POETRY - The Unwritten - by W.S.Merwin

The Unwritten

Inside this pencil
crouch words that have never been written
never been spoken
never been taught

they're hiding

they're awake in there
dark in the dark
hearing us
but they won't come out
not for love not for time not for fire

even when the dark has worn away
they'll still be there
hiding in the air
multitudes in days to come may walk through them
breathe them
be none the wiser

what script can it be
that they won't unroll
in what language
would I recognise it
would I be able to follow it
to make out the real names
of everything

maybe there aren't
many
it could be that there's only one word
and it's all we need
it's here in this pencil

every pencil in the world
is like this

Written by W.S. Merwin
from Writings To An Unfinished Accompaniment
published in 1973, and Migration 2005

FINISHED READING - W.S.Merwin - Migration

'I have been a poor man living in a rich man's house'
*

W.S Merwin compiled this selection of his poetry in 2004, fifteen years before he died. I'm not sure, when it comes to assessing the quality of their work, its best to leave that in the hands of the poet. Authors tend towards including too much, as is evidenced by this tombe, all 529 pages of it. Not that what is contained within this compendium is without merit, far from it. Similar to a blockbusting exhibition of a painter's entire oeuvre, the comprehensive scale can so easily swamp or diminish the value of an individual piece. There is then, an element in this volume of the unwieldy retrospective, that doesn't encourage the poems to speak freely of themselves. When they enter, they walk into a very cacophonous crowded room. And as I reached near the end of it,I found myself growing tired of the tumbling ramble of his words, that out of my weariness I wished to quickly skip. To find they have nothing to recommend them other than the convulsive propulsion of their nature.  

'The stones were skies with skies inside them

and when he had worked long enough

he saw that a day was a stone and the past was a stone

with more darkness always inside it'
**

Migration, is an apt title. It is a characteristic of his writing that he would wander off piste to explore a new approach, a fresh way of structuring a poem, a new subject matter, a new way of composing the struggles and contingencies of his life. He ended up quietly covering a lot of territory. Writing initially in the heroic shadow of Robert Graves, his earliest work has the sense of being written in awe, as a reverent homage. But gradually Merwin does break free to discover his own voice, protesting and passionate. Undoubtedly an extraordinarily fine poet, it is in the diversity of poetic forms present in his output, where you'll locate the particularities of his aesthetic muse and authorial voice. Just occasionally he returns to lay a poetic wreath, in memoriam, at the grave of Graves.

'Sitting over words

very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing

not far

like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark

the echo of everything that has ever

been spoken

still spinning its one syllable

between the earth and silence'
***

His writing does not possess an overtly masculine muscularity or the bold imprint of an intention to make this an important utterance. As one might find with contemporaries such as Thomas or Hughes. Merwin was not interested in the place or branding of his poetry, or for forging a myth of himself as a writer. By contrast he is hard to locate, because his expressiveness is often written in a small vocal scale. When he did compose poetry larger in ambition and size, one poem here is over fifty pages in length, it gains nothing through its verbosity. He wrote mostly about the minutiae of the moment that it was an outpouring of. His affinity with Buddhism becomes increasingly apparent. Interested in capturing the butterfly fleetingness of experience, thoughtful reflections composed in a loose chain of words. Poetry for him, like human existence, reluctantly had an affinity with ephemerality.

'At night the veins of sleepers remember trees

countless sleepers the hours of trees

the uncounted hours the leaves in the dark'
****

There are times when experimentation with structure in a poem, was in danger of completely dominating, to the detriment of comprehension. These are short lived shifts of emphasis, lasting barely the length of one quite slim poetry volume. Merwin aimed to capture the paradigm of each moment, the colours and textures of its patterning, whether that was in the urban cityscape of New York or a rural setting. These poems paint a very personal event or recollection that are on occasions opaque for the reader to place in their own experience, as beautifully expressed as they are. Reaching out towards some profundity, but falling short. He was consistently a good poet, who occasionally became truly great when he happened to stumble upon a mode of expression that opened up something far vaster and more universal in scale.

'Inside this pencil

crouch words that have never been written

never been spoken

never been taught

they're hiding'
*****

One repeated theme in Merwin's poetry is at the point where prosaic language fails us, the ecology of our language, where words easily lose their meaning, the names of places, plants and tribes, whose origins fast disappear from folk memory. Those things that we no longer remember the detail of, the what or who they were, what something was made for, what job did this once do. We are a species that continues to be fired by its migrations, perpetually emigres leaving home, moving on, forgetting, forging a new vision for ourselves in a new place. One of the purposes of Merwin's poetry was as a reminder to us, to keep the ecology of language alive, to preserve what has become unspoken, the no longer heard cadences. Ideas and ways of being on the verge of being forgotten or erased by blind adherence to the notion of progress.

