MY OWN WALKING - June Journal 2026

In the history of my spiritual practice, my resistance to doing it, and my response to my resistance to doing it, have frequently been an area for patience, practice and experiment. In the first flush of enthusiasm and excitement of Beginners Mind, one rarely encounters much resistance. Only as things settle down into the more hum drum regularity of daily practice, does resistance start to raise its head. Because in those early days the sense of practice opening up new vistas on yourself and reality sustains you. It creates a tangible sense of you making real progress. However, deceptive that might actually be.

In my experience, this freshness rarely lasts. And whilst one is always being encouraged to keep hold of the openness and curiosity that Beginners Mind relies upon. In reality, this is pretty tricky to impossible to self consciously maintain. When anything that was once new becomes familiar, it loses its ability to rejuvenate because of its bright shine tarnishing.

What in essence resistance is, is tedium. Boredom with the same routine. Boredom with not appearing to make any progress. Boredom can even be a fundamental disappointment with oneself. And what one chooses to do in response to boredom rearing its apathetic head, has significance. What do you do when you are bored? Are you able to actually do anything?

I'll tell you what I've done, for good or ill. I look for something new that interests and fascinates me. Not necessarily in the practice. It might be another new unknown subject to explore and be excited about. A fresh way of looking at a the familiar object of one's practice, or at oneself. Yet this search for the shock and fizz of the new and novel, I'd say is a major tendency in the Western approach to spiritual practice. It turns spiritual practice into an adjunct to consumerism. The latest novelty practice, to move on from the moment anything becomes unrewarding or remotely boring.

Another response I've had to resistance, is the strong application of self discipline. Now I'll say right here, that this is very different from willpower,. Willpower requires you to be already 'willing' to do this practice. Self discipline recognises that to an extent you are not willing to do this practice regularly every day, unless you coerce yourself into doing so. One way or another you'll get your bum on that cushion. You make a commitment and you stick to it, regardless of your resistance. Self discipline also has a tendency to carry with it a tone in its approach that may not be kind.

This overriding of resistance, has it uses. In extremis it can be useful. But, if used too frequently, it does lead to not even acknowledging the presence of resistance. I found this to be extremely detrimental to my enthusiasm for spiritual practice in the long run. I wasn't taking the whole of me into practice, I attempted exclusion of the truculent non cooperative side of myself. As you can imagine this did not go down well with my psycho-physical being.

It is good to make commitments. But it's also good to recognise when the level of things you are committing yourself to carrying out. has become overwhelming or too burdensome to be consistently executed. It's important not to see dropping some of these commitments as a personal failing. It's just you finding that one way of approaching practice may have run its course, and the need to rethink and review this has arrived. Simply ease off the acceleration pedal you are pressing down too much on.

There was also a time whenever I met resistance or boredom, I simply stopped practicing altogether. This might be for a few days, weeks, months, even years.  I allowed resistance to rule over me, and hence ruined the quality of my engagement. These days, I'm experimenting with a gentler, more receptive approach to resistance. I recognise that my practice has different levels it goes through, on waves of enthusiasm and troughs of fatigue. And when I'm enthusiastic I can take on all sorts of things, try out additional practices, add this or subtract that. And if resistance re-emerges, I'll start pairing away elements of this practice, Perhaps stripping it back to a really basic level for a while. Ready to pick it up again when the fire for it appears to be rekindled again. This means I don't stop doing a daily spiritual practice of some sort, I merely readjust the quantity and intensity of it. To accommodate the indicator that resistance is, without completely capitulating to it. Believe me, this is what real progress looks like.

There is always the question to be asked of yourself. Is resistance a sign that you really don't believe in the efficacy of the practices you are doing?  You have to acknowledge this could be a possibility. Doubt, however, I've found is a pretty reliable test for faith being present. Doubt is just your faith wobbling a bit. It emerges when that faith feels ignored, threadbare or hungry. I'd be more worried if I was indifferent. Have you recharged your faith lately, and what do you do when that is required? What things do you do to put yourself in touch with your faith?  Whenever I am bored or resistant, I have usually become alienated from what I hold faith in. Practice can often become a bit too much of an idea, over idealised, be ego or head driven. Then I need to put greater effort into those more nebulous mystically orientated areas that ground me, point me in the general direction of faith - Imaginative. Poetic, Aesthetic, Mythic, Ritualistic, Raw, Rustic and Elemental Nature. It's like gathering around a freshly lit raging fire at night, with a cuppa tea, and gazing into the primaeval flames and communing with its spirit.

PROTEST & PROGRESS - 1215 - The Magna Carta

My purpose in writing this Protest & Progress blog post, is to explore for myself the history of English Protest Movements. What effect they had, and the changes they may ( or may not ) have instigated. Today, it begins where else but with Magna Carta.

Imagine, you are the younger less handsome, less charismatic brother of the heroic crusader King Richard. You were his Regent. You kept the country running whilst Richard was off committing atrocities (with Papal sanction) in the Holy Land, chivalrously slaughtering Saracens. You can understand why John might have had a chip on his shoulder. 

