firedamp

17th april 1872 kilvert is on holiday in the gower.

'as we lay on the high cliff moor above oxwich bay sheltered by some gorse bushes there was no sound except the light surges of the sea beneath us and the sighing of the wind through the gorse and dry heather.'

meanwhile,  the same day, at nearby killay  there is a coal mining accident. two men and a pony are drowned when a section of the pit floods and third man, a rescuer, is hideously burnt when his unshielded lamp explodes some firedamp. 

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we move towards the may 7th elections

voters in scotland and wales will elect representatives to their national parliaments. 

a number of local council and mayoral polls will take place in england.

in northern ireland, local council and assembly elections are not scheduled until may 2027.

reform can be expected to do well in wales because it is not first passed the post but proportional representation - the caerphilly defence of voting to keep reform out will not work. similarly for the greens (and indeed your party should they actually run any candidates) they should do well and achieve fair representation.

scotland MSPs are election on an additional member system (broadly designed to produce proportional representation). 

elsewhere it is first passed the post and this, together with more than 2 plausible parties,  can result in distortions (horsemouth recommends the gallagher index to measure these). 

the problem in many seats is working out who the keep reform out party are. in the caerphilly by election (conducted under first passed the post) it was clearly plaid cymru. who it will be in council elections up and down the land is not clear. 

and then that's our lot. that's all our supply of democracy until the next general election which must be held by 15th august 2029. the prime minister has the power to dissolve parliament and call it earlier (but then neither he nor his successor has any real reason to).

 it is the collapse of horsemouth's belief in radical or protest politics that leads him to electoral politics. 

but he doesn't really believe in that either. 

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today it looks like rain (according to the weather forecast). the weekend and next week look pretty decent. 

last night a decent bell-ringing. horsemouth needs to work on understanding called changes. he's chasing after plain hunt but maybe he needs to build his skills first. he needs to remember to change on the handstroke not the backstroke.

sweetpeas and nasturtiums (penmayne and kilvrough)

16th april 1872 and kilvert is on holiday in the gower penninsula.

he visits some (presumably neolithic) tombs between penmayne (in kilvert's somewhat archaic non-welsh spelling) and kilvrough.

yesterday horsemouth went for a wander on the common 

(the usual round probably about a mile or so). 

he suspects he may have to do it several times over the course of the day. he was preparing for a meeting and he wanted to be as calm and as easy going as it is possible for him to be. 

he also had an egg delivery mission. 

however he doesn't want to ask about the eggs in case that is the wrong thing to do, he thinks he'd rather wait until the eggs are offered.  as he looks out of the window his mum is pulling some rhubarb. 

horsemouth has put some pepper seeds and some basil seeds in a tray in the greenhouse. he doubts it is warm enough yet for them to get going but he will see. otherwise the runner beans continue to grow well - horsemouth will plant them out after sunday (when the weather has warmed up). the broad beans look to be on the go. otherwise no sign of anything else particularly.

the onion bulbs have arrived so horsemouth will get those planted out this afternoon (or it might be an idea to get it done now before it starts raining again). anyway they are done now (now to see if they come up). 

flowers wise - some sweet peas and nasturtiums are on the go.  

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meanwhile horsemouth attended the meeting he was going to attend. 

it went well. the vote went the way horsemouth hoped it would. he was reminded of why he doesn't like those meetings (he doesn't like the people). 

ok to be fair he does like some of the people (just the ones he doesn't like he really doesn't like). 

he supposes he should chill out with it. as work it's done. he can let it go and move on. the meeting worked well in itself (the people worked well together). the pains-in-the-arse are no longer his pains-in-the-arse. 

it is an interesting problem though. previously the co-op's involvement with the members domestic arrangements was limited to their rent. now the co-op will (probably) have to encourage the members to ask the power companies for smart meters (horsemouth expects some resistance there). perhaps the smart meter wars have been won. 

a railway journey (and a decision)

kilvert is on holiday in the gower until the 20th. (he will return to clyro and snow). 

on this day in 1872 kilvert is making the railway journey down there. 

'monday 15th april (1872). from clyro to ilston rectory...

waiting an hour and a half at llechrhyd, reading faust on the lower platform...

westhorp was waiting for me at killay station...'

kilvert will have used the hereford, hay and brecon railway. changing at three cocks junction for the up train to llechrhyd and then (presumably) changing platforms for the train to killay on the llanelly railway. 

for the hay to llechrhyd journey AI tells horsemouth he can use the national rail journey planner (sadly not - pretty much all these train lines and train stations are passed and gone). 

to make the equivalent journey today horsemouth would need to take a bus (two buses in fact) into hereford or abergavenny and then by train to newport and then across to swansea and then on by bus he guesses (yes. 28 minute journey, four buses an hour, £3). 

