Retro shopping

Remember 'shopping'? Not for food or clothes, things which one really wants to select by sight. I mean, shopping for the perfectly-packaged, homogenous items Jeff Bezos targetted as being ideal internet-commerce stock. DVDs, books, CDs (who even buys CDs now?).

I used to really enjoy that kind of shopping. I remember as a teenager (yes, I was a geek), I used to take tremendous pleasure in standing in the basement of WH Smith on the Finchley Road, comparing different Dr Who videos (what? I told you I was a geek). I'd look at the titles, the photographs, the descriptions, see which Doctor it was and which companions. I could spend half an hour comparing the different videos available, before deciding on one to take home and watch as a reward for finishing my Latin homework (I *said* I was a geek already.)

I rarely do it now though. Books, DVDs - why not just order them online? Saves schlepping to a bookshop in town, or dealing with the depressingly warehouse-like massive local Borders. One click, it's done, they arrive in a couple of days.

Except... by the time those couple of days have gone past I've often forgotten why I wanted them. Or the moment has passed, that perfect moment when I really wanted to sit down *right then* and read that book or watch that movie. I have to try to recreate my enthusiasm, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And if it doesn't I'm left with a movie whose perfect moment was last Tuesday, waiting to see if that moment turns up again.

So today I went to 'Retrobloke', or to give it its full title 'Retrobloke.com', a shop down the road from me and yes the '.com' is on the storefront. It's a little shop, full of sci-fi and horror DVDs and videogames in the front, and vinyl in the back. The stock is good, eclectic and interesting. Looking at the shelves reminded me of things I'd always wanted to see and never got around to - unlike Amazon, no one was trying to push new releases on me.

It was a slow Friday afternoon. I stood for a long time flicking through the DVDs until I picked a couple of discs with three episodes each of original series Star Trek on them - total £6, very reasonable. I was the only person there. No one was hurrying me, or making tannoy announcements or trying to entice me with the piped-over smell of coffee. I'm looking forward to watching them over the weekend, because I've chosen the time slot to fit them into along with my purchase - you can do that if you walk out of the shop with them in your hand.

As I made my purchase I asked the friendly shopkeeper whether he did most of his business online nowadays.
"No," he said, "it's strange but we find a lot of people still want to come in."
But if you're looking for a 'retro' experience, I'm not sure that's so surprising.

Things that make you feel old

Spent today at the Buckinghamshire Railway Museum with my friend Esther and two of her children Benjy and Zara. Aren't they lovely?

Zara has a habit of sticking her tongue out if she knows you're taking a picture of her. Probably a form of protest which I ought to respect, but I just got around it by taking the picture before she had a chance to stick her tongue out.

We spent 4 hours wandering around, looking at steam locomotives and riding on little trains - after which fairly unstrenuous activity I ended up with a migraine. And they weren't even *badly behaved* children! No shouting, no screaming, no fighting, just lively sweet kids.

So, apart from ending the day having to lie down in a cool, darkened room, things that have made me feel old today:

1) Trying to explain to Benjy what a 'typewriter' is when we saw one in a mocked-up War Office railway carriage.
"Well... it's like a computer, in a way. Do you see the keyboard there?"
"Yes! So where's the screen?"
"Um well it's not quite like that. See those strips of metal? They had little bits of metal on the ends of them which had letters carved into them..."
"Why...?"
"Well, when you pressed the key here, the metal would move and - "
Benjy, rapidly losing interest: "And then where's the button to press to make it print?"

2) Realising that the very signage board Esther and I used to use to see when our trains were coming from Wembley Park when we got the tube into school is now so obsolete it is *in a museum*. This is it open, so the writing is mirrored:

I didn't even want to ask them if they had any of those cardboard 'return' tube tickets I remember from my first year of school. Do you remember them? You had to tear them in half, and the top half was for the outward journey and the bottom half for the return journey? No? Ah, see, I feel old.

Solitude and creativity

Was supposed to have lunch with a friend today but unfortunately they weren't able to make it so instead I took myself off to Highgate Woods, where I sat happily alone for a few hours reading. It's yet another place within a 20-minute drive of where I live but which I have never visited.

At least I think I haven't visited before. I might conceivably have been taken there by my parents when I was small. In fact, my dad said to me the other day 'I think we took you to Silchester when you were a baby, you know'. D'oh! But: a) I don't remember it so surely it still counts, b) why were they taking a baby to an archaeological site?, and c) I find it interesting that children do a lot more 'activities' than adults, and part of the point of all this is to bring back that child-like life pattern.

