FINISHED READING - The World-Ending Fire by Wendell Berry

 

The World-Ending Fire, is a phrase Wendell Berry uses to characterise the dominant and all prevailing juggernaut of corporate industrialism. This book is a compilation of a lifetimes writing of articles, essays and talks about the many ways that the 'big is always better' economic philosophy behaves as an insensitive, fundamentally cruel and destructive force. Wiping lives, livelihoods and now threatening to remove life itself off the earth. 

His focus in terms of a solution always returns to agriculture. How we treat the land, the way we grow our food being the fundamental indicator for what is good or bad in our society. Wendell Berry constantly extols the role of maintaining a sense of belonging to a place and working the land in a more synchronous relationship with what nature provides. Under standing natures limits and not living beyond them. To cease using machine metaphors to describe yourself, your psychology and what it is you do. Its not helpful to conceive a living being or nature in this way, but it is indicative of how progressive industrialism conceptions have entered the lexicon of our language.

The problem for all of us is that we are deeply enmeshed and dependent upon the lifestyle that corporate industrialism provides. But we are cushioned and left unaware of the true cost of it. We have been brought up no longer knowing where the food on our plates comes from. What the damage to nature and to other peoples lives is. We are taught to actually not care, to become insensitive to the effect maintaining our western lifestyle has upon others and global ecology.

My interest whilst reading The World-Ending Fire wavered depending on the Chapter. I flipped from feeling engaged to boredom a lot. Berry is thorough, rarely succinct and to the point. In short he can go on and on at length. Its in the nature of compilations as opposed to the singlular vision of a composed treatise, there can be a degree of repetitious argument. Going over the same or similar ground. There are, however, some superbly argued essays here The Way of Ignorance, The Total Economy and In Distrust of Movements, are three personal  favourites.

Berry strongly states that there should be no big solutions to our current malaise. Its all down to us. There is the danger we don't as individuals realise quite how radical the change required of us is, and merely tinker with the existing economics of our lives and not think it through or carry it out thoroughly enough.

In the essay The Future of Agriculture he suggests seven things to do :-

1) Don't work or think on a heroic scale, but on a scale proper to our limited abilities. We must not break things we cannot fix. There is no justification, ever, for permanent ecological damage.

2) Abandon the homeopathic delusion that the damages done by industrialisation can be corrected by more industrialisation.

3) Quit solving our problems by 'moving on' Stay put, learn where we are geographically, historically and ecologically.

4) Learn the sources and costs of our own economic lives.

5) Give up the notion we are too good to do our own work and clean up our own messes. Work done for us by wage slavery or enslaving nature is unacceptable.

6) By way of correction, make local, locally adapted economies, based on local nature, local sunlight, local intelligence and local work

7) Understand that these measures are radical. They go to the root of our problem. They cannot be performed for us by any expert, political leader, or corporation.

CARROT REVIEW  5/8

EVERYDAY RITUALS - No 2 Cleaning

This second in a series of articles shines a light on one ritualised element in our lifestyle - cleaning. Discovering along the way how we could make more of it. To deepen and enrich our experience of our life as we already live it.

Patterns of Cleaning

My Mother inculcated in me 'the correct way' to wash up. First, the water must be hot, but not to the point of scalding. You  mm then wash up in a set sequence. Whilst the water is at its hottest, soapy and unsullied by anything else - wash the glassware. This is followed by the cutlery then plates before proceeding to the serving crockery and finally the pots and pans. Always the dirtiest items coming last.

Admittedly the cleaning logic of this begins to break down before you reach the end. If the washing up water becomes a soup, you could always start afresh. This routine was passed down to me from an era not at all concerned about chemical residues, nor rinsing in cold water or sterilising. You complete your cleaning cycle, by drying everything with a tea towel and putting the stuff away. Not leaving things on the drainer to air dry in an irregular stack like a jenga tower. 

I've tended to follow this pattern of washing up unquestioningly with an almost religious level of devotion. For good or ill, each of us brings to the task of washing up and cleaning in general our own particular set of associations, rationalisations and reactivities. Examine the way you wash up , where that comes from, how attached you are to it being done in a specific manner. Negative or positive, there you will find its level of meaning for you as a ritual.

Confusing Cleaning With Tidy
We talk about making spaces clean and tidy. Though we perhaps should treat them as if they're twins joined at the hip. Things can be tidy without being clean, and clean without being tidy. Which is not to say they can't very effectively collaborate with each other. Tidy is simply a way to order things in a room. It means different things to different people. I've lived with people who surround themselves with what look like extremely messy living conditions to me, who nonetheless know where to find things. Having a sense for order need not therefore be totally associated with being neat 'n' tidy. Order is when everything has a place where it can be found.

Cleaning As Drudgery
Undoubtedly cleaning, when obliged to do it, say because its your job, or done under pressure to conform to a standard of cleanliness not yours, can turn into a real bind. Its culturally low in status, so its no surprise cleaning can have a low priority. It can feel demeaning and it is time consuming, seemingly never ending.

Our modern lifestyles can become a series of actions done in order to save time. Rushing through or skipping cleaning to make space for ' the more important things'. We tend to hope we will encounter these through being more spontaneous, but end up only snacking on momentary whims. Leaving our desire to be nourished by 'the more important things' in life, frustrated. Will we ever find the time for what we believe we want from life? We need to stop, to reevaluate, to give our desires and perceptions a good spring clean. Recognising that what we want and what we need might not necessarily be singing fron the same songbook.

Repetition is an essential part of a ritual, whether its done everyday or not. We often refer to repetitive tasks as mindless. They aren't necessarily mindless, but they may become motivated by a willful, forcefulness off mind, that can be heartless. When our heart is not in it, that is when cleaning can turn into drudgery. Even tasks we love doing can be emotionally draining, if we are just not in the mood for them.

