TWO MINUTES - Walking In A Wood

     A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies

CARROT CAKE REVIEW No 34 - Don't You Try My Patience Ever Again

 Jarrolds Cafe, Letheringsett, Norfolk

My last Carrot Cake Review was way back in July 2022, so just short of three years ago. Going on a diet started the trend away from Carrot Cake Reviews. Also I sensed there was little left to say in this regard, that I had not already ranted and raved about several times over. So why then have I returned to it now? Well, heaven knows.........but here goes.

In our early years of moving to Norfolk, once we'd owned a car, we enthusiastically toured North Norfolk's cafes to establish which were the best ones. We came to Back To The Garden, a Delicatessen and Cafe on the outskirts of Holt. That first visit was truly bad. The customer service was indifferent. So our coffee and cake arrived after an interminable wait between taking our order and it arriving on our table.The coffee had been so badly burnt its bitterness could've seared your taste buds medium rare. I can't remember what I chose for a cake, but whatever that was apparently was not memorable. This experience meant we assertively struck Back To The Garden off the must go too list. During Covid the cafe closed altogether, only to reopen again a couple of years later, equally as half arsed and slow as before. We mistakenly tried it once again, because we are bloody fools who apparently always live in hope.

Jarrolds, the famous independent department store from Norwich has recently taken over the running of both Deli and Cafe. With spanking new signage and the sort of expanded stock range you'd expect of them. So it went back on the list to revisit to see what changes they've made to the quality of the cafe in particular. Advance publicity, proudly boasted of retaining most of Back To The Garden's existing staff. Now that should have been an early warning signal. Customer Service has always been particularly bad here.

So we turned up and parked as per normal. The entrance was more informally laid out, before you hit the main deli counters. Layout wise, this appeared no different, though the stock was now more thoroughly supplied with local Norfolk provisions. There was a queue for the cafe. It was not fully booked, but the young woman checking the bookings appeared to be not entirely on top of her job, so dilly-dallied. Eventually we were shown to a two person table in the middle of the cavernous barn cafe. After a few minutes pause, they came to take our order. Now those of you who expect me to do the usual rant about Flat Whites that come offered in a range of sizes, well, rest easy your expectant souls. I now drink Oat Lattes. 

From ordering to receiving both coffees and cakes took over twenty minutes. Yeah, twenty whole minutes I'll not get back. I had all on to stop Hubby from walking out at one point. But I knew then and there that they'd have to pull a brilliant cake out of the bag to save this visit. Now the Oat Latte, was actually rather a good one. Oat Latte's have a tendency to become overly creamy, which can overwhelm the coffee flavour. Its a flavour sensation a bit like condensed milk. But this Oat Latte was finely balanced. So at the very least we can say - they've improved the coffee offering. Those coffees, however, arrived five minutes before the cakes. What the hell are these people doing with all their time?  And as the waitress finally served us our drinks she spilt some of Hubby's Mokka into the saucer. And said 'Sorry...I didn't spill too much of it'. whilst proffering Hubby a serviette to mop up her spillage with, which apparently was now his responsibility. But by the time the cakes did arrive the coffees were beginning to cool. Hubby had a brownie which was apparently quite a good one, but not remarkable enough to salvage our goodwill, which was now irrevocably lost.

The Carrot & Pecan Cake was a hefty wedge, but god was it pallid. As pale as a white supremacist trapped in fridge. This was not a good sign, my heart sank precipitously. I prepared myself for a painful confectionery experience. After a period of abstinence, my first carrot cake in three years was going to be shit with a capital Sh. It had a pertly positioned pecan nut on an ungenerously thin frosting that was poorly mixed. So once it hit the tongue you could sense its still half granular nature. The cake itself was more than a tad dry, which was not by far its worst sin. Was this a spice cake? You may well conjecture. Well, no, because there was only a homeopathic level, nay a mere waft, of cinnamon detectable in the after taste. So not a Spice Cake then. There was a light smattering of pecan nut in the cake mix, though hardly enough to engender a positive affect upon either flavour or texture. Was there any carrot in this cake at all? Hubby and I played spot the grated carrot strand, and thought we could verify only one small residual fragment. It's worth asking, because this cake was far too light in colour and texture for it to be anything other than a Sponge Cake. Yeah, an effin Sponge Cake. 

The Carrot Cake Score is simply in recognition of their tremendous gall, at even daring to call this a Carrot Cake. I'm being really generous here, I hope you recognise. Hubby's even made me a half a carrot score. 

CARROT CAKE SCORE - Half A Carrot / 8

SHERINGHAM DIARY NO 125 - Guess Whose Coming To Town

We were in Norwich just coming back from seeing a friend off at the rail station, and returning to collect the car from the multi-story car park in St Andrews. Two female street beggars were sat very very worse for wear on the pavement near the entrance. Slumped against each other like abandoned floppy dolls for support. One was sound asleep head down, resting into the cleft her cloths and breasts made, sagging as though she were this lifeless puppet that had been laid aside. The other woman lent hard against her, one hand precariously holding a mobile phone near to her ear. The other hand held a paperback book splayed open against her chest. It was a Anthony Horowitz murder mystery novel called, some what prophetic I felt - Close To Death.  

Ceremic Bowl For Our Fountain 

As I've written about before, I've been repairing and remaking the patio in our back garden. There are still a few planks in the decking which are a far too springy for my liking. I suspect at least one of them wont make it through the Summer before collapsing. But I have completed revamped one side area, that gets little sunlight, so consequently not a lot grows well there. Reorienting one large trough so it gets more sunlight. I'm going to transfer some grasses from our front garden to fill it out more. I've made a trellis more effectively conceal an ugly old coal bunker. Recently we bought a small fountain to go in one corner inside a ceramic bowl, and some fancy gravel to cover the fractured uneven concrete in front of it. I'm really pleased with the result. So, hopefully I can now sign off on this area, at least for a short while

Though nowhere local to us, this one is not quite a play on words shop sign, but its byline underneath is a bit of a gem.

As this years tourist season slowly cranks up after the Easter watershed, we look expectantly towards the shops that have laid empty since last autumn's seasons close. And we play-  guess whose coming to town. The moment some activity is detected within the site,and they start being fitted say, then our expectations build over what this will turn out to be. Nine times out of ten it will be another cafe or takeaway, pretty much the generic standard that adds nothing new or fresh in terms of culinary range to the high street. 

