'everything lingers on a moment (and hastens on to death)'

horsemouth is slightly scandalised that mixmaster mike is scratching with the robert johnson album - aren't they rare by now?

over on metamute an interesting article.

the first part is 'a view from the trenches' of opposition to the restructuring (cost cutting)  universities are attempting (based on a model of 'never let a crisis go to waste' in response to the pandemic).

the second part marks the financialisation of education but also how this changes the understanding of the value of education leading to changes in what education is supposed to achieve (think of the mantra of employability).  peter thiel, dominic cummings the nay-sayers among the speculators on the return on investment of education, the proposers of a different type of education.

the article is interesting, because it accepts the model of the disruption of education, of the need to respond taylorisation of education and of its disciplines with an education that trains students to work across disciplines (so that their work will not be taylorisable and thus have some value). 

yesterday the weather was colder (but the sun still shone). horsemouth walked over to the supermarket in the fields and bought a coffee grinder (himself and sten have a stash of coffee beans), some pre-ground coffee (3 doublepacks of lavazza red label at £5.80 each - which is what passes for a bargain these days), 5l of cooking oil, enough cheese to kill a pig and two bottles of beer. later he read in the garden. 

he's moved on from valis and do androids dream of electric sheep? to philip k. dick's a scanner darkly. instead of rhipidon society (a collection of good and true friends) we have our hero surrounded by his frenemies and sunk deep in paranoia.

and he is justified in this because he is in fact an undercover cop (a fact he cannot always remember). 

don't get horsemouth onto the subject of spycops.

horsemouth has been making some efforts to learn to play the boy in the bubble by paul simon. he can't do it yet - he can't sing the verse lyrics while playing  the guitar part (the chorus is fine). however while he was round howard's he persuaded howard to sing the verses (and that worked well). 

so maybe that's a way forward with it. 

the sun is shining (but it is cold out). that's better weather than was predicted already.  horsemouth has had his first (full) cup of coffee and is about to go round for a second half. whence he will wrap up warm and sit around in the sun.