Generated by All in One SEO v4.9.10, this is an llms.txt file, used by LLMs to index the site. # Joly Braime Dust and monsters ## Sitemaps - [XML Sitemap](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website. ## Posts - [Blog](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/blog/) - [In praise of the fisherman’s smock](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/in-praise-of-the-fishermans-smock/) - With the arrival of midsummer, I am mostly to be found in my seasonal uniform of borderline-too-short shorts, Henley tee, boots and a fisherman’s smock. It was my stepfather, Ian, who bought me my first smock – he was getting a new one for himself, so he picked up two and gave one to - [March and April – the months that were](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/march-and-april-the-months-that-were/) - I’ve realised it’s a little while since I posted a run-down of recent adventures and discoveries, so here’s a quick update on the last couple of months. Just your standard mix of pilgrim routes, paranormal conferences, flat caps and zombie apocalypse prep. Roaming In March I managed to get away on a multi-day walk for - [February 2026 – the month that was](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/february-2026-the-month-that-was/) - Publishing a few days late this time because I managed to pick up a stinking cold at the end of last week. Remarkable that it didn’t happen earlier, given that the month was unusually heavy on visitors, meetings, operas and other crowded places. Not that I mind any of that, of course – I've spent - [A few recent pocket cartoons](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-few-recent-pocket-cartoons/) - A month is a long time in the news cycle – especially with our current crop of world leaders and politicians. For a long time I've processed my own thoughts on current affairs through scrawling cartoons. Here are a few from the past month. On Cruella Braverman's defection to Reform. Cinematic catnip for Galentine's Day. - [January 2026 – the month that was](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/january-2026-the-month-that-was/) - For me, January felt like it took a long time to get going. Perhaps it's because I took so much time off over Christmas, then returned to my desk and promptly suffered the double-whammy of a tax return and a bout of Covid. Thankfully clear of both now, and I've spent most of the rest - [The gear I wouldn’t be without #1: Opinel No. 8 pocket knife](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-gear-i-wouldnt-be-without-1-opinel-no-8-pocket-knife/) - I’ve been thinking lately about the bits and bobs of kit or clothing that I get most use out of in life. Not necessarily the best or most specialist stuff, but the things I reach for again and again. My favourite worn-in Akubra Campdraft fedora; my Alt-Berg Defender boots; my old leather holdall, or my - [How to wear a beret for men](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/how-to-wear-a-beret-for-men/) - I realised a while back that there's not a lot online about how to style berets for men – and looking at what there is, most of it is cobbled together from the first page of Google by people who've never worn one (or more likely by robots who've never worn anything at all). Here, - [Too many resolutions](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/too-many-resolutions/) - A new year ticks over, and having finally taken a bit of time to jot down some resolutions, I find I have covered three sides of A4 and reached a total of 25 items. Rather a tall order, I suspect. Some are almost certainly unachievable, while others are mutually exclusive. Some are so vague that, - [The Porcelain Poet is out today](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-porcelain-poet-is-out-today/) - I know, I know, two years is a long time to wait for a sequel. But here – just in time for Christmas – is the follow-up to my debut novel, The Tin Face Parade. This one is called The Porcelain Poet. And if the title makes you think of toilets then there's a good - [The cautionary tale of the Saltersgate Inn](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-cautionary-tale-of-the-saltersgate-inn/) - [Update 2025. Since this post from 2014 still gets a surprising amount of traffic and occasional comments, it's worth mentioning that the remains of the Saltersgate Inn were demolished some years back. The site remains undeveloped.] [Update April 2018. A planning decision last week marked the end of the road for the remains of the - [Walking the Fjällräven Classic](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/walking-the-fjallraven-classic/) - In September, WildBounds.com sent me off to the western Lake District to walk the Fjällräven Classic UK. If you haven't come across them before, Fjällräven Classics are organised multi-day hikes, run by the famous Swedish outdoor gear brand. They started out 20 years ago in northern Sweden, and in fact I ran into preparations for - [A summer trip to Sarek](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-summer-trip-to-sarek/) - In my day job, I do quite a bit of writing about fancy outdoor kit for WildBounds.com. They're lovely to work for and it's quite a fun gig, but the downside is that I find myself with an ever-lengthening wishlist of camping accessories and high-end Scandi mountain clobber. Apart from being purveyors of extremely covetable - [A portal to the Dance](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-portal-to-the-dance/) - I've coveted an Adrian Daintrey sketch for years, and at an auction not long ago I finally got hold of this wonderful one of wartime Cairo. I like his decisive line for its own sake, but also because Daintrey (1902–88) was the basis for the character of Ralph Barnby in Anthony Powell's novel series, A - [The Power of the Dog](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-power-of-the-dog/) - Back in April, my little mate Charlie dog trotted off into the great beyond. Considering he was a toy poodle who weighed 4.5 kilos and was shorter than a wellington boot, the lack of him has left a great cavern of empty space in life that was not there before he turned up. Kipling knew - [Two years of the gentleman poacher](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/two-years-of-the-gentleman-poacher/) - Last Saturday marked two years since Porridge the lurcher came to live at Sunnyside Cottage. By now he has become part of the furniture (often, in fact, quite difficult to prise off it), and we've got fairly well used to each other's traits. A sensitive soul, in his way, easily bruised by a hard word; - [The green ink brigade](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-green-ink-brigade/) - Green ink. Hue of choice for complainers and poison-pen writers, the famous 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells'. Also senior officers, artists and headmasters. In the days before Excel, book-keepers often used it for the happy column of their ledgers, and the heads of MI6 have been signing their correspondence with it for over a century. The - [Pontack sauce](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/pontack-sauce/) - Autumn foraging season is upon us, and there are some good-sized elders along the old green lane where I often walk my dog of an evening. I've always had a soft spot for elderberries. In my first teenage days of experimenting with home brew and home-infused spirits, I found a recipe (now long lost, alas) - [The Tin Face Parade is out in the world](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-tin-face-parade-is-out-in-the-world/) - Today is publication day for my first novel. The Tin Face Parade is 320 pages of rakish and bloody Edwardian crime, and my delight that people are finally reading it is only slightly tempered by my uncharacteristic nervousness that people are finally reading it. Long-time readers of this blog (both of you...) might remember that - [Shortlisted for the Bridport Prize](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/shortlisted-for-the-bridport-prize/) - Ever read William Boyd's Any Human Heart? I become increasingly convinced that his narrator, Logan, was onto something when he wrote that 'all your life amounts to in the end [is] the aggregate of all the good luck and the bad luck you experience'. Well, I had a bit of good luck. I got shortlisted - [African jazz from a Land Rover](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/african-jazz-from-a-land-rover-loudspeaker/) - In 1964, not long before his 19th birthday, my father set off for Bechuanaland – or Botswana as it would shortly become. At the time, the country was about to hold its first ever free election, in preparation for their upcoming independence. My dad's job – after two months of training in Zimbabwe and Swaziland - [The pleasure of the pocket cartoon](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-pleasure-of-the-pocket-cartoon/) - Don't get me wrong, I love spending ages on a drawing – playing with textures and trying to improve my penmanship – but there's also a lot of pleasure in a scribbly pocket cartoon that's done and dusted in a few minutes. Here are a few recent ones... - [A return to travel writing](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-return-to-travel-writing/) - When the plague hit, I was in Øvre Dividal National Park in northern Norway, tramping between mountain huts in the powdery snow and learning the hard way that there is a good reason why people in the Nordic countries use skis instead of snowshoes. Then one day, the Norwegian government announced that all foreigners had - [Wild camping and open-air life](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/wild-camping-and-open-air-life/) - In some ways we've come a long way since the 1930s, and in others we really haven't. In case you missed it, next week a Dartmoor landowner is taking the National Park Authority to court to try and end wild camping there. Dartmoor is the only place in England where wild camping is currently legal - [After hours at the museum](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/after-hours-at-the-museum/) - Among my various ambitions for this year, one is to get better with my pens and paints. I love drawing but I don't practise it enough, so I don't improve as much as I'd like. I thought animals might be a good place to start, and so I took my camera to the taxidermy cabinets - [The Wreck of the Jeanne](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-wreck-of-the-jeanne/) - A while ago, as I was wandering in the grounds of St Oswald's church in Lythe, I came across an unusual grave. It was reasonably smart and clean - the stone looking distinctly younger than the dates on it - and bore the following inscription: In memory of Charles Verburgh, chief engineer, aged 53 years; - [Some cartoons of 2021](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/some-cartoons-of-2021/) - 2021 was another year in which I ended up getting through quite a lot of ink. While I've posted a lot of it on social media at one point or another, it's nice to have a bit of a round-up, and there were also a few scribbles that for one reason or another never got - [The freak show and the circus](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-freak-show-and-the-circus/) - In Copenhagen I visited two very different sorts of gardens. 1. The botanic gardens. There is nothing girly about appreciating flowers. This idea is just a symptom of an era where the world around us is so safe and tedious that we have to look inside ourselves for insecurity. Take the rose garden, for example: - [Making tracks](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/making-tracks/) - I was at Beautiful Days at the weekend. It’s a little festival in Devon that the Levellers run. It sheeted with rain most of the time and everything turned into a bit of a mud bath, dirt-spattered punters skating around in thick sludge, clutching pints of Otter ale and dragging sleeping kids in wheelbarrows with - [Discarded in a Travelodge](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/discarded-in-a-travelodge/) - While I was eating my peppered steak slice yesterday lunch time and feeling sorry for myself because I had a cold, I got a press release through. Unremarkable in itself, since I get them all the time and they're usually the results of bullshit surveys (commissioned by travel insurance firms about how people get injured - [The hood](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-hood/) - Being able to walk to work is unusual, especially in London. As with all good things of course, I take it completely for granted. It’s not a bad walk though, through the Barnsbury estate and past the Two Brewers (‘travellers by appointment only’) that never seems to close, along the back of the prison and - [User-generated content](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/user-generated-content/) - Sitting at my desk just earlier, I decide to check the comments section of our websites. Sure enough, there are a handful of user reviews in there, including several by a bloke called ‘Tizer’. I click into the first one and quickly realise we are onto a winner here: ‘Been there a few times but - [An invertebrate of many parts](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/an-invertebrate-of-many-parts/) - I was just reading the word ‘slug’ in the dictionary and thinking how much I like it. If you were wondering why I was looking at it, it was because it was underneath ‘slow-roast’ and I needed to know if that was hyphenated or not. These are the important questions which make up my working - [The night watch](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-night-watch/) - The other week I spent a very long time getting back to London. Not of my own volition. I was playing my violin in a concert in Leicester, where the laughably early last train leaves at 10, and the last bus for the Big Smoke some time round 7. Basically I think once you get - [Everyone loves a scumbag](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/everyone-loves-a-scumbag/) - I took exception the other day at something I read describing Indiana Jones as an anti-hero. Fair enough I suppose if you’re taking the word to the letter. An anti-hero is just someone who is a hero in certain senses yet displays un-heroic characteristics. But that’s basically everyone – even Superman has his moments of - [Rising damp](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/rising-damp/) - I like the summer sort of rain we’ve had over the past couple of days. Sure you get a bit wet but it’s quite warm and not so unpleasant. And it falls on the plants and makes the flowers smell good. I was thinking last night, warm rain reminds me of a few things. It - [The cold side of the pillow](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-cold-side-of-the-pillow/) - I've had a week of terrible sleep, probably not helped by several days of sustained sobriety. This has been mainly due to almighty nightmares. There was one the other night where I had a broken rib sticking out of my side and was trying to go through a particularly eventful day while concealing it under - [Fisherfield](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/fisherfield/) - Last week I escaped back out into the wide world with a trip to Fisherfield Forest in north-west Scotland. Not actually a forest at all, it's a wide open area of mountainous back-country that takes a reasonable amount of effort to get into. The mags like to call it 'the Great Wilderness', and while that - [Remembering](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/remembering/) - The fellow in the picture below is my great uncle Joe. It was taken in 1916, when he was 17 years old. Family lore is that he never fully recovered from injuries sustained during a poison gas attack, and he died in the late 1920s sometime before his 30th birthday. But at least he made - [Restoring a 1950s trilby](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/restoring-a-1950s-trilby/) - As those who've come across me in the unflattering light of the real world will know, I'm quite fond of wearing hats. They're unfashionable and affected, of course, but then so am I, and I've built up quite a collection over the last decade or so. Thing is, though, that when you have nice hats - [A compendium of campfire cookstrips](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-compendium-of-campfire-cookstrips/) - Some years ago I used to draw campfire cookstrips for Scouting magazine. Presented in the style of Len Deighton's famous 1960s illustrations from the Observer and the Action Cookbook, my own cookstrips featured campfire recipes submitted by endlessly inventive scout leaders. Most of them went up on this blog when they were first published and - [Adventures of a 1920s Braime](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/adventures-of-a-1920s-braime/) - For a bit of variety, today's post is a sort of guest blog from my grandfather. Grandpa Braime was a colourful and adventurous character: an industrialist, aviator and lifelong motorist; a botanist and collector of air mail stamps, and a serial president of everything from the Leeds Chamber of Commerce to the local Gilbert and - [St Olav's Way, in moving pictures](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/st-olavs-way-in-moving-pictures/) - As you may recall, I spent my July walking the St Olav Way pilgrim trail from Oslo to Trondheim. I've finally got round to condensing a month of tramping, 640km and two hours of footage into a five-minute video. My filming is pretty shaky and my finger's over the lens half the time, but I - [The white cliffs of Yorkshire](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-white-cliffs-of-yorkshire/) - As I walked into the little moorland village of