a city mule's notebook (time is sutured together)

phew. horsemouth has just recovered some random mechanical component that was left in the kitchen (and then put out with the recycling). the place to look for it occurred to him while asleep (or dozing)  last night. 

november 29th the events in the bulgakov short story the steel windpipe take place (remind horsemouth to tell you about it then). the next short story takes place on his birthday (so the date of that is presumably discoverable also). bulgakov's a country doctor's notebook goes well. he wrote the stories in it at the same time as his more experimental stuff (just for a different magazine). horsemouth has the white guard round here somewhere. the master and the margarita  appears to have vanished (there's almost certainly a copy at his parents). 

before sleep last night, in the shades of darkness series, the demon lover (1983).  robert hardy points out that the first world war and the second are in fact the same war, time is sutured together and the ghosts can come back.  but what about the lives we made in the meantime? in the waking dream. 

coming thursday a (delayed) meeting of the communal endeavour. and coming early december a meeting of the whole communal endeavour to decide something important. 

yesterday a walk out to the velodrome with TG. some litter picking and a coffee. horsemouth was quite tired when he came back (he's still not fully well). 

on closer analysis the great resignation (the workers in the US turning away from work) turns out to be mostly women leaving the workforce because there's a shortage of childcare (post covid). this of course does alter the composition of the workforce and availabilities driving up wages, but not sufficiently to deal with the increased cost of living due to inflation in energy (gas) prices. in the UK an increase in people who have exited the workforce and are no longer looking for a job. a sharp rise in early retirement among older workers. 

horsemouth is still in the not going anywhere/ not doing anything / lockdown phase of covid response - his costs are therefore relatively low. how low is difficult to tell because he's been living off the cash he got out at the start of the pandemic in the vain belief it was going to be useful.

when horsemouth was a child the uk was referred to as the sick man of europe  because of it's chronic economic problems, and it looks like we are going back to this (ok ok now we will be the sick man not-in-europe but you get the picture). the times will be sutured together. boris (horsemouth must say) is not looking happy (he's definitely not twinkling). they've given him a speech and told him to read it (oh look he's lost his place). he definitely doesn't look well. he looks a bit sick in fact. levelling up  in fact looks like levelling down (and even that looks like it can't be achieved - the levelling bit horsemouth means).

horsemouth should get in some food shopping (a wander over to aldi - potatoes, museli cheap pizza etc.). he needs to get enough to cover the next few weeks so he isn't nipping up the corner shop all the time. denise is over visiting mid-ish january (so horsemouth will have to be back in the seaside towns for then).