FEATURE - A Day In The Life Of An Enshitificator

I recently came across this video by the Norwegian Consumer Council, which I rather love. It somehow manages to be endearing about a subject matter that is actually really concerning.

SHERINGHAM DIARY NO 138 - Everyday Horariums

On the Park n Ride bus travelling in to Norwich centre, a little boy, was perched on his Father's lap. He'd been told to look out for the Castle, and was excitedly trying to be the first to spot it. Without really knowing, apparently, exactly what the castle, or any castle for that matter, looked like. So every grand looking building we passed he'd yell ' there's the castle', to which his Dad said ' No, that's not the castle' and the boy asked what was it then, and his Dad somewhat befuddled blurted out ' Oh, I don't know, but that's not the castle.'  And this went around the exact same cycle of call and response several times, before the bus eventually pulled up right beneath the castle bailey.

Copyright - Paul Bommer

We were in Norwich on a few errands, including a far from necessary visit for me to Book Hive. I came away with two books, so I was restrained. But also we came to see bits of The Queer Fest events. A market of LGBT+ craft makers in The Forum, felt a bit like time travelling back to the 1970's with slogans, badges and lots of agit prop ephemera, rainbows on everything, ever so slightly naughty, horny and amateurishly homespun. Baggy mohair jumpers, dungarees, lurid hair colours, you get the picture. This tacky alternative culture, felt slightly disappointing, in that we are still doing this type of stuff.  The Queer Fest exhibition at the Anteros Gallery in Bridge Street was much better. The best thing was Paul Bommer's painted ceramic plates etc, executed in the style of delftware, but the subject matter was more explicit than traditional. My favourite was entitled A Gay Drop In Centaur, which portrayed exactly that. Such wit and irreverence, is really in short supply these days. He's well worth searching out you'll find his website here - Paul Bommer

A friend recently loaned me a book by Ronald Blythe. In it I came across a term that I think could prove useful, it's called 'ground truthing'. It originally comes from modern cartography, 'ground truthing' is the need to cross check remotely sensed technological data, ariel or satellite imagery, with the actual physical circumstances on the ground. It''s become a general term used for whenever you need to test an abstract theory against the practical reality. It struck me as being what the Buddha asked his followers to do with his teachings, to test the truth of them in the ground of their own experience.  'Ground truthing' feels even more important these days, with our AI bedraggled information servers, faked imagery, algorithmic beset world. Where everything is delivered to us via a suspect and manipulated technological intermediary. When your computer just serves you what it thinks you want to see, hear or already believe, identifying where the truth of a matter lies has become extraordinarily valuable, not that this is easy to establish.  So, ground truth the hell out of it, I say.

I was sat at table in Cornish Bakery, whilst Hubby placed and collected our order. For me, the usual Cornish Pudding with a side of Oat Latte. It was extremely busy, so bagsying your table before ordering proved essential. Two, thirty something women, one American, one English, did likewise and plonked themselves on a table just by ours.  Their animated discussion came around to what they should order. The English woman piped up, brightly bushy eyed, like a hyper active puppy ' Have you tried a Chai Latte. Mmmm, It's a must have.'

In Iran we have the unprincipled executing the unspeakable. I mean what the world needs now is two wannabee autocratic western dictators bombing the hell out of a middle eastern autocratic regime, and doing so in order to help democracy along.  No one is mentioning weapons of mass destruction this time, cos, it has unpleasant associations of the last time the US thought it could sort out the world, and made it worse instead. They will leave Iran in a huge mess, throw them a dust pan and brush, and say 'here make yourself a democracy out of streets of rubble- Bye!'

As many regular readers of this blog will know, I have an erratic sleep pattern. I know I am not alone in this. I could waste a paragraph or two here, listing all the numerous factors that may cause me to have a restless night. But take it for granted you have better things to do than listen to a catalogue of my moans and self justifications. For a number of years I've been attempting to cultivate a more equanimous relationship with insomnia. This is how it is, and being in a state of frustrated anxiety around it, though perfectly understandable, really doesn't appear to help. Staying relatively calm and not getting too fraught, is better. Hostility helps no one, so I've stopped doom scrolling the self help cures for insomnia tips. Turned a deaf ear to the unhelpful information about it shortening your life. Chilled out about whatever unspeakable time in the morning it was. This is not to imply I don't have my bad mornings, when I feel as though I'm dragging myself around like a half drowned rat. I do, dear reader, I do. But these pass, just so long as I can leave them alone, and don't stoke the embers of 'poor me' self pity too much.

A bit of medieval bedtime reading

Recently it dawned on me that my sleep routine has more than a passing resemblance to a monastic horarium. A sequence of stages in the night, where a monk would rise to pray or perform a devotional ritual. One of those, Lauds, happens between 2 and 3 am, a common time of awakening. This coincides with the actually rhythm of the sleep cycle we have, Apparently we naturally lift out of deep sleep around this time. The thing to note here, is that it's not freakish nor unhelpful necessarily to be awake at this time of night. After many years of filling my early risings with internet scrolling and binge watching detective series. I decided this was not a great set up for my general mental state, so I put a stop to all that. Now what I do is I have breakfast, write in a Study Journal, read the dharma, meditate and round it all off with a session of Tai Chi. 

