SHERINGHAM DIARY 26 ~ This Is What Happens When A Virgin Enters Your Life

On one of our recent jaunts we stopped off in Walsingham. My memory was of a place filled with cheap tacky religious memorabilia.  Today the religious memorabilia is largely of better quality and there are fewer outlets. It also has a characterful cafe /bookshop called superbly Read & Digest, a good Farm Shop, a large Antiques warehouse, a place selling second hand religious ephemera, a home ware shop that never seems to be open, plus an underwhelming shop selling crappy craft, run by a man who talks of little else than he's a Yorkshireman and comes from Leeds.

We were both struck by the welcoming warmth of Walsingham as a village. This atmosphere is part and parcel with it being a place of religious pilgrimage. We went on a second visit, this time taking in the C of E Shrine and the Catholic Slipper Chapel. In terms of religious bling you'd expect the catholics to have this all sewn up. But the Church of England have aimed for 'high church' and clearly won it here. The Catholic Basilica is distinctly on the understated dowdy side. We are planning to come again during the Summer when one of the big pilgrimage processions happens.

Whilst being brought up a Methodist in a Protestant tradition, I was also a Church of England chorister in the Halifax Parish Church. I have history in both Christian camps. Similarly, though my disposition as a Buddhist is towards the paired back Zen aesthetic, what gets the emotions engaged is stirringly ostentatious ritual and unabashed bling. Something with a bit of theatre, prancing along the thinner edge of gay abandon. Triratna's approach, by comparison, could feel as though it was wary of even going there, and in the end, in my opinion, didn't go far enough. This reserve and imaginative ascetic meant I always felt an absence in the visual exuberance department. That I often tried to fill.

Here I am in Walsingham feeling like the cat that got the cream. Uplifted by the simple smell of church incense, the rich colours, the gilding. Walsingham has the vibe of somewhere ancient and revered, part of a much larger sacred landscape, most likely with pagan origins. The Slipper Chapel is over a mile out of town, so we walked along the Holy Way all the way there and back.  I've discovered this emotional connection with 'the holy virgin' of Our Lady of Walsingham, responding to it as a fertility compassion archetype I guess.

Though Catholic theology can be poisonous, their use of imagery is well honed and potent. It would be very easy to over think the significance of my response and sign myself up for the seminary straight away. But it does feel energising to have the freedom to go with whatever speaks to me. In the meantime I returned home with a Sensor, charcoal, a bag of Church incense, a resin version of Our Lady of Walsingham and a key ring with her picture on it. Quite a stash of religious themed goodies.

Hub cap centre cut out for a reliquary

On our return walk to Walsingham, it came to mind to create a hanging for our shrine back at home. A moment later I spotted a hub cap lying in the verge, thought it might be useful and was about to walk on when I checked myself and went back to pick it up. Since coming home I have developed a fascination with catholic monstrances and reliquaries, Walsingham is full of them. I've started a Pinterest board, and begun to think how this scruffy hub cap might be transformed into one.



Jnanasalin is still on a creative high with his sewing. He's finished his first sleeveless shirt, has made a meditation matt, stool and hand cushion and has started on the prep for a foreman style jacket for me. He is, as someone rather addicted to perfection, turning out to be rather good in the execution department.

Myself, well, I've had my days of despondency, struggling with the limitations of my own skills mainly. I keep finding myself  bogged down in trying to finish items that just wont get finished. Generally just a wee bit imaginatively peeved and dry. I decided to cheer myself up by making an art piece, a collage made out of wood offcuts, tin cans and textured clay slabs, This lifted the flagging spirits almost immediately. I flourish when I have this type of creatively unstructured space, plus it also feeds into and enables the more imaginatively constrained craft production side to be sustainable.



Cottonwood Workshop Update
To narrow down options we've undertaken occasional tours across North Norfolk, visiting places that might be suitable shop venues. Its given us a good overview of the relative health of North Norfolk towns. Previously wealthy and healthy high streets such as in Holt, appear to be on a slightly downward curve at present. Sheringham appears to be holding up quite well by comparrison. Though in the back of our minds lingers a doubt about the future of high street retailing, when even the big boys are struggling, what chance us?

We've had a further re-think of our website revamp. To step up our game and launch it as a fully operational selling website. This has required a third period of revision for our photography standard, most required better image management. It has felt lately that we've been going over and over this same ground, and have struggled with the sense of inertia this engendered. But this process, however difficult personally, has refined our finish and approach to what we are ultimately trying to achieve. Jnanasalin has done a sterling job on the new selling platform we've chosen, it looks a really professional set up.

Update On The Update
Jnanasalin and I went to a Men's License to Stitch evening at Thread Your Wings, our current favourite local Yarn and Haberdashery stores. Whilst gossipping about what's happening in local empty shop units, we mentioned we were looking for a shop ourselves. The next day when we popped in, the Manager told us there was a unit empty in The Courtyard a small mall of shops further down the main street. Though off the main drag, it does have a half decent cafe, a local brewer outlet, hairdressers, hippy shop and a paper craft shop.

The unit is small, but not minscule, and the rent is peppercorn. We think it will be a suitable start up shop for our craft ware range ~ the craft cafe idea will have to wait for now. Whilst we aren't sure Sheringham is a perfect fit for us, it should provide us with a way of testing out our products. We couldn't make quickly enough to maintain stock, so we will need to buy in, particularly items we don't currently make. We also want to buy from local and UK craft and small batch makers and make that part of our distinctive MO. The lease will initially be only for a year, plus a month rent free before that in which to set up. We are hoping to get opened before the end of May.

CARROT CAKE REVIEW No 14 ~ Too Bad It Was Left Out To Dry

Burnham Market, North Norfolk.

This has a narrow frontage with the cafe going back a long long way, like an ever narrowing tunnel. On a windy and wet day in February it had a very local feel. Similar to wandering into a local people's pub, where all eyes swivel to look questioningly at you the moment you entered - 'Ah, here be foreigners.' Apart from the clientele something in the whole cafe layout and ambiance just felt uncomfortably wrong.

For Burnham Market, usually a beacon for the high end and expensive, it as what can only be described as a 'homely scruffiness.' You need to descend further into its darker recesses in order to view the cakes. I dimly peered at them, everything looked dark brown, and it was hard to discern what the labels said. So I ordered what I believed to be a carrot cake, along with my usual flat white.

