FAVE RAVE - Small Prophets

Micheal Sleep (Pearce Quigley) is a man living a life half awake to the world outside it. Half working in a DIY store where he actively spreads misinformation about buckets having gone out of use. Half waiting, seven years after her unexplained disappearance, for his wife Claire to return. Everything in his home is left in a state of suspension. His Father ( Micheal Palin) who is in a care home, suggests to his son that he dig out an old folder about homunculi that he once grew in jars. These small prophetic emanations, maybe able to tell him whether Claire is still alive, let alone whether she still loves him. And so he starts cultivating them in his dilapidated garage.

Small Prophets is a beautifully conceived piece of eccentric whimsy written by Mackenzie Crook. Like in Detectorists, his previous cult hit, he manages to capture the essence and lonely obsessiveness of the modern single man. Who becomes consumed by one idea or activity to the point of loosing touch with ordinary reality.  Existing inside this sub-realm hermetically sealed off from other, apparently more sane, people.  Over its six episodes, Small Prophets slowly captures your imagination and your devotion.

It's filled with lovely details in its script. Michael's house and garden is a wildly unkempt mess, that his nosey parker neighbour's are simultaneously both intrigued and incensed by.  The teenage boy who is shown repeatedly cycling around and around the close. Michael's ineffectual manager at the DIY store, (Mackenzie Crook) constantly strokes his long pony tail behind his back, whilst having no real control over his workforce, and is obsessed with them 'taking their breaks'. The way Micheal adopts his Father's emphatic insistence that the beings in the jars are not little people ' they are homunculi '. The locked room in the house where Micheal has preserved a detailed recreation of a 1970's Christmas for his absent wife to come back to.

The premise sounds distinctly odd when written down, but this series has ooodles of charm and a lightly salted satirical humour, that does really grow on you. With these occasionally deeply touching moments that just pop out at you out of the blue. Like all Mackenzie Crook's writing Small Prophets has a warm gently beating heart at the centre of it, that we can all identify with.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

FAVE RAVE - Banjo & Ro's Grand Island Hotel

After two series of Banjo Beale, blagging his interior design wares across the Hebrides. Here he is, now together with his long suffering husband Ro, taking on rejuvenating an abandoned hotel on the Isle of Ulva. It's a hugely ambitious project, very carefully structured and edited here in a reality documentary format, with it's necessary peak dramas and crisis points. The weekly decorating of different rooms, ignores the primary necessity of stopping the roof leaking, getting the water, electric and heating to work, and replacing the windows. This only makes sense from the perspective of a makeover renovation programme. This is not how you would start a project of this scale. But that wouldn't make for such watchable television

What makes this programme essential viewing and so deeply lovable, is Banjo and Ro's relationship. Banjo the perpetually inspired designer, with an irrepressible urge to buy that rather too expensive piece of tat he sees some potential in, whilst Ro, yet again, points out the essential impracticality of his whole approach. As a period enamel bath appears over the horizon dramatically flown in under a helicopter. Ro has repeatedly to row back on his sensible doubts, when the room is finally and triumphantly finished. Undoubtedly this project will not have been straightforward, not just financially, but emotionally. But the cheque from the Beeb will help. This project is very far from finished, so there is at least another series in this. I certainly hope so, because this one was hugely enjoyable. The landscape of the islands is so ravishingly beautiful as a backdrop to their renovation shenanigans..

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

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

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. 

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. 

FAVE RAVE - Leonard & Hungry Paul

 
Every now and then you find a programme comes along that somewhat defies catagorisation. Is it a drama, is it a light comedy or a light comedy drama or light dramatic comedy? The BBC appears to believe Leonard and Hungry Paul is primarily a light drama. Whereas other programmes which exuded a similar tone as Leonard & Hungry Paul, such as The Detectorists, were defined as comedy. Where ever we eventually decide to place it, it sits there somewhat winsomely smiling back at you looking mildly embarrassed and lightly shrugs its shoulders, putting its hands in its pockets and walks away.

