a day that is not christmas eve (a day with no kilvert)

23rd december 1870 - a day with no kilvert (or at least no diary entry). 

horsemouth has consulted thoreau's a writer's journal also, but also in vain. 

there are a number of mixes by howard in previous years so horsemouth has chosen one from this day 7 years ago. his review of the year with (so far) lots of sweet acoustic guitar tunes. ok here we go, six minutes in and it's gone all k-pop. 

(and now it's gone all african) (ah some tokimonsta).

this day is the last day on which it won't be too late to go shopping. 

starting from here what could horsemouth plan to do in the new year

he could plan to play more gigs and he could plan to release another CD. 

what would be on the CD?

well the demo versions of no name resonate, murder ballad, jai guru and high-rise strutters ball (all currently residing on soundcloud). of course if he get in somewhere to play them again or record on top of them they could be made better. 

horsemouth also has versions of gnossienne no.1 and gentleman john sitting around on CD from previous (pre-musicians) solo outings. if he thinks about it there are probably a few unreleased musicians of bremen tracks somewhere. 

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at this point (monday morning) horsemouth has today's and tomorrow's blog already written (mostly) and he wrote them yesterday (does that make sense). 

he will rewrite them slightly (as he is doing now) as he goes along. he watched some of the parajanov. the first half of which concerns books and seems to have 'inspired' ptere greenaway's prospero's books.  horsemouth has been up, he has unleashed the chickens (one egg), he has his coffee (this may need refueling). 

ok sounds like the business of the day is starting. horsemouth thinks a last bit of shopping. the buses suspend christmas day and boxing day. the milk delivery timetable goes strange.  he's not sure what day his brother and family are coming up. 

'at this point, nothing is predestined'

so says the author of an article on the possible future of a new syria (the balkan scenario, matt broomfield). er, on the other hand they lay out the possible negative outcomes (the balkan scenario) so clearly it seems rhetorically unlikely that syria can escape. 

but maybe it is all still up in the air. 

anyway. here's horsemouth. he heard the bells from the abbey but he failed to go (historical stage fright). 

(maybe he should just try tossing coins to make his decisions for him instead of half making them). 

howard is off visiting people (but then he's also on holiday over c*******s).  his brother is phoning at 8pm. 

is there a still turning point in the year when a new plan can come together? 

perhaps this is the point at which it begins. 

once again horsemouth has failed to purchase christmas gifts. 

in a bit he will go and feed the chickens (he will take refuge in routine). the trick is to leave it slightly late so that they are all gathered in the coop already. he has succeeded in feeding the chickens once again. he hasn't lost any (yet). 

he went to the forge (but he did not walk back). this may explain his slightly off mood (that and that he can't find the right book to read). 

'without books the world would have witnessed nothing but ignorance' - sergei parajanov, the colour of pomegranates.  

howard (the other muscian of bremen) has responded to horsemouth’s asking what he thought of the books horsemouth has lent him.

‘chronicle (of the guayaki indians) would be one I would reread. in fact do I still have it?

loves work I found frightening, but I also loved it. 

practicalities, I read but cannot remember at all, though oddly it prompted me to read more duras.

christ stopped (at eboli) I need to reread. at the time it felt like a slog to read it, and I don’t know why cos it was a gently written book. that would say more about my mood at the time than the book.’

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it's the morning. it's rainy and grey out there (horsemouth has unleashed the chickens). soon the last of horsemouth's garland of mixcloud mixes. 

book list II ('east wind and struggling snowflakes, bitter miserable cold')

'east wind and struggling snowflakes, bitter miserable cold.' - kilvert on this day 1870

21st december 2024 the winter solstice

horsemouth will probably write a description here. grey cloudy morning at stonehenge. no a-ha moment. better luck at newgrange. 

'happy winter solstice' 

from here on in the days become longer and the sun creeps northward on the horizon. (he does hope he's got that second part right). 

kilvert finds sir gilbert lewis waiting in his garden. kilvert  hears from him about his recently deceased aunt maria kilvert, 

'he told me a good deal about maria kilvert of worcester whom he knew... she shut herself up almost entirely ever since he had been canon of worcester, 15 years. lady lewis used to call and was sometimes admitted. sir gilbert had not called for three years. the house looked most melancholy and dreary, like a house of the dead...' 

book list II

where not actual diaries, journals, autobiographies or essays (mostly) at least that sort of thing. 

the books horsemouth has not lent to howard

- a voice from the chorus by abram tertz (andrei sinyavsky). assembled by tertz (sinyavsky) from letters sent to his wife while he was incarcerated by the soviet authorities. he cannot write directly of where he is (because of the fear of censorship) but he can write about it. in a curious kind of way it resembles montaigne and rousseau (with rousseau tertz shares an admiration for robinson crusoe). 

