it's flooding down in ewyas...

'we have entered humanity’s most philosophical age — for this is precisely the problem of the anthropocene... we have to learn how to die not as individuals, but as a civilization.' 

- roy scranton, 10th november 2013, NYT.

more doomster-ism from horsemouth. 

he must have been listening to that paul kingsnorth feller (and who was that other one?). 

of course the 'fall' is a long one. equivalent (but different) to the dark ages. 

meanwhile it's flooding down in ewyas harold (to be sung in the style of stevie ray vaughan's texas flood) and indeed there's a bit of a puddle at the crossroads (whence horsemouth delivers the eggs). 

the dulas brook is culverted where it goes through the village but not enough to stop it from being forced up onto the road (horsemouth would expect similar problems for the houses just downhill from the old trout inn as was). measures have been taken to create a wetlands park between the trout and ewyas harold but it is obviously not enough to soak up all the rainfall from the hills further upstream.

there must be another spot where the dore cuts across the road down from the housing estate. 

the power (and thus the broadband) is still on at least. 

horsemouth should take a look at how the stream that borders his mum's place is doing (it runs down off the common and onto the road). the water sits ontop of the fields in the valley but it does not look as if the dore has broken its banks. 

horsemouth is wondering how hereford itself is doing. 

the climate is set to get warmer but wetter over winter. campaigns of reforestation and flood permissiveness (upstream) must be encouraged. the main thing is to slow down the water getting downstream. 

it's the morning. a classic red sky morning. the sun is up and ascending into the blue heavens. 

a plan to slash affordable housing (such are the benefits of socialism)

'depending on who you speak to, this change is either a practical step to get more homes or the council sacrificing the needs of its citizens to benefit private companies.

the council have asked developers to build 35% affordable homes in all their builds since at least 2001. but recently they haven't delivered on that target... on average, over the last five years, they've only managed to deliver 15%.' 

- tom howlett, ITV central news 14th october 2024, housing campaigners outraged as birmingham city council plan to slash affordable housing targets. 

this is the ongoing problem. the housing associations (who would have bought these properties) are financially knackered as a result of the government lowering their rent levels by fiat in order to reduce the housing benefit bill. this means, in the builder's story, that they cannot afford to buy the s.106 flats that the builders would be building and without the sale of those flats being agreed the developments cannot get permission to go ahead. the s106 flats are in any event usually a nice little earner for the construction industry but obviously nobody makes as much money on them as commercial developments. 

the construction industry will be busy but at the end of it the poor will still be homeless, stuck in temporary accommodation and costing local council (and thus local council tax payers) a fortune.  

such are the benefits of socialism.

meanwhile the tory party is still in disarray. 

to keep the rabid tory party members happy badenoch and jenrick must promise more reform type policies and to keep the one nation tories out of the shadow cabinet. the one nation tories have replied that if there are no shadow cabinet jobs they'll be leaving for more lucrative work elsewhere and there may be some by-elections (thank you and goodnight). 

more kerfuffle in the new year then. 

yesterday a somewhat ungenerous article in the LRB on soviet era dissidents - illustrated with a photo of sinyavsky and yuli daniel in the dock at their trial in 1965.it would go well with masha gessen's dead again: the russian intelligensia after communism. 

given sinyavsky's enthusiasm for the letters of a.k. tolstoi horsemouth thought he might give them a read. however he can't seem to find them anywhere. 

horsemouth isn't convinced that sinyavsky is not in fact on about leo tolstoy. anyway. 

he did find out that a.k. tolstoi had written a novel about the vordulak in french (la famille du vourdalak. fragment inedit des memoires d'un inconnu). this was the basis for "I wurdulak", one of the three parts of mario bava's 1963 film black sabbath, featuring boris karloff. 

ok that was an entirely written yesterday blogpost. horsemouth is waiting for the rain to lighten up before going and feeding the chickens. 

a dissertation on obscurity (fahey establishes rapport with the tasmanians)

'in prison chekhov's letters depressed me and a.k. tolstoy's gave me real pleasure.' 

