ARTICLE ~ When Democracy Has Cut Its Own Throat

I keep waiting for the residual anger to subside, but over two years later, it hasn't. The moment my thoughts go anywhere near the B word I step potentially onto an escalator towards a self enfeebling frustration. Every week appears to provide more fuel to feed this fire. I'm still hopeful for equanimity on the subject to come, or at the very least apathy. But so far its no show on both counts. The  worrying thing is that I fear I'm far from alone in this.

Merely to mention the B word in polite conversation these days makes everyone go stiff and ready to be on the defensive. You never know the lie of the land ahead, there might be 'one of them' someone who holds a different opinion to you, potentially hostile territory anywhere.There seems to be an elephant under the carpet in every room. Its as if The B word is a trigger word releasing pre-programmed responses, turning the minds of previously reasonable people into folk who only speak in slogans, loudly volatile and beligerent.

I've never voted Tory, voted Labpur only twice, Green once, mostly it was LibDem until their foolish Faustian pact with the Tory's. I voted tactically last time, simply to prevent a Tory from getting in. In a fair and fully functioning modern democracy you shouldn't have to do that. I've got used to wasting my vote on a party with no chance of getting represented or under represented in Parliament due to the gerrymandered nature of the majority vote system. I vote, but as the options increasingly narrow, I do so with ever diminishing enthusiasm and increasing frustration. The political response to the Dumb Ref result of ' any majority will do', silenced my voice, creating another democratic deficit withdrawl from my goodwill account.

Dumb Refs are generally bad democracy masquerading as good. Used by governments often split within their own party on an issue, that wants to shift that division, responsibility and any potential blame, external to themselves. To bury it in the 'democracy' of public opinion. Cross your fingers and hope that with effective brainwashing by the media the people will do what you want them to. Ah, the fool Cameron, where are you now? That it made a whole swathe of society feel like their opinion suddenly mattered and be effective for the first time, tells you how broken Parliamentary Democracy has become. Its ironic that they would give Parliament the finger whilst at the same time returning it full sovereignty.

We have also been gifted those divisive terms Remainer's and Leaver's too. Fracturing cohesion, unity, tolerance, understanding, reasonableness and compassion for others and other people's opinions~ giving a voice and platform to the Riff Raff the darker shadowy beasts in society. There's been a lot of mock hand wringing about the Leaver's being left behind and democratic deficits. I can tell you from my point of view, you don't have to be an Leaver to feel left out of the conversation. its happening all the time.

This has been accompanied and fed by the rise and rise of 'the untruth.' People sporting noses as big as Pinocchio's are unquestioningly believed, as they wave national myths and prejudices around like Febreeze. Allowing the Riff Raff to adopt the Dumb Ref as a patriotic cause.

The result was closely hung. The result of the binary Yes/No vote gave politicians democratic legitimacy to do whatever they wanted to do in the first place, and claim they are carrying out the B result. Hoping there will be a dividend for the fortunes of their own party. Seeing that the country is so divided, you could've tried to find where a unifying consensus might lie on the B word, or you could say 'the winner takes it all' and give a V sign to everyone else, whilst elbowing your way towards the TV cameras, like Boris does. All the talk is of 'taking back control' but you have to ask for the benefit of whom. Have the electorate unwittingly become a tool in someone else's agenda? Shadowy, but wealthy individuals who's intentions are likely to be less democratically accountable than the European Commission's

So a small majority is repackaged as 'the will of the people'. The country fracturing further into countless pseudo 'religious' sects of believers over what the B word actually means. Each of them holding aloft 'the truth' - its all so simple, why is it taking so long? Because it is neither simple nor speedy to do. I would have resigned myself to B had I not felt that the bouncers on its door were aggresively preventing me from entering the debate.

Say you are a company with shareholders, and you had a new financial strategy for the company but needed to get the shareholders backing before launching it. Say the result was 52% for the proposal, though a majority, you might consider it an insufficient endorsement to go ahead with your strategy, and go back to the drawing board.  With shareholders you are looking for a decisive incontrovertible thumping majority, not any old majority will do. It has to be a majority that will unify and pacify dissenters, not fuel them. The Dumb Ref result wasn't thumping or conclusive and hence failed in its primary objective to resolve the issue for a generation.

Ordinary people, media, government and Parliament mindlessly babble slogans like 'B means B', 'Leave means Leave.' But its all a bit like the Emperor's New Cloths with everyone behaving as if they knew exactly what 'the will of the people' was, and what the B word really meant, whilst leaving nearly half of the country completely out of the conversation. Untruth becomes Truth, further corroding peoples trust and faith in democracy, the media and civil institutions. The Government's way of responding to the Dumb Ref and how its handled the negotiations with the EU, has provided us with a classic example of what Really Bad Democracy looks like. The words arrogant, entitled and self-deluded describing some of its least worst characteristics.

