FAVE RAVE - Virdee

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

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

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

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

CARROT REVIEW  8/8 

SCREEN SHOT - No Other Land

Imagine that you live in a village. One where the country next to where you live, suddenly decides it wants to turn the area you are living in into an army training ground. Regularly the army then starts to arrive unannounced with bulldozers to knock down a house or two, barely leaving the inhabitants sufficient time to gather and save their belongings or livestock. You protest, but even the protesters are then attacked by the army, people are shot, some seriously injured or killed, relatives are frequently arrested. And this happens repeatedly, over and over again, like a form of prolonged unending torture. Imagine what effect this would have upon you. Do you resist, stay, rebuild and fight on, or do you give up and leave the land, the place your family has farmed for generations, and move into the city?

No Other Land is an extremely personal film, painful to watch. It shows quite graphically just what ordinary Palestinians have been having to deal with for many decades. The film was shot by Basel a Palestinian and his close Israeli friend Yuval. Though an ally, Yuval also has to deal with distrust and hostility from the people he's trying to help. Even Basel chastises him about how easy it is for Yuval, to walk away, to just drive over the border to the relative safety of his own home. He doesn't have to continue to live here. Documentary footage incorporates 'in time' recordings of these attacks, the villagers reactions, the heartrending pleas for mercy and understanding, their distress and depression afterwards. As Basel and Yuval ponder together quite what needs to happen in order for their films of the situation to get the public attention they need.

There is no way these ordinary people can effectively fight back against the US funded Israeli military. They do what they can but their homeland Masafer Yatta is being robbed from them piece by piece regardless. What is also clear is that the army training ground excuse is just a ruse. What they really want to do is push the Palestinian presence away from near-bye illegal Israeli West Bank settlements, with the longer term intention of expanding them further.  

Basel's family have a history of activism and fighting off the encroachment of settlers and demolitions. His Father was arrested a number of times in his hothead youth, until he settled down to man the village's petrol pump. The film mixes film shot in Basel's childhood and contemporary footage. It shows you the time Tony Blair came to see the village school which was under threat of demolition. A week later it was reprieved. However, towards the end of the documentary you see it being bulldozed as the school children watch on. The vindictive cruelty of it was all too apparent.  All of the modern footage was filmed between 2018 to 2024, and stops just prior to Hamas's murderous atrocity. And you realise when they say the only place for them to move will be into Gaza, they do not know that Netanyahu's government are about to lay waste to it in a genocidal level of revenge. 

No Other Land quite rightly won the 2025 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. It speaks volumes that the Director of The Brutalist, Brady Corbet had to make a plea at the ceremony for someone to distribute it in the US. Because so far no one will touch it. In the light of The Tangerine Emperor's fickle nature, no one is willing to incur the unforeseeable consequences of his vengeful wrath. That's shocking, but telling, like this important documentary.

CARROT REVIEW - 8/8

FAVE RAVE - Big Booty by Moonchild Sanelly

 

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

CHURCH LARKING - Glandford Parish Church

To say that entering St Martin's Glandford was a real surprise, would be a bit of an understatement on my part. It is the most jaw dropping church experience I've had in many a year. Simon Jenkins in England's Thousand Best Churches described it with dry matter of factness as the finest example of Victorian woodcarving. Whilst Pevsner simply found it all a bit overpowering. And I guess in truth it is a bit of both.

St Martin's is a small church, and probably could only house 150 to 200 in its congregation. Yet every square foot of it is packed full with the most ornate of carved decorative details. Every where you turn, there's a finely carved rood screen, characterful pew ends, a beautifully turned font cover, a glorious angel roof that would have had a medieval woodcarver wetting themselves with envy. For such a small nave and chancel it can feel a tad OTT. Everything is just that fraction too large and in your face for this small scale building. But as someone who tends to love things that are in your face, and likes individuals who take the very Un- English risk of being passionate, ebullient and sumptuous, I love this church so much. Its hard to put into words quite why. Apart from - boy is this camp. 

So why here in this estate village of Glandford? By 1730 the original church was completely in ruins. In 1882 Sir Alfred Jodrell inherited the Bayfield Hall estate. He decided to completely rebuild the church from scratch, a previous restoration from 1875 was pulled down. So you'll find nothing here predating 1899 when this restoration began.,everything else has been visibly removed. This rebuild took several years to finish. Jodrell was extraordinarily wealthy, and a renown Victorian philanthropist. He went on to improve the Bayfield Estate generally, but also had a hand in financing the restoration of St Nicholas's in Blakeney. Which having now seen his work in Glandford I can recognise the footprint and quality of his interventions there.

