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 organising 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 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.

MY OWN WALKING - December Journal 2025

 

I rarely remember dreams, if I do they are recognisably similar in nature. The one's where you are trying get somewhere, but constantly frustrated in your endeavours. I usually find when in this dream state, I am semi-conscious of what is going on but unable to really influence the direction of it, or relieve the frustration of the pursuit. I had one of this style of dream recently, and though I recognised the form of it, this one felt slightly different in what it highlighted.

The set up of these pursuit dreams are I'm usually travelling to a particular place. Here, however, I was trying to visit an old Buddhist friend, who I'd lost contact with. The frustration of the journey was in my progress being impeded by a whole series of things being subsequently lost, address books, bits of paper with telephone numbers on, and eventually my phone is stolen. Just when I'd think of a new way around one loss, another happens. Lines of communication were repeatedly failing, in all directions I was becoming lost. At this point I woke up, agitated and on edge. Every time I tried to relax and go back to sleep, this frustrating series of losses just resumed exactly where I'd left off. My psyche was stuck on repeat, as if it were insisting on something that it wished to emphasise.

It is tempting to over analyse dreams. I'm also aware of how ever so slightly tedious it can be for others to hear about them. But bare with me on this one. These dreambound archetypes, on attempts to return, reconnect or revive something, they have a human frustrated core to them. Indicative of a view that returning is, in itself, this inherently futile thing to do. Any temptation to look backwards is always through rose tinted spectacles at the past and a yearning for its semi-mythical return. What will emerge is uncertain, on the one hand you could get the beauty of The Renaissance out of it, or the empty delusional sloganeering of Make America Great Again, on the other. Whatever the outcome, it is through our idealising of it, that we misperceive, or misremember what the past was actually like. An entirely new thing is created out of the conditions present in any one moment in time. One of which distorts memories of the past through those tainted spectacles.

What caught my attention in this dream, however, wasn't just in the returning, but the emphasis on the regaining something lost. There was a whole series of things being lost or stolen. The lost Buddhist friend, the lost address, the lost phone. Any loss is a little palimpsest of our mortality, and with any demise comes grief, doubt and denial. Nobody deals with loss very well, we want them or it back, somehow. Loss leaves a hole in the fabric of normality that seemingly requires mending. And this did start chiming in with something that has been on my mind of late. My own close proximity to death last year, has made the gaps and omissions in the life I lead more apparent. 

Whatever we chose to do in life can feel positive as we strike out in a new direction. What isn't always as cogent at the time, are the things we still love that regrettably we've had to leave behind, through the taking of that decision. The ending of love affairs are like that. Though our lives move forward riding on an optimistic wave of what we gain from our renewed liberty, this sometimes leaves behind a murky unresolved loss churned up in its wake. Years later that loss may encourage your mind to start reflecting on whether there may be any benefit in revisiting the old haunts and refuges of past love affairs. Spiritual or otherwise.

When I decided to leave a Buddhist Order nearly eight years ago, any reluctance to do so rested on the loss of the Sangha ( a community of spiritual friends ). And once I had submitted my resignation, what lingered on immediately afterwards was the desire to locate a new Sangha. As this proved an unfruitful pursuit, after about two years I stopped even thinking about looking for one.  And as I've written many times before, I have since viewed the singular path I've chosen to take, as being one that has the lack of a Sangha inherently built into it. That's the story I've composed, that I tell myself in order to let it go, to make it all feel easier.  But this does not mean I don't still sense my need for one. And this bobbed back up to the surface again recently.

When you leave any situation there can be a process of emotionally and spiritually letting go of relationships built up over many years. Also a feeling within oneself that your departure might have betrayed their trust and the basis of the friendship. One has often betrayed ones own aspirations to be a good and faithful friend too. So there is this rending apart from one's spiritual friendships. The reduced proximity, the actual physical distance becomes analogous to the spiritual drift opening up between you. You are not in the regular purview of their world, as they are not frequently in the purview of yours. There is a mutual, and perhaps reluctant, bursting of what once was a bubble of like mindedness. I no longer encounter these friends in my daily life and vice versa. Hence, most of them lapse through lack of regular contact.

