- clark ashton smith (the dark eidolon and other fantasies)
- paul bowles (photografien) in german so can only look at photos
- a woman's battles and transformations (edouard louis)
- reveries of the solitary walker (jean-jacques rousseau)
- best sellers (brian stableford - intro)
- elizabeth broadwick (the decline of the art of book-reviewing, harpers, october 1959)
- diana athill (somewhere towards the end)
- various h.p.lovecraft
- the giant under the snow (john gordon)
- utopian communes: a bunch of poles who ended up in anahem california (in a novel by susan sontag and in local history websites)
films
- patrick keiller's london (1994)
- massacre time (spaghetti western)
- invasion of the body snatchers (b&w classic version)
- disappearance (1977 - featuring montreal in winter and habitat 67)
- the cat with 9 tails (dario argento)
- C4 news focus group on leveling up
- laurie lee interview
- hollies documentary
- outlaw bookseller, thrift a life/ book pilled/ the rest is politics,
- our mutual friend (anna friel version)
- ralph bakshi documentary
- judee sill movie teaser trailer and interviews with directors
- rose simpson online book launch video
- john fahey interviewed on WHYY radio july 25th 1980.
gigs none
events
arrival of under gaspar's house and a night at the museum by the robert lawson trio. interviewed about refurb. visit to catastro/FILLE for recording and enza's for lunch. refuel, RIP nik turner, RIP dan mcCafferty, rose simpson's birthday, brother's youngest down to visit. horsemouth switches to AI driven automatic blogging.
on 30 the december 1816 (today's date lest we forget) percy shelley and mary godwin (the soon to be mary shelley) marry at st mildred's church, bread street, london (now the location of the 30 cannon street office building). mr and mrs godwin were present and the marriage ended the family rift.
yesterday horsemouth was asked if he wanted to work. he said no.
he announced that he had retired from the note-taking work.
the notetaking part of the work and the working with the deaf he enjoyed (mostly). it was more the prospect of self-employment and the IT wrangling he found not to his taste.
on the IT side the work changed from a paper based operation (handwritten notes and hand-annotating hand-outs) to typing things in on a laptop, emailing things to people in particular formats, attending zoom and teams lectures. none of these changes made horsemouth feel he was doing a better job of supporting the deaf in higher education – in fact it made him feel he was doing a worse job.
it finally became time to admit this to himself and call it a day.
in addition to this it was the increased reliance on submitting your own timesheets and (effectively) processing your own payroll via a variety of bespoke systems that finally pissed horsemouth off. there was seemingly never any training to be had to do this, like bill bruford said of playing in king crimson 'you were just expected to know'. the analogy horsemouth often uses is the great leap forward.
like many people the technoshock and the flexibiity required for pandemic working were the final straw. horsemouth would have carried on but the job had changed under him – it may well be that it is changing back (but it is too late horsemouth has bolted out of the stable door).
when the work looked like changing to self-employement there was just more of this, plus the need to purchase memberships of professional bodies, insurance etc. and all this for less work and less regular work. now horsemouth had worked self-employed jobs before (as an addition to his main employment) - it was the face of self-employment post these later changes that put him off.
the great casualisation was supposed to drive down horsemouth's pay and conditions and hours (in real terms) but as a matter of fact they had been declining all the time he had been working the job. the work (being insufficient to cover his costs) would have become the alibi for his universal credit claim etc. etc.
horsemouth said fuck it.
he can do this because he has enough to carry him for a while at least until he knows more what he wants to do. he has some money left from the redundancy cheque he will see how long that lasts.
today (well this evening) horsemouth goes to a meeting of the communal endeavour (afterwards there is pizza - possibly). thereafter in a busy social whirl horsemouth is heading out of the back door of the year towards christmas. (horsemouth hates christmas but it is the best that can be done given the circumstances).
horsemouth is listening to his golden glow mixes (ok he didn't do the mixes, howard did the mixes, horsemouth just selected the tracks). hopefully through the mix of jazz and folk you can see where horsemouth is going.
greek witches, one of those fucking terrifying ennio morricone giallo movie soundtracks with children singing, linda perhacs, pharoah sanders, popul vuh (soundtracking herzog's nosferatu)... amon duul (sandoz in the rain), robbie basho,
horsemouth had great fun doing them but they are a substitute for him getting on with his guitar playing, playing gigs and recording. it's a shame that they are going. they are kind of perfect for long winter's evenings. apparently they will be stored somewhere they are just going to be delinked.
today (as he types this). yesterday (when you read this – or perhaps further on) horsemouth went for a longish wander with TG. they went down to bow locks TESCOs and back through the wilds of stratford (and westfield east). there was plenty of youth and beauty (but horsemouth was not contributing to it).
horsemouth admits to re-reading his blogs – briefly it looks like he has made some kind of literary achievement.
the strike in philosophy/ thought as work
there is a lecturer's strike about to happen. this of course affects philosophy and non-philosophy lecturers. this kind of assumes that thought is work (if done by philosophers). but are they required not to think for the duration of the philosophy strike (in case they come up with a piece of philosophy that would be valuable to the institutions they work for while on strike)? that is the question.
perhaps they may safely philosophise for other employers, and on projects as long as they ensure there is no leakage back that might in any way benefit their employers (this is difficult to achieve in our biographised/ social media age).
do they have to forgo reading, writing, blogging, stimulating conversation etc. because their work is held to concern (mainly/ entirely) thought?
a friend proposed that weed stimulated creativity and horsemouth opined that therefore striking philosophy lecturers would have to forgo that as well. double injustice.
what about the vaunted separation between philosophers (brain workers) and the rest of (ahem. mere tools).
what about for other workers withdrawing their labour? (if their work is not about thought or is it that their work is not held to involve thought). obviously almost all work involves some thought (all that is held to merely involve a skill or a trade for example).
is this some kind of restatement of negri's time for revolution? - on how the work day has exceeded its bounded limits and come to invade/ occupy facets of the workers life and skills beyond the workplace and the hours of work up until their human affect and communicative abilities. now negri holds this gives the workers additional powers over their bosses - horsemouth holds that it shows the weakness of the workers that they cannot resist the bosses invasion of the daily (outside work) life.
it is a far cry from althusser's (failed) view of philosophy as the class struggle in theory. is not the strike an attempt to provide a break in practice.
before, during and after 68 people were turning on the philosophers of revolution, the philosophers (for their part - adorno, althusser, arendt) were horrified with the solutions the youth had come up with. ranciere accuses althusser of staging a retour a normal (a back to work) in theory, adorno calls the police to clear the lecture theatre, arendt (see her on violence) retreats into constitutionalism and checks and balances. there are philosophers who do well out of the student movement and the new left - marcuse for example, sartre, but how does their work look now?
in opposite to the strike from work there is of course the work of the strike - the activities that the strike requires and the thoughts that come with that.
there is a parallel with the enforced inactivity of the pandemic for philosophers (the stage when the pandemic happened independent of their thought and without their consent) and then the sudden flurry of on-line teaching activity supplanted direct face-to-face teaching. the pandemic also followed close on the heels of an earlier lecturer's strike.
horsemouth phones it in. he is not even working from home. he has become economically inactive and retired. he is free to think but his thinking is not necessarily thought (because it is not sanctified by an institution - he is like the straw man before his certification).
''horsemouth is anxious and grumpy again (that's two dwarves this time, a two dwarf mood). he has to wait for a vote to be taken the only thing to do is to wait for it to be taken and to treat it like a minor matter.'
horsemouth has added an additional worry to his plate – that people won't want their houses insulated, that they won't want the inconvenience of the work being done, that they won't want the government to pay for half of it. He has 'gamed' the situation in his head where they call an emergency general meeting to call a halt to the whole evil scheme (what were you thinking horsemouth! Government inspectors! Government inspectors!)
