SCREEN SHOT - The Green Knight - the brief film review

 

At a Winter celebration a Green Knight turns up on a horse and asks for a knight to come forth to fight him. Gawain steps forward to engage. King Arthur gives him his sword, and in a brief encounter decapitates The Green Knight. The knight picks up his head and swears that in a years time Gawain must fight him again and bear whatever the consequences of that combat will be.

Based on the original medieval romance The Green Knight is a richly detailed fantasy tale. It contains all the classic mythic and folk tale elements you would expect. As you follow Gawain on the journey a year later to find the knight and meet whatever his ultimate fate is to be. On the way he has to deal with ordeals that mature him into the noble knight of Arthurian legend. Gawain at the start is naive, a bit gauche, out of his depth and clumsily incompetent. He's not that heroic at all. Set against a wild, barren and desolate landscape.

The Green Knight is a brilliantly executed film, full of imaginative curiosities and elements that feel like an accurate representation of the mediaeval world view. Its fears and reasonings being far more bizzarely weird and adult, than anything cooked up in more contemporary literary and comic book fantasies. The Green Knight is an entrancing film, that allows you to become completely absorbed into it. 

In Dev Patel as Gawain, means The Green Knight it is blessed with an actor whose abilities just appear to be becoming ever greater with every film. The estimable Kate Dickie, Sean Harris and Joel Edgerton provide equally charismatic and finely judged support.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

CARROT CAKE REVIEW No 30 - The Cake That Was Not There

 Norwich, Norfolk

Just when you think there is nothing new in the world of Carrot Cakes, either to be said or reported upon. Then you encounter something you truly hope is a one off, an anomaly, a catering glitch in life's kitchen. But perhaps this is a perverted new trend in contemporary cafés. And you, having been the first to discover it, must then alert the world to its manifestation in the real world. Its criminal and pernicious consequences pointed out. Consider this your early warning

Hubby and I were in Norwich. We'd just walked miles from the garage on the outskirts where we'd left Barbara to be investigated for a coolant leak. Desperate for a Flat White and a cake, as a well earned reward for making it this far on foot. Now Norwich, even if you only half know it, is not short of a cafe or two. We chose this cafe simply because it was there. We walked in, it was our choice. 

All I can say in our defense is - it looked welcoming, vaguely hipsterish with indications of a wholesomeness normally associated with a Health Food store.  Wobbly wooden tables, roughly sanded old floors, industrial style lighting, staff wearing full length aprons and a general ambiance of the improvised and upcycled. You get the drill.

We had to wait a while to have our order taken. Maybe we should've left. Unfortunately we were just a fraction too patient. Now in most cafes when I place my order for the game changing Flat White with a Carrot Cake chaser, I sort of expect that it will come in that sequence. In most cafés it does. The coffee arrives first - the cake will follow. Standard etiquette. Maybe I should have perceived this as an oracle for what was to come. The cake came first. So I sat there, for quite some time I might add, waiting for my Flat White to arrive before digging my fork into the cake. I do require the reassurance of the caffeine elixir being in full view. What if the cake turned out to be as dry as the Gobhi desert? Could there be anything worse? Well, read on.

Thankfully only one size of Flat White was offered. But on arrival it is served in a cappuccino sized cup. This is not good, and it wasn't. A strong latte coming up. Correction a weak latte was coming up. Oh dear, what was the cake going to be like? It looked a passable facsimile from the outside. But as soon as the fork went in, the cake crumbled into pieces. You put the fork into the broken off smaller pieces, and they shattered into even smaller bits of rubble. This went comically on and on, so before I reached 'totally crumb' level, I decided to just shovel it into my mouth. 

However, once it actually got into my gob I was baffled. Had I not just put cake in my mouth? Or was I imagining I did? Should there not be a sensation of carroty spicy flavours now running riot across my palette? Indeed there should have been. For whilst the cake had initially seemed to exist in the realm of solid form, its weight and texture all rapidly vanished, along with its flavour. Yes, disconcertingly, this cake had no flavour at all - At All! - No flavour - At All !! - Yes, you heard it, NO FLAVOUR - AT ALL.!!!!! 

I was so astounded I passed a piece to the Husband for confirmation. I hadn't suddenly developed an early symptom of Covid, had I?  But he confirmed it to be tasteless, sniffed and muttered - maybe a bit of banana. Yes, the infertile one. The flavour cuckoo. The infringer of Golden Rule No 8 . As there was no taste at all, how could that even be? So I could not concur. But the incriminating evidence was nonetheless stacking up. 

Then we came to the frosting, which fell out of the middle of the cake like it was the confectionery equivalent of a vaginal diaphragm. All of one piece floppy and rubbery. The top frosting being the same, but with a desultory dusting of a spice - maybe cinnamon, nutmeg, cocoa? I ceased to care. After further investigation I concluded the frosting wasn't even a particularly mutant form of buttercream, it was marshmallow. Yep, marsh - mallow. Sitting on the top like an off white layer of silicone bath sealant.

So what we have here was what I've always feared.  The logical culmination of every possible gluten free, dairy free, allergy free, vegan, bi-carb infused concoction, all being rolled into one cake. So careful not to upset or offend the ethical or digestive delicacy of someone's constitution that you don't just end up with a poor substitute for a carrot cake, but no discernible carrot cake at all. You produce a cake that is not there. A tasteless space. A carrot flavourless vacuum. A carrot cake that thrives in virtual reality, but not in mine. How can I even score a carrot cake that does not even exist? Well its a black mark for not telling me it was 'free from' - literally everything - for a start.

This was a truly awful experience. The worst carrot cake I have ever, ever had the misfortune to pass from my mouth through to my anus. Most cakes I can find it within my crusty old soul to find one redeeming feature to at least raise a score eg - to congratulate the baker for getting out of bed that morning. But, sorry I am not in a charitable mood. I am unwilling to even countenance an unwarranted kindness. 

This carrot cake deserves to be punished, and punished severely. It was an abomination. They could have served me an empty box with 'carrot cake' hastily scribbled in Biro on the top, and I would not have known the difference.

Stephen, Stephen, Stephen, calm yourself. Surely you have made all this up? Exaggerated this purely for comic effect. Unfortunately all this is true. A carrot cake with no redeeming qualities.

Be warned, this cake is now out there.

CARROT CAKE REVIEW - 0

Brother David On - Any Religion Can Become A Cult

What really makes a cult a cult? I've come to an answer that helps me sort things out. And that is that a cult puts people down. If you are told what is right and wrong and you are not encouraged to make up your own mind. Then we are not dealing with a healthy tradition but with a cult.

And in the course of history any religious tradition that is two thousand years old, not infrequently puts people down, making them shut up, to just follow the guidelines, just follow the rules, do what you are told, don't think about it too much. Well that's not the healthy core of any tradition.

I'm committed to the healthy core of the tradition. That helps you stand on your own two feet. And the other one, well we just have to reject.

One of the things about all the great religious traditions is that when they are healthy they build people up, they help people eventually to stand on their own feet, to make their own decisions and come to their own conclusions. But every authentic tradition runs the risk of at any moment becoming a cult.'

