LISTENING TO - Arooj Aftab

Thank goodness I took my smart phone with me into hospital. Because, it enabled me to watch truly trashy movies, and to get to know Arooj Aftab's music via her set at this years Glastonbury Festival. And what a discovery that is, sparse spacious music, but far from minimal, effortlessly cool whilst also gently passionate. Her's is a music and a voice of such soft and subtle beauty, its actually quite hard to pin down. It crosses so many genres, it's not folk music, nor jazz, nor world music, nor pop, whilst it draws on all those threads with delicacy and intricate detailing in their arrangements. 

She joked at Glastonbury she'd just made a new album of night music, and here she was performing it to an audience in the blazing hot sunshine of a July afternoon. Nonetheless it is a captivating set. Very little of it is danceable, this is laid back intimate music, probably best seen performed in a small club. I Currently love this woman's work to bits. Night Reigns is a lovely successor to 2021's Vulture Prince, further extending the sound scape of her laid back style.

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 114 - In Coronary Care - Part Two

There followed a time filled with many firsts, via a Coronary Care Ward. My first full day in a hospital critical care ward. My first urination in a recycled patent bottle ( whatever you do don't overfill them ) My first use of a commode. My first day in the hands of the NHS (kindly attentive, well organised and reassuring). My first day where everything was summoned at the press of a button. My first bowl of NHS porridge and coffee (actually, more acceptable than you'd think).

I was told I'd be in hospital for a few days, at least. Depending on what tests showed. At some point I was to have a Percutaneous Coronary Intervention and Coronary Angiography. Which sound mighty impressive as terms. One is a quite simple procedure that floods the heart with a staining ink to highlight all its internal structure. Depending what they find, they intended to use Space Inducing Balloons ( I love that term ) to enable any blocked arteries to be widened. I'm in a queue, so it would to be a couple of days before the operation happened.

In the meantime I got delightfully pushed around on my trolley bed from ward to ultrasound lab and back again. Impressed by the confident and skilled way the hospital porters push and negotiate the corridors, sometimes executing extremely tight turns. They bang into nothing, no doors, no nurses, no patients. They are such unsung heroes.

I reach the Echo Lab where they perform an ultrasound on my heart, particularly concerned with detecting any sign of ill health in thevarteries. The lab technician played back the sound of each artery, which has its own distinctive sound and rythym pattern. All was OK, and did not highlight any major issue. The consultant implied they rarely showed sufficient detail anyway. He could finally be definite, I'd had a heart attack, which he suspected had caused no damage to the heart. The damage was elsewhere, so the next thing was to investigate the state of my arteries.

My first night I was in a room on my own. The second night I'd been moved to a ward in the Coronary Care Unit, which was not as good. The ward took till gone eleven before it quietened down. The staff being some of the noisiest. Then there was the guy in the bay next to mine, he had chronic emphysema, among many other things wrong with him. He had the loudest lengthiest chestiest ruttle of a cough, that's sounded as though he will puke up the entire innards of the universe. I was offered earplugs, but as I said to the night nurse, I didn't think they'd really be any help. Miraculously, I did eventually get a few hours sleep.

In the morning I felt fine. Unexpectedly I was quickly picked up and whisked off for my Angiogram, just before breakfast. Then whisked back, because someone had jumped the gun. Having not had breakfast, nor my morning meds, the essential prep was lacking. A couple of hours later I was picked up again, but that journey was aborted on the way, as a primary incident had just taken precedent. It would now be in the afternoon, time not yet known. 

There'd been the tantalising prospect of going home dangled in front of me. Depending how the Angio went, whether they need to install any Space Inducing Balloons, and were able to do that there and then, plus anything else unforeseen that needed attention. So a lot of 'ifs' there, perhaps not to invest too strongly in, outcome wise.

Third time lucky, I made it to the Angiography surgery corridor. Again I found the tech side quite fascinating. The operating table had straps and grips. With a white curved X Ray machine, shaped like a massive microscope circled over it. They applied a local anesthetic so you don't feel much in your arm. They inserted a tube up a major artery that fed up to and into my heart. My arm tingled in a very pronounced manner, it felt, like it had suddenly become a radiating sparkler. 