An old betting shop that's lain empty for eighteen months or so, is about to reopen as a new Priscilla Bacon Charity Shop, Hubby's old employer from before we opened our shop. which is not great news either. An old Harris & James outlet that the landlord took back because they failed to pay the rent, is currently being refitted, and we are in a fizz of speculation over what it will turn out to be. All the portents, based only on the recycled wood boarding that's appeared on one wall, are that this will be some sort of cafe/takaway. If so, do we care? Not really. We never dare to raise our hopes, as Sheringham's retail offering repeatedly fails to proffer anything other than - more of the same.

Its the week of Chelsea Flower Show and the BBC, as ever, is going completely bonkers with the amount of programming it devotes to this haven for the aspirational middle class. We recently watched the opening episode which was obviously aimed at an afternoon audience. Presenters just keeping it lite and trite, and persist with their gibberish in the hope that something meaningful might slip out through the copiousness of its verbiage. Unfortunately, it just as often gives you a classic bit of mock profundity. In this episode a very animated woman in a strikingly lime green trouser suit was blathering on at an obviously more knowledgeable gardener, when she came out with the immortal phrase - 'Water, you can't beat it' - Hubby and I have already turned this into a regular mocking catch phrase.   

A good friend of ours Saddharaja came up for a weekend. He hasn't been up to see us for a couple of years, so it was a real pleasure to be in his company again. We had a number of wide ranging conversations, whilst we did get out and about a bit. 

Jesus Takes Off

A Celestial Gathering Of Ugly Babies

Shrine In The Woods

A trip to Walsingham to view the shrine there, and a lunch in the ever excellent Read & Digest. And a journey into Norwich to the Castle Museum to see the painting collection there of Cotman, Crome and Munnings. These paintings all would benefit from a good clean and re-varnish, One's impression of them as they are now, is of a symphony in brown, which does them a disservice. 

There was also a retrospective exhibition of the work of Norfolk based pop artist Colin Self. His work is extremely eclectic and wide ranging, a lot of it I'd say does not stand the test of time. You don't get much sense of him developing a stylistic focus, he's far too much of a magpie for that. Though there is some lovely stuff in the exhibition, it felt generally a little underwhelming.

In Cromer, near the front is a new self service beach type hut, where tourists can wash their dogs and dry them off after they've been messily rolling about in the sea and sand. It is currently my absolute favourite shop name - Hairy Styles Dog Wash. 

LISTENING TO - Mad! by Sparks

Those regular readers of my blog will know I'm a lifelong fan of Sparks. Sparks over the last two decades have been on a pretty consistent run of excellent and innovative albums since Lil' Beethoven in 2002. One would expect that at least there'd be the occasional duffer. So I approached this their 28th album with a certain amount of trepidation. Well, some of Mad! feels a bit substandard, but not all of it,. For me it comes down to the variable quality of the song writing. With not enough of the ironic wit and pizzazz from Ron on show. The worst tracks on this album are strangely when they conform too closely to their own cliches. 

Their album before this The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte from 2023, was such a consistently good album, with hardly a bad track on it. So one wonders what creative shift they were aiming for here and slightly missed.

Some of Mad! demonstrates how one songwriters strengths can easily slip into being their most glaring faults. Ron Mael has always had the ability to turn the simplest line of lyric into an urgent musical exploration of a songs theme, by the often manic use of repetition. This goes back, at least as far as My Baby's Taking Me Home  off Lil Beethoven. He uses this minimalist technique to great effect on what turns out to be Mad!'s best and opening track - Do Things My Own Way - and later on on the delightful  A Long Red Light.. But then it is used to some degree on almost every track here. So you get Drowned In A Sea Of Tears, or Jan Sport Backpack which just end up being really irritating. A person wearing a Jan Sport Backpack keeps walking away, is lyrically and musically dull as ditch water. Bereft of any sense of irony or the tongue in cheek witticisms that might elevate this into something truly special. On previous albums, just listen to Lawnmower or Escalator to see at their best what they can do with an equally simple scenario. Jan Sport Backpack, is severely lacking in that sort of quality.

They appear to have, temporarily we hope, lost their usual firm grasp and astute ear for social and cultural phenomena to wittily lampoon. Its also the slim beer of its musical innovation too. This album feels, in comparison to their recent oeuvre, a tad complacent. So much of the art pop arena that they've single-handedly carved out for themselves, has thrived on the interplay between the gently acerbic nature of their lyrics and the musical risks that they've been prepared to take. They appear to have chosen to pare back the degree of adventurousness. At times it just ends up producing a blandly anodine song like - Lord Have Mercy. This has all the annoying 'wave your hands in the air' quality's of a Cliff Richard Christmas No 1. And no, this is not written ironically!

Running Up A Tab At The Hotel For The Fab is a great song title. I suspect Ron came up with that title first and then had to write around it. It ought to be a wonderful satirical send up of celebrity culture. Though undoubtedly a catchy song, it relies yet again on a lot of repetition of that title over a Dwayne Eddy style guitar riff.  Once upon a time this would have been a tighter, much more sharply written song lyrically. It gets by purely on the mood it conjures up, which is still great with a capital G. 

Having said all that, Mad! has a lot about it that is enjoyable. The song My Devotion does literally start off sounding like the most twee sentimental song possible, full of the fresh naivety of first love that you can imagine, its all -

My devotion to you is about all that I do
Got your name written on my shoe
And I'm thinkin' of gettin' a tattoo

But then halfway through Russell sings counter point over the main song with a vocal line that tells you how they feel now -

Through all the years  Rent in arrears
You never cared  Can't help but stare
You've never changed  Hair rearranged
That, though, is all  Time seemed to stall

Now that is the sort of unexpected twist in the tail you do expect of Sparks.

A Little Bit Of Light Banter is one great romp of a song. Given a musical style that Ron Mael is very fond of returning to- the vaudeville song. This is one of those routines with a long established relationship he easily settles into. Sparks have been coming up with this type of song since Reinforcements on the album Propaganda. Idiosyncratic certainly, but these days its hardly breaking new boundaries. Nonetheless this an infectious simple hearted show tune that I'm sure will be very popular live.

Just a little bit of light banter and then we say goodnight

Just a little bit of light banter and the we turn off the light

Each days a day of sorrow, we each bemoan our plight

But night is a different story and oh it feels oh so right

Its a really really deep connection, we do it every night

With a little bit of light banter, and then we turn off the light.

I find it significant that the songs they chose not to pre-release before the whole album was available, are in fact the more interesting tracks musically. 

In Daylight - is one beautifully sparse song, a highlight of the album

A Long Red Light - spookily discordant strings and all, l'm completely in love with this track.

Hit Me Baby - sung over a strongly propulsive opening stick rhythm, this is a terrifically well constructed track, that catches you off guard every time with yet another new development. 

