the gift of death (pay no attention to the mule)

                                                                 photo by john clarkson

so the housing bill and its knock on effects is moving closer to horsemouth (see it is a strong bill, a bill that has knock on effects before it is even passed by parliament). horsemouth is noticing the phrase ‘direction of travel’. the direction of travel here is the destruction of social housing, the warehousing of ‘surplus population’ (hail cobbett) out of the metropolis, the effective and deep down social cleansing that will paradoxically increase the number of poor people in the city (more people will become poor than will be lifted up - the poor that there are will resort to overcrowding).

horsemouth sees the thames foaming with blood - not again horsemouth, go have a lie down.

so remarked a friend on witnessing horsemouth’s positive spin on possible events (at least in a personal sense). all the government needs to do is nudge people (with a little shock and awe) and they (ok no we) will begin to move to realise their (our) dreams (within the confines of harsh economic reality).

horsemouth replied that it was like nudge in pinball (or perhaps shaking the table) - some of the balls would end up in different (better) holes and some... (would end up in the fires below). forgive horsemouth if he does not discuss the clinamen - the swerve that will save us all (or maybe just some of us).

of course the basic rule discovered by organisational theorists in the course of their researches is that any change (of lighting, work patterns, queuing order in the canteen - even ones that can seemingly only reduce productivity) will increase it - because of the novelty effect, because of the feeling of warmth people get from being ‘consulted’.

horsemouth (king of the ‘I-told-you-so’s) is deriving less pleasure from this than he might (he wonders why). horsemouth does go on (long may that continue).

----------------------------
so what has horsemouth been reading?

yesterday he sauntered into a library (muttering his new mantra pay no attention to the mule) and had a decent stab at reading derrida’s the gift of death - in part a discussion of jan potočka (for all those killed by cops)’s ‘ heretical essays on the philosophy of history’, in part a discussion of kierkegaard’s fear and trembling. the cover is of an angel holding back abraham’s hand to stop him from slaughtering his son. beneath christianity and plato there is an irrational urge within europe that is kept under control (but not killed off) by these two strategies.

horsemouth also flicked through the apocayptic art of ludwig meidner who produced a precient series of apocalypses (though he did not call them so) before the first world war (and it seemed to horsemouth the first great irrational surge of the 20th century).

 perhaps he will just have to retire to a sunny seaside town and live on lentils.