Storybook Saturdays - The Tempest (1611) by William Shakespeare

 Two of these fellows you / Must know and own; this thing of darkness I / Acknowledge mine

Ok so I lied about bringing you a bird profile of the osprey yesterday. I was feeling more in the mood to watch silly YouTube videos last night, which I think is probably a method I should also adopt now: if I don’t want to blog, I don’t have to. If I want to make up for it the next day – which, in this case, I can’t – then I am perfectly at liberty to do so. I set my own rules and to be honest, I’m not even sure who cares apart from me. So with that out of the way, let’s begin today’s book review which is brought to you by Shakespeare’s Birthday, April 23rd!

I would like to present, The Tempest, my absolute favourite of Shakespeare’s works (and his last). It manages both comedy and tragedy in equal measure with a hefty dose of power dynamics, sexual overtones, and attempted murder, with a smidge of soul-searching which, characteristic of Shakespeare’s comedies, never comes to anything by the play’s end.

You have as your primary character the magical fallen duke Prospero, who some critics believe to be an autobiographical rendition of Shakespeare himself – and, given how much power he has over the course of events and the characters therein, it seems very likely. This man (though if you’ve watched the 2010 movie adaptation, you’ll know that Helen Mirren does an impressive Prospera) is, first and foremost, a tyrant. Usurped from his place as Duke of Milan, he instead asserts himself over the various spirits and creatures of the island he and his daughter, Miranda, find themselves on after fleeing the city. That power is gained by the practice of magic – the liberal arts which he so dedicated himself to whilst in possession of his dukedom that he failed to see his brother stealing it from him – and it is this power, by the play’s end, which he swears to renounce in order to regain his status. Now, as I mentioned, soul-searching (and the reconciliation which is inherent in it) is seldom realised, and this is exactly the case with Prospero because the physical act of casting off his staff and books is never written. Evidently he now doubts his abilities as a ruler without some superstitious special effects to aid him - which brings us to his ‘servants’ Caliban and Ariel.

The former goes by many names: earth, hag-seed (born, as he was, of a witch), monster, mooncalf, and the same is true of the latter: apparition, spirit, fairy, bird. From this, there is a clear contrast of characters, yet both live enslaved to Prospero. Caliban, as the typical ‘New World native’ of the period, does physical labour and is often punished for slowness or insolence, while Ariel, the elemental spirit, performs acts and assumes guises of a supernatural nature, all the while impatient for the day Prospero promised to free him from servitude. The contrast between the servants is also marked by their attitude towards this servitude, Caliban performing his tasks grudgingly and with curses, while Ariel is the very picture of energy and eagerness, performing Prospero’s every request ‘to th’ syllable’. It is worth noting, however, that Prospero remarks of Caliban that ‘we cannot miss him’, implying that his services are vital to their survival and, in some way, making them beholden to him. What’s more, as the book’s editor Stephen Orgel notes, ‘it is Caliban [and Ariel – I feel the spirit should have been mentioned too] who legitimates Prospero’s rule’: without servants, Prospero cannot be a figure of authority over anyone but his daughter. This realisation, that his ‘magic’ is essentially derived from power over others, has the effect of destabilising his control over the island – even more so when you consider that, by right of being its first inhabitant, Caliban has more claim to the land – and ultimately over the play itself. But that power over others is essentially what drives the story.

He wishes to marry his daughter to the son of the King of Naples, thereby increasing his status, and to do this he must wreck the King’s ship – on its way back from Africa where the King’s daughter has lately been married – and influence all those on board to bring it about. Miranda is, in my mind, a cliché female: she is fickle, vague, and simple, especially when she falls in love with the first true man she sees, this being the King’s son, Ferdinand (who I imagine as a bit like the ‘imaginary boyfriend’ from the 2015 Pixar movie, Inside Out – ‘I would die for Riley’). So it seems appropriate that Ferdinand would be equally as cliché in falling in love with a ‘goddess’. And so they become your typical fairy-tale couple, speaking in rhymes, getting engaged just hours after meeting, being cursed by her father should they get busy behind his back before the wedding itself. Oh yes, because Miranda is pretty much the play’s sexual focal point. Caliban has tried to rape her – an admittedly justified action, as Orgel says, given New World practices of free love and the Imperial idea of rape as ‘essential to the foundation of empire’ – Ferdinand must be warned several times about his pre-marital desires for her, and as we introduce the King’s party, we see sex is on some of their minds too.