I -405 Rules - all semi-operatic theatrically dramatic strings about to go completely off kilter any moment. Yeah, its fun. But its essentially Dick Around revisited. As if you needed to hear it twice, with less effect.. 

Don't Dog It - It's a crazy ride of a tune, couldn't tell you what its about really. 

So Mad! feels a tad disappointing, often infuriatingly inconsistent, some truly great stuff, alongside the really substandard. Let down occasionally by not just minimalist lyric writing, but poor song craft from Ron Mael. Its almost as though he exhumed these rejected songs from his bottom draw, accepting the challenge to make something of them despite their poor quality.

CARROT REVIEW - 4/8

PS. On further reflection I feel I am being quite unfair here, in overstating the problems with this album. I think I'm holding them to a standard that its actually quite hard for any band, let alone one on its 28th album, to meet. But, that is also a consequence of the cross they've made for themselves to bare.  So maybe I ought to be more forgiving.

SHORT STORY - Bibliophilia Unbound

He read the last page, turned over the book in his hands and stroked its cover with some affection. That specific tale now felt safely stored, still seeping into and along through his veins. Its pulse alive still within his memory bank of imaginative worlds. William absolutely loved the act of reading, and as a consequence rarely went out much. He might go for a walk when he had 'a good day' and willingly do the entire circular walk around the nearby park. Great for cardiovascular exercise' though that may be. A good book, well that could transport him to places his mid twentieth century legs could never carry him. Conjure up emotions that otherwise might be left dormant or atrophied through lack of use. 

The internet had become his saviour, as he could order anything he needed without the need to go out and physically buy and fetch it. The supermarket delivery van brought him all his food, and much more. Apart from going to the Library, browse the local bookshop, or visit the Medical Practice to collect his medicines, he rarely had any other purposeful reason to go into the town at all, The more distant city? well hardly ever. Far too many people panicking or in a furious hurry. He could feel their careless haste in the louche style of their clothes, the haphazard dashes of colouring in their hair, a directionless surfeit of attention floating around them in an aura of stressed pheromones. Often very pushy and self righteously too loud. There were never enough hours in the day for urbanistas. 

He could see how they too sensed 'the end times' were indeed drawing ever closer. And by focusing so intently on distracting themselves, they hoped to not to see its arrival coming over the hill. The evil monster of death they hoped would just jump out of nowhere and gobble them up. As an older and now distinctly world weary man, yes he could, strangely enough, empathise with their predicament. For his own terminal resignation was everyone's now. This was yet another reason not to go out, to stay in and surrender oneself to being beguiled by another book.

Nevertheless, like many a retired and prematurely widowed gentlemen living on their own William had a list of 'projects'  he desired to complete before the end drew nigh. They weren't written down anywhere, but lodged in his mind. Just so long as he maintained all his marbles they'd be remembered. He'd see to it they were systematically completed. Realistically he no longer had a full day of energy left in him, so he had to pace himself with these 'project work periods'. Making the most of the mornings perky recharge, then he cooked and ate his lunch, before taking an afternoon nap. All the time that remained assigned to reading. Everything executed in the slow and meticulous manner that his maturity and physical poise prescribed.

At least that was always the plan he thought he had fixated in his mind. But recently he got this unsettling feeling that actually he was wistfully wasting away his remaining years on Earth. Any 'projects' completion becoming more protracted, as the days of rain, excessively torrential wind, and the arrival of a freakishly tropical oppressive humidity, increased. Accompanied by those mornings when he just couldn't be arsed. All these reasons to delay projects began to run into each other. Meaning any weekly steady as you go plan turned into a runaway train escaping any directional plan. Far too easily he vegetated into the welcoming arms of a comely novella. 

Once he got a hundred pages in then he really had to stick with it, no matter what. Novels from small but perfectly formed to an unwieldy trilogy or gargantuan epic, with the occasional topical non fiction, a little bit of history. Whatever the genre he felt compelled to focus on getting them finished, before time itself ran out. His life once so driven and filled with purposeful flourishes of activity, was now gently, almost imperceptibly, being repainted in nerdy bookish colours. Hence the creeping sedentary nature of it. He read about all sorts of people, explored the world through the vivid imaginations of others. All reached from the comfort of his own living room sofa. Lifting his finger only to turn a page. 

When to stop and cook himself a meal, became mediated through how many pages of a book he had left to read. Just another ten pages and that would be halfway, or two thirds, or its only fifty pages from the end - let's go for it! Completing reading a nourishing book taking priority over actual nutrition. Not all books won his instant approval. So when he found a book he loved from its opening paragraphs, he was propelled into a state comparable to a spiritual, nay transcendental, uplift.  Ecstatically life fulfilled for the brief few hours whilst reading it. For William a great book was manna from heaven, a God given thing. The universal being was speaking directly to meet his most heartfelt desires. These moments were so very rare, he cherished them the minute they emerged. Slowing his pace of reading so he could wonder at the phrasing, the construction of each sentence, to fully absorb its conjured mood. To intravenously feed and fix his soul, so repeatedly injured by every time he read a daily newspaper.

He began to really hate it when a book wasted what time he had. Turning out to be disappointing in its basic premise or worse just dull, dull, dull. Then all progress would stall. Time dragging at the heels of his engagement. To give up on a book, however, would be synonymous with giving up on life. Who on earth would voluntary chose to do that? Novels that were far too cleverly constructed for their own boots. That hurled the reader over a whole gymkhana of linguistic jumps, of abandoned punctuation with complex sentence structures rendered willy-nilly, all to no real gain in meaning or enriching of the narrative. What a waste of time and space those sort of writers were. Their masturbatory self congratulatory indulgences poisoning his enjoyment. He cursed them! 

He frequently toyed with the idea of writing a scathing letter to be forwarded to the author by their publisher. But all that would take time away from his reading programme, so such ripostes rarely got much further than a clearly withering opening Dear Sir or Madam. He hoped the future cataclysm would permanently erase such literary aberrations. Though he had one recurring nightmare, that in the coming Armageddon all that survived of literary culture would be his Post Modern bete noire. And in the future, some misfortunate alien visitor would then be left the dispiriting task of deciphering what this endless stream of garbage meant. Trying to establish why late capitalist humankind valued being so deliberately opaque in communicating itself. What was it trying to hide?

Like a lot of avid readers Matthew liked to think he read spontaneously, sensitive in the way he responded to his intuitions. But in reality it was more of a deliberate hunting down of a familiar style of prey, than that. Scanning book reviews, interviews with authors, book shows on TV, or by You Tubers, recommendations from a friendly Librarian, and those scruffily hand written notes by staff on the shelves of his local bookshop. If any of these perked his interest, they were added to his book list, which having become obscenely obese had occasionally to undergo a purge. Focusing first on the books he could no longer remember why he'd listed them in the first place. To be followed by those whose moment had patently passed.