Now, I have a word or two to say about flat whites. If you order a flat white and they ask you at the counter if you want a regular or large, you wont be served a flat white, just a strong latte - in a Big Cup! A flat white should be served in a small cup, one size up from an espresso, and be strong and creamy with a rich rounded flavour. So if your flat white turns up in an ordinary tea cup, as here, prepare to be disappointed.

A flat white has the unique ability to lay bare the quality of coffee a cafe uses, and highlights, for good or ill, the skill level of their barista. I've had some shockingly bad flat whites in my time, burnt, bitter, dry and destined to give my stomach a lining of brown acidic dust. Confusion is widespread over these 'new fangled' coffee varieties, what are they supposed to be like?  In North Norfolk they've taken decades to hardly grasp the difference between a cappuccino and a latte. I presume they're just waiting to see if the fad passes.

Anyway, I digress, back at the cafe and to the carrot cake. Well, I was quite taken by surprise, it wasn't actually that bad. It had that recognisably strandy textured look that tells you this has got a goodly amount of carrot in it. The taste was actually moderately rich, had just the right amount of sultanas,walnuts and spice, with a light zesty aftertaste. Also a generous and fair sized wedge to get your molars snapped around too. Quite a traditional carrot cake, neither too weighty, worthy nor wonderful.

The frosting was largely icing sugar and distinctly on the sparse side. Whoever had applied it was super skilled with the spatula, skimming the cake and leaving only a millimetre of frosting in its wake. This was a cake made by the mean spirited for the calorie conscious.There were signs it had once borne a gravel lorries worth of chopped nuts. Somewhere between the cake display and my plate they'd shuffled off their stratified layer.. All that was left was an imprint and a few stray nut nuggets miraculously clinging to the fore skin of frosting.

And finally, well, it was dry. This cake had either been left out overnight or been in and out the fridge one too many times. For it was well on its way to becoming sedimentary rock.


CARROT CAKE SCORE - 3/8

BOOK REVIEW ~ The Beauty of Everyday Things ~ Soetsu Yanagi

The Beauty of Everyday Things has emerged as an odd sort of sequel to the first compilation of Yanagi's writings - The Unknown Craftsman.  The latter has been such an influential book for me in how it defined Beauty, Art and Craft and creativity in all its forms as a spiritual practise. So I approached this new book with anticipation of a richly rewarding experience, but also wondering whether anything could really compare well against The Unknown Craftsman.

Comparisons don't allow things to be what they are. So what is this book? The title itself, The Beauty of Everyday Things, sets you up with an expectation of  being helped to appreciate the objects in your home in a new light. It is inconsistent in this aim and frequently covers the same ground as The Unknown Craftsman but with less clarity and succinctness in its explication. In fact whilst reading some chapters you really do wonder what on earth all this has got to do with appreciating The Beauty of Everyday Things.

For example, there is a long chapter near the end which is a transcript of a letter he wrote to the Korean people to apologise for the way the Japanese had treated them. and in it he extols the qualities and achievements of Korean culture at great length. But this doesn't relate back to the books purported subject matter at all. Similarly, the concluding chapter about how the Japan Folk Museum was founded.

Soetsu Yanagi  1889-1961

The first quarter of the book contains its better written chapters, the peak being for me the essay on What Is Pattern?  This had me jumping up and down with delight and underlining the sentences that somehow got to the nub of why ordinary things could be a source of beauty. Discussing how pattern presents to you the essence of an object.That there are three qualities that combine to make a pattern beautiful - utility, materials and technique. He then broadens out his argument to extend the beauty of patterning beyond just being a feature of craft making to patterning in pictures.  It is classic Yanagri at his most insightful and inspiring.

"A pattern is thus not a depiction of an object as it exists in nature, not a realistic rendition. It is an image of the object as it appears to the intuition."  

" it is only with the advent of pattern that we truly come into touch with the beautiful. Pattern is the conveyor, the transmitter, of beauty."

"Good pattern is pattern that belongs to all the people"

The chapters which follow immediately after this are on particular forms of Japanese folk craft, bashofu, kasureru and kogin  textiles, ceramics, woodblock prints and Otsu-e  painting. Which though informative about the techniques and history of their making, again enlighten you little about what makes these ordinary things beautiful. They are more folk art history, a record of a dying craft.

As a book on the beauty of everyday things this is not a good one, its a very thin affair. One really excellent chapter followed by what could be seen quite frankly as a lot of filler. However, this was not a book written and conceived by Yanagi, its really an editorial compilation of articles he wrote. They were never written with a book with this title in mind. For the title is pure marketing that fits it into a certain contemporary publishing zeitgeist.

It makes you appreciate all the more the editors of The Unknown Craftsman, who expertly wove their compilation into such a seamlessly cohesive book. That its taken several decades for this book to emerge means that was a truly hard act to follow. The compilers of The Beauty of Everyday Things being left with only a few scraps of Yanagi's genius to sweep up and make something of. If you've never read any Yanagi before, read The Unknown Craftsman, before this.

SHERINGHAM DIARY 25 ~ A Vicious Bush & Appliqued Busts

The Wounds

With late February turning out so mild, I exhumed the tools for the Post- Winter garden clear up. After a successful start last year, I wanted to complete the taming of the cotoneaster hedge. It is truly impossible to kill it, so I severely slashed at it with a hedge trimmer I'd borrowed. Cutting swathes away, using both saw and trimmer, to produce as neat a hedge as its possible to sculpt in what is the organic equivalent of barbed wire. However, anyone whose tried this will know, a cotoneaster hedge is a vicious vengeful bitch, with thorns for fists. Despite protective gloves, my arms were lacerated as though an angry cat had mauled them. If ever we do have cat, we're now going to call it Cat-oneaster.

Well, I never knew that

Jnanasalin and I took off in Nigella, our black Corsa, heading for the delights of a Coventry Travelodge. Like many midland towns, Coventry no longer knows why it exists. Probably it can be found somewhere in the middle of the insane tangle of its inner city ringroads. Its iconic Cathedral, is a remnant of a once courageous post war optimism that has now completely vanished. The cities current state is encapsulated by the Herbert Museum, an art gallery that has lost its way. It seems overly focused on encouraging access to its collection of largely old white male artists. But it doesn't even present these well, in the rush to dumb it all down for the children. Whilst Coventry, a town known for its racial and cultural diversity, with a rich seam of black and white working class popular culture to be mined, particularly musically, is totally and unforgivably absent. Whose culture is being celebrated here?

