example of a corporation that turned into an authoritarian oppressive regime. Very prescient in our present era of  techno- oligarchy.

Christmas Present 

KAZUO ISHIGURO - THE REMAINS OF THE DAY

I've not read any Ishiguro before. This is of course his most famous, and reputedly his best novel. I just saw it going for a pound in a Nottingham charity shop, so couldn't resist buying it.

Charity Shop

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 136 - Whirled Peas

Well, all appears to have gone quiet on the Sheringham Bus Shelter front. The NCC, true to their word have pulled the plug on the development and the contractors have left. So we now have an unfinished Travel Hub with a protective ring fence.  I have a feeling this may prove to be yet another NCC scare tactic to make the town feel the cost of being naughty boys and girls. 

I don't believe they've any intention of ultimately leaving it like this.  Who knows what pressures might be being applied behind the scenes. The government has just given a huge amount of money to improve bus transport in Norfolk. They're not going to sit by and watch it stall, because Norfolk County Council is having a hissy fit over a situation its handled ineptly.

The fact is that if you apply for Grade 2 listing for the Bus Shelter, this takes time. Once you have that, you can then draw up a new planning proposal for approval, this takes time. There maybe local elections that could radically change the composition of councils and previous decisions could then be reviewed, this takes time. As the contractors were being delayed by the protests, and you'd probably have further delays during a bad winter anyway, they may have had to consider pausing the development to remain on budget. All of these things absorb time.

If you kick the can far enough down the road, you gain time for people to forget, to reverse your previous inflexible intransigence without losing face, or being seen to capitulate to the protestors. Come up with a new proposal, return the contractors, job done. To do all this would require mothballing the project anyway, so why not make it look like its all Sheringham's fault. Make the town stew for a while, so that next time they'll perhaps remain fully compliant. Someone will return to finish this off, it's just a matter of someone deciding when.

STOP PRESS - LATEST NEWS A local asked to see the results of the original planning consultation on the Transport Hub development, only to find of the 500+ responses, nearly 400 opposed the whole development plan. So the NCC ignored and went ahead with the plans despite significant local opposition. People didn't oppose the demolition of the bus shelter because they didn't want the whole development in the first place. All of which makes the NCC look even more duplicitous, and the whole basis of their 'fit of pique' look even more shameless.

Well, Christmas came and went like a request for a stripper gram. A whole fortnight of merriment and self indulgence. Enjoyable though that was. My body was beginning to scream enough with the heavy duty food by Boxing Day. And yet there was still more to come. Our final fling of celebrating climaxing, if you'll forgive the terminology, in a weekend in Nottingham after New Year. Lovely food, lovely presents, lovely people, and then it was all over, and I was out. 

I decided that a little bit of monk like time, of self denial and confected abstinence was more than called for. So I've chosen to instigate - Cakee Free Januaree. A whole month without confectionery, and sweet stuff generally, crossing my unglazed lips and entering the hidden sanctum of my stomach. The shock to my system might prove fatal. Some. I'll not name them lest there be a public backlash, joined me in this noble undertaking but have lasted four days before whoolfing a chocolate bar. I say this with no sense of malice or pulling rank here, noble and unsullied as I am, as yet, in my present resolve. To get to February 6th pure and holy in spirit, it seems easy now, but ask me in a couple of weeks how that's actually feeling.

This January it's a year since I first started learning Tai Chi and Qi Kung. It feels as though I've been doing this practice all my life. It's become such an established part of my morning routine. The group I attend in town there are around ten of us. Apart from the teacher Rick, I am the only other male present. There was a time in the autumn when I joined the experienced group,and I suddenly had a period of anxiety about whether I felt welcomed by the assembled ladies. You start getting paranoid about  why you are the only one who has an empty chair either side of them. Or if I'd accidentally committed some faux pas simply through being male. I decided in the end not to care whether they did welcome me or not, and came because I enjoyed it.

The group is long established, and everyone has their set place they stand in the practice hall, and seem overly self conscious of not stepping out of line or place.  Anyway, things are generally friendlier towards me now, I make an effort to not be ignorable, which I take as a sign I'm feeling more relaxed. Also, I am now in my third term in the experienced group, and any likelihood of my being a flash in the pan visitor not worth the time getting to know, is fast disappearing. I'm not going anywhere, I love doing this too much.

I've been pondering on what I might want to engage with this year, that is new to me. Ideally something that gets me out and about and engaging with folk more. Not settled upon anything in particular as yet. We are in January, and I still have my part in submitting the tax return to complete. Which is collecting together receipts and invoices and data entering them, before Hubby rounds up all the rest of it. This 2024-25 self assessment is the first after we closed the shop, so the data entry is vastly reduced, as are the amounts of expenditure involved. I anticipate an easier process, but who knows? I can feel my resistance to engaging with it, but once I get started, remember the process, I'll get stuck in. 