Jodrell wanted to build the new church to honour the memory of his recently deceased Mother - Adela Moncton Bowyer-Smijth.** As an Anglo-Catholic his taste was all for heightened Victorian Gothic. Unlike Pugin, Jodrell chose not to slather pattern, paint and gilding all over his interiors, but to have a uniform honey coloured wood, that can make it look like the church was made entirely from gingerbread. It would not have turned out quite so glorious had he not had some of the finest Victorian woodcarvers his deep pockets could buy. Building something completely from scratch, means Glandford does possess a visual coherence across all its interior furnishings. Most of the stained glass was made by Herbert Bryans and Ernest Heasman, with a few earlier pieces by Kempe & Co. The woodwork is largely from the workshop of Walter Thompson & Frank McGinnity. The north chapel which houses the angelic marble memorial to Jodrell's Mother was, according to Pevsner, carved by Pietro Bazzanti of Florence. Which sits under the canopy of a beautifully executed intricately carved wood paneled ceiling. 

This is quite the most extravagant high Victorian Gothic church you will find in Norfolk, if not the entire UK. Do not miss seeing this if you should ever be in the vicinity.

**Sir Alfred Jodrell was married, but he died without issue, so his was the fourth and last Baronet. The ostentatious nature of his aesthetic, and frankly over the top relationship with his dead Mother, does make one question whether he was closeted, and his marriage one of convenience. Though it is perfectly possible for a straight man to be as camp as a row of tents. I hasten to say,lest anyone start throwing words like 'woke' around.

SCREEN SHOT - Vesper

 A teenage girl Vesper (Raffiella Chapman ) is rooting around in the scrub and rough earth to find roots to eat. She refuses to live under the control of Jonas ( Eddie Marsan) in the village near bye. The people are all subsisting and are as poor as the earth they fail to grow crops in. The seeds are genetically corrupted and sterile. Further away from here is the Citadel where only rich oligarchs live in luxury served by their synthetic servants . Vesper lives with her terminally ill Father, and is protected by a robotic sphere that carries the speaking soul of her Father in it, 

She is conducting experiments with seeds trying to find a way that they might be made fertile. One day she discovers an injured young woman Camellia (Rosy McEwan )from the Citadel in the forest. Vesper strikes up a friendship with her. Knowing full well that she spells danger, as eventually the Citadel will eventually try to find her. But not before she discovers Camilla is someone that could liberate the lives of everyone living outside of the Citadel.

This film offers you the bleakest of bleak dystopian worlds. With a very limited budget it makes the most of its Lithuanian landscape and mist, to conjure an entirely believable sub culture. It is slow moving and the story line is a simple one. This film is very much a mood piece, and spends its hour fifty letting you feel and comprehend the daily details of these characters existence. Whilst it may look like its a movie for young adults in the vein of Hunger Games, it isn't, and is not afraid to stick to its aesthetic guns and hold to its pace. Just so long as you are prepared to go with that, I think you'll find this ultimately a much more satisfying film than you might first think.

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8 

      

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 125 - Misfiring Discourses

After finding that David Whyte's book of Consolations ultimately veered into the dull shade of a light obscured sunshine, I decided to go back to reading something with more spiritual heft to it, i.e.the Buddha's Dharma. I've had a copy of The Anguttara Nikaya, barely read since it was bought for me a while ago. So I'm reintroducing myself to the stiff and over structured cast of Buddhist discourses. On one level what they did was simply phenomenal, to form a collection of a vast range of similar numerical teachings into one compendium volume. Its undoubtedly impressive, but those monks must all have been such left brain nerds, with all this cataloging and grouping of themes by subject and numbers. And no one ever said - Hey, guys, enough with the sytematising. Think what your target market is, its not bureaucratic Buddhist administrators is it? Check listing all the correct cross references and structured textual consistencies are maintained. Real people have to read this not data analysts or actuaries.

I do have a personal fight on with reading discourses and mental tedium. The tendency is for my attention to switch completely off when I read repetitive material. Its as though I have a sensor which automatically shuts down, when there appears to be a lack of stimulating input coming through to the brain. Its similar to You Tube where after twenty minutes it simply stops a video streaming, just to check if you are still watching. To counter this, I'm reading only a small extract every morning. There is interesting material here, don't get me wrong, but sometimes it is buried beneath verse after verse that only differ from each other by a stray adjective.

