yesterday a walk on the common

yesterday a walk on the common 

taking photos, cropping them, and then converting them to black and white.

horsemouth was mainly looking for good old decrepit technology as if they were from the world of the far future village band. he also tried to anonymise them so that the original dwellings etc. could not be identified. 

the one of the house is probably the best (horsemouth feels). 

so how do you do it? 

point, click, shoot. hope for the best.  there are rules governing this sort of thing (apparently). 

rules horsemouth doesn't know. 

so he gets what he gets. 

september is nearly done

horsemouth has already done his books, films, gigs events list. a surprisingly good month (all things considered). he's just remembered he must do the abbey tomorrow morning as well as the chickens) and the milk. 

he didn't go into town to do a book-trawl (like he vaguely planned). 

in the morning

horsemouth is up. he's done the chickens and the milk. now he's off to do the abbey and then a cup of coffee for when his mum wakes up. 

this. an almost entirely written the day before blogpost. 

ABBEY ROTA (bargaining with time)

monday

we are into the last few days of september.

a year ago horsemouth was packing up and leaving hackney. it is a year since the bermondsey folk festival.

and then it is OMtober an honourary ember beginning (as it does) with the anniversary of john coltrane recording OM.

at the end of that month we are into halloween and the celtic quarter day of samhain. these are not (perfectly) evenly distributed between the equinoxes and solstices having been moved forward a week to fit in with the start of the calendar month. 

thus you see horsemouth bargaining with time. 

new starts

ok so horsemouth has powered up the zoom recorder. named a new project and set it to record. he has seen on the screen that signal is being received. 

at 3.30pm a brief(ish) zoom session with howard (after which horsemouth had a beer). 

horsemouth (and notionally his mum) are on the abbey rota. it is good to feel useful once again.  he is typing this here so that he remembers in the morning. 

in the evening jeffrey lewis mentions a band but horsemouth can't see how the name is spelled. after an internet rabbit hole chase he finds it - woelv. 

the morning

he remembered it and is just back from the abbey. it was surprisingly warm in the abbey. horsemouth wondered if someone had left a heater on. 

horsemouth will endeavour to find something to do

horsemouth is up. he has a slight headache. he had a mission should he decide to accept it to deliver the eggs up the hill. he did it. 

at some point he's got to get more feed for the chickens. 

last night he watched a bit of shadow of the vampire which is as good a parody of film-making and its conceit as could be wished for (there's also living in oblivion). it is a bit hammy but none the worse for all that. 

he could have watched the fog instead or the island of dr. moreau (1977 version). 

'a disorder in reading is noble in itself' - colette. as a child colette was 'let loose upon a library' and allowed to read what she wanted. we are with her in her elder years. 

seven years ago horsemouth was often off to funky kingston to support a disinterested student. this entailed a huge railway journey round the outside of london (well zone 2 at least) all to save about £2 in railfare by avoiding the centre (zone 1). it allowed him a lot of time to doodle and read but it meant being up and out the door for 6am. 

the student was doing a pharmaceutical science course (this was an interesting place to be when covid hit). 

today looks like a rainy grey day. horsemouth will endeavour to find something to do. 

harvest moon (a kind of heartwarming visit to minor injuries)

 harvest moon

to the east my brothers to the east

good for friday, saturday, sunday

now seeing it just depends on the cloud cover. 

saturday looks plausible.

we roll towards the end of the month (and the beginning of OMtober - an honourary ember). 

why is the suppressed climate national security report not significant?

'the report was supposed to be published in full last october, before the cop30 climate summit in held in belém... but downing street officials intervened at the last moment to prevent its publication.'

it is interesting that the government have finally got around to investigating the effects of climate change but this will not alter the effects of climate change nor government policy (nor that unicorn public opinion). other factors - employment, prosperity, the cost of living crisis will be held to be more important. 

it may be that the government does not want to scare the horses but, also, nor does it want to be accused of a project fear. 

it matters little. the changes are on their way. 

more fucking shit with the local GP practice

so they left a message saying the appointment was cancelled on the answerphone?

it would seem not.

and (now) horsemouth and his mum are off into town for A&E on a friday night. 

well tbh minor injuries on a friday afternoon and it wasn't so bad, in fact it was kind of heartwarming. mum got into at least two good chats with people. all the staff were wonderful. the only fly in the ointment was horsemouth getting impatient at the end and making his mum walk all the way to main reception to try and phone for a cab (which turned out to have closed when they got there). he loaded his mum into a wheelchair and took her back to A&E and found a freephone for the cabs (thank you assistance man - he'll know that in future). 

his mum has stubbed her toes but seemingly no fractures or broken bones in the metatarsals etc. (so that's a relief). 

now he is back home. phew corblimmey. 

he's up. it's the morning. something he has written has proved controversial. so he has pulled it while he has a think about the best way forward. 

