Reflections on Megan Rooney's Spin Down Sky II

Temitope Ajose and Leah Marojević performing Megan Rooney's  Spin Down Sky II  

on the opening night of her exhibition Yellow Yellow Blue at Thaddaeus Ropac (London) 

Photo: Camilla Greenwell (12 June 2025) 

 

 

I.

 

On Sunday, I went to see a performance of Megan Rooney's Spin Down Sky II (2025), created in close collaboration with Temitope Ajose [1], Leah Marojević [2], and Tyrone Isaac Stuart [3], which, as well as being an interesting work in itself, also served as the finissage to her solo exhibition Yellow Yellow Blue at Thaddaeus Ropac (London) [4]. 

 

The piece is the latest chapter in Rooney's developing tale of the fatal love between a male moth and a female bolas spider. But, before discussing this, I'd like first to make a few remarks on the title and, in particular, the word spin ...

 

 

II. 

 

Spin - an Old English verb of Germanic origin meaning to draw out and twist fibres of material (including thin air) into thread. 

 

It is, I think, one of those words that Heidegger would think of as elemental, i.e., one of those etymologically complex terms that reveal something fundamental about human being and existence; words that speak us rather than simply communicate information and ideas. 

 

These days, the concept of spinning has entered into many areas of life and the word has taken on multiple meanings depending on context. But I like to think that when Rooney speaks of spinning down sky she refers us to the possibility of making artworks out of the blueness of the Greater Day, or perhaps stretching the very stuff of the heavens so as to send yellow stars spinning like Van Gogh.

 

Of course, if writers spin words into narratives and painters spin colours into artworks, then spiders do something equally amazing by spinning silk into webs. And, as mentioned, at the centre of Rooney's tale is an unusual member of the Araneidae family ...

 

 

III. 

 

For those readers lacking a background in arachnology, a female bolas spider [5] is an orb-weaver that, instead of spinning a typical orb web, hunts at night by using one or more capture blobs consisting of a mass of spun fibre embedded in a sticky liquid on the end of a silk line, known as a bolas.  

 

By swinging the bolas at passing male moths, she hopes to snag her prey rather like a fisherman snagging a fish on a hook (thus it is that they are sometimes also referred to as angling spiders). If, after half an hour, she has been unsuccessful, she will consume the bolas and start again. 

 

On a bad night, she may only catch one or two moths; on a good night, six or seven. The female bolas spider, however, doesn't just leave everything to chance; she lures her favoured prey closer via the production of a scent that mimics the sex pheremones emitted by the female moth, driving the males mad with desire.

 

Having given a little bit of natural history by way of background, I'd like now to say something of the actual performance ...

 

 

IV.   

Spin Down Sky II is a new dance piece developed especially for the exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac. It premiered last month on the opening night of Yellow Yellow Blue. [6] 

 

I was disappointed to have missed it then, but I'm very glad to have seen it now and to have been further ensnared into Rooney's imaginative world, which, it seems, is shaped as much by movement as colour; i.e., a combination of choreography and chromatic chaos (which is why it makes perfect sense to both open and close the exhibition of paintings with a contemporary dance performance).  

 

The sequence of movements and rhythmic articulations unfolding in a unique time and space, both natural and mythical, seemed to me to be cleverly thought out and excellently performed (with, I'm assuming, some degree of improvisation) by the dancers although, I have to confess, I wasn't quite sure who was the moth and who was the spider. 

 

Arguably, however, as their bodies became increasingly entangled in a strangely erotic danse macabre, perhaps that's no longer an issue and binary distinctions around species, sex, life and death begin to curdle. 

 

And speaking of blurred lines ... 

 

The clothing worn by the two dancers had been hand-painted by Rooney, thus inviting us to think about the relationship not only between prey and predator but fine art and fashion; interconnected disciplines which often come together despite the efforts of some who would preserve the purity and status of the former and view the latter as lacking in high aesthetic value and cultural significance [7]. 

 

And then there was the excellent (if slightly too jazzy for my tastes) soundtrack provided by Stuart, with live sax improvisations on the night, obliging us to also consider the three-way relationship between colour, movement, and music. 

 

 

V.

 

Ultimately, Spin Down Sky II matters because, even though a short piece, it allows us to "think through and move across established categories and levels of experience" [8], transporting us to a place where the most profound ideas and feelings live and rise up. 

 

Via creative storytelling - i.e., an act of fabulation - Rooney allows us to step outside the gate and to understand something of the complex and shifting world of relationships - not just between a flying insect and an eight-legged spider, but between us and the natural world, us and art, us and one another - that is central to reality as a web of being and becoming.     

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Temitope Ajose is a London-based dance-artist with an interest in myth, psychology and magic. Her creative process unfolds in the playful space that exists between the sacred and absurd. Whilst Rooney conceived and directed Spin Down Sky II, Ajose is credited as the choreographer.   

 

[2] Leah Marojević is a Serbian/Montenegrin/Italian/British queer female independent artist, based in Berlin, whose practice spans dramaturgy, choreography, performance, rehearsal directing, writing, teaching, curation and mentorship. 

 

[3] Tyrone Isaac Stuart is an interdisciplinary artist with over 12 years of professional experience in dance and music. He blends krump, contemporary dance, visual art, and jazz music in his work.

 

[4] Some readers may recall a couple of posts published last month inspired by this exhibition: click here and/or here. 

 

[5] Immature female spiders and (the much smaller-bodied) adult males hunt without a bolas; simply positioning themselves on leaves and grabbing whatever insects they can with their hairy front legs.

 

[6] The bolas spider and night butterfly characters were first explored over two performances of Spin Down Sky at Kettle's Yard (Cambridge), as part of Megan Rooney's first major solo exhibition Echoes and Hours (2024). To watch the full (20 minute) performance on 21 June, please click here. Or for a short (43 seconds) teaser, please click here. 

 

[7] Historically, fashion has been regarded as a craft or applied art, distinct from the more elevated practice of fine art. This perception is rooted in the belief that fashion is frivolous, commercial, and transient, while fine art is profound, timeless, and transcendent. 

