3 weeks of the war/ two-and-a-half years of trump remaining/ how bad can it get?

'by the great oak of cross foot and the green lane to cwmpelved green, where the idiot girl phoebe sat laughing by the fire while her grandfather was groaning in bed and a black cat rushed in and out through a broken window pane...' - kilvert, diaries, 20th march 1872.

on the 21st it snows in kilvert-land.

here the weather decent-ish until tuesday.

3 weeks of the war

'if 2020 taught us anything, it is how ready we must be to revise our worldview.' - adam tooze, $hutdown, conclusion. 

horsemouth is currently in how bad can it get? bargaining mode. 

and the answer is pretty bad. 

'I believe the world has not yet well understood the depth of the energy security challenge we are facing, it is much bigger than what we had in the 1970s... it is also bigger than the natural gas price shock we experienced after the russia's invasion of ukraine.' - IEA executive director fatih birol. 

the economic harms are staggering  and the longer the war runs the more they are baked in. of course the oil shortage/ natural gas shortage/ fertiliser shortage harms china but it also harms american citizens, british citizens, EU citizens. 

the increase in the cost of transport will cause inflation in almost all commodities, shortage of fertiliser will cause rises in food prices, electricity and gas prices will rise, interest rates will stay high throttling investment.

the poor will get poorer again (but even more so). 

however, ever the dialectician, horsemouth sees the good that can come out of this in breaking US hegemony.

two-and-a-half years of trump still remaining (conservative estimate) 

assuming he leaves office when he's supposed to (it's not like he doesn't have previous for election tampering and coup attempts).

last night (fairly early on) a dream where horsemouth was in a house with a girlfriend (a girlfriend from the past, a girlfriend from the future,  he couldn't tell). the house was very full of things but it all seemed bright and happy. here a cold misty morning but probably quite good later on. a walk into the village to get the newspaper. 

there's some evidence of growth in the greenhouse. 

EQUINOX

'so can I just write some bullshit here and save it for the day when I am back online again?' - horsemouth, 19/03/2026

internet connection wifi runaround

horsemouth was quite proud of the last blogpost he wrote using the lewis carroll letter-writing/ george maciunas art administrations thing.

yesterday

horsemouth supposes what he will have to do is wait for his brother to finish work for the day (and then turn the router off and on like he usually does). 

ok bell-ringing booked. (must tell mum). 

the heating oil is ordered (it is expensive). horsemouth doubts the wisdom of ordering it now but it may not be any better by the start of next winter/ later on in the summer etc. he will then either curse himself for a fool for having not ordered more or curse himself for a fool for having ordered too much too early. 

there's a trip to the doctor's for his mum one morning next week. horsemouth has worked out the bus going down he wants to check the timetable for the bus coming back (1058 or 1258 he guesses to be ready for the 1120 or the 1320). he suspects the appointment is in the sweet spot of journey, long wait, appointment, even longer wait.

can you tell that he is not looking forward to it? 

he thinks one way round it is to go for food/ coffee etc. 

the wifi is absolutely giving him the runaround (but at some point soon his brother will pack up for the day and then horsemouth can sort that fucker out with absolute router brutality).  

that did it. if not horsemouth would be stuck out here with no communications.  

good bells. horsemouth is out of the avoiding disasters bit and into the productive work. the angel of grosmont afterwards. 

today. horsemouth has no interest in going to a garden centre (the day's proposed activity) he just wants some seeds so he can grow some food - it doesn't strike him as unreasonable. misty morning. trip to the garden centre has been cancelled. 

the week after. horsemouth will be hiding out in the wen again. 

yesterday horsemouth took a walk round up onto the common via abbeydore crossroads (and then back down via dicks pitch).  after that he got irritated. but really there's no need. 

some advice on letter-writing (flux administration)

tuesday the 19th of march 1872 and the reverend kilvert is off visiting;  

'I called on my old friend richard meredith of colva, the land measurer, who lives in bridge street., just above hay bridge. I used to go there and talk to him very often but I have not been now for a long time. he seemed very glad to see me, for he was much exercised in his mind by the errors and heresy of the nicolaitans... 

