Distant landscapes and high peaks

Say the word "mountain" and so many people will imagine you are referring to problems, as in making a mountain out of a molehill. Another cohort may think of thick hiking books, ropes and other climbing gear. Or a trusty pair of skis, accompanied by a pair of ski sticks, and a white and shiny piste ready to be negotiated downward. Sure, the mountain can be all these things but it is so much more. Physically, mountains are the result of the thrust of gargantual geological forces that push mounds of rock and stone upwards. Over time, that is, millions of years, these mountains have become overgrown with plants and vegetation, and occupied by smaller and larger animals. Mountins have always been vulnerable to extremes of climate, particularly in winter, thus making the majority of them unsuitable for habitual human dwelling. The man who comes from the mountain is the one regarded as a bit screwy and far away mentally, not quite one of us. The phrase a day in the mountains is synonymous with getting away from it all, all meaning the cares and worries of the pedestrian lowlands. We expect to come back from "the mountains" relaxed, refreshed and all the better for having been closer to the roof of the world. Poetically, mountains are acknowledged in story and song and aesthetically, are very pleasing to the eye. And where do I begin with that one: from the Renaissance onward, very few artists did not have his take on the mountain, while JMW Turner, Caspar David Friedrich and Paul Cezanne expressed their poetic longings in images of distant landscapes and high peaks. And mountains must be acknowledged as a site of danger, with rock and snow avalanches, landslides et al. With so much of the eco-system under attack, let's hope the mountain stays on top.

Welcome 2026

Happy (belated) 2026 to all readers.  I do apologise but a horrible, debilitating bug robbed all my cranial activity for an entire week. With the return to normality, all the horrors of reality are slowly filtering through, the natural and man-made disasters, the wars and the invasions and fatal illnesses - with all this I realise how lucky we all are to live on this secure and prosperous island with only the promise of a spot of bad weather (Storm Goretti?) to unsettle us. That aside, the beautiful wolf moon, which I wrote about two years ago, has been appearing in the sky every night. I remind readers: "In Anglo-Saxon culture, January’s full moon was called the “Moon after Yule”, the ancient winter solstice festival. Also, it was called “wolf moon”. In days of old, when wolves were active in Northern Europe, February was the time for breeding and wolves become very vocal just before this. In addition, wolves are nocturnal animals and are more active at night. In North America and the few areas of Europe where they survive, wolves howl to communicate over long distances. It is their way of letting the pack know where they are and warning intruders to stay away. They actually howl in the direction of the moon, pointing their faces towards the sky, because this upward projection carries the sound further."  Whatever, the winter solstice is passed, the days are growing longer and the green shoots of spring will appear soon, really and truly. In the meantime, here is a stunning image of the recent moon to greet the year with. 

Jingles All The Way

It is that time of year again and all the retailers are out in force, wooing us with succulent meats and sugared cakes, fluffy slippers and sequinned shirts, with the usual stream of electronics and toys, jewels and chocolates threatening to become a tidal wave. And isn’t it all just marvellous? I am not even going to harp on about bypassing the true meaning of Christmas because, quite frankly, from the music themes to the jingles, to the stream of characters, I am just loving this year’s telly fest. I can’t get enough of Puss in his Boots and the fairytale princesses, and the Grinch-themed ASDA advert, and the lovely, cuddly Unexpected Guest in the Sainsbury’s one. And three cheers to Morrison’s for regaling us with Jona Lewis’s evergreen Christmas hit to a backdrop of growing and harvesting, baking and crafting. I love the ordinary families portrayed in the Tesco one “that's what makes it Christmas.” And I shed tears when that young boy goes to the pink-painted Pandora outlet to purchase his Mum the moon. Wallace and Grommit step into the world of luxury with their Barbour jingle “we’ve got Christmas covered”, while Dawn French is drivin’ home for Christmas, her Better Self fairy lending her a hand to bring us the magic and sparkle of Marks and Spencer. And Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot is all grown up and marrying his girlfriend….aaah! With adverts like these, who needs Christmas movies? And that’s another story. However you spend your cash, have a wonderful, seasonal time.

Sweetly Jamming

No, I am not talking about a fruit preserve that spreads elegantly across cakes and bread; I am arguing in favour of putting a new verb in the English language. Every morning, I can Just About Manage to get out of bed. I Just About Manage to get through the day and Just About Manage to get home again. Afterwards, I Just About Manage to prep a bite of supper and watch an hour or so of trash telly before I Just About Manage to schlepp into bed. At the weekend, I Just About Manage to catch up on all the chores. shopping and feel human for a few hours, before the workaday treadmill begins all over again. Every month, I Just About Manage to make the pay cheque last before the next one pops into the bank account. Every summer, I Just About Manage to live through the festering, hot months before the fresh winds of autumn blow again. And every Christmas, I Just About Manage to get through the season with becoming a victim/perpetrator of homicide/food poisoning/family psychosis. And in my book, this sets up the argument for use of the verb JAM, Just imagine jamming to get to up, jamming to get to work, jamming to prep supper, jamming to get through chores and jamming to eke out the monthly pay packet. Right now, I am jamming to write this blog - blog jammed? - and later, I will jam to finish assembling an item of Wayfair furniture purchased a month ago. And as for jamming the Season of Goodwill? Watch this space.

