Rob Wickings's Blog, page 7
July 27, 2024
The Long Road
A short section of a very long story—
A couple of days ago, TLC and I were heading back to our digs, aching and bone-deep weary after we’d somehow changed a quick stroll before dinner into a route march across poorly-mapped pastureland and rocky hillsides. Honestly, we do this to ourselves so often that it’s even funny anymore.
The last part of the track was, luckily, mostly downhill but there was one last upward dogleg to navigate. I sensed TLC slowing. She’s had trouble recently with her knees and Achilles tendon, yet she’s the one who will always lead us into uncharted territories. Wordlessly, I reached out my hand. Wordlessly, she took it and we negotiated the last slope together.
‘Thanks for the assist,’ she said once we were heading downhill again.
‘You know I’m always here for it,’ I said.
Park that moment. We’ll come back to it.
Hello from Cheshire. More accurately, hello from Lyme, a stately home and gardens set in 1400 acres of parkland on the western edge of the Peak District. There are deer runs and lakeside strolls and, as we’ve already ascertained, miles of walks to accidentally start.
West LodgeHome base for this week is West Lodge, one of two gatekeeper’s cottages on the estate. Lyme is owned and run by the National Trust, and staying on the grounds of a place like it has been on our bucket list for quite some time. The NT have hundreds of rentals available. They’re a bit pricier than your average Airbnb but are guaranteed to be well appointed and a bit out of the ordinary. Like last month’s Ebeneezer Chapel, West Lodge has high ceilings, solid stone floors and a real sense of history. And, interestingly, there’s another Methodist church 150 yards down the road. It’s that old coincidental weirdness chasing us around again.
Lyme was owned by the Legh family from the 1400s until the handover to the public in 1946. The house is huge, a mashup of different architectural styles as new wings and frontages were added over the centuries. It’s the image of an English stately home, which is why it’s been used for film and TV location work, most famously as Pemberley in the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. The pond out front? That’s the one Colin Firth took a plunge into from in a moment which sent hearts a-racin’ and pants a-dampenin’—and does to this day, if the merch in ye olde gift shoppe is any clue.
If you want to channel your inner Austen, Lyme sweetly offers you the opportunity to take advantage of a well-stocked dressing room and stroll the grounds in full Regency get-up. We spotted several folk in top-coats and cravats or Empire-line dresses, ‘Gramming their little hearts out. Who says cosplay is just for Comic-con?
The heart of Empire vibe continued as we took a drive into Derbyshire to visit TLC’s ancestral home, Buxton. A Georgian spa town with eyes on the touristic opportunities of places like Bath, it has its own genteel vibe, posh but still approachable. Most importantly, you can get Derbyshire oatcakes in many of the local cafes. Not sure of the differences between those and the Staffordshire version. I guess an extensive taste test is called for to see which version of the tasty savoury pancake is most to our taste. The winner of this particular competition will be me.
Buxton has an Opera House, a Regency-style Crescent (now home to a high-priced hotel). The Pavilion is an opulent centrepiece, recently and ravishingly refurbished. Glass domes, lots of stained glass, plenty of gallery space and a pop-up for the excellent Buxton Brewery, who were very happy to take an embarrassing amount of my money. Readership, I even bought the t-shirt.
Yes, you can drink Buxton water in Buxton. No, not the stuff in plastic bottles you pick up as part of a Tesco meal deal. This is the spring water, the elixir of life which brought crowds and money pouring into the town. There are a couple of taps, including one in the opulent pump house, where you can partake of the waters like a proper Victorian tourist. Tasting notes—it’s warm and extremely minerally. I’m not sure about the health benefits—I’d imagine too much would fur up your pipes something rotten. If you want a libation to wash down your oatcake, try Girl From Mars from the Brewery. Now there’s a local drink I can heartily recommend.
The Crescent, BuxtonAs part of a little wander round TLC’s back pages, we took a steep winding drive up to The Cat And Fiddle, a legendary coaching inn which closed in 2014, before reopening after a huge crowd-funding push to become England’s highest distillery. It is a place where you could indeed get high, although the road down is not one you want to negotiate while intoxicated. Maybe just a half in the cosy bar, then grab a bottle of their excellent gin or whiskey and have a glass once you’re closer to sea level is my advice.
Let’s talk a little about the roads. We thought we were used to twisty turny narrow tracks—any time spent driving in Northumberland or Cornwall will get you used to spending time with your nose in hedges. Here in the Peaks, though, there is a special blend of panic-inducement. The roads devolve into switchbacks with little warning, and the local drivers are—now, let me think a sec, to get the right sense of impatience, entitlement and utter, hare-brained recklessness at play, ah yes, here we go—fucking nutters. They will launch themselves past you into neck-breaking dog-legs, over blind summits with no thought of the consequences should traffic be coming the other way. Factor in the popularity of the Peaks to cyclists, who have some bizarre masochistic urge to pedal up the sort of incline I’d engage Harvette’s Hill Assist for and you have a perfect recipe for a huge, terrible pile-up. So far we’ve stayed safe. I’ll offer a fake apology to anyone who found themselves slightly inconvenienced by a Honda taking the switchback through Winnat’s Pass 5mph more slowly than they would have liked but seriously, pals, chill the fuck out a little.
That run down through the high, steep walls of Winnat’s Pass will lead you to the pretty town of Castleton. It’s been a hub for mining since Roman times. Back then, the material of choice was lead. Today, the attraction is a shimmering semi-precious stone called bluejohn. It shines in different hues of turquoise and cerulean, with accents of tiger-eyed yellow. Great for costume jewellery, it’s only really found in Derbyshire. Rarity somehow hasn’t inflated the value and we picked up a lovely pendant and ear-ring set (for TLC in case you’re wondering) for under £200. I left empty-handed but then, as she said, my gift is her continued place by my side. Also, I couldn’t find anything I liked.
It would be a missed opportunity for a town called Castleton not to have a castle. Peveril looms over the village, on a slope high enough to force you to take the ascent in stages (we are olds and our knees creak just getting off the sofa, stop laughing). Built as a hunting lodge and a base for the King’s forest keepers to enforce jurisdiction and restriction on hunting in the woodland, it saw little Royal use. Instead, it served as an ever-present reminder of authority and its bullying cousin—power. Peveril fell into disuse in the 16th century, used primarily as herding pens for sheep. Even now, though, looking out over its ruined walls at the peaks and valleys beyond, you can see how potent a symbol of the class structure it would have been.
The Keep at PeverilI’ve been thinking a lot about that contrast this week. Peveril, Lyme and to an extent Buxton are images of striated society, places where working-class presence would not have been tolerated. You were expected to know your place and your place was not there. Our ability to wander these halls and galleries at will (or at least for an entry fee) would have been unthinkable back in the day. But let’s not pretend England is open to her people. Right to roam is heavily restricted—8% of land, 3% of rivers. The forest keepers of Peveril would have felt comfortable in this restrictive environment.
For a bracing hit of context, I recommend a visit to Quarry Bank, a cotton mill near Manchester owned by the Greg family, who lived on site. Still operating, it was a bright star of the Industrial Revolution, cranking out thousands of yards of cloth weekly for domestic and international markets.