Why go to Coventry? Because, boys and girls, it's on the way to the Giftware Spring Fair at the NEC. Its a long time since I was there as a punter. All I remember is the exhaustion of plodding up and down the halls, and how hard it is to miss the dominant female presence in the giftware industry. Mature, proffesional, confident women, often spectacularly draped in soft scarves and power statement jewellery, or with resplendently bedecked bosom cliffs in knitted tops with added applique. The artless splash of shimmer fabric, sequins or, at the tatty end, glitter, is everywhere. Somehow effortlessly bypassing both the chic and the classy whilst on their way to striking.

We went to take the temperature on trends, pick up ideas or future UK based makers. As pretty much everyone there imports, the latter didn't happen. However, we attended two talks on colour trends for 2019/20, which we found extremely useful. Reassuring us we know what we're doing with our colour ranges, and helping in defining them better. But mostly we just picked up ideas for finishes, textures and materials. We started in the high end halls, gradually losing all will to live as we grew nearer to the lower end ones. What is apparent is that high end is where the newer, innovative stuff is found. Some of this filters down to the middle range suppliers, and only what proves to be popular and can be cheaply knocked off, reaches the lower priced 'shonky' end of giftware. Its like watching the last ten years of retail trends cascade before your eyes.

We are on our way out of Morrison's, loaded up with our own shopping when a woman calls out  to us, she has her trolley in one of those lockable cupboards they provide ~ 'can you help me please, my key doesn't work'  Thinking I'd instantly understood what was required I stepped forward, fiddled with it a bit, till the door miraculously fell easily open. Exasperated she bellowed at me.' I wanted it shut'. I locked it, quickly moving on, not really expecting or receiving thanks.

Another month another National Live broadcast at the Sheringham Little Theatre of David Hare's new play I'm Not Running.'. It centres on the past life and political awakening of Pauline and her relationship with her former lover from student  days, Jack. Their trajectories both lead into politics but take divergent routes getting there. Jack climbs up the Labour hierarchy, whilst Pauline becomes a popular single issue campaigner against NHS Hospital closures.

Hare captures the political posturing and hypocrisies of a man like Jack, a career politician, loyal to the party, but morally slippery. Though not drawn from one particular political figure, he is a recognisable amalgam of various Blairites. Its Hare's real skill as a dramatist to make us feel we know these people, whilst also showing what we don't know, their passions, frailties, origins and backgrounds, plus their honest desire to serve as well as their vain self deceptions. They become more rounded individuals instead of political ciphers or broad caricatures.

The attendance on the coldest night of the Winter so far, was noticeably thinner than for Alan Bennett's 'Alleluyah! in November. But this was David Hare, prickly and pointed, not the cudddly whimsy of Alan. Both plays subject matter crossed similar territory, but Hare's is a far superior play. His sentiments are far more under control than Bennett's. Hare's wit and humour is used to reveal character, to touch the real heart of the matter, producing guffaws of recognition

************

There is a butcher's shop in Cromer called Icarus Hines, don't ask why.  I saw one of their tote bags hanging from a shopping trolley. In white cursive script lettering on black it said Icarus Hines -' More than just a Butcher.'  In what way Icarus Hines is more than just a butcher is unclear. Perhaps he serves cream teas whilst churning out the beef mince, forms macrame hanging baskets out of pig bones and hair, or is a bigamist and serial killer with bodies buried in his cold cellar. We do need to know.

The revamp of our Cottonwood Workshop website progresses. Its taken a bit longer than we'd originally anticipated, but it is nearing completion. Jnanasalin has found working on the never ending detail of it, has a real potential to do more than his head in. The end result will represent our business far better, and eventually people will be able to buy off it too. We continue to look out for a suitable retail site. Once the first VAT quarter is reached in April, businesses often pull up the drawbridge. Not to mention the added likelihood of a post Brexit collective throwing in of the towel. We are just waiting patiently to see what bubbles up.

Because of the division of our various creative labours, we can end up working isolated from each other, Vidyavajra in the workshop, Jnanasalin in the craft room. One consequence of this can be that we lose the sense of it being a shared project we are engaged in. So we are endeavouring to work on at least one project together. The results are often our best finished items. The first one off the block is a 1970's gold vellure covered ottoman transformed into an altogether more stylish contemporary item.

Before

After

In the meantime, Jnanasalin has found a brand new craft enthusiasm ~ learning to sew. As its all about precision cutting, sewing and assembling, like structural engineering, but in fine cloth, this is literally a marriage made in heaven. I've not seen him this joyfully enthusiastic and motivated since he discovered he was a major marvel with crochet. One of his first sewing tasks was making a pouch to put my Japanese Wood Cutlery in, the original was pink with white spots,which wasn't the hearts desire. So here we are embracing the full orientalist cliche. 

As I write, he's preparing his first mock up of a short sleeved shirt out of an old beige bedsheet
.

*************

Whilst walking the sunlit streets of Norwich, I passed a gaggle of slightly over excited middle aged ladies. One of them loudly declared, without a whiff of innuendo ~ 'But I love my bush'

At the moment I cannot concur.

CARROT CAKE REVIEW No 13 ~ In A Blind Taste Test I'd Be Stumped

Carrot Cake eaten in The Courtyard Cafe, Holkam Hall, Norfolk.

£2.60

We became fond over the Summer last year of the walk from Wells next the Sea across the Holkham Estate to the Hall. So, on a bright breezy Sunday morning in February we set off.  Now, there is also an additional incentive, a revamped Courtyard with a spacious,well designed cafe and larger gift shop. Holkham Hall Estate does seems at present to be outrunning the National Trust with the stylish improvements to its facilities. Though a bit more attention to the quality of their cakes is called for.

Hubby, separate from me, chose an Apple Spice Cake and I picked a Carrot Cake from off their confectionery table. Only when we sat down at a table was it clearly apparent how very very similar they looked.  The only thing to externally distinguish one from t'other was the sugar dusted frosting on the Apple Spiced Cake, and the walnut pieces on the Carrot Cake. I tried a fork full of Hubby's cake, he had a fork full of mine, and guess what? they tasted exactly the same too!