The King’s party – excluding Ferdinand – is composed of King Alonso of Naples, his brother Sebastian, and the King’s aged councillor Gonzalo, the new Duke of Milan (and Prospero’s traitorous brother) Antonio, the lords Adrian and Francisco (who have very few lines between them), and the court jester Trinculo and butler Stephano. These people are split across the island and form two separate narratives which make the tale diverse and engaging.

All but the last two characters form the first party, grieved at the imagined loss of the King’s son, and as such they make a dreary crowd but for the comedy provided by Antonio and Sebastian. Their observations and remarks on the others make up almost every other line during Act 2: Scene 1 and include several of a sexual nature. But this is also where the attempted murder comes in, with Antonio tempting Sebastian with the crown of Naples if he were to kill his brother as he slept. And a similar plot is hatched in the second party when Caliban, fuelled by his hatred of Prospero, urges Stephano, adopting the drunken persona of ‘King Stephano’ when Caliban swears himself his subject, and Trinculo to murder his master. There is added incentive in the form of Miranda who will ‘become thy bed / And bring thee forth brave brood’, adding again to the image of her as an object for breeding with. Neither of these plots come to fruition (it is a comedy after all), but the language of those involved is especially rich during these moments which I really appreciate.

Now, I could ramble on in a semi-academic fashion about this play for another page or so without ever really achieving anything more than a loose synopsis (sorry if I spoiled it for you!) but what I am trying to say it that it is a great story if you have a fair enough understanding of the Shakespearian vernacular (or a ton of annotations!) There are, admittedly, dry moments where there is no comedy or poetry, and you are working on pure character-to-character dialogue full of dated phrasing and historical references which, without the notes, are tough ones to get your head around. BUT these aren’t the majority, and you should find yourself enchanted by [most of] the characters (Alonso and Ferdinand are very monochrome, in my opinion) and caught up in a little bit of magic from time to time. If you get a chance, watch the movie – at least the images will help you to understand it better (and if you’re a fan of Ben Whishaw, good news: he plays Ariel beautifully, alongside an impressively fierce Djimon Hounsou as Caliban and a ridiculously apt Russell Brand as Trinculo).

Photography Thursdays - Regent's Park Royalty

 

Regent's Park Royalty (Regent's Park, London) - 13th April. 2021

Guess what? It's another shot in the park! But I just had to show off these gorgeous ducks somehow - and besides, I love the composition. The one bank with the Red-Breasted Goose, Wigeon, Wood Duck and Pintail, the second bank with the Red-Crested Pochard, and the water winding between them. I especially love the contrast of the white feathers of the goose on the left against the darker water vs the black/green feathers of the duck on the right against the lighter water. You can probably tell, if not from the recurrence of my Feathered Fridays, but from this photo alone that I am a little obsessed with birds. 

So check back in with me tomorrow for my profile on the Osprey. 

Wellness Wednesdays - Scent

Welcome to Wednesday’s Wellness Clinic. I can promise you I am not a doctor, a psychotherapist or a preacher, just someone with a lot going on inside her head looking for a way to calm the storm and impart that wisdom to you.

Before I start, I would like to apologise [to myself, it seems] for not bringing you a new recipe for yesterday’s Tasty Tuesday. Unfortunately, I hadn’t made anything on the weekend and no one recipe felt worth sharing this week. But I promise I will be back in a fortnight with something delicious to talk about so watch this space. And now, without further ado, let us get into this week’s wellness tip: scent, inspired by the upcoming Sense of Smell Day on April 24^th.

I am very much a person who loves the smell of things: fresh bread, fallen rain, coffee, new books, to name a few. They’re all your semi-everyday scents which, apart from putting me into the artsy-poet category, make me feel good. And that’s the benefit of our senses. Not only do they help guide us through life, but as with my last Wellness Wednesday – ASMR – treating them and finding out what excites them really can do wonders for us mentally. They can make us nostalgic by triggering happy memories, they can calm us, energise us, inspire our emotions.  And scent is perhaps the most powerful of all the senses. You can be walking along the street and pass someone wearing the same fragrance as your partner; even though you may not be missing them at that moment, your heart rate instantly goes up and you start thinking about them, all because your brain associates the feeling of love with that scent.

Of course, we’re here to talk about what you can do to help your mood and mental wellbeing through the medium of scent. This can be done by identifying what scents make you feel calmer/happier/generally better and finding a way to incorporate them into your life in a readily available format. My relaxing scents are very natural and include rose, jasmine and lavender, as well as lemongrass and sandalwood/cedarwood (a list that I will probably be adding to). Of these, I have found a few in pulse point essential oil roller balls which are pocket-sized and convenient for whenever I need a moment of calm (check out Tisserand). You might prefer to use candles, perfume, or incense if your favourite smells are easily condensed in this way – you’ll be surprised how well some companies can distil smells like the ocean and cupcakes into something you can burn or spray. This can also aid you during meditation, studying/work, or when you have a moment to slow down and tune into your senses.

