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 gentile 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.

 

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

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

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

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

FINISHED READING - The Less Dead by Denise Mina

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

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

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

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

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

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

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

UNFINISHED READING - Beliefism by Paul Dolan

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

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

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

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

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

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

CARROT REVIEW - 2/8

FAVE RAVE - Banjo & Ro's Grand Island Hotel

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

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

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

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

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

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

RANDOM SNIPPETS - No 5 - Weeping In The Ruins

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

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

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

SCREEN SHOT - The Last Showgirl (2024)

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

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

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

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8