Grosmont, the first thing I saw was a Spitfire in the station car park. I've written before about the North York Moors Railway, but in brief, it is an excellent enterprise which represents two fingers brandished triumphantly at the Beeching cuts. Some years after the government - [Dress like it's Downton](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/dress-like-its-downton/) - Is anyone else getting a bit bored of Downton Abbey? I used to quite like it, but I think it's probably gone a season or two beyond its sell-by date. These days they're recycling storylines more or less wholesale, and the Christmas special was so cloyingly saccharine and earnest that I kept waiting for one - [Is a gansey a guernsey?](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/is-a-gansey-a-guernsey/) - Round about this time six years ago, I was packing for a reasonably long adventure up in arctic Norway. I'd sorted all my performance gear – the down jackets, fleeces, merino base layers, wicking mid-layers etc – when I noticed that whenever you see pictures of Scandinavians, they always seem to be wearing thick woolly - [The celebrity pilgrim](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-celebrity-pilgrim/) - Recently, a friendly writer called Tirza interviewed me for the new St Olav Ways online magazine, and it was rather fun to be on the other end of things for a change. It turns out I am not the most articulate of interviewees, but she's done a grand job of taming my ramblings into a - [A short guide to the Norwegian pilgrim trail](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-short-guide-to-the-norwegian-pilgrim-trail/) - When Dave Tett, Dave Briceland and I walked the St Olav pilgrim trail in Norway last summer, we were surprised to find there wasn't an English-language guidebook in print [Update August 2015 - there is apparently a new edition, available at pilgrim centres and from Amazon]. So Dave T and I have put together our - [In praise of the Meindl Bhutan](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/in-praise-of-the-meindl-bhutan/) - Last summer, I bought myself a pair of Meindl Bhutans, and as hiking boots go they’re hands-down the best pair I’ve ever owned. The Bhutan is the successor to the Burma, one of Meindl’s most long-standing and popular full-leather models that was in production for well over a decade. Scratch around among the online reviews - [Zell am See, 1927](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/zell-am-see-1927/) - One of my most popular posts last year was a 'guest blog' from my grandfather's short collection of travel memoirs. The book was called Continental Kindnesses, and contained anecdotes of unprompted generosity during his travels round Europe between 1925 and 1975. This story is one of my favourites, set less than ten years after the - [Maternal matrimonials](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/maternal-matrimonials/) - It was a rather special wedding on Saturday. We all headed over to the pretty old Norman church down the road, where Christian and I proceeded to walk our mother down the aisle. Later in the service, as Christian went up to sign the marriage register as a witness, the bride couldn't resist hissing in - [2016 updates to the Norwegian pilgrim trail guide](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/2016-updates-to-the-norwegian-pilgrim-trail-guide/) - Around this time last year, Dave and I put together a short PDF guide to the St Olav pilgrim trails in Norway. Since I posted it, a full English-language print guidebook has been released (available from pilgrim centres within Norway, and via Amazon), but our little guide is still getting a lot of downloads, so - [Mead fit for a king](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/mead-fit-for-a-king/) - 'Turbulent old time, the 17th century. It was the age of characters like Cardinal Richelieu and the Duke of Buckingham; of Oliver Cromwell, Galileo and Guy Fawkes; of civil war, regicide and plague; where a volcanic compound of science, magic, politics and religion theatened to shatter the crucible of the Old World. And never far - [A spot of time travel](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-spot-of-time-travel/) - It's a few years now since I first accidentally stumbled upon the North Yorkshire Moors Railway's Wartime Weekend. Since then it's become rather a fixture in the calendar. Thomas and Yumina have come up for the last three years, and this time Richard and Claire and my Whitby mate Simon joined us too. Handily, my - [Cleaning up a Chillington ARPAX](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/cleaning-up-a-chillington-arpax/) - Yesterday, while rooting through an old chest in pursuit of lightbulbs, I unearthed a WW2 fireman's hatchet. It's a Chillington ARPAX, and as axes go, it's a bit of an oddity. The whole thing is made of one big lump of steel (including the shaft), and the handle is encased in thick black rubber, one - [The Cambrian Way](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-cambrian-way/) - ‘If you make it to Conwy,’ promised a kindly publican with a tattoo of an Uzi submachine gun on her upper arm, ‘come back here and there'll be a pint for you on the bar.’ The Cambrian Way is known as ‘the mountain connoisseur’s walk’. It’s around 300 miles long and takes about three weeks, - [The Pennine Way](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-pennine-way/) - The reason we had trouble finding the entrance to our campsite was because you had to go through a working scrapyard. As you emerged from the piles of crumpled Mondeos and rotting Land Cruisers with puddled tyres, the first caravan you saw was perched at a jaunty angle on top of a spoil heap, like - [Witch-wood at Fryup Head](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/witch-wood-at-fryup-head/) - The other day, while trying out a moorland walking route for TGO magazine, I found myself rounding the relatively remote dale end called Fryup Head, about four miles south of Danby village as the crow flies. It's a fine spot - sparse, open moorland with the remnants of old mine workings pocking the heather on - [Canon Atkinson's Yorkshire lexicon](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/canon-atkinsons-yorkshire-lexicon/) - In 1847, When Essex-born John Christopher Atkinson put it about that he'd been asked to become vicar of the remote North Yorkshire village of Danby, one wag declared: 'Why, Danby was not found out when they sent Bonaparte to St Helena; or else they never would have taken the trouble to send him all the - [The cliff route to Robin Hood's Bay](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-cliff-route-to-robin-hoods-bay/) - The sun has been venturing out lately, and so have I. Yesterday, after working late into the previous night, I crawled out of bed to discover the sun rising into a beautiful clear sky. I sacked off work for the day, laced up the walking boots and bounced out of the front door with a - [Century-old life advice](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/century-old-life-advice/) - I came across an interesting object while I was ferreting through a box of memorabilia just now. It's a letter, sent exactly 99 years ago, by my great-grandfather to his only son, who was at boarding school in the south. My great-grandfather, John Henry 'Harry' Braime was the JH in TF & JH Braime Steel - [No place like home](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/no-place-like-home/) - I’ve fluked some grand assignments in my time, but there’s nothing quite like writing about home. I moved up to North Yorkshire full-time three and a half years ago, but I’ve been coming here regularly my whole life. In fact, my parents bought the cottage I now live in a few years before I was - [Hidden wartime remains and the language of wild beauty](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/hidden-wartime-remains-and-the-language-of-wild-beauty/) - The latest issue of Ernest Journal hit doormats last week, including quite a few bits and bobs by me. Along with quite a few smaller items, I've got a couple of longer articles in there. The first is on the hidden wartime remains that litter this island fortress of ours, from nuclear bunkers and tunnel - [Some cartoons of 2020](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/some-cartoons-of-2020/) - In a year where I did very little of interest, I did draw quite a lot of cartoons in 2020. I suppose I find it quite soothing. Apart from the relaxing nature of focusing on something frivolous, cartooning can sometimes be a way to trivialise things that annoy you and redirect your irritation into humour. - [The next big adventure](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-next-big-adventure/) - I've been keeping it reasonably quiet during the planning stages, but yesterday my name appeared on the official website for people attempting the Green Ribbon 2015, and it is all suddenly beginning to feel very real. The Green Ribbon, (or Gröna bandet) is a fairly new, long-distance hiking challenge, covering around a thousand miles through - [Snow, snow, go away](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/snow-snow-go-away/) - Just a quick update for those interested in the progress of my summer adventure. I was planning to start my Green Ribbon attempt this week, but unfortunately I'm going to have to delay getting my boots on the trail for the time being. After an unseasonably cold spring in northern parts, I've been advised that - [A birthday brew](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-birthday-brew/) - The other week, my brother turned thirty, and he celebrated with a street party outside his end-of-terrace house in Hebden Bridge. It was a grand old occasion, with family and friends travelling from far and wide, and a warm crowd of neighbours out boozing and barbecuing in the sunshine. The only one openly displeased with - [Ready, set...](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/ready-set/) - My bag is packed, unpacked, repacked. My route is planned, checked, rechecked. One of my fellow 'Green Bandits' (blog here, in Swedish) very kindly let me know a couple of days ago that he'd spoken to the wardens at Grövelsjön and the trails were nearly passable, so I've decided the time has come. Tomorrow I'll - [Tonight, Stockholm...](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/tonight-stockholm/) - Tomorrow evening, hopefully, I'll arrive at Grövelsjön mountain station, and if the conditions are decent enough then the following day, on Midsummer's Eve, I'll start the long walk north. In all likelihood, there will be a bit of radio silence for the next couple of weeks (I'll be trying to keep the phone in juice - [Helags](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/helags/) - A quick update from Helags mountain station, where I am just finishing an unexpected lunch of waffles with hot coffee. Proof, if any were needed, that trekking isn't all toil and hardship. It's my seventh day today, and I'm a little over 130km along the trail north, high in the mountains. Progress has been a - [Åre, and first leg down](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/first-leg-down/) - I've reached my first resupply stop, at a smart town called Åre, in Jämtland. I'm scrubbed clean, boots swapped for flip-flops, sitting in the sunshine with a milkshake. The hard life strikes again. It's been an eventful few days since I last posted. From the modern STF outpost on the flanks of Helags, my trail - [The long road through Jämtland](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-long-road-through-jamtland/) - I'm currently sitting, blissfully clean, fed and warm, looking out at the rain from a cabin at Gäddede Camping, in Northern Jämtland. The second leg of my journey is complete. It's fair to say there have been some tough days getting through Jämtland, physically but also perhaps psychologically. Together with my indefatigable trail companion, Gustav, - [Another mountain birthday](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/another-mountain-birthday/) - Yesterday I turned thirty-two, and I couldn't have asked for much more from a birthday. We had a day of classic mountain walking, on wide, well-marked trails, with clear skies. At the end of it we dropped down into Klimpfjäll, where a warm bed, a delicious reindeer pizza and several beers awaited. Along with a - [Man down](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/man-down/) - Yesterday was a truly calamitous day. It rained steadily from mid-morning as we descended through increasingly marshy terrain, then just 20 metres from the road at Gransjö, Gustav slipped and fell on a slimy plank of rotten duckboarding. And he broke his arm. Things could have been worse, I suppose. When he's not lugging a - [Hemavan](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/hemavan/) - I've reached Hemavan, beginning of the Kungsleden and the end of stage three. It's been a stretch of real highs and lows. Among the highlights was my wonderful birthday in Klimpfjäll, while the low point was undoubtedly Gustav's accident, both of which I've written fuller blogs about previously. Casting my mind back ten days or - [Ammarnäs, and time for some ruthless pack whittling](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/ammarnas-and-time-for-some-ruthless-pack-whittling/) - A quick update from the comfort of Ammarnäs hostel, where I spent last night sheltering from an electrical storm. Rarely have I been so pleased by a decision to take the valley path rather than the mountain one in order to shave 5km or so off my day. Progress on the Kungsleden is decent enough - [Kvikkjokk](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/kvikkjokk/) - I've passed 1000km. Quite a milestone, in its way, though of course there is a lot further to go. Just a quick update from Kvikkjokk STF station, where I decided to have a night indoors to recharge and dry out. It's been a rough stretch in some ways. The passage between Ammarnäs and Kvikkjokk is - [Vakkotavare](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/vakkotavare/) - After struggling just a little (mainly with my morale) on the previous leg from Jäkkvik, the stretch of path between Kvikkjokk and Saltoluokta has been an absolute treat. It's like a giant assault course - you wind through a flooded wood, clamber over a mountainside, cross a lake, then more or less repeat two or - [Abisko](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/abisko/) - After sixteen days walking the Kungsleden, I've reached the flash turiststation at Abisko, and I find myself in contemplative mood. This final part of the Kungsleden was everything I was promised. Wide, easy trails, loads of people from all over the world (last night I was invited, filthy and heavily bearded as I was, to - [Nordkalotten](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/nordkalotten/) - Let it be said, the Nordkalotten trail as it cuts up through Norway is an absolute joy for hikers. It's fairly demanding at times, with a lot of ascent through high mountain passes, a good dose of rocky terrain and some harder-than-average river crossings, but it's genuinely exciting walking. There's never a dull moment, and - [Treriksröset](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/treriksroset/) - So here I am. The border cairn at Treriksröset, my finish line at the Finnish line. Fifty-six days and 1391km on the trail, and my Green Ribbon is over. It's been the most wonderful adventure, and while I'm elated to have made it, I'm rather sad that it's done. This morning, as if to give - [Returning from my Green Ribbon, and a bit of hindsight](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/returning-from-my-green-ribbon-and-a-bit-of-hindsight/) - I’m finally back at my cottage, conspicuous from afar in our well-kept village on account of its wild, untrimmed hedges and a little front garden so overgrown that you can barely see the door. Across the road, my old Volvo starts up but then disappointingly refuses to move anywhere. The grass reaches halfway up the - [The big expedition gear review: sleeping, carrying and cooking](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-big-expedition-gear-review-sleeping-carrying-and-cooking/) - Over the past couple of years I seem to have spent a fair amount of time and money on outdoor gear, and I’ve been thinking that it might be worth reviewing the stuff I took with me on my Green Ribbon this summer. On an extended trip you have to live with your kit decisions - [Three favourite coffee table books](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/three-favourite-coffee-table-books/) - I know coffee table books are mainly supposed to be decorative objects that make you look clever when people come round, but I happen to disagree. Coffee table books are to entertain you while you sit for a few quiet minutes taking a break. For those times when you don't have the focus for a - [The big expedition gear review: clothing](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-big-expedition-gear-review-clothing/) - A couple of weeks ago, I started an extended review of the gear I took on my Green Ribbon this summer. The first instalment was on sleeping, carrying and cooking, and today I'm continuing with clothing. Next-up will be a mop-up of navigation and miscellaneous kit. [Clearly, the reason I have not mentioned my pants - [The big expedition gear review: navigation and miscellaneous kit](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-big-expedition-gear-review-navigation-and-miscellaneous-kit/) - Behold, the third and final part of my massive gear review, following this summer's Green Ribbon. Parts one and two concerned sleeping and eating and clothing, and now I'm finishing with navigation, plus all those extra little oddments which didn't