'Finally the old man is telling

the forgotten names

and the names of the stones they came from

for a long time I asked him the names

and when he says them at last

I hear no meaning

and cannot remember the sounds' 
******

Lines taken from the poems
* Piere Vidal - 1996
** Romanesque - 1996
*** Utterance - 1988
**** The Counting Houses - 1977
***** The Unwritten - 1973
****** Hearing The Names Of The Valleys - 1988

All extracts from
W.S. Merwin - Migration - New & Selected Poems 2005

FAVE RAVE - Rutger Bregman - The 2025 Reith Lectures

"Immorality and unseriousness 

are the two defining traits of today's leaders.
They are not accidental flaws,
but the logical outcomes of what I call
the survival of the shameless"*

This years Reith Lectures by historian  Rutger Bregman focused on how the reemergence of a moral revolution can happen. He gives examples from history when this sort of moral resurgence has happened, and how it has usually arisen out of a small group of ernest and committed campaigning individuals. If this needs to happen if we are to remotely stand a chance of avoiding democracy being totally subsumed by the corruption of techno-fascism - in our present situation where does it start? 

In his talks he made reference to how news media and cultural institutions are already being cowed into uncritical tugging of the forelock to Trump's authoritarianism. In the talk as originally broadcast by the BBC in the UK, he stated how Trump was 'the most openly corrupt president in US history'. This has since been edited out of the talk before being posted on the internet. As if to demonstrate one of his points with even greater transparency. 

These four twenty five minute lectures, neatly encapsulate our current situation, what needs to happen right now, and where we might be heading if we do nothing to arrest our current state of moral and political decline.

First Reith Lecture - Are we Living Through The Fall Of Civilisation?

Second Reith Lecture - The Collapse of Trust

Third Reith Lecture - How Utopian Dreams Became Reality

Fourth Reith Lecture - Can Humanism Survive the Age of AI?

* Taken from the First Reith Lecture

WATCHED - The War Between The Land And The Sea

Enthusiastic as Russell T Davis is, as a fan for the whole Whoniverse franchise, I've ceased thinking of him as the show runner who can salvage it from ultimate retirement. I see him as part of the problem. It needs someone with less reverence for its history, to break the mold that he once re-made, and is now stuck in. A whole mess of accrued 'tymy wymy' nonsense needs binning, and starting afresh as though sixty years of existence never happened. So in some respects The War Between The Land And the Sea as an offshoot, does end up exhibiting some of the same flaws as the last Dr Who iteration, the one that Disney pulled the plug on. 

The drama centres around an ancient sea people, referred to by humans as Homo Aqua, who emerge from the depths because of the ravages of the sea by human industry and economic activity. They throw back everything that's been dumped into the sea, in a rain of plastic refuse on human cities. Their leader Salt ( Gugu Mbatha Raw ) demands that Barclay ( Russel Tovey) a lowly civil servant, becomes the chief negotiator with her. Their growing respect for each other blossoms first into a rebellious partnership, and later into a love affair. War breaking out between the peoples of the land and the sea becomes increasingly inevitable.

One thing that this drama largely gets right is its casting. Russell Tovey's abilities as a leading actor are frequently under valued, but here he has a part where he can fully exhibit his acting talent and his torso, and does both superlatively. I was, on occasions, deeply moved by his performance as the archetypal everyman who often feels like he is floundering, as he reluctantly gets drawn into being a heroic leader. Without the solidity of his presence, this drama would sag far more than it does. The other actor also worthy of praise is Jemma Redgrave, as the devoted head of UNIT, who here gradually falls to pieces through over commitment to her work and personal bereavement. Combined, these two actors are the emotional core of this series. They bring to it the sort of gravitas, the script frequently struggles to realistically grasp.

Russel T Davis at his best, can be an adventurous writer, effortlessly summoning all sorts of moods and responses, whilst also making a drama that has salient political points to make or social commentary, without them feeling laboured. Just re-watch Years an Years, and Its a Sin, if you need reminding. The difficulty here, with The War Between The Land And The Sea, is that its environmental messages are decidedly unsubtly performed. An evil manipulative businessman all but cackles and twists a moustache archly. Politicians venal and only concerned with their public optics or salvaging their reputations. It offers you a series of lazily written cliches, not perceptively presented or revealing of new insights. The right wing press might complain that Davis makes the Whoniverse too woke for its own good, but actually its that it delivers its messages so feebly and stereotypically that's irritating. 