The Angiogram showed one thin artery, a Cx* was clogged, all the others were fine. The surgeon decided to not put in any Space Inducing Balloons ( Ah, shame, I was looking forward to talking about them endlessly) this was because in a narrow blocked artery they might make the situation worse. He thought drug treatment would do a better job at clearing any blockage. My heart was hunky dory.

The Angio was the last of what had been a full on day for that department. So there was a bit of an end of term atmosphere. My being able to be discharged, however, took another six hours. Whilst we waited for the incision in my wrist to heal sufficiently well. I was given a whole load of medicines and info that will take time to weave a lifestyle around. Life will have to proceed differently from now on. It's a challenge that it would be foolish not to be up for.

Cx* - Short for circumflex, it's one of two branches off a main artery that deliver oxygenated blood, apparently. Oh, the joy of googling.

SHERINGHAM DIARY NO 113 - In Coronary Care - Part One

Last Wednesday, Hubby and I were out on a shopping trip to Cromer for provisions, expecting to complete it with chips from No 1 in Cromer. A place rightly unafraid to say exactly what it truly is. But in the end we had to skip the chips. And considering why we had to eventually skip the chips, then eating chips should never have been on the menu.

I'd woken that morning with the sort of tightness in the middle of my chest I'd been intermittently experiencing, in a lighter manner for a couple of days. These fleeting moments of chest tenseness had been around since a cold I'd had in April. The cold lingered as a chesty cough and then left me a parting gift of this on and then off again tightness. Experiencing it most strongly when the weather changed to warmer and humid, or colder and humid. 

But on this morning, it had felt from the moment I woke up, far more intensely taught than ever before.  Before it had been easy to just put it down to stress, because the tightness would ease off with rest in an hour or so. The early warning signs had been vague, and were not the classic 'heart attack' ones you are told to look out for. Also, there was a lot of self kidding going on. Preferring to turn a blind eye to the significance of minor discomforts, because, after all, they did go away.

However, on this occasion, the aching tenseness was constant and persisted in becoming slowly worse. Until the point when we were out walking in Cromer, and I said to Hubby - I think you need to take me to Sheringham Medical Centre, something is not right here. The ECG showed nothing, my blood pressure was a little erratic, but maybe as much a sign of me getting emotionally worked up, than a symptom. But they had to send me to Norfolk & Norwich Hospital, for tests the local surgery was not equipped to do. These would ascertain if I'd either had, or was in the middle of having, a heart attack.

Initially they'd called an Ambulance, which I was quite looking forward to travelling in. But in the end they thought my condition was stable enough, to let Hubby and I drive there. They didn't seem overly alarmed, though remained concerned. Later a nurse at Norfolk & Norwich Hospital said, that if I'd arrived via an Ambulance, chances are I'd have been dealt with more rapidly. Which is useful to know for a future occasion, but not useful right after we'd embraced the self help initiative.

The Norfolk & Norwich ( hereafter N & N H ), is a University Hospital, attached to the UEA. I'd guess it is the largest hospital in the whole of Norfolk, serving a huge catchment area. It has a well served, modern looking Hospital campus. 

Arriving clutching my Doctor's referral they took one look at it, immediately began doing my blood pressure, another ECG, almost before I'd said hello. These activities were soon to punctuate entire days at regular intervals. Constant ECG's and testing of blood pressure, to update how things are or are not progressing. Once we arrived in A&E and entered the hospital administration, our pace of advancement did slow. We waited an hour to have the first blood test, more than an hour and a half for the results to come through, and then to see a Doctor for the first time.

He said that most of the blood test was totally fine, but a high level of an enzyme was present in one, which meant my heart must have been encountering some type of stress. They did another blood test to ascertain if that level of enzyme was a rising or falling one. To indicate where we might be in this unspoken of 'event'. Whatever the result, I was going no where. Once a bed was found in the Coronary Care Unit I'd be in overnight, at the very least.