Wednesday – management committee and vote (and maybe pizza afterwards). Thursday – another Net Zero Thursday (gas and electricity bilLs come due). Saturday possible meet up with howard. Sunday walk with ayesha and then guitar recording with catastro/FILLE.
in a bit a wander with TG (horsemouth is still on the coffee). He types this into a textfile (the internet being buggy and unco-operative). Hopefully it will unblock at some point and horsemouth can share his wit and wisdom with you. Thereafter horsemouth is free to flee to the countryside. (ever cautious horsemouth is keen to avoid any problems with the railstrike).
Bob calvert has his blue plaque (on a high rise). Book pilled is chuntering on about fix-up novels (where the text has been written and published as short stories and then bolted together for later publication)
he's posting the mini-player version of mixcloud so that when the link pops it's not too embarrassing. (soon all this will be gone. last chance people). he's giving it a listen himself. he's listening to some kind of santoor and saxophone thing (in that indo-jazz fusion thing). ok now we are into steve hillage's rainbow dome music.
yesterday (on his wanderings about and at home in bed later) he was mostly reading a children's book (john gordon's the giant under the snow). today is a cloudy grey day, he has a book of ghost stories (selected by roald dahl) and the clark ashton smith on the go as well. he has edward abbey's desert solitaire cued-up and ready to go too. yesterday was sunny enough to sit out reading.
he watched a documentary on the hollies - they sang 3 part harmony (which was good practice for graham nash for when he joined crosby, stills and nash and later crosby, stills, nash and young). after the failure of their prog singe mickie most said they had moved out of their segment (and should get back to it sharpish). nash left the band and went off to america, the rest of the band recorded he ain't heavy, he's my brother and had a number one hit with it. they weren't deep they just wanted pop hits, nash wanted to write, the rest of the band were content to play other people's material, nash was deep(er)
ok horsemouth has had his coffee now it's probably time for breakfast (the remnants of the potato/ chick pea thing he cooked yesterday afternoon). probably with toast he thinks.
horsemouth is getting his head straight about the amount of pushback to expect. soon we are into december.
today he doesn't know what he is up to. next weekend is a busy one as he tries to get in all the necessary meet ups in before he is off to the wilds of herefordshire. (he wants to go early so as to avoid the train strikes - everybody has to travel so they just travel before or after the strike days).
'I have never acquired the diary-keeping habit - mainly, no doubt, because of my uneventful mode of existence.' - journal of giles angarth, 31st july 1930 (from clark ashton smith's the singing flame finished january 15th 1931.)
ladies and gentlemen for horsemouth the golden glow on mixcloud is over (or nearly). they plan on charging (and horsemouth does not plan on paying). he is often listed as 'guest DJ' or his picture appears in the icon. it will continue on in some other form (but without horsemouth's mixes).you have 5 days left to enjoy these.
time allowed: 5 days.
horsemouth very much enjoyed picking the tracks. they were a bit too long to warm to as a whole. but they staked out the corner (or the area) horsemouth was intent upon working. he was listening to the transition between a guitar version of sweet earth flying by marion brown and a piano la fille au cheveux de lin by debussy - precisely and nicely done howard.
horsemouth (as he has remarked) is keen to get the year done. after the 30th (well after the 1st another decarbonsiation thursday) horsemouth basically becomes free (well after that sunday). he has no compelling reason to hang about in the great wen.
stuff rolls in the right direction but it is too slow paced for him. horsemouth would like to get it done and be rid of it. the stress of wondering when someone is going to come along and fuck it all up is telling on him.
yesterday he went for a wander with TG (the sunlight was good). he went for a wander earlier on but his head was still too fucked with the stress of staying reasonable.
horsemouth and the balloon game. in the balloon game the balloon is sinking and you must chuck some historical character overboard to lighten the load (everybody argues for the significance of their favourite). horsemouth has been chucking people out of the balloon for a while now (but it doesn't seem to be doing him much good. the balloon gets no lighter. horsemouth feels no more cheerful).
last night he retired to bed with the clark ashton smith and john hassel/ farafina's flash of the spirit - ah he thought he didn't recognise it (it has turned into a gavin bryars/ harold budd thing). he was writing his blogpost early (and is now changing a few tenses and generally tidying it up). he did this because it is fun and has a calming effect on him. here in the world of words he makes sense.
horsemouth was trapped in a bar at a hawkwind gig and the bar staff had lost his order (and were being surly unhelpful knaves). earlier (according to the dream) he had been working. at some point he made it all the way through someone's house to the back garden before he realised he couldn't get to the venue from there (and then, shamefacedly, had to make it all the way back out). oxford he thinks it was.
horsemouth has to make it clear that this was a dream.
‘where did you hear that music?... before tonight, I have only ever heard it in the spirit world.’ so said an audience member after richard osbourn after he played some of robbie basho's music. (maybe robbie is raving it up in the spirit world). yesterday was the anniversary of robbie basho playing the kulturforum bonn 42 years ago.
the meeting is done - 4 houses contacted, 10 remaining. a meeting next thursday.(cherry-ripe, cherry-ripe). possibly only 9 need to be contacted. (two flats are EPC C already - one can be insulated as 'in-fill' because the other flat in the house is being done, the other exceeds the limit on infill properties and so will have to wait.
horsemouth forgets how tense this all makes him.
people want what they want. gawdelpus. people's default setting is that nothing must be allowed to happen, because if nothing happens then nothing can go wrong.
he was recently asked why he still did it. he replied because it is an intriguing puzzle and made various rubik's cube motions with his hands. in truth it is because he still hasn't achieved what he wanted from it (which was to use the resources of the co-op to house more people).
ok enough of that. horsemouth's dream reveals frustration (in a somewhat comedic fashion).
things are being rolled in a positive direction. that is enough. get the ducks (tasks) in a row (and the shoot them).
4 down, 10 to go (maybe 9) blue door - horsemouth's life resembles a numbers station.
yesterday horsemouth bumped into glyn transporting a chair to leyton. they agreed to go up to leyton together and then horsemouth would raid/ add to the bookbox on the road to aldi (a copy of alex ross's the rest is noise). glyn is interested in getting back into music. it too them a while to find the chair place (a nondescript blue door - and the guy's workshop was really in the basement, and the guy who answered the door and took the chair wasn't the guy from the basement.(this is what real life is like - exceptionally messy and logically inconsistent).
so sometime this evening horsemouth goes (or maybe he stays home) to conduct a zoom meeting on the decarbonisation fund. at the moment it looks like being just ian from upstairs and howard, they will perhaps record it and pass it on to a woman from another house and maybe other people if they are interested.
last night 9pm an interview with laurie lee.
yesterday's purchases 5kg basmati rice and 1.75kg of red lentils(some custard tarts). tinned beans are getting more expensive (rocking up towards 50p a can), horsemouth is looking round for alternative sources of protein (cannibalism and such like). horsemouth will have to wait for ramadan next year - when tinned beans, rice etc. get cheaper at least at asda aka. the supermarket in the fields (or at least they have in previous years).
ramadan 2023 will begin in the evening of wednesday, 22nd march and ends the evening of friday, 21st april.
last night he cooked a sweet potato/potato/ onion/ peppers/ red kidney beans/ mushrooms and rice kind of thing (having lived on toast and baked beans for a number of days).
the heating has been on 17C day/ 14C night (but strangely now seems to be off - we'll see). the house (and particularly horsemouth's basement room) is mostly in shade with low solar gains. the result is that horsemouth only ever feels not cold under the present dispensation this never rises to feeling actually warm (except when he returns home from a walk). horsemouth will check the gas consumption at the end of the week. in the house everyone is coughing up for the new higher gas and electricity and standing charges bill (and they still have the government money in reserve).
horsemouth doesn't make much recourse to his childhood (an excellent source of material for many writers) nor indeed his young adulthood. laurie lee makes good use of all this material (horsemouth has read as I walked out one midsummer morning he thinks but not cider with rosie).
however many years it is. it is (once again) the anniversary of horsemouth's starting to blog. long may he continue.