      Thankfully, such idealistic stupidity is now no longer so widespread and many people acknowledge that fashion - particularly haute couture and avant-garde designs - can be a powerful form of artistic expression and that the very best runway shows are pure theatre; one thinks, for example, of Alexander McQueen's Spring/Summer 1999 show and its finale featuring a model (Shalom Harlow) in a white dress, spinning round on a rotating platform, and being spray-painted by robots: click here to watch on YouTube.  

 

[8] Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects (Columbia University Press, 1994), p. 4. 

 

 

This post is for Tom Hunt, who kindly invited me to the performance of Megan Rooney's Spin Down Sky II (27 July 2025).

 

 

Marking Geoff Dyer's Homework (Part Two: XIII-XXII)

 Geoff Dyer as a young teen in his bedroom

Photo from geoffdyer.com 

 

 

Part One of this post (sections I-XII) can be accessed by clicking here. 

All page references are to Homework: A Memoir, by Geoff Dyer, (Canongate, 2025). 

 

 

XIII.

 

More random words and phrases, brand names and TV shows, employed (effectively) by Dyer to trigger memories of an English childhood in the 1960s/70s: 

 

The Man from U.N.C.L.E ... Sekiden guns ... toy racquets ... flying ants ... dad having a wash and shave in the kitchen ... Babycham ... Lucozade ... Brasso ... Boxing Day leftovers ... Peach Melba ... Corgi cars ... Milk Tray ... Airfix models ... Humbrol paints ... superhero comics ... coal fires ... fireworks ... Panorama transfer sets ... day trips ... free school milk ... Imperial Leather soap ... paternal reticence ...   

 

 

XIV. 

 

That last thing feeds into something else that Dyer identifies as a defining characteristic of working class men of a certain generation - men like his dad and mine - namely, not just a reluctance to speak about themselves, but an impressive (almost stoical) indifference to the world. 

 

Dyer writes: 

 

"My dad had no interest in his past precisely because it was past [...] but I wonder if it might be simpler and more accurate to say that he had almost no interests at all. [...] Even  activities that might be termed hobbies [...] were not things that interested him; they were just tasks to be undertaken. He liked watching rugby and cricket on telly but he didn't follow either sport with the passion and dedication of a fan. If he had been denied any of the things that he took pleasure in he would not have felt particularly put out. A list of the thing he was indifferet to would constitute a mirror image of what, for many people, might constitute a rich and enjoyable life: books, beer, films, cars, music." [89-90] 

 

Dyer concludes (rightly I think): 

 

"I suspect it was not so unusual for someone of his class, his generation, to be like that. At the risk of putting it overdramatically, his interests were so tightly bound up with a kind of subsistence-level relation to the world [...] that there was nothing left over for the extraneous realm of culture or even leisure pursuits (drinking, holidays)." [90] 

 

Dyer's father was born in 1919; mine seven years earlier. What he writes here I could echo word for word. Although whether this paternal contentment is tied to the idea of accepting one's lot in life, I'm not so sure. As I say above, I think this indifference is quasi-stoical; not a sign of resigned passivity or fatalism. 

 

And I'm pleased to say it's a trait I've inherited from my father: I don't particularly want anything, because I don't feel I lack anything. And if this makes me a kind of Japanese soldier holding on to an older way of life in a world shaped by an economy of desire, I don't care.        

  

 

XV. 

 

Like Dyer's, my childhood was saturated in sugar and I too loved sweets: fruit sweets, mint sweets, cough candy, kola cubes, sweet peanuts, pear drops, humbugs, chews, toffees, gobstoppers, sherbert dips, liquorice allsorts, jelly beans, love hearts, black jacks "and all the other variously flavoured and manifested forms of sugar" [112].  

 

In fact, apart from those pink foam shrimps, I can't think of any sweets I didn't like. Of course, it was much easier to find an NHS dentist in those days and silver fillings (mostly made from mercury) were a small price to pay for the great joy afforded by sugar:

 

"Sugar, lovely sugar! Not the cause of obesity and harbinger of diabetes as we now think of it, but a source of pleasure, nutrition, energy and happiness." [113] [a]      

 

 

XVI. 

 

By the time I went to senior school, in 1974, it had become a comprehensive; the old secondary modern school - Broxhill, known locally as Boothill - having merged with the grammar school across the road and renamed Bedfords Park. So no eleven-plus exam for me; "the central event in the life of any state-school child in the 1960s" [122]. 

 

For Geoff Dyer, however, passing the eleven-plus was the most momentous event of his life; "not simply up to that point but for its duration" [123]. 

 

He explains: "Everything else that has happened couldn't have happened were it not for that" [123], continuing:

 

"On my head, invisibly, is the black cap with silver badge of Cheltenham Gramar School. I am a pure product of grammar school, a grammar-school boy through and through, to the core of my being." [124]

 

And that, of course, is where we radically differ: for whilst I wouldn't identify myself in such essentialist terms - don't think I possess a core being - if obliged to play this game I would say the defining moment came for me in 1977, when I was fourteen, and had nothing to do with my schooling:

 

On my lapel, invisibly, is a silver safety pin: I am an impure product of punk, a Sex Pistol man oh yeah! [b]  

 

 

XVII. 

 

Somehow, I knew that I wasn't going to enjoy the second part of Dyer's book as much as the first. 

 

Stories of a grammar school teen living in a three-bedroom house with bay windows and a conservatory simply don't interest me as much as those of a working-class child at Naunton Park Primary School, living in a two-up, two-down at Fairfield Walk [c].    

 

Perhaps this proves Dyer's contention that passing the eleven-plus is "the big divider" [125] ... Whatever the reason, from page 131 onwards, the possibility that Geoff and I might have been friends - had I been born four or five years earlier in Cheltenham - becomes increasingly difficult to imagine. 

 

Still, let's press on ...  

 

 

XVIII. 

 

I do like Dyer's recounting of his first kisses on the grass with a blonde American girl, a couple of years younger than himself, called Shane. These lines in particular made me smile:

 

 "After we had finished kissing we kept kissing for a while longer because we didn't know what else to do. We stood up like a fully clothes Adam and Eve after eaing a sensationally normal apple, bewildered, not even dishevelled: unseen, uncaught and unpunished." [159]

 

Later, in the following weeks, he got to "feel her nascent tits" [159] and even to "slide a finger awkwardly inside her" [160], whilst at the pictures. 