Then off for an X Ray. To press my torso in a firm embrace with a white opaque glass surface. There is something I rather like about modern medical tech, it has a form that communicates competent reassurance, And I get quite engaged and excited about being involved with it. Its a bit like one has entered a science fiction mothership. To the point of my not really worrying about the existential threat in present moment that much. And then we went back to A&E to await the results, and hopefully that much promised bed. We'd arrived at N&NH around 1pm, it was now 10.30pm. Hubby decided it was best to go home, as there was no sign whatever when I would be found a bed. 

An hour after he'd left, I started with a headache, which progressed imperceptibly into nausea and wooziness. A nurse, saw my face suddenly turn ashen grey, rushed over, to find my heart rate had rapidly plummet from 48 to 28 and was proceeding to go further downwards. The rapidity with which these circumstances changed alarmed everyone - including me. No one shouted action, but I was instantly surrounded by furious activity, in a gaggle of people asking me questions, pulling off or fixing on pads and wires, whilst being rushed on a trolley into the Emergency ward. This was just like it is in the movies. All the while I was struggling to keep myself conscious. This, I thought, might be how my life will end, in a rapidly moving blur of ceiling tiles, lights and extractor fans. Whilst the increasingly distant voices of medics, urge me to stay with them, and I drift off into the ether.

The crisis passed. I was now parked in the Emergency Ward, still awaiting the bed. With nothing else to engage with, I became obsessed with the screen showing my ever changing heart rate and blood pressure. So I know there was another minor heart rate dip from 50 to 35 that lasted barely a moment before popping back to normal. 

I now could recognise the sense of an all enveloping dizzy feeling when it begins. As if I would be swallowed up by my own shallow breathing. But after the 'incident' everything appeared to stabilise, the taughtness eased, then disappeared. Now pumped up with all sorts of drugs, narcotic and otherwise, let's just say I was ever so slightly wide eyed. Whilst I lay there under a couple of thin blankets in a chilly underground ward. There was not much chance of a deep sleep, for sleep was now associated with drifting off into the ultimate unconsciousness, but I did manage a substantial nap. At around 4 am the bed in the Coronary Care Unit came free.

SHERINGHAM DIARY NO 114 - In Coronary Care - Part Two.

Will follow sooner than you'd expect.

IT'S A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - After The Leader Has Departed

Initially fearful of being arrested and crucified themselves, the Apostles kept their heads down. Eventually venturing out to the border towns of Israel and on to the Roman occupied territories beyond. For the time being, forced to give up on saving Israel from itself. They put their minds to converting gentiles to their nascent new faith.

The Acts of the Apostles is filled with accounts of a succession of incendiary public speaking engagements, that inevitably come to the notice of the local authorities. Chased out of town, or arrested, put in prison, only to be released by strange 'angelic' interventions. Fleeing the area, they move on to the next town, hoping to fare better. Acts is a largely unedifying account of a hit and run style of evangelism, spread across the borderlands and backwoods of the Roman Empire.

So the post Jesus landscape, opens up with this missionary travelogue - if its Wednesday then this must be Galatia. A whole series of letters from Paul and generally minor apostles follows. One is left with the impression of hearing only half of the conversation. Paul, was a second generation follower, a convert who'd never met Jesus. Having previously been a particularly sadistic Pharisee, indeed a persecutor of the Jesus sect itself. The emotional tone of his letters demonstrates he never quite shook off an inflexible ideologically driven mind set. Nor has he overcome his guilt. He has the ardent certainty of someone trying too hard to prove, mostly to himself, that he is now a totally reformed character.

As a consequence, in his written advice, he consistently draws the steeliest of hard lines on moral issues. He deliniates issues resolutely and firmly. Ideally you control your libido, be chaste and wholly devote your life to God. If you can't do that, and really must have sex, then that has to be within marriage. Homosexual relations are not even to be considered as a valid 'outlet'. These missives are full of long winded repetitious explanations, that impart an - it's my way or the highway doctrine. But then, admittedly, he will suddenly take you off guard, with a beautiful composition on the nature of true love - divine or otherwise. Or reveal the vulnerable neuroticism that underlies his hard man persona.

