Theresa May’s “Curry Curse”

Last week, at the Brighton Fringe, I went to see Chris Parkinson‘s new poetry show Unpopular Culture. Chris also appeared as the support act, with his talk on the Eating Habits of Politicians. It’s a great piece, featuring Thatcher’s obsession with eggs, how to eat a hotdog, and that bacon sandwich (which apparently gets several pages in Labour’s internal report on the 2015 election).

One thing I’d not heard about was the story of Teresa May’s local curry houses. Many Indian restaurants have ongoing problems with staffing and are restricted from hiring overseas experts because of Britain’s immigration laws. This has become particularly controversial after last year’s Brexit campaign. One group of restaurateurs supported leave, partly in the hope of allowing more non-EU immigration. Pasha Kandaker, head of the Bangladesh Caterers Association, was reported as saying “My organisation supported Brexit for several reasons but the main reason was to bring people from abroad to help our industry to survive.”

Theresa May’s announcements after the referendum were the cause of much of this disappointment. But this is not the first time that Theresa May has been involved in curry-related controversy. Prior to being Prime Minister, from 2010 to 2016, May served as Home Secretary. She promised to bring net migration below 100,000 but despite this, migration continued to rise.

In May 2011, Theresa May opened a the Innovation Indian restaurant in her Maidenhead constituency. In March 2012, it was raided by immigration officers from the UK Borders Agency, part of the home office. Five suspected illegal immigrants from Bangladesh were detained. Innovation now appears to be closed and the website is down.

A report in the Daily Mirror goes on to say that eighteen months earlier “her favourite tandoori restaurant Malik’s in Cookham, near Maidenhead – where she signed the guestbook and was also pictured on their website – was raided and two suspected illegal workers caught. But the owner was not aware of their status.”

The Malik’s owners obviously bear no ill-will to May for what happened. She is still featured on the restaurant’s website of as part of a gallery of stars who have eaten there – although she appears far below 80’s children’s TV stay Timmy Mallet.

Situationist Painting in the Tate

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A few months back, I went to the Tate Modern with my friend Sophie and found a surprise in the galleries – a painted strip of paper on a roller. It was a piece I’d read about but hadn’t realised was on display. This was Pinot Gallizio’s Industrial painting from 1958, made on a piece of canvas, rolled up and intended to be sold by the meter.

One of the most fascinating thing about the Situationists is how relatively little work they produced to demonstrate their theories. Much ink has been spilled on DeBord’s psychogeography, for example, but the groups associated with him produced few examples of the form: their practical work is far outweighed by their ideas.

Gallizio described himself as “archaeologist, botanist, chemist, parfumer, partisan, king of the gypsies” – to which McKenzie Wark suggests adding “chancer, amateur, dandy and dilettante”. He is famous as one of the founding members of Situationist International. The group was formed in July 1957 as a unification of several small avant-garde groups. One of them, Ralph Rumney’s ‘London Psychogeographical Association’, was formed on the occasion to make the event look more supported than it was.

Gallizio’s ‘Industrial Painting’ was first exhibited at a Turin Gallery in May 1958. The painting was unrolled and stuck on the walls, with sections sold by the meter. Models paraded in the gallery wrapped in the fabric. As well as being sold in the gallery, sections of the fabric was sold in a street market.

Another of Gallizio’s fascinations was gypsy communities. He offered a home to a gypsy community and this inspired Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys. A recent article on Atlas Obscura detailed Nieuwenhuys’ work on nomadic architecture and his playful and visionary city designs.

Gallizio’s work was intended as a protest against the commodification of art. he produced original work through mechanical means, offering it for sale by the foot. But everything gets recuperated. Gallizio’s work is now an artifact, to be expertly displayed in a gallery. Maybe it should be chopped up and sold? Sections handed to people as they enter the gallery. Maybe the idea of this piece is more important than the piece itself.

