RISING UP MY DUCK PILE - May 2026

The book duck light has now been named 'Pickle' so my Book Pile, that became my Duck Pile, could be called my Pickle Pile. There are some new entries, and that old stalwart Poetic Diction finally got read, you'll be pleased to hear, so it is here no more. Ready to be released back into the world of second hand chances.

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 

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

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 

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 misogyny or outright toxicity that can often accompany the discussion of subject matters such as this one, particularly on the internet.

Christmas Present

BELL HOOKS - THE WILL TO CHANGE
I've read a few books on the masculinity crisis written from a male perspective. I came across this book by the famous feminist Bell Hooks, and was interested to read how she views it. It didn't look like this was a dismissive hatchet job.
The Book Hive - Norwich

REBECCA SOLNIT - HOPE IN THE DARK

This short book reviews the history of activism and social change over five decades. Subtitled Untold Histories Wild Possibilities, though written originally ten years ago, it offers us reasons for continuing to have hope even in the direst circumstances of 2026
The Book Hive - Aylsham

DAVID GRAEBER - THE ULTIMATE HIDDEN TRUTH OF THE WORLD
Came across David Graber through an interview with his frequent collaborator David Wengrow. Graber who died in 2020 was a social anthropologist and anarchistic thinker out of all the usual boxes. And I was intrigued enough to want to read something by him. This is a collection of essays on various subjects.
The Book Hive - Aylsham

LAMORNA ASH - DON'T FORGET WE'RE HERE FOREVER
I saw her being interviewed on The Sacred podcast, and thought she seemed really open and frank in her investigative writing. Here she is examining what a new generation of young people might be seeking from religion. That in the end became her own journey of discovery.
The Book Hove - Aylsham

WILLIAM DALRYMPLE - THE GOLDEN ROAD 

This is an early history of India, when it was the premier major trading country for centuries, from the time of the Roman Empire til the 7th century CE. The sphere of influence of India, it's culture, intellectual and religious has been far reaching on the countries to the East and West of it. Dalrymple presents his case with a zest and enthusiasm that bounces off the page. The British Empire created a view of India as a backward civilization, that required our intervention, gifting them democracy etc. This could not be further from the truth. The British moved in to asset strip the resources and manufacturing, of India. At the time the British East India Company arrived India represented 45% of all world trade, which by the time the British left was reduced to 4%.

Currently Reading

Christmas Present 

CAROLINE LUCAS - ANOTHER ENGLAND
I'm currently really wanting to understand better the whole area of national pride and patriotism, and whether it is possible for these to be held in a healthy way, without it descending into xenophobia and much worse racial and cultural superiority and exceptionalism. Caroline Lucas offers up a few enlightening possibilities in this timely book. 

Currently Reading
The Book Hive - Norwich

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

RANDOM SNIPPETS - NO 7 - Self Deluding Fibs

Everyday I wake up to a new aspect of bodily discomfort. This keeps me on my toes. I do what I can to ease my body from becoming too stiff or set. It is a battle I constantly lose the benefit of every night. I am just becoming better at applying a more effective balm to smooth the soreness. 

Through this is a way of side stepping the truth of bodily decay and decline, that we all do. We make it all appear safely manageable and contained. Then I can pretend it's not really happening. It's not that serious a concern. I'm not in the process of bodily decay, or even approaching dying. Because, I have so many things to do and to make. So long as I can remain productive, how could death even be close? 

And this is how our society thinks and behaves in relation to mortality, when all else fails distract yourself.  By not wanting any discomfort or mild inconvenience, that we don't already have a salve for, that we can purchase over the counter in a pharmacy, to make it disappear or diminish. There is, however, no medicine for our death, this is the blunt fact of our existential situation.

To an extent I am deluded. I am living and perpetrating a fib. Most delusions we tell ourselves, are fibs that we attempt to convince ourselves are true through repetition. That we can meditate ourselves into being Enlightened, or that reality is perfectible, that some things are permanent and will be eternally with us, that we can have whatever we desire, that oodles of money will bring us happiness. That I will not die for a while yet, is just one of those fibs we perpetrate and perpetuate. We like to cultivate a perception that we have all the time in the world, in which to thwart mortality for that little bit longer. These are the deceitful strategies by which we live. 

The extent to which I believe these deceptions varies. I know in theory that I cling to fundamentally incorrect expectations about the extent of my life span. Do I act in a way that demonstrates I've seen through these? Well, no, I do not. Though after the heart attack it has been much harder to maintain the blitheness of my ignorance. It's the sort of fib we unconsciously sustain, even though all the data is now well and truly in. You are gonna die brother.  

This is similar to the die hard MAGA supporter, who still believes Trump is sent from God, though it should be patently clear by now he never was any such thing. We cling to our fibs because admitting they are incorrect, will make our fragile ego look truly foolish indeed. Likewise, we may go to our deaths still trying to convince ourselves that this is just a little chest pain, that will soon go away. We shall all feel foolish when the moment of death arrives.

Taken from my Study Journal for April 18th & 19th, that has been edited and further adapted.

SCREEN SHOT - Rose Of Nevada

 

A fishing boat reappears in a once prosperous Cornish fishing village that is now in terminal decline. The Rose of Nevada was thought lost at sea twenty years ago. The original boat owner, after he gets over the shock of its return, decides to start using it again for fishing. 'Shall we try again' he says ominously. Recruiting an old sea dog he vaguely recognise as Captain, who then finds the enigmatic Liam, and employs Nick, a straightforward family man who just needs to earn some money to repair a collapsed roof in his home. Once out on the ocean they quickly learn the ropes of sea fishing, casting nets, gutting and preserving fish in ice, until the galley is full and they can return to port. But the port they return to is not the fishing village of the present day, but the busy active one of twenty years previous. Liam seems to quickly adjusts to the period and lifestyle, whilst Nick feels trapped, becoming increasingly desperate to return to the family he's left behind. There is a sense that something here, much larger than them, is wanting restitution.