'everything started with a photo. I didn't know that this image existed or that I possessed it - who gave it to me, and when?' - Édouard Louis,a woman's battles and transformations.
hail road to aldi bookbox (the bookbox on the borderlands). spectacular play there exiled from hackney guardian readers. a pleasantly skinny and fashionable book (and a similar skinny and fashionable author) and in the harvill leopard colophon (he now knows this term from the outlaw bookseller). a hardback too.
horsemouth has read it in an afternoon. permit him to regale you with his opinion of it.
the photo in question is a photo of edouard's mum, young and feisty and from before he was born. by the time he is born her life is shit (even before it was born it was shit too). she has two kids already and an alcoholic husband. they live in some shitsville in northern france, domestic abuse, alcoholism, poverty. edouard gets out, to the lycee and the university (he recognises this as a revenge on his upbringing and upon his family) and strangely, eventually, she gets out too, to paris, to a new boyfriend, to decent(ish) work (to life as a carer).
happy ending.'and yet. and yet she is happy. she keeps telling me this..'
and yet, as edouard says '... I know now that what is called literature has been constructed against lives and bodies like my mother's.'
there are several photos in the book. there are several phrases and paragraphs that are repeated in italic on their own page.
that everything starts with a photo (and continues with a film)
last night patrick keiller's london (1994)wason tv. now this was a very important film for horsemouth. at the time he had a very filmy girlfriend (his life revolved around sight and sound). as a result of a series of unfortunate events (all of them horsemouth's fault) horsemouth was displaced from the boredom and misery of his existence in the badlands of squatting in hackney and forced to move, pay rent and go and go get a job. indeed as a result he ended up living in ladbroke grove, brixton, off brick lane, off columbia road, out in poplar. the job (the one he kept for the next 25 years) was one that forced him to travel all over london. he used this travel to engage with the city he lived in as a whole (and to buy more books). he began to dig himself out of his boredom and misery and up into the light.
eventually life took him back to hackney (but he no longer felt the way about it that he did when he left).
soon enough the relationship itself fell over. nonetheless. life had become good.
the film is from one of those frustrating moments in history when the old is over as an ideological force but simply will not leave office (the exhaustion, bankruptcy and corruption was legendary - and in a way that is what this film documents). the ghosts of the miner's strike were not yet gone. the new thing had not happened yet and the future, seemingly and resolutely refused to be born.
when it does come (and this is beyond the timeframe of the film) it is the things can only get better moment of tony blair's election victory with a thoroughly neutered and tory-lite labour party (the thing that we know is coming again). in this way london is once again a film of its time.
yesterday was rose simpson (of the incredible string band)'s birthday. she came out of the woodwork a few years ago for the anniversaries and published a book reconnecting with her time in the band and the joy it brought her (and trying to route around the painful later years of it as it all went scientologically bad). she tried to recover the musical instruments she played and photos from her time in the band. horsemouth lies where she has got to with it.
horsemouth has got out the rugs and begun barricading himself in for winter. horsemouth types this of a morning sitting up in bed. he is wearing two jumpers, jeans, socks. the work has finished, he is back in hackney, back to the life of leisure and boredom that detonated his life previously. but it is 25 plus years later (and he is 25 plus years older). he has read a book translated from the french and watched a film from 25 plus years ago where two intellectuals discuss cities and politics and literature (and french poets at that - baudelaire, mallarme, apollinaire). horsemouth has not had to give up his intellectual and internationalist hobbies (and could even take a foreign holiday if he wished).
that said he barely makes it up the hill to the high street these days.
there are some sound quality issues (god bless you zoom) and some poor framing choices. overall the sheer power of what judee sill did is indestructible and everyone senses this. it took these guys 9 years to make their movie about her (you can see why horsemouth prefers music - the lead times are just much shorter).
at one point judee's philosophy is described as 'onwards and upwards fuck the odds'.
the democratisation of film production has resulted in a democratisation of taste and given it all a fanfic quality. people can make films about anything now and anybody (nearly) can make a film. this is particularly true of the new wave of music documentaries - a little animation, a lot of talking heads - horsemouth traces it back to the john fahey: voice of the turtle documentary.
presumably it is difficult to make a documentary about fleetwood mac without accidentally getting shots of other documentary crews waiting to interview our brave protagonists.
moving backwards in time to 2019. it is the time of ooo-jeremy corbyn and hopes of a socialist labour government. soon that ship would sink - was what we witnessed an operation by the secret services?
did the deep state rise up out of the ocean in its full horror? or was it just the usual operation of the rules on planet fuck-up?
today horsemouth probably needs to go and do some s-h-o-p-p-i-n-g. at some point he will need to go and refuel his bank account (and sort out some tax bollocks). he is working on trying to understand something so that he can explain it in the best and most persuasive fashion in the hope that it may happen. he has two projects like that. he would like to see them both up and running. but let us be frank about this - there is the deep state of people's habit and we still live on planet fuck up. the overall rule is that nothing must be allowed to happen.
what was that judee sill motto? 'onwards and upwards fuck the odds'.
so yesterday horsemouth went for lunch round enza's. there was a risotto al funghi for mains and then for dessert a truffle chocolate ice cream (a tartufo gelato?). it was all most delicious. catastro/FILLE was in attendance (as were the schmttens). there was a glass of prosecco each for horsemouth and enza.
strangely, when gathered together, the creative team behind the fall of the house of fitzgerald did not discuss it. instead they played enza loads of british glam rock (sweet (teenage rampage), suzy quatro (devil gate drive, 48 crash), mud, gary glitter (c'mon c'mon), alvin stardust (kokaju) and discussed the playground dances that went with them.
catastro/FILLE has come up with a vocal for the creepy(in a good way) tune (and very good it is too) - horsemouth will go next sunday to see how many of his guitar and bass parts can be made to fit under the new dispensation. both of these (separately) got the thumbs up from enza.
today a wander about (probably) cold and grey though it is. the heating is currently set to come on at about 14C in the house (the optimum temperature for mould formation - horsemouth has just checked the spelling). he types this sat up in bed wearing two jumpers, a scarf and a woolly hat.
it may be time to fess'up and turn the heating on properly.
there is stuff for the bid (assuming it is successful) that he should be reading and writing.
horsemouth is up. it's a brightish day. the sun is not quite making it through the clouds and over the rooftops opposite. but it's making an effort that's the important thing.
today horsemouth goes for lunch round enza's (catastro/FILLE may be in attendance). they will presumably have lunch and reminisce about the production of the fall of the house of fitzgerald (and maybe even re-watch it) and horsemouth will attempt to get catastro/FILLE's new tune (with guitar by his self truly) played. hopefully it will be greeted with ahs and oohs.
certainly horsemouth himself greets it with ahs and oohs he thinks it's the best bit of work he's done for a few years (and possibly ever), he thinks its up there with amarach, noah and his part on lush 3.1.
while horsemouth is turning perfectly innocent slint style recordings into ECM jazz his old friends triple negative have been releasing more horror. there's a very limited (20 copies) 10" lathe cut album to be had - protected by a folded blueback poster with silkscreened glow in the dark red ink.
ok there are digital files you can just listen to... listening to the racket now. the archive vomits up another lesson in horror and loss. and yet... is that reconcilliation?....no....
horsemouth was just fighting some conflict around his head and found himself daydreaming about recommending mao's on contradiction and marx and engel's the communist manfesto to someone as an accurate guide to what is going on in the world today. certainly the manifesto.
written by marx and engels in german in 1848 for the semi-clandestine communist league the manifesto was translated almost immediately into french, english, polish, russsian and danish. over the next 21 years it is translated and published in many countries each time with a new preface.
