august the 8th (the pleasure of creating a harmonious whole)

grange hh · Time

so it looks like the next musicians of bremen  recording campaign will begin 8th of august - when howard's work has finished and he's had a week off to recover. here's the current version of time (if time was a lie). howard was wondering what theme he's whistling here and will doubtless take it down when he's found out. any ideas? (horsemouth realises as he types this that this is not much of an incentive). 

of course time isn't a lie. of course time isn't a lie. it can lie heavy. or it can flash past your eyes like the memories of a drowning man, it can tap you on the shoulder when the party is in full swing. 

outside it's a beautiful morning (so beautiful horsemouth thinks it might be safe to get some of his clothes washed - he brought spare clothes stuffed in his guitar cases). his dad is already out on the table outside sat in shorts, drinking tea and doing the crossword. there's a lot of birdlife round here (horsemouth's parents feed the birds).

horsemouth went for a walk on the common and at some point he ran up the drive from the road (his parents live halfway up a hill) for exercise. 

last night horsemouth was carrying on reading freya stark (both the coast of incense  and a winter in arabia). 

there was a disagreement on an expedition and her editors are trying to make her take out events and her reactions to them. the debate has spilled over unhelpfully. 

'it is a curious thing how any personal feeling vanishes and only the pleasure of creating a harmonious whole remains...'

this is of course one of the major pleasures of songwriting. songwriting as processing.  

'I agree about the delight in detail for its own sake -  a pure form of happiness; I think too that it is a mistake to think one sort of work intrinsically superior to another.'

today. breakfast a walk on the common. some reading. probably a walk with his mother in the valley. then more reading and farting about on the internet.  bed. 

the grateful nation and the poisoned chalice of health

good morning my fellow babylonians. what a day it is, was, and will be!

we edge towards the end of the month (and peak over the edge into july). 

horsemouth has been reading freya stark's a winter in arabia online (thank you archive.org) and very good it is too. he also watched a documentary where she is carted half way up into the mountains in nepal on mule back to be questioned by someone who clearly hasn't read her books. a cheerful old stick she responds with some well-meaning generalities.

of course it was freya stark who visited the valley of the assassins thus returning to us wisdom's alternative to war (kill the ruling class before they kill you). curiously horsemouth is only now making the connection with ninjitsu.

a winter in arabia is interesting because she stays in one place with some other brits and (like the locals) gets sick all the time. she boils the water (she still get sick) 

matt han(d)cock has fallen. but not when it would have mattered, not when he was being  fucking useless and leaving  the nurses and doctors without PPE but a year and a half later he was having an affaire (ok ok he got her appointed into the government but he's a busy man). mysteriously the surveillance camera in the minister's office (yes that's right,the surveillance camera in the minister's office) seems to have accidentally turned on. 

it will now be all his fault. (and not boris's for leaving him in post for a year and a half).

the poisoned chalice of health has been passed on to sajid javid (or live evil as horsemouth often refers to him in an obscure miles davis themed joke). but see boris has had to spread out the ministerial posts beyond his supporters (the seven dwarfs) and invite an enemy in the front door. sajid will of course be eager to please and will end lockdown for boris (er. irreversibly - so following the science (the third law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy)). 

the grateful nation might not be so grateful when grannies start dying even though they've been jabbed. the disease still kills mainly the over 50ies (so that's reassuring says horsemouth the over 50). 

ellen mcilwaine the guitarist from awesome early psychedelic rock band fear itself   has died, later she played some awesome stuff with unison tuned slide guitars. you can hear she's put the work in studying indian music. 

 

'while tragedy collected... visible to all'. (haunted by sickness)

RIP jon hassell.

is the winter of 1937-38 and  freya stark is lost in the middle ages. 

(horsemouth has been dipping freya stark's the coast of incense  aided by the page headings. 

'what has chiefly remained with me from that winter, apart from the beauty of the valley - pictures that lie deep in my mind, is the intimacy with a world so strange and remote: it amounts almost to an annihilation of time, for the then scarcely visited smaller valleys of the Hadhramaut seemed to be separates by centuries rather than space from the life of Europe: I thought constantly of some illuminated manuscripts, roughly painted with drapes sandalled figures and crowded backgrounds of towns, coming suddenly awake and living and moving beyond its frame: and the history of the middle and even the dark ages  will never again be mere history to me, since I have lived in it and known what it has been...'

the book she will write about this will be called a winter in arabia, (,which horsemouth will attempt to find online and read, hoping that it will be like carlo levi's christ stopped at eboli. 

but soon, as she puts it, the background to our lives will come alive and war will begin.'while tragedy collected... visible to all'.

the other impression she received are now far more familiar to us.

'the other impression that remained was far less agreeable, for it was the feeling of being haunted by sickness, a pervasive, intangible presence in everything one ate, or touched, or did. my companions, who did not share my pleasure in the medieval aspect of life, felt this even more than I did: the succumbed one after the other, and so did I, and we were hardly ever all well together... the winter passed like a balzac novel, its events unrolling slowly in an atmosphere of dramatic squalor far more intense than their apparent smallness seemed to warrant.'

horsemouth likes this section and will type in more when he gets the chance. 

yesterday. a walk on the common and then later a walk with his mother down by the abbey, by  the village hall (playground freshly tarmacked), and along up the river.  (and the they had to walk back).

today a rainy and grey morning (but everything is very green and is growing apace). we are still at midsummer (though it is difficult to believe) and firmly in the bright half of the year. 

the freya stark was horsemouth's last reading of the evening (while he listened to his mixcloud mix of five months ago). earlier he had been reading harry de  quetteville's piece in the torygraph.

harrry (de quetteville is an old Brittany name) has noticed that there are rather a lot of pesky europeans still in the UK and that they are applying for residency. there are rather more of them than the government thought, not the 4 million of home office estimate but more like 6 million. good (says horsemouth) who as you know likes foreigners. the article is uneasy in tone between celebration and torygraph panic. 

horsemouth needs glasses

horsemouth needs glasses. he finds the text sizes on things uncongenial. 

after a little confusion he's into blogger this morning. he is typing this on his dad's spare laptop (a little lenovo thing - and very nice it is too). 

horsemouth's friend (richard wildhare) put on a series of films in hereford. 

