SHERINGHAM DIARY No 140 - On The Ethics of Bird Feeding

The usual barometer of when Spring arrives is activity on the bird feeder in our back garden. The number and frequency of birds feeding upon it reaches a new peak, as enthusiastic broods of fledglings come to learn the ropes - Here is a bird feeder. Here is the meal worms suspended in fat  Here, is a lot easier than scrounging about for worms and insects in earth, I can tell you. You babes don't know you are born these days. So, pull in your bum fluff and get the hang of it boys and girls. I'm going to take a bath in the water jacuzzi with your dad. What's going on there? Well never you mind, just tuck in and look away.

Robins appear particularly stupid. They try and they flail. They flap wings madly, whilst simultaneously attempting to peck at the feeder. They make real hard work of what ought to be a simple enough task - Land on bird feeder, grip the wire with your feet, extend the head towards the food object, tuck in. Repeat. It's not rocket science. I thought birds and animals were genetically pre- programmed with such abilities. Weeks later does it dawn on Robins finally how you get the hang of it. 

This year has been noticeable different. The birds didn't really stop breeding over the Winter, because everything was 'so unseasonably mild', as the weathermen like to put it. This Spring there's been an increased volume of bigger birds trying and failing to make bird feeders work for them. Because, if truth be told, they are too f.....g big. Bird feeders were designed for petite birds, like sparrows, blue and great tits, reed warblers, coal tits, pied wag tails and robins, these have all come to use of our increasingly deluxe boutique bird feeding facilities.

The problem for larger birds is that they are large. And by large I mean more than medium large - blackbirds, jackdaws, magpies, thrushes and woodpeckers. We get mega large wicked looking crows and fat wood pigeons rolling in on their wobbly chassis. Flapping about manically, they get at most a peck or two and then go. It's exhausting just watching them struggle to snip even a small morsel between their beaks  Unless you are our local spotted woodpecker, who turns up early every morning, and gets stuck into a hanging half coconut of mealworm fat. This bugger will happily gorge itself till he explodes. I have, I admit, cultivated a disdain for woodpeckers, they are bloody greedy fuckers and are extraordinarily messy eaters, to boot. Throwing as much food left and right and onto the floor as what they eat. No one wants to watch a glutton eat. He keeps the wood pigeons happy though. With a wild scattering of crumbs on the ground beneath.

It got so bad recently, when half coconuts of mealworm in fat were being consumed at a rate of two a day. I mean, I'm not made of money. I just stopped putting them out for half a week. I've tried going to war with them, giving them a preliminary warning -  look just don't abuse my generosity guys and gals or I'll get really mean. Larger birds are the bullies of the bird world, they scare off anything small. My getting annoyed,however, is a waste of energy. There is no point in discriminating between small and large birds, no matter how vexing I find the greediness of a spotted woodpecker. They have, I expect, ravenous broods to feed like everyone else. I am penalising all birds if I do that. So I have tried to learn my lesson. Put up and shut up. Through heavily gritted teeth.

As we are buying a lot of fat sticks and half coconuts stuffed with mealworm lately, I have good cause to raise a concerning question. The birds who come into my garden and feed on the bird feeder, am I just training them to be lazy and creating a new obese generation of tits? If I put seed or peanuts or hard fat balls out, they are not remotely interested, far too difficult a digestive problem. My goodness, do fledglings have rubber beaks that can't chew or masticate. Because ours simply want to gorge on the softer mealworm fat. Now I know these are hungry fledglings learning to eat for themselves, but shouldn't I be encouraging them to eat wholesome stuff like insects, things they will consume as adults,? Am I merely storing up trouble for wild birds by making them dependent on me serving up the bird equivalent of a McDonald's Cheese Burger?

AI reaches new nadir
Yesterday, I was trying to type 'Papal sanction' into a blog I was writing.  AI apparently knew better what I was really trying to say, and automatically changed it to Pay Pal. It's becoming increasingly the case that as I write my blogs, half the time I am recorrecting the AI auto correct of what I originally wrote. This is the future we are going to be f.....d over by.

Blog Stats For May - 170,357 views.

ART 'N' AB ART - Global Textiles at Blickling Hall

Karun Thakar's fabric collection must be absolutely huge. This is a man totally obsessed with design, pattern, the skills and techniques of fabric makers. And what we see here is only scratching the surface of what he holds in his personal collection. There are some truly stunning pieces of cloth just hung up in the entrance hall alone. What you find as you walk around the house, is that the Indian fabrics are where the strengths of this display are, but there are also some superb Japanese kimono, Africa and Russian cloth too.

It aught then to have been a feast for the eyes, to come away both awed and enriched. So why did it feel lacklustre, half asked even? Well, it came down to the way they chose to display the fabrics. It would have been much better had they displayed all the fabrics in a tighter sequence, and not have them sparsely spread out across many rooms. This diminished the impact of them. Also, draping them informally over sofas, across floors and bookcases, treated them far far too casually. You can't really get a sense for them as full patterned lengths of cloth. They end up appearing scrunched and scruffy like someone's put their laundry out to dry. Plus they are really hard to see in most of the rooms. This is not helped by the house light levels, which for the sake of conservation I know are kept low with the blinds down. And from behind a rope a stunningly embroidered fabric hung over a bookcase, well I could tell it was floral, but not much more from yards away. 