A recent poll appeared to suggest a large number of Gen Z might support a more authoritarian form of government. This article in The Conversation indicates that actually it was very dependent on how you phrased your question, when you specifically mention dictatorship then its a lot smaller numerically than our right wing press so gleefully reported :-

https://theconversation.com/only-6-of-gen-z-actually-favour-dictatorship-not-half-as-some-reports-would-have-you-believe-250945?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=bylinecopy_url_button

Besides, I can remember I had a phase in my mid teens of flirting with the idea of a dictatorship. Just to sort things out. It's probably not that unusual for adolescents to experiment with political attitudes, try them on for size. This viewpoint only lasted a year or so, and then I did a volte face, probably not unconnected to realising - them fascists, they's never a gay man's buddy man. In my mid teens the UK was in a right mess, their was The Winter of Discontent, and future prospects were looking really bleak. So it was perhaps understandable I thought more strong arm political solutions might be good. This would subsequently to be followed by the collapse of the Labour/Liberal coalition that made the Thatcher era inevitable. Where the poisonous seeds of our current parlous state were deeply sown. So, all I'd say to any Gen Z out there is - be very very cautious about what you wish for.

My right shoulder slowly improves with the emphasis on slowly. After two weeks of resistance band exercises to strengthen the rotator cuff muscles I have regained most of my shoulder movement. The shoulder joint itself remains tender, the muscles still become quite stiff at night, I can't lie on my right side or carry anything heavy, without it becoming painful, and its all quite weather dependent. The muscles in my shoulder having become so atrophied, finds any daily exercise is a bit of a short sharp shock to them. Exercise might wake them up, only for them to slip back into stiffness as the day goes by. I'm about to try doing rotator cuff exercises only on alternate days, to give them some breathing space to adapt and recover, plus improving my daily protein intake which is a little low. However, trying to find a protein bar that is not also far too high in fat and sugar is nigh impossible.

Today I watched with jaw on the floor as The Tangerine Emporer and his VP Painted Wormtongue did a number on Volondymr Zelensky. This was like two mafia thugs turning up to put the screws on someone for disrespecting them. As an EU diplomat said, this was definitive proof if we needed it, that we have to find a new leader for the free democratic world, pronto. This US regime has become the poodle of Putin and are attempting to bully and intimidate democratic countries into an agenda that is not in their best interest. This did not happen by accident, it's a planned strategy from the US administration to humiliate and diminish Zelensky into doing their bidding or resign. This was designed not to look good on TV.  To paraphrase Lady Gaga - their category was Dance or Die.

You can tell when the weather has released itself from the grisly grip of its wintry grey chill and we are allowed to glimpse sunshine on more frequent occasions. It's also when Hubby and I start talking about when the best time for a day trip to Southwold might be. Though very foggy and in minus numbers at first, once the sun struck out towards its zenith it soon burned off into a glorious clear blue day. Southwold, seemed in relative good nick.

After we had done our major ports of call Cornish Bakery, Lift, Bookshop, and general perusal of the retail offering, we bought an alfresco lunch from Black Olive. Sat on the promenade watching the sun glistening the ocean waves, as all varieties of people and dogs gamble by. We began a new tradition last visit of popping into Beccles on the way back. And I must say the place is growing on me. It has a fine cafe/deli called Baileys which is worth repeated visiting in anyone's book. 

Like every market town in East Anglia, you can tell Beccles has inherited a faded glory, in a grand medieval church tower and porch, with lovely Georgian back streets. Its high street retail is a mixture of the low to high quality, with the inevitable significant gaps in the teeth. The day though sunny with a bit of a chill wind, was a real pick me up. Such bright clear days have been in short supply this Winter. Just being out and about in it lifted the general mood of doom and gloom. Arriving back home exhausted, but in an entirely beneficial way.

MY OWN WALKING - February Journal 2025

At some point in a lifetime there comes a realisation, that most of ones life has been about a central theme with streams and rivulets running off from that. And like riding on a merry-go-round you come back to this theme over and over again. As though you are worrying at it. As though you are wanting the answer to a question that you've not yet been able to fully form. As I presently understand mine, the central one has been the desire to fully know, express and realise who I truly am. Simultaneously a very human search for individual meaning and purpose has inexorably lead me down a spiritual path to ponder what the true nature of the self and reality are, and discovered quite how unfathomable this ultimate reality can be. And so the recent Check In posts have rumbled on, as though something else has yet to be given a voice. I apologise if some of the following appears to be rephrasing very similar territory. This is just me trying to tease some stray threads out.

One question has turned up - How can you meaningfully make connections and relate to an ineffable ungraspable ultimate thing, whatever you might choose to call it - God, Enlightenment, Tao etc? And a short answer might be, you can't. At least you can't intellectually, self consciously form a real connection with what is ineffable. You can only rake the soil as though in preparation. It's unknowable in any meaningful way, though you could imagine a proposition that you might relate to. Which, as I've indicated previously, are usually 3rd or 4th cousins, so very distant relations. Often made in our own image.

We anthropomorphise our Gods, our spiritual goals, because we want to have some real physical sense, however misleading, for what we are worshiping, relating with or aiming to connect too. This painted face of religious belief would be its symbols and icons, which can assume a power all their own. It makes the ineffable seem real and relatable, but this may be an expression of, but not the ineffable itself. Which is often where we trip ourselves up.