As the excellent exhibition spaces run at the top of the Mill make clear, this success was driven by exploitation and suffering. The raw cotton was supplied by slave plantations, including some owned by Samuel Greg. Two thirds of the work force were children, who were preferably apprenticed to the mill at ten. At this age they were deemed most easily mouldable, the better to learn how to work the equipment. Many would never leave, even after paying off their indenture. Places like this were the motor which drove the wheels of Empire.
There is a brutal honesty and pragmatism on display at Quarry Bank which cuts through any cant about ‘the good old days’ or ‘kids want everything handed to them.’ Children were a useful but disposable asset, easy to pick up and apply as needed. Despite the efforts of women like Hannah Greg, mill owner Samuel’s wife, to agitate for better conditions, this was how it was. The mill simply couldn’t have run without them. How Hannah managed to draw a line between her kids playing happily in the garden and the ones toiling for twelve hours a day behind the walls of the mill is beyond me.
Quarry Bank. No children in this image have been coerced into indentured service. Wandering the grounds and gardens of Quarry Bank in the sun, you feel hopeful we’re past all that, that the only kids you’ll see in a cotton mill are the ones running around with their parents having a lovely day out. Sorry, that’s not the case. Agriculture and fashion worldwide still benefit from child labour. It’s estimated that 151 million workers aged 5-17 are involved in some form of work, frequently unpaid, almost certainly on long shifts. Some of the clothes in your wardrobe will have been handled at some point in their manufacturing cycle by kids.
Quarry Bank is a grand day out, but it also serves as a sobering lesson in the grinding cogs of the world, and how people are an exploitable resource.
Phew. That got dark. Please forgive, let’s finish on a brighter note. Watch out as I execute a One Show-style tonal handbrake turn, slewing us right into the path of the elephant in the road.
2024 is a big year for TLC and I. In August, we’ll have been in Reading for 20 years, living in a house which we have now paid for. It’s a strange feeling, complicated by the appearance of unexpected and hefty maintenance bills. Collapsing drains, critters in the walls, all the fun stuff. We love expensive surprises.
Then there’s the small issue of the anniversary. TLC—Clare, come on, we’ve known each other long enough for us all to be on first-name terms by now—and I were married in July of 1994. Do the maths. Use the fingers and toes on both sets of hands and feet and some borrowed from a friend.
Thirty years. It feels odd even typing those words. It is an occasion which needed to be marked. We thought about heading off to Paris for the Olympics, but finances were at a tenuous point where we needed to focus on getting the mortgage crossed off. Instead, we chose Lyme, staying in a beautiful area close to Clare’s heart, in digs we knew we’d—dig. Seriously, we’ve talked about staying at a National Trust cottage for a very long time. We’re already thinking about the next one. If only the budget would stretch to Cragside…
Thirty years. It amazes us but seems to boggle the brains of a lot of people. How do we do it? Aren’t we sick of each other by now?
Well, I mean—obviously not, as we’re in a cottage miles from anywhere with just the two of us and not even a dog to break things up a bit. We get along, simple as that. We can always find something to talk about and if not, well, we’re comfortable being quiet at each other. We’re both introverts, both a bit arty in our own ways. Clare deals with the finances. I’m the more capable of the two when it comes to putting up shelves and slapping paint around. We complement each other. In the end though, it comes down to one simple fact—there’s no-one else we want to be with for most of the time.
Yeah, it’s a long path. But we’re on it for the long haul. Happily so. We’re heading into the future the same way we dealt with that last hill before the track twined us down to West Lodge, so many many words ago.
Heads up, hand in hand, facing the sun, and every so often looking at each other with a smile.
July 20, 2024
Copse End
I’m not sure I’d call it a breakthrough, but progress has definitely been made up at the troublesome end of the garden.
Hello and welcome to the inevitable domestic post I cobble together when I don’t have enough linkies for a decent edition of The Swipe. Let’s talk this week about our landing-strip of a garden—or more precisely, the top ten metres.
When we moved to Reading twenty (twenty!) years ago, it was from a cosy two-up two-down with a concrete back yard you could barely fit two people in. The contrast to what we have now is striking, and shows the imbalance in property prices between London and just about everywhere else in the country (with the possible exception of Oxford, but that has other factors to bring into play).
All of a sudden we had stewardship of a 70 metre long, thin garden with which we have engaged combat since 2004. A lot of the features we inherited have gone. The old, vine-strewn pergola. The multiple fish ponds. The serial-killer-vibing shed. I wouldn’t say we’ve installed order—neither TLC or I are tidy enough or have enough spare time for that. But it’s our space, a cheerfully eccentric outdoor zone in which we potter and cook and enjoy gin o’clock. Middle-aged and middle-class? Guilty as heck on both counts.
The main area of contention has been Copse End, the name I gave that fractious ten metres which mark the southern boundary of the property. A little wood belonging to the adjoining school bumps up against our back fence, and brambles, ivy and bindweed ingress from our neighbours on both sides. It’s where the sun hits in the late afternoon on a summer’s day, yet we don’t spend a great deal of time down there. It’s always too untidy and we’ve never really been sure what to do with the space.
Over time, I’ve stripped out a set of concrete raised beds, removed a mouldering greenhouse, dismantled that murderer’s haunt of a shed. A summerhouse went up, a lawn went down. A huge eucalyptus tree in the middle of the space was hacked out by hand in a cathartic afternoon courtesy of my pal Dom, who used the exercise as an excuse to shed some long-repressed anger. He was a machine that day, I can tell you.
The attempts to tame the space were, by and large, a failure. Again, lack of time and energy when faced with rampant, vigorous nature can only end one way. Over the years, Copse End has regularly devolved into sub-tropical jungle, inimical to human intervention. The lawn, set on unevenly levelled ground, is patchy and pitted with ankle-twisting sink-holes. The summerhouse, the best we could get on the budget we had, slowly rotted.
By the time of the Covid years, Copse End was a maze of brambles, choked in bindweed, barely passable in places. Loyal members of The Readership may recall I gave a status report back in June 2020.
https://excusesandhalftruths.com/2020/06/10/a-little-green/
The pandemic allowed us to give Copse End the two things it needed from us—time and attention. The snarl of spiny, stinging overgrowth was gradually cut back, although there were days when I was forced to retreat, covered in nicks and scratches, swearing after one too many swats across the face from a vengeful whip of nettle. With TLC’s help, sunlight returned, one wheelbarrow full of weeds at a time.
Over the past eighteen months, we’ve put the pedal to the metal. TLC has dug out new beds, with the intention of taking our treacherous lawn down to a winding, wild-flower strewn pathway. The old summerhouse is gone. It was the easiest demolition job ever—I literally pulled it apart with nothing more than a claw hammer and raw brute strength. Stop laughing, I did, I tells ya.
Copse End In May…In its place on the slab of concrete that marks the border of our land, there’s a tall and sturdy pergola providing shade and a focal point. Built using a bequest from my beloved nan who passed at the end of 2022, we’ve called it Gwen’s Den. We’re growing clematis and jasmine up either side and made a couple of beds along the front edge to provide a pop of colour and interest. Last autumn I even used it as an impromptu performance area when I hosted Reading Writers’ Novelist’s Day (I really must tell you all about that someday).
Meanwhile new tall fences have gone up on either side and, courtesy of the school, across the back. All this has really helped with the ever-present press of thorns and stingers, helping us to stay on top of things. Ok, we can’t chat to the neighbours anymore, but hey, there are downsides to any big project.