Once he became King, did he feel unfairly maligned, undervalued, not respected or revered in quite the way his absentee brother had been? Richard was undoubtedly a hard act to follow. But, I mean, what had Richard actually done for his adopted country, except neglect it?  John, however, did appear to be cruel and brutal, with a perverse ability to make any bad situation worse, so his subjects actively feared and loathed him. The issues that really pissed off his barons, however, were very common ones in the history of English protest - war and taxation. 

Plantagenet Kings like Richard and John were not English, they were French. Who ruled at their peak half of France. For them England was an occupied territory, one that increasingly took time and energy away from their home country. Hence John found the need to fight wars in France to retain control of his home feifdom. But with each ensuing battle he was defeated in, he lost control of larger swathes of his territory. Wars were expensive to perpetrate, and royal coffers were emptying fast. So John had to raise finances through imposing taxation on the citizens of England. 

He was not the first king to find himself in this predicament. But in his case,John was losing a war quite shamefully, and would be further humiliated by having to pay his enemies compensation for it. Turning around and asking the citizens of England e.g his own barons, to stump up the cost. Well, this went down like a lead balloon. Had he won, perhaps they might have begrudgingly paid up. But there is nothing like abject failure in a war to foment dissent. The barons having had enough, rose up on mass and captured large areas of southern England, including London. King John was dragooned into signing the Magna Carta on the island of Runnymede. He may have been thinking of this purely as a tactical capitulation, to prevent the wider spread of civil unrest.

This was one hundred and forty nine years after the Norman Conquest. These plucky barons were two generations distant from being French migrants. So don't imagine they were Anglo Saxon Englishmen fighting for their ancestral rights. What they called 'their land' was stolen property, given to their families by William the Conqueror. But England was cash and land rich, that's why the Normans wanted it in the first place.

Charters similar to The Magna Carta were being signed all the time, in order to try establish in law firm legal precedence. The complete lack of a strong legislative making Parliament, made that virtually impossible in 13th century England. But let's be clear here, this charter was concocted entirely for the barons benefit and vested interests. Only by implication does this charter apply to every person in England. As it turned out. King John and the barons both reneged on it pretty quickly and conflict between the King and the barons erupted.

After John's death in 1216, Henry 3rd kept reissuing Magna Carta, using it to try and placate the baronial turbulence he'd inherited in 1216, 1217 and 1225. Under pressure he began to bequeath more power to Parliament. And his son Edward 1st reissued the charter again in 1297, but this time making sure it became Parliamentary statute law, with the intention of it forming the basic foundation for future national law. This was the point at which The Magna Carta began vaguely to resemble the proto-democratic document later generations would laud so highly.

As a piece of law making Magna Carta had a pretty shambolic progress towards enforcement. Only through historical retrospect, roughly from the 16th century onwards, through English Civil War Parliaments, to the Victorians desire to re-write English history with more noble people and principles actively present, has this document gained the significant reputation it now has.

Magna Carta demonstrates the morally compromised approach to law making in English history. Never start from establishing first principles, but give far too much consideration to the short term pressures and vested interests of an era, so end up doing only what could pragmatically be got away with?

However, given time, what this Protest established ( eventually) was the following, and because we once had an Empire these became established more widely in what were our former colonies.

No citizen is above the law, regardless of status.

Everyone has the right to a fair trial

No citizen should be arbitrarily stripped of their rights, without legal process.

No citizen should be taxed without prior Parliamentary agreement.

Judicial process should be impartial and not subject to bribery or corruption 

Any citizen can own and inherit property and not have it unjustly seized by another,

Religious institutions and practices should be free from royal or political interference.

To create the conditions for any change you first have to recognise the collective power that you possess. With Magna Carta the barons certainly grasped that. Over a hundred years later the peasantry of England were to learn what collective power they might have. And in the process encountered the duplicitous nature of the royal house of Plantagenet.

Next Episode - 1381 - The Peasants Revolt 

FINISHED READING - Hope In The Dark by Rebecca Solnit

" The future is dark, which is on the whole, the best thing the future can be" - Virginia Woolf

Stubtitled - Untold Histories and Wild Possibilities, Solnit's book, was first published in 2005 in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraq War. There is a new foreward to this third edition published in 2016. This might appear to have little to give us hope in this Trumpian world, where we reverse into the future with a blindfold on. But what she has to say here about purpose and the results people can achieve if the have hope, still stand proud. Collective action still works, and the tech bros do fear that it might rear it's none co-operative head. Focusing on keeping us distracted, passively consuming the endless amounts of dreck on the internet.  When we look up from our start phones, then we might start to think. This book does stirs ones confidence, to grasp hope and fight for what you want. Nothing ever progresses or improves without cultivating the imagination to hope.

" Your opponents would love you to believe that it's all hopeless, that you have no power, that there's no reason to act, that you can't win. Hope is a gift you don't have to surrender, a power you don't have to throw away. And though hope can be an act of defiance, defiance isn't enough reason to hope. But there are good reasons."