As you can see from the photo of the cake it looks a little on the anaemic side. Any sultanas having become a mere suggestion as they've been cooked down to the state of a moist stain. The cake's texture was quite blandly uniform. In a blind taste test I'd be stumped to say what it was, carrot cake would never have come to mind. If a few strands of grated carrot did happen to slip into the mixing bowl it doesn't show either visibly or when it hits your taste buds.  So say after me ~ 'A spice cake is not a carrot cake' ~ repeat loudly three times, bang your forehead with clear resolve on the table, before you scream and scream out your despair, then walk away the cathartic moment having passed. Until the next time.

My opinion didn't improve once it did reach my mouth, for it was clearly also gluten free. Though to be honest for a gluten free spiced cake it was considerably better than some horrors I could, and probably have, already mentioned. It still had more than a hint of that dry floury after taste though. Here accompanied by it forming into a kind of slurry along the bottom of my mouth. Actually I have no objection to a cafe providing gluten or dairy free options, as long as they make the traditional version too. These days, however, its common to find gluten or dairy free cakes mostly on offer. These are presented as though if they're indistinguishable from the traditional version, when they clearly or not. I want the real deal not a neutered facsimile. Let the sugar filled, dairy fat filled, busting with eggs, fruit, nuts, carrot cake lovers have a choice too, please !

Finally, just one more thing, the butter cream filling and frosting was NVN ~  not very nice.


CARROT CAKE SCORE~  2/8

WHAT MAKES A MAN A MAN ~ Part 1 ~ The Sissy Factor

In this photograph I am five years old, a half awake, sweet natured, yet bleary eyed child, that still survives somewhere in my psyche's back catalogue. That I was, and some might say still am, a bit of a day dreamer, is caught there for all to see. My parents would chide me for living in a world of my own, trying to ground me by stating the self-evident practicalities of life. Though there's little content wise to distinguish dreaming from day dreaming, you are after all simply mulling over possibilities, they are viewed differently, one is seen as aspirational, the other as delusional. Whether children, teenagers or adults we continue to day dream, its how we emotionally engage with the future direction our lives might take. There should always be a place made for it, because as adults we tend to dismiss our day dreams out of fear, insecurity or reductive practicalities.

A young child doesn't know how separate their dreams are from reality. The young boy in this photo appears too soft, too open, too vulnerable, too emotional, too unguarded and too easy a target for being bullied by other boys. At an early age boys discover there's a very easy way to enhance your masculine credentials, to do so at the expense of other boys by tormenting or beating the hell out of them. Boys have to make the choice between fight or flight, and suffer whatever the dents or bonus to their self-esteem may be. These linger off stage like a gremlin whispering prompts into the ears of the adult actor - cheering or jeering at you.

I'd no idea how to toughen up and never became a fisty-cuff fighter. I became adept at spotting risky situations where there might be a need to defend myself. Being called out across the street for being 'a sissy', was frequently accompanied by the sound of my legging it.  I understood that my masculinity, however unformed, was publicly being called into question. That this ought not go unchallenged, because no one voluntarily chooses to be a 'sissy', do they?, Five year old boys, though only 'proto-men', do sense what they are expected to be like. I instinctively understood that the macho sporty competitive physical type was not me, so I only half-heartedly tried.  I would never be a forward striker in masculinity football.  I actually found it hard to really understand what all that blokey punching, kicking and posturing was all in aid of. Nowadays, I still find it unnecessary, if not slightly bemusing. Back then it definitely wasn't funny.

Girls are not boys. For young boys, girls are where femininity resides.  Keeping your distance from them appears a worrisome thing for  'true boys.' Wherever 'the feminine' is, you are supposed to be wary of it, reject, ridicule, or if you discover you have it, for god sake try to hide or expel it. Any boy who betrays 'feminine qualities' exposes themselves to the fate of girls; driven from the boy's playground, belittled, patronised, teased and made fun of. Playground behaviour lays the foundations for our confidence in future social interactions. It also sets a self-justifying tone for future misogyny and hostility towards, not just homosexuality, but to anyone else who might have the misfortune to be considered 'foreign','alien' or 'different.'

The word 'sissy' itself comes with its own prejudicial baggage, of a skinny, weak muscled male, not willing to fight, whose masculinity is gentler and sensitive, perceived as not robust, flawed by virtue of the feminine traits present. You don't even have to be the stereotypical effeminate man. You simply have to show interest in subjects devoid of physical prowess, such as maths, science, art or culture, and the 'sissy' badge and T-shirt will arrive in the post.

Boys learn its important to demonstrate their manhood, to show what they are and are not. More grown up men than you might think, straight or gay, play along with macho masculine behaviour simply in order to get by unnoticed and unharmed. A strategy hardwired from an early age. All men become trapped within the narrowly defined constraints of what constitutes a man. a few lay siege to it, whilst most loyally defend.  The frustration and anger that unfortunately readily surfaces in men, arises quite often when a self-perceived failing, a falling short of that unattainable male ideal surfaces. This can gnaw away at the core of a man's sense of his own manhood. Violence towards themselves or others becomes a form of cathartic release. How I coped at Primary School was by retreating to the girl's playground, because that was the place where I felt accepted, where 'sissy boys' could safely hide from the brutal oversight of other boys.

There is no guidebook to what makes a man a man, every boy learns the hard way through their missteps. Picking up suggestions from how older boys and the men around them behave, or male role models in comics, art, history, advertising, books or films and TV. These show you strong, tenacious, resourceful men in full control of their lives, oozing self-confidence, cleverness and ambition, able to assert themselves, take risks, holding hard to a sense of their own power and success. This stereotypical man holds mastery over themselves and their world  Few have cause to question whether this is a fraudulent fiction. They keep up the pretence, that they are all of those things and more. Its as though the whole edifice of traditional masculinity is like a house with very few firm foundations, but with a lot of very heavy props and prompts holding it upright.