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The North Downs Way Stage 3

(This walk was actually at the end of April and is the most recent stage of the North Downs Way. Progress has been slower than we’d like, but we should be finished in the Autumn)

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1 – The third stage of the North Downs Way was an odd one. The scenery was slightly underwhelming compared to the previous sections. Cramped accommodation and long days made tempers fray – finding suitable places to sleep has become more difficult, as has the logistics for the start and end of the trails. And there was something odd about the whole weekend. The death of my phone at the start (which also meant no camera) felt like an omen. I passed through the five stages of grief about the device as the weekend continued. The photos here were taken by Katherine (except for one).

2 – It took a long time to find our way back to the Way. I parked my car on a country lane and we followed a road route to the trail. It looked all right on the map, but turned out to be a fast road with no pavement hedges either side. We kept in close, cars forced to go around us.

3 – The overall impression of the walk was the bluebells. The first day we walked through places thick with them. We saw fewer bluebells on the second day; Bluebell Hill wasn’t.

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4 – We crossed the Medway at the start of the second day. It’s an impressive bridge, passing high above buildings and water. Racist graffiti was scrawled on the Samaritans sign, “All w–s and non-UKs can jump”. The small sad ways that national politics stirs up local hate.

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5 – Travelling further along the trail, I begin to confuse the cafe and restaurant staff. They assume one of the women has ordered the vegetarian breakfast, and put meat in front of me. When they enter a restaurant ahead of me, I get asked how many of us there are. And they assume I must be drinking beer not wine.

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6 – It was a good walk. We walked through dandelion druff in the morning air, and in the afternoon the air was thick with fat flies. I loved the cross on the edge of the hills, a pack of wild horses standing nearby. As usual, I was surprised at how few people were out on the path. The contrast between these trails and the city I live in is massive.

7 – Hidden by the side of the path, a cache of books for sale.

Twin Peaks: There’s something wrong with the moon

I first watched Twin Peaks on TV in the 90s and caught Fire Walk with Me on its original run in 1992, sneaking into Brighton Odeon underage. I left the cinema confused, but it’s grown to be one of my favourite movies. Over the years since the show’s cancellation I’ve puzzled away at what it all meant and even recently I’ve spotted new things. I’ve rewatched it a few times, with a Twin Peaks Club about five years back, and another club in preparation for Season 3. Here are some thoughts on my latest watch-through:

When I first watched the show, characters like Shelley and Bobby seemed like adults. Now, a couple of decades on, I can see how young and vulnerable they are.
Also more apparent on this watch-through is how much Lynch is playing with soap and noir cliches. When I was younger I didn’t always know the cliches – I’d not encountered all the archetypes. Only now can I see how much of it is being played ironically – although being Lynch, it’s irony without sneering.
I’m not the first person to point out that Twin Peaks was the start of the ‘golden age of TV’ – along with Babylon 5 (which gets far less credit than it deserves). They demonstrated that people wanted complicated and ongoing narratives.
Twin Peak’s reputation is particularly remarkable, given how bad some of season 2 is. The show lost its way badly. As one example, the Japanese character,Mr Tojamura, seems particularly offensive now. And, as much as I like the character of James, he is very poorly served by the plots that he is given.
I loved how implausible the world of the show was. The Roadhouse seemed incredible, with all those bikers slow-dancing to Julee Cruise songs. And the jukebox at the diner is incredible – who was picking that music? I don’t know if it is the larger budget, but while the present-day roadhouse is a lot busier, it seems to have lost some atmosphere.
Even now I am still spotting details in the show. Watching Fire Walk With Me, I noticed that the woodsmen from the convenience store scene do not appear together in the credits. One of them is in the film earlier, in the diner scene.
The timings of some of events are messed up by the structure of each episode being a single day. The speed of James’s relationships is dizzying. He is heartbroken by Laura, falls in love with Donna a day or two later, and a few days after is falling in love with Maddy.
There is something wrong with the moon. This is another problem made apparent by the episode-a-day format. As night falls in Twin Peaks, more often than not, the events are watched over by a full moon.

