Slices of Quince!

My friends have a quince tree!  I have never seen a quince, nor eaten one.  All I know about them is that the Owl and the Pussycat ate them with a runcible spoon.  However, on the reliable information that they can be poached, and with half a dozen quinces straight off the tree, I had a go at making my own autumnal dessert.

Sometimes A Wild God

Something marvellous has arrived in the post. 

This is 'Sometimes A Wild God', a poem by Tom Hirons, partner to the wonderful artist Rima Staines whose work I've been following for about seven years now.  I have a couple of prints of her work.  This beautiful artefact, however, is a collaboration between the two of them.

I first came across the poem almost by accident, and it's rare that I'll stop for poetry that isn't spoken aloud, but I read it all the way through three times and then stopped and looked at it for a bit.  There's no telling why some things hit you and other things don't, but Hirons seemed to catch on something that rings true.  Something terrible and horrible and beautiful and incomprehensible.  The kind of thing where it's more a feeling than anything you could put into words yourself, but when someone else says it, you go 'Yes.  Yes, that's exactly what it's like."

So I bought a copy.

It came in the post.  It's small, and neat, and unassuming.  The paper is solid, not flimsy or cheap (as someone who draws, I'm a student of paper), and it manages to be professionally smart yet subversively tactile at the same time.  As I say, it's nothing half-done, it's an artefact.  Not just a carrier for the poem, but an object in and of itself, made with care.  There are six illustrations, and the cover, all done by Rima in simple black and white.

You can read the poem for yourself Here.  Perhaps you'll feel the same, perhaps you won't.  Who can say why some things hit you and other things don't.

Stories from Summer

It's been a long summer this year, or at least it's felt long to me.  Lots has happened, good, bad, and somewhere in between, in a lot of different areas of life.  A strange season, and a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, but that's life for you.  Things can't be peaceful all the time or we'd be bored and never grow at all.
In some ways it's been a struggle, but as always there's been time to regroup too.  To take time out, to spend time with the people I care about, and to be contemplative, which is something I'm finding more and more essential...

... and to watch seals.

Seals!!!

TLDR: ‘Sodom & Gomorrah’, or ‘How the Heck did That Get In My Bible?’

Ah, Sodom and Gomorrah.  The tale that launched a thousand picket lines, almost all of them in the southern states of the USA.  Yes this is THAT Sodom and Gomorrah – the one from which we get the word ‘sodomy’.   As in "What he was doing to that poor sheep was a bit Sodom-y, don't you think?"

I can feel you all bracing yourselves already.  Don’t worry, it’s gonna be fine.

(Also, for the 'Mean Girls' fans out there, you have no idea how much I wanted to entitle this "Sodom and Gomorrah: too gay to function?")

The Protest Vote

It's May 7th 2015, and it's election day.  I've cast my vote, and with it my hopes and ambitions for the country I live in.

I've also been looking back at the history of politics.  As this excellent video points out, so much progress in law and citizens rights have come from the bottom up, not the top down.  Ordinary people have protested, fought, sometimes even resorted to extreme measures to make themselves heard by those in power.  Suffragrettes threw themselves in front of racehorses and endured the indignity of force-feeding when they tried to starve themselves in protest.  Black communities and their supporters suffered power hoses and organised resistance by armed police (this is still troubling areas of America right now, as race has affected class and caused more inequality).

It's important to remember this history of humanity pushing to gain it's own freedoms, and in Britain so much of it is recorded in folk music.  I love that there's a great tradition of this; people making up their own protest music, remembering struggles, triumphs, and civil disobedience, and the old stories getting handed down through the years.  Here are three of my favourites.

1) 'Palaces of Gold' by Leon Rosselon. 

He wrote it after a coal mine slag-heap collapsed at Aberfan in Wales in 1966, running downhill onto a school and killing 116 children and 26 adults. The National Coal Board were slow to respond and largely escaped the consequences of this tragedy.  The song is mainly about how we might be a little quicker to deal with the trouble of others if they affected us personally. This beautiful cover is by Lady Maisery.