Today he was in the opening pages of a new novel, whose cover artwork of a quintessentially dream like Chagall cockerel he'd been drawn too. The novel called  The Passing Place, was by an author unknown to William - Bernadette Alderman. Thus far the reading had not been progressing at all well. He already had a really bad feeling about it. The prose style was incredibly dense and hard to chew on, so portentously was it wrought with a leaden spirit. His eyes had only to briefly scan its lengthy sentences and he could feel them begin to drowse then droop. Then he'd jolt back awake, only to repeat the very same cycle, but a few minutes later. He wasn't tired from lack of sleep. He wasn't even that physically weary. There was, so he thought a soporific intent woven into the entire literary construction of this book, one that appeared to lead to recumbent slumber as its desired outcome. The text itself was inducing this deep, existential level of boredom.

The story, was a slight character study of a man, who despite all his best efforts, was seemingly doomed to living a life of obscurity. William had thought there was enough in this that he might personally resonate with, to perhaps make it worthwhile. Instead he found himself fighting, both with the book and his own descent into napping at any moment or time of day. He'd awaken laid back on the sofa with the book splayed open like chest armour, and realise half the morning had gone by. And with each increasingly turgid turn of the page these periods of sleep appeared to be getting longer and longer. Until he seemingly had lost an entire day without really noticing. He'd had his breakfast at sun up, started reading and the next thing it was sun down. He could not allow this to go on. He'd have to cease reading it, bin it, burn it, give it to a charity shop, shove it in a book bank. Just put this unhappy state of affairs to its deservedly ignominious end.

He failed to fully carry through on his resolve. Instead inserting a book mark where he'd read up to, and placed the book back on his 'To Read' pile, stacked waist high on the living room carpet. Then he did what he usually did after putting a pause on a challenging read, he reached for the predictability of a detective novel set in medieval times. Even as he refocused his attention on its indulgently trashy novelty, he could feel this pulling on his mind back to The Passing Place. Sitting there inert and unfinished, accompanied by his conscience, perched like a whingeing gremlin on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. This bore all the characteristic habits of drug addictions he'd read about. Nonetheless he felt this compelling need to pick it up and casually look at its pages again, just one little peak. Was it really as bad as all that? Surely not. Maybe its not the book at all, its me.

Upon reading one word of one sentence, he was overwhelmed by a wooziness that ricocheted up,down and across his body, until it hit and exploded like a firecracker in his brain. He could feel himself slumping backwards. A sensation of being knocked over, replaced by the spinning of his spreadeagled body in space, his legs and arms akimbo. An origami like folding together of his beslippered body followed, as though he was a quarto being sewn into the spine of a book. All this happening in the slowest of slow motions. Sensing his own helplessness ever more keenly during each micro second. As his decrepit physicality crumpled, was atomised and then reabsorbed into the content of The Passing Place book itself. 

This encompassing vastness consumed him, absorbing as it did every book Matthew had ever read.. Burying itself inside an immense library containing all people,all cultures, all life, all worlds, all universes, all possibilities, all the gods and goddesses of pasts, presents and futures. Each book was burnished and with a surrounding glowing white light floated around space as though they were these folded paper angels decorating the heavens. Each with the same important message to be declared. One that all mankind was to read, inwardly digest and be totally consumed by in the coming millennia of tragedy.

FINISHED READING - Bard Skull by Martin Shaw

This is truly a peculiar book. Filled with folk stories mixed in with an opaque memoir, written as though the memoir and the myth were exactly the same thing. One human experience perceived entirely through a mythological lens. This proved to be an endurable, but rarely an enjoyable read.

There are, as is usual with Shaw, a lot of expertly told tales which could conceivably carry you far along on this literary journey. The book blurb on the back, informss you Bard Skull is a recollection of three epic journeys Shaw made a few years ago. Now, having read the book for myself, I can truthfully say I hardly spotted any of that. There were a few flecks of it fleetingly seen glinting like mica in a cave. But I don't think that expectations of a heightened mystical travelogue helped me comprehend any better what it was I was reading. Indeed, what was the purpose in this being written in this form at all?

My experience of reading Bard Skull, for most of its three hundred plus pages was of a lot of expectant waiting for the penny to drop. There was no Aha! moment for me. I suspect the journeys and the way Shaw has chosen to structure and retell them are too idiosyncratic and deeply personal, for even an averagely intelligent reader such as myself, to fully perceive or comprehend what is really going on. It is not by any stretch of a wild imagination a page turner, but then its not completely devoid of interest either. The poetic richness of the language and eccentricity of its compositional patterning is perhaps it. The inflection is all. If you can enjoy that as a stand alone quality, then I hope this book will reveal to you some of its no doubt iridescent, though we'll concealed, pleasures. 

Shaw seems to have needed to get something off his chest here, to explore another way of writing that never quite makes it into his usual portmanteau of storytelling. Perhaps if this book could chime its import to anyone else, it would say that our lives and experiences are more truthfully perceived when seen as a personal myth we are active participants within.  

So, as I said, this is an odd reading experience, because it gives you so very little to go on to feed and sustain you as a reader. You travel without sandwiches. What the hell is the literary journey he is so determinedly dragging you through? I simply could not say. I did not reach the point of being 'quite doggedly determined' during the reading of Bard Skull, but it was always a close run thing. There were periods when I suspected I could just stop and perhaps be better off at being no wiser how this would conclude. I could have read it backwards, or randomly open it at a different place everyday, and the experience may have had no discernible difference. 

By the time I reached its final few pages exasperation did hit me and and I crossly skipped to the end. Putting it down with a final release of suppressed irritation, enough, enough of this obscuration and fiddling with the gilt edge of mythic twiddle twaddle.

I want to say to Martin Shaw, I respect you and your work a lot, and thank you for even envisaging to write this book. The fact that your publisher gave you this amount of bound paper space to explore your creative urges in, is truly laudable. However, some artistic experiments are best left for your literary archivist to rediscover. So next time, if there be a next time, I'd request - please keep this sort of thing to yourself mate.