Cleaning As Purification and Renewal
Every morning I go to the bathroom still half bleary-eyed. Once there I take off my bed attire, cast it to the floor and step naked into the shower. I wait for the electric shower to warm up before I dowse my skin under it. As I clean my body of the lingering effects of stale sweat, farts and slumber I am performing a ritual of purification. Washing away remnants of the previous day and night, the joys, dreams and struggles. I'm waking up my body and mind under a stimulating cascade of falling water. A shower in the morning is a baptism, it matters not how long or short it is. I emerge from it purged of bodily sins, of the spirit. Briefly I am a purer person. I gently dry myself with a towel.  Everything else washed away and down the plug hole. Relaxed and renewed, I'm ready to begin my day. 

The role of soap in this cleansing ritual is central. It may come delivered as a shampoo in a bottle or a bar of soap. Something pored out into your hand, anoints your body with a libation, an offering to the deities of purification. A bar of natural handmade soap is gently rubbed and lathered over the body, caressed by your own hand. They can both feel medicinal, a soothing balm, massaged across and into the skin, perfuming our senses and well being. It restores our sense of youth.

My current soap infuses air and body with the smell of Cucumber and Mint. Its aroma alone exudes a pure unsullied cleanliness, as the associations with the exotic and pampering of the soul are enacted.  Purification rituals leave a tingling feeling upon the skin, a residual scent upon the psyche.  We start each day by removing the last vestiges of the previous one. Before putting on those purified fresh clothes, we can further perfume the body with oils and unguents, or colognes and antiperspirants.

The qualities inherent to this daily cleansing ritual asks us to give closer attention to their sensory qualities. The way, and the experience, of carrying them out. To ensure the actions, sounds, smells and feel of them can be heightened in some way for us.

Cleaning As Attention, Care and Love
Practical domestic tasks have a similar function to a morning shower, they purify and renew. Objects we use or wear require cleaning and refreshing fairly regularly, as they become dirty, smelly or covered in a layer of dirt. Cleaning the house, washing clothes or washing up are relentless if you make them masters. There are aspects of this as a ritual that is not about restorative cleaning, but concerned with the bringing and giving of attention. 

When washing or dusting you pick things up, examine them more closely than usual, you give them some care. This reconnects you with that teapot, shirt or mirror. Memories resurface of what it was that you loved about them when you bought them. Observing how they, like ourselves, are aging, are becoming worn, wrinkled or frayed around the edges. Empathy has a recognisable surface patina.

Until you polish a vase you don't realise how much the colours and lustre of its finish have become dimmed over time. Once cleaned it sparkle, its visibly brighter with renewed intensity. We tend to think we clean things only when they look visibly dirty. But we also clean them because they need our care and attention. We can become neglectful of our connection with the aesthetic aspects of ourselves and our home environment. Cleaning is an act of love, a ritual of remembering, connecting and rekindling. Other people notice sub consciously when a house and its objects are loved and cared for, as much as we do. 

A clean room feels different. As you feel different yourself when you are freshly washed. Likewise the way you relate to your home, clothes and objects once you've cleaned them is changed. Your interest in them is renewed. Also there is an ecology, a sustainable aspect to caring for ourselves and cleaning our possessions. A hoover that isn't regularly emptied, a oven that isn't cleaned or a kettle that's not descaled from time to time, eventually ceases to work efficiently. Without frequent love, care and attention, like any of us, they breakdown. 

Cleaning A Space In Your Mind
Its easy to neglect the effect our living spaces and environment are having upon us. I know that I can tolerate a degree of mess around me, if only for a short while. Then I reach a point where my mind becomes quite fuzzy headed and fatigued, because I'm negotiating my lifestyle around these disorganised circumstances. Once a floor has items randomly scattered across it like a scene from a robbery, then somethings just gotta give. A space can develop this sympathetic vibe, mirroring back to us our recent emotional or psychological state of mind or being, our way of inhabiting it.

Any minor change to our living space, can then have a major impact upon our sense of mental well being.  It could simply be by being a bit cleaner, slightly more orderly or adjusting the arrangement of furniture. Sometimes cleaning or clearing a room, my workshop in particular, is one way I prepare myself to start a new project or face a onerous task I've been putting off. You feel differently about any space once the nagging chatter of your residual old clutter is removed. A place that once felt dispiriting can suddenly feel considerably more spacious and energising. Cleaning becomes this ritual of preparation, making a space in your mind ready for a fresh activity.

It maybe a particular space regularly gets into a mess. Most homes have a room, cupboard or drawer that becomes the favourite one to quickly dump stuff in and close one's mind to. Sorting that out waiting until you're in the right mood for it. Sometimes its left up to your executors once you've died, to open up that ' drawer of unfinished business.' Even the tidiest, neatest person imaginable stuffs the messier bits of their psyche down the back of a sofa. Hides their underwear away from the light of day.

Too much chaos in a room, or an excessively neat and tidy room with not a fart of personality left in it, can be hard to be around. Whether too slovenly filthy or neurotically clean, both can freak you out because their inhumanity is a bit gross. Creating a civilised living space that allows a degree of human eccentricity, that has some soul left within its order, can be tricky balance to maintain. There are optimal amounts of space and cleanliness we all need for our minds and lives to operate freely.

The rituals of cleansing that we do for ourselves, we also do for its benefit to family, or friends. My home can get a little grubby. A busy work life makes its harder to keep on top of domestic chores. Too mentally or physically fatigued to face yet another task list when you get home. However, as soon as someone is about to come to visit or stay with us, then a manic amount of cleaning happens in a short space of time. Even if we mostly live in a subliminal mess, we don't want others to see that we do. But neither do we want them to stay in one. We create at least the misperception of a clean, well kept and purified space to welcome our family and friends into. Otherwise it might look like we don't care for them. 

Cleaning is a ritual of invitation. Like leaving out a welcome matt for new ideas, new beliefs, new feelings, new experiences, new people, for the new gods to arrive.

