RISING UP MY DUCK PILE - July 2026

As it has recently been my birthday, I have been gifted a fair number of books that were on my suggested list to buy me. So my book pile has suddenly zoomed up in height. At 46cm ( not including the duck) it is the highest it has ever been.

I'm already feeling torn what to pick up next. There are books that keep getting neglected, but this was ever so. Sometimes it gets to the point where, rather than going for what appeals most, one behaves counter intuitively and heads for what is least appealing to the momentary heart. Bearing in mind that once upon a time you did want to read this, and may still do, if you can put aside the sexy dalliance that the newbies are proffering a leg to. But, this is what the pile is currently composed of at present.

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 

PHILIP GOFF - WHY? THE PURPOSE OF THE UNIVERSE

I've heard interviews with him and got the gist of some of his ideas. This book is in part an exploration of 'panpsychism' which is an idea I want to know more about. It is in essence that everything is conscious, and guides how everything in the world presents itself. It's present in absolutely everything, including in us. It sort of is and isn't God like.

Birthday Present 

BYUNG CHUL-HAN - NON THINGS

Jared Henderson recommends this author highly. So I'm dipping a toe into the world of Byung-Chul Han's philosophy.  We live in a constantly expanding realm of 'non-things'. The 'infosphere' is not really a tangible object we can touch and comprehend with our full sensory capacities. And this is affecting how we relate, not just to the world, butmost importantly to each other.

Birthday Present

WILLIAM DALRYMPLE - THE COMPANY QUARTET

These four volumes are Dalrymple's magnum opus on the British East India Company. In India it became the world's first Corporation to own and run a country. It had its own army, numbering upwards of 200,000 troops, almost double that of Great Britain's own army at the time. The quartet encompasses is rise, the scurrilous individuals who ran and made a fortune from it, who eventually were forced to hand India back for The Empire to run.

Birthday Present.

OCEAN VUONG - THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS

Vuong's second novel, following on from his debut On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous, builds on further his capacity for wonderfully evocative prose writing. Here you get a vibrant sense of the town of East Gladness as a place, in which his central character Hai, lives in a ramshackle house with Grazina, an old lady who once prevented him taking his own life.

Library Book

Currently Reading

DIARMAID Mc CULLOCH - LOWER THAN THE ANGELS

McCulloch is always a really peachy historical read. This one has the theme of 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. McCullough is quite used to writing the epic overview. This is punctuated with his usual dry wit, and you can tell he has really enjoyed writing this one.

Christmas Present 
Currently Reading

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

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. So far I'm quite impressed with the depth of her understanding. Her central theme is that men do not understand, and are often running away from the full capacity of their ability to love. Afraid of discovering and hence allowing themselves to love being who they actually are.
The Book Hive - Norwich

Currently Reading

NEIL POSTMAN - AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH

First published in 1985, and subtitled Public Discourse in the Age of Showbusiness, Postman's book was reissued by his son in 2005, twenty years later and found itself a new audience. Though focused on the effect of TV on not just people's lives but their minds, his essential idea is that in the consumption of some technologies 'the form of it excludes content', rather than stimulating  us, it puts our minds to sleep, turns us into passive receptors of image and amusement. And in the age of the internet this struck a chord.

Birthday Present 

DAVID GRAEBER & DAVID WENGROW - THE DAWN OF HUMANITY

Graeber is an anthropologist and Wengrow an archeologist, in this book they examine how human society developed.  They critique of the traditional view of the linear progressive view of human evolution, and say this is more a philosophical view, unsupported by any evidence in anthropology or archaeology. I came across this through an interview with David Wengrow.

Birthday Present.

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 a variety of subject matters.
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

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

GEORGE ORWELL - NOTES ON NATIONALISM

I am interested to read this short book, just to see what Orwell has to offer by way of analysis of nationalism. As part of my own reading around this subject to see what value nationalism may or may not have, and what causes it to rise up in people's need of it.

Birthday Present

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 141 - Audible Battering

Bizarre Advert Tag Line - Imagine this feeling, but for your teeth.