Often working at some distant from the situations he's a mentor too. Paul tries, with varying degrees of success, to use the autocratic mode. The Pauline tone and declamatory style of delivery, form the mode of oratory that every subsequent evangelical minister throughout the millennia, sadly, will mimic. 

However, when you habitually throw your moral weight around like that, when its you that makes a very human mistake, there can be an equally savage and unforgiving condemnation. He oscillates between apologising or justifying himself and berating the local Christian group for their laxness or inconstancy. There's are extensive discussions, across many letters to different groups, about the nature and detrimental spiritual consequences of circumcision. So, its topical.

Paul in Ist Corinthians appears boisterously confident, but by 2nd Corithians he's more down hearted, doubt filled and apologetic. There's been an upset, a misunderstanding over something he'd written in a previous communication. His authority is now being called into question, fueled by rival Christian groups who've turned up in Corinthe. Paul never goes into the fine details, but is robust in his self justification. Though the upset appears to focus attention on questions of authenticity and legitimacy.

We are only a few years after the death of Jesus, and Christian institutions as we now know them, do not exist. Everyone is making their mission up as they go along. Paul is going to be central in establishing the theological ground and the future direction of mainstream Christianity  But at this time none of that has happened. He addresses them on the streets, and through his letters tries to hold on to people's hearts and minds.

With self legitimising orthodoxy being absent, being in the direct lineage of Jesus's disciples helps. And Paul's lineage, well, it was indirect, and more than a little dodgy in that regard. There were a lot of freelance Christians around, who had their own individual take on what the message of the Messiah meant. As usual, these fall roughly into two forms, the word for word literalists and the mystical 'in the spirit of' practitioners. Paul's version was just one amongst a whole range of options for the direction this new Christian faith could take. How could you discern which was the most faithful and true to the teachings of Jesus?

Faced with this contention, Paul panics, and plays what he hopes will be a trump card. He makes a revelation, that initially he does not even declare as being his own experience. Recounting an arcane mystical experience of heaven and of God, he'd had fourteen years previously. He says he doesn't want to boast, but then proceeds to do just that. 

Modern scholars analysing this say the language he uses in his description, is heavily indebted to Jewish mysticism. To a particular early form of Kabbalah. This seems risky. The text does not reveal whether or not this was effective in regaining the Corinthian's confidence.

The New Testament as a whole is now beginning to resemble a Greatest Hits Album. Starting off with the famous and most popular tracks - The Gospels. To be followed by the stuff that is largely album filler - Acts, Letters, Minor Gospels. Rounding up with the last blast of an apocalyptic stomper - Revelations. Reading through to the end is getting to be a bit of a drag. Reaching its conclusion being worthy of some kind of reward for endurance. 

Most Greatest Hits albums remind you of how good someone was at first, and how they failed to maintain that brilliance in later years. Even as they continue to sell out ever bigger stadiums and have increasingly million dollar record sales. The bigger and more popular they became, their vital creative spark is lost to that pursuit of greater fame and celebrity. 

Ditto Christianity, once it escapes the confines of being a rebel sect of the religion of Abraham, spreading into the lands of the Gentiles, eventually to sign a distribution deal with Constantine and the Holy Roman Empire adopts it. At this point, even as it is set to conquer the known world, it has thrown its whole soul into the fray of political dogfighting. And the dead hand of institutional orthodoxy, bares down upon anyone it sees as committing 'heresies'. This usually means anyone who dares to think for themselves.

We cannot fully know what those early Christian groups believed, of what the paths not fully traveled were like, for the remaining history is sketchy. And Christian history has largely been compiled and set by the Roman Catholic victor's, which comprehensively, expunged, expelled and cleaned up that past. So effectively did Paul's interpretation of Jesus's teachings triumph in the end.

FEATURE - The Sacred with Elizabeth Oldfield.

Way back in 2016 Elizabeth Oldfield made a conscious decision to fight back against the growing pervasiveness of extreme polarised viewpoints. Instead of setting up an adversarial situation, she decided to cultivate being openly curious in her investigative discussions with interviewees who were definitely not from her 'tribe'.