Mark Jenkin's third film is a real feast for the eyes and ears. Brilliantly executed, it is the most confident and expressionistic movie he's made so far. At times it has the style, quality and visual poetics of Tarkovsky, with the highly amplified reverberating sound quality of early David Lynch, where even small natural sounds can become hugely foreboding. It also has some really stunning rough hewn cinematography and sharply edited sequences.  Beautifully constructed shots capturing the tough unyielding lifestyle of a sea fisherman, the orange crust of rusting machinery, the rumbling spindled colours of ropes, the creaking clanging noises of chains, wheels and cranks, the sounds of boots or fish landing heavily on deck. One of the qualities of Jenkin's film making technique, is that he is able to overlay the sound design on top of his hand cranked film. This he can then highlight and focus the ears on specific sounds, with greater clarity of purpose. Sound in this film, more than in any of his previous films, has almost a visually evocative quality. On this movie it's epic, managing to be both small and panoramic in scale. It does most of the heavy lifting for the storytelling. 

At the core of this film, are interrupted, if not shattered relationships, between parents and a son, between fishermen and their families, of lives and communities literally torn apart by tragedy. The sense of yearning and existential distress of Nick, is conveyed by some superlative acting from George McKay. His visible facial and bodily responses tell you all you need to know about his emotional state of mind. The dialogue in this movie is generally a secondary player, that gives away little about the story arc. The tale is told largely through sound and visual imagery. However, the final piece of dialogue at the end of the movie, from the mouth of Nick's wife that 'there is no time', does speak volumes. This is a film so rich in tiny but important details, that I dare say it will bare repeat viewing. An utterly captivating film, that left me feeling quite moved and exhilarated simultaneously. It is one of those films that continues to haunt your imagination afterwards.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

UNFINISHED READING - The City & It's Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

I first read Murakami's Wind Up Bird Chronicle many years ago. And nothing I've read by him since has attained quite the same level of sheer inventiveness and batty bizarreness of that novel. IQ84, for all its voluminous length, proved a lot more satisfying to read than I expected.  His collections of short stories First Person Singular and Men Without Women had moments that were good. One of his best books remains Underworld, an exploration of Japanese culture in relation to the religious cult behind the Sarin attack, which is a superb piece of disturbing analysis. But that was resolutely a non fiction event. One suspects that the quality of Murakami's literary fiction has been erratic for a while. He maintains to this day a huge output. The experience of reading The City & It's Uncertain Walls makes me think that maybe he should do less, go out running more, anything other than write another novel with not a lot too it.

This novel begins with a simple love affair between a teenage boy and girl. They dedicate their lives to each other. But she starts to spend time in another town and they seem to be drifting apart. In order to be close to her he moves there, but finds it's a place where there are no shadows, you have to forsake them if you want to stay their for long. The boy finds his girlfriend who doesn't really remember him. He takes work in the library as a Dream Reader in order to be near her. 

By this time I am ninety pages into a 400+ page novel and not a lot of real consequence has happened. The idea of a place where shadows are forsaken feels very 'Murakami Lite' to me.The sort of thing one of his many Japanese copy cat imitators would write. I've been waiting to be picked up and captivated by the arc of a story developing, and it's just not happening. In the past I would have stuck this out just in case it does finally all come together. But you know, I cannot be arsed to do that. l'm of the view these days, that life is just too short to persist with a novel you are developing no affection for. If it really doesn't hold any interest for you, feel free to move on. So I have.

CARROT REVIEW - 2/8

INSIGNIFICANT MOMENTS IN THE FOLDS OF TIME - A Voice You Could Die For

Some days no one in their right mind would wish to be in charge of the framing department. They'd offer to work the till, counter, wrapping, stocking up or unpacking deliveries out the back. Tasks that could easily keep them occupied, be productive, generally busier. Mind deadening boredom would not descend. You could credit yourself with not living an empty meaningless life. The regular staff, full or part time, even the customers on occasions, could all be fun to engage with.  Unless you were single handedly working the mezzanine framing counter, on the coldest wettest morning in January.

The young man was perched disconsolately on a stool, with hundreds of frame and mount samples ranked behind him like legions of aircraft . He knew full well he could be sat there for hours, trying to maintain this fictitious look of engagement on his face. Fiddling with the arrangement and alignment of the ready made picture frames and pre-cut mounts, for the third time in the last hour. Dusting dustless shelves. Gazing enviously down the stairs, that so few people ever stepped up, to the active chattering hustle going on around the main counter by the exit.

Paradoxically, this was the type of day when you could easily become the magnet for time wasting enquiries. The sort that were always two questions away, from a framing sales assistants perspective, of feeling you were dangerously over committing yourself. Someone would present you with this abstract concept of their picture. The one that has been hanging around for ages, but just needs a frame to set it off better. They have it at home. Their fingers helpfully form imaginary frame corners in the air, just to give you the idea of its size. Describing its subject matter in extraordinarily loose, cartoon like terms. Would you be able to give them some idea what frame would suit and the likely cost thereof? And you might be tempted to miraculously pull a rabbit out of thin air. Though fate might bounce this price badly back on you, should they return later with said picture, wanting that previously quoted price, exactly. They'd be righteously annoyed, for you had made to their recollection, not a general quote, but a specific promise, and they wanted you to keep to it, not betray and potentially rip them off. In short, these sort of customers were inevitably going to be a nightmare. 