QUOTATION MARKS 52 - Wendell Berry

 

'We still (sometimes) remember that we can never be free if our minds and voices are controlled by someone else. But we have neglected to understand that we cannot be free if our food and its sources are controlled by someone else. The condition of the passive consumer of food is not a democratic condition. One reason to eat responsibly is to live free.'

Wendell Berry
from his essay The Pleasures of Eating.

FEATURE - Little Simz ft. Obongjayar - Point & Kill

Everything this woman does has got class. Very stylish, yet authentic, whilst freely exploring her musical inspiration and ancestry. On this track from her new album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, its music from seventies West Africa. You can tell from the tongue in cheek visual references in the video, the Afro hair, the muscle men, she's had a lot of fun messing around with the period styles. 

The starker cool jazz inflections from her last LP Grey Area are replaced on Point & Kill by an equally minimal rumbling bass and stick driven rhythm, that gradually introduces a bursting brass section and finally electric keyboard and tumultuous drums. Over which Simz and Obongjayar rap about something or other. But who cares when it sounds this joyous.

FINISHED READING - The Midnight Library by Mat Haig

Its an odd sensation when reading the first chapter of a novel, that you feel you know where the plot is going to take you, before you've read any further.  Constant reflections of other books and films flashing through your mind and intruding. And it is true The Midnight Library's basic premise is a well worn narrative conceit. A central character reaches some sort of crisis and is shown the consequences for their lives should they take, or not take, a different path. I was reminded of Dicken's - A Christmas Carol, Powell & Pressburger's - A Matter of Life and Death and Frank Capra's -Its A Wonderful Life. All venerable and honourable parables of a similar spiritual journey. Let's not mention Paulo Coelho, just move on, quickly, move on.

This type of story line has an inherently moral purpose. Generally ending with the central protagonist realising their current life is good enough. That it can be approached differently and be more fulfilling. In The Midnight Library, Nora has given up on life, its all just a mess, and wants it to end. At this point of desperation she finds herself in the Midnight Library with Mrs Elms a much loved school teacher as her guide. On its shelves are her book of regrets and all the books containing the many possible lives she might live. Each book chosen takes her to that singular life until she realises this isn't what she wants, which then returns her to the library, ever so slightly wiser. Thus learning about the half baked nature of her regret. How lives go awry in many ways all the time, and that that is OK.

This type of book could be too earnest, easily descending into cliché, being patronising or cloyingly sentimental. It is a testament to Haig's deceptively simple, yet nifty intelligent writing, that he mostly dodges these pitfalls. Though it can't completely avoid the all pervading vibe of predictability. Writing a positive uplifting novel takes courage these days when nihilistic cynicism is the favoured currency. Not to mention a certain degree of inventiveness to get around the more obvious plot holes. When Nora is thrust into yet another life scenario, you still question whether she'd bluff and negotiate her way through the unfamiliar circumstances of it, quite so easily.

Haig writes in brief chapters of a few pages. All easily digested before bed time, over a sandwich lunch in a park or on a crowded tube train. The deja vu familiarity of it means you can pick it up and put it down without fear of losing track, should you not touch it for a week or two. It is philosophically and psychologically lite, so it won't weigh heavily on your sleep or sense of equalibrium. Nor challenge you to go out and live a completely different life. It feels as though it ought to be more instructive or inspiring than it is. Nora never really existed for me as a person I could resonate with. Even though the life dilemmas she deals with are certainly universal. Without personal identification it didn't carry me emotionally along with it.

Though it undoubtedly touches and salves the spirit. Its mostly like a very bland Italian meal, that goes down easily without seemingly providing nutrition or feeding your hunger. No wonder its sold so well.

CARROT REVIEW 3/8

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 53 - Notes On Staycation World

Most encounters with our customers are fleeting, pleasant and don't leave much by way of an identifiable or indelible mark upon either of our psyches. And in a way why should it?  We are simply pleasantly agreeing upon and partaking in a transaction. However.......

Our neighbours in the courtyard in the cafe and craft beer shop have  encountered since the pandemic an increasing amount of verbal abuse and uncalled for stroppy customer behaviour. Probably an indication of the countries collective state of mental health after restrictions and several lock downs. Tense, bad tempered, resentful, on edge, wanting to hit out, to find a focus for unprocessed frustrations. Shopkeepers have always been sitting ducks for this type of behaviour.

The worst it gets for us in Cottonwood Home is a certain derision in the eyes, a snottiness, or hostile glare from beyond our shop window. People know when we are not their sort of shop, so they generally don't come in. Though we do hear the wives who ask ' shall we go in here' to her husband, and gets an abrupt 'Nope' in reply.  We see the men walking off, after having got their beer. Walking off when you are the one holding the purse strings, means they can either deny or grant their little woman's pleasure. Along the lines of ' I'm not paying that for a bar of soap' ditto candle, mug, sex etc - to the slightly creepier 'you let me know whatever you want babes' Oh the pastronising largesse of the traditional male role.

The other day two wyrd aged sisters, both dressed in a floaty melange of greeny blue hand dyed dresses, wafted in. Looking for all the world like a Monet painting of a lily pond, but with legs. They stopped to gaze at our wall of lampshades. One turned to me with a wary hostile look in her eye, as she delved into her bag. Eventually producing a pack of sanitising hand wipes. Which she very pointedly and thoroughly used in front of me as if the whole shop, including me, struck her as inherently grubby and a bio hazard. She then said 'Do you ever reduce all your prices' After my reply of 'Only in our Spring Sale' in the same way they arrived they floated out on their gossamer wings.

A lot of things change quite dramatically in high tourist season. Yes, the town is frequently heaving. But this summer many things have been more notable. The average obesity level of people in the town rises quite dramatically. Whole generations of a family - four, five, six. adults and children descending in height like plump inflatable Russian dolls. 