The ending of season 2 was mind-blowing. With the series being dropped, Lynch was brought in to do a final episode and round things off. Instead, he set up a series of massive cliff-hangers. It was hard to believe the show had finished with that final shot. Then came the news about season 3 which, after all the backstage drama, has finally reached the screen. In the original show, set in 1989, the spirits tell Dale Cooper that they will see him again in 25 years. It’s been a little longer than that (the final episode was shown in June 1991) but finally getting to see the next episode is an amazing thing. I could hardly sleep with excitement the night before. The new series looks to be as strange and difficult as expected. As the Daily Mash joked, people who pretended to like Twin Peaks first time are facing a very difficult summer

Three Rules for Writing

Back in December, while walking the Downs Link with Kaylee, she asked me about my writing. During the conversation I explained that the biggest improvements in my writing came from three simple rules. She emailed me yesterday to ask me to remind her what they were. I thought I’d put them here.

Rule 1 – Never use adverbs

I first encountered this rule in Stephen King’s book On Writing. Any time an adverb is used, there’s a stronger single word that can be used. ‘Walked quickly’ can be replaced by ‘rushed’ – or ‘dashed’, or ‘scurried’; ‘said loudly’ can be replaced by ‘shouted’ – or ‘boomed’ or ‘yelled’. Leaving out adverbs makes the writing tighter. English has a massive vocabulary available so losing the adverbs isn’t much of a constraint.

Rule 2 – Edit by reading aloud

Reading a text aloud slows you down enough to spot more mistakes. It’s also good for spotting when a sentence is too long. If you feel awkward or breathless as you read it, add a full stop somewhere. You’re also more likely to spot words that you’ve used too often (my greatest weakness).

Rule 3 – Write simple

Pick the simplest possible way of writing your sentences. Which isn’t to say to never use long words – if phosphorescence is the only word that will do, great – but you might be as well off with glow. Lovecraft is the classic example of this, someone who is a great writer despite their vocabulary, not because of it.

None of the above rules are revolutionary – they’re fairly common instructions. But they are all things I wish I’d known sooner.

There are also other ‘rules’ I follow: don’t use the passive voice; never start a sentence “There was/is”. I also like the rule Tim Clare often talks about where you put the most interesting part of a sentence at the end.

Having said that, there are lots of common rules which, I think, are applied too often. ‘Show, don’t tell’ is a good rule for certain types of voice, but it’s not absolute. Someone like Vonnegut makes his books much more entertaining by telling the reader the story – you know, like an actual storyteller.

The Pennine Way Day 4

1 – Day 4 of the Pennine Way started with one of the most difficult bits of hiking I’ve done. The forecast had predicted rain, and I’d hoped that we would be lucky and the storms would pass us by. No such luck. We set out in wet-weather gear, heading into town with Emma and Charlie. After separating, Dave and I followed the path along the canal. Soon after, it took a steep turn uphill.

2 – If Dave had suggested jacking it in at that point, I would have gladly done so. I’ve never been so close to giving up on a walk. Looking at the book last night, I learned that this was one of the most difficult ascents of the entire walk.

3 – As the saying goes, there is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. We were lucky this was on our last day, as it was a good lesson. I’m going to invest in some better rain gear than my poncho. I’m also going to have a change of clothes waiting at the car for all future walks. Despite the rain, the day was better than pretty much any day that I’ve spent in an office.

4 – One of the interesting things about a trail like this is that you hear about the people ahead of you. We knew there was an Australian woman ahead of us and we finally met her on the final day. We decided to walk together, which was an interesting change of pace (and conversation). The Pennine Way was the first of a series of adventures around the world that Carolyn had planned.

5 – It turned out on this walk that Dave is incredibly good at recognising different types of birds. He also knows a lot about farming. I learned that it isn’t possible for sheep to deliver triplets without human intervention – without help, the third always suffocates. The sheep were full of bedraggled lambs, which Dave told were about a day old. Our group was silenced by the sight of a dead one in the grass.

6 – I need to do a whole post on walking and Lord of the Rings. Tolkein’s classic is basically a book about hiking with a load of battle scenes thrown in. I think this is something the movies got wrong, not paying enough attention to the walking. Our walk had its Tolkeinesque moments, with Hebden Bridge providing our hearty Rivendell-style welcome. And, tramping along the damp moorland paths, it was easy to recall the grim tramping of the second book.