This is why the Buddha put so much emphasis on practice being the important spiritual effort. Yes, it was worthwhile studying the sutras and attempting to understand the Dharma on a deeper level. But speculating and devoting too much time and effort to debating the nature of Enlightenment? Well, that was counterproductive folly. Clarifying nothing of much worth to you spiritually. So what I'm doing here is tantamount to intellectual wanking. But, nonetheless we need to hold ourselves to something, however provisional.

And what then is faith? What is its role? What is it that we say we have faith in? Is faith a provisional proposition sufficiently true that it can be followed ? Is faith simply a hunch for what is true? I like to couch faith as an aesthetic sense for where the truth might be found. It's an intuition, a felt sense for what is ineffable. Faith can aesthetically ignite all our sensory faculties into a heightened sensitivity. And this type of faith may sustain us on the long journey towards the unknown destiny. 

It's tricky, because that faith can also seemingly falter or collapse. Dogen devoted a whole chapter of his spiritual epic Shobogenzo to mischievously riffing on the merits and demerits of a painted rice cake. Though a painted rice cake might look edible, it is a painted representation, not capable of sustaining you practically. But it might sustain you in the short term spiritually, on the journey toward a real experience of 'rice cakery.' When our faith falters its usually when we somehow catch ourselves in our faithful pretense, that this is only a painted rice cake, an artifice, a facsimile, and ask why am I kidding myself? Where is that real thing I was promised? Am I wasting my time here?  In our hunger for meaning and purpose, all religions feed us with an elaborate pretense, a bit of fabulous fakery - until what was once fake becomes real.

Buddhism actually has no direct Sanskrit equivalent for the English word faith. Instead it has the word Shraddha, that can be broken down as something we have confidence and trust in, or have some fidelity with. I love the idea of faith as a form of fidelity. A loyal identification and friendship formed with what is ungraspable by any other means. Shraddha can be couched as a friendship with the good, or for what is true. And like human friendships shraddha requires regular devotional effort if it is to be forged well and maintained. You can never take it for granted. It's important to know what your faith or sraddha requires of you in order to sustain it, and to do more of that.

For me, what reconnects and strengthens my faith has come down to three things, reading anything written by Dogen, any form of devotional ritual, and making or devising something that has sacred purpose. Even better should this purpose also benefit others.

READING ALOUD - Tenuous & Precarious by Stevie Smith

 

One of the UK's most beloved cantankerous poets, Stevie Smith was born in Hull, but spent much of her adult life in Palmers Green, London. That she briefly, til the age of three, inhabited the same city as Phillip Larkin, seems remarkable, but I suspect they'd never have got on.  A bookish curmudgeonly batchelor meets a semi-depressive spinster obsessed with death and a mordant sense of humour. Far too much feline levity on show. 

In this poem Tenuous & Precarious, Smith plays with ordinary words that sound like they aught to be Roman names, but are not. And they are words that become in some way critical of family life. As in her most famous poem Not Waving, But Drowning, it is a mistake to judge the outward appearance of this poem as lacking in seriousness of intent. Its needling and has sharp edges, her delivery has a tone that stops short of scathing, but only just. Here is a woman who had her struggles with being visible in a male dominated world. And so she chose to write poetry? Always the disparaging ironic lilt, its to keep you at a distance. 

All the figures in the poem appear to be male, with the possible exception of the cat. They all have their dangers and downsides that a woman is often made most aware of. They all appear to be dead, which sort of leaves you with one Roman Finis, the end of the genetic line. It maybe that this was how Stevie Smith viewed herself and her life, as a type of reduction to what seemed possible given her circumstances.

Tenuous and Precarious
Were my guardians,
Precarious and Tenuous,
Two Romans.

My father was Hazardous,
Hazardous
Dear old man,
Three Romans.

There was my brother Spurious,
Spurious Posthumous,
Spurious was Spurious,
Was four Romans.

My husband was Perfidious,
He was Perfidious
Five Romans.
Surreptitious, our son,
Was Surreptitious,
He was six Romans.

Our cat Tedious
Still lives,
Count not Tedious
Yet.

