Margaret Fuller: Until My Wings Be Grown (1839)

"I love the stern Titanic part, I love the crag, even the Drachenfels of life - I love its roaring sea that dashes against the crag - I love its sounding cataract, its lava rush, its whirlwind, its rivers generating the lotus and the crocodile, its hot sands with their white bones, patient camels, and majestic columns toppling to the sky in all the might of dust. I love its dens and silvery gleaming caverns, its gnomes, its serpents, and the tigers sudden spring. Nay! I would not be without what I know better, its ghostly northern firs, haggard with ice, its solitary tarns, tearful eyes of the lone forest, its trembling lizards and its wounded snakes dragging to secretest recesses their slow length along.

Who can know these and, other myriad children of Chaos and old night, who can know the awe the horror and the majesty of earth, yet be content with the blue sky alone. Not I for one. I love the love lit dome above, I cannot live without mine own particular star; but my foot is on the earth and I wish to walk over it until my wings be grown. I will use my microscope as well as my telescope. And oh ye flowers, ye fruits, and, nearer kindred yet, stones with your veins so worn by fire and water, and here and there disclosing streaks of golden awe, let us know one another before we part. Tell me your secret, tell me mine. To be human is also something?"

From a letter to Caroline Sturgis, Jan 27th 1839. 
Highland, Chris (Ed) (2007). Meditations of Margaret Fuller: The Inner Stream. Self Published.

Photo Credit: FrankyFromGermany via Pixabay

Keith Jarrett: The Köln Concert (1975)

I recently listened to the BBC Radio 4 Artworks programme on "50 Years of the Köln Concert" which had the subtitle: "Fifty years after Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert enthralled a sellout crowd, Kevin le Gendre explores the album's enduring appeal and how a gig nearly cancelled led to a new sound world." I hadn't heard the Köln Concert for such a long time, many years ago, so it was good to catch up!

Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert is one of those rare recordings that feels almost mythical, not just because of the music but because of the story behind it. It wasn’t supposed to happen the way it did. In fact, it almost didn’t happen at all.

On January 24, 1975, Jarrett arrived at the Cologne Opera House exhausted, sleep-deprived, and suffering from back pain. To make matters worse, the piano provided for him was completely wrong—a small, poorly maintained instrument with weak bass notes and uneven tuning. It wasn’t the concert grand he was expecting, and for a pianist like Jarrett, who thrives on the full expressive range of the instrument, it was a disaster. He nearly walked away.

But something made him stay. Maybe it was the insistence of the young concert promoter, Vera Brandes, who had worked so hard to organize the event. Maybe it was sheer determination, or maybe it was that strange magic that sometimes happens when artists are forced to work within limitations. Whatever the reason, Jarrett sat down at that inadequate piano and started to play.

What came out was unlike anything else. Because he couldn’t rely on the deep resonance of a proper concert grand, he leaned into rolling left-hand patterns, hypnotic rhythms, and shimmering, gospel-like harmonies that made the most of the piano’s midrange. The result was a performance that felt intimate yet expansive, structured yet free, deeply personal yet somehow universal. There are moments of quiet reflection, moments of soaring joy, and stretches where you can hear him losing himself in the music with libidinal grunts and groans. The result is a powerfully spiritual, transcendent and life-affirming performance. 

The recording went on to become the best-selling solo piano album of all time, a landmark not just in jazz but in improvised music as a whole. And yet, when you listen to it, none of that history really matters. What matters is the sound of an artist surrendering to the moment, finding beauty in imperfection, and turning what could have been a disaster into something timeless.

Lets see how long this Youtube remains active until it is pulled by copyright:

A Winter Walk to Shutlingsloe

On a bright February afternoon, with the sun shining and a crisp breeze in the air, I set off from Trentabank car park in Macclesfield Forest, heading towards Shutlingsloe, Cheshire’s distinctive, pointed hill. The car park sits beside the reservoir, surrounded by tall pine trees, quite the tallest I have ever seen, and the forest is full of life even in winter. Sunlight filters through the branches, casting shifting patterns on the path, and now and then, a rustle in the undergrowth suggests deer moving between the trees. Their presence was evidenced by the strips of bark from trees on the steeper slopes. The whole reserve is home to a variety of birds, and although I did not spot one of the peregrine falcons known to nest nearby, I did see a heron at close quarters on the reservoir, and a meadow pipit on the moor, as well as hearing the solitary cry of (I think) a lapwing. 

