yesterday horsemouth was discussing how little effect the apocalypse had had - horsemouth expected a world of remote working to arise from the ashes of human contact (but no). he expected the death and decline of the city (but no the population of london has gone up), he had expected tumbleweed blowing around the offices (and this to some extent has happened).
the old patterns of work discipline and the physical surveillance of work have repeated themselves. (this is dispiriting because the opportunity to get rid of a load of carbon emissions by getting rid of the commute has been missed)
of course about half the jobs were and are full contact jobs that cannot be done remotely - your bus still has to be driven, your food still cooked and brought to your table, your stuff still has to be made in a factory somewhere and stuck in a container and shipped to you. during the apocalypse these people were just marched towards the guns (with minimal PPE). strangely the guardian did not find their experiences instructive.
horsemouth was on a very full train back from birmingham last night (coughing sneezing bastards). at some point it dawned on him that the well dressed youth on the train were off to london for a night out or off on their travels and not (in fact) commuters at all. horsemouth has been persisting in his open air, mask wearing, minimal travel for a while now but he suspects the great british public are heartily sick of it and just want to get back to the party whatever the death rate.
so horsemouth has retired (he says half-heartedly).
while he derived quite some satisfaction from work he always viewed it as a necessary evil done to bring in the money and prevent starvation and homelessness. soon it will be a year since horsemouth's last bout of actual paid labour, he can't say he has missed it. if the apocalypse had not intervened in human affairs horsemouth would have continued jogging along in his job because it was comfortable and (reasonably) painless. but that was not to be. he's not tempted to continue working freelance because it requires insurances and technologies and a whole host of unpaid griefs and gubbinses to get him up and running.
in this the economy is (of course) not his friend. it is staging a bout of price rises and inflation - a raid on horsemouth's savings and his (very small) works pension income, and, more broadly, a raid on the wages of the working class. as a character remarks in one of hans fallada's novels of inflation:
“this is an ingenious, entirely modern postwar invention; they rob you of one-half of the money in your pocket without touching the pocket or the money.” (wolf among wolves, hans fallada)
if the government cannot provide you with a sense of economic security then what is it good for?
if changing the government cannot do that then what is democracy good for?
if the economy cannot provide you with the means to survive what is it good for?
horsemouth's economic inactivity is (to some extent) sanctified by his having worked and having savings. the lesson of the pandemic was a lesson in frugality, in inactivity. a break in practice that should lead to a break in theory. but horsemouth has been living like this for a while with young horsemouth subsidising older horsemouth with him gradually becoming less and less economically active.
he's been enjoying the demos for his new recordings with musicians of bremen. (when asked what music he was listening to horsemouth was compelled to answer my own). howard is very taken with the martin carthy.
today a children's party (weather permitting)
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