hissyfit: The Wick: 3

Monday, 20 April 2026

The Wick: 3

The Wick: 3

20/4/2026

No wake up call from Morse the crow. This sunny morn it's Gary Davies coming at me through a builder's radio the size of Sizewell. It's a harsh blare. Next door is having new windows put in, putting my Victorian metal framed windows to shame. Installing double glazing in a fisherman's shack exemplifies the gentrification that the village is currently attempting to resist. Outside of my Crittal window the outside world is creeping in on The Wick. Looking south down the coast Sizewell C looms large on the horizon: 1000 hectares of new 'infrastructure'. The benefits will be undeniable: low-carbon electricity for 6 million homes. The downside? It's going to take 9 to 12 years to construct. The railway crossing at drowsy Darsham usually signals 10 minutes from the Walberswick turnoff. When I drove up on Friday that home run took me 50 minutes. A labyrinth of bypasses and roundabouts has reduced/elevated the sleepy A12 to a cauldron of chaos and concrete. What was once dozy is now buzzing.

The 7 o'clock news interrupts Gary's blather. Iran is resisting peace talks as the US attacks their cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, in southern Lebanon, an Israeli soldier attacks a statue of Jesus Christ with a sledgehammer. Netanyahu reassures us that "Israel is the only place in the Middle East that adheres to freedom of worship for all." Perhaps that soldier mistook the statue for a Red Cross worker? It's easy to confuse Jesus with a doctor.

I currently want for nowt but the world directly outside my Walberswick window. Even The Wick's parish pump politics can be intrusive. I came here for retreat. But it's hard to ignore America's advances.

Trump's bellicose bravado is as nauseating as it is transparent: there's money to be made. And nothing distracts from domestic dilemma like a war on foreign soil. As Trump punches the air, his feverish followers continue to fall at his feet: supplicant believers become dumb disciples. He can do no wrong. Modern American 'politics' eh? Nothing seems rooted in reality: it reads like a fiction that you couldn’t make up, let alone believe. Debate has become more about abuse and mockery than open minded discourse and authentic argument. Now politicians shirk responsibility and point the finger of blame randomly, spitefully, whilst smugly lining their pockets. They don't’t even blanch when caught out: just shrug it off as though self-interest and mendacity was part of the game. Galbraith nailed it: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

Where are the ‘strong and forceful voices’? It’s been a while since we have seen a youthful US politician of vision, integrity and charisma. Trump's support is bewildering mass myopia. Emboldened, he knows no shame and is thus shameless: his sins unquantifiable because they simply don’t count. If Donald is the answer then what on this flat earth is the question? Beyond a confirmation of their tribalism, beyond enabling his self serving adventurism, beyond mindlessly nailing their colours to his mast, what course are DT's cowing crew expecting him to plot? What’s in it for them? Trump has sold short the value of caution and care: politics aren’t meant to be dramatic, exciting, thrilling or emotional, but that’s the shit-show they’ve become, and Don the Con's your toothsome, loathsome host. Without coherent character he has no cogent conscience, and as such, he exists in a moralistic void. His vulgar vapidity has shrouded what was once bright and beautiful: an American independence of thought and vision that enabled and demanded genuine, authentic inclusivity. 'We the people' means everyone! Doesn't it? Trump has dulled his toadying tribe into reverent, slack-jawed acceptance: a blind faith that precludes logical assessment or judgment. And so it goes; he has effectively elevated himself above the regulations and restraints of law and truth; of dignity and duty. Regardless of those disdains, what does his popularity say about America’s moral compass? It's terrifying to know that his trembling pinkies hover over the Big Red Button. It is truly terrifying to recognise that the world's fragile world order is in Trump's sweaty hands, and his hands are shaking. He plays golf whilst we hold our breath. The Doomsday Clock is currently set to 85 seconds to midnight; that symbolic apocalypse has never been closer. Perhaps the 11th hour is perfect timing for derailing the orange juggernaut? Cometh the hour. But where’s yer man? Who will finally take up the mantle and challenge the madness? Meanwhile, above the law, effectively unchallenged, an unprincipled Donald J. Trump continues to live in his own little world, determined to make it ours. We couldn’t be dumb enough to let him. Could we?

"This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want."

Hannah Arendt

That builder's radio buzzes ever louder, Jeremy Vine's due, signalling high noon. So I set out. It's a windy but gloriously sunny spring morning. As I saunter south, next the gunmetal grey of the North Sea, the famous 'golf ball' silhouette of Sizewell beckons gloomily. Regardless of my admirable legwork it seems to remain the same size; undiminishable: undeniable: ever-present. I refocus. My destination is The Ship in Dunwich. They do a decent Scotch Egg, pickle and chips: triple cooked. I always seem to arrive minutes before the kitchen closes. Best look alive.

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Miracle Mile: A User's Guide by Johnny Black

Despite being based in a home studio in a rural backwater on the outskirts of West London, Miracle Mile chose to name themselves after a fictional gold rush main street half a world away where, according to adventure yarn spinner Jack London, ragged 49ers would blow their hard-won nuggets on booze and broads.
They apply a similarly unorthodox approach to their career in general. The band’s core duo of singer/guitarist Trevor Jones and multi-instrumentalist/arranger Marcus Cliffe have been relentless in their pursuit of the perfect song. Not the fastest, the gnarliest or the loudest, not even the most instantly commercial, but the song whose melody, lyrics, arrangement, performance and spirit might stand the test of time, giving pleasure to listeners not just for years but centuries.
They’d be the first to admit they haven’t yet found that perfect song and maybe never will, but I’d argue that their albums — the documentary evidence of that search — deserve a place alongside the best work of time-tested tunesmiths as elevated as Randy Newman, Elvis Costello or Tom Waits.