- abram tertz, a voice from the chorus.

'I now loath writing and don't know what to do. I would gladly take up medicine or get a job of some kind, but I no longer have the physical adaptability. nowadays when I write or even just think about it, I have the same feeling of disgust as if I were eating soup out of which a cockroach had just been taken...'  - chekhov's letters, 25th july 1898, as quoted by tertz. 

this letter does not make it into lillian hellman's the selected letters of anton chekhov. 

at the start of the year (1898) chekhov was much concerned by the dreyfus affair and zola. at the end of the year he sends a letter of appreciation and advice to a young(ish) maxim gorky (30). by this point chekhov was 38,  he had lost touch with theatre (he claims). towards the end of the year his father died. he is planning on buying land in yalta so as to have somewhere warm to spend the winter on account of the TB in the upper part of his lungs. 

and yet soon this will be the time when he writes three sisters and the cherry orchard. chekhov and gorky will meet in yalta. 

horsemouth's copy is a picador from 1984. the glue is going in the spine and pages are starting to fall out. he's read the entries for 1898 and lillian hellman's introduction. 

it is the anniversary of the recording of live in tasmania by john fahey. it was recorded october 15th, 1980 at the university of tasmania in hobart. horsemouth has chosen the track fahey establishes rapport with the tasmanians, a dissertation on "obscurity".

'a legendary character in concert, fahey was apparently in one of his unpredictable good moods...' -  1981 review for rolling stone by charles m. young.

it is an album where fate and the gods seem to be in alignment. there is some inspired substitution of poor live takes with already recorded tracks and added crowd noise, various older songs are revisited and retitled to suit local conditions. 

horsemouth likes some obscure shit (indeed he does).

obscurity is important to horsemouth. he likes the stuff that is resistant to being made stadium sized.

today another rainy grey day.  

reading the torygraph money section ('it feels like a scam')

ok horsemouth got bored sunday afternoon and typed most of this in. 

(the circle) of compassion is the first single from surya botofasina’s second album
featuring vocalist midnightroba (roba el-essawy) of the legendary attica blues. it's a pleasantly noisy affair, no excess of good taste.

headline - landlords face wipeout under labour 

front page article. campaign. inside pages 6 and 7. 

yes. the featherbedding of landlords is ending even if buy-to-let mortgages aren't. people who are using it as a pension will be driven out of the market to be replaced by very much larger private equity firms. rents will rise. housing waiting lists will rise. the number of people in temporary accommodation will rise. hell the number of people homeless on the street will probably rise. 

the tax raids on small landlords began under the tories (and may continue under labour).  the courts system is fucked 

page 3. 'I have £140k in student debt - it feels like a scam.' (says young doctor)

well that's because it is. it is effectively a graduate tax (except that the government aren't getting the money).  more than 8000 graduates on plan 2 loans owe more than £100k. the largest debt owed by a graduate to the student loans company was £231k as of jan 31st this year (so, by the inevitable action of interest) it will be higher by now). the face value of outstanding loans was £236 billion in march. the bet is that enough graduates will earn enough to repay the cost and the interest and the planned level of bad debt. if not the government (i.e. the taxpayer) will have to pay. 

given the fucked status of the economy that may well be a bad bet. 

the debt is held by students from poorer backgrounds - students who are unlikely to have access to the bank of mum and dad and thus will be stuck renting (see above). 

back page. katie morley (your consumer champion) investigates a couple who were arrested by the police in front of their children because they hadn't been absolutely careful about dealing with inheritances. 

here's a story from an earlier point in the cycle.

'last month, we cheered when my daughter became eligible for 15 hours’ free childcare, and this week her nursery’s fees increased by almost the exact amount of money we would have saved...' - séamas o’reilly, the observer, 13th october 2024, the thing about parenting is that it is, basically, financially ruinous. 

can you see the pattern?