I am ashamed to say I know as little as he did and care to know less...'  

from there on the conversation moves on to the masons (about a page's worth of description) and then onto the praying habits of two jews from poland whom meredith had met in an inn in neath. 

horsemouth has been much concerned with letter writing 

(or rather the fact that he is not doing it). 

lewis carroll offers some advice on letter-writing (how to begin a letter, how to go on with a letter etc.), and in particular how to keep a letter-register of your correspondence (something horsemouth has not yet succeeded in doing because he has not yet succeeded in writing any). 

(horsemouth has checked his dover edition of the unknown lewis carroll but does not find the essay there. he does find reproductions of lots of carroll's photos and some of his drawings.)

we might find a parallel in colby chamberlain's  fluxus administration: george maciunas and the art  of paperwork.

'maciunas tampered with the structures of bureaucratic modernity to establish new models of collectivity...' 

well it's a bright and beautiful morning and horsemouth has his coffee. his brother is up visiting. horsemouth has seen to the chickens. in a bit, when he is sure everyone is up, he will go and get the bin from the bottom of the drive. 

today a meeting. 

'what is the commune, that sphinx so tantalizing to the bourgeois mind?'

'on the dawn of the 18th of march, paris arose to the thunder-burst of “vive la commune!” what is the commune, that sphinx so tantalizing to the bourgeois mind?

“the proletarians of paris,” said the central committee in its manifesto of march 18, “amidst the defeats and treasons of the ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck for them to save the country by taking into their own hands the direction of public affairs ... ”

but the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes...' 

- karl marx, the civil war in france, from the third address, may1871. 

but of course this begins not with karl marx's summing up but with the people of paris defending 'their' canons and this happens on march 18th 1871. 

of course the sphinx does not deal in riddles but in specific prophecy. 

the commune/ the pandemic

horsemouth has been reading more of adam tooze's $hutdown - an account of the pandemic in terms of its economics and the actions of central banks. capitalism was saved ladies and gentlemen (huzzah!) by the incurrence of debt (boo!) which we will now all be repaying until the end of time. 

and the current war upon iran will not help either.

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beautiful morning out there. misty, but sunny, but cold. horsemouth woke up round about 6 but stayed in bed until 7. he has his coffee (let him take a sip - ah that's better). weather looks good until sunday. 

when the dust settles

kilvert has decided he must leave clyro. 

'mr. venables told me I must write next week to the bishop to give notice that I mean to resign the curacy of clyro on july 1st...'

horsemouth is putting some effort into understanding the grand scheme 

it is no longer his concern but he feels concerned (you understand).  

marike (at the time of some previous grand scheme) had a thing about pots of money - the government might not want to pay to house poor single people but it might want to pay to train people in construction skills, so maybe a scheme that did both might succeed in getting funded (and so on).

by way of comparison the modern situation appears much easier. 

there is government money to bring cold old social housing up to a decent standard (an energy performance certificate C standard). indeed for a brief period it looked like there were two pots of money that could be used,  one deriving from the fines levied upon power companies when they misbehave (the energy company obligation (ECO) with this made available to those in social housing). and a designated government scheme for social housing. 

but the government are winding up the ECO scheme after many poor installations (so that is no longer available) and the money from the government scheme has to be spent by a particular time (fast approaching). 

the ambition is being shaved off the great plan leaving the mission of compliance for as many properties as possible. 

and when the dust settles it will be possible to see what more needs to be done and what money remains to do it. but it won't be horsemouth doing this because it is no longer his business (in the metaphorical sense of that). 