'...however much that state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in the manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. here and there, some detail might be improved. the practical application of the principles will depend, as the manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing...
but then, the manifesto has become a historical document which we have no longer any right to alter. '
- preface to the 1872 german edition.
it is here that derrida comes, not to capital but to the spectre that is haunting europe, to the manifesto intended to mobilise the workers and the communists in that 1848 moment of paris and milan and beyond
so where are we now?
well things are, as usual, fucked (as they must be under capitalism). the industrial revolution and its spreading round the globe to make capitalism a global system has put capital's nemesis and evil-twin carbon dioxide into the air. the changes this will effect upon the people of the world and upon capitalism itself may well see the end of human life on earth, or varieties of ceasarism on a global scale, or (more likely) a bodged and oppressive green capitalism of de-growth and increasing poverty, climate refugees and war.
meanwhile horsemouth is having a rare moment of cheerfulness. the tasks he has been pursuing for the last few years are nearly done. all that remains to be seen is if they can be hoiked over the goal line.
the book boxes continue to be good to him - barry miles' ginsberg, a roald dahl book of ghost stories (aickman, benson, le fanu, wharton), witchfinders (a book on matthew hopkins), a puffin edition of the giant under the snow by john gordon.
horsemouth has attended the last pre-bid consortium meeting, the bid should now be in (or be going in). ok it's gone in - looks like they pulled an all-nighter to do it (eek.).
they've pushed the big green button and it has gone in (huzzah).
the consortium don't find out until january if their bid has been successful. and if they are successful the heavy lifting of membership engagement, consultation and design doesn't start until march (with actual works not starting until september). the time until march is taken up by legal consultations and agreements, making sure the consortium is properly legally constructed to do what it wants to do.
the plan? to insulate social housing stock and thus save carbon emissions.
the target(s) to insulate all social housing stock up to EPC C standard by 2030, to reduce the space heating required to 90kwh/m2/ year (horsemouth is not quite sure if he has followed the units correctly but you get the picture), to reduce energy expended heating/ lighting the home (but mainly heating) and to reduce carbon emissions by 68% by 2030.
horsemouth quite likes this summary - he may steal it for something more official.
now of course these targets are not the same thing at all.
for starters insulating houses to EPC C standard (from the Ds and Es where it currently is) does not give 68% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions - that's a lot more insulating measures off down the line. (measures for which government money is not available).
horsemouth imagines this is the work of 2025 -2030.
there is an assumption that as the property is better insulated people will need to use their heating less - but it may be that currently people do not use their heating at all (because they cannot afford to use it, particularly this and next winters) and that with insulation their use of their heating may rise (because the heat actually stays in the building and they get the benefit of it). ho-hum.
insulating these draughty old houses so that the heat stays in is hard work, it is not guaranteed to work and could lead to problems with damp the measures may well take time to fit and require people to move their stuff out of the way. people may not like the measures that would most effectively insulate their homes and prefer others that do not get the house up to EPC C standard (and thus enable the government money).
anyway. all this is a while off. the other side of the bid being successful.
out in sharm-el-sheik (having flown there on jets) the diplomats of the world struggle to produce 'climate justice' on the uneven playing field of the world. the climate crisis will fuck lots of things for billions of people - where the world's food will grow will change, where people can actually live will change. in a world divided up by borders and immigration controls millions (possibly billions) will have to flee.
anyway everyone knows this.
the 'green technologies' do not begin to solve this (horsemouth is frustrated by both the slowness of the future to arrive and the failure to recognise that the myriad activities engaged in solar panel production (for example) are themselves carbon generating).
hell writing, storing, accessing this blogpost generates carbon and contributes to global warming.
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it's a grey cold morning. (but colder is coming).
last night horsemouth was reading his pandemic prognostications (he was reading his old blog posts) - the middle-class world has not gone all 'work-from-home' as he thought it would but the post-pandemic inflation boom has come, the governments are scrambling to recover 'their' money from the people. strangely it is horsemouth's more 'dire' prognostications that seem to have come true.
he watched a little of a C4 news focus group up north. krishnan guru-murthy was there with the great and good of some northern town (darlington?). everyone wants to speak knowledgeably and sensibly about the crisis (for it is 'the crisis', the crisis that has not gone away) and they are all well schooled in the contemporary discourses. they opt for that knowledge economy, training and education, good jobs future when faced by the not enough money to buy food and heat the house present. they acknowledge the sacrifices in the present that will be necessary to achieve this hopeful future (and in doing they condemn themselves to a future of having to choose between buying food and heating the house).
'waiting in the gloomy library to which she conducted me, I could not refrain from glancing at the volumes with which the shelves were congested. they were an ungodly jumble of tomes that dealt with anthropology, ancient religions, demonology, modern science, history, psychoanalysis and ethics. interspersed with these were a few romances and volumes of poetry. beausobre's monograph on manicheanism was flanked with byron and poe; and les fleurs du mal jostled a late treatise on chemistry.'
- clark ashton smith, the devotee of evil.
so how is the clark ashton smith going?
well now that we are on to a lovecraft type story - evil posho summons ultimate evil with gong bath (the devotee of evil) - it's all going really rather well. the stories are often strangely short (and strangely padded) - they set themselves up nicely but then lack development and finish too early, almost as if they were written for a capitalist marketplace by someone who needed the money in a hurry.
back to the imaginary libraries. horsemouth has tried to line the walls of his room with books. (he is near to succeeding). of course to get mobile he will have to potlatch loads of these. similarly with his CDs.
later today a zoom meeting (hopefully they will have done enough), before that some blogging.
horsemouth has forgotten what he was up to yesterday (and yesterday evening). ok no he watched a bit of an appreciation of john carpenter (on tv) and the teaser trailer for the judee sill movie (on youtube), he read some of the clark ashton smith. as soon as it went dark he reviewed it from his bed.
there are lots of clips on youtube about journaling. good looking and earnest young women will tell you how journaling for one year/ five years/ ten years changed their lives. horsemouth has been at it for longer than that and it has not changed his life (it has merely reconciled him to it (to some extent))
yesterday he made a curry (potato/ sweet potato/ chick peas/ onions/ peppers) and ate that (he will finish it off for breakfast).
soon the temperatures will take a dive and it may be time to turn on the central heating (horsemouth is holding out, he has put on a jumper) - the house has built up a decent advance on the energy bills and (failing that) there is still the government's 66 a month to turn in. next winter energy bills will rise another 20%, council tax bills 5%, inflation who knows. there will be some money from the government to smooth this over but long term (medium term/ short term) it is bad news. it is becoming more expensive to just live.
'horsemouth is acting like he has money (by spending it) - but of course he doesn’t have the money, it’s his younger self who has the money (and sadly there is only a limited supply of his younger self to be had)...'
so horsemouth noted a number of years ago (when he was still earning money but possibly not enough money to get by without the assistance of his younger self).
'so how is it being retired?' asked his brother's youngest. she is down visiting from up north where she is training to be a nurse.
