ARTICLE - Cultivating A Moral Culture

In the West, we have inherited a moral culture, drawn from our civilisations long and intimate association with Christianity, over millennia. We cannot, even in our present decidedly secular age, avoid its consequences or influence. And indeed, why would we want to?  We remain a country which benefited from partaking in that Christian infused history, even though the collective practice of the Christian faith itself, may no longer be widely adhered to.

Most religions have two facets; the theoretical, theological ideals and the ethical consequences of those ideals, put into daily practice. Many faiths make hardly any distinction between the two, one flowing directly out of the other. Faiths can have their own divinely ordained laws, which the practitioner has to rigidly adhere to in order to be considered a 'good person'. Christianity has successfully secularised much of its general ethical and moral imperatives, that in a sense they can and do stand alone, semi - independent of it.

Some people today who may refer to themselves as Christian, are often cultural rather than active Christians. They feel an affinity towards Christianity, but this is disconnected from Christianity as a fully engaged, church attending, daily practiced faith. Cultural affinity and religious belief are quite different beasts, not interchangeable terms. To what extent we are a Christian country, cannot be claimed purely on the basis of cultural legacy alone. This burgeoned from what we once were, not necessarily from what we are now. Even though it's influence may persist centuries later.

As a society, we generally hold a belief say in fairness, founded on a desire that we all be treated equally. But we are perhaps unaware of why equality is felt to be so fundamental. It's perceived as an inherent expectation and a right, to be treated equally and fairly. But this has not always been so. Christianity's study and interpretation of Neo Platonism in particular, had a huge effect on the shaping of Western civilisations moral structure. Ideas of a democracy, an equal and fair society, emerge from the Christian infused reinterpretation of Greek philosophical ideas.

Today, if the idea of fairness came under attack, the very need for it questioned, and we were called upon to defend or explain why everyone should be treated fairly, would we know where to start?  Most of us do not have an actively engaged with Christian faith to draw upon, nor sufficient knowledge of the history and development of philosophy or Christian moral thought, to even begin answering that one. I certainly don't.

You could say, that we know what the flower  looks like, but no longer understand its roots, the seed and the soil from which it grew and sustained it. Nonetheless, we value fairness as a guiding principle, without fully grasping all that lies beneath it. And you might say that that is perfectly fine. Most of us are not going to be asked to intellectually defend the idea of fairness, probably ever. Though in these days of fascistic tech oligarchs and burgeoning authoritarian politics, we can no longer passively ride on that assumption.

With the increasing secularisation of morality in the 20th Century, has come a simultaneous emphasis on morals as an individual personal preference, rather than a collectively held or top down imposed belief. This has resulted in our society's grasp on morality feeling in a fragile state, openly attacked or disregarded, particularly from the extreme wings of politics. Whilst we have progressed in knowledge and material wealth, we are regressing morally in wisdom and compassion.

Denuded of the scaffolding of the Christian belief system that originally structured them, social morality begins to look more 'optional'. This doesn't mean we all have to become Christians again, so meaning and stability will instantly be restored. Being an active Christian practitioner requires an entirely different level of faith and commitment. That I for one would find hard to accept in all its particularities.

Christianity hugely transformed Western Civilisation, but its reach evolved slowly and over many millenia. By comparison its decline has been relatively rapid. Once the genie of individualism was let out of the bottle, its not proved possible, or desirable, to force it back in. I for one, cannot see how we could reverse engineer our way out of this one. It may be impossible, without resorting to something resembling dictatorial enforcement. Which would seem entirely counter productive. However, it maybe feasible, if we were to become critically disillusioned with individualism itself, then the situation could radically alter.

In terms of exploring a way forward I want to propose three headings - convergence, education and exemplification.

CONVERGENCE

The UK is a country of many faiths and no faith, and yet, we still largely respect, adhere and conform to customs that are primarily Christian in origin. Even on a secular level, the moral compass still has to work, be useful and valuable, or we would have throw them away or abandoned them all by now. Human beings recognise there is a need for boundaries. On the level of morals there is often a higher degree of convergence between us, and between different faith teachings on morals, than we might imagine. To fully appreciate this, we'd have to loosen any notion that everything morally good and true, has arisen exclusively from a Christian fountainhead. Moral themes are shared across a wide range of faiths and no faith, even if the degree of emphasis and purpose differ.