I don’t have a lot else to share with you on this topic, but I hope this short entry can inspire you to seek out your own feel-good fragrance and bring a small moment of calm to your otherwise busy life.

Musical Mondays - Dive (2011) by Tycho

It is somehow that time once again. Time for me to listen to some friendly tunes and tell you why I love them. It’s Musical Monday! And this fortnight features a musician I hold close to my heart because his music inspires such nostalgia for those snowy peaks I showed you one Thursday a few weeks ago. Thanks to the close friend whose family I travelled to Italy with, this music has become the soundtrack to snow, skiing, and a sun-drenched rented apartment. And that musician is American composer and record producer Scott Hansen, professionally known as Tycho.

His sound is very much what has come to be known as ‘lo-fi’, ‘chillwave’ or ‘ambient’ (so the perfect tunes to unwind to) combining electronic synths, instrumentation, and sound clips. Initially a solo artist, Hansen recruited additional members following his 2006 debut album Past is Prologue, bringing live guitars, drums, bass, vocals, and percussion into the mix for 2011’s Dive, the album I am showcasing today.

What really stands out for me with this album is the complex layers of sound which don’t weigh down such lightweight tracks, and how that sound uniquely illustrates each song’s title. Take ‘A Walk’, for example: the brightly metallic synth reverb, the percussive yet softened drumbeats, the warm background guitar/bass chords, and the shaken percussion, all these elements combine to make you feel you are on a sunny Spring walk just after the rain. ‘Coastal Brake’ uses gentle acoustic guitar strings, those same bright synth reverbs and even some sound samples of the tide on a beach to evoke that coastal feeling. And one of my favourites, 'Ascension’, is so gentle and airy with longer electronic notes and reverb, breathy vocal sounds, and that beautiful acoustic guitar that you almost feel yourself becoming weightless with a newfound sense of tranquillity.

Most of the tracks are roughly between 4 and 8 minutes long meaning you can embrace the complexity and ride that calm for longer. However, two tracks (‘Melanine’ and ‘Epigram’) are just under 3 minutes long, but they do try to make the most of that time. ‘Melanine’ feels like an ode to sunshine with bright higher-pitched synth notes and a simple acoustic guitar track, while ‘Epigram’ is populated with a mixture of metallic, percussive, and glassy notes which fit the title reasonably well as a short and witty statement.

This is, altogether, an album to get lost in, both mentally and aurally, as you allow your mind to wander and to pick out the individual elements of each track, from the subtle shifts in synth tone, from liquid to metallic, bright to hollow (but always with a touch of reverb) to the transition between electric and acoustic guitar which always sits so comfortably in the background. It’s like getting lost in a familiar place, enjoying the novelty and familiarity which present themselves in turn. So come and come and take a Dive in Tycho (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

Info taken from Tycho's Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_(musician)

FULL ALBUM: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lkCgIijL5sMC8ks-r6oAlOJXDZMt8mUQI

Storybook Saturdays - Echopraxia (2014) by Peter Watts

Voodoo works, Oldschool. Fear messes up your cardiac rhythms. Adrenaline kills heart cells. You can literally scare someone to death if you hack the sympathetic nervous system the right way.

Ok so, first things first, a little housekeeping. In the course of writing this blog, I am realising there are some techniques I can change, and one of them is writing this book review in the evening. It takes a fair while to describe any book thoroughly and this often means I stay up too late (not that I’m any better at getting myself to sleep early any other day!) so I will try to work on future book reviews during Saturday instead. And so, with that, on to the review which this week is another self-selected dissertation text: Peter Watts’ Echopraxia.

It served its purpose in the course of my dissertation, to back up my theory of the posthuman being ‘less than’ human, but now I have gone back and read it with a more generally critical eye, I can’t help but see how complicated a narrative it is.

Science plays a big role in this book – that’s what makes it sci-fi – and I love that about it, but the amount of complex scientific jargon Watts’ main character, Daniel Brüks, throws at you means, even if it is meant to illustrate how tech-savvy he is, you just feel lost. Like sitting in on a Quantum Mechanics lecture when your highest degree is a B in A-Level Physics. He bandies around phrases like ‘cryptochrome’ and Tystovich plasma helix’ and ‘spline plots’ and while, yes, most of them are made-up – and probably mentioned earlier in the Firefall series because yes, this isn’t the first book – that only makes it harder to follow (I should probably read the prequels just to see what I’m missing). But then one of my favourite quotes by Colonel Jim Moore kind of sums up why it can’t be any other way:

You dumb down brain surgery enough for a preschooler to think he understands it, the little tyke’s liable to grab a microwave scalpel and start cutting when no one’s looking.