I’ve even excavated the old footings for the ancient greenhouse, which will be re-tasked as a little seating area. It feels like finally we can start to use Copse End for its intended use—a sunny spot for our 5pm negronis and gintonics.
…and today.We were lucky to have a good green space to retreat to during lockdown. It was a massive help, a salve to our mental health which saved us from feeling like prisoners in our own home. Plenty of folks didn’t have that and I will always be aware of our privileged position and grateful for what we have. The past few years up at Copse End have taught me to be patient with my garden, to pay attention to its needs, and to understand the work is never done. Look, I can’t pretend to be anything but an enthusiastic amateur, but I do try. The tomatoes, cucumbers garlic and squash which are in play this year are testament to what even a fucknuckled goofball like me can achieve with time and a little effort. Even in Copse End, there’s always opportunity for change, growth and new adventures. I’ll raise a glass in the sunshine to that.
July 13, 2024
The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 24
It’s been a bumpy week, I can’t lie. The Day Job has—intruded on my headspace. Consequentially, it’s a short chapter this week. I’ll regroup next week with a less scattershot offering, promise.
This week: early rising, a Frasier murder mystery and the greatest Emmy acceptance speech ever.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Rob is reading…
The 2000AD Summer Special, with some especially ripe mashups of classic characters. Johnny Alpha, the Strontium Dog, makes a strong showing, appearing as both Dredd and Rogue Trooper. It all gets a bit overly meta at the end but hey, drokk it, it’s still quality entertainment for less than three of your Earth pounds. Zarjaz!
For other audiences, there’s a new Misty annual out in time for Spooky Season.
Rob is watching…
Rob & Rylan’s Grand Tour. What starts off as a typical meet-cute travel show with an odd-couple cast (He’s an uptight guy who loves classical music and art! He’s a streak-of-piss Essex loudmouth with Strictly credentials!) turns into a show with a valuable lesson—it’s never too late to learn, to teach and to discover. The chemistry between Rylan and Rob is utterly delightful as they tease, challenge and support each other through an emotional rollercoaster in some beautiful settings. Unequivocally recommended.
Quote of the series:
‘Three days in Venice and I’ve turned you into a poet.’
‘Three days in Venice and I’ve turned you into a drag queen.’
Rob is listening to…
25 Songs About Horses Ranked By How Much I Think You Should Play Them For Your Horse
Of course there’s a Spotify playlist.
Rob is eating…
at Pierre Victoire in Oxford, especially good if you need a quiet bistro to swerve the football. Three courses for £35. Absurdly good value and hence wildly popular. If you haven’t booked, go early. Try the chicken farci, it’s godly.
Rob’s Low-Key Obsession Of The Week…
This lil bit of public service.
The quiet and determined life of Steve Ditko, one of the creators who Marvel have not treated with the respect their characters deserve. Or indeed paid them a respectable percentage of the annual turnover of merch and IP. Ditko DGAF, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Yes, I am a member of the club which includes the few, the proud, the partially sleepless. Yes, I am usually in bed before 10pm. Rob DGAF. I’m happy this way. How do you think I crank this newsletter out week on week?
I am amazed, no, astonished, that this brilliant idea has not been played with up till now. And doesn’t Colombo look cute?
An interview with Beck, who has soundtracked some very meaningful moments in my life. Morning Phase is a simple, quiet joy to me, but there’s also Mellow Gold, Midnite Vultures…
Actually, let’s come back to this in the Outro.
Pixar-style renditions of the Bear crew. Some are better than others (Neil and Tina ain’t right) but Carmy and Nat? Bang on.
Script-writers could do a lot worse than check some of these pick-up lines out. I was moved in a very discombobulating way.
We do not, to my knowledge, have a character like Mr. Rogers in the UK. That is to our detriment. Look at how he reduces an audience of Hollywood A-listers to tears with a simple request to shut the fuck up for ten seconds and think about the people who got them there in the first place.
OK, he didn’t quite put it like that but you get the gist.
We could all do with taking a quiet moment to remember the loved ones who helped us on our path every now and then. Thank you, Fred.
Ok, I’m out. One, two, you know what to do.
See you in seven, fellow travellers.
July 6, 2024
The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 23
I woke up on Friday morning seriously expecting the worst of news. That somehow, despite all reasonable predictions, the country had managed to fuck itself over once again. I still remember the day after the Brexit vote, reading the news in the small cottage where we were holidaying up in the hills above Coniston in the Lake District, wondering if it wouldn’t be better if we just never came back down the steep stone track again.
Sanity, this time, has prevailed, and the sorry bunch of chancers, incompetents and conmen who have blighted the UK’s economic social and moral landscape for the last fourteen years have been kicked unceremoniously into the long grass. Sadly, characters like Lord Scarecrow Jacob Rees-Mogg will be unaffected by their fall from grace. A little humiliation in the local sports hall, then off to have a little cry in their beds stuffed with money, It was all a game to them, a chance to extort power and money from the little people. We were ruled by vampires, and too weak from blood loss to do much about it.
In the end, I guess we have to thank that ridiculous ham left out in the rain Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson for the slow slide back into reason. If this was the sort of person the Tories thought was suitable for power, what did that say about them as a party, as a government, as human beings? From Johnson, found guilty of contempt and ejected by the same people who made him leader, it was a short and very bumpy run to BDSM-bot Liz Truss and finally, lastly and leastly, personality vacuum and nightmare gnome Rishi Sunak. Calling a snap election was the smartest thing he ever did. Pull the ripcord, jump out of the plane before it goes into the side of the mountain. He’s already quit the Tory leadership. I give it six months before he gives up his constituency and fucks off back to America. Sooner if the new team revoke non-dom status for creatures like his parasite wife.
To today, then. Rainy with the occasional shots of sunshine. That’s probably a good metaphor for the coming months. There’s a broken country to heal which takes time and yes, money. Let’s hope we start taxing those who can more than afford it and start taking better care of the vulnerable. Which, let’s face it, after the last near-decade and a half of battering, is most of us. I dunno about you, but I feel bruised and banged up.
I hope for change. I’ll settle for better. For now, at least, hope is back on the agenda, and that’s a feeling I really, really miss.
Sorry, rant over. Let’s have some links.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Rob is reading…
The election results, enjoying certain results with an unhealthy glee. Congrats to my local MP Matt Rodda, re-elected to parliament on an increased majority in Reading Central and Olivia Bailey, accepting the mantle in Reading West and Mid-Berkshire. My town is fully Labour for the first time, and it’s a sweet feeling.
Rob is watching…
The election results KIDDING. I couldn’t do that to myself. A new season of The Bear is giving me all the stress I need right now, thank you so much. Not seeing why the critics are giving it so much hate based on the first three episodes, to be honest. The show is as beautiful, heart-breaking and funny as ever.
Rob is listening…
Sod it, I’m off to my happy place.