I am a cliché is about poly styrene (and her daughter). the sex pistols, the clash, horsemouth can hear they are good but they don't really do it for him. x-ray spex (poly styrene's band), on the other hand, really do do it for him, because in addition to being exciting it is also smart. musically it is not smart (but it is very well made) but thematically in terms of the lyrics and the art work it is. 

poly suffers from mental health issues and misdiagnosis of those issues (and her daughter suffers because of it). they join the hare krishnas. the daughter is taken into care. eventually after much pain, and a comeback gig, the little boat with a candle containing poly's ashes floats off down an indian river. 

white riot is a film about rock against racism. again there is a focus on design but it also emphasises printing (those posters won't reproduce themselves). again there's great courage (it is difficult to remember how dangerous and apocalyptic  those times were). the main guy is very articulate about it, that ordinary people got to make history. 

at  the film showing horsemouth and richard met john rose of pink drone. vinyl was exchanged. 

outside it is a cool grey morning. in a bit breakfast. lots of rain is predicted for the coming week. he's been for a walk on the common. it's looking very lush. 

 

back from the gig

well he's not entirely back. horsemouth plans to hide out at this parents for a bit. 

so how did the gig go?

it went well horsemouth thinks. he didn't play particularly well (he seemed to be cursed with bumble fingers) and his between song patter was adversely affected by senile memory loss (for instance he simply could not remember the name of the reverend sabine baring-gould).

otherwise it was good. (and they paid him - thank you sproatley). he opened with satan (your kingdom must come down) and ended with a request from richard for the devil song.  he got in when the faun met alice, worldes blisse, the werewolf from the first and third albums, on broadbury down from the new album, gentleman john, legs from his other songwriter collaborations (with rusty moore and duncan tangy respectively).  he attempted to end with karen dalton's something on your mind (which the woman from the other  band haress very kindly said suited his voice, he has to thank her too for howling along (quietly) during the werewolf).

of the guitars the hummingbird copy got a lot of love, the hohner was a bit quieter but it sounded really nice on something... (he really should try changing the strings more often). 

richard wildhare  (his planted stooge in the audience) called for the devil song  and horsemouth obliged. he'd prepared a fragment of amarach  but it wasn't going so well that horsemouth was inspired to get it out. he'd been full of plans to take only 1 guitar and bring the banjolin (and get in a version of high rise strutter's ball) but in the end he bottled. 

thereafter haress played a most excellent set of folk shoegaze (with a foot operates shruti box). apparently there is some footage somewhere (if he can find it he'll give it to you). 

he thanks sproatley, the people at the venue (the babar cafe), the soundman, steve, richard, stass, gilly, moira and steve for coming and the guy called alex on their table who bought two CDs. 

the next night 

horsemouth went out to richard's showing of white riot (about the activities of rock against racism) and I am a cliche a film on the life of poly styrene (and her daughter).  these were very good. richard is showing them again tonight and horsemouth will probably take the time to discuss them tomorrow. 

Gigday! (finance and the problems of autobiography)

 'from love one can only escape at the price of life itself' 

notes a somewhat forlorn freya stark in her autobiography (the coast of incense - autobiography 1933-1939 which is largely compiled out of letters and diary entries). her visit to the hadhramaut (the south of saudi arabia) ends in disaster when she comes down with measles. this results in pneumonia (as it often used to), which results in heart trouble. she has to be airlifted out and spends the best part of a year convalescing. 

as a child horsemouth has measles (which resulted in pneumonia). this left him with dodgy lungs (hence his desire to avoid an encounter with coronavirus). he remembers looking at the coal fire (and coughing at the smoke). 

by 1935 freya is mostly recovered and visits iraq. on a page headed finance and the problems of autobiography (page headings! another luxury of meta text -  another page is labelled a writer's problem) she tells us;

'it is the most difficult thing in writing an autobiography, to determine how much of one's private feelings one must explain...' 

Gigday. 

to get to the gig horsemouth will head off one-ish. he may head off earlier (he often gets 'itchy feet' when he has to travel). a walk a train a tube another train (from paddington station) a change at newport (remind him not to get out at abergavenny) a walk down from hereford station to the venue. in truth he would have gone up to hereford to visit his folks (and richard wildhare and stass) at some point over the summer anyway - this just brings it forward. 

there is a slightly cheaper route via worcester (but it takes an hour longer). there is probably a route via birmingham too (ditto).  

he will probably hide out at his parents for a couple of weeks until the school term is over and then return to the seaside towns. then himself and howard can get on with their recording campaign for 2021. 

there will probably be a slight break in his blogging for the next two/ three days please bear with him. 

it looks like the builders are back in next door so he would not have been able to sit out in the back garden anyway.

a small minded act of revenge for brexit (the warring states)

horsemouth is up. sten is up too. outside it is a bright sunny morning. horsemouth however is wearing a jumper and jeans and is wrapped in a sleeping bag. he's waiting for the day to warm up and his headache to vanish (glass of ricard before he went to bed while watching ninja movies). 

these films are set in the sengoku or warring states period of japanese history 1497-1615 (named in analogy with the warring states period of chinese history). the japanese state was having difficulty asserting its authority over the feudal lords (who were, true to their name, doing rather a lot of feuding). 

tomorrow horsemouth goes up to hereford to play a gig. (remind him to empty the flower vases before he goes). the next night a friend (richard wild hare) is doing a film showing so horsemouth will go to that. after that horsemouth will probably go and hide out at his parents for a bit (at least until howard is available to do some recording).

he has decided on what songs to play (if not what guitars to take). he has checked out train times. 

this year, for this recording season (mid-july and august),  horsemouth thinks the plan is to record some guitar duets just using the zoom recorder and the microphones available in the style of bert and john.  (rather than importing it into the computer and doing loads of airbrushing, adding beats, keyboards etc.). it all depends on time and stamina (and lockdowns and travel and suchlike).

sten keeps asking him when will there be a fall of the house of fitzgerald II.  horsemouth does not know. there was a song (but it seems to have stalled).  

yesterday horsemouth was, if not actually sunbathing, at least, out in the back garden (the builders haven't been around for a while). later he went for a walk and plucked four cherries off the tree by the waterworks on lea bridge road. on the marshes there's plenty of rocket out now. it looks like it will be a good year for the damsons.   

he listened to an interview with paul orbital on podcast (you see he almost wrote radio there) by martin ware of the human league. paul recounted an interesting near death experience (perhaps that's what it takes to wake you our of mere habit into actually living). 

work is too hard (and robbery is wrong)

 

horsemouth is up and about. he's wearing trousers and a jumper. outside it is cold and grey with a real autumnal nip in the air (jesus was that the summer!!!!).

intellectually horsemouth knows there is more summer to come (he just finds it difficult to believe right now).

the gig approaches. horsemouth had better get his skates on and sort himself out. deciding which guitar(s) to take, which songs to sing, checking the strings, writing down lyrics that sort of thing. horsemouth will travel up on the thursday and stay with richard and stass, he will go with them to the friday night movie show (white riot and I am cliche) and thereafter probably over to his parents. 

there he will slack out time until the school summer holidays begin when himself and howard will probably get on with the next musical endeavour (an album of guitar duets in a bert and john style quickly recorded).

horsemouth continues to find meaning in his historic desecration of city am.  