The novel this series is based on, was written by Irish writer and blues-folk musician Ronan Hession and became a word of mouth bestseller. Its subjects are quite ordinary people, with relatively uneventful lives. Two men in their thirties Leonard and Hungry Paul are friends who meet regularly to play chess. Leonard lives alone in his Mothers house who died recently, and works as an underappreciated and underutilised editor for a children's encyclopedia publisher. He is attracted to Shelley who works in the same office, and wants to ask her out. Hungry Paul, has very low ambitions for himself, living at home with his parents, and his sister Grace, whose about to get married. He can't quite work out how to launch himself on the world, and whether indeed he should do so at all. He spends his time making hospital visits to hold patients hands and the occasional day postal delivering. 

Though that is pretty much the basic set up of the series, this cannot capture the subtle underplaying of its wit and perceptiveness of its dialogue, and how the voice over narrator ( voiced by Julie Roberts ) is an essential part of how the humour is delivered. Leonard, is played by Alex Lawther, who is having a bit of a career moment this year. having already had central parts in Andor and Alien Earth, all exploiting his geeky nervous style of acting. To which he can now add, the socially inadequate Leonard. Ably supported by Laurie Kynaston as Hungry Paul and Jamie-Lee O'Donnell as Shelley.

This series manages to create and hold its very pleasurable tone steady. Its not an easy thing to write about ordinary lives without that becoming at some point trite,tedious or vaguely patronising. And Leonard and Hungry Paul avoids falling into any such pitfalls. It is quite the most simple hearted and kind little light comedy drama. One that emits oodles of warmth for its characters, their foibles as well as their charms, as it takes you for a modest gently meandering walk through its world. I wasn't entirely sure about its tone for the first quarter of its running time, but by the end of twenty nine minutes I was won over by it, completely hooked. I am currently trying to resist guzzling down all its six episodes far far too rapidly.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

WATCHED - Shogun

 

Gosh, this is a truly epic series, the scenery, the script, the fabulous costumes. Finally, Hiryuki Sanada ( Lord Yoshii Toronaga ) truly gets a meaty part to play in Japanese, rather than taking bit parts as Hollywood's go to oriental. Yeah, his face will already be familiar to you. Whereas Cosmos Jarvis (John Blackthorne) will be new to most of us, with that heavy set body swagger, the best theatrical pipes since Richard Burton, and more than a smidgen of raw sex appeal. And Anna Sawaii ( Lady Mariko ) plays this beautiful mysterious complex woman, she's the translator, the christian convert, but there is so much more going on behind that elegance and proper etiquette. In this series there is also a careful and judicious use of the really horrific, the bloodshed will come out of the blue at you, so be aware. Also quite a bit of seppuku, particularly by the end.

The story line, well, its too complicated to fully explain. Blackthorne turns up with his ship and crew, intent on kicking the Portuguese and their Catholicism out of Japan, and replacing it with a bit of good old English Protestant free trade. But all these plans go awry pretty quickly. He is given Lady Mariko to translate and introduce him to the bafflingly formal world of Japanese Court procedures, where no one says what they think, or really mean. In a way we see this exotic but uptight world entirely through Blackthorne's eyes.  

Toronaga is threatened with being impeached by his fellow Regency Council. But he knows how to fox them and plays many a cunning ploy. He is definitely someone who executes the long game, always with an eye set on where he wishes to end up. To do this he will manipulate both friend and foe if needs be. Blackthorne gets drawn into being used in this political intrigue and into a dangerous illicit affair with Mariko. For it turns out she is the daughter of a previous Shogun, who was wrongly assassinated for ultimately doing the right thing. And she has waited a lifetime for her moment of revenge. But really, none of this quite captures the tightly turned intricacy of this stories cat and mouse nature. The charming duplicity of Yorishige (Tadanobu Asano) is just one character in this series who is seemingly playing for both sides. And both sides know that.

Historically it takes some huge liberties, but it does very effectively capture the mood of internecine family conflict and often war, that the soon to be Edo period, Tokugawa Shogunate had to actively contain. Shogun was based on a novel of the same name from 1975 by James Clavell. It is set thirty plus years before the Portuguese and Roman Catholicism are thrown out of Japan, and subsequently closes its borders to the outside world for nearly four hundred years. 

There are just so many heart stopping moments in this series, of beauty. of tragedy, not to mention cinematography. Its no surprise this series has won 4 Golden Globes and a record breaking 18 Emmys, for its acting leads, as well as music and technical gongs. I was an emotional wreck by the end of it. A second series is promised, but just how they are going to top this one I do not know.