I bought this book because I was finding in our contemporary zeitgeist, it was all too easy for me to fall into despairing, and I wanted to be more In touch with a more open hopeful demeanor. Though as a Budfhist I should already know, not everything we do produces the change we desire, that over desired desires are problematic. Solnit asks us to step back and look at things from a broader perspective, to perceived how change happens in the longer term. That perhaps one small campaign that appeared to fail or fall short in it's aims, might actively change the terms of a discussion and lead to a turn around in public opinion in later years. Hope is for the long run. If we expect revolutions and instant changes, then everything will undoubtedly fail to live up to the expectations we hold. It's so easy to get caught up in despair because what was achieved is only a compromised shadow of what we'd wished for. This may not be the perfect solution, but it is going in the right direction.

"Perfectionists often position themselves on the sidelines, from which they point out that nothing is good enough."

Naysaying, becomes a habit. Yes, this completely glorious thing had just happened, but the entity that achieved it had done something bad at another point in history. Yes, the anguish of this group was ended, but somewhere some other perhaps unrelated group are suffering hideously. It boiled down to: we can't talk about good things until there are no more bad things. Which, given that the supply of bad things is inexhaustible, and more bad things are always arising, means that we can't talk about the good things at all. Ever."

Solnit uses the example of the abolition of slavery, that the campaign took from first utterance to completion, around 250 years to reach abolition. Even then slave labour was often instantly indentured, which was another way of tying them to a particular landowner. Slave owners wanted compensation for the loss of their 'property', which they were duly paid. Though this could look like recognising that slaves could be personal property. All these things got the abolition bill eventually over the line and into law, imperfect though they were as mechanisms. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's was able to build further on that, by removing some of the lingering prejudicial circumstances that bedeviled black lives. And so on, through to # Black Lives Matter. None of this was a perfectly clean fast track trajectory, in the treatment of all humankind with dignity and respect, but it is being driven by the hope that it could be.

"We write history with our feet and with our presence and our collective voices and vision. And yet, of course, everything in the mainstream media suggests that popular resistance is ridiculous, pointless,or criminal, unless it is far away, was long ago, or, ideally, both. There are forces that prefer the giant remain asleep."

" One of the key recognitions is that the change that counts in a revolution takes place first in the imagination."

I found myself excitedly pencilling brackets around the clarity with which she expressed ideas in sentences and whole paragraphs sometimes. Particularly her criticisms that people on the political left get too self absorbed, and paradoxically like those on the far right, become all about what is wrong, not what it is you want to create. You oppose the comfy consensus by pointing out all its self evident flaws. As a result the left today, can be perceived as constantly in a negative state of mind, in relation to how the world operates, neglecting the need to offer hope and a positive vision for what a better world might look like.

" The despairing were deeply attached to their despair, so much so I came to refer to my project as stealing the teddy bear of despair from the loving arms of the left.  What did it give that particular sector of the left ? It got them off the hook, for one thing. If the world is totally doomed no matter what, little or nothing is demanded of you in response..... And those who were active were often hopeful, though it may be the other way around, some of those who are hopeful are active. Yet the range of the hopeful extends beyond that, and you can find hope in surprising corners."

The assumption by the authorities is that in a time of disaster, civil society will instantly crumble, and tight authoritarian controls will be required to prevent anarchy breaking out. When in fact the opposite is what occurs, people pull together and organise themselves and form alliances to help as many people as possible. During the San Fransisco earthquake in 1906, the city authorities literally impeded and got in the way of ordinary San Franciscan's organising soup kitchens and housing homeless families. 

Solnit champions nonviolent protests, and a growing use of none partisanship in solving problems or issues at a local level. The old left/right polarities were collapsing even in the noughties. You don't come in now with your preformed ideological solutions to solve issues anymore, it's more about finding where the common ground is, listening and being open to hear where the direction of ideas, and possible solutions maybe going. 

"Every act is an act of faith, because you don't know what will happen. You just hope and employ whatever wisdom and experience seems most likely to get you there."

This book is a welcome short shot in the arm. As she points out through examples again and again, those expectations of ours for what is possible, and how quickly it can be achieved, need careful monitoring. Otherwise despair will appear and apathy will get in the way.

" Perfection is a stick with which to beat the possible.'

All quotations taken from Hope In The Dark by Rebecca Solnit, Published by Canongate Books, 2016.

2026 PLAYLIST - No 14 - Cursive by Mandy, Indiana

Cursive - Mandy,Indiana

Based in Manchester or Berlin, Mandy,Indiana have this stance that they appear to be coming from another world entirely. Their music is pretty uncatagorisable. There is definitely a debt of inheritance from the whole Manchester scenes of old. I'd say post punk more generally, in its melding of different genres into a cohesive while. A commitment to pushing at boundaries that reminded me of early Faust, and it is that seventies German experimental rock/electro/Stockhausen/improv vibe I largely settle on. This performance of Cursive on Later...with Jools Holland, has the customary vocals in French from Valentine Caulfield. Not speaking French, I can't tell you what she's singing about, a lot of it sounds as if it might be nonsense lists of associative word play. But it moves along a great propulsive groove. That breaks at the end into guitar playing that sounds like he's scratching nails down a sheet if metal. Very Test Department like. I think I love them.

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, African 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 arsed 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