Rob is eating…
I’m working on my pizza game. Homemade dough is still hit and miss, but you can get great chilled packets (Pizza Express-branded is especially good) which you can roll out and fling in the oven for a surprisingly quick evening meal. Toppings of choice—anything seafood. Prawns, shelled mussels and good tinned tuna under a quick tomato sauce, over a blanket of pre-grated mozzarella. You heard me. No need to go fancy until I have the basics right. A pizza peel makes all the difference. Dunelm do a solid example for a tenner, Lakeland is another option. Don’t fuss with pizza stones or steels. Just get your oven as high as it’ll go, build your pie on a circle of baking parchment and straight onto the top shelf. No more than ten minutes. Perfect with a glass of fizz and a huge Labour majority.
Rob’s Low-Key Obsession Of The Week…
Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests. I’ve mentioned them before, but they return like old friends and I am constantly, pleasingly mesmerised.
Let us consider life without the constant babble of signal and noise we carry with us at all times, in our pockets, at work, at home. We managed without the internet for hundreds and thousands of years. How do we return to that state of grace? I still intend to be writing The Swipe after the fall, basing my content on neighbourhood gossip, the changes of season in the garden and the adventures of Millie The Cat. Hand-typed, A5 pamphlet, posted or hand-delivered. Please like and subscribe.
This one is tangential to The Day Job, and very much in the ballpark of my film geek proclivities. I love the notion of a film festival where there is a risk of the whole theatre going up in flames as in the end of Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.
While we’re on the subject, a short list of those films we can no longer see. Incidentally, I’m reminded of a film which only exists as a single print, now missing in transit and presumed lost. Any of the Readership know what I’m talking about, because I can find no reference. Or maybe that’s the point…
I intend to start rolling all of these phrases out into everyday use. The verbal equivalent of the thumbs down in traffic—so much more effective than a raised middle finger.
It Ain’t What You Say, It’s The Way That You Say It.
So, I knew there would be some hot takes on the world of Winnie The Pooh once it entered the public domain. This is the hottest and strangest yet.
Take ten minutes and marvel at how pianist Keith Jarret pulled beauty out of disaster. As someone who can find middle C and that’s about it, this story is utterly extraordinary.
Russell Crowe seems like a guy who has taken life by the scruff of the neck, given it a big snog and a slap on the butt and dragged it off to do his bidding. Seriously, this is what living your best life looks like.
Back, momentarily, to The Bear and its incredible first episode. Experimental but accessible, and a route into Carmy’s motivations and character. Action over dialogue, and don’t be afraid to let the audience do some of the work. Silence is golden.
Fair warning. We’re finishing with a very long piece on the history and use of punctuation. I appreciate not all of you will be as interested as I, who constantly struggle with the right way to add pauses and gaps into my writing. Punctuation is desperately important. It’s how you breathe life into a piece of prose, getting it to sound the way it does in your head. Also, this is a very long piece on the history and use of punctuation by Nicholson Baker. Hope that helps change your mind a little bit.
I have been lured back into the crazy and ramshackle world of Guided By Voices, who throw records out like Reading Buses—reliably and with a cheap and cheerful charm. Don’t like this one? There’ll be more along directly. Very taken currently with “Serene King’ which shows off the band’s unerring surety of direction towards a chunky, loose-limbed style of power pop. Do the lurch with me.
Thanks for your patience this week while I get some baggage off my top shelf. See you in seven.
June 29, 2024
The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 22
I didn’t expect the new pool at Reading’s Rivermead Leisure Centre to be a place where I would be shockingly reminded of my own mortality. I like a bit of a swim, and thought the facility would be a grand place to get back into the habit. The problem was, I booked a fitness session by accident, and found myself trapped in a lane where there was no real chance to take it at an easy pace. Every time I turned I was faced by a determined-looking pensioner bearing down on me disapprovingly.
Readership, I lasted twenty minutes, and five of those were me perched on the side of the pool trying not to cough up a lung. When a concerned lifeguard came up and asked if I was OK, I knew I’d over-extended.
I’ll be back, but making darn sure to to book a gentler session. Obviously, I’ve been spoiled by empty hotel pools for far too long. Once my shoulders have fully popped back into their sockets, that is…
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Rob is reading…
A big collection of Damon Knight’s short stories. A master of the form, his work is well worth studying if you have any interest in this most exacting of disciplines. Knight was a pivotal figure in SF’s Golden Age, not just as author but editor, critic and convention organiser. He’s best known for ‘To Serve Man’, but there’s a lot more to check out. Recommended.
Rob is watching…
Glastonbury, while sending instructions to a bunch of pals on site as to the cool things to go and see, including the laser-winged dragonfly made out of an old Westland helicopter at Arcadia. Worth checking out the build on iPlayer. The final creature is a thing of rare and unearthly beauty.
Rob is listening…
Haven’t heard this in fifteen years, and it’s subsequently sent me down a 90s retro groove-hole alongside bands like The Thrills, the Cosmic Rough Riders and yes, even The La’s. Great stuff, tremendously evocative of an exciting time in my life.
Rob is eating…
Never underestimate the uses to which you can put a bag of chicken thighs, poached off in the pressure cooker with a little stock and ranch seasoning and then shredded. Cook them with skin and bone on and you get even more flavour. A topping for flatbreads, the base for a pasta bake, the filling for an excellent sandwich with a little coleslaw. Maximum bang for minimum buck buck buck.
Rob’s Low-Key Obsession Of The Week…
The art of popping out beading around a double-glazed window pane so it can be easily removed. It involves a deadly-looking tool called a moon knife, a modicum of skill and a very particular twisting motion. Curiously proud of myself once I figured it out. Just another part of the joys of home ownership, people.
I always thought they came from National Trust book nooks, but I’ve,m happy to be more accurately informed.
There is a shortage of chartreuse, one of the most esoteric liquors on the wet bar. Made from almost 70 herbs, flavourings and botanicals, it’s made in small batches by a tiny enclave of monks who seem uninterested in sharing the recipe behind its creation. Bartenders, then, are reverse-engineering the stuff, coming up with their own blends before the secret is lost forever. Surely it’s written down somewhere, right?
There is a massive disconnect between how AI is presented, and what it is actually capable of doing. At this point it’s a buzzword, a sales pitch, a marketing ploy. It has the incredible capacity to suck all the life out of any conversation, and the vast majority of people don’t purposefully use it or even care.
So to Nikhil Suresh, who has frankly had enough of the whole sorry circus.
Props to Jez of The Story Board, the first one to alert me to the diaries of the rarely-employed actor who inspired Bruce Robinson to lightly fictionalise him into the character of Withnail. It seems as if he was toned down a bit for the screen. Truth is richer and stranger than fiction.
This Vittles bit by Noreen Masud is not just about a particular kind of robust pulse. Good food writing is never just about the grub. Noreen digs into memory, family, guilt, identity and the connection which comes from a simple meal shared with generosity. You’d think that’s a lot to pile onto a chickpea. It really isn’t.
Anthony Bourdain continues to influence us years after his death. He understood, like Noreen above, that food is never just about flavour or sustainable—it’s a key part of the human experience and should be treated as such. Widely travelled, always hungry, since his passing he has become an icon in the original sense of the term, an image onto which we can load all manner of meaning and opinion. I suspect he would have found the whole thing tiresome but mildly amusing.
Girls don’t miss their ex, they miss Anthony Bourdain.
The best use of the classic excuse from a major literary figure. Steal from the best, right?
And lastly, while I am going to try to swerve the upcoming political maelstrom in the UK, at least in these pages until it’s actually landed, a gentle reminder as to what’s at stake and what has happened over the last fourteen years may just help to inform your choice. Wherever you put your cross next week, be sure to make your mark.