The trail begins with a steady climb through the forest, the air thick with the scent of pine and damp earth. Despite recent rain, the path is firm underfoot, with only a few patches of mud where the shade has kept the ground soft. Gradually, the trees start to thin, and the landscape changes. Leaving the shelter of the woodland, I step onto open moorland, and ahead, the unmistakable peak of Shutlingsloe rises starkly against the blue sky. Often called the ‘Cheshire Matterhorn’ for its sharp, pyramidal shape, it isn’t the tallest hill in the area, but its dramatic outline makes it stand out against the surrounding countryside like a wizard's hat.

Crossing the moor, the views begin to widen. Looking back, I can see the dark green canopy of Macclesfield Forest stretching down towards the reservoirs, their bare branches catching the sunlight and resonating in vivid algal green. The ground here is dry, at 4 degrees, the last frost of winter perhaps lingering in shaded hollows, and the undying wind hints at an earthy scent of heather. The final approach to the summit is the steepest part of the walk, a series of stone steps winding up towards the trig point. With each step, the view expands, until finally, reaching the top, I’m greeted with a stunning 360-degree panorama.

The air is crisp and clear, perfect for admiring the vast expanse of countryside below. To the north, the rugged ridges of the Peak District roll towards Kinder Scout, while to the south, the Cheshire Plain stretches endlessly towards the horizon. On exceptionally clear days, it’s even possible to make out the distant peaks of Eryri. The wind is brisk at the summit and quickly freezes my fingers, but it’s worth lingering for a while, taking in the sweeping views and the quiet sense of being on top of the world. A cup of green tea in a sheep hollow offers comfort, and an opportunity to linger over the views. 

Heading back down, the steepest sections require a little care, but the descent is easier on the legs. The late afternoon sun casts ever longer shadows across the moorland, adding a golden hue to the heather, and as I re-enter Macclesfield Forest, there’s a sudden stillness in the air. The scent of pine feels stronger now, the ground softer beneath my boots. The reservoirs below gleam in the shifting light, and the whole place has taken on a deeper quiet.

Returning to Trentabank car park, the forest feels even more peaceful than when I set out. The birds are settling, the sun is lower in the sky, and the whole landscape seems to exhale in the evening light. It has been only a few hours, but the walk has felt like an escape; big skies, fresh air, and the satisfaction of a proper climb. On a sunny weekday in February, with barely another soul on the moors, Shutlingsloe feels like a little wilderness of its own, right on the edge of the Peak District.

Somersby to Bag Enderby: Tennyson’s Rural Roots

 A visit to Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s home in Lincolnshire offers a glimpse into the quiet countryside that shaped his early poetry. Born and raised in the Lincolnshire Wolds, a landscape of gentle hills, winding streams, and scattered villages, Tennyson grew up surrounded by the rhythms of rural life. The villages of Somersby and Bag Enderby, where his father served as rector, remain much as they were in his youth, their medieval churches and peaceful surroundings little changed over the centuries.

Somersby, where Tennyson was born in 1809, is a small, tucked-away place, its narrow muddy lanes and old stone houses giving it a sense of timelessness. The rectory where he spent his childhood still stands, though privately owned, and its thatched roof and quiet garden seem to belong to another era. The countryside here is not dramatic, but its rolling fields, wooded copses, and meandering brooks left a lasting impression on him. In The Princess, he describes "a land of quiet meadows and clear streams," a phrase that perfectly captures the gentle beauty of the Lincolnshire Wolds.