CARROT REVIEW - 8/8

FAVE RAVE - Tyler Staton on Seen & Unseen's Re-Enchanting

I've been a regular watcher of Seen & Unseen's Re-Enchanting podcast on You Tube for a couple of years now. Though undoubtedly resolutely Christian it has guests from all forms of life, not all of them Christian, many are non denominational or atheists. The conversations are often really stimulating and ask cogent questions about how to re-enchant our dismal secular world view.

This weeks conversation with Tyler Staton, a Pastor from Portland USA, was one of the best of the series. He is just quite an impressive speaking individual, well informed and clear. For me, some of what he is talking about here resonated and sounded like music to my ears. A lot of it easily  transferable to Buddhism. Obviously he couches it in Christian terms of reference, but there are truths spoken here, universally applicable to spiritual lives of practice whatever the form.

 

FAVE RAVE - Virdee

I love a good police procedural thriller, but these days its quite a crowded competitive market and not many of them are quite as brilliantly conceived as Virdee. 

Harry Virdee (Staz Nair) is a police detective in Bradford, he's married to Selma (Aysha Kala), who is a Muslim. As a consequence Harry's Sikh father refuses to see of acknowledge him anymore. His brother in law Riaz Hyatt (Vikas Bahi) is one of two local drug lords who are near to being at war with each other. Riaz is an old friend from Harry's teenage years. He uses Riaz to sound out what is really happening in the gangs on the streets. No one in his police force appears to know of this connection. There are then a series of murders, which appear to follow a gruesome set pattern. On the surface it's made to look like as though the two drug gangs are the cause. But something about it doesn't quite add up to Harry, he suspects there is a third person independently involved. Slowly, he gets closer to finding out who that is. As members of his extended family start getting drawn in, Harry's past actions come back to haunt him. 

Written and adapted by AA Dhand from his original series of novels, Virdee is thematically and visually punchy, set within the South Asian community of Bradford. Plenty of unexpected twists and cliffhangers at the end of an episode. In many ways Virdee is your classic unconventional cop with a dodgy past and family conflicts. But it is the placing of him within second generation immigrant communities, with the secondary theme of a clash going on between those still clinging to old country mores, and those who have been born in Bradford. Its not afraid to deal with race riots, gangsters, interfaith marriages and the nature of drug gang cultures in modern British cities. This gives it all the vivacious colour and fizz you could wish for in a contemporary thriller. 

The three central actors of Staz Nair, Aysha Kala and Vikas Bahi, give this show a very fresh star quality. Brilliantly filmed and paced, with a theme tune to match it in drama and colour . I loved every minute of this series I didn't want to rush through it, so much so, I refused to binge watch. Instead I savoured it episode by episode, spacing them out across a few weeks. Virdee was fabulous, more please.

CARROT REVIEW  8/8 

FAVE RAVE - Big Booty by Moonchild Sanelly

 

You know, when you smile from ear to ear when you first see a music video, that this person is claas. Moonchild Sanelly is a singer and rapper from South Africa. Her distinctive marker is the turquoise rope hair, and the bling and the outrageous shoes, she is one big character. She's also a liberated woman, she don't give a fig bout what you think of her. Hence we have Big Booty, a hymn to the transcendent qualities of shaking that stupendous ass - Big Booty I fuck up the world - she cries. But really this is all about the life giving joy she brings to what she does. I just love every minute of this track. Look out for her singing in the background on Little Sims new track Flood. 

FAVE RAVE - Ben Maton - The Salisbury Organist.

I started watching the videos by Ben Maton earlier in the year. He travels around churches in the Salisbury diocese, the more out of the way or redundant the better. Playing whatever organ he finds. You get to see the long walks across hills and fields to these often very isolated village churches, little bits of chit chat about their history, interesting aspects of organ playing techniques, as well as at the end of them some really lovely organ playing.

He's a young chap in his twenties, who has got a youthful and enthusiastic charm to him. He has visibly grown in confidence in what he is doing in recent months. This hour long video he made for advent covers three church he visited. In it he plays music by Bach and Franck, advent hymns, as well as a rather lovely Christmas Lullaby composed by Maton himself. 