- pages from the goncourt journal by edmond and jules de goncourt. (jules dies relatively early on)  written at the time and published over the course of edmond's life and after. 

- reveries of a solitary walker by jean-jacques rousseau. allegedly structured round a series of walks. a book unfinished at rousseau's death. the first is written autumn/ winter 1776, the tenth is dated palm sunday1778, the eighth and ninth have been edited from rough drafts, the tenth is unfinished. it was published four years after the author's death in 1782. 

-  kilvert's diary by the reverend francis kilvert. edited by william plommer and published some time after kilvert's death. 

- landscape with machines by l.t.c. rolt. engineer gradually becomes writer. goes to live on narrow boat, helps found inland waterways association.

this is the world we live in (haunted by the better world next door).

'london's ageing!' (to the tune of london's burning). 

hmm. the age profile of london has altered. horsemouth was looking at an infographic on it.  

when horsemouth first arrived in london and then hackney in 1985 or so the population was in decline -' his usual go to for this is paul harrison's inside the inner city -  but then it started filling up again (with immigrants and with the young from elsewhere in the uk). fast forward to 2021 and since 2011 the population has increased by 8% overall. but crucially  a lot of these people are older - there's something like 25%  more 55 to 64 year olds (so horsemouth's demographic) in the city now rather than in 2011. 

horsemouth thinks people of his age moved to the city when it was possible and have stayed ever since

the segments that have gone down between 2011 and 2021 are 16 to 24 year olds and 25 to 34 year olds by roughly 8%. mind you there are roughly 15% more 10 to 15 year olds who will soon filter through (if their parents are not driven out of the city by the cost of it).

a booklists of sorts I

these first four horsemouth has lent to howard at one time or other. 

- practicalities by marguerite duras (french title la vie matérielle). from conversations with jérôme beaujour which were then edited and published while the author was still alive (published on the 1st of june 1987). 

- christ stopped at eboli by carlo levi. carlo is exiled by the italian fascists to a deprived hilltop town in the south of italy. he describes his time there. the book was written in florence from december 1943 to july 1944 after the author had been released. there's a film (hell there's a four hour italian tv drama). 

- love's work by gillian rose. written by rose and published at her death. an autobiography of sorts but the autobiography of a philosopher and a cancer memoir.   

- chronicle of the guayaki indians by pierre clastres (translated by paul auster, translation published after clastres death). rescued from oblivion an anthropologist's report on a tribe heading for oblivion.

horsemouth also lent howard  matsuo basho's the narrow road to the deep north and edouard louis's  a woman's battles and transformations, but he doesn't know if howard read them (he thinks not). 

horsemouth regrets that he does not like montaigne's essays better (it would suit him so well if he did).

alternate worlds/ science fiction

- the man in the high castle by philip k. dick. this is the world we live in (haunted by the better world next door). 

- ice by anna kavan. the world is dying and we are doomed to make the same mistakes over and over. 

- viriconium by m.john harrison. the city is the star. the name of the city changes. its predicament doesn't. 

- frankenstein by mary shelley. the runaway girl rules the roost. she invents the creature - a philosophical novel questioning technology and progress, perhaps the very foundation of the genre of science fiction.  

'it was not a dream, she said'

 a christmas ghost story from kilvert (on this day in 1870).

'the sick woman at cross foot, mary price, cowering before a roaring fire. she said, 'six weeks ago I was in bed at night and suddenly a young one came on my left arm, like a little angel. it was not one of my own. it was dressed in white clothes long and it had a cap like the dear little children when they are put into their coffins.' she told the story in such a strange weird way that I felt uncomfortable. it was not a dream, she said, she was broad awake.' 

horsemouth dreamt of being on the corner of church street and stoke newington high street. he saw sean heading up towards stamford hill. he saw someone else but he didn't look to see who it was. 

here horsemouth re-arranges a blogpost from 20th of december 2020.

'horsemouth tends to regard music making as an eccentric hobby/ bizarre psychological compulsion... he vastly prefers what he does  now to what he did back then (back when there was a record industry, back when there were 'deals' (allegedly)).' 

in 2020 it would have been nice to play some gigs (but, er, it wasn't possible).

since then he has managed to play some gigs but once again only a handful of people have got to hear musicians of bremen. the momentum musicians had built up was almost entirely squandered. 

like most musicians horsemouth guesses he's happy just to get to make the music (but then has no idea how to go about promoting it). horsemouth used to try and delegate that to other people (and now there's only him he's still like that). 

look at rob lawson and zali krishna - there they are creating music and releasing it, writing and releasing books even.in this they are ahead of horsemouth, he has not yet got his words off the screen and onto the printed page.

