horsemouth is up. he has his coffee (thank you coffee making machine). the kitties have been fed.
yesterday eagle eared listeners would have heard horsemouth 'growling like an animal' (to use a flatmates description). he returned home to discover that the front garden had acquired more building waste. ho-hum. he didn't initially notice this but when he did he was fucking furious.
fortunately for the world (and for horsemouth) horsemouth is all talk (or at least sub-verbal vocalisations). it did thoroughly spoil his mood though.
previously horsemouth was quite cheerful because he had succeeded at kitty management/ allotment watering and could now look forward to enjoying his room in the house and a shower.
and of course revisiting it threatens to continue to spoil horsemouth's mood so he will instead slide it sideways. last time horsemouth achieved reasonable results by complaining to the co-op (the stairway was unblocked, a goodly proportion of the previous load of builders waste was disappeared from the front garden). he will do this again.
let no-one live rent free in your head is a terrible slogan. ultimately horsemouth has options.
the other thing horsemouth has is a task. the government has published its guidance on its decarbonising social housing scheme the thing to do is to carefully go through it and work out what they will pay for and what they won't, when they'll pay for it etc.
decarbonisation has the following history - at one stage it was a project for ecological enthusiasts with negligible payback (and every time it looked like it might have payback the government backed out of its commitments), the recent gas and electricity price rises have made it something people want to have done (but they don't understand it particularly well yet), and now the government has set fairly difficult to meet decarbonisation targets for all social landlords and provided insufficient funds to meet them (of course the government could back out of this commitment too but still leave the regulations in place bouncing the costs onto the registered social landlords).
what is offered as a solution to global warming is a mixture of technologies and products (solar panels, batteries, electric cars, insulation for example) that themselves require considerable carbon emissions to make but leave overall patterns of production and consumption the same.
you see - it's working - horsemouth has stopped being angry about his individual housing situation and started contemplating the broader picture.
horsemouth could do with understanding what measures are available to decarbonise flats. it is easy to understand what measures are available for new build properties and the measures available to retrofit existing houses (the issue is the expense of them and whether they will ultimately work - check this out 11 minutes in).
it is a grey cool morning. possibly some sun in the evening (or maybe rain). in a bit horsemouth will go up and inspect the allotment (he doubts it will need much watering). later he will wander down the hill in search of food. his reading of the master and margarita progresses (he has a history of reading for if he gets bored and then there's the decarbonisation stuff).
horsemouth checked his finances yesterday (today is the first anniversary of his last day of work) - he is within budget but only by about 5% or so. he has spent the redundancy cheque (roughly a year's work of horsemouth's badly paid job) and, at some point just before november he will have spent the proportion of the pension he took in advance. in retrospect taking the advance was a mistake but everything was looking more apocalyptic and on a shorter clock back then, but horsemouth is not financially disadvantaged by this until about 2029 (and the sums are small).
horsemouth's plans do not include any assumptions about benefit levels (other than the timing and rough value of his old age pension should he reach it) nor the returns on his various small pots of savings. at some point he will be driven back into the world of work but he is not missing it.
so goes the master and margarita (in what appears to be an early satire on the notion that the company that sings together makes better profits). interestingly the mass singing was the event the other musician of bremen remembered from his reading of the book (wheras horsemouth had completely forgotten it).
bookpilled / life in thrift has hit the wall - he's had to take a couple of weeks off and admit to himself that days off are necessary. his strategy is the quick flip price low for a quick sale andget that capital back in the service of the business as soon as possible. he's accelerated it to auctions. this, and the necessity to get enough material to service this strategy have finally burnt him out.
his other (more interesting) advice is to ignore the sensuous properties of whatever it is you are selling, it's just a doo-dad, look at the sell-through statistics and price it accordingly, ignore the fact that it's armanietc. ignore what you think you know.what you know is useful for getting the keywords right - so that people can find it. still horsemouth is receiving an education in what the various fabrics and collars are called.
horsemouth is up. he's having his coffee and he's had some paracetamol. he got a little torched when he was up at the allotment watering at midday (not his best idea) and then later in the afternoon walking back. he tested yesterday (and he doesn't seem to have covid) but this is the nasal swab only test and so he's not convinced by it as much as he should be.
TG is back later on today so horsemouth will blog and then tidy up and relocate. TG has a nice beat up old accordeon horsemouth will try and get a recording of it at some point.
jacken elswyth is doing well, the other musician of bremen is listening to her new album 'sat on a veranda just by the appalachian trail... surrounded by trees, a distant highway and the sound of an occasional vehicle. this is definitely the place to hear it.'
meanwhile (back in time) horsemouth was recommending bob calvert's solo work. he only really knows the first album captain lockheed then there's lucky leif and the longships. on the first two albums bob was trying to be humorous in a 70ies comedy kind of way (so it depends on your tolerance for that). eno is on them and various hawkwinders, it doesn't fall too far from the tree. after getting fired/ leaving hawkwind his stuff gets more interesting - hype, test tube conceived, the machines are silent.
horsemouthre-listened to hawkbinge's appreciation of hawklords - 25 years on which is another great silver age bob calvert album (possibly the best). horsemouth can't comment on bob's work as poetry (he doesn't know enough to do this) but as a lyricist and a songwriter it is all excellent (ok no - there's two absolute stinkers but horsemouth blames dave brock for these). the young guy in hawkbinge knows this, he can hear it. steve swindells knew it
and of course then there's bob's poetry and his plays (about which horsemouth knows very little). soon he will be a movie.
it is nearly the end of the month. nearly time for horsemouth's read, watched, listened to list.
tomorrow the anniversary of horsemouth's ending work (there was a meet up but horsemouth was still being cautious and so did not go). monday the anniversary of the release of volume four. sometime in the week max's birthday.
phew. horsemouth has solved his first problem of the day. he couldn't get the kettle to boil (don't laugh - it had more than one button). whilst horsemouth was trying to sort this out the cat was importuning for dreamies (the bribery tool of choice for cat-sitters).
horsemouth woke up but then clacked himself on the shin with the laptop and so decided it would be better to go back to bed until a more decent hour was achieved.
bob calvert is getting a much deserved blue plaque (on the high rise he lived in). bob wanted to be known as a poet but, as michael moorcock argues, this prevented him from seeing that he was a much better front-man for a rock band. he's not the world's greatest singer but he's good enough and he always gives a vocal performance, everything is a complete musical drama.
the plaque hails him as the inventor of space rock - certainly he writes the hawkwind log for in search of space something that unites the science fiction, poetry and rock worlds (and the illustrations of barney bubbles).
there's still no new episode of hawkbinge.they have reached choose your masques - the beyond the bronze age - featuring bob calvert's take on fahrenheit 451, another songisation of a novel, one of bob's particular skills (steppenwolf, damnation alley, jack of shadows, high rise, robot (arguably)).
from two year ago and horsemouth is struggling: 'letting it get ontop of me again. just stop and go for a walk. you may not cheer up but you may get a better perspective'.
at the moment things are going well for horsemouth in the communal endeavour at least (politically) but who knows at any point someone could spanner the works. (it's an unstable coalition and you know what machiavelli says about them). he rolls towards a year of leisure (and he's not too bored yet). he will have to check the finances and see what he is actually spending. if the other musician of bremen is around there's a tendency to go and eat and drink in pubs (and this is expensive) but on the other hand he's not going to be being around for the next 5-6 weeks so this will probably die off. horsemouth will go back to drinking supermarket beer and eating cheap supermarket pizzas.