'pretty good.' replied horsemouth (without too much thought).
the pandemic changed a lot of things (hail 2020). it showed horsemouth it was possible to live on a lot less money. and later (as the financial implications of it worked their way through the institutions) it deprived horsemouth of his dayjob. horsemouth (of course) should have diversified earlier (there's no excuse really other than his innate laziness). fortunately for him the redundancy cheque, the portion of his work's pension taken in advance (a bad move - but not until he's 66), and indeed his work's pension (about 60 a month) seem to be carrying him well.
it's not that he will never have to work again. but certainly he shouldn't have to work to the same extent again.
strangely retirement is proving a busy time for him. there is the great insulate social housing thing to be dealt with (and a continuation of the house more people thing). friday he attends the final zoom meeting of the decarbonisation thing (before the bid goes in and then it is all in the lap of the gods until january). sunday himself and catastro/FILLE are off round enza's for dinner.
yesterday he walked down to the office for a zoom meeting (about 2 miles there and 2 miles back), he went for a wander with TG (indeterminate distance). he walked up to the station and got the overground up to his brother's for dinner (and then back again). he's still rocking off the recording he did on catastro/FILLE's tune.
today is actually a day off (and this more representative of his 'workload') horsemouth will try and get some more reading in on the decarbonisation thing and get an email in about consulting with the members and try and do that earlier than he was thinking. .
30th november there's an actual meeting of the management committee and then we are into the wilds of december. ideally horsemouth would get away early to the wilds of herefordshire soon after this but he suspects he will have to hang on.
horsemouth has started on the clark ashton smith the dark eidolon and other fantasies. the first tale in one of two hyperborean thieves who set off to rob tombs in the cursed city etc. etc. ... the tale of satampra zeiros. curiously enough it was completed 16th november 1929 - the anniversary of this it today (and you now how horsemouth likes anniversaries).
there is a nice footnote about the naturalist ernst haeckel positing the existence of lemuria, the atlantis of the indian ocean that in sinking beneath the waves hid the land bridge and thus the explanation of why there are lemurs in malaysia and madagascar.
thereafter the tales get better (the last incantation, the devotee of evil). the devotee of evil is in a straightforward lovecraftian mode.
horsemouth likes the cottage industry element to ashton smith, who manages to support himself (in poverty granted), by writing pulp fiction. this helps fund his poetry, his painting, his sculpture. he awaits the revival of romanticism (he doesn't know he will have to wait until the hippies).
sten has some jah wobble for him - I could have been a contender (discs 1 and 3) and the rough guide to the music.of the hungarian gypsies.
this morning horsemouth goes to discuss the social housing decarbonisation fund bid. the consortium is assembled (even if all the legal work isn't quite done). the bid will soon be submitted and then we wait to hear if it has been successful. but just because they have all the pieces of the mechanism doesn't mean they have enough houses required by the government to carry them all the way through the process. the question then becomes how the consortium functions then.
while the government money isn't a deal breaker for horsemouth's lot, it may be for some of the other people who are having to borrow this money to do the works. (anyway fuck it. time will tell). .
the only classical music horsemouth knows (apart from the records he would find in his dad's collection - grieg, holst, tchaikovsky) is the french piano stuff (debussy, satie, fauré). it's tempting (when asked for a recommendation) to go with one of those. but instead here's monteverdi's zephiro torna (the winds change, spring comes). it's kind of baroque though. does that count? plus it's rare to find classical music with a djembe.
how did horsemouth learn of it? from the flux wedding of billie and george maciunas.
his brother's youngest recently sang fauré's les roses d'ispahan as an exam piece. she's the only person in the family other than horsemouth (as far as horsemouth knows) to express any interest in music (though his grandparents on his dad's side did have a piano, so maybe horsemouth needs to as some questions).
yesterday horsemouth spent a lot of time extracting figures from a spread sheet (only for them to be changed later). he's trying to get his head around 'things' - two large things look like landing together, that's a lot to have on your plate for one meeting.
from a discussion of the painting on the cover of led zeppelin 4 (old man carries unfeasibly large load of sticks) horsemouth learned that it was supposed to represent the tarot card the ten of wands (where you see another man similarly afflicted with a heavy load). horsemouth certainly has felt heavy laden of late - he feels a lack of someone to talk about this stuff (hence he's driveling on here - er. but in code).
at last some good news. rob lawson has sent horsemouth two CDs of music recorded by his band. (so that's horsemouth's listening for a while sorted). should you wish to purchase one here's the bandcamp page to be going on with. horsemouth continues to be delighted with the track he played on on sunday (did he mention he played some bass on it?)
today a rainy and grey day. tomorrow horsemouth goes for a zoom meeting in the morning and round to his brother's for food in the evening. at the end of the week the weather changes (allegedly) and gets much colder. so far the house has barely had the heating on and they still haven't broken into the government's 66/ month overwinter allowance - but if they run the heating they are almost certainly going to have to.
horsemouth working on music (it's sounding not too bad). it's always nice to work on someone else's tunes (in this case one of catastro/FILLE's ). horsemouth was aiming for a 'creepy (but in a good way)' kind of vibe (to quote dana's faith in their review of the blue oyster cult's magnificent don't fear the reaper. horsemouth.claimed to be inspired by astronomy by them but when he played it to catastro/FILLE at the end she was horrified.
it's all sounding pretty good. but horsemouth won't be able to let you hear it for you for a while (until the tune is finished to catastro/FILLE's satisfaction), so you'll have to wait and make do with the photos taken in catastro/FILLE's apartment.(beautifully decorated by her own fair hand and with a built in home recording set up).
horsemouth took the resonator because for some reason it always records well. catastro/FILLE' recorded her guitar part then horsemouth recorded his two guitar tracks - one designed to pick out the melody on the verse (and add one to the chorus), and a track of harmonics and little bits and bobs to warm it all up. the he also had a go on catastro/FILLE'S fretless bass (hopefully some of that will be useful).
this is similar to the way he often works with howard - howard will have a song, horsemouth will arrive (under prepared as usual) lay down a couple of tracks of guitar and then they will prune it until it makes sense and horsemouth sounds like a well-considered and economical player. (this is how they did amarach which remains his favourite so far).
catastro/FILLE fed him (soup) and there were innumerable cups of tea and bourbon biscuits. when he got home the rough mix was waiting for him (and most excellent it sounds). he walked down to catastro/FILLE's and he walked back (probably about 4 miles all told). he got back just as his mum called (so that was good).
yesterday (before he went out) he had a bit of tidy round (why he's not sure). he wiped down a few surfaces that are apt to get dusty. he moped the kitchen floor. he tuned the 12 string up to eadgbe and stuck it in the case preparatory to taking it (and then decided against it). he found a 3/4 size guitar case on his journeyings recently and has put the telecaster copy in it.
today. horsemouth has to have a think. things are tight on a project. it may not work as was envisaged as currently set up. he is up early. after effect of the coffee he had before going and the teas he had while there (and the general excitement of recording). anyways some emails in a bit.
this afternoon (as it shades into this evening and the light fails) horsemouth goes to play guitar. unlike his usual gig - walk in the door, play something influenced by african guitar players, leave - this time horsemouth will be attempting to do something more in the line of the blue oyster cult, something 'creepy (but in a good way)'. assuming the weather holds he will try and take the resonator and the 12 string, he may propose some piano even. his model here is very much astronomy.
yesterday afternoon he went round minty's to move some boxes. he's got some more of minty's comics and greetings cards, a clark.ashton smith book the dark eidolon and other fantasies. he was a close friend of h.p.lovecraft's and some books he's promised to distribute round the book boxes.
more death this week. nik turner, dan mcCafferty, and now keith levene. (as someone remarked, this week can officially fuck off already).
horsemouth liked PIL a lot (better than the sex pistols any road). he thought public image was genius, he liked death disco, careering and poptones. there will be people about who knew keith levene from hackney. a lot of it was about lydon's voice and wobble's bass but those guitar parts were crafty and arguably influential on what you would hear the banshees and U2 doing (and all the bands cloned off them).
someone has posted the original live take of high rise (the album track on PXR5 was re-recorded ontop of it) - as a result you can hear what's not there yet - where adrian shaw really got into the bass (very under-rated player) and how bob calvert worked up the lyrics. there's a similar moment in the sonic assassins' early version of free fall. (you can hear that it is in fact lifted of stratos).