'it makes sense to criminalise today's submission strange beast, as awful in parts as it is excellent in others.'

yesterday evening a disappointing zoom meeting of the communal endeavour beset by poor sound. some are hopeful of a face to face meeting at the end of  july (horsemouth is not holding his breath - or rather he will be if we are having face to face meetings). 

today is the anniversary of the great myspace blog dieback. eventually they posted horsemouth a zip file containing several years of his blog posts (bless you my space). no such joy with the destruction of memory that facebook is currently undertaking (though horsemouth suspects there may be a way to do it). hence horsemouth is diarising here (on blogger). he has found this digital diarising very helpful (he has almost never managed to keep a physical diary (except when on holiday and even then it tends to peter out in the last few days). 

work is too hard (and robbery is wrong) horsemouth remembers a zachary richard version from the turn of the century. horsemouth contemplates his exit from the world of work (is it even possible?).  

next week. a year since the release of humming. the batley and spen by-election. isis and osiris day. 

 

-- - SUMMER SOLSTICE 2021 - --

triple negative · Soft soft hands from baby bonds, sure-starred, perpetual

in today's good news triple negative have released more material on soundcloud. 

so the sun has risen. outside it is a grey and cold morning (like autumn remarks sten as they shuffle round the coffee pot). it is the summer solstice and the sun has risen and will set in its most northerly positions on the skyline. soon it will sink back down southwards and ascend lower in the skies, it will hide behind the houses, the days will become shorter and cold winter will come upon us.

last night horsemouth watched the sun set over stonehenge courtesy of english heritage's web cam feed. when horsemouth was a filthy hippie they were the villains of the piece.  the sun set behind the clouds and rose behind the clouds. 

but winter will not come for a while yet. we are still in the bright quarter of the year.

horsemouth's father (horsemouth's mother remarks) loves the sun and she remarks that horsemouth is similar. 

horsemouth is preparing to go play a gig (enza has wished him luck). he should check the spare guitar strings situation/ decide if he can get away with only taking one guitar. 

horsemouth's normal strategy is to take two guitars - one tuned standard (EADGBE) and one tuned nashville (DADDAD), this enables him to swap easily (and without onstage retuning) between the different sides of his repertoire. 

he will be relying heavily on volume three with just a handful of fragments from volume four. today is the third anniversary of the release of volume three the most horsemouthish of the albums, a response to volume two the most howardish of the albums. 

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‘it feels as if those days here in capri and positano were yesterday... and in the meantime one has grown old without knowing how this happened.’

late on in his life adorno sends a postcard to kracauer. people are saying when adorno was young they were lovers. (it had never occurred to horsemouth that adorno had a sexuality, later he had a wife, certainly, but she mainly seems to have been there to transcribe his debates with horkheimer). there was (of course) a falling out and a cooling off. 

the charge is that adorno destructively edited kracauer's work and that in order to get out of nazi'fying europe kracauer had to suck it up and like it . but unlike benjamin kracauer does escape and lives a long life in america, he writes on film, he gets to open up some clear water and independence from the frankfurt school. kracauer's charge against adorno is that he can get the dialectic to do whatever he wants - the horror of the world is controlled, tamed, a position of authority established. 

elsewhere (in the NLR rather than the LRB) fernando pessoa has his politics examined. it is a much murkier journey than horsemouth would have expected. it's like there is a particular malaise in poetry given its position in culture that leads it, as high culture, into an accommodation with  the rising authoritarian governments (look at ezra pound). 

horsemouth is grey-haired, balding for certain (if not technically bald) and now he's getting twinges of arthritis in his fingers (this will probably necessitate him changing how he plays guitar). 

it's been a funny old year (to put it mildly). 

this week, well the gig yes, but also, this evening, a meeting of the communal endeavour online. tomorrow the anniversary of the great myspace blog dieback, friday films in hereford with richard wild hare/ one of the last ever paydays. 

and so we roll towards the solstice (and thus midsummer and a gig)

and so we roll towards the solstice (and thus midsummer and a gig). horsemouth is looking forward to the gig (though he should probably restring his guitar if he's only taking one). 

yesterday 1971 (so 50 years ago)  battle at armageddon and the ankh of amon-ra were recorded by alice coltrane.  battle and ankh both feature the mighty rashied ali on drums. he also plays the windchimes on the absolutely beautiful harp and windchime introduction to ankh. 

so the DUPs new leader and his first minister seem to have fallen. they won the leadership competition these two (er. but then they lost, and the guy who lost in the leadership competition?  he'll probably get their jobs).

horsemouth feels sorry for michelle of sinn fein for having to stand down (again) and then stand again for the role of second minister (and all that carry on) but he supposes it's a chance to ask for something else from the british government representative (that nice mr. brandon lewis)...

first he promises to legislate in westminster for an irish language bill (now there's something the DUP are going to thank him for doing). now god knows what he'll have to promise little michelle to get her to go back as second minister for a second time. 

horsemouth thinks brandon lewis will  have to fake his own death to get out of this one. he's in a worse position than bob hoskins in mona lisa. 

horsemouth has been watching ninja movies (shinobi no mono). like lone wolf and cub it features the island of tanegashima where guns are manufactured based on portuguese designs.  the ninja are buddhists and, in the style of the assassins, are trying to murder their way to a sensible and stable japanese state. in lone wolf and cub the problem is solved, japan is under the shogunate, the nobles cannot feud openly. zatoichi's problem are a whole order of magnitude smaller. 

horsemouth has started on reading freya stark's the coast of incense (part of her pre-war autobiography). freya is known as an explorer and divides her time between italy and england. she dislikes the rise of fascism, she sees mussolini visiting a trade fair. 

and so we roll towards the solstice (at some godforsaken hour this morning) and thus midsummer (st.joao) and (for horsemouth) a gig. 