Whilst the series is structured to stretch over five episodes, its pacing feels all over the shot. Spending the first three episodes as though they were literally treading water. Everything develops so incredibly slowly, single scenes are given far too much air time. So it was the end of episode four before it began to propulsively come to life. Its almost as if they'd decided on the scheduling first, and had to stretch out the script to fit into it. I have an issue with the soundtrack, which happens with Dr Who too. It is so loud, too dominant a presence, constantly imposing what you are meant to feel about a scene, upon you. This incessant emotional signaling, becomes a substitute for a poorly conceived dramatic scene. A lot of ramped up aural telling, often unsupported by what you are actually being shown. And that creates an ongoing dissonance to our engagement throughout the series.

Now having said all that, the final episode was really moving, and revealed more fully that this series has really been built around love affairs. I have enjoyed watching the series, whilst all the time being aware that it fell short of being compulsive viewing.  I could have bailed at any moment and felt I'd not missed much. So what kept me there? Russel Tovey mainly. Plus the joke Salt makes about his ears making wonderful gills. That sort of wry wit was sadly far too rare here.

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

FAVE RAVES OF 2025 - The Places We Go To Eat Cake

Whilst I don't normally compose these lists in order of price, quality or preference. I think in all of these cafes, a coffee and cake for two people will be around £14-16. I'll make no secret on this occasion which one's of these are currently the best all round for quality coffee and cake.

No 1- Salthouse Stores - Salthouse
Over 2025 we've made countless visits to Blakeney, taking stock we've made for Seagull's Gallery, to check what we've sold, or do our twice monthly voluntary manning of the shop. Nine times out of ten we'll go early in order to stop off in Salthouse to have coffee and cake in the Stores there. Because it is by a long way the best made coffee in our bit of North Norfolk, and its never 'barista dependent' either. The coffee is always made to a reliable standard. They also have a consistent range of sweet and savoury bakes. People literally fight over their Cinnamon Buns, because they are simply the best when they have them in, ditto their Cruffin. Plus they do an excellent Banana Loaf and Vegan Roll too. Their interior seating is limited. This becomes crucial in the Winter months. Also the local Ladies Morning Walking group has been known to take over the entire spaces available, should your timing be a fraction out. The local store and giftware sections are very well stocked and contain a nice interesting range of items. But for us, these are generally on the far too pricey end of retailing.

No 2 -Folks - Holt & Blakeney
If we don't go to Salthouse Stores on our way to Blakeney, then we pop into Holt instead to frequent Folks. Folks is the best coffee shop in Holt, the coffee there is also consistently good, and they generally have a fine range of cake bakes to choose from. The Orange and Carrot Bake being worthy of note. It's also light and spacious with loads of tables to choose from. Its minimalist aesthetic is beautifully executed, with a thoughtfully chosen range of wooden seating and tables. However, if you should have an adult with a loud or penetrating voice or a screeching complaining child, the acoustic can be quite unforgivingly harsh and echoey. There is nothing there to act as a sound absorber.

They used to do what I describe as a knotted fist of a Cinnamon Bun, which I rather liked, but it only very infrequently appeared. Recently Folks announced they were now stocking Cinnamon Buns by a company called Swirl, and I got prematurely excited. These turned out to be doughy and too sickly sweet for my liking, and I had acid reflux and an upset stomach after. So you can't win them all. Folks in Blakeney is petite by comparison, but is also good. though its cake range can be minimal and its opening times in Winter can become a bit erratic.

No 3 - Stiffkey Stores - Stiffkey
Like Salthouse, Stiffkey Stores is a mixture of local store, and a posh interiors, card and gift shop for the well off middle classes. Whenever we are heading Walsingham or Wells Next The Sea way, we will definitely stop over here. One, because, once again, the quality of the coffee is consistently excellent, and two, because they make a Peanut Blondie that is simply the best ever. So we never try anything else, unless they've sold out, which is a very rare occurrence. They only have outdoor sheds, tables and benches, so when the easterly winter wind is blowing hard, you are unlikely to visit, or stay for long. In the summer its worth getting there early, before every rambler, twitcher, second home owner and hurray henry hipster yummy mummy family quickly fill the place to the brim. 