Brother David Steindl-Rast
taken from the You Tube - Thinking Allowed with Dr Jeffrey Mishlove.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1976 - SSSS Single Bed by Fox

The charismatic Australian singer Noosha Fox heads up the British based band Fox. SSSS Single Bed was their third hit single ,,- 1975 (No 3) following on from Only You Can - 1974 (No 3) ,Imagine Me Imagine You - 1974 (15). The band was formed by band member, songwriter and producer Kenny Young. All their hits were written by him.

As you can see from the Top of the Pops appearance of the time, Noosha Fox's dress sense was eccentric. Here its half pierrot, half trapeze artist in black silk hot pants. The band however, now just take a look around that band. Its like they told Noosha it was fancy dress just for a joke. They are uniformly a dull, ugly looking lot, dressed in workmanlike jeans and the best acrylic jumpers they could buy from off the local open air market. Noosha's sense of style and unusual vocal delivery is entirely what elevates the band out of the ordinary.

The song itself is, lets say, ambiguous. On one level it looks like the woman in it has laid a trap to get someone ( no gender is mentioned )  into that single bed. But keeps saying she only has a single bed and it's for her and no one else. Definitely not you. And so even though you may have missed your last train, its only a glass of wine as a nightcap and a polite chat she's got to offer. So no bed, not even the single one. Cos that's for her, OK. 

Its a very cleverly written song, playing very much to Noosha Fox's alluring strengths. But bar a brief solo hit for her a few years later, this was their last showing in the UK chart. Noosha and Fox, having since disappeared pretty much without trace.

SCREEN SHOT - Joker - the brief film review.

You don't need to have seen any of Batman's incarnations on paper or on screen to understand this movie. Whilst knowing about Gotham City and its pantheon of criminal characters adds another dimension. This film shows you quite plainly and frighteningly one man completely losing his mind, and the consequences of that. Joker is an origins movie, and similar to the film Logan, it takes you by surprise where it goes. This is no comic book caper at all.

Arthur Fleck, comes from a broken home, abused by his step dad, neglected by his mother. Now the Gotham City's mental health department has abandoned him too. Newly off his meds, Arthur flips and kills three guys on the underground. This is just the beginning, Arthur loses his job as a clown for hire, living increasingly in his own perverted fantasy world. His clown face killings provide him with a vicarious sense of fame. His future appearance on a chat show, destined to ignite the whole city into riot. 

Both Director and lead actor wanted the violence in this movie to feel real. To not have its edges softened by it becoming balletic, cartoon like or obviously CGI'd. This realism contributes to the Joker being one if the darkest, most disturbing films I've seen. Without Joaquin Phoenix's central performance this film this would not be so. He is toe curlingly mesmeric to watch. The unhinged meaninglessness of his violence, and how, I must say, this film glorifies it, really turns your stomach over. Utterly compelling, whilst also sickeningly unpleasant and revolting. 

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1972 - Burlesque by Family

Formed during the R&B boom of the mid-sixties, Family were one of those much beloved blues influenced hard rock outfits,who became part of the 'progressive' rock movement in the early seventies.  That movement was album orientated. Not even Family would have ever thought of themselves as a singles band. The notable thing about Family's sound was Roger Chapman, with the distinctively rough and raucous bleating vocals. Not Top 10 singles material at all, pop pickers.

So it was with some surprise, not least to the band themselves, when one single In My Own Time became a huge hit in 1971, reaching No 4 in the UK. This was an atypical Family song, blues infused, hard rock and raunchy. The album that followed in 1972 - Bandstand proved to be both their musical and popular high point. They split the following year. Not before they released Burlesque as a single which reached No 13 in the UK.

One listen to Burlesque and its clear Family were not about to roll over, forget their roots, and sell their souls for huge commercial success. Burlesque opens with a convoluted, disjointed, ocassionally discordant guitar riff. The chord sequence leaping all over the sharpest notes, angular and avante garde sounding. All this before Roger Chapman even opens his mouth to sing - Rolling and tumbling aint done me no harm.The rest of the band stepping in, then lollop and loop in and out of this riff. Its certainly bluesy, funky but not as you'd generally know it. Even for Family this was one freaky, literally off the beat, track. Today it still sounds like nothing else from this or any other era, it has this timeless feel.

WATCHED - In A Year of Thirteen Moons

The movie opens with a man being beaten up in a park. Dressed in male attire he's been eliciting gay sex with another man. But that man is angered when he discovers that beneath the trousers is a petticoat and inside that there's nothing between 'his' legs. She returns home, but then has to explain how she came by the facial bruises and cuts to her lover Chistophe. He's had enough, packs and drives off leaving her once again alone. 

In A Year of Thirteen Moons from 1978, stands at a pivotal point between the older style representations of grittier urban sub cultures of Fassbinder's earlier output and the glossier sumptuously staged moral melodramas of his later output. Growing international success meaning that really shoe string budgets and short shooting schedules were now a thing of the past.

It has almost 'the' classic Fassbinder story line. Erwin, was once a burly broad shouldered butcher who worked in a slaughterhouse, but finds himself years later living as a transgender woman Elvira. Apparently trapped between two unreconcilable lifestyles, hence the folly of the incident in the park. There is the former life as a husband, a Father of a daughter and the present more chaotic hand to mouth existence as a transgender woman. Simultaneously unable to fully rejoin her family and yet not acceptable to a society unwilling to let Elvira live fully as Elvira.

Making its central character a transgender woman, was quite radical for 1978. But at heart this film is more about the tragedy of one individual's struggle against circumstances and the consequences of past actions. The extent of what a person may chose to do for love. Whether anyone can ever become truly what they feel themselves to be. That it is a transgender woman at the centre of it, is secondary to broader issues relating to identity and self fulfillment.

Fassbinder doesn't artificially clean up the storyline, nor remove any contradictions of morality, motive or ability to offend. For him all humanity is damaged, some of it self-inflicted, some of it by society through its rigidity and the oppression of conventions. Presenting you with something quite raw and relatively unfiltered, with all the rough bits still showing. Its what makes his films interesting but also challenging, they don't necessarily demand you empathise, just to think. He will rarely tie things up neatly for you. I would imagine this film might ruffle more feathers these days than it did in the seventies. It doesn't even try to be 'right on' or PC, it far too messy and human for that. 

So after Christophe's exit Elvira begins a series of return journeys to significant places and people from her past. An attempt to reassemble, or is it rediscover? who she is. How did the trajectory of her current life lead her to this? What was it that happened in Casablanca? What is her way forward now? 

She takes a local streetwalker Zora along for emotional support. First showing her the slaughterhouse of her former workplace. In real time you see cow after cow being dragged out and hung up, their throats cut and blood poring out onto the slaughterhouse floor. Its an unflinchingly painful scene to watch. One of the most unsparingly graphic in all of Fassbinder's films. The crude echo of its symbolism is unavoidable. It ripples through a later scene in the movie when Elvira knowingly watches, and does nothing to stop, a man from hanging himself. Is she incapable of feeling humanly connected to other people? So emotionally numbed and inured by her earlier life, that she's now damaged beyond repair 

Eventually Elvira braves revisiting Anton Saitz, the source of all her present pain. Erwin had once been deeply in love with him. Having declared his love, Anton then rejects it, saying in an off hand remark that maybe he'd find it easier if Erwin were a girl.  Erwin took this literally, and whilst in Casablanca has his genitals surgically removed, and begins transforming himself into Elvira. Anton, is a narcissist, a selfish, successful businessman with little or no qualms or morals. He hardly remembers Erwin, let alone what he had once said. Its all too unbearable. Elvira, unable to rediscover, construct or live a viable coherent sense of herself, ends up taking her life.