So, even if they say otherwise, no man is cutting the full masculine mustard. They must, however, still be seen as possessing power, even when life circumstances and their own feelings scream at them that they do not. Their true selves concealed behind the masculine facade, continuing to play the game according to the known rules. Few men will expose you, for fear of a reprisal. But if your are bequeathed a persona that is 'a bit queer', then this is a game changer for adherence to those rules. In order to survive you'll be forced to turn the way you are into an act of defiance, a vivid, visible and often verbal assault on the revered statutes of traditional masculinity. You have to do what Quentin Crisp recommends:

' the time comes for everybody when you have to do deliberately what you used to do by mistake, this is the only way to get the joke onto your own terms'

Boy-men of any age who call someone 'a sissy' or a 'puff', avoid the questioning finger being pointed at them, by being first on the offensive. Domination is the last refuge of a man who is feeling powerless. Men fear being publicly shamed by women or gay men, and shown up as weak. Their cutting banter sees the flaws and punctures with relish the masculine armour. A macho man is ,paradoxically, at his most vulnerable, emotionally and psychologically. Heterosexual men uses banter differently as a form of subliminal control. Disguised behind lighthearted friendly joshing, its ridicule and teasing is a reminder to not step out of line. If a man's masculinity is publicly exposed for what it truly is, it would not be just humbling, but deeply crushing and destabilising. They would truly lose it.

Its like a citadel whose walls will crumble under the stress of constant siege. If life throws a few curve balls at a man, losing control of his life, career, partner, children or home, only then might they start to dwell on discomforting questions about what they have become and who they really want to be. Many men,unfortunately, continue to avoid or fail to find the answers to these questions, and end up opting out on life completely.

Men, speaking very generally, see no need for self-analysis, remain blind to the privileges of their position as a male, and probably when drunk will espouse the self-evident superiority of their gender. They have little reason to question the toxicity or otherwise of their behaviour as a man, because its still kinda working for them. The world, after all, remains largely run according to the male viewpoint. There are few signs of men self-liberating themselves from the masculine constraints to which patriarchy chains them. He who has risen to be the Lord of the Manor finds it hard to say 'It's a fair cop chaps' no matter how many peasant revolts they have had to suppress.

If you are a woman, a person of colour, a gay person, or anything between and beyond these designations, you'll spend a good part of your life having to become more self-aware in order to discover what you really are. Struggling in the face of prejudice, oppression and ignorance, to become a truer representation of you, to the best of your ability. One way or another you'll have to discover how to 'sissy that walk,' of yours

ARTICLE ~ When Democracy Has Cut Its Own Throat

I keep waiting for the residual anger to subside, but over two years later, it hasn't. The moment my thoughts go anywhere near the B word I step potentially onto an escalator towards a self enfeebling frustration. Every week appears to provide more fuel to feed this fire. I'm still hopeful for equanimity on the subject to come, or at the very least apathy. But so far its no show on both counts. The  worrying thing is that I fear I'm far from alone in this.

Merely to mention the B word in polite conversation these days makes everyone go stiff and ready to be on the defensive. You never know the lie of the land ahead, there might be 'one of them' someone who holds a different opinion to you, potentially hostile territory anywhere.There seems to be an elephant under the carpet in every room. Its as if The B word is a trigger word releasing pre-programmed responses, turning the minds of previously reasonable people into folk who only speak in slogans, loudly volatile and beligerent.

I've never voted Tory, voted Labpur only twice, Green once, mostly it was LibDem until their foolish Faustian pact with the Tory's. I voted tactically last time, simply to prevent a Tory from getting in. In a fair and fully functioning modern democracy you shouldn't have to do that. I've got used to wasting my vote on a party with no chance of getting represented or under represented in Parliament due to the gerrymandered nature of the majority vote system. I vote, but as the options increasingly narrow, I do so with ever diminishing enthusiasm and increasing frustration. The political response to the Dumb Ref result of ' any majority will do', silenced my voice, creating another democratic deficit withdrawl from my goodwill account.

Dumb Refs are generally bad democracy masquerading as good. Used by governments often split within their own party on an issue, that wants to shift that division, responsibility and any potential blame, external to themselves. To bury it in the 'democracy' of public opinion. Cross your fingers and hope that with effective brainwashing by the media the people will do what you want them to. Ah, the fool Cameron, where are you now? That it made a whole swathe of society feel like their opinion suddenly mattered and be effective for the first time, tells you how broken Parliamentary Democracy has become. Its ironic that they would give Parliament the finger whilst at the same time returning it full sovereignty.

We have also been gifted those divisive terms Remainer's and Leaver's too. Fracturing cohesion, unity, tolerance, understanding, reasonableness and compassion for others and other people's opinions~ giving a voice and platform to the Riff Raff the darker shadowy beasts in society. There's been a lot of mock hand wringing about the Leaver's being left behind and democratic deficits. I can tell you from my point of view, you don't have to be an Leaver to feel left out of the conversation. its happening all the time.

This has been accompanied and fed by the rise and rise of 'the untruth.' People sporting noses as big as Pinocchio's are unquestioningly believed, as they wave national myths and prejudices around like Febreeze. Allowing the Riff Raff to adopt the Dumb Ref as a patriotic cause.

The result was closely hung. The result of the binary Yes/No vote gave politicians democratic legitimacy to do whatever they wanted to do in the first place, and claim they are carrying out the B result. Hoping there will be a dividend for the fortunes of their own party. Seeing that the country is so divided, you could've tried to find where a unifying consensus might lie on the B word, or you could say 'the winner takes it all' and give a V sign to everyone else, whilst elbowing your way towards the TV cameras, like Boris does. All the talk is of 'taking back control' but you have to ask for the benefit of whom. Have the electorate unwittingly become a tool in someone else's agenda? Shadowy, but wealthy individuals who's intentions are likely to be less democratically accountable than the European Commission's

So a small majority is repackaged as 'the will of the people'. The country fracturing further into countless pseudo 'religious' sects of believers over what the B word actually means. Each of them holding aloft 'the truth' - its all so simple, why is it taking so long? Because it is neither simple nor speedy to do. I would have resigned myself to B had I not felt that the bouncers on its door were aggresively preventing me from entering the debate.