No 4 - Cornish Bakery - Southwold, Norwich & Bury St Edmunds.
On one of our twice yearly jaunts to Southwold, we first tried out Cornish Bakery, and experienced the taste of their sublime Cornish Pudding. The latter is a mash-up of yesterday's danish pastries with chocolate and raspberries, this is so delicious it almost touches on divinity. Since then if we see a Cornish Bakery anywhere we'll have 'The Pudding'. East Anglia now has two more branches, one in Norwich, the other in Bury St Edmunds. The coffee is consistent, but not particularly superlative. Their newer branches are noticeably more spacious and very baby buggy friendly. They are rapidly becoming a national chain. PS. Friends of ours thought it essential for me to add, that Cornish Bakery sell off their pastries at a reduced price just before they close, so it can be worthwhile working out the timing and popping back later

No 5 - Bread Source - Norwich Cathedral & Alysham
Bread Source are very much a Norfolk phenomena at present, installing pop up cafes in stately homes all over the county. They took over the Norwich Cathedral Cafe and have made it the best place to rendezvous in the city for lunch. Not too noisy, quite spacious, with plenty of tables, a good range of bakes, savoury options and superb bread range. Coffee, is again consistent, but not that notable. Their Cinnamon Buns can be variable in size and quality, but if you get to pick the properly risen ones, they are lovingly slathered in cinnamon dust and are gently sweetened. They also have a pre-prepared vegan salad in a box that can be quite a wonderful taste sensation. The branch in Aylsham, has all the above, though it has the same problem as Folks in Holt, with a harsh echoey acoustic, which at its worst you can hardly hear yourself think in.

No 6 - Grey Seal Cafe -Sheringham & Cromer
Grey Seal once had ambitions to be a chain across North Norfolk, but has now concentrated on it's two sites in Sheringham and Cromer. They do a rather fine Cinnamon Bun, which I've only ever encountered in the Sheringham branch, where they will warm it up if you wish, and this is just spot on. Second only to Salthouse Store's. Inside seating is a bit at a premium, particularly in the Winter months. They could do with having more adaptable two person smaller tables. Instead they have a pair of rather substantial four seaters, that tend to get half used. The general ambiance in Sheringham is really relaxed and friendly.

The Cromer branch can be a rather more inconsistent experience. Their opening time can be a moveable feast. the cake range can often be sparse. Its quite a large cafe with plenty of seating both inside and out. The coffee quality has been known to be 'barista dependent'. I drink Oat Latte's generally these days, and it seems, these are the ultimate test for how good a barista is or isn't. In the well trained hands of a good barista an Oat Latte turns out creamy with a rich depth of flavour. In a badly trained one, they'll invariably burn the coffee, or the oat milk, or both, and you'll wonder quite what it is that is delaminating the roof of your mouth lining. 

WORDS WRITTEN AT THE POINT OF GRATITUDE - Reflections on 2025

• I am grateful to still be alive. Last years HA! made a slow, but perceptible, shift in my views on life and what its for. As 2025 has progressed, I've felt encouraged to make the most of life, certainly, but that doesn't mean becoming excessively busy, I've found a particular peace in allowing the quality of what I do, and how I choose to execute it, motivate me, rather than a list of achievements, and tasks completed. Yes, I still have my creative projects, but they are not quite the central most important thing I do, they are just one thing I enjoy doing. I've come to realise that we all leave unfinished projects behind when we die, that's how it is. So, no need to hurry.
  
  
• I could have survived the HA! but with my mind and body impaired in some way, making life difficult not just for me. but also for my husband. I feel gratitude every day that I can go out for a walk, breath the air, feel more deeply connected to nature and the world. I still have my awareness, a fully functioning consciousness, that can find pleasure and enjoyment in even the most simple of sensations. That I still have my independence, my ability to reflect on my experience, it's a tremendous gift. For if you're unable to express your appreciation of your life, where can the gratefulness, where can the love come from? 
  
  
• To love and to be loved in return is a precious commodity to be savoured. And I've realised with greater cogency this year that the ability to love, lies at the core of feeling grateful. I lived a good deal of my early adulthood, craving to be loved and not finding it. And this had an ungrateful corroding effect upon my world view, there was an underlying bitterness, a consequent souring in any potential for gratitude. This changed in mid life when I first met my husband. Our life living together now, can feel such an easy going one, it can also be easy to forget that this has taken effort to get to, and still takes effort for love to be expressed and not to take anything for granted. I love my husband more now than I ever have. Such a clever, creative, loving, caring and considerate man, that I'm so grateful to have this one opportunity to share a life with him.
  
  
• I was sipping a breakfast cup of rose tea, a favourite morning drink. For just one fleeting moment I had this rush of pleasure, of feeling so grateful for this drink I was imbibing. The warmth, the aroma, its flavour, the sensation of comfort and reassurance. So often I am eating and drinking on automatic, I'm feeding my hunger, but not really fully present to the sensations and pleasures of it.  Much of what can feel vital in being alive, comes down to these small fine details of life. What I am unaware of, I cannot appreciate, what I fail to appreciate I cannot feel grateful for, and hence cannot value or love.