Let’s Outro in celebration of Idles headlining set at Glastonbury last night. I present their greatest moment—a cover of Hey Duggee’s Stick Song. Turn it up and bounce along.
See you in seven, fellow travellers.
June 22, 2024
The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 21
A busy old week, what with writing triumphs and social gatherings and an emergency plumber call out just when I was getting cocky. Things never run as smoothly as they could (including the first draft of Chapter 21, lost in a version conflict—gods I love repeating myself) ,so you might as well just enjoy the ride.
This chapter brings you alien tacos, the attempt to steal Graceland and a very insistent seagull.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Rob is reading…
Nothing. I’ve been writing instead. Victory at the Reading Writers Spring Competition sparked up the wordsmithy instincts and I’ve been riding the waves of inspiration. After last month’s fumbled 200 word a day challenge, I suddenly feel back on track again.
Rob is watching…
Welcome To Wrexham, season 3. A warm, witty celebration of community and enduring spirit in the face of adversity. Sure, people hate the fact that a couple of Hollywood types have gotten involved and pulled the Welsh team up by their bootstraps, but how is that any different to the billionaire owners of the Premiere League? At least it feels like something positive is coming out of the arrangement and the show has a lot less of Rob and Ryan than you might think. It’s all the football I can deal with this month.
Rob is listening…
to The Boss showing exactly why he’s The Boss. In front of an Irish crowd, this could have gone wrong but Bruce and the E Street Massive nailed it.
Rob is eating…
Alien reproductions of crappy fast food Tex Mex
…well, not really, but I could go a taco right now.
Rob’s Low-Key Obsession Of The Week…
Sorry, I love the insistent seagull.
Belgium’s most famous cub reporter has a certain I-don’t-know-what when it comes to style. Not everyone can pull off that trouser, sock and brogue combo, but the wee chap wears it well.
So much so that the Belgian national squad have made a very sharp choice on kit colour going into the Euros. Looking good, lads!
The story of how Graceland was very nearly foreclosed on and sold off is one which twists even more strangely the more you get into it. A long read but one you should spend the time on.
I heartily recommend you pull this up on full screen, crank up the sound and take a journey with me. I am a boy with his head in the stars and oh my days this short film spoke to me.
Should we be surprised that SF legend Ursula K. LeGuin had a self-run website? It’s crufty, barely working but full of her personality and charm. Sometimes you can just be too slick.
Holy crap, Ursula LeGuin had a blog.
We lost James Chance this week. Massively influential on the no-wave scene of the late 70s and early 80s, his thumbprints are all over bands from Talking Heads to LCD Soundsystem. A true original. Go ahead, contort yourself.
If you believe AI translation will bring all languages together into one easily-parseable argot, the New York Times has news for you. It ain’t that simple.
Linda Thompson. A heroine of mine, who has withstood all manner of adversity, from marriage to folk legend and famously difficult human Richard Thompson, to the loss of her incredible singing voice. How do you deal? You write an album and get your big address book of heavy friends to perform them for you. Ex-hub is even on guitar duty. Also: best album title of the year.
Can you imagine, as the Queen Of Soul suggests, this pair as a duo? Could the world sustain such beauty? Perhaps it’s better that we only have this little scrap of wonder. For me, for today and the weekend ahead, it’s enough.
See you in seven, fellow travellers.
June 15, 2024
The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 20
Doesn’t really feel like June, does it? TLC and I are still pulling out jumpers to wear in the evenings. As I sit writing, looking out at the garden this morning, I’m serenaded by the soft hush of rain on the roof. The grounds are looking especially lush right now, but oh what wouldn’t I give for a sunny afternoon to sip wine amongst the flowers? Oh well, you get what you get. We’ll probably all still be in shorts come November and we’ll have no-one to blame but ourselves.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Rob is reading…
Pavane by Keith Roberts. A classic alternate history which takes as its pivot point the assassination of Elizabeth I in 1588. From there, the Catholic Church takes hold and technology and progress slows. Set in 1968, the England of Pavane is a place where communication is still run using semaphores, steam tractors are used for goods haulage and every advancement is subject to the whims of the Pope. But a rebellion is coming… Pavane is an extraordinary achievement, packed with detail and thoroughly thought through. Robert’s alternative present feels real, exquisitely portrayed and painstakingly researched. I picked up the paperback for a quid in a National Trust bookshop. It’s the find of the year, quite frankly.
Rob is watching…
The rain dappling the greenery in the garden.
Rob is listening…
To R.E.M. as they accept induction into the Songwriter’s Hall Of Fame. It’s so good to see the band back together, even if Mike Mills says it would take a comet to get them playing again…
…a comet which arrived not twenty-four hours later.
Rob is eating…
Yeah, this one is wishful thinking but maybe, someday, I too can enjoy a seventeen-course omakase at Royal Sushi & Izakaya. Hey, I’ve never been to Philadelphia.
Rob’s Low-Key Obsession Of The Week…
Want stickers. Need stickers. Must have stickers. Some of these made me cackle out loud.
A fascinating overview on the changing infrastructure of energy production. Seriously, people need to stop honking on about AI and pay attention to the challenges being faced and stared down by the cleverest folk on the planet. If they pull it off, we as a species might just have a chance on this ol’ blue marble we call home.
Sword and sorcery might seem like a moribund genre, trapped in the rules and boundaries set by Robert E. Howard in his Conan stories. But naturally, any structure can be rethought and imagined freshly, even if it needs complete disassembly and a ground-floor rebuild. This does not negate the old tales. But we can always try something new, right?
I love this Slate celebration of how pop changed in 1982, linking it to Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso. But honestly, the genre he claims to be nameless was simply called jazz-funk in the UK. My brother Jim loved it when he was growing up as a Walthamstow casual. I thought it was all junk. Luckily, I grew up. Jim was right, and I was an idiot. Grab the playlist, and blast it out loud on the chance we do actually get some sun this summer.
Soundtrack To The Summer (of 1982)
Writing process post, you might want to move along. To me, though, the work of line editors is fascinating, especially when it becomes clear how much of an influence they had on famous author’s so-called signature styles.
This, from Joel Morris on how help is often around the corner, tucked out of sight is honestly heart-breaking. Surely we can find a way to offer a hand, to be more visible at the point where we’re most needed.
They Automated Us Because We Hadn’t Met.
John Scalzi wrote The Consuming Fire in two weeks. I couldn’t even finish my 200-word-a-day May. But then I don’t do this for a living. Bill-paying is clearly a powerful motivator.
I live near to the Thames, and the towpath at Caversham is mobbed with swans and geese. They are aggressive about their territory, especially when their chicks arrive. You learn quickly around here that the big birds are not to be messed with.
Jeremiah Tower takes the Hot Wings challenge. It does not go well.
During the long, drawn out quest which led, eventually, to Harvette’s arrival on our front yard, I read a lot of motoring journalism. There was a lot about torque and nought-to-sixty ratios and surprisingly little about how it was to actually use and live with a car. It was an article by Tina Milton in the Sunday Times which gave us the nudge we needed towards Honda—a choice we do not regret in the slightest. Our everyday interactions with motor vehicles is not usually reflected in the pages of car magazines, though. So it was a lovely surprise to come across this rather sweet missive from Sam Philip in, of all places Top Gear magazine who nails the end-user experience.