2) 'John Ball' by Sydney Carter. 

John Ball was a 'hedge priest', a travelling preacher with no parish of his own, whose belief that the extreme inequality between the rich and poor was wrong made him a figurehead for the Peasants Revolt that marched on London in 1381 to address the king. They failed and were violently repelled, although some workers rights were secured in the long run by their efforts, and Ball was hung, drawn, and quartered. Thank goodness that that won't happen to any of us today, whatever the results of the election! This song is based on a sermon of his, and the Young 'Uns sing my favourite version.

3) 'The Nailmakers Strike Part 2' by Hannah Martin and Phillip Henry

 There have been a lot of strikes by nailmakers over the years. Some were due to poor working conditions, others happened when new technology and cheaper foreign imports cost local people their livelihoods. Some strikes were more peaceful than others. In Dudley in the 1840s the army was called in when nailers dying of starvation had their wages cut by their employers and desperation turned them to vandalism and capture of the nailmasters. When the authorites had distributed bread, ending the riot, most prisoners were given light sentences after pleading Starvation

Schrodinger's Churchgoer (or 'Why You Haven't Seen Me Around Lately')

I'm not going to church at the moment.  Except I am.  But I'm also not.

What I mean is, I'm not going to the main gatherings on Sunday.  Skating is an hour away, I train for three hours every Sunday between 12.30 and 3.30pm, and although I could just rock up to Late Church in my sweaty skate gear for 4.30 I suspect nobody wants that.  I don't want that!  This is not me quitting church, this is not me becoming an apostate or drifting in my faith, and this is not me breaking up with my community.  They are still my People.

I had to make a decision, service or skating, and if I'm honest in the end it wasn't that hard to make, for the reasons below.  What I'm doing now is a bit of an experiment, it's not a permanent arrangement, and I'm certainly not recommending it for everyone, but this whole thing has made me think a lot about what Sunday gatherings provide us with, and what we think church actually is.  There are things I miss and want to keep, and things I don't mind letting go.

Hourly Comics Day 2015

This Feb 1st was spent almost entirely on skates.  Or on the sofa.

TL:DR - Barnett vs Fry

I have a lot of time for Stephen Fry.  I find him clever, witty, kind-hearted and often very funny.  And it just so happens that this week something he said has gone viral on the internet.  Everyone's already talking about it so I'll just let you watch it...

It's a good question, voiced angrily and with passion by a man in the public eye known for his intellect and quiet polite demeanour, all of which give it extra impact.  This is the kind of thing that any faith has to be robust enough to weather, or else be discarded.  People have already been responding, and the responses have fallen into two categories.  There's Giles Fraser's 'I Don't Believe In The God Fry Doesn't Believe In Either', which hears Fry saying he can't believe in a God who is such evil maniac to allow the suffering he does and replies "Well it's a good job he isn't like that. God is actually very loving." but for me that is too vague and doesn't really answer the question.  If Fry is mistaken in his idea of God as a "capricious...evil...maniac" and Fraser's loving, good God is the reality then why, as Fry puts it, do there exist small parasitic insects that burrow into your eyes and eat them from the inside out?  We're back to square one.  (Incidentally I also don't think God is capricious because if I was a capricious God and someone told me I was unacceptable and evil, they wouldn't have long left to say anything else!  And I wouldn't use a burrowing eye-worm to do it either.  True psychopaths don't murder by proxy.)

The other response doing the rounds is Pete Greig's 'Amen to Fry's Atheism', which actually attempts a little theology and some helpful anecdotes, but for me is still too vague.  It talks about God actually sharing our suffering with us, but this can come across as very disingenuous, like when you tell a friend about something awful happening to you and they sympathetically reply "Oh yeah, I feel your pain."  They don't.  They mean well but they just don't.