7 – We crossed the moors towards Top Withens, a ruined famouse that is said to be the inspiration for Wuthering Heights – despite looking nothing like the house in the book, and there being no evidence for a link. A slightly sniffy sign protests its own presence, saying it is only there because of tourist demand. I was more than ready to take shelter behind the ruined walls. Fortunately Dave looked round the side and found a dry indoor shelter. I’ve been in posh hotels that felt less welcoming and luxurious than this hut with its dirt floor. It was so good to be somewhere dry for a bit.

8 – We said farewell to Carolyn at Ponden and then walked on to Stanbury. A succession of buses and trains took us back to Edale where we’d started the walk. The first quarter of the Pennine Way was complete. We’re going to continue in September.

This Way: Brighton, Lewes, Rottingdean

Some time back, a friend of mine produced a map of footpaths between Brighton and Lewes. I followed one of the two routes on my birthday last year. I’d not got around to doing the other, but needed a route to walk as practise for the Ridgeway (I’m walking with someone who has not done a long day’s hike). So, on Sunday, I walked to Lewes and back.

The route goes along Brighton seafront to Rottingdean before turning North and passing through the abandoned village of Balsdean. A path through a field of crops eventually leads to Kingston and Lewes. On the way back the route followed the Juggs Road for much of the way, re-entering Brighton near Woodvale Cemetary.

It was a good walk. I exhausted myself and got sunburned, but it was so nice to get out for the day.The whole route turned out to be about 50,000 steps, which my fitbit claimed was about 22 miles. It’s probably nearer 18 miles and we did it quite quickly, not stopping for long breaks. We stopped for lunch in Lewes where we overheard a conversation at the cafe about the kitchen clock being slow. Apparently this always happens, because the works get gummed up with grease.

I’d somehow not walked Juggs Road before. This was the old route used to carry fish from Brighton to Lewes by donkey. It featured an impressively steep hill that nearly got the better of me on such a hot day. According to the Internet, a jugg is a name for Brighton fishermen, or a basket for carrying fish. The Revd WD Parish’s sussex dictionary suggests that Jug(g) is a generic nickname for Brighton people.

Once summer calms down a little, I am heading to Bath to try out the second This Way map.

The Perfect Vindaloo?

Wanting to make the perfect vindaloo might seem like a strange ambition.

It originates from my lack of confidence about food. I’ve eaten almost every day of my life, but I still somehow feel like I’m getting it wrong. I don’t know how I made it through university, as I struggled to make those first few dishes and resorted to things in tins. Somehow I’ve kept myself alive, but I’ve never felt good at feeding myself – despite doing it for many years.

Some food is genuinely like sorcery. When I read about places like Fäviken or the Fat Duck, I’m in awe of what they do with food. But even some simple dishes feel like they are out of my league. I can’t bake at all – even packets of pre-prepared pizza dough fail to solidify for me. And, for many years, curry felt like it was beyond my competence. It’s become my favourite food as I’ve grown older, but it always felt like a mystery, the blending of mundane ingredients into something magical.

Food shouldn’t feel like that much of an achievement. Cooking is one of those skills – like keeping a budget, driving or having a haircut – that most adults just seem able to do. Yet I’d never felt competent. And elsewhere, my life seemed to drag in so many other ways, as I lurched between hangovers, between jobs that never seemed to go anywhere. I never seemed to focus on anything (god knows, I’ve been distracted from this blog often enough). I’d imagined my life as something that would have felt bigger by now. This inability to cook seemed emblematic of all my other failures. Food still felt like magic, and by now I should have been good at that. I’m not as bad a cook as I used to be; but I’m also not as good as I could be (or should be, considering how often I invite people to eat at my flat). The horror at the first meals I cooked remains, just like the shame I feel as all the stupid things that I have done.