The European Athletic Championships in Rome happened this week—although you might not have noticed it in all the hoopla around the footie. It’s the last chance for athletes of the track and field disciplines to shine before the Olympics next month. A likely highlight in Paris will be the women’s hurdles when Femke Bol competes. As Geoff Dyer explains, she is a very special athlete with a particular and unusual style.
Last up, I was drawn to Adam Savage’s emotional response to a query about giving away your creative work. It hit me surprisingly hard. You like to think when you send your art out into the world it will garner a response which reflects the effort you put into it. That is rarely the case. Call it The Maker’s Dilemma. The best you can do is to leave it behind and move on, but it’s harder to do than you think.
I’m going to Outro with this perfect example of song, puppetry and drama from those amazing Muppet people. Thought-provoking, heartfelt and funny.
See you in seven, fellow travellers.
June 8, 2024
A Week in the Weird
The two handles either side of the great upturned ale-jug of our island nation, Wales and East Anglia, are places which wear key elements of our character loudly and proudly—an obsession and familiarity with magic, the afterlife and demonic entities, permeable borders (including those between the living and the dead) and an intense dislike of authority. In this TED talk I will focus on the eastern lobe of our big-eared country. It’s familiar territory for me as an Essex boy who regularly holidayed up here as a boy, More helpfully, TLC and I’ve just spent a week in Suffolk, in a deconsecrated chapel a short drive from the coast.
It was supposed to be a holiday, a chance to get outside our skulls, relax and be humans after a rough-ridden start to the year. It’s me, though, innit. I just can’t help but be open to the maps and legends running just under the surface—no, sod that, right out in the daylight. In East Anglia the stories run wild and free, shedding their skins and changing the colour of their coat with every recitation. It’s a deep pool, which can change from mirror-calm (reflecting what is a whole other question) to choppy and treacherous.
Sculpture at Helmington Hall by David HarberBut let’s back up before swandiving into the briny waters, and give a location report. We planted our banner in Knodishall, a village with one pub, one shop and a common where burnt gorse sends knotted black tendrils up towards the sky. Sculptural and creepy all at once. Ebeneezer Chapel, our home base, was built in 1857. It’s a light, bright and airy space, a simple hymn to a simple god. The Methodists who used to use it moved out into an 80s-styled blockhouse next door which looks like a run-down community centre. Practical sorts, them Methodists.
From here we were a short drive from Aldeburgh and Southwold on the coast, inland towns like Woodbridge and even Ipswich if we felt the urge. But it’s the castles and sites of antiquity which twang our heartstrings. The ruins of a Benedictine abbey at Leiston. The castle on the top of the hill at Framlington, once site of Mary Queen Of Scot’s declaration of her right to the throne and home to the Bigods, a regular thorn in the side of the royal family (so much so that Henry II built another castle at Orford just to keep an eye on them pesky barons). And of course, the most significant archeological epicentre in the country, which reconfigured the way we think about the Anglo-Saxons and our early history—Sutton Hoo.
The grounds of Sutton Hoo are where story and history twine like the decorative animals in Saxon gold jewellery. Some parts of the tale are agreed upon—the estate is home to an ancient burial site, which includes the funeral mound of a great and important man, possibly even a king. Sent to his rest in a forty-man longboat surrounded by precious decoration, which was famously rediscovered in the late-30s by a semi-professional archaeologist under the guidance of the lady of the manor. The discoveries at Sutton Hoo would radically remap our ideas on post-Roman, pre-English society.
The burial mounds at Sutton Hoo.But there’s a lot which is sheer supposition. We don’t know who the nobleman in the longboat was. The most likely candidate is the Anglian King Rædwald, who died in 620AD, and the National Trust presentation at Sutton Hoo leans heavily on that, although they too agree this is educated guesswork. Similarly, the design of ‘King Rædwald’s’ golden helmet, the clear brand image of Sutton Hoo, is a second crack at what it actually looked like. It was pieced together from hundreds of different fragments, all of which had been immersed in acidic East Anglian soil for hundreds of years, also subject to tomb raiders. Again, the Trust freely admit that, with advances in technology or further finds on what is still a working archeological site, that design may have to be revised.
We should also mention the stranger aspects of the tale. How, for example, Edith Pretty guided her team to break ground in a location shown to her in dreams and visions. That bit didn’t really make it into The Dig, the 2021 film version of the Sutton Hoo discoveries. An element which didn’t really need to be pushed given the inherent drama around the excavations, perhaps.
There is a definite atmosphere around the burial mounds at Sutton Hoo, a vibration in the air which is easily picked up in any cemetery. The location helps, of course—a quiet field under the huge open skies of East Anglia with nothing to hear but birdsong. And, if you’re attentive, the slow murmur of the dead drifting softly in their earthy beds…
Look, it’s hard not to go down the whole Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World route when you’re wandering around old ruins and grave mounds. I can see why authors like Lionel Fanthorpe, who has written extensively on the subject (as well as banging out 180-odd novels under a dizzying array of pseudonyms) would dip his pen nib in purple ink. It’s all too easy to fall under the spell of these sites, these stories, this mythology.
Beach huts at SouthwoldI’m a child of the boom times in esoteric detection—the books of Erich Van Daniken, the aforementioned Arthur C. Clarke series, the classic magazine partwork The Unexplained. Fortean Times, in print since 1973, bloomed in this rich soil. I still subscribe.
It was a time when Uri Geller would regularly bend spoons to general bafflement on chat shows, and stage magicians ruled Saturday night telly. A credulous time, sure, but one where you had to do the legwork to get anyone to listen to you. The Facebook conspiracists or goofballs like Graham Hancock don’t have to try so hard and therefore don’t have the same charm. There’s a shrillness, a need to double down on any half-baked claim of hidden sub-aquatic civilisations or chem trails injecting government trackers into our tear ducts or something.
I’m still keen on a good yarn, delighting in crazy coincidences and bizarre happenings. But I’m also a bit more careful about what I choose to believe. My skeptic-sense tingles at phrases like ‘it is said’, ‘legends relate,’ or any heavy lifting done by unconfirmed sources, hearsay or rumour. Blame my media studies degree. It gave me the power to know that the answer to any headline that finishes with a question is ‘no’. I’ll happily plunge into the dark woods in search of the unexplained. But I make sure my bullshit detector has fresh batteries and the NOPE filter is turned up allll the way.
So, anyway. On Tuesday TLC and I went looking for UFOs.
In the autumn of 1980, two American soldiers on duty at RAF Woodbridge saw strange lights in the trees just the other side of the boundary fences which backed onto the ancient woodland of Rendlesham Forest. They investigated, and encountered not only lights but a silvery object hovering above them, which shot away at unbelievable speed once they pointed guns at it. The so-called Rendlesham Incident is now part of ‘foo lore and the Forestry Commission, gods bless ‘em, have chosen to embrace the strange with a dedicated UFO trail. A three-mile trek through the woods, it follows the path the airforce-men took on that fateful night, offering you the chance to retrace their steps. It doesn’t really offer any great insight, but does allow you to see the eerie abandoned airfield at RAF Woodbridge. If nothing else, it’s a nice woodland walk.