I've been attempting to devote more time to my own art projects. But you'd think I lived the life of a busy social whirl, because time for such projects, appears to evaporate in my hands. I am getting better at blocking out time, but I do really have to guard that space. Everything otherwise seems to encroach and gobble it up. For years if I did decide to commit to doing artwork, it was to paint. But I realised recently I was not particularly interested in painting anymore. It's as though I've exhausted my current capacity for that medium. Working in relief, assembling pieces from found objects, is more where my aesthetic interest arises.

The revamped shrine backdrop

An old piece now painted

This all began with one piece I made for my shrine, that I recently revamped. It suddenly seemed to stand perfectly well on its own, and didn't require use in the shrine anymore. When I look back I have dabbled with working in this way on and off before, but never saw it as a thing outside of making a shrine or a decorative fence for our garden. So I have returned to some early experiments I did a few years ago, that were essentially made from framing offcuts, and started to apply colour on them. There are far too many ideas floating around in my mind at the moment. The actuality will prove which one's have got legs or staying power. But I can see them stepping out of being reliefs and off the walls, til they become more fully three dimensional.

A new piece of artworks 

I'm not thinking of this as anything more than art being a thing that I do. I have created  difficulties for myself in the past, with thinking art needed it's worth validating through the selling of it. But actually the making of art is validation enough. Seeing art as your personal legacy to the world is a bit of an ego conceit too. Exhibiting and selling your art is entirely another thing. I may indeed think about exhibiting later. But to do so now, would inhibit the tender shoots of what is a relatively new approach. I tend to take Quentin Crisp's view that it is in the process of making art where an artist's interest lives and thrives, the process of exhibiting it in a gallery, is ' where it hangs until it's dead' so far as an artist's engagement with it is concerned. It's not that I'm against selling my work, but I don't want that to become a primary aim. I don't want financial benefit to be all it is about.

Product Pitch - Mr Sheen Professional - with Dust Trap Technology 

( because it's wet I expect)

There are some garden tasks that are not to be relished, and trimming a pyracantha hedge is one of them. It is, to not put too fine a gloss on it, a vicious bitch of a bush. Every two to three years it requires a severe cut back, simply to stop it taking over. In the past, even though I've been quite modest in the amount I've cut it back, I can confidently say a pyracantha bush is the nearest thing to immortality, it cannot die. This year I've been planning a more drastic cut back than usual. 

The hedge grows in front of the house, it is one of two plants that survive from the garden we inherited eight years ago. But as the spring arrived this year the hedge was reaching the point where it half obliterated our front window. So I planned to take out one entire corner of the hedge, simply to give our living room more light. As I started executing this intent, I instantly fell into regretting it. A pyracantha is the most incredibly entangled interlocking mesh of branches I've ever encountered. And what makes it worse is that it bristles with barbed thorns along ever bleeding inch of them. In the past, I've emerged from trimming this hedge with lacerations up my arms as though a wildly rabid cat has mauled me. And in the midst of a high humidity heatwave adequately protecting oneself from being maimed, well that can be stifling.

As things currently stand I've only removed approximately half of what I intend. And it does look really bad, as if some ravenous hedge monster has taken a huge bite out of it. Hubby, a bit shocked when he saw it, gave me the sort of look that says, do you know what you are doing? Characteristically asking - did you research this properly before you started? And of course I hadn't, that's the sort of thing he would do, me? very rarely. And even though I am fairly confident, from previous experience, that the pyracantha will not let me down, I've had my moment of doubt. It will recover. I just couldn't say how long that will take. If I did by chance accidentally slaughter this hedge out of all existence, then we will have a new garden bed to play with. I have my back up contingencies, yes I do. 

There is also the tricky thing of what to do with the briary hedge off cuts. Yesterday I sat with a lopper and pruning sheers, patiently chopping them into tinier bits. All so I could put them into our shared compost bin, without instantly filling it to the brim and overflowing. This morning, after a restless night's sleep because hands, hips and shoulders were too tenderly throbbing to sleep soundly, I am realising maybe I'll need to spread this job out - by quite a bit. My completist nature, does not remotely like this dragging out of a task . It's already been delayed by wind, rain and now a heatwave. But, I'll keep plugging away - but slowly I guess

Bizarre Ad Tag Line -  Protects against main blonde aggressors 

Hubby and I went one Wednesday morning to one of our favourite cafes. And as we were standing at the counter waiting to be served, you could not help but notice their was a truly horrendous level of cacophony going on in this cafe. At one table, eight women, seated and standing, all in leotard leggings were engaging in lively and very loud conversation. All of them speaking over each other at the same time, and trying to make themselves heard over others in the group. The volume level was constantly rising to the level of them all bellowing. Hubby looked at me, as though to say, must we going into that room? 