CARROT REVIEW - 3/8

EUROVISION 2025 - Best of Semi Final No 2

The second Eurovision Semi-Final had a better selection of songs than the first, but with no obviously killer song or performance to steal the show. There were some repeated themes. Songs that are really two types of song bunged together and will abruptly shift from one to the other style. With the best will in the world this is a hard bifurcation to pull off. You just end up surprised and not a little disappointed when the song looses consistency. After all you only have three minutes to sell your song in, keep it simple guys. The other thing was the dramatic costume change, which somewhat mirrored the song change tendency. You could tell in advance, at some point that cloak will have to be ripped off to a round of applause. It was done so often it became a cliche over night.

Our two hosts for the evening were trying too hard to be funny (failed) or did really peculiar behaviour that had you shaking your head, or turning it away cringing.. 'The so called 'comedian' was dressed like a mermaid with iridescent fertilised eggs all over her dress.  Thank god I wont be watching any more of them. So now to the three best songs.

The evening opened strongly with the Australian entry. This is a charmingly silly song that was an utterly entertaining joy to watch, which the staging and the not one, nor two, but three costume changes made all the more impactful. He gives it all the energy and sheer chutzpah he can, but it still didn't make it through to the Final unfortunately. Otherwise there would've been a serious clash of the silly song with Estonia. 

Its a tactic in Eurovision to often go for the eccentric, really out there song/performance to hit home with. What the Latvian entry does is give you a really unusual and interesting song, but on the right side of weird. The six singers are beautifully harmonised, dressed as they are in their wood nymph costumes. I think this is the most distinctive and original thing in this entire competition. For that reason alone, it is probably not going to win. But in the straight song competition, as opposed to the delightfully silly parody one, this wins hands down for me.

The Malta entry is the obvious gay crowd pleaser, sung with great conviction and gusto. Already controversial because when sung in Maltese it was very obviously playing with rude sexual derogatory words. Even adjusted to spare our blushes, the presentation is incredibly sassy and on it. This woman is happy to break those boundaries girl. A definite contender for winning, but who can say with Eurovision? 

TWO MINUTES - On A Shingle Beach

    A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies

EUROVISION 2025 - Best of Semi Final No 1

Often the best tunes in Eurovision never get beyond the Semi Finals. This year I think I'll review this and give the actual final a miss, as I usually find it, as an event, gives you an upset stomach. Its a bit like having something highly calorific and sugary thrust down your throat repeatedly.  Entertaining though some of it can be, its way too much.

This years first semi-final was poor overall, with very little that was outstanding, with quite a lot of indistinguishable songs and lame performances. So there really are only these three I think are worth catching, all of them have got through to the final.

The first is the Poland entry - Gaja The singer apparently performed in an earlier contest when she was much younger. Quite how long ago that was is kept under lock and key, so you have to gauge that from how old you think she is now. Lets just say she's giving me Demi Moore vibes. Dressed in a much lacerated leotard, the staging certainly goes for it. Suspending her like an avenging angel at one point. Look out for the male dancer to her right, who definitely wants you to notice him.

The second is the Estonia entry Espresso Macchiato. This song has understandably upset a few humourless Italians as its a send up of every cliche about Italy you can think of. Its actually a brilliantly written, delightfully silly and insanely catchy song. Written by the writing team that wrote Cha Cha Cha for Finland a few years back, It is everything you like about a Eurovision song. The performance contains a lot of stupid dancing, wit, parody, with a heavy tongue in cheek. I want this one to win!

The third is the Swiss entry. Its a very sweet song, quietly affective and delicately delivered, with a stripped back one take film shot, No flashy editing effects and graphics. Unlikely to win though.

Most of the others are barely worth a mention. The Swedish song attempts to do what Estonia does, but with less poise and self deprecation. The Slovenian guy who wrote a song about his wife recovering from cancer, was so inappropriate and emotionally exploitative I deeply hoped it wouldn't get through, which it didn't.....thankfully. The Azerbaijan entry sounds as though it were sung by a child trapped inside a chunky grown mans body dressed in PVC leggings, and it was. The Italian entry  well it was sung by this white face painted emaciated guy channeling 70's glam era songwriting, and it was truly dreadful.  As for all the rest, well its best to keep schtum about those. 

This years pair of contest hosts from Switzerland are really really bad, but not in a good way. Plus for some reason air violin playing  is popular this year.

STREET OBSERVATIONS - The Thirty-Something Couple

It was his stare that caught my eye, it was too intense. Behind him his partner pushed a buggy with a child in a foetus position sucking its thumb distractedly. Half pretending to be asleep, but no doubt secretly bored with being away too long from their toys. The woman is chatting animatedly on her phone, Wrapped up in a conversation with maybe her Mum, her sister or a close friend, sharing confidences or gossip and talking about tonight and their plans for it. She is walking along only half present to the street, whilst purposefully in the abstract moving her child and life forward. Her dress a coordinated range of light dusky pinks with a knitted bolero style jacket which looks as though it were made from Shirley Temple's golden curls. Her hair artfully a disheveled pile, with significant but random outlying strands aligning the face. She seems totally on it today, alert and engaged in her networking.

A good two strides ahead of her is the man, in his mid to late thirties. His body taken by his comfort eating over the cusp and beyond being slim fit, is quickly developing the squared off bulk of the stolid Dad bod. A full well groomed beard on a handsomely structured face. He's wearing all black, that is so well worn and washed that its now softened to a brushed charcoal. It has the air of being a street uniform, with miltary touches, a lot of straps buckles and lapels in a tight practical twill. Maybe this was a definite choice to wear just all black. It captured his mood or something. Or this is that lazy male habit of sticking to one colour, because that never bares much thinking about. And one would never want to make one's appearance seem too considered or deliberate, even though it certainly is. The watch word here is casual, with no observable care taken.

He's walking ahead, almost as though for today at least, he wants to literally be distant or disassociate himself from his partner and child. To appear to walk on this street alone. But not too far that it causes comment. And then there is the intensity of that stare. The eyebrows thick, horizontal but internally scrunched. There is something really pressing upon his mind, preoccupying him. He is not really present to this city-scape at all, so caught up is he in this one memory, of an event, or a cyclical battling argument with himself. Certainly this is tearing at him, tormenting him like a gremlin from the inside. Something seems existentially awry here, he has the face of a Hamlet plotting a future regicide. There is the fetid air of a person substantially stuck. Fearing the eternal nature of his own trap. Either through his own limitations of thought or this relationship. Unable to manage these better or to ever realistically find relief from how they are crushing his esteem.

