the saving of norton folgate and the ghosts of tories past

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.'