When I have returned to my old Buddhist Centre, it has been with mixed feelings, and the way people related to me appeared similarly mixed. There was an uncomfortableness with how to be me in that context, and others seemed reciprocally unsure how to be with me. So any passing thought of returning I may have, ends up feeling overwhelmingly overthunk, that I just mentally close down at the thought of it. They have moved on. The situation has moved on. Reality has moved on. I have moved on. It's not as if you can realistically return and everything slips neatly back into exactly how it was. Too much unshared time has passed. 

' You cannot step into the same river twice' remarked Heraclitus sagely as he idly paddled in the Lethe. Nonetheless, for me the absence of spiritual friendship lingers. The how, the where and the whether too of returning, persisting as these muttered noises off stage. Frequent ghosts unable to find a place where they can either be fully set down, or be resolved by the passing shadows of their former lives.

FINISHED READING - Trust by Hernan Diaz

A narrative constructed of differing views of the same event or person, well it is an old story trope. But here in Hernan Diaz's Trust its given a refreshing shakeup. It opens with a controversial novel by Harold Vanner about a reclusive millionaire Benjamin Rask and the tragically short life of his wife Helen. Rask is portrayed as an unprincipled and craven man, the only person to make a fortune out of the Wall Street Crash. Many accuse him of actively manufacturing the crash, just so he could profit from it. Married to Helen, she lives the life of a reluctant socialite, sponsoring charity work, musicians, composers and artists, until she succumbs to a severe mental breakdown, the experimental treatment for which kills her. 

Vanner's novel becomes a huge bestseller, mainly because its widely interpreted as an unfavourable not too fictionalised account of the actual lives of Andrew and Mildred Bevel.  Andrew Bevel, not at all happy about this, starts producing a definitive version of his life story, to set the record straight. This unfinished autobiography, with all its foot notes and sketchy suggestions for further inclusions, is retold next. In it Bevel defends his actions during the crash because this saved the American economy, and he presents his wife as this reclusive angel. So far these appear two straightforward but divergent accounts of a millionaires life story.

These are followed by the investigative notes of Ida Partenza, originally employed by Bevel to help him write the draft autobiography we've just read. She was encouraged by him to 'be creative' in her descriptions of his wife, to make her milder, less independent and more compliant. From this point onwards the book starts to raise intriguing questions. Is anyone telling the truth here, is anyone a reliable narrator? What makes you believe one person and not another? Can any of these writers corroborate their information about Mildred? Each writer appears to have their own agenda that distorts how Mildred is remembered. Everything becomes at least partially made up. There are rumours of a diary Mildred wrote. But if the stories about her mental breakdown are true, how would you know even that could be trusted? Mildred's true life, personality and voice seem destined not to be heard, so completely is her history being controlled, misrepresented or excised. 

There were times when the novel lost me on some detail or diversion, which I didn't quite see the purpose of at the time. It lays out its territory carefully, and equally it resists you trying to come to any definitive conclusions. Like every writer you are shown here, you end up making conjectures, imaginatively filling in gaps in knowledge with suppositions, based solely upon your own prejudices. In the end one particular assumption about Mildred that you don't see coming, is unexpectedly upended. Leaving you to ponder on its ramifications for everything you have been told throughout the novel. Trust is a very cleverly composed piece of writing, full of subtle trickery.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

ARTICLE - Advent For Non-Theists

It may appear strange for a Buddhist, or anyone whose spiritual affiliations are roughly in the camp of non-theism, to be buying advent related stuff. Advent is, after all, traditionally a significant Christian period anticipating the birth of God's son, is it not? It could, however, be reasonably asserted that advent, like the event it leads up to - Christmas - has decade after decade become primarily marketed as a secular consumer activity. Every year more and more really expensive luxurious advent calendars feature not just twenty four days of chocolates, from the merely chocolate flavoured to the high end chocolatier, but now you can have them with various over priced teas, coffees, jams, cosmetics, jewellery etc, you name it, there is seemingly an advent calendar for it. It's commercial range constantly expands.

Each year, during this period when Jesus is said to have been born, a Christian is encouraged to reflect on the meaning of the arrival of Jesus on earth, the significance of waiting, to maintain hope of salvation. Advent encourages you to reflect on three particular things - to revere what happened in the the past  - how the meaning of that event reverberates to the present day -  envisaging a future when Jesus will return in the glory of a second coming. And advent has been a period for such reflection for millenia. Instead of a period of self-indulgence, advent was once a time for the practice of reflection and fasting. So how did we arrive here at an advent season so predicated on Dionysian excess and Bacchus like indulgences?