fit in anywhere else. As ever, I'm always keen to hear your thoughts on my - [The Sherlock Holmes Book](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-sherlock-holmes-book/) - Sometimes the perfect job falls into your lap. As a 13 year-old picking my GCSE options, I quite fancied taking chemistry. Until further consideration revealed that I was abysmal at the subject, and always had been, despite the concerted efforts of my teachers. On closer analysis, I realised the entire reason I aspired to study - [Wild camping in Kielder Forest](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/wild-camping-in-kielder-forest/) - IMPORTANT: AS OF JULY 2020 THERE IS NO WILD CAMPING ALLOWED IN KIELDER FOREST. It's such a shame that it's come to this, especially since Kielder has always been so welcoming to backpackers, but sadly there's not much else they can do when they have to deal with stuff like this. I was there just - [Wedding rings and rotor blades](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/wedding-rings-and-rotor-blades/) - Last weekend, my fine friends T and Y were married. They are almost the only people I've ever met who have managed to make a long-term, long-distance relationship work, and somehow they seem to deserve their happiness all the more richly for having worked so much harder than most to get it. T called me - [Brewing wild hop beer](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/brewing-wild-hop-beer/) - I've written before about the annual Glebe Cottage hop harvest, and I thought it might be fun to post my latest method for dealing with such a glut of pungent little flowers. I speak, of course, of making wild hop beer. A word on home brewing Brewing great beer is a complicated art, and one - [Jeanie the hag](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/hunting-for-jeanie-the-fairy-of-mulgrave/) - It's rather wonderful to discover something new about somewhere you thought you knew back to front. Less than a ten-minute walk from my cottage, Mulgrave Woods is an enchanting place - a 2000-acre ancient woodland with a ruined castle perched high on a hilltop in the middle. Part of the Marquess of Normanby's estate, it's - [A mission to Bavaria](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-mission-to-bavaria/) - Considering much of my existence is spent hunched over a computer in the front bedroom of a North Yorkshire cottage, life has been rather exciting lately. Last week I was in the Swiss Alps near Verbier, wobbling erratically down the blue runs while my ski instructor girlfriend heckled me encouragingly with shouts of 'you look - [My Green Ribbon 2015 video](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/my-green-ribbon-2015-video/) - I finally got round to stitching together the GoPro footage of my two-month hike through the Swedish mountains in summer 2015. The Green Ribbon (or 'Gröna Bandet') is a long-distance challenge where you walk the length of the Scandinavian mountain range, travelling in either direction between Grövelsjön in the south and Treriksröset in the north. - [Jotunheimen jaunting](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/jotunheimen-jaunting/) - It's becoming apparent that I am something of a Jonah when it comes to mountain trips. For the second summer in a row, my hiking companion has brought home a broken bone as a souvenir. Admittedly my brother's paggered hand this time round was not nearly as catastrophic as Gustav's arm last year, and you - [Hardangervidda](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/hardangervidda/) - To my shame, it's over a month since my brother and I slithered down off Hardangervidda, in south-central Norway, and I'm only just getting down to writing about it. Our four-day walk was a sort of warm-down after a week crossing Jotunheimen (which I've blogged about elsewhere), and Hardangervidda provided a fine counterpoint to its - [Snowshoeing in Tromsø](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/snowshoeing-in-tromso/) - The last time I went winter walking in the mountains above Tromsø, I lost both my map and myself in the snow. It was 2009, and I’d left my editorial job in London and swanned off to the Norwegian Arctic in search of adventures, green as green can be. A few days doing a mountain - [A bit of winter walking in Füssen](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-bit-of-winter-walking-in-fussen/) - This time last week I was beginning my journey home from a snowy week spent winter walking in Bavaria. I was actually on a press gig for walk magazine, and though the full feature will show up sometime in the autumn, I'm tempted to bob up a few brief thoughts about the experience in the meantime. - [Nelly Ayre Foss](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/nelly-ayre-foss/) - A few weeks ago, while I was catting around on the internet for information about Biggersdale Hole, I came across a mention of a waterfall near Goathland called Nelly Ayre Foss. A former spa village, Goathland is perennially popular thanks to its alter ego as Aidensfield in blue-rinse classic, Heartbeat, and its railway station's cameo - [Blencathra, and some thoughts on fells](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/blencathra-and-some-thoughts-on-fells/) - Last week my brother and I conducted a quick raid on the Lake District. Our window of opportunity was short (only one full day), but the north eastern area of the Lakes is actually pretty accessible from the east coast. Once you've put Scotch Corner in your mirrors, it's a joyful leap across the expansive - [Trappers and the quiet ways](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/trappers-and-the-quiet-ways/) - The other day, taking advantage of a pocket of sunshine and a light workload, I went out for a bit of an explore. I recently got hold of the Harvey Mountain Map for the North York Moors, and it's got some paths on it that the OS map doesn't, so I fancied investigating. In particular, - [Mend Our Mountains campaign extended](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/mend-our-mountains-campaign-extended/) - I noticed lately that the British Mountaineering Council's 'Mend Our Mountains' crowdfunding campaign has been extended. It's a nice idea to help fund repairs to our hill paths, many of which are in a bit of a bad way. Various gear and outdoor companies, national parks and even celebrities have given prizes that you can - [A return to Kielder](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-return-to-kielder/) - IMPORTANT: AS OF JULY 2020 THERE IS NO WILD CAMPING ALLOWED IN KIELDER FOREST. It's such a shame that it's come to this, especially since Kielder has always been so welcoming to backpackers, but sadly there's not much else they can do when they have to deal with stuff like this. I was there just - [Home, James](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/home-james/) - [Buffering](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/buffering/) - [A million monkeys](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-million-monkeys/) - [All I want for Christmas](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/all-i-want-for-christmas/) - I've been scribbling Christmas card designs recently, just for fun. I'm not mature or organised enough to actually send any out, but if I did, I think I would probably send this one. - [Upcoming articles in Ernest journal](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/upcoming-articles-in-ernest-journal/) - It's been a quiet time on the blog recently. Partly it's because work has picked up a bit, so some of the stuff I might have blogged about has found its way into print articles. Outdoorsy sorts might have spotted me in the winter and spring issues of walk, the magazine of the Ramblers, and - [A quick jaunt up to Weardale](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-quick-jaunt-up-to-weardale/) - Among the ever-expanding collection of schemes scrawled into my notebook in the past year, one was to become better acquainted with the North Pennines. It's an area that's intrigued me for a while - on the few occasions when I've driven through it, I've been impressed by its size, ruggedness and emptiness, yet the far - [Sunset raids on the North Sea](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/sunset-raids-on-the-north-sea/) - It's been an unusual summer. Apart from a couple of wonderful weeks tramping the Pennine Way with the brother and the dog (more of that to come), I seem to have been shackled to my desk for most of it. This is in stark contrast to the past few summers where work seems to have - [Destination: Dolomites](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/destination-dolomites/) - A few months back I was lucky enough to be thrown a last-minute gig by Matt at walk magazine, writing about a week-long walking holiday in the Italian Dolomites. It was a pretty busy time with work, and I only had about four days' notice, but funnily enough I managed to make the trip. Can't - [The Zillertal Alps with Peter Habeler](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-zillertal-alps-with-peter-habeler/) - The Ramblers always give me the best jobs. First there was Bavaria, then the Dolomites, then Matt, the editor, got in touch asking if I might fancy going to the Zillertal Alps for a spot of walking with mountaineering legend, Peter Habeler. As usual, I had to think long and hard. If you're not familiar - [Faces from the past](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/faces-from-the-past/) - When I moved north, most of the stuff from my London flat went into a lockup in Scarborough. It was a temporary measure to begin with, but life developments since have made it a more permanent state of affairs, and I rather enjoy the ability to live an uncluttered life without actually scrapping all my - [Field guns in the Kremlin](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/field-guns-in-the-kremlin/) - The other week, I took a little jaunt over to see my old mate P and his family in Moscow. I've been promising to visit him since he first moved there around a decade ago, but you know how life can pass you by. Anyway, it was high time. Among the many pleasant things about - [Midsummer on the beach](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/midsummer-on-the-beach/) - I may have mentioned once or twice how much I love living in this inconvenient corner of North Yorkshire. However, there are some points in the year when it's especially wonderful. Despite being on the east coast of England, Whitby actually faces north, which means that in the very highest days of summer, the sun - [A trip to Japan](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-trip-to-japan/) - Last Friday, as most of the world was going about its more important business, I was sat in a restaurant on the outskirts of Kyoto eating candied crickets, bee larvae and bear meat stew. I've just got back from a couple of weeks visiting my old mate C, who moved to Japan in 2011. I've - [The intricacies of bee etiquette](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-intricacies-of-bee-etiquette/) - Fine news. Another edition of Ernest Journal is out. Featuring lots of grand stuff including pieces on Romanian bison, cocktail bitters, American shanty boats, death trees and paranoid French castaways. Also, there's a bit from me about bees. It struck me a while back that not only does the humble honey bee seem to have - [Adventures in hatting](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/adventures-in-hatting/) - How quickly hobbies get out of hand. I wrote in a previous blog about how a habit of cleaning and maintaining my rather extensive hat collection had led to an experiment in restoring a battered old 1950s trilby. But things have gone a bit further since then. Having renovated an old hat, I thought it - [The inaugural Oak Royd Beer Festival](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-inaugural-oak-royd-beer-festival/) - One of life's great pleasures is actually doing a thing that you've been talking about for years. In the case of last weekend, it was holding a charity beer festival at my brother's rambling old end-of-terrace in Hebden Bridge. What was unusual about this particular beer festival was that I made all the beer myself - [Torching the moor](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/torching-the-moor/) - They were burning the heather up on Danby Rigg when we walked by the other day. It's odd to think that something which appears such a wild and primal environment is in fact artificially created with a great deal of effort, all so that a small, slightly comical bird can flourish and then be shot - [A peek into the secret gardens](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-peek-into-the-secret-gardens/) - [Edit, Dec 2019 - Since I wrote this half a decade ago, the estate has updated its website, and there's now a nice article about the gardens by Lady Normanby, complete with some lovely aerial shots.] The village I'm living in is an old-fashioned sort of a place. There's a castle just on the outskirts - [The Easter reset](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-easter-reset/) - A while ago, I was reading a fun article by Jeremy Anderberg on temporal landmarks, the basic idea being that there are ‘certain dates that naturally inspire us to turn over a new leaf’. Birthdays, for example, or New Year, or even just the beginning of the month. For the teachers I know, new terms, - [Roaming in Newtondale](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-newtondale-ramble/) - Yesterday I gave in to my itching feet and set out for a stroll on the moors. The initial object of my walk was to track down a fine-looking swimming spot which Christian and I glimpsed from the window of a North York Moors Railway train last summer, and though I failed completely in this - [Adders and lonely places](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/snakes-and-abandoned-places/) - Much as it's always exciting to go where the path doesn't, it can also be bloody hard work. As you struggle through thick, chest-high bracken, sticky ropes of goosegrass tangle round your legs and waist, brambles tear at your exposed forearms, and your boots disappear suddenly into hidden gullies and old rabbit holes. Finally you - [Simon Howe](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/simon-howe/) - I have a new second-favourite viewpoint on the North York Moors. My favourite is still Danby Beacon (which has become a sort of place of pilgrimage any time I'm in the general vicinity), but soaring to the number two spot is the glorious 360-degree panorama from the bronze age stone circle at Simon Howe. It's - [Blakey Topping. And fog.](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/blakey-topping-and-fog/) - The other week, as I stood atop Simon Howe on a clear, sunny morning, I looked across at the distinct hump of Blakey Topping in the distance and thought 'that will be my next target'. Somehow this translated into a moderately uncomfortable misadventure in thick fog and drizzle last Saturday, but the most enjoyable escapades - [In search of pubs and the picturesque](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/in-search-of-pubs-and-the-picturesque/) - My most recent moorland walk was a fact-finding mission. I've realised two things lately: 1. Though I spend a great deal of time roaming around on the moors and in the woods, I rarely venture down into the valleys, where the villages are. 2. If I want to tempt my compadres from more southern parts - [Not-so-logical Levisham](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/not-so-logical-levisham/) - There are few tests of clutch control quite like coming up against a hefty and stubbornly immoveable highland cow as you're climbing a 1-in-5 slope. But then the Victorian villagers of Levisham, up on the North York Moors, might have told me to count my blessings that I lived in the age of the automobile - [Walking trousers to fit the season](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/walking-trousers-to-fit-the-season/) - Hiking is all about being adaptable. Gear does not make the man, but it helps make the man more comfortable. Most people can only justify the expense of one pair of hiking trousers, but after some years, I've come to the conclusion that if you spend a lot of time outdoors, it's worth having three. - [Contributor to The Great Outdoors](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/contributor-to-the-great-outdoors/) - Could anything be more pleasing than getting paid to go on strolls and write about them? Or to work for magazines that you read anyway? The Great Outdoors very kindly agreed to let me write a few North York Moors walks for them, and the first one appeared in the November issue, which hit my - [Lost: one grey parrot](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/lost-one-grey-parrot/) - I think it is probably unlikely that I will ever spend another May Bank Holiday Monday afternoon searching suburbia for an escaped parrot. The weekend was a diverting mix of camaraderie and farce, and highlights involved: A manly version of A Really Good Night In, which is a charity thing (mainly marketed at ladies in - [Moonshiners](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/moonshiners/) - Ever since I discovered, aged 18, that one could produce forty pints of beer for the princely sum of £8, I’ve always had a place in my heart for home brewing. I began with brew kits from a little shop in Kirkstall, and experimented with ginger beer (one batch of which developed a lovely sparkle - [A brace of birds](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-brace-of-birds/) - Pheasant shooting finished at the beginning of February, and with the closing weeks of the season came a frenzy of activity across North