like horsemouth said he's off to try to play something creepy and atmospheric later (wish him luck). later still the weekly phonecall from his mum. monday horsemouth needs to have a serious think.
horsemouth went out to west london to talk housing co-ops and self-build. he walked down from kensal rise to the west way. his informant was a west london girl (though she had lived for a while round aldgate east).
it was good to talk the refurb but horsemouth now suspects he should have spent more time listening. (he has no particular wisdom to bring to bear).
this afternoon he goes round minty's to move some boxes. sunday he goes round to catastro/FILLE's to attempt some recording. it looks like the weather will hold but soon enough (it gets colder).
fuck me they are dying like flies at the minute - RIP nik turner, RIP dan mcCafferty
based on the egyptian book of the dead and a 30 minute flute recording from deep within an ancient pyramid nik turner's xitintoday features the gong alumni steve hillage, miquette giraudy, harry williamson, mike howlett, and tim blake. it is the space rock concept album he deserved to make. horsemouth saw him once with hawkwind and several times with inner city unit. he played improv too - howard played with him in various electronics/ improv set ups.
horsemouth ends out with willie nelson's version of stardust.
curiously it has turned out to be 3pm friday that horsemouth goes for a meeting. this is either synchronicity or someone is reading his blogs. it's probably synchronicity (that's the simpler explanation).
horsemouth is up a copy of diana athill's somewhere towards the end (an account of her old age) from the road to aldi book box). he put the washing on and sat down to read it.
his first laugh of the day. 'elias canetti... had a central european's respect for the construction of abstract systems of thought about the inexplicable... which caused him to overvalue his own notions to the extent of publishing two volumes of aphorisms.'
indeed horsemouth owns them.
her life is probably a bit too literary and north london (and honest) to teach its central lessons about growing old (at least to the kind of audience who need it most immediately). there's a good discussion of drawing and another on the value of art in life. see her discussion of the painter .(and lover of elias canetti) marie-louise motesiczky
'she was an object lesson on the essential luck, whatever hardships may come their way, of those born able to make things.'
she identifies these things in her own life - gardening, painting, sewing, reading, writing.
ok - so today consortium meeting. travel. meeting with self-builders wanting to talk about the refurbs. travel back. bottle of beer. music with catastro/fille sunday (probably).
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horssemouth wrote this the evening of the 10th (is this a record?)
even earlier than usual horsemouth's thoughts begin to move towards the end of the year.
horsemouth is getting into a premature summary of the year. as he said last year - it is good to remind himself that he gets up to stuff, that he gets things done. we are moving from horsemouth's redundancy into his retirement.
in early 2022 horsemouth played but a single solitary gig (for the waterintobeer/ acoustic anarchy people - cheers martin). himself and howard did it effectively as two solo sets (and both seemed to go down well). in truth he is still a bit loathe to go out and mingle (as a result of covid).
he did not release any music as part of musicians of bremen in 2022 nor in 2021. howard has released some this year (good luck to him). horsemouth did some recording with howard but it languishes unfinished and unreleased.
he recorded in 2021 (with catastro/fille and with enza) but these recordings ended up stuck in process. there's some movement on recording again in 2022 (maybe he will have gotten some in by the end of the year).
in 2020 he worked on a film 'the fall of the house of fitzgerald' (with catastro/fille and enza). in 2021 he voiced george lansbury for an animation of catastro/fille's for the centenary of the poplar rates rebels. he would (of course) have liked to do more such work in 2022 (but in the end he did not).
book boxes seem to have replaced book shops as the places where horsemouth finds his reading, films he watches on youtube/ daily motion, podcasts, blogs, found newspapers make up much of his listening. his amplifier died so he is not listening to much music (except on youtube). as for vlogs he has followed outlaw bookseller, book-pilled/ thrift a life despite his wearing of a DIJ t-shirt (and even cottage fairy).
he has read, he has watched and he has listened. he has also written.
he has continued to keep this blog going (past the demise of facebook notes tool at the end of october 2020) and on into the sunny uplands of blogger. he is writing more as he has no more early starts and is without the pressures of work and travel. really and truthfully though this is a diary rather than any form of publishing. a few people read it - that is probably enough.
he is no longer doing the child-minding. a little cat sitting is about as far as he is prepared to go down the road towards responsibility.
horsemouth has one remaining task this year - a meeting of the communal endeavour and a vote. mind you this time last year he was also gearing up for yet another big vote (so he doesn't suppose it is the end of the process).
horsemouth has already gotten his booster jabs (for both covid and flu) in, and has sent off some poo to the government (as part of a bowel cancer screening programme). they have taken his blood pressure, some blood samples, and calculated his body mass index. it all looks pretty good overall.
after all this medicalisation and politicking is done he will be free to go and hide in the countryside. (he will do a covid test beforehand)
he must also keep attending the consortium meetings (online) but this is not so onerous.
he probably has to sort his tax out.
there is little plan to his 'retirement'- the money looks like it will hold for a while. he is grumpy and dissatisfied with his conditions but (paradoxically) is probably too grumpy and stressed to be able to successfully extricate himself from his current position at the minute.
the story he tells himself is that when the big stuff is done (yay or nay) he will have time and headspace to deal with the other stuff (and that he will cheer up). or that he will cheer up and have no need of drastic changes.
as horsemouth noted at the end of last year
'you find horsemouth at a transitional moment and it's not just that he is stuck between years... the work has ended and so the necessity to stay in the seaside towns has ended. on the other hand horsemouth has no firm real plans to move out. he has a somewhat enlarged library to potlatch for starters...'
looks like the internet connection is buggy. horsemouth will post as he can.
first iteration
3pm friday the people from the evil research facility were meeting for beers - they invited horsemouth out, who agreed to go but felt a bit uncomfortable about it (seeing as he was supposed to be opposing them). they had entered the complex through a waiting room (it seemed to have low ceilings or be underground), then the door into the kitchen was unlocked. the rest of the complex looked like ordinary offices. later the ended up in the staff canteen. the girl who was with horsemouth (his anima or the feminine part of his soul) went to get some food or drink.
such was horsemouth's dream first thing this morning. this afternoon he goes to a meeting (maybe that's what it is about). the meeting is about self-build - the refurb - but horsemouth is now on to the retrofit. except that the retrofit will not be entering boots on site mode until september next year.
change of plan (ladies and gentlemen) there's a tube strike on so he will not be travelling to west london to discuss bygones with the youth. he has just emailed to cancel.
second iteration
it is four years since horsemouth went to play a gig at waterintobeer in south london. it's the 28th anniversary of the death of ken saro-wiwa. 12 years ago the students were rioting (bless).
his little laptop is back to life (it has stopped giving him black screen of death - which is good). however the internet is buggy and is off and on (which is a pain).
after a good meeting yesterday he went and did the shopping. (cheap red kidney beans were in short supply again - 33p a can or death! as was the cheap pesto - terrible shit that it is). a friend has advised him not to skimp on the pesto (that's probably good advice). sadly another 'friend' arrived intent on mocking horsemouth and had to be ejected from the premises and their content deleted. they are doubly free to mock horsemouth elsewhere.
horsemouth is up a copy of diana athill's somewhere towards the end (an account of her old age) from the road to aldi book box). he's put the washing on and will sit down and read it. the weather is mild and rainy.
yesterday journey there. journey back. yesterday (about 2 miles there and then back again).
'the war gave me strange impressions of remembering some of its far-off consequences - as if I knew how it was coming out and could look back upon it in the light of future information....'