His only customer this morning, had entered bedraggled from the rain, soaking a large area of the carpet through dumping their umbrella, numerous shopping bags and a wet Burberry coat upon it. Used up an entire half hour or more of his attention and expertise, and then left with barely a thank you for his time. Another enquiry he'd never see the fruits of. This had been followed by the areas resident piss artist and loud mouthed alcoholic Mr Gordon Smiley teetering in, like the portent of doom he was. Seizing the opportunity of the framing department not appearing busy, came in brandy breath all a flambe. Shouting profanities about the pictures we sold and how your framing charges were effin robbing people blind. He was a difficult one to contain once he'd sufficiently warmed to his theme, which never took long.  Becoming increasingly declamatory in voice and hand gestures. 

Usually, as happened today, the manageress saved him. Gordon appeared to like her, respected her on some level. One got the sense that she felt some mutual ' there but for the grace of god go I' recognition going on. Charitably amusing him, he instantly became more amenable, and quieter. As she walked slowly, gently ushering him in the overall direction of the door. With a stagger and a flap of his grubby coat, he exited stage right, and was gone. The manageress turned towards the framing department, winked conspiratorially and returned to her office. There was another one he owed her.

So this morning had been rough, a humiliating, if not mildly belittling experience. After failing to deal well with a full frontal assault from Mr Gordon Smiley, breathing down fire water upon him. He was now anxiously preoccupied with a desire to take a tea break very soon. If only he could attract someone's attention. So much so, that he failed to notice the man, stood with his back towards him. Singularly maintaining his focus on flicking through the racks of sale frames. Who suddenly piped up, and without turning around, said - 

' Gosh, that one must be hard to handle. Does he come in here regularly.' 

As he spoke, it was as though a bomb had exploded and it's pulse ripped across the room. A wave of emotion broke over, around, through and into him. Had he suddenly stepped into a parallel dimension? How, what, who was this guy? Did he know him? An instinctual feeling of intimacy arising, told him he did. An air of recognition hovered around the voice. It seemed to contain a very ancient longing, for some unrequited love object in the past perhaps, of a much mourned over ex. His memories however, could not settle on any one individual in particular. There was a charm in that voice, like a magic potion, an entrancing spell, the desiring spirit of a sacred love chant from a God. The most beautifully cultivated resonance he had ever heard, that speared, and directly hit love central.

Accompanied by a swoon, those carefully punctuated consonants, with just the light lingering suggestion of a smoothly well disciplined Scottish burr, spread like honey throughout his whole being. A munificent wave oozing a feeling of being deeply smitten, with a man he'd apparently never seen or heard of before. Who had yet to fully turn around, so the young man had not yet seen what sort of face such a voice might emerge from. Every syllable whispering sweet nothings in his ear - whoever this is, he is the man for you. You will be willing to die for this one. Do not miss out. Above all, do not fuck this up.

And the heart burst open, the hands fell lifelessly down, the brain was completely floored. In the bubbling rising moment of ecstasy he forgot that he might need to reply. The response when it did emerge, came out a spluttered squeak. Inside his head all words, phrases, sentences, possessed only the smallest level of intelligibility, drowned under a warbling static, his brain an out of tune radio station. Coughing heavily, he attempted to clear his head and start again. 

' Ah, well.. yeah ..he does....Couple of.. times a week. Harmless really.....But its bad for trade. As you can see, he clears the shop in minutes.'  

These staggered words tailed off in volume and confidence. Though factually all true, they were feeble. Internally he thought : -

'Come on man, perk up, charm him. Engage your wit and banter. Don't let this all die on the deathly desert shore of a stunned embarrassed silence'

So he smartly improvised -

'Can I help you at all? '

Finally the man fully turned around, and it was a fair face, with a youthfulness still surviving even the claws of its eye wrinkles. Thirty something, charming, yeah, he could be putty in those hands.

'Well, maybe you can, I have this picture at home. But, you know as I've been standing here looking through these frames, I think its probably best if I bring it in. You think you can remember a picture well enough, but you really can't, can you? And I'd rather not try describing it to you.  I don't live locally, but I could quite easy pop back later.'

'Oh, OK, yeah, you do that. We offer a quick and professional service. This time of year, it's quieter, so we can turn it around within a week... if needs be'

'That sounds great, I'll maybe see you later then.'

As the man left he briefly flipped this warm beatific, appreciative smile, over his shoulder, as though he were well used to the spellbinding effect his voice could exert. The young man, however, was mortified with himself - if needs be ! - if needs be !! He'd switched on his standard business mode of interaction, and couldn't stop his mouth from this inane babbling. When he ought to have been more himself, relaxed and personable, apply the blokey banter, perfume a select few words with a frisson of come hithery. That usually flushed them out. Either sparkling or scaring the horses. But none of any of that, what a ruddy fool he was,.

Attention came back with a thud to the now empty framing department. A place he now felt extremely reluctant to vacate. To take even the tiniest of tea breaks, lest he missed spending further time with the most captivating male voice he'd ever encountered. Utterly bereft, he preoccupied himself with essentially unanswerable questions, like - do straight men ever flirt with gay men? - he was coming on to me wasn't he? -  or was he just being pleasantly sociable? - he could no longer discern the difference. 

Other thematic variations on these, were much harped upon and circled around for the next hour. Attempting to pin down precisely why he'd found that voice so stirring to his love muscles. Surely it did remind him of someone? He wasn't daydreaming any of this up was he? This had actually happened? Was he conjuring a love object out of a pretty voice? He did have form in that area. But no, this was totally unlike any of that. More akin to being actively benevolently bewitched.

In waiting for the man's return, the imminent became interminable. His manageress couldn't grasp why he didn't want to take a lunch break, after what must have been a rather dull morning in the framing department. Normally staff couldn't wait to get away, you could see it in their deadened eyes. The besotted young man, however, was distracted from rational thought, and from something any framing sales assistant worth their salt should always hold in mind. Casual retail enquiries are the equivalent of a flirtatious tease.