I have been known to take a nap after this, and can, if the winds are favourable, attain an additional one or two hours sleep. So on a good night, I may have combined around seven to eight hours sleep, without making too big a fuss about it. A long unbroken period of sleep can indeed be really satisfying. But it's a mistake to turn that into an ideal. Aiming for unbroken sleep is, I've found, not necessarily the most helpful thing to expect of yourself, when insomnia is an issue. I am finding it personally more useful to lean in to what is actually happening, in as unforced and kindly way as possible. 

Whilst waiting in a queue in the Norwich branch of Sostrene Green, an elderly couple standing next to us were having a bit of an argy bargy. He was all gruff vocal noises grinding away incessantly wittering in her ear. The subject matter of this conversation remained incoherent to me. But when she struck up in reply, it rang out emphatically and crystal clear - ' I cannot fathom why you would say such a thing, I am so, NOT in denial'

The kitchen revamp, slash repaint, continues to make slow progress. The decorating part of it has dragged on far far longer than expected, similar to a conversation with someone who doesn't pick up on the visual signs that you want to leave. I've had nearly a dozen cupboard doors to repaint. Initially this meant heat gunning the vinyl shell off, priming and then four coats of heavy duty paint. But the cupboard paint proved to be not that durable to even the most minor of knocks. So I had to start spray varnishing them, which has added yet another time consuming level to the already lengthy process. This has, I'll admit, turned it into one long and somewhat tedious task. I have had days, when I've felt trapped in a relentless production line. Emotional struggles aside, the end is in sight, but curiously its always at this point where time appears to be most dragging it's heels. Maintaining engagement and managing my energy have become my two guiding practices. It's a slow steady process, be slow and steady alongside it, not wishing for it to be quicker, when it won't be.

As we left town travelling back to the Park n Ride, we passed a very familiar junction called The Boundary. A strange little island around which traffic circulates, even though it's not really a roundabout. Plonked in the middle is a huge Indian Curry Restaurant, that has been there for decades and decades. Though this has been through at least three different iterations and names in the eight years we've been here. The current owner has chosen to rename it - JOYS SPICE.  I am, however, still awaiting an apostrophe or something to indicate exactly how I am supposed to interpret what that means.

FAVE RAVE - Small Prophets

Micheal Sleep (Pearce Quigley) is a man living a life half awake to the world outside it. Half working in a DIY store where he actively spreads misinformation about buckets having gone out of use. Half waiting, seven years after her unexplained disappearance, for his wife Claire to return. Everything in his home is left in a state of suspension. His Father ( Micheal Palin) who is in a care home, suggests to his son that he dig out an old folder about homunculi that he once grew in jars. These small prophetic emanations, maybe able to tell him whether Claire is still alive, let alone whether she still loves him. And so he starts cultivating them in his dilapidated garage.

Small Prophets is a beautifully conceived piece of eccentric whimsy written by Mackenzie Crook. Like in Detectorists, his previous cult hit, he manages to capture the essence and lonely obsessiveness of the modern single man. Who becomes consumed by one idea or activity to the point of loosing touch with ordinary reality.  Existing inside this sub-realm hermetically sealed off from other, apparently more sane, people.  Over its six episodes, Small Prophets slowly captures your imagination and your devotion.

It's filled with lovely details in its script. Michael's house and garden is a wildly unkempt mess, that his nosey parker neighbour's are simultaneously both intrigued and incensed by.  The teenage boy who is shown repeatedly cycling around and around the close. Michael's ineffectual manager at the DIY store, (Mackenzie Crook) constantly strokes his long pony tail behind his back, whilst having no real control over his workforce, and is obsessed with them 'taking their breaks'. The way Micheal adopts his Father's emphatic insistence that the beings in the jars are not little people ' they are homunculi '. The locked room in the house where Micheal has preserved a detailed recreation of a 1970's Christmas for his absent wife to come back to.

The premise sounds distinctly odd when written down, but this series has ooodles of charm and a lightly salted satirical humour, that does really grow on you. With these occasionally deeply touching moments that just pop out at you out of the blue. Like all Mackenzie Crook's writing Small Prophets has a warm gently beating heart at the centre of it, that we can all identify with.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

SHERINGHAM DIARY NO 137 - Them Philistines They Fight Pretty Dirty

Imagine, if you will, you want to build an extension onto your house. You draw up your planning application and all goes smoothly until you actually start digging the footings. Your neighbour suddenly objects to you removing a tree that is partially on their property. After some discussion you agree on a mutually agreeable way forward. What you would never expect would be that the way forward agreed upon would be to cut the tree vertically in half.