My name is Finis,
Finis, Finis,
I am Finis,
Six, five, four, three, two,
One Roman,
Finis.

written by Stevie Smith

BEST BEFORE DATE - 2006 - Baby Baby (Can I Invade Your Country) by Sparks

Way back in 2005 when the Iraq War was blazing away, all the controversy over  whether they had WMD or not raged, and Tony Blair's hair and reputation went ashen grey overnight. The next year Sparks released an album Hello Young Lovers. Now Sparks are a witty, inventive and arty combo mostly, not given to political diatribes or alternative viewpoints. On the album, however, is this sly piece of political satire Baby Baby (Can I Invade Your Country) Using the masculine metaphor of invading the feminine and conquering, they make a very pointed commentary on the actions of the US at that time. What makes this doubly plain is the use of selected lines from The Star Spangled Banner as lyrical content. To parody the ideals enshrined in the words of its own National Anthem, now being used to justify invading another country, taking away its sovereignty. In addition they've given it a country hicks musical gloss, so you can do a hoe down to it if you will. 

At the time of writing this monarchical assumption that you can take over any country you want has resurfaced in the imagination of The Tangerine Emperor. This time, not because he wants to liberate them from an oppressive regime, or bring an end to an invasion or genocide, but because he wants to expand his countries boundaries, and access their resources. In the history of American Imperialism invading is not new, but the nakedness of its bare faced acquisitiveness is. This song has thus come back to mind recently and has returned it to my daily playlist. Enjoy.

ARTICLE - Where Free Speech Is Useless

There have been times in my life where I have mistakenly thought myself a good listener. I've struck up a friendship with someone, who I later realised used their time with me to perform this weeks emotion dump. Having found someone willing to listen and not contradict them, they go straight for what makes them most pissed off and angry. Over time you realise its the same issue every time you meet them that they have a beef about - how wrong and pig headed other people are - being the favoured one. Once this dawns on you, you have then to consider, do I say anything about this, because you don't really want to become the object of this pissed off friend,  do you? 

So you gently venture into the outer border territory, just to see how they might react, but leave yourself enough room to back off quickly if it starts to look too tricky. Being extra cautious because this person has been known to punch out, when crossed. Experiments completed, you come to the conclusion that this friend of yours is not actually interested in your opinion, and if they heard the full truth of what you had to say, there would be some sort of violent response. If you're lucky, only verbal. 

You might say, well tell them regardless, its not much of a friendship anyway. Yeah, I've tried the nuclear option, and the one person I did that too no longer utters a word to me, nor even acknowledges me in the street. I did hurt them, because I got under their armour and prodded purposefully about. But it had no effect whatsoever on changing their behaviour, which had been my naive aim. People have to want to change themselves, frank interventions really only work when the object of them is almost at the point of realising the same thing for themselves. 

What I could chose to do in such circumstances, would be gradually increase the time between meeting up, until at some point perhaps these meetings might cease altogether. Because another thing about this type of friendship is that its you who has had to do the running all along in arranging to meet up regularly. Though you've had precious little airtime or personal reciprocal benefit from it. Now you might say, what has this little personal homily got to do with free speech? Well.......

Ideally, in a democracy, free speech functions as a way to express opinions, grievances and ideas, to put them in the public arena. There is always a consequence to speaking out, in that what you have said is open to challenge, exploration, condemnation or refinement in the process of public dialogue. Free Speech is an informal right, not an absolute one. I'm always a bit worried when governments want to legislate to support free speech, it gives off entirely the wrong vibes. Opinions which are slanderous, untrue, incite violence, libel to cause an affray, or are designed to undermine democracy itself, often have some form of legal redress or limit put upon them.  Free Speech is useful when used in this manner, its fundamental to a fully functioning democracy. Its not perfect and often its a difficult call when two conflicting groups fail to discover a way forward with an issue.

However, I have been noticing the concept of what free speech is has been adjusted online, one that is in danger of neutering its democratic purpose altogether. People are free to say whatever they like online, but can seem entirely unwilling to be subsequently challenged or enter into dialogue. In fact, any challenge, exploration, condemnation or refinement is often being portrayed as an infringement of their free speech, that they are being cancelled by the request to be accountable. Its no coincidence that this is the favoured cry of the far right, who might be wearing an acceptable democratic 'beard', but are no friends to democracy ideologically. This form of consequence free Free Speech is utterly useless, and is simply just venting and dumping onto the capacious clouds of the internet, poisoning the discourse.

There is much talk about free speech being in danger from left wing 'wokery' but stunned silence when it comes to the right wing travesty of Free Speech now taking hold in the US as we speak. Closing down accountability, banning journalists, removing minority rights etc. But to be honest the left is just as bad closing down discussions on contentious subjects, resorting to simple name calling, using offence as a reason to curtail an open conversation, insisting on particular language being used. There are difficulties society has around many subjects, trans rights is one. The right wing want to ban gender theory and its consequences, the left want to ban anyone who doesn't agree with gender theory. Thus any discussion or exploration of the issue by society at large is completely stymied, because the engine of free speech to explore what the issues are, is being encumbered by coercive controls.  