- h.p. lovecraft, the shadow out of time.
good morning. good morning.
horsemouth is up early. he has a meeting he wants to go to. he's going to check if he actually needs to go to it or if he should waylay ian on the stairs and borrow his laptop.
last night a busy flurry of social media activity (signifying nothing).
first off, in honour of the resignation of gavin williamson, triple negative live from the apocalypse (well cafe OTO during the pandemic). there was the publication of the proposed boundary changes for the next election (less representation at westminster for the welsh and the scots but not, curiously, the northern irish) and some moaning in the torygraph about how inflation is being caused by the early retirees (like horsemouth).
the big electoral scandal of under-representation is not the people trapped in over-large constituencies with an above average number of voters (the target of these reforms) whose vote, it is argued, does not count as much as the vote of someone in a smaller constituency with less voters, it is the vagaries of first past the post and the failure of a large proportion of the population to be either registered or to vote - it is a feedback loop of marginalisation and disenfranchisement.
however seeing as it is the poorest and least politically involved who are disenfranchised like this there is little political will within the major political parties to engage with this problem. they are simply not the voters of the conservatives (and they are not the voters they would lie to have for labour).
instead there is a moral panic around voter fraud (but incidences of this are statistically negligible). voter fraud is card mainly played when neither of the two major parties win (e.g. in tower hamlets).
the fetish here is for a strictly vote counting democracy (ignoring the way that first past the post and the two party system effectively stifles all the people who vote for the candidate who doesn't win in a particular constituency. there is no proportional representation here). plus there are the recent shenanigans where sitting prime ministers have been elected first by the conservative party membership (liz truss) and then when that was a disaster by conservative party MPs (rishi sunak) without the tory party feeling in any way obliged to go to the wider electorate.
and don't get horsemouth started on the house of lords, the judiciary etc. the army, the police, the secret service, the aristocracy, the public school system, the economy (strangely not under democratic control), the whole vast edifice of inequality and privilege known as the british state.
ah well fuck it. horsemouth has retired from it. it is not that his retirement is driving inflation it is that his failure to participate in the labour market means he can't be used (as a reserve army of labour) to drive down workers wages and so ensure that they pay for the current crisis (er. rather than the rich, horsemouth's preferred target for the bill).
anyway it signifies nothing. as someone once remarked to horsemouth during a political debate 'no-one cares what you think' and horsemouth had to admit they were correct.
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today horsemouth goes to plot the decarbonisation of social housing (on terms the tenants are unlikely to be able accept). tomorrow he goes to tell youngsters who are interested in self-build that their dream is not futile (even though secretly he believes that it is).
horsemouth has been continuing his investigations of utopian communes. in this case a bunch of poles who ended up in anahem california (including henryk sienkiewitcz noted polish author). unlike the pantisocratists southey and coleridge they actually get there, start farming, and then realise they are no good at it. the brook farmers were at least competent farmers. the icarian communes in the states (texas initially) fissioned.
sienkiewitcz writes about the experiment in quo vadis (which horsemouth will now have to read), susan sontag writes about it as well.
of the colonists most returned to europe, if not poland. the noted polish actress helena modrzejewska changed her name (to helena modjeska) and had a successful career in california as an actress.
wednesday horsemouth goes to a zoom meeting for the consortium (he'd better do some reading today). thursday he goes to explain the wonderful self-build to some enthusiasts in west london. friday the penultimate zoom meeting of this stage of the consortium - they will either have enough places to put in their bid this time round (or they will have to wait for the next cycle). thereafter the weekend.
hopefully by the end of the month they will have the interest rate details from the bank and will be able to get the mancom to vote on borrowing money to purchasing more property (and housing more members).
then (vote completed) horsemouth can go off to christmas secure in the knowledge that he has enabled the co-op to house more people more securely. (what a hero he is) or that the mancom have rejected it (no blame).
the downside of doing the deal is that the co-op will be borrowing money at one of the worst times to do it in a while (but them's the breaks). the co-op has borrowed similar amounts of money before (and repaid them early), it has borrowed on higher interest rates and for longer periods of time (and repaid it early), the core activity of the co-op is very strong and generates a strong surplus (and will continue to do so). it looks to horsemouth that while conditions are not ideal they are good to go.
of course (and at the same time) the co-op will need money to pay for its share of the retrofit of its existing houses up to EPC C standard (and if the consortium bid is not successful it will need all of it). this horsemouth is confident of getting this from existing surpluses (and the cyclical maintenance reserve). hitting the government's decarbonisation targets for social housing (68% by 2030 is the first one) will be difficult and so horsemouth is keen to get on with it.
the difficulty with the decarbonisation scheme is telling what shape it is yet - of working out what will be required of them. horsemouth thinks of it as getting their ducks in a line and getting them to jump through hoops - as the duck jumps through the final hoop its data goes off to the government and the government pays out half the cost of the insulating measure installed in the house (ker-ching!). job done (onto the next duck).
one of the useful things to horsemouth about the blog is that it enables him to think out loud and to rehearse arguments. he accepts though that it may not make for the most entertaining reading. horsemouth looks forward to getting this done. and then on to the next duck.
'... a universal, if somewhat lobotomized, accommodation reigns. a book is born into a puddle of treacle; the brine of hostile criticism is only a memory...' - elizabeth hardwick, harpers, october 1959.
and it is a monday morning. horsemouth has survived the weekend.
sadly he did not get out to practice making music. the skies opened when he was half-way there and he was properly drenched. he was rained on (and therefore rained off). it's rare that he is unreliable. he has made a living out of being reliable (he hates to let people down) but in this case he was defeated. he was slightly discouraged by his attempts at fitting a part earlier.
last night he was unaccountably hungry (so he had a pizza). he talked with his mum on the phone. he listened once again to tangerine dream's birth of liquid plejades - which has an entire cello section sawing away, florian fricke (of popul vuh) plays moog, the outgoing dreamer steve schroyder plays an organ outro.
horsemouth has been indulging in some nostalgia for films he saw as a youth. the towering inferno hesaw at the castle cinema caerphilly as a kid, at the earth's core, the land that time forgot similarly (no he didn't see the sex pistols and the clash when they played there, nor did he get in to see jaws or rollerball - he was too young). star wars he thinks (but it wasn't that fashionable with him - he was a bit of a science fiction snob already).
the poseidon adventure he had seen at butlins. he supposes the thing with butlins was not having to pay for the individual entertainment, a world without money (until you got to the bar horsemouth now thinks).
going to the cinema involves a couple of miles walk into town in the dark (it's the same kind of distance as his walk to school). he could have got the bus for most of it he supposes.
ralph bakshi's lord of the rings he saw in a largely empty cinema in cardiff with his mother and brother (likewise watership down - it was a rare visit to the cinema with horsemouth's dad, he laughed each time any of the rabbits died). alien he didn't get to see (though everybody told him to go),
horsemouth would watch barry norman's film__ and michael rodd's screen test. he would watch top of the pops he would watch the old grey whistle test. he listens to the friday rock show, john peel (naturally), the hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy.
in 1979 he goes to see hawkwind play (his mum drives him in) by the winter of 1980 he gets the train down to go and visit his friends (and goes and sees hawkwind again - this time with ginger baker). music becomes the thing. a few years later he is off to university in london. film is not really a thing again until he is living in hackney and goes to the rio cinema of a monday (cheap night).
horsemouth has been tempted by the automated blogging tools now available through the wonder of artificial intelligence.
'let me get your first draft done 10X faster!.. the first 10,000 words are free!'
he has a dim memory of a friend working on the software design for a tool to automate writing HR and interview reports and reviews back in the 80ies and 90ies (the kind of tasks people don't like doing or do so rarely that they would appreciate hep with doing them).
horsemouth is unlikely to actually download an automated blogging tool. he actually enjoys writing this stuff himself and does not regard it as in any way onerous. he was however interested to see if they would offer him a free sample.
