here come the painbirds

it's the two year anniversary of musicians of bremen releasing covers - we hope you have enjoyed it. 

horsemouth is in the west country. the other musician of bremen is off in maine (hopefully recording some songs). soon a secret birthday but first back to the wilds of herefordshire. thursday (it is the 25th) the anniversary of a gig. thursday horsemouth is back in the wen. friday horsemouth will hopefully be typing this blog on a new laptop. 

horsemouth is up a copy of of i.f. stone's the trial of socrates. now this is a book that argues that it may sometimes be reasonable to kill philosophers (what they say may present such a thorough going threat to the health of the state that you may be better off killing them). horsemouth  types this in the aftermath of what he takes to be an assassination attempt on aleksandr dugin that resulted in the death of his daughter darya dugina (by his second wife the philosopher natalya melentyeva). 

the extent of the influence of dugin and his daughter is debateable but their call for a new russian imperialism is profoundly dangerous (as are calls for a full end of history and the defeat and fall of russia). 

here we are half a year into the new russian invasion of ukraine and what it increasingly comes to resemble is syria. is the west really going to back the ukrainians to clear crimea and the donbas?  as usual less happens than you think will - russia is forced out of the world economy only so much, it is forced closer to china. 

ah well. not horsemouth's problem. 

yesterday a visit to stourhead. horsemouth has posted a picture he took ten years ago of his parents there.

his brother's eldest has expressed an interest in the malaga nylon strung guitar. at stourhead his brother's youngest sang a hymn and an unaccompanied folk song in a church (and very good it was too - the acoustics were wonderful).