Before going any further, I would recommend Krish Kandiah's response, which to me best addresses the question that's actually being asked.  And in a lot fewer words than I'm about to use...

Wintersong

I try to keep it light on this blog, but this time, no.

It has been a dark advent.

This may be a tl:dr for anyone reading this, so don't worry about it. This is just for me:

Sunset over the fields near Barrow

The Daily Polymath

Found this old draft post. Posting it anyway.  It's still true.

Big Summer Adventure: Hadrian's Wall

This August I finally got to take on a challenge I've been hankering to do for over two years now: Hadrian's Wall.

This partially ruined wall marked the edge of the Roman empire in 122AD when Emporer Hadrian, struggling to invade Scotland while dealing with his rebellious British subjects at the same time, withdrew troops from the more Northerly Antonine Wall (earth ramparts) to consolidate their position.  At 6m high this engineering feat took three Legions (15,000 men) only 6 years to build and is a symbol of both the power of Rome and it's limitations.  It stretches from Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the North East of England in an almost straight line clear across the country to Carlisle, and then on to Bowness-on-Solway where the river becomes unfordable and attacks from people wading across would no longer have been possible.

This idea of what it means to be invader and invaded has been with me for a long time, and the Wall symbolises a lot of that for me.  My dad and uncle walked it together a few years ago while I was in university, and I'd been hoping to do the same (although unlike them, we won't have to walk from the Wall to our lodgings each night, as Nathan and Dad will be having a parallel holiday and have kindly agreed to pick us up and drop us off each day!)  This year I mentioned it to my Mum and we decided to do the trip together.  We would start at Heddon-on-the-Wall, the first place the Wall itself becomes visible, and finish in Carlisle.  It's a 55 mile trip, it was to take us almost five whole days of walking, and as usual I kept a diary...

Dinos in Spaaaaaace!

I've been working on a big awesome project lately, plus doing the Big Year course, plus taking up a new sport - roller derby!  It's been a big change and I felt like it needed its own blog to help me keep some perspective on my progress, so I've made one HERE.

One of the things I like about roller derby is the bonkers extravagance and enthusiasm that goes with a game.  Each one has a different theme, and a recent home game went of the heading of 'Dinosaurs In Space'.  I ended up making the poster for it!  It started as a rubbish little doodle in a pub, and ended as this bold and brilliant poster base.

I'm actually really proud of this.

 I enjoyed the theme so much that I ended up making a collection of Dino Derby stickers.  Each features a different dinosaur with a different derby name, like Terror-Dactyl, Stego-Sore-Ass, and my personal favourite Tyrannosaurus Ref.  Because our hard working refs deserve some love and stickers too!

What's been really nice is that I've started noticing them on the helmets of our team.  I already sold out of one particular design, so I'm going to keep taking these to games and see how long it takes for me to get rid of them all :)

Return from the Land of the Dead and Gone

Among the projects keeping me busy lately has been this CD cover for Jake Manning's new album.  He came to the table with some strong ideas about what the look of the image ought to be and initially we went down the route of the classic scary B-movies before discovering it was a bit harsh for a folk album and dialling it back!  We're both really pleased with the result.

Hopefully you've already spotted the guitar shape in the landscape, but what you probably don't know it that each of the elements you can see - the house, the winding path, the ghosts and the watery man trying to escape from his ocean - all appear in Jake's songs.  He uses some fantastic imagery and crafting it into a story like this was probably my favourite part of the project.

Hourly Comic Day 2014

Hourly Comic Day has gone and gone again.  I looked back on the previous year's comics, and it's amazing how much has changed since the first one I did back in 2011.  In my opinion, this year's drawings are some of the better ones I've done so far as well!

Trying my hand at some vintage design

Some birthday invitations I made for my Mum's 50th.  I've never considered myself a natural designer when it comes to things like fonts, but I actually think these are pretty good!  Nice and simple, but this excellent MarketDeco font I found totally makes it.  

