Seb Palmer

This arrived today.

I’m currently bed-bound, after a mini-breakdown. I think it was Monday evening, I kind of snapped.

Anyway, I’d ordered this a few days ago (see my post of [?]. And it’s now arrived. It seems eerily apt, for me/us, as it’s a sad story of a childless couple.

We woke up at 5.30 am, to be up and out, and at the Skylark car boot for 7 am. It was nice to see the ‘rosy-fingered dawn’. Fortunately, it’s still £7, just as it was years ago, last time I had a pitch there. Before Covid!

I’m chuffed that Teresa was with me. She enjoyed it. I got her a mini-hand-sewing-machine, for her troubles. And she scored three free (!?) ceramic knick-knacks. Always lovely to see her smiling.

And Antonio got back from Spain today.

LATER ON…

Well, after a pretty tough spell of days turning to weeks, today’s car boot sale was something of a respite. We came home around midday. And both napped briefly, in the garden.

A few hands of rummy have been played, lunch and dinner eaten. And after a bit of an impromptu Wallace & Gromit binge, we finished off this evening with episode five of The Rings of Power.

For some reason the latter started to ‘freak me out’. I suspect actually it’s just the underlying stress of lack of income resurfacing. So tomorrow’s first job is to pay in the car boot earnings.

And after that, I must sedulously seek further means of creating more income. Be that selling more stuff, alternative employment, benefits, or getting this whole ridiculous Amazon impasse cleared up.

But somehow, it’s absolutely imperative that I dial down stress levels.

To that end, I started listening to the above. I loved it so much, I decided to do a 30 day free trial with Audible (again!), and thereby get a free audiobook. I opted to get the unabridged version, read by the venerable Michael Hordern.

The current no-work scenario is proving to be a major downer. We’re trying to tidy the home a bit, and sift through stuff to take to a car boot sale tomorrow.

But even that is massively depressing, as I don’t have anything much of real value, at least that I want to part with, nor do we have the wherewithal to set up a stall at the car-boot.

Everything feels like such hard work. And not at all worth the effort. I’m at a very, very, very low ebb. And whilst I’m mostly tee-total these days, I just bought this:

But I’m in the fuck it all zone, to be honest.

Some time later…

Well, the plan remains to do Skylark car boot tomorrow. Which means an appallingly early start. And I don’t really have either the stuff to sell, or the means to display it. I’m actually a bit worried it might be a waste of time, energy, and poss’ even money… if I don’t recoup what it costs to get in as a ‘trader’!

I’ve got some books. Some DVDs. Some DIY type tools, and some model kits. That’s it! And not very much in any of those categories. But I’m getting desperate.

If work – as in Amazon Flex – doesn’t come good very soon, I’ll have to sign on, as unemployed.

And it’s soooo hard to do anything. And I literally mean anything, when you’re as depressed as I am. Motivation disappears. And is replaced by exhaustion, lethargy, torpor, etc.

Teresa has very stoically tried to help me rally my spirits. And I feel guilty towards her, on account of my implacable misery. She has even managed to lift them a little here and there. But the my mind goes back to the harsh fiscal reality of current circs, and I’m right back in the doldrums.

We stopped outside St Wendreda’s, earlier, after scavenging for cardboard boxes (for the boot sale), and it was beautifully sunny. But as pleasant as it was, it didn’t really make a dent in my depression.

Watching what is allegedly the very last Grand Tour instalment, One For The Road, distracted me from my blues a bit. We’ve had a bath and come to bed now. I’m going to watch the last 30 minutes of Jezza and co now. Hopefully help me to decompress a bit before snoozeville?

I’m currently stuck in a typically modern dystopian loop.

Since my driving license expired, a few weeks ago – and despite immediately sorting a new one, which has now (after approx’ two weeks) finally arrived – I’m unable to deliver for Amazon. Currently my only income.

The utterly ridiculous scenario is this: my account has been ‘temporarily disabled’. To re-enable it, I must submit photos of my new driving license. But I can’t do that – the Flex app simply won’t do it – until my account is reinstated.

Or put another way, to re-activate my account, I’m asked to do something I simply cannot do, until my account is re-activated. Say wha’!?