Well, we reluctantly return to the denouement of the democratically shabby tale of the Sheringham Bus Shelter. Norfolk County Council pulled out of the Transport Hub development in a fit of pique before Christmas. Since then there has been virtual radio silence. Only the shocking revelation that the public consultation had actually shown widespread public dislike of the whole project, not the wholehearted endorsement the NCC portrayed it as. Our Town Council has, in the meantime, been attempting to find a way forward with the NCC that does take into account the protesters concerns. Suddenly a planning proposal was likely. Though there was an air of sheepishness and a disconcerting lack of confidence in what they'd come up with. When the proposal was published, I was stunned and incensed. They wanted to incorporate the old 1950's Bus Shelter by cutting off the front half of it. The protesters understandably shouted 'Betrayal'.

Which incandescently insensitive and stupid individual came up with this idea, we shall probably never know. What was, however, very recognisable, was the same old NCC trait of attempting to draw a firm line under this proposals, as being the only viable option. Yet another fait accompli delivered. Well, viability depends upon how you chose to frame the criteria. There is a genuine, relatively minor inconvenience, with the old bus stop, that in the summer season the pavement becomes clogged with waiting people and people getting off buses, so casual pedestrians who just wants to pass by cannot easily get through. Widening the pavement would however entail the removal of the old bus shelter, that was the offending part of the previous proposal.

You might think, like many before me, that the ideal solution would be to move and relocate the old bus shelter further back. But like everyone in this country who offers an opinion about the financing of local infrastructure projects, none of us have a clue how much these ideas actually cost to carry out, and are universally appalled when we are told. You can hear the gammons now, declaiming - Couldn't this be better spent on the NHS?  The cost of moving the bus shelter, according to the NCC, is estimated at an additional £100,000, which they say they do not have. But what they mean by this, is that they are not willing to look for how that money might be found. Were the bus shelter already a listed building, they could apply for funding to help with it's preservation. But it's not, so you can literally do anything you want to it, demolish it, or cut it in half apparently.

If one were of a conspiratorial mindset, one might be left suspecting that cutting it in half is actually another manifestation of spitefulness. They literally went halfway to meet the protestors demands. This now festering conservative administration currently in the last month's of running Norfolk County Council, before they are resoundingly turfed out in May. To be replaced, no doubt, by the uniquely 'bull in a china shop' incompetence of a Reform party surge. So I hold out no hope for a more responsive administration. 

What happened here, in my opinion, was a planning authority attempting to use stipulations meant to judge new build applications, being insensitively applied to an older building. So we have pavement ease of access issues, wheelchair access issues. But all of these issues are already being addressed by the spanking new bus shelter that is still going to be built a few yards along from the old bus shelter. So why couldn't the old bus shelter just be left as it is, with all its accessibility inconsistencies. Because the planning department are inflexible and insist on compliance to strictures, that cannot be realistically fully achieved other than by the removal or a bastardised compromise, of the offending building. The Town Council met and discussed whether to approve this new plan. Which they duly did, so they did not hold their nerve and swallowed their integrity, which is pretty much in tatters anyway over their flip flopping. The NCC are pretty much hated and distrusted around here now all the more. So I wish them luck the next time they submit plans for public consultation.  

Bus Shelter already boxed up just in case

Is half an old bus shelter really better than none? Has this contentiousness over a undistinguished little bus shelter, really been worth of all this effort? What does it say about the ability of local government to take local concerns seriously? Was this upset a disproportionate and overly sentimental response in the first place? Is there a way through and beyond disagreements, that does not result in vilifying one side in opposition to the supposed virtuousness of another? Was something unhealthy formed out of the misappropriation of righteousness? I have to now let that go, to let it be whatever it will now be. The time for everyone involved to move on has arrived.

2026 PLAYLIST - No 6 - I Had A Dream She Took My Hand by James Blake

James Blake - I had a dream she took my hand

The second track to be released from James Blake's upcoming album Trying Times, I Had A Dream She Took My Hand, is on the surface, one ravishingly simple song. With its fifties doo wop style backing singers shimmying deeply within the mix. It is, nonetheless, infused with Blake's characteristic plaintive vocals, and fish tank orchestrations. This has the feel of something that is both contemporary and the evocation of some dreamy nostalgia that exists only in the post modern imagination. Following on after The Death of Love, this bodes well for the album, that he himself is already trumpeting as his best.  

I Had A Dream She took My Hand, takes place in this imaginative fantasy of a love affair that may or may not yet be happening in reality.  But given it's literal musical echoes of both past and present swirling around in its pool of yearning, this song luxuriates entirely in its internalised state of cultivated intoxication, which visualises a love requited. In the hands of a less sensitive artist, it might these days appear unconsciously creepy. But Blake's pure vocal lines maintain a healthy line of dreamy innocence, of an uncomplicated love seeking a hand to hold. 