He'd also failed to note, till much later in the day, one crucial word in the man's final sentence - 'maybe'.  No firm commitment there to returning. And so it was, that the man with the entrancing vocal chords, never did return, on that day, nor any other day. The end of the affair had arrived, before it had even begun. The experience of encountering this man, though consciously filed under - this was all a mirage - nevertheless found itself a sacred place where qualities of love were lodged and revered.

FINISHED READING - Poetic Diction by Owen Barfield

'Great poetry is the progressive incarnation of life in consciousness.'

It appears to be part of Owen Barfield's destiny to be overshadowed by his two fellow Inklings Tolkien and CS Lewis. They were highly influenced by his spiritually inflected, philosophical ruminations on the origins of language, and went on to apply those ideas into literary form. Poetic Diction, then, came to my book pile with a lot of expectations hanging upon it. And it has lain there for quite some time, not through lack of interest, but bravery. 

Barfield's central premise, posits a different direction of travel for the development of human language. The traditional view is that gutteral sounds become rough hewn simple attributed words, born out of the first stumbling steps of our self consciousness. These over time accrue deeper and more embellished metaphorical meanings, and rise to a high point with the development of poetry, through Greek Classics, to the Renaissance and the Romantics. What Barfield proposes is another trajectory. What first  emerges are certainly words, but what type of words were they? Themed compound words, with spiritual poetic metaphorical souls.. They arose, to use Barfield's term, as a given, fully formed and imbued with their own poetic diction and richness of meaning. Over time these all encompassing poetical meanings become broken down into their individual constituents. Separated, the words become denuded of their complex breadth. What he proposes is that the tone language took in those first words was existential, poetically lucid and mythic to its very bones. Whatever would follow this over the centuries, becomes entirely allusively metaphorical in character.

' Spiritus in Latin meant originally blowing, or wind. But when the principle of life within man or animal had to be named, this outward sign, namely the breath of the mouth, was naturally chosen to express it. Hence in Sanskrit asu, breath and life, in Latin spiritus, breath and life. Again, when it was perceived that there was something else to be named, not the mere animal life, the same word was chosen, in the modern Latin dialects, to express the spiritual as opposed to the mere material or animal element in man. All this is metaphor.'

Original poeticism was an innate unconscious form, which through use of metaphor poets try to consciously revive or invoke a reflected connection with. Words gradually shifted to become fixed consistent and prosaic in usage. Until we get to the point where Barfield considered contemporary poetry as either mundane in the how and what of it's expression, or overly concerned with, what he refers to as the architecture, its construction rather than the centrality of meaning. 

To demonstrate this process in the chapter on The Making of Meaning 1, he takes the Latin verb Ruo, which can be translated as to rush, to fall or to collapse. This is a word that describes any process of disastrous movement, a declining flow, a deluge, a torrent. This can be psychological, allegorical, economic, with many other applications. The necessity was for three separate words for rush. fall and collapse to arise. Ruo becomes ruina, and what was once about the impermanent nature and character of the falling itself becomes about the thing that has fallen, the desolate state of ruin. Ruin becomes the fixed conclusion rather the fluid process of being ruined.

For me, these sort of examples were where Barfield's idea start to come alive and feel credible. I am less interested in the philosophical slant to his work. Mainly because though I strain my mind attempting to understand it, I do have to recognise the limitations of what I'm able to comprehend. If anyone were to ask me why Barfield became overlooked, I'd say the manner of his expression is probably key. It reads, to these contemporary ears at least, as encumbered. Overly cluttered with explicatory asides, which like the chattering of birds in the trees outside, distract or disrupt the flow of comprehension. 

I have noted previously, that when an author quotes another writer in a book, and that quotatiion encapsulates the ideas of the book you are reading much better, this is telling about the writers ability to communicate their own ideas. I worked hard, but frequently failed to keep up with what he was attempting to express. His use of phrases and poetry in the original Greek, Latin, French or German and not providing you with a translation, struck me as having an arrogant assumption at its core. He either didn't think this ought to be necessary, or that his readership really needed to be those better educated coves.

Qualms and quibbles aside, there are occasional delightful snippets of information. That the frequency with which a poet uses a word, may not always be down to a limitation of vocabulary. That the word itself has some personal quirk or resonance, that suggests it held a deeper meaning for them than just it's lexicography or etymology might reveal. Coleridge had a particular liking and use of the word quiet, Addison had a love for the word secret, Milton's appeared to be fond of the word trim, whilst Shakespeare used the word function in a wide variety of contexts and inferences. The latter may in part be that function was in his time still a new word, being first used fifty years before Shakespeare began to write. It's meaning still open to be explored and expanded in its range of uses. And that itself, is a part of the thrill of new words, new expressions freshening the meaning of older ones. In our rationalised standardised world, the role of poetry and the poet is to return what has become inflexible in meaning back to the fluidity of a stream, to present us with a freshly minted word or unexpected juxtaposition.

'Strangeness shall have an interior significance;it must be felt as rising from a different plane or mode of consciousness, and not merely as eccentricity of expression. It must be strangeness of meaning.'

There are further ruminations here about the uses and abuses of archaism and conservatism, the vulgar and colloquial in language. Also on what makes great poetry and great poets. All of which are the sort of questions an academic might ask, but which a poet would give little consideration to, because nothing inhibits the spirit of poetic adventure more than too close an awareness of the technical guardrails or the goal of your work in progress.

' The natural progress of language, if left, as it were, to itself, 

is a progress from poetic towards prosaic.'