I am a Buddhist, though I was not brought up as one. Due to my Methodist upbringing, which encouraged tolerance and moderation in all things, this is somewhat inbuilt into my psyche. I don't think that will change, even if I wanted it to. That I don't want to, is because tolerance and moderation are not incompatible with my Buddhist practice - of cultivating loving kindness towards all beings, the inter-connectedness of all life, and the mistrust of intoxication in all its multifarious forms. To make convergence work, connections have needed to be actively drawn by me. Convergence forms out of an awakening awareness of a degree of reciprocity. A recognition that we do share values in common. If you only look for the differences, that is all you will find.

EDUCATION

Here I'd say is near the crux of why we may be morally going awry. You do have to actively draw moral or ethical connections. To inculcate them in us all from childhood. Once, these ideals would have come to us from multiple directions via the state, church, school and your parents. But in an individualistic secularising society you cannot assume that this continues to be so.  Traditional channels such as the family may fail to form those links. Nonetheless education remains key, whether that be in the form of learning about citizenship, ethics, or cultivating a wider spread understanding of what our shared values and morals are, where they came from, why we have them, what there social purpose is.

EXEMPLIFICATION

Exemplification has a more significant role than one might at first think. Society, however imperfect it maybe, has to reflect and model its values and mores, if it wishes everyone to buy into and follow them. 

We need to feel included, to have any sense of investment in the society we live in. If people are alienated, hostile or feel bypassed, ignored, or vilified by society at large, then this will undermine anyone's willingness to conform to social norms. This highlights the need for exemplification on all levels. That everyone has to consciously feel the benefits of being part of society, or else moral cohesion will fracture and break down. That this is already happening is indicated by widespread apathy and cynicism.

Our leaders, political, social, cultural as well as religious, need to walk their talk. They cannot just play lip service, but demonstrate through their words and actions, moral rectitude. When our leaders openly lie, misrepresent, bullshit and dissemble with no apparent shame or consequence, create divisions in society, and pick on minorities Then we are being set an example, that puts us on a slippery slope to the disintegration of democratic civilisation itself.

Finally, it is down to us too not to fall prey to paying lipservice either. To exemplify the best in us. Not to wait for official backing or government initiatives. Be an admirable person, with no unearned airs or graces. Recognising that no one ever changes because you preach at, or berate them, but you might inspire them through your lived example. Aspire to be as open hearted, attentive and kind member of society as possible, because this is a rewarding thing to do in itself.

Transformational change comes usually from two directions, top down, or rising up in a ground swell. Both from a desire for things to change. I like to imagine these two things happening simultaneously, to meet in the middle in one unified beneficial benign upset.

SHORT STORY - Eaten Alive By Their Own Shadows

When the atrocity took place the world wept archaic tears. Acres of causal sympathy was shed. All the tribes across the Aegean peninsula made sure to express their anger  publicly. Disguising any strategic advantage they privately saw for themselves. Offering the Spartans their arms and armies, their money, their allegiance. They struck a deal and shook their hands upon the coming conflict.

Once again ministering angels were left to mop the brows and wipe away the tears of those left behind. The ones already encased in their shrouds and in their mourning. As vengeance was taken for them, becoming the foremost weapon shaken in the hands of men. And the oracles predicted doom into the emptiness of cavernous spaces.

 

That local delegation, those disingenuous Trojans, had appeared likable enough. Closely resembling the Spartans in their world view and mode of interaction. But then, they'd broken into the palace compound on the evening of their departure. Abducted Queen Helen, taking all her entourage hostage too. Further aggrieving their hosts by the slaughtering of slaves, sacred calves, children and killed King Menelaus's thoroughbred horses as they left. No one would be in quick pursuit of them as they made for a sea bourne getaway. As Sparta, so grievously betrayed, was plunged into mournful outrage.

Menelaus was so consumed by his emotional sophistry, that it never occurred to his imagination, that Helen might have left willingly. That he might have been neglectful and abusive towards his ravishing wife. That this 'abduction' might to some extent have been his fault. As he turned up on his older brother Agamemon's doorstep, to devise together a rescue mission. They compiled a list of those whose skills and fealty they should call upon.