The attempt to link the fabrics to specific individuals from Blickling Hall felt trite, and a bit of a skimpy afterthought. It was on the level of, he worked in India around this time - so what? I would have found it much more interesting for the researchers to have gone into more specific detail on how Indian textile designers adapted to the Western market. How European textile manufacturers took over the production of popular Indian cloth designs. The influence it had on European aesthetics and fashion trends. Not to mention European protectionism of their own cloth making industries. Was there asset stripping of Indian cloth designs? What were the Calico Acts etc ? I suspect it was assembled on a very low budget, hence the poor level of display, or came together hurriedly in a short space of time. I'm afraid this was a missed opportunity, and hence disappointing as an exhibition overall. 

CARROT REVIEW - 3/8

WATCHED - Mare of Easttown ( 2021 )

Erin (Cailee Spaeny) is a teenage single Mum. Bringing up a child is not easy for her, and though she loves him to bits, she is struggling.  She never gets out much, and rarely meets up with friends her age, or goes on a date.  Then one evening she arranges for her son's Father to look after the kid, and goes to a wood where all the young set hang out, to meet a blind date. Erin never returns from this trip. She is found the next morning her body abandoned in a stream, murdered.

Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) is a local detective. She's pretty much known or is related in some way to everyone. Divorced, she lives with her catty Mum Helen ( Jean Smart), her eldest daughter, and the boy her son had before he took his life. Her ex-husband lives with his new girlfriend just across the lawn from her house. Mare. Is bad tempered and unpredictable, doesn't really look after herself. She's never really come to terms with the suicide of her son. Solving crimes keeps all that messy emotional stuff at bay, just about. Her police department aren't sure she's able to handle this case alone. so bring in Colin Zabel ( Evan Peters ) as her side kick, which she initially deeply resents. But as the investigation progresses the case and everything related to her starts messily coming home to roost.

Mare of Easttown is by far and away the best crime drama since The Killing. And it shares a few common qualities. It has a great sense of place, the character and landscape that Easttown sits within, the range and type of individuals who live there. The script does not put a foot wrong. It's a crime procedural, but this one has a heart and a soul, that paints a vivid picture of the consequences for people of the murder of someone you loved, of people not being able to handle their grief. The characters are all believably well rounded. They take their time just letting you get to know and love them for all their flaws and eccentricities. All of this makes Mare of Easttown dramatically punchy. By the time you reach the final episode you are left drained and emotionally moved by the overwhelming sadness and tragedy, with all the hurt, betrayal, guilt and loss on screen. Deservedly it won Emmys for the scriptwriting, and the performances of Kate Winslet, Julianne Nicholson and Evan Peters all won gongs.

Highly Recommended 

CARROT REVIEW - 8/8

INSIGNIFICANT MOMENTS IN THE FOLDS OF TIME - Learning Moon Language

Looking down from the hills of forty years later, I believed I'd forgotten how this all came about. Once I brought my attention to it, all too easily the circumstances rekindled in my mind exactly as to why. Jas would've been bored. And whenever Jas was feeling jaded about life, or in the middle of some unresolved internal conflict about to flare wildly up, she'd strike out. She'd loudly and trenchantly suggest we all must go do something. And we two, weak-willed compliant adjacent men, went along with whatever she suggested, simply because we had no better idea to resist the power of her insistence with. 

Barry, or Baz to his close friends, well we went way back. In our late twenties we'd ended up sharing a large flat together in one of the cities satellite suburbs. So large was it, that when Baz found a girlfriend, Jasmine, she could move in without cramping anyone's style. They occupied the sole spacious room in the entire flat, the one up top in the attic. I had the self contained smaller room on the floor below the shared kitchen, living room and bathroom, situated between. It was a neat fit. Inevitably Jasmine's name got shortened to Jas, solely for reasons of alliterative teasing. For if Baz and Jas were salt and pepper complimentary condiments, they would prove to be very abrasively so.

And this was how I'd become drawn into the unnerving psycho-drama that was Jas's life back then. A constant act of indiscriminate rebellion was going on. Several cause celebre proceeded simultaneously, within herself, with the way the world was, but mostly with her family. A recurring focus for fury being the faults and self evident class treachery of her Father. 

Whenever Baz and Jas had sex, this was raucously loud. Whenever they argued, it was savage and loud. If she was in one of her frequent mental meltdowns, the moaning and screeching emanating from the attic was for me, even two floors down, disturbingly way too loud. And not that many days after one such crisis had alarming come to a head with her failed attempt to overdose on paracetamol, she brightly piped up. 'I know, let's all go to the seaside, right now '.

And, yeah, this had been a horrendous time we'd been through recently, we needed a fresher sense of the potency of air. For open fields, seascapes to breathe in and expel to the wind dark shadowy squalls of imprisoned feelings. We needed to get the hell out of this grubby urbanity, that I scathingly called 'The Boil'. So I looked at Baz, his eyes visibly shadowed, rubbed sore with crying in private, over the pain and evident strain of his love life. So I put aside any reservations I had, about following yet another of Jas's impulses, and agreed that this was actually a really apposite thing to do. Well, I didn't say apposite, cos that would have been a really poncy thing to say. More 'That's a great idea Jas, let's do it.' To ape the unplanned for spontaneity and intuitive spirit of it, we all enthusiastically piled into Jas's battered blue Citroen 2CV. Deciding we'd head roughly east until we hit the ocean, somewhere. 

As the 2CV rattled like a tin can chugging its way roughly eastwardly. Baz and Jas chatted away to themselves in the front, seemingly quite amiable, having fun most of the journey. I couldn't hear exactly what they were talking about, above the general car gear cranking cacophony. But I'd learned to spot when Jas's still forming feminist perspective, was being tried out on Baz as some sort of object lesson. Observe and inwardly digest it, lest I incur her withering wrath for giving the wrong answers to 'the quiz questions.' 