Carrying out the consequences of the B word was always going to be a bit like a heart transplant operation, a good chance of survival if you are patient, clear what you want, plan, prepare well and stay focused. But if you are impatient, unprepared, unclear what you want and lose your focus all the time, so when it all goes tits up you just rip out the old heart and thrust in the new. Something is going to die.

Our Parliamentary representatives are trying to find their way through a maze that has no map. We should not be at all surprised, nor blame them alone for what is really of our collective making. They very accurately reflect us. We are all floundering in a chaotic sea, but not personally wanting to own that chaos. Not one of us feels willing to reach a consensus about a way forward for the country, one that everyone, Remain or Leave, can get behind. We all want our own way to prevail, and democracy simply cannot function in an inflexible scenario. Trenchant divisions repeatedly slit the throat of compromise.

Out of the 17th Century Civil War came the creation of Parliamentary Democracy, beginning when Parliament executed its own King. Let's hope that something regenerative happens to our sense of decency and democracy post B.  But at present we are still in an idiotic Civil War between Remainer's and Leaver's. After B happens, it won't be over, because unrealistic promises have been made and there will be a day of reckoning for them all at some point. This could get nasty.

With democratic liberal society reputationally in such a bad state, people may be tempted to grasp for simpler more authoritarian certainties. If so, if you are not white, from another country, or simply different from the perceived norm, beware. Whilst deeply distrustful of Union Jack waving populist patriotism, I do care about the future of the country I was born in. I'm fearful for where all this going to lead, I really hope to be proved categorically wrong, but its looking like where we are heading is not going to be a good place, not a good place at all. 

The consequences of the B word will be a Revolution of sorts. Revolutions tend to have just one aim, to topple a dictator, remove a despotic King, to change a countries political or religious orientation, or to liberate an oppressed people. But once that aim is achieved nine times out of ten no one has a fully worked out a plan for what to do next. In that vacuum arises anarchic situations around which the Riff Raff circle. Their bull dogs sniff the air and get a sense for 'when Democracy has cut its own throat' so they can come out to feast on its carcass.

CARROT CAKE REVIEW - NO 12 ~ On Aiming To Be Average

York, Yorkshire.

This is is probably the best positioned cafe in York, curved around a corner immediately adjacent to the entrance of York Minster. Most cafes could only dream of the footfall they must get in high season. Inside its a straightforward traditionally styled English Tea Room, with slightly butt clenched staff. After we'd arrived, somewhat late in the day it must be said, the waiter surreptitiously flipped the door sign to Closed. Not long before home now boys and girls.

Now I rarely talk about my experience of the cafes I visit. I focus on the qualities of the carrot cake not the ambiance, customer service etc. I'm not a low rent version of Trip Adviser. But I do find myself warming up for a generalised gripe. I don't mind cafes that tick all the right boxes but fall short of their sales pitch. I absolutely love a cafe that pulls off something truly marvellous as if by magic, often by thinking in detail about the quality of their simple offerings. However, what I do find unforgivable is an independent cafe that has no ambition whatsoever to be more than ordinary. 

York like many a cosmopolitan city has a rich diversity of cafes, from the adventurous and artis-anal to the safe bet of a generic chain. In a tourist hub you might assume that the level of competition would drive standards and uniqueness upward, but the opposite is sometimes true. Easy custom breeds complacency. After decades of visiting cafes countrywide I'm surprised by how common an apathetic coffee and cake is. Maybe my expectations are just too high or hopelessly over optimistic. I find it hard though to imagine there is really a widespread appreciation and demand for a cafe that strives so strenuously to be average. These days, is saying a cafe is not bad, really good enough? 

So, back at the cafe where I was about to receive an acceptable but distinctly average Earl Grey tea, and a slice of carrot cake whose size I'll describe kindly as modest. Now it was 3.30pm on a windy Wednesday in January, and perhaps the cake display counter is always that thinly populated at this time of the day, month, year or millenia. As the staff whisk what remains away to hide them in a freezer overnight. But my heart did sink at the visible lack of cake abundance, had it not been so late we would have walked out and gone elsewhere. So the carrot cake sat on its platter looking alone and winsome, pleading for me to save it from being thrown into the dustbin of black bag oblivion.

