Seb Palmer

I ordered an old single-volume paperback of The LOTR, via WOB (World of Books), prob via Amazon. It lists 17 previous similar single/volume paperback editions, the last being 1977. I don’t know if this means this is a 17th edition, or poss’ the 18th?

Anyway, I got this ‘cause, albeit perhaps not the exact same edition, this is very much in the style of – it looks and feels the same, basically – the one I first owned and read, as a child. Inside, very near the back of the book, I found a slip of paper (pictured below); perhaps used as a bookmark by the original owner/reader?

Rather happily/amazingly (like the oh so convenient clues in a Poirot or Holmes mystery) it’s dated very specifically, 16/4/82. Looks like it’s a strip torn from a photocopy of a technical drawing!?

I turned ten on January the 5th, 1982. With a rather beautiful synchronicity, at least to my mind, and although I didn’t know it back then, I share my birthday with the illustrious J.R.R. himself, no less! And it was around that age that, having already read The Hobbit, I first started reading The Lord of the Rings.

I’ve talked about that elsewhere, no doubt on several occasions. I was very proud to be a precocious or advanced reader. Is that a bit pathetic? Maybe. But I can’t help it now. I’m still a bit that way, i.e. conceited about my supposed ‘erudition’!

I had to collect this book from the local sorting/delivery branch of the PO. Twice they’d tried to deliver. And, to their credit (and with better professionalism than is often the case), they’d left those red attempted delivery slips, all properly filled. Most unusual (the latter part esp’)!

I was of course in, on both occasions. But quite possibly catatonic, having lain awake till around about 5am the previous night. This is quite regular and ‘normal’ for me, at present. And, not to put to fine a point on it, it’s f*cking awful!

Anyways, I collect the book, three Zopiclone tablets from the Boots pharmacy at Tesco (plus an English breakfast lunch and a few pizzas for our dinner), and dispose of a broken Breville sandwich-maker at the dump.

Back home there’s the endless Sisyphus style tasks of de-cluttering, cleaning, and re-arranging our home, with a view to letting a room. As exhausted as I always am, thanks both to severe chronic depression and my totally screwed sleep cycles, such tasks get harder and harder.

Just now, for instance, it felt like a Herculean task just emptying, cleaning and re-stocking (thinned down) our two cutlery drawers. So much so I’m now typing this on a break from said doings.

I’m still managing to avoid booze and other temptations. That must count for something, surely? And yet I feel no sense of joy or accomplishment, alas. Just a dead leaden depression.

When I’m teaching – only my Wednesday teaching really remains, and that’s severely depleted, I feel like – or rather I know – I’m losing my skills (both teaching and drumming itself), through lack of practise. And music as a whole area of my life seems like an oppressive weighty burden of failure.

So a few simple pleasures get leaned upon, for solace. I binged on snooker for a spell. Then I replaced that obsession with tennis (mostly but not only Wimbledon). And now, having just finished re-reading The Hobbit, I feel inclined to re-read The Lord of the Rings. Hence this nostalgic purchase.

I’ve actually got quite a few editions of the LOTR trilogy. Mostly in proper separate three-volume trilogy format. But I rather fancy the physical and aesthetic prospect of re-reading this old George Allen & Unwin single volume paperback version. My only concern is that it may well, just as my old copy did, simply fall to bits.

Hannah recently sent me the above image. How heartwarming it is just to look upon a kitten sleeping. Why is that, I wonder? Still, who cares!? That it is is enough.

Today I just got back from a counselling session with CGL, which stands for Change, Grow, Live. I’ve been seeing a guy called Mark there most weeks, Thursday mornings.

CGL specialise in supporting with people dealing with various addictions. I’m not going to go into the gory details of my own struggles publicly. And to the extent I do go into it, at all, I’ll try to keep it light and general (as opposed to heavy and specific!).