But in truth, a lot of what is making people unwilling to enter into dialogue, particularly online, is the level of violence and threat that you can suddenly find yourself in receipt of. One of the shared characteristics that my two examples of difficult friendships had, was they were both to a degree lonely and isolated people, both with bad quick tempers. And one suspects a lot of online trolling is by people who don't get out enough, have few real friends they can interact with, and have a lot of suppressed anger issues. Interacting with people online can be fraught with real difficulty, because of the semi-alienated nature of it. Without the body language and a lived sense of their mood and way of being. What you feel able to say online is very different to what you would say to them in person. There appears to be little room for nuance. No waiting for the right most opportune time to say something, its the 'nuclear' option straight away.

Recently there was an ARC conference. The Association for Responsible Citizenship is a broadly right wing, Christian Nationalist organisation. I glimpsed the beginning of one young chaps talk where he began by saying he felt free for the first time to fully express himself. The subtext was he was now in a context where he wouldn't be challenged or shut down, he was safe within the supportive bubble of that conference. What he went on to say was that all the moral ills of modern society could be laid at the door of homosexuality and gay marriage being liberalised. So you could instantly see why his experience would be that he was rarely heard out. I have little sympathy for his viewpoint, obviously being its target. But it also felt desperately sad that he felt unable to get all his shit off his chest elsewhere. Go to the gym man.

Some how we need to get Free Speech back into the real world, of real people, hammering out the issues in real time and real space, And, just as a polite addendum, don't forget that we all have freedom of choice. No one has to sit and listen to anyone off loading their half baked ideas, if they don't want to. We can make the choice to walk away. They don't dish out medals for endurance. Remember, no one will be willing to change their mind, if they don't first respect you or your opinions. Nor if you shout loudly at them does your rectitude appear more convincing. People are innately resistant to change their views, however wrong headed, until you put a lot of time and effort into winning their hearts first.

FINISHED READING - The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada

In an era where blockbuster novels take hundreds and hundreds of pages to paint their world, and the story becomes ever so slightly incidental. It is positively refreshing to read a novel, well a novella really, where all that is accomplished in a mere 116 pages, but rich with juicy details. And though this story can seem small in scale, it is used to create a sense of unease and a sympathetic questioning with its protagonists of quite what is going on here.

The Factory begins with three opening chapters which tell you the background stories of three people, and why they all arrive as new intake at a factory. Each is desperate for work, and reluctantly decide that maybe now they are prepared to work for The Factory. The Factory is the towns biggest employer, its so large it's pretty much a town within the town, and working there is obligatory for most. But each of the three newbies finds the job they thought they were applying for, either doesn't really exists or quickly metamorphoses into a job they would never have applied for if they'd known. Its well below their capabilities or pay grade. So they start their factory employment as respectively a Paper Shredder, a Proof Reader of incomprehensible texts, and as a researcher in Green Roofing, which means he is collecting all the different moss samples to be had in and around The Factory.

The longer they stay there, the sense of meaninglessness inherent to their work grows. Their tasks though purposeful, are without any sense for how they contribute and fit into the wider ethos of the business. What exactly is it that The Factory makes anyway? And why is The Factory estate being invaded by flocks of a unique bird species that gather on a bridge, chillingly referred to as 'factory shags ?'

Oyamada commands her language very economically, so small phrases can be greatly impactful. It is by turns quietly surreal and is quirkily funny about office politics. Portraying the emotional tangles that people put themselves through simply in order to survive their day. This short tale highlights the many human failings of the modern corporate world. Where the world of work has become even more of a drudge, because nothing about it makes any sense, and personal satisfaction via ones employment has become virtually an impossibility. Though Human Resources might certainly tell you otherwise.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

SCREEN SHOT - Medusa Deluxe

This is a 2022 British film written and directed by Thomas Hardiman, is set during a regional hairdressing competition, run annually by Rene (Darryl de Silva ). Unfortunately this year one of its stylist contestants has apparently been murdered and scalped, it isn't known by who. The police have closed everything down, no one is allowed to leave, Much of the opening shots of the movie are of hairdressers and models bitching about not being able to get out. The dialogue contains often scabrous humour, gallows funny, mixed with anger and bitchiness between the rival stylists who can barely conceal their disparaging views of each other. Long held resentments bubble up, plus concealed drug trading, and a stylist whose found God.

