friday 13th (first friday the 13th of the year)

horsemouth has done the walk into ewyas harold (and he didn't fall over in the mud - yay!).

he's just been stacking logs into the shed. he thinks they are too damp to come good (but who knows, certainly not your mule). 

once again an automated phonecall from the dentist - does it need to be replied to?

horsemouth gonged off the bell ringing - he was feeling run down after shifting and stacking the logs. it means there will be a month long gap in the bell-ringing by the time he gets back.  

it's the first friday 13th of the year

it being a 28 day february there will also be a friday13th in march and then another one later on in the year (november). horsemouth thinks that's the most misfortune you can get in any one year - though in a leap year you can get 3 friday the 13ths in the first 7 months (which would seem like more concentrated misfortune). 

it's a misty morning. in a bit horsemouth gets his mum a cup of coffee, there's a visit from the plumber due. 

his reading of station eleven  progresses. the georgian flu collapses technological society. the resulting world is something like the survivors - we are with a touring arts troupe (how do they feed themselves? do others feed them?).  the apocalypse comes while waiting at an airport. 

ah there was an american tv show version of it. various characters have been omitted and the plot has been tidied up. interestingly enough the production of it was disrupted by covid (how's that for bad luck?)   

conscientious particularity (a cracking start)

'... such a conscientious particularity.' - prologue to carmilla by j. sheridan le fanu

so yesterday horsemouth delivered the eggs and chatted to a tourist, the postman and his mum's home help. there was another tourist in the abbey (so things are picking up). at least it wasn't raining (or at least it wasn't raining heavily).

he also took an automated phonecall from the dentist for his mum. (which now has to be replied to - ok no it doesn't).

ok so that's that day accounted for. 

today also 

horsemouth will be off into ewyas harold to pick up the hereford times and his mum's prescription. possibly bell-ringing in the evening (he'll have to see). 

soon enough horsemouth is on holiday

'... fossil fuels are not being replaced by renewables, as the term energy transition suggests. instead, they are being added to the total energy supply. what we are witnessing, in other words, is energy addition rather than transition... we are living through a green transition; it’s just that it’s not the one that climate activists, scientists, or, indeed, anyone concerned about life on this planet actually wants....'

and here's horsemouth trying to rock the spot and make it happen. 

horsemouth likes the decarbonisation of the energy supply, he likes the decarbonisation of transport (more trains) and of housing (home heating). 

horsemouth's position is tenable. he's out in the wilds, it's all going ok (so far). 

keir starmer's position is untenable (so they say). 

but then he has just survived.

starmer will survive until the end of may (probably). he's a useful fall-guy for the gorton and denton by-election and later on, the local election results in may (further his likely successors aren't ready to mobilise just yet).

he may even survive beyond may - more stuff may come out damaging to his potential successors, the whole world situation may become so chaotic that dumping him begins to look like a bad idea. who knows he may suddenly become passionate and confident (free of mandelson and mcsweeney's baleful influence he may develop a personality). 

howard has been reading carmilla which he pronounces ' an excellent book'  - drat! that means horsemouth will have to re-read it. 

it's off to a cracking start horsemouth must say. 

here it's another horrific rainy morning. horsemouth has been out to feed the chickens and unleash them (but he suspects that today they will mostly be staying in).  

paul didn’t mention vultures ('stay calm. this is simply the beginning...' )

'what we all believed is true... none of them are any good...' 

- ian hislop (of private eye) summarises the sentiments of the nation. 

a former work colleague of horsemouth’s has summoned the guillotine (that most useful of instruments) and the vulture (that most sagacious of birds) to do the necessary work of riding the world of our venal, corrupt and fecking useless ruling class.

horsemouth had hoped they were going to load themselves into rocket ships and blast off in search of new markets to conquer (but no such luck). 

he had hoped they were going to load themselves into bunkers far beneath the earth and sit out the apocalypse (sadly not). 

ok here horsemouth lies, horsemouth's friend didn’t mention vultures, but they’re a nice touch don’t you think.

the conversation then moved on to the necessity for a guillotine emoji. 

horsemouth (however) cautions against rage. horsemouth pretty much thinks there are two kinds of people - those who are in touch with their anger and can make use of it without being destroyed by it and those who are not in touch with their anger and are destroyed by contact with it. 

horsemouth thinks of himself as being in the later category - if he loses his temper then he loses, is his belief. consequently he tries to go about everything calmly and carefully (however angry it makes him).

'stay calm. this is simply the beginning...'  

last night he watched small prophets the latest detectorists sort of thing (and very charming it was). michael palin appears as a senile old man in a nursing home. 

horsemouth had a dream where he was on south wales railways and he lost his rucksack.  