I kept my profile low down in the back of the car, not wishing to get drawn into any incipient debate. Until I'd met Jas, I'd never met anyone who called themselves a feminist. Nor did I fully understand at the time why Jas became so ardent. I naively didn't understand what feminism's purpose was. I was just a confused and befuddled young man. Whose life just seemed to be getting increasingly entangled in the cultural contradictions and privileges of the accident that was my masculinity. That was already wrapped up in its own veil of mysterious uncertainty. In short, I didn't know the fuck who I was.

I gazed through the rear car window at the turning of the sky above. Observing how the severe rectilinear gray mirrors and rain stained glass of the inner city slowly softened into suburban tree lined boulevards, then into woods and wider golden, not yet harvested, countryside. It was mid autumn, and in the bright of a clear sky, the midday sun turned full on the colours of leaves. The further east we went, the more intense the colours, the ochres, burnt oranges, burgundy reds became, dressed up in sycamore, oak and beech leafed spatters. All illuminated like an altar window in praise of the celestial profundity of some pagan godly nature. 

This all passed over me in an ever changing wave of shades dappled, dashed and swirling across my vision, as though I was partaking in a hallucinogenic dream. Much of my journey was executed in this intoxicated manner, occasionally sinking into a light slumber, woken by an abrupt pothole or a wicked cackle erupting between the pair upfront. And before I knew it hours passed and the loud cry of 'The Sea' went up.  Immediately sitting upright to catch my first glimmerings of azure on the horizon, as we came down through the tree lined approach to this seaside town, that was apparently somewhere in the east.

The sun had waned and become more muted by the time we'd parked. Our legs and bums grown sore. Re-engaging our limbs with the whole concept of walking, momentarily stumbling around like self intoxicated excitable young babes. The town itself felt subdued, as though it's summer of enthusiasm and noise had drained it of all its residual energy. Shops and cafes were closing early, just as we were setting our minds to exploring the high street. So we headed in the direction of the sea front to inhale some brine.

Jas loudly proclaimed she was 'done with any more driving' so we'd need to find a place to stay overnight. Because none of this had been planned for. There was a quick scrum to work out how we were going to pay for this, and which of us had the most in the bank right now. This was the 1980's, so any concept of credit cards was a relatively novel option, and in places like this east coast seaside town, pretty much unheard of. Baz was flush at the time, so he paid for two rooms in a pub just off the main Promenade. With a cheque he assured us wouldn't bounce. But also we'd both solemnly swore that we'd pay him back immediately upon our return. Which I remember doing, and Jaz notably didn't, because her taking financial advantage of Baz was to become this persistent bone of contention in future fracas between the two of them. Aggravated by Baz knowing she came from a really wealthy family who paid her a monthly allowance, which they constantly attempted to use as leverage to make their wayward daughter conform. Which she rarely did, or did with all the ungrateful hostility she could muster.

After chips and beers in the bar, we retired to Baz 'n' Jas's room in the eves, all warped wooden floorboards with roof beams to match, surrounding a capacious bed. We chatted raucously and playfully for a while. and when it looked like Baz and Jas were on the preliminary embarrassing slopes of fore play, I made my excuses and left. 

Not wanting to return to my own rusticated guest room straightaway, I strode out of the pub to take in the night-time air. The moon was full on by then, I stood by the groins and sea defenses, gazing in wonder at the calmness planetary forces can instill. It was then that the uncalled for inveigled itself into consciousness, with disturbing imagery, feelings and sounds flashing back. Of Baz coming to my room in the flat pleading for help, finding Jas by the sink in the loo, simultaneously taunting us. whilst continuing to shovel pills down her throat. Her jeering disparaging manner. Eyes full of hateful disdain, because,' that she was doing this was all our fault', because after all we were both men.

Inwardly turning my face away from this memory, I shut my eyelids, to draw the discomfort of it to an end. I breathed in as deeply as I could. Re opened my eyes to the moon glimmering across the sea's surface, the sound of shingle rustling as waves hit the beach. Just to feel and see my breath broke the persistence of the spell. This was how I found myself on a sloping launch jetty of wooden logs. Laying myself out like a cadaver on a slab, motionless, but receptive to the moon. Observing the scudding thin wisps of clouds part, reveal, then re-obscure that moon, like a celestial striptease routine. Breathing in, then out, in time with the tidal shuffling of pebbles. This whole sonic soundscape filled me to the brim, mimicking then calming the residue of my inner turmoil. 

I took in the brightness of the moon, which with its silver like clarity spoke directly to me. Now, when I was in a state where I could actually listen, to really hear - well, it was either the Moon or it was me whispering to myself in my mind - Stop living your life in the unsettled shadow of others.

2026 PLAYLIST No 13 - You You You by Arab Strap

You You You - Arab Strap

Just when you think Arab Strap's career Renaissance might have peaked, up turns this new track. An album Half Told Tales is to follow on 4th September. So we will have a while yet to bask in the glow of this caustic little gem. The music rumbles along in the background in a deceptive electro disco until a menacing guitar like a travelling express train breaks the dissociated cool with unsettling ease, then a descending trills of notes, and ends with a series of monumental crangs. Meanwhile Aidan Moffat intones his mordant word smithery, bemoaning the hole in his shoe, but as the song progresses grumbles increasingly about his state of bodily deterioration in explicit detail. Until he lets his rage off the leash, it's not just at what he's become, but what the world has become, with protesters being treated as terrorists, the false faith in AI as the saviour of no one. And as part of a music business now completely beholden to the internet, how can any of us escape becoming hypocritical simply by association? So this is punchy stuff. Not afraid to broach some of the controversies and conundrums of our age. It's utterly brilliant.