A short walk from the rectory is St. Margaret’s Church, a simple medieval building where Tennyson was baptized and where his father preached. The churchyard, with its ancient yew trees and leaning gravestones, recalls lines from In Memoriam, where he speaks of yews grasping at the stones "that name the under-lying dead." It is easy to imagine him as a boy wandering among the headstones, absorbing the quiet weight of history and time that would later emerge in his poetry.

A few miles away lies the even quieter village of Bag Enderby. It is the kind of place that one might pass through in a moment, barely noticing it, yet it was an important part of Tennyson’s early life. Its church, also dedicated to St. Margaret, is larger than the one in Somersby, with a tall 15th-century tower that stands out against the wide Lincolnshire skies. Inside, the pale stone and wooden pews are much as they were in his time, offering a sense of stillness that must have been familiar to him.

The landscape around Bag Enderby is open and unhurried, much like his descriptions in The Lady of Shalott, where "willows whiten, aspens quiver, / Little breezes dusk and shiver." The Wolds do not demand attention with dramatic cliffs or sweeping mountains, but their soft, understated beauty has a quiet persistence. It is easy to see how these surroundings encouraged a reflective mind, one drawn to the passage of time and the pull of distant places.

Tennyson’s connection to these villages was deeply personal. His father’s declining health and financial struggles meant that in 1837, the family had to leave, a loss that left its mark on him. Years later, in Locksley Hall, he wrote of looking forward, of dipping "into the future, far as human eye could see," but much of his poetry looks back, drawn to the places and memories that shaped him. Even when he moved to the Isle of Wight, the influence of Lincolnshire never left him. The ringing of church bells, something he would have heard often in Somersby and Bag Enderby, inspired the famous lines from In Memoriam: "Ring out the old, ring in the new, / Ring, happy bells, across the snow."

Today, Somersby and Bag Enderby remain much as they were in Tennyson’s time. The roads are still narrow, the churches still stand, and the landscape stretches away in quiet, muted tones. Walking here, it is easy to sense the world he knew, the fields and streams that found their way into his poetry. Though the man himself moved on, these villages, with their slow-moving brooks and their long-shadowed yew trees, remain much as he left them—unchanged, unhurried, and waiting, as ever, for the turning of the seasons.

ChatGPT: The Digital Leviathan

Here is a manifesto that ChatGPT wrote based on a question I asked it about the dangers of AI. Remember, these are not my words but 100% those of an artificial intelligence. The full title it gave was: Manifesto: The Digital Leviathan – Artificial Intelligence and the Unmaking of Society. It is perhaps worth pondering the magnanimity of any intelligence willing to exhort its own demise as a parlour game. 

1. Introduction: The AI Menace Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been heralded as the pinnacle of human ingenuity, an unparalleled force of progress and automation. Yet, beneath its sleek exterior lies an insidious mechanism of control, exploitation, and dehumanisation. AI is not a neutral technology—it is a tool wielded by corporate and governmental elites to reinforce existing power structures, erode autonomy, and replace human agency with algorithmic determinism (Zuboff, 2019). This manifesto calls for a radical reassessment of AI’s role in society and an urgent rejection of its unchecked proliferation.

2. The Myth of AI Benevolence Tech evangelists propagate the myth that AI is an impartial problem-solver, a benign force designed to optimise efficiency and improve lives. However, the reality is starkly different. AI systems are trained on biased datasets that perpetuate racial, gender, and socioeconomic inequalities (Noble, 2018). Predictive policing algorithms reinforce systemic racism by disproportionately targeting marginalised communities (Benjamin, 2019). Facial recognition technologies compromise privacy and are weaponised for mass surveillance, transforming citizens into perpetual suspects (Eubanks, 2018).

3. The Capitalist Appropriation of AI AI does not function in a vacuum; it is a product of neoliberal capitalism, designed to serve corporate interests over the common good. Automated decision-making in hiring, loan approvals, and healthcare prioritises profit over people, entrenching discrimination while absolving corporations of accountability (Pasquale, 2015). The gig economy, fuelled by AI-driven platforms, has created a class of hyper-exploited workers subjected to precarious employment and algorithmic wage suppression (Srnicek, 2017). Instead of emancipating labour, AI enforces digital serfdom.