She chose instead to invite a increasingly wide range of people to enter into discussion with. People who came from entirely different disciplines and approaches to life. Over the years she's discovered how hard it can be on a personal level, to fight back from her own judgmental responses about social class and status. She's acquired skills in asking  the right set of questions to open up an interview. In the process discovering whole aspects of a person that you might not see if you you just stuck with your prejudice.

As a consequence she's interviewed people from as diverse a cultural position as Nick Cave, Iain McGilchrist or Peter Hitchin. The latter was particularly prickly, as the old curmudgeon was on top form with his brash reactivity. But she got him to open up - to a degree.

Oldfield is a Christian, her interests, do however, spread wider than the limits of traditional Christian perspectives. In the most recent series the guests and subject matter reflect the chapters in her recently published book Fully Alive - Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times. It's Chapters are structured light heartedly around the seven deadly sins, and investigates how these are at play in our current social,political and cultural malaise. I look forward to seeing who the guest is and the subject matter for discussion every week. The Sacred is well worth putting time aside, irrespective of your faith.

 

SHERINGHAM DIARY NO 112 - Living With Algorithms

Whilst wandering around. the admittedly less than salubrious, Swaffham shopping centre. We encountered a little arcade with a range of smaller independent hobbled together shops. One was selling Antique & Collectibles with the fabulous name of - SHABBY TATT.  A more honest piece of self-parody I could not find.

Finally this dratted election is over, and I, like many others, breathed sighs of relief. Six weeks of campaigning with an outcome as forecast. I voted strategically, as I've had to do most of my adult life, this time for the Lib Dems. Our constituency went back to the Lib Dems after being Tory the last term. Hurrah!. 

Our new MP Steff Aquarone

Reform took about 3,000 votes from the Torys, which was roughly the same as the Lib Dem majority. So without that the result would have been very close to 50/50. When you look at the vote spread nationally and how that is not reflected in the number of seats, a more cogent example of how unfair and unrepresentative the first past the post system is, could not be made. 

I appreciate Labour winning restores some sense of sanity, and I'm already impressed with the speed they are getting on with things. There is a nagging unease, that any landslide majority where the winning party cannot be held to account or blocked from doing stupid things is, whatever the political colour, a dangerous precedent. We've just got rid of one ideologically bonkers government with an unassailable majority. The Labour Party who have replaced them via our existing voting system, is unlikely to deal with the growing democratic deficit the first past the post system is inevitably creating. On this, I place no trust in them to do the right thing for the future health of our democracy.

I recently heard a useful term on a recent posting on Elizabeth Oldfield's The Sacred podcast, referring to folk on the Internet who are "conflict entrepreneurs'. Those who deliberately engineer polarised issues and discussions, for no other reason than to increase views to their website / podcast / You Tube etc. Working the algorithms bias towards contested issues for personal fame and financial gain. And I guess I don't need to name names, you know who this type of people are. One keeps popping up on my You Tube home page, even though I've expressed my desire twice, to not see them on my feed ever again. 

But I've got accustomed to making a silly or innocent click on a post I thought might be of interest, which has unforeseen consequences. A deluge of posts 'recommended for you' or 'you might like this'. I've recently been watching video posts of John Vervaeke, who works in the same university faculty as Jordan Peterson. So I now also get Peterson's You Tube site regularly popping up, most recently an interview with Tommy Robinson. So it is sometimes extreme right wing unsavoury stuff. I need to know it exists, but its not my bag at all.

I'm shocked by how much right wing and neo facist stuff is available all over the internet, you cannot really escape bumping into it. Numerous You Tube sites offering you 'the truth they don't want you to see'. Likewise, once the internet knows you are gay, it decides to show you loads of guys taking their tops off. And there are a huge huge number of men of indeterminate sexual orientation who do this. - professionally - for a living. Some of it broaching on sub porn. 

There was a phase last year of 'short' videos popping up, of well oiled and muscled men in very brief briefs, doing a single arm hand stand and bouncing up and down on that hand until the immense size of their tumescence wanging around, was hardly contained by their skimpy boxers. It took months of iron discipline, for the algorithm to calm down.