Is there really no joy left in this life of his? Or has this view now become entirely self-reinforcing?. And the film that he is playing before those searching eyes is probably not helping. Circumstances seem to him, to have robbed him of any power or agency over the direction his life has taken, or will now take. After following the accepted male conventions and found them to be this deceptively tight but imprisoning paper chain. For which love, affection, sex and children form the sticky sentimental and loctite super glue for. In life a man is supposed to have all the privileges born of being male, that the woman through marriage has been deprived of, so the modern orthodoxy portrays it. Then why does he feel like they've both drawn a short straw here? Was this really what either of them wanted for themselves in their pubescent teen romance? Each now performing a role that seems not to represent their true selves anymore. Where liberation can seemingly only be achieved by driving a coach and horses through it all, in one destructive act of rage. 

FEATURE - Naomi Klein - End Times Fascism

This interview on Democracy Now with Naomi Klein provides some much needed ideological background to what is happening in the US and in the wider right wing authoritarian regimes around the worlds. That they are basically preparing for the end of our existing civilisation, some even expect the rapture. And we should be seeing tech cities hiving them selves off as independent cities with their own laws and jurisdictions, free of wider constraints. They are looking forward to the time post the collapse of democracy. Frightening stuff but it tells us what is really going on behind all the protectionism and xenophobic hostility. 

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 124 - The Farrago of Lies

Something of a Rubicon was crossed last week. The local council and mayoral elections swinging heavily towards the right wing Reform party. The unpopularity of both the Tories and our current government meant voters had few realistic options to express their discontent through. And so The Farrago of Lies grinned his muppet face into a position where he couldwell be the opposition party in four years time, or even the government.

In the quiet small 'c' conservative backwater of Upper Sheringham we had no council vote this year. Progress towards deciding the form of a new unitary Norfolk authority hadn't moved far enough for a vote for a mayor etc to take place. So we will have that unpalatable joy next year. North Norfolk Council is currently run by the Lib Dems, and our current MP is Lib Dem too. But it has been known to alternate with the Tories in the past. In 2024 Reform took votes off the Tories that let the Lib Dems winning the Constituency.

If Reform completely wipe out the Tories in four years time, then it is entirely feasible North Norfolk could be theirs. As the majority of Norfolk is rural, it has always been resolutely, never endingly Tory. So I can see the unitary authority and mayoralty being handed to Reform on a greasy plate. As a centre left progressive with little choice in our broken first past the post system, I'm already preparing myself to tactical vote yet again, and being further disheartened. Labour hardly features at all in this area;

It seems clear why all this is happening. Many folk now feel disenchanted with the existing political status quo, I certainly do, which seems incapable of bringing realistic change, nor provide the leadership and moral consistency it requires. A lot of voters now feel they have no personal investment in, nor perceive any benefit from maintaining our democracy, so they will quite happily trash it all if needs be. As has happened in the US.  

What surprises me, and maybe this shouldn't, is that people do see through The Farrago of Lies, everyone knows he is a fraud, a con man, the man who sold us the pigs ear of Brexit, that all this 'man of the people' stuff is as inauthentic as his beer stained tweeds, that he is really a rich posh boy of the elite, that his party is backed by dodgy people, who don't want to be known, and no one appears willing to publish who they are. The Farrago of Lies isn't going to say, because he knows they are shameful and wont be the least bit vote winning. His main selling points are he speaks plainly, bluntly, coming across as authoritative and provides clear firm leadership, even when what he is saying is utter bilge with only a scintilla of truth to make you feel his solutions might plausibly be needed . We don't appear to have politicians on the centre or left who can match him for frankness on the same terms.

Another thing is you rarely hear anyone talking in the street about how they proudly voted Reform. Because folk know two things, that it might be dangerous to do so, provoking more than antagonistic swear words in the street, but significantly they do feel shame over doing so. They know what they are doing is shameful, but still they do it, because they have convinced themselves that any change is better than no change at all. That maybe a bit of lite fascism wont do us any harm. The voters are now in 'disruptor' mode, and that will only bring chaos in its wake.

If there is any hope, its that four years of Reform being held accountable to the electorate might disillusion the voters, to see there really are no easy fixes to reverse our countries continuing decline. But the British media has always been suspiciously kind towards The Farrago of Lies, and he has remained largely unchallenged for quite some time. I suspect this will not change anytime soon. But its significant how narked The Farrago of Lies gets when he is put on the spot, and asked to be accountable for the things he says. How dare they!

Our present government is unwilling to level with us just how fucked our economy is. I increasingly hold out little hope that the Labour Party will some how pull off a remarkable reversal of fortunes. I get the sense that their fate may already be sealed in the broader electorates mind, no matter what good they do over the next four years. I feel my position as a married gay man is no longer as secure as it felt even a year ago. Because authoritarians have form in picking upon minorities, and are not known for holding back from being nasty vengeful fuckers. So we'd better all start preparing for fighting off full fat fascism in the UK. Or else it will eat us all alive

ARTICLE - Can't You Show Me Nothing But Surrender

In 1975 Patti Smith's debut album Horses was released. Horses exists in a curious liminal space that it opened up between punk and performance poetry. Suddenly poetry was fashionable and hip, and was interacting with rock n roll in the same way The Beat Poets had with the druggy haze of Cool Jazz. The eponymous title track is written as though its taking place within the sort of woozy headed rush of a fevered dream, 'The Boy' who looks at Johnny ending up in a street fight with switchblades. And in the middle of this furious tussle the -

Angel looks down at him and says, 

"Oh, pretty boy, Can't you show me nothing but surrender?"

All because 'The Pretty Boy' in the heat of the fight, his heart pumping like 'Arabian stallions lapping into sea horses' seems suddenly to go compulsively passive, surrendering himself up to whatever is happening to him in the moment. Unsure even of the reality of the reality he is in. If he is in the middle of a drug induced hallucination, a psychological fight or an actual physical attack, or all three. And who is this Angel anyways? But the angel certainly believes 'The Pretty Boy' has other options, and surrendering? well this is just too easy, lazy even. Sometimes you have to fight your corner for what you want. Apathy can be a passive form of surrender. True surrender is always an active choice.

This points us in the direction of one manifestation of surrender. You recognise that you are not in control of what is happening to you, so you give up fighting it. Even if the result maybe, as in this case, potentially life threatening. You let down any defenses surrounding yourself and offer yourself up to some form of death, whether that be literal or metaphorical you cannot tell. Its an example of what I'm  calling - Nihilistic Surrender. A reckless and self regarding extinguishing desire. And in Patti Smith's Horses, we have references to one of its modern archytypes - of doomed self immolating individualism. Surrendering oneself up to being murdered, or to debilitating drugs, to the couldn't careless destruction of the boundaries of the self. A suicidal masochism. Quicken the pace and die young with an emaciated corpse, that they made from forging their own way in life

And whilst this might appear to be a modern phenomena, it does have its imaginative antecedents in the religious imagery of Catholic martyred saints and of The Buddha during his pre-Enlightenment phase of starving his own body to see what might arise from deprivation. The inviolability and sanctity of the body is being fundamentally questioned and tested, to find out what may happen when you give up trying to protect and cosset it. This element of Nihilistic Surrender exists at some level in many religions.