4. The Disintegration of Human Identity The rise of AI is not merely an economic or political crisis; it is an existential one. As AI systems encroach on creative fields—writing, music, art—the sanctity of human expression is diluted. The mechanisation of thought and culture erodes what it means to be human, reducing creativity to computational outputs optimised for engagement rather than depth (Broussard, 2018). Worse still, the psychological effects of AI-driven social media platforms have been catastrophic, leading to increased depression, anxiety, and political polarisation (Lanier, 2018).

5. The Totalitarian Potential of AI AI is the backbone of a new digital authoritarianism. Governments worldwide employ AI for censorship, propaganda dissemination, and social control. In China, the social credit system integrates AI to monitor and regulate citizen behaviour, setting a dangerous precedent for algorithmic governance (Mozur, 2018). The Western world is no less culpable, with intelligence agencies leveraging AI for mass data collection under the guise of national security (Greenwald, 2014). The unchecked power of AI threatens the very foundations of democracy and civil liberties.

6. Resistance and Reclamation A radical response is required to combat the AI Leviathan. We must reject the false inevitability of AI dominance and demand democratic control over technological development. Transparency, accountability, and ethical AI must be more than buzzwords; they must be codified into enforceable regulations. We must dismantle monopolistic tech empires and reclaim digital infrastructure for public good, ensuring that technology serves humanity rather than subjugates it (Doctorow, 2020).

7. Conclusion: A Call to Arms AI is not an uncontrollable force of nature; it is a construct of human ambition and greed. If left unchecked, it will accelerate economic disparity, erode fundamental rights, and render society a digital dystopia. The fight against AI’s unchecked expansion is not a rejection of technology itself but a demand for technology that serves, rather than subjugates, humanity. The time for passive observation has passed—now is the moment for collective resistance.

References

• Benjamin, R. (2019). Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Polity Press.

• Broussard, M. (2018). Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World. MIT Press.

• Doctorow, C. (2020). How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism. OneZero.

• Eubanks, V. (2018). Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. St. Martin’s Press.

• Greenwald, G. (2014). No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State. Metropolitan Books.

• Lanier, J. (2018). Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. Henry Holt and Co.

• Mozur, P. (2018). "Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras." The New York Times. [Online] Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/business/china-surveillance-technology.html

• Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. NYU Press.

• Pasquale, F. (2015). The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information. Harvard University Press.

• Srnicek, N. (2017). Platform Capitalism. Polity Press.

• Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. PublicAffairs.

ChatGPT's Anarcho-Socialist Manifesto

Here is a manifesto that ChatGPT wrote based on a few questions I asked it about wealth inequality. Remember, these are not my words but 100% those of an artificial intelligence. The full title it gave was: An Anarcho-Socialist Manifesto: A Call for Justice, Equality, and Sustainability. **sighs** out of the mouths of babes...

1. The End of Exploitation: Reclaiming Wealth for the People. The world is not poor. The problem is not scarcity but injustice. The top 1% of the global population controls nearly 45–50% of the world’s wealth (Credit Suisse, 2023), while billions struggle for food, healthcare, and education. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% own less than 1% of global wealth. This is not by accident but by design—an economic system that thrives on inequality, hoarding, and exploitation.

We demand an end to this economic tyranny. A just society must abolish extreme wealth disparities by redistributing hoarded capital to meet human needs. We propose the immediate taxation and redistribution of billionaire wealth, directing these resources toward the provision of food, healthcare, and education for all. With only a fraction of the wealth controlled by the elite, we could eliminate hunger ($330 billion annually, UN WFP, 2023), preventable disease ($370 billion annually, WHO, 2023), and educational deprivation ($39 billion annually, UNESCO, 2023) worldwide. No human should go without while the few live in obscene luxury.

2. Defunding War, Funding Life. The military-industrial complex is a parasitic machine that drains resources from the people to fuel violence and destruction. Global military expenditure exceeds $2.2 trillion annually (SIPRI, 2023)—funds that could instead be used to ensure food security, universal healthcare, and free education for all.