I’ve called Amazon’s off-road support team three of four times in the last 24 hours. And, just like trying to submit my photos – which isn’t working via the app or via the suggested alternative (the Flex support email) – it’s exactly like banging my head against a brick wall. Painful, and getting me absolutely nowhere.

The continually repeated automated robot response to my telephone calls – including repeated requests that the issue be ‘escalated’ – is to upload photos via the app. But I can’t do that!

I’ve been doing this job for about two years now. And throughout that I’ve maintained a near perfect record, on the ‘Standing’/Dashboard.

In a job with zero security, this scenario hardly makes one feel valued. And, as so often in recent times, it triggers my depression, leaving me at my wits end.

We’re watching The Rings of Power, Season Two. And we’re enjoying it. But I do confess, I wish these movie-makers wouldn’t fuck around with their source material so much.

Or, if they really – as they invariably do – feel they have to, at least to do so in a manner more in keeping with that source material. When that source is Tolkien, I feel it deserves more respect.

But I can’t be arsed to expend any energy pulling apart the myriad ways this departs from Tolkien’s ’canon’. In some respects it’s a bastardised realisation of something I believe he wanted to achieve.

I recall reading that in creating his Middle Earth mythology, Tolkien aspired to create a form of British or indigenous alternative to the faulty weak mishmash of Arthurian type stuff.

Something more akin to the darker more complex Northern tales he studied in his philological work. And something that could be built upon by others. Well, the genie’s out of the bottle.

Quite what Tolkien would make of how his legacy is evolving, I’m not sure. I think in some respects he might be pleased. At least that folk thought his myths compelling enough to further elucidate.

But I also think he might be more than a little horrified, at having spawned rapidly evolving empires of imaginary worlds, and the rather capitalist ’product’ type nature of it all.

From Game of Thrones to what is being done to his legacy. I may be wrong. But I think, for all his stuff about ‘fairey’, that he was primarily concerned with culture. Not just entertainment.

And certainly not the hollow pursuit of big bucks.

FOOTNOTE:

It’s fascinating how much of a Tolkien’s work is being dredged through, in the search for yet more publishing bucks. Hopefully there’s also genuine love for and interest in it, as well as the relentless pursuit of profit?

Personally I’ve really enjoyed how his offspring have helped finish some of his unfinished fiction. And I’ve also loved how some of his academic work, or stuff related to it, such as the Sigurd & Gudrun stuff, has been published.

In posting this article – a review, I suppose? – I’ve become aware of yet more posthumous Tolkienian publishings, such as this:

The pictures above show the state of utter carnage that currently prevails in the shed workshop. This shed, shed #1 (so called because it’s the first shed we had, on moving in here; we inherited it) is intended to be our art studio as soon as poss’.

Pictured above, I moved a light that was previously just sat on a work surface, to the ceiling. Much better! It’s still carnage in the shed. But progress has been made. A fair amount of stuff has been moved out, or binned. And what remains is starting to be a bit more organised. Another similar blitz tomorrow ought to see things substantially improved.

So, after a delish pasta dinner (watching Portillo week-ending in the amazing city of Prague), we came out into the garden, for a fire and a coffee. A lovely way to round off the day!

SURVIVAL FOOTNOTE:

My driving license finally arrived today. We were overjoyed. I can resume work. Or can I? I’m unable to update my driving license via the Flex app, and trying to do so directly, via email, so far, has not worked either. Gaaah!

After a fairly poor night – mercifully rare these days (or ought that be nights?) – I slept till midday.

I was hoping, desperately, truth be told, that my renewed driving license would arrive in the post. Instead a letter from E-On and a late payment Dart Charge were all that appeared.

So I paid the Dart Charge. To my great relief and surprise it was only the same as I should’ve paid ‘on the day’, £2.50. And then I took the old bog to the dump.

I really need to be selling stuff, whilst I’m not delivering. But I’m unable to do almost anything. I’m permanently exhausted, with very close to zero motivation.

All I managed today, beyond the Dart Charge and Turlet disposal, was some reading, of Volume I of N. A. M. Rodger’s naval trilogy. Which is excellent.