Well, we did go into that room. We took out our hearing aids, and we still could barely think, let alone speak. Every other customer there, was either suffering in silence, focused rather too intently on reading their e.mails, or attempted to engage in making themselves heard above this racket. Now, I have to say this is not an isolated rare incident. We have encountered similar loud conversational competitiveness in other groups of women. A female friend of ours tells us this sort of loudly talking over each other, is now very common when women get together. It appears to be all about being heard in the group. It doesn't require much reciprocal listening, just the use of increasing volume to assert yourself as being at the fore. 

I feel old-fashioned in saying this. I was brought up by my Mother, to not talk over someone when they were speaking, that this was considered the height of rudeness and showed a lack of respect. And even though you undoubtedly may be gagging to say something, you were to hold those thoughts till an appropriate pause appeared. Though I must to say, in my Mother's case, appropriate pauses were exceedingly rare in her conversation. Just saying. And, if I'm honest, I've not become expert at inserting myself into conversations, or judging when a pause is appropriate or not. I generally ere towards being overly self conscious, probably to the point of inhibition. Of not positioning myself as the dominant male authority in the room. I have been subjected to this from various Alpha Males I've encountered, far far too many times. Likewise the boorishly loud banter of a group of blokes on a pub crawl.  These are  not a pleasant experience either.

The group of women in the cafe, seemed to me to be qualitatively different. Demonstrating how conversation can become a generalised competition for audible dominance within a gathering. All eight of them were raising their voices to be heard over the top of everyone else's, and every single one of them dismally failing to be really heard. Is this due to too many interactions taking place on social media? A general decline in the quality of conversations? A manifestation of rampant individualism over the collective group? Or the egalitarian female group equivalent of the lone Alpha Male.? I am still a bit baffled, if not to say audibly battered, by the experience.

Strange overheard remark - 'Is it easy, or can you run it over?'

JUNE BLOG VIEWING FIGURES UPDATE

In June views of this Cornucopia blog went really berserk on one of its final few days.  I had in one day 257,716 views, the highest daily viewing total so far. The total for the whole of June was hence another first, 388,955 views. There was also another milestone in that during June, total views since I began the blog in 2005, reached one million.

ART N AB ART - On Balance - Anglia Textile Works - Handa Gallery Wells Maltings

These much loved collective of textile artists, are one of my favourite exhibitions to visit in any year. They are so full of innovative inspiring work. Usually at Salthouse Church, this year they are relocated to the more municipal gallery space in Wells Maltings. This conventional hanging space, does bring to it a more coherent feeling for an artist's approach and working method. Also, having seen an artist's work one year, you can see by the following year where they have taken ideas only in early germination the last time you saw them. For example, Hannah Rae last year had just started covering small blocks in layers of coloured stitching. This year this technique has been applied to wall hangings and more amorphous padded shapes. 

Hannah Rae

Hannah Rae

Annette Morgan

Annette Morgan

Claire Spender

Claire Spender

Claire Spender

This type of art display favours some artists work more than others. So rectilinear artworks by Annette Morgan's panels and hangings, Niki Chandler's precise geometric abstracts and Cherry Vernon- Harcourt's dyed cloth with embroidered horizon detailing, Irena Willmott's subtle abstract grids, zing in the Handa Gallery space. Hannah Rae's sculptural forms, Clarke Spender's hand embellished found objects and natural forms and Heidi McEvoy-Swift's unfolding natural forms, shift from wall reliefs to sculpture on plinths, in a multiplicity of forms, these can feel less striking, even when they most certainly are. 