'autobiography is an exercise in self-forgiveness' says journalist janet malcolm. in a bit horsemouth goes to feed the cats of the cloud forest (and water the allotment). he's got to get back up on the horse (or is it the cat's back) of the master and margarita.
it used to be much more about the music now it has become about the interviewee.
but let's be honest about it - he does have a face for the radio.
especially now. he was awakened by two beast fighting. he went to the window. he thought it was crows and scanned the skies, but no, it was cats. they looked up at him and gradually ceased to be mini-tigers and reposed themselves as neat and tidy, fluffy, before his very eyes they became round edged domestic kitties.
before that he was dreaming that the gods would come but that they would come as doppelgangers of the living for some reason everyone was waiting in the carpark of a supermarket for them. it was a fairly moody dream (what was that about?).
he's still half asleep (he can feel it in his face). he has closed the window and put on a jumper. no more dreams to report (they are all fled away).
bookpilled/ thrift for life dude has been thrifting and re-selling (on e-bay mostly) for 5 years. (he does like these dudes outlaw bookseller as well). here is bookpilled with short hair. he just wanted not to have a boss ever again, he doesn't want to be a boss, and he didn't want to have to move. in the end he had to move (LA to san diego) but the gig has worked out well for him. for three years he has funded himself entirely through it. it has enabled him to grow his hair long. start a science fiction book vlog (bookpilled) and relax (well a bit).
he wants to train people not to rely upon instinct and 'the pickers eye' (to train them out of 'somebody will want this') and use e-bay instead to research the market. just as with books condition is very important but not always.
in this video from 3 years ago he has not fully relaxed into the role. but it will come. he still has short hair. he still lives in LA. he makes it sound like a dystopian hell in the thrift stores. crackheads in gasmasks fighting over the carts. he pauses. that's just too dystopian for his audience and he knows it.
today (this morning) a walk with ayesha. feed the walthamstow cats. return to h_____y (probably by W15) repeat. it is the anniversary of him moving back to hackney and, while it has its frustrations, it has worked out quite well.
yesterday he walked up to the cloud forest (using a not particularly efficient route). he fed the cats and watered the allotment. he dozed a bit on the sofa. he should test (he's been feeling a little under the weather lately).
'it's an interesting period - nothing moves, but so much is happening...
water is the least of our problems' - catherine austen in j.g.ballard's the drought.
it's the connection with 76 as well (it is the driest first half of the year since 1976 the papers say).
76 is the real pivotal year.
the drought and the summer of 76 are seen as emblematic in a number of m.john harrison stories (you know the sort of thing visit a friend in the lake district, friend is going mad, light out for a campsite, baking heat, that night crackly news on the transistor radio of a right wing coup...)
m. john harrison writes an intro to ballard's the drought (an earlyish ballard), he contrasts it with day of the triffids - wyndham is honour bound to preserve the past (to re-establish it after the catastrophe), ballard has seen it destroyed in the internment camps, he affects to want to see it all destroyed again.
'this article was amended on 26 july. an earlier version had incorrectly said that fisher had taught at birkbeck, rather than goldsmiths'
horsemouth thought he had taught at both (!!). he also taught at orpington college (and wrote about it) where horsemouth met him again after talking to him at the noise theory noise conference up at middlesex).
now horsemouth basically parts company with the enthusiasm of the CCRU lot with their takes on deleuze and guattari (brighter than a thousand suns, sonic warfare) and derrida (hauntology) but he has to honour the attempt to theorise music (or to let music theorise) as something important. for a while horsemouth thought some assemblage could be made out of all of this but the more he read the more he realised that the parts were shonkily constructed in the first pace in an excess of youthful high spirits.
(later the CCRU story becomes much darker with nick land's dark enlightenment - but you know what derrida would say about your 'later').
at heart there was something populist in mark's thinking, an attempt to make connections that would spark. and this got him denounced at least once. he wanted to see something in russell brand, or the corbynite labour party, in zizek's bloated corpse, he wanted to see hope.
it is typical of the step-child/ cinderella existence of academics in the uk (it is a simple fact that it doesn't pay and you are just throwing good thought after bad) that you can become so influential and still wind up dead from depression and institutional indifference.
but it's all here already in the japan lyric. (which in a way is one of mark's points).
-----------------------------
horsemouth is hiding out at TGs. he has fed the cat and kept the cat in over night (as he was instructed). he brought one of the guitars over. there's a little accordeon here as well (horsemouth has been having a play around).
he's not done any reading yet (he has a history of reading and the master and margarita here). online he read some government documents about reducing the carbon emissions of social housing (they seem a little confused, to get the required reductions required it looks like you would need to fit heat pumps instead of gas boilers in the properties but then the real focus seems to be bumping the properties insulation up to EPC C standard (which is way too low for heat pumps to work efficiently).
horsemouth sits on the sofa (which looks out over the estate and usually children playing). sometimes he will get up and look out of the front door at the people running or cycling on the canal towpath (pretty people). the boat people are not stranded in the mud (by the drought or the tide) like their ballardian counterparts but float serene on controlled water levels living in the ruins of the industrial revolution.
it's a cool grey day. later a trip up to the cloud forest to feed the cats there. horsemouth will do the double for a few days before relocating entirely there. today the 50th anniversary of the release of the harder they come. tomorrow a walk round with ayesha.
if texas were a sovereign state, it would have the 10th-largest economy in the world (california similarly - it would be the world's fifth largest economy). a friend fishes in the brazos river. it is currently baking in a heatwave (as is much of the US clear across to california). heatwaves and wildfires too in spain, portugal and the south of france.
in the US air-conditioning is a big thing, and big drawer of power in summer. in the UK less so. here everyone is worried (as far as they can ever believe that they will ever be cold again) with how they are going to heat their homes over winter.
horsemouth has stumbled over bookpilled's main hustle which is reselling clothing he finds in thrift stores (the reselling books he finds in thrift stores/ library sales is just a side-hustle). presumably this covers his rent way down in san diego. bookpilled thoughtfully provides you with a guide to which brands to buy - things that are specifically fishing wear or riding wear or outdoor brands (climbers, cyclists, hikers) sell through he tells us. he provides us with advice in doing the packaging and posting.
horsemouth used to have a little l.l.bean blue rucksack (a US outdoors brand of which people in the UK are unaware) it went west, currently he has a north face, he also has a north face fleece (in a rather unfetching orange). he has a cheap trick and a motorhead t-shirt, a neil young and crazy horse, a gwenifer raymond, a leigh folk festival. other than that he doesn't think he has too many branded and reputable clothes.
horsemouth has too many clothes (like he has too many books) he could do with doing another clearing out. he had one purge about a year ago when he was doing his end of work spring clean. before that he's last had a clear out 6 years ago when he was moving flat.
he keeps letting people give him shirts (which he doesn't very much wear). he has plenty of jumpers and fleeces, t-shirts and pairs of jeans. horsemouth, in summer, is a t-shirt and shorts man, in winter he is a t-shirt, jumper, jeans man. this winter he suspects it will be a woolly hats indoors sort of winter. he has various sleeping bags (he suspects he will be using those this winter also).
clothes aren't the big thing with horsemouth.
horsemouth's part of the house is the coolest in summer (but it is also the coldest in winter). in the last few years horsemouth has been able to run the central heating with little demure (iain as a scot claims not to want it on, daryll claims not to use it) and this has kept his lungs in good condition. last year he had to economise on the heating and this year it will cost him twice as much (at least) to heat the building so horsemouth doubts that he wants to do it (of course if it snows or freezes he may have to give in).
he certainly has too many guitars and musical instruments (one 12-string, one resonator, 3 acoustics, 2 classical, 2 electrics, a lap steel, a bass guitar, two harmoniums (one dead, one alive), two keyboards, a glockenspiel, a banjolin, a thumb piano , an autoharp, a melodica, a cymbal, a marching drum, a rainstick etc. etc.).
a while ago he investigated re-selling on some of his books (the art ones were reasonably valuable the philosophy ones were basically worthless).
a sunday festival line up in docklands. african music. gospel. jazz.
see horsemouth has now been to two gig this month.
sona jobarteh. great kora playing from gambia and a tight band. but in many ways now for horsemouth that the problems of how to make it work for western audiences have (largely) been solved it is less interesting to him
and then the kingdom choir. gospel - in many ways it gets horsemouth where he lives - it is love generalised, made a political system (and he likes the singing). himself and the other musician of bremen who shall remain nameless sat in the park and watched the music unfold.
the hackney colliery band well horsemouth likes the music but he doesn't like the name. why not horsemouth?