Today was a minor milestone of abstinence, and self-control. So a good day, really, I suppose. But my spirits are not feeling it yet. I’m as miserable – indeed more so, at times – as when I was deepest into any of my several addictive vices.

I’m hoping that better feelings will follow, and grow stronger. We shall see, I guess.

Anyway, after my session ‘in therapy’, I popped to Boyes, a down-market department store in March. I needed a belt, as my trews were literally fallun’ doon! I got a ein nice leder one for £10. Whilst there I also bought a light summer jacket, for £30.

The latter purchase made me feel both happy, but also complicated, and even a bit sh*tty (read guilty), as I’m stone cold broke. Mind, a single shift for Amazon Flex (once I have wheels again) will pay for it. So I’m not that bothered.

When I finally got home from CGL and the unplanned minor shopping spree, Chester greeted me with loudly plaintive meowing. He needs feeding.

But rather than that occasional ‘cupboard love‘, which sees the satiated moggy disappearing off through the cat flap, he frequently – and that includes today – follows up feeding with a clear request for companionship. Which is utterly adorable.

So as he waited expectantly at my feet, I scooped him up and we had a completely wonderful 15 or 20 minutes of cuddles, purring, head-rubbing/bumping, and all round good vibes. Chester, I love you!

After about 10 minutes of this bliss, he decided he needed to have a bit of a groom. So he starts washing himself, still in situ, ‘pon my chest. And ‘pon my word, if watching him ablute didn’t crack my face with a huge grin.

So I took a few pics of our boy, on my chest, living up to his name, and making me grin like the idiot I am. Another fab five minutes passed. And he finally decided that was enough; time to transfer himself to the more stable (in every conceivable sense!) support of our dining-table.

And now, about an hour later, I’m still sat in the easy-chair. And he’s still softly sleeping beside me. Sometimes his breathing is near enough silent. At others I can follow the rise and fall, the in-takes and out-breaths. And it’s mesmerisingly meditative.

From Pishy, and Domino, in childhood, to Tigger, and now Chester, in adult life, the cutely curmudgeonly company of cats has been a more or less constant part of ‘being’ for me (save only the barren interlude of college and after). And what a beautiful part.

Benedictions ‘pon ye furry critters, say I!

❤️ 🐾 🐈‍⬛ ❤️

Some time later…

Further furry fun: Chester is oscillating between cute lap-cat and frightening ball of teeth ‘n’ claws! I got a few pics of him in the former of the two modes just now, just before eating dinner in the evening sunshine, dans le jardin.

In the above photo, if you look carefully, you’ll see that his right fore-paw is actually gripping the first finger of my left hand (quite tightly!).

Economic woes mean we’re pretty much compelled to let out a room. I recently tidied and rearranged that room (thereby cluttering and devastating the rest of our home!).

But our home as a whole (as a hole?) isn’t fit to let out a room. The living areas, esp’ the kitchen and bathroom, are in an appalling way.

So over the weekend, and the last few days, I’ve been trying to make some in-roads. I’ve chiefly concentrated on the kitchen. And it’s slowly improving.

Tragically for me, I’m an eedjut. I always intend to take before and after shots. But I pretty much always forget to take any before pics. No matter, I’ve taken a load of photos, nonetheless. Sh*t as they are, hopefully they show some changes?

There’s still tons to do. I’ve also cleared everything that we formerly stored atop these shelving units. Everything was covered in an horribly greasy layer of icky stuff. It’s mostly gadgets we never ever use. They’re to be measured*, bubble-wrapped, boxed and put in the attic.

The kitchen units are sh*t. See, for example, how they don’t close properly (fourth pic), ‘cause they’re not deep enough to take standard sized dinner plates! So I want to totally rebuild our kitchen as soon as I can.

Then there’s the contents of the drawers, which also need tearing out and rebuilding. All the storage also needs either bespoke shaping, or a much greater degree of flexibility, in order to accommodate all our gadgets, gizmos, cutlery, crockery, food and other sundry sh*t!