If I want things to be made understandable, it won’t translate authentically or efficiently. So I guess I will have to let this one go. Besides, some of the technology used in this book is incredible: smart paint which creates a computer interface on any surface; augments which allow you to instantly look up and know things; what appears to be living medical equipment like bone-stitching micro-worms and amoeba-style casting putty. And then there’s the central scientific advance of the people known as the ‘Bicamerals’ who unite science with religion by essentially turning their brains into tumours to accelerate growth and see divine insight in seemingly innocuous patterns. These characters don’t get as much exposure as they should, though, which is a shame. But then, there’s the layout of the spaceship on which most of the action takes place which, at least in the provided illustration, is fascinating when you realise just how big it is. What lets it down is how, due to this size, all Brüks’ movement across the ship is a dizzying string of domes, tunnels, habs, bulkheads, spokes, and termini. I felt as overwhelmed as when I read Lord of the Rings and, try as I might, couldn’t visualise the endless scenic descriptions. What this story does better though is inspire fear.

Space is inherently scary with ‘the billions of lightyears stretching away beneath his feet’ and yet, despite the majority of the story being set there, the real fear is inspired by the vampire character Valerie, an ironically primitive threat in such a post-modern place. She is only ever briefly described because it is her unseen hunting techniques that are the most chilling, playing on the mind in such deeply subtle ways, at times amplified by the chaos she creates – or the anticipation of that chaos – and making the darkened shafts and crawlspaces that much more unsettling. And, when viewed through the unwitting, inexperienced, and cynical lens of Daniel Brüks (practically third-person narration), that fear is magnified just a little more. His cynicism, however, also lends the narrative a dry humour which I feel is much needed in a story as contextually dense as this, from his rants - 'I sure as shit didn't ask to get stored down in your basement like a box of Christmas ornaments' - to action descriptors which could’ve been written by Brüks himself.

What I am trying to say, through the medium of this rambled review, is that Watts is very much onto something, uniting the realms of new and old technology, subtly melding the genres of science-fiction and horror which sit so well together, and creating characters who believably inhabit this new world. And I was unnerved, I laughed, I mourned a little, I stood agog in the face of science’s potential, but it was very much a human experience because, for me, there was more of a connection with the dialogue, internal monologues, and character development, than the science, action and setting which surrounded them. It all felt a little too out of reach to be enjoyable enough. So I’d recommend starting from the beginning with this one, but whether that is a wise assumption, I have yet to know.

Feathered Fridays - Wren

keith gallie from Warrington, UK, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Troglodytes troglodytes

You ever get those days that just drag with how tedious they are? The ones that leave you in need of a good glass of a wine and a lie down? That was my Friday so I guess I can excuse myself for not writing last night. But I still cannot pass up the opportunity to write about one of Europe’s smallest birds, the Eurasian wren for what is now a Songbird Saturday!

From afar, this tiny bird is just a flicker of brown, hopping through the undergrowth, or silhouetted on a garden fence, instantly recognisable by its often characteristically cocked tail feathers and bobbing stance. But up close, you will see its plumage consists of an array of shades from chestnut to buff to copper with contrasting bars of chocolate brown and beige on the wingtips. Its beak is long and thin, perfect for picking off insects and spiders found in bushes and bracken, while its legs and feet, like those of a coot, seem over-sized in comparison to its rotund little body. And then there’s its song: surprisingly loud for a bird its size but richly delivered in a long warbling outburst with a characteristic trill and fast resonant notes. This can fall to a rattling staccato buzz when an intruder is nearby.

(below) Ken Billington, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Now I’ve mentioned a lot about just how small this bird is, weighing less than an ounce (8-13g) and measuring 10cm/4in max from beak-tip to tail (dwarfing only the Goldcrest which measures a teensy 3 ½in/8 ½cm), as such it falls into the realm of cuteness, which is accentuated by two features. Firstly, a quirk in its feather coloration (a white brow stripe) makes it look a little angry – kind of like that squeaking desert rain frog – and secondly, given that they have very little body fat (a particularly harsh winter can kill of around ½ a population), they have to huddle together like penguins for warmth. Aw. And these huddles can get quite big: one in a Norfolk birdbox was recorded consisting of 61 wrens! This is because, in winter, the males become more sociable and, if one is in possession of a particularly accommodating nest, he will ‘advertise’ this, inviting both sexes to share it with him. And speaking of nests, let’s talk about the wren’s breeding behaviour.