The old lady 'day of the soap sniffers' has returned. Addicted to the mask penetrating pong, they fail to slacken their purse strings, even though they did inhale. We also hear, once again, the filthy cackle of women who lose all self control laughing uproariously at the rude cards outside the off licence next door.

 

There are days when it seems every other person appears to be hobbling around on crutches, a zimmer frame - with or without a shopping trolley attached, riding along on a mobility scooter, or someone whose mental and physical faculties are so worse for wear they require a carer to accompany them everywhere they go. All of these, boldly signify that today's or this weeks visitors are a bit 'off brand' for us, to borrow an apt phrase from Schitt's Creek. We then know that the off licence or hippy shop will be positively heaving, whilst we remain quiet. Left gazing out upon other people's customers. Trying to deny the degree of envy. But, fear not, our moment does come, when the tables are reversed.

One day in the cafe there was an working class couple from Essex sat at a table in the courtyard cafe. Talking across to another couple saying ' We love coming to Sheringham its so relaxing, it like entering another slower pace of life. We come here regular, don't we love? Its just so loverly and quiet' all delivered in the loudest most earsplitting bellowing voice you can imagine. As if they spend most of their life talking over the noise of a road drill.

There's been more badly controlled yappy dogs and badly controlled car driving. A lot of careless absent mindedness and to hell with it risk taking going on. Loads of low slung sports cars with the baffles taken off, where the ground vibrates as they sweep past. Huge four wheeled ranger trucks, so clean that they wouldn't know a country road even if it hit them with mud splatter. Towering over people and the road might bring a feeling of power and domination in an urban environment. Broad enough to fill the entire width of the North Norfolk coast road, they are just a bit of an anachronistic sore thumb here. But I guess you do need obese cars to carry the obese family in.

Driving to Holt we passed a man wobbling precariously whilst riding on his bicycle. Was he drunk? Or had he not ridden a bike before? No, he teetered because his dog was on a long lead and it was pulling him all over the road. On another day a cyclist deliberately rode in the middle of the lane so no one could get passed him. After crossing a narrow bridge the road straightened and broadened out so we overtook him. But as we completed our manoeuvre he reasserted his position back in the middle of the lane. Causing the cars behind us to break and honk their horns. Egregious power mode on the road.

On a lighter note. It is the season for Summer Fetes what a relief it must be to be outside buying your poorly made tat, in the wind, and the rain too. I guess that would be very special. Then there are the classical cello concert events held in semi-redundant parish churches in places like Trunch or The Relief of Mafeking Commemoration Village Hall in Little Moving. With wonderfully named performers like Orlando Jopping, ( look them up, I haven't invented them ) My Hubby put it memorably 'It's so good they are providing ordinary working class musicians with opportunities to perform,'

The daily and weekly pattern of trade in the shop, is absolutely all over the show, you'd have thought someone up there was being a bit of a tease.  Though it has been very good. August was by a long way our best months takings ever. Our better days tend to happen mid-week, the traditional busy summer Saturday is now quite a rare occurrence. The mornings generally very very quiet, we may not take a shekel until 1pm or even later some  days. An entire days substantial takings happening often within the space of one hour. This is not the same buying pattern as last year, which was different to the year previous. Its all utterly baffling. We are forced to just throw up our hands and declare we just don't know what to expect. So we expect nothing, constantly having to learn how to trust, to have a little faith in the gods of the subliminal.

FINISHED READING - Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami

 

I don't know whether the choice of title is by way of a satirical wink towards Hemingway's book of the same title. This book is populated by less muscular gristly types of masculinity. These seven short stories are about men who are far less sure footed, doubtfilled and anxious twenty first century men. Most of them are struggling with the consequences of their choices in life and are in someway cast adrift from a feminine presence. Due to a range of events; bereavement, adultery, misfortune, personal idiosyncrasies or simply crippling shyness. Each feels an emptiness within them, they don't understand why what happened to them happened. Its a space where they vainly flounder, trying to create a way forward, to find something to compensate or plug the void that has unexpectedly opened up.

These stories exist in their own Murakami world, with its uniquely off kilter rationale. In the opening story Drive My Car, an actor employs a female driver to take him too and from the theatre and do errands. The relationship between him, the driver and the taxi becomes more confessional. The actor tells her he has never really understood why his recently deceased wife had so many extra marital affairs. He knew about all of them, but not why. Recounting how he deliberately cultivated a friendship with one of her boyfriends, simply to try to understand what she saw in him, or what she found lacking in himself. Creepy it is. These tales are all full of these telling little details. 

In the eponymous story Men Without Women a man is phoned by the husband of an former girlfriend from high school who has died. He recollects the time she gave him half of her eraser, obsessing over it, as if it symbolised so much more to him. In Samsa In Love, Samsa finds himself in a situation the very opposite of in Kafka's Metamorphosis. He feels he was previously an insect but now he's woken up in a man's body. Having to learn how to dress it, to eat. And to deal with a hunchback female locksmith who turns up to mend a lock. As I said, weird, but in a good way. The objectified and feminine sense of other, hovering in the wings whenever its not centre stage.

Murakami in these translations at least, has a clean, succinct and unfussy writing style. The stories flow, always with this strong sense of  dialogue or narrative propelling the tale on, whilst you simply enjoy being taken along for the ride. Men Without Women understands our era of somewhat lost, if not entirely clueless men. Unclear about where they are heading or what they should be doing. Often in quiet rebellion against their own shadow. Its a thought provoking as well as enthralling read.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

CARROT CAKE REVIEW 28 - And So, To The Carrot Cave, Baby!

 Southwold, Suffolk

This is a petite fronted bakery/cafe on the main street of Southwold. The Two Magpies are currently on something of pincer movement across the lowly mounds of Norfolk, with new sites recently opened, or due to open, in Norwich, Blackney and Holt. Stumbling across them on a jolly to a favourite seaside town in Suffolk, was an opportunity to get a sneak preview. Like casually encountering a caravan park arranged on a Stalinist Gulag theme, its not to be overlooked.