As a Christian ritual, the season of advent has no specifically Biblical origin. As with many things now considered the epitome of Christmas, including its placing in the aftermath of the Winter Solstice, the rituals of advent have been adapted from paganism. What we now refer to as the Advent Wreath, came originally from a Scandinavian pagan practice utilising multiple candles and a wreath to pray for light and warmth throughout the coming Winter. In 1829 a German Lutheran pastor adapted that tradition, placing twenty four small red candles and four larger white ones on a cartwheel to mark out the approach of Christmas. Using this day by day step method to teach children about the stories and meaning of the nativity. This subsequently was stripped back to four candles lit on the Sundays before Christmas, representing hope, peace, joy and love, and the final central one marking the birth of Jesus, is lit on Christmas Day itself. This idea spread, and German emigres brought the tradition to the United States.

The tradition of the Advent Calendar, with twenty four doors opened up each day before Christmas Day, telling the nativity story, followed a similar 19th century German Lutheran invention, that then crossed the sea to America. Advent calendars became really big business after World War Two, When confectioners started publishing them in conjunction with their sweet selection boxes as part of their Christmas marketing. Today's advent calendars of twenty four doors with sweets behind them, began to emerge in this post war period, as the advent calendar and the confectionary box collection morphed into one entity.

If you are Non-Theist you could skip over the 20th century consumerism, unless you are a dedicated chocolate fiend. Avoid the Christian accretions of the 19th Century. Reach back to advent's origins in a Scandinavian pagan wreath practice with its multiple array of candles. Christianity in Europe very astutely chose the bleakest period of the year in which to place advent, so you would journey with hope towards the illuminating arrival of the son of God. You are simultaneously waiting on and marking the approaching weeks before the Winter Solstice, after which the days slowly begin to grow longer and the arrival of Spring lies at the end of it. There is always something shining brightly beyond advent, somewhere you need to cultivate faith in moving towards.

A state of advent, of sitting silently waiting in expectation, is the essence of the season. Some significant turn around event in our lives and awareness lies at the end of it, this is common to many traditions, whether theist or non-theist. We can all discover something about ourselves in this spiritual Winterreise, where the bleakness of the weather and the barren skeletal landscape, can result in a need for our faith and hope to be enriched. The perspectives and vistas of our life within Winter can feel literally more restricted and cramped. That people suffer from SAD in the Winter, is a clinical description of an extreme state, for what is a general existential human experience. Its a recognised phenomena that there is an increase in older people dying over the Winterval period, as they let go of the idea of seeing in another year of existence. 

We all find Winter difficult to some degree, as no doubt did our ancestors. What helped them, and may help us too, is when we are right in the very nub of it, to partake in a ritual involving candle light, to conjure up hope of future brightness when the Sun will begin to ascend and stay for longer.  An advent wreath marks out points on that cyclical journey. Advent could also be seen as this necessary seasonal retreat, a place where you look inwards. As the sun and moon continue to cycle through their orbits. To reexamine the transits of your own life cycle over the past year - how have you been? how are you now? What hopes have you for the year yet to come? Reflect on the transience of everything, whilst watching an advent candle burn. Be as if stilled by the candle flame itself. Consider this candle as analogous to your own life spirit, with its limited burn time. Consider how fortunate you will be as the nights draw in, if you also live to see them draw out again. Each moment of every day bringing the advent of something that is entirely new.

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 134 - The Mournful Embrace Of Change

I can always tell when I am resisting change because I can feel myself mentally digging my heals in, digging myself into an intransigent hole of my own making, becoming this immovable stiff inflexible human being, that nothing will get passed. If I look closely at whatever I am resisting it really isn't about that particular external issue, it's much more personal than that. I don't want the world to change, nor to change my views. I don't want to get older, to get sick or to die. And every external change becomes this thing I project these concerns onto, I become fixated upon resisting the death of something I profess to love.  I didn't ask for this, I do not want this, Please take it away. Yet any change will always drag a sense of loss in its wake. If change is to be at all beneficial, you have to be willing to let go of something. Ultimately change does not require or demand our permission for it to happen.