Fassbinder thought In A Year of Thirteen Moons was one of his best movies. To which I would agree. Its visceral on both an emotional and cinematic level. A multilayered complex movie, in both its characters and its structure. One that could bear repeat watching. Fassbinder doesn't make it an easy watch, yet it remains quietly compelling. 

You are often shown entirely mundane situations, with no apparent connection to the words you are actually hearing. There is one long scene where Elvira has passed out asleep on the bed. Zora is left impatiently clicking backwards and forwards from one TV channel to another. What you hear are the abrupt snippets of TV programmes, adverts, films, all mixed in with the sounds of video recordings of Elvira, counterpointed in the background by the sonic uneasiness of the music soundtrack. Its a sharply inter-cut audio collage, whilst visually not a lot is happening. 

Volker Spengler as Erwin/Elvira, is worthy of a special mention. His performance is excellent. Convincingly communicating Elvira's inner world, her drive to reasset her existence, her silliness, her naivety, her desperate loneliness and desire to be better understood by others, as well as by herself. Providing the warmth and human heart to what can be at times a brutally told tragedy, coldly stark and grim.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

Available to rent on Amazon Prime.

BROTHER DAVID ON - The Difference Between Gratefulness & Thankfulness.

'Gratefulness is something other than thankfulness,
you can't be thankful to have war,
but you can be grateful in any situation.
And when you are grateful then you will be joyful.
What does it mean to be joyful?
Well, joy is the happiness that doesn't depend on what happens.
Even if the worst happens you can be joyful because your gratefulness,
in contrast to thankfulness,
is simply the full response to that that is gratuitously given.
Every moment is gratuitously given,
a pure gift,
you haven't brought it about,
you haven't bought it,
you haven't earned it,
you haven't made it,
it is a gift.
Every moment is gift,
and the only appropriate response to the given moment is gratefulness.'

Brother David Steindl-Rast
taken from Every Moment is a Gift, a You Tube video

ARTICLE - But What Class Am I?

I've been reading an anthology of working class writing, entitled Common People. I recognise the types of lives and lifestyles recounted. Though familiar, there is also a recognition that this was never my class. I view it as if from one remove. But what class am I? And does that really matter ? Does questioning the need for class, demonstrate a conflicted relationship with my origins? Is this indifference primarily a middle class one? Or is it more an example of 'class drift' ? Shifting one band along from the class of ones birth. But if I wasn't born into either  middle nor working class, then what was I born into?

The ideal of a classless society is also a persistent middle class one. Because being in the middle, in between the firmly entrenched extremes of working or upper, is rarely a comforting place to rest your head and heart. It's a position where cultural and social re-definition takes place. Yet few consciously love and fully embrace being middle class. Its like we are all on the way somewhere but never quite recognise when we've arrived. The middle classes seem derided by both sides, and quite often from within themselves. Self critical feelings of class guilt about everything you do or don't do, what you own or don't own, is not uncommon. Better to decry the existence of the whole class construct, where everyone becomes amorphously absorbed into being middle class anyway.

That I've become 'culturaly' middle class is beyond doubt. A life spent educating myself, exploring the arts, craft, design and culture, my interest in history, architecture, archeology and nature. At various times I've been a member or supporter of The National Trust, CND, Friends of the Earth and Amnesty International. A practising Buddhist for thirty years. Lived in a Buddhist community for near on twenty years. I'm gay, happily married to my Husband, running a gift and home ware business with him, selling craft made items made by us or other local and UK makers. I was once part of a Morris dancing group. I make my own sourdough. I've been known to buy things from John Lewis. How are all these not symptomatic of being achingly middle class? These credentials are impeccable. Yet such interests can also feel like huge affectations, that one day someone will painfully pull the rug from beneath them. As if being middle class was were a temporary thing, a pretention and where fakery resides.

If I look back to my upbringing, what my parents chose to do with their lives. There are my origins. My Father trained as a joiner, was self employed and ran his own business and a shop. His Father was also a self employed specialist painter and decorator. My Mother trained to be a secretary, became a housewife, and later returned to secretarial work out of financial necessity. Her Father was a clerk in a dye works. Independent minded people with trades and skills to offer. Ditto myself.

Neither of my parents, nor their parents, would have described themselves as working class. They were deeply suspicious of socialist ideals. They voted Conservative all their lives, but were generally liberal in outlook. The epitome of the term, often used pejoratively as if it were somehow traitorous to some cause - 'Aspirational Working Class'. They wanted to do better, to transcend the limitations of their own upbringing. Whilst not destitute poor, they were sometimes more hand to mouth and making do, than they would have liked. They had only a small amount of spare capital to fund their own desires or financially support their children's either. It was aspirational, but done on a wing and a prayer.

Some of my Mother's prejudices reveal her anxieties about being perceived as working class. She could be very sniffy about places and people she thought common or vulgar, more often than not these would be working class in nature. She'd be concerned about the sort of children we were playing with, not nit infested, too rough or scruffy. She'd never go in a cafe that was remotely near to being called a 'greasy spoon' - 'this is not our sort of place is it Lewis?' she'd say whenever we approached one. She'd try to instill what she saw as good taste and foreswore the use of swearing or coarse language. The first and only time we heard our Mother swear out loud, my sister and I dissolved in fits of laughter. It was so out of character. She wanted us both to act and speak properly, to be respectable, presentable, uphold standards, and not bring shame upon the family.

My Father needed to be independent and capable. And this drove him on, all the way to his death bed. He picked up new skills seemingly by osmosis. Eventually in his late fifties being able to build his own house. His upbringing amongst seven other siblings meant there was always some sort rivalry, a tug of war going on for resources, between his brothers and sisters. Most of his brothers developed either a trade, like their Father, or became middle Management. So not your classic, low or no skill, working class background. They were resourceful, either learning on the job or took evening classes to acquire skills or qualifications.

Being brought up in Yorkshire you can't avoid people suspecting that you are putting on intellectual airs, talking posh, and hence need taking down a peg or two. Living in the south being generally held to turn you soft in the head. Placing an unwarranted amount of pride in being down to earth, plain speaking to the point of rudeness, and anti anything considered high brow or arty. These views surrounded me all the time whilst growing up. My parents were afraid of how I would change when I went away to art collage. Which I did, often in ways even I did not expect. Mostly I'd say for the better. I got over some of my inhibitions. I saw through the limitations of the defensive blunt Yorkshire viewpoint. I moved nearer to what I envisaged as a truer way of being my self.

The feeling for my origins, class wise, hovers between working and middle class. Its liminal, to use a very middle class expression. As hard to grasp as the thing its trying to describe. That it is somewhat slippery elusive and indefinable suits me fine. No one thing can be me. What my class is shifts around, different with each day. Its a movable mutable quality. Who we are needs to be able to evolve, and in saying that I'm not thinking of class at all. More by way of views, ethics, understanding, empathy or spiritually speaking.