robert crumb and blind joe death

just gone 7am and horsemouth is up and about. his vision is still a little blurry (which is a little strange).

yesterday. progress on the set and on the singing. he got a walk in on the marshes and picked some wild flowers. to this he added the one nasturtium from the back garden, on the basis that there will be others later.

yesterday bandcamp were donating 100% of their share of sales to the NAACP legal defense fund until midnight PST. well done bandcamp. 

edwin poots has quit as head of the DUP (as horsemouth predicted). the judderman (now abandoned and homeless after he was fired by alcopop company metz) can be witnessed in the background of the photo attempting to photobomb the press conference. the newspapers have blurred him out.  

online there's an interview with george henderson about his brand new book on john fahey (blind joe death's america) . horsemouth hasn't watched all of it yet, he has read a little of it (online also). henderson focuses on fahey's writing and he is right that (unfashionable as they currently are) the existentialists were a major influence at the time and thus likely to have informed fahey's thinking and writing. that said the 'talk' format is fiercely dull, the interlocutor is stuck there onscreen having to try to look reliably interested for an hour and a half, there are no changes of scenery, or archive footage...

last night horsemouth watched part of a documentary about the cartoonist robert crumb. he thinks he watched it once with his granny (1987 is that possible?). like fahey crumb is an east coast(er) heading out to california, confronted by the hippies and not really fitting in etc. 

the tories have taken an electoral beating in chesham and amersham - the vaccine bounce cannot save them from having abandoned their base in the prosperous south by inflicting brexit, HS2 and proposed house building on them. now brexit is done and HS2 is on its way, only the house building can be abandoned to placate the hobbits in the shires. 

elsewhere (but up north also)  a tory MP is on trial for a sexual assault on a young man. should he be convicted he will have to resign and there will be another by-election. the tories only won it by 3000 or so votes out of 45000 or so votes cast out of a possible electorate of 70000. of course this is all symbolic, the tories have a thumping great majority to get whatever evil shit they like through parliament. 

the tories calculation must be that there is nowhere for their disgruntled voters to go (other than back to labour or to the lib dems who they successfully tarred with shit where they were in the coalition with them) but that may be a disadvantage in that there is no longer an alternative to split and neutralise that defecting vote (oh the joys of first past the post). 

elsewhere in the news cycle it's two weeks to the batley and spen by-election where, despite fielding jo cox's sister, labour could still do badly. 

horsemouth has no great belief in electoral politics. it is a mechanism designed to be stable and to reproduce existing injustices not to produce the kind of radical change that horsemouth would like to see. nonetheless it remains the only game on the same scale as the people. 

reading wise horsemouth will finish off virgin soil and probably start on freya stark's autobiography. 

 

chinooks over hackney (wtaf!)

horsemouth always assumed that tales of brave ulysses by cream was pete brown poetry but it turns out to have been written by the album cover illustrator (and oz regular) martin sharp. not much danger of horsemouth getting to the seaside this year, of his meeting aphrodite, and hearing the sirens sing.

chinooks over hackney (wtaf!). 

'they followed us back from cornwall' said a friend.

'he's on the boundary estate' yelled horsemouth up into the noisy dark. 

VIP transport, opined another. 

'crash you bastards!' cursed horsemouth (shaking his fist at the militarised skies). 

he had visions of an escape from new york style scenario (chopper downed, VIP kidnapped and held hostage by ghetto youth etc. etc.) 

another friend suggested it was the KLF. 

horsemouth dreamed the computer was old and knackered (as old and knackered as his netbook). he was in russia. the rest is gone into the world of dreams. the binmen (noisy bastards) have just been (bless you dudes and the vital work you do enabling the effluent society).

horsemouth is nearly done with virgin soil - the politicos go to the people, to the peasants. the peasants listen respectfully and then hand them over to the police. 

yesterday ed millib(l)and on talking politics talking about going to the people (preston style). now horsemouth thought milliband was a perfectly decent labour party candidate fucked over and sabotaged by his own party apparatus when they couldn't get his brother david forced to campaign on a tory-lite platform against his better instincts. the advantage of the corbyn project was that there was clear red water between corbyn and the tories, there was no mistaking him for a tory, there was no attempt to sneak into power as the tories but not the tories. 

meanwhile over in the north of ireland consternation for the DUP. arlene foster has been deposed as first minister  (for not being sufficiently illiberal) and been replaced by poots (as DUP party chair) and givan (as new first minister).  except sinn fein wouldn't let their girl (michelle o’neill) go back into government as second minister unless there was progress on the irish language bill (a bill to make gaelic the second language of the country and thus very definitely the thing the DUP does not want to see) effectively stalling the whole process. tory boy brandon lewis promptly cuts the gordian knot by offering to bring such a bill at westminster if it isn't brought at stormont. 

givan and o'neill are sworn in and then an almighty row breaks out in the DUP who weren't consulted about any of this and certainly would not have approved. 

givan and poots (is there time to get a bet on? the shortest tenure of DUP leadership ever). and now (to the tune of 'come on eileen') 'bring back arlene!'

outside the rain falls with solid determination (horsemouth is glad he got a walk in yesterday). he's had his coffee (and a bowl of museli). he should get on with practicing his singing. (ok he's just taken a crack at when the faun... and  satan that went well). 

upon close examination (the kind that is possible now that horsemouth is awake) facebook have rearranged their page layout (back to a state they had it in previously a few years ago). 

wow. it looks like it's going to rain until wednesday.

'... the bad news is: this is not capitalism anymore, it’s something worse...'

a cold grey rainy morning (a strange twilight light). horsemouth is secretly delighted. horsemouth has no use for 28s, 29s unless he's at the seaside (or perhaps in a leafy forest with a pond). horsemouth lives in a swamp (effectively) a wandering river meander leading out onto the estuarine mud. the concrete soaks up the heat during the day and radiates it out at night. it's not quite as bad as valencia in this respect (but nearly). 

yesterday horsemouth slouched round the house feeling braindead.  he knows that 100 yards up the road are the marshes and sylvian fields full of young bodies but it's just too hot. a friend has moved to cardiff and has posted pictures from the parks there (again it looks like paradise). 

horsemouth has been doing some work on repertoire. he thinks he has enough time to get a decent gigs worth up (if he gets on with it). he is disappointed with himself for failing to work up more music over the pandemic.