The wren is by far the most common breeding bird in the UK with an estimated 8.6million breeding territories across the country (although it is scarcer in the North). The male is fiercely territorial towards other males during the breeding season and will build several unlined nests (small balls of leaves, moss, twigs, and grass in crevices and banks) to which he calls a female. As such, one pair can have 2 broods of up to 6 young a year. This abundance makes them an iconic British bird, however, there are many other species of wren around the world (primarily in the Americas), from the boldly striped Fasciated Wren of Peru to the bicoloured White-Headed Wren of Columbia and the Bay Wren of Costa Rica and Panama with its deep rufous-brown plumage.

So, how can you help your local wren population? A birdbox is always a good start, making sure you get an open-front one (specifically for wrens and robins – like this), and install it in the Autumn, hidden in vegetation below a 2m elevation. With luck, you will start getting some prospective tenants by the end of the year.

Feeding wrens is also vital. In the warmer months, you may see an opportunistic wren picking off tadpoles and larvae in the shallows of a pond or hopping about in closely shaded shrubs looking for spiders, ants, and other insects. But come winter, they will certainly appreciate some help and you can do this by sprinkling mealworms, grated cheese, fine breadcrumbs and oatmeal in low cover (under hedges, around flowerbed borders, etc) because wrens do not readily visit bird-tables or feeders. And as it is said in tradition that harming a wren brings bad luck, then I’m sure this bit of hospitality could also be in your favour.

Facts taken from: the RSPB, Country Life, The Wildlife Trusts, Carolina Birds, and the RSPB’s ‘Birds of Britain and Europe’ Guidebook by Rob Hume.

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/wren/

https://www.countrylife.co.uk/nature/wren-8-things-know-britains-common-bird-174338

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/birds/thrushes-chats-flycatchers-starling-dipper-and-wren/wren

https://carolinabirds.org/HTML/Wren.htm

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0241302242/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

BIRDBOX INFO (RSPB): https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/how-you-can-help-birds/nestboxes/nestboxes-for-small-birds/making-and-placing-a-bird-box/

 

Photography Thursdays - Autumn on Parade

Autumn on Parade (Hyde Park, London) - 23 October 2020

I realise I missed my last Photography Thursday. Apologies. But I'm here now! And I have my sister to thank for this shot. It was her birthday when we decided to go for a walk in Hyde Park (between lockdowns), and this is, admittedly, a stolen composition as she took a similar photo herself. But can you blame her?  That one up-close leaf gives the image a real sense of depth. However, an additional element I am favouring in my recent shots is solely mine and that is people; usually just a couple to add some character and implied animation. And I shall be returning to Hyde Park next Wednesday so maybe I will get some Spring-time photos too. Watch this space!
 

Wellness Wednesdays - ASMR

Welcome to Wednesday’s Wellness Clinic. I can promise you I am not a doctor, a psychotherapist or a preacher, just someone with a lot going on inside her head looking for a way to calm the storm and impart that wisdom to you.

This week, I am going to be covering a subject that, before the start of the year, I never thought I’d be engaging with: ASMR (or ‘autonomous sensory meridian response’ to give it its full name). Back in 2020, I thought ASMR was just a bunch of whispering and wasteful soap cutting, but once you get past all that, you can find some pretty satisfying stuff. Now, I’ve heard that the main focus of ASMR is to trigger a sensory response, a ‘tingle’ or shiver which cascades over your body from head to toe like when you use those spoked wire scalp massagers (which, by the way, are one of the cheapest and most amazing things you can own!) I, however, have yet to find a video which triggers me in such a way; perhaps I am immune, or maybe I just haven’t found the right trigger. Either way, I have still got an immense amount of pleasure out of the content I have discovered which I would like to share with you. But first, a little science lesson.

The term ‘ASMR’ first started making the rounds on the Internet around 2010 and the words it is composed of can be broken down thus:

• Autonomous: referring to the autonomic nervous system, from whence involuntary reactions and physiological responses such as sexual arousal…erm, arise. However, ASMR is not a sexual response (no matter how often you might hear it being called a ‘brain orgasm’ and ‘whisper porn’)
• Sensory: this part is fairly self-explanatory. The body’s response is triggered by sensory stimuli – primarily visual and audible – from hearing the crinkle and turn of pages, to seeing kinetic sand or (heaven forbid) soap being cut and shaved.
• Meridian: this last part is a little more uncertain, but it seems to belong more to the realms of spirituality than science. The word ‘meridian’ typically refers to a high point of excitement but can also mean the routes along which the body’s vital energy flows, something acupuncturists understand well, apparently.