'empires crumble, my friend, republics founder and fools survive'

'bravo m. segalot, ca c'est du meuble.' 

why does horsemouth think there's no fucking point?

ugh! horsemouth just got drawn into answering some ziobot (one claiming to be a recovering progressive and to be offering some fun facts about the egyptian occupation of palestine beginning in 1948).

as horsemouth recently wrote to TG (regarding horsemouth's relative silence on the israeli genocide in gaza) what's the fucking point?

there are the facts ... and then there are what those 'fun facts' seem to be implying about the motivations of the participants. 

the egyptian occupation of palestine

the egyptian occupation of the gaza strip begins under the all palestine protectorate following the 1948 arab-israeli war which followed on from the 1947-48 civil war in mandatory palestine which (to quote wikipedia) 'began as a civil war between the arab and jewish communities following the united nations partition plan'. 

roughly 700,000 palestinians fled as refugees. 

the basic thrust of the first paragraph is 'look egypt occupied gaza too' (implication: so the israeli occupation is not so bad). to provide some justification for the egyptian occupation you would have to view it as a defensive occupation to prevent israeli occupation and ethnic cleansing (a later term horsemouth admits) of the palestinians.

and that's how horsemouth would view it. 

well that's the first paragraph's distortions dealt with anyway.  

as a parting thought perhaps the west should 'take responsibility' for israel (as the egyptians are accused of not taking responsibility for the palestinians er, despite occupying them at one point). 

on second thoughts horsemouth just deleted his comment because what's the fucking point?

so why does horsemouth think there's no fucking point?

forces exterior to israel

has the gaza genocide been successfuly halted before (even if only temporarily)? 

yes. by donald j. trump.

why? so that he could be hailed as a peacemaker during his inauguration perhaps. 

but more recently? less so.

at a minimum the rest of the world has sat on its hands and let it happen (when not actively arming or aiding or defending the israeli state). 

excepting? the brave and principled people of palestine action and european dockers etc. and anyone who has campaigned over it (horsemouth supposes). 

but again he thinks there's no fucking point because the peoples of the world simply cannot influence their governments in a timely enough fashion - only a boycott, disinvest, block trade campaign of direct action by as many people as possible will act in a timely enough fashion. 

look at donald j. trump. his ability to bully the israeli government into withdrawing is on the wane. the replacement president who might have a mandate to do such a thing is two years away. the right-wingers in israel essentially have a free hand for two years.  andy burnham (in the UK), while an improvement on sir keir starmer who actively called for war crimes by the israeli state, is only in for two years and then he's gone, his focus is on domestic policy not foreign policy. the EU is similarly beset by internal contradictions and so on round the entire globe. 

what about forces within israel? 

legislative elections are due to be held october 27th 2026. 

for a number of reasons this is unlikely to make any real difference. horsemouth may be surprised but even if it were to effect a sea change in israeli politics it would not undo the harms of the last three years (nor the last 78). 

ok time to put an end to it. see you tomorrow. 

tomorrow

it's a misty morning.  horsemouth has done the thing with the milk and the chickens. he has also written an additional chapter for the far future village band that rob seems pleased with. 

tonight harvest moon. 

how are the intellectuals doing? (long time passing)

so how are the intellectuals doing? (long time passing)

'the time to live some kind of 'life of the mind' has been gradually shrinking...' 

well the intellectuals inside of academia (particularly in the uk) are fucked and most of the young ones are leaving so say william davies joins james butler over at the LRB (and so say the few of horsemouth's friends left in academia). 

meanwhile in the free-range intellectual world unleashed by social media it is not clear that people truly are intellectuals because they are not autonomous of their audience - if you depend on clicks and likes to put food on your table you may find yourself beginning to self-censor and manufacture clickbait etc. 

mind you, these kinds of pressures are not unknown in academia. 

it's a day of farewell

'the season of long shadows on early walks is here...' - chloe edwards substack.

last night horsemouth wrote that he wished there was more of practicalities - and there is! there is colette. horsemouth flicked towards the end of the book when she was living in the palais royale. she absteniously feeds her fire. she takes up cross-stitch. 

there was the moon out of the window. 

today bin recovery and possibly a trip into the village to pick up the hereford times and a few loaves of bread etc. 

tomorrow the dave webb show. 

EQUINOX (the sun crosses the celestial equator)

at 1.06am this morning we autumn equinoxed.

horsemouth is very bad on what the detail of this is (and has been mocked for it on previous occasions). of course we have to wait for friday/ saturday for the day and night to be closest to being equal length (the equilux).

thereafter long dark tunnel through to the spring equinox (20th march 2027). 

along the way there will be day of peak darkness (the winter solstice - monday 21st december) and two celtic quarter days samhain  and imbolc). 

horsemouth could watch the second episode of 70up early (but where's the fun in that). 

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

it is the morning. chickens done. 

horsemouth watched the final episode of 70up. despite the protestations of the posh it basically did prove the old arguments about class but that said all boats were lifted by the post-war boom. really what was revealed was the conventional wisdom about family. people have started to die (most notably the director michael apted - but presumably some of the production staff and technicians also).

will they really be able to resist the temptations of 77 and 84?

as one person said their lives have been blessed because they have been seen. others feel cursed by it. others have felt the need to escape it. 

horsemouth found the guitar tuner again (it had fallen under the bedside table). he tuned the hohner 6 string back up to an accurate open G and enjoyed the improved sound. 

normally horsemouth posts up the orbital track equinox to celebrate the equinox. this year he has decided to go with joy by john coltrane.