• In the West we take so much for granted. Recent years have shown just how subject to abrupt change, how vulnerable to the unexpected we all are. And it is in moments like these, when we can see more clearly the things that we treasure, to feel gratitude for what we already have. This is still a favourable time we are currently living within, and I'm grateful for that. If you are gay in this country you have been given more rights now than we've ever had previously, We are all broadly still able to live our life however we wish, without state oppression or harassment or violence.
  
  This zeitgeist is of course subject to change, their are premonitions of that already emerging, the potential for a reversal of our current tolerant progressive approach. Whatever has been given can be taken away. Tolerance, unfortunately, is conditional. Express your gratitude for what you already have, and one way of expressing the depth of that gratitude, our love for it, is by being prepared to defend it. Gratitude is an appreciative proactive love. 
  
  

FAVE RAVES OF 2025 - Film, TV & Streaming

Streaming & TV Series

Andor Series 1-2 (Disney +)
This brilliantly written drama, highlights the fear, conflicts and fragilities present when organising and financing a rebellion within a highly militarised authoritarian state.It was a tense, perceptive and tragic drama from start to finish. Why this has not won all the awards hands down is completely beyond my understanding. It was the best thing I've watched all year.

Leonard & Hungry Paul (BBC)
Based on the bestselling book by Ronan Hession, this is a simple hearted, genial drama about two thirty something men who both realise they need to breakout of living at home, to launch a hopefully more fulfilling life. It's utterly ordinary, but holds huge amounts of charm and is beautifully played by all its cast.

Alien Earth (Disney + )
The first series of the Alien franchise, transposes the threat to earth. Though this is really a study in what defines a human being as human, and if you are a synthetic body containing a human consciousness, what does that make you? 

Shogun (Disney +)
An English ship lands in Japan intent on breaking the trading monopoly of the Portuguese. Its Captain John Blackthorne rapidly gets drawn into the bafflingly formalised conflicts going on within the Shogunate. Power struggles, love and intrigue, this series had it all

Virdee (BBC)
I'm always a sucker for a good detective crime procedural. This one was a cut above most in an admittedly crowded genre. Virdee, is your classic slightly dodgy police officer, whose own dysfunctional family tensions spill over into his professional life and corrupt his moral judgement.

Films 

Sinners (2025)
A mythic ode to the inspirations and the people that made the blues. This film has atmosphere by the truck load, and one central musical dream sequence that was one of my highlights of the year. Fabulous

A Real Pain (2024)
Two cousins take a road trip to Auschwitz and along the way discover just how chalk and cheese they are. It has wonderfully funny moments mixed with deeply affecting ones. Kieran Culkin is a bloody marvel in this film and deserves all the acclaim.

Past Lives (2023)
It might seem like a great idea to reconnect with someone, twenty years later, who was your childhood sweetheart. This film imagines just such a scenario and is simply the most touchingly gentle but ultimately heartbreaking mistake. 

Perfect Days (2023)
A philosophically minded cleaner of the most avant garde lavatories in Tokyo, has a highly organised life that is disrupted by the arrival of his rebellious niece. Their friendship causes him to realise just what he's missed by becoming this sage like semi-recluse. A Wim Wenders film that has such a simple hearted joy.

Drive Angry (2011)
Ever find a film so bad, but it knows its bad, that it almost celebrates and luxuriates in its crassness? Well, Drive Angry is that film. The dialogue is so so knowing. Nicholas Cage is brilliant. But the real star here is William Fichtner as The Accountant, literally from hell

Documentary

No Other Land (2024)
Two documentary makers, one Israeli and one Palestinian, start documenting the build up and constant aggression on a Palestinian village by Israeli forces, aiming to rob them of their birthright to provide land for further expansion of Israeli illegal occupation. Shocking and deeply upsetting at times, this shows you the strain and very human cost of constantly being harassed by your nearest neighbour.

FAVE RAVES OF 2025 - Novels, Non-Fiction & Music

Books - Novels

Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
By far my favourite novel of 2025. hilarious, poignant, bitchy and just so exquisitely written. This recounting of an affair that was inevitably going to end badly, does indeed not spare us the consequences to an almost Greek level of tragedy. 

The Factory -Hiroko Oyamada
A short novella, that is so carefully and succinctly written. It's a book about alienation from meaningful work. Recounting how one person gets drawn into employment in the ubiquitous Factory. But quickly discovers no one appears to know what the companies economic mission is, nor what it is they are making.

On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong
A debut novel that has only grown in my admiration since reading it. A man is writing home to his mother to tell her about his life, telling her who he truly is. Fully knowing his Mother will never be able to read or understand his words. The second half is so gorgeously written, as though Vuong suddenly found his authorial voice.

Trust - Hernan Diaz
A classic book about unreliable narrators, what makes them unreliable, the prejudices and assumptions we all make when reading an account of someone's life. What makes us believe a story, what is it that makes us place our trust in one account, but not the other?

