trade, wars, and tariffs

so the european powers are keen to step up for ukraine. 

but not for gaza? or the west bank? how come? 

or are they just saying that now (confident their bluff will not be called). 

we'll send troops (if there's a peace deal with US security guarantees). 

oh dear 'history' has started up again.

is this a temporary phenomenon? 

trade, wars, and tariffs

how long would it take to start mining minerals in ukraine (or the donbas for that matter)? how keen would companies be to start digging with shells whistling round their ears? 

argh! a phone menu at the local health centre - the book covid vaccination appointment has not been turned on. that and the fact that his mum's mobile seems to have died and the landline phone seems half-dead and keeps cutting out because of exhausted rechargeable batteries. horsemouth eventually managed to get through with his own mobile only to be greeted with the not yet properly set up phone menu.

his mum is going in tomorrow anyway. 

it's the thursday and horsemouth is feeling uninspired. he's not sure why. he's tempted to blame social media. he's listening to some jon hassell (which is much of muchess), next some late style alice coltrane  (maybe). now he's on to harold budd bismillahi 'rrahman 'rrahim... and then more harold budd (it seems to be doing the trick).

in a bit it will be dark and he will go out and feed and lock up the chickens. (he will be useful). 

ok he's done it.

later still the bell-ringing. 

and after that a paranoid meltdown. horsemouth was temporarily locked out of his email but he can still get access to his facebook page, his substack and shortly he will be working on his blogspot (yes success).

until then he will post his blogs on his substack.

wow horsemouth just had a paranoia meltdown - he thought he'd had his cards and his phone stolen (but it turned out not to be the case).

still a change is as good as a rest they say.

 

liquid pleyades

horsemouth is back from a visit to the village shop 

he returned across the common with a small backpack containing provisions. it's enough to hold them until friday. 

later he will take the waste bin down the drive (and then feed the chickens).  

he has talked (briefly) to colin on the phone and so his anxiety is starting to abate. colin will phone james and then let him know what the coup is (horsemouth is not sure that will mean much to you but it means a lot to him). 

horsemouth just wants to be reassured that the business is in hand and it seems like business is being taken care of. there's a meeting next wednesday (by which time it needs to be mostly taken care of). 

ok he's off to sit outside and read. 

horsemouth thinks he saw the black cat over passed the abbey (it's back here now). 

that horsemouth has much to be thankful for 

he is not (for example) a minimum-wage delivery driver man with a family to support. 

while he's had a fair amount of drama in his life he has rolled out of most of it reasonably unscathed. while he is poor he also has a low maintenance life-style that enables him, pretty much, to do what he wants (within obvious financial limits). 

he is now coasting it out to his actual pension still a while off. (hopefully that will work).  

'arguably the biggest challenge facing the world...' is global warming/ climate change. 

horsemouth would like to do something about it (however modest) but it seems like people would rather have a £60k kitchen extension (total people benefitted 4, total carbon emissions horsemouth shudders to think). ho hum. ok shortly not to be his problem. 

he does hope it's all going to work. it would be nice to go out on a high point.  

one of his flatmates is probably off to the south coast some time this year. horsemouth is struggling to write the sentence saying that he will be off too. 

it will all take shape and flow easily and happily towards a justified conclusion

tuesday (just another day) 

horsemouth feeling anxious and tense (hopefully today - wednesday - it will all take shape and flow easily and happily towards a justified conclusion). he went for a walk on the common. it was very muddy but horsemouth successfully reached the bench on top of the common but then his anxiety drove him on and round. 

horsemouth's mum tells him the controller on the cooker has stopped working (it's an AGA type thing). fortunately the heating seems to be fine so they will not freeze. and fortunately there's an entire electric hob and oven just round the corner of the kitchen so they will  nor starve. horsemouth guesses it is a job for the usual repair man and will resist any suggestions otherwise. 

he has had a look at the downstairs clock - the one hand was blocking the seconds hand (and thus preventing the clock from working) - horsemouth has got it working again he thinks (never work with children, animals or moving parts). 

in a bit he will go out, dig another trench, put in some chicken shit, and then fill it up again. (he's done it. mission accomplished).