 

Unfortunately for young Geoff, however, soon after this she and her family returned to the States (and perhaps, as he says, she only let him do this as a going away treat) [d].   

 

 

XIX.  

 

As indicated above (XVI), I was born of punk (and conceived to the sounds of glam) [e], so the fact that Dyer was a prog rock devotee is something I can neither overlook, accept, nor forgive. 

 

I find it incomprehensible that someone would actually think Creedence Clearwater Revival the most important rock band of all time. Groups such as Family, Hawkwind and Van der Graaf Generator are anathema to me. But then my musical tastes were never advanced, as Dyer claims his were; I was never a loyal viewer of The Old Grey Whistle Test and had no desire to wear hippie fashion [f]. 

 

When he was fifteen, Dyer went to a store called Driftin' on Cheltenham High Street, which sold "not just prog LPs and underground magazines but the loons, scoop necks and cheescloth shirts worn while listening to or reading them" [183]. In contrast, when I was fifteen, in 1978, I paid my one and only visit to Seditionaries at 430 King's Road.

 

Like Dyer in his hippie mecca, however, I couldn't really afford to buy anything and felt a little intimidated at punk central by the staff and other customers, who were older and way cooler and it was something of a relief to leave the shop and head back home with my only purchase bought on the day - not at Seditionaries, obviously - a large Public Image Limited poster (that I still have) [g].    

 

      

XX. 

 

Even more crucial than Dyer's discovery of sex and alcohol, was his encounter with English literature. Books were to become the decisive factor in his life; not birds and beer (though that's not to downplay his love of these things [h]).     

 

Again, it's a familiar story: though I don't think I was ever as taken with reading plays and poetry and works of fiction as Dyer; certainly not as a teenager (even if I studied English Lit. at A-level). My love of books only really began much later, when I discovered Barthes, Foucault, Baudrillard, etc. It was French theory - not English literature - that made a reader of me (at the age of 28). 

 

And I certainly didn't instigate a cultural revolution in my parent's home by bringing home lots of books and demanding display space for them in the front room. Dyer writes:

 

"Looking back I see this as the first incursion into our home [...] of a feature of middle-class life: the book as something not only to be used as tools to pass exams, to get an education, but as something to be displayed, to furnish a room." [223] [i]   

 

To this day, I don't like to have lots of books around me and dislike book cases (most of the books I have are - inconveniently - packed in boxes). 

 

 

XXI. 

 

I recently published a post here on Torpedo the Ark about a pair of brass candlesticks belonging to my parents: click here. And so I was delighted to discover that Dyer's parents also loved their brass ornaments, even if cleaning them with Brasso was more of a chore than a pleasure:

 

"On days when the brass was to be cleaned, all of it came out, from every nook and cupboard of the house, was cleaned on spread sheets of the Daily Mirror, and then put back in its place. Everything existed in order to be cleaned even though it was never really dirty." [223]   

 

Dyer's remarking that the "red, white and blue can of Brasso" was more pleasing to his eye, even then, "than any of the objects it was used to clean" [223], also makes smile. 

 

 

XXII. 

 

There is a third part to Dyer's memoir, which briefly touches on the nine month period between passing his A-levels and taking up his place at Oxford (Chorpus Christi College) and also paints a deeply moving portrait of his mother in the last two years of her life (2009-11) [j], when, in her mid-80s, she is diagnosed with lung cancer:  

 

"She was not so much dying as diminishing until there was so little left of her that there was not enough to summon up the effort required to die." [264].  

 

Again, I know exactly what Dyer means here and finish Homework with tears in my eyes, rather than a smile on my face.  

 

 

Notes

 

[a] As Dyer goes on to add: "We are talking exclusively of white sugar. Even brown sugar was too sophisticated; an acquired taste with suggestions of a health fad ..." [113]. Similarly, bread was something white and sliced - though I can't recall ever going so far as young Geoff and making a sugar sandwich! 

      As for tooth decay ... "Yes, the gnashers paid a price, but that was almost irrelevant since one's teeth were assumed to be in the process of corroding anyway; after a relatively brief honeymoon of painless and effective chewing, that's what teeth did." [113]  

 

[b] Surprisingly, Dyer makes only one mention of punk in the entire book; see p. 240. It's surprising because he has many of the background experiences and personal qualities that might have made him an excellent punk. He doesn't even express hostility to it; just dismisses it as something happening in London and thus far away from his life in Cheltenham as a pub-loving, badminton-playing, book-reading grammar school boy studying hard in the hope of gaining admission to Oxford. 

 

[c] This is not to say that Dyer's tales of romantic fumblings, schoolyard scuffles, and gig-going are not, in themselves, interesting - and it's certainly not to suggest they are any the less beautifully documented - but, for me, the fun has dissipated and I can no longer see myself so frequently reflected in the book. 

      Further, as Dyer himself admits: "The nice little boy in the blue sweater" seen in the photograph used for the book's front cover, "was well on the way to becoming ... a less than nice adolescent" [168] and who wants to spend time with a snotty and stroppy teen?  

 

[d] Those readers interested in Dyer's early sex life are encouraged to skip to p. 205 and his encounter with Mandy on the beach at Bourenmouth and, later, in her room at a local B&B while her parents are out. This initial interaction is followed by a couple of visits made by Mandy to Dyer's parental home, where, apparently, she and Geoff engaged in oral sex; see p. 206. See also pp. 220-221 and the story of Janice. 

      I have to confess, Dyer's erotic writing is my least favourite aspect of his work; not just here, but in his fiction too. I'm not expecting D. H. Lawrence, but Dyer's laid-back, rather droll style seems lacking not only in romantic embellishment, but even warmness of heart.  

 

[e] See the post of 24 July 2018: 'Notes on a Glam-Punk Childhood' - click here. 