I've got a hole in my shoe that lets in rain

And another new lump in another vein

I've got pills for breakfast every day

To keep my pains and fears at bay

I've got a portly paunch I just can't shift

I feel undesired, dismissed, adrift

My get-up-and-go is long gone

And the days keep dragging on.

I've got a hole in my head that can’t be filled

Time is never spent, it's only killed

I'm always bored, it seems nothing excites me

My own limbic system fights me

I've got watchlists I'll never watch

And pruritus scroti in my crotch

I've got a seething sadness in my soul

That might just swallow me whole

As the tyrannised unite and fight

There’s a fiery frog in my throat now

From all that singing: Bella ciao!

I've got my day in court that can't be missed

'Cause the government claims I'm a terrorist;

I fear for my son, I fear for my daughter

But in this world of slaughter

And if you're streaming this song on Spotify

Then we both fund weapons-grade AI

But if it wasn't here, then how would you hear it?

We're over a barrel, but we don't have to cheer it

I don't know what the fuck to do

When hypocrisy reigns and nothing is true

And nobody pays for abhorrent behaviour

Fuck these demagogues cosplaying saviours

Lyrics Arab Strap 2026

FINISHED READING- Another England by Caroline Lucas

In the UK, the far right have basically occupied the high ground in defining what Englishness is. Wrapped in flags, nostalgic for Empire, exceptionalism and clinging to the frail ideal of England as being a morally superior culture. The regular repetition of these major shibboleths has consequently poisoned social and political discourse, to the extent that even a supposedly socialist party believed it had to resort to the same toxic gutter and morally emptied itself of all principle and empathy, in order to curry popularity.

Caroline Lucas, in this perceptive book, looks at what Another England to that of the far right might look like. What dignified role can pride in your, country, people and place have these days? She chose to write this book to put out some ideas of her own on paper, to kick off a discussion. A discussion that left leaning parties are noticeably wary of even broaching, for fear of justifying the very views they wish to oppose. Such is the curious political bind we are in, everyone knows Reform needs to be challenged in this area and their selective use of what is thought to be patriotic, but merely resort to name calling.

What defines a nation is really all about the stories we tell ourselves. Because whatever they are, these manifest in how we relate to and behave in the world, how we treat others, and the environment. And in a country where more and more people are struggling to make ends meet, giving them hope and pride is not insignificant.  Lucas begins by utilising our heritage of English literature as an entry point into discovering what that other England might look like. The poetry of John Clare bemoaning the enclosures, the stories of Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell about the human costs and wrongs of the Industrial Revolution. It's true that as the first modern industrial nation, we also were innovating the social responsibility of capitalists. Pioneering a welfare state and the NHS.

There is also the frequency of protest throughout English history, as an agent for change. How the actions of ordinary people of England have forced social, economic and environmental improvements, stretching from the Peasents Revolt, Kett's Rebellion, Levellers, Diggers, Chartists, Suffragettes all the way to Occupy and Extinction Rebellion. These point to a progressive demand for social, economic and environmental justice running like a positive vein of English blood through them all. This starts to tell you of Another England that isn't regressive or toxically obsessed with resisting the imaginary blandishments of 'wokery'.

She makes some suggestions about a way forward, but this is a work in progress. For this is really about the renewal of our broken democratic contract with the people of this country. That England needs to be better represented as an electoral entity.  That practical things like net zero needs to be reached now, not in 2050. We need to stop behaving as if the climate emergency can be put off or delayed. Britain, and it's governments currently have a lack of urgency about this and many other issues, it responds slowly and incrementally, this is somewhat endemic and it's making us all poorer, sick and apathetic. 

Don't read this book expecting to find all the answers here, it is simply giving you a few much-needed directional pointers. We all have to discover for ourselves what we believe we want our country to be and then fight for that.  

But as James Baldwin so succinctly puts it -   

'Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it's faced'.

CARROT REVIEW - 4/8

WATCHED - The Way Down (2021)

The first settlers in America came to escape religious persecution, and to practice the religion of their choice without government interference or restrictive institutional supervision. It is unsurprising then that freedom to practice whatever your religious belief or none, became a First Amendment clause in the US Constitution. Such idealism has over the centuries of the United States existence allowed hundreds and hundreds of religious denominations to surface. Even though within the burgeoning ranks of evangelical Christianity, they sometimes appear to stretch or stray from the essential teachings of Jesus, to the point of perversion and beyond. The Way Down, comes as yet another documentary about an idealistically driven Christian sect that becomes an oppressive cult. And over its five episodes it becomes clear exactly what needs to happen for even the most well meaning of religions to slip into becoming a cult.

Gwen Shamblin was brought up in the Southern Baptist tradition within her own family. And its apparent that their hardline approach to Christianity, influences The Way Down Workshops and the Remnant Fellowship that Gwen develops, pioneering her own unique approach to religious practice. Its a weight loss regime, that sees obesity as a prime indication of a lack of godly focus. As Gwen puts it, too much bowing down to the fridge, and not to God. The implication being that the depth of your devotedness to God will manifest in your being slim. You hear this, and you look at Gwen Shamblin and her preposterous pile of hair, and you wonder quite how anyone could fall for this load of buncombe. But they did, and that is what makes this documentary compelling viewing.

