in which the political discussions continue (but horsemouth is mercifully free from a headache)

'there are thousands of ways to kill time and no two are alike, but each is as good as the next.' - georges perec, a man asleep. 

so it looks like beton have released a statement (see the bandera t-shirts kerfuffle earlier). billy bragg has put up a link to it (so he seems satisfied). horsemouth will be giving it some thought today and will let you know what conclusion he comes to.

the first thing to say is that workers should not be killing workers. the russian troops should turn around and leave. this invasion should not have happened. 

now to beton's statement. 

to be honest horsemouth is more convinced by one of the beton members being a medic than by their actual statement. you can see why ukrainians might want to put up statues of stepan bandera and wear t-shirts with his name on (but you can also see from bandera's record why they shouldn't - bandera is no nestor makhno nor even a symon petliura). 

but yes it is a war zone, they are fighting an unjust aggression, there is a refugee crisis. 

when horsemouth was a youth the stalinists who were in favour of sending tanks into hungary and czechoslovakia (to defend the actually existing soviet variety of communism against the will of the people there for something different) were derided as tankies. the thought experiment for horsemouth is to consider if there is a point where he would be in favour of sending in tanks - can there be a just military intervention? if ukraine were to return to bandera's strategy of pogroming out ethnic poles would that be enough? would you feel more comfortable with polish tanks doing it or russian tanks?

broadly horsemouth views states as protection rackets. one of the things the king (or the democratic institutions) must do is protect (ensure the rights of) minorities - the welsh, the scots etc. if the state doesn't do this people may legitimately leave or rise up or call for foreign intervention. 

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there look - horsemouth is drawing a line underneath it. (that won't hold for long). 

today is the day of the spring statement (horsemouth always thinks rishi sunak looks like norman wisdom but as a friend of his noted 'norman wisdom would be better at the job'). 

financially things are looking a bit shit for everybody - gas and electricity prices are going to rise, food prices are rising, because petrol prices are rising the cost of just about everything is going to rise. 

wages are probably not going to rise.

in a little while horsemouth will be arguing for a rent rise within the communal endeavour. elsewhere right now he's having a chat with another friend (a university lecturer) about the unaffordability of rent and any possible  'side hustles' to make money. 

yesterday a little bit of child minding. horsemouth read perec's a man asleep and re-read the introduction to it.

'the idea of writing the story of my past arose almost at the same time as the idea of writing.' - georges perec, W or the memory of childhood. 

today another beautiful day. horsemouth will be out for a wander.