As you can see from the photo the cake had a dark cast to it. But once that cake touched the palate, all the riotous fantasies I might have held of a rich complexity of flavouring, vanished. Instantaneous recognition, first, that ' there is insufficient carrot present here', second, though it had a reasonable level of moistness and weighty texture, there was no enriching sweetness of sultanas or walnut nuttiness, third, there was nothing to offset the generally deadening predominance of mixed spice. Which I find makes me rather tetchy because what do I say? ~. A Spice Cake Is Not a Carrot Cake! Probably too much over emphatic use of capitals there, but how else can one convey this confectionary sin?

The one thing to be said in this carrot cakes favour was it did have a cream cheese filling and frosting. To which I give a faint but under-enthused whoop, because this cream cheese sweated like it had a high fever or had been out in an Aussie heatwave for too long, with a consistency that teetered dangerously on the edge of slippery. All in all it was not good. If you like a carrot cake that has the taste and texture of something other than its nomenclature, then this was a dream made for you. But for me, in future, I'll pass.


CARROT CAKE SCORE  4/8

SHERINGHAM DIARY 24 ~ Adding a Splash of Spontaneity

One bright Monday morning Hubby piped up, 'Shall we take a short holiday?'  And so without much herald, fuss or fore thought we took off on a three night mid week break in York ~ the very next day. That's the nearest we've got to being truly spontaneous, going the following day, but hey! its a practice. Would there be much to do mid January when most tourist places are a bit half closed? Well quite a lot actually. 

There was viewing the famous Minster with a fabulous tour guide who knew everything and more, plus sampling the countless quality cafes and restaurants, to name just two. Those of you who know us will not be surprised to hear, it was quite a foody few days. The culinary highlights being an Egg Florentine at Carluccio's, the Vietnamese Starter at Coto and a Vegan Wellington at Bill's.

York Art Gallery had been closed for refurbishment when we were last in York. The newly refitted gallery is an excellent art venue. The upstairs exhibition space is now the home to its extensive collection of contemporsry ceramic, and at the moment the work of Lucie Rie. They have an unrivalled whole floor of her beautifully elegant modern ceramics. The current Lucie Rie Exhibition focuses in part on her production of ceramic buttons for the fashion market.

Travelling up and back from York, we had our usual much loved few hours break in Lincoln. This time we also took in some other slight detours. On the way up to cross the Humber Bridge and to stop to take in the artis-anal delights of Malton once more. On the way back we returned via The Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. 

I'm not a fan of Barbara Hepwoth's sculpture, her work seems rarely to transcend its obvious influences. Nowadays both Hepworth, and Henry Moore's sculpture for that matter, can seem a bit hackneyed, lumpen, even derivative. This is not entirely their fault, as so much amateur cod-modernism to mass produced soapstone sculptures mine the Hepworth/ Henry Moore style axis mercilessly. There modern reputation stands on their twin pioneering of modernism within British sculpture, for which they should righly be still applauded. Even if their work desperately needs a re-evalutation of its quality and reputation.

Hepworth's early work in marble was strong, influenced by elements of Hans Arp's abstract organic forms and reliefs, and they are particularly finely executed. Her later work that emerges after Naum Gabo in exile stayed with her in St Ives, with all those pebble shapes with holes and webs of strings across, appears far too imitative and lacking in individuality.

The Hepworth Gallery does, however, display sculpture very well. Entrance is FREE folks. It's floor to ceiling windows bring a sense of what is outside in, and place the scultures within, or face out on, their surrounding urban landscape. They had an exhibition of work by the entrants for last years Hepworth Prize which provided the two highlights of this visit to the gallery. 

The combined sound and sculpture work Compostion For 37 Flutes by Cerith Wyn Evans, the worthy winner of the £30,000 Hepworth Prize.

A beautiful circle on the floor composed of irregularly sized deep black shiny beads made by Mona Hatoum. Both artists I have come across before, but it was nice to be reminded of the innovative inspiring quality of their work.

Both gallery visits sparked us off creatively. They reminded us how important it is to stay in touch with contemporary art, simply in order to keep the fire ones own imagination lit. Art in North Norfolk rarely steps beyond the predictable dull retreading of dead soil, usually figurative,or landscapes, not to forget the those obligatory wooden seagulls, sometimes on sticks or a gambolling bronze cast hare. We can become so caught up in the making of product for Cottonwood, we forget that creatively needs feeding. Space has to be invented, where we can freely explore our creative process outside the constraints that a narrow production line forces upon us, 

The Lucie Rie exhibition triggered in both myself and Hubby an interest in making handmade buttons, small ceramic tiles or panels. We've bought some air hardening clay and Fimo to simply muck about with and see what comes out of it, without becoming too reductive and product focused. These may or may not end up being introduced into the work we do for Cottonwood Workshop. This seems like another adjustment in the balancing act, between being productive whilst giving time for the pleasure of creative play, as a necessary sustenance.  Otherwise we'll become very dull boys.