Say you are a company with shareholders, and you had a new financial strategy for the company but needed to get the shareholders backing before launching it. Say the result was 52% for the proposal, though a majority, you might consider it an insufficient endorsement to go ahead with your strategy, and go back to the drawing board.  With shareholders you are looking for a decisive incontrovertible thumping majority, not any old majority will do. It has to be a majority that will unify and pacify dissenters, not fuel them. The Dumb Ref result wasn't thumping or conclusive and hence failed in its primary objective to resolve the issue for a generation.

Ordinary people, media, government and Parliament mindlessly babble slogans like 'B means B', 'Leave means Leave.' But its all a bit like the Emperor's New Cloths with everyone behaving as if they knew exactly what 'the will of the people' was, and what the B word really meant, whilst leaving nearly half of the country completely out of the conversation. Untruth becomes Truth, further corroding peoples trust and faith in democracy, the media and civil institutions. The Government's way of responding to the Dumb Ref and how its handled the negotiations with the EU, has provided us with a classic example of what Really Bad Democracy looks like. The words arrogant, entitled and self-deluded describing some of its least worst characteristics.

Carrying out the consequences of the B word was always going to be a bit like a heart transplant operation, a good chance of survival if you are patient, clear what you want, plan, prepare well and stay focused. But if you are impatient, unprepared, unclear what you want and lose your focus all the time, so when it all goes tits up you just rip out the old heart and thrust in the new. Something is going to die.

Our Parliamentary representatives are trying to find their way through a maze that has no map. We should not be at all surprised, nor blame them alone for what is really of our collective making. They very accurately reflect us. We are all floundering in a chaotic sea, but not personally wanting to own that chaos. Not one of us feels willing to reach a consensus about a way forward for the country, one that everyone, Remain or Leave, can get behind. We all want our own way to prevail, and democracy simply cannot function in an inflexible scenario. Trenchant divisions repeatedly slit the throat of compromise.

Out of the 17th Century Civil War came the creation of Parliamentary Democracy, beginning when Parliament executed its own King. Let's hope that something regenerative happens to our sense of decency and democracy post B.  But at present we are still in an idiotic Civil War between Remainer's and Leaver's. After B happens, it won't be over, because unrealistic promises have been made and there will be a day of reckoning for them all at some point. This could get nasty.

With democratic liberal society reputationally in such a bad state, people may be tempted to grasp for simpler more authoritarian certainties. If so, if you are not white, from another country, or simply different from the perceived norm, beware. Whilst deeply distrustful of Union Jack waving populist patriotism, I do care about the future of the country I was born in. I'm fearful for where all this going to lead, I really hope to be proved categorically wrong, but its looking like where we are heading is not going to be a good place, not a good place at all. 

The consequences of the B word will be a Revolution of sorts. Revolutions tend to have just one aim, to topple a dictator, remove a despotic King, to change a countries political or religious orientation, or to liberate an oppressed people. But once that aim is achieved nine times out of ten no one has a fully worked out a plan for what to do next. In that vacuum arises anarchic situations around which the Riff Raff circle. Their bull dogs sniff the air and get a sense for 'when Democracy has cut its own throat' so they can come out to feast on its carcass.

CARROT CAKE REVIEW - NO 12 ~ On Aiming To Be Average

York, Yorkshire.

This is is probably the best positioned cafe in York, curved around a corner immediately adjacent to the entrance of York Minster. Most cafes could only dream of the footfall they must get in high season. Inside its a straightforward traditionally styled English Tea Room, with slightly butt clenched staff. After we'd arrived, somewhat late in the day it must be said, the waiter surreptitiously flipped the door sign to Closed. Not long before home now boys and girls.

Now I rarely talk about my experience of the cafes I visit. I focus on the qualities of the carrot cake not the ambiance, customer service etc. I'm not a low rent version of Trip Adviser. But I do find myself warming up for a generalised gripe. I don't mind cafes that tick all the right boxes but fall short of their sales pitch. I absolutely love a cafe that pulls off something truly marvellous as if by magic, often by thinking in detail about the quality of their simple offerings. However, what I do find unforgivable is an independent cafe that has no ambition whatsoever to be more than ordinary. 

York like many a cosmopolitan city has a rich diversity of cafes, from the adventurous and artis-anal to the safe bet of a generic chain. In a tourist hub you might assume that the level of competition would drive standards and uniqueness upward, but the opposite is sometimes true. Easy custom breeds complacency. After decades of visiting cafes countrywide I'm surprised by how common an apathetic coffee and cake is. Maybe my expectations are just too high or hopelessly over optimistic. I find it hard though to imagine there is really a widespread appreciation and demand for a cafe that strives so strenuously to be average. These days, is saying a cafe is not bad, really good enough? 

So, back at the cafe where I was about to receive an acceptable but distinctly average Earl Grey tea, and a slice of carrot cake whose size I'll describe kindly as modest. Now it was 3.30pm on a windy Wednesday in January, and perhaps the cake display counter is always that thinly populated at this time of the day, month, year or millenia. As the staff whisk what remains away to hide them in a freezer overnight. But my heart did sink at the visible lack of cake abundance, had it not been so late we would have walked out and gone elsewhere. So the carrot cake sat on its platter looking alone and winsome, pleading for me to save it from being thrown into the dustbin of black bag oblivion.

As you can see from the photo the cake had a dark cast to it. But once that cake touched the palate, all the riotous fantasies I might have held of a rich complexity of flavouring, vanished. Instantaneous recognition, first, that ' there is insufficient carrot present here', second, though it had a reasonable level of moistness and weighty texture, there was no enriching sweetness of sultanas or walnut nuttiness, third, there was nothing to offset the generally deadening predominance of mixed spice. Which I find makes me rather tetchy because what do I say? ~. A Spice Cake Is Not a Carrot Cake! Probably too much over emphatic use of capitals there, but how else can one convey this confectionary sin?

The one thing to be said in this carrot cakes favour was it did have a cream cheese filling and frosting. To which I give a faint but under-enthused whoop, because this cream cheese sweated like it had a high fever or had been out in an Aussie heatwave for too long, with a consistency that teetered dangerously on the edge of slippery. All in all it was not good. If you like a carrot cake that has the taste and texture of something other than its nomenclature, then this was a dream made for you. But for me, in future, I'll pass.