I'm wary of using any one thing to permanently define or fix my identity. Whether that's by class, gender, sexual orientation, career or nationality to name but a few. Though they are there, they are a part of who I am, and there is pride present. But you cannot make any single aspect represent the entirety. So I've rarely want to make a display of them as if they are a badge of honour or a public expression of who I am.  

WATCHED - Querelle

I'm getting towards the end of the films currently available to rent or stream, for my Fassbinder Film Club. Only a few more to go. I've been leaving Querelle til near the end, not because its really good, but because I've never really liked it since I first saw it on its release in 1982. Its a cold hearted movie, with nothing to offer you but an empty place where the soul should be.

Querelle is the most overtly 'gay' themed of all Fassbinder films. He crams it with as many archetypal gay stereotypes possible. The policeman is a leather biker, their are bare chested sailors galore, workmen in hard hats and overalls, men in drag, hookers and a kind hearted, bar owning, brothel madame. 

He dedicated what turned out to be his final film, to a former gay lover El Heidi Ben Salem, who'd recently died. He had committed suicide like another of Fassbinder's former lovers Armin Meier. Many of Fassbinder's lovers, whether male or female, appeared to be left feeling bitter or betrayed in some way afterwards. This is not without significance here. It brings to mind the song that Jeanne Moreau performs twice in the bar - 'Each man kills the thing he loves'.

Fassbinder films have recurring themes, issues he attempts to purge or heal through them. Unwanted, divided in nature, sexually unresolved, the inveterate outsider, incapable of resisting siding with the excluded and oppressed. Querelle is about a man whose sexual proclivities and immoral criminal acts go hand in hand. He has a straight twin brother, who isn't his brother really, who is his rival and is at war with, whom he loves deeply, but cannot bring himself to be sexually intimate with. Instead he allows himself to be buggered by Nono ( No! No! ) the pubs landlord. Its a sort of sexual buggery as baptism and a provocation. Its not pretty. Further acts of murder, robbery and betrayal will follow in its wake.

Querelle about to be abused by Nono

This film version is adapted from a story by Jean Genet - Querelle of Brest. Genet spent his early life as a thief, an outsider, a transgressor, a man happily living beyond acceptable boundaries. His writing was later taken up and championed by Sartre. The heightened melodramatic style of it, his version of the 'theatre of the absurd' made this reprobate underworld accessible to the artistic chattering classes. Most of whom would not go anywhere near burglary or buggery. Today, past transgressors of social norms, are generally being given a much harder time. Is it even feasible these days to draw a firm moral line between a transgressive and an abusive relationship? Its a question that is at the heart of contemporary moral discussiins, the limits of permissiveness. Questions never asked by Genet, or perhaps even Fassbinder for that matter.

Generally I find Genet a preposterous and pretentious writer. Nothing to believe in here. Fassbinder's film tends to sentimentally wallow in Genet's cack handed and leaden symbolism. Genet developed this myth, a philosophy, elevating sailors,  the criminal underworld and gay sex into a transgressive realm, capable of an almost religious level of transformation. Making ridiculous analogies between gay sexual awakening and Enlightenment. Attempting to turn profane acts into sacred ones.

The Captain of the ship that Querelle works on, has the hots for Querelle, holding an unrequited lust/love for him. He's the ultimate voyeur, watching, observing, even stalking Querelle. Creepily recording on tape his thoughts, desires and feelings, expressed in the most flowery and portentous of language. Its pure Genet loaded to the hilt with 'significant' utterances, double underlined just in case you might not have noticed. You even get the obligatory Catholic infused procession of a Christ like figure with a mock cross walking through the streets of Brest. This sort of heavy handed theatricality is all typical Genet. Who mined his self mythologised reputation for all its worth as a writer.

Querelle was Fassbinder's last film before his untimely death from a drug overdose aged 37. It stars Brad Davis and has the semi-divine queen of low life transgressive characters -Jeanne Moreau in it. It ought to be a visual feast, which indeed it is, complete with the gratuitously phallic bollards on the port jetty.  There are scenes in it that possess a poignancy and beauty to them, mostly down to Moreau, who knows a thing or two about turning shit into gold. The set design is stunningly stylised and striking, evoking early expressionistic cinema, with its angular stage like theatricality. Everything suffused by a soft focused halo, a richly lit golden glow. The acting returns to that moderately mannered and affectedly stilted style Fassbinder utilised in his early movies. No cathartic realism here. 

All this tells you, in case you hadn't already noticed, is that this is an unreal fable with little connection to the world. Its Tom of Finland, but in gilded spiritually infused Technicolour.

CARROT REVIEW - 3/8

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1977 - Taxi by Deaf School

Taxi was released as a single in 1977, its a mini pop operetta told in three and a half minutes, about a man in search of his girlfriend who he's upset, she's run off and he's searching all over town in a taxi for her. This video from a live appearance on Granada TV from 1977 gives you a bit of a flavour of them as a live outfit.

Deaf School, formed in Liverpool Art School, were almost the definition of the archetypal art school band. The carefully contrived adopted personas, the quirky music style and visuals. They were a truly great band to see live, extremely tight musically, on stage they were in their element. Their debut album 2nd Honeymoon, was a pop masterpiece, mixing rock, Hollywood vamp, vaudville, glam and storytelling to great effect. Lots of suddenly shifting time signatures, arrangements and knowing pop references.  

Unfortunately Deaf School emerged in the year of punk in 1976. It was as if they appeared on stage and the rug was immediately pulled out from beneath them. Fresh and clever they may have been, but the preferred music sound and style suddenly became much rougher, simpler, quite political and far less polished. So despite three albums they never made it big. Though that is a real shame, they never achieving their much warranted fame, they did go on to inspire many younger bands such as Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Madness.

BROTHER DAVID ON - Fully Responding to the Given Moment

 

'Fully respond to what is given in this moment. 
Fully means not by our ideas.
Not by things we have thought about beforehand and have planned.
But simply by being there in the moment listening to what is it time for,
and then fully responding.
And when you do that,
the full response is the most creative response.
The creativity will show you ways of making peace you haven't even thought of before.'

Brother David Steindl-Rast
taken from Every Moment is a Gift a You Tube video

LISTENING TO - Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road

You have to feel for Black Country, New Road. Their debut album - For The First Time, hit the streets just before the pandemic hit. Any plans to tour promoting it had to be cancelled. Through social media/ word of mouth alone they found themselves one of the breakthrough acts of 2021. By the time they were able to tour they'd already recorded their second album. But were touring with material from the first. Material which by then felt dated and old hat to them.

This February 2022, their second album -Ants From Up There, has been released, and a tour planned. In the very week it hit the airwaves their lead singer and main word smith Issac Woods, announces he's leaving the band, citing mental health issues.  Their musical career trajectory seems bedevilled by atrociously bad timing.

