more or less autobiographical ( the sweet bells of clyro)

'all my books are more or less autobiographical - a rather abstract form of autobiography, I admit.'  - e.m. cioran 

horsemouth has started on the temptation to exist (from whence this quote). he has read susan sontag's introduction and is most of the way through thinking against oneself.  he either bought it in skoob for £3 (this is his recollection) or it was denise's (according to the signature inside the front cover) and horsemouth has 'acquired it' somehow. 

in kilvert-land (on this day in 1872) he is concerned about the bells. 

'for the first time I heard today the sweet bells of clyro chiming down the valley just before I reached the chapel, I could even hear the three bells chime change for the single bell. the west wind brought the sound of the bells up the hill so clearly that it arrested me even while I was walking.'

'clyro church has a splendid bells' reads a local guide. 

'two date back to the medieval church and three were cast in 1887 and first rung to celebrate queen victoria’s golden jubilee. to complete the set, a sixth one was commissioned in 2024...' 

the guide has kilvert buying his first notebook (in which to keep his diaries)  in hay but this seems to horsemouth not so. 

horsemouth has the three volume plommer selection and a single volume selection  (jonathan cape paperback edition) somewhere (or perhaps he has redistributed it away via the powerscroft road book box). kilvert's niece destroyed most of his other writing - 3 journal notebooks survive because they were given away, horsemouth does not know if they contain additional material. 

it's a good job horsemouth didn't spend any time on watering yesterday (it started raining). 

this morning. he has made the transition across the british summer time line. in the morning a dream about hanging out with dj hype (horsemouth was doing his best to be cool). 

horsemouth diagnoses a lack of get up and go

on this day in 1872 kilvert is importuned by a man begging. 

tomorrow he will be waxing lyrical about the bells.

'for the first time I heard today the sweet bells of clyro

chiming down the valley...' 

you find horsemouth recovering from a lack of inspiration (it is the usual post drinking slump). yesterday he was in a fluey/ hangovery kind of state and lacked any get up and go.

this morning a bright spring morning (horsemouth has just been out to feed the chickens). in the greenhouse the runner bean plants are coming up nicely. not much sign of anything else yet. in the garden no sign of the broad beans yet (maybe it is not warm enough for them yet). 

a fake and misleading online review

so it's the morning and here he is typing away. 

yesterday on the radio a short comedy show about what it would mean if humans could no longer write and read (it would become much more difficult to collaborate on and achieve anything). 

having just watched a project die (or at least emerge diminished) from the swamps of spreadsheets and email horsemouth feels some doubt about this. he can't help feel that if people could have been gathered on site and have met and talked face-to-face then it would have survived, or perhaps even thrived and prospered. 

this is the kind of thought horsemouth often entertains. 

later some scripted fluff on emil cioran (said choran horsemouth is now informed). cioran is surely the least likely philosopher/ writer to get the scripted fluff treatment (even if you can get over his fascist period). 

ok in his later years he fed the stray cats in the park (heart warming detail) before succumbing to dementia (personal tragedy). himself and his wife, who worked as a teacher to support him, lived in a tiny top floor flat in  paris (heart warming detail). he knew samuel beckett. 

after writing his first few books in romanian he changed to writing in french - the video argued this was to slow himself down and to see the details and articulations of his thoughts better, to avoid easy metaphors and constructions. 

or maybe like the czech milan kundera he just wanted to be read (and not just in poor quality translations, often translations of translations kundera jokes). 

this inspired horsemouth to get out his cioran - he has three, no four; anathemas and admirations, a short history of decay, the temptation to exist, history and utopia (though he's not sure where his copy of this last one is - no he tells a lie, he's just found it). 

some, in the comments, were alleging the video was entirely AI slop 

written by, and read by, AI, which probably chose the graphics as well. doubt contaminates everything. 

as AI gets better. how can you be sure it's not AI? 

if it's not very good and amateurish. if it is poorly scripted (if at all) and delivered. 

here we have a mechanism by which writing can be ended. if it is no longer a communication between humans but merely a set of requirements from a machine. 

ok today a walk to simulate activity. he's just done it. two rabbits bounded up to greet him (and then bounded away). he hurried back because it looked like rain but then the sun cut through the clouds. 

perhaps zoom beers with howard later. 

devices at a standstill. materials good for thinking with.

no kilvert today! (what is horsemouth to do?).

'sheets of copper resting on stacks of felt. copper conducts energy, and felt produces warmth through insulation, but it also blocks currents...'

devices at a standstill. materials good for thinking with. 

a book on joseph beuys reviewed in art in america (you may have to register to see it). 

yesterday horsemouth tidied out the greenhouse a little. then a visit to the village to pick up the newspaper. later he wandered over to south view to deliver a letter for his mum.  bells in the evening.  discussion of AI in the pub after. 

horsemouth should probably refuel at some point. he should also diversify. his savings will probably take a battering. that's of course assuming (crows over tel-aviv) that this isn't armageddon (has no one seen the omen?)

horsemouth has just wrangled a journey (he hopes). it will either be acceptable or it won't. 

ok it's not. but he's done what was asked of him so he's covered. he's just looking at wrangling his own journey -  the cheapest route is via birmingham and rugby (go figure) £23.70. there may be some grief coming back (something about milton keynes). he thinks he can outflank this (if needs be) by getting a single direct to birmingham new street on the fast train. 

next week is holy week (so there would be no bell ringing anyway). phew. so horsemouth doesn't need to feel guilty about taking a week out. 