Oh, and there’s this.
The truth is etc etc.I have a soft spot for UFOlogy. Yes, fine, X-Files, yes fine Gillian Anderson (oh SO fine) and of course the SF geek in me is prone to enjoy stories about aliens. I also love that this stuff is so prevalent in East Anglia, the part of the country heaviest with RAF and USAF sites. Who knows what really went on behind the tall wire fences? Is the truth out there somewhere? Can you pack it in with the unanswerable questions, Rob?
Fine. Join me for one last journey then, as we explore (insert best B-movie trailer voice-over here) The Island Of Mystery.
Orford Ness, a spit of land jutting out of the harbour of the otherwise tiny, pretty fishing town of Orford was, for the best part of the 20th century, a weapons testing facility for the British military. Initially used to finesse the methods used by World War 1 bombers to deliver ordnance (set fuse, chuck bomb over side, hope) it became an important place for atomic weapons research during the Cold War. The official line is that no fissionable material ever came to Suffolk—instead, tests focussed on the warheads and explosives that would be used to trigger the nukes. It was also home to esoteric radar experiments, culminating in the back-scatter array code-named COBRA MIST. A radio jamming facility, it was also used up until 2010 to broadcast the BBC World Service into Central and Eastern Europe.
All of this is enough to give me the techno tingles. The coolest part is that the National Trust now own the land. From Easter to October, a couple of days a week, you can prebook the minute-long ferry ride and spend time on the island. Readership, you know I couldn’t resist.
You didn’t see me, alright?Orford Ness does not disappoint. It’s full of abandoned bunkers, old labs installations (which, even more intriguingly you can’t quite get up close to) and generally has the air of a 70’s SF-style Forbidden Zone. It’s also teeming with wildlife—the Trust remit is to gradually let all the military architecture gracefully rot away, turning the whole place into a birders paradise. TLC and I were finally talked into an RSPB membership during a visit to Minsmere early in the week, so came with cameras and binoculars at the ready (mine fresh from an antiques shop in Thorpeness for a princely 28 quid. They look good and work well, and the retro vibe suited the environment). I felt like one of Tarkovsky’s Stalkers, edging around strange monoliths in search of a higher truth.
Labs 1 and 2.The one building you really can’t get near is the low-slung building which was home to COBRA MIST. Off in the distance and ringed with antennae, it all looked a bit well-kept for an abandoned facility. As if the stories of unexploded mines and (more authentically for a National Trust site) path closures due to nesting birds are in place to keep you away. I had a good old look with my trusty Kershaws. It all looked very clean and carefully maintained to me. There are rumours that COBRA MIST was actually an attempt to build an EMP weapon, able to shut down electronic systems from afar, knocking out enemy aircraft before they got anywhere near our shores. Can we say for sure it was just a radar site? What are they not telling us?
Tres Tarkovsky.YES RIGHT FINE OK less of the Fanthorpes. Seriously, if you’re into abandoned militaria or fancy a wander in one of England’s least accessible bird-watching sites, Orford Ness is a must. You have to prebook via the National Trust and places understandably fill up quickly.
I’ve made a lot out of the general strange vibe of East Anglia, but it’s also a lovely place to spend a week. If you want castles, there are plenty. If you want seaside, fill your boots, the coastline is glorious. Towns like Aldeburgh and Southwold have everything you could ask for. You can’t turn a corner without finding a pub (many run by local legends Adnams, whose brewery scents the air deliciously at Southwold). As long as you’re not a hill-walker or mad into your city breaks, Suffolk will do you nicely. Just be prepared for things to turn quirky when you least expect it.
The Quantum Tunnelling Telescope at the end of Southwold Pier.At Southwold, the recently-refurbished pier contains sculptures and a home-built arcade courtesy of Tim Hunkin and his band of mad scientists. The beach at Thorpeness is one of the few with vegetated shingle, clumps of sea kale, Japanese rose and sedums growing straight out of the pebbles. A fragile ecosystem, but one which clings tenaciously to life despite all the challenges. Not a place to build sandcastles.
And then of course, it’s hard to get away from the white dome of Sizewell, the nuclear power plant, which seems to peek into view on any coastal trip. There are signs everywhere protesting plans to build a new facility there. There’s NIMBYism, then there’s ‘please don’t build another nuclear reactor on the beach.’ I can only agree.
Perhaps it’s me. You can probably have a nice, normal family holiday in Suffolk with nothing weird to report, and I’m the one whose radar is pinged by the UFOs and ghosties and unexplained occurances. It made for a fun old week, though. And let’s face it, if I really wanted to lean into the strange, all I’d have to do is go north of Ely. Norfolk’s where all the really odd shit happens.
All images by me. Featured image is of Barbara Hepworth’s The Family Of Man, on display at Snape Maltings—also well worth a visit if you’re in the area).
June 1, 2024
The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 19
Hello from Swipe Mobile Command, a converted Methodist chapel in the pretty village of Knodishall in East Suffolk. It is calm and peaceful here, a building of clean white walls and high ceilings. A big bright open space where we can cook, listen to music (and at this time of the morning, birdsong) and reset. Aldeburgh and Southwold are short drives away, as is the UFO walk at Rendlesham Forest, where we will doubtless find the truth is indeed out there.
It is June and we are remembering what it’s like to be grown up, married people with proper internal lives. I am increasingly content. All I need now is to get my toes into some seawater.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Rob is reading…
I made a pact with myself not to be so distracted with internet bells and whistles and focus on reading one book this week. I have a lovely hardback Penguin Classics edition of A Confederacy Of Dunces by John Kennedy Poole which has been staring at me from the bookshelf for a while, so it’s time we got acquainted. The novel is a springy, sprightly chunk of prose and I’m already in with both feet. It’s the right choice for the holiday—a book with heft and chew but nothing too bleak and dark.
Rob is watching…
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. The last word in the title is the important one here—it is a tale told in legend of a figure who endures unimaginable trials to become a fearsome warrior. It’s a different animal to Fury Road—wider in vision, broader in scope. Visually extraordinary, at times utterly berserk. I love the dynamic between Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth as the villainous Dementus. She barely speaks, he can’t shut up. The division and duality is clearly and simply set up. The film is a perfectly designed bit of clockwork, the fuse to a bomb which director George Millar winds up and sets off. Pure cinema. Yes, see it on the biggest screen you can, and try and park yourself dead centre and close enough so the edge of the image is in your peripheral vision. A thing of savage beauty.
Rob is listening…
To Otoboke Beaver, a punky glitterball from Kyoto. The four-piece are having the times of their lives at every gig, and you can feel the NPR Tiny Desk bulging at the seams with the fizzing energy they give off. It’s like being beaned with a bath bomb. You know, in a good way.
Rob is eating…
This is everything I want in a burger in one super-savoury, umami-dunked bite. Hereford’s own Beefy Boys, as featured on Saturday Kitchen and Tom Kerridge’s Hidden World Of Hospitality, do an award-winning version, but frankly Kenji’s version looks deliciously simple and perfectly to grill up at home. Yes to pickles, by the way. I could even go a little mustard.
Rob’s Low-Key Obsession Of The Week…
It used to be a badly-kept secret that Western celebrities would do commercials in Japan, safe in the knowledge no one in their fan base would see them. That is no longer the case, and it’s a good thing. Enjoy this compilation of Madness extolling the virtues of the Honda City and I offer no regrets for the way you will be bellowing ‘City In City!’ and ‘HondaHondaHondaHonda’ for the whole of next week.
