the moment people started writing things down

when did things start going wrong with british poetry? (asked a recent review)

answer - the moment people started writing things down.

daniel hiller-roazen has been at it again (writing books horsemouth means) - omen nomen. horsemouth does so like that sort of quibbling (as you may have noticed from his comments on mail art).  between the message being spoken and it being heard and it being understood there may be a delay, it may arrive with people other than for who it was intended, it may mean a different thing from what was intended to those people when it arrives. 

the mail art envelope (continued)

horsemouth has noticed with his mail art envelope that when he closes it up 'the purpose of mail art' will be covered up (but not the to establish... and to divulge...). 

he's been making/ collaging a few things to go in it. he wonders if he's got a pritt stick anywhere to assist with assembling it. 

in three weeks time 

a visit to an undisclosed location 

(assuming all goes as planned). 

roughly 10 days from the 17th until the 27th (is the way it roughly looks). 

will the weather still be as rubbish then? (difficult to tell but of course it will).

later on (towards the end of march) 

another crack at the abbey rota. 

horsemouth must admit of an error

the above mix he should have posted on the 6th of january (and the one he posted on the 6th of january he should have posted today).

nevermind. (maybe next year)

in this selection judee sill, alice coltrane, nico, gene clark, santana, art ensemble of chicago, milton nascimento and stella chiweshe. 

the photo is by john clarkson of horsemouth at number one the thames. 

people have been wargaming what happens if trump refuses to go or seeks re-election for the third time. this, horsemouth thinks, is a realistic possibility, and people should begin preparing for it. 

how farcical does it have to get before people stop laughing

quiet day from kilvert

horsemouth's mum was off to town (on the 8.21).

horsemouth was feeling a bit angsty

in the evening bell-ringing (he usually gets some social anxiety before he goes off and does this - and then he's fine once he's gotten there).

in the end this went really well. horsemouth didn't let go of the rope. he didn't bounce the bells. the called changes began to make more sense to him. he even managed (with assistance) to do a plain hunt on 3 bells (this involves a lot of fast changes).  

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the chairman of the board of peace

'which of the following issues has, over the past decade, most changed the way you look at your future?'

horsemouth has just noticed that the proposed list of problems (global warming, pandemics, war, pestilence, famine, death etc.)  doesn't include the return of the living dead donald j. trump.

trump is a mere one year into his second presidency (and just look at the amount of chaos he has caused!). there is an assumption that at some point (after the mid-terms, when his successor is elected, when his successor is ratified and sworn in) that the chaos will cease. 

but it may not - trump's successor might be more of the same or trump might run for a third time/ not leave office/ stage another coup (with the assistance of ICE this time). or his heart might pop and it will be president vance...

anyway this is three glorious years in the future. 

how farcical does it have to get before people stop laughing. 

to establish/ to divulge/ to spill a secret

'pouring rain... the brook at night roaring under the high moon.'  - kilvert, diaries, 22nd january 1872.

and because of the rain soon  (in 1872) there will be flooding.

yesterday (today as was) a rainy horrific day. 

horsemouth has prepared a mail art envelope now all he needs to do is make some art to go in it and put it in the post with a suitable address on the cover and some postage on it (optional). 

on the back of the envelope he has put a quote about the purpose of mail art by loredana parmesani which he has edited slightly from the following;  

'the purpose of mail art, an activity shared by many artists throughout the world, is to establish an aesthetical communication between artists and common people in every corner of the globe, to divulge their work outside the structures of the art market and outside the traditional venues and institutions: a free communication in which words and signs, texts and colours act like instruments for a direct and immediate interaction.'

horsemouth doesn't know about that 'direct and immediate interaction' bit - one of the advantages of mail art is that you are not there to witness the reception of it, you are not obliged to comment on the comments. (in this way it more resembles email than social media, it resembles writing more than conversation and speech - as one would expect). 

divulge here is a translation from the italian of divulgare (probably) which has more the meaning of to disseminate. 

divulge (in english) has more the sense of to spill a secret. 

he's not so keen on the common people bit either. 

when praising something people tend to favour the direct, immediate and unmediated (over the delayed and considered and mediated). but there is something to be said for both. horsemouth has worked at this point of tension between writing and speech, between recording and performing, between playing and improvising, for a long time. 

he supposes that what he will have to do for his letter is actually write it (rather than type in his thoughts as he is doing now). despite working as a notetaker for many years his handwriting is not the best. 

the today that will be yesterday is a day without coffee 

he's going to wait until the tomorrow that is today when he can pick up a copy of the hereford times as well. he should probably have asked his mother to pick up some when she went in (but hey). 

