Cause all I want is just a little bit more
Is that so much for me to ask for?
And clams casino on a Sunday night
Is it so bad to want a good life?

Brian Dunne, Clams Casino

You are eight years old. It is the early 90s. This is your first time at an early version of a gastropub, though you don’t know what one of those is.

What you remember is the cabinet. To your eyes, its perspex castle contains some of the best looking cakes you’ve ever seen. They’re all there. Black Forest Gateau, which is the ubermensch, the platonic ideal of the form. A great golden mound of syrup sponge pudding shining like a beacon against the soft lighting. You are entranced. Your eyes drink it all in. You’ve never seen so much displayed so beautifully.

When it is time for pudding, you and your sister rush to the cabinet, and begin the lengthy discussion about what to have, and why, and how. You remember that meal for the rest of your life. It surely wasn’t that expensive, but for an eight year old with a sweet tooth, it was certainly one of the most memorable.

It is with this lens, dear reader, that I arrive at today. Ostensibly not doing too bad. I’ve been able to stare at many more pudding trolleys or cabinets in my life since. I am known to the purveyors of steamed pudding as a man of taste and refinement. I live in a lovely, leafy part of the world. I want for very little, beyond a bit more drive and motivation to write. I have a happy, healthy family.

And yet, it often all feels a bit hard. I know, I know, poor me. The tiny violins are striking up a bit of Mozart’s concerto for an audience of one.

I think the reason I’m feeling like this is that the day-to-day feels challenging. Yes, even for the privileged few like my lot. There doesn’t seem to be the same sense of joy and abandonment when there are major political, environmental and inflationary pressures knocking at our doors. Of course, this is the difference between experiencing the world as an 8 year old versus being 41…

The clearest eyed view I’ve seen in the past few years of how the Western world is shaping up that of a ‘K-Shaped’ economy, where the few top do particularly well, whereas the rest of us feel like things are getting steadily worse.

Clams Casino, for those of you not from the US Northeast, is a dish which combines bacon, breadcrumbs, clams and bell pepper. It’s often served up, ostensibly, as a fancy starter. The kind you might order if you want to elevate a meal out; a bit like a starry-eyed eight year old’s love of a pudding cabinet.

That sort of thing, having something to try for which is just a bit better than the usual, feels important. Without that, where’s the impetus to try? To strive? To want to make things a little bit better? If life is just Huel on your own whilst livestreaming someone fail at videogames, it’s not a life I want to be a part of.

I want the Clams Casino on a Sunday night. I want betting the house on a bottle of wine. I want the pudding that looks like it might explode given the industrial grade levels of sugar in it. That is what life is. The zest, the joy, the hope. Not pandering to the lowest grade industrial slop to save a few coins.

Backing people, and investing in them and their their many and varied ways, is the way. It has always been the way, really. Give people the conditions to make things great, and I believe they will.

The bigger question becomes - how? How are you helping people with that? How are you encouraging those who are doing a good job? Those who want to strive to make things better? Are you going to that restaurant, buying that album, ordering that special dish? If not, you should be.

I think perhaps most importantly, how are you ensuring you have a good time in the face of all of this? Because you’ve got to, lest life is lived for you. Ours isn’t to be optimised into oblivion, it’s to be messy, strange and passionate. Much like eight year old me demolishing a pudding menu.

This week, unsurprisingly, has been soundtracked by Brian Dunne. Check out his solo stuff and Fantastic Cat albums.