Butter- Asako Yuzuki
A female journalist decides she needs to make a name for herself, and chooses to write an article about an infamous female serial killer who is obsessed with butter, allegedly murdering her victims by feeding them extremely rich food. Part investigative thriller, part psychological study of manipulation and discovering who you really are.

Books -Non  Fiction

Fractured - Jon Yates
Accessible whilst simultaneously a gently challenging book, this is actually much more optimistic about how we can rebuild a sense of agency and community in our divided world. How actively engaging with People Who Are Not Like Us is good for us and society more broadly.

The Roots of Goodness - Dogen / Uchiyama Roshi
I studied this originally as part of an online three month retreat programme. As ever the combination of Dogen, with Uchiyama's clear, pithy and at times pokey exposition, is a priceless combination. 

Heresy - Catherine Nixey
A fascinating run through of how the religiously unorthodox were systematically erased by Christianity. It also dispels a few assertions about the supposed uniqueness of the Christian story. Sons of God being an extremely common phenomena, apparently.

One Day Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This - Omar El Akkad
A blisteringly passionate condemnation of Western moral attitudes and ways of forgetting its own duplicity in world atrocities. Obviously with the genocide in Gaza very much in mind, as just another example. Both a sobering and deliberately confronting book to read.

Trading Game - Gary Stevenson
Nowadays, he is a bit of a podcast sensation and pioneer in calling for a wealth tax. This autobiography focuses on his working class origins and time as an extraordinarily successful city trader. His descriptions of the various misfits and ethically dubious characters occupying a trading floor, is alternately hilarious and slightly concerning.

Music - Albums

Lux - Rosalia
From the first time I heard this album, I've become a man obsessed. You want to intravenously imbibe it constantly, but simultaneously treat it as though it were this rare precious object forged out of four carat gold, that needs to be paused and savoured. It is by turns so ravishingly sung and full of beauty, but then profoundly startles you with how shocking it can also be. Probably the most adventurous album of recent years, this is going to be a hard thing to follow up. 

Iconoclasts - Anna Von Hausswolff
A strangely daunting yet impactful album, Iconoclasts has this febrile gargantuan feel to it, the sheer size of its soundscape hits you like huge slabs of concrete. You have to be in the right mood for this I find, but when you are it is utterly magnificently dark baroque. 

Tarkus - Emerson Lake & Palmer
Seventies progressive 'supergroups' like ELP fast became highly pretentious behemoths. But in the early days of 1971 the opening twenty minutes plus of Tarkus is the most powerful piece of driven tour de force music Progressive Rock ever produced. Lyrics, however, were never their strongpoint.

Mad! & Madder! - Sparks
The album Mad! for me was unfortunately a patchy affair, some top notch brillant Sparks spoiled by rather weak sentimental whimsy. Madder! their first EP, is a more cohesive quartet of songs, Fantasise and They in particular are classic deceptively edgy Sparks and I love them to bits.  

To Each - A Certain Ratio
Albums find their moment with me. I never quite got into To Each in the 80's. But I rediscovered the album this year, and its rarely off my playlist. Recorded in 1981, it has this soured atmospheric mood, a mixture of oppressive foreboding and darkly echoing underground tunnels of industrial funk. A soundscape that ACR were the pioneers of. 

SHERINGHAM DIARY NO 135 - Deliberately Choosing The Nuclear Fallout Option

 

In the Chernobyl Disaster (the TV version) the Manager in charge of the Reactor insisted that his staff do as they are told and perform a procedure that he's designed, that they are unsure is advisable. He overruled them. This sets in motion a whole sequence of events that results in the reactor exploding and nuclear radiation eventually spreading around the world. He used the power mode, because he was more concerned about being respected as authoritative, to not to lose face or his wider reputation and future career prospects, than ensuring the safety of his staff, or the safe operation of the nuclear power plant. He unwittingly chose the nuclear fallout option.

Our 1950's vintage Bus Shelter.

Here in Sheringham local protesters trying to save the vintage bus shelter, have had, shall we say, a mixed week.  Early in the week, all sorts of strategies were being talked about, such as applying for listed building status for the shelter in order to give it legal protection. Though this can itself take six months or more. Everything was sort of put on pause until a Sheringham Town Council public meeting on the Tuesday, called to discuss the matter. Three representatives of the protesters were selected to speak on their behalf. Norfolk County Council were not sending anyone to represent their viewpoint, they simply issued a letter, that was read out at the very beginning of the meeting. This letter landed like the landmine it was intended to be. In summary, it said - The plan for the demolition of the bus shelter and development of the surrounding area either goes forward as planned, or they will pull the plug on the whole thing. Withdraw the building contractors, leave the area half finished, and should the Town Council choose to back the protestors, bill them for the work already done. Basically it was their way or no way.