Surrender is then a familiar refrain in spiritual practice. It denotes some form of death, not necessarily actual, but certainly intended to be spiritually transformative. It makes saints and sages in this life or the next. The Self is seen as a form of corrupting influence upon the ultimate sanctity of existence, and its diktats need to be repressively denied in order to free yourself from them.You extinguish one thing in order that the whole of you is made available to be transformed. A religious re-configuration of Nihilistic Surrender preceding, and indeed preparing the way for the more elevated Transformative Surrender.

And yet, this Transformative Surrender also seems to be only the start of another process, of giving oneself up to something more ultimate and eternal in nature. Whether that be to a God, a higher state of consciousness or an elevating expanded perception of reality.  These seem to be examples pointing towards Eternalistic Surrender, of surrendering oneself to something that is above, beyond and transcending that of mundane human existence entirely.

Surrender shares qualities with renunciation, though it is a slightly different level of the beast. For to truly renounce anything you do have to let go of whatever you believe is an obstacle. The thing that is holding you back. You have to have had prior insight into your way of behaving, living or being that you wish to move beyond. And this thorough form of renunciation can be transformative, which nevertheless tends to be slow moving and incremental in nature. 

If you prematurely renounce without a substantial insight into the consequences of a behaviour and what damage that does to your 'soul', then this is really a self denial or punishment lacking in any higher uplifting trajectory. The worst sort of renunciation would be to do so because it says you should in a book, or a Pastor, Pope or Guru tells you that you should. This leans heavily towards Nihilistic Surrender in that you are very consciously knowingly punishing yourself. Its a flagellation of the self, that perhaps takes too literally the willful extinguishing of human desires.

Much of spiritual practice, whatever the religious tradition, is a very conscious choice 'to do this - instead of that'. We might not initially couch these in terms of renunciation. And in these primary stages of renunciation, surrender can have an unassuming cast to it. But there is something in the nature of  ultimate truly transformative and then eternalistic surrender that is no longer humble, its no longer consciously accompanied by a particular goal in mind. Even terms like letting go and surrender start to feel as if they have this acquisitive undertow, in that there is assumed to be something you are letting go into. 

In Buddhism stages of letting go are suggested by the teaching of Sunyata. Now, listen carefully because this teaching is often misconstrued. Though Sunyata's reductive meaning is emptiness, this is not the nihilistic emptiness of an extinguishing void. It is empty, in that existence is 'emptied' of any applied meaning we might wish to give to it  The four stages of Sunyata concluding with The Emptiness of Emptiness itself. Here existence simply stands, naked of any descriptive noun or verb. Its what Zen refers to as Suchness. 

Whatever the colour or tone applied to surrender, these are ultimately conceptualisations that loose their usefulness as the journey progresses. To suggest that there is both someone who can surrender, and something that can be surrendered too, begin to loose their traction. There is a lot of reference these days to the idea of Radical Acceptance, where you are encouraged to let go of any notion of control or desire for ourselves and of reality to be different from what it actually is. To let things be as they are. The danger in this is that people might mistake this 'letting things be' for passivity. Whilst accepting that this idea is also a human concept, I would like to suggest the term Radical Acceptance may have some value. It feels more in alignment with a state of just being Being. Of developing a Sympathy with Suchness, until that becomes you.

THE PAST IN RUINS - Creake Abbey

In 13th century Italy there arose a Christian mendicant movement which moved the hermetic and monastic lifestyle directly into engagement with the flourishing renaissance towns and cities. To minister more effectively to the spiritual needs of this growing population shift. It happened in a haphazard and something of a spontaneous way, their was no founding individual who led by example to pre-define its ethos and mission, And so in 1243 a group of Tuscan hermits petitioned Pope Innocent IV to unite them under one coherent organisation. To do so he issued a Papal Bull which instructed they all should adopt the Rule & Way of the Blessed Augustine. This Rule was the simplest and hence the easiest to adhere to amongst the challenging circumstances of lay people and monks closely interacting. The Augustinian Canons founded in the 11th century, consequentially became the umbrella organisation that these semi-monastic institutions became absorbed into. Ministering to the outside world being a central part of their religious duties. 

The progressive development of Creake Abbey does to a degree mirror these wider developments in religious context. A small chapel St Mary of the Marshes was built by the De Nerford family in 1206. The site by the small River Burn was later turned by them into a Hospital dedicated to St Bartholemew  in 1217. This was elevated by Henry III to a Priory in 1225 and to an Abbey in 1231  From relatively early on these institutions were run under the auspices of the Augustinian Canons. Patronage from local wealthy families such as the De Nerford's and from Henry III allowed them to rapidly expand  the abbey's buildings and hence the services it could offer to the local populace. Becoming a vibrant place for a local market distributing fruit, bread, ale, meat and fish to the surrounding area.

By its height in the 14th Century there was still only six full time canons, but these were augmented by many junior canons, novices and lay brethren who essentially formed the practical and administrative wing of the abbey. Unlike many other monastic sites in Norfolk, Creake Abbey continued with its original function as a hospital right up til 1397. Nearly a century later in 1484 there was a catastrophic fire in the Abbey itself. This appears to have completely destroyed the Abbey's nave and left its chancel and side chapels with blocked up windows and arches, in urgent need of repair. The abbot wrote to the king, Richard III asking for financial help in restoring the Abbey. Funds were provided by 1491 and repairs were said to be well advanced and the north side of the quire already completed twelve years later. The nave was completely abandoned as a inviable structure, so the restorations, such as they were, were focused on making the main chancel and side chapels usable spaces again. You can see that some arches have been infilled and windows inserted.

Then in 1506 further tragedy struck. There was an outbreak of the mysterious medieval 'sweating sickness' in the Abbey and this completely wiped out the remaining monastic community. No further push to restore the Abbey appears to have been attempted. And by the following year the abbey site and estates were handed over, as they were, to the Lady Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII's mother, and through her eventually became owned by Christ's College, Cambridge.

Its hard to imagine that all this was going on the periphery, of what is even now a small quiet Norfolk village. But one has to remember that barely a few miles down the road are the Burnham villages. All very closely knit with each other, with a Carmelite Friary in Burnham Norton. This corner of West Norfolk in medieval times was filled with devout religious activity, funded by the many considerably wealthy landowners of the area. Who assured there place in heaven via pious acts of patronage of religious institutions.

