'deadly fires are common in china, where lax enforcement of building codes...' (ahem...)

so says the guardian. 

there's been a fire in a tower block in changsa, china. the film shows it burning most royally and burning bits of cladding/ insulation peeling off and floating (burning of course) to the ground (kind of like that tower block in france). of course this is a problem in france, china, rumania, many of the gulf states etc (where they have lax enforcement of building codes and indeed poor building codes period that permit sticking napalm to the outside of tower blocks). 

not like the glorious united kingdom (oh no). 

fortunately this was an office block (telecommunications) not accommodation with sleeping residents.

it's rolling towards autumn. it's a bit nippy this morning. horsemouth types this  sat up in bed with the blanket over his knees and a jumper on. it looks beautiful and sunny outside but the air is cold. 

last night more practicalities  with marguerite duras - horsemouth has hit the middle of the book and the episodes have started to drag (too short to develop their own flavour much, too little room for the turn). as a side order he read the first few pages of the lover which are genius, photographs, memories adrift in time interrogated. the sureness of line. there in the south bank documentary she was reading them. she has a thing for text that is just read (in a film, in a play), thinking that it is enough, that there  doesn't need to be acting. blue eyes, black hair by her (another side order) doesn't go as well, we have a failure of desire, and a moving beyond it. 

curiously this is the part of duras' writing that interests horsemouth least (her desire, her sexuality) - he would rather know more about her time in films, in 68, about her time in the resistance during the war, about her alcoholism). he's probably just a little prudish still. her thoughts on the relationships possible between men and women strike horsemouth as pessimistic but true.  

he thinks he may have some more duras around here somewhere. or else he has lent it out/ given it away. 

yesterday horsemouth was in a meeting (he felt virtuous even though he didn't say very much). curiously a meeting about installing insulation into the housing co-op's owned properties. but still the bad news comes - housing has to be handed back, people have to lose their homes, if there's any replacement housing isn't clear. (well, let's rephrase that, it's clear there isn't any right now). 

the sun is now low enough in the sky to shine into horsemouth's room (his room is in the basement of the  south-facing front of the house). the disadvantage of this is that it is now too low in the sky to shine into the back garden which will become damp, neglected and sad over winter. (ok ok it is probably too early in the day and too early in the year to assert this just yet but hey). 

the front garden is now full of cardboard boxes - daryll is moving a lot of his tools etc. to a shipping container with some friends. hopefully he will get more use out of them there and good things will come of it. daryll's stuff does not disturb horsemouth much (because it is away in storage, it is not occupying the living room, it is not being carted in and out and randomly dumped with the end of every job). who knows maybe progress is happening in horsemouth's house.