The Southwold establishment is this aspirational chains source cafe. It is very tiny with only a few tables at the back and to one side of the serving counter. So the emphasis is primarily on takeaway. The first thing to notice is the terrific range of confectionery. I was absolutely wetting myself with glee at the choice. But I was thinking of my duty and devotion to you, dear readers, when I settled on a slice of carrot cake with my standard Flat White chaser.

So, lets get the Flat White over with. The one thing to say in its favour was that it came in the right sized cup. But a Flat White, well, it is so much more than a ceramic cup isn't it?. Its like congratulating me for turning up in clean trousers, with a body slotted inside them that's not seen soap for weeks. Well done, for getting the cup size right chaps. The coffee contained inside was... not good. The base coffee was far too harsh, with not sufficient depth or roundness in its roast. Hubbies Iced Latte was similarly coarse in flavour, so it couldn't be put down to the ubiquitous badly trained Barista. As far as their coffee goes, I wouldn't rate them very high on the Richter scale, or any scale for that matter. Creamy it was not.

But let's be fair, most businesses have their short comings, drastic or not. Most have a couple of unique selling points too. The Two Magpies win purely on the range and the superlative quality of the confectionery they produce. My first thought about the Carrot Cake was, that this was a f.....g massive piece! Three layers of carrot cake separated by the slimmest rendering layers of frostings. They obviously pay great homage to the same gods as me, as that frosting was the semi-divine cream cheese of legend.

As regular readers will know, a good cream cheese frosting these days is on the 'at danger list' for slipping into extinction. So it is Glory Hallelujah when I find one. I then cross my legs hoping it turns out to be a good one. And this frosting? Well it was very delicately sweetened, and had not been drenched in an unhealthy amount of vanilla essence either. It had a natural light texture and taste, tickling all the right taste buds mischievously on the tongue. Orgasm boys and girls, Orgasm!

And so to the carrot cave, baby! An excellent colour, a dark tan brown, with just a hint of ginger carrot strands woven through it like a jacquard textile. Once it hit my gob, it turned out to have an expertly balanced mix of moist and heft. Not so wet that it compacted under the gravitational force of its own weight, forming a squidgy foundation layer at the base. I've wasted my hunger on too many under cooked damp courses, thank you. Accompanied by that feeling in the pit of the stomach of a masticated cake settling like concrete pebble dash down there. Ugh! That sort of carrot cake is just not nice.

But no, I digress, this cake was weighty, but with that lovely textural feeling of lightly rolling on the tongue its uneven carrot strand bedecked nature. All done without much suggestion of it being over padded out with raisins, sultanas or walnuts. It was spiced, but in a subtly suggestive way. No danger of this one infringing my Carrot Cake Rule No 1 then. Bet you are all mightily relieved.

Something else, however, not to rate them on, is the cost. Be warned, though the cakes are way above normal in quality, two coffees and cakes turn in at around £16, which is steep! This cafe is then for special treats only. The sort of place you'd take your most life embittered Grandma, to impress her with the size of your love and largesse. If the coffee could be brought up to match the quality of the cakes, it might actually be worth it.

CARROT CAKE SCORE  7/8

FINISHED READING - The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

Superstitions abound in Essex of the return of a beast from folklore, the Essex Serpent. There's been just too many deaths and unexplained disappearances of livestock and people for it not to be so. In the middle of The Trouble as he refers to it, the local vicar Will Ransome tries to keep a lid on the speculations and belief in it. Not helped by an old pew carving of the serpent in his own church, which if he felt courageous enough he'd have removed.

Meanwhile in London Cora Seabourne, recently bereaved, is feeling greatly relieved by the death of her oppressive, manipulative husband. She's re-engaging with her life as an independent woman, able to freely follow her enthusiasms and interests. Starting to live her own life, however unconventional others might see it. Moving out to Essex to take herself away from her old self, that life and those circumstances. 

Cora's fascination with fossils and paleontology becomes obsessed with the idea of the serpent, as a possible lost species waiting to be rediscovered. Through the recommendation of her friends Charles and Elizabeth she visits and befriends Will and his family. What starts off as a series of combative conversations with Will about ideas, facts and beliefs turns eventually into something with a much deeper and profound consequence. Liable, should they let it, to overturn everyone's life and sense of propriety.

The scope of this novel set in Victorian England is wide and panoramic. The broad sweeping descriptions of the Essex landscape and of scientific inquiry are matched by the well described emotional realm its characters inhabit. As much at home with intellectual ideas and debates, as the emotional conflicts between self, duty and expectations. Its a beautifully executed novel, pushing at the conventions of the period set novel, whilst honouring its legacy from the likes of Dickens, Wilkie Collins and Elliot. A thoroughly engrossing read.

CARROT REVIEW 6/8

STREAMING FAVE RAVE - Hibana : Spark

Adapted from the novel Hibana by Naoki Matayoshi this series of Spark on Netflix is a quietly captivating drama. Drawing on Matayoshi's own experience of the manzai comedy circuit in Tokyo. It takes its time, the pace is slow from the start, so you have to relax and be with it. Manzai are usually comedy duos, but are a very particular Japanese twist on that format. Comedy routines involve a lot of weird word play, snappy often ludirous repartee that to English ears don't come across as remotely amusing. Manzai performers vary from crowd pleasing slapstick all the way to extremely out there alternative performance comedy.

Tokunaga is in a manzai act Spark with his childhood friend. He's always wanted to be a comedian, though lacks confidence and has an dorky way of being and looking at the world. Their act, however much they rehearse, is just not firing on all cylinders yet. At a comedy festival he meets Kamiya a more seasoned performer.  Kamiya is an intense, self possessed, narcissistic man, who is quite wild. His act is edgy and socially confrontational, he takes a lot of risks. Tokunaga is in awe and is inspired and requests to be in a mentor relationship with him. Kamiya agrees on the basis that Tokunaga should note everything down, he must write his biography.