2026 PLAYLIST - Beam Down by Scientist (1981)

This is such a fine piece of Dub, from its 80's golden era. I've been rather addictively playing it all week. Taken from the album Meets The Space Invaders, Beam Down opens the proceedings. Scientist was a true innovator in a very crowded field of Dubsters, in that he was prepared to go that little bit further than everyone else would. On Bean Down, it has this ambling almost gently walking rhythm over which the hardest most explosive dub is being executed. At points you are just hearing the dub, the tune has gone, completely buried under the riotous cacophony. Almost pure noise for noises sake, avant garde dub of a peerless variety. In amongst my more contemporary pieces, this three minutes plus stands the test of time. Dub is ageless.

FINISHED READING - The Private Lives of the Saints by Janina Ramirez

Janina Ramirez opens the book with a question - What was a saint in Anglo Saxon England? Whilst today we might envisage a saint as someone extremely holy, pious and a moral exemplar. To the post Roman world of England, a saint could actually be quite a controversial person, exhibiting a troubling mix of behaviours, both good and bad. Who became a saint was dependent upon, and indeed bequeathed by, their belonging to an elite class. Not necessarily by any reputational standing in the wider society. There were many reasons for someone to be declared a saint. Broadly they'd achieved something which changed and reformed the direction their society took, in a significant way. And this may or may not have been solely a matter of religious practice.

The Private Lives of the Saints, as a title is slightly misleading, because what is written here is not really about revealing their intimate private lives. It's what is known, the stuff that was out in the public arena at the time, whatever survived to be noted in documentary, historical or archeological form. Because this is the era of the Anglo-Saxons we are talking about here, that is notoriously thin on written history and leaves few traces in the ground. Much of what they created was bio-degradable by nature. They were also not a widely literate society. 

From 450 through to 1066 there was a gradual emergence from this informational black hole, but it was slow. Ramirez has hence chosen her saints carefully, as examples of how the very concept of sainthood adjusted during this period. They mark significant points in both the development of sainthood and the broader society. And as we advance through, who they were and what they actually did, becomes less a matter of dissecting the myth or hagiography looking for something that maybe verifiably true. Until it becomes an examinable history and a legacy one can have more of an informed opinion about.

So the first saints on her list, St Alban and St Brigid presented as actual living figures, are seemingly semi mythical archetypes. St Alban, as England's first martyr and saint, emerges from the chaos of a Roman Empire in decline, about to retreat from the British Isles altogether. St Alban performs the archytypal saintmaking act, of dying for his faith. And yet that Christian faith appears to have been inflected with elements that were pagan or Roman in origin. We are still in an era where Christianity could still go through periods of persecution. And martyrdom on the basis of your faith, remained a realistic cross for you to die on and become a saint through. St Brigid, however, though reported to have founded institutions and influenced the development of Celtic Christian monasticism, is also very clearly a cross fertilised construct. A hybrid of a Christian saint with a preexisting pagan goddess. Both figures highlight a period where conversions were made by forging imaginative bridges between pagan and Christian beliefs.

It became the essential path for Christian proselytising, that on entering a foreign culture, you attempted to convert the tribal nobility, kings or queens first. For then the general populace was more likely to follow. This was also where the money was too, if you wanted patronage to found a church or monastery. This was also a more secure longer term investment, personal land could be taken away, but put your money and a relative into a religious foundation you still have influence over, that was insurance. And it's clear that it was solely individuals of Anglo Saxon noble stock, who were the ones who became the Abbots, Abbesses, Bishops and Archbishops of these new religious foundations. Often running both secular and spiritual institutions. And so you find St Columba and St Cuthbert who both appear to have awkwardly straddled these two differing worlds and pressures of responsibilities. In comparison to the lives of the Anglo Saxon peasant, the life of a nun say in Whitby Abbey during the time of Abbess Hilda, was refined rather than ascetic, and lacked none of the basic essentials of life. Monastic standards of living were high relative to the general population. To a degree, austerities became a fashionable trend, mostly it was for real, but in some it was a significant affectation. Almost always assuring you of sainthood after your death.

The Viking attack upon Lindisfarne in 793 AD, shifted the entire focus of the Anglo-Saxon world in England. The relatively calmer period of saints and semi-isolated monastic piety ended, and the emphasis became the role of kings in defending Christian values against the advancing pagan hoards. And so we find the kingly martyr St Edmund and more importantly Alfred, who though undoubtedly saintly, was postumously given the epithet The Great. He almost singlehandedly created the role model for the saintly king, that any future ruler must aspire too. This is also the period of Bede, a hugely significant figure, as the first historical chronicler of English history. Again not a saint, but given the epithet The Venerable, in recognition of the national and  international consequences of his work. By the time we reach Edward the Confessor, who was a phenomenally pious ruler, he was made into the quintessential Saint of England by history, despite actually making a bit of a mess of his kingship. But by then the age of the Anglo Saxon saint king was already waining. England had already been ruled by Viking kings, so the country was up for grabs. If you had the power and military force, like the Norman's had. And who were the Normans anyway, but Scandinavians by another name. So by the time of 1066 and William the Conqueror's invasion, the age of the Anglo Saxon saint or saint king had already well and truly passed.