He aught to have understood his siblings nefarious nature better. He'd seen the self serving cruelty of him many times. But now Menelaus was not just forgiving of it, but wished to co-opt his kin's less respectable instincts. The more lee way you gave Agamemnon, the more he greedily would make a grab for places, persons and power to service his own advantage. Menelaus, in the righteousness of his anger knowingly failed to restrain the bullish bear, that was his brother when unleashed. This ego inflated leader always on the make.

In Agamemnon's hands their joint mission, quickly turned from rescue into a campaign for annexing Trojan territory. The seeking of an ocean wide continental supremacy. To turn their quickly hewn confederation of warriors, into an undefeatable power across the vast Aegean Sea. No one foresaw then, that the fighting would go on and on for ten grueling years of increasingly futile conflict. During which, Helen and the hostages had become an entirely secondary consideration. The interminable nature of this war focused minds completely, to the point of blind obsession, on wiping the Trojans entirely off the map and out of existence. To put a final end to their darkly pernicious terrorism, with the Greeks own far from virtuous version of it.

And as these two malign military forces  exchanged ever deeper atrocities against one another, no one could be proud of any victory. For each battle won appeared ever more cyclical and pyrrhic in nature. No one could envisage the end to it. So as they grovelled ever closer to the ground they fought over, they were simultaneously being eaten alive by their own shadows. Whilst the oracles continued to predict doom, into the emptiness of cavernous spaces.

On the day the ignoble Greeks finally stepped onto the streets of Troy, all they could think of exacting was genocidal murder. To pillage and bring to ruin this once fine city. The revenge rapes and the immolation of women and children on pyres. Reducing everything, whether despicable or admirable that was Troy, into blackened glowing embers. To pound its walls into the dust of forgotten history. 

Menelaus, once the rightfully wronged man, had over a decade of blood fueled fighting corrupted his image from the god endorsed abused, into an egregious abuser himself. Any moral high ground he'd once occupied, now crushed under the feet of his own actions and utter debasement. 

Helen emerged imperious out of the bonfire of Illium's royal palace, and without a look of recognition walked straight passed Menelaus. No longer seeing him as even worthy of her respect, let alone affection. Any love had been extinguished under layers of grief, for all those fine men and women who'd died as a consequence of her decision to chose self determination, happiness and joy, over a cruel and dependent servitude.

FAVE RAVE - UtsuwagakU

You know, sometime in hopefully the longer distant future. I'll be in my last days on earth and someone will say ' Put a video of an obscure Japanese craft person skilfully making something, you know how Mr Lumb loves them' and the last thing I'll watch as I depart my mortal coil will be a ceramic tea pot being hand made. And I'll be winsomely happy as I pass over to the other side.

MY OWN WALKING - Journal November 2024

When I turned up at St Augustine's Primary School, Halifax in 1962 for my first day at school, I was five years old. Memories lingering from that period are frequently of devising strategies to avoid being bullied. Though I generally got on better with girls in infant school, my preference for the girls playground also had an ulterior motive. It removed me from the immediate sight and purview of the boys playground.

Boys, being boys, they loved sports and just generally throwing balls and smaller sensitive boys around. I had a recollection the other day of one incident my memory had suppressed. A gang of lads, sought me out in the girls playground, dragged me over to the playground wall and pinned me to it, whilst older boys kicked, or hit and threw balls in my general direction. Whilst I did what I could to avoid being hit in the face by them. They'd no doubt read of the martyrdom of St Stephen in the Bible and decided a little re-enactment was called for.

When, as a family, we moved from Yorkshire to North Lincolnshire, I was eleven. I'd hoped my nickname and the bullying might be left behind and could start with a clean slate. Unfortunately a kid from my old Primary School was also there, so that didn't happen. The worst of the bullying here was being thrown over a wall. When not being pestered, shoved or name called. I was being called a 'puff' years before I realised for myself what that meant, and that they were right on the money. So let's just say I developed a quite finely attuned sensitivity to potentially threatening situations.

I've been thinking recently about what consequences this has had upon my psyche, my way of relating to the world, to other men? The first word I would say is wary. Wary, particularly heightened when I'm in all male company. If it all feels a bit too 'blokey". Which makes me want to define what I mean by that. On the surface at least- confident, over assertive masculinity, a rather loud, if not hysterical level of jokey bonhomie, drunk or at least self intoxicated, with an intimidating level of physicality, teetering on being wildly out of control, positively reeking of testosterone and easily provoked to anger. That just about covers the ball park.