In which the religious aspects of the Doctor Who story and the actors and writers behind it are explored. This is genuinely fascinating, especially in light of the more fantastical aspects of the current series. Steven Moffat has already explored aspects of blind faith in the third episode, Boom. You can’t shake the parallels with Christian mythology which have always been core to the tale of the immortal being and their magical box.
Taking Weetabix as a starting point, Jack Thompson for Vittles neatly sums up the state of British farming and food production in general. It’s a worrying read. If we treat essential workers like farmers like this, what does it say about us as a nation?
This’ll put you off your breakfast.
Comedy is serious business. Kliph Nesteroff is a historian of the scene who explores what the discipline is, was and could be. There aren’t many laughs to be had here, but you’ll sure as heck come away with something to think about.
The part that makes you laugh is more important than the part that makes the point.
Whereas this rambling tale from Ellen Klages starts funny and goes up from there. She answers the most important question right at the end, so it’s worth sticking with. Remember, folks, you can only age a ham for so long…
The story of Leopold and Loeb, two upper-class kids who decided to kill a classmate as a jape, is well-known and often told. It’s still creepy as hell, though, and shows how demons can slip into us in the most banal manner and for no easily-explainable reason.
Yuck. Let’s have a livener. In four minutes Fredrick Backman absolutely nails the absurdity at the heart of the writerly life. The deadpan delivery makes this. I like to hope Kliph Nesteroff would approve.
Yes, I know I’m YouTube heavy this week. No apologies, I’m sure we’ll be back to normal next week.
Regardless of your opinion on AI, the simple truth is it’s being used as a cheap, lazy option which provides sub-standard results. In an era where we’re seeing fewer options to enjoy classic movies, surely we should have the option to choose the best version of the films we love. I’m surprised James Cameron allowed this to happen to his legacy, but then I guess he’s rich enough not to care any more.
Finally, I have banged on in previous chapters about how hard it is to make a film, based on personal and observed experience. An anonymous producer tells all to The Fence. Guess what? It’s worse than you think.
I’ll Outro with a bit of Joni Mitchell. Hejira is one of her key albums, a spooky, earthy road movie. She is accompanied on her travels by coyotes, black crows and the patron saint of solo voyagers, Amelia Earhart. Joni is so incredibly influential—I hear her voice and styling in so much modern music, from Weyes Blood to Laura Marling. I love those artists, but Joni was the first one on the road, and she treads her own path. Long may the ride continue.
See you in seven, fellow travellers.
May 25, 2024
The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 18
I thought May was going to be a rough month, but I didn’t realise it was going to rinse TLC and I out quite this hard. Tough demands on my head space in The Day Job, various issues with the house which seemed to pop up just after we’d paid off The Big Debt, that whole thing with The Critters In The Walls (honestly, that situation turned into a cross between a detective tale and a haunted house story).
But we have survived our plethora of First World Problems and now can look forward to a sunny Bank Holiday weekend and an actual proper break. This time next week we will be waking up after our first night in a converted chapel in Suffolk, ready for some sea air and relaxation. Only forward, Readership. Always look towards the sun. With shades on, of course, looks cooler.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Rob is reading…
The Old Dog And Duck by Albert Jack. A guide to the pub names of Britain is also a fascinating pocket history of this country’s key events and the people who helped to make them so. You will feel smarter after reading this. See, you can learn a lot in a pub.
Rob is watching…
X-Men ‘97 on Disney+. I was never a fan of the original cartoon, but this new version is great—nicely animated, propulsively told, taking a lot of the good stuff from the comics and getting it up on screen one cliff-hanger at a time. Do we need another big screen adaptation when this is so good?
Rob is listening…
To Redd Kross. A delirious mix of punk attitude and more than a nod to the Mersey Sound (even to the point of releasing a Beatles cover album) they are power pop par excellence and as such, always have a seat at my musical table. There’s a documentary out soon about their life and wild times. Check it out.
Rob is eating…
Asparagus, naturally. Tis the season. Don’t put the stuff anywhere near boiling water, please. Toss with oil and salt and pop in a hot oven for fifteen minutes, or even on the barbecue if you have fat spears which won’t drop through the grate. Use a vegetable peeler to drape some paper-thin slices of Parmesan or pecorino over the top. Yummers.
Rob’s Low-Key Obsession Of The Week…
The last Japanese factory making mirrorballs. So disco.
As a dedicated adherent to the art of solo writing in pubs, particularly a Wetherspoons (you’re left alone and can have food and drink brought to your table—perfect) I’m with Jeff Pearlman on the subject of taking your project out for a walk. I always feel I get more done if I take the iPad to The Back Of Beyond or The Hope Tap, especially if I can squeeze into one of those tiny two-seat booths. A couple of cheap pints, a bite to eat, and two thousand words come easy.
Michael Marshall Smith’s obsession with the Californian town of Santa Cruz takes, unsurprisingly for the guy, a dark turn. I think he might be making it up but hey, we all know life is stranger than fiction.
Here’s a really sweet cartoon from Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell on the long-distance relationship she has with her mom, and the care packages she receives. I love everything about this—the art, the storytelling, the tone, the warmth, the honesty. Top cartooning, no notes.
I’ve gone a bit music-heavy this month—sometimes that’s just how the links arrive. Enjoy this long read from Amanda Petruish in The New Yorker on Metallica, a band who have survived into their fifth decade, often despite themselves.
Alice Munro died. I’ve never read a word of her short stories. After some of the eulogies and tributes offered up this week, I feel I need to start.
How acceptable is it to film someone without their knowledge, especially if you then go on to include them in an Insta or TikTok which makes you money? My answer is strongly negative, tinged with revulsion. Other opinions are available, but I’m sticking to mine. I hate having my photo taken even when I’m ready for it.
Of course our pal Janelle Shane would have the best take on AI weirdness—she’s been writing about it for years! As more evidence starts to arrive about how difficult it is to get an acceptable image out of the dream machine, she has a try with a few random prompts. It does not go well.
Here’s a great interview with the two iconic Emcees of Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret—Joel Grey and Eddie Redmayne. A genuinely absorbing insight into how the character was developed and performed from two different perspectives. One of the great monsters of the stage. Clownish and creepy. I suspect Joachim Phoenix is going to lean heavily into that aspect in Joker-Folie A Deux later this year.
Oh, did I ever mention that time I was up on stage in the West End version of Cabaret?
Michael Head is one of the near-lost voices of British pop, a victim of his own appetites and a public who have little time for a beautifully crafted song, simply performed. We nearly lost him several times, but love and friendship brought him back from the edge of the cliff. If you love Arthur Lee and Love, you’ll freak out over this guy. Open your heart and let the sunshine in.
Let’s finish with a story which starts badly and escalates from there. I thought TLC and I had critter problems. This is something else.
More power pop as our Outro, courtesy of The Lemon Twigs. As the top comment on the YouTube link states:
‘I’m watching the Ramones dressed as Herman’s Hermits sounding like The Carpenters covering a Beach Boys song and I mean that all in a good way.’
Amen to that, brother.
See you in seven, fellow travellers.