I recently completed a grey knitted cowl which came out pleasingly well. I'm currently knitting a cabled sleeveless jumper. Having finished the front and back, there's really just the blocking and knitting the neck and arm holes. It will soon be time to start thinking what the next project will be. I'd like to do either a Aran or Shetland pattern. Having done two sleeveless jumpers in a row, perhaps I should have a go at a sleeved jumper or a cardy. Hubby has been getting very expert at knitting, and has recently taken to knitting gloves on DPN's, so I am now the proud owner of a beautiful hand knit pair of gloves.

Whilst in Nottingham, Hubby and I visited IKEA, to collect ideas for how we might improve our kitchen. We have decided after living here for nine years in April, that it's time to give it a bit of love and attention, to redecorate at least. But also, to go through what we have in our cupboards and throw out the items you acquire that never really land in the realm of being useful. It is also an opportunity to reconsider how we use spaces, organise our cupboards etc. We've settled on a provisional colour palette of sage green and bamboo as the aesthetic. Though we have as yet to pin this down to specifics on an actual paint swatch. Though its not the colour we are currently considering, Hubby has become inordinately fond of one green paint. colour, because it's a pun - Whirled Peas.

The kitchen has areas neglected by us, like the dusty grease trap that collects on the top of cupboards. And even though we started out trying not to use this as a storage space, our resolve succumbed to pressure over time.

There is a lot of sorting out, cleaning and prep to be done before we can even start any decorating. We have ambitions to paint the existing cupboard doors. This might prove trickier than we expect. A bit of preliminary internet search advises quite meticulous cleaning, sanding and priming. They are only cheap kitchen cupboards, stripping off the plastic veneer seems easier, I am now in possesion of my very own pistolet thermique. I'm nervous about doing anything that commits us to any course of action that will prove more expensive financially or the amount of time required. But watch this space. 

Whilst in Nottingham we visited Sherwood, which is filled with the sort of niche shops catering for what used to be called the 'alternative' market, from vegan supermarkets to afro hairdressers. What caught my attention was a poster for an adult educational initiative entitled - Macademie - Nuts About Education.

FÍNISHED READING - The Devil You Know by Gwen Adshead & Eileen Horne

This book was right up my street. A world renowned forensic psychologist recounts various types of supposedly  ' evil monstrous' people she has sat down with in therapeutic sessions - the serial killer, the delinquent, the pedophile, the mentally unhinged person who murdered their Father. And she expertly tells you the often tortuous and difficult process of enabling that person to reach the point of going beyond their own denial and evasions, to fully acknowledging their responsibility and the consequences for themselves and others, of their past actions.

For all the horror in what they did, these individuals remain human beings with a core conscience, however buried it may be beneath layers of denial, aversion and rationalisation. Adshead, has over the decades of practice, learned how it is to listen closely to the tone, the how and what they say, as indicators to where they might be in the process of self acknowledgement of their past actions. Whilst also paying attention to her own instinctual responses and reactions. That frequently point to the unknown elephant in the room, that underlies the facade they are presenting. A couple of patients curated a respectable and seemingly stable exterior behaviour, seeming to appear models of balanced self knowledge. But this somehow did not ring true. It was her task as the therapist to keep subtlety pushing them to towards whatever it was they were trying to evade. Why are they currently feeling uneasy, or so potentially suicidal, if everything is just so hunky dory?

One patient, a GP, self referred themselves, because they were depressed and sleeping badly. Their wife had recently left them, and there was evidently something up on a much deeper level. He'd agreed to a series of six sessions, but missed or was late to a lot of them. When he did come, he was quite abrasively self assertive, trying to take charge and direct the sessions. He wanted help, but entirely on his terms. Knowingly deflecting or mocking her questions. With every patient there comes a point which she calls that 'bike lock' moment, when one final turn unlocks and reveals the whole underlying issue. With the GP it was asking him why his wife had left him. It turned out she'd been aware for many years that he'd been viewing porn, but it was when she discovered it was child porn that she'd taken the kids and left him.

This is one of those books that lifts the veil on the complex mental gymnastics people put themselves through to avoid facing a truth. In this sense, regardless of their crime, it is a very human person that is revealed through therapy. It's about them fully acknowledging what they did, the pain, the regret. Without which it's impossible for anyone to move on. And this turns out to be eminently relatable for any relatively self aware human being. We all have our blind spots and self evasions, things we just cannot bring ourselves to fully confront. This book has such a lot to teach us all about human tenderness, and how we come to greater self awareness. The underlying legacy of these life histories, can be almost as shocking as the details of the heinous crime. How a perceived lack of love can have consequences further on in later life. Only these particulars consequence turn out to be tragic for everyone involved.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8