the music got free but it's an interesting variety of free - the musicians produce it for (nearly) free but there are still streaming companies, record companies etc all of whom barely pay. there's still a music industry (not that horsemouth ever troubled it in his earlier 'career' and not that he's going to trouble it now). horsemouth was glad to embrace myspace (and later soundcloud, mixcloud, youtube and bandcamp) as a way to get his music out past the gatekeepers and to the people. this was the main thing he wanted. 

everyone can now do it and in a way horsemouth thinks everyone should. 

horsemouth's model here is jacques attali's bruits published in english translation as noise: the political economy of music there's a lot here (as it will be read later on) about music as herald of the sharing economy. 

ok. so horsemouth, your mission, should you decide to accept it, more gigs in 2020(5). his aim should be to get up above one gig a year. double figures or death! 

here the dawn and a gentle rain. horsemouth has fed the chickens. later the bell-ringing. 

into the western lands (the round up of the year)

so this is the ninth anniversary of this mix (soon it will be 10). 

the cover photo is horsemouth out in canning town (as photographed by max) a good old nine years ago. . 

another year is rolling to the end. 

tonight the last meeting of the communal endeavour of the year. 

the bid for the EPC C for the houses is in (god only knows when we will get the reply on that).  and, once we get the reply on it, there's another round of all hands on deck as we negotiate with the department of energy security and net zero (or densz as horsemouth calls them) what they are willing to pay for and what they are not willing to pay for. 

tomorrow night the bell-ringing (the area of horsemouth's life where progress is being made).

yesterday the visit to TESCOs and a walk round the common. 

'becoming helpless and infirm he was put upon the parish'  kilvert describes a suicide. 

horsemouth supposes soon there will be round up of the year pieces in the sunday supplements (these will remind him how shit it was). 

so how is the world doing?

well the genocide in gaza continues. but then so does the second congo war. the syrian civil war is halted but then the civil war in sudan continues. (and then there's yemen). ukraine continues for the minute (georgia may follow it soon).

here is a list of conflicts in africa to be going on with and here's a list of ongoing armed conflicts round the world. 

the arab spring has led to widespread carnage. the orange revolution has led to widespread carnage. just say no to democracy says horsemouth (by far and away the best option is to flee). 

will 2025 be worse or better than 2024? it's hard to say really. 

the world will be warmer (because there will be more CO2 in the atmosphere). the attempts to reconfigure capitalism into a net zero form (to alibi this) will continue (meanwhile) the numbers of people fleeing famine and political instability as a result of climate change will rise. islands will sink beneath the sea, low lying states will be flooded more often, drought will strike other regions (and more so). there will be more political instability.

and more people will need to flee.

meanwhile the west will grow older. the proportion of workers to pensioners will decrease. 

horsemouth expects both labour and the conservatives to continue to be shit at politics. he expects nothing labour will do will shift the dial on the economy (they'll just annoy people). he expects there will be no growth (to speak of) and there may even be a further recession. he expects reform to become the third party at the next UK general election (to be held no later than wednesday 15th august 2029), barring something unfortunate like nigel farage's death. 

in terms of domestic politics the next election is a long way off but before that there are council elections (some of them at least 1st may 2025 but not all of them because of local government reorganisation), elections in wales (7th may 2026), scotland (7th may 2026) and northern ireland (6th may 2027). 

so there are plenty of opportunities for disgruntled electorates to register their disgruntlement either by staying away or by showing up and voting for the 'toys-out-the-pram' party (reform for example). 

does horsemouth expect more racist rioting (of the type we have seen in 2024) in 2025? 

er. hmm. yes he does.  (he doesn't see why not). 

'that liar and thief of the world sarah thomas... is gone'

horsemouth is off to TESCOs so this will be necessarily brief. he has a written yesterday blogpost to go so he will be OK. 

'that liar and thief of the world sarah thomas... is gone'

so writes kilvert (somewhat uncharitably) in his diary on this day in 1870. it is the start of a period of daily diary entries. he's back in clyro (the most interesting parts of his diary). 

there's more information on the recently deceased maria kilvert that if anything makes the whole episode even more gothic.  

horsemouth has another copy of kilvert's diaries back in london (it looks like this) he will be having a look through it to see if there is any more in it, or anything different in it, to that  collected by plomer in the three volume edition at his parents (the one he is currently reading).  

eventually kilvert will leave and for much of the rest of his life  be back in chippenham (and it will be less interesting). in volume two of plomer's selection kilvert leaves clyro. he leaves on the 2nd september 1872  (returning only for three weeks in march 1873). 

tomorrow another christmas golden glow with horsemouth as selector. it is the first ever selection by horsemouth from 18th december 2015 (soon it will be 10 years of this nonsense). horsemouth is giving it a listen right now. right now a great sproatley smith track (blackthorn winter). right now a roomful of german nursery school students in cardboard robot costumes sing kraftwerk.