Marcus Cliffe wasn’t yet on board when the first album, Bicycle Thieves, arrived in 1997 but already it was evident that frontman Jones didn’t fit in with the prevailing mode. There was no rage, bitterness or self-loathing in his songs and nothing at all turned up to eleven. Instead, he offered meticulously orchestrated slices of ordinary human life, transforming the mundane into the marvellous with carefully crafted lyrics sincerely delivered. Even here, though, the hypnotic sample-based "Recycletwo" revealed a willingness to experiment that marked Jones out as more than just a pop craftsman in the vein of Crowded House or Aztec Camera.

What had started essentially as a recording project had become a five-piece live band by the time the follow-up, Candids, was released in 1998. Loaded with nagging guitar hooks and dynamic vocal interplay, it included one particularly affecting piece, "Small Ad," which featured just one line of lyric, the heart-rending couplet, "Baby’s shoes, never used." With those four words, Jones conjured up a yawning abyss of grief that other writers might struggle to evoke in an entire album.

Jones quickly realised that live performance was not his forte and retired to the womb of the studio for 1999’s third album, Slow Fade, which also saw the birth of the partnership that would lift Miracle Mile higher still above the norm. Marcus Cliffe, in demand as a player for Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois, Mark Knopfler and others, was drafted in on upright bass.
Immediately the music took a more intimate turn, with Jones exploring the little things that illuminate the big things. Almost every song offers up at least one unforgettable line, like "I'd rather be ashes than dust" in "Everybody Loved You," or the concept of filling the void left by his loss of faith "with despair and metalware" in "Starwatching."
Slow Fade was further enhanced by the delicately filigreed swirls and swoops of England’s finest steel guitar maestro, B.J. Cole, whose style sat so well with Jones and Cliffe that he has become virtually a full-time member of the band.

And then, out of nowhere, catastrophe struck. Trevor Jones’ beloved sister died in tragic circumstances. It’s typical of the man that, rather than wallowing in his grief as he had every right to do, he dealt with his loss in the quiet, honest dignity of "Sister Song," the achingly lovely tribute that concludes the fourth album, Alaska. It can’t have been coincidence that the album, despite its meltingly beautiful musical landscape, was named for one of the coldest places on earth.

By the time of Stories We Could Tell in 2004, Miracle Mile were drawing critical plaudits in every significant British magazine and newspaper, along with comparisons to such pop pluperfectionists as Prefab Sprout and the Blue Nile. Critics were noting that Miracle Mile was fast becoming a repository of timelessly romantic music fueled by the same shamelessly emotional human concerns that inspired the great standards. More than this, it was being noticed that while most bands go into decline after two or three albums, Miracle Mile were getting better, perhaps because they’d avoided the trap of trying to be contemporary, and had no need to be more outrageous than the competition, largely because they didn’t see music as a competitor sport.

The sixth album, Glow, showed up in 2005 and found Jones and Cliffe further expanding their musical palette mixing Celtic folksiness with slow, semi-industrial percussion on the inspirational "An Average Sadness," blending Badalamenti guitars with Bacharach horns on "What Kate Did Next," and opening "Strange Sympathy" with a beautifully synthesised string orchestration before letting the song melt seamlessly into a laid-back country-rock rumination on the gap between aspiration and acquisition. Glow was also their most lavishly packaged disc, gorgeously presented at no small cost to themselves.

Album No. 7, Limbo, offered fifteen songs overflowing with sensitively wrought melodies and heart-fluttering lyricism. If it’s not a contradiction in terms, Limbo was even more quietly passionate than usual, deliciously understated and, at times, devastatingly tear-jerking.

‘Cassidy’s Care’ followed in 2012 and received similar critical acclaim.
Miracle Mile may just be too concerned with timeless quality for their own short-term commercial good. They’ll never sink a fang into the jugular when they can plant a whisper of a kiss on that sensitive spot at the nape of the neck and set off a tiny ripple that will, in the fullness of time, explode in the heart. I, for one, wouldn’t want it any other way.
Johnny Black

“Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; Marcus Cliffe anchors it in the sweetest pop. Gorgeous as ever. You may cry.”
Sunday Times

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard."
UNCUT

“Gorgeous melodies, hooks galore, intelligent lyrics that demand and repay careful listening, beautifully produced instrumentation, and an overall effect that combines poignancy and joy in equal measure. Music and words come together in a state as close to perfection as makes no difference, and leaves you with a delicious ache that makes you hug yourself with the sheer overwhelming joy of hearing such wonderful music. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me."
Americana UK

“A little oasis illuminated by musical creativity, glimpsed like a lovely mirage. Intelligent tunefulness that doesn’t kowtow to passing trends has always been as rare as fish fingernails, but it’s here.” Mojo

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised” The Times

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.”
Maverick

“A tender sadness. Songs that have universal resonance.”
Netrhythms

"Trevor Jones has produced a gorgeous pop album that few will hear — unless there’s justice in the world.’ The Wall Street Journal

“Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving”
The Sunday Times

Monday, 20 April 2026

The Wick: 3

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