Yorkshire, as fieldsports enthusiasts took every opportunity to blast as many of the buggers out of the sky as possible. Chatting to a neighbour one morning, I asked him whether he was - [Last of the season](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/last-of-the-season/) - Whenever I see the bilberry mentioned online or in books, it often seems to be preceded by the word 'humble'. The humble bilberry. And I can never work out why, because surely something which isn't generally commercially available, which likes to grow in inaccessible places, which has a famously short season and is terribly laborious - [Hibernation time](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/hibernation-time/) - This is possibly my least favourite day of the year. It goes against all natural instincts to starve your pet for a fortnight then stick him in a Chinese takeaway box in the fridge for six weeks. But I am assured it must be done. My pamphlet on tortoise care states sternly that 'you cannot - [Biblical times in the north](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/biblical-times-in-the-north/) - It's been a dramatic few weeks in meteorological terms. Only last Monday evening, we had such a downpour in Whitby that all routes into town were cut off, and the local part-time fire brigade (of which I very nearly became a member, until I failed at the last hurdle on account of my eyesight) spent - [How to make a penknife pouch belt](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/how-to-make-a-penknife-pouch-belt/) - Last week, while I was flicking through Håkan Ludwigson's photography book Balls and Bulldust, trying to decide on a favourite picture for my coffee table books blog, I noticed that a lot of the stockmen in his pictures wore belts customised with an integral pouch for their pocket knife. Speaking as a fellow who usually - [Kes](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/kes/) - I have a feeling last week's Indian summer might be over. This morning I found darkness had encroached on my regular breakfast time, and my stroll into town was a murky one. The mist-blanketed beach was strewn with wrack, and largely deserted save the odd damp Labrador and gangs of shifty herring gulls, those rotten - [Five comfort drinks](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/five-comfort-drinks/) - It's a shame that a lot of people only ever tip back cocktails in specialist bars, because some mixed drinks are at their best in your own home, sipped sunk into an armchair by the fire after a long day. Admittedly they're possibly not the most fashionable or avant-garde ones, but I like to think - [A day at the races](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-day-at-the-races/) - I spent Saturday watching some of the Gold Cup at Oliver's Mount. It's a motorcycle road racing track on the hill overlooking Scarborough, and for a good value day out in this part of the world I can highly recommend it. It was the first time I'd been, but even for a fellow not hopelessly - [Fifty Shades more](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/fifty-shades-more/) - The fortnight I spent doggedly chipping away at Fifty Shades of Grey may well have been a joyless period of my life, but it has turned out to be unexpectedly profitable. You never know when a bit of 'specialist' knowledge might come in handy. Behold, I have even found my way into Time Out. - [Keeping the weather off](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/keeping-the-weather-off/) - Can something be a series if there are only two of them? Can you be continuing a series if there was only one before? A few weeks ago I said I'd start writing the odd outdoorsy gear review, so this time I'm going to talk about waterproof jackets. As with boots (see this previous post), - [An adventure](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/an-adventure/) - Svalbard may well be the most beautiful place that I’ve ever been to. It is also probably the toughest, and the storm that hit in the early morning of our penultimate day camping on the south of the island kicked off a mean old struggle that only ended when we were pulled out by a - [Four things to do with wild garlic](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/four-things-to-do-with-wild-garlic/) - Wild garlic season is knocking on, but there's still plenty of it about, and it must rank among the most easy to distinguish of all wild plants. The swathes of wide green leaves and white flowers that cover woodland banks are distinctive enough, but if in doubt, you just have to rub it in your - [Steve McQueen in Stafford](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/steve-mcqueen-in-stafford/) - On Saturday I went to the Classic Motorcycle Show near Stafford, and it was a regular treat. Of course there were countless beautiful machines, from the very early examples which appeared little more than Hovis bikes with motors bolted on, right through to relatively modern (and comparatively ugly) beasts like Chris Eubank's personal Honda Fireblade, - [Not-so-noble experiments](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/not-so-noble-experiments/) - Apologies for my extended radio silence. The past month, for some reason, has been one of the busiest of my freelance career, with some fairly exciting jobs falling into my lap. Once again I have discovered that hard work is no substitute for good luck, but that each can sometimes beget the other. The downside - [Over the other side](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/over-the-other-side/) - If it seems like I might have disappeared off to the other side of the world for a while, it's because I did. I've just returned from three and a half weeks visiting E in New Zealand, roaming around the handsome south island in a scruffy yet commodious old camper van called Flamer. I'll write - [Why people with nut allergies should avoid British Airways](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/why-people-with-nut-allergies-should-avoid-british-airways/) - I've written before about the occasional trials of living with a nut allergy, and how it's generally not all that bad. That was until I found myself flying long haul with British Airways. Between their vastly unhelpful customer service, their insane menu planning (who thinks it's a good idea to actively include nuts in both - [Hot buttered rum](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/hot-buttered-rum/) - That uncommonly balmy December has given way to a frosty new year. In our little cottage by the sea, E and I have had the fire roaring from 4pm pretty much every day lately, and my pet tortoise, Stanley, is permanently stretched out under his heat lamp. Thing is though, I love the winter. It - [Five ways to drink gin](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/five-ways-to-drink-gin/) - Gin is such a gloriously versatile poison that it's difficult whittling my top choices down to five. I've even had to bump two of my favourites (the gin & mixed and the journalist) to another upcoming post. In the meantime, here are five different ways to enjoy your juniper juice. 1. Like a hard-nut - - [Carnivorous morsels](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/carnivorous-morsels/) - It’s odd that the feeling of ignorance you get from visiting the Pig and Butcher on Liverpool Road should be so enjoyable. Seven and a bit years ago now, in the days when I wrote and edited for Itchy, what is now the Pig and Butcher was called the Islington Tap, and it was directly - [A weekend tramping in Norfolk](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-weekend-tramping-in-norfolk/) - I've been meaning to post properly about this for a while, but a few weeks ago, I went with my old schoolmates D and T for a weekend walking the Norfolk Coast Path. Pancake-flat, semi-aquatic coastal Norfolk is a rather alien landscape anyway to three blokes from Yorkshire, but more than that, we encountered it - [The motivational lessons of James Bond novels](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-wisdom-of-fleming/) - There's a tendency to underrate the perceptive capacities of thriller writers. You get so bound up in the pace and action of a plot that observations that would give you pause for thought in a more pedestrian work are left for dust. I've always thought Ian Fleming's insight into human character to be especially fine, - [Harvest time at the oast cottage](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/harvest-time-at-the-oast-cottage/) - It's that time of year again. The fields are reduced to stubble, the apple trees in some parts of the country are already picked clean (hello, climate change), schoolchildren are collecting tinned goods to send to Africa, and in a garden in suburban Leeds, my hop vine is laden with ripe, pale green flowers. On - [Baking spent grain bread](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/baking-spent-grain-bread/) - I'm a bit uncomfortable about waste. Not particularly on account of economic necessity, but because when I think about all the time and effort that's gone into growing something, manufacturing it, or even raising and killing it, some instinct rebels at just throwing it away if it can still be useful. There are limits, of - [Hawthorn sauce](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/hawthorn-sauce/) - The valley between Goathland and Grosmont is a prime foraging ground. In the spring it's an excellent place to find wild garlic, and lately it's been rich in sloes, haws, rosehips and even wildling apples. My excursion of a few weeks ago (adapted a little due to the Wartime Weekend) was mainly in search of - [Make your mind up](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/make-your-mind-up/) - [My favourite posts of 2014](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/my-favourite-posts-of-2014/) - A lot of things happened in 2014, which seems a bit contradictory when I consider that I didn't feel all that busy - rather the opposite, in fact. For much of the year I had more time on my hands than I have done for years. There's probably a lesson to be learned in there - [To me, to you](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/to-me-to-you/) - A former colleague of mine (and all-round splendid bloke) was leaving his job for a new life in Glasgow the other day, and someone asked if I wanted to scribble a picture for the little book they were putting together as a leaving present. It's a bit complicated to explain the joke, so I won't - [Springs and neaps](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/springs-and-neaps/) - Sandsend, the village at the bottom of the hill, has the best high tides. The grey North Sea boils and booms, pounding against the sea wall and somersaulting back into itself with a deep, wet thump. Jets of spray fountain up the wall and flick high into the air, raining down on any vehicles whose - [Sea mist](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/sea-mist/) - Of course it's lovely when the sun shines, but I also have a soft spot for those days on the east coast when a sea fret rolls damply in off the North Sea, blanketing the villages in a thick, soft mist. Not that I'd fancy sailing in it (or even driving in it, for that - [Miles per gallon](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/miles-per-gallon/) - ‘Trouble with taking this car out,’ declared a large man with a strong West Yorkshire accent, ‘is that it’s an hour on the road and two hours to clean.’ I have never before participated in a classic car rally. However, sometime in the mid 1970s my father bought a brand new maroon MGB GT V8, - [A Pullman to Pickering](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-pullman-to-pickering/) - Train travel is a perpetual disappointment to me. No reader currently resident in Great Britain will need me to expand upon this statement, but I always think it’s a shame that something with the potential to be so comfortable and classy has been transformed into an experience that at best represents terrible value for money, - [And so it begins](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/and-so-it-begins/) - After seven and a half years, ten housemates and a lot of good times, I've finally moved out of my London flat. There are wider life schemes afoot, but I'm beginning by walking St Olav's Way, the old Norwegian pilgrim trail from Oslo to Trondheim. It's around four hundred miles, so should take me about - [Five days along the pilgrim road to Trondheim](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/five-days-on-the-pilgrim-road-to-trondheim/) - After five days on the long trail out of Oslo, and four nights skulking in my tent in the woods, it's finally time for a little comfort. Life in the tent is actually reasonably pleasant, but nothing ever seems to dry, and after a couple of days of rainstorms I needed to get a lot - [Coffee and stories in the old cottage](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/coffee-and-stories-in-the-old-cottage/) - A long hike brings out the pessimist or optimist in you. Either the weather is always wrong, or it could always be worse. This afternoon I was walking a long uphill stretch of asphalt about half an hour short of Granavollen. The sun was beating down, which wasn't making it any easier, but at least - [In praise of water and graveyards](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/in-praise-of-water-and-graveyards/) - Lately I've been enjoying two things a great deal. Churches and swims. I know pilgrims are supposed to stop at churches, but for my first week I didn't really bother. Then one afternoon I was tramping along with my trail buddy Dave from Michigan, when a priest in a sharp black suit and tie pulled - [On the eve of another year](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/on-the-eve-of-another-year/) - Tomorrow I will be 31 years old. And not a bad way to spend it, all things considered. After ten days on the trail and roughly a third of the journey from Oslo to Trondheim behind me, I've reached the Olympic city of Lillehammer. Sometime tomorrow afternoon, my old mate Dave Tett will hop off - [Visit Lythe](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/visit-lythe/) - The other day at Ormesby Hall there were loads of vintage travel posters pinned up on the walls in the old servants' quarters at the top of the building. I always love these. They're relics of an age where travel was a luxury, and when even the process of getting to your destination was something - [Lookout shack paradiso](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/hilltop-shack-paradiso/) - After a rest day and some extortionate beer in Lillehammer, the two Daves and I have been continuing to trudge north towards Trondheim. Along the way, among other things, we've camped in haunting, hazy spruce forest, crossed bridges half wrecked by flood waters, washed our feet at a derelict outdoor theatre by a thundering waterfall, - [The abandoned holiday park](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-abandoned-holiday-park/) - The man at reception was cheerful if a little hesitant, followed everywhere by three wide-eyed, silent little blonde girls who kept getting under his feet like over-faithful spaniels. Truth be told, the motel was rather run-down, and almost completely empty, save for a couple of the cabins out at the back where a family and - [Upwards](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/upwards/) - Farmland and forests and fjords are all very beautiful in their different ways, but today we finally climbed above the treeline and onto the mountain plateau of Dovrefjell. At which point the views reached a whole new level, both literally and figuratively. There's plenty round here that's higher than us, but picking your way past - [Red sky at night](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/red-sky-at-night/) - Tonight we're enjoying a rare bit of shelter in a little hut at a campsite a few kilometres short of Oppdal. We've found some wonderful wild spots to pitch our tents across the mountain stretch, but as we dropped back into the valleys again, it seemed like a good time for a shower and a - [The waffles that weren’t on the map](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-waffles-that-werent-on-the-map/) - The unexpected is a constant on a jaunt like this, but rarely have we had such a welcome surprise as the one that turned up this afternoon. It's fair to say we were probably on a bit of a downer. We'd only just this morning bade farewell to Dave T, and after his two weeks - [Boots unlaced](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/taking-the-boots-off/) - It was around lunchtime on a hot, bright Saturday when we crossed the churchyard at Nidaros cathedral in Trondheim, threaded our way with difficulty through the crowds gathered under the imposing frontage for the penultimate day of St Olav’s festival, and finally caught sight of the last stone distance post. ‘0km til Nidaros.’ After over - [Some proper photos of St Olav’s Way](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/some-proper-photos-of-st-olavs-way/) - I mentioned that my old mate Dave Tett was walking part of the trail with me, but for those who don't know him, I forgot to mention that Dave is a professional photographer. He's put a couple of batches of really lovely images on his blog, so I thought it was worth pasting the links - [A friend in a storm](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-friend-in-a-storm/) - Every seasoned hiker knows that when the weather really starts coming on hard, you just have to pull your hood low over your eyes, get your head down and get on with it. It's a good job my pilgrim companion Dave B wasn't doing this earlier today though, or he'd have never noticed the burly - [Showtime](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/showtime/) - It's years since I went to a proper country show. Probably about fifteen or twenty years, actually, to the point where my memories are hazy at best. The other day, though, was Egton Show, one of the biggest in the area, and it was brilliant. It would be disingenuous of me to try and pass - [Magic plastic and tiny trains](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/magic-plastic-and-tiny-trains/) - Even as a small boy, I already possessed that coveted talisman of middle age known as the National Trust life membership card. My father being a Yorkshireman, and reasoning quite sensibly that if you're going to wring real value out of a life membership then you should get it at the beginning of your life - [Hard lines for Hoovers](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/hard-lines-for-hoovers/) - I was reassured to learn today that the EU is waging a brutal war on inefficient vacuum cleaners. Good to know they've got our back. - [Fifty shades of statistics](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/fifty-shades-of-statistics/) - Remarkable the things you find when you're moving house. A couple of years ago, I had a freelance job writing an ebook guide to Fifty Shades of Grey. Sort of like York notes, so people could get an idea of what it was all about without having to read it. Unfortunately, to spare others the - [Starting a new chapter](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/starting-a-new-chapter/) - The term 'a new life' should really only ever be used of babies, since whatever major adjustments you might make to your existence, you're still carting a whole lot of luggage and experience with you. Still, my own existence has changed quite a bit of late, and since I got back from my month of - [From the great man himself](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/from-the-great-man-himself/) - This month's cookstrip for the Get Active supplement of Scouting magazine is a little unusual. Partly because the editors gave me a full page for a change, and partly because they were mining the archives for a bit of a vintage issue. So instead of some modern piece of eccentric outdoor cuisine, dreamed up by - [Bum sandwich](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/bum-sandwich/) - Following the success of armpit fudge, Matt at The Scout Association threw me another recipe that sounded disgusting but was loads of fun to draw. The video is as pleasing as ever. If you like my recipe doodles, you can find them all handily collected under the cookstrips tag. - [‘A headshot every time!’](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-headshot-every-time/) - Last night, I went with three mates to an eclectic horror cinema event at the Institut Français in South Kensington. It comprised of a screening of the great yet underrated comedy series, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, a Q&A with a couple of the actors (including the creator, Matthew Holness, who also showed a recent short film), - [26.2](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/26-2/) - The other week I ran the London Marathon. It was pretty hard work. If I'm honest, my rather casual training regime (all three months of it) was probably not sufficient, and my decision to ignore any refuelling strategy (on the grounds that those sickly energy gels you're supposed to take tasted foul) was not a - [Fornells](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/fornells/) - Last week I was away on my annual windsurfing trip to Fornells Bay in Minorca. As far as my windsurfing goes, progress is certainly swifter in some quarters than others. I can take reasonably big winds these days, and notch up consistently decent straight line speeds, but I am as terrible as ever at racing - [Redbreast](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/redbreast/) - However hard I think I work sometimes, there's definitely one fellow who's working harder. This robin took up residence in the chaotic spill of ivy engulfing part of my garden fence, and at all hours of the day, little Wyclef (we had to give him a name, and it was that or Brutus) has been - [Danish dampers](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/danish-dampers/) - Another of my regular cookstrips for The Scout Association. I remember reading an interview with Len Deighton (who pioneered the cookstrip format) when he said that the main consideration with his drawings was fitting them into the gaps between the words. That was definitely the case with this one, and it was so text-heavy I - [Bluebells, tow trucks and Pooh Bear](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/bluebells-tow-trucks-and-pooh-bear/) - Step into the woods and you're almost bound to have an adventure. Mine and E's Saturday morning began sitting in our camp chairs in a gorgeous glade full of bluebells, eating decadent duck eggs poached in the remains of the previous evening's chilli, drinking steaming mugs of tea and contemplating E's stricken Mini. The unfortunate - [Ten ways to bring out your inner Bear](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/ten-ways-to-bring-out-your-inner-bear/) - I know I've been a little quiet lately. In preparation for an escape from London in the summer (more about that in a later post, perhaps), I've been taking on as much freelance work as I can, and what with marathon training as well, time for blogging has been a little tight. In the meantime, - [Employment and elevation](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/employment-and-elevation/) - Our lifts at work are a hundred shades of shite. There are supposed to be six of them, but this number is reduced to at most four, and frequently three. They serve a fifteen-floor tower block in Vauxhall, and on weekdays round nine o'clock the queue snakes across the lobby, through the doors and out - [Half way there](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/half-way-there/) - For a couple of months now I've been training in a haphazard sort of way for the London Marathon in April. I only got my place just before Christmas (I suspect another runner got knocked up or injured or something), and apart from this not being a great deal of time to work up to - [Dream a little dream](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/dream-a-little-dream/) - You can tell a lot about someone from their ambitions. As I was walking down to the Southwark Playhouse the other day (to see the excellent Superior Donuts), I passed a boarded-up shop front. Someone had washed it over with blackboard paint, then sprayed on it 'Before I die I want to...' The good people - [Time travel is real. I have proof](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/time-travel-is-real-i-have-proof/) - Is anyone else a massive fan of Retronaut? If you've never encountered it before, then they have a vast collection of fascinating historical images, which they present as 'capsules' from history. Their daily mail-out is the highlight of my afternoon. One of my favourite things on Retronaut is a photo of a 'time traveller'. You - [A putty and paperclip Valentine](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/putty-and-paperclip-valentine/) - It's unlikely that it will have passed you by, but it was Valentine's Day last Friday. For my part, there was little danger of forgetting the date, since I spent last week getting text and email reminders about it on roughly a twice-daily basis. Being the romantic devil I am, I normally draw a card, - [The life aquatic](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-life-aquatic/) - Clearly there are many people with much bigger problems, but as our biblical flooding continues, spare a thought for my little boat, Tom Thumb, which is having a traumatic winter in the sprawling lagoon that was once the lower Thames. Still, at least it floats, I suppose. - [Armpit fudge](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/armpit-fudge/) - Not an appetising name for something you might put in your mouth, but this was one of the most fun recipes the Scouts have ever sent me to illustrate. Once again, the animation is glorious, and rather puts my static version to shame. 'Yer in for a treat, like' - [The stuff dreams are made of](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-stuff-dreams-are-made-of/) - A side effect of entering the London Boat Show is that you immediately lose all concept of money. You are horrified by the decadence of the first £700,000 yacht you see, and swiftly come to regard a £250,000 speedboat as a bit of a bargain. I went fantasy boat shopping on Saturday, and spent a - [Tramping](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/tramping/) - I have not often declared out loud my love for an inanimate object. I have been lost on mountains plenty of times, but never alone, and never north of the Arctic Circle. So it was a day for firsts. And a day for learning lessons. The circumstances that led to my predicament were a mixture - [A stripy jumper and a bowler hat](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-stripy-jumper-and-a-bowler-hat/) - At work today, because it’s Friday, we had an email chain going round about our favourite children’s TV programmes. Just as an aside, when I was little, I used to think the telly was called ‘the news’, on account of my mum snatching the odd ten minutes and saying ‘I’ll just put the news on’. - [Highlights of the London Boat Show 2014](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/highlights-of-the-london-boat-show-2014/) - I spent my Saturday fantasy boat shopping at the London Boat Show. I have written and raved about it in previous years, but at each incarnation there is something new to catch the eye. This was also the first one I've been to since I bought my own little Drascombe Lugger last year, so it - [Before sunset](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/before-sunset/) - I was obliged to move desks last week. My new desk is about two thirds the size of my old one, but I don't mind at all. Because it is a window seat on the fourteenth floor of a tower block on the Thames, and the view looks like this. - [Inky catharsis](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/inky-catharsis/) - No doubt psychiatrists and medication have their place in life, but as an outlet for a whole range of mildly negative emotions (frustration and boredom being chief among them), I have found since my schooldays that a biro and a blank corner of paper are a most satisfactory form of therapy. For the past couple - [Apparatus for life](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/apparatus-for-life/) - Today, before taking my satchel into the cobblers for a few repairs, I emptied the contents out on my desk. Amazing the crap you haul around with you each day. - [Pick of 2013: books](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/pick-of-2013-books/) - I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions. Seems to me like setting yourself up for a fall. Having said that, I do keep a list in the front of my diary entitled ‘things to do’. Last year’s list contained thirteen items, and, while I got closer to some of them, I achieved only four. One - [Mexican bean soup](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/mexican-bean-soup/) - My offering for the latest issue of Scouting magazine was not altogether seasonal. As usual, the designers at the Scouts have done a beautiful job of animating it. - [Pumpkin head](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/pumpkin-head/) - If The Nightmare Before Christmas was real, and each festival in the calendar really did have its own little kingdom, then I would belong firmly in Bonfire Night Land. It is my family's big night of the year and I love it probably as much as I love Christmas, if not a teeny bit more. - [Wingshooters](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/wingshooters/) - I’ve never really been a ‘gear’ sort of person. Generally when it comes to outdoorsy apparatus I tend to get something decent then use it year after year until it’s worn out. Having said that, I’ve tried quite a variety of different stuff over the years, most of which has been fine, but some of - [Night lights](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/night-lights/) - The Northern Lights showed themselves conveniently on the first evening after we crossed the Arctic Circle. They were only dim, and, far from the fluorescent green sheets I was expecting, were more like sort of reverse clouds; patches of grey light drifting across the night sky between the mountains and the stars. Nevertheless, the passengers - [The Payload](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-payload/) - Smartly dressed from the ankles upwards, the staff at supper wore a mixture of sports sandals, trainers and heavy shoes with Velcro over the tops. It was rather charming the way that on the first evening or two they filled up the water glass opposite me. After that they removed the extra place and just - [Midnatsol](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/midnatsol/) - The MS Midnatsol was a most commodious vessel, the newest of the Hurtigruten coastliners. With a restaurant, café, two bars and a Jacuzzi it was in fact almost a cruise ship, but with the on-board entertainment limited to one bloke on a keyboard singing the classics with a Casio a couple of times a night. - [Pasvik](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/pasvik/) - The Pasvik valley is the last place in Europe where you can find brown bears. My new friend from the tourist office had told me that they were hibernating so I wouldn’t meet one, and that anyway meeting bears wasn’t really something you should hope for. I asked if there was ever any trouble with - [Hallowe'en for geeks](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/halloween-for-geeks/) - Ever heard of a zombie webpage? Apparently it's where a page is deleted from the content management system but still somehow appears on the website. A colleague of mine sent round an email about these the other day. He was just about to kill a bunch of zombie pages for good, and wanted to check - [Writing on the wall](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/writing-on-the-wall/) - I have mixed feelings about graffiti. Sometimes it can be quite clever (though rarely as clever as it thinks it is), sometimes it can be quite beautiful, and sometimes it can be a simple and harmless expression of individuality in otherwise uninspiring environments. Frequently, of course, it's just vandalism. Most small children got bored of - [Sunday afternoon freelancing](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/sunday-afternoon-freelancing/) - It's always nice to have some company. - [Pitta pocket pizzas](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/pitta-pocket-pizzas/) - My latest cookstrip is out, once again drawn from a recipe by the jerky king, Derek Wright. And as a bonus, Leona Smith at The Scout Association has made it into a lovely animation. It's brilliant when people take your work and make it better. - [Emerging from the tunnels](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/emerging-from-the-tunnels/) - Eleven years in London, and it never loses its potential to surprise me. Last Saturday, I was returning mid-afternoon from a conference at the Gatwick Hilton. I had singularly failed to do the website testing that was the object of my attendance, but I did have a pleasant chat with a man with a skull - [Esio Trot](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/esio-trot/) - This summer, I bade farewell to my twenties. They were largely squandered, but I think I enjoyed the squandered bits more than the rest, so maybe I ought to re-evaluate some of my definitions. Of course I got several excellent presents, but one of them has only just arrived. My girlfriend, E, bought me a - [Sensitive cover design](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/sensitive-cover-design/) - The other week I was reading My Friend the Mercenary by James Brabazon. It's actually a very well-written and intelligent book about the practical and moral complexities of war reportage (particularly freelance stuff), the often hurrendous state of West African conflict and politics, the consequences of gung-ho post-colonial meddling, and the essential problems of trying - [Knivsmed](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/knivsmed/) - I made a knife the other day. Speaking as a man who spends most of his life cranking out words, pictures, spreadsheets and diagrams that exist mostly on screens, it's nice to produce a real, tangible thing from time to time. If only to remind yourself that you can. A while back I bought a - [Modest beginnings of urban orchards](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/modest-beginnings-of-urban-orchards/) - Sitting in my back yard on Sunday afternoon, engrossed in some freelance proofreading and wrapped up in a jerkin against the incipient autumnal weather, I heard a loud thump. I always fancied owning an orchard. Apples are the fruit of the gods, and there is something wholesome, seductive and entirely English about the vision of - [Le Mans and the Nuit des Chimères](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/le-mans-and-the-nuit-des-chimeres/) - I spent the most recent bank holiday weekend in France. My old mate C was getting hitched in a fairytale castle in Pays de la Loire on the Friday, so the young lady and I decided to make a long weekend of it. Searching around for a place to spend Saturday and Sunday – preferably - [You can’t beat the system](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/you-cant-beat-the-system/) - Sitting in the window of the 8.33 to Chingford this morning, I became aware of the gentle metallic drumming