And where have I encountered such places? Well, at a rugby club dinner and presentation evening we were invited to a few years ago. We both felt so uncomfortably fish out of water, neither of us could leave soon enough. And a lot of the time you just anticipate, read the signs and avoid. A men's group I went to for a while had brief moments that verged on being like that. When things can get a bit overly heterosexual. Such as with all those 'manly' practical virtues like in a Men's Shed I once visited. In short, not on the surface homosexual friendly situations. You encounter some men, and can feel the narrow specification within which the sense of their masculinity resides, and that you live outside of it.

I was a happy, yet not overly confident child. I am tempted to say by nature, but I think personal confidence is a lot to do with the circumstances and environment in which you are nurtured, as any inherited pre-disposition. Into which being bullied from a young age probably does not help. Humankind is bequeathed via their animal nature a fight or flight response. In modern life, if you are not gifted with physical strength or animal cunning, this means legging it, or becoming a punch bag. These seemed the only available options to my younger self.

Unsurprisingly being bullied lowers your self esteem, and creates a deeply rooted risk averse state of mind. I'd prevaricate over even apparently minor decisions, and bigger ones could floor me completely. Mistakes became harder to  forgive myself for, as these only confirmed the low self worth as true and deserving. Avoiding difficult situations became almost instinctive.

I attempted to cultivate a self sufficiency in order not to have to depend on anyone. My early adult life could be characterised as an discomforting state of aloneness. I could be actively participating in the middle of a group, but still feel outside of it. The mental world I existed in had metaphorical barbed wire placed around it, that cut me off. Like many gay men I cultivated a sharp and satirical banter.

In my first few years at art college I was struggling a lot with ideas of introvert and extrovert. Why was the latter thought better? Why wasn't I more like that? I read psychology magazines and tried to understand myself by reading RD Laing and Nietsche. (Not always to be recommended.)  Forming my own lifestyle, interests and like minded friends gradually built a degree of confidence. But in extremis this could still sink.

I was in my mid thirties before I really started to get a firmer handle on who I was, and managing my psychological hangups better. This was entirely due to becoming a Buddhist. Finding a situation I could comfortably belong to, including all male retreats, was a major step forward and I thrived in it. This was the first place I'd felt really accepted for who I was, where my sexual orientation was no big deal. It was also a place where I could unpack myself, examine the contents, and make beneficial changes. As a consequence Buddhist institutions were a  context I stayed in for over twenty five years.

It might seem strange then that I left being involved in this Buddhist movement six years ago. That sense of belonging was the hardest thing to walk away from. But I felt the need to. I had been uncomfortable living within this situation for a while. Staying put suited me, until something within me just wanted to be free of it all. My heart was not fully in it anymore. Belonging no longer fit the mood music.

Since then I've tried to find a substitute to fill the void, and then abandoned trying to find a substitute. Outside of Buddhism, and in the conservative trad realm of North Norfolk, there are not many options I'd want to take up. I don't play golf, football or any competitive sport, don't go to pubs, or to church, I'm not a Freemason, or a farmer, or a member of the Conservative club. My interests are largely undemonstrative introverted ones. How you encounter like-minded folk in this context is an open question, I have not found an answer too yet. Friendships are just harder to come by around here.

The poet David Whyte observed that our modern Western malaise essentially comes down to the conflicting pulls of being an individual and of belonging. We want to be able to do both, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to do both. Any group or institution requires a degree of individual compromise, to abide by the rules of the club or organisation in order to belong to it. And so, in my case, I tend to drop in and out of them. I want to belong and then I don't. 

I'm sensing that this oscillation is founded, in part, on being bullied as a child. I did and didn't want to be one of the boys, but found I couldn't be anyway. At the moment I'm a length of yearning away from belonging, with increased acuity. Any capacity for friendship is frustrated. Desire exaggerating a sense of dislocation.

This reflection happening now may be an outcome of the HA ! At least heightening the existential aspect of it. For when we die, ones experience of it will be alone. As all the ties and sense of belonging are one by one severed. Belonging, and being an individual, being ultimately as transitory a state as anything else we might treasure.

WATCHED - Vanja

As an idea, transforming Chekov's play Uncle Vanya into something to be performed by one man, appears utterly mad. On paper you would be right to ask - why? But then 'on paper' can so often give an entirely incorrect impression. As ever, you really have to experience it to discover what its imaginative worth is.