1). hackney has a very specific meaning for horsemouth as in hackney as was (before the gentrification got to it), hackney after the gentrification isn't hackney (it may as well be west london, and not that hackney ever was east london either you understand)
2). colliery - well he can hear what they are trying to do, he can hear those colliery brass band arrangements in what they do (and they do it well) but here's the thing, it's like brassed off, horsemouth grew up in south wales, again it has a very specific meaning to it, a meaning that was destroyed in the miners' strike.
horsemouth supposes it is cultural appropriation. now when you make music you make a new thing out of the cultural materials you have to hand (wherever they're from). it's always cultural appropriation even if you are from there. (look at horsemouth with his blues and appalachian stylings). still something doesn't sit right with him. with acid brass (a collection of acid house tunes done in a colliery brass band style) horsemouth can hear that style but he doesn't feel it as an appropriation, it feels like an engagement with the tradition and in an interesting way. the hackney colliery band less so.
here is the williams fairey band at the opening of the tate modern (but you'll have to click through to youtube).
the musician of bremen who shall remain nameless now flies up, up and away. horsemouth remains earthbound and goes cat-sitting (down by the canal, up in the cloud forests). it is a grey day and cool. later (maybe) a walk with TG (perhaps more introductions to the cat).
ok horsemouth is no longer on the horns of his dilemma. (he thinks). there may never have been a dilemma. time will tell. back to life sing soul2soul, back to reality back to the here and now.
sometimes it looks (briefly) to horsemouth that the universe is cutting him a break (as if his prayers to ganesha have been answered). but then no and the energy goes.
yesterday he mostly spent cleaning his room. horsemouth lives in the basement. he has a lot of books and a lot of CDs and records jammed (with great efficiency if he does say so himself) into a comparatively small volume. to clean the floor (laminate on top of god knows what) may seem like no big thing but it requires a lot of moving things out of the way and mopping up.
the dust is deposits on any flat or mildly sloping surface. it is an illusion that it only sits on the surface. it in fact seems to combine with the surface to produce and entirely new texture, a gritty and unpleasant one.
that at least was the morning's work. before that he called in on TG to discuss the cat-sitting arrangements.
horsemouth has not finished cleaning his room. to do that he would have to (incrementally) take all his books and belonging off the shelves (and out of their various hiding places), wipe them down with a damp rag and wipe down the shelves on which they sit. it is a job for another day.
when horsemouth moved here (6 years ago) he had reduced the number of books/ clothes/ records/ CDs that he owned. he has allowed it to creep back up. should he wish to get mobile he will have to reduce it all back down once again.
to make the cleaning of his room truly effective horsemouth would have to clean the rest of the house and front and back gardens (to stop him tracking in dust and other particulates from his use of the kitchen, the living room, the corridors). but this is a mammoth task, one horsemouth may not love humanity sufficiently to do.
today the handover of the twelve string and possibly a visit back to docklands to see sona jobarteh (3.15-4.15)
later the phonecall from his mum. monday a last walk with TG before the cat-sitting. wednesday the anniversary of the release of the harder they come back in 72. at the end of the week the one year anniversary of the evapouration of horsemouth's job of 25 years. monday is the anniversary of the release of musicians of bremen volume four (two years ago), and the week after the anniversary of the release of volume two (seven years ago)
noma, the former singer in a band horsemouth was once in many years ago, has gone on to great success as an actor. today horsemouth got to hear her inheritance tracks on the radio (about one hour in).it was good to catch up with her, to find out how she has been doing (horsemouth never hears from her. the last he saw her he bumped into her on teh tube about 5 years ago). sad to say it is only now that horsemouth finds out what noma's musical taste was. all she mentioned at the time was show tunes (on broadway, stars fading etc.) and nina simone (she'd make a great nina simone).
horsemouth is on the horns of a dilemma (but as usual he won't tell you what it is). this is the problem with going out and having a social life (it encourages you to go out and do more). instead horsemouth would tell you about h____d but he's having a name change and a security crisis to keep the youth off his back at the moment.
yesterday (a somewhat tired horsemouth having got over-excited the day before) lay around. there had been a plan to meet TG and a plan to meet h____d but they interfered with each other. in the end horsemouth went off to meet h near the bike shop and then (the pub on the park looking busy) they adjourned to a hostelry heavily used by UAL/london college of fashion students (or so it seemed to horsemouth). they had a pint. then they had another and a bowl of chips and then a tired and exhausted h----d called a halt.
h___d is done for the year. (ok ok he still has things to do for work but he doesn't have to physically be there). soon he flies (if he can make it to the airport through the tube and rail strikes).
there is a photo of horsemouth wearing glasses - what do people reckon? at some stage he is going to need them (he can't keep on upping the text size forever).
in other news the master and margarita continues to go well. h____d has read it. he read it in india. drew in his copy and left it in a shop somewhere. he pronounced it 'fun' - he particularly remembered the giant cat (behemoth) and the murder at the ponds. (and something about a singing factory of workers?)
sunday horsemouth and h____d may be meeting down at docklands to see sona jobarteh play and to exchange the 12 string guitar. horsemouth returned the last £20 to h for it.
as usual horsemouth would have carried on drinking more (but, once again, sensibly, it was not to be). he returned home and ate a cheap pizza. not finding anything to his liking on tv or on the world wide web of all the knowledge of mankind - he went to sleep.
rob (in far off malaga horsemouth presumes) is listening to musicians of bremen volume one. the one thing horsemouth would say is that if he'd realised it was going to be heard by someone who spoke spanish he would have put more effort into getting the lyrics to a la luna yo mi voy correct (he's pretty much got them now). it is pity horsemouth couldn't find the lyrics before he sang the song because the guitar parts work out quite well.
it's the anniversary of alice coltrane's gig in berkley in 1972 - huge cosmic music.
today horsemouth awakes to the dilemma. well at least the weather is good. he goes to practice cat-sitting round TGs at some point. (horsemouth has a great cat-sitting plan for the next week).
horsemouth is back from watching grandmaster flash play in docklands (and amazing it was too). right at the end horsemouth got chatted up (hot damn). she's going back for jocelyn brown she told him. she looked strangely familiar.
horsemouth first saw grandmaster flash with denise up in walthamstow years ago. since then the show has become more epic, more stadium rock, more history lesson. but it is still 'the best part of the record' hip-hop karaoke show. grandmaster flash comes down to the front of the stage - he wants to know if he can tell us a story, just one story.
people (of course) want to get back to normal, they want to par-tay, they want to sing along (and everybody seemed to know the words). horsemouth still tries to hide out. as he remarked to a friend that he may live in london but he hasn't been out since he don't know when. but hey, he went out to a gig, do you know how rare that is these days.
before grandmaster flash there was DJ andy smith (of portishead) doing a vinyl set (and proper great it was too). there seemed to be lots of small kids running around. he ended up with a spanish language version of the message.
now (of course) horsemouth waits to see if he gets ill.
it is the anniversary of robbie basho playing sinclair auditorium, coe college in 1978. there are two sets (and there's the coffee house gig recorded the night before with moving up a ways).
it's friday morning. the bin-men dance is going on. horsemouth put out the bag of recycling yesterday.
the other musician of bremen (you know the one horsemouth means) is up in hackney dong bike stuff at some point this afternoon. saturday the anniversary of alice coltrane's berkley gig (1972), sunday sona jobarteh in docklands, the week after horsemouth is away cat-sitting again (in multiple locations).
it's a cool morning. last night horsemouth dreamt of enza (but with platinum blond hair).