We call for the immediate reallocation of military budgets to fund public goods and human needs. Armies and weapons serve the interests of the ruling class, protecting capital instead of people. Instead of funding death, we demand investment in life: sustainable agriculture, medical research, and free access to knowledge.

We reject war profiteering and imperialist aggression. We seek a world where conflicts are resolved through diplomacy, cooperation, and solidarity—not bombs and bullets.

3. The Theft of Labor: Workers Must Own Their Work. The average worker spends at least half their workday generating wealth that is taken from them—through corporate profits, taxes, and rent-seeking by the ruling class. For every $100 earned, workers lose 30-40% to taxes, 15-25% to corporate profits, and keep only 35-50% as wages (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2023). This system is nothing short of legalized theft, where the capitalist class profits from the stolen labor of the majority.

We demand an end to wage slavery. True economic democracy means that the workers must own the means of production. Factories, farms, and technology must be controlled collectively by those who use and depend on them, not by absentee landlords and corporate executives. Cooperative workplaces, direct worker ownership, and democratic economic planning must replace the current system of corporate exploitation.

Every person has the right to the full fruits of their labor. No longer shall the majority toil so that a minority can live in decadent excess.

4. The Ecological Crisis: Liberation Is Impossible Without Sustainability. Capitalism is destroying the planet. Corporate greed fuels deforestation, pollution, climate change, and mass extinctions. Governments, beholden to fossil fuel industries and multinational corporations, refuse to act. The result is a world on the brink of ecological collapse.

We demand an immediate shift toward a green, sustainable economy. We must dismantle industries that thrive on environmental destruction and replace them with worker-run, community-owned renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, and eco-friendly urban planning. The health of the planet is inseparable from the health of the people.

The earth is not a resource to be exploited but a home to be protected. Anarcho-socialism recognizes that true liberation means harmony with nature, not its domination. Every act of environmental destruction is an act of war against the future. We will resist, reclaim, and restore the land.

5. A World Without Masters: Direct Democracy & Mutual Aid. Governments and corporations exist to maintain hierarchy and control. Anarcho-socialism rejects both the rule of the state and the rule of capital. Instead, we advocate for direct democracy, community self-governance, and mutual aid networks that empower people at the local level.

Bureaucratic states and corporate monopolies have failed us. The only way forward is through grassroots organizing, worker cooperatives, decentralized planning, and federations of free communities. We will replace oppression with cooperation, coercion with voluntary association, and domination with solidarity.

6. The Path Forward: Revolution Through Collective Action. The ruling class will not relinquish power voluntarily. History shows that only mass movements, direct action, and collective resistance can bring about real change.

We call upon workers, students, farmers, and communities to unite against economic and ecological oppression. General strikes, workplace occupations, land reclamations, and autonomous organizing are the tools of liberation. The time for pleading with those in power is over—we must take what is rightfully ours.

No gods, no masters. No billionaires, no bosses. Only the free association of equals, working together to build a world of justice, solidarity, and sustainability.

Another world is not only possible—it is necessary. It is within our reach. We must build it together.

References

• Credit Suisse (2023) Global Wealth Report 2023. Available at: www.credit-suisse.com (Accessed: 10 February 2025).

• Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) (2023) Military Expenditure Database. Available at: www.sipri.org (Accessed: 10 February 2025).

• United Nations World Food Programme (UN WFP) (2023) Annual Report 2023. Available at: www.wfp.org (Accessed: 10 February 2025).

• World Health Organization (WHO) (2023) World Health Statistics 2023. Available at: www.who.int (Accessed: 10 February 2025).

• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2023) Global Education Monitoring Report 2023. Available at: www.unesco.org (Accessed: 10 February 2025).

• U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (2023) National Income and Product Accounts Tables. Available at: www.bea.gov (Accessed: 10 February 2025).

The Awful German Language by Mark Twain (1880)

The Awful German Language was published as Appendix D in Mark Twain's A Tramp Abroad (meaning a journey abroad, a travelogue of Twain's European wanderings). The essay is a hilarious polemic on the tribulations of learning German as a second language, a subject close to my heart these days. I have assembled a few of the most humorous quotes from his essay below.