Chekov's play is about a family and their servants living on their country estate. A self centred writer and his young wife, live off the proceeds of it. They reside in the country even though they hate it, because financially they can't afford to live anywhere else. There are unspoken tensions and loves in the air too.

For this one man version, simply called Vanja, Andrew Scott carefully worked how to delineate all the characters. How to move from one to the other seamlessly to still make sense, so you know who he is at any one moment in time. That said this is not just a technical, but also a psychological tour de force. Retaining the mournful mood of the original, it is by turns witty, playful, intensely sad and moving, sometimes all within a few seconds.

As he slips from playing one character to another, you could easily interpret this as multiple personas split within the one person. The overall impression it left me with was how much Chekov's characters in this play exist in a similar suspended state. Disappointed with themselves, frustrated with their lives, perhaps at differing stages of despair or the desire for life to be something other than what it is. But each unable to take agency over what it is that they truly want out of their existence. 

It is a brilliant adaption by Simon Stephens , given a charismatic marvel of a performance by Andrew Scott at its centre, that is hugely well deserving of all the accolades that's been heaped upon it.

CARROT REVIEW  - 7/8

Currently available to view by subscription on National Theatre at Home.

FINISHED READING - The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

One thing to note from the very start is that the human characters in The Memory Police  do not have full names. They're either known as the old man, an initial, at most a surname  or no name at all. It's as though a fully fleshed identity has been under attack for quite a while in the world we are now entering. Everything takes place on an island that also has no attributed name. Its as though this is a secret off shore social experiment. The only thing with a name here, is a dog -  Don.

It is in keeping then with the world Okawa portrays, that this is a dystopia where objects and qualities disappear. What disappears being actioned by government decree. Items disappear, so once disposed of, everyone will very quickly forget they ever existed and what they were used for. Unless, of course, they cannot forget, and continue to remember everything.

The central character is a female writer, her professor who is her editor, she refers to as R. He is one who can remember everything. This places him in huge danger. The Memory Police if they to discover this, then he too would vanish. The writer empathises because her own mother was arrested, never to return. This informs her decision to turn her house into a refuge. And with the help of the old man, creates a hidden room in her house to conceal R in.

Okawa descriptions have all her customery care, and exquisite tenderness. Like her previous novel The Proffessor & The Housekeeper, there is a growing loving connection, a fondness, between the characters she has thrown together. That novel, coincidentally, also has the theme of memory, in which the Proffessor could not hold a memory of who he is for more than a day. 

Who would you be without your possessions, your career, or your creativity, your given name, without memories? These are recurring themes her novels explore. Here the background of an oppressive tension, creates difficulties in adjusting to such regular gross changes in society. All the while the female writer wonders, how far could this purging eventually go?

What Okawa brilliantly portrays is the effects of collective dementia, as a whole society is deprived and made decrepit by autocratic design. The horror of how easily that happens, feels shocking to read. As gradually people disappear from self consciousness, the plight of those hidden is to watch all this happen and to not be able to reverse or hold it back. 

The Memory Police is a subtle, quietly distressing novel that remains human. It's a cogent metaphor for our present day culture where Altzheimers is now an increasingly common human experience. The whole of human knowledge is available to us on the Internet, but we understand and know the value of so little of it. So many things we have already forgotten, that we want to forget, or we don't want to know about in the first place. When all that remains of human society is being gradually stripped away, then all we will be left with is our relationships. 

CARROT REVIEW  - 6/8

WATCHED - Nightsleeper

As credulity stretching as Nightsleeper is, it is such a fast moving adventure it takes you along with it. And the speed is most welcome so the holes and the coincidences don't insult you too much. It's a well produced wheez.

Nightsleeper is constructed around the journey of a train and it's passengers, the night the whole rail networks computer system is hacked. The train travelling from Glasgow to London is left motoring at break neck speed southwards.Onboard the usual range of characters - the loud mouthed cynical businessman, the grumpy OAP,  the morally dubious social media reporter, the flawed police officer with a history etc.

But, it all kinda works, the mechanism mostly keeps ahead of you, and produces a number of fine surprises. By the fifth of the six episodes the formula began to wear thin, it starts to repeat itself. By the time you get to the final episode and the big reveal of who was behind the hack. It's someone so completely left field, You've never been given a hint he might be dodgy before. The reveal felt a bit unearned. 