Obviously adults do activities in that we go to meetings and buy groceries and arrange for car repairs. But we don't tend - I think - to plan 'outings' for ourselves like we do for children. We don't have the time, of course, but even on weekends I don't think most people go: "Something educational on Saturday morning, then something relaxing in the afternoon, some running around outdoors on Sunday morning, and then a getting-to-know-nature thing in the afternoon." Or whatever.

As if to prove this point, Highgate Wood was far more full of families than of adult-only groups. What do adults do? Why do they only come to the woods when they have small children? I think maybe most adults feel like an activity somehow doesn't 'count' if you don't spend money. I'd never say to a friend 'hey, let's go to the park and chat', but always 'let's have coffee' or 'let's have lunch'. Maybe that's just me!  But I don't think so... When was the last time you invited a friend over to play around with paints and felt-tips together? I wonder why not... playing with paints and felt-tips is fun!

This wasn't what I was intending to write about at all. I was intending to write about solitude. But maybe it's all connected.

I'm giving a talk in a couple of months at the School of Life on the topic "How To Spend Time Alone". This is sort of hilarious to me, because until a few years ago I *hated* spending time alone. I was the kind of person who loved to have a full full full diary and whose idea of heaven was having 20 people round for lunch. Seriously.

But then... somehow I began to change. When I was 25 I started to go away by myself for two or three days, usually to a nice Cathedral town, stay in a bed-and-breakfast, wander around, read and think. I found a kind of peace in those visits. Something in me would start to unwind on the second day, when I realised that no one knew what I was doing, that I didn't have to tell anyone where I was going, that my time was entirely my own.

I've lived alone for nearly seven years now, and while I've had my moments of loneliness - and I don't say that I want to live alone forever - it's been a very valuable experience. You find out who you are when you're alone, and although that's sometimes distressing mostly it's good. There's a core of stillness to almost all of us, and it's very good to check in with it every once in a while.

 

I've been reading Anthony Storr's 'Solitude' in preparation for giving that School of Life talk - it's the kind of book which has an insight on every page that is so brilliant you have to put the book down for a few moments to think about it.

Today I was reading about solitude and the imagination. We are all alone in our imaginations - I mean that no one else is inside our heads. When we daydream, no one else can see what we're thinking of. But it's all too easy to allow our heads to be filled up with the things other people are saying and thinking and doing.

Storr says:

"man is so constituted that he possesses an inner world of the imagination which is different from, though connected to, the world of external reality. It is the discrepancy between the two worlds which motivates creative imagination. People who realize their creative potential are constantly bridging the gap between inner and outer."

In other words, what's good about people is that we live both in our heads and in the world. What's out there affects what's in here. But we can imagine something inside our heads too - a bridge, a novel, a vaccine for polio - and make it happen in the outside world. Creativity is a constant passing from the place where we are alone to the place where we're not and back again.

He also says:

"It seems probable that there is always an element of play in creative living. When this playful element disappears, joy goes with it, and so does any sense of being able to innovate. Creative people not infrequently experience periods of despair in which their ability to create anything new seems to have deserted them. This is often because a particular piece of work has become invested with such overwhelming importance that it is no longer possible to play with it."

To which all I can say is: yes, that's it exactly.

What is play? It is that linking of the internal fantasy world with the external real world. Children do this effortlessly: "This box is a fire engine and I'm a fireman!" "The carpet is the sea, daddy, and the bed is an island, let's swim there!" It's neither forgetting entirely about the real world (which we call hallucination) or forgetting entirely about fantasy, which Storr calls "becoming over-compliant with external reality" - becoming entirely conformist, in fact. And when we grow up, unfortunately, we often start to become 'over-compliant with external reality', even to the extent that we feel it's only acceptable to do 'proper' things with our friends, things that involve spending money, rather than just playing together.

It's funny that, having just finished a novel, I chose this project instead of, say "see a friend every day for 31 days", or "read a novel every day for 31 days" or whatever one might think would replenish one's creativity. Though I've had some wonderful outings with friends, I've gone on a lot of my visits alone - and I think that's just what I needed. A sense of finding my inner playfulness again after a long struggle to finish a book.

In other words: I went to Highgate Woods today entirely alone, and sat alone, and read alone, and came home and made dinner alone and I find that my brain is starting to become inspired and playful again.

Maybe doubt is my religion. But... I'm not certain.