Black Country, New Road are not your standard three minute pop song merchants. They draw and meld their sound from an ever broadening pallete of influences and musical sources:-jazz, minimalism, post punk, post rock, music hall. The last track on the album Basketball Shoes, all twelve minutes plus of it, veers through all sort of vibrant colours and moods. Shifting around, circling all over the place, like a fairground helter skelter, but as a finale it's a real anthemic joyride.

Issac Woods is a difficult person to stand in for, let alone replace. His strained, wired, fragile vocals are a major element in what makes Black Country, New Road the edgy exciting entity they are. Listen to Wood's lyrics and maybe that sort of intensity has come at some personal cost. Reminiscent of early David Byrne, there is a lot of pained self awareness in his expressiveness. Imagine if you had to face replicating that on stage everyday for weeks on end.

His departure, whilst a bit of a blow, was perhaps not that unexpected. Woods was always conspicuous by his absence from media interviews. Maybe the rest of the band got tired of always speaking up for him. One band member once acknowledged that Woods lyrics often baffled the rest of the band. Not always getting what the hell he was wailing so passionately about? 

He's the classic loner, creating a world entirely of his own making, one only he fully understands. Yet whilst his lyrics often remain a tiny bit opaque, they are simultaneously suffused with a real and relatable melancholy beauty. As on the tumbling drum backed Snow Globes.

So transfixed can you be by Woods up front ,you forget how so much of the 'schitzo' propulsion originates from the band behind him. The 'klesma' influences of the first album diminishing, being replaced by fully embracing the delights of a vaudville vamp. Some tracks reminded me of Taxi by Deaf School, a sadly neglected art school band from pre-punk mid seventies.  BCNR make a lot of use of lurching guitar grunge arising out of the slightest of minimalist repetitive motif. The musical tone and intensity has been refined by a notch or two. The result feels distinctly melody infused as a result. Woods sounds more human, balanced and approachable. His fragility on 'Concorde' is touching as he describes the decline of a relationship with someone once so vivacious and lively. Its just glorious.

Their indebtedness through anthemic example to Arcade Fire is more apparent. The big dramatic and accelerating eruptions the large inspiring orchestrated panoramas. Just a tinge of those other Canadians, Godspeed You! Black Emperor thrown in, when the mearest lyrical wisp of a violin soundscape, can slip gently into slabs of high amped feedback and the sheer joy of noise making. This is all a very carefully controlled recreation of a post rock version of exhileration and mayhem. The truly terrific waltz infused - The Place Where He Inserted The Blade - bares an uneasy poignancy.

Black Country, New Road, have easily negotiated there way through 'the difficult second album'. The debut was not a one off fluke after all. They've refined, refreshed, broadened and improved on that. Where of course they go from here, post Wood's departure, is now an open question.  Because - Ants From Up There, is for me pretty damn near perfect. I'll confidently predict some of my favourite musical moments of 2022 will come from this album, and we are only two months in. 

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

MY OWN WALKING - Journal - 11/02/2022

Whilst the Husband was away on a weeks solitary retreat, I stayed as much as possible at home. My general aims;~ to not do shop related work, increase the amount of silence in my day, to not be busy, nor settle into a routine. But you know the form, what you do on the first day goes so well you cut and paste the same programme in for the rest of the week. The desire to be more spontaneous and receptive to the ritual momentum present right now, before you know it, turns into a regular spot every day at 9am for Ayurvedic breathing exercises. Staying at home alone has its own challenges. That its nothing like being on solitary, is but one. You are still living in the realm of the familiar. The habitual ways you occupy space and utilise time.

I don't know about you, but I like the idea of open unstructured days more than the actuality, where I become fidgety. Initially I'm uptight, too concerned about making the best use of my free time. Though it is meant to be just that - free time - no plan - no agenda, not my usual mix of driven task lists and deadlines. There is also the impulse to run away from too much silence, to fill the sound void with anything. Once alone I talk aloud to myself with less compunction. Though I have times when I absolutely love silence, I also can get fearful of them. What might unfurl should I fully surrender myself? So I fidget uncomfortably, reluctant to commit to any activity that comes to mind. Internally panicking at this indecisive drift and my inactivity. Time is literally slipping away. This silence will be the death of me.

And yet things do come up. Many years ago in Cambridge, I regularly went to see Richard - The Osteopath. A very fine practitioner, who was also adept at reading through your body the nature of the consciousness inhabiting it. One time, after a treatment had finished and I was putting my coat on to leave, he made an observation that was right on the button. 'I get the feeling that you are like a shop full of very beautiful objects, lovingly displayed, everything just so. But if one tiny thing disappoints, becomes lost, broken or out of place then your whole life, the shop, everything - in your mind tumbles into ruins'  The discomforting truth of this statement reappeared again this week.

I've been reflecting on gratefulness, in the wake of watching talks and reading books by Brother David Steindl-Rast, who has written rather a lot on this subject. Its made me realise quite how ungrateful I have been at times, particularly with how my life has turned out. That it wasn't how I originally imagined it would be, was a flaw in my perception, not of myself or the world. When I reflect on my life now, I have been fortunate, with much to feel grateful for. However, some grudges, resentments, disappointments still linger on well past their Use Before date. Am I going to go to my grave still holding onto these? Will I move on? By the end of my days will it be grudges or gratefulness?

Brother David refers a lot to living in the 'given' world, being present to it, aware and responsive. Seeing each day is a gift, a surprise and an opportunity. That you can only truly feel grateful for a 'gift' when you recognise and acknowledge that it is 'a gift' and you value or find meaning in the thing you've been given. My practice at the moment is with the latter - valuing what I've been given. I so easily devalue things, myself included, what I do, what has happened, what other people do for me. As a consequence I fail to express my gratitude enough. Mostly because in the moment what there is to be grateful for is being obscured by ungratefulness, dislike, even aversion. Perhaps one thing is not quite right in the carefully curated little shop of very precious objects, that is my life. Obsessing over what isn't quite right means I tend to overlook all the rest that is.

There is an American saying 'When life serves you lemons, make lemonade'. A lot that happens to us feels, and maybe is, awful at the time. Life can be difficult to handle emotionally. But often these sorts of situations have, in the past, prompted me to take active steps to move on from them. To forge a new direction from which to grow. Whatever turns up, whatever the world presents, it will be some sort of opportunity for practise. To make some progress with dealing better with myself, others, work, ethics, creatively.  Nothing changes if you can't face it, examine it, go with it, not against it. Over time I have gained some trust in life and in my resourcefulness to deal with it. Even though what happens is perhaps not what you think you want right now, in time this will be fine, this will be perfectly OK. You'll find yourself laughing about this very same thing in the future. But this doesn't mean you should ever roll over and go passive to it. Be grateful for the lemons, but start preparing to make the lemonade.

Gratitude, so Brother David insists, cannot be just words, it must be demonstrabe. Its genuineness is shown in ones responses and actions. The depth of your gratefulness depends upon the meaning 'the gift' has for you. Sometimes I operate on an 'idea' of what has meaning for me, trying it on for size like a hat. But meaning inhabits you, because it feels fulfilling and something to feel grateful for. Your sense of purpose may be connected to that meaning. But when its not, then it easily becomes a willful driven sense of purpose that could eventually burn you out.  