There are plenty of to camera confessions from former Remnant Fellowship members. Often concerning the all male hierarchy of elders, directed by Gwen, controlling the lives of men and women in the movement. Often using their children as leverage to keep them there. Threatening they could take their children from them if they left. Cruel punishment regimes for troublesome children recommended by Gwen, resulted in the death of one child.  Men or women who could not loose weight would be ostracised as defective practitioners to be treated as suspect. This movements growth cannot be based entirely on Gwen Shamblin's manipulative behaviour or dubious charisma. it's also about creating a self reinforcing belief culture where your level of fervent practice will receive its own reward. So people dedicate themselves to this devotedly. And when things do go wrong, no one is allowed to publicly acknowledge why this has happened, to question why it happened, or make recommendations to prevent it happening again. They are just told to move on and forget it.

Had not Gwen been killed in a plane crash, these scandals might never have never come out. Her own children Elizabeth and Michael exhibit all the signs of being quite damaged personalities. The Remnant Fellowship gradually at her instigation, become entirely self contained and self referential. Businesses and services were all managed in house, drawn from and serving members only. All the power, direction and control of the movement came from Gwen and a small group of male elders acting as her administrative acolytes. The Fellowships hierarchy became both judge and jury on the rectitude of its members, that moved swiftly to discredit anyone who left or criticised the Remnant Fellowship. 

This self containedness, barricaded against the influence or censure of the surrounding culture, which meant it was difficult to question or contradict any of the ideas held, both from within and outside of it. Impossible for anyone to ascertain quite how wealthy the movement had made Gwen Shamblin and her family. It seems the First Amendment itself provides statutory protection for these religious sects, from outside interventions unless an illegality or heinous offence can be proven to have taken place. I guess those founding fathers naively put more trust in the good nature and moral upstanding of religious practitioners than we would these days. 

CARROT REVIEW 5/8

The Way Down, can currently be seen on HBO Max.

2026 PLAYLIST No 12 - Go Fuck Yourself by Fat Dog

Fat Dog - Go Fuck Yourself

One of my favourite tracks of last year was Fat Dog's, All The Same. With no signs yet of a new album, Go Fuck Yourself is a stand alone single, for now at least. The album Woof was a bit of a patchy affair. But Go Fuck Yourself with it's Euro disco backing track is a delight. No way a track with that title is ever going to get the airplay it deserves, but it is really a beauty. One gets the impression Joe Love the lead singer could be a bit of a miserable git, his songs do seem to have a studied hostility and stroppy indifference at the core of them. Not a hint of humour or self deprecation. Fat Dog appear to have a high turn over of band members, losing bassists and drummers with some frequency. The rock- klezmer- techno of the first album, has morphed now into something which remains addictive, but has perhaps less original things to say musically. Love also appears, like Getdown Services,to be not afraid of flaunting his Lad Bod.

2026 PLAYLIST No 11 - Radiator by Getdown Services

Getdown Services - Radiator

This duo from Minehead, have been ploughing a very particular furrow for a few years now. The rapport between them is similar to a comedy double act. They've been friends since childhood, and there is a mutual affinity and love here for making affectionately barbed music together. With this song Radiator, and a storming appearance on Later with Jools Holland, I think they are about to step up another notch in their visibility and popularity. 

Getdown Services, aka Ben and Josh, are authentically who they are, nothing about them feels manufactured, squeaky or clean. These are Lad Bods, with spare tires and a bouncy over intoxicated energy.  Radiator is an idiosyncratic song about being caught in a cramped room where you can't turn down the radiator. Their songs are often about such small insignificant details of ordinary life and the culture that surrounds them.  The lyrics are witty, acutely observed, pointedly satirical and frequently profane. Meanwhile the dance groove of Radiator infectiously grinds on with great gusto, and finishes with Josh playing a truly demonic cacophony on his guitar. This was the moment I fell in love with these guys. 

Though they have echoes of the langerous and laconic qualities of John Cooper Clarke and Alex Turner, they are very much their own thing. It could be easy to dismiss them as a novelty act, but that would be doing them a real disservice.  Don't take their lack of seriousness for shallowness, there is a lot of depth here if you look for it. What they are producing is enjoyable music, that possesses a great life affirming verve, which also keeps a keen eye on what can be lovingly lampooned. They are also clever wordsmiths to boot. Currently my band of the moment.

SCREEN SHOT - Sisu ( 2022 )

On one level all that could be said about this film, is that it is bloody gory. This film will not be for the faint hearted. It has a similar mode of operation as a John Wick movie, in that it is really a sequence of carefully orchestrated set piece instances of utter hilarious carnage. And it is unsparing, heads get blown to pieces, land mines explode in someone's face, knives are thrust straight through someone's cranium. Yes, it is all patently ridiculous, as cod as the German accents, but a mischievous tongue is being firmly held here. This film will cause a few chuckles at the absurdly grisly lengths to which it will go. If you are looking for carefully drawn characters or want to understand their motivations in going on a killing spree, then please look away now.  The many ways explored of executing and slaughtering, are done here entirely for comedic effect. And it is quite often laugh out loud fun to watch. As cartoon violence often is.

The film is set in Finland, near the end of the war. The Nazi's are in retreat, but are executing a scorched earth policy as they make their way to leave. The film opens with a man digging holes in a landscape, he's looking for gold, whilst the planes fly over on their way to fire bomb a city into dust. One day he does find gold, life transforming mega amounts of gold. He packs up that gold and sets off on his horse to cash in his haul. He encounters Nazi's on the way, but makes very short shrift of them, and leaves a grim catalogue of mutilated bodies behind him. And so this is how the film goes on. 