In the firmness of our resistance to change something far uglier, harsh and black hearted can happen to our mental state. We glower and groan, allow our inner grump, our inner gammon, to despair and declaim at the state of the world. As though it is the world that is resisting change, not us. Most of the time the world just presents us with a change that perhaps we do not approve of, that we profess to dislike on high principle, and hence create a burgeoning self-righteousness to prevent that change happening at all. Change becomes the enemy that must be defeated at all costs. 

You might be forgiven for thinking that currently this is the predominant operational mode of the whole of Sheringham & District. Because there is some contentiousness about one particular change that has divided the town, and divided my own feelings, and its all been over a small shabby bus shelter.

When I first started coming to North Norfolk, I'd travel up by train and change onto the coast bus to go on to Wells Next The Sea. The bus shelter in Sheringham is a small flat concrete roofed piece of street furniture, with brick walls and curved bows. Its a small bus shelter, executed in a standard bit of Post War modernism, which unfortunately has never been much valued or treated as such. Its just grown grubbier, less well cared for. Whilst over the years, one rather naff mural of a train painted on its internal walls, has been painted over, and then replaced with another rather naff painted mural of a train. That's how things are sometimes in Sheringham, they get stuck on repeat. It has this red plastic ledge seating you are supposed to merely pertly park your bottom on, which after five minutes becomes excruciatingly painful. So as a bus shelter its all a bit scuzzy, grubby, often overcrowded, and actually not a nice place to hang around waiting for a bus in. You would have thought then that if this was so intrinsically unloveable, that people might appreciate it being replaced. But say not so.

The land the bus shelter is on belongs largely to the North Norfolk Railway. Though I guess the County Council must have some statutory interest in it, as they co-created with NNR the design to redevelop the area. Its part of an area of public garden between the Railway and the car park. And this too has not particularly been well cared for, plants became overgrown, its lawns are dry and patchy, seats were old and in some parts broken, And for some reason in the last decade NNR put up an ugly lumpen wooden trellis made from thick railway like sleepers all around it, that made it resemble a World War One trench defence. It gradually has become a bit of an aesthetic eyesore to first set your eyes on as you arrive on the Norwich train.  

The county council proposed a new layout, to create a local Travel Hub, reconfiguring and replacing seating,and the bus shelter. It also very clearly showed the present bus shelter as being demolished. This plan was put up for public consultation. The plans were given full front pages in local papers, were online and on social media, so there was never any secret about what was planned. As ever, folk complained about the cost of it £500,000. The English, as ever are provoked into outrage at the cost of anything, and deprecate the value or necessity of whatever might be being created with it. Public consultations can often be a bit of a box ticking exercise, and for the public they become this opportunity to express your gripes, to air your favourite hobby horses, and to generally name call and to not be positive or constructive. They are nonetheless part of an established democratic framework for councils, ideally to demonstrate they can be responsive to local concerns. But in this case they were not sufficiently responsive to some local concerns. For there must undoubtedly have been some complaints about the loss of the existing bus shelter, these presumably were not given enough credence to give the planners pause. So after a couple of months the plan was put out for tender. 

However, once the work actually began in November, this stirred locals into action. that maybe that bus shelter should not be allowed to be turned into rubble. And so, as the contractors reached the actual point of demolition, protesters occupied the bus shelter. Ribbons were tied to the wire fences around it. Protestors were removed, and a more substantial corrugated metal fence put round it. Folk are now occupying inside the bus shelter, inside the corrugated fence - on a fully organised rota 24/7.up to and beyond the New Year. On paper this may seem just one small bus shelter, and a rather ineffective one at that. But it has now become this heroic local cause celebre, that appears to light up a number of peoples lives and has given them a huge sense of purpose. That it should ever have come to this, is desperately sad. On both sides of the argument there is resistance to change, and its now turning ugly.

Unhelpfully couched as a David v Goliath struggle. The protestors have adopted a distinctly parochial reinterpretation of Extinction Rebellion's tactics  No one is, as yet, complaining about the extra cost to the tax payer when a project delayed by weeks becomes daily more expensive. Not to mention police time and effort to prevent any violence flaring up, and keeping buses and road traffic flowing. But what we have here is an instance of where the initial consultation process has catastrophically failed, and what it requires is the council to be more transparently creative in its response to that. Which doesn't mean resorting to putting the strong arm of the law behind you and serving protestors with eviction notices, but talking constructively with them.