IT'S A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - Meaning as Myth

If the New Testaments power lies anywhere,  remarkably its not in the minutiae of Jesus's teachings, nor in the miracles. Its in truths caught within its mythology, like a fly in amber. In this sense it would not matter whether Jesus's ministry were actually true or not. It's more about how these stories chime with the archetype. Jesus exists in this imaginative, potentially transformative meaning as myth. Offering us a way to not be judged, to be forgiven our failings, to redeem oneself and be set free. Its a myth of a particular form of liberation. Now, in our guilt and shaming obsessed modern culture, who wouldn't want that? 

It's clear that whoever the writer of St John's Gospel was, totally understood this. That symbols and myths are more potent than literal facts alone, they inspire us to live differently. As you may have already noticed, I've mostly talked about the facts. Of who wrote the gospels, how the New Testament evolved, their history, structure and literary form, than what was said. This is largely due to my interest in history, that draws me towards this form of analysis. The rest was reluctance.

As a consequence I am factually better informed. Though I no more understood why it is this confoundng Christian story that has stuck, than when I started. The whole thing feels decidedly weird. Yet history is more than just the interpreted restatement of the facts, its also an appraisal, a re-forming of the myths we have lived by, and sometimes continue to live by. History, in and of itself, can create foundational myths that an entire country, culture or religion can cluster around. For better or worse. The Romans, The USA, The British Empire, The Nazi's, all operated on the basis of their foundational myths.

A central myth about the Buddha is that of The Four Sights. The Buddha is living a luxurious lifestyle. Contained within the Palace grounds, deliberately sheltered from the reality of the real world. He is bored and curious about what is outside the Palace boundary. He begins sneaking out on adventures. On his first venture he sees an old person for the first time. On the second, he sees a sick person for the first time. On the third, he sees a dead body for the first time. These three sights unsettle him greatly. Its not until the fourth venture, when he sees a religious holy man, that he understands that he needs to renounce his present life, and discover where a way of being that goes beyond old age, sickness and death, could be found.

Now this story is highly unlikely to have actually happened. It is a myth, but as a myth it encapsulates veins of truth within its morphology. Spiritual insights do inevitably require us to take action, to Go Forth from our present lifestyles and habitual perceptions of the world. Otherwise they cannot be considered true insights. The Four Sights as a story maps out the precursors for the emergence of a spiritual life. A mythic arche that is universally relatable and applicable.

Today we live lives that shelter us from fully feeling the truth of our mortality. Its only when we are prepared to step outside of our willful ignorance, then we perceive the truth of how things really are. How we subsequently deal with that is via the wisdom of the Sage's. The primary Buddhist myth here concerns Impermanence - the mortality of human life, of time, of space, of everything, how to learn to live with that, but ultimately how to transcend it too.

In the story of Jesus, he too encounters people who are old, who are sick, who are dying or are already dead. But his response is different. He directly heals whatever ailed them physically or mentally, he resurrects them from their death. Through him, as the Son of God, all things are healed and made right again. Our mortality ultimately is to be transcended by the arrival of the kingdom of God. The central myth of the life of Jesus, concerns Salvation - and through whom you find it for oneself. Rescued through that faith, to discover the Godly within and without ourselves. Jesus's pro active engagement with the sufferings of the world creates the Christian raison d'etre.

Salvation has to be prefaced by surrender. Through recognising the centrality of God to the way things really are, and giving up oneself voluntarily to that. Saved by surrendering up one's selfishness. The myth of salvation is present throughout the panoply of gospel stories. People willing to surrender themselves out of faith to Jesus, are healed. Peter finds he can walk on water, until doubt reasserts itself. Jesus saves him, scolding him for his lack of faith. 

Jesus surrenders to God's will, to being tried, to being crucified and resurrected. He saves people from themselves, from their suffering, from their lack of faith in the Godly dimension of being. Its not necessarily that Jesus is the instrument, medium or mode through which you are saved, but he provides a model, the inspirational image, the mythic framework to demonstrate how that looks, how that is done. And a clearly apprehending faith, so it seems, will be the key to unlocking that.