 
CARROT REVIEW - 4/8

ARTICLE - Flag Shagging For England

 

In recent years in the UK, there have been demonstrations by far right activists, swaddling themselves in St George flags, carrying them like medieval knights on horseback, hundreds of flags suddenly bedecking road lamp posts across the countries boulevards and roundabouts. The flag of St George have always been prominent at times of national and international football and rugby competitions. This recent development seems to further extend its use, in a defiant reclaiming of the flag of England as the representative emblem of not just national, but racial pride. This comes wrapped in unsettling ideas of brutish white supremacy and the inevitable intolerant stirring of the pot of racist anti- immigrant sentiment. Often further dressed up in pseudo Christian virtues, as though the St George flag is the first bastion of a new moral crusade.

As ever, the English have lampooned the thing they hate and that concerns them the most. Coming up with a barbed term to describe the sort of person who attended these rallies. It is still being grammatically determined -  To Flag Shagg = the act - Flag-Shagger = the person who commits the act - Flagshagging - the collective act. So 'flag-shagging' has been conceived from the very start as a derogatory one. There is a good deal of liberal middle class social prejudice behind all of this. A view of the far right being largely the purview of poorly educated working class football hooligans, bouncers, boxers and brickies, who live off benefits and have far too much time on their hands. It's the old working class as dangerous destructive demons, forever putting their over burdened backs to the service of fascism.

Most of the demonstrators, and the areas where flags were being shagged, it has to be said, have appeared to be working class ones. There has been a consistent vein in English politics, Moseley in the 1930's, then the National Front in the 1970's & 80"s and a further resurgence after Brexit, of far right politics speaking to the experience of the white working class when they are no longer just about managing, but feeling abandoned, completely left behind economically and ignored by political leaders. The ruling elites leave a wide open space vacant for the far right to move into, channeling disruptive anger and frustration into protest. Flag shagging, like fascism, is not at all new.  You could almost predict that something like this will happen, given the near collapse of neo-liberal democracy.

As adventurers ( invariably male) set out on journeys of conquest and consequence, when they reached their goal, climbed that mountain, conquered that castle, landed upon the moon, founded a new settlement, these acts of heroism were often topped with a flag being planted. And that flag has meant a great deal, we claim this, we've been here, this is ours now, now it belongs to us we shall be proud to live here. And as the flag is raised some may salute it, respect it, love it, have pride in it, as though this were etched upon the very shadow of their soul. The British Empire was the nexus for flag shaggers, past and present. There has been a long and venerable history, of flag shagging for England.

That our modern day flag shaggers say that the flag of St George, and flags in general, need salvaging from the twin curses of modern day cynicism and historical revisionism over English atrocities committed during Empire. This holds a very tiny grain of truth. Though in the end flags are just flags, they fly high, they fly low, they flag things up. We all need to feel confidence in our country. For some flags come dressed in that confidence, which others feel to be faux and misguided. 

If flags are to be the object of pride, then the country does have to prove worthy of it. Flagshagging cannot save us from our disappointments, frustrations and the loss of confidence in the history and institutions of our country. Those institutions need to be run by better people, we need to be better as a people. It is perhaps no coincidence that in this moment when our national morale is low, our national morals are low too. When the more scurrilous and opportunistic of politicians offer us solutions to this decline of our country, those solutions are inherently immoral ones. Our moral compass is regularly being fucked over for political advantage.

When morals are confused, damaged, or at a low ebb, pride tends to be too. There is a general race to the lowest commonality. Clinging to a flag does little to change the sense of a loss of moral clarity. Morals, pride and respect, as a triumvirate, interact, they all have to be earned, not assumed. The object of them has to be worthy of having them placed upon their shoulders. You cannot place pride on a wobbly pedestal nor fly a flag up a broken pole. That little today feels worthy of respect or pride, is undoubtedly one root of our problem. Raising the flag of St George can seem like an act of hapless optimism, however morally dubious the reason for it maybe when examined in detail. It's like hiding a deep purple bruise under a small transparent sticking plaster. I understand the feeling, even if I do not agree with the analysis of what's gone wrong in our country. Irrespective of our racial origin, ethnicity and immigration status, in the UK we all live in semi isolated ghettos of our own making, self alienating and selfishly individualistic, focused upon our own particular sense of identity.  Other people, other citizens of England, who hold other beliefs, express other viewpoints, differing from our own, they have all become 'foreigners' to us. And this is our self evident tragedy.

So, it is not just the flag shaggers who feel the sense of a loss of unity and pride. We all feel it. We all hold our pet theories about how and why this has come about, in our country and in our culture. We all spout our favourite scapegoats and hobby horses. Whilst there is common cause in its general theme - that there is an urgent need to renew the country as a whole,morally, economically, culturally and spiritually. Some look to a much mythologised past era for their inspiration, a time when things were rosier, apparently simpler and the country seemed to them to feel more united and cohesive. Others just wish we'd move on from such mythical nonexistent pasts and get on with forging a new reinvigorated sense of purpose and vision. This is part of what has gone wrong, that we disagree about these things in so polarised a manner, so we never get to work out how things might be collectively changed for the better benefit of everyone. 

Now, I'll admit I am not a natural 'flag shagger', if anything I am by instinct, wary and suspicious of such things, and have not felt hugely patriotic for literally countless decades, and yes, I could easily be catagorised as 'woke'. But both of these derogatory terms 'flag shagging' and 'woke' do not help any one. They don't actually explain or mean anything useful to know. They simply designate a response that closes a discussion down, it says - I'm not going to listen to you. Whilst we are all individually still seeking something or someone who will be a moral exemplar, give us firm leadership, in the midst of this sea of turmoil and animosity. Though that podium, as yet, remains empty.

Our knee jerk reactions reveal our need for moral clarity. When we encounter a moral failing or dodgy belief or action in anyone, we have become instantly heartless and puritanical, they are dead meat, persona non grata, banished from the kingdom, exiled to the online naughty chair. We are constantly trying to draw firm moral lines, but these are so prejudicial, so harmfully or hatefully judgemental, they seriously lack wisdom, the ability to tolerate or have compassionate understanding.  Though there are people, whether 'flag shaggers' or 'woke', who do hold hateful unconscionable views. England will be trashed if we cannot locate a way to transcend, or at least learn to live productively with differing viewpoints, and find common cause beyond the contentious nature of polarised positions.