The highlight is the last church, where he plays The Coventry Carol on a Victorian harmonium in a 19th century Gothic revival chapel. Its in the village of Wooland and was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott. The harmonium is so moodily dark in tone, a feeling of ancient melancholy suffuses it. Surrounded by its evocative gothic architecture. It provoked bit of a musical buzz in me, I was strangely mesmerised. 

I recommend you watch the whole video, but if you want to just watch the Wooland Church section its about 42 minutes in. Its well worth watching either way..

FAVE RAVE - UtsuwagakU

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

FAVE RAVE - Nina Conti - Therapy Sessions

There has always been a subversive edge to Nina Conti's ventriloquism. The sweary Monkey in particularly regularly punctures any notion he is independent and not being voiced by Conti. On the videos she takes this further and puts herself in a therapy situation, and her relationship with Monkey is the central concern. Its not afraid to play this straight. Its improvised so this can go anywhere, sometimes delving into philosophical depths, explaining how a 'knob joke' is a way for her to avoid self analysis. The therapy sessions quite cleverly go uncomfortably deep whilst at the same time can be incredibly purile. This is brilliant stuff.

FAVE RAVE - White Paint - Smarty Mobile Advert

All the best adverts are the ones that somehow capture and skewer contemporary pretensions. This little thirty second gem for Smarty Mobile, perfectly and succinctly parodies the indulgent and poncy world of paint manufacturers. That paint can be shortened to PNT purely for stylistic reasons, and when asked for white paint says- do you want something with heart or something more cynical - and then the gorgeous list of hilarious white paint names like Poached Smoke and Anemic Moon. The actor who plays the paint seller is brilliant, simultaneously full of herself, the knowingness and the patronising manner. She should get an award for best performance in an advert. I can watch this repeatedly, its hilarious.

FAVE RAVE - Garron

My favourite joy at the moment, that cheers up many an under slept morning are these short videos from Garron Noone. He plays almost your archetypal crazy Irishman with an eclectic to weird take on most thinks. Many of his postings are concerned with eating pizza, assessing the relative merits of pasta shapes, and which biscuit is the very best to dunk and why.  Enjoy him - he's delicious.

On Andrew Tate

On Jeans

On Custard Creams

On Fairground

FAVE RAVE - Passenger

This ITV crime drama, has been billed as a cross between Happy Valley and Twin Peaks. And it does indeed pinch a few of its main tropes from these programmes. To which I would add, a dash of the supernatural from Stranger Things. But it wears this borrowed lineage very knowingly and lightheartedly. It casually references Broadchurch, that Andrew Burton, Passenger's writer acted in. Plus a passing witty reference to Vera, that Passenger's central star Wunmi Mosako, was on the cast of for a couple of years.

This playfulness with its humour, is one of Passenger's central charms. Set in the fictional town of Chadder Vale, somewhere in the Pennines, a short bus journey away from Manchester. But it might just as well be somewhere out in the wilds of Canada. When it opens, Chadder Vale is in the middle of an unseasonable heavy period of snow. A girl had gone missing, a dear stag is found disemboweled, something weird is going on in the forest, and a notoriously evil man has been released early from prison and is returning home. Five years ago Chadder was caught up in some sort of atrocity that no one can talk about, let alone come fully to terms with.

In the middle of this is Riya (Wunmi Mosako) a detective moved there from Manc Met. She believes something is disturbingly awry in the heart of Chadder Vale. Her boss constantly dismisses her ideas and undermines her, as her main aim is Chadder Vale winning The Best Kept Town award. Riya's sidekicks, Nish ( Arian Nik ) and Ali ( Ella Bruccoleri ) both are geeky and obsessed with meaningless questions of choice - sich as - 'which would you chose, to have completely white eyeballs or a crystal nose ?' All because they are being chronically under used. The main thing they are allowed to investigate is local bin thefts. A Swedish woman has apparently gone missing, yet oddly no one apart from Riya, appears at all concerned about it.

The story throws more than a few curve balls and bizzarely inexplicable occurances. Most of which never get adequately explained. The end of this first series makes it clear a second is most likely already in the can. It resolves a few strands, but leaves us with so much more left unanswered. I was for a change, not at all irritated by this unresolved state of affairs. I remain intregued and highly amused by this series, and hope its follow up comes soon.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

THINGS THAT CHEERED ME UP IN 2023

Goodness have we needed to find some solace somewhere, this year of all years. Here are a handful of music and accompanying videos, that have amused or provided joy to the soul, with ocassional dashes of hope and gleefilled optimism.