The Nazi's want revenge, which only grows more intense when they discover just how much gold the man has on him. But they don't yet know that this is Korpi, a Finish assasin who is renowned for being unrelenting in his pursuit once his anger is raised. Is he immortal, or just good at evading death? Because there are repeated times in Sisu when you would think this man was a complete gonna, but comes back yet again on his mission of seeking revenge. Dialogue here is brief and perfunctory.

Whilst this film is not remotely attuned to being subtle or nuanced, the director Jalmari Helender knows exactly what he is aiming at here and pulls it off with aplomb. He is fortunate in having Jormma Tomilla playing the lead Korpi, without his 'man with no name' taciturn abilities, this film would not have enough to hold your emotional attention. Gore is never enough, you need at least to be rooting for Korpi, And you do. There is a sequel from 2025 which I suspect Hubby will be itching to watch before too long.

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

FINISHED READING - The Book Of Trespass by Nick Hayes

"We need space for the mind to rave, to wander and to dream. Access to land is access to experience and access to nature is access to our own wild, spiritual mind. And while the current logic of property forbids our experience of land unless it is sold, we are expected to buy weekend tickets to access our own wild creativity."*

It is a telling statistic that 92% of land and 97% of waterways in England is in private ownership, and hence out of bounds for ordinary folk to walk or sail on without paying for permission or permit. That is only the starting point for Nick Hayes excellent exploration of that most English notion of private property as akin to a divine right. You are not allowed to question how this ownership came about either. Hayes notes that when common public land has been openly stolen by landowners, once it becomes their own private property any discussion broaching on that illegality, becomes as off limits as how the landowner came by his original estate in the first place. Because actually the parcelling out of land to a select group of individuals, well, none of that stands up too well to close historical or ethical scrutiny.

The lions share of our present land ownership distribution has its origins in 1066 and the Norman Conquest. William the Conqueror gave land to his nobiity who'd helped win that conquest. Kicking out the Saxon chiefs and putting in his own men. These brought with them their own culture, that loved to hunt in forests.  So they set about creating new forests with a hunting 'chase' built into them. Land that previously had been open for all to forage and hunt, became private land that you might lose your life if you were caught trespassing or 'poaching' upon it. This fencing off of what was once common land, was the first of many such thefts of collectively owned land for individual private benefit and profit. And so this has continued, common land continues to be constantly accrued by the wealthy landowner, corporation or investment  company. Acts of Enclosure began in the 17th century, greatly accelerated in the 18th, and carried on until just before World War 1. The destruction of feudal land use and peasant livelihoods ranged wide and deep, which led to a slow building exodus from the countryside into the industrial towns in the 18th-19th century.  To own property and land was to gain access to unimaginable privileges, advantages those of us who don't own land can never acquire. 

" Property decides what is proper. It decides what land is for and who land is for. If you can't afford to pay for access to city clubs or country festivals, or if you don't own property spacious enough to create your own community gathering, if no landlord will give you permission, there is simply nowhere for you to commune. As long as what happens on the land is governed by a select few there will never be a society that reflects the values of anything but a tiny minority of its citizens. If we are truly to discover what we have in common, we must be allowed to gather on common ground. "*

When a local council brings in a developing company to revamp a public space, this often entails the selling of the land to that company. And hence once common land held for us by our councils, becomes private land. If you wanted to start a march or protest in this once public space, you'd be very promptly turfed off, because this is now private property and there are no rights of assembly here. Gradually common land and public spaces are being eradicated, and our sense of belonging and having access to this land that surrounds us is consequently diminished. The ability of ordinary folk to dissent and protest is being kettled and corralled, into ever tighter defined areas. This lack of available space and freedom to breath easily or publicly vent, leads us into ill health and a crisis in the nations physical and mental wellbeing. Property law becomes then a major way the establishment limits the effect of dissent, which unfortunately even people kept outside of the establishment fence, with aspirations, seem to buy into.

This impoverishes ordinary lives, where ease of access to walk the land we were brought up in, to breath its sea air, and swim freely in our rivers, are all carefully ring fenced by signs that warn Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. Nick Hayes has been one of the founders of The Right To Roam campaigning movement. It's aims modelled upon the Scottish Right To Roam law which was introduced in 2003. Other European countries have the right to roam in law as part of their birthright - Norway, Sweden. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria, Czech Republic and Switzerland. So it's not the batshit crazy, neo- marxist idea English landowners would like to make it out to be. In The Book of Trespass, Hayes cleverly mixes facts, statistics, historical research and his own adventures in trespassing. As an artist, he is often in search of the forbidden, the out of reach places, the woods and landscapes we cannot see because they are behind a literal wall of exclusion. He wants to draw and paint these things simply because they are so rarely seen. And through out the book we are shown some of his stylish artworks. He is also an excellent painter in words, very vivid pictures of the qualities of a particular forests, the pleasures in lighting fires outside, of gazing up into the night skies above dilapidated architectural follies, or the experience of kayaking down the Thames towards Runnymede, or the jeopardy involved in searching for mythic oak trees. He shows us what we are all missing out on, because it's hived off behind a barbed fence, with an equally barbed sign.