noise of the semi-recumbent, dreadlocked man in the seat behind me having a slash on the floor of the train carriage. Living as I do on the Skid Row of Lower Holloway, on a stretch of - [The allergy man and the purple flower](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-allergy-man-and-the-purple-flower/) - I have a fairly severe nut allergy, discovered at a very early age – and with some drama – when my mum fed me a bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. Such lifelong weaknesses are occasionally unpleasant and ever so slightly limiting, but it’s a minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things. What it means - [Editorial propaganda](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/editorial-propaganda/) - I used to work for a well-known youth charity. In many ways it was one of the best places I’ve ever worked, while there were a few things that occasionally made me weigh up the pros and cons of embarking on a killing spree with the small hatchet that one of my co-workers kept under - [Rottweilers and bumblebees](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/rottweilers-and-bumblebees/) - The best thing about setting out for a walk is that you just never know what the day ahead will bring. Of course you can know your route, and how you’ll get there, and who you’re going with, but there's no need to plan in too much detail. And even if do, you’re still sure - [Unchained](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/unchained/) - Today I saw a competition on shortlist.com. The challenge was to create a movie poster for the film Django Unchained. Clearly, among London's abundance of despicably talented graphic designers, my chances of winning are nil, but it seemed like fun, so I've scribbled up an entry anyway. Only problem is that I haven't seen Django. - [Happy World Penguin Day](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/happy-world-penguin-day/) - [Love Bites](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/love-bites/) - Just lately, I put together a poster for Love Bites. They run several nights a year producing one-act plays and doing rehearsed readings of new writing. The next night is a collection of short plays all set in the same apartment block, which was great fun to try and illustrate, particularly for a fellow who classes - [Routemaster serenades](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/routemaster-serenades/) - ‘I always wondered why people didn’t play gigs on buses…’ announced the band’s lead singer, wedging his head tightly into a hollow in the roof of the top deck and just managing to keep himself upright as the old routemaster bus swept round a corner onto Oxford Street. The other day I ended up getting - [Bond in a bottle](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/liquid-bond/) - Some six months after I whimsically requested a free sample of the new 007 aftershave, I checked my postbox this morning to find a card with a slim plastic sachet attached, postmarked Taipei and urging anyone who happened to receive it in error to return it to Taiwan by airmail. Naturally I wasted no time - [A very 21st-century wedding](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-very-21st-century-wedding/) - Being unemployed has its downsides, but it does mean that you’re available for unusual experiences that someone in a nine-to-five would have to turn down. I got hitched the other day. To my old mate M, for the purposes of a photoshoot. The ceremony was officiated by a professional photographer and a PR girl, with - [Down the pipe](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/down-the-pipe/) - A morning commute can be a thoroughly unpleasant experience. Gone are those blessed mornings when I used to walk to work, or the later era when I was lucky enough to commute out of London on half-empty trains. These days I sardine myself into a humid metal cylinder packed tightly with angry human bodies. The - [Making the headlines](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/making-the-headlines/) - We got new email addresses at the end of the summer, at which point the torrent of spam that I was receiving on a daily basis abruptly ceased. While I wasn’t sorry to see it go, I have however just discovered a folder full of the best stuff, which I must have thoughtfully preserved for - [Lies, lies, lies](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/lies-lies-lies/) - I was just eating some Wensleydale cheese. I was trying a variation on the usual red Leicester or double Gloucester in my lunchtime baked [microwaved] potato, and I can report that Wensleydale was a rash choice. Tasted good, but the consistency was all wrong, since it doesn’t really melt. I think I just have a - [Say hello to my little friend](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/say-hello-to-my-little-friend/) - Apparently no-one who knows anything about firearms calls a gun a gun. It’s a 'weapon'. So I have been told anyway, though on the one occasion I met a man claiming to be an arms dealer, he referred to them as ‘shooters’. I was on a plane to Peru, out of Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, - [Trail bars](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/trail-bars/) - My latest offering for Scouting magazine's Get Active supplement. - [A brave new world](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-brave-new-world/) - One of the things I used to love most about working in print was that you could write an article, send it into the black hole of someone's inbox, and by the time it had gone through editors, designers and proofers, and been paired with artwork or photographs, it would return to you as a - [Shelter from the storm](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/shelter-from-the-storm/) - Three hours or so up a track into the forest and I found a tiny wooden cabin, like in a Jack London story. It can’t have been more than six foot by eight foot, half-buried in the snow, with a narrow metal chimney pipe sticking out of the roof. I was tired, and my feet - [Frosty siestas](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/frosty-siestas/) - I was reading lately on the BBC website about the Nordic practice of putting babies outside for their naps, even in the dead of winter. Interestingly there doesn’t seem to have been nearly as much genteel objection to the content of this article as you’d expect, and many folk have been writing in gleefully about - [Touristic information](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/touristic-information/) - ‘I had an argument with a man in here not so long ago’, the lady in the tourist office in Kirkenes told me. ‘He said, “There is something beyond here, you know.” And I said “I know, I have seen it. I was living in America, in Amsterdam, but I came back here to live.” - [King of the NCP](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/ncp-ricky/) - Lately I have been enjoying the extensive press coverage of the discovery of a spindly Yorkist child-slayer stuck under a car park in the Midlands. Mary Beard may well have a point in her thought-provoking blog that the scale of publicity (including, most amusingly, a live blog on the Guardian website) might not be relative to the - [One-pot Moroccan veggie stew](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/one-pot-moroccan-veggie-stew/) - Another one for Scouting magazine’s excellent Get Active supplement. - [Helpful instructions](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/helpful-instructions/) - One of my mum's hobbies is quilting, for which she uses a pen with ink that disappears over the course of a day or so. As if having a hobby which involves the regular use of invisible ink isn't entertaining enough, the special pen is inscribed with this useful information. - [My top five everyday gadgets](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/my-top-five-everyday-gadgets/) - I’ve never been one of those fellows who are romanced by gadgets. As far as I am concerned, they mainly fall into four categories. Things which make a simple task easier, but offset this by being temperamental, proving difficult to clean or store, or in some other way creating more complications than they solve. Things which allow you - [On the QT](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-perils-of-keeping-things-quiet/) - It was my manager's birthday last week. He tried to keep it quiet, presumably hoping to avoid the routine humiliation of a load of people clustered round his desk singing Happy Birthday. Unfortunately, he let it slip in the lift, presumably hoping that it would be too late to organise anything. Just under a week - [Temperance for the modern man](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/puritanism-for-the-modern-man/) - My main challenge of this month has been that abominable test of willpower known as the dry January. This is my twenty-third day off the sauce, and I can say with absolute certainty that I have not been this sober since childhood. I suspect I might well have thrown in the towel by now, but - [The best of intentions](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-best-of-intentions/) - I never understand why everyone is so disparaging about New Year’s resolutions. Of course the gyms will not stay as busy as they are this month, and the joggers thronging the streets will return to a more usual number in a few weeks. Sales of cigarettes and alcohol will recover from their January slump, and - [For the price of a stamp](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/for-the-price-of-a-stamp/) - One of my jobs every Christmas, inherited from my dad, is to take a big lump of Blu-Tack and spend several hours sticking a hundred or so Christmas cards to the wooden beams in the drawing room. I know most people just put them along pieces of string, but my mother insists that they don’t - [A pint pot of short-term cheer](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-pint-pot-of-short-term-cheer/) - Last night I met my old mate Jon for a couple too many pints at the Real Ale Taproom. In case you haven't heard about it, it's a pop-up bar in one of the empty units on Islington's Upper Street (number 163), with a few benches, a narrow bar with no pumps and a lofty rack - [Jamon iberico y manchego](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/jamon-iberico-y-manchego/) - I love the global era in which we live, though its benefits can sometimes be drawbacks too. While it is rather fine that less than 24 hours can elapse between drifting through a Spanish flea market and turning on my computer in an office by Vauxhall Bridge, such transitions can also be a little bit jarring. I've spouted my atrocious Spanish - [Mr Whippy](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/mr-whippy/) - This morning, as I sat sleepily in the cold kitchen sipping on bitter Nespresso, a news story came on the radio about this ice cream van mafia attack. My maternal granny had an ice cream van for a while. It was before my time, but my uncle, who was a boy at the time, tells stories - [Festive fire cooking](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/festive-fire-cooking/) - The latest edition of Scouting magazine came out this week, including of course my latest cookstrip. The recipe hails once more from Derek Wright's test kitchen. Benjamin Zephaniah would not approve. - [Helicopters in the glades](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/helicopters-in-the-glades/) - As E and I came into the main clearing, a short man in an oversized grey fleece, scuttling off past the toilet block with a couple of campers, turned and spotted us. ‘Squeak the squeaky and she’ll sort you out’, he called, gesticulating towards a little folding table outside a caravan with a large awning. - [Bond, Holmes and Braime](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/bond-holmes-and-braime/) - Look. I have more in common with Sherlock Holmes and James Bond than they do with each other. - [Sweet potato on a fire](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/sweet-potato-on-a-fire/) - While uploading the latest recipe to be published in Scouting magazine, I realised I'd forgotten to put up this one from earlier in the summer. As a little reminder, you can find plenty more of these under the cookstrips tag. Let me know if you try any of them. - [The campfire gourmet](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/inky-fingers/) - Faced with a half page to fill in a magazine, the most grown-up and professional solution for an editor is probably not to draw a picture. Nevertheless, this is what I have been doing since last summer. The concept of a cookstrip comes from Len Deighton, better known as the author of The Ipcress File - [Chikan](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/chikan/) - Seen my cookstrips before? Here's the latest one. I quite enjoy doing these, so if you happen to know a good recipe that I could draw up then do send me a postcard. Send me a postcard anyway if you like. - [Sweet tooth](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/sweet-tooth/) - The fellow who usually devises my recipes was busy on another article for the latest magazine, so I used one that a reader sent in. I think it sounds rather tasty, sort of like a campfire tiramisu. - [Baked apples](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/baked-apples/) - For anyone who has missed the work of Derek Wright (proprietor of The Jerky Shack) in my recent cookstrips, you will be pleased to see that he has returned for the October issue of Scouting magazine. - [Indelicate matters](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/indelicate-matters/) - ‘Have you ever thought that there are loads of funny ways of saying you’re off for a poo, but not many to say you’re off for a slash?’ My brother is a man with his mind firmly engaged upon the weightier issues in life. The musing above took place a couple of weeks ago in - [It's not what you're born with](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/its-not-what-youre-born-with/) - I started a new job last week, and as part of my induction process I have been required to complete various bits of e-learning. They have been the usual sorts of things - how to lift a box, fire safety, workstation assessments and the like. All relatively painless, but with the occasional moments of unintentional - [The Cardozo Picture Palace](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-cardozo-picture-palace/) - In a recent post about the film portfolio of Arnold Schwarzenegger, I mentioned that we used to have film nights at our flat on Cardozo Road, which for such occasions we re-branded The Cardozo Picture Palace. Though we did from time to time just plump for the work of a particular director, actor or franchise, - [Nothing like a challenge](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/nothing-like-a-challenge/) - Apologies for the radio silence of late. A week away camping was preceded by a week of hectic social engagements, preceded by my most ambitious ever illustration job. A former colleague, long-serving and much-loved, was departing my old workplace, and for her leaving present they asked me if they could commission a cartoon of the - [Clothes. Boots. Motorcycle.](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/clothes-boots-motorcycle/) - Adverts and advertorial for the new Total Recall film seem to be swamping London’s free papers and mags at the moment. Apparently it’s a remake only in so far as it’s based on the same original Philip K Dick material (and contains a woman with three breasts), which is probably in its favour, since trying - [The natural microwave](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-natural-microwave/) - It is a staple aspect of the British condition that we will always complain about the weather, even when it is doing exactly what we have previously wished for. The same people who were griping about the cold and the rain earlier on in the year spent this past weekend bemoaning the searing heat. In - [Good craic](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/good-craic/) - On Saturday morning I woke up feeling like someone had injected battery acid through my eye sockets and given my internal organs a hammering with some form of sports equipment: a sure sign that the previous night I had enjoyed an Irish wedding. The hitching itself was near Letterkenny, a town in Donegal not too - [Diplomacy](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/diplomacy/) - [Undercurrents](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/omega-male/) - [Islington crossing](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/islington-crossing/) - [Jackpot](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/jackpot/) - [Ticket fail](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/ticket-fail/) - [Sunshine superman](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/keeping-the-sun-off/) - Lately, on the occasion of my trip to Venice, I decided it was time to retire my old panama hat. I bought it aged only just 18 from a poky little hat shop in Avignon, on my first lone trip with a backpack and a guidebook, and it’s served me pretty well for nearly eleven - [The good life](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-good-life/) - On Tuesday I ate my first courgette of the season. There are five large courgette plants in my little garden, and no doubt in a month’s time I will be sick to death of their incessant crop, but the first one is always a thing to savour. I picked it as a baby scarcely ten - [Make hay while the sun shines](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/make-hay-while-the-sun-shines/) - Life is full of little discoveries, and my latest was the Norfolk coast. If you haven’t been before (I hadn’t) then it is terribly beautiful, rather wild, and, considering the huge volume of visitors that must pour down it in these hot summer months, surprisingly spacious. Last week, Christian and I once more shouldered our - ['Latitude's that way'](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/latitudes-that-way/) - ‘Just. Walkers.’ The policeman spoke slowly and deliberately as if to emphasise the hilarious transparency of my deceit. His mouth smiled and the rest of him did not. After we’d explained what exactly the four of us were doing traipsing along the verge of the A12 at 9pm, and our two twitchy coppers had sped - [Venezia](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/venezia/) - On Friday, in a highly uncommon display of romance, I took my girlfriend to Venice for the weekend. I attempted to conceal our true destination by claiming that we were going to Butlins in Bognor Regis (I couldn’t resist adding a little colour by confiding that we were sharing a chalet with a stag party - [Down by the riverside](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/down-by-the-riverside/) - Lately I have been reading Waterlog, by Roger Deakin. It's a bit of a cult book, and it's easy to see why. It is humorous, idiosyncratic and inspiring, a tangle of understated joy and sadness, and the language is so lyrical that it verges on poetry in places. Back in the late 90s, Deakin set - [Signs of spring #1](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/signs-of-spring-1/) - I’m always surprised by how quickly spring comes on. It’s not quite the explosion of life that you find in countries further north, but even so. One week it’s cold winds and bare trees, and a couple of weeks later the daffodils and wild garlic are out, and the trees are covered in bursting buds - [Before they end up on a piece of string](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/before-they-end-up-on-a-piece-of-string/) - Has anyone else been enjoying the sight of horse chestnut trees in full flower lately? A few years ago, during a period of unemployment, I volunteered for about five months doing conservation work with BTCV. Should you ever find yourself in a similar situation, it’s a fine thing to do. Twice a week or more, - [Hopheads](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/hopheads/) - Some time ago my uncle bought me a hop vine for my birthday. It arrived through the post in a small wooden box, and in the years since I planted it out it has completely taken over the old rose arbor outside the kitchen window. Every autumn we hack it down to the ground, and - [Call Will Smith](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/call-will-smith/) - My girlfriend, E, lives in Buckhurst Hill, a couple of stops from the north-eastern end of the Central Line. It is comfortable and leafy suburbia, with an unmistakeable dash of Essex. Life in the 'Buckhurst Hill bubble', however, is apparently not without event. A quick google reveals that this is not the first time ET - [Keep it up all day](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/keep-it-up-all-day/) - It's not every day you save yourself a significant amount of money with a dab of hair product. During the last spell of sodden weather, the front door of my building got damp, and swelled up to the point where getting in and out of it became a job best suited to those with more - [The Calanques](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-calanques/) - At Suginot the water swarms around the rock fall, Turquoise and empty. The round power of tides grasps like a pulse. The bending pine branches are green hands Cupping water, anointing the scree with polka dots. The white couple fend away wasps With an old shoe. Well, she sits in silence While he makes a - [We should have been together](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/we-should-have-been-together/) - We should have been together, here, where the water is not natural, where there is a dark pool on the beach. A tank of black water which absorbs light, even in the onslaught of white crests, which break the pebbles into crisp shards. An older woman in a mauve vest stares into the bottom, loses - [The tough life](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-tough-life/) - I have just returned from a week in the jasmine-scented surroundings of Fornells Bay, Minorca, with most activity revolving around the sea. I spent my days wobbling and scudding across it on a windsurf board, and my evenings dining on its late inhabitants in a friendly, family-run fish restaurant called Es Cranc (‘The Crab’ in - [The King of the High Chaparral](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-king-of-the-high-chaparral/) - Shuffling brushes like a clenched mikado, mixing the ingredients for paint; earth and iris, and horse-piss, spring water, whiskey, potash and salt, pestled stamens like virgin’s sleep, and arsenic for old time’s sake. The painter lines up the motley pack of models on the baize; The King of space under trampolines, the Queen of curd - [Tit for tat](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/tit-for-tat/) - Christian, my brother, is currently working as an artist-in-residence at a small boarding school in Essex. He lives an implausible existence in a flat above the boys' boarding house, sparingly furnished from local secondhand shops and centred around my dad's old gramophone which holds pride of place in the corner of the living room. An - [Grand designs](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/grand-designs/) - An architect and his wife are currently building a very small house next door to my flat. It will be over two floors, but sunk into the ground so the windows of their top floor will sit at ground level. The building process has been rumbling on for quite a while, and we have been - [No sleeves and a cuckoo clock](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/no-sleeves-and-a-cuckoo-clock/) - One of my favourite items of clothing in this soggy but not particularly cold weather is a leather jerkin of the sort that British soldiers used to favour during the Second World War, picked up a little while back from a surplus shop. Mine is a reproduction (most of the originals apparently died the death - [The Road (Kenfig Pools) ](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-road-kenfig-pools/) - We shall tramp about, with our eyes on small traps of water in the track. His eyes will be mine, even the styes that crowd the lid, and the black lines like burnt cities when he squints. They will be my seeing-through, and as we hike together, loud hints then silence, flicking early dew up - [You Don’t Love Ducklings Like I Do](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/you-don’t-love-ducklings-like-i-do/) - Winter’s dry, and Summer’s wet, and they laughed at you and I, in a pop-up tent in Somerset, but they didn’t sit on a pink mat, drinking pink wine, wearing thin macks, under thick pines, and didn’t visit the Bishop’s Palace, where we saw swans, - and kindly Bishop Ken writing arias and hymns, - - [The Boss](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-boss/) - My housemate F is a scriptwriter. Not only is he a more talented writer than me, he is also far more dedicated, and on evenings when I can be found draped across the sofa, staring vacantly at re-runs of Don't Tell the Bride, he is usually about six feet away, typing busily at his laptop. - [Front of house](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/front-of-house/) - Across the road from the converted Victorian house in which I live is a tremendously ugly estate. No doubt it was some bright young architect’s utopian dream, and perhaps it’s not quite as oppressive as a tower block, but with its exposed stairwells and rows of little doors looking onto narrow, dark communal walkways, it - [Where Has My Steep Garden Gone?](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/where-has-my-steep-garden-gone/) - The steep garden might’ve died, the lawn with white clover may have sunk out of sight. These are tired times, the seasons don’t stick to their promised arrivals, the snowdrops are keeping the daffodils down. Mrs Bruno’s green; you know, where the fox cubs were seen, froze into vixen silver. We lifted the greying thatch - [The modern cave-dweller](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-modern-cave-dweller/) - I’ve never been a great fan of central heating. A cold house is a grey, unhappy place, but somehow the ambient, uniform warmth you get from radiators and thermostats is a sterile sort of heat. It’s lovely to be either hot or cool, but there’s little to really enjoy in the in-between land that we - [A Witch-Finger Stick](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-witch-finger-stick/) - Using a witch-finger stick to plant beans around a tee-pee. She must have eaten thousands of runner beans. She still prods the earth around a cart-wheel like the queen of cycles. The baobab tree went in with a finger. The Amazon started as a drop of water. The world is revolving around my witch-finger stick, - [April fool](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/april-fool/) - I fondly remember the occasion, in a previous place of employment, when we posted a news story on our website claiming that a new Muppets feature film was being produced. For a chance to star in the film, and be paid £1000, all members of the public had to do was send us a picture - [Terra Nova](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/terra-nova/) - Today marks 100 years since the last entry in Robert Falcon Scott's diary. I was talking to my friend C yesterday and we both agreed that, the more you see and read about the Terra Nova expedition in this centenary year (I can recommend The Heart of the Great Alone exhibition at Buckingham Palace, and - [The end of the adventure](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-end-of-the-adventure/) - In a rather exciting development, a poet friend of mine, Mattias Thomas, has agreed to give me a poem each week to put up on this blog. A small circle of us have been enjoying these for years, and now you can too. Joly has been kind, or foolish enough to allow me the space - [Codfish heads](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/codfish-heads/) - I got a lift back into town with a friendly German called M, who worked with the huskies as a guide and trainer. He had baseball cap and long sideburns, with dog hairs all the way up his sleeve and the cheery air of someone who will give just about anything a shot. About a - [On the fence](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/on-the-fence/) - The town museum in Kirkenes didn’t do at all badly, considering the various different forces dragging on its objectivity. To try and understand it, you have to first try and forget the black and white canvas of the island-dweller, and think in terms of border country. It’s like when I read a biography of Conrad - [Signs of spring #2](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/signs-of-spring-2/) - Apart from the floral signs of spring, there are also other indications that warmer weather is on the way, including the annual phenomenon known as Tit Monday. Every year, my friend J surveys the streets of London keenly, and I usually receive a message or voicemail sometime round early April announcing that the day is - [Skills for life](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/skills-for-life/) - A colleague came over asking the editorial team, both of whom had been scouts, if we could help her to roll and tie a scout neckerchief. The days of the woggle are gone, and these days it is tied in something called a ‘friendship knot’. It probably seemed a simple request, but after several attempts - [The age of the spider](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-age-of-the-spider/) - It’s always difficult to pick a favourite comic book character, assuming you are the kind of unabashed escapist who reads the things. Shades of moral grey seem to be a recurring theme among my own preferences. Proinsias Cassidy, Gambit, Agent V, Frank Castle and of course John Constantine are all up there, along with Spider - [Morning Morgantown](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/morning-morgantown/) - Three cups of coffee, juice, bread, ham, cheese and a boiled egg in the airy breakfast room and I was almost ready to begin my day. It was when the hostel owner, a pleasant lady with 80s hair, came to fill up my coffee cup for the second time that I finally plucked up the - [An encounter with an artist](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/an-encounter-with-an-artist/) - Old Bryggen is on the waterfront of Bergen, and it’s where the mediaeval German merchants and journeymen who ran the docks used to live and work in tall wooden warehouses, controlling the flow of grain coming in, and the tonnes of dried fish and fish oils going out. A peculiar, colonial existence, cut off from - [Fresh from the skies](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/fresh-from-the-skies/) - Bergen. And I’d been here before. Last time I was on the cusp of 22, and we sailed in on a ferry from Newcastle, setting out on our last ever family holiday. I remember it was light at 11 in the evening, and the waterfront was thick with people, including some bikers with long beards, - [Itsy bitsy nano micro](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/itsy-bitsy-nano-micro/) - So I was reading a blog today that said blogs were dead. The writer was well aware of the contradictions in this. I wonder what will be next to die. Print ‘died’ a long time ago, and people have for years been predicting the fall of the professional writer and the rise of the citizen - [Some scraps of conversation from my notebook](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/some-scraps-of-conversation-from-my-notebook/) - It had been a long day, with four kilometres or so trudging across the valley floor to get back to our camp from the bottom of the mountain.‘I’m not such a fan of just walking a long way for no reason’, observed C, a climber by preference, as he lit the stove for a cup - [Dust jackets and raincoats](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/dust-jackets-and-raincoats/) - Last week I went to Wigtown, Scotland’s self-styled ‘Town of Books’. It’s only a wee place, but it is in a very pretty part of the world, and its inhabitants obviously have some imagination. Standing in the pouring Galloway rain and reading the information board in the town square, it appears that it was once - [Black pudding and a fried slice](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/black-pudding-and-a-fried-slice/) - I know it is a tune this jukebox has played before, but the plight of the humble fryup was once more thrust onto my plate this morning. And discontent shared is discontent doubled.It was sometime round midday. Too early for lunch and too late for breakfast, but the other Braime fellow (who, by the by, - [Downstairs meeting room](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/114/) - This morning I was sitting in an interminable meeting. My 'notes' from this meeting are now taped to the corner of my computer screen. - [Touristic information](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/touristic-information-2/) - While tumbling through Holborn Circus and a meandering conversation with my old mate Francis at around midnight last Thursday, I was delighted to discover that there is a statue of Ignatius J Reilly in New Orleans. Not just on account of his magnificence as a character, but as a happy reflection of the imagination of - [Alfie with a straight razor](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/alfie-with-a-straight-razor/) - Normally I’m all in favour of making a bad impression, since it saves you the trouble of being discovered as a fraud later on, but job interviews are a notable exception, and I had one a few weeks back, so I went to the barber. And trips to a barber are always an adventure.My hairdresser - [This one’s for 009](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/73/) - Yesterday I went to the circus. A 'WORLD-FAMOUS' one, no less, which appeared to have forgone invitations to perform in the Tuileries, Vienna and Hyde Park in favour of a week's run on Chingford Plain. I work just up the road, but despite a couple of us sending out quite a lot of invites round - [Further correspondence with National Express](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/further-correspondence-with-national-express/) - A couple of weeks ago I sat down with a bottle of wine and drafted this measured response to a run-in with a ticket inspector that same morning. A reply, apparently usually provided within five working days, does not seem to be forthcoming, which may suggest that they have not taken my concerns entirely seriously. - [Promenade](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/promenade-2/) - If ever there were a place to truly appreciate the zoomorphic nature of people, it is among the human bats and pigeons drifting round the galleries of the Royal Albert Hall.For anyone who doesn’t know (I am ever mindful of my foreign and colonial readership), the Proms are a series of concerts that run from - [Dear Pricilia](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/dear-pricilia/) - I just found this old reply that I once sent in response to an email I received at work. Oddly enough they never got back to me. Dear Pricilia, Really sorry but I shall have to turn down your very kind offer. It’s not that I don’t want your father’s treasure. I’m sure as former - [The kingdom of the leopardskin lady](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-kingdom-of-the-leopardskin-lady/) - This was on Facebook, but I never put it up on my blog proper, largely because