If the council is going to act responsively to these concerns, then they would need to be open to change, as would the protestors. Could the existing bus shelter be taken down and rebuilt elsewhere in town, for instance? It doesn't have to stay exactly where it is, does it?  But I can see one simple win win situation here that might satisfy both sides to a degree. Keep the old bus shelter and smarten it up, and build your new bus shelter alongside it. Stop judging it by its current dilapidated state, and treat it as part of the architectural legacy of the town that is worthy of preserving.

If the council persists in taking a legalistic punitive approach, then they will win only a pyrrhic victory This will lose them the willingness of the town to happily embrace any changes they are planning to make now, or in the future. The council, admittedly, will always be put in a lose lose situation, no one trusts them, expecting them to be authoritarian and impose unpalatable changes upon the community. Which only demonstrates the need to constantly act in ways that counter this prejudicial narrative. Otherwise it will only be shown to be true, that you don't really listen. It maybe the council believes its too late for all that, that it can't now afford to lose face, to step down from its high position and offer a change in approach. This would be a sad limitation to its vision for how it is serving the needs of its own community.

A concern of mine is that something really tragic will happen out of taking a confrontational approach, and the protestors won't be the ones shouldering the responsibility for that. I can foresee local martyrs being made here, heroically protecting one rather shabby bus shelter from becoming a pile of brick dust.  If both the town and the county council, through each lacking a sense of proportion become locked in a stalemate situation, unable to change or compromise, what hope is there of a satisfactory resolution for all concerned? And believe me the latter does exist, but you do have to be willing to actively search to discover what that is. Not just assume that you already know.

 

LISTENING TO - Earworms of 2025

Earworms tend to be those pieces of music which on first hearing you just cannot let them alone. Play them constantly, repeatedly, sometimes to the point of satiation. So what is gathered here at the end of this year are a unique selection of tracks that for one reason or another have hooked me completely. Its been a good year for female artists, simply because they've been doing a lot of the interesting stuff. Anyway here we go, the order is when they appeared in the year, not order of preference. 

Abracadabra  - Lady Gaga
Just when you thought Gaga was becoming too MOR, here she comes with a huge reboot to her catchy barmy best. As ever, it has you from its first opening chant, and does not let go of you until she has squeezed every ounce of bounce out of it. The video adds to the pure joy from start to finish. 

Big Booty - Moonchild Sanelly
If you want brazen in your face body positivity, a great tune and something you can dance to. Big Booty is the one you want, I just smile all the way through, this is cheeky on every possible level. She knows exactly what she is doing here.

Catch These Fists - Wet Leg
I had Wet Leg down as a one hit wonder, until I heard this. Giving it more grind and grunge they produce this belter, which comes out at you as if from nowhere. Rhian Teasdale has perfected her hard hearted stroppiness, whilst the band kick harder than ever before. 

Taxi Guy - A Certain Ratio
A Certain Ration are a favourite band from the 80's, who linger on with a few survivors to keep producing good music. Taxi Guy is this addictive piece of industrial world funk which they created and cornered the market in.

Tarkus - Emerson Lake & Palmer
This one caught me by surprise. A prog rock track from my 70's teenage years, that resurfaced during writing the My Most Loved Albums series. Its a superlative piece of hard rockin drivin jazz inflected flashy keyboard playin magisterial epic. It set the bar for many a progressive music band, that no one, even ELP could replicate.

They - Sparks
Any album from Sparks is welcomed by me, it was strange for me to find Mad! so pleasant, yet predictable. The EP which followed Madder! was much better, it has two absolute classics on it, but my favourite has to be They,  All the hallmarks of Ron Mael at his best. A song about dancers in a (strip ?) club failing to please 'the punters'.

Struggle With The Beast - Anna Von Hausswolff
After disappearing for five years Von Hausswolff returned with a hard hitting and cohesive album.. Like much of Iconoclasts, there is a veritable unrelenting wall of sound that Struggle with the Beast creates. Its the high point of the album, as it persistently drills intensity into you

Reliquia - Rosalia
It was hard to not include Berghain, but actually I adore this track the most, simply because its such an elegantly simple yet eclectic mix, there is classical, flamenco, electronic influences all extravagantly flourished here, topped by that beautiful breathy and expressive voice.  