This book is a really captivating gem, full of snippets of information I'd never heard of before. I didn't know, for instance, that Abbess Hild was responsible for making the Anglo Saxon Cross  such a widely used and recognised symbol in the English landscape. Unlike Alice Robert's Domination, who approached this period from the angle of the development and expansion of Roman Catholicism, post Constantine, which I read recently. Ramirez keeps her skeptical interpretations on a much tighter rein, and does her best to present simply and plainly the known facts about a saint or king. Leaving you to judge, from the often limited information available, what has most likely been the case. How much you are willing to give these much lauded saints the benefit of the doubt. 

These saints do strike you as hugely admirable pioneers  nonetheless. When you consider the tricky situations and power dynamics they must have found themselves in. What treacherous paths to clinching a conversion they trod, when a tribal nobleman might take against you at any moment. But because they came from the same echelons of Anglo-Saxon society, they had a much better idea of what diplomatic levers they could pull in order to reach their ultimate aim. This was such a transitional time in the history of England, often shrouded behind the heavy fog or being called the dark ages, ro which this book brings some much needed illumination.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

WATCHED - The Veil

It opens in a refugee camp in the depths of snowy winter, on some high wind swept border. A truck with food arrives, people jump on and start distributing its cargo to the ravenous crowd. Then someone in the crowd shouts that the women handing out food, Adilah (Yumna Marwan ) is a notorious member of ISIS and is responsible for numerous murders and atrocities. The mood changes quickly to a riotous mob set on killing her. The camp's troops save her, but hold her under guard, whilst it's decided what to do with her. 

A British woman, Imogen ( Elizabeth Moss ) turns up, she appears more interested in this alleged member of ISIS than the vital laudable work with the refuges. The camp is a barely contained tinderbox, and in the middle of a conversation with Adilah about leaving, a gang enters intent on executing her. Ruthlessly efficient, Imogen kills or maims them all, taking Adilah away. Imogen is a spy, tasked with trying to establish for sure whether Adilah is the head of a terrorist cell or not. 

Written by Steve Knight of Peaky Blinders fame, The Veil passes as an effective spy chase drama, though it is more than a little creaky in places. Both Imogen and Adilah are adept at weaving truth and lies together, so you cannot easily establish who is being honest here. And for most of this short series you are happy to go along with the 'is she isn't she' scenario. There are a number of points where the writing just indulges in extremely broad stereotypical cultural caricatures and the heaviest of heavy handed writing. This series would not stand the remotest chance of remaining credible were it not for the superlative performances the two leads put in.

Max Peterson ( Josh Charles) the CIA agent sent to extract information from Adilah, is described as the most American American you can imagine, brutal, insensitive and self righteously over assertive. The French are presented by him as time wasters, more concerned about having their lunch breaks than solving the case. Whenever, the plot wants to exhibit any depth or profundity, a character will reach for a meaningfully appropriate Shakespeare quote to over emphasize. Which lands like the stinking dead fish it is.

In the final episode, Imogen reluctantly seeks refuge with her old lover and mentor Micheal (James Purefoy). One can understand her hesitation, because Purefoy can never resist a posh bit of scenery chewing. Though admirably restrained for him, the storyline starts feeding him all these opportunities to be a devilshly irresistible ham. There are a series of interminable points in the final episode where the story could have been quite efficiently concluded. But one suspects they only learnt halfway through production, there wouldn't be a second series. 

Knight then, rather unnecessarily for the most part,  tries to close as many lingering loose ends as he can in the last half hour. So instead of one dramatic conclusion -The End - we get one after the other of a little self indulgent thread in the storyline being tied up neatly in a bow.  The Veil therefore concludes with a series of short explicatory farts, which leave an unsatisfactory stench lingering, even as the credits finally roll.

 CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

RANDOM SNIPPETS - 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 - Next To Nature by Ronald Blythe

There are times when one must be an adventurous listener.'

When a friend is reading a book, and they tentatively suggest that they think you might appreciate it. And then lend it to you. You know this is a risk, for both you the reader and the lender. Do they really know you, or your tastes, that well? For if you were to find it really was not your sort of thing at all, imagine the awkwardness, the embarrassment. How do you respond when asked how you found it? But fortunately with this particular loan, from the moment I read its first paragraphs I knew this was right up my street.  I instantly fell in love with him, and the world he describes living within. I have literally devoured it with great gluttonous amounts of joy. And, as with everything I so instantly take to, I've had to carefully ration the amount of attention I give it, lest I do it a disservice through my haste, or miss anything by not imbibing with the fullest of full attention.

