EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

Several Sorts Of Sacred

From Glastonbury Tor, you can find a kind of perspective. Below you, the lines of the earth are clear and sharp—both the natural contours of the land, and the hedges, fields and roads carved onto the face of Mother Earth by her violent offspring. Even on a cloudy, blustery day, the horizon is a long way in the distance. Petty concerns and worries slip off your shoulders, whisked away into the wild beyond, and for that moment you can breathe again.

As your head clears, you feel as if you’ve found something sacred.

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We have gone into the west—well, a bit. Somerset, to be precise, for a few days away from—well, everything. Burnout sneaks up on you. The water in the pot warms up and your soul starts boiling off like pink steam before you realise. A long weekend probably isn’t enough, but we’ll take what we can get.

Quite a writery Swipe this week, with Kerouac and Irving and the guy who invented what we think of fetish wear. Ok, that took a swerve. Maybe the water’s hotter than I thought.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Rising

I couldn’t tell you where it started, this thing with Bruce and I. Perhaps it was the thundercrack, the twelve-gun salute from Mighty Max Weinberg which counts off Born In The USA. Maybe it was the hundreds of listens I gave to my dad’s tape of Nebraska, played on rotation in the flats and houses he lived in while he and my mum lived separate lives. It may even have been a clip of the E Street Band in full flight in 1975, blasting through Rosalita at the Hammersmith Odeon, which seemed to always be playing on the Old Grey Whistle Test. You know, the one with that ridiculous hat.

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We took a wander out into the woods near Maidenhead last week, as an attempt to keep some sort of exercise regime running. The weather was greyer than expected, but the colour of the leaves and foliage, all golds and postbox reds, provided a splash of warmth.

On our way home we dropped into Wargrave Nurseries, who have regular open weekends. They specialise in giant pumpkins at this time of year, and some of the examples on offer are extraordinary. One in particular, which spilled off the sides of the Europallet it was placed upon, was on sale for £1250. That’s a lot of soup. Seems ridiculous, but some slightly smaller ones had sold for a few hundred quid, so there’s clearly a market. We bought some colourful gourds for an autumn display instead, spending a tenner. That’s quite enough outlay on seasonal decoration, thank you.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

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This week, a little spurt of writing advice as we gather pace towards a month made for hunkering down and making a dent in your wordcount. The organisation behind Nanowrimo hasn’t made any friends with its embrace of AI assistance, and I understand the calls for boycott. For many of us, though, November is still hardwired as a blessed 30 days of hard work. Will you be indulging? Even if you can’t make the whole 50,000 word goal, it’s a great time to pick up the habit of doing something creative every day. Hope to see you on the start line.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

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You’ll notice something of a theme in some of this week’s links and articles. Let’s just say the subject kept coming up in different settings and contexts. It’s clearly on a lot of people’s minds at the moment. It would be very easy for me to drop into a long-winded rant, but I like to think you know my views on the subject at hand.

I offer a pledge—Excuses And Half Truths and The Swipe remain forever hand-crafted and built with pride and care. By humans, for humans.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

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The shift from summer to autumn seems to happen more suddenly than with any other seasonal switch. It’s been accelerated this year, perhaps, by our week in Northumberland — the return to work suddenly had me waking up in the dark, which is always one of the major signifiers of the change. The light has a new lambency, the air a strange foggy crispness. Aldi, charmingly, has both Halloween and Oktoberfest goodies in the middle aisle.

Rejoice! It’s decorative gourd season, which gives me the excuse to bring this old banger out from the attic.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

How We Used To Live

Northumberland is border country, and normal rules barely apply. It’s wild land, rugged but beautiful, a place where authority has always struggled to assert itself. One of the most famous hard borders in the world is here — George RR Martin was hardly the first person to come up with the notion of a defensive wall between the ‘civilised’ south and the ‘untamed’ north. Rievers, bandits and scallywags roamed free across a landscape called, with no lack of irony, The Debatable Lands.

Here the borders between past and present seem thinner, too. Walking a path across fields hemmed by dry stone walls, or simply gazing out over a landscape where human intervention is barely visible, it’s easy to think you’re looking at the same view people from hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago, would recognise.

But be careful, student of history. What you’re looking at and what you’re looking for are not the same thing.

Featured image: The Great Hall At Wallington, Northumberland. All picures by yours truly.

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We are in the north, at the top of a hill accessible only by a track decorated with stern warning signs to turn back. Our base for the week is a clean, neat cottage, sturdy of wall and firmly planted. The borderlands have called again and we have answered. What that means for next week’s communications is anyone’s guess. For now, listening to the hiss and click of rain while pecking away at the keyboard, I’m happy to just be in the moment and watch the clouds cradle the hills.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

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I had an unexpected day away from work this week—a hospital appointment mid-morning was immediately followed by a call from my manager standing me down for the rest of the shift. I felt guilty about it for all of five seconds, then leant in and made the most of the free time.

That is to say, I did very little, instead allowing my brain to spin down from its usual frantic whirl. Once that happened, my focus changed completely. New ideas, thoughts and concepts immediately started to appear. I could put some time into a project I had slightly neglected. I felt calm, collected, in control. It was, frankly, wonderful.

There should be an allowance above and beyond sick days. Whether you call it a mental health break, or simply a me day. A break from the norm, with the understanding that you step away from all your responsibilities, ignore the chores, put down the phone and just let it be. I can advocate the benefits very strongly.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.