'... the bad news is: this is not capitalism anymore, it’s something worse. and the good news is: capital is not eternal, and even if this mode of production is worse, it is not forever. there could be others...' -  mckenzie wark in capital is dead: is this something worse?, london and new york 2019.

if horsemouth has understood it correctly one of the ideas emphasised in rosa luxemburg's writing is that capitalism is a transitional phase to communism, capitalism contains within it the seeds of its own destruction and (despite and because of itself) nurtures them.

we therefore have cause to be optimistic that the bad days will end. babylon shall fall. 

now the argument made (to various extents) by the three authors reviewed in javier moreno zacares' euphoria of the rentier is that what we are faced with is no longer capitalism but a hideous rentier monstrosity. capital is no longer deployed to develop the productive forces driven by iron laws of competition that drive down costs and prices but instead it is on strike and is devoting itself to buying up limited assets that can then be rented out. (there's a new edition of the new left review out, expect horsemouth to tell you about the articles he can read for free online in it). 

for this new world is not bound to be wonderful (as in the dreams of the techno-utopians). in its first iteration it is bound not to be hospitable towards the needs of ordinary working people. capitalism frees itself from its addiction to the surplus value added by the workers, and thus of its need for the workers.  

it is a thin gruel of a compensation that  'capital is not eternal, and even if this mode of production is worse, it is not forever'. 

we are living through such an era of disaster capitalism and watching it change into the new thing. look at alastair campbell's review of lord reece-mogg's the sovereign individual.  brexit and the response to coronavirus both provide opportunity for another round of deregulation and social looting. 

gawdelpus one and all. horsemouth is glad to be heading for the exit from the world of work. 

meanwhile work proceeds next door (improving the value of the asset, increasing the amount of rentable floorspace). 

the crap would be revolutionaries of ivan turgenev's virgin soil have this problem. the crazed feudal/ capitalist mash up social system should be rotten from within. it should fall. but they cannot even begin to push on it. they are characters from a novel of manners and romance adrift in times that will not admit them - superfluous men and women. 

yet another advantage of the current weather is that it is giving the garden a good drenching (see horsemouth was right not to water it yesterday).  so far four nasturtium plants have made it through the weeds (herb robert mostly) and come up. one has flowered (woo-hoo). out front (round the steps)  the campanula (little bells - another fortuitous weed) is doing well.  

today another day of staying in and shuffling about. 

 

the half-suspected secret (is that which is strongest in us)

so this is who horsemouth will be playing the gig with when he plays up in hereford. 

oh dear they're a bit good. he'd better get his skates on and sort himself out. that reminds him he must send steve the details. 

with that in mind he said no to a spot of babysitting (which he now regrets). the previous week left him quite exhausted and this has made him unduly pessimistic.

saturday the anniversary of the recording of  battle at armageddon the most public enemy sounding of alice coltrane's songs (together with ankh of amon-ra which sounds more like x-clan). 

monday the summer solstice the UK will see 16 hours and 38 minutes of daylight, he sun will rise at 4.52am and set at 9.26pm (latitude dependent). there is a meeting of the communal endeavour which horsemouth expects to be online.  

thursday (midsummer) horsemouth will play the gig. friday (payday). monday june 28th the anniversary of the release of humming.

next door the building continues. the guy was there on his own carrying a mountain of breeze blocks through the house and down out into the back garden. the steel is in now (to hold up the upstairs flat) so now the bricklaying can commence. they've been laying out the waste water pipes. horsemouth doesn't envy them (it has been really hot). ian is just off to work. 

ok he just tried the e-bow on the banjolin (works ok). he's thinking to take one guitar and the banjolin, open with a slide set and then retune. 

anyway horsemouth is off to get a lateral flow test to make sure he's covid negative ahead of the gig. 

it all has to be paid for (small beer)

or so steve remarked about the furlough. all the government can ever do (horsemouth supposes) is bribe you with your own money. even if they should lay hands on the money of the billionaires (like they are currently promising) it's still your money (the product of your labours)

horsemouth is with the hopeless revolutionaries of ivan turgenev's virgin soil. they don't want to be with the aristocrats, with their class origins and with their patrons, but they have no way of communicating with the peasants or the workers (who just think they are mad and incomprehensible) so they end up in some kind of alliance of progressive forces with the factory managers, disgruntled nobles,  tutors, step-daughters and (horsemouth would guess) police spies. 

there are several wrong'uns in the group (in fact the problem is deciding which of the wrong'uns is the police spy. maybe there's more than one).

the weather is cooling off. which is good because people's brains were starting to boil (horsemouth's included). there are all sorts of tensions in society which are usually be managed to give the appearance of harmony but crank up the temperature by 10 degrees and the conflicts start coming out into the open. lots of people are getting the shitty end of the stick and while they may not be able to get their hands on the people actually responsible  they can find someone guilty of some kind of infraction. 

yesterday was the fourth anniversary of the grenfell fire. 72 people died in a fire spread by insulating panels and uPVC double glazing installation on a tower block in west london. 

in 1991 the government was investigating these technologies and funded and installed them on a tower block in west knowlsey in liverpool. there was a fire, and while the fire doors and alarms worked well because they had been recently installed and were in a good state of repair and nobody was killed. however the insulation clearly helped spread the fire and the the poor uPVC window installation helped spread the smoke. the report seems to have been downplayed by the government. 

this is the earliest fire that horsemouth has found. thereafter there were a large number of tower block fires all over the globe where exterior insulation panels were implicated in aiding the spread. in 2009 there was the lakanal house fire in camberwell, the coroner reported in 2013 highlighting the role of the exterior cladding in spreading the fire. 

the inquiry has done good work in exposing the sheer buck passing ineptitude of building regulation and housing management in the uk but there will be no criminal charges until after the inquiry is over, if then. given previous inquiries the crown prosecution service may decide that given the complexity of the cases there is little realistic chance of securing convictions. there would then be private prosecutions, campaigns to get a CPS prosecution, further public inquiries etc. in the unlikely event of any convictions there would be appeals. 

and even when this inquiry reports the government is not legally bound to implement the changes required. there is a government bill coming forward on building and fire safety but given the failure of the state to learn any lessons from  knowlsey heights or lakanal  not much can be hoped for from it. 

and of course this is now all small beer compared to the ongoing coronavirus debacle. 

howard has posted a demo for a new tune (if time was a lie/ if time was alive) over on soundcloud, 

er. and then he made it private. before he did several people liked it (it's a good tune). that's howard playing guitar on it and there are some harmony vocals. 

horsemouth could do some babysitting if he liked. but he plans to be away for the next chunk of the summer (until the school holidays) plus he was finding it tiring (so he thinks he'll say no). if he wants to get into it he will do it slowly (no rush). 

when the future is ours to see (to the people)

ned beatty RIP. people will remember him for deliverance but horsemouth prefers to remember him like this.