CARROT CAKE SCORE  4/8

SHERINGHAM DIARY 24 ~ Adding a Splash of Spontaneity

One bright Monday morning Hubby piped up, 'Shall we take a short holiday?'  And so without much herald, fuss or fore thought we took off on a three night mid week break in York ~ the very next day. That's the nearest we've got to being truly spontaneous, going the following day, but hey! its a practice. Would there be much to do mid January when most tourist places are a bit half closed? Well quite a lot actually. 

There was viewing the famous Minster with a fabulous tour guide who knew everything and more, plus sampling the countless quality cafes and restaurants, to name just two. Those of you who know us will not be surprised to hear, it was quite a foody few days. The culinary highlights being an Egg Florentine at Carluccio's, the Vietnamese Starter at Coto and a Vegan Wellington at Bill's.

York Art Gallery had been closed for refurbishment when we were last in York. The newly refitted gallery is an excellent art venue. The upstairs exhibition space is now the home to its extensive collection of contemporsry ceramic, and at the moment the work of Lucie Rie. They have an unrivalled whole floor of her beautifully elegant modern ceramics. The current Lucie Rie Exhibition focuses in part on her production of ceramic buttons for the fashion market.

Travelling up and back from York, we had our usual much loved few hours break in Lincoln. This time we also took in some other slight detours. On the way up to cross the Humber Bridge and to stop to take in the artis-anal delights of Malton once more. On the way back we returned via The Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. 

I'm not a fan of Barbara Hepwoth's sculpture, her work seems rarely to transcend its obvious influences. Nowadays both Hepworth, and Henry Moore's sculpture for that matter, can seem a bit hackneyed, lumpen, even derivative. This is not entirely their fault, as so much amateur cod-modernism to mass produced soapstone sculptures mine the Hepworth/ Henry Moore style axis mercilessly. There modern reputation stands on their twin pioneering of modernism within British sculpture, for which they should righly be still applauded. Even if their work desperately needs a re-evalutation of its quality and reputation.

Hepworth's early work in marble was strong, influenced by elements of Hans Arp's abstract organic forms and reliefs, and they are particularly finely executed. Her later work that emerges after Naum Gabo in exile stayed with her in St Ives, with all those pebble shapes with holes and webs of strings across, appears far too imitative and lacking in individuality.

The Hepworth Gallery does, however, display sculpture very well. Entrance is FREE folks. It's floor to ceiling windows bring a sense of what is outside in, and place the scultures within, or face out on, their surrounding urban landscape. They had an exhibition of work by the entrants for last years Hepworth Prize which provided the two highlights of this visit to the gallery. 

The combined sound and sculpture work Compostion For 37 Flutes by Cerith Wyn Evans, the worthy winner of the £30,000 Hepworth Prize.

A beautiful circle on the floor composed of irregularly sized deep black shiny beads made by Mona Hatoum. Both artists I have come across before, but it was nice to be reminded of the innovative inspiring quality of their work.

Both gallery visits sparked us off creatively. They reminded us how important it is to stay in touch with contemporary art, simply in order to keep the fire ones own imagination lit. Art in North Norfolk rarely steps beyond the predictable dull retreading of dead soil, usually figurative,or landscapes, not to forget the those obligatory wooden seagulls, sometimes on sticks or a gambolling bronze cast hare. We can become so caught up in the making of product for Cottonwood, we forget that creatively needs feeding. Space has to be invented, where we can freely explore our creative process outside the constraints that a narrow production line forces upon us, 

The Lucie Rie exhibition triggered in both myself and Hubby an interest in making handmade buttons, small ceramic tiles or panels. We've bought some air hardening clay and Fimo to simply muck about with and see what comes out of it, without becoming too reductive and product focused. These may or may not end up being introduced into the work we do for Cottonwood Workshop. This seems like another adjustment in the balancing act, between being productive whilst giving time for the pleasure of creative play, as a necessary sustenance.  Otherwise we'll become very dull boys.

Splash, the swimming pool of choice, closed for annual maintenance. So I tried out the pool at Woodlands Leisure. A more modern pool housed in what is really just a long large hut. Slightly more expensive to swim there, but with better quality tiling.

Woodlands,unlike Splash, has separate showers and changing rooms for each gender. This provides the stage upon which to observe male preening behaviour. If you thought hand held hair driers were just for drying the hair on ones head, then think again. In these days of clean shaven heads, more detailed and meticulous attention is given to beards, the fluffing up of chest hair and giving your pubes a bit of a tszuj. This affectation is not confined to hipster vanity but spans the generations. I've seen many a saggy back and sun wrinkled bottom of a retired gentlemen, standing stark naked before a mirror repositioning his chest hair and passing warm wafts of pseudo Mediterranean air over their genitals.

I finally visited the Norwich Zen Priory this month and I did not get lost, Hurrah!. The Priory is a semi-detached house on the Unthank Road. The Introductory Session was with the Reverend Leoma. Understandably a bit apprehensive beforehand, I actually enjoyed it immensely. Much of it proved to be familiar stuff, though I picked up some tips and different ways of viewing the practise of Zazen/Just Sitting. It was inspiring to sense how coherently the practise is embedded and central to making sense of everything else they do.

In Triratna its central meditations are 'developmental' in focus. Just Sitting, having little to consciously develop, is not clearly taught in its centres and hence not well understood. It becomes for a lot of meditators, just stopping making effort at the end or between meditations. Its more akin to a bookend than the book itself. One meditation retreat centre began teaching Pure Awareness, which is very like Zazen, but bedecked in Tibetan saffron and burgundy. A panic arose about whether this was inside or outside the movements core practises. As for many good people it was already their core practise, they were forced to find a good reason for it to be there, or face asking them to desist or leave.

The late Sangharakshita had some reasonable criticisms of Zen as a tradition. Triratna as a result has developed a questioning attitude towards it, that is rarely levelled at Tibetan Buddhism, for instance. Zen sometimes being slandered as not being Buddhist at all. I bring some of this attitude with me,which though not necessarily a bad thing, one should never be blind to faults, but neither should one over exaggerate them either. Some of the criticisms levelled at Zen it does make of itself. Any Buddhist practise misapplied or misunderstood on a fundamental level, becomes an obstacle and hence a problem.

Until my visit to the Zen Priory I was less aware how being surrounded by this atmosphere in Triratna had an alienating affect. Being alone in my enthusiasm for Dogen was one thing, but the negativity towards Zen styles of practise was a bit of a double whammy. Being at the Zen Priory doing a Zen practise, I did feel at home. It felt like it might be a better match to where I currently am, spiritually speaking. 