 

[f] Dyer notes how by 1973 "a version of hippy style had percolated down to the third and fourth form of Cheltenham Grammar" and claims that on his Christmas wish list for that year he requested a pair of purple-coloured bell bottom loons [182]. He would later even persuade a girlfriend, Janice, "to change the way she dressed, from secondary-modern style to something more grammar-school hippy" [221].  

 

[g] Dyer was also a fan of the wall poster - but then, as he points out, posters of every kind "were all the rage back then" [186].  

 

[h] For Dyer's first taste of a pint of beer poured in a pub, see pp. 213-214. Unlike Dyer, I have never been a beer drinker; cider, yes; spirits, yes; wine, yes; but never beer. I can't say I'm as much of a pub lover as he is either (preferring the anonymity of hotel bars to the cosiness of a pub).    

 

[i] Dyer goes on to say: 

      "After a couple of weeks I took the books back upstairs to [...] my bedroom [...] I can't remember why [...] but mainly because it just didn't feel right. And so the separation of books from shared space was reinstated [...]" [224] 

 

[j] Dyer does speak of his father's death, also in 2011, but, somehow, the death of a father doesn't mean the same or as much - for a son at least - as the death of a mother. I don't know why that is, but one thinks again of the proverb of uncertain origin made famous by Hitchcock in Psycho (1960) : A boy's best friend is his mother. 

      I was pleased, however, that Dyer mentioned the "jars full of screws and nails" [275] kept by his father, reminding me of the tobacco tins in which my dad kept such things; see the post entitled 'Notes on the Material Remains of My Father' (6 June 2016): click here.   

 

 

Marking Geoff Dyer's Homework (Part One: I-XII)

Canongate (2025) [a]

 

If I close my eyes I can see it now, that dear old house on Memory Lane ... [b]

 

I.

 

Longtime readers will recall that whilst I might not particularly care for all of his books, or share all of his passions, I have in the past expressed admiration for the English writer Geoff Dyer and recognised that there is even a degree of kinship between us: see, for example, the post dated 19 July 2014: click here. 

 

Dyer has written several books that I would have been proud to have written - not least of all his study of D. H. Lawrence, Out of Sheer Rage (1997) - though that's not to suggest for one moment that I could've written any of them with the same casual brilliance as the author not only of numerous award-winning works of non-fiction, but four novels to boot. 

 

And now, with publication of a memoir entitled Homework (2025), there's another one to add to this list of books by Dyer that I wish I'd written ...      

 

 

II. 

 

Five years older than me, Dyer and I were basically born into the same world and were shaped by many of the same experiences, games, toys, and comic books [c]. And so it's hard to read and reflect upon this memoir without projecting oneself into it. 

 

That's not something I would normally want to do or encourage, but, on this occasion, I think I'll just surrender to the urge to see this book not only as a window into the soul of the author, but as a looking glass in which I can see my own self reflected (albeit slightly distorted, as in one of those crazy funhouse mirrors). 

 

Apologies in advance if this soon proves wearisome.      

 

 

III. 

 

Dyer was born in 1958, in the historic spa town of Cheltenham - not far from the Cotswolds - which might suggest that he had a posh and privileged upbringing in a Regency townhouse, but, actually, he was the only child of a dinner lady and a sheet-metal worker living in a two-up, two-down terraced house; so I think that qualifies him as working class (in England, as the book makes clear, class matters a very good deal indeed).  

 

Dyer's early years were characterised by wargames, waterfights, and worn out tennis balls: like Dyer, I remember these things well. 

 

But I don't recall taking the first of these things as seriously as Dyer and his chums seem to have taken their re-enactments of World War II - even if I did have a childish fascination with Nazi Germany, not only dressing my favourite Action Man [d] as a Stormtrooper, but giving pride of place on my bedside dresser to a cast metal model of a Luftwaffe plane - I think it was a Fokke-Wulf - that dropped a single cap-loaded bomb.    

 

Nor do I recall ever wanting to trap and kill birds, or shoot them with an air rifle, as Dyer claims he attempted to do. As a child, I had no qualms about violence inflicted on other children, but hated even the thought of cruelty to animals (with the exception of certain insects; like Dyer, I remember killing ants with boiling water).  

 

 

IV.

 

Dyer's parents, like mine, pinned their hopes on winning the pools or perhaps ERNIE doing them a favour; much the same as people today dream of winning the National Lottery. Of course, those eight score draws never came up and neither did they ever win big on the Premium Bonds. 

 

I don't know about Dyer, but I rather resent how working people have to rely on luck (and prayer); there's something humiliating in checking numbers every week when the odds of winning a significant sum are infinitesimally small. [e] 

    

 

V.

 

Playing cards for pennies with your parents ... Eating John West salmon sandwiches ... Buying sherbert flying saucers ... Carrying around handkerchiefs that were "routinely stiff with yellow snot" [21] ... etc., etc. 

 

Dyer has an almost devilish knack of inserting the right detail, the right turn of phrase, into his text at the right time; which is why he's so admired as a writer and why his publisher can persuade so many famous literary names to provide advance praise for the dustjacket: although my dislike of this smoke-blowing practice remains second only to George Orwell's [f].  

 

 

VI. 

I really like these lines about the excitement generated by the "swirling tune of an ice-cream van wending its way through the streets" [23] on a sunny afternoon:

 

"As soon as we heard that innocent ice-cream music there would be a scramble for money, for change, and we - the neighbourhood kids, rarely accompanied by adults - would flock to his open window." [23]

 

"Even now, sixty years later, Keats's line, 'Fled is that music', makes me think not of a nightingale but a gaggle of kids standing, waiting, listening." [23]

 

When I was a child, in the 1970s, there were at least three different ice-cream vans regularly cruising round Harold Hill: Tonibell, Mr Whippy, and - my favourite - Rossi's. Now, there's only one van which visits once a day, in the summer months only, and which rarely attracts any children.

 

And of course, taking along a handful of pennies isn't going to buy you a 99 or even a small wafer today - as that outraged little girl and her twin sister in Burnley discovered to the amusement of the world back in 2024: click here.   

 

 

VII. 

 

I'm so happy Geoff loved conkers: I can't love anyone who doesn't love conkers and appreciate their gleaming quality when they emerge out of their spiky green shells like "the newest things in creation" [26]. 