'our children will live to see that perfect world'

we approach the solstice. 

'horsemouth never quite knows what to do with long and sunny days. it's one week to the solstice and thereafter the machinery of the heavens goes into reverse (summer iz y goin' out as a friend once put it) and yet we will still be in the bright quarter of the year for another six and a half weeks, not until 13 weeks will we be back at the equinox (and at that time horsemouth should be returning to work and whatever conditions may be under the new dispensation)...'

    - school's out, a horsemouth blogpost from 7 years ago today. 

this was the cyclical nature of horsemouth's time (and yet it is no more). horsemouth hitched his wagon firmly to the stars and let the wheel of the year waltz him round, down the long dark tunnel of work and winter, emerging blinking into the sunshine of the holiday. in doing so horsemouth drove the whole cosmic apparatus.

and yet it is no more. capitalism has profaned the contract with labour. capitalism has rendered all that is solid into air. horsemouth is left high and dry  and at something of a loose end.

when the future is ours to see

'the future's not ours to see' the song que sera sera encourages us to sing along. it encourages an acceptance of the vagaries of the world o fortuna. cheerfully.

when the future is ours to see

then we will be able to change it.

horsemouth is introverted and risk averse. he likes to know what he is doing rather than plan ahead. he is also lazy (so he can't be bothered doing the planning). his strategy in life is a mildly tethered drifting. he has clung to the life raft of work to give his life the appearance of structure. what will he be like without it? 

'we know that it is what remains a half-suspected secret for ourselves that is strongest in us' - ivan turgenev, virgin soil. 

horsemouth is about a third of the way into virgin soil, the populists (the followers of herzen) want to go to the people. but they are city intellectuals. they can't understand the peasants and the peasants can't understand them.  meanwhile there is always the temptation to slip back into roles serving the aristocracy. herzen ends up in exile in london. 

horsemouth also finished off pelevin's the blue lantern (a short story collection which has its moments but it is not as good as amon ra). 

meanwhile in feudal japan lone wolf and cub has finished. the quest to kill the yagyu is over. the network of spies destroyed. horsemouth is a little saddened to wave them goodbye (but in a while he can hunt down and watch the movies). 

horsemouth has made the rent for the fortnight (well he was about £2 short). this was a mixture of work (carried out a while ago), topped up with furlough. both are shortly to end and horsemouth will be doubly free. 

yesterday horsemouth assembled some IKEA shelves. left out by developers from a former show flat. he failed to lift the stack of photography books they'd put out before. the shelves are now in the back garden (there being no room in the house) supporting the many bottles necessary for ian's hedgerow wine project (if he should get round to doing it). 

on getting the jab blues

 'he disliked mangoes, yoghurt and the clash' - from horsemouth's obituary..

later horsemouth goes to get jabbed (12.45).

it is a beautiful sunshine-y day morning outside. horsemouth plans to walk up through the park and then through the industrial park. 

last night horsemouth went out for a quick wander about 7ish (the builders for next door had not been in so he had been toasting in the back garden or hiding indoors mostly). the young and the beautiful were out in force, little groups of celebrants gathered under the trees or playing beach volleyball with a tennis ball on the playing fields. people departed into the park bearing picnics and emerged from it bearing sunburn on their naked skin. 

humanity you are beautiful (and that's probably why we are all doomed). 

sten offered horsemouth mangoes (which he refused), then he offered him some yoghurt (which horsemouth grudgingly accepted), the topic then moved on to the clash. horsemouth opined that like the sex pistols they could really play and were more a conventional rock band and less interesting  than the bands that came after. he opined that their political position was romantic revolt, that they were tainted with americana (actually these were probably the things that enabled them to go global). 

when it comes to white men playing reggae horsemouth prefers the ruts (though arguably (imagining their songs sung by joe strummer) they are very much in the image of the clash). 

he liked x-ray spex too (though there is little interesting musically there). the slits, the flying lizards. 

horsemouth took the learn three chords/ start a band  from punk (though it took him a while to bring it into practice). eventually hip-hop came along and then rave and then jungle. 

horsemouth likes the portability of acoustic guitars. he likes the stories in folk music (there's rather a lot of death). 

horsemouth has survived (so far) though quite what for he's not sure. 

we can remember it for you wholesale (record store day)

'we hope that you enjoy looking back and sharing your memories... from the most recent to those long ago.' 

the invitation on the shopfront said you have memories to look back on today. in a small sidebar it read we can remember it for you wholesale.

peter pluperfect had just been on his lunchbreak from the fnord! plant up the road. he wondered what they were selling and decided to pop in...

horsemouth was dreaming of some kind of investigative reporting lark. 

but now he is back in the world of memory. which is a difficult world full of difficulties,  misjudgements, bad decisions, losses of temper, unresolved issues.

the world outside is heating up. horsemouth skulked indoors yesterday. he's still recovering from his baby-sitting stint. it really sapped his energy (it was fun also but knackering). 

it is record store day (when we are invited to purchase sound recordings of previous events that capture particular moments of sound in time and collage them into songs that themselves become memories and activate particular feelings. we re-member things, we re-attach them to ourselves). 

horsemouth missed the robert curgenven gig when he went to cork three years ago (which he regrets, it sounds great).  

horsemouth plans to do a lot more skulking. he has to avoid catching covid before he gets the jab (and now he has to avoid catching covid after he gets the jab - at least until he plays his gig, after he will probably go and visit his parents). the summer he thinks people will be outdoors and socially distanced but then as people go back to meeting indoors the old problems return with winter (and a more transmissible variant of the virus).

statue of boris johnson to be placed on the thames riverbed to save time later joked horsemouth last year. boris is currently popular. we are currently in the vaccine bounce but when it becomes obvious that the vaccine isn't the magic cure then what? 

peter pluperfect emerged from the shop rubbing his eyes. he had just enough time to make it back to his shift at the fnord! plant. 

it's a grey and cool morning

'longing for the new is one of the most common forms assumed by suicidal impulses in our country'        - v. pelevin

it's a cool and grey morning (phew). horsemouth types this in a t-shirt with the window open. he has a cup of coffee on  the go. 