------------------------------------------

 'official figures suggest that the number of households living in fuel poverty was on track to rise to 2.78m homes in england by 2025...

.. more households – as many as 9.6m across the UK – are estimated to be living in cold, poorly insulated homes...

- by june last year, the amount of energy debt shouldered by households had climbed to a new high of £4.43bn, an increase of ... 71% since 2023...'

it all continues to get worse but there is at least a plan (the warm homes plan) to move things forward. horsemouth hopes that all this aligns with the plans of the communal endeavour and that at the end good things will come out of it. some moving of the goalposts has taken place (in particular the scrapping of the ECO schemes) but hopefully not fatally. 

having pursued this for four years horsemouth would like to see it get to a satisfactory conclusion - the listed houses insulated up to an EPC C standard and the process of moving towards lower carbon heating begun. 

interesting presentation by the greg jackson from octopus.

however, it is also no longer his problem. 

'gather up the fragments... that nothing be lost'

'a cold raw frost fog, dark and dreary. preached in the morning an old sermon on gathering up the fragments from john vi, 12...' - kilvert's diary, 21st january 1872. 

'gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.' - john vi. 12. 

this is (in fact) from the parable of the loaves and the fishes, a tale of magical increase. we are just being reminded that it is not usually this way.

today the anniversary of the thule airforce base B-52 crash in 1968. this lead to the detonation of the conventional explosive components of at least three of the the four B28 nuclear bombs being carried scattering radioactive material over a wide area.  

this subsequently led to the thulegate affair and cleanup workers' compensation claims. 

military nuclear accidents were much more common than horsemouth thought when he was interested in this field. he had only heard of this and the 1966 palomares crash (17th january 1966). 

today a wander both to the crossroads and up the hill to deliver eggs. he managed to get all of this in before the rain (and it is due to rain a lot over the next few days). 

so here's horsemouth and the madness is continuing. 

so (let horsemouth get this straight) a US president is heavying the european members of NATO into giving/ selling to him a giant resource rich island. (it is a brilliant distraction from whatever else might be happening). with friends like these who needs enemies (both sides remark). 

now the kingdom of denmark's claim to greenland is about as spurious as the united states of america's claim to its slice of the north american continent (it's right of conquest all the way down). the european NATO 'allies' lack the military power to tell the US to 'jog on', they might be able to delay it all until trump's power starts to wane (after the mid-terms),  they might be able to craft a path to selling him greenland that looks like compliance but is in fact mere appeasement. 

the US is an unreliable ally it has to go. the european powers may believe that trump is a temporary aberration but he may not be.

as a kid (and yes he really was that kind of a brat) horsemouth read a book about sir william stephenson (a man called intrepid).  in it stephenson is responsible for dragging the US into the second world war on the british side - a thing that seems obvious enough to us from our vantage point but may have been a mere historical contingency. this book has been heavily criticised for distorting stephenson's significance but it at least opens up that isolationist US politics before the familiar dispensation was in place. 

here a rainy day. horsemouth's mum is off into the village. 

defend the kingdom of denmark and its property greenland

january 20th and kilvert is still trying to find his hat box (mislaid during a railway journey).

'writing to the station master at gloucester and paddington about my lost hat box. I hear from my mother this morning that two chippenham porters remember my hat box being labelled. one labelled it and the other saw it done. so I hope I may get compensation...

a party of young men of the village have just gone past my window in the clear bright frosty moonlight with an accordion well played and sweet voices singing 'though hardy norsemen'. 