Manzai acts like Spark want to get a regular spot on TV, to get their upward career trajectory established. Though there is often a trade off in conforming to popular comedy tropes, and a loss of personal integrity. Kamiya, never willing to stick to a predictable format, self sabotages repeatedly. Hibana Spark has real moments where it deftly shifts from being wacky and funny, to revealing, to extremely moving. Its about the very identifiable human struggle to stay true to yourself. To not allow your creative integrity to be eaten up by your desire for success. In an entertainment industry that does not mind one way or the other if you exist.

On a personal level Tokunaga wants to have Kamiya's restless devil may care attitude. But never can quite do it. As Kamiya's own career and life goes down the pan, he comes to realise there is a cost to holding too tightly to one's integrity. Kamiya actually has few allies or real friends. Is he admiring someone who can't even hold himself together, an individualist, who is actually a complete loser in life?

 

The street singer shown in this clip becomes a sort of conduit for unspoken feelings. Tokunaga always gives him money that the street singer then returns to him later. Its an arrangement he has with Tokunaga in order to encourage more street donations. But this is indicative of the poignancy tucked away in the backstreets of Hibana: Spark.  A drama with lots to say about the often flawed nature of male bonding, friendship, admiration and ambition in contemporary Japan, but also universally. I loved it. As do Netflix who have commissioned a second series.

Still available to steam on Netflix.

CARROT REVIEW  6/8

EVERYDAY RITUALS - No 1 Making Coffee

Everyday rituals are present in our daily life. Mostly we are unconscious of them,  they are just what we do as part of our regular routine. Until you observe the details of any activity you won't necessarily perceive what their qualities as a ritual are. This series of articles shine a light on ritualised elements in our lifestyles. Discovering along the way how we could make more of them. To deepen and enrich our experience of our life as we already live it.

No 1 MAKING COFFEE 

When and where you drink your coffee.

I rise early. But taking a coffee then, before I've eaten usually upsets my digestion for the rest of the day. So a pot of green tea will be my very first drink of the day. Once I've lined my stomach with porridge, then coffee is definitely on the cards. But as it will be my one and only coffee of the day, I choose carefully the time and the place. Sometimes it does accompany breakfast. If I'm taking a walk, then its with the walk. If I'm going out to The Black Apollo Coffee House for the best Flat White in North Norfolk, its more than beneficial to wait til then. I endeavour whenever possible, to turn my everyday cup of coffee into a special occasion.

I find its always best to allow yourself time, once you are up and about, to take stock of your current state, naked of caffiene, before you kick start the engine. Coffee is an addictive stimulant. In the 18th century coffee houses had to be licensed and initially were considered drug dens. So, before you casually knock back the golden nectar, be aware that how you feel is about to be chemically adjusted, to an artificially heightened version of you. Coffee lifts, enhances and dresses you up to be able to kick ass with the best of them. If you've taken the time to get in touch with your original raw unfiltered state before drinking coffee, you'll be under no illusions that the confidence and joi de vivre you now possess is a temporary illusion of a fake persona.

How you make your coffee.

When we make ourselves a drink, on a practical level we are simply slaking our thirst. But its rarely a pragmatic act or we would only ever drink water. What we choose to drink chimes in with our mood, our desires, our state of mind. We may need something to sweeten bitterness or a stimulant to stir our sleepy mind or body into greater clarity and alertness. Taking in any food or drink alters our mood. 

How we make that drink is important. Whether we pour juice out of a pre-bought carton or hand pick and squeeze the oranges ourselves, affects the quality of the drink. The experience and taste of it will be greater or poorer. How the coffee came to be here, how it was made before you purchased it is then a consideration. The nature of the bean, how it was grown, prepared, roasted and ground create the distinct quality of each coffee. Now you could say its just a caffeine hit in the morning Stephen, stop being so precious about it. But there is a point here about everyday rituals,  concerning the breadth of attention you can bring to them.

There are so many ways to make coffee. There is the instant granules straight in the pot with the water. The cafetiere, add the ground coffee, then the boiling water, wait a few minutes before slowly descending the plunger. The stove top espresso pot, put water in the base, coffee granules in the pierced funnel/pan, place on a heat source until the water and coffee percolates upward into the top chamber. Pour into a cup, add water and milk of your choosing. Not to forget the coffee percolator, the aero-press, coffee pods, filter coffee machines, and the full monty Italian espresso machine. Using any of these is ritualistic, they have a dramatic nature. Bring love and care with you whenever you use them.

Essentially the means and the process of how you choose to make yourself a cup of coffee relates to your state of mind. If you are truly present with this, you can't help but notice. Experience and appreciate the result, it brings more than two shots of caffeine with it. Coffee making is an example of an everyday ritual. Which coffee making method you have chosen reflects something about you, how you are first thing in the morning, the day you are having, or hope to have. 

How you serve your coffee.

There ought to be no difference between how you serve coffee to yourself and how you serve it to others. But often there is. How you serve coffee to yourself is often downgraded in the amount of effort you are willing to put into it. Everyday rituals are often about ways to meet a need, they are acts of service. Serve yourself as well as you would someone else. Serving is an expression of love, appreciation and worth.

What you serve coffee in speaks loudly of you and your outlook on life. Whether it's served in a mug with a rude message on it, one wrapped in a cartoon character, decorated with a flowery or geometric design or pattern, in a porcelain cup and saucer, a travel cup, or the generic plastic cup from a drinks machine. Well, you respond differently to all of these, don't you? Consider then the role, qualities and value that presentation brings to your life in these everyday rituals. There is always an element of magic and theatre within them.