We undoubtedly have a surfeit of nihilistic prophets of doom. And maybe the Flag Shaggers will always be with us, because they do come as an advance warning.

Where are the enlightened visionaries today, to bring us the hope we most need?

POEM - Borrowed Words

I'm seeing myself through 

childhood's eyes my toys

cast across the bedroom floor

with the accompanying magical

folklore from my errant dreaming

my rolling chassis is still

as unsure as a newborn babes

for what appears purposeful 

and godlike has assumed this gate 

from the rubble I stumbled upon

The words that I say are 

half beliefs half cut with

bluster a type of blagging

obtained cheaply imbibed

from the erudition of libraries

This mind stuffed with pocketed

borrowings that I will leave behind 

as a trail of cellophane wrappers 

from around my humbugs

the legacy of having once eaten 

Far more than was needed to survive by

Written by Stephen Lumb
March-April 2026

SCREEN SHOT - Exit 8

We are on a crowded train in the underground. A man by the carriage doors is listening to Ravel's Bolero on his ear buds. As he looks down the carriage to where a baby is crying. It's Mother is struggling to comfort it. A standing passenger, starts shouting and berating her for not doing more to quieten the child. He becomes increasingly agitated and rudely insults the seated woman. Just as the train pulls into a station, the man by the carriage door receives a phone call. It's a former girlfriend, she is in hospital, she has just given birth to a baby boy, who is his son. She wants to know whether he wants to be actively involved in bringing him up or not. As he exits the carriage the man is in a panic, he's coughing a lot, he reaches for his inhaler as he climbs the steps, heading for Exit 8. But as he progresses along the empty underground corridor it becomes clear he is going round and round the same circuit of tunnels, ending back at the same point. He is getting no nearer to Exit 8. Just one driven man with a briefcase keeps repeatedly passing him. What is happening here? becomes the question that preoccupies both the man and the viewer of the film.

This Japanese movie from 2025, directed by Genki Kawamura, is a psychological nightmarish drama. Taking the frequent premise of our nightmares of being caught in a situational loop, it takes its time to build it's world and the twisted incomprehensible logic of it. If indeed it has any. It's the sort of movie that leaves you pondering on what is occurring here, was this actually happening, or is it just his dreamworld, or a psychological conundrum he needs to work out before he can move on? Are all the people he encounters in the corridors simply aspects of his own psyche? Based on a computer game from 2023, Exit 8, the movie, exhibits all the recognisable tropes of being derived from that genre, but is not a slave to them, and actually makes something that is intriguing intellectually, which also engages you emotionally.  It is simultaneously a comment on the modern urban Japanese work ethic, where you can feel like you are trapped in this endless tragic life cycle day after day. And subtly drops a few comments and asides as the movie progresses. The driven man with the briefcase being once referred to as 'a monster'. The Escher poster on the corridor wall acts as a background motif for the whole movie, with it's number eight shaped loop.

The movie at just over ninety minutes long,  makes the most of this relatively contained time span. Just when you think you are becoming used to whatever is going on here, it suddenly upends the nature of it. If you are the sort of person who wanted to work out what was going on in the Matrix movies, this movie might give you something juicy to chew over. But putting aside all of that, this is a very effectively made and satisfying piece of film making, that I thoroughly enjoyed.

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

SHERINGHAM DIARY NO 138 - Faking Shelves & Core Strengths

We were in a queue for a till in Lidl. The customer before us was paying for what looked like the weekly shop. Her daughter still in her school uniform, was doing her best to help pack the stuff they'd bought from.the conveyor belt into the supermarket trolley. Her Mum, tetchily asked ' What do you think you are you doing?' To which her daughter replies 'I'm trying to arrange it all neatly' The Mum replies "There's no point, let it be a mess' and as if to demonstrate, executed a dramatic sweep of a whole load of stuff into the trolley with one arm. I guess you might say that was a life lesson.

Strange Advert Question - ' Throat ruining your moment?'

Finished getting all the cupboard doors back on last week, Hurrah!  Painting and varnishing all the cupboard crates Prairie Sage, Double Hurrah !!  I was waiting all week for the arrival of a device to scan one wall for electric wires. Once it did arrive it became clear that one quarter of that wall was a veritable warren of wires, right where some hanging shelf supports were supposed to go. Initially deflated and Grrr frustrated. Hubby came up with a way around that holds the shelf that side on small brackets screwed into the cupboard next door to it. Still looks like it's hung on metal suspension hangers, because we are faking it to look so. Job done.

We decided a while ago that the wall just to the left of our far from salubrious half working oven, which before our repainting was a fat bespattered Pollock, needed a splashback fitted. After further thought we settled on simply extending the existing tiling to cover that area. All we needed to do was find some more tiles similar to ours. You might have thought that easy to do, to find some 10cm square slighting bumpy finished white tiles. But say not so. After a fruitless trip to B&Q in Fakenham, we shlepped over to Cromer to Tile Depot, where we asked about whether they had any such tiles. The way he said '10cm' was as though we'd just asked him whether the world was truly flat, which quickly made it plain we'd be getting nowhere here. Even online they appear to have become semi- mythical. Not completely exhausted all local possibilities, but we are not getting close to finding any as yet. The kitchen final completion date is pushed further beyond conjecture.. 

In A Health Advert - And thirty days later my neighbours are asking me what I've done to my knees.