 

But I have never in all my life heard the words: "Obbly, obbly onk, my first conk / Obbly, obbly ack, my first crack" [27] - is that a Gloucestershire thing?

 

I'm also very pleased to know how much Dyer loved collecting Brook Bond tea cards: me too. Not that I remember learning much from them (not sure I even read the backs); it was possessing images that I loved. 

 

Like Dyer, I do wonder if children still collect things with the same innocence and enthusiasm he and I shared: I'd like to think so, but I doubt it. 

 

 

VIII. 

 

So far, I have only mentioned the things Dyer and I had in common as youngsters. But when it came to our favourite television programmes, an important difference opens up; he was under the spell of the BBC whilst I was very much an ITV watching child.

 

This might seem a relatively minor or insignificant thing, but it isn't. In fact, it helps explain Dyer's smooth class transition via grammar school and Oxford University. Blue Peter and Jackanory pave the way into the bourgeois world [g].   

 

And while we're mentioning differences ... Dyer loved "everything about the undersea world" [53], whereas I hated the thought of putting my head under water even at the local swimming baths - of not being able to breathe - which is the main reason I never learned to swim (that, and my failure to see the point of swimming from one side of a pool to another when one could walk around with less effort and without having to take one's clothes off and get wet. This kind of implacable logic would often put me at odds with parents and teachers; if I couldn't see the sense of doing something, I wouldn't do it).            

 

IX.

 

Not only did I not want to deep sea dive, I didn't want to parachute from a plane either. Perhaps this made me a boring child - one who lacked the spirit of adventure - but, there you go! 

 

This even extended to a dislike of funfairs and here, I'm pleased to say, Geoff and I are on the same page once more: "The din and lurch of lights and noise had the quality of nightmare rather than treat ..." [57]  

 

 

X. 

 

Dyer is right to acknowledge the huge debt his generation (and my generation) owe to Gerry and Sylvia Anderson; without them, the "fantasy and reality of space travel" [59] wouldn't have so permeated childhood in the 1960s and '70s. 

 

Thanks to shows such as Thunderbirds and Space 1999, the future arrived on our TV screens and, whilst it wasn't all that different from today, it was certainly sexier and more silvery. I may not have wanted to voyage to the bottom of the sea, but I wouldn't have minded a trip to Moonbase Alpha to meet Catherine Schell (Maya).    

 

 

XI. 

 

Another important difference between young Dyer and my childhood self: I would never ever have considered joining any organisation such as the Scouts or Boys' Brigade that required one to wear a uniform and acknowledge the authority of either the Church or Crown or both (much to my mother's disappointment, as she had been a proud Brownie). 

 

I may not have had the vocabulary as a six-year-old to articulate my position, but I was a natural born anarchist and atheist and so I find Dyer's willingness to join the Junior Training Corps - a subset of the Church Lads' Brigade - if only so he could march in the streets and go camping in Wales, a bit depressing to be honest. 

 

However, thankfully, he redeems himself by confessing that he soon found it to be "a bit of a bore"; just like many other things "eagerly embraced as a child", including Sunday School, which "after about four weeks" [79], put him off religion for life. 

 

The fact that his dad had no time for the Royals, probably laid the foundation for Dyer's own "subsequent loathing" [79], which has intensified in adulthood.      

 

 

XII. 

 

Eighty pages or so into the book and Dyer takes us out on to his father's allotment. It's one of my favourite parts, particularly these lines in which Dyer reflects on walking with his wife to the allotment many years later, in September 2022:

 

"It was all the same as it had been when I was a kid, just a little more hemmed in by houses. [...] 

      I couldn't remember exactly which plot had been ours. It's possible that the plots had been slightly redrawn, but that didn't matter. The trees, I suppose, were the same trees that had been there when I was a boy. The sky overhead was as it had always been, and there was a strong sense of ... not permanence - that's a quality associated with monuments - but of protected and unchanging continuity. [...]

      What I would like to say, to claim, to believe, is that I felt like the boy I had been, but I didn't; I felt like who I  am now, conscious of a straining for the passage of time to dissolve." [85] [h]

 

That, I think, is a lovely note on which to close the first part of this post ...       

 

 

Notes

 

[a] All page references given in the above post are from this hardback UK edition. 

 

[b] Dyer places this line - then scribbles it out - at the front of Homework beneath a charming black and white photo of himself, dressed in a cowboy suit and probably aged about 4, pretending to push a heavy-looking lawnmower in his front garden.

      As for the colour photo of a grumpy little fella with his parents on a day trip which is reproduced on the book's cover, see pp. 73-78 where Dyer provides a lovely reading of the image (with an almost obligatory nod to Roland Barthes).     

 

[c] Having said that, Dyer is a child of the 1960s; whereas I regard myself more as a child of the 1970s. 

 

[d] Dyer writes at length about Action Man, which he describes as the ultimate toy: see pp. 45-48. Like him, I owned four of these dolls, including the one who could talk. 

 

[e] Funny enough, one of Dyer's aunties won "a quarter or perhaps even half a million quid on the Football Pools" [71] sending shock waves through his entire family. 

 

[f] In his 1936 essay 'In Defence of the Novel', Orwell famously described hyperbolic book blurbs as disgusting tripe; not only exaggerated, but often misleading and a sign of declining integrity amongst those in the world of letters. Readers who wish to do so can read Orwell's essay online by clicking here.  

 

[g] I'm not quite sure how Dyer identifies in terms of class. Perhaps, as the kind of nomadic writer and thinker that he is, he's now without class or, more precisely, one who moves freely outside of class. Interestingly, at one point Dyer speaks of himself as a son of the Gloucestershire peasantry - i.e., a man who has been significantly determined by the fact he is descended from generations of rural labourers. See p. 69.  

 

[h] Readers familiar with Torpedo the Ark might recall some of the posts in which I have spoken about this desire for the passage of time to be rendered meaningless; see, for example, the post 'Temporal Reflections Whilst Sitting in My Back Garden' (11 May 2025): click here. 

 

 

Part two of this post can be read by clicking here.  