So today's visit, it would be fair to say, brought up *some stuff* for me. Which I'm still processing, but I'll try to explain it as far as I can.

I went to the Liberal Synagogue in St John's Wood - here's its website.

I've never been to a Liberal Synagogue before. Frankly, growing up Orthodox I was taught to look down on Liberal and Reform Jews. Some of the messages, both direct and implicit, I received were things like: "well of course, they might be Jewish but their children will marry out", "they're ignorant, they don't even know the law, most of them can't read Hebrew", "they've changed the law to make it more convenient for themselves, but they've lost all that's good about Judaism - the sense of community, the dedication to God". 

It wasn't until my late 20s that I really started questioning the ideology I'd grown up with. To be fair to my parents, I think a lot of these attitudes didn't come from them but from teachers and Rabbis. The Ba'al Teshuvah (return to Orthodoxy) movement has been growing in strength over the past 30 years and a lot of the Rabbis whose sermons I heard were part of that ideology, insistent that it wasn't even OK to feel *tolerant* towards non-Orthodoxy.

However, I have done a lot of thinking about this stuff in the past six or seven years - and I've changed my mind on a lot of issues. I've come to think that it's foolish and divisive for Jonathan Sacks to insist on our having the toughest conversion processes in the world. That most Jewish people in the UK are not Orthodox, don't want to be, and to tell them that they ought to be is just stupid. That, as I've said here before, we could really do with more organisations that promote Jewish culture, learning, and simply having a little bit of Jewish activity in one's life rather than those which insist that you have to be on a conveyor belt taking you from pork-eating all the way over to shatnez-testing as quickly as possible.

So that's quite a lot of baggage to take along on a little visit. At the very idea of going to a Liberal Synagogue half my brain was going "no no no!" while the other half was trying to talk it down gently. (Notice I had none of this when visiting the Hindu Mandir.) Plus, I was a bit nervous that someone would go "oh! Are you Naomi Alderman?" (This isn't (for the most part) arrogance - it's happened to me in synagogues before, and once even at a funeral...) Which I felt would just add needless complication to an already fairly fraught visit. But anyway, the latter didn't happen.

The building itself is very lovely - from the frontage I was expecting a gorgeous turn-of-the-(last)-century interior but in fact it was a bright modern building at the back - I wonder what they use the front for. The service starts at 11am - extremely civilized, Orthodox services start at 9 in the morning, and some even earlier. I thought I'd be most inconspicuous by arriving a few minutes after and slipping in at the back but I was *completely wrong*. I missed the handing-out of books (in an Orthodox synagogue you can just pick them up from a shelf at the back at any time) and a kind lady had to give me hers.

One thing I must say - it was a very friendly congregation. Really, I think, much friendlier than the typical London Orthodox shul (shul means synagogue, forgive me if you know this already). There's a certain amount of aggressive piety in some frum (means Orthodox) shuls. People feel the most important thing is to *concentrate on the prayers* and that giving a hand to someone who looks lost will *lose them their concentration on God*. So I was impressed by the smiles and helping hands I got.

Another thing I liked: mixed seating. I wondered how I'd feel about it, but it felt completely natural. Plus, probably contributes to the sense of friendliness. A nice smile and a 'Shabbat Shalom' (Good Sabbath) from the man sitting next to me made me feel welcome. I've had enough stern frowns from young married women in frum shuls (see, you're getting it) to feel very grateful for that.

Also liked: the gender inclusiveness. The prayers mentioned not only "our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" but also "our foremothers, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah". The Rabbi was a woman. Women did some of the readings, opened the cabinet containing the Torah scrolls, read from the Torah. It was strange (for me) but lovely.

Things that weirded me out: there was an organ. This, to me, is very very Christian, and reminded me of another of those things I heard about Liberal Jews when I was a child, that "they're just trying to pretend they're Christian". Also, some call-and-response elements of the service reminded me much more of a Christian service than a Jewish one. There was a soprano doing most of the singing, which I don't like - but I can't blame Liberal Judaism for that, because I feel just the same about the (men only) choirs in some frum shuls. I think having professional singers in a shul discourages people from joining in, and detracts from the wonderful spirituality of a congregation of untutored voices raised in song.

After the service, we had the traditional 'kiddish' - a little spread of biscuits and snacks, some wine and bread, to fortify you for the journey home. I got chatting to some of the congregation there - they really were very friendly. This was where I had a big awakening, though.