Likewise any 'idea' about what has meaning is never going to be enough. You have to be willing to relinquish the idea of having complete control of ones destiny.  Meaning enters whenever your guard is down. There may be an opportunity being thrown up here. Whether you pick up on what that is, will partly be dependent on how present, aware and willing you are. Noticing the difference between being willful and being willing, is something I've yet to fully recognise and learn.

Currently I'm holding in mind the word 'leisurely' another quality Brother David Steindl-Rast writes about. Practising a more 'leisurely' approach to a task, permitting myself whatever time it requires. To not let deadlines or perceived ideas of being productive or goals dominate. Leaving space around my work in which to enjoy the task as a task, not as a mission. 

Taking a more leisurely and playful attitude towards tasks requires some active awareness. For, as Brother David points of, in play we sing, we dance, we enjoy, without needing to know why we are singing, dancing or enjoying. Play doesn't need to have meaning brought to it, it is there in the very doing of it. Every task, however menial, has meaning locked away somewhere within it. Should we be in too much of a hurry to get it over with, we might just blink and miss it.

What Brother David has said about taking a more leisurely approach to work, has strongly resonated with me. I  recognise what he's talking about, in my own willfulness and experience of its consequences. But its easy to say these sort of things in the abstract, when I'm not currently in my normal work mode and lifestyle. This needs testing in the anvil of circumstance.

The first thing, however, that precipitates change is always awareness. Once you are aware of something you cannot put it back in the box and become unaware of it again. You could act upon it, or not act upon it.  You could try repression, but lets not go there shall we. What would a leisurely approach to a task actually feel like? Am I willing to find out?

FINISHED READING - The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundara

The central protagonists of The Unbearable Lighhtness of Being are Tomas and Teresa, with secondary characters Serena, Tomas's mistress, and her boyfriend on the rebound Franz. Another dominant presence is the author himself, whose voice repeatedly intrudes into the narrative, commenting, with post modern philosophical observations from time to time. 

Tomas has form as a philanderer. He has these brief flings, sometimes they are just one night stands with women whose names he barely can remember after. But he really loves Theresa, who knows of his infidelities, fears these affairs becoming serious rivals, so just hopes they will pass, which most do. Their endures a strong bond between her and Tomas. Until, from time to time, she can take it no more and moves house or country, occasionally pursued by Tomas. She can't live with him, but can't live without him. You know the shtick.

Serena, his mistress, is prone to becoming a creative man's muse. Her long lived affair with Tomas to her mind was a high point that no one else can live up to. Poor Franz, though he comes a poor second is similarly besotted with Serena, whilst remaining married to the less than loveable Marie Claire. Franz always makes love to Serena with his eyes closed. For Serena there can be no future in it, she leaves him. For Franz, Serena remains his eternal love, which allows him to be content with just having loveless sex with his young students.

All this is set is around the Prague Spring in 1968 when Russia invaded Czechoslovakia. People disappear, people inform on others, writers and intellectuals become imprisoned, their work banned. But, though it is most definitely there, it all feels like a largely superfluous circumstance.  The sexual shenanigans in the world of Tomas and Theresa will forever looms much larger. And so the novel progresses along its frequently very tedious trajectory.

I read it all, let's just say that right now. It was one of my through 'to the bitter end' novels. The writer John Banville said many years later that he found the effect of reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being had left no discernible impact upon him. The characters he realised were neither memorable or likeable. I tend to agree, there is a self absorbed coldness about them all, which makes this a book that's truly hard to like. For all its high flown pretenses, it feels unbearably shallow.

Kundara's portrayal of love and of women is a very male one. All these long suffering women putting up with male infidelity because of their deeper more enduring sense of love. Surrendering their lives and careers to be with their man. So aware of the double standard that they're afraid of their husband discovering their own unfaithfulness and the possibility of anger and rejection. For all his philosophical pontificating on the complexities of love and loyalty, I couldn't believe a word of it. It didn't ring at all true to me. 

Nothing else meaningfully interacts with these self obsessed love affairs. If it had been a book exploring the nature of fidelity, to values and beliefs, both sexual and political, maybe I'd have been more interested in the reading of it. I wonder, when we are now so post Post Modern and in the middle of the #Me Too repercussions, how well this novel from 1984 would fare. Acclaimed at the time as a literary classic, it is overdue a less adoring reappraisal. For me it was a rather boring mess

.

CARROT REVIEW - 2/8

WATCHED - A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood

One of the joys being at home alone for a week was I could watch movies that are entirely to my own taste and preference. This was just one of them, but probably the best one. Food to feed the spirit, rather than the zombie apocalypse.

Tyler Vogel is a bitter man. An investigative journalist who writes unsparing demolitions of peoples reputations and brutal exposes of wrong doing. His editor at Esquire tells him, despite his reluctance to do a puff piece, to write an article for an edition on heroes. He is about to be dispatched to interview a much beloved children's TV presenter Mr Rogers.

Tyler has a wife and child of his own. Memories of his Mother during her death and of his woefully absent and unfaithful Father, still weigh heavily and angrily in his psyche. Turning up, even at his interview with Mr Rogers  bearing the facial scars of a vengeful brawl the day before with his Father. We all can have empathy for Tyler, we sort of understand him, we all have a bitter side. He is us throughout the film - disbelieving, disquieted and questioning.

Tyler is deeply suspicious of who this man, Mr Rogers, really is. What planet is he from, really? Surely he can't be as eccentrically good as he appears? There must be a more morally dubious, darker side to him. His probing questions during the initial interview with Mr Rogers, are all met with receptive kindness. Rogers possesses an enquiring honesty that gently asks for a similar level of openness and revelation from Tyler. Mr Rogers is interested in why Tyler is how he is. No matter how much he tries to wrong foot Mr Rogers, it only reveals further depths to his honest to goodness genuineness. Mr Rogers hears and receives Tylers's cynicism and rather than becoming defensive or self justifying, responds only with empathy for the suffering that lies beneath it. Oh Mercy, he exclaims.

A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood, skillfuly resists applying bucketfuls of syrupy sentiment. Its a simple-hearted film and as touching as Mr Rogers is. Heartwarming in the very best meaning of that term. Yes, its a fantasy that might as well be, and frequently is, set in the fake model town animated in the opening credits. Its directed fully knowing exactly what its doing, skilfully crossing and blurring the boundaries between the fake reality of a TV stage, real life and back again. It owes a lot, and fully repays its indebtedness to, Its A Wonderful Life. 

Mr Rogers is a thoroughly decent man. He has his faults, but he knows what they are, and how best to process and deal with them kindly. Poor Tyler, unbeknownst to him, is encountering someone resembling a living Bodhisattva, and he can't help but be changed by that.

Tom Hanks plays Mr Rogers with kindly beaming beatitude, grace and sympathy. It is never easy to portray a truly good person and avoid it becoming saintly unbelievable hokum, but he does. Hank's own public reputation as a humble good humoured man, backs up his performance here. It is what makes this film not just work, but be an absolute bloody uplifting joy to watch. You would have to be as hard hearted a cynic as Tyler Vogel not to like it.

CARROT REVIEW 8/8

Currently available to rent through the usual channels, or stream on Netflix.