The 1940's aesthetic was really fun to work with (the actually event was a mid-afternoon tea party, so lots of bunting, vintage crockery, and live music from the excellent Ella aAnd Her Jazz Band).  Each guest received two postcards - one to keep, and an RSVP to return.  because who doesn't love getting postcards in the mail.  Nobody, that's who!

New Online Portfolio!

I have a new online gallery of my work!  You can see it by going clicking on the button on the right that looks like this:

This blog will still be active, but I needed a more professional looking site to display my work.  And now I have one!  Go check it out.

The Newlyweds Waltz

You may remember a friends wedding I mentioned a while back.  Well we - the Hen Party - put together a little book to cheer them up in what one of the girls liked to call the 'Post-wedding Blues'.  I think she just meant the period after the madness of constant wedding planning and honeymooning and gift opening is over.  With the book, there would still be one more present to unwrap.

I know they both love folk music, in fact it was mainly those two that got me into it and introduced me to ceilidhs, so I decided to send them a song.  While cleaning my desk I found a bit of simple sheet music entitled 'The Newlyweds Waltz'.  How perfect!

I recorded it on my Tin Whistle, but felt like it needed some backing.  The easiest thing to do was hum... and then I started wondering how many layers of backing I could put on this thing!  In the end I sung three harmonising tracks and layered them up.  And here it is!

I'm aware the speed isn't consistent, and the next time I do this I'll have a metronome playing through my headphones to keep me steady, but otherwise I think it's pretty good!  I burned it to disc, added a label and fancy paper envelope, and sent it off to join the book.

Garden Harvest!

I don't know if you've noticed, but it seemed to be summer one day and autumn the next.  Admittedly I was still lounging in the sun well into September, but suddenly BAM, drizzle and wind.  Autumn is here again.

The long summer's done wonders for the garden though.  I've been trying to grow food this year, and I'm really pleased with what I achieved on my first try!  We've had a couple of crops going...

This tomato plant came from my housemates grandma, fully grown.  It's provided us with a steady crop of baby tomatoes all summer long, and is still growing new ones even though we're in October!  I've not bought a tomato since May, which is great because I love tomatoes, and these taste so much better than the ones from the supermarket.  Now for the things we tried growing on our own...

Le grand voyage Francais!

The other big trip that I did this summer was to the Loire Valley in France with my family.  It's a region famous for it's beautiful chateaus.  We stayed in a small gite (a cottage) near Chaumont sur Loire, surrounded by fields and fields of sunflowers.  The point was to relax but we're quite an active family so we'd regularly walk the half hour into town, baking hot in the cloudless sunshine, to fetch bread.

And of course we visited a lot of chateaux.  How could we not!  

The great UK tour!

When I'm away from the blog for too long, it usually means I've been on a grand summer holiday, and indeed I have!  Probably the most significant thing that happened was I went away for work.  We did a massive tour on UK universities and it took almost a month.  This was what my schedule looked like (red days was when I was away on tour, blue days I was away for some other reason):

It was manic.  That said, there were some very good things about it, one of which was the sheer amount of country I got to see.  It's been my ambition for a while to explore more of my home country, and this was a very convenient way to start!  Part of my job was to film things for the company website, but since I had a camera I inevitably ended up taking some footage that was only interesting to me!  I've put it into a reel - my memories of the trip from Plymouth to Newcastle.  I cut it as short as I could make it, but still it's 10mins long!  I also avoided my usual instinct to put music on there.  All these places sound different, and that's part of my memories too.  Most intoxicating of all was the sound of the sea, whenever we reached it, and I'm slightly preoccupied with the idea of the ocean even now.

It's interesting to me that in the biggest cities, I always wound up finding the quietest places to film.  I'm not really a city person, I think, so I'd always seek out a haven or find time to just sit and watch something still for a while.

When I get a chance, I'll attach a map to the bottom showing our route.  It's all very well naming places, but if you can't see where they are then it doesn't always sink in.  My geography has certainly improved since going on this adventure!