In bed now, watching Season Two Episode Two of The Rings of Power.

Rod’s pal, plumber and guitarist Jim Daykin, came over today, and installed our new ’Milan’ toilet. Thanks, buddies.

Also over today, Paul, our friend and neighbour from Cambourne. Now retired, and consequently able to visit during the day.

As well as finishing reading Mr Gillray, our new toilet, only ordered yesterday (thanks, Dad!) arrived. The highlight of my day!

The new crapper arrived about an hour after I’d cooked myself a brunch of eggs, bacon, mushroom and garlic, on toast.

Batting bog-related texts back and forth with plumber and drummer pal ‘Dyno’ Rod Norman, lead to an exploration of the avian bird genus, Turdus. What fun!

I’d asked Rod if he could recommend a plumber out our way. And he suggested Jim Daykin. Like Rod, Jim is a very talented musician. He’s due 1 pm tomorrow, to plumb the new lavatory in.

Apart from taking receipt of the new turlet, today was a day of resting and reading. Tomorrow, as well as Jim’s plumbing visit, my aulde pal Paul, from Cambourne – just retired – is visiting. And I needs must start trying to flog stuff, due to current unemployment.

But for now, back to tonight, I’m starting on Vol I of Rodger’s epic naval trilogy, Safeguard of the Sea.

I’m massively impressed by this book.

Draper Hill, an American cartoonist, clearly had a consuming passion for Gillray. The research evident in this work, first published in the mid 1960s – added to how many (esp’ of the more obscure) Gillray artworks are ‘from the author’s collection’ – is quite astonishing.

Ever since first encountering Gillray’s incredible prints, via my interests in Napoleonic era history, I’ve been blown away by them. Learning more about the man who created these complex and now potentially obscure/hard to decipher works is utterly fascinating.

P. 155 ‘Comprehension by a later generation requires a certain expenditure of effort.’ Very true, Mr Hill.

In addition to the usual biographical stuff, that one expects on any subject – birth, childhood background, education, etc. – one of the threads of chief interest with Gillray, given his milieu, political satire, is who is ‘paying the piper’? Whose ideas are we seeing?

Draper Hill goes into as much detail as the sources available to him permit. And it makes for fascinating reading. After a youthful period of being a gun for hire, Gillray became steadily more allied to Tories, like George Canning.

Often it’s Canning’s ideas, or those of other paying clients/masters, that Gillray deploys his immense talents on behalf of. But that said, as Hill notes, a lot of Gillray’s output, perhaps more so in the general ‘social satire’ arena, as opposed to political satire, and/or propaganda, drawer on his own ideas.

I’ve had this book ages now. And started reading it I can’t even remember when. I picked it up again, as a kind of light reprieve from the N. A. M. Rodgers’ naval trilogy (I’ve literally just finished Vol II of the latter), and I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

I resumed reading it yesterday, only a few pages in. And now I’m on the final rather sad chapter, ‘Disintegration’. It’s a compelling story, to me at any rate.

It’s also very interesting, how this book connects to Vol. II of Rodgers’ naval history, the latter ending, as it does, in the era of the French Revolution and Great Wars (as the Napoleonic period was known at the time). Consequently many of the folk Gillray either has dealings with, or depicts, were also recent subjects of Command of the Ocean.

Well, if slightly floridly written – especially impressive as this is not the author’s chief area of professional competence – incredibly well researched (the more so for someone not a professional academic), this is clearly a labour of love on Hill’s part.

I love it! And highly recommend it.

*Prob’ painted for Hannah Humphreys.

NOTE

All the illustrations in the book under review are black and white. I’ve included a couple of coloured ones here, to convey a fuller effect of Gillray’s work. If the potentially interested reader seeks decent colour reproductions, a better place to go than Draper Hill’s book – first and foremost a biography – is Clayton’s much more recent work, James Gillray, a Revolution In Satire.

FOOTNOTE

This book references numerous things that excite my interest, including such things as Broadley’s catalogue of Napoleonic prints, etc. Indeed, there are a great many quite diverse things Hill refers to I’d like to explore further. One such is this, a handwriting guide, using numerous bon mots to aid the cultivation of good penmanship.