The constantly cracked up tension in the last episode, rather than leaving you hanging on tenter hooks, left you feeling utterly exhausted. Maybe six episodes was overstretching it too much. A briefer four could've been a more satisfying length. But that said, I thoroughly enjoyed it, for all its ludicrousness. My goodness, they even had a nurse and a lawyer on hand just when they needed them, how amazing is that?

CARROT REVIEW  - 5/8

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 119 - Its Medication Time

There are mornings when I start to feel brighter in myself, bodily less weighed down, my physicality more at ease. When I notice this, its a red flag to remind me to check - have I forgotten to take some of my medications this morning?

It's now three months since my HA !  It's surprising how you grow accustomed to things. Particularly the side effects the medication have upon my sense of well being. It is no doubt dealing with high blood pressure, thinning my blood and moderating cholesterol. But it's not for nothing that I also take a pill to protect my stomach from being damaged by the potent drug cocktail my system is imbibing.

Stomach lining medication I take in the morning, once I am up. Because it takes 30-60 minutes to become effective. And I've got used to feeling it commandeering hold of my stomach with an accompanying queasiness. Without this goodness knows what the other medications would really feel like as they hit the lining of my stomach. Those mornings when I forget, remind me of two things, how my body feels with and without them.

Last week I did my first Church Larking visit since before the HA!. It was lovely bright clear sky day. I enjoyed getting on a bus, using my pass, travelling up the coast to Morston. Taking photos, making mental notes, reading about the history of the church. Then taking a half hour walk along the coast path to Blakeney. Since that jaunt I felt bodily much improved, and sleeping better. A lot of  accumulated aches and pains have considerably eased. Getting out and doing a thing I really enjoy was what I certainly needed. 

Morston Quay is a quaint little marsh inlet. Renown for its coastal views and trips out to sea to see the seals. There is consequently a car park, a boat park, a bird viewing tower, a small National Trust cafe, and just about functional public loos. Recently the National Trust has put forward a plan to upgrade some of these facilities, improvements to toilets, disabled access and cafe. Oh the outrage that has ensued.

The so called 'abhorrent' proposed development

Nowadays in North Norfolk anything the National Trust wants to do creates a hugely vociferous hullabaloo. For building a bridge, for not building a bridge, for building the wrong type of bridge in the wrong place etc. Usually there is a suspiciously orchestrated campaign. Their plans at Morston being called 'abhorant' by the right wing Natural England, and loads of heightened rhetoric about NT wanting to monetise and increase tourism without consulting the local businesses or people. 

Morston Quay already is a tourist attraction. Without the NT, Morston village would have no public loos or cafe. It has only one pub and a high end restaurant to recommend it. So the objections, such as they are, are being whipped up. I would suggest many of these 'locals' may be a bit more distant than at first thought. Even I in Upper Sheringham wouldn't call myself local to Morston, its ten miles and twenty five minutes drive away.

Everything I write these days is defined by whether its pre or post HA!. And so, finally, this week I got to do my first swim since the HA!  It was a joy, imbued with a sense of being liberated from a restriction. I only did twelve lengths. Not because I was too tired, but not wanting to overdo it and perhaps regret it later once my body caught up. There wasn't any fatigue delay. What actually happened was swimming perked my body up so much that I was too hyper to sleep well for three nights in a row. Which was an unexpected and unwelcome turn up for the books. I'm going to have to take this returning to 'normality' quite gently.

A field in Norfolk

We were out on a days jaunt around Norfolk and stopped off for lunch. I had a jacket potatoes beans and cheese, a personal favourite. which, post HA!, is a special treat these days. Whilst we were having lunch, two young mothers with young children, struck up a conversation on the table next to us. One of the Mothers was house hunting :-

"So even though we thought it was ideal as a house, we just couldn't go through wiv it. Which was a real shame. Then last week we found a second house. It was truly perfect for us. It was soooo ideal, everything we wanted inside, plenty land outside. Then I noticed there was an empty field next to it. An I just couldn't shake the thought off - someone's gonna build a house on that, then we'll be over looked. So....we're still searchin"

LISTENING TO - No Title as of 13th February 2024 28,340 Dead by Godspeed You Black Emperor

Of the many bountiful things the Pandemic lockdown brought to my attention was the grandstanding opus of Godspeed You Black Emperor. A band that has become the epitome of 'post rock' whether they approved of that lazy catagorisation of them or not. 