Niki Chandler

Heidi McEvoy-Swift

Heidi McEvoy-Swift

Heidi McEvoy-Swift

Cherry Vernon-Harcourt

Cherry Vernon Harcourt

All these artist's work have something that rewards closer inspection and reflection. I have once again come away with lots of my own ideas arising from the different techniques on display here, that can be added to my own bag of artistic bag of tricks to draw from. Anglia Textile Works

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

FEATURE - Jared Henderson - The New Luddites

Jared Henderson -The New Luddites

As ever, I find Jared Henderson's mind and way of approaching a topic very refreshing. Here in this video he is exploring the whole idea of The New Luddites, what the original Luddites were fighting against, what is good and bad about this resurgent approach now. And trying to tease out a way of assessing technology, what makes a technology good or bad? Is it unhelpful to present only black and white solutions? He also gives his sceptical review of Paul Kingsnorth's book Against The Machine. Describing some of his ideas as so unclear and vague about their limitations and consequences, to the point of being dangerous. He leaves us with a check list of questions that he asks himself before adopting any technology into his life. And I guess the answers to these will be different for everyone, and we may find we have other things to consider than these four. But they are a great place to start the enquiry.

1) Does this technology expand or contract the realm of human freedom? (because I only want to use technology that help us live freer lives)

2) Does this technology contribute to human flourishing?

3) Does it make it easier to pursue human projects and live in accordance with your values?

4) Is this piece of technology primarily a way for other people to get rich or powerful off your attention?

ART 'N' AB ART - Phyllida Barlow & Daisy Parris - Wolterton Hall Exhibition

Phyllida Barlow's sculptures appear to be forming a precarious and temporary balancing act. All the elements whether wood, metal, scraps of paper, plastic, slathered in plaster, dust and paint, sometimes are held together with duck tape, or rooted in a tin full of cement. They possess an improvisatory feel. That this is only one way these elements could be assembled, turn your back and they might reconfigure completely their current form and emphasis. 

In the magnificent lofty heights of a Georgian mansion, with it's grand self concept, built to impress, Barlow's sculptures feel even more like rough and uncouth rebels, coarsely protesting, refusing to submit to the language of classical proportions, its implied refinement and sense of self importance. This chaotic intervention, anarchic even, confronts us in the gallery spaces at Wolterton. Sculptures cluster together, these like minded figures in a three or four-way conversation on plinths. Some are freestanding, with an unbearable weight perched atop precariously pointy stick legs, elements stacked in layers or clustered together as dildos moulded in plaster. 

There is always a wildly pagan earthiness, from the grounded humdrum ordinariness of Barlow's material choices. These disrupt any expectations of grand statements, or monumentally elevated perspectives. The rattling argument of wood chairs in the stairwell are a case in point, they are a riot of imprecision and informality, their surfaces skimmed with plaster and paint, as though marked out for destruction, not to prettify them. Something monstrous could emerge out of this mess of disabled angles and planes crawling out from underneath this elegantly executed staircase. Other rooms are filled with Barlow's sketches, similarly they look dashed off, rough suggestions, preparatory sketches for future sculptures. These drawings are an explorations in her imagination flying free of the limitations of actual three dimensional material. Barlow's work extends whilst working within the German expressionist tradition of Joseph Beuys, Dada assemblages and Art Povera. These are not comfortable works to find an easy relationship with.

Daisy Parris confronts the exhibition space in a different manner. Her exhibition's title work Fist Full of Dreams, is a series of textile carpet panels lashed together, made to Parris's design that they have embellished further afterwards, with their rough free hand embroidery of the surface or affixing slogan bearing cloth panels to them. Words, cloth and form sit in an uneasy juxtaposition as a partnership. The lurid quality of the paint colours, and slashy handling of it resist being called beautiful or delicate. Sometimes the slogans repeat till they fragment, or even become partially absorbed into the paint surface. All the works on display here were created in response to her visiting the hall and the room where they were to be exhibited. Some of the paintings fit neatly into the wall panels, others like Fist Full of Dreams defy such an easy incorporation into the appointed space, hung across a framework of pink painted scaffolding poles of its own making.  Hanging free of convention and stereotypical interpretation.

Both these exhibitions are well worth a visit, you don't get a chance to see modern work of this range and quality in Norfolk very often. Viewing is by appointment only, you can't just rock up expecting to be allowed entrance. Details are on their website.  https://wolterton.co.uk/art-and-culture/

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8