SHERINGHAM DIARY 57 - Ambushed By Dogs

In the last year there's been one noticeable change in our terrace. In January 2021 there were two dogs, one at the top end and another in the house opposite it. The very yappy Amber, so needy for love and attention, since an actual human baby arrived in the house. At the current estimate the number of dogs in the terrace has now reached five. Only ourselves and our immediate neighbour to the right of us, holding out against the doggy onslaught.

Its not that we haven't considered the possibility of owning a dog ourselves. Even down to what we might call it. The idea in theory always sounds fine. But once we start considering the extra demands on time  and attention they require, the walks, the care, the additional cost of a dog and where it would live in our small house. It starts to feel more and more like not a good thing for us to take on in our current circumstances. Its struggle enough to keep a healthy work life balance, without throwing the additional responsibility of looking after a canine into the mix.

The young couple in the house to our left have just recently got a young pup. I couldn't tell you what breed, other than its small, white and quite noisy. Prone to outbreaks of constant barking at any time of the day or night. It seems upset quite regularly at 2 or 3am, barking for periods of an hour or two, not being uncommon. Just one more thing to add to the many that deter my returning to sleep when I wake in the middle of the night. Ah, the bliss of it all.

The shop as I write is now closed for three weeks or so. So what to do with our period of time off, is the Zeitgeist. It incorporates both a relaxing change of pace with advancing making projects and new ideas for the coming season. My making strategy has been to use this quieter downtime to build up stock levels. Hopefully to ease the pressure to keep up in the height of the summer season. But then in the middle of this period we are both taking a break from this and each other and retreating.

Jnanasalin took a weeks solitary, whilst I intended to stay at home and go quietly low- fi for a week. I was fully aware how difficult such a thing can be to achieve surrounded, as I was, by the easily accessed distractions of home. Its more straightforward if you can go somewhere entirely away from such things. But I didn't know quite where that would be for me in my present spiritual 'neither here nor there state.' But I bought some books by Brother David Steindl-Rast to read and study. Of him I sense there will be some mention in another blog.

Brother David Steindl-Rast

A week home alone was a time to seek out some aesthetic nourishment. Apart from leisurely walks in the woods of Sheringham Park, I selected a few choice films and documentaries to enrich my sensory bank account. Opening with reacquainting myself with the documentary film In Great Silence about the Trappist monks of Chartreuse, living half way up a mountain range. Followed on successive nights by:-  A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood - The Centre Will Not Hold - Ram Dass Going Home -  The Last of England  -Topsy-Turvy - The Last Legion. Some brilliant, some interesting, some moving, only the latter was a complete Dud.

Tilda

I initially thought I might forego my early morning dash of trashy American Sci-fon Netflix and read an inspiring book instead, my interrupted sleep patterns dictated otherwise. Read at 2 or 3am, are you mad! So I've carried on viewing Series 3 of Star Trek Enterprise. A fitfully interesting attempt to reboot the franchise. Unfortunately it is also damned from the very start with a truly annoying 'inspirational' power ballad for a title song. I mean, what self respecting sci fi show wants to sound like you are about to view The Mary Tyler Moore Show? 

I've taken to seeing how quickly I can press the Skip Intro button. But so far I have yet to prevent fewer than five words of the lyric playing. They also keep shifting where the Skip Intro button appears in the lead in. So its turned into quite a game of quick moving fingers to highlight and press. By Series 3, they even rearranged the orchestration to be more country folksy. Its still misjudged dreck however its played in my book.

Malcolm's suspicious face

I thought I'd seen THE worst acting in a Star Trek series with Marina Sirtis in The Next Generation , until I saw the patently risible performance of Dominic Keating as Tactical Officer Malcolm Reed. Little emotional range, stiff of mouth and body, he often has to behave rough and tough, but it looks like his acting training used a text book drawn up for a Thunderbirds puppet. So bad, its good? Well I laugh, as I cringe.

We have done our brief jaunt up to Lincoln and Stamford. In the end we only found a couple of fabrics in The Fabric Quarter in Lincoln. Both we had seen before online, but you cannot get a sense for the scale of the pattern our how it might look on a cushion or lampshade from that. You really do have to see them. But it was lovely to visit Lincoln again, if only for a flying overnight visit.

Though we equally love visiting Stamford, the fabric shop there was a bit of a disappointment. It currently has a very muddled and incoherent fabric selection. We are going to Norwich in a couple of days, to view another fabric shop. ( a poor selection as far as our requirements go ) After that we'll decide on our fabric ranges for the coming season. Going small with our initial selection, seeing what interest and responses are like, before investing in larger quantities of any fabric.

We re-open the shop on the 10th Feb, so not much time is left of our break from the shop. We don't normally do much by way of sales for Valentines Day, but half term starts from the end of that week. Depending on the weather we could do OK.  

I'd hoped we'd be able to visit and achieve more with the time off we've had. But in the end there were too many demands upon that time and we had to scale back on what could be done within it. Before we know it we'll be back in high season, but with a whole new range of things to offer our customers.

EPISODE 5 Curtains, My Dear, Curtains

Contact Tracing Leads To An Unexpected Find

'Randall's Haberdashery, how can I help?'

'Hello, could I speak to Margot Randall please?'

'Yes, I'll go and find her, who am I speaking to, what is it concerning?'

'This is the police in Compton Norton, it's about your delivery driver Rogerio Marsden'

Ms Treadwell dashed to the back of the stockroom, where Margot was deeply absorbed, carefully checking off of a delivery of expensive handmade shawls and throws. Wondering if she'd ordered too many.

'It's the police.... something to do with Rogerio' 

Thrusting the phone towards Margot, as though it were burning a hole in her hand.

'Margot Randall speaking'

The Police had been summoned to Compton Norton Cottage Hospital to deal with a highly distraught young man. Desperately looking for an A&E department they did not have. Covered from head to toe in swollen purple lesions. He was In a state of panic, flailing and shouting crazily about plague infected curtains  The hospital was immediately closed and cordoned off. The man was taken by air ambulance to Whittlechurch Trust Hospital, isolated in a sealed ICU unit where he remained in a critical condition. 

PC Monica Dawson's job was now to piece together the man's movements. Rogerio Marsden, where had he been that day? Gradually pulling together a list of people he may have been in close contact with. Asking them to self isolate until an ambulance could get to them. All quickly leading to this call to Randall's, and to Margot.

'Do you hire Mr Marsden on regular basis Mrs Randall?.'

'Yes, we use his services, have done for the last two or three years.'

'Where was he delivering for you recently'

'Oh, only the one delivery today, a very local one in Brimmingham. Is Rogerio all right?'

'No, I'm afraid he isn't Mrs Randall. Mr Marsden is seriously I'll in hospital I am afraid. Could you tell me what he was delivering and to whom, please?'

'It was some rather unusual curtains to a Ms Julia Goodall-Smillie'

'Unusual, in what way?'

Margot attempted to abbreviate for the police the whole elaborate back story of the curtains. But found herself incapable of the task, instead adding great dollops of dramatic relish, the strange heat, the purple staining, her uneasy alarmed concerns about them. Going on and on. Even as she spoke she had this surge of panic, maybe she shouldn't overdo the melodrama. But failed to stop herself, she was like this dam that once burst had to release every last drop of pent up water. 