There are a number of impressive techniques used in this movie. The use of heightened colours, the almost lurid lighting, all sick greens and bloody curdling pinks. There is also that it appears to have been shot in one continuous take, with only a couple of points where it has been edited. So there is a lot of in time shots of characters walking down corridors, through doors, up stairs. Your attention slipping from one character arc to another in a turn of the camera. The fluidity of this belies its logistical complexity. This form brings to the film its own sense of energy and pace, as the whodunnit gradually settles onto one character as the culprit.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, it was a bit of an unexpected gem.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

 

MY OWN WALKING - Checking In With My Faith & Doubts

This year, in June, it will be seven years since I resigned as an Order Member in the Triratna Buddhist Order. It occurred to me that maybe it would be good to do a bit of check in with myself. Where I was with that decision now, and more generally to review what I've done since then, and where my understanding and practice has now reached. I thought writing about various aspects of my spiritual life might be useful to clarify things for myself, because it usually does. And that maybe the readership of my posts, may also find some of this of interest.

One day, a few years back, Hubby and I were walking from The Slipper Chapel the mile and a bit pilgrim route back into Walsingham itself. Along the way we passed a car hub cap abandoned on the verge. Though this caught my eye, I did not respond instantly to my interest. So it wasn't till we'd walked a hundred yards on that I turned and went back for it. I'd had an idea, I wanted to create a reliquary out of it.

Since we first visited Walsingham I've been drawn towards the place, and the figure of Our Lady of Walsingham. A Christianised substitute perhaps for a local pagan fertility or water goddess. Who swirled in an atmosphere of sacredness much older than the early medieval of her foundation. There was once a small Roman temple here, and they tended to build on existing pagan sacred water sites. Being drawn to this figure is not solely about my love for the baroque vulgarity of Anglo Catholic imagery, though that has a role. It's proffering something more important than just a sense for aesthetics.

The What and the Why of it, has not become clear to me. I've been reluctant to over analyse the obsession with it, but have let that be whatever it is. I have accumulated a modest collection of Anglo-Catholic shrine devotional objects, censors, rosaries, church incense, day glo figures, olive wood tea light holders, and painted crosses from Nicaragua. I have rolled with this acquisitiveness just to see how far I'm actually willing to go.

Whether these incidents were pointing towards an interest in Christianity was one question. A theme of the last year was to see if there was an answer. I've read The New Testament cover to cover, plus a biblical commentary and a history of Christianity - I've watched innumerable Christian You Tube videos - I recollected my own childhood upbringing as a Methodist, and how that has influenced my life choices. Tom Holland's book Dominion demonstrated just how transformative an influence Christianity has had upon the development of Western Civilisation, and hence upon me too. This has not been by any means exhaustive, but I've covered some ground.

None of this has convinced me of any personal need to convert to Christianity There are a number of significant doubts, nay impediments. The Christian churches ditheringly wrong headed attitude towards homosexuality - its tendency towards fundamentalist authoritarianism as currently being enacted in the US. To name but two. On the level of beliefs, I cannot for the life of me get my head around the so called 'penal solution ' of Jesus's crucifixion, this seems to make no sense whatsoever to me. Its worth noting that its a female figure I'm responding to, I have no great feeling for Jesus at all.

But it has served a purpose, to clarify if there was a God, whether there was some shape or form of deity I could identify with. The traditional Buddhist viewpoint on Gods and whether they exist or not, is a studied indifference. Gods exist on The Buddhist Wheel of Life, but they are shown as essentially vain and self deluded about their higher divine status. Never what they might claim to be at all. Issues like Gods, God or No Gods, the purpose of the Universe, the intricate inner workings of karma, are all considered not worthy of devoting masses of time to. No help whatsoever in the pursuit of states of higher consciousness and ultimately Enlightenment. So get back on your zafu and practice monk!

What is unusual about the Judeo-Christian God is their relative visual anonymity. A deity whose divine interventions and punishments, are often petulant, fickle and unpredictable. God moving in a mysterious way its wonders to perform. I cannot really get onboard the bus with that type of deity. Neither can I support Phillp Goff's idea of a God of limited capability, that is meant to explain why God doesn't always intervene. A God who intervenes ineffectually, unpredictably and erratically, why would you want to honour any deity that behaves like that?  It's as though all the Greek panoply of Gods were condensed into one single divinity, erroneously claiming omniscience. 

However, all this depends on what sort of picture I draw of what God is, ultimately. I've written previously about the point in religious theologies where whatever is ultimate, whether that is God, Enlightenment or The Tao, disappears into the unknown, into whatever the unconditioned is, into no- thingness, into what John Vervaeke refers to as No-theism. I'm currently toying with the view that all religions present an alluring but essentially false picture of the nature of whatever that ultimate thing is like. Because what we are talking about here is something beyond the human ability to conceive.

It's as though each religion offers just a few random pieces from a huge but quite incomplete jigsaw. We use these pieces and what they appear to suggest, to try to imagine what the whole picture might be like. And the way we choose to fill in the gaps, just further falsifys and muddies our perceptions. What makes it worse still, is when we reify these projections into incontrovertible facts. Whatever I maybe currently conjuring from my humble imagination, I acknowledge, is also misrepresenting things terribly.

