'all that is air crystallises into solid'

horsemouth noted a new possible overground station on the top end of the old surrey canal that himself and howard walked during their last visit. 

this is not in the bit that himself and howard walked but further up into millwall FC country. 

he was interested to read about the croydon canal. he thought south london was basically a canal free zone (but it turns out not to have been the case). 

horsemouth and his enthusiasm for infrastructure development projects 

please forgive horsemouth for his enthusiasm for infrastructure development projects (a railway station here, a tram line there). he suffers from the romance of development. it's not that he doesn't recognise that there are costs and losers with development it is just that he likes capitalism in its productive/ creative aspect, it gives him hope that production and creation and improvement are possible and could even be made to happen after capitalism.

of course if you improve transport infrastructure you increase movement, you increase footfall and trade (probably), you increase property values and drive a whole new incident of gentrification and clearances. the cheap and cheerful interstices where culture can thrive are cleansed and replaced by sterilised pseudo-public spaces.

(now that he puts it like that it sounds less appealing)

the culture, the edge, moves in search of cheaper rents. but then again horsemouth will come and visit. 

it's not that the promises of development have to be fulfilled - it is just that the development has to happen to maintain the illusion of a productive creative capitalism, to hide its actual dependency on the clearances of people/ robbery of space that this involves. 

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

horsemouth is waiting for the rain. he thinks that when it rains his generalised spiritual malaise will clear. 

horsemouth cooked 

the day before yesterday horsemouth cooked (such was the depth of his spiritual malaise). it was a chilli (without being a chilli) and a vegetable curry (without being a curry). he fried tomatoes and onions from the garden and then added the potato, runner bean leftovers and red kidney beans. he added some basil also. then he cooked some rice to go with it. he was pleased with it. it met with approval. 

yesterday horsemouth cooked again something similar again but with pasta (to considerably less acclaim). his mum seemed to be running a fever and was off her food. eventually horsemouth found working batteries to get the thermometer working which pronounced it a mild fever. having cursed (and f'd and blinded) through cooking the meal, horsemouth carried on cursing and f'ing and blinding through the health emergency. (great)

at one point (when he thought it was just dinner he was dealing with) he had a small tin of beer. 

today (as will be) the tesco food order arrives. but probably the day will be tied up with other things. 

three sailors

yesterday 

back from the village so about 2 miles there and back (all told). but up hill and down dale (and vice versa). 

this follows on from the day before's 2 miles there and back up the hill (and then down again). 

the weather is cooler but it's still sticky. the clouds look like rain but the weather forecast says no. possible rain in the night (looks like actual rain thursday, friday).

pray for rain

it would be good to get some actual rain. horsemouth might be able to get a second crop of various things in the garden. 

anyway it is cooler and cloudier.

from here on in written in the morning

horsemouth has written a smidgen more of the far future village band. there is a matrix emerging of things mentioned that are probably significant and will lead somewhere. (where that somewhere is remains the problem). at some point the story should shift from backstory to action (even if that action is ultimately frustrated by the world it is set in). he should hurry up and re-record the further chapters he has written for the next album (the far future village band IV) in smaller file sizes that seem to be agreeable to being posted up. 

likewise he should start working on his whistling tunes.

probably if he stitches together tri martolod (3 sailors - breton folksong) and le chaland qui passe (the canal boat goes by - french chanson) that will sound decent (plus it gets him out of having to sing in his bad french or in cod-breton). 

horsemouth has had his coffee. he is unsure what he wants to do with the day. 

no one wants to listen to your music (unless it's good)

the morning (yesterday)

his mum - a phonecall.

horsemouth - a phonecall.

at roughly the same time. 

later horsemouth wandered the eggs up the hill to martin (one small bottle of beer each).

later still - picking, peeling and chopping up apples. 

later still - great! he's found something to be anxious about. 

he watched a little of andy edwards's no one wants to listen to your music 

(ok ok he didn't watch all of it - but he has watched the end and then the beginning). 

that no one wants to listen to your music

this is true. it is remarkably difficult to get people to listen to new music these days. what is horsemouth doing now? is he listening to music he owns on CD but has not listenened to yet? no he's listening to some marion brown (an artist he knows) on youtube (admittedly he doesn't know the track). he listened to a welsh track because a friend recommended it on facebook. then he watched a little of the band live (which was good enough but didn't get him where he lived). 

ah now it has swapped back to sweet earth flying (part 5) which horsemouth knows already. for now horsemouth can't remember if it's muhal richard abrams or paul bley who actually plays it. 

the problem (of course) is that everyone now can have a decent home studio set-up for very little outlay, record their music and then 'release it' on bandcamp. and then... nothing. similarly you can get gigs and play gigs (but so what). 

of course the problem with andy is that he talks some sense (and then he talks some nonsense). 

today's gig is pharoah sanders at the festival musique ouverte de chateauvallon  on this day in 1977. this was round about the time of harvest time but it's not the harvest time band playing these tunes. anyway that is horsemouth's listening for today (should he decide to accept it). 

today a journey into the village to buy loaves of bread. horsemouth was planning a raid on the town to visit the big non-central charity shops and raid them for books (but now he guesses not). 

last night he forgot to lock up the chickens (bad horsemouth) but they seem all to be there (the fox didn't murder them) so all is good. 

ou sont les canicules d'antin

hail count binface

count binface has gone down to intergalactic defeat (but well done for trying). farage has conducted his spoiler manoeuvre against a possible recall petition but in doing so he has revealed that there are enough people who dislike him in clacton for a recall petition to be successful.

yet if there were to be a recall petition and yet another by-election there, he would probably still win it. 

