early on the sun shone but then the skies clouded over and the day began

outside it is a bright sunshiney morning. horsemouth is up half an hour earlier than his holiday standard. it may mist over later. (ok it's done it. it's galling to know that the other side of that cloud cover is sunshine) . you  know the rules horsemouth - to see the sun you must get up early.

last night (and the night before) horsemouth slept with the window open. this morning he was chatting with lone star parson (republocrats, heatwaves, the importance of AC). 

horsemouth checks the news. labour hold batley and spen with 300 votes (down from 3000 last time).  

horsemouth would, of course, prefer the labour party to be to the left of where it is, and would prefer it to get elected to office on a radical platform and then do radical things. the vagaries of first past the post, the entrenched nature of the british establishment and the downright reactionary cast of working class opinion mean this is unlikely. labour then becomes the least worst option. 

ultimately the real resistance to capitalism is only the workers requiring proper pay for their work and sundry protesters clustered round various issues. the first past the post system encourages extra-parliamentary struggle by failing to give parliamentary expression to even quite large protest movements (look at UKIP - 1 million votes and all they got was one lousy tory renegade for an MP). but it also discourages extra-parliamentary struggle because ultimately you are dependent on one of the two major parties to take it on and turn it into action. look at UKIP now - dead in the water because the boris johnson wing of the tory party schlupped their policies.

horsemouth apologises for giving you examples from the right but other than corbynism he can't see others on the left. (this is why the people horsemouth knows who should have known better were so enthusiastic about it).

there is of course 'direct action' where the people create the conditions on the ground such that the state has to go another way. at the moment  only seems to occur in the  limnal spaces, where the state simply doesn't care enough about the problem and people based solutions can be built.  plenty of people are still doing good work. 

horsemouth has lived his life in the shadow of the ruins of the workers' struggle ever since he came (belatedly) to political consciousness in about 1985. 

last night gwenifer raymond played (live from a toy museum in brighton). horsemouth attempted to watch various movies finally alighting on the legend of the seven golden vampires but the will was not with him and so he went to bed early.

yesterday. one walk on the common on his own and another  with his mum and the dog. today the same (horsemouth thinks). soon breakfast. 

the guitars are sounding very nice (now that horsemouth doesn't have a gig to play). horsemouth should probably put some effort into practicing, working up some new tunes etc. so that he has something to bring to the next round of recording.