the telephone is being a bit glitchy (again) horsemouth thinks it either needs replacement rechargeable batteries or replacing entirely. his mum could (of course) use her mobile phone to make the phonecalls (but that's unlikely). 

and not just the black cat 

now that horsemouth remembers there was a different cat hanging round the house (a white cat with orange markings). a tom (horsemouth thinks). his mum has seen the black cat again (yes it has no collar). 

it's the waiting he can't stand (the hill of dreams)

well there is news.

but horsemouth can't tell you what it is (yet).

so on we go.

it's the waiting he can't stand.  (ok 2pm nothing)

horsemouth would at least like to be able to have a meeting (but no). 

other than that it is a beautiful sunny day (but cold). the guys from the garage are due to come and pick up the car for its MOT.  

yesterday (the 3rd) the birthday of arthur machen mystic and weird fiction author.  brian stableford writes that machen 'was the first writer of authentically modern horror stories, and his best works must still be reckoned among the finest products of the genre'. 

horsemouth went off down a rabbit hole to books in wernicke  in search of copy of machen's the hill of dreams.

he's been out for a walk on the common and looked over at the black mountains in the direction of hay. it is still too muddy to get up to the top of the common to look over towards the skirrid. he's going to try sneaking outside - first to read and then probably to dig some more compost into the garden. 

ok he's done that. now he's going to go back outside again. and then he's back in. 

horsemouth and his mum are due to be back on abbey duty soon

he's looked up the weather - it's great this week (sunnier and warmer (except at night)), but next week it all goes a bit rubbish. we are up to the 10 hour day (we are on our way to the equinox and the 12 hour day).  horsemouth needs to change the timer for the chickens so they get more light.  

horsemouth usually enjoys abbey duty (he likes regular duties - just show up, do it, get the tick).

horsemouth has completed  colonel chabert by balzac. military hero (presumed to be dead) returns, but his wife has remarried, remarried better, and doesn't want to know him, the world indeed doesn't want to know him, times have moved on, the heroes of napoleonic times are done. he enjoyed the introduction by a.n.wilson, chabert is buried by new times.  

horsemouth has the text in french in a harrap french classics edition (£1 - somewhere) collected together with gobseck (which he has read online) and with introduction and notes by a.g.lehmann. 

he's also continued with his reading of the worm forgives the plough  by john stewart collis. 

today a bright cold morning. horsemouth continues in his anxiety.  

ah great! the fucking cooker has died. seeing as the heating still works (so far) horsemouth guesses it's the controller, but he doesn't know. they'll have to get the repair guy out. that much (in horsemouth's opinion) is certain. 

oh les beaux jours (a metaphor extended beyond its capacity)

oh dear things have just got more difficult 

horsemouth's mum has had a stumble in the kitchen and hurt her knee. this means that wheras horsemouth used to be able to let her get on with everyday things pretty much unaided  that is no longer wise. at the moment horsemouth is back upstairs because his mum is watching football (safely parked on the sofa). 

horsemouth is in a slight grump because things were going better (health-wise)and they've now taken a turn for the worse. 

what's new..?

the quay brothers will have an exhibition at swedenborg house, up in the wen there will be a polish film festival (full of the kind of literary themed films horsemouth likes, sanatorium, the manuscript etc.). 

meanwhile 'plans to recreate a passenger railway station for south-west herefordshire have hit a further setback... the government...  cancelled the restoring your railways fund, which had been seen as the most promising source of funding to get the scheme off the ground.' 

as horsemouth often remarks a train service into hereford (and abergavenny) from pontrilas would be much better for him than the existing bus services. that said he doesn't particularly avail himself of the bus services so one of his plans is to start doing that. book-buying visits are his priority (it's more the browsing and the bargains if he is honest). 

all the good times are passed and gone (beggars with dreams)

so what does the future hold?