From its opening through to its ending this video is a gift, that just keeps on giving. Olya Polyakov, once the camera is placed upon her, as the stage fan starts wildly blowing her hair, is well and truly on. Preening at you, with 'come hither' alluring eye contact, and a shameless deploying of flirty stage charisma. Dressing like she's escaped from a low budget Sci Fi epic, she is heavily buttressed. When allowed full reign, her operatic timbre completely inhabits her. She looks for all the world like she's having an explosive orgasm right in front of you. 

The TV presenter grooving in the bright blue armchair can't help but oggle every morsel of her performance. As The Army of Lovers mouth Liberte, Egalite, Maternite without a hint of irony. Its a song that is sheer nonsense on stilts, built out of a sequence of words that rhyme yet mean nothing - But - I Love it - bliss, sheer bliss. I begin every day by watching this.

Now I was never much of a Spice Girls fan. In a sense they were not designed for me, but for pubescent teenage girls. As a social phenomena they signified much more than the music, which is fortunate because the music was pretty consistently dreck. Apart from this one beam of delight, taken by the Whoniverse and handed over to Neil Patrick Harris to camp up for a Dr Who special. One of the TV highlights of the year. Both sinister and scintillating - enjoy.

It has to be said this has been Kylie's year. The breakout summer hit of 2023, Padam Padam had classic dance floor filler written over its numerous song hooks. And once they get their highly polished red nails into you, well there is no rescuing you. Yet another career renaissance, how many more can this woman have?

This was the first warm up track for a soon to be released album, but way back in mid summer. The album, we are still waiting for, but one gets the sense from what they have released so far, that Yard Act and their record company know they've come up with a goodun. The Trenchcoat Museum is full of the usual Yard Act mischievous satire and broad range of characters, with a truly addictive groove going on for good measure. Worth eight minutes of anyone's time.

One might have been tempted to write James Blake off many times in his career. His recent albums having been patchy, with only a few great tracks amongst a lot of thin gruel. But with the album Playing Robots Into Heaven he produced one of his best. Loaded is just one highlight, a melancholic song that is yearning for some form of transcendent love but - where are my wings? They're loading. Beautifully wrought, with a ticking clock like rhythm beneath it, the fateful fall of a discordant descending glissando of synths, brings it all to a crashing end. Classic.

FAVE RAVE - Army of Lovers - Love is Blue

 Just discovered this recent gem of Army of Lovers on You Tube. Performing in an apparently very tiny TV Studio, the song Love is Blue. Quite apart from the usual suspects camping it up like there is no tomorrow, there is a man in an armchair so close to the stage one might be tempted to think he is part of the performance - featuring the man who enthusiastically nods and taps along in time to the beat. 

If you can bear to cringe and watch it, there is a bit at the end where they try to explain the meaning of the song, really badly. The song is undoubtedly catchy, but lyrically it makes no sense whatsoever, it is drivel that rhymes. But, oh, is this five star stuff.

FAVE RAVE - Professor Ronald Hutton

Regular Time Team addicts, such as myself, may already be quite familiar with Professor Ronald Hutton. Often being wheeled in to give an authoritative view on what pre-medieval life and beliefs actually were like.  Hutton's dress sense, is all tweed jackets, beautiful waistcoats, misshapen collars and cravats. This might lead one to think he is a fanciful historical lightweight. This could not be further from the truth.

I've recently begun enjoying the energising delights of lectures posted on You Tube, originally given at Gresham College in London. Of these, there is a sequence of themes exploring paganism, religious beliefs and practices in pre historical times, given by said Professor Hutton. Having him back to speak frequently because he is worth it. I've watched most of his lectures now, and my appreciation for his breadth and depth of  learning, communication skills and sense of humour has grown. 

So, there is a lot of playfulness and wit in evidence here, as Prof Hutton, with great understanding, kindly, but methodically, pieces together what it is reasonable to assume and what is not at all credible. Along the way he debunks many myths about paganism, witchcraft and pre Christian society, by showing you exactly where and when some of our ideas about this subject came into common knowledge. Their origins being often a lot more recent than we might prefer to believe. 

Here is an excellent representative example, entitled - How Pagan Was Medieval Britain?