* I need to measure everything so’s when I rebuild I build taking into account specific items.

Ever since the proverbial excreta obliterated the fan, around about six months ago, which brutally terminated a relatively long period of happiness – so odd and unusual for me (happiness, that is) I posted on here about it a few times – I’ve been struggling with depression in ways that, whilst very normal and familiar to me, are yet, by their degrees, esp’ sometimes – like right now – much worse.

Anyway, amongst the many ways I seek to ward off that ol’ black-eyed dog – which can include such humdrum therapies as watching tennis or snooker on TV or online – occasionally I’ll opt to read. Reading used to be a very frequent pleasure. But maybe I over-read? *

And so it is that now I sometimes don’t have the energy to even read! That said, at present I’m revisiting an old favourite, Tolkien’s The Hobbit. For anyone who doesn’t get Tolkien, I’m not going to make a case for him here, at least not beyond simply celebrating what it is I love about his writing.

Sadly I think the whole Jackson/Spielberg Hollywoodification of his works has debased the finest aspects of the Tolkienian universe. But again, I’m going to try not be distracted – aside from acknowledging this dimension – from my own personal encomiums!

As I’ve written elsewhere before, one or more editions of the LOTR had some dust jacket blurb describing Tolkien’s writing as ‘epic yet homely’. The best three word synopsis of his style ever penned.

Hi writings are filled with romanticism, lyricism, nostalgia, melancholy, all things that resonate deeply with my rather maudlin soul. And a love of nature, and beauty, and storytelling, and so on. I could go on!

Now to the second book. A book I have read, albeit not in the format that I’m posting about.

Whilst reading and enjoying the lovely 75th anniversary edition of The Hobbit I recalled that I’d read about some guy doing an illuminated manuscript of something by Tolkien. I couldn’t recall which work: was it also The Hobbit? Nope… ‘twasn’t. Turns out it was The Silmarillion.

A bit of Googling turned up this, an interview with Benjamin Harff, a German artist/illustrator, who chose to do an illuminated rendering of The Silmarillion for his ‘exam at the Art Academy’, as he puts it. We might call his project a thesis, or something similar, or ‘degree project’?

Apparently Harff has been tugging at the sleeves of the Tolkien estate, and all to no avail, so far. That’s sad. This looks like something at least as deserving of the backing of the official Tolkien ‘branding machine’ (as, one supposes, and sadly so, it’s become, in our hyper-crapitalist times), perhaps even more so, as the above mentioned films.

Anyway, for now all most of us can hope to enjoy, of this ambitious and impressive work, are the few snippets out there on’t interweb, such as this:

If ever it is properly finished and published, I want a copy!

In the meantime, it’s back to my 75th Anniversary edition of The Hobbit. Oh, but before I sign off, I believe the Tolkien Empire is shortly to publish yet another edition of Said Hobbit, which, like the 75th, is to be illustrated solely by Tolkien himself, only this time with even more of his archival artwork.

Read more about that or even order it here. I will definitely be getting this. By hook or by crook!

It’s now 1.11am, as I return to this post to add a rather pathetic and desperate coda: can Tolkien save my life? I’ve said the same of a number of things recently (though I can’t recall what right now?). And I mean it.

If the record that’s stuck in a groove in my head is constantly repeating ‘kill yourself, it’s the only way out’, as it is or has been just now, and so often does, can reading Tolkien’s The Hobbit help see me through another hopeless night?

Only time will tell, I guess?

* As a reviewer for both Amazon Vine and Pen & Sword reading/reviewing changed from hobby and passion to obligation and drudgery, as is so often the crapitalist way.

Usually I learn about things like this long after they’ve actually been and gone.

This is happening later today! But sadly that’s no better for me. My car failed her MOT this week, and anyway, I’m stone cold broke, as usual.

I found out ahead of the event on this rare occasion ’cause I’m on Johnny Trunks’s email list. He pointed me, along with all his mailing list readers, here. That (a Guardian piece on his and various others Wicker Man stuff) was an interesting read.