Definitions taken from: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/asmr-abbreviation-meaning

Thus, when read as a whole, ASMR is the body’s instinctual response to a sensory experience which has tapped into its vital energies. This response – the ‘tingle’ – has a therapeutic effect which is great for helping those with insomnia to sleep or those with anxiety/depression (that’s me!) to calm their mind. And I definitely feel a sense of calm and contentment while engaging with some of the below YouTube channels. I find the most enjoyable triggers are:

• Gentle tapping/scratching/stroking, usually on wood or glass surfaces (this simulates the sound of rain on a window for me)
• Brushing hair (it makes me imagine someone brushing my own hair)
• Fluffy microphone covers (this simulates the sound of crashing waves on a beach or wind through tall grass)
• Crackling fire (just makes you feel all warm and cosy)
• Pebbles/beads rolling against each other (this simulates the sound of the tide pulling at a pebble beach)
• Plucking sounds (comb bristles, cactus spines, pinecones, etc – I think this plays on the rain effect again)
• Creaking of leather gloves (this one might feel a little sexual?)

And 2 rather strange ones:

• Tongue-clicking (just gentle and slow, but it makes me feel like a cat somehow)
• Oily/sticky sounds in the ear (kind of like the muffled sounds you hear when you get water in your ears while showering, maybe it sounds amniotic?)

All of these ‘triggers’ can be found on one or more of these channels:

- ASMR Bakery is one of the first channels I started watching. She began uploading in 2017 and now has just over 900K followers. Her content is almost entirely non-verbal and consists of many different stimuli including tapping, brushing, ear cleaning, and tracing. If you’re having difficulty finding your specific triggers, she has one 3hr video containing 1000 of them! And her many ear massage videos helped me discover my strange fascination with oily sounds.

- ASMRMagic is a channel I have only just discovered, but having been around since late 2015, Rhianna is a pro at what she does – with nearly 1.5million subscribers to show for it! As a self-proclaimed ‘ASMR-ist’, she uploads videos dedicated to binaural sounds (sounds which feel 3D by using two separate microphones), whispering and relaxation. I have her to thank for finding out I like that ‘plucking’ sound from pinecones.

- ASMR Dream More (a second just-now discovery) is a much smaller channel only recently made in 2019 with a following of just over 200k subs, but the content is no less satisfying. Her sounds are created using everyday objects which, yes, include my nemesis the soap, as well as shaving foam, bath bombs, and make up (what a waste!) but also ice cubes, bubbles, sand, pebbles, writing, and gloves. If you’re a fan of the classic, non-verbal ASMR videos, this is the one for you.

- Slight Sounds ASMR is, by contrast, a primarily vocal channel, but she is by far my favourite, uploading weekly personal attention and role play videos with sensory triggers including tongue clicking, tapping, over-explanation (apparently people like hearing in-depth descriptions), and face touching. She is such a sweet, beautiful, and silly person, and her content is something I enjoy watching before I go to sleep – in fact I may have even fallen asleep once while watching her! So it seems almost hard to believe, given she has been uploading since 2013, that she only has 232k subscribers. Show this girl some love, please!

And with that, I think I should end it there. Go and check these channels out, find what makes you ‘tingle’ (if you tingle), and enjoy it. Oh and Happy National ASMR Day for Friday 9^th April!

Tasty Tuesdays - Spiced Apple Cake (Home-cooking)

Silly question but do you like cake? I’m three months into this blog thing now and I think it’s time we celebrated with some beautifully moist and fruity spiced apple cake, courtesy of my mum’s cookbook. You can have it for afternoon tea, dessert, or even with your evening hot chocolate. It’s that good, one slice just won’t be enough!

The key to perfection with this recipe is your apples. You’ll need two different types: cooking apples (Bramley, preferably, as these pulp down well when stewed) and eating apples (I’d recommend Gala or Pink Lady as you’ll want them to be juicy and flavourful). These are incorporated into the cake in three ways:

• Purée: peel and dice your cooking apple and allow it to stew down in a lidded pan over a low heat with a little added water, stirring frequently to prevent it sticking to the bottom. You will only need 6-12 dessertspoons of this to add to your cake batter (depending on how big you want your cake to be) so opt for an average sized apple.
• Grated: peel and grate your eating apple and add this to the batter too
• Sliced: leave about a quarter of your eating apple ungrated and slice it very thinly. This will be layered with the batter.