'I know that it has arrived before I draw the curtains. Snow. It's silent voice fills the landscape. Snow is weather with a finger to the lips. A faint cold wind will be blowing towards the house in powdery drifts.'

Blythe became widely known with his novel Akenfield and Peter Hall's docu-drama that followed, a cleverly contrived recollection of life in an imaginary village, that drew upon Blythe's own extensive knowledge and experience of the history of rural lives. Next To Nature, is a compilation of short articles, originally written for his much lauded weekly column in the Church Times, from the nineties through to noughties. Grouped according to the month and season. Each month with a brief introduction by a person who was a close friend of Bylhe, both literary and otherwise. His style of writing is remarkably unshowy, but very far from being plain. It's so carefully composed, with a vivid sense for the captivating detail, the tossing and turnings of personal reflections, that delightfully wander off piste on intimate literary reveries. Quite often in reference to the poet John Clare, the sort of self effacing hero that Blythe felt an innate personal affinity with. His ghost seems to inhabit his imagination and every village in Middle England he visits. The simplicity of Blythe's expressiveness is deceptive, it lacks guile or pretention, but effortlessly communicates so much via the perfectly expressed sentence. Often accompanied by the witty barb, that manages to encapsulate a situation or a person's character foilbles, without being savagely cruel. He cherishes their eccentricities.

'The question arose whether it would be breaking the Sabbath to visit it on a Sunday, and whether the key was given to people who could be trusted to do this without enjoyment.'

'Miss Scott carried the exactitude of weights and measures to the limit and would, they said, have halved a toffee.'

'I suddenly think how unpleasant it must be to be prayed for by the self righteous.'

Then there is his love of 'night walking' the semi dark of unlit country roads. The ever dominant presence of servicing the needs of the 'the white cat' he doted upon. His thoughtful preparations for talks or sermons he was about to dispense. The day to day interactions of living in a small community like Wormingford, in a house he lived in for many decades. He recollects the era before double glazing and central heating when windows would freeze on the inside. Arising bright and early in order to get a fire going in the hearth. How the farming calendar of rituals has changed since the arrival of mechanisation. What once required community wide organisation and provided a huge social occasion, can now be done by one farmer single handedly, who struggles with his loneliness. He tells you all about this history without ever feeling patronised or overly sentimentalised. Reminding you that things have indeed changed, not always for the better. Not everything has been of benefit in enriching the quality of ordinary country folk's lives.

I was still reeling from the joy of hearing the flower judge say, "Oh I do like that ! First prize' when she came to my succulent, when I observed the jam judge when she came to my quince summoning up the kind of courage which a bomb disposal unit requires.'

'I have moved my desk by as much as two feet to have the light fall better on the page. Why did I not do this before today? Before ten years ago, to be accurate? Furniture has a way of taking up a stance of its own, a moral or aesthetic position which says, 'Don't dare to shift me, I know where I belong.' I have friends whose rooms are tips, but move a chair to the window, and they are dreadfully put out.'

 

As I read, I was all too aware I was picking up the recognisable signs of a modest, but clearly gay sensibility. It's in the evident delight he takes in composing those beautifully structured, yet gently satirical sentences. And indeed, Blythe had lived a wilder transgressive youth, at a time when this was a far from safe thing to do. His sex life appears to have been resolutely private, mostly casual and occasional, but above all quiet, discreet and definitely unspoken of.

But the man we are reading in Next To Nature, is writing to be published in the Church Times, so it's unsurprising that he reveals to us none of his personal yearnings for intimacy. Presenting us with an unremarkable low key domesticity. Happy to observe the comings and goings, enjoy his encounters with locals with a kindly, yet silent amusement. Knowing this could compose the nub of an interesting vignette. The period these extracts are from, are the last thirty years of his one hundred year lifespan. Published in 2022 the year before his death. It captures the still sparkling quality of his thought and intellect, that could recall poetry and obscure but telling anecdotes. Gosh, was this man well read. Weaving it all into a captivating tableau, with a deep resonating feeling for how people live with the landscape they are in, and how closely their two destinies have been entwined.

The writers and painters of the past from East Anglia remain alive to his imagination, as he walks those country paths and roads through market towns. His writing is filled with memories of lives and ways of inhabiting the countryside, which if not passed already, are well on their way to forgetfulness. Blythe 's own writing spanned a century of huge changes. He provides a bridge between Clare and Constable, between the Nashe's, Cedric Morris and Elliot, as this post Bloomsbury world too is fast fading away from personal recollection. Evidently well suited to his genteel style of country living, even when all that consisted of was observing the prevailing wind direction in the fields, the ones first ploughed, sown and reaped in Anglo-Saxon times.

'As I add my parents' names, and those of close friends, to the All Souls roll call, how is it that tears do not disturb my rationality? The ballpoint scrawls on the lined paper require all my attention. Both morning and evening congregations kneel and listen so as not to miss Aunt Doris and poor John. Here come the priests who helped us out during the frequent interregnums, here is a tower captain, here are the good old regulars, here is a boy. Here are my brief pauses and a mounting silence. But how is it that, churchwise, they have all gone without leaving an unfillable space? Something strange here. Is this what mortality is?'