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it's a grey and rainy monday morning. horsemouth has just been out to feed the hens. he thinks he glimpsed a rat tail in the woodshed. last night some carrots and the last of the runner beans for dinner. there's some sprouts in the garden horsemouth is speculating if they will grow enough to be worth eating for christmas dinner. leeks also. 

next week horsemouth is due to be up in town. 

 

get three coffins ready (ten nails in the coffin of rock)

'horsemouth has been out and fed the chickens. in a bit he will have to go and unlock the abbey. 

ok an entirely written in the morning blogpost. wait. let him go get another cup of coffee.' 

the bones of horsemouth's mornings are roughly the same. 

horsemouth has posted a link to andy edwards ten nails in the coffin of rock. like rick beato's stuff this is an account of the death of a musical form from the inside by jobbing musicians who were there.

in some ways what horsemouth finds most interesting in derek bailey and the story of free improvisation is his account of being a jobbing dance band musician.  

horsemouth admits it. there was a time when he thought he was good enough to make it as a musician but in the end he had to admit that he wasn't and go and get a day job.  this cause him to think about what he had been engaged in - what had motivated him for the first half of his life.  in many ways what horsemouth wrote on music was similarly inspired by the technological changes that were altering the musical commodity. 

ok today nothing nothing nothing. his reading of on photography goes well. 

back in 2017 horsemouth was off to play max's closing night for his mirkwood exhibition and it's pharoah sanders' birthday (he would have been 84 today). 

ashram sun (to the tune of black hole sun)

horsemouth was having a dream about being in flat with matthew and anya. he was holding forth about rock vocalisations. this led him to the use of non-words in the teaching of phonics.

yesterday beautiful clear blue skies. planes high up. sunshine. 

this morning - grey and lowish cloud. 

'photographs furnish evidence. starting with their use by the paris police in the murderous round up of the communards...'  - susan sontag, on photography.

but we have all this to come. we are still in october 1870 with the prussian siege. edmond de goncourt has got his meat ration card (10th october). in clyro kilvert is aware of the siege and keeps an eye on the newspapers.

horsemouth has been out and fed the chickens. in a bit he will have to go and unlock the abbey. 

ok an entirely written in the morning blogpost. wait. let him go get another cup of coffee.  

footage has emerged of  terry ollis era hawkwind playing the roundhouse as part of the atomic sunrise festival (9-15th march 1970). they are showing the film of it (together with footage of early genesis and david bowie). 

elsewhere the keyboard player from alice coltrane's worship ensemble has brought out an album  horsemouth likes what he has heard of it. he hears ashram sun to the tune of black hole sun. 

a bit of excitement. horsemouth and his mum spotted a deer in the top field moving cautiously up the hedgeline.

 

on photography (book as prop)

outside a frost. inside nice and toasty due to the wonderful application of central heating. the sun shines into horsemouth's eyes from across the valley. 

today an entirely written in the morning blogpost (you lucky lucky people). 

last night bellringing followed by a solitary pint (people had things to do in the morning).

last night the aurora borealis but horsemouth was too busy with the world of humans to notice. 

the niece of one of the bellringers showed up to practice with a copy of susan sontag's on photography. now it has been a long time since horsemouth has read this (and she had only got as far as the diane arbus section america through photographs, darkly). the book itself had seen batter days - it had been shoved in the bottom of a canvas bag that had been accidentally left in a  puddle. 

horsemouth took it as an opportunity for conversation. horsemouth actually has a copy of it here. (found it!) he should get on with reading it. 

some photos have surfaced of horsemouth in howard's back garden the day after the gig at waterintobeer (thanks martin). 

we are talking august 25th (something like that). howard had the don and moki cherry book organic music societies (horsemouth is pictured reading it here). horsemouth should have borrowed it as proposed.

as horsemouth remembers it there are more photos of him using the book as a prop and getting it photographed against more of the flora in howard's garden. (book as prop). he will try to get hold of these. 

he has asked. these photos are on the physical film in the film camera on the table that has not yet been developed. 

and so he will have to wait. 

ok today (a friday) horsemouth has no particular plans - oh shit he's got to go and open up the abbey (back in a bit).