RISING UP MY BOOK PILE - December 2025

My current book pile is getting to be a bit of a stack, and that's before Christmas. I haven't been devoting much time to reading, plus I am getting bogged down with one book. Theoretically I am in the middle of reading four books, but actually I'm only actively reading two.

The Less Dead by Denise Mina
One of the Scottish noir writers of detective fiction. Having read Conviction, I can tell you Denise Mina is probably one of the best such writers around. Looking forward to reading this one.
Bought from a Charity Shop

Alice Roberts - Domination

I've read her previous books on ancestry and burial practices. Like her TV presenting, her books are approachable, informative and immensely relatable. This one is about how the end of the Roman Empire coincided with the rise of Christianity.
Bought from The Whitby Bookshop

Zombies In Western Culture - Vervaeke, Mastropietro & Miscevic

A slim volume of what I suspect is more an academic outline than a fully fledged book. But I've heard John Vervaeke talking about this subject and its seems a more useful analogy than you might think. That the dominant presence of zombies in our popular movies is a reflection of our cultures unease with the loss of meaning. 
A Birthday Present
Currently Reading

The Mystical Thought Of Master Eckhart - Bernard McGinn
In my reading of Christian history and literature  I've been meaning to investigate the mystic apophatic tradition, of which Eckhart seems pretty central. This book has a favourable reputation as a broad introduction to his thought.
A Birthday Present

Migration.- W S Merwin 
A compendium of Merwin's poetry, unknown in the UK, but a much lauded man of US literature. I've taken to reading a couple of poems a day, at 529 pages I have around 170 to go. Its a bit like climbing a mountain, some very lovely views and aspects, but surrounded by a considerable amount of applied effort.  If I maintain my current level of reading, I may finish this compendium in February 2026.
Ordered from Holt Bookshop
Currently Reading

Beliefism by Paul Dolan

An apparently helpful book about how to avoid becoming polarised in our beliefs, and unable to hear opinions that don't accord with our own. A somewhat timely book. I believe I need a little help in this area myself, so lets see what this has to offer.

Bought from Book Hive Aylsham 

Poetic Diction - Owen Barfield
Subtitled -A Study In Meaning, Barfield was one of the 'Inklings' along with Tolkein & Lewis. An influential thinker whose ideas and theories about poetry and language are probably more wide ranging in their influence than I realise. I want to read this to see if I can get a grasp on what the fuss is about. Wish me luck, cos I think I might need it. Feeling a tad intimidated.
A Birthday Present

The Devil You Know by Dr Gwen Adshead & Eileen Horne
Again someone I've seen being interviewed on The Sacred podcast.  I'm always fascinated by people whose job is to interact with darker vile and unacceptable people in our society. Adshead is a forensic Psychiatrist whose patients are serial killers, arsonists, stalkers. Basicly the sort of folk the tabloids would label 'monsters'.
A Birthday Present

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari (NEW)

Seen Harari speaking on videos several times and been really impressed with his clarity of thought and even handed nature. So I thought I'd read one of his highly thought of books.
Bought from Waterstones Norwich

The Shortest History of Japan by Lesley Downer (NEW)
I've been wanting to get a general overview of Japanese history for a while. There are plenty of lengthy magisterial tombes, that I wouldn't want to buy without some overall sense of how the history rolls out. There appears to be some sort of in joke going on between publishers about who has the briefest history.
Bought from Waterstones Norwich 

Trust by Hernan Diaz (NEW)
I heard about this from Dua Lipa's Book podcast Service 95. She was interviewing the author and this seemed an intriguing reading prospect. Four differing representations of the life of a controversial millionaire and his wife. I'm about three quarters through, and really enjoying it so far.
Bought from a Charity Shop

Currently Reading

The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware ( NEW)
I've been thinking about reading an introduction to Eastern Orthodoxy for a while So I bought this in a book sale, its a fifty year old book, with several revised editions before now. I'm finding it a bit dry historically, surprisingly not a lot of warmth or enthusiasm for his subject coming across. Hence, I am making slow if not dogged progress with it.
Bought from the Beccles Bookshop

Currently Reading

BOOKSHOPS

Book Hive, Norwich

Book Hive, Aylsham

Holt Bookshop

The Whitby Bookshop
Beccles Bookshop