what have we learned today? (anything sensible that would bear repeating)

last night horsemouth babysat. 

this morning he has a slight headache as a result of polishing off a small bottle of leffe when he finished his shift when the parent returned (possibly he should have just said no). he's just had his coffee (maybe that will sort it)

we are rolling towards one month to get his shit together for his first gig in ages (at least a year probably more like a year and a half). he just played satan trying out a little turnaround (sounding good but one song does not a summer make). 

last night was cold (horsemouth was under the duvet and a sleeping bag). this morning is grey. 

'we have long called for this transition to a new contract structure with a far better balance of risk and reward,' - firstgroup chief executive matthew gregory.

under the contract, the government takes all revenue risk and retains cost risk up to agreed levels.

the media are reporting the changes proposed for the national rail networks as if they were renationalisation. what is being nationalised are the losses, what is being nationalised is the risk, private companies will still operate on the railroads and still take their profits. inevitably the railway companies (and the new network company great british rail) will want to take the post covid opportunity to restructure (horsemouth forsees a lot of this). 

and what of horsemouth? 

horsemouth has been a miser (none so mean as a cardie  his grandmother would often say - at least according to one auntie). hopefully this will now prove to have been beneficial to him and enable him to work less over the next decade. 

unlike the financial crisis, where the effects took a long time to reach him (if indeed they ever did), with covid the effects have reached him almost immediately. businesses will want to take the opportunity to get out of lossy or risky sectors, they will be driven to do so by the scale of 'the losses', government support merely delaying those decisions. the process itself  is designed to reassure you of the economic necessity of the decision, but it lacks the detail necessary to ensure that horsemouth can satisfy himself of the 'economic necessity' of the changes (even if he agreed with such a thing). 

horsemouth's assumption is that at some point (when he is 67 say) his state pension will kick in and he will be returned to that blissful state of being on the rock and roll -  freed to pursue his hobbies and interests. 

the tarot cards indicated that horsemouth was comfortable with all this. 

but for now a bowl of museli and a cup of tea. listen to the morning news on the radio (well on bbc i-player) and cast an eye over the guardian, link this blog to facebook and perhaps see if horsemouth said anything sensible in previous years on facebook that would bear repeating. it's a saturday so there's no world at one for him to turn off in anger and frustration. 

more babysitting at the start of next month.