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oh dear. horsemouth has consented to go to a meeting (he's getting annoyed and anxious about it already).  

the issue is simple 

to go ahead or not to go ahead. 

to take the money offered or not to take the money offered. 

he has been for a walk to clear his head (and his head is somewhat cleared). this probably won't last. 

horsemouth has missed alula down in malvern for record store day this year (damn drat and blast).  his head was not in the game. 

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ah! bless you archive .org

ronald blythe's collection of diary entries from various diarists. 

'although they are the most private form of writing, there have been few diarists who have not in their heart and hearts hoped that their daily confidences would be read by other eyes.  philip larkin's order  to burn his diary  after his death was a most unusual one...' 

ok look. there was also kafka (it's just that brod disobeyed). 

this anthology contains examples from eighty diaries: the diarist as eye-witness; the diarist in love; the diarist as naturalist; the diarist at war; the diarist as artist; (etc.). all these are good sub-headings. horsemouth may make use of them at a later date. 

the torch trees of paradise (east of the strait of hormuz)

'the blossoming fruit trees, the torch trees of paradise blazed with a transparent green and white lustre up the dingle in the setting sunlight. the village is in a blaze of fruit blossom. clyro is at its loveliest. what more can be said?' 

- the reverend kilvert on this day in 1872. 

in the morning a walk into ewyas harold to post a letter and to buy some coffee (about 1 mile there and 1 mile back). his mum thinks there is some advantage in buying 1st class stamps before the price goes up but horsemouth thinks the price has gone up already (though, of course, it will go up again at some point). 

thereafter some more gardening (planting two rows of carrots) and some reading. 

what is in the news? 

the strait of hormuz - so the US navy will now be blocading the easy bit, east of the strait of hormuz. the ships of world powers (china, russia) will probably get a pass (being too much trouble to stop), the ships of smaller countries will probably get boarded and impounded. 

quite how this is supposed to free up the world supply of oil is anybody's guess. horsemouth just thinks it is designed to produce fluctuations in the price of oil that can be bet upon by the super-rich producing super-profits. 

the driving up of the price of oil and fertiliser will drive hundreds of millions down into poverty (and possibly millions to famine and death).

what horsemouth really wants to talk about is axel rudakubana. yet he is hesitant because he knows it is a dangerous 'hot' topic. 

you may think rudakubana is just evil - the question then is how all the state agencies involved failed to stop him before the attack happened. 

to horsemouth there are unexamined facets to the story. 

as a kid axel was in a children in need advert (horsemouth thinks he's got that right - yes he starred as dr.who in an advert that has since been taken down by the bbc). this work he got through a casting agency. that's got to have been pretty cool for a youngster. pretty important. 

a brief moment of light. 

maybe it stirred up jealousy. maybe it started the bullying.

later we have him taking knives to school (allegedly to deal with bullies) and being referred to prevent three times. we have him arrested by the police on a bus in possession of knives (but not charged). we have it taking the best part of a year and a half for his autism diagnosis to come through. we have him spending the best part of two years in his room, ordering weapons off the internet and terrorising his family. we have him released from mental health care 6 days before the attack being classified as not a risk.

even the cab driver thought he was a wrong'un but dropped him off anyway. 

and so despite many failures of state intervention it is all his family's fault and all his fault and all the fault of the police, the local authority, the education authority, the local mental health services. 

is it worth mentioning that all these bodies are under-resourced. struggling with cuts. probably not. 

(hell chuck the cab driver on the pile as well). 

prevent particularly irk horsemouth - rudakubana was referred to them three times but they did not intervene because he was not ideological. he was later pronounced not mentally ill (so it was not mental health's job either). 

like grenfell we have an orgy of buck passing and so many institutional failures by people with letters after their name who were being paid to care. so much so it will be difficult to prove any criminal responsibility. 

song of solomon 2:12

 'the time of the singing of birds had come'  quotation from kilvert's diary this day in 1872.

in this he echoes the song of solomon 'the flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land' (song of solomon 2:12). here the turtle is (of course) the turtledove (unless you are john fahey).

here in the wilds the weather is a bit more equivocal. (frost this morning)

the anniversary of a waterintobeer musicians of bremen gig in 2019

horsemouth will dig up more details (and maybe even a photo).