“as I look back on my own life, what seemed to be an endless path of unfulfilled dreams, visions, and aspirations now seems to be a worthwhile juggling of the need to give to my family, those dependent on me, and the world at large. if I am to be judged, let it be for the whole ME rather than the thin slender line of public achievement. I don't know what gold stars I would have bestowed upon myself and perhaps only g-d knows, but it is a different way of evaluating my life than the one generally called upon in who's who or the new york times obits. I probably will not merit an article in the new york times obits, as those in my family did, but I am no longer discontent. if they did write about me, they would have to include an article for every man or woman in the telephone book, as we all have our stories to tell. so I will rest secure in the love of my friends and my family, as well as those who chanced to hear my songs. I'd like them to keep my songs alive, if possible, as well as some of my stories, but as they say at passover--dayenu--it would have been enough to be just as I am. and now off to bed with hope for another peaceful night.” - elisabeth higgins (lisa) null, a few days ago.
lisa null has died. after a 'battle' with cancer (to use one of the cliches disparaged by susan sontag). she was a mainstay of the maryland folk scene. horsemouth is keeping an eye out for the obituaries but he likes the place she reached in her thinking about it.
later today more of the webb david show (ambient techno dub would be the description horsemouth would use). mind you also today there's andy smith and grandmaster flash down at docklands for free in the evening.
events. in the tory party leadership election.
we are down to liz truss and rishi sunak (gawdelpus). sunak (of course) reminds horsemouth of norman wisdom every time he sees him (which is unfortunate for a serious politician). sunak has real problems. the major of these is that he will shortly be defeated by liz truss in the election for tory leader and this will be hard for his ego and his rational conscious mind to take. (horsemouth knows this because he has talked to his parents).
the prospect of liz truss is hellish but the prospect of austerity under sunak (rishi sterity) is pretty terrible also. at least the tories electing truss will make the russians laugh says horsemouth.
earlier horsemouth and a friend were considering recasting hamlet (or at least badenoch and tugendhat are dead) - rishi sunak as hamlet, liz truss as ophelia, boris johnson as the ghost.
today is the anniversary of robbie basho playing a warm up gig in the deli natural restaurant in cedar rapids iowa in 1978 (before his sinclair auditorium college gig(s) tomorrow) 'a lot of music to play tomorrow'. it is five years since horsemouth's solo gig (as a musician of bremen) down in bow. the gig went very well (horsemouth was very pleased). the other musician of bremen did manage to attend and took some excellent photos.
just a second ago horsemouth was surprised to observe that the figure looking back at him from the mirror looks like his photos (as displayed by facebook). quite what else he was expecting he is not sure.
the music today is from gary salzman an amazing california-based american primitive guitarist. he played lap steel guitar on the masked marauders self-titled album and released these two tracks asan instrumental 7", the secret forces of nature on lode in 1968 (basically private press/ self-publishing).
collected on tompkins square imaginational anthems volume 8 compiled by hardcore record collectors michael klausman and brooks rice.
'one of the more inscrutable yet exceedingly lovely entries in this compilation. printed in an edition of 500 copies, the piece spans both sides of the [original] record, and features salzman gradually overdubbing parts before culminating with a passage of musique concrete-like sound collage at the end. we’ve reunited both halves of the song here as salzman originally intended.' - michael klausman
yesterday horsemouth spent indoors hiding from the sun and oven like temperatures. (ok ok he'd occasionally wander out the door and go phuwhatasciocha) he listened to and watched loads of politics shows but also a show on the early days of techno in detroit. (nothing new particularly but nicely done).
everything is going to be alright has received some praise (which is nice). as horsemouth says it's not really his tune (it's the other feller's) . he supposes it is musicians of bremen's little fluffy clouds. ghazale witters on in an encouraging fashion (and a possible boston accent) and then there's that great trip hop beat (made on an app on a phone apparently). there is some horsemouth guitar on it but it is towards the end in the breakdown section, it's not really essential.
horsemouth recommended (in the if you liked that you'll like this fashion) covers - turn your heater on, and much of the stuff on volume four - amarach, wonky, dark were the days etc. on reflection he would probably recommend volume two as well.
it's a grey cool morning. horsemouth has all the windows open in an effort to charge the house up with cold air before the day gets too hot. perhaps just to have the relief of being cool. it is due to hit the much more bearable 26 today with possible rainstorms (and thus flash flooding) in the afternoon. (maybe he'll manage to get in a walk with TG before the skies open).
horsemouth is back from his cat-sitting venture in the cloud forest (phew what a scorcher).
a friend went into work yesterday. horsemouth sympathised. she said it was for the air con. horsemouth withdrew his sympathy.
last night a zoom meeting of the communal endeavour.
seven years ago horsemouth was saving norton folgate (with merv and myk and max 'crow' reeves, ok ok there were other people, that dan cruikshank for one) as far he remembers it s now all tarmacked over. later on in the day himself and max walked down to crossbones cemetery (there are photos) and after that they went for a pint.
horsemouth watched fellini's satyricon (it's a harsh world out there) and some of the outlaw bookseller.
in the pandemic the economic geography of the US changed. people were on the move due to broadband and the ability to work from home. they moved, in the main, from high tax (democratic) to low tax (republican) states and these are also states with more face to face education. just as many american cities (beyond detroit the poster city for this) are effectively dying from the evaporation of their tax base so this could easily happen with whole states.
republican states with a bulked up tax base will become more economically powerful and more able to decide their own policies.
but how will the roll-back of rights post roe-v.-wade affect this trend? won't people be cautious of moving to states with lax gun control, no abortion and poor civil rights?
and of course that's just the solvent people with work and resources. beyond this there's a huge homeless and housing crisis with people driven out beyond the city limits into the desert (it is like satyricon).
horsemouth has received a missive from his irish correspondent.
'the ghosts of tories past;
or, history repeats itself as farce (and it was already pretty ridiculous in the first place) -
penny mordant: theresa may 2.0
rishi sunak: continuity cameron/osborne
liz truss: iain duncan smith in a dress
kemi badenoch: bad enoch
tom tugendhat: corporal clegg
hard to predict the result - I thought at the start it would be either mordaunt or truss against sunak in the final, and the members wouldn't vote for an asian PM. but the two white wimmin are so rubbish even from a tory wanker perspective, and the murdoch press seems to have started pushing badenoch, so who knows?
the only safe bet at this point is soldier boy being out soon.
personally, I am for liz truss. anyone in the british government delusional enough to think they've 'solved' the irish protocol is obviously the best bet for a 32 county republic.'
in the days of the comet, anniversaries, (and a word in defence of envy)
so the bbc is predicting 39C for today in the seaside towns. horsemouth's plan is to nip out early for food and then hide indoors from then on in. so far it is cool and calm (but the sun has not made it out over the forest yet).