"More often than not, I and whichever friend I could persuade to join me met not one other soul on our trip. We walked, sat around, talked, took in the day, lit a fire, slept, cleared away our rubbish, and left. And the most striking discovery of all this rambling was just how wide the world is, how many hills, lakes, woods and dells there are to this land. If England is full, it is full of space. And the walls that hide it."*

A friend loaned me this book, after seeing the documentary Our Land about the Right To Roam movement, that Nick Hayes is a part of. I found myself being unexpectedly captivated and completely enthused by it.  Part polemic, part the diary of a true nature lover, and a very deep and thorough dive into the scurrilous nature of property and land ownership rights in England's green and pleasant land. Lack of land, or access to land, being a canker on England's sense of individual liberty and view of who we are. Highly recommended.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

* All quotations taken from The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes, 

   Published by Bloomsbury, 2021

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 139 - When The Chips Are Down

To all of you for whom this is your first viewing of this blog, Welcome, and happy browsing. Thank you for your interest and visit.

April was the first month when this Cornucopia blog topped over 110,000 viewers. March got close with just short of 95,000. And it's been busier over the quieter months of Winter too. May last year was my busiest of that year, at 65,000. 2026 has exceeded that most months,  If it continues to follow that pattern then 150,000 may be feasible this May.  This upsurge in views over the last few years still feels slightly perplexing.  I keep posting the same sort of stuff I do normally, and though it's interesting to watch what happens each month, it does seem that this is nothing to do with me.

Advert Tag Line No 1 -Stop the leaks, Stop the yawns.

Having reached the statistically significant Benchmark of 100,000, Blogger has started to offer me Ad Sense, which is automated advertising on the site. There are days when the idea of earning money through the blog appeals, but mostly I feel reluctant -to very hostile against doing so. Ever increasing levels of advertising enshitify everywhere on the internet.  I am not alone in finding it irritating. My adding to this with my own blog would, hence, be hypocritical of me. Blogger says you can exercise some control over what and where. But I really do not trust that assertion. That this is a mindless automated algorithm, tells you all you really need to know. I like to approach my blog, however humble, as free of the constant pressure to consume or tolerate a sales pitch interrupting the moment you idly click on a site.

Advert Tag Line No 2 - Nature's Wrinkle Fighter 

Whilst we are on the subject of enshitification  The first thing You Tube does now when I click on it, is shove some random Short in my face, that it thinks I might appreciate. This can be when I've just got up in the morning. I am not in the frame of mind to tolerate any of this first thing. I become annoyed as I madly search for someway to make it bloody well stop. My tablet screen also appears to have become hyper sensitive to my fingers merely hovering over it. So adverts or other You Tube posts suddenly pop up whilst I'm perhaps deeply absorbed in a interesting video on prehistoric archeological anomalies in the Saudi Arabian desert. I kid you not. Take a look at these!

Advert Tag Line No 3 - A softer bit for every tot

Having recently spent a few days with friends in Southwold, we've realised a short break before the busy Summer season kicks in, is actually beneficial and an all round good idea. Whilst in Southwold we visited all the usual places we like, but spread these out in a more relaxed fashion across two days. On the third day we took a trip down to Aldbrough. My recollection of it was as a pretty seaside town with not a lot more to it. This was reconfirmed. It still has a fine beach sculpture designed by Maggie Hambling, but not much else. The shops are mostly middle brow art galleries that wouldn't scare any horses, it has three delicatessens, yes I did say three, plus the obligatory clothes, giftware and interiors shops. But, we looked at all the chip shops in the town, and not one cooked chips in vegetable fat. It was exactly the same in Southwold. 

Our friends had loaned us their year passes to The Red House, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pear's house, which boasted it had a cafe. We drove there in the hope of finding chips. It turns out the cafe has a coffee percolator and a small range of pre-packaged biscuits & cake. I'm only mildly interested in Britten, and Hubby hardly at all, so our desire to know more soon expired, or was perhaps near to none existent in the first place. So still sans the holy grail of chips we terminated our visit with extreme prejudice, and drove away.

Advert Tag Line No 4 - Relief could be as simple as a shower 

We then imposed our presence upon the small, but grubby, town of Leiston, whose sole remaining function is as a conduit that enables you to reach Aldbrough. Currently Sizewell C is in the process of being built. All the preparatory access roads to enable the largest project currently under construction in England, are presently being levered into the picturesque country idyll and the wealth stuffed backwoods of Suffolk. The fight against Sizewell C was lost, however much tooth and nail was expended. These same local campaigners have switched to fighting the horrendous heavy traffic load rumbling upon the quiet roads, greens and ponds of their villages. Evidently a battle royale is being fought over these 'Rat Runs'. As everywhere are placards and yellow cut out cartoon rats on sticks lining every verge and hedge alongside the roads. Whilst I sympathise with the undoubtedly hellish situation, I can't help but feel they are going to have to grin and bare with this, until the infrastructure is completed. In this context protest seems a bit of a self indulgent whim.

Leiston is the logistical nub of all this cacophony of heavy haulage. Did they have a non animal fat chippy, no they did not. We resorted to sating our hunger in the back of the local Co Op supermarket. Here a Subway franchise was crammed into one desultory unused corner. We had a baguette stuffed with various forms of highly processed protein vegetable matter with accompanying raw condiments. And once we tucked in, found it to be OK. But even though it had all these supposedly good healthy real ingredients in it, it still felt as though it was meant to be eaten by toothless babies. No one frequenting Subway is ever required to own a full set of teeth, just a firm gummy jawline. Having successfully parked our hunger, and to avoid hearing the details of the health and safety inspection of Subway that began as we left, we drove home without further distressing any locals.

In the local elections, Sheringham defiantly hung on to its very effective Lib Dem Local Councillor, Liz Worthington, whose stepped up to County level.  Quite an achievement when all around fell prey to the deceptive lure of Reform. Norwich City Council, which has in the past invariably been a loan red beacon of Labour in a sea of Tory blue, has now turned resolutely Green surrounded by the polluting sewage swill of anaemic azure.