Meanwhile, I am in the process of sanding back an IKEA drop leaf table in the kitchen. We've had it eight years, and the strange plasticated varnish has badly worn away in places.  It's made of segments of wood laminated together, our kitchen shelves were made similarly. And I noticed that once you varnish them they're so parched they suck the varnish in like a hungry incubus. I'm guessing this is to do with the laminating process. It helped to lightly dampen the wood before applying my first coat of varnish, I've discovered. Given the amount of time it takes to get the old varnish off, and the five or six coats of varnish it requires to get a decent level of finish, I'm willing to be content with the way it is turning out. It's not perfect, but it will certainly pass as OK. Another thing drops of the to do list, which is finally reaching the last dregs of stuff dreamt up in a feverish brainstorm we had three months ago. What's left to do? The splashback obviously, and a major internal clean of our partially decrepit oven. Which may include replacing an oven fan, which is very easy to do, so my husband says. Why do I feel a rising skepticism that that will be the case?  Experience man, past experience with this project.

For whatever reason I've had stretches of poor sleep lately, followed by a few good nights, that are never quite consistent enough to fully compensate for the previous sleep deficit. Morning meditations after about twenty minutes of sitting, have of late quietly slipped into a half hour coda of slumber.  From which I awake still in meditation posture and resting hand mudra, just a little ashamed of my very satisfying slumber Interlude. One I totally failed to notice and hence prevent. Mindfulness where art thou now?

You Tube Podcast Title - The No 1 Anti-Aging Vegetable 

I've been experimenting as part of my morning tai chi and exercise routine by adding in a round or two that strengthen my core back muscles, which appear to be helping quieten down the perpetually inflamed nature of my hip joints, that has been bothering me all winter. Sometimes it seems, that it's a matter of discovering what works best at relieving one's panoply of aches and pains. Obviously the underlying decrepitude of my joints is never going fully. I can imagine myself in some future care home performing this elaborate range of accumulated exercises that has gradually taken over my whole day. And my life will then feel fulfilled with - something.

Advert Tag Line Taken Completely Out of Context - Goodbye Gush Worries

I have been buying music on download for many years. Beginning back in the day when they lured you off CD's by offering you a CD & MP3 in one combined bargain purchase.  I Tunes would also allow you to download your CD's onto their music platform. The only thing I found was that some of those CD file downloads would abruptly cease working, usually after Apple did some digital upgrade. As with all things internet, the initial freedom and flexibility offered, gradually gets narrowed down bit by bit, until it's fully enshittified. As my CD collection is 200+,  downloading all of it is quite a task, and I've done that a few times now. But no more. I've bought myself a CD player, that you can also stream music on. I've rediscovered the joys of playing music, which has a depth and range of sounds that is richer and more panoramic. 

I'm realising how impoverished my ears have been. The desire for portability and convenience, leading to the limited acoustics ear buds are capable of. I can understand why there is a revival of interesting vinyl, because for all its practical downsides, the reproduction of sound was always way better than even that on CD's. It's one of those technological trade offs we often find ourselves having made unthinkingly. Whilst Apple currently let you play the downloads you've purchased for free via its I Tunes platform, what's the betting they'll eventually make it a premium service you pay a month subscription for access to. It will be that fait accompli or you'll have to tolerate an increasing level of adverts, that will make listening quietly to your own music a thing of the past. 

Misplaced Adjective Advert - Find Your New Fast.

LISTENING TO - Getting Killed by Geese

The production on Getting Killed is one major factor in this albums apparent cohesiveness. It has, overall, a rather clean sounding acoustic, as though this were recorded live to give it a punch, with little further unnecessary embellishment required. It's shorn of showy bombast or overly studio based effects, everything originates with the dynamics of a tight band of folk playing together. So whenever it does get raucously worked up, as it does on the album opener Trinidad, or later in Bow Down, the acoustic cacophony and mess is all the more to be relished. As though this trickster demon has taken over the band and is set on causing destructive mayhem. But all this is a carefully created acoustic deception, put down on this recording. They sound like this small local indie band, that's putting in its application early to make stadium grade.

Cobra - Geese

Camaron Winter's vocals are noticeably never allowed to be subsumed under anything that is going on around them. Because so much of the feverish energy present erupts from out of his larynx. There are many touchstones stylistically that are referenced here. Winter's vocal style here at times is reminiscent of Rufus Wainwright or the Violent Femmes. Lyrically he has moments when he conjures with the spirit of unease present in early Nick Cave,  bellowing about 'there's a bomb in my car' on Trinidad or in the phrasing and emphasis of 'bow down down down to Maria's dead bones' on Bow Down. 

Half Real - Geese

It is one of the minor miracles of this album that even when the sound touches on such influences or established styles like blues for instance, it uses them simply as jumping off points to transcend or abruptly take them somewhere totally unexpected and original. There is frequently something delightfully fiddly and percussive going on, flamenco hand claps or a guitar loosely jangling like a bell, that gives the sound an improvisatory, yet still with a propulsive edge.

Bow Down - Geese

Getting Killed is not a sound nor an album that reveals all its treasures in one listen. My appreciation for how good this album could be, has only grown with each repeated listen. Because you do have to give yourself time just to tune in to the vibe of where it's coming from. But once reached, there is much to be gorged upon.

Long Island City Here I Come - Geese

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

RANDOM SNIPPETS - No 6 - Chasing The Dream Of The Ideal Body

I do my resistance band exercises every other day. I am noticing, though initially done as a fitness thing to restore muscle mass, it can lean into being a project that has underneath it bulging muscles of vanity running through it. The ideal of having the perfect fit body, whatever you imagine that to be, can take over your much milder ambitions. If this obsession with physical appearance was allowed to grow further, it could become ever more unreal in its assessments. In what it makes of how you look, and what your ambitions for that perfect body appear to be. This may start with the laudable aim of being fitter and healthier, but leave you chasing the mythic dream of the ideal bodily form. And you do see these men on You Tube who are seventy, with the well toned body of a man thirty years younger. What you do not see is how much of their life they have devoted to this aim. And as a sixty eight year old man, obtaining, let alone maintaining, the perfect form with my aging physique, can only be called somewhat delusional. And it's a vanity that is unbecoming, if indulged in. Also, I have better things to do.