(horsemouth guesses his usual walk with TG will not be happening).
it is 51 years since pharoah sanders played live at the nice jazz festival, in france, as was recorded by ORTF. the second set is from 1 hour 13 minutes in.
it is two years since the release of everything is going to be alright. this is a tune horsemouth had very little to do with (there is some of his guitar towards the end) but mostly (the beat, the singing, the finding the vocal sample, the syd barrettish slide guitar) it's the other musician of bremen. horsemouth regrets not getting the cover image into the film the fall of the house of fitzgerald (it has UFOs and such things).
look here! said horsemouth (the pseudonymious writer of this mostly unread blog (and sometime guitarist)) is not the other musician of bremen's interest in playing guitar a bit threatening to my position as band guitarist (especially as he has turned out to be rather good at it)? should horsemouth not be jealous.
here horsemouth is taking as his problem the MASSOLIT scenes from the master and the margarita (which horsemouth read yesterday and enjoyed).
in a word NO replies the avuncular mule. the fact that he has turned out to be good at it is good news and will eventually lead to the publication of a very good musicians of bremen album that (like volume two) horsemouth will, either barely or not, be on.
volume two is our guide. it is very good. but next to nobody has heard it. dialectically envy should be the spur to horsemouth to produce better work.
but horsemouth is interested in what he is interested in, anything else impinges on his consciousness by only a limited amount, he is pleased that people are making progress, and if he was, or could be, of help in the matter, he is doubly pleased.
horsemouth is pleased to be up a 12 string guitar. it strikes him he will be able to record something interesting with that.
later this evening (in the heat) a mancom meeting on zoom. on possibly the hottest day of the year horsemouth will be arguing for more insulation and making the houses warmer.
good morning! good morning! this is horsemouth live from the secret laboratory. he is pursuing piers corbyn's theory that hot weather is caused by sunspots and solar flares. to be fair this theory may have been popular at one time because it forms the basis of the giallo macchie solari (staring mimsy farmer, soundtrack by ennio morricone).
yesterday horsemouth returned to the homestead as part of a planned meet up with howard.
howard had tasks in hackney in the morning. he has tasks there again this friday.
mid-afternoon howard came round with some beer (estrella)...
ok shit no horsemouth is supposed to call him torsten saar ffrom now on for some reason (there was an earlier period you may remember when he was called john smith.
and horsemouth cooked him dinner (fakemeat pasta in a tomato and pesto sauce) which howard pronounced most tasty. horsemouth's plan had been to drink very little (if at all) because it was hot but he allowed himself to be persuaded. they finished off the last bottle of horsemouth's cheap supermarket beer together and then went to walk down to the tube.
on the way there (ahem) torsten proposed going to the pub er... and so they did. horsemouth won the second round by correctly identifying sylvester's do you wanna funk (having suggested to howard that it might be edwin starr's contact). horsemouth owns both records (and indeed used to mix between them). the third round horsemouth had to borrow a £20 from him to pay for (but then he had just paid him £80 for his 12 string guitar. there's a photo. the light is good and horsemouth doesn't look too mashed. thereafter it was belatedly suggested that they might call it a day (against horsemouth's opposition).
the tube was out (for some mechanical reason) and horsemouth had to direct him to the 388.
so horsemouth now owns a 12 string (woop woop). you can probably hear it most clearly on the demo version of horsemouth's new song jai guru. the singing isn't there yet with it (but it will come). it can also be heard on no name resonate (soon to be renamed guitar piece (for pier marton) behind horsemouth's resonator guitar. demos of horsemouth's new tunes can be heard over at soundcloud, horsemouth would be interested in hearing people's opinions of them.
he doesn't think he has a photo for you of the 12 string but he will look.
horsemouth should now has a guitar for every season. (for god's sake horsemouth - how many guitars do you need?) he has too many classical/ nylon strung guitars and could probably do with giving at least one of them away.
horsemouth is not blessed with a resolutely optimistic cast of character. he has a tendency to get anxious (particularly about things he cannot solve) and catastrophise. a good book is often sufficient cure.
today he goes to compete his cat sitting duties (and to hide out from the high temperatures caused by sunspot activity) up in the cloud forest. monday a mancom on zoom and the anniversary of pharaoh sanders second 1971 gig for ORTF. tuesday horsemouth returns to the homestead (through the heat).
the week after next more cat sitting in the cloud forest but at his usual location. horsemouth is off to his folks midway through august.
don't blame horsemouth - that's iain duncan smith describing tory the MPs that is.
last night a very pleasant evening round at D+C's singing and playing in the back garden. horsemouth was not particularly on form (his hearing is a bit rubbish at the minute). he claimed he could sing la mer but he couldn't - his eyesight is getting so poor it is difficult to read lyrics and chords from phones. he did however manage a pass round les feuilles morts (with dave playing the guitar).
he thanks D+C for feeding him (and the music was good). D has got gnossienneno.3 learnt (to go with gnossienne no.1) and can play and sing through riverman (nick drake), which is uncharacteristic because it is in 5 time
sunak got 101 votes on thursday, with mordaunt receiving 83 and truss 64. badenoch 49 and tugendhat 32.
the next vote takes place on monday, as MPs whittle down the field to two, who will then face a postal ballot of tory members to decide the winner.
the result will be announced on 5th september, and only then will johnson will leave office (fingers crossed).
if the field is to be two out of this pack of 5 requires the redistribution of votes to alter teh running order, for truss to get on the final ballot she's got to pick up votes from badenoch and tugendhat sufficient to push her past mordaunt. there's a fairly rough campaign going on to knobble mardaunt. ok that's as much grimness as horsemouth can bear to contemplate this early.
on the book side a most excellent find. alberto manguel's a history of reading salvation army, 3 squid. manguel read for borges when he was young because borges was blind and manguel could read english (which borges understood).
before that horsemouth drank a coffee and sat in lloyd park. possibly a meeting with howard today.
last night horsemouth was so effective at keeping cool he dreamt of snow. (he also had to get up and put on a t-shirt. he dreamt of a descending black cloud rendered in artists brush-strokes and wondered what it was.
he also dreamt in adornoesque turns of phrase (in a triple negative kind of style).
he dreamt of dave social control's the rant-o-matic a cut into book that enabled the linking up of parts of speech so as to generate intelligible (but random) performance poems. one of his students had described it as a machine for destroying language.
he dreamt, in short, of an adorno-matic. curiously enough today is walter benjamin's birthday
some people swear by guitar strap locks (the strap cannot slip off, the guitar cannot fall). but horsemouth started wondering that 'if you've solved the problem now is that more or less interesting than the unsolved problem'.
matthew, of triple negative, in his performance, often struggles with the base materiality of things and in particular the difficulties that attend upon performance (such as guitar straps that will not co-operate and stay strapped on). there is a moment of ungainly danger when putting on a guitar, that the hole in the strap (the eye) will not match up, that the guitar will discover that it is unsupported and fall to earth.
at some point horsemouth's brain generated the phrase 'not even a unitary self, not even a howling multiplicity' - he thinks it can be 'improved' hapless instead of 'howling' perhaps.
horsemouth was so pleased with these phrases he had to get up to write them down.
following on from suke's liking for amárach by musicians of bremen from volume four lou left a note to say it was her favourite as well. nick lacey (a former studio engineer and so a man who should know) commented that it was a very dry recording with very little reverb on it. horsemouth replied that he guessed that himself and howard were so well pleased by how quickly it came together that it didn't occur to them to add reverb.
horsemouth did some plotting - he's after recording and gigs.
yesterday horsemouth was cat-sitting. the cat does not need much sitting and in fact would probably prefer no sitting. the flat is however stunningly beautiful. in the evening he went up with claudia to water the allotment but the water was off (there is a water leak somewhere). fortunately claudia's allotment has two (small) water butts. the sun shone, the birds did not sing (very much) as claudia noted - it is possibly too hot for them.
saturday possibly a meet up with howard. today a 26 ish 27 ish, horsemouth might wander out early in search of a coffee.
monday, tuesday - hell days of heat. horsemouth will probably hide indoors.
sunak, mordaunt, truss, badenoch, braverman and tugendhat go through.
zahawi and hunt fall! at least one more to fall today!
doubtless by the time horsemouth types (or you, gentle readers get to read this) this badenoch, braverman or tugendhat will have seen the writing on the wall and pulled out. fuck me what is it with those names? is this elric or something?