FINISHED READING - Going To Church In Medieval England by Nicholas Orme

 

At four hundred and six pages, not including Appendices, and weighing in at 640 grams, this is neither a lightweight nor short book. Certainly compendious, one reviewer called it exhaustive, which I think is code for relentless tedium and beyond. Going to Church In Medieval England covers all the ground it possibly could unearth. It has been a book on my must read list for over a year. Was I so taken up with it I sailed through it till I reached the end, No, I was not. Was I totally bored by it, No I was not. Did I ever want to shout - Oh please get on with it! - Yes, I did' . For 'exhaustive' it most certainly is, exhausting ones interest to a fault.  By the time I reached the end, I could have sworn it was six hundred pages long. 

As a book it flops between being an academic PHD style thesis,where thoroughness of research is much lauded, and a popular accessible history book about ordinary peoples religious lives. In fact the first 1 to 200 pages is packed with juicy little bits of background information about how churches and chapels came to be built, the types of noble patronage, what are Chantries? and how the medieval church gradually formed itself into a functioning whole in the face of famine and plague. It notes the consequent religious fads for various forms of momento mori, like full sized carved cadavers and apocalyptic imagery that arose after these disasters. As humanity tried to imaginatively use its Christian faith to emotionally guide them through this turbulent time.

Orme began to lose me, once he began methodically going through the minute details of all the rituals and services from the daily, to the weekly, to the seasonal and the yearly, and those that marked the life cycle from birth to death. He finally concludes with interesting chapters on how the Reformation unfolded in local parish churches, how forms of worship did or did not change. One senses that the Reformation was more of a cataclysmic upset, that even Mary's attempt to put back all the religious furniture of Catholic orthodoxy, could not quite fully restore. Medieval English forms of Christian worship and its social structures,were by then too irrevocably transformed.

CARROT REVIEW - 4/8

 

200 WORDS ON - Patriotism In Drag

If you live in a place you learn to enjoy aspects of it, become proud of it’s institutions and history, feel fondness for it’s architecture and landscapes, love the sense of place and of belonging to it’s people. It's perfectly possible to experience all of that, and simultaneously not enjoy other aspects, not feel proud of what your country has done in the past or the present, not like the way institutions are run, not love everything. To be critical, as well as appreciative, shows you care about your countries future. A healthy sense of pride is founded on that. It’s not unpatriotic to say - we could be better.

You might call yourself patriotic, but that can turn pride into an orthodox set of beliefs, slogans and tropes, blind to self-evident faults. Patriotism has this bastard cousin called Nationalism, where everything has to be overtly expressed, like a badge on a lapel, a declaration of allegiance to a team, group or race, turning pride into cultural superiority and hooliganism. Dressing in swags and flags, union jack underwear, St George bucket hats, luridly coloured bunting. Mistaking  merchandise for 'having pride in one's country'. Making pride a parody, it’s Patriotism In Drag.

FEATURE - Beyond Atheism & Theism

 In this shortish video John Vervaeke states his views on the whole atheism versus theism debate, positing a third way, non-theism, and explains what that is, with his usual precision and clarity. 

FAVE RAVE - White Paint - Smarty Mobile Advert

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

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 111 - AGE = Appreciation - Gratitude - Enjoyment.

Hubby and I had a little delivery of stock to take to Seagulls & Samphire in Blakeney. Hence we stopped off at Salthouse Store for their superlative coffee, and in my case a rather fine Vegan Sausage roll. Such are the regular hurdles and recurrent vicissitudes of our present lifestyle

Having done replenishing, we took a walk along the coast from Blakeney to Morston Quay. A short half an hour. Where we partook of a very welcome soft drink and a fruit scone from the National Trust cafe . Sitting down for a quiet moment with our confectionery, listening to the gentle ching ching of ropes against masts, and welcomed the refreshing consequence of an off shore breeze.