of the hazards of search engines. However, I've removed some of the more exact details... The florid, gold-lettered Victorian sign above the door reads ‘S. C----, Costumier, Furrier’. By the vintage of the signage, old Mr C has been - [Dear National Express](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/dear-national-express/) - Dear National Express, I am writing to ask you to remove the tracking device which you have concealed somewhere about my person. On weekday mornings, when I arrive on the platform at Walthamstow in time for the 8.33 to Chingford, the train is almost always delayed. Usually by four or five minutes, but sometimes substantially - [Always room to sit down](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/always-room-to-sit-down/) - The other night, due to a combination of a train delay and a lack of spare house keys that is far too boring to go into, I found myself with some time to kill between about eight and nine o’clock. It was dark and not particularly warm - one of those early autumn evenings that - [The importance of being In Charge](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-importance-of-being-in-charge/) - While it may well be true that absolute power corrupts absolutely, it’s also true that the most comically tiny amounts of responsibility can often have the same effect. I’d like to believe that this was a modern characteristic of our great nation, but these little corporals show up at least as far back as Shakespeare, - [Schadenfreude](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/schadenfreude/) - I adore and despise the Metro in equal measure. I never take a copy from the poor bastard loitering in the rain outside Cally Road tube, but once down in the underworld I always seem to end up retrieving a discarded one from the seat next to me. I skim with half interest their mix - [Telecommunications](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/telecommunications/) - There is a phone on my desk at work. Someone told me to be wary of answering it, but I am of the opinion that it’s much safer to answer someone else’s phone than your own. At least then it’s almost certainly not you they’re after. This is doubly so of my current situation, since - [Cloak and dagger](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/cloak-and-dagger/) - Writing about work is normally a bad idea, partly because you never know when Google is going to direct the wrong person to the wrong blog post, but mainly because, of the things that happen in life, employment is one of the less interesting. Today, however, my working hours have become slightly more entertaining with - [Bruised knuckles](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/autumnal-warfare/) - Wednesday is our inaugural office conker championships. Since I possess a vice and a drill, I have volunteered to prepare them for stringing, so today grown adults have been turning up to my desk clutching shiny brown horse chestnut seeds, each one with their initials neatly painted on in Tipp-Ex for later identification. It's interesting - [Changing your details on the database](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/changing-your-details-on-the-database/) - It's the little things... - [A reminder of festive times](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-reminder-of-festive-times/) - 2011 seemed to be the year of the Christmas jumper, and in our office the fundraising department ran a little competition wall of jumper pics. Since I was the nearest man with a camera, I ended up taking most of the pictures. The winner was Jack (2nd row, far right). In time-honoured fashion, his prize - [Out of office](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/out-of-office/) - Last night I left the office early to go and interview a minor celeb via ham, egg and chips at a Sainsbury's café in Southall. Just in case anyone stopped by my desk looking for me, I left a helpful note, and when I sat down this morning, someone had added a visual aid. - [Career aspirations](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/career-aspirations/) - My boss is great. In the face of continual pressure and ever-looming deadlines she remains largely unfazed by the caprices of her editorial staff. We're currently working on my appraisal document. - [Jacks of all trades](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/jacks-of-all-trades/) - One facet of my current employment is editing and uploading a blog even more niche than my own. It has a very small but dedicated readership, and consists mainly of slightly cryptic accounts of things that important people talked about in meetings. The author emailed us today, asking if we could do some work on - [A room with a trouser press](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-room-with-a-trouser-press/) - As they sometimes do, chance events conspired against me in Hammerfest. If I believed in karma, which I don’t, preferring to work on the principles of consequence and blind chance, I’d guess it was evening out the astonishing good fortune Christian and I had last September on Koufonisia, when we ended up in a four-star - [In a perfect world](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/in-a-perfect-world/) - ‘Knowledge is very important in anarchistic thought. It’s different from other things. If you give someone half a cake, then you only have half left, but if you give them your knowledge then you still have it all, and they have it too, and even more you have learned something from teaching it. If you - [In the land of the blind](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/in-the-land-of-the-blind/) - It’s through their works and not their bones that you see the people who have gone before. The old Nidaros cathedral in Trondheim has had all the chequered history you’d expect from a mediaeval power seat. It was controlled by ambitious bishops who thought themselves a match for kings, and was, in its time, one - [Forward thinking](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/forward-thinking/) - I had tired of carrying my snowshoes strapped to the side of my pack, making me stick in doorways and tearing at passers-by with their zig-zag metal claws. Gone are the days where such things looked like tennis racquets, by the way. Mine are a little bit like very broad, short skis, with a jointed - [Narvik-Trondheim](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/narvik-trondheim/) - ‘The first time I came to England was in 1950. I had very little money, and they were supposed only to let me stay three days, so I would have enough money to get home. But the man at customs said “I will give you two weeks. To get home, hitchhike to Newcastle and a - [Inspiration](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/inspiration/) - I spent last night on a sleeper train from Narvik to Stockholm. Seemed a pity to be in Scandinavia and not at least have a look in at Sweden. Narvik was packed out for its winter festival, which is somehow connected to the navvies who built the railway, and means a lot of people wander - [Moored up](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/moored-up/) - I think Stockholm is one of my new favourite cities. It has a peculiar layout, scattered across a number of islands, and a subtly European feel to it too. I know of course that it is in Europe, but technically so are we, and there is nothing remotely European about the English. Anyway, people in - [Fragments of conversation](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/fragments-of-conversation/) - I was talking to a Dixieland jazz player, in his sixties, in a bar in Gamla Stan. I told him how much I was enjoying hearing band jazz played live, rather than being confined to Beiderbecke records.‘But you are from England?’‘Yes, from the north, but I live in London.’‘And you don’t hear this kind of - [Polarmuseet](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/polarmuseet/) - I loved the Polar Museum in Tromso. Mainly because I have a childish fascination with old-school heroes, and also in a small way because it is the sort of museum that simply could not exist in Britain. Located in Tromso’s old customs house, the upstairs is full of excellent exhibits on Polar aviation, Roald Amundsen, - [A trowel and a toothbrush](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-trowel-and-a-toothbrush/) - The statues in Trondheim brought to mind a museum that Christian and I found quite by accident in Naxos last year. It was a close afternoon in September, and we were making our way down from the old Venetian crusader citadel at the top of the island’s main Chora when we found an unusual, tinted - [Firenze](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/firenze/) - Last week I was in Florence. More of this another time, perhaps, though it already seems so long ago that I might as well never have been there. I didn’t take a guidebook, but on this occasion just asked some friends who’d been there before for tips. Then I wrote everyone’s recommendations down in a - [Familiar faces](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/familiar-faces/) - My mother is a musician, who also teaches singing and piano. Her pupils encompass keen singers and players of all ages and most abilities, and every January she hosts a musical evening so they can all perform to a sympathetic audience. It is quite an occasion, with wine and a buffet to follow the performances. - [Get rhythm](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/get-rhythm/) - Love a bit of rockabilly. - [The English Riviera](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-english-riviera/) - Last week, I journeyed to the south of our great nation, further south, in fact, than I have ever journeyed domestically. I was on a reporting job with David Tett in a little village near Newquay, which for a Yorkshireman like me is just about at the end of the earth. Newquay itself, though apparently - [A tin of cat food and a transistor radio](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/when-the-wind-blows/) - ­The coppers are doing VIP protection training in the grounds of my workplace. We were warned a couple of times in advance, but the occasional boom of a controlled explosion thumping through the office, followed by small arms fire, has still proved faintly unnerving. I have a light but persistent hangover today, and am wondering - [Mixed messages](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/mixed-messages/) - The stroppy note on the front door annoyed me slightly, but I think the transparency of this Christmas message is quite sweet. I texted a nice message back. - [The tenacity of tinsel](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/the-tenacity-of-tinsel/) - Up on the North York Moors, there is a particularly exposed stretch of main road running between the derelict Legendary Saltersgate Inn and the truck-slaying gradient of Blue Bank. As you come along it, past the US Air Force’s early warning station, a dull grey block that replaced the previous peculiar array of giant golf - [Scrubbing up](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/scrubbing-up/) - Opportunities to dress like a gentleman are few and far between in this modern age. While I like to introduce a little ornamentation to my daily wardrobe now and then, mainly in the form of waistcoats, nice suits, ties, hats and tweed jackets, there’s a fine line between looking good and looking like a cartoon. - [Aide-mémoire](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/aide-memoire/) - For a man with a brain not remotely mathematical, I always liked coded messages, and still enjoy trying to do those codewords in housewives' puzzle books where you can send the completed page in to win a reading lamp or a nice but not excessive cash prize. In moments of extreme boredom or creativity I - [Passing stranger](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/passing-stranger/) - The other day I visited a printing works. From a professional point of view it was fascinating to learn how the process works and why we prepare documents and magazines for print the way we do, while from a personal point of view, the presses themselves were simply magnificent pieces of engineering. Thrumming away like - [Mercy of monochrome](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/mercy-of-monochrome/) - Everyone seems to look better with the colour stripped out. While I was strolling through Florence the other week, I came upon a black and white photo booth, tucked behind an ugly municipal building that reeked of ammonia. At two euros for four pictures, and a three-minute wait for the strip of photos to develop, - [Got no strings](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/got-no-strings/) - Did anyone else used to have Pelham puppets? In our family they were the cross-generational toy. When my father and my auntie were young, their granny had a room in her house where she let them keep their puppet theatre and a long rail with all their marionettes on it. Then forty years later, C - [Taken out of context](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/taken-out-of-context/) - I’m going to Florence next week. A few days to stroll around a strange place on my own. I haven’t bought a guidebook, and my preparation thus far has been to start re-reading Machiavelli’s The Prince. Right near the beginning, there is the following quote. It’s actually about the ruthless consolidation of power necessary on - [Rather awful nonsense](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/rather-awful-nonsense/) - This morning I discovered this quote from Edward Gorey, and I rather like it. Presumably he was attempting to justify The Gashlycrumb Tinies, a book about dead children that works rather better on paper than it sounds in theory. 'If you're doing nonsense it has to be rather awful, because there'd be no point. I'm - [Neighbourhood watch](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/neighbourhood-watch/) - I have a feeling that the girl in flat 3, while pleasant enough, is not one of life's survivors, or at least has a nervous temperament that is rather unsuited to living on a busy road near the centre of the biggest city in Great Britain. Building works, house repairs, girls in heels on the - [A topography of minor injury](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-topography-of-minor-injury/) - Despite other calamities, I have never been badly injured. I have never broken a bone, nor been cut deeply enough to require more than a bit of superglue, a steri-strip or a stitch. Injuries contain few overly traumatic memories for me, and I like my modest collection of scars, obtained through various misadventures dating from - [Square eyes](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/square-eyes/) - Another day, another ad in my in-box that informs me that e-book readers are now reduced in price at various retail outlets. I wonder if anyone has ever bought one, and if they have, whether they have ever used it. Not that I didn’t consider aspiring to one for about four and a half seconds - [Hotrod](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/hotrod/) - Sitting on a bus yesterday afternoon, I had a sudden and completely inexplicable memory beach itself up. One of those snapshots of your own past that presents itself so vividly that you feel exactly the way you felt then, a bit like how smelling a perfume you haven’t encountered in years is always a bit - [Amateur dramatics](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/amateur-dramatics/) - Earlier in the week I spent a couple of hours killing time in the Leeds City Museum. It’s the first time I’ve been there since it became a museum. The last time I walked out of those big double doors it was the Leeds Civic Theatre.The Civic is full of stories and memories. It’s where - [Above and beyond](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/above-and-beyond/) - I haven’t really written anything in a while. My adventures abroad are over for the time being, and coming home brings a necessary and pleasant whirl of people and pubs, jobs to do and hunt for and other things that distract.However, it’s all calming a little now, and I have been thinking that one of - [A momentary fit of pique](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/a-momentary-fit-of-pique/) - In a momentary departure from travel tales, I have recently been reading Yes Man, by Danny Wallace. For my own tastes he’s a bit too fond of exclamation marks, and some of his jokes tip over into gag territory, but he has an excellent sense of the absurd, and I enjoyed it. What grated slightly ## Pages - [Home](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/) - My first novel, The Tin Face Parade, was shortlisted for the Bridport First Novel Prize in 2018, and is available here. - [About](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/about/) - About me Hi, I’m Joly, and I live by the sea in North Yorkshire, UK. My cottage is full of hats, books and the sorts of toys that a man of hobbies tends to amass. Tents, boots, metal detectors, kayaking gear, vintage bicycles, sketchbooks, musical instruments and home brewing kit. After all, why be one - [Publications](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/publications/) - The Tin Face Parade October 1907, East London. A mask maker works painstakingly to rebuild injured faces out of painted copper alloy, until he is brutally murdered at his workbench. The police suspect a burglary gone wrong, but when a much more high-profile killing shocks the city just weeks later, one man is convinced the - [Get in touch](https://www.jolybraime.co.uk/contact-2/) - Drop me an email or send me a telegram via the contact form. contact@jolybraime.co.uk Dear Joly... 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