The Woman is Back

Despite its gothic memes, Susan Hill’s classic novel, The Woman in Black, is a post-modern tale. The narrative serves to remind the reader that you can’t always do something about every horrible situation you happen to find yourself in. To remind readers: lawyer’s clerk Arthur Kipps is sent by his boss to a remote part of England, to sort out the affairs of a deceased woman. There, he is hosted by a subdued though welcoming population as he weaves through the complexities of funeral and personal documents of the deceased. However, even this mixture of sanguinity and practicality cannot save Arthur from the machinations of the titular woman in black, her spirit grown malignant because of separation from her child in life. Arthur is utterly blameless of the proceedings that happened many years before he arrived. Yet, like a fly at the centre of a web, he becomes a victim in the direst fashion. Unlike the “typical” gothic hero or heroine, he is unable to escape his fate. He has not created the monster that stalks him (like Victor Frankenstein) and as with Van Helsing of Dracula fame, he cannot lay the evil to rest with the simple stroke of a mallet. His only solution is to keep a clear head and a sense of proportion as he wades through the mesh of circumstance: maybe that is the message of the novel? From serving time as an enthralling book, The Woman in Black has gained success as a play in the Fortune Theatre. Now, “one of the most successful and longest-running theatre shows in the history of London’s West End” has spread to suburban theatres, most recently that in Alexandra Palace. And there is still time to catch it before it closes on Saturday, 25 October. Really, truly, the woman is back. https://www.alexandrapalace.com/whats-on/the-woman-in-black/

Dracula, the Undead Novel

It is probably a little early in the season to talk of the Undead. But the play based on Bram Stoker's immortal novel is already in full swing at the Lyric Hammersmith (11 September to 11 October, written by Moreen Lloyd Malcolm and directed by Emma Baggott). A by-line on the Lyric H site reads "In this major new adaption of Bram Stoker's horror classic, Moreen Lloyd Malcolm uncovers the female voice at the heart of the tale". Interesting because essentially, the work is all about the significance of the voice. The action opens through the medium of Jonathan Harker's diary, and is continued later on by the correspondence of the other characters. Later on again, under the agency of Van Helsing, the diaries are recorded on that hot-tip technology of the time, the phonograph and its wax cylinders - jee-buzz! The first time I read it, the novel puzzled me, it coming across as a rather confused mish-mash of events outlined by a knot of middle-aged, rather egotistical males, the only real action coming from Jonathan's diary. But he too is male, commenting on feminine frailty and vapidity, while seeming in fear of the overtly sexual women he encounters at the Transylvanian castle. Seriously, what is it about this novel that, more than 100 years following its publication, has made it spawn more vampires than were ever put to rest with wooden stakes? I mean, there are hardly enough trees in the universe to finish them off. However, subsequent readings have revealed other strands, among them a Victorian parable on the role of women. Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray are not the feisty, self-determining gothic heroines of eighteenth-century literature but the rather vapid parlour creatures of nineteenth-century ordinance. One woman falls victim to vampirism, and the other almost sucumbs to the same fate until she is rescued by the men in the tale. But there is much to admire in the book, not least Jonathan's lush views of Eastern Europe, and the sublime Van Helsing and his pathology of the vampire. Right now, in advance of going to the play, I am restless as a werewolf at full moon....ooooow! Needless to say, I am a fan of the vintage movie (Dracula, Tod Browning, Karl Freund, 1931) just dissolving with delight when the wonderful, evergreen Bela Lugosi waxes lyrical about his children of the night. How the play lives up, I have yet to find out. Watch this space. https://lyric.co.uk/shows/dracula/

Who’s Soreen Now?

Or should that be “whose”? On this sunny morning, the niceties of grammar escape me, particularly when I am wallowing in disappointment at the outcome of a product that woo-ed me all summer, with its AHA-refed siren (or Soreen) jingle. I finally bought my slab half a week ago and friend, I just cannot understand the appeal of the stuff. For starters, when I try to cut it, the slab shies away from the knife’s blade and turns into a gluey lump, rather like trying to carve a block of plasticene. The resulting slice is reduced to a fattish finger of cake, rather than a generous hunk (like the lady on TV shows us) making it difficult to spread butter. Since my slab is still well in advance of the use-by date, it cannot be that. Or is there something else I don’t know? Friend, rather like one of those Blind Date columns in the Guardian newspaper, this is a romance that will never lift off. In summary, my Soreen has to go. It does deserve a rating though.
Overall appeal: packaging bright and attractive, so five out of ten.
Taste: rather good actually, so ten out of ten.
Texture: too gluey and sticky, I’ll give it two.
Table manners: in my Soreen’s stoic acceptance of my non-infatuation, it scores “excellent”.