'years have done their work ...'

kilvert is writing to the bishop of st. david's to give notice of his intention to resign the curacy at clyro on the 1st of july 'when I shall have been a licensed curate in the same parish in your lordship's diocese for seven years and a half'. 

kilvert writes a lot that day in his journal. the best part of two and a half pages. he remembers his first day in clyro,

 'years have done their work and a change has come o'er the spirit of my dream'. 

this brings his journal entry to an end.

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

'... the oldest memories of the human race stand side-by-side with the latest developments. the greatest distances of time and space are bridged.' 

rahel vernhagen on her deathbed. she sees it all. assembles it all into her life. 

(she dies 7th march 1833). 

hannah arendt (who will watch it all fall apart a hundred years later) is less than impressed. 

have the years done their work with horsemouth? have they brought him to this exalted state? 

we shall see. 

outside it was raining heavily. earlier still is was hailing. 

horsemouth was out delivering eggs when the hail hit. it drove him back. he turned back. but then the sun came back out (sort of). and he completed his task. he did this without a hat. he thinks this was unwise. he doesn't want to catch yet another cold (to go on top of his existing one). 

in the evening his mum lit a fire. it required some coaxing to get it going properly. 

'since the first world war, capitalism has been a decadent social system. it has twice plunged humanity into a barbaric cycle of crisis, world war, reconstruction and new crisis...'  horsemouth had one of his earlier bands paraphrase part of this as 'boom, slump, war, reconstruction...'.

horsemouth agrees with the international communist current here (in general if not in the particulars). 

and we are off again. horsemouth doesn't think we are off into world war 3 but he does think we are entering a period of heightened danger. he believes the only rationale that makes sense of the US attacking both venezuela and iran is to deny china oil. but it doesn't necessarily need to make sense, it does not have to rise to the level of a strategy. 

here a beautiful morning. (greying out later but good all day)

along the tremorithic road (in the wood two deer)

'sunset on prince george's county' 

and 

'the world is waiting for the sunrise' 

based on leroy carr (and scrapper blackwell)'s 'how long blues' (allegedly)

'snow storms again, and hay fair' - kilvert, diaries, 25th march 1872.

as a result of his visit to the village the day before yesterday horsemouth is up a copy of the i-newspaper. 'fuel price rises inescapable'  it says 'ere. 

well that's bad news. 

ok yesterday horsemouth delivered the contract back to ewyas harold commons water society. this involved a walk over the common and along the tremorithic road.  there's a cheque that has to go somewhere else on the common, horsemouth thinks he has worked out where that has to go and he may do it later. 

in the wood two deer. 

today his mum is off to the garden centre. 

thursday bells.

friday. 

saturday.

sunday a visit. 

all along the wern ddu ('the solitude of writing')

 '... in the silence the hay church bell for evensong boomed suddenly out across the valley' 

snow on the slopes of the black mountain lit up by the setting sun. kilvert on this day in 1872. (his nature description is getting better - but soon he will move away).

'the solitude of writing is the solitude without which writing could not be produced...'

- marguerite duras, writing. 

yesterday. so horsemouth went into ewyas harold with his mum. having dropped his mum off horsemouth walked up the hill towards walterstone (along wern ddu) and very nice it was too. he paused near the brow of the hill and then walked back down again to meet his mum and they got the bus home. 

a successful mission (thinks horsemouth). (far less hanging around than horsemouth thought he would have to do). 

today. a grey day. shading into rain and cold later.

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

war news

so has trump been negotiating with iran or did he just make it up to keep oil prices down? 

the later. 

does he escalate the war again when the troopships arrive in 6 days time? 

or does he declare victory (and sail away)?

if he stops does israel stop? if israel stops bombing iran but carries on bombing lebanon is that the war over? 

and in further energy crisis news is it all over for decarbonisation? 

probably not. horsemouth hadn't seen the whole thing as a strategy. 

horsemouth king of the castle

interesting.

duras 'summer 1980' an interview with one of the two translators. the interviewer and the translator seem keen on duras for the reason horsemouth is keen on her, because it's all about her. so all of  summer 1980 has been translated (together with lots of other talkpieces).

similarly there is an essay from one of her translators on translating her.

horsemouth has made the discovery that a paper he co-wrote on amending the partial nuclear test ban treaty to a comprehensive test ban treaty way back in 1990 may have been published as a letter  in nature.

nature volume 348, page 279 (1990). if you are interested.

it's a very pretty morning

horsemouth is off, in a bit, with his mum, into the village, by the local bus service.

getting back may require a wait (horsemouth will take a book). 

nonetheless horsemouth is lucky to live in the valley with the bus service up it (the dulas valley has none).

there is a community taxi service (who require booking ahead). there are friends with cars (so getting around is not impossible). 

ok now to check that his mum is up. (she is). 

horsemouth has been out and unleashed the chickens. he has his coffee. he has just put some more hot water in the coffee to freshen it up. 

he can't think of anything he needs to do before he goes to the village. 

of course the village is no problem for horsemouth. he can walk there (bus or not). it's a problem at night (he fancies neither wandering back across the common nor walking back along narrow dark country lanes - if something goes wrong you are well and truly shtooked). during the daytime there is no problem. 

this morning a very pleasant half-dream where horsemouth was king of the castle.