Splash, the swimming pool of choice, closed for annual maintenance. So I tried out the pool at Woodlands Leisure. A more modern pool housed in what is really just a long large hut. Slightly more expensive to swim there, but with better quality tiling.

Woodlands,unlike Splash, has separate showers and changing rooms for each gender. This provides the stage upon which to observe male preening behaviour. If you thought hand held hair driers were just for drying the hair on ones head, then think again. In these days of clean shaven heads, more detailed and meticulous attention is given to beards, the fluffing up of chest hair and giving your pubes a bit of a tszuj. This affectation is not confined to hipster vanity but spans the generations. I've seen many a saggy back and sun wrinkled bottom of a retired gentlemen, standing stark naked before a mirror repositioning his chest hair and passing warm wafts of pseudo Mediterranean air over their genitals.

I finally visited the Norwich Zen Priory this month and I did not get lost, Hurrah!. The Priory is a semi-detached house on the Unthank Road. The Introductory Session was with the Reverend Leoma. Understandably a bit apprehensive beforehand, I actually enjoyed it immensely. Much of it proved to be familiar stuff, though I picked up some tips and different ways of viewing the practise of Zazen/Just Sitting. It was inspiring to sense how coherently the practise is embedded and central to making sense of everything else they do.

In Triratna its central meditations are 'developmental' in focus. Just Sitting, having little to consciously develop, is not clearly taught in its centres and hence not well understood. It becomes for a lot of meditators, just stopping making effort at the end or between meditations. Its more akin to a bookend than the book itself. One meditation retreat centre began teaching Pure Awareness, which is very like Zazen, but bedecked in Tibetan saffron and burgundy. A panic arose about whether this was inside or outside the movements core practises. As for many good people it was already their core practise, they were forced to find a good reason for it to be there, or face asking them to desist or leave.

The late Sangharakshita had some reasonable criticisms of Zen as a tradition. Triratna as a result has developed a questioning attitude towards it, that is rarely levelled at Tibetan Buddhism, for instance. Zen sometimes being slandered as not being Buddhist at all. I bring some of this attitude with me,which though not necessarily a bad thing, one should never be blind to faults, but neither should one over exaggerate them either. Some of the criticisms levelled at Zen it does make of itself. Any Buddhist practise misapplied or misunderstood on a fundamental level, becomes an obstacle and hence a problem.

Until my visit to the Zen Priory I was less aware how being surrounded by this atmosphere in Triratna had an alienating affect. Being alone in my enthusiasm for Dogen was one thing, but the negativity towards Zen styles of practise was a bit of a double whammy. Being at the Zen Priory doing a Zen practise, I did feel at home. It felt like it might be a better match to where I currently am, spiritually speaking. 


Favourite Sign of the Month
Whilst wandering around Wells Next The Sea we passed a small sign in a field, that said:-

'free range children and animals not permitted' 

I know what they are trying to say, but it is fun to be mischievous and imaginatively play with that

SHERINGHAM DIARY 23 ~ Waving The Christmas Wand About A Bit

A tunnel of lights inside a hedge at Blickling Hall

Whilst still fumbling about on its lower southern approaches, Christmas can feel like a very steep hill ahead, strewn with all those strains to meet obligations, expectations and timescales.  Once you're into December each day you open an advent calendar door onto another shopping list, another task, another place to travel to in order to see if they just might have that special item. Apart from Bakers & Larners Food Hall.  North Norfolk, as you can imagine is not ripe with 'must go too retail destinations'. And we wonder why online retailing has become so popular!

December 1st is quite early enough for Christmas to arrive, thank you.. This year a smaller sized more manageable tree, less inclined to create a halo of pine needles, and a stylish wreath from Homebase I'll have you know, made out of white curls of painted wood, these were the only new flourishes in our festive decorations. Apart that is from a Poinsettia, apparently raised in Mexico, that like all Mexicans arriving in the UK for the first time shivered in the severe temperature difference, dropped all its leaves and its will to live within a week.

Though more last minute than usual in making nut roasts, pudding, cake and mince pies etc,they tasted on the day as good as ever. After all the preliminary efforts, once Christmas arrived we were surprisingly chilled and spent a lovely time together, watching the beautiful film Roma, the wacky delights of the Coen Brother's latest The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, plus The ABC Murders and the return of Luther - Plus the obligatory walks along the coast - What larks we had, Pip!