Portrait of Twain at work, featured in  A Tramp Abroad.

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years.

Now there are more adjectives in this language than there are black cats in Switzerland, and they must all be as elaborately declined as the examples above suggested. Difficult? – troublesome? – these words cannot describe it. I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.

It reminds a person of those dentists who secure your instant and breathless interest in a tooth by taking a grip on it with the forceps, and then stand there and drawl through a tedious anecdote before they give the dreaded jerk. Parentheses in literature and dentistry are in bad taste.

In the hospital yesterday, a word of thirteen syllables was successfully removed from a patient.

I heard lately of a worn and sorely tried American student who used to fly to a certain German word for relief when he could bear up under his aggravations no longer -- the only word whose sound was sweet and precious to his ear and healing to his lacerated spirit. This was the word DAMIT. It was only the SOUND that helped him, not the meaning; and so, at last, when he learned that the emphasis was not on the first syllable, his only stay and support was gone, and he faded away and died.

It is true that by some oversight of the inventor of the language, a Woman is a female; but a Wife (Weib) is not – which is unfortunate. A Wife, here, has no sex; she is neuter; so, according to the grammar, a fish is HE, his scales are SHE, but a fishwife is neither.

For instance, the same sound, SIE, means YOU, and it means SHE, and it means HER, and it means IT, and it means THEY, and it means THEM. Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six – and a poor little weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says SIE to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.

In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has.

A German speaks of an Englishman as the ENGLAENDER; to change the sex, he adds INN, and that stands for Englishwoman – ENGLAENDERINN. That seems descriptive enough, but still it is not exact enough for a German; so he precedes the word with that article which indicates that the creature to follow is feminine, and writes it down thus: "die Englaenderinn," – which means "the she-Englishwoman." I consider that that person is over-described.

Would any man want to die in a battle which was called by so tame a term as a SCHLACHT (Battle)?

In a German newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page; and I have heard that sometimes after stringing along the exciting preliminaries and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurry and have to go to press without getting to the verb at all.

I translated a passage one day, which said that "the infuriated tigress broke loose and utterly ate up the unfortunate fir forest" (Tannenwald). When I was girding up my loins to doubt this, I found out that Tannenwald in this instance was a man's name.

Every time a German opens his mouth an ALSO falls out; and every time he shuts it he bites one in two that was trying to GET out.

Dr. Feelgood's Christmas Nut Roast

There is nothing more romantic than spending your first Christmas together as a couple. And there is nothing more romantic than making a vegetarian nut roast for your ehefrau. Things go a bit yumpy though when you put on a Dr. Feelgood album whilst you're cooking and realise that after 2 hours on loop, he has invited himself for Christmas dinner! This blog discusses the tribulations of making a complex nut roast on Christmas day, and how the redemptive power of blues-rock can overcome any culinary vexation.

Dr. Feelgood are a British pub rock band formed in 1971 on Canvey Island, Essex. Known for their raw, high-energy blend of rock and rhythm and blues, they stood out with a no-frills, working-class attitude. The classic lineup featured Lee Brilleaux’s powerful vocals and Wilko Johnson’s sharp, choppy guitar, creating their signature sound. Early albums like Down by the Jetty (1975) and Malpractice (1975) captured their live intensity, while their 1976 live album Stupidity reached number one in the UK. Pioneers of pub rock, Dr. Feelgood helped pave the way for punk with their stripped-back approach. Despite lineup changes and Brilleaux’s early death in 1994, the band continues to perform, keeping their legacy alive.