 

 

From Railway Child to Girl About the House: In Praise of Sally Thomsett

Sally Thomsett as Phyllis Waterbury in The Railway Children (1970)

and as Jo in Man About the House (ITV 1973-76) 

 

I. 

 

Even though the seventies British sitcom Man About the House remains one of my favourite shows, there are several things about it that I find problematic; not least of all that Sally Thomsett's character, Jo, is outrageously underdeveloped by the writers, Brian Cooke and Johnnie Mortimer.  

 

Indeed, unlike the other lead characters, she's not even given a surname!    

 

Whilst I understand and appreciate that the show essentially concerns the quasi-romantic relationship between Robin and Chrissy (played by Richard O'Sullivan and Paula Wilcox), in my view Cooke and Mortimer missed a trick in not doing more with Jo who had a unique charm of her own and much untapped comic potential beyond the stereotype of the good-looking dumb blonde.

 

If I'd been writing the show, I would've hooked Thomsett's character up with Robin's mate Larry, a cheeky Jack the Lad (played by Doug Fisher) who rents the attic room above the flat. I would have also much reduced the role of the landlord, George Roper, and his wife Mildred (played by Brian Murphy and Yootha Joyce).  

 

Obviously, this would have changed the show's structure, narrative, and comedic dynamic, but would have done so in a positive and interesting manner; for me, George and Mildred as a bickering married couple - he the hen-pecked husband and she the long-suffering sex-starved wife - are simply too rooted in cliché and old-fashioned humour [1].

 

If Man About the House had been the story of two young couples - Robin and Chrissy and Jo and Larry - and what it was like to be a twenty-something in the mid-70s, I think it would now feel less dated than it does today. And, who knows, it's possible that the audience may even have come to love Jo and Larry more than George and Mildred (or even Robin and Chrissy).         

 

 

II.  

 

Sally, of course, was already held in great public affection due to her role as Phyllis Waterbury in The Railway Children (dir. Lionell Jeffries, 1970). 

 

Amusingly, Thomsett was cast as an eleven year old girl despite being twenty at the time of filming and contractually forbidden not to give the game away during production by smoking, drinking, driving, or being seen in public with a boyfriend on her arm. Even many members of the film crew were unaware of her true age and would often arrive on set with sweets for her. 

 

A year afterwards, Thomsett appeared onscreen opposite Dustin Hoffman and Susan George in Sam Peckinpah's controversial and violent thriller Straw Dogs (1971), playing the role of flirty village girl Janice Hedden (who isn't brutally raped, like George's character, Amy, but still meets a grisly fate; inadvertently strangled by a retarded paedophile).  

 

It wasn't either of these roles, however, that brought Thomsett to the attention of Cooke and Mortimer when looking to cast the character of Jo in Man About the House. Rather, they had spotted her in a 30 second TV ad for Bovril (1972), playing the character of Jill, who is stood up by her boyfriend and returns home, cold and upset, where her mum makes her a nice hot drink using a spoonful of the nation's favourite beef extract [2]. 

 

The ad's humorous punchline - He's got big ears anyway - is repeated by Thomsett (as Jo) in the first episode of series two of Man About the House, much to the amusement of the live studio audience [3].

 

 

III.

 

After Man About the House ended (in April 1976), Thomsett continued to act in this and that and to appear in TV ads - including one for Crunchie bars in 1979 - but, in terms of her professional career, I think we can say her golden days were behind her and it's in the roles of Janice, Jill, and Jo that I'll always remember her with great fondness.  

 

 

Sally Thomsett as Janice Hedden in Straw Dogs (1971)

and as Jill in a TV ad for Bovril (1972)  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] In spite of this - indeed, probably because of this - the Ropers were hugely popular with the Great British Public and the spin-off series George & Mildred (ITV 1976-1979), written by Cooke and Mortimer, ran for 38 episodes over five series (just one episode less than Man About the House). 

      Murphy and Joyce also starred in a George and Mildred feature film, directed by Peter Frazer Jones (1980), though this was not well-received, either commercially or critically, as everyone finally tired of this type of lame and lazy comedy.  

 

[2] For non-British readers who might not know what I'm talking about, Bovril is is a brand of beef extract which has been enjoyed in the UK since 1886 - particularly by football fans standing on the terraces in mid-winter conditions. Three-and-a-half million jars are still sold in the UK every year. As well as being enjoyed as a hot drink, Bovril can also be spread as a paste on toast, or added to soups and stews for a rich beefy flavour. Vegetarians might prefer its yeasty plant based equivalent, Marmite. 

      The Bovril ad starring Sally Thomsett can be watched on YouTube by clicking here.   

 

[3] Man About the House [S2/E1]: 'While the Cat's Away', directed by Peter Frazer-Jones, written by Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke (Jan. 1974). This episode - co-starring Ian Lavender (as Mark) and Jenny Hanley (as Liz) - can be viewed on YouTube by clicking here. Go to 15: 16 for the big ears line, which arguably gets Thomsett her biggest laugh in the entire series. 

      Interestingly, Lavender's character is supposed to be an actor and, at one point he tells Chrissy - who wants to know if the dress she's wearing gives her a sexy look, a bit like Susan George - that he auditioned for a crowd scene in Straw Dogs (but didn't hit it off with Peckinpah). Surely this can't be coincidental, and is rather another example of the writers teasing Thomsett about her acting history. Go to 12:25-44.

    

 

On the Law of Inertia and the Principle of Evil

Portrait of Isaac Newton by Godfrey Keller (1689) 

with the addition of Newton's Law of Inertia

  

  

I. 

 

Like many people who possess a limited knowledge of physics, for a long time I thought inertia only referred to the tendency of objects at rest not to move unless acted upon by some external force or agency; that tumbleweed doesn't tumble unless blown by the wind, for example, and Phoevos the cat doesn't get off my chair unless physically encouraged to do so. 

 

It wasn't until quite recently that I discovered that inertia also refers to the fact that objects in motion will keep on moving in the same direction and at the same pace unless something causes them to divert, slow down, or come to a halt. 