Kay Mason Billig - NCC Leader

I wasn't at that meeting, but when I heard what the County Council said, I was incandescently angry. So much so I found it hard to sleep. My mild and slightly mixed endorsement of the protestors was now wholehearted behind them. And I'm sure I've not been alone in that response. I have in the past wondered why there was such a high level of animosity towards the County Council within Sheringham. If this letter is typical of how they generally interact on local issues, then I do understand now. 

This response deliberately chose the Nuclear Fallout Option. Yes, 87% of the responses to the planned proposals were positive, and the Town Council and MP had previously endorsed the plan, and yes, the shelter doesn't conform to current access requirements, it may even be structurally in need of repair, but this one issue emerged that has shattered the previous unanimity of that agreement. This petulant fit of pique, by the NCC, may have aimed to draw an end to the whole discussion, by blackmailing all concerned into submitting to their fiefdom. But ends up galvanising the Town Council into backing the protestors, and a good deal more locals are recruited to the cause. This has become about a lot more than the bus shelter now, it's also about democratic responsiveness, and to not being egregiously bullied.

Our MP Steffan Aquarone

Since then one Town Councillor has resigned over the Council's backing of the protestors. Our local MP Steffan Aquarone has called NCC 's letter "unacceptable... nothing short of bullying - Common sense would have been to allow a proper conversation to take place.". The Conservative leader of the NCC Kay Mason-Billig called him a hypocrite, saying he "He now sees an opportunity, I think, to grandstand and get his face in the papers." after, so she says, he'd previously said to her 'What you really need to do is pull this for a week, talk to the people who are making the fuss about this and then do it anyway'. I thought that was a really disingenuous thing to say." Aquarone has strenuously denied saying any such thing, and accused her of lying. Now, whilst no one can really ascertain where the truth of that lies, I can,however, imagine someone saying all that in a sarcastic tone, without changing a word.  Mason-Billig has not exactly got a great reputation for being sensitive or truthful in the use of her own language. As head of the Conservative led County Council, she's been the chief rottweiler in charge. With frequent calls for her resignation, yeah, she's that popular.

Starmer & Alexander in Norwich

Then by Thursday our embattled PM was in Norwich to launch the governments forty six million pound boost to bus transport in Norfolk. He stepped into the controversy, having obviously been briefed, saying he was "not surprised" local people had strong views on the issue. Starmer, was here with Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander who said:~ "I think the people of Sheringham have made their views known about this bus shelter and Norfolk County Council have got the money to get on with the job. The government have given them the money through the bus funding. They need to amend the scheme and make sure they make those improvements in Sheringham that people want. But they also want to keep their bus shelter, so Norfolk County Council need to pull their finger out and get on with the job."

An endorsement by a PM and a government who are currently chronically sinking rapidly in popularity, might appear on the surface to be a less than helpful intervention. As yet there is no sign at all of any volte face from the Conservative run NCC. The layers of fencing around the bus shelter have been removed, but there has been no other activity on the building site the rest of this week. So who knows if NCC is still intent on following through on its over assertive withdrawal threats. I suspect there is a lot more road for this controversy to run on yet.

The threat to bill the Town Council for the work already done, seems an empty one, there is no existing legal framework for doing this. Which doesn't mean they couldn't attempt to devise one. NCC appears to like doing a bit of empty saber rattling, like sending in bailiffs, in an attempt to intimidate folk into submission. If they did submit a bill for work done they'd essentially be bankrupting our Town Council. At some point the Government might reluctantly step in, if the NCC continues with their intransigence.

If we are left with a builders yard and not a Transport Hub, I can imagine everyone being galvanised to fundraise to finish it off ourselves, and this might garner quite wide local support. I'd certainly pitch in.

UNFINISHED READING - The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware

 

Sometimes you just realise that life is just too short, to persist with something you are doing. You get the vibe that you really should be moving on. You come to a realisation that you are continuing with a book simply because you think you should. Here you are one hundred and thirty pages into it, yet find yourself constantly nodding off to sleep whenever you try to read it. Until you finally have to admit that this book is just boring the tits off you, and put it down with one huge sense of relief. Hallelujah!. 

When I originally picked up this book I was responding to an urge to investigate this old and much revered form of Christianity. Just a general overview, that's all I needed. And this looked like the baby. One thing about it concerned me at the time, was that this book was originally written over fifty years ago, and has been through countless tweaking in revised editions. Timothy Ware was an Orthodox Metropolitan Bishop, and he died three years ago at the age of eighty seven. And though he must have had huge amounts of lived experience of Orthodoxy to draw upon, this book is just excruciatingly dull to actually read. 