'I'll be living quietly in a little house somewhere in the suburbs, enjoying a peaceful existence not writing the book I am not writing now and, so as to continue not doing so, I will come up with different excuses from the ones I use now to avoid actually confronting myself.

or else I'll be interned in a poorhouse, content with my utter failure, mingling with the riff raff who believed they were geniuses when in fact they were just beggars with dreams, mixing with the anonymous mass of people who had neither the strength to triumph nor the power to turn their defeats into victories.'  - fernando pessoa, the book of disquiet. 

pessoa's book - cobbled together from fragments after his death - is a perfect urban work. we have a map of the low town in lisbon, a workplace, a rented room, cheap restaurants to eat in, characters who seldom leave their neighbourhood (this is their virtue). but pessoa's heteronym bernardo soares (the character who is supposed to be the writer) dreams of a life elsewhere and after (but not very convincingly). 

fahey week and basho day are over for the year (not that horsemouth did much to celebrate them).

fahey, basho, pessoa (and all his heteronyms) enjoy an afterlife because they made art while alive (and now they are gone and all we have is the art they made, and sometimes someone finds more of it). this is what has happened with robbie basho, liam barker made a film about him and because of this his old guitar, his unreleased recordings and his unreleased live recordings have come to back to life.

and elsewhere you have the (allegedly) silent masses (as ranciere would note, only 'allegedly' silent). 

so (horsemouth enjoins you) make art while you can. 

in parallel with the pessoa he is reading john stewart collis's the worm forgives the plough in particular the second part of his second book down to earth, the wood. here collis is clearing some woodland for folklorist rolf gardiner (who is famously dodgy as horsemouth has remarked before). 

'having opened the gate of labour I had suddenly stepped inside the world and could see the objects with fresh eyes.' remarks collis in his first book while following the plough. what makes collis unusual is that he writes about these experiences (and that people wanted to read them).

saturday afternoon a zoom beer with howard (seen here in microcosm) 

and with horsemouth (seen here in macrocosm).

there was some discussion of aztec camera  but not much discussion of books (as far as horsemouth can recall). 

'the wedding song of one john fahey' (himalayan highlands)

'the wise man makes his life monotonous for then even the tiniest incident becomes imbued with great significance.' - fernando pessoa. the book of disquiet, fragment 20[56]

horsemouth is here in the wilds about to listen to the robbie basho listening party-  music from the boxed set of live recordings and some words from the producer of the film about him voice of the eagle liam barker.

it begins with chung mei - the chinese orchid. ok seems like liam barker won't be speaking. horsemouth missed the basho album giveaway. basho announces one song (himalayan highlands) as  'the wedding song of one john fahey'. 

howard (as musiciansofbremen) listened in as well (starting at about 6.30 after work). they lasted until the end (stamina massive) and pronounced themselves well pleased. 

yesterday horsemouth wandered over to ewyas harold and then wandered back with a backpack full of shopping. no he didn't fall over in the mud (but it was a close run thing). he was feeling surprisingly not too bad after his night out post bell-ringing (but on the other hand he never felt tip-top either). 

monmouthshire and brecon canal blues

it seems like the monmouthshire and brecon canal (here labelled the brecon and abergavenny canal) may be turned into mud and stranded boats because of water diversion restrictions. as anyone who knows anything about wales will tell you it rains, it rains a lot, if it's not raining it is some kind of miracle. the notion that there could be a shortage of water is pure fucking comedy.

horsemouth has seen a book about the monmouthshire and brecon canal. he wonders if he still has any pictures of it. the book itself waterways restored was written (and probably illustrated) by p.j.g. ransom went to live with a canal boat dweller. 

horsemouth is doing his best to avoid the news. he dislikes displays of bullying power. he finds them infuriating and best avoided. horsemouth can't bear to watch it (he's a sensitive soul). 'you have no cards'. horsemouth feels sorry for zelensky. the ukrainians have fought and died and now their main backer has announced it wants to sell them down the river, partition their country and fuck them for the mineral rights. continuing with the pulp fiction theme the best it was going to be was the scene between marcellus and butch 'you may a little sting but that's just your pride fucking with you...' but instead vance and trump tag teamed him. it was ugly. 

it's the morning. it is beautiful and frosty out there - a golden glow. winter is over and the sun rises just behind the nearest hill rather than on the far horizon.