CARROT REVIEW - 8/8

All quotes are from Next to Nature by Ronald Blythe.

Published by John Murray, 2022.

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 136 - The Nordic Cotton Dream Team

As a winter storm named after someone's close relation, ripped it's chilly whisk through North Norfolk, the elderly population nestled in their homes. Whilst I foolishly ventured out to my Tai Chi class. Expecting a low turn out, but was a defiantly full complement. Today the air appears deceptively calm, and the sun is getting to work clearing the backlog of mist. So the day begins, with the usual sleepy headed meditation and the gentle muscular yank of Yang Ten. Once completed I sit and read, or as now, I write. 

It's very easy for people in their sixties, such as myself, to write paragraphs bemoaning the physical privations their age imposes upon them. And leave the celebration of their continued existence a little underplayed. And yet, indulge me. For each winter I appear to have some new seasonal joint pain to report.  Last year it was the shoulders,  resistance band training to strengthen the enfeebled shoulder muscles, did the trick. This year, the winter aches have relocated to the hip joints. I spend time in the morning soothing the discomfort of hips. Some days, such as today, post the deeper isobars of a cold storm front passing over, those hips feel tender, almost raw. May be at sixty eight, I should take up  radical hoola hooping or something similarly gyratory.

The kitchen revamp progresses. I started with the kitchen pantry. Well, pantry sounds a bit like we live in this grand house. It's quite a confined space under the staircase which had been shelved in a rudimentary manner since we moved in. There was a fair bit of sorting, chucking, and mucking out being done. Repainting the interior a pristine white, was the easy bit. Cutting down old IKEA Billy shelf units from our shop to fit the space, that proved to be taxing. This was similar to dressing  yourself inside a paper bag.

I am the son of a very skilled joiner, and yet he passed little of his talent on to me. What joinery skills I possess were not genetically bequeathed to me, nor nurtured by any fatherly mentoring. Most of it simply rubbed off by hanging around people like my Dad and observing them. Though I can quickly get into a fraught state with even fairly minor woodworking tasks. Particularly if my cack handed abilities with cutting wood precisely are once more revealed to my ego.  Let it be said, being a joiner's son does not do wonders for your confidence with carpentry. Lingering in the back of most men's minds are those mythical 'real men' who are supposed to be grand masters of any practical skill. Well. like many ordinary man, I can get by without looking too foolish or a complete tub of lard, but I do generally bodge with the best. 

I was, therefore, heartily glad when I could return to decorating, which I heartily enjoy. To take colour, paint, paint brushes and rollers and slap it on ceilings and walls generously and everything be beautifully transformed, your room, your mood, your feelings about the precarious political economic situation. Plus, it has re-engaged both Hubby and I with a bit of interior design therapy. I've recently discovered what a joy a heat gun is when applied to vinyl covered kitchen cupboard doors, the facing comes off like an exfoliated rectangle of skin. Not that I'm an expert on the flaying of flesh. That would be a bit creepy. The first batch of doors are, however, now primed and waiting on skilful paintbrush work to transform them into an immaculate sage green. Before I get too ahead of myself here, the ceiling is now done, so it's onwards to the kitchen walls. I'm going to man the hell out of them.

And then, I removed one of the kitchen cupboards to prep the wall for the open shelving we want to replace it with. I expected the wall to be magnolia like the rest of the kitchen with a couple of holes to be filed. Who ever installed the cupboards slapped them in over the pre-existing wall and then painted around the cupboards. They also bodged installing an electricity duct and didn't plaster over. Leaving an open gash.To be honest, you'd have thought a much loved dog had just died, I spiraled from irritated anger into an exasperated despair. I became deeply deeply exhausted. It was as though this emotional time lag had just caught up with me, and wham!, was right in my face. I'm out of it today, but boy was I in a bit of a funk.

Today, another cold winter storm is blowing through. Rattling the outside hanging baskets, yes, we still have those. It's mild man. We travel to Blakeney, to Seagulls gallery to bring fresh stock for the new season. The gallery is reopening on Saturday. It was clear when we looked at the figures, that Seagulls performs really well, even when compared to our old shop. Which makes us think perhaps we should give it more consistent attentive focus. We have three new fabrics to compliment our range, that we are reasonably confident we will doing well with.

For many years the state of a few of my teeth has gone beyond being salvaged by fillings. At some point they collapse beyond repair. Two teeth in my upper jaw have gone through this process. I've kept putting off the day of final extraction, but this year the gums around them started being troublesome and I've been getting migraine like headaches. All of which seemed like signs things were not good. Today was the day they came out. It's a weird sensation now they are gone. I'm still in the days of salt mouthwashes, pain killers and soft food, but things appear to be settling down fine, so far.