There’s an old saying that the way you do anything is the way you do everything. Most people interpret this as being about maintaining focus and attention in even the smallest act, seeing that as carrying through to the more important things. There’s another way to interpret it at the same time – that if we can do one thing perfectly, what we learn will influence all of the other things that we do.

So why not get good at making a curry? Get to the point where I can make an amazing vindaloo. Sure, it won’t change my life, but it’s a journey that can take me some interesting places. It’s not as if I am trying to meet 100 people with my name, or carry a domestic appliance round a small country. The things one learns about curry connect to other things: it’s about food & people & travel & life. But it’s also just a simple dish of curry.

Aleister Crowley described magick as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will”. Which, loosely, also defines the act of cooking. It’s a form of alchemy, taking raw ingredients and transforming them into a dish. If you can do one bit of magick, well, you can do others. It’s getting one thing right, and knowing I can do that. And even if I don’t make a vindaloo that can change my world, I’ll still be able to make a pretty impressive curry.

The Pennine Way – Day 3 (Standedge to the Calder Valley)

1 – Day 3 of the Pennine Way took us from Standedge to the Calder Valley and Hebden Bridge. The walk started comfortably, with lots of gentle moorland and some great views, although less epic than on the previous two days. This was also a more urban section of the walk, withseveral roads to cross and Rochdale in the distance for a large chunk.

2 – At some point on our third night on the trail, we had travelled for as long as the fastest person had completed the route. Apparently, the record for the entire Pennine Way is a shocking 2 days 17 hours.

3 – The cairns were one of my favourite features of the route. With the stone paths, navigation along the Pennine Way is less ambiguous than it once was. The cairns are now mostly ornamental, but they seem incredibly exotic to me, as if from another time or place.

4 – We stopped for a snack just after the M62. As we put on our backpacks again,the rain began. We didn’t think it would be too bad but it soon soaked us to the skin. This was a foretaste of what was to come on day 4 – and a lesson to change into rain gear more quickly.

5 – We passed the Aigin Stone, a marker from an old coaching route. It also lay on the end of a Roman Road. I don’t know enough about these sort of things to tell if this would have been the original stones that legionnaires would have paced, but it still felt stirring to follow ancient footsteps.

6 – We paused for tea at the White House Pub, which stands beside the A58. It was a lovely, friendly pub and we wished we’d planned for lunch there. Maybe next time I pass.

7 – One of the most famous recent walks of the Pennine Way was by the poet, Simon Armitage. Apparently one of his poems is etched into the stone beside the path, shortly after the White House. We missed it completely.

8 – One of the best thing about walking the Way is meeting other travellers. Of those who aren’t doing the route, many have done it in the past, and will reminisce about it. We met a couple of women who’d walked the way then on to Holy Island, and encountered only 10 minutes of wine. They enthused about the Cheviots, as did a man we met on the third day. Years later, he was still blown away by a view of “Hills forever”.

9 – Off in the distance we caught sight of Stoodley Pike, where we were due to meet Emma and Justin. It felt exciting to be nearing our end. Stoodley Pike is a 37 meter tall monument, originally erected to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon. This caused a Father Dougal-style confusion with perspective, being both very large and far away. We thought we were much closer than we were.

10 – We had barely sat down at the monument when we were joined by Emma, Justin and Charlie the dog. They escorted us into the valley and I couldn’t help but feel like a hobbit being led down into Rivendell. It was good to have a night staying with friends in the middle of a long journey.

11 – I’ve been using the Trailblazer map series, which has a clear and detailed description of the route. And, as promised, a short distance from Hebden Bridge we found the Land Rover in the field.

The North Downs Way Part 2

From back in February, walking on the North Downs way. We continued from Box Hill, along bitter, windy hilltops and across muddy ground. I managed to fall over in the mud. We found a memorial for a tragic plane accident, two wingtips as markers for where the plane came down.

The route had perhaps a little too much motorway, running alongside the M25. I’ve since passed the junctions we walked in my car, and enjoyed thinking back to the walk. Despite somewhat grim weather, there were few other places I’d have wanted to be than on that walk.