What has emerged since their foundation in 1994 is a particularly trenchant artistic vision, given a distinct musical form. One that borrows from many genres, but rises above being affiliated to any of them. So it is minimalist- maximalist music, experimental music, avant-garde drone music, a dramatic chamber music of sorts played on rock instruments - guitars, drums and violin. All of these things and more. They eschew lyrics or vocals, just the occasional 'found voice' will surface from the orchestrated cacophony. Instrumental crescendos of repetitive refrains building to portray the zeitgeist of our time. 

That this new album depicts a scorched and dangerous landscape that gives expression to turbulent emotions, captures the conflicted feelings over not just Gaza, but pretty much everything. You can hear the desolation in the brief three minutes plus of Broken Spires at Dead Kapital. The siren like sound in amongst the distant plummeting explosions at the beginning of Babys in a Thundercloud. The suggestive note of hope and optimism in the concluding coda of Grey Rubble-Green Shoots.

The titles they chose for albums or tracks are often filled with expressive ellipsisms of their own creation - hash tags, exclamation marks, semi colons, hyphens and brackets abound. It's a type of concrete poetry reduced to the oblique matter of fact detail. No Title.... is coldly factual, a date and the number dead. A reference to those killed in Israel's war on Gaza at the time of this albums recording. 

You have to read between those words and imagery, examine the music and visuals they use, to elicit what political comment may be being being made.The track listing goes : - Son is a Hole, Son is Vapours - Babys in a Thundercloud - Raindrops Cast in Lead - Broken Spires at Dead Kapital - Pale Spectator Takes Photographs - Grey Rubble Green Shoots. Make of these what you will.

GSYBE compose music undoubtedly driven by a political impetus. Yet the manner in which they express it though lacking in specifics, always speaks to a more universal level of truth. This is not sharpened political polemic hitting you on the head with manifesto propaganda points. Though GSYBE may inform you chapter and verse of their intent via their press release. But press releases alone do not necessarily make your music political. In the end it's about creating a cogent feeling, not a finely expressed deconstruction or analysis.

The power of what they do is then in the strength of mood conjured. Sometimes it is vast and grand and defiant, yet shadowed by this world weary, plaintive lyrical melancholy. No Title.... is suffused with a drone that hovers in and out throughout it, like a malevolent missile constantly altering course in the pursuit of its target. This music charged with anger, pity and a remorseful sadness heavily woven through it.

Their two most recent albums seem to have become more angst laden, an action of remorse. Filled with frustrated ennui as the potential end of humanity looms ever larger in our collective psyche. Where the point at which we could've saved ourselves from disaster, has perhaps passed, and we will have to address whatever the direst consequences turn out to be. Fighting all the while genocidal wars to eradicate an enemy, as though there were nothing else on our mind that really should matter more.

It was after a third listen through that I finally felt able to state an opinion on No Title As of 13th February 2024. 28,340 Dead. This is a bleak, brilliant sequence of music. The more I listen to it the more impressive it becomes. But, Yeah, this is not a happy upbeat album. Hell No.

CARROT REVIEW  - 8/8

SCREEN SHOT - Timestalker

The BFI are for some inexplicable reason running a pre- release free movie ticket scheme for Alice Lowe's new film. Being a fan of her we booked for a free ticket. We arrived at the cinema, and the audience was about twenty people in a small screen cinema. I got the impression most were there because it was free, not because they were fans of Alice Lowe.

The premise of the film is the central character played by Alice Lowe is in love with another character played by Aneurin Bernard. And throughout history she stalks him, but never gets to consumate her love because she always dies gruesomely before that can happen. This certainly had comedic potential.

The film I have to say is one huge disappointment. It's very very low budget. It struggles to get and maintain its tone and pace right. The script needs a lot more attention, tightening up and sharpening of barbs. The story arc feels too feeble and so lacking in purpose you wait in vain for it to pull itself together. There needed to be some resolution or satirical punchline as to what she learns from all this stalking through history. 

The 18th century and 1980's periods are both given far too much time. These are when the story flounders most. If the pace was snappier, the jokes more cutting and honed, then perhaps you wouldn't have minded so much. The senario might have made for a funny ten minute skit in a comedy sketch show. Each week repeating a further variant set in a different period. But here it feels so inadequate as to be embarrassing.