How you perceive your actual physical body, is always going to be, to a degree, distorted. Zeroing in and amplifying all those visible imperfections. We can so quickly stop seeing the real body before us with true honesty. We succumb to a disease of the imagination that perverts our perceptions. Fed by psychological insecurities and idiosyncrasies born from our vanity, plus the desire to bolster our self respect. So today, even a perfectly handsome young guy, who might see himself in the mirror as being undesirable, works hard in the gym to have the most attractive body. This attempt to compensate for the apparent 'defect' of feeling ordinary looking,  undoubtedly will make him feel better about himself. This is fine, should it stop at that. However, diseases of the imagination can lean into real eating phobias like anorexia and bulemia. I'd say, one could now add the skeletal 'Ozempic' body to that list. Also, at the other end of the spectrum are the sort of muscle bound bodies that have been so excessively pumped up by exercise, their muscle mass resembles clusters of over inflated beach balls, about to explode. These too, seem to me, to be fueled by a similar imaginative defect. Where perceptions of the physical body have become warped.

I'm aware of the need in myself to maintain some clearsightedness about my own physical body image. What I see this body to be, and what I imagine it could be. To apprehend ,appreciate and respect my physical appearance, simply as it is. Imperfect no doubt, when squeezed through the narrow perspective of an ideal. It should remain closely aligned with actuality. Grounded in a frank but humane realism of my advancing age. Do I want to leave behind a beautiful corpse or a beautiful life, when I die? 

An edited and further elaborated version of my Study Journal for the 7th February 2026

FINISHED READING - Another Country by James Baldwin

Another Country begins and ends in the alternative creative culture of jazz clubs, the low life and sexual permissiveness of late fifties New York. The first quarter of the book tells you about the life of a young black man Rufus in the last years of his life. All his friends love him deeply, but fear his temper and violent dark side. He is a brilliant jazz player and is undoubtedly a charismatic, but deeply troubled man. All his sexual affairs leave a broken and abused lover behind them. Rufus cannot help himself, he doesn't know why he behaves in cruel and self destructive ways towards the people he loves. His current lover Leona, a white woman, is besotted with him, but has to suffer repeated and increasingly more intense beatings and coercive behaviour. She loves Rufus and persists in the belief she can save him from himself. The dichotomy between that love and the constant betrayal of that love, gradually turns Leona mad, and she's incarcerated in an asylum. Rufus, blames himself and his inability to take control of his errant impulses. No one, apart from maybe his friend Vivaldo, appears willing to help. In a moment of deep despair, Rufus kills himself as the only way he can see to resolve things. 

And this individual tragic story sets the emotional background for what follows. Characters we simply were introduced to in the opening chapter now assume centre stage. Richard is married with kids to Cass. He is an author whose career is on the rise to fame, but the relationship is foundering, they don't appear to like each other anymore. And not just because Cass doesn't believe Richard will ever be that good a writer.  Vivaldo, is an aspiring writer and former friend of Rufus, who is in love with Ida. Rufus's sister. Ida is a tough fiercely independent woman with the beginnings of a career as a singer. All Vivaldo's previous relationships were in someway unsatisfying and this impacted on his ability to focus on developing his writing. His relationship with Ida is no different, plagued as it is by jealousy and mistrust, that he is reluctant to fully give in to. Eric, who originally left to escape a brutally destructive affair with Rufus, returns to  New York from Paris after four years away, with his young black lover Yves due to follow soon. 

The remainder of the novel explores the promiscuous nature of these characters sexual explorations. The way they hurt and betray their lovers, and the fall outs, both major and minor, that result. Each person grasping for some elusive insights, to form a personal resolution for them. All too aware that any relationship has elements of compensating for unmet needs, that have nothing to do with the person you are in love with.

Baldwin builds this dense world of intimacies, where black men love white women, white women love black men, hetrosexual women and men have affairs with bi-sexual men. The novel is full of bed hopping relationships, infidelity, unrealistic expectations, jealousy, envy, unmet desires, people trying to understand what it is they want, what they are looking for in a lover. And it all fluidly unfolds throughout the book. The novel shifts from one treacherously entangled relationship, teetering on the edge of shattering, to another. Some of the pages of dialogue exploring their feelings go on at long and often quite unproductively rambling length. And, if I'm being honest, I don't  know anyone who talks about their feelings and relationships in this way. I had to work really hard to stay with the story as it's focus kept shifting around so much, which I found unsettling as I was reading. 

The view of inter-racial relationships that Baldwin presents us with here, is that white people have no idea what the life experience of black people is really like. There is inevitably a gap between lovers, a lack of comprehension of what it's like for a black person to be in a mixed race relationship. Despite the depth of the love, it feels an unequal one. But the inability to fully understand another person's experience and world view is not confined just to ones race, but also to different gender and to other sexual orientations, religions and ways of being. Other people are generally like another country to us, we love them, we befriend them, but can never fully understand anyone. We assume that we do know. Yet everyone senses immediately when they've been seen and understood for who they truly are. 

This book really revolves, not around Rufus, but his close friend Vivaldo who is frequently the still point who all the characters return to, in the midst of a chaos of their own making. Vivaldo, almost because of his own trials, tries not to judge, but just to love them all the best he can.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

POETRY - Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass No 32 (extract)

"I think I could turn and live with animals,
they are so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied,
not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another,
nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth."

Walt Whitman

(Extract from Leaves of Grass No 32)