'setlist... - satan (gospel blues), the werewolf (michael hurley), the devil, worldes blisse, when the faun met alice (musicians of bremen - you may know these from horsemouth’s solo set last time), painbirds (mark linkous - sparklehorse) he played last time also. they revived sad and lonely and dorothy.  new to the set this time a version of blue crystal fire (robbie basho) and katie cruel (trad. karen dalton), lastly they took a crack at keith hudson’s turn your heater on...'

nick doyne-ditmas played. martin howard’s set included a song about the tasmanian tiger. 

horsemouth is lucky he recorded this information. it dates back to before he blogged everyday (well ok he was blogging every day on facebook but that's semi-hidden behind some resource saving tool). he didn't start blogging every day on blogger until september 2020. 

'visual poetry, poetic visions, action music and musical actions, happenings and events...'  

- dick higgins (member of fluxus)

yesterday horsemouth read parts of american avant-garde theatre by arnold aronson. he started on page 162 with the bits about fluxus (because he'd read about fluxus before) and then read the chapter on performance art as a whole. he is gradually expanding out to the point where he can claim to have read the entire book. 

this morning a frost (to quote the ruts 'it was cold in the night') but beautiful sunshine also. for horsemouth a trip into the village to buy coffee and to post a letter. 

uncloudy day (a heap of broken images)

 'in the hot unclouded afternoon I went slowly up the hill by wern y pentre...' 

- kilvert on this day in 1872

'... you know only a heap of broken images...' - t.s. eliot, the wasteland.

here (yesterday) it has just hailed (and then the sun has come out again almost immediately) and now (yesterday) it is raining.

this makes horsemouth regret his moments of watering (so unnecessary). the weather is looking a bit pessimistic for the next few days.  

yesterday (as will be) a zoom beers meet with h.a. (as he is now called). 

h.a. was drinking lager. horsemouth was drinking 0% lager. 

h.a. (can you tell who it is yet?) is giving up on facebook. they discussed gentrification and the arts and the way art galleries are full of talentless dross (mostly big paintings done with a lightbox because they fill the space up nicely). 

theu talked about books (horsemouth displaying his haul from his recent visit to the wen). then they talked about films.

h.a. recommended all we imagine as light (gentrification crops up here too). he's taken out some temporary membership to the bfi. 

horsemouth recommended lots of georges-henri clouzot (les diaboliques, the wages of fear etc.). 

they both expressed their enthusiasm for carry on screaming and fearless vampire killers. 

this morning rainy and grey. horsemouth is just back from feeding the chickens. he's found his copy of all the names and so has recommenced reading it. 

doubly precious (sevenfold dear)

'alas, how soon the time will come when I must go away and leave it all and when I shall see no more the beloved scenes which have been so familiar to me for so many years. in the prospect of their loss how doubly precious, how sevenfold dear they have become...'

- francis kilvert, on this day 1872. 

he meets a fox-hunting man from painscastle and officiates at a funeral. 

horsemouth has been gardening. he's put in some more compost and planted a load of beetroot seeds in one of the raised beds (hopefully they will come up). he thinks he will put peas in the others (his mum is not so keen, she thinks they are a lot of work for not much food). down in the old garden some nasturtiums he had planted have come up (he's just been down to water them and give them some encouragement). 

in the greenhouse he has filled up the pots for the tomatoes etc. with fertiliser and compost ready for the tomato plants (when they come). 

yesterday he was up the hill to deliver the eggs to martin and sylvia (about two and a half miles all told). the jack-in-the-hedge grows well. 

'deleuze was right that written language came first, before scraps of language were incorporated into vocal utterance.'  - from the april page of the triple negative calendar 2026. 

this also makes reference to a sociologist called scott hamilton who horsemouth thinks is this person here. he tells an interesting tale of angus maclise's suitcase. 

in the evening horsemouth watched a youtube vid on the radical group aufheben, he then downloaded the aufheben article on decadence - one of the theses of the international communist current, that ever since 1914 capitalism has not been progressive but a break on the development of the productive forces and thus humanities march towards liberation from necessity. (horsemouth does hope he's got that right). 

later as he retired to bed he could not find his copy of all the names so he started on william morris's the well at the world's end (and in particular lin carter's excellent introductory essay). 

in the night it has rained. the weather is taking a colder, greyer turn. the chickens seem happy enough.