'nothing could be worse than a return to normality'

it's the six month anniversary of the release of  the humming EP. the title track is horsemouth's attempt to fake up a bert jansch/ john renbourn instrumental in response to the sound of howard (and others) humming in an art gallery. at the end (and very fortuitously) the sound of a trumpet leaks in from an art installation (to this day horsemouth has no idea who it is). the second track on the EP was malkin tower,  this was horsemouth and howard humming in the studio (basically an opportunity to deploy the harmonium left them by john clarkson and the e-bow horsemouth had recently bought). trapped on a dogleg is the EPs least listened track (probably) punchdrunk blues, which is a pity because horsemouth is  very pleased with the way it came out. howard brought the song (the ukulele and the singing), horsemouth added the percussion and the guitars.

'nothing could be worse than a return to normality'

remarks arundhati roy urging us to take the break in practice that covid has offered and let it become a break in theory (and thus a proper break in practice). 'historically pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew'. it's a stirring speech. but (a little regretfully) horsemouth is going to have to be difficult. 

for many of the poor  there was no break with covid - additional death and sickness was added to the existing death, sickness, poverty and work. work just became more dangerous because of the near certainty of infection. for others there was only expulsion from the city of work back to the land of mere survival or the death of the low paid jobs they were working in. to three quarter of the world horsemouth surmises that covid is just another thing. 

globally for the middle classes there is furlough or working from home or redundancy and redeployment to the ranks of the working poor. here is where the changes have been building up (among the chattering classes such as horsemouth). this is where the axe of schumpeterian destruction will fall -'freeing' us from the office and from the commute, 'liberating' those office spaces to become the jenrickvilles (the slums of the future). the future, the new relations of production, will finally arrive.

but the bigger problem will be the state's need (at the insistence of the finance markets) to do something about the debt it has racked up  during this crisis - now debt can either be paid off (at full value plus interest) or inflated away. having sacrificed  the nurses the state will now move on to the sacrifice of worker's pensions, benefits etc. a 'return to normality' is not on offer. 

there is a lesson in the pandemic about not running down health services (and indeed having them) of not impoverishing the population (and so ruining their health) making them more vulnerable to infection, about not creating overcrowded 'pockets' of deprivation (such as the north east or indeed the entire third world). these are the lessons that will not be learned. 

there is a lesson in the pandemic about the utter shit-storm incompetence of our ruling class (this is a lesson that will not be learned).

of course there will be giant infrastructure schemes (an orgy of concrete pouring) - well they will at least be proposed, but it is difficult to see how running broadband cable (down existing victorian sewage tunnels) is a big enough project to reflate anything. 

since 2008 there has been a political crisis in response the credit crunch and subsequent crash, a crisis that has expressed itself as war on globalisation from the right (as MAGA, as brexit), a call for a return to national sovereignty so that 'our' ruling classes can do something for us. now horsemouth's advice is for you not to hold your breath for this, but he expects this to continue and indeed intensify (70 million people voted for trump in the US and they didn't get what they wanted). 

horsemouth does not rule out attempts by the state to get the rich to pay (at least some of it) but the rich are better placed to evade any such measures than are the poor. 

anyway (to recap) horsemouth is cynical about the prospects for a better world.