a weight has been lifted from his shoulders (the babysitting gig is (slightly prematurely) at an end). to celebrate/ commiserate horsemouth went up the pub with steve. the approach was busy so they relocated to the camel. there they bumped into marike. they were sat outside.  they proceeded to set the world to rights/ armchair surgeon general the war against the delta variant. at the end horsemouth got the bus back up and got a falafel wrap (delicious - probably the first one in a year and a half). 

horsemouth thinks we are in an interregnum (a gap before everything kicks off again).

now that everybody is back out everybody seems to have a cold. 

frankly horsemouth was feeling a bit knackered as a result of his getting up early/walking there/walking back/child wrangling etc. and it has been hot and sunny (particularly during the afternoon walk there). horsemouth is frustrated that they cannot get it to run smoothly for the better benefit of all. (ah well). he will have walked something like 28 miles over the week (which is decent). 

time to regroup and rethink. 

sunday horsemouth gets his second jab (and not a moment too soon). he could have got it earlier he thinks but by the time they sent him the 'get your jab early' text it would only have saved him a week. he hopes this was the correct decision. thereafter he thinks he will be post-jab sick. he will endeavour to get more work done on his set. he should be up to full immunity (as far as that goes) by the time of his gig. 

the bin men have just been and next door the extension continues. drilling, giant clanking machinery. 

circumstance and character

last night half a bottle of wine and some food after an afternoon on the playground. 

horsemouth has been enjoying his babysitting gig but it draws to a close friday morning. 

there is a debate about whether what we do is down to circumstance or character. 

horsemouth rolls towards jab two being more socially active than he would have liked. 

tonight horsemouth goes out for beers with steve. but he will have to be careful. 

last babysitting gig friday morning. 

thereafter communal endeavour (21st) summer solstice.

gig. midsummer 24th. 

high-rise strutter's ball

horsemouth predicts a return to the fashion and dance moves of the 1920ies. (he does not). 

in the UK the roaring 20ies were er. 1920 from 1921 on it was stagnation and then depression. (nancy mitford and p.g. woodhouse)

it only looked good from the perspective of the great depression (august 1929 – march 1933). this was followed by more depression and then war.

boom-slump-war-reconstruction  as horsemouth summarised the positions of the international communist current on the end of one of bush house's songs. eternal cycles of this bullshit was all capitalism had to offer the working class (and humanity as a whole, they later added). 

sten listened to the same documentary. he took the message that the tories have greater tactical freedom from it. (this is true, they are distinctly unencumbered by principles). 

julie burchill has fallen at the torygraph. the torygraph is itself attempting to undergo change (to keep up with the necessary changes in the tory party). or so goes the pseudo-debate, the tory party has no deep doctrine to change (it is a virus entirely consisting of the will to power). the torygraph is the newspaper of the complacency, fear and entitlement of a rump of tory voters (the ones too posh for the daily mail). 

horsemouth has been reading victor pelevin (to go with the zinovy zinik). pelevin is a writer of the post-soviet craziness, and the late soviet insanity recalled, zinik the writer of exile, guilt and recovery.  

charity begins at home (and dies there neglected in a corner)

horsemouth is awake. he fell asleep easily. he's surprised at how tired getting up and 'working' made him. he was right he does like/ hate the structure. we are talking about 7 miles a day in 4 journeys. he did find himself running his feet under teh cold tap when he got back in. 

a warmer day today. horsemouth goes slightly earlier.

parliament has got up on its high horse over 0.2% of GDP in foreign aid. compared to the harm the uk does in the world this was a pretty small figleaf anyway. but no they can't have a vote on it (horsemouth is unsure of the arcane reason why). the government are running on a meanspirited charity begins at home spirit (they are correct, this is the spirit of the country).   

today the fence with next door comes down so that they can build the party wall for their extension. they are a downstairs flat so they can't go up, they could go down (maybe) but it is easier to go out  into the garden. horsemouth thinks it is ok (it will not significantly reduce sunlight into the garden).  they're a funny lot. they are posh and successful and cannot resist smirking with self-satisfaction even when trying to be 'friendly'. (ok horsemouth is being a bit 'chippy' and unfair here (but you know what he means)). 

horsemouth does not find them congenial so he treats them with a universal beneficence. of his neighbours the people opposite he likes, ian next door, pytor the polish railway worker a few door down he likes (it's a common story, he comes early, there's no professional equivalence for his qualifications, he's a highly trained machinist, he does a variety of manual work before he gets the railway job). 

yesterday he bumped into  joe moocha and later glyn on their bikes. 

today. more babysitting (a visit to the playground later). 

ok (high-ho).

the return of the owl service

the guy from the owl service  is back. horsemouth does hope it goes better for him this time and he gets the respect and sales he deserves. horsemouth always liked his stuff.

horsemouth is just up (7.11 it said on the phone) at 8am it will ring to remind him he has to go child ferrying (home to school and then (later) school to home). horsemouth thinks the structure will do him good (and the exercise too). that's a week long gig so he'll tell you at the end.  

he dreamt that he was chatting to friends and someone came and sat down between them (but then he woke up). 

last night he talked to richard (wild hare) on the phone. he's putting on a film show the two next nights after the gig in hereford (white riot - a film about rock against racism and a film about the singer polystyrene). 

today is the monday of the rent rise  in the communal endeavour. friday is payday. sunday horsemouth goes for his second jab.  soon there will be no more pay. that part of horsemouth's life will be over. 

ok more coffee and breakfast and then a walk. 

an actual gig (in the real world)

horsemouth has had an actual gig in the real world proposed to him. he has accepted. 

the gig will be at the babar cafe in hereford on the 24th june with the weirdshire crew from 7.35pm. horsemouth is delighted to get an invite from this lot (because they make good music). it will be a solo gig (howard is detained by work).

still this means horsemouth will have to get on with learning songs back from volume four to add to the songs he can usually play (solo) from volume three, from volume two the only one he's ever been able to play is noah, there are a couple of songs on volume one sorrows of tomorrow etc. that again he'll have to relearn how to play them, there were a couple of songs that he has sung that are not musicians of bremen songs and predate them (legs, gentleman john etc.). 

he'll take the banjolin and do high-rise strutter's ball (it's small and portable) 

he's just had a crack at blindspot from volume four (he doesn't think it's a keeper) but amarach  has to go in and horsemouth thinks he can get away with a solo acoustic guitar version of broadbury down. 

horsemouth is currently reading a life of the reverend sabine baring gould (by bickford h.c. dickinson)

gould had 15 children and for this reason, as well as temperament, he was teh author of a vast number of books and other works; 

a) the book of werewolves

b) the text of the hymn 'onward christian soldiers'

c) the words for the 'folk' song - the broadbury gibbet. horsemouth only has the words (which he lifted for broadbury down, he doesn't have the tune (possibly because he was looking for it under the wrong title). 

it's a grey and cool morning. horsemouth is fiddling about. he's wearing a jumper and sitting up in bed. he slept with the window open last night. 

there we go (we are all caught up)

the babysitting is over. horsemouth managed the handover in the modern style (hazmat suits and respirators).

afterwards there was some drinking (a bottle of beer then several gin and tonics).

horsemouth feels ok this morning but a bit blank and empty headed. 

the babysitting was fun. horsemouth is always anxious that it's going to go wrong and end in floods of tears. 

horsemouth needs to get on with preparing his set. the weather is ok ish today (after the biblical floodings of yesterday). 

 there we go (we are all caught up).