'we ride to castle mordaunt, truss! fetch my broadsword. braverman! tugendhat! scout the perimeter...'
or maybe it's more gormenghast?
ultimately (when it goes to the conservative party membership of something like 100,000 people) horsemouth thinks it is beween mordaunt or truss and rishi.
these are the witless true believers.
there was a joke that was going the rounds that said one advantage of the competition is that we will at last know if the tory party is more sexist than it is racist (or vice versa).
dorries said she thought the deposition of boris johnson was undemocratic - in that case have your new leader call an election as soon as they get in and then we will see the will of the people (you'll probably win).
horsemouth is interested in the way rishi moves - it reminds him of norman wisdom.
having watched laura kuensberg's laudatory triumph of the will(the rise of boris johnson) 3 years ago (was it)) horsemouth now got to watch her downfall (the fall of boris johnson) last night. it was, like its ostensible subject, hardly apologetic. laura K goes on to better remunerated things. boris too probably.
in a moment that is beyond parody the government is going to table a no confidence motion in itself.
horsemouth goes to hide out in the cloud forest for a few days and take care of a cat. he will take the master and the margarita which he started reading yesterday up at clapton pond(s). on his way up there he bumped into TG, he then brought T back for a tea in the back garden (in the shade). this should take him over the time of the heatwave and into the post-heatwave condition. his expectation is to be away half the time until mid-mid-august. he's due to be back up in the cloud forest in time for the next railstrike
it is the four year anniversary of ash sarkar’s ‘I am literally a communist (you idiot)’ - one of the more inspiring moments in recent history. horsemouth is enjoying the sun (perhaps by not getting out into it as much as he should).
'there's no difference between inside and outside, between here and there, between the many and the few, between what we are living through and what we shall have to live through, and the people how are they coping, asked the girl with dark glasses, they go around like ghosts...' - jose saramago, blindness.
if there is a vote of no confidence called by the labour party (no there won't be boris has blocked it) many conservative MPs will be in the unfortunate logical position of voting signifying their confidence in boris to rule when they have already deposed him.
boris the conservative party has left in downing street (with strict instructions not to touch anything). already the campaign is afoot to turn him into a deposed holy martyr of brexit.
meanwhile the parliamentary tory party are rapidly winnowing down the field of his would be successors - ideally they would end up with two candidates going out to the members, one the candidate the parliamentary tory party want, the other a no-hope schmuck to alibi the first, maybe jeremy hunt can be persuaded to run again?
horsemouth was wrong - it's 55 days of no government. it's 5th september that government returns by which time TFL will have had to make savage cuts.
horsemouth should really avoid the news. it changes so rapidly (but in such a way as to prevent actual change).
horsemouth is into the last few chapters of blindness (he will be sad to see it go). the characters have returned to the places where they went blind (when we first met them). they meet a writer.
yesterday a grey over-clouded day (but still hot and sticky). today looks like it will be similar. for now it is very pleasant. ideally horsemouth would be by the seaside and going swimming (not that he swims very well or can swim for long). instead he will have to make do with cold showers.
there's a lot of covid about at the minute (it would seem from horsemouth's friends). horsemouth wishes everyone a speedy recovery and recommends staying out of the way (if possible).
the EPC (energy performance certificate) for horsemouth's house has arrived (it's a D).
it contains helpful suggestions on improvements he could make, their likely costs and the effect they would have - it holds that eventually the house could be a B. all this is helpful info as horsemouth contemplates the struggle to make winter bearable. it provides some different typical costs for the measures from the estimates horsemouth has used.
today horsemouth has an interview about some cat-sitting. the cat will no doubt ask him some tough questions (particularly since horsemouth has shoo-ed it away from D+C's on a number of occasions). it is certainly beautiful out there. humanity you are beautiful.
it's a cool grey morning. horsemouth is up early (he can feel it around his eyes).
last night a movie - the dark past (1948) - we are with a pipe-smoking avuncular lee j.cobb on the bus in new york city, we follow him and his monologue, we follow him into police headquarters, we discover he's a police psychiatrist. later (at police headquarters) he tells a story of how he was held hostage by an escaping prisoner and their gang. he begins to psychoanalyse his captor, he reveals to him the truth behind the nightmares that haunt him and as a result the escaped convict is unable to shoot his way out when the police close in (because he's realised all the men he is shooting are his father).
horsemouth guesses the gangster, his moll and the rest of the gang all go to jail to serve long sentences (such are the one-way benefits of psychoanalysis in the context of criminal justice). the gangsters moll, a tough cookie and a sympathetic character all at once, wants the gangster to get psychoanalysed (to rid him of the terrible nightmares). but that doesn't end up so well (does it). it's not shown but she probably ends up in jail (an accomplice to the hostage-taking at minimum).
'if there's a cure for this... (I don't want it)' (co-)wrote flying lotus's mum in diana ross's love hangover.
we are who we are. the gangster would probably have been better off with his nightmares, his fear of going crazy and homicidal impulses (he would at least have stood a chance of escaping). the benefits to society of lee j. cobb's being able to cure criminals with psychoanalysis are obvious (but what if he started curing policemen or, heaven forfend, police psychiatrists).
above horsemouth's head circulates 53 days of (to quote nicolette) no government.
well no there'll still be government (there'll still be taxes) just that it won't (in theory) be conducted by the elected prime minister. (although he may stick his oar in).
the tory party are now engaged with electing someone who must satisfy three constituencies - the party's oligarch backers (no formal vote), the conservative MPs (a number of formal votes leading to a competition between the remaining two candidates) and last (and most definitely least) its ageing membership (formal vote on the remaining two candidates, though this could be avoided if the candidates do a blair/ brown deal). the new PM will be appointed 3rd september and then rule unelected until the next election (which could be as much as two years away).
as someone pointed out this will mean there will have been 4 tory PMs in 6 years (strong and stable my arse mutters horsemouth). we continue with a bunch of thatcher's playbook, wannabee tax-cutting, wannabee minimal-statist arseholes, with some ethics and morality white sauce dripped over the top.
with 10 plus candidates the field needs winnowing. it should all be fairly quick and ruthless.
horsemouth has nearly finished reading blindness (and very good it has been too). the army and government have gone blind and melted away. everyone has gone blind and the people wander round the streets in gangs scavenging, sleeping in shops. it is (of course) a vision of hell (but only the doctor's wife still has eyes to see it). there is (of course) some political metaphor in saramago's epidemic of blindness and the role of the state and army in preventing contagion by rounding people up.
currently portugal (and indeed parts of spain) are suffering epic forest fires in a 43C heatwave. horsemouth wishes people luck. sunday horsemouth will be on the phone to his mum (it's due to be the mid-30s at his parents). and then again one of his friends lives the south of spain and another lives in texas.
yesterday a short walk with TG. then some mild annoyance in the house. horsemouth resolved this with a cold shower (one of horsemouth's better ideas yesterday) and some bureaucracy. indeed he made some efforts to book time elsewhere and then went up the park to sit in the shade and read.
today he has spent the morning in bureaucracies and getting his thoughts clear. it's a milder greyish day he will go out for a womble in a bit.
last night a fox came to peak in his window (horsemouth regrets not getting the camera on it faster)
soon TG will be phoning (they want to try and get out for a ramble before it gets too hot). as horsemouth noted to his mum last night it is due to hit 35C in london next sunday
joggers, cyclists, a heron white butterflies, water-lilies and crows, jack russell terriers, tennis balls thrown into the river for dogs to fetch (and never recovered).
that's the sort of thing horsemouth saw last time when he went out.
after that he mostly sat in the shade and read. blindness is going well. well it's going badly for the characters. in the kingdom of the newly blind those who have been blind for a long time are king and have instituted a protection racket and control over the food. horsemouth has the harvill edition with illustrations by jeff fisher. a column of blind people proceeds along arms on the next shoulder (as in the paintings, as in the breugels). on the frontspiece the silhouettes of six blind people are arranged so that it would make a standing sheet sculpture.
soon they will leave the old mental asylum where they are confined - they will realise that society has crumbled round them.
at 17.27 one of the moments that started it all for horsemouth when he saw it on tv in 1979. hawkwind fire off into deep space, michael moorcock chunters on about how calm they are in the face of technology (there were synthesizers but no mention of stockhausen). there are clips from the jerry cornelius film - which as a film is become a sort of our man flint romp, a sort of austin powers man of mystery. there's footage of pre-gentrification notting hill. moorcock and m. john harrison loll around as young turks saying rude things about old wave SF.
like horsemouth says today first a wander round and then more hiding from the sun (he guesses).