I saw The Wicker Man circa 1990, living with Goldsmiths College student pals, in Sarf Laudanum. Thanks, Brennan! Those were not happy days, alas. But then so few of my life have been.

Feeling, as ever, compelled to be candid, I was blown away by this oddball movie. And for much the same kind of reasons the Grauniad article eloquently articulates.

Whilst on one level – indeed, this is how it was perceived at the time (when it flopped!) – The Wicker Man might be an excruciatingly cheesy B-movie horror flick. But on another it struck me – and has evidently struck many others the same way, in the years over which it’s gained cult status – as a paean to lost pagan traditions. Traditions that have been replaced with others, just as cruel and outlandish, yet here in the UK very po-faced (post-protestant conformity!?)

Christopher Lee’s Lord Summerisle has some terrific lines on this theme, including a little soliloquy – included in the clip above from which the quote – (delivered outside The Green Man Pub at night), as re snails stand in for Ash Buchanan and Willow, the Landlord’s daughter:

‘I think I could turn and live with animals. They are so placid and self-contained. They do night lie awake in the dark, and weep for their sins. They do not make me sick, discussing their duty to God. Not one of them kneels to another, or to his own kind that lived thousands of years ago.’

He also mocks Sgt. Howie’s anger over ‘false biology’ (that Rowan could be transformed into a hare, or girls become pregnant jumping over bonfires) with a riposte about the ‘parthogenesis’ of the Immaculate Conception (or Deception, as I prefer it).*

Being part of a zeitgeist like this – feeling the love for The Wicker Man – albeit a slightly underground/alternative one, doesn’t sit well with me. I like to feel apart from the stream, be it the mainstream or even a more cult-ish little tributary.

* I the terrific Life of Brian, Monty Python make the suggestion (most likely highly blasphemous, to the devout) that the immaculate deception is one of the cheekiest and or best/worst excuses a young Jewish bride might choose to give for getting knocked-up by a Roman ‘occupier’! Let’s say there is a human individual who was the origin of or basis for all the subsequent Jesus (or whatever his original Jewish name was) rigmarole, modern science strongly suggests that a real human – be he apprentice carpenter, centurion, husband, ‘trick’, or Ernie, the fastest milkman in the west – and not The Almighty, was the father.

It’s the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year Apparently that means nearly 17 hours of daylight today.

It also means loads of folk gathering at Stonehenge, and, traditionally, it’s a day, or evening, celebrated with bonfires.

It also seems like good day to listen to Joni Mitchell’s fabulous 1975 album, The Hissing of Summer Lawns.

Artist, musician, composer, poet, philosopher. Her lyrics for The Jungle Line are brilliant:

Pretty amazing, eh!? Encompassing so much, from art to music, love to war, the country vs. the city, old and new, and so much more. Musically it’s an interesting experiment, with that weird synth and her voice over Burundi drummers.

It’s not my favourite track on the album. But it’s still a corker. And the words are almost encyclopaedic, yet still resolutely poetic, in their range and scope. They kind of sun up the album and where Joni’s at, and even the art, culture and civilisation of her times.

Incredible!

Insomnia is is a fairly regular companion for me lately. When it bites my ass, as it is tonight. I like things like snooker and tennis.

Watching other folk working real hard, esp’ with the tennis – they just did a 23-stroke rally in set four after two and a half hours! – is strangely soothing.

At the start of this match, I was finding the ‘big serves’ a bit boring. But now it’s looking like two sets all, and a fifth to decide. And the play is decidedly more compelling.

Inability to sleep the night before my biggest teaching day feels like psychological self-sabotage. But what can I do? So I’m watching tennis!

Hopefully I’ll watch the whole thing and then sleep like a baby. Last Wednesday was a total washout. I can’t afford for that to happen again!