'maybe someone knows what fate is'

horsemouth is back from a babysitting happening. he's back on in a bit. at the moment the child is in tower hamlets cemetery park being forest schooled.  horsemouth looks out of the window (it's raining). perhaps some roller-skating later (er. if that isn't too dangerous). 

yesterday howard called round. he'd just been second jabbed (so his arm felt sore and he was feeling a little rough). there was no music. both pronounced themselves delighted with the mixcloud mixes. horsemouth played where he was with amarach and broadbury down (as part of his ongoing play volume four mission). howard hailed broadbury down  but pronounced amarach 'a different song'. 

horsemouth went off through the sun-fried streets to pick up child at the pavilion gate and howard returned to the far east. they then went to the playground and horsemouth watched the multicultural youth of hackney at play while their parents patiently waited. 

tonight horsemouth works til 8ish. then we are into the weekend (he guesses). 

 

live from the bedrooom/ the back garden

'the neglected details of  mundane life... play a crucial role' - zinovy zinik.

live from the bedroom it's horsemouth. he's a little hung over and slow this morning having got drunker than he thought he would whilst meeting steve and karen at the approach. horsemouth walked down (and then, in his drunken state, he walked back up)

he may have (in his drunken state) proposed some crazed scheme where they ferry him all over herefordshire when he comes up to play his gig on the 24th. he'll have to check with them that this is not excessive.

horsemouth, as a non-driver, is not best adapted to countryside living. 

steve is of course (as a smart person) pessimistic about wave 4 (the indian variant). he thinks we've already had wave 3. here we go (again). that makes this current moment (or rather the moment that has just gone) the safest moment. 

today howard comes up to visit. later horsemouth goes off to babysit/ child mind. 

zinik is a writer of exile. in the soviet union he was a samizdat writer, but all his published work he wrote after leaving the soviet union (but still written in russian). he settles in england, zinik isn't even his real name, it's just a family nickname that crept onto the official documents. he explains all this in the afterward that he wrote in english. he goes to lords to watch the cricket and drink pimms, he goes to the disreputable bars of soho.

yesterday horsemouth sat around in the garden toasting and then had a minor tidy out in the back garden. the builders are back in next door today but they hadn't been back earlier in the week. the weather is hot and beautiful.  

I'm glad I'm glad I'm glad (the new providence)

 the sun is shining and has risen over the houses at the end of the terrace (in theory horsemouth's block should form a square but other people must have bigger backgardens than horsemouth (maybe someone has keys to a secret backgarden right in the middle that horsemouth doesn't know about).

howard has assembled a new mix on mixcloud from horsemouth's suggestions (and one from his own inner promptings). thus does the half-term find expression. 

horsemouth's mix begins with chiwonisu's mighty version of a tune known to thomas mapfumo fans zvichapera.  horsemouth met one of her neices through work. chiwonisu is dead already. she died young.  horsemouth used to go and see stella chiweshe play (well ok he saw her once solo at the africa centre in covent garden and he owns some records). there's the donald byrd track christo redentor. then there's the ustad akbar ali khan and john handy piece the soul and the atma. next it's either steve hillage rainbow dome music (with miquette giraudy) or ash ra (he'd have to check). 

howard wanted a follow up to horsemouth's earlier mix. howard's own mixes are towards a more straightforward ambient end of things (and fairplay he does seem to get a fair amount of love for them). 

london fire brigade preliminary report is out  on the new providence wharf fire. the good news is the panels did not contribute to the spread of the fire  (but the wooden balconies did).  the automatic systems designed to clear smoke from the corridors in the event of a fire failed

this left residents’ only escape route smoke-logged. once again we are lucky people didn't die (on the other hand if people had died then the government and media might have paid some attention). a few years ago (2009) horsemouth was volunteering his labour on a self-build project, he remembers the construction professionals involved in it (steve and stevie, the site manager and the plumber) having a discussion about the new types of cladding and insulation available (and about how they burned). similar to the diesel emissions scandal everyone who took the time to think about it knew. 

yesterday in the morning horsemouth went to the babysitting gig. just a handover. a more prolonged booking thursday and friday. today probably more toasting in the garden. next week - rent rise, payday, jab two. 

and then on the 24th a gig. horsemouth needs to get a set worked up (much of volume four being group compositions that are difficult to play for  a solo guitarist). him being a little bored with what he plays from volume three. 

exile and the kids up the road sing daisy, daisy

yesterday the sun shone and horsemouth toasted in the back garden. the kids up the road sing daisy, daisy (give me your answer do) he's been avoiding the front. with the 'end' of the pandemic the old paranoias have strangely returned. I'm half crazy all for the love of you... sadly they didn't know any more of the lyrics. 

a friend mentioned joni mitchell's blue this morning and  as a result he  has skate away rolling round his head. 

yesterday he began reading zinovy zinek's one way ticket (he's had it for years but has never opened it). communism is falling, people of jewish descent can leave russia and a wave of exile begins (to england, to germany, to israel). you can leave but you can't go back. and then you may want to leave but what about your wife, and if you leave and she doesn't leave with you. then what? endless letters back and fore. guilt, lots of big fat chewy guilt. 

horsemouth is writing this in a hurry before he goes to a babysitting gig.  he's just doing a handover today. 

so the corona virus epidemic is over?

asked if the third wave had begun, gupta replied: “yes.” how would he know? prof ravi gupta is  a member of the new and emerging respiratory virus threats advisory group (nervtag). 

what it will look like now that all the oldsters have been jabbed is another matter. 

ok. time to rock and roll.