'if you can see, look. / if you can look observe.' - the book of exhortations
good morning! good morning!
it is a beautiful morning (here in the salt marshes). the coffee smelled great as it brewed in the stove top pot, the morning sun shone right to left diagonally onto the whitewashed backwall of the garden (cheers sten). the sunlight is bright (but it is still relatively cool). horsemouth has got his coffee, returned to his room and opened the window. he feels the slight nip in the air.
yesterday a not very productive day. as it leaves his body the acetone (which is what the alcohol is converted into) makes horsemouth anxious and depressed. it took him a while to shift the actually fairly mild headache by which point the day was too hot to be dealing with. he snoozed a while unable to find anything that motivated him to read.
evening and afternoon he ventured out. he wandered up to the powerscroft road book box (past a dead fox cub lying by the roadside and the children playing) and from this point on the day started going right.
the master and the margarita is in michael glenny's translation in a pocket book edition with a disreputable looking (and armed) black cat on the front cover. (michael glenny is the father of misha glenny - ah that makes sense)
horsemouth went and sat in the park and read those great page-and-a-half paragraphs of saramago's where various different people start speaking and it is not separated out. someone's thoughts about what will happen when their wife comes home is interrupted by their wife coming home. what are you doing sleeping there with those flowers in your lap. that sort of thing. the sight has gone from people's eyes (to be replaced by a milky whiteness) there is a pandemic of blindness someone just driving their car stopped at a traffic light can just lose their sight and be unable to drive off. there is a kind of omniscience to it a gabble of voices so that you can't initially tell who is speaking.
the later the silence (where people will not vote) is set in this world.
reading blindness originally was of course a result of horsemouth's read portugal mission (antunes, eca de queroz but mainly saramago the history of the siege of lisbon novel and guidebook). similarly (but much earlier) the master and the margarita was the result of horsemouth's read russia (and eastern euriope) mission. horsemouth may have re-read blindness as part of his read the pandemic mission (sontag, camus' the plague etc.).
similar sorts of things to blindness are going on in minority report a spielberg take on a philip k. dick short story. there is an emphasis on seeing also. there are twins (there are always twins), there is a female part of the assemblage . there are lost parents/ lost children. time can be overcome and love recovered (as long as there is enough running around and shouting). everything is all right in the end. this is of course not very phildickian (it's much more spielbergian). 'choose' the voices exhort us to freewill against the world and its determinations.
horsemouth aims to do better today. see he is back on form (writing and reading away). he has a project. monday the week relanches (yet) again.
well so much for thefall of boris.
horsemouth held out great hopes for it and it turns out to be as dull as ditchwater.
it's the worst of all possible worlds - boris is still in downing street and still we have to deal with the unseemly battling of conservative chancers who want to be leader of the conservative party (and thus prime minister). the determination of this will be made by the conservative MPs, and be validated by the conservative party membership. it will then be imposed on the UK electorate (they will not get a say in the matter). eventually we too will be invited to (obliquely) validate it (excepting for EU citizens and refugees living here and a significant minority of people who are, for various reasons, disenfranchised, those who do not choose to vote/ are excluded from voting).
it is a cool grey morning which suits horsemouth very well (because he is a little hung over).
last night horsemouth was out at some riverside dystopian nightmare/ pleasure gardens with pat, little jo, dave and claudia, graham, adam and the man in whose honour the session was called robert lawson (who was visiting from far off spain).
robert has had a track played on stuart maconie's freakzone (horsemouth, as he has said before, is envious). he gave out some copies of his latest (which horsemouth will be playing in a bit).
after rob had departed to far off west london the remaining celebrants headed off over the bridge into the pleasurezone/ dystopian nightmare that is hackney wick (curiously ending up in a pub that horsemouth and co once saw in new year in, it looked squatted but it wasn't back then (kell was behind the bar)). they found the rooftop garden (and after a short while were ushered out of it) and then on back to the riverside gardens to finish off some bottles of beer. they then began to make their ways home.
hopefully, seeing as a lot of the evening was spent out in the fresh air, it will be reasonably covid safe. that said the pub toilets (airless little holes), time spent at the bar etc. all mitigates against (well horsemouth will have to see).
horsemouth continues with his masterplan 'playing music and reading books and going on long pointless walks....'
how much of that he will manage to get up to today remains debateable.
horsemouth has just heard of the death of welwyn garden city's finest mark astronaut (mark wilkins). there were a number of records by them horsemouth liked. he saw them at various gigs up the robey.
the mob, zounds, blyth power, the astronauts there were a number of bands in the anarcho-punk scene that horsemouth actually liked. horsemouth remembers a friend saying that mark astronaut had a thing about not sleeping away from home so the band would often have to take earlier slots in the night so he could get the train home.
yesterday horsemouth got seriously dragged off course by EVENTS.
first the 'fall' of boris and then later the visit of the man about the EPC (the energy performance certificate). he got really quite excited.
the 'fall' of boris
horsemouth wouldn't count him out just yet. he's still in no.10. he's still the PM . all the insane legislation is still stacked up ready to go through the house of commons. the sovereign individual himself (jacob rees mogg) has not yet abandoned him. boris has fallen as tory party leader, but the parliamentary party (the MPs and lords) never liked him anyway, they put up with him because he pulled in the vote.
'our brilliant and darwinian system' (to quote his exit speech) has dragged him down low (but not out). horsemouth thinks leaving him in downing street, in role as prime minister, would be a bad and dangerous move. but having said he is going he has effectively spiked the guns of those who want him gone now.
horsemouth guesses we will see tuesday (22 committee)
the tories will have a selection process to elect someone who doesn't reach the voters boris can reach. hell they may decide he can run in the leadership competition. three months is a long time in politics (as nasruddin will tell you) and a play for time can be most efficacious.
boris was a raging opportunist unafraid to tread on toes, fuck shit up and even splash the cash in pursuit of votes. further he had a residual stated intention to 'level up' courtesy of dominic cummings. without him the country is in the hands of people who believe they can cut and scrimp their way out of an economic crisis, that the workers will accept wage restraint to pay for the crisis.
of course horsemouth should welcome a tory government that wants to declare class war on the workers and their living standards because that way revolution is supposed to lie. he just doesn't like the balance of forces.
one problem with EVENTS is they change as they go along and you tend to get dragged along in their wake. horsemouth had to rewrite yesterday's blog several times during the day as the ground shifted under his feet. there's a lesson there.
the EPC (Energy Performance Certificate)
well by themselves the EPCs show very little. it essentially seems to horsemouth a quick 'eyes-on' judgement of the the thermal fabric of the building followed by the kind of calculations you would do to size a heating system - size of rooms, strength of boiler, stick the figures in the software, bish bash bosh, invoice, ker-ching.
horsemouth needs to investigate double/ triple glazing costs. so far (in terms of payback period and CO2 saved) more loft insulation is the clear winner of the cost-effectiveness stakes. it is also cheap enough to get it out and round the properties pronto. (strangely having a little robot crawl around spraying insulation under your floorboards is probably the next most useful thing you can do).
anyway the dude visited and then was off
last night a dave crosby documentary, a bitter and remorseful old man who has lost the love and trust of his friends by being a 24 carat golden dick (does this sound familiar). he has 8 stents in his heart and they can't put in any more. there's the archive footage, stephen stills and graham nash want to go to work and get on, he just wants to laze in his hammock. they are literally yelling in his face with frustration.
he's not so badly off now really, he has a nice house, his wife loves him, he has the money from selling his royalties. he has wrapped his memories and his deeds in hard-won abstractions that stop him from engaging with his wrong doing and repairing his friendships (the friendships he says he wants to repair).