A. R. T. S. O. B. E. · The Hardy Norseman sung

hardy norsemen exists in a variety of forms. it is sung at the up-helly-aa  celebrations in shetland (this year on tuesday 27th january). there's a four-part version of it by robert lucas pearsall. (but like a lot of songs it turns out not to be that old). it's a fire festival for the end of yule but it ends up being closer in time to imbolc.

sunset 1638 or so, eight and a half hour day. 

defend the kingdom of denmark and its property greenland

it's clearly the property of the vikings by right of conquest

says horsemouth (only semi-sarcastically). 

we have come to that moment in 1984 when the alliances change (we were allied with the USA soon we will be allied with china). 

'viriconium is a world trying to remember itself. the dumb stones perform an unending act of recall.' 

- ansel verdigris, allies. (in m.john harrison's a storm of wings) 

in the meantime we will have to go through the messy divorce. 

china the rising electrostate. the USA the declining petrostate. 

of course what europe is really doing is defending the right of self-determination of the greenland peoples should they ever be asked. 

the UK is a bit fucked, it has exiled itself from europe and just at the moment when the unreliability its last remaining ally (the US) is has become apparent. who's yer mate? go the nasty european boys (sneaks and swots the lot of them). 

sultan selim in his palace at constantinople

kilvert goes to witness some tableaux vivants at wye cliff 

sultan selim in his palace at constantinople

'the children were richly dressed in character and acted beautifully. they were as still as marble.

immense clapping of hands and delight amongst the audience of children and their friends. the curtain falls and rising again discovers the sultana awake...

the crichtons do these things so well and with perfect taste...' 

horsemouth thinks of prospero's books or something similar. 

horsemouth is back from the bellringers lunch in ewyas harold (and very full he was by the end of it). 

on the monday he thinks he will womble the eggs up the hill (the chickens are laying at a cracking pace) and he should probably clean out the hen shed again. 

apparently the abbey has a ghost (horsemouth has not seen it yet he doesn't think). 

it came in the post (he should reply in kind but he's a lazy sod)

'the purpose of mail art, an activity shared by many artists throughout the world, is to establish an aesthetical communication between artists and common people in every corner of the globe, to divulge their work outside the structures of the art market and outside the traditional venues and institutions: a free communication in which words and signs, texts and colours act like instruments for a direct and immediate interaction.' 

– loredana parmesani in the wikipedia article on mail art. 

to be mail art it must be 

a) a work of art, and 

b) have been posted

thus horsemouth's copies of the triple negative calendar for 2026 and his copy of tripe negative's nothing is possible (and the cassette that came with it) are mail art. on the other hand his copy of god bless the death drive by them is not (because he purchased it at a show of theirs). 

similarly his copy of sean o'connor's the lycan print is not a piece of mail art because he was given it at a comics convention.  similarly also matt boyce's radioactive future mutant horsemouth purchased at a comics show is not also (is that right? that's how he remembers it). 

the letters he received through the mail from howard are mail art but the annotated copies of books horsemouth lent him are not (because they did not come through the mail). 

conversely the various poetry chap books and CDs he has 

received from rob lawson in far off riogordo are mail art because they came in the post. similarly the books mandy keifetz sent him (even if ordered online) constitute mail art (perhaps his 'reviews' online constitute some kind of repayment/ engagement).

he should reply in kind but he's a lazy sod

he supposes that at one point he was posting out copies of the musicians of bremen CDs and that this could be considered his mail art. (if he just physically gave you a copy of the CD when you met that doesn't count but if he dropped it off round your house while you were out that may count). 

if you downloaded it or streamed it (but didn't ask horsemouth for a physical copy) that doesn't count as mail art. 

he would like to post out more mail art (but he doesn't have any new 'art' to hand). he would have to make it. (in some ways this would be a good thing for him to engage in). 

it's the sunday morning and rainy and grey

horsemouth is off to the bell-ringers lunch soon. in a bit he'll have a shower and start sorting out soe clothes for it. at the end of it he'll go off to lock up the abbey (and then that's him and his mum's stint on the abbey rota done until the end of march). 

yesterday afternoon zoom beers with howard (two beers) and a discussion of mary wollstonecraft and her prose style.