I woke up this morning, after a rough night of insomniac bullshit, to discover that my main iPhone was behaving weirdly.

I’ve been trying, with mixed results, to back up all the photos from said iPhone to my old iMac. I tried again last night, when unable to sleep. Tried again, failed again.

But then, checking my phones this morning, to find out what time it was, I discover that my main iPhone has decided to empty and renew my email inbox. Eh!? Why? HOW?

Surely such a drastic operation ought to be a multiple step process, ending with a confirmation? Are you sure you want to, etc? It shouldn’t be either automatic (and without my consent), or easily done by a mistaken press – or mere touch of a screen!? – of a button!?

It all adds up to wasting more time. And on an activity – going through administering emails – I loathe. Modern life, eh?

Teresa and I spent a few days and a couple of nights at dad’s this weekend. Claire and Sam were off to a wedding in, pig all places, Peckham.

Dad was home alone, not 100% well, and the Palmer family have two new kittens, Cosmo and Lyra. So we were looking after dad, the kittens, and the home, to some extent. Or just having a family break.

We had a nice time. The kittens are, as kittens are, utterly gorgeous. Dad wasn’t as bass as we feared her might be. And we even had an old pal – Justin B – drop round Omar evening.

On the Friday we had a Chinese (brought over from our local March Chinese, J & B Fish Bar. Saturday Teresa cooked a delicious Thai curry. And Sunday, today – Father’s Day – er… I can’t recall what we had!!?

Oh yes, we are at the Turkish folk’s place, Frankie’s. I had a Greek Salad. Very nice too. Except too much raw onion upset my delicate digestion!

Today I discovered, thanks to an old pal, Justin, that Rev. Awdry, of Thomas The Tank Engine fame, was the vicar of a local village. That village, Elsworth, was Justin’s home for many years. And, for a period, the workplace and home of the clergyman and children’s author.

The Wikipedia page on Awdry tells us the following:

‘In 1940, he took a curacy at St Nicolas church, Kings Norton, Birmingham, where he lived until 1946. He subsequently moved to Cambridgeshire, serving as rector of Elsworth with Knapwell (1946-1950), rural dean at Bourn (1950-1953), and then vicar of emneth, norfolk (1953-1965). He retired from full-time ministry in 1965 and moved to Rodborough in Stroud in Gloucestershire.’

As with so many kids of the last 60-70 or so years, Thomas and friends were a part, albeit a smallish part, of my childhood. It’s kind of nice to know Awdry wrote much of the series whilst living and working locally.

And not long ago, 2020, I believe, a blue plaque was added to the Elsworth rectory to commemorate this local connection. Sadly the Elsworth plaque isn’t quite as pretty as the one in Box, another location proud of its Awdry connections. But hey, never mind!

As an artist, writer and illustrator, I have a desire to perhaps get hold of the complete ‘Railway Series’, if it can be had? With the beautiful old fashioned illustrations by …

Well, it turns out there were a number of illustrators on The Railway Series. I garnered a bit more info on them, which I reproduce below, here:

C Reginald Dably

In 1948, the man who was to ‘set the style’ for the Railway Series books came onboard with his gem-like illustrations – read about him and his work here!

Reginald Payne

When Middleton failed to impress, Edmund Ward brought in a new illustrator, who went on to be the first artist to depict Awdry’s most famous engine – Thomas!

William Middleton

The original illustrator of the Three Railway Engines, whose artwork was replaced in favour of new work by C. Reginald Dalby – read about him here!

Clive Spong

Chris Awdry’s faithful illustrator across sixeen books, and encompassing the best elements of the three illustrators who had contributed to the series before him  – read about his work here!

Peter & Gunvor Edwards

The Rev. Awdry’s final illustrators, husband and wife team Peter and Gunvor put a different slant on the style of the Railway Series books   – read about their work here!

John T Kenney

Kenney took the Railway Series’ illustrative style in a bolder direction when he joined the team in 1957 – read about his work here!