and the past keeps on giving.
here is pharoah sanders recorded by ORTF live at the nice jazz festival in france, july 8th 1971 (tracks 1 to 4), the rest was recorded july 18th so horsemouth will share it again then. it's awesome. cecil mcbee, lawrence killan, jimmy hopps, lonnie liston smith. there's that zither thing again.
today a beautiful day. horsemouth was supposed to go for a walk (but his friend's cat is sick so it may not happen). he is also supposed to meet up with some other friends in the evening for beers (horsemouth will have to be careful)
'above his head flew a banner with the emblem of the sun and moon' - marco polo described the appearance of the great khan in battle.
once again it is julius ceasar season in the tory party (what already? it seems like only a minute ago we were breaking teresa may's little heart.)
here we await the defenestration of the greased piglet from one of the upstairs windows of number ten downing street (surely to be reported as a tragic accident). er. except it's probably not happening until tuesday now.
boris just wanted to get on with 'an enormous amount of stuff' (there's a grasp of detail for you) but they won't let him (cads and rotters the lot of them).
and so there will be no vote of no confidence him. and also he gets to stay in office until the autumn.
horsemouth spent a lot of time writing his blog this morning in the 'he won't go (he'll have to be chucked)' basis and then he went (er. sort of), so he rewrote it in a 'he's gone (but he's not gone yet)' fashion. please don't tell me there's more wriggle in the pig... as nasruddin says it's a long time til autumn...
ok looks like the tory party have spotted that one and decided to spike his guns and chuck him now anyway. ladies and gentlemen - the defenstration of the greased piglet is back on!
ok so now that he's (not) gone let's talk about him like he's no longer here.
david davis has heard of 10 candidates for the job of PM already, and they tell me that michael gove is available. superficially the field is quite wide (any tory MP only possibly excluding chris pincher and the rapist who is temporarily banned from parliament) but really it has to be someone untainted by the previous regime and a brexiteer/ brexit convert (to keep those people happy). now seeing as boris's cabinet was crammed with every talentless brexiteer bandwagon jumper he could find the tories may find that boris has rather tainted the pool.
gove, hunt, sunak, the bald one - jesus but it's a sorry shower of shits. it is important to remember that boris is getting it in the neck (in part) is for not being right wing enough, for not being fiscally conservative enough. whoever is elected will be elected on a platform of to hell with the poor.
whoever the tory party elects (fast process) will be governing unelected by the people, it will be tempting to go for a rapid election but on the other hand if the economic news continues to be bad (which it will) the tories won't want to be having an election while there's an economic 'feel bad' factor - so they may try and stretch it out until tuesday 2nd may 2024.
horsemouth would actually predict next autumn.
today horsemouth waits in for the dude coming to inspect the house and issue an EPC certificate.
once again some more of horsemouth thinking out loud.
one of the key reasons for doing this is to help the co-op meet its regulatory requirements. the government has legislated that co-ops needs to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, with intermediary targets of a 68% reduction by 2030 and a 78% reduction (and a minimum energy performance certificate of C on the co-op's properties) by 2035.
frankly this is all quite a way off (and so may be achievable). the amount of social housing stock in the country is still vast, the housing associations, councils and TMOs are under-capitalised to do all the work required. there is (some) government money for it (but not enough for all of it).
to lose one chancellor might be regarded as misfortune... but to lose two on one day looks like a plot. even the non-entities are jumping ship ('who?')
sadly it's not a plot - the tories are only just reaching the point of actively plotting to get boris out and he's not going to go nicely.
horsemouth has already forgotten who said it: 'you will have to drag him out by his ankles'.
pushing the ministers out of the front door to lie for you and take a bullet is acceptable behaviour (clearly) but only when you've got the story straight beforehand. otherwise they are just made to look stupid to no avail. dominic raab (dominic the second) used to have majorities of 28,000 now he's down to 2,000. this is what loyalty gets you dom (both of you).
horsemouth was happy when dominic cummings was bounced from power because horsemouth thought cummings actually had the plan that would have kept the tories in power for a generation. with him went any chance of doing anything competent. it was just a sea of wiggling pigs bottoms as their noses went firmly into the trough. from that moment on their days were numbered.
but sadly no-one knows the number. (there horsemouth just checked the guardian to make sure he's not gone already).
so what replaces him?
'a shape with lion body and the head of a man,
a gaze as blank and pitiless as the sun... '
the people putting in the work to depose him seem to be the hardcore brexiteers (jaysus) and hardcore free-marketeers (feck).
it will be the pre-election, or it will be by the time they've got the leadership sorted, it will be the time to splash the cash and make sure that their supporters don't feel dramatically worse off (with rising oil and gas prices and a recession looming). raab expects the traditional tory message of 'economic competence' to carry them over the finishing line (he is a dull boy) but it will be difficult to make that argument when the well-heeled haven't been able to afford to run the heating over winter.
on the other hand starmer (prince remainer) has to attempt to get to the finishing line pushing a cart labelled 'make brexit work'. (fucking hell sisyphean tasks and augean chores, talk about public service, the poor cunt, horsemouth actually feels sorry for him).
so a government with lots of liberal democrats in it then (the people who fucked your kid's education?)
so philip k. dick begins his speech to a french SF conference. he is in role, american huckster, confidence trickster,a democratic (but still hierarchical) form of knowledge disseminator. (actually no he looks nervous, sincere - he's no harlan ellison).
yesterday a wander with TG. down to bow locks and then back along the green way. thereafter it clouded over. sten is off on his travels and won't be back until thursday. horsemouth sat out back and continues to read the FT and the owl service. listen, he swears down that he will return to reading the paolo virno and make some effort to understand the consequences of thinking of the end of history as a mass outbreak of deja vu.
it's a beautiful morning (blue skies etc.). horsemouth was just watching a spider going about its work.
thursday the man comes to assess horsemouth's house's energy performance so as to grant them an EPC or energy performance certificate. this survey of teh co-op's properties is a first stagetowards moving the co-op in the direction of net-zero carbon emissions but, more practically, of reducing member's heating bills over winter. horsemouth is in favour of insulating the houses and flats the communal endeavour housing co-op owns to a higher standard and going off down the path of solar panels etc. he is also in favour of trying to work out what can be done for members in the short-life and co-op managed properties (but he suspects it is not very much).
the general theory in building services is that people should heat the fabric of the building (to prevent damp and mould) but horsemouth suspects that over this winter many members will not be able to afford to do this.
pardon horsemouth while he thinks out loud here.
horsemouth thinks it would be best to go for the most cost effective measures first and then spend towards the less cost-effective measures. there is something to be said on the other hand for doing it all at once (house by house) so that work previously done does not have to be ripped out at a latter date but this is not the way that works best either in terms of equality in the co-op nor in terms of the finances.
the cheapest (and most cost-effective) first step is probably more loft insulation (to a depth of at least 270mm), then horsemouth suspects double (or possibly triple) glazing for the windows that don't have it yet. the properties are large victorian houses jerry built during a housing bubble and they leak heat like crazy. there may be stuff that can be done with cavity wall insulation (does horsemouth's house even have it? he doesn't even know), better fitting doors and windows etc. .
later there is certainly stuff that could be done with exterior affixed insulation.
to get the properties into the condition where it would be worthwhile to fit air-source heat pumps they would need to have an EPC of at least A (he assumes most properties will come in with an EPC of C or D but it may be even lower). to refit entire houses to this standard would require the houses to be emptied, horsemouth can't see this being possible. horsemouth thinks the most sensible strategy is to take the money they have in the budget already and roll the properties in the direction of EPC A bit by bit.
as a side issue measures will also have to be taken to mitigate solar heat gains in summer as these become more severe.
in a bit horsemouth will wander out and see if he can locate more of the FT weekend section. he will then return to his reading. he should get on with a visit to the supermarket (and load up on tinned beans and beer).