the problem is that farage (and thus reform) have to be defeated electorally but the people of clacton don't seem disposed to do the job. it may be enough, other parties calculate, merely to destroy farage's  appetite for leadership. 

reform without farage is a busted flush

nonetheless with farage reform may end up holding the balance of power in the next parliament. in any event a likely outcomes are either a 'left' (lib-lab) pact but a 'right' pact (reform, the tories etc.). 

we may end up with a thatcher re-ron (seeing as, beneath the anti-immigration rhetoric, this is actually farage and badenoch's position) or a lib-lab pact. 

ou sont les canicules d'antin

the heatwaves of the summer have been an interesting one. will they move the dial on climate change and net zero? will this become the issue that can be put front and forward to the electorate. 

ok so when's the rain? not this week but next week (again).

horsemouth went for a walk around the common. counter-clockwise this time. 

as he returned he found a brown bottle (looks like a beer bottle to him 85 and symbol he cannot decipher). 

august calendar features (belated)

triple negative the under sea world of odile redon.

instead of fires on the common what if it were martian war machines on the common? 

the morning

well it's not warm. horsemouth is wearing two layers. he is (of course) holding out for rain so that he can get gardening again. this morning a zoom call and then a wander up the hill. 

horsemouth in the parallel universe of public transport and social mobility (the lives he is not leading)

so what would horsemouth be doing in the parallel universe of public transport and social mobility?

well he would be heading up to london (while his brother headed up to the wilds of herefordshire) for the weekend. 

as it currently stands he would travel up by train (probably the slow and cheap train via birmingham) on the saturday morning and return on the sunday evening. if he were to leave early enough he could get into hereford and get a £40 taxi out to the wilds because there are no buses in the evenings and certainly not on a sunday. alternatively he could get a later train to birmingham and then sleep 4 hours in the station before getting the early train to hereford on monday morning and then the bus out (unless it's a bank holiday monday). 

improvements are being made (he can't say they aren't)

a number of things are due to happen soon that will improve things for horsemouth.

notably there will be later buses than 6.20pm out of hereford (two buses 8.20 and 10.20pm). this will mean horsemouth can arrive back later into hereford and still get a bus out and there will be buses on a sunday (but only until 3pm or so). 

these extra buses will mean access to hereford of an evening for the mule (for the first time ever since his parents moved here in 1980) and on a sunday. 

he didn't mean to witter on about the buses. really it's more about the pull of the lives he is not leading by being out here. problems with transport were very much why he wanted to go to a city and very much a part of why he wanted to get away to college way back in the 80ies. it is not that horsemouth is adventurous (he is not) but he does get bored easily. 

yesterday a cooler day and a zoom beer with howard. horsemouth booked up a tesco delivery for his mum for the wednesday.  

today (in theory) a cooler day again. eggs up the hill and such like.  

horsemouth is enjoying the colette (earthly paradise) though to be honest he still has the iris murdoch and the pierre clastres still on the go. 

a little blue dot is hanging around the page offering him writing assistance I(there it is now). horsemouth declines. 

returning to seasonal norms

‘if you would know her, think of a garden in brittany, by the sea… 

the earthly paradise is here: it is not lost for her, others merely fail to see it…’

- bertrand de jouvenal on colette, in time and tide, published14th august 1954.

so horsemouth walked into the village to post off his far future village band promo pamphlets (dew but it was hot). one to ireland, one to the states, five or so to various destinations in the uk. 

hopefully everything will get to where it is going. 

he's constructing a mailing list. he probably needs the equivalent of compliments slips (or he'll have to hand write a lot of  cover letters which may not be a bad thing).

he walked in using the maximum shade route round the edge of the common. (but necessarily was in the sun some of the time). 

yesterday should be the last really hot day. from here on in it should start returning to seasonal norms (possibly with some rain). perhaps life can begin again. we shall see. 

all of this reminds him he should recharge his mobile (and stick some credit on it).

today

another beautiful morning out here. a mere 28C today (allegedly). perhaps even some rain today.

so farage has survived. binface has done respectably. about 30k votes total (so not a massive turn out) of which 20k went to the five-million dollar man and 9k to binface. 

partial solar eclipse (30th june 1921)

an entirely written in the morning blogpost

except for these next two short paragraphs;

some slight chance of rain on friday. a decent chance of rain on monday and for that week. 

alfred watkins (in addition to discovering ley-lines) is also the originator of the watkins factor in the development of film (according eric de mare's photography p.230). apparently the idea for ley-lines occured to him in bredwardine on the 30th june 1921. 

well it's another beautiful morning (horsemouth writes in the morning). 

yesterday eggs to the crossroads, bins down the drive, a quick trip to the village to pick up bread and sugar. 

today probably another trip into the village to post some letters and buy the hereford times. 

yesterday the partial solar eclipse happening just around teatime. some 90 odd percent coverage but that still meant the sun was too bright to look at (and, of course, horsemouth had not prepared for it). it got darker. it got slightly colder. animal behaviour got more significant. 

horsemouth walked down to the abbey as a good spot to observe it from. 

horsemouth carried on with his researches into jean-pierre melville (and in particular le cercle rouge). 

there was a R4 documentary on montaigne (horsemouth wished he liked reading him more). 

there was a report on the economic benefits of railway stations (particularly the ones in wales). 

in the garden the beetroot are almost done (something has been having a nibble). the broad beans are done. horsemouth should get out and crop more runner beans and tomatoes. 

this is where the rain comes in. horsemouth could then grow second crops of various things (or at least try to). at the moment he's trying to water to aid the survival of whatever it looks like it is alive (there being a water shortage on the common due to the drought etc.).