You also need to be generous with your spices. My mum’s recipe only called for ½ a teaspoon each of cinnamon and allspice, but I chose to double that because it is a spiced apple cake after all. And this can be increased to 2 teaspoons if you’re making a larger cake. The smaller recipe yields roughly 6 generous or 8 thinner slices, while I’d imagine the larger cake could manage between 10 and 14 slices – but you can bet that whatever the size, as you can see, it will be a highly photogenic cake!

I will provide measurements in bold for the larger cake and italics for the smaller cake.

SPICED APPLE CAKE (6-14 slices) 

• 4oz/112g / 2oz/55g light brown/Muscovado sugar
• 8oz/224g / 4oz/112g butter (room temperature)
• 8oz/224g / 5oz/140g self-raising flour
• 4 / 2-3 eggs (depending on size)
• 2tsp / 1tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 2tsp / 1tsp cinnamon
• 2tsp / 1 tsp allspice
• 4oz/120g (12dsp) / 2oz/60g (6dsp) cooking apple purée
• 1 standard eating apple, peeled and quartered
• A sprinkling of demerara sugar

1. Preheat your oven to 190°C/375°F, and grease and line an 8”/20cm round cake tin with greaseproof baking paper (preferably springform or one with a loose bottom)
2. Cream together the butter and light brown sugar (you can do this with an electric whisk, or by hand with a wooden spoon if you like)
3. Add the flour, baking powder, eggs, apple purée, and spices, and whisk until well blended (this part is best done with the electric whisk)
4. Grate ¾ of the eating apple into the cake mix and blend well
5. Pour half the mixture into your prepared tin, slice the remaining ¼ apple thinly and layer it over, before pouring the rest of the cake mix on top and smoothing it
6. Sprinkle the demerara sugar over the top with a little extra cinnamon
7. Cook in the preheated oven for an hour or until the top has turned a beautiful golden brown and a knife comes out cleanly when inserted into the centre

Serve with tea, ice cream, whipped cream or just as it is.

Musical Mondays - Marilyn Manson (1994-2000)

Ines Zgonc, CC BY 3.0 <https://creative
commons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via
Wikimedia Commons

Today I would like to present to you something a little different. This isn’t a full album review, but rather a cursory review of several albums with a focus on my favourite(s) from each. And I do this because, in sharing a love of Marilyn Manson with a close friend, I have come to realise I am severely missing out, so today I listened to Manson’s first 4 albums and boy was it a confusing ride!

It’s amazing that so much of the music I love was being produced when I was born, but it took me the better part of 15 years to discover it – or, in the case of today, closer to 25 years, as Manson’s debut came in 1994 with the unsettling Portrait of an American Family. This album features two tracks – ‘Lunchbox’ and ‘Get Your Gunn’ – which were included on Lest We Forget, a later compilation I own, and helped to inject a little familiarity, but for the rest, I felt like the school bus had dropped me in the wrong neighbourhood (a feeling fuelled by the many notorious murderer references).

It opens with a rendition of the classic ‘Rowing Song’ from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which, if you’ve seen the original Gene Wilder movie, is frightening enough as it is, but only Manson could make it that much more terrifying. And the album unwinds as the rest of that movie does: chaotically! Chunky guitar riffs, creepy little voices, Manson’s caustically bleak lyrics, and an endless catalogue of electronic effects to disturb and unseat the mind. But one song toys with the boundary between creepy and cosy better than all others and that is ‘Wrapped in Plastic’, an admittedly cleaner sounding track (instrumentation is slower and less complexly layered) which switches pace and tone beautifully and ties it all up with some frightening synth screams (at least I hope it’s a synth).

Skip forward 2 years, and the next instalment was 1996’s Antichrist Superstar, a much more electronic heavy slice of sinister. This one featured 4 songs from Lest We Forget – ‘Irresponsible Hate Anthem’, ‘The Beautiful People’, ‘Tourniquet’ and ‘The Reflecting God’ – only the 2^nd of which I can fully appreciate for not being a wall of noise half the time like the others. Of the remaining 12, however, I found myself pleasantly surprised by the variety of elements which seemed to shine: the slow burn of ‘Mister Superstar’ with its eerie background vocals, the deep discordant guitar licks of ‘Minute of Decay’ which throw an insane drum set in half way through, and the uncharacteristically atmospheric ‘Man That You Fear’. But it was the spooky cocktail of synths and vocals in ‘Cryptorchid’ and ‘Kinderfeld’, coupled with the painfully slow guitar riff of the latter which stood out a mile for me.