Think of it as alchemy, the transformation of black earthy beans into a golden ochre elixir, that then transforms you. The ritual of coffee making sets you up for the entire day. Don't rush this, allow yourself the time and space to relax and absorb it. If you tend to hurriedly make a coffee before you dash out the door travel cup in hand, spilling it on the entrance floor as you leave. Then a speedy and scattered mind may be following you, trying to keep up with your race to awaken and be off. Do one thing at a time. Stop right there where you are, sit down and drink your coffee slowly in some semblance of peace. Catch up with yourself. Start your day from that place.

LISTENIING TO - Incomplete by Ryuichi Sakamoto

Incomplete, is an occasional series of music videos by Ryiuchi Sakamoto posted on his You Tube site. These available online only pieces include a wide variety of collaborations with the likes of Alva Noto, Laurie Anderson, Arto Lindsey, Christian Fennez, Kenzen Kudo, Ross Kare, Lim Giong etc. Musically Sakamoto continues to utilise fertile conjunctions of electronic drone with sputtering interjections, randon cracklings and bursts of rustling and twitterings drawn from or imitative of natural sound. 

The videos are shot in starkly contrasted black and white of country, streets and houses in the night time, often overlooked by the same cloud wrapped moon. Each track is definitely a mood piece, some of them have far too much melancholy or an unsettled tone to ever be considered ambient. But they possess a brittle involving beauty that I find entrancing. Here's a link to my playlist and a sample video just to wet your appetite 

Incomplete

SHERINGHAM DIARY 52 - A Whole Lotta Lush In Every Cup of Slush

The light in the early dawn of morning emerges slowly. sometimes it does not feel too welcome. Oh, don't give me yet another one of those brash smeared sky days, let it be sharp and bright edged, let it be just serenely simple, like a curtain rising. No misty fanfare or billowing blousy chorus. Just let it be there. Ta Da!

My mood has not been robust of late. The length of my sleep poor. One does what one does to keep going, but when enthusiasm and energy is lacking, it can be hard. Like slogging up a mountain with no sense of whether it will be peaceful or yet another skirmish all the way to the top. I'm at an age now when the future begins to develop a tentative quality. The question mark of how long my presence will endure hangs over it. One beautiful bright morning my bedroom mirror will find itself alone.

How many more times? How many more times do I get to be me? Is it decades, years, weeks, days, hours, seconds, how much more of all these moments bundled together to make up a life do I have? What is there time for?  What is whatever the time remaining to be for? Some projects certainly may never be started now, excessive amounts of drive to push, pioneer or strive are rare qualities to mine these days. Whether things get completed, comes with the option of a shrug.

The project of ones spiritual life, if indeed it should ever be seen as such, remains never ending while there is one corpuscle left alive. Your judgements do not leave you alone, pointing out short comings and blind vanities. Sometimes I doubt, I really do. What does all this effort serve? Is this just my ego wanking for enlightenment? And I pause, no answer surfaces or suffices, and then I carry on walking, shamefaced.

I tell myself I don't need to be labelled. I say I'm a Buddhist. Its a thirty year positive habit. I stopped consciously thinking about whether Buddhist fittingly describes the current state of my beliefs a long while ago. Have I conformed myself into what I imagined a Buddhist should be like, ignoring anything else that didn't quite fit? And yet, and yet, whatever I choose to call myself will have its built in limitations. Just one window from which to view the world and our place within it, never the complete panorama.

Even if you decide to be a non conformist, a non joiner of organised religions, a free spirit, it is equally a label, an imaginative habit to blend a sense of one's self into. Though its dressed up in the language of liberty and freedom of expression, it is basically another vague catagory to place a boundary around what you might be or become. 

Whilst I may imagine myself as free to be anything I want, I feel the pull of grasping at external circumstances for identity. A sense of belonging to mirror your reflection through. So I hover, without settling on either certainty or uncertainty, the holding on to craving or the letting go into the unknown. Travelling this 'middle way' can be lonely work. It's impossible to truly know who you really are and what you want. One is never entirely free of ones history, habits and hubris, and why should we be?

We talk quite casually about realising our True Self, as if you can cast off everything that you've been previously. Who I am seems more akin to an ongoing evolution, everything built upon the foundations of whatever has preceded it. Zen talks of rediscovering the Original Self, the state once papancha (mental proliferation ) ceases to dominate. This resembles a way of being more at peace with whatever we are right now, whether its a mixed up muddle or clear headed clarity. Whichever it is matters not. Let go of it. Avoid rigidly aligning a sense of who you are with anything. For all these things will fade in order to become something else, as will I.

I've disliked football from early childhood. Too many memories of the indignities and bullying on and off the field, to remain charitable. These mean I often think of the sport entirely through my bruised pride, with a large degree of pain and derision. Yes, I can affect a mild interest, if only for the sake of male small talk. But there is no real enthusiasm, no passion there. So whilst I wished our national team well in the Euros, I would be lying if I said I cared that much about the outcome. Football, for me is too tied up with a particular form of masculine endeavour, prowess and competitiveness, that I have always felt kept on the outside of. And don't get me started on patriotism as a substitute for self esteem. For me football is not so much of a beautiful but a revolting game.

One sultry evening Hubby and I sat on the beach having an alfresco evening meal. In our line of sight a gaggle of mothers watched their offspring happily swimming in the sea. One by one the kids got out and dried off, the Mums started packing up in order to go eat. One twelve year old boy carried on splashing around. The chubby boy complained, he didn't want chips again, and sulked uncooperative amongst the tidal foam. The Mum repeatedly urging him to get out. The boy began making halfhearted attempts to emerge, bleating about how he was tired, and then that he couldn't get out because the sea was dragging him back under. The kid got wilder in his hysteria. The Mum refusing to put on her beach shoes to come and rescue him. 'I'm dying' he cried with all the melodramatic pathos a ten year old can summon.