 

Inertia, therefore, doesn't mean unmoving so much as unchanging; it essentially guarantees that the existing state of afffairs will remain the existing state of affairs - whether that state is at rest or in motion - until disrupted [1]. 

 

 

II. 

 

I'm not sure this permits us to describe existence as naturally idle or metathesiophobic, but it does seem to suggest that change ultimately requires forces that are, in some sense, artificial, alien, and demonic.

 

In sum: whilst we may no longer need a creator god to guarantee the status quo and preservation of all things, we still need a principle of evil to shake things up and send them spinning in a new direction [2].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence challenged the classical idea that objects are ever truly at rest, arguing that a thing that appears at rest to us is either moving at the same velocity as us, or is simply travelling at its own rate of motion, slower than we can recognise. Even the desk on which he writes or the chair on which he sits - which seem solid and stable and not going anywhere - are really in motion, says Lawrence. See 'Study of Thomas Hardy', in Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays, ed. Bruce Steele (Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 60. 

      Interestingly, this aligns Lawrence's thinking with quantum physics which says that, at a quantum level, particles don't have definite positions or states of rest, but exist rather in a superposition of possibilities, described by probability waves.   

 

[2] I'm aware of the fact that for modernist writers - including critical theorists like Adorno - it is the principle of inertia that is identified with evil, with the latter still conceived in conventional moral terms. But my thinking owes more to Jean Baudrillard, for whom evil is an inhuman form of intelligence that operates outside of the traditional moral frameworks; a principle of change and reversal that destabilises and disrupts the established order.   

 

 

For a post on the art and politics of triviality (20 July 2025) which anticipates this one, click here. 

 

 

On the Art and Politics of Triviality (Wilde Vs Adorno)

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) / Theodor W. Adorno (1903 - 1969) 

 

I. 

 

The narrator of Lady Chatterley's Lover identified the modern era as an essentially tragic age; one in which the skies have fallen and we are left among the ruins, with no smooth road into the future. Nevertheless, we are encouraged to live and learn, rather than weep and wail; to scramble over the obstacles and build new little habitats, have new little hopes. [1]

 

However, this post-cataclysmic emphasis on the small scale - on being more modest in all things, including our architectural ambitions and personal aspirations - does not mean a fall into triviality, as I very much doubt that Lawrence wants us simply to peel potatoes and listen to the radio, even if this is arguably a preferable alternative to tragically wringing our hands [2]. 

 

That said, Lawrence is surprisingly ambivalent when it comes to this subject: one might have expected him to be strongly opposed to things lacking significance or a certain grandeur and, at times, he is; often contrasting the elemental beauty and primeval darkness of a natural landscape with the ugly triviality and falsehood of modern life [3]. 

 

But, at other times, Lawrence criticises those who hold themselves aloof from small talk and playful banter, suggesting that it is this refusal that hinders their ability to develop more meaningful relationships: 

 

"They wanted genuine intimacy, but they could not get even normally near to anyone, because they scorned to take the first steps, they scorned the triviality which forms common human intercourse." [4]

 

 

II. 

 

Unlike Lawrence, some people are not so ambivalent on this question: they aggressively condemn those individuals who devote themselves to activities regarded as trivial pursuits; i.e., childish games, old-fashioned hobbies, pointless pastimes, amateur undertakings, etc. 

 

Doubtless, this includes blogging ...   

 

In fact, I recently received an email from an anonymous reader informing me that blogging in the almost obsessive manner that I blog - about what are trivial personal concerns disguised with philosophical or literary references in order to appear of import or possible interest to others - reveals me to be an affected narcissist who, in avoiding the serious challenges of the real world is effectively part of the problem. 

 

They close their email thus: 

 

I'm sorry to say, but you're essentially a complacent conformist who blogs more as a coping mechanism, rather than to bring about much needed social and political change and I would remind you of these lines from Adorno: 

 

"Triviality is evil - triviality, that is, in the form of consciousness and mind that adapts itself to the world as it is, that obeys the principle of inertia. And this principle of inertia truly is what is radically evil." [5]    

 

 

III. 

 

Now, appreciative as I am of such criticism, I can't say that I'm persuaded by Adorno's identification of triviality with evil (nor of evil with inertia, when the latter is not merely the negative ideal that he would like us to believe, but a vastly complex state) [6].      

 

Ultimately, as with his broader critique of the Kulturindustrie, I find Adorno's thinking on this question somewhat exaggerated and overblown; no one, as far as I'm aware, is attempting to consummate triviality and thereby lead us into absolute horror. 

 

The fact is, being trivial does not make you evil; it simply means that you prefer to linger at the crossroads, uncertain of which way to head, but happy to chat with others you may encounter rather than forge ahead on a single path leading you to the mountain top.  

 

And so, push comes to shove, I'm more inclined to side with Oscar Wilde rather than Adorno, who advised: 'We should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.' [7]  

 

It seems to me that it is this mode of thought - more comical than critical - that offers us the best chance of surviving among the ruins; for it allows us to find something more important than meaning and that's humour. Refusing to take things tragically, means learning how to laugh in the face of adversity, which might not make us better human beings, but it will almost certainly make us less earnest and the enemy of ascetic idealism [8].       

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm paraphrasing (and quoting words and phrases from) the opening paragraph to D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). I have written about this opening in a post dated 21 September 2019: click here.  

 

[2] In the second version of Lady C., the narrator of the tale says: "We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen. Having tragically wrung our hands, we now proceed to peel the potatoes, or to put on the wireless." How we read this line is very much open to interpretation.

      See The First and Second Lady Chatterley Novels, ed. Dieter Mehl and Christa Jansohn (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 223.  

 

[3] See, for example, the letter to J. D. Beresford (1 February 1916), in which Lawrence contrasts the Cornish coastline, with all its heavy black rocks, to the "dust and grit and dirty paper" of the modern world in all its non-elemental triviality and shallowness. 

      The letter can be found in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence Vol. II., ed. George J. Zytaruk and James T. Boulton (Cambridge Universty Press, 1982), p. 519. 

 

[4] D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, ed. Helen Baron and Carl Baron (Cambridge University Press, 1992), chapter VII, p. 178.