Conversational Snippet Of The Month 
Some times when you over hear people's conversations you feel the need for a bit more background detail. Simply to understand where the hell they are coming from. Quite often its as if you've scratched the scabby top off some festering lesion and you get a queasy whiff of what lies beneath as you pass by. Such as here, where we were walking around the gardens of a stately home and overheard a middle aged couple say:~

Woman - 'Oh, by the way, Ronald's chimney fell down on his cottage last weekend.'
Man - ' No schadenfreude there then.'

New Frame Design on Cottonwood Workshop

The 'Rinky Dinky Pinky Photo Frame Farce' of last month has had a wand of redemption waved over it this month. What felt at the time like the trickster work of a malevolent demon, has revealed a volte face. Initially I could have willingly consigned the frames to become kindling, but when my calmer head prevailed I took them right back to the bare wood, to see how I felt about them once all memory of how they'd been previously was erased. Abandoned was any desire for too elaborate or time consuming processes. Design ideas became refined down to their very simplest form, and more importantly, simplest execution. So, a multiple product disaster, in the end, forced a rethink on design and of how much time and effort was appropriate. The final results have turned out more coherent and quite pleasing. Rephotographing products and re-doing the websitec is taking us a bit longer than we'd initially anticipated, but soon, soon it will be done.

I'm currently working on a commission for a friend of ours to strip, revarnish and upholster four 1970's dining chairs for them. I've stripped varnish from a chair just once before. But this time by the second and third chair that unrelenting cycle of applying varnish stripper, wait 30-60 minutes, rub down with stainless steel scourer, dry, sand, repeat, began to relinquish what little charm it possessed to dogged stoicism. I finished stripping the fourth chair the Friday before New Year, so I begin the revarnishing process post New Years Day. Though one might  hope this will be less strenuous, it holds its own challenges in getting the varnish colour right and consistent in tone across all four chairs.

I've just finished reading CJ Samson's latest book in his Shardlake series 'Tombland.' The lead character Matthew Shardlake is a lawyer who invariably finds himself involved in all sort of murder and mayhem whilst trying to execute a royal  request. The books are set in Tudor times and Samson paints the sights, sounds, smells and power dynamic of the era brilliantly. His earlier books I found to be really tense page turners which I avidly devoured in a few days. With each book in the series the compelling nature of that narrative has certainly slowed and the detailing of the context and issues of the period has become more prominent. They are also getting progressively longer with 'Tombland' clocking in at over 800 pages. There is a sense with each suceeding book that Samson's writing is increasingly chaffing against the fictional constraints of the period crime procedural.  The murder investigation gets all but abandoned about a quarter of the way through, then quickly resolved in the last 100 pages. Inbetween though is a very vividly sketched fictional re-imagining of what the Kett's Rebellion could have been like. Its tone ends up being interesting, but inconsistent.

Tombland begins with Shardlake going to Norwich to investigate a murder, but he unwittingly becomes deeply embroiled in the Kett's Rebellion. Six to nine thousand people forming a camp just outside Norwich to create political leverage for their social and economic demands to be met. Such camps as these had sprung up near towns across southern England in 1549 according to a roughly co-ordinated plan. Hyper inflation was increasing poverty and destitution, exacerbated by enclosures of common land by wealthy aristocracy. The impoverished peasantry rose up demanding something be done to improve their rapidly diminishing lot, talking of the 'commonwealth' of a more collective sense of ownership, society and economics. Though their demands might not be considered unreasonable to our eyes, to those in power in this period such poor people criticising their betters was considered an appalling, unforgivable and traitorous act. An awful slaughter of the rebels was to follow, and the restoration of the rule of the elite brought the rebellion to its end. Tombland is a humane, sad and salutary book with many a resonance with the tensions of our own time.

After a two year gap, I've finally picked up my study of Dogen's Instructions for the Tenzo. I  swim my forty lengths then walk from the pool into town to the Whelk Coppers Tea Rooms on the sea front. I order myself a scrambled egg on sourdough toast, put a squggle of ketchup on it and then out come the books and notebook. Usually I stay for about an hour and a half, attempting to tease out the meanings in phrases and choice of words, and reflecting on these in the light of my own experience. I'm not necessarily settled on the Whelk Coppers as being the best cafe/study venue. In the last few weeks they've been really busy from the moment they open, particularly with kids, and hence noisier. I'm hoping that this is just because of Christmas and it will settle down once 2019 and the chill of Winter arrives. Chin - chin.