Favourite Sign of the Month
Whilst wandering around Wells Next The Sea we passed a small sign in a field, that said:-

'free range children and animals not permitted' 

I know what they are trying to say, but it is fun to be mischievous and imaginatively play with that

SHERINGHAM DIARY 23 ~ Waving The Christmas Wand About A Bit

A tunnel of lights inside a hedge at Blickling Hall

Whilst still fumbling about on its lower southern approaches, Christmas can feel like a very steep hill ahead, strewn with all those strains to meet obligations, expectations and timescales.  Once you're into December each day you open an advent calendar door onto another shopping list, another task, another place to travel to in order to see if they just might have that special item. Apart from Bakers & Larners Food Hall.  North Norfolk, as you can imagine is not ripe with 'must go too retail destinations'. And we wonder why online retailing has become so popular!

December 1st is quite early enough for Christmas to arrive, thank you.. This year a smaller sized more manageable tree, less inclined to create a halo of pine needles, and a stylish wreath from Homebase I'll have you know, made out of white curls of painted wood, these were the only new flourishes in our festive decorations. Apart that is from a Poinsettia, apparently raised in Mexico, that like all Mexicans arriving in the UK for the first time shivered in the severe temperature difference, dropped all its leaves and its will to live within a week.

Though more last minute than usual in making nut roasts, pudding, cake and mince pies etc,they tasted on the day as good as ever. After all the preliminary efforts, once Christmas arrived we were surprisingly chilled and spent a lovely time together, watching the beautiful film Roma, the wacky delights of the Coen Brother's latest The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, plus The ABC Murders and the return of Luther - Plus the obligatory walks along the coast - What larks we had, Pip!

Conversational Snippet Of The Month 
Some times when you over hear people's conversations you feel the need for a bit more background detail. Simply to understand where the hell they are coming from. Quite often its as if you've scratched the scabby top off some festering lesion and you get a queasy whiff of what lies beneath as you pass by. Such as here, where we were walking around the gardens of a stately home and overheard a middle aged couple say:~

Woman - 'Oh, by the way, Ronald's chimney fell down on his cottage last weekend.'
Man - ' No schadenfreude there then.'

New Frame Design on Cottonwood Workshop

The 'Rinky Dinky Pinky Photo Frame Farce' of last month has had a wand of redemption waved over it this month. What felt at the time like the trickster work of a malevolent demon, has revealed a volte face. Initially I could have willingly consigned the frames to become kindling, but when my calmer head prevailed I took them right back to the bare wood, to see how I felt about them once all memory of how they'd been previously was erased. Abandoned was any desire for too elaborate or time consuming processes. Design ideas became refined down to their very simplest form, and more importantly, simplest execution. So, a multiple product disaster, in the end, forced a rethink on design and of how much time and effort was appropriate. The final results have turned out more coherent and quite pleasing. Rephotographing products and re-doing the websitec is taking us a bit longer than we'd initially anticipated, but soon, soon it will be done.

I'm currently working on a commission for a friend of ours to strip, revarnish and upholster four 1970's dining chairs for them. I've stripped varnish from a chair just once before. But this time by the second and third chair that unrelenting cycle of applying varnish stripper, wait 30-60 minutes, rub down with stainless steel scourer, dry, sand, repeat, began to relinquish what little charm it possessed to dogged stoicism. I finished stripping the fourth chair the Friday before New Year, so I begin the revarnishing process post New Years Day. Though one might  hope this will be less strenuous, it holds its own challenges in getting the varnish colour right and consistent in tone across all four chairs.

I've just finished reading CJ Samson's latest book in his Shardlake series 'Tombland.' The lead character Matthew Shardlake is a lawyer who invariably finds himself involved in all sort of murder and mayhem whilst trying to execute a royal  request. The books are set in Tudor times and Samson paints the sights, sounds, smells and power dynamic of the era brilliantly. His earlier books I found to be really tense page turners which I avidly devoured in a few days. With each book in the series the compelling nature of that narrative has certainly slowed and the detailing of the context and issues of the period has become more prominent. They are also getting progressively longer with 'Tombland' clocking in at over 800 pages. There is a sense with each suceeding book that Samson's writing is increasingly chaffing against the fictional constraints of the period crime procedural.  The murder investigation gets all but abandoned about a quarter of the way through, then quickly resolved in the last 100 pages. Inbetween though is a very vividly sketched fictional re-imagining of what the Kett's Rebellion could have been like. Its tone ends up being interesting, but inconsistent.

Tombland begins with Shardlake going to Norwich to investigate a murder, but he unwittingly becomes deeply embroiled in the Kett's Rebellion. Six to nine thousand people forming a camp just outside Norwich to create political leverage for their social and economic demands to be met. Such camps as these had sprung up near towns across southern England in 1549 according to a roughly co-ordinated plan. Hyper inflation was increasing poverty and destitution, exacerbated by enclosures of common land by wealthy aristocracy. The impoverished peasantry rose up demanding something be done to improve their rapidly diminishing lot, talking of the 'commonwealth' of a more collective sense of ownership, society and economics. Though their demands might not be considered unreasonable to our eyes, to those in power in this period such poor people criticising their betters was considered an appalling, unforgivable and traitorous act. An awful slaughter of the rebels was to follow, and the restoration of the rule of the elite brought the rebellion to its end. Tombland is a humane, sad and salutary book with many a resonance with the tensions of our own time.

After a two year gap, I've finally picked up my study of Dogen's Instructions for the Tenzo. I  swim my forty lengths then walk from the pool into town to the Whelk Coppers Tea Rooms on the sea front. I order myself a scrambled egg on sourdough toast, put a squggle of ketchup on it and then out come the books and notebook. Usually I stay for about an hour and a half, attempting to tease out the meanings in phrases and choice of words, and reflecting on these in the light of my own experience. I'm not necessarily settled on the Whelk Coppers as being the best cafe/study venue. In the last few weeks they've been really busy from the moment they open, particularly with kids, and hence noisier. I'm hoping that this is just because of Christmas and it will settle down once 2019 and the chill of Winter arrives. Chin - chin.