horsemouth and his covid diary (summer is y-cumen in)

'thanks to arthritis I am now much less mobile than I was... static semi-isolation is scarcely a hardship or even a disruption of my routine...'

so arnold bennett begins his covid diary (expect a lot of these). a writer goes to meet a dissident in the former soviet union. 'how do you get so much done?' asks the writer. 'house arrest' hisses the dissident.

there are things here people will recognise (wearing the same clothes for months, home haircuts for example) on the domestic scale. conversations carried out with social distancing. kilvert apparently visited bennett's house in london (before bennett owned it). 

before facebook alzheimered itself (when it was still possible to access your memories on facebook as you chose) horsemouth downloaded his blogposts for the covid year. he should probably take a look at chopping them together into something more easily readable. 

of course the benefit to horsemouth in writing the blogposts is in the writing of them and the reading them back. he has his material close at hand.  

horsemouth didn't get anything additional done during the pandemic. there is a kind of dawning belief around that it is over, horsemouth thinks not. nonetheless people are preparing themselves, psychic gears are turning. howard's got his second jab next week. horsemouth has his mid june. politicians are getting the knives back out. 

clearly summer is y-cumen in. (here piggy piggy!) horsemouth goes to play a gig in far off weirdshire (aka. hereford) (he thinks). he's starting to think he can work up versions of tracks from volume four. 

in addition to alzheimering itself (be here now consumer!) facebook now places stronger limits on the number of people you can contact about a social event (limiting its value to you as a promotional tool - unless of course you are going to pay). 

the sun is shining in the window (it really is a beautiful morning). horsemouth will go for a walk (hell he may try and get the shopping in). 

there's nothing from goncourt (our correspondent in paris in 1871) today but he will be out and about tomorrow. 

last night horsemouth watched lone wolf and cub until his eyes started closing (starting at some point after the 6pm news). in some ways it is kind of like tabu - social convention as death-in-life, but also there is power in the sense of self-control in lone wolf's journey along the edge of hell. (there's cheerful imagery for you). 

horsemouth watched dominic cummings performance at the parliamentary health committee (and the concomitant poor performance of lots of newbie MPs). horsemouth is not surprised by the revelations (he always thought boris was useless and murderous), he always thought the state was actually useless in a crisis (merely lucky). it shows the limitations placed on development in the UK. all dominic wants is a decent technocratic managerialism with proper procurement and some decent planning and he can't even have that. 

horsemouth has chosen a the mellowtrons track from the compilation sten put together of the various bands on the scene at the time.  the names will appear in different roles, here as graphic designer, there as musician, here in their own bands, there as a session musician on someone else's record. he always liked the beat on lee's tune (he's got a new album out), he said at the time it had to be the lead track on  the album. 

horsemouth thinks there were three of these compilations (I can't believe it's not trip hop, broken beats and dirty promises, this film's crap (let's sample the soundtrack)) and then the moment passed.