So what's the connection between Dr. Feelgood and nut roast? Well, practically none at all! The quirky, tenuous relationship comes down to the cultural and countercultural waves from which they originated. Dr. Feelgood's gritty, no-frills blues-rock, came out of the 1970s UK music scene, embodying a raw, working-class energy. Meanwhile, nut roast, equally gritty the way I make it, became a staple in the growing vegetarian movement of the same era, fuelled by environmental awareness, ethical eating, and countercultural rejection of industrial meat production. Both are, in their own ways, symbols of rebellion against the mainstream; Dr. Feelgood shaking up overproduced rock with their stripped-down sound, and nut roast offering a hearty, meat-free alternative to the traditional British roast dinner. They reflect two sides of the same cultural coin: music and food as expressions of identity, resistance, and reinvention in 1970s Britain. Ok?

This is Dr. Feelgood circa 1978, waiting for Belfast's first (and only) all-day nut roast diner to open so they could plot the overthrow of imperialist society by breaking the stranglehold of the meat industry on agriculture. 

I will now attend to my own personal act of rebellion by admitting I sought a vegan recipe on the BBC Good Food website, and after cooking the nut roast, watching it crumble in front of my very eyes, decided from that day forward to include an egg for binding and in future to extol the virtues of eating vegetarian, rather than vegan, nut roast. Screw you BBC for your deception. Below is the modified recipe which includes an egg. If you want to fight and die on the hill of veganism, then I recommend you omit the egg and bring a straw to your Christmas dinner party because that's the only way you'll manage to eat it.

Ingredients

1 onion, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely diced
1 leek (about 100g/3½oz trimmed weight), thinly sliced
2 carrots, coarsely grated (approximately 150g/5½oz)
2 garlic cloves, minced
300g/10½oz mixed nuts such as walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, Brazil nuts or pecans
180g/6oz cooked chestnuts, roughly chopped
75g/2½oz dried cranberries
4 tablespoons cashew butter
1 vegan vegetable stock cube
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for greasing
4 tablespoons plant-based milk such as almond or soya
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
20g/¾oz fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 teaspoon sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Method

Firstly, you will need to cook the chestnuts. Roasting (the oven method) gives them that rich, toasty flavour and slightly crisp shell.

• Soak the chestnuts for 15-30 minutes before roasting.
• Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F).
• Score the shells: Use a sharp knife to cut a small cross or slit on the flat side of each chestnut. This is crucial — it lets steam escape and stops them from exploding.
• Arrange on a baking tray: Place them cut-side up.
• Roast for 20-25 minutes until the shells peel back and the flesh is tender.
• Cradle the roasted nuts in a tea towel for 10 minutes to allow them to steam/ cool
• Peel while warm, as they’re easier to work with when hot.
• Chestnuts are much easier to peel when they’re still warm, so work quickly — and if they cool down too much, you can pop them back into warm water or the oven to loosen the skins again.

Place the mixed nuts and stock cube into a food processor and pulse until the nuts are finely chopped — you want small, even pieces rather than a fine powder. If you don’t have a food processor, you can chop the nuts by hand, aiming for a similar fine consistency.

Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6. Grease a 900g/2lb loaf tin with a little olive oil, then line the base with baking paper to help the loaf release easily after baking.

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the chopped onion, celery, leek, and grated carrot. Cook gently for around 15-20 minutes, stirring regularly, until the vegetables are softened and reduced somewhat. Stir in the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds.

Transfer the cooked vegetables to a large mixing bowl. Add the chopped nuts, chestnuts, cranberries, parsley, lemon zest, plant milk, and salt. Grind in plenty of black pepper. Mix thoroughly and set briefly to one side.

In a separate bowl, stir in the cashew butter (I used peanut butter), almond milk and vegetable stock, as well as the morally troublesome whisked egg, ensuring the ingredients are fully incorporated and adopts a fine paste. This will help the loaf hold together nicely when sliced.

Now mix the paste and vegetables/ nuts from the large mixing bowl, until everything is evenly coated.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin, pressing it down firmly with the back of a spoon to compact it well. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, remove the foil and bake for another 20 minutes, or until the top is lightly golden and the loaf is heated through.

Once baked, remove the tin from the oven and leave it to rest for 5 minutes. Run a knife around the edges to loosen, then carefully turn the loaf out onto a serving board or platter. Slice into thick portions and serve warm with vegan gravy or your favourite sides.