'This might have serious repercussions for your business Marge. Tone it down, sound more sombre, more caring and professional. Maybe I could sue that dratted fabric company for loss of business, for recklessly endangering the health and lives of me and my staff, for selling faulty merchandise. Legal vengence will be mine.'

How her mind raced ahead of her.

As Margot spoke, Monica at the other end of the phone she became excitedly alarmed by what she heard. Here was the source of it all. Taking down the details of the fabric manufacturer, the address of Randall's and Ms Goodall-Smillie's.  Telling her to close the shop immediately. Stop any customers from leaving the premises. To wait with Ms Treadwell until the police and ambulance arrived.

An hour later the whole of Brimmingham was caught up in the housebound equivalent of a whirl of alarm. A police cordon had been erected around Randall's, and Francine's little cottage. The normally peaceful little Georgian cul-d-sac where Ms Julia Goodall-Smillie lived, had become a hive of CSI and TV news activity. A barrier blocked off the entrance to the road. No one, not even residents, allowed out, nor in. Grumbles of outrage, stirred up by cockeyed theories, were passed around in great measure. Telephoned from house to house. Semaphored along each picturesque side street. Settling like dust around the collision of old codgers, informally gathered on their mobility scooters beneath the medieval market cross. 

Meanwhile, the number of masked individuals appearing, blue gloved and dressed in white hazmat suits, seemed ever increasing. Once all necessary back up was in place, there was a move towards the house. A police team ascended the doorsteps, knocking loudly on Julia's front door.

'Its the police, Ms Goodall-Smillie'

With all the noise and kerfuffle that had been going on outside, if Julia had still been conscious the door would have opened long before now. She'd have stood looking disdainful, and with all her customary flair for heightened syntax and foul language, would have bellowed.

'Could you inform me what the fucking hell is going on? Which person is in charge here ? I want to speak to that numbskull right now!.'

But there was no such appearance, no such response, no such imperious voice to be heard echoing along this elegant rural street.

After a couple more hails, the team, with hand held enforcer battering rams unceremoniously shattered the door off its hinges. The fact that the door was eighteenth century and part of a grade two listed Georgian terrace, caused a collective sharp intake of breath. Mainly amongst the residents locked away behind their own ancient doors. They looked on in abject horror, whilst phoning the County Council's conservation department to check whether such behaviour was quite the done thing. The Facebook page for Enjoy Brimmingham More rose up into a state of apoplexy. Never had so few had so much to complain about.

On the threshold, the heavy duty police grunts hovered briefly before backing away to let the onsite forensic pathology team thoroughly,. One look inside made everyone exclaim. 

Shiiiit!

'Hello.......Ms Goodall-Smillie.... are you there?....are you OK?

No response. 

Cautiously they stepped into a once elegant hallway now completely infested with a network of vivid purple veins and glittering winking eye shapes. Running across walls, around light fittings, stairwells and newel posts. A mouldy rancid aroma assaulted nasal passages. A two person group split off upstairs, the main group turned left into the front room. Stepping whenever possible over or around the veins, which spread like fan vaulted peacock feathers across the floor and ceiling. In the middle of the front room lay a disquieting spongy foetus like mound. 

The lead forensic investigator spoke via com link.

'We've found a body..a body form. It's moving, well, its making breathing like movements, but I cannot be sure its actually alive. Everything in this room weirdly pulses. If this is her she could be comatose. The body form has purple skin lesions similar to the guy in hospital. But much more advanced. There are several major tendrils spreading out from the curtains that are enveloping this.... form.  It appears to have become woven into them. I really don't understand what it is we are dealing with here. 

I suggest we exit the building and consider what our next move should be. This doesn't feel at all safe to me. All units vacate the premises ASAP follow the established exit protocols, to the letter please!'

From then on over the following days the forensic team moved with extraordinary care, slowly moving through the house. Whilst efforts to discover a way to contain 'the purple plague' as it had become known, progressed.  It had taken a while for Retinal Hemorrhage, the rather recalcitrant fabric manufacturer, to relay the information that they might try a common mordant dye fixing agent, in a high concentration. This might at least neutralise it. Which it did. The house and those in the surrounding area evacuated whilst a thorough fumigation was done. The mordant agent sprayed everywhere, outside and in, to prevent any likelihood of resurgence. 

What was left of the body of Ms Julia Goodall-Smillie, once released from its cocoon, partly liquified, could then be pronounced officially dead. 

Rogerio Marsden having struggled to keep a hold on life in ICU for several weeks, suddenly pulled through and was now on the way to a full recovery. Making a life changing decision to live in Thailand, to join an eco village,to join a Buddhist monastery, or find a wife there. He'd not yet decided which. 

Everyone else connected via Randall's, including their fortunately very cautious seamstress Francine, were relieved to be found clear of infection. What with prolonged, direct skin contact with the fabric being apparently the primary vector of transmission. 

Retinal Hemorrhage ended up being litigated or investigated on so many fronts. All their fabrics impounded, tested and then destroyed. So in the end they did a runner. Before their links to a Swiss based Dark Material Arts Commune emerged. Funded, on the surface at least, by a perfectly respectable Hedge Fund, also now suspended whilst other links were checked out.

Randall's itself never quite got over it. In the febrile imaginations of Margot and all her staff, simply handling any curtain fabric made their skin crawl for a long long time afterwards. The hardest thing was tolerating and keeping patient, with having to politely accommodate the heightened level of wariness and bizzare apparel of their customers. Sporting a range of improvised liberty silk scarves with holes cut through for eyes, ski goggles. truly grubby tweed face masks and badly adapted gardening or motorbike gloves. The Covid pandemic and half baked recollections of the war, both had a lot to answer for.

But then a strange epilogue to the weird tale of Ms J Goodall-Smillie and her infectious 'devil' curtains surfaced. Disturbing and enigmatic in equal measure.

Compton Norton Chronicle & Advertiser - Another Plague House Discovery

After weeks of increasingly odd revelations coming from the Brimmingham 'plague house', you might be forgiven for thinking things could not get anymore baffling or alarming. Recently the police stumbled across another body in the house. This time the death was not a result of the strange infection. It was the murdered body of a woman in her thirties, found in an old chest freezer in the house cellar. 

DNA samples and dental records have both confirmed that these were the remains of a woman, who went missing from her cottage in Lower Pullingham  six years ago.  Early indications, as yet unconfirmed, are that she had been held captive for some time, before being killed. Her death being probably two years ago. Police are appealing to people in the Brimmingham to Compton Norton area for any information regarding past sightings of this woman near the house or local vicinity. She was quite distinctive as she was an unusually tall person, well over six foot five inches. The police have released a photo of the woman and her chosen name at time of death  - Simone Calvin.

Appendix

If you would like to read all five episodes of Curtains My Dear, Curtains again, in one complete sequence, click the link in Labels for Curtains My Dear Curtains or The Friday Serial. This should pull up all the previous episodes, hopefully in the right order. Blogger can sometimes act a bit contrary.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it. 

There will be another The Friday Serial, once I've thought of an idea to write about.