Several people asked me why I'd come and what my background was. I said, honestly, "I grew up Orthodox and now I'm on a bit of a spiritual journey, so I thought I'd come and see what a Liberal Synagogue was like". Perhaps this was somewhat too honest, because several people came back to me with comments along the lines of: "oh yes, I can't stand the Orthodox! All that sexism, all those terrible old-fashioned practices, imagine telling an elderly man he can't drive to shul, their old people are all so isolated, they've lost the sense of community and spirituality that is really *important* to Judaism." I should emphasize again, they really were lovely, kind, welcoming people. But they clearly disliked Orthodoxy as much as I'd once been taught to dislike Liberal or Reform.

This makes me sad. I didn't really think of myself as being on a 'spiritual journey' (sounds much too pretentious) but I suppose I am in a way, in that I don't think religion is *nonsense* but my approach to it does keep changing. It doesn't feel a particularly urgent journey, just something I ponder sometimes. But one thing seems clear to me - I don't any longer want to subscribe to a form of religion that says all other forms are rubbish. I just don't think any of us will get very far by saying "my way of thinking is the only way of thinking, and if you think differently that means you're stupid". My Orthodox friends have sometimes called me a wishy-washy Liberal, but apparently, as I discovered today, I'm a bit too wishy-washy even for them!

---------

In a random piece of synchronicity, I looked at the shul's newsletter, in which Matthew Lewin, 'former editor and restaurant critic of the Ham & High' advises which restaurants in the area are good and which to stay away from. High on his 'Avoid Like The Plague' list is The Warrington. I sort of wish I'd read this before I went, but then in a way it was good to see it with my own eyes. I get more appalled by the restaurant the more I think about it. I was very tired that night and not in the mood to start arguing, but thinking back and looking at the pictures... the paintwork was chipped, the room was way too hot, the food wasn't attractively presented and didn't taste great. The banoffee pie tasted of salmon. The only good thing was the service. I've been to dozens of better restaurants in London, many of them cheaper. I'm calling it. Gordon Ramsey, your brand is over-stretched. I'm the sort of person who will occasionally stump up for a Michelin starred meal, but after The Warrington I won't be doing it at any of your more expensive restaurants. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

City of the Dead

“CHANGE, whose insistent tendrils seek out the edifices we have so carefully wrought and return them once again to dust”

John Kabat-Zinn, 'Full Catastrophe Living'

Glorious weather today, perfect for a lazy pub lunch at The Wellington Arms in Hampshire, and then a long country walk. My companion suggested heading out toward the Roman ruins at Silchester, which I agreed to with no particular anticipation that it would be interesting - after all I've seen much more complete ruins at Fishbourne or indeed in Rome.

Which just goes to show that part of the delight of this little August project is doing things I never would otherwise have done. Silchester is astonishing. It was a major Roman city - on the road between London and Bath it was a market town, an army post, a centre of law and worship for the region. But unlike any other city in Britain it was totally abandoned - the perfectly usable buildings were left to crumble, the wells were stopped up. And no one knows why.

Here's an artist's impression of what Silchester would have looked like in its heyday:

Bustling little market town, right? Here's what it looks like today:

And if you're going "yeah, fine, but what *does* survive now from Roman days? Not much!" the point isn't that the original wooden buildings aren't around anymore, but that there's *nothing* there. Contrast other similar-sized Roman towns: Bath, St Albans, Norwich, Chichester, Winchester... The Romans left and then succeeding generations very sensibly moved in and used their buildings, and built their own, and the towns developed and grew. That just hasn't happened here. This town was shunned. It makes my writerly spider's sense tingle. What *happened* here?

The walls are still standing, and in some places look pretty defensive.

Most impressive of all, just outside the city walls is a fairly intact amphitheatre. It would seat 7,000 people, the entrance and exit are still there. I tried a bit of declaiming from the centre, and the acoustics are still good. But... no one used it! Why would you abandon a beautiful space like this? You'd have thought someone would use it for something...

I couldn't even get a picture which showed how wonderful this space is. I felt very inspired to try to put a play on here sometime. I wonder if the archaeologists working on the site would support something like that.

Academic writings about Calleva become sweetly emotional when talking about the abandonment. It's a genuine mystery - something I love. The Guardian suggests the town was cursed.  The BBC website  about Silchester - or Calleva Atrebatum - says that the "abandonment of the town may have been the result of deliberate policy to cleanse it of its occupants". The archaeologists from Reading University who are working there now mull on the meaning of "the deliberate infilling of wells".

It's an impressive and moving place to visit. And the mystery makes it all the more fascinating.