Alice Lowe, stars, writes and directs. And I would say at least one of those tasks should have been delegated to someone else. Despite a good ensemble cast  including Nick Frost, Kate Dickie they are largely wasted, and can be seen visibly to struggle concocting some sense of purpose for their characters. Best line - when she described her vagina euphemistically as her - mossy treasure.

This is, sad to say, quite the worst film I've seen in many a year.

CARROT REVIEW  - 3/8

CHURCH LARKING - Morston Parish Church

All Saints Parish Church Morston is perched on a pronounced mound of land. It sticks out so much that the coast road has to take a sharp curve around it. It once overlooked a busy narrow creek that was navigable down to the sea. The village has always been small, and was over many centuries renowned for only two things - fishing and smuggling. The church has a very understated exterior architecture. No grand walls of windows like those at near bye Salthouse or Blakeney, nor the architectural flourishes of Cley. Quite small windows generally and all without stained glass. The only stained glass being a tiny medieval fragment in a high window of the tower. The quatre foil windows in the clerestory are perfunctory and modest. 

In fact modesty seems to be this churches dominant quality as a building. What else strikes you is that its been in the wars, the tower having had a patchwork brick repair. That this was done might indicate a lack of financial resources to repair properly in flint. The tower was struck by lightening in 1743 and partially collapsed. The 18th century appears to have been a bad generally for churches in North Norfolk.  Many falling badly into disrepair at this time. So undoubtedly as a smaller poorer parish in the first place Morston did not escape the neglect of this period. The tower collapse damaged the crenelations on the east nave roof which were not repaired. When you look closer at some of the interior stone carving is hurried looking and not finely worked. The arch corbels and font panels are particularly crudely executed to the point of looking sinister. The sort of detail that M R James would use in one of his ghost stories.

But all these 'folksy' elements to the church emphasise that this is a humble building, with little by way of grand asthetic pretensions.  This is part of its charm.  There are a number of quite distinctive things about Morston Church. The majority of its fabric is 13th century, some of it quite early. The pillars have a more Norman Romanesque look to them, whilst many of the nave arches straddle the transition from Norman curved to Early English pointed arche. The windows are all noticeably set higher than is usual in the walls, so no one can look out of them. There are three rough cut piscina, two either side of the altar and one in the nave. This might indicate side altars or shrines to specific saints, supported by local guilds.

A remarkable survival are the base panels of a medieval rood screen. Made still more unusual by the fact that all the panels are undamaged, the paintwork still quite bright and clear. The figures are of the four Evangelists and four Doctors of the Church _ Gregory, Jerome, Ambrose and Augustine, so perhaps uncontroversial enough not to arouse Puritanical iconoclasm. Above the rood arch is an 18th century Tympanum, which bears the Royal Arms, a 'Decalogue' panel  containing the Creed, Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments, Made in the years after the tower collapse and repair, partially to hide damaged areas, but since moved to its present situation

The church has, by choice no electricity. But it does have several splendidly wrought ironwork candelabra throughout the church. These are used during evening services, this must make for a very atmospheric ritual space. The only organ they have is a pedal driven one. This all gives added emphasis to its rusticated character, which I can quite understand the local parishioners might wish to preserve.

Before leaving take a walk around the church ground there is precious little by way of a graveyard. Most of its medieval burials had wooden grave markers that have not survived. There are however, three coffin shaped graves set flat into its grass which are flint set into lime wash. This quietly speaks of the impoverished nature of Morston in previous centuries.

QUOTATION MARKS - Self As Doppleganger by Naomi Klein

The self as perfected brand, the self as digital avatar, the self as data mine, the self as idealised body, the self as racist and anti-Semitic projection, the child's mirroring of the self, the self as eternal victim. These doubles share one thing in common, all are ways of not seeing. 

Not seeing our ourselves clearly ( because we are so busy performing an idealised version of ourselves) not seeing one another clearly ( because we are so busy projecting what we cannot bear to see about ourselves onto others) and not seeing the world and the connections among us clearly ( because we have partitioned ourselves and blocked our vision)

I think this more than anything else, explains the uncanny feeling of our moment in history - with all its mirroring, synthetic selves, and manufactured realities. At bottom, it comes down to who and what we cannot bear to see - in our past, in our present, and in the future racing towards us.

Extract taken from Ch 15 - Unselfing in Doppleganger 

by Naomi Klein, 

Published by Penguin 2023.