Then a near by gentleman came forward to kindly offer his help. The kid very noticeably rejected him and pushed his hands away. Evidently this was not a real life threatening situation.  Was this pride, or emotional manipulation, a strategy to get his Mum to do his bidding. It was so transparently the latter that it was rather pathetic. The boy's whining tone turned increasingly tearful and shrill. Oh the indignity of having such an uncaring Mum. If only he realised how unsympathetically we surrounding beach goers were, viewing this obvious charade going on among the waves. It was embarrassing to behold.

I recently re-watched Jason & The Argonauts, a film I fondly remember from my childhood. These days it is known as a Ray Harryhausen movie. Poor Don Chaffey, the actual director, has had his entire career upstaged by animated dolls. These stop motion animated figures were part of an emerging technical revolution that made this movie famous. Released in 1963, the movie stands up well. However wobbly and stilted the animation, it brings a certain otherworldly character to them, that todays more hyper realistic CGI rarely does. The acting declaims a lot, but is more than passable, some of the stuck on beards are unbelievably fake, the togas far too pristine, the women's hair are either 60's bouffants or Bardot bobs, and the Golden Fleece had gold tinsel very obviously woven through it. But for the period the production values were quite high. 

If such a film were made today they would have shoehorned a female into the Argonauts, who could kick ass better than the men. And the men, well, they'd all show signs of spending far too much rehearsal time in the gym making sure they were as buff as possible on camera. In 1963 however, you saw a much wider variety of body torso types, in a spectrum ranging from skinny twinks to flabby old codgers, only one of them looked to have identifiable muscles and abs. This was a quite representative range of body shapes in sixties manhood, at least within the acting profession, than that of todays film 'fit til they bulge' generation.

Well, in the shop July has been our best ever months takings. So Hurrah's and Well Done's all round to us. Its hard work keeping up with sales of some items we make. But I think we are getting the hang of using our time better and refining production methods. More importantly managing our expectations of how much stuff we can keep fully stocked at any one time. We've just had to become more realistic. It reduces the pressure we put upon ourselves.

One of our early morning pleasures this summer, before we open the shop, is to drive to Cromer and walk along the Promenade. Heading in the direction of North Sea Coffee. Where the coffee is good but not gold star, the cakes are homely and made in heaven. A Flat White and a Date Slice, in my case, and a Large White Americano and a Brownie, for Jnanasalin, awaits. 

On our way there, we pass another cafe in mid process if setting up. It has a banner outside that continues to amuses me. It is really a very profound spiritual teaching on the true nature of reality, declaring boldly that there is - 'A Whole Lotta Lush In Every Cup of Slush'

Couldn't agree more.

FINISHED READING - For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

2021 is some sort of Hemingway anniversary. But mainly, my cynicism tells me, its a chance for a publisher to re-market a back catalogue in classic literature. Hemingway is everywhere. An excellent six part documentary and a repeat of Michael Palin's retreading of his adventures. So much of what we know about him, mythologised by himself in his own lifetime. Its worked though. Here I am realising I've never read any Hemingway, so I dived in to read a generally accepted Hemingway masterpiece.

The first thing I had to adjust to was the language. The famed sparseness,  his 'iceberg' theory of writing. Not a lot happens for a large part of For Whom The Bell Tolls. There is, nonetheless, a tenseness in the dialogue. Robert Jordan, an American, has joined a republican group hiding in a cave behind fascist lines. He is there to blow up a bridge, on a particular day, at a particular time. Plans are made and unmade in response to events. The dynamics of the Spanish Civil War are revealed through the individuals in this group of guerilla fighters. 

No one really trusts anyone, there are infiltrators, anarchists and local tribal loyalties everywhere. Who can say what they will do in the end?  Who is really in charge? All Jordan knows is that no one trusts Pablo, he"s the obvious loose cannon. They sit around camp fires and tell tales of the best way to die. We learn of the atrocities they've seen or partaken in.  These are damaged people. Including Maria, a woman who Robert has unexpectedly fallen in love with.

I struggled for half the novel with the lack of overt emotion coming from the narrative. You learn everything reading between the lines of what they say or don't say. Once the blowing of the bridge starts to happen the intensity ramps up. We are given all that's going on in Robert's mind as he lays the explosives. His doubts, his panic, his talking himself down, his fearful rationalisations, trying to calm himself as the outcome of the bridge attack begins to go wrong. Suddenly we get terse but really gripping writing.

Over time the myth of Hemingway the man has come to drown out Hemingway the writer. But in Civil War Spain there is no 'Boys Own' daring do, lives hang by a thread, one mistake and its curtains. No one is under any illusions about what is happening in the Civil War, its a tangle of intrigue and counter bluff, a complete mess. Roughly thrown together bands left to fight against the advance of fascism. People are afraid, behave stupidly, they fuck up all the time. There is a lot of self doubt and uncertainty, over a mission that's to be carried out blindly. Who can you rely on?

I'm left questioning whether the supposed machismo of Hemingway is useful to know when reading his books. You appear inevitably to end up talking about him, the larger than life character, and not the book before you. As a man Hemingway, the extrovert, macho, hunter, womaniser, he has come to represent a type of masculinity that is more problematic these days. There were aspects of him that were, in the modern parlance 'toxic', undoubtedly cruel and abusive. But that was not all that he was. He was also, at his best, able through his writing to express great sensitivity for ordinary human motivations and frailties with a rare honesty and frankness.

Hemingway undoubtedly was flawed, bullied by his Mother, tormented by his Father's suicide, spending his life overcompensating by taking these 'heroic' but mostly foolhardy risks. He had several close calls with death. Repeated head injuries did start to alter his personality, you can see it in his face in the photos of the time. His behaviour becomes more akin to someone suffering from Alzheimers, with unpredictable mood swings, violent, and verbally lashing out. The quality of his writing also begins to suffers, until eventually he can't write at all. Then he takes his own life. The toll that living up to his own ultra masculine reputation took, is rarely assessed. However, the potency of that image and myth lives on all this time later. Able still to put his writing in the shadows, because his written words tell a slightly subtler, more nuanced and less stereotypical story.

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8