'the brightside of the planet moves towards darkness...'

yesterday horsemouth was being useful (he does like to be useful).

he has agreed to be useful again (if that would be useful). 

faced by a choice between everest and K2 the expedition thought it might be better to start on a smaller mountain. 

'the brightside of the planet moves towards darkness, 

and the cities are falling asleep, each in its hour...' 

- czeslaw milosz, the separate notebooks. 

horsemouth has been reading station eleven by emily st.john mandel (from whence the milosz quotation).  it is a disease apocalypse novel written before covid (published 2014) -  the disease hits. millions die. technological society collapses. 

in the front cover photograph by theo gosselin is of a deer wandering through a deserted mall car park. theo's other photos all seem to be hippie roadtrip.

and it's getting dark. has horsemouth closed up the garage? he'll need to go and check. 

wes streeting seems to think he can get out in front of the mates with mandelson thing and be a credible candidate to replace starmer. but he needs to get going soon, before angela raynor because getting out from under her hastings flat debacle will take time. 

horsemouth thinks sir keir can stretch it to may (but he could be wrong he could be gone today). maybe the gorton by-election will finish him off (or maybe it will consolidate his power). 

rabbit on the lawn this morning. a greyish morning but not actually raining yet. 

in honour of the black cat and its visits

nothing now from kilvert until the 12th. 

horsemouth (the split-tongued spirit) has been getting his head around things

there seem to him three options;

1) agree to it as it is and work out how to pay for it

2) work out what can be done for less and do that.  

3) abandon the whole thing and start again from scratch. 

horsemouth is a two man. but, who knows? others may be one or three people (or some combination of all three). 

he doesn't know (yet) how much room for manoeuvre there is. he doesn't know how other people will see this. he should probably email/ check. 

horsemouth always likes to think out loud i.e. write it down. he likes to see what he is thinking. 

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

horsemouth watched most of benico del toro's the wolfman (which wasn't very good). in the day he posted the opening clip from leo fulci's the black cat starring mimsy farmer (but not as the black cat you understand). 

horsemouth did this in honour of the black cat and its visits. 

thus does horsemouth (the split-tongued spirit) speak in code

'sat up late writing some blank verse in honour of daisy.' - kilvert, diaries, on this day in 1872.

phew. so the visit from mum's friends is done (it was good  to hear laughter in the house). 

horsemouth has survived again

oh dear the grand scheme of things has had contact with the world of reality and (once again) it looks difficult and problematic and as if the grand scheme of things may not survive. the costs are in and (as usual) they are higher than envisaged. cloth may have to be cut differently or a whole new route to the summit of K2 attempted. 

thus does horsemouth (the split-tongued spirit) speak in code.

'do you want to learn about rainwater harvesting?' asks an advert in horsemouth's feed. 

horsemouth looks out of the window at the falling rain and laughs. 

yes he does want to learn about rainwater harvesting (thanks for asking). 

'... in the time we went through together.' 

it is strange to think practicalities was written in 1987, that it is already nearly 40 years old, and yet it feels timeless.

3 adjacent paragraphs; the first sentences from two of them and the last line from the third

 'horsemouth is up. it's 8am ish. he's drinking his coffee...' 

outside it is a grey rainy horror of a day. (today and tomorrow rain).

7th february 1872 kilvert walks to hay 

(plommer does not mention what he was up to yesterday).

'the bridges were at home, gave us tea and showed us all their poultry, the white brahmas, the golden-pencilled and silver spangled hambros (horsemouth assumes kilvert means hamburg chickens), and that ferocious white beast the silver pheasant who has at length been tamed by having his long spurs cut...'

(you'll pardon horsemouth. he doesn't know much about chicken breeds or pheasants for that matter).

'the peas were peeping above the ground in bridge's garden but the mice appeared to have eaten many of the young shoots off as soon as they appeared above ground.' 

horsemouth has heard that mice are particularly fond of pea plants. this should remind horsemouth to get on with the growing of things. 

 

3 adjacent paragraphs; the first sentences from two of them and the last line from the third

 in the chapter house and home in practicalities by marguerite duras, 

'the house a woman creates is a utopia...

at neauphle I often used to cook in the early afternoon... 

all I had to do was prepare the vegetables, put the soup on, and write.'

this is what is so great about duras - it's that mixture of abstract and particular, of thought and deed. 

'the house a woman creates is a utopia. she can't help it - can't help trying to interest her nearest and dearest not in happiness itself but the search for it. as if the search were the point of the whole thing...' 

'at neauphle I often used to cook in the early afternoon. that was when no one else was there... it was then I saw most clearly that i loved them...' 

above duras at her house in neauphle (a beautiful old farmhouse and barn). it must be cold in winter thinks horsemouth. 

has horsemouth had his second go at the coffee pot? or is there more coffee downstairs? let us see.