Creake Abbey is then quite an unusual monastic ruin, in that it was in ruins and dissolved decades before the Dissolution of the Monasteries began in 1536. Undoubtedly subsequently robbed of some of its dressed stone. It was adapted, as these ruins often were, into becoming barns for storing hay, farm produce, machinery and livestock. Other outbuildings being incorporated into an enlarged manor farm close by. What you see today, is what was left of the abbey church post those two ruinous historical events. With the nave already gone, and the chancel barely half repaired and all the local villages already having their own parish churches well established. There was no local desire to adapt the remaining buildings into a church, as at Binham or Weybourne Priory. It also maybe that locals thought the sacredness of this site was just too tainted by the double disasters that had befallen it. These were both in there own way seen as a sign of God's judgement upon it as an institution.

MY OWN WALKING - May Journal 2025

This week saw the start of a 'mini heatwave' as the tabloid press have named it. Its size refers to its projected length, which is forecast to be less than a week. For early May, this level of heat is unusual, though these days its not an unheard of event. The moment the temperature picked up our doors, once left firmly closed to prevent drafts, are now left open to create them. And so bees, wasps and flies begin to suddenly appear as trapped within our house. Inevitably these end up in our bathroom battering themselves on the mottled window glass, quite often to the point of death. If I don't intervene and open the windows to provide them with their liberation, I will find their upturned bodies splayed upon the sill in their last throws of buzzing and rotating in a frustrated death spin. That, or they'll be sun desiccated, left as crisp crunchy crumbled versions of their former insect selves.

I was lounging outside on our patio arbour reading this section from a transcript of a talk given by Norman Fischer on Dogen's Mountains & Rivers Sutra, which says: -

'We turn enlightenment into a problem that we have to solve. Our tendency to do that, itself, is a problem, because it makes us dissatisfied with our life, as our life is, right now.'

Stopped in my tracks, I turned these words over in my mind, as I also observed yet another wasp banging itself against our bathroom window trying to liberate itself from its own self created bind. And I felt an up-welling of sadness and thought, yeah, that is me, that is a whole lifetime of me, banging my head repeatedly against my own dissatisfaction, determined to find a permanently satisfying liberation from it. That, or holding out an eternal hope for someone to turn up to open the window for me, to set me free. Though I can see its a bright colourful place outside, there is this mottled glass pane obscuring me from it, and I cannot get to whatever is beyond that opacity by sheer force of will or desire.  And if I'm not careful, my persistent seeking will be the death of me, without ever fully resolving that compulsion.

I don't think I'm at all unusual in this regard. Trying to escape or evade dissatisfaction is a major motivation in most human adult lives. Constantly in the process of seeking some new source of satisfaction. When this too inevitably fails, I like most people, renew the search for something else to fill that void. All without stopping to question the cyclical repetitious nature of what is actually happening. 

Its a teaching enshrined in the Buddha's Four Noble Truths that desires lie at the root of our dissatisfaction, which bring us suffering in its wake. So to find myself coming back to this, to something so fundamental to a faith I've been involved in for the largest part of my life, is humbling. Little escapes the negative drift of dissatisfaction, even Buddhism can get pulled into the wake of its irresistible vortex. No, that's not quite right, it is I that is pulling Buddhism into it. I've entangled and bound it up with my disappointment. 

Today in meditation I had the sense of a suppressed angry persona within me. And like all things that are kept in that state it leaks out in raw unrefined ways, often negative and nihilistic. As you may have noted, I've been finding myself seriously pissed off with even the idea of Enlightenment lately. So at present, it feels as though I am the living breathing demonstration of Norman Fischer's point. This is not a healthy state to be in.

And yet and yet, even the visual metaphor of a wasp battering itself to death against a window pane, is only one infinitesimally small insight into the futility of running your life according to the needs of one's dissatisfaction. This is not a complete turning about in the seat of my consciousness, it is more like one stone placed on a weighing scale that may incrementally lead to the upturning of my whole way of seeing things - one day. This is a painful reminder too, that on any spiritual quest there is never any way of knowing how much further there is to go. In a way the remoteness or closeness is somewhat immaterial, you're not there right now are you? Or are you?

Where am I right now? I don't think its any coincidence that a reappraisal is happening in the year after the HA! So much of what I've encountered in myself since June last year, is a symptom of a crisis of confidence, one that's bound to ensue after a close encounter with your own demise. It's existential. It puts you on exactly the right spot to reconsider how you have lived your entire life thus far. Reevaluating its raison d'etre, its volition and directional focus. Are there any fundamental changes in your way of being to be made, beyond adjustments to diet and how much exercise you take? Hence there are the necessary questioning of assumptions, that you have chosen to align yourself with thus far. Making changes in later life can be notoriously difficult, so much appears too hard wired into your way of being, and enshrined into habits. Its not, however, totally impossible, you have to focus on what, where and how much effective effort you can muster to apply to it

Its as though you are a boat on the sea. And you have got used to navigating yourself according to an instinctual map of the ocean that immediately surrounds you. Then you encounter a furious upending storm and your boat nearly capsizes. Since then nothing seems to work quite as well using that old instinctual map as a compass. You are literally all at sea, and attempting to reorient yourself in a part of the ocean that appears totally puzzling to you. And there is a need to assemble a new map, partly from the old one. But not everything in that old map is useful, and might indeed be misleading, so one has to take care in reassessing the veracity of your perceptions and ideals. This is where I am at right now, in the process of reorienting myself in an unfamiliar place.

And so it is that I appear to keep coming back to stand roughly in the same place again. My life so far has been very directed and motivated by taking control of where I've been heading. Operating as if I am incrementally moving towards a goal with a known destination. Mostly its been suffused with very worldly desires for pleasure, success, appreciation and status. The pursuit of Enlightenment becoming corrupted by these worldly motives overlaying it like a cloak. 

The real issue here is the model in your mind that rules how you live out your life. What if all your striving to get somewhere and prove something to yourself or others, is all a complete utter waste of time and effort? Given that you will die, what is all of that really in aid of? What if there is actually no where to go, nothing to strive for, no far off destination to be reached, no hard to attain Enlightenment to be gained? What if everything you might ever need or require has always been here? What would happen if we could only stay still, aware and attentive for long enough? Could we then be fully alive? Would we then become what we seek, rather than seek what we'd like to become?

TEACHING OF THE WEEK

'Questions are good, 

questions are necessary,
without questions
there is something to defend, 

and where there is something to defend
trouble and suffering are not far behind'

Zoketsu Norman Fischer