Unfortunately, close by there was three generations of a family. All talking as though they'd been brought up surrounded by the constant noise of road drills, so they all had to bellow extremely loudly. So I was able to follow a long detailed conversation about a guy the younger chap worked with. But during the conversation he started talking very appreciatively about his male friends, and he described the care for each other, the close relationship he had with them as 'brothering'.  I find that a really lovely way to describe the cultivation of male friendships. I've incorporated this into my lexicon of fine expressions - 'brothering' 

With the fine weather I've finally been able to scrub and sand the patio decking, and repaint it. We needed to move the arbour off, which was not easy. I strained my back in the process. However, the hot weather meant I was able to apply two coats of paint in one day. The patio looks ten times better. Leaving it to harden off for three days. Then we tried moving the arbour back by lifting it in on ropes. This was so much easier. Once back in place, we sat out in the cool of the evening, reading, knitting and contemplating the nature of fairweather para gliding.

The new patio fence/wind break is progressing. Its basic structure is two thirds completed, I'd estimate. I'm enjoying the process of making it. It's always beneficial to find a new focus for creativity from time to time. It freshens everything else up too. Just need a dry bright day to install it. This will come soon, we hope.

The fledgling beetroot plants, now they are not being regularly trashed by cat paws are really thriving. Our hanging tomato plants though established, have very slow growth. So I'm pinning my hopes on this mini heatwave to kick start them into flowering.  Our gooseberry bush is the healthiest its ever been. It won't be a huge crop, but it didn't fruit at all last year, so I considering whatever results as an unexpected boon. Everything in the garden is flourishing and I find a lot of pleasure in that.

We ran out of meal worm fat for one day, just one bloody day!  But by the time we'd replenished stock, the large groups of fledglings had deserted us, no doubt for another free food source. Loyalty among birds, is not what it was. We are currently down to a couple of warblers, blue tits and a lone black cap. This may still be the calm before the storm of a new batch of fledglings. I am muting my expectations, because at some point the breeding season does cease.  Bearing in mind it was late starting this year. But we do now have the bird feeder baffle installed. So they can eat without an overgrown rat gatecrashing the party. 

One tabby cat with an extremely clean white bib, regularly crosses our back garden on its way to who knows where. This morning, as I made my breakfast, I got the sense of being watched. And found that cat staring hard straight at me, unblinking. Finally, I was meeting eye to eye, the cat responsible for wrecking the beetroot trough. Just sitting there giving me the evils. God, they were really pissed with me, I could tell. With the scent of insouciant revenge looking for a suitable outlet.

Well, it's been my birthday. The 67th year of my existence on this planet. Each year life feels all the more fragile, liable to be easily broken, so I feel the need to make what I can of it, whilst I can. I still cannot fully pin down what the dominant theme of late life is, other than surviving relatively intact for as long as possible.  Doing whatever I want for as long as possible. But I'm beginning to get a sense for it being focused on A.G.E. - appreciation, gratitude and enjoyment. 

FEATURE - John Vervaeke

John Vervake is a Professor in Toronto, part of the same faculty that Jordan Peterson originates from. His profile though is less well known, but I would say, as he is a Buddhist, he has a much more developed, considered and self reflective approach to the meaning crisis. You never see him in a flashy jacket, and looks your archetypal bedraggled college Proff. On You Tube you will find huge amounts of stuff he's done. A whole series of hour lectures on the origins of the meaning crisis, 50 and counting, plus loads of discussions and online debates. Here is a short extract from a much longer talk, where he outlines his approach to the meaning crisis, what it is, what gives us a sense for meaning in our lives.

In this short video extract called Why Are Zombies So Big Right Now?  he looks at the nature of zombies and uses that cultural phenomena as a metaphor for our contemporary zeitgeist of a lack of meaning. Its entertaining, whilst also being profound.

Many of his posts are in conversation with a couple of people. He frequently debates with Jonathan Pageau. Who is another quite interesting guy if you are into the symbolism within popular cultural phenomena. The third guy in this video is David Fuller the presenter from Rebel Wisdom with whom Vervaeke and Pageau often debate. This wide ranging talk circles around Curiosity & Wonder. If I have one criticism of Vervaeke is his expository discussion style means his sentences can get a bit 'jargon' heavy, but he's worth sticking with. There is often a killer punchline.

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QUOTATION MARKS - Kurt Vonnegut

'We're here on Earth to fart around,

and don't let anyone tell you any different.'

Kurt Vonnegut