Patrick Whitaker, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons (right)

Another 2 years on and I was introduced to 1998’s glam rock drenched melancholy of
Mechanical Animals. For me, this is where Manson’s appeal begins to wane – my limited knowledge of most albums after the year 2000 notwithstanding – primarily due to the tone shift and the alteration from Daisy Berkowitz to Zim Zum on lead guitar. (I would like to note that I still appreciate the guitars in this album, despite the noticeable difference.) The slickly electronic single ‘The Dope Show’ and the schoolboy proclamation of ‘Rock is Dead’ echoing ‘Lunchbox’ are two songs I am familiar with, though by no means in love with. That honour goes to the clutch-heavy, joy ride that is ‘Posthuman’ and the chunky swagger of ‘I Don’t Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me) – two songs which remind me of road trips with my previously mentioned friend. They nestle among the forlorn acoustics and Bowie-esque showmanship like the two doves of Noah’s ark, unable to find dry land amid the changing ocean of Manson’s musical guises. I will, however, give an honourable mention to ‘Last Day on Earth’, an apocalyptically beautiful 5 minutes laced with alien synths that tugs at my heart.

And so to the final 2 years [that I was able to listen to] with 2000’s Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death). This album was surprisingly Manson’s bleakest and most confusing one yet. Another four songs – ‘The Love Song’, ‘The Fight Song’, ‘Disposable Teens’, and ‘The Nobodies’ – were featured on Lest We Forget, but in all 19 songs of this album, the familiar ‘The Nobodies’ never gets old with its harpsichord-like intro and Manson’s signature spit-and-bile chorus. ‘Target Audience (Narcissus Narcosis)’ hints at the smoky guitars to come from Eat Me Drink Me, ‘A Place in the Dirt’ masters its way from eerie intro to slowly burning dramatic chorus, and ‘Coma Black’ acts as a terminally bleak twin to Mechanical Animals’ ‘Coma White’, but otherwise, I couldn’t focus on much discernible variety between any of the other tracks.

So there you have it: the first 6 years of Marilyn Manson’s musical career. I can’t say for sure if any of the 21^st century albums (Eat Me Drink Me aside) will be able to hold my attention the way the first two did, but there’s no doubting something in this music has got its hooks in me good. It’s like watching a horror movie blindfolded with its unsettling creep and the way Manson’s vocals seem to get under your skin. If you want to check out any of the albums I’ve discussed, the link to the full YouTube playlists are below.

Portrait of an American Family: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUvK5bvRk4paTw-nmZg_Th8fxz-_llyM4

Antichrist Superstar: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUvK5bvRk4pZr7H-a49wAxMri0D_3WzY-

Mechanical Animals: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ08xVHdBRavt2RfawWs-bbLtmWtcR_Da

Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6ogdCG3tAWgFvMVkAhZISG5g0vn-8lfr

Feathered Fridays - Alpine Chough

Vianney Bajart, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Pyrrhocorax graculus

Hey, guess what? I’m back! Didn’t expect that did you? But it’s another [early] Feathered Friday and this one is kind of special because I want to talk to you about a bird you don’t see in the UK. Nope. This one I have seen with my own eyes, swirling in small flocks over a beautiful North Italian town, their rippling trills filling the crisp mountain air. I mistook them for blackbirds at first, but no, this was in fact the Alpine Chough, a relative of the crow.

© Friedrich Haag / Wikimedia Commons (right)

At first glance, it is easy to see where the similarity to a blackbird lies. Both birds have all-black feathers, a longish tail, and a yellow bill, but that is where the similarity ends as the Alpine Chough, while only a few inches larger, can weigh 3-4 times more than a standard blackbird and with double the wingspan. They also have strikingly red legs and, as I mentioned, gather in flocks, very un-blackbirdlike behaviour. Their trilling calls are also mixed with slightly alien, staccato notes and phrases like a sci-fi laser.

They are year-round residents across a broad swathe of central Europe from the Balkans and the Mediterranean, through the Alps, to the Pyrenees and even the north-west tip of Africa. In winter, they are found closer to the coast or higher up the peaks. They most commonly frequent ski resorts, which is where I first saw them, scavenging almost tamely from tourists, but do descend to valley fields with other Choughs (with which they can also be confused). Their diet usually consists of berries, seeds, insects and other invertebrates, which they forage for in grassland. And this goes to feed up to 5 chicks annually, raised between May and July in a bulky cliff-side nest of stems and twigs. Just think was a noisy yet enchanting cloud of birds that will make in a few short years.

Facts taken from: eBird and the RSPB’s ‘Birds of Britain and Europe’ Guidebook by Rob Hume.

https://ebird.org/species/yebcho1?siteLanguage=en_GB

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0241302242/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1