Currently Zack Polanski, the leader of the Green Party, is having to endure the mother of all character assassinations. He made one critical misjudgment, a chink in his armour appeared, and the right wing press are now down on him like a ton of bricks. Having literally run rings around them for the last six months, they are now giving him the Jeremy Corbyn treatment. Followed in very quick succession by the Angela Raynor treatment. These they subject only to left wing politicians that looks too worryingly popular to them. Throw any old mud at them cos some of it will stick in the public's mind. It's not pretty, and it would be nice to think the sort of tittle tattle they are digging up was insignificant. But in the hands of the right wing media this is all about the sullying of publicly favourable perceptions consistently over time. Meanwhile the greasy ( gifted into being a crypto multi-millionaire apparently ) Nigel Farage, is left relatively blemish free, all unexamined squeaky and clean, nothing to see here.

Meanwhile I finished a decorative piece for the garden. We had a metal arched framework that once held a mirror until it inevitably broke. I've been intending to cut up an old metal lampshade and make it into panels to fill in random panes, plus casts in air dry clay and spray them white. Its not my finest executed piece, but it fills the space well. That's one less thing to think about and I can move on to the next job on my rolling to do list.

CHURCH LARKING - Aylsham Parish Church

Like many Norfolk towns Aylsham benefited from the prolonged boom in wool and cloth trading in medieval East Anglia. A priest was first sent here in 1066, and work on building a church began over a hundred years later. All that remains of that first church is the large Lady Chapel window tracery, the roof and chapel having been heavily refurbished in 1489. Some decorated roof timbers with an 'M' for Mary design, date from this period. This refurbishment undoubtedly brought it up to scratch with the north and south processional aisles that were installed earlier in this period. Viewed from the outside the window nearest the Lady Chapel looks abruptly cut off on one side. As most of the window tracery was replaced in the 19th century this might indicate there was a minor miscalculation in the window layout. 

Lady Chapel window and painted roof

Lady Chapel - 15th century Piscina

The remainder of St Micheal and All angels church, the tower and south porch are largely mid 14th century, built under the financial auspices of John of Gaunt, with the chancel being entirely rebuilt a century or so later. So this church was constantly upgraded to the latest architectural fashion, and there was enough surplus money washing around to finance that. 

As you look down the nave you can't help notice that the nave structure bows outward alarmingly. This may simply be a remnant of previously insecure foundations or the consequence of its original roof outweighing the ability of it's arches to hold. The remaining church architecture is largely unchanged since the small spire was added in 1600. Mostly it has been restoration work since the mid 19th century Victorian makeover by Rev Edmund Yates, who was an enthusiastic adopter of the Oxford Movement. But, it has to be said, this has been done with a degree of sensitivity. The nave roof though completely replaced, reuses most of the ceiling bosses from the original medieval roof. All the present pews installed at this time are in keeping, as were the several examples of fine stained glass you'll find scattered around the church, which are Victorian or later. Most are of a very accomplished quality, but you will find a couple of windows that were painted in enamels that have since deteriorated very badly. 

A deteriorated bit of stained glass

The very beautiful east window, with it's four evangelists, unfortunately ended up being partly obscured by the massively imposing reredos placed in front of it. This reredos is notable for two reasons. First, It was designed by John Repton, the architect son of Sir Humphrey Repton, the famous landscape designer, who is also buried in a tomb which rests against the outside chancel wall. Second, the reredos though it looks full on Victorian Gothic Revival, does very cleverly include some of the remaining upper structure from the original medieval roof screen, which sets ones imagination off reassembling it all in one's mind.

Sir Humphrey Repton's Tomb Memorial 

Medieval rood screen panels.

Aylsham has managed to retain all sixteen of the lower panels from its medieval rood screen. These portray all the typical saints you would expect. Unusually, they also include portraits of two Aylsham medieval wool merchants who paid for the rood screen to be gilded - John Jannys and Thomas Wymer.  The saint's faces have all been damaged or erased during the Civil War, but the original quality of the rood screen painting does however still impress. If you look up to the left of the screen you will find the blocked up doorway that would have provided entry to the rood loft itself. The rood loft, before the age of pulpits, was where sermons would be given, and in the absence of a gallery, where musicians might play. Behind the pulpit you'll find a locked gate and a small spiral staircase that still ascends to that doorway.

This staircase once led to a rood loft

15th century font

Wine glass Pulpit

Other pieces of church furniture to look out for include a rather fine 15th century font, with its carvings of the instruments of Christ's passion and symbols of the Evangelists. At its base are the coat of arms of John of Gaunt and Sir Thomas Erpingham. There are some worn medieval brasses set into the floor in the north aisle and the altar enclosure. Aylsham also has an extremely rare carved wooden wine glass pulpit from 1637 with its classically inspired panelling. This pulpit's staircase was entirely replaced in the 19th century. 

Altar sedilia with squint on the right

Through the squint towards the altar

Just to the right of the altar shrine you will find a squint in the wall that allowed you to view the sacrament. These are normally outside the church looking in, and are often referred to as Leper's squints. Was this squint originally outside, but is now inside. or was it conceived as an internal squint from the start? It is most likely a historical remnant from before the present wider chancel and aisles were installed. Otherwise one might be left to conjecture that Aylsham once had an anchorite cell, or an internal space set aside for ill people to view or take sacrament. Though there is no historical record of either happening here. 

For such a small town the church of St Micheal and All Angels, is a rather fine remnant of the medieval period, when it was truly flush with money,with a desire to use their patronage for status and prestige.