horsemouth found a golden apple on his travels (imagine the amount of trouble that could cause)

it is morning. 

horsemouth shows you rob lawson's under the spell of the calima in an effort to persuade you to buy it (or at least go and listen to it on bandcamp). it's great it is. the calima is the hot, dry, dusty wind from the sahara that brings the sand from the desert (and causes respiratory complaints). the sand falls mainly in spain (and the canary isles) but this year a particularly enthusiastic calima deposited sahara sand on the south of england. 

meanwhile back in england 

horsemouth has climbed up out of the subterranean basement to find the recycling gone (woo hoo). (hail the binmen - the most necessary workers of consumerism). 

the rubbish however (household waste) remains with us in its unfashionable black bags (and black wheely-bin). horsemouth suspects the binmen do not trust these black bags imagining them full of building waste/ garden waste etc. (how could that ever happen?) but he may be wrong, it may be that we are just on the wrong week of the two week cycle for rubbish (recycling every week, rubbish every two weeks). 

horsemouth found a golden apple on his travels (imagine the amount of trouble that could cause). 

earlier there was a fox snoozing in the back garden.(horsemouth thinks it may be hiding out in the shed (and shitting everywhere)). 

he has just tuned his new 12 string guitar down 3 steps (the way he believes leo kottke plays it) the better to get that great resonant sound (and greater ease of squeezing the strings down). he's on a half hour of playing the 12 string so far today. robbie basho (he believes) would often tune to an open c - cgcgce. he did not do his full hour of practice lie he promised  yesterday (but he does not feel bad about it because at east he has started on a program of playing it regularly). 

we move towards the equinox. we move towards winter.  

phew. he's got the gas and electric money in for the month. horsemouth takes care of these bills for the house. he likes to know where he is with these things. he had a small tin of that grapefruit tasting IPA to celebrate and he chatted with john in far off porto - a possible september visitor. 

so where is horsemouth with the electricity and gas? he is is fucked that's where he is - bills due to go up ridiculous percentages in october (and again in january). the power company have sent him the announcement of their intention to raise his direct debit in october. horsemouth can afford it, many of his housemates can afford it, but he's not convinced all his housemates can afford it.  

further he is convinced most people cannot afford it - that there is an army of CAN'T PAY out there (as well as regiment of WON'T PAY). the new tory cabinet of bastards comes in monday-tuesday-wednesday. he suspects they will remove the green levies, announce they are building nuclear power plants as fast as they can and leave the poor to freeze over winter. 

people will die in fires as they light their homes with candles. horsemouth expects to catch the occasional whiff of coal being burned as he walks around. people will die attempting to bypass their electricity meters (and more dangerously their gas meters - don't do it advises horsemouth). respiratory diseases will rise and frankly the old will just freeze to death.  

the truly poor are already removed from the equation because they have prepayment meters (if they cannot pay right now then neither should they have light, heat, be able to cook food for their kids - that's fair isn't it (and it will help them budget)). beyond that there is the swathe of people who attempt to do the right thing, who make ends meet, but whose wages haven't risen in real terms in a decade or more, who will no longer be able to make ends meet. 

now these are 'the people' or rather 'the people that vote', horsemouth is convinced that in britain you can do anything you like to the poor but you can't do it to the people - they will not wear it. 

so what are the ways out for the government? . 

now either the power companies (vast profits though not from their retail arms) have to take the hit or the government has to take the hit (and borrow the money to pay for it seeing as the tax take is so low because they no longer tax the rich). either that or the economy will fall into long term depression because everybody's last penny will be sucked into heating their home and feeding their kids.  

monday a meeting to discuss insulation and things (better late than never) - there is government money available to help with this but it looks like the new minister for that department will be jacob rees-mogg.(or the child-catcher general as he is known). mogg is not noted for his green sympathies (or indeed sympathy of any kind).