It is in the nature of what is unknown to be mysterious and ungraspable to the mundane mind.  God is mysterious and ungraspable, Enlightenment is mysterious and ungraspable, The Tao that can be named, is not the eternal Tao - its mysterious and ungraspable. If I were to believe in God at all, it is as something entirely mysterious and ungraspable to the conscious mind or spiritual imagination. 

However incomplete religion maybe in relation to its ultimate mysteriousness, its earthly function provides a window for us onto the ineffable. Something that can act as a go between, an intermediary, form an intercession between our conscious conditioned imagination and something which exists entirely outside that.  We reach out for it, as it reaches out for us. Our fingers point towards the moon, as the moon shines back silvering our world.

Outside of these sort of abstract faith questions about ultimate reality, there are the more prosaic day to day considerations of practices and devotion. It's become clear to me, I do hold an underlying view of myself as a Buddhist practitioner, as a rather ineffectual one. My ethical practice is reasonably OK I believe. Though always room for improvement obviously. I believe this view of paucity largely arises out of the experience of meditation practice. 

After the ardent enthusiasm of 'Beginners Mind' faded into routine practice, I've struggled with maintaining interest in meditating. I resorted to will power for a few years, upped the quantity of meditation, replacing ardent enthusiasm with an inflexible self discipline. Unsurprisingly this strategy failed, too goal orientated and not receptive enough. The quality of my meditation became mostly struggling to stay awake within it. I backed off and started to do Just Sitting practice, as an antidote to the goal orientation. I continued struggling to stay awake. It could be that I simply become bored by it, until I was no longer seeing its point.

These days I still meditate. Which must say something about residual confidence. I do Just Sitting, interspersed with Metta Bhavana and Taoist Micro Cosmic Orbit, a body awareness practice that imaginatively opens all the acupuncture points and smiling into them. These only rarely move beyond a pleasant feeling of relaxation. As a consequence the regularity of my meditation practice can take an erratic turn. Sometimes I meditate every day, sometimes I go for weeks, nay months, without getting on the cushion. It has been this way for more than a decade. 

In that early rush of enthusiasm I did have strong experiences in meditation that still convince me an elevated state of consciousness is attainable. That was over thirty years ago, which is a long time ago to still be dining out on. I intuit I'm still looking for experiential affirmation through my meditation. I don't appear to be able to get beyond this being a bugbear. There is as a consequence a lack of Samata ( calm, equanimity & peace ) surrounding meditation, which even I can see does not help. Its almost as though I need to wipe the meditation slate clean and start again from scratch. That, or simply stop worrying about the feeble state of my meditation altogether.

The thing I remain connected with, but frankly rarely do enough of, is ritual and devotional practices. I've made a wonderful shrine that I love, yet I hardly sit myself in front of it. Am I running scared of something? Devotional practice has been where my faith and aspirations strongly emerge from. Rituals can take time to set up and then do. But they do change the religious vibes very quickly, simply by putting energy into a devotional focus. 

Being left to my own devices, outside of Buddhist Sangha, or any supportive context, can stimulate ongoing doubts about the direction I am facing in relation to my faith. Hence I've spent a good part of this blog exploring abstract theoretical issues about ultimate things. Evidently there's some fogginess around what I envisage my spiritual life is currently orientated towards. In this position any lack of clarity feeds the lack of purposeful direction to meditation practices. Though having said all that, taking up Tai Chi/Qigong has brought a physical dimension to mindfulness once I have the form securely under my belt.

A better strategy for the present maybe to exercise the faith muscles and just be a devotion bunny - probably for quite some time.  And in this period after and beyond the heart attack, the time for shilly shallying ought by rights to be passed. As Dogen once urged his disciples, that every moment brings a fresh opportunity  - 'to throw your whole being into the house of the Buddha.'

READING ALOUD - Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas

 

Thomas was the first poet I became a fan of. The verbal power of his words is further amplified in this recording of the poet performing one of his most famous poems. It has all the sing song quality of a Welsh priest intoning from his Sunday pulpit. Clearly enunciated, emotionally over heightened, muscularly musical in its delivery. In many ways Dylan Thomas heard today, you could easy hear this as a parody of the poet. As though this was recited in another epoch.

But imagine it being read in a club or small assembly room, and how overwhelming the imaginative power of it could be. The rolling cascade of its rhetoric coming towards you. This is baroque poetry born from a robust and richer valley, than the conversational plainsong of many contemporary writers. 

And Thomas here is raging famously - against the dying of the light - the futile fight we put up against our mortality, the decay of our minds and bodies. And in Thomas's case, he raged against that which he most feared, the dying of his talent and creativity, that his best work was behind him. Something which. in part, drove him to drink.