 

[5] Theodor W. Adorno, Metaphysics: Concept and Problems, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford University Press, 2001), p. 115: 

 

[6] I know this because inertia became a key term in D. H. Lawrence's understanding of energy and materiality. Unlike other modernist writers - including Adorno - who disliked inertia and always wrote in praise of dynamism, Lawrence contrasted negative inertia (associated with industrialism and the ideal of limitless production) to positive inertia (associated with the limits and fragility of life and its generation). 

      Readers who are interested might like to see the essay by Andrew Kalaidjian, 'Positive Inertia: D. H. Lawrence and the Aesthetics of Generation', in Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 38, No. 1, (Indiana University Press, Fall 2014), pp. 38-55. This essay can be accessed via JSTOR: click here. 

      See also a follow up post to this one on the law of inertia and the principle of evil (21 July 2025): click here. 

 

[7] Oscar Wilde, from an interview with Robbie Ross, published in the St. James Gazette (18 Jan 1895): click here. This, of course, is the philosophy behind The Importance of Being Earnest (1895): 'A Trivial Play for Serious People' as it was originally subtitled.      

 

[8] In the third essay of the Genealogy, Nietzsche concludes that the ascetic ideal has "even in the most spiritual sphere, only one type of real enemy [...] these are the comedians of the ascetic ideal", i.e., those who arouse mistrust in the latter via a refusal to take things seriously. See On the Genealogy of Morality, ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson, trans. Carol Diethe (Cambridge University Press, 1994), III. 27, p. 125. 

      Readers interested in this, might also like to see Keith Ansell-Pearson's essay 'Toward the Comedy of Existence', in The Fate of the New Nietzsche, ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson and Howard Caygill (Avebury Press, 1993).     

 

That Time I Met Mr Pickle ...

 

I. 

 

One of my favourite scenes in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) is the closing animated sequence in which McLaren and his motley crew are all aboard the good ship Venus and Johnny Rotten, having been found guilty of collaboration, is forced to walk the plank. 

 

Abandoned by his shipmates, the singer finds himself literally all at sea where he is soon swallowed by a great white shark with the Virgin logo clearly visible on its fin [1].    

 

This scene replayed itself in my mind when, in 1983, the Virgin Group acquired Charisma Records (although it wouldn't be until 1986 that the latter was fully digested by the former; still maintaining at least a measure of independence until then). 

 

So, let us say that I was not a fan of Richard Branson and would laugh at Malcolm's stories about this hippie entrepreneur whom he vehemently disliked and derisively called Mr Pickle (either intentionally or mistakenly confusing the surname with that of an English food brand made by Crosse & Blackwell since 1922) [2].  

 

 

II. 

 

I first met Mr Pickle when, as a Charisma employee, I was sent an invitation by him and the directors of the Virgin Group to attend a party at the Manor, in Oxfordshire, to celebrate the first anniversary of Virgin Atlantic.  

 

The Manor, for those who might not know, was a recording studio housed in a 17th century Grade II listed building that had been bought by Branson in 1971, for £30,000, when he was only twenty-one years of age. It was where Mike Oldfield famousy recorded his precious Tubular Bells (1973) [3].

 

As pretty much everyone from Charisma was going to go, I decided I'd also (somewhat begrudgingly) accept Branson's invitation. And here, for those who may be interested, is my memory of the day based on an entry in the Von Hell Diaries dated 22 June, 1985 ... 

 

 

III. 

 

Unsure what to wear, I decided to go with the pink check suit I bought two years ago and which I've kept hanging in my closet - unworn - ever since. After my friend Andy arrived, we went over to pick Lee Ellen up from her place in Chelsea. Then cabbed it over to Kensal House (i.e., Virgin HQ), from where coaches transported everyone to the Manor. 

      Those of us from the Famous Charisma Label were segregated from the Virgin staff and we were seated as a group at the back of the bus. As Robin had kindly brought along several bottles of wine, however, no one seemed to mind about that and, amusingly, we were soon making twice as much noise as the Virginians on board (to be fair, perhaps that's why we were placed at the back of the bus).  

       The Manor was an impressive country pile (provided you have the capacity to be impressed by an assemblage of bricks) and set in very beautiful grounds that included trees, lakes, swimming pools, tennis courts, etc. Mr Pickle was there to meet and greet us personally as we got off the bus. 

      There were three large tents erected and Branson had laid on copious amounts of food and drink as well as various entertainments that one could sign up for, including horse riding and helicopter flights. But I was more interested in Shelley's friend Claire to be honest. Unfortunately, I ruined my chances with her when I split my lip open swigging champagne straight from the bottle. Note to future self: spitting blood à la Sid Vicious is probably not the most attractive look. 

      Ultimately, it was a dull event - even with the odd pop star in attendance - and the weather didn't help (typical English summer's day - wet and chilly). Glad when the coaches turned up to take us back to London. Mr Pickle dutifully came over to say goodbye and shake everyone's hand for a second time: very much Lord of the Manor. And very much not to be trusted ... [4]    

  

 

 

Not to the manor born ... Andy Greenfield and myself 

The Manor Studio (22 June 1985)

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I have written about this scene in a post published on 4 March 2024: click here. 

 

[2] Use of this nickname is confirmed by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 355. 

      Gorman's assessment of Branson is one I fully endorse; essentially, a very clever businessman from a privileged background who knew a good opportunity when he saw one and had "cultivated a knack of appropriating aspects of youth culture to his commercial gain" (ibid., p. 356). 

 

[3] The idea of building a luxurious home recording studio was still novel at this time; the Manor was only the third such studio in the UK. Oldfield recorded his debut studio album at the Manor in 1972-73 and it was the first album released on the Virgin Records label (25 May 1973). 

      In April 1995, after the takeover of Virgin Records by EMI, the Manor was closed as a recording studio and the building, listed for sale in 2010 at £5.75 million, is now the country home of some toff or other.   

 

[4] Lee Ellen, Robin, and Shelley all worked at Charisma (in the press office, accounts, and A&R department respectively). The final line is my recalling McLaren's famous advice given to Helen in The Swindle: 'Never trust a hippie'.