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hey the weather looks good clear through to sunday! cold at night mind you, then a greyish day and then sun.

horsemouth has his coffee. 

kharg island freakout blues

 'hi friends. it's day eleven of the imperialist war on iran and I'm still alive...'  - random facebook vid

if horsemouth has understood the situation correctly then trump has realised that iran borders on the strait of hormuz through which 20% of the world's oil flows. iran is thus in a position to close off that supply with drones, missiles, mines, or indeed a motorboats with a rocket launchers on the back. 

trump has invited the oil tankers and cargo ships to sail through (protected by the US) and he has invited other nations to send boats to protect those first boats (though what would protect these boats from attack is not clear). 

strangely nobody seems very keen. 

alternatively trump seems to have implied that he could destroy the kharg island oil terminal (from which much of iran's own oil is despatched) if the strait of hormuz is not opened. (thus further limiting the world's supply of oil). 

iran has argued the strait of hormuz is open - just not to iran's enemies. 

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yesterday horsemouth spent some time sitting out in the sun reading or listening to the radio. he then watched satan's sword  an earlier incarnation of the (anti)hero full-moon swordsman. 

he maintained his interest in utopias (and often the ruins of utopias)

he followed an LA review of books article to alice constance austin's llano del rio cooperative colony and then on to an overview article on it (with links to other utopian communes in southern california). 

'alice constance austin (the architect)...  proposed a city composed of courtyard houses of concrete construction, built in rows for a more equitable distribution of labor... each kitchenless house would be connected to a central kitchen through an underground network of tunnels. within the tunnels, railway cars would deliver food, necessities, laundry, and so on...'

aldous huxley lived there for a while (and indeed wrote about it).

interestingly what the article fails to mention is that, despite having its origins in the labour and socialist movements,  and in common with many housing developments in the US  of the time, llano del rio was whites only. 

there were similar african american communes at lanfair (dunbar). but still. 

'it rained a lot in lanfair in those years and in the spring, as far as you could see was beautiful golden poppies all over the valley. it was beautiful, a few other different wildflowers in the mix, but the predominant flowers were golden yellow poppies...'

it is the morning. horsemouth was just dreaming about being in a band rehearsal with pete and ross and the DAT machine (it was a dream of the type wrangling dream apparatus). 

horsemouth has his coffee. let him take a sip. 

as if it had never happened (disbelief)

'if one word could sum up the experience of 2020, it would be disbelief.' - adam tooze, $hutdown, introduction, first sentence. 

we are moving into the sixth anniversary of the COVID pandemic and lockdown. horsemouth has got adam tooze's $hutdown down from the racks (perhaps it has enough narrative drive to enable him to read it). 

boris johnson will not make his 'you must stay home' speech until march 23rd. 

the problem with the pandemic is that it changed nothing. it is an irruption rather than an event. some people get to work from home a few days a week (but then some people got to work from home before the pandemic). most actual workers had to continue on traveling in and working through it. 

as tooze notes, it's not like the world began 2020 from a place of peace - the 2008 financial crisis had ended the globalisation and the 'neo-liberalism is good' era and spawned counter-movements such as trump(1)  and brexit. the world was mad enough already before covid arrived - in a way covid arrived to capstone off that era and as a necessary moment of pause and exhaustion before the post-globalisation new thing could begin. 

in some ways the oil shock that is happening now as a result of the US re-opening the forever war will be more significant.  the world has returned to the global warming train tracks it was on before the pandemic as if it had never happened. 

horsemouth thinks it will break the US as world hegemon as the irresistible force of american military power runs up against the immovable object of the iranian regime. it will produce a cultural crisis in the US similar to that post the vietnam war. this did not find expression or release until watergate, the failure of the carter presidency and the iran hostage rescue mission (and so we begin again). 

'you gave me bad advice'  yells trump at bibi. (bibi shrugs)

this was should teach the west  a number of useful things - the need to distance themselves from the US, the need to distance ourselves from israel, the need to distance ourselves from oil. 

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it's the morning. a very pleasant day yesterday. horsemouth has a slight headache (he's definitely got a cold whatever he says to the contrary). 

the coffee is doing its work. horsemouth's headache is clearing.