The opening third of the book that I did read, is a brief overview of the history and development of the Orthodox church, and how it parted company with Roman Catholicism, over something and nothing really. Well, that's not quite true, it was over Catholic arrogance and assumed supremacy, what a surprise! But the way that Ware decides to present this is in a methodical and certainly factual manner, but it also resembles how I imagine listening to someone read a telephone directory at you. You feel like you might need the toilet soon, as an excuse to leave. There is no life nor engaged imagination put into it, this is a deadly monotonous recounting of incident and fine detail. 

Maybe, this is telling me something about Orthodoxy, or Timothy Ware, or me, but this grindingly flat footed and grey toned recital of history is tedious to engage with. And, though it maybe that for Timothy Ware, he saw this book as part of his final legacy to the world, it will not stand the test of time I'm afraid. After all, I bought this half price in a bookshop clearance sale. It was being remaindered - just saying.

  

CARROT REVIEW - 2/8

FINISHED READING - Zombies in Western Culture by Vervaeke, Mastropietro & Miscevic

 

This short book, all eighty six pages of it, reads as though it was originally an academic proposal for a much larger final thesis. It enumerates the growing number of films about and references to 'zombies' and explores this as a spiritual metaphor for our times,the current state of meaninglessness. With the decline of religious belief, specifically in the practice of Christianity, this has been imaginatively substituted with these pseudo-religious signifiers, such as'zombies', 'superheroes' being another one. Superheroes fight against evil and right wrongs, but each has there own debilitating flaw or weakness.  Zombies bare some of the characteristics of Christianity, but rather than offering transubstantiation, they consume human flesh.

'Zombies' are these dead humans resurrected from death, they are mindless, ugly, ravenous beasts, whose infectious nature rapidly and rabily spreads taking over the entire world. For mindlessness read meaninglessness, and you can see why 'zombies' have become this quite potent metaphor for the current malaise of our civilisation. Where all our institutions, political, cultural and religious have been hollowed out, emptied of significance, and hence have been deserted by popular support. Everyone running around cluelessly looking for solutions, but not finding them. We are currently living in a 'zombie' civilisation that apparently cannot save itself, and appears intent on a lemming like mindless self-destruction.

I originally listened to a short public talk on this subject by John Vervaeke, one of the authors of this pamphlet, which was really fascinating. But this book really does very little to put further significant meaningful flesh on the bones of that. The book unfortunately does that stereotypical thing of extending the metaphor until it can no longer carry the weight of the significance that is being placed upon it. Its one interestingly simple way of encapsulating and interpreting our current zeitgeist, but not a lot more than that. 

'If this crisis has in part been induced by the decline of Christianity, then attempting to revive Christianity is an ill-fated attempt at a solution. The very hard problem is we suffer a lack of viable alternatives. As we have discussed, twentieth century solutions to the problem of religious decline have resulted in the trauma of disastrous political ideologies. We are rightly wary of duplicating this result with another secular attempt at worldview attunement.'*

I did find the description of us as increasingly forswearing the practice of belonging to any religion, but still in our heart of hearts knowing that the thing we are forswearing is actually the type of solution we require, is a succinct description of our modern predicament. Once dropped, we cannot bring ourselves to return back to an uncynical belief in the veracity of the Christian message. But still trying to find a similar unifying solution, but please not that one.

'It is as though we have tools that are no longer serving us, so we are wrenching at them, turning them over, trying desperately to find a way to keep them in use, as they blunt before our eyes, and we beat them ever more harshly.'*

Like much discourse at this rarified philosophical/psychological level, it is better at description, and rather hopeless at solution focusing. Its a bit like someone who is always practicing and learning new knitting stitches, but never getting down to knitting an actual garment to wear. All of which I guess means it has caught by the very same 'zombie' inflection its reflecting on, and that it too is a brainless entity, empty to it's core. The form in which this discourse is frequently conducted, I find a little disheartening, it could be considerably more grounded and plain speaking than it is. I'll hence finish by quoting its two sentence conclusion  -

'the zombie is a multi-vocal analogue for the contemporaneous domicides occurring in the personal, social, political and spiritual systems of the present. We may speculate without great imagination that this gradual onslaught of meaninglessness will - in the absence of a new sacred canopy - continue to threaten and infect us for the foreseeable future.'*

Well... I'm glad they took eight six pages to make that so crystal clear.

CARROT REVIEW - 3/8

* Extracts from Zombies in Western Culture,
by Vervaeke, Mastropietro & Miscevic,
Published 2017 Open Book Publishers.