Talking of the consequences of a lifetime of sugar consumption. My month of Cakee Free Januaree has concluded. I've noticeable lost weight. In the past I've tried to maintain my diet, by keeping to the numbers, whilst still eating cakes. This never helps in the losing of weight. For two reasons, the tendency to under report calories in cakes, and the cluster fuck of cake calories go straight onto the waistline anyway. Post January, I'm aiming to keep to one cake treat per week, and see how I get on maintaining that. Wish me luck.           

And Remember - Lash lift from every angle.

SIX OF THE BEST - Sly Dunbar

I was greatly saddened to hear of the death of Sly Dunbar at the age of 73. He may not ever have been that widely known, but his contribution to the development of reggae music over his lifetime, was literally immense. There was certainly a time in the 70's & 80's when Sly Dunbar seemed to be playing drums on everything coming out of Jamaica, Together with Robbie Shakespeare he formed the rhythm section and production duo, Sly & Robbie, who eventually became the most sought after producers outside of the reggae fraternity.

1971 - Dave & Ansell Collins - Double Barrel

Sly Dunbar began playing drums at the age of fifteen, in his first band the Yardbrooms. His first recorded appearance is on a single from 1971 with Dave & Ansell Collin's Double Barrel, a No 1 single I bought and played endlessly on my tiny record deck. I am the magnificent W Oh Oh Oh Oh. Reggae that reached the UK charts in the seventies always had an air of the novelty to it. Rarely reflecting the much harder and less musically cosy aspects of what was going on in the underground scene. This managed for the first time to reflect a bit of both.

1976 - Junior Murvin - Police & Thieves

Originally written as a comment on gang warfare and police brutality in Jamaica, Police & Thieves by Junior Murvin was produced by Lee 'Scratch' Perry. Sly provides a subtle yet distinctive lilt in the background. This became the ubiquitous underground reggae hit of the early 80's in the UK.  It's subject matter of police oppression, found it's own relevance in the UK when the Notting Hill Carnival produced days of street riots as tensions between police and the Black Carribbean community erupted into violence.Here it also features that new thing, the 12' extended version, which gave space for dub breaks. Police & Thieves musical lightness of touch, belies it's subsequent anthemic cultural impact, representing an aspect of the black experience in the UK and wider world.

1976 - The Revolutionaries - Kunte Kinte Dub Parts 1 - 4

Sly Dunbar was an integral part of the musical  collective that was The Revolutionaries, formed in 1975. Playing with them until the early 80's. He was very much the most sought after drum for hire, always bringing something new to the sound studio. He also contributed to work by The Upsetters, Lee Perry, The Aggrovators and Bob Marley.  Kunte Kinte Dub,is probably the most famous piece of dub, that became 'The' track to play and produce dub versions of through house sound systems. Drawing as it did on themes from the TV phenomenon of the Roots drama series, it fed into the growing mythology and Rastafarian presence in black urban culture at the time. This track also slipped 'rockers'  into the musical mid-stream between roots and reggae. This was and remains sublime stuff.

1981 - Grace Jones - Pull Up To The Bumper 

Sly first met Robbie Shakespeare in 1972,  they were both in high demand so worked together frequently. They worked so well as a creative musicians they began collaborating as a production duo, and we're often recruited to take an artists recorded output to another level. They worked with Grace Jones on three albums from her peak imperious period, but Nightclubbing is probably by far their most successful collaboration with her, or with anyone for that matter. This success only led to further work outside the reggae niche with Joe Cocker, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Herbie Hancock, to name drop a few. Here is the 12' version.

1985 - Sly & Robbie - Make Em Move

Throughout all their years of working together Sly and Robbie's own albums were still where they pushed the musical boundaries of reggae the most. 1985 they signed to Island who wanted to give them more mainstream  exposure. I'm not sure whether Language Barrier was quite what they had in mind. It's certainly accessible, it's a complex, almost bewildering fusion of so many musical styles and sources. It has a distinctive hard explosive gun like drum sound, and a very eccentric, if not wayward, adventurous musical spirit. I've always loved this album, even though, if you are not in the mood for it , this can be a bit like being bludgeoned repeatedly over the head with an inflatable dildo. Just lay back and enjoy all eight minutes of this platter.

1987 - Sly & Robbie - Boop ( Here To Go ) feat Shinehead.

Two years later, they produced this little gem of a top ten hit taken from the Rhythm Killers album. Again criss crossing all sorts of genres with consummate ease, this took them a long long way from 'rockers' blending in aspects of contemporary urban street. Sly and Robbie always kept a close ear to what was developing, and adeptly include aspects of what was then a new 'toaster' on the scene. 

And all these are just a little toe dip into the vast recorded archive of what Sly Dunbar was involved in and achieved during his lifetime. He was a truly unique creative force, that revolutionised reggae rythyms, not just once, but constantly.

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 of 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 idea of original sin, is an inescapable trap we fall into. 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.