'frogs are harmless creatures. to dream of them is favourable' remarks zadkiel.
howard has sent horsemouth a new track with some excellent guitar and some rather disturbing lyrics about toads (do they count?). this is the first musicians of bremen communication in a while.
there is an irony in horsemouth having a book on dreams in that he hardly ever dreams (or at least hardly ever remembers them upon waking).
horsemouth is a bit short on stuff to say so he'll look at the news - it seems gavin williamson (tory non-entity recently let back in cabinet) had been sending expletive laden messages to chief whip. who knew he had it in him? ‘you fuck us all over’, 'there is a price for everything'. these may prove to be embarrassing now that he's back in government (but a government that will keep suella braverman in office is probably cannot be embarrassed). it is interesting that some tories clearly want to rock the boat this early in.
today is a rainy day. horsemouth goes to play guitar. in a bit he will do some prep work on what he will be playing. last night he had two invitations to go out but elected to stay in. he watched some scandi-noir thriller (guess what? it all turns out ok in the end). he watched a little of argento's early the cat with nine tails. he suspects he is moving into winter mode where he watches a lot of movies tucked up in bed.
horsemouth should check the weather to see if he faces a rainy walk over to his playing sesh.
the light hurt his eyes said horsemouth. he spoke to you from a chair. the room was darkened. he had a rug over his knees and a hat pulled down over his head. he seemed curiously immobile. his voice whispery. his moustache covered his lips so that you couldn't see them move either. his eyes (as far as you could see) uncharacteristically dead. he told you a fantastic tale of how human brains could be removed from their skulls and stored in cylinders for their extra-terrestrial flight to the planet formerly known as pluto and the alien civilisation there.the brain could then be fitted with sensors and speech apparatus and trundle about on wheels.
'it was as simple as carrying a phonograph record about and playing it wherever a phonograph of corresponding make exists.'
he whispered this in the darkness. gesturing with his hands to the cylinders on the shelves at the back of the room (curiously immobile also).
later (as you tried to sleep) you heard speech from downstairs. the metallic speech of the brains stored in cylinders, the buzzing speech of the aliens. later it quietened down. you heard human snoring. you went to investigate with your flashlight and there on the chair was horsemouth's severed head and hands the brain pan cracked open and empty.
you fled in panic.
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later still you watched invasion of the body snatchers and later still the disappearance - a 1977 montreal set thriller featuring donald sutherland and petite and gorgeous french-canadian actress francine racette (there was some amount of softcore as if sex). later in the film a plethora of british character actors david hemmings, john hurt, david warner, christopher plummer warmed up the screen but it is not a good film. possibly the best thing about it was that it was set in habitat 67 opposite montreal's port area and near the expo 67 site (the film made good use of this brutalist location).
habitat 67 failed to change the world of architecture. it failed to inaugurate a world of prefabricated affordable housing giving people improved privacy and gardens but at high density. and yet it is an iconic building. the ice cracks and steams as it sets of down the st.laurent river, it is opposite the port and the giant grain silos. nearby the island with the geodesic dome.
yesterday was bandcamp friday. horsemouth again recommended robert lawson's great lunaphone music (seeing as musicians of bremen have no new 'product' to offer you). here he shares an artist from the riogordo junipero turbinata and what horsemouth takes to be an american primitive influenced improv set (and very good it is too).
today. horsemouth has made it to saturday. sunday he goes to play guitar (so he should do some prep). he should also do some reading (probably more lovecraft, maybe some more rousseau if he feels inspired). he types this sat up in bed wearing a hoodie and a jumper
horsemouth is up with he lark. well actually he's up with the binmen.
the drama of the week is over. they have taken the offerings they have taken. they have disdained the offerings they have disdained. well in fact no it seems to be a multistage process. there are policies and rules (its just that no one can be bothered to read them, they would rather wax indignant over the leavings).
maybe horsemouth is projecting and no one will wax indignant this week.
the mountain of unclaimed washing up in the kitchen continues to grow. a flat mate has been ill and is presumably of the opinion that he is excused his washing up as a result of this (or maybe that it ceases to be his when he has left it a week) or perhaps that is ceases to be his if it is moved from its original spot of maximum inconvenience.
last night horsemouth watched massacre time (classic spaghetti western). sadistic rich people versus george hamilton and franco nero as mis-matched brothers. there was also the offer of to the devil a daughter. he finished off reading the whisperer in the darkness.
in the morning a 2.4 mile walk there and then back with a meeting to discuss things then today another meeting on the social housing decarbonisation fund (but this time on zoom so horsemouth doesn't get any exercise in).
once he has done the meeting horsemouth is done for the week. sunday horsemouth goes to play guitar.
it seems horsemouth has been doing it all wrong. he was recently offered the services of an AI (or artificial intelligence) to write his blogspot for him - they showed him a photo of a cute little robot (called jasper) but horsemouth doubts it will be this one doing the writing. similarly horsemouth remembers when he had just discovered the acting/ voice-over gig an advert revealed to him that there was text reading software that was 'tunable' to produce a more idiomatic, human performance. so that was horsemouth out of a future possible job. soon only clicking links will be left to us as work.
in any event the jobless rate is set to rise to 6.5 % - the better to facilitate wage negotiations for the bosses, but in fact no, its just random not part of any great planet-wide conspiracy (other than the normal operation of capitalism and 'the anarchy of the markets' as workers' power used to put it). horsemouth is impressed that the situation can change so suddenly from workers are in short supply (and so may need to be paid more) to, there are too many workers (we can afford to pay them less).
horsemouth is convinced that a long term experiment is under way to see how little people can be paid before they just stop turning up.
still mustn't grumble (especially as other AIs will be examining horsemouth's output for disloyalty).
meanwhile what are the environment agency planning to do about river pollution? why stop testing for it of course!
so horsemouth is reading lovecraft's the whisperer in darkness - the narrator (in a rather trusting fashion) has brought all the evidence with him and gone to visit akeley in the countryside, at the station he is met by someone who is not akeley who has a very familiar voice... now read on).
after the excitement of finding a diary he will not be able to use until 2027 yesterday, horsemouth goes to try and work out what he needs to be doing for the social housing decarbonisation fund.
last night some discussion of bestsellers - books that sell well but do not go on to become part of the literary canon.
robinson crusoe was the first bestseller - written when defoe was nearly 60, it begat many 'tedious robinsonades', ending with the anti-crusoe lord of the flies. horsemouth had a quick look at brian stableford's book on this online - he noticed that marie corelli gets a mention. now horsemouth has her the sorrows of satan somewhere - the critics hated her, the public adored her, the books were terrible. corelli used her power to break the stranglehold of the lending libraries upon the book trade (once books were more commonly rented rather than bought via a subscription service).
ok horsemouth has to pack up and go.
it has been raining out there. horsemouth may write a little more when he gets back. l8r
'the record is a possession' - roger dean, prog rock documentary.
yesterday horsemouth had an internet outage.
he drew some diagrams and edited some text in a word file. fortunately he'd sent the email he needed to send beforehand.
he got out for a walk now. there's not much daylight left to be had these days. he was out for a quick walk earlier - he got a 2021 diary from the colenso road book box (horsemouth reckons it won't match the days of the week and the date until 2027 now because of a leap year). he knew he should check. 2020 and 2024 are leap years (years with 366 days).
broadly each common year (365 days) starts a day later in the week than the one before - 2021 jan 1st was a friday, 2022 jan 1st was a saturday, 2023 jan 1st is a sunday, but 2025 jan 1st is a wednesday because 2024 will be a leap year, 2026 a thursday etc..
so diaries mostly become reusable every 11 years but if you are very lucky the become reusable in 6 years - and in this case horsemouth is lucky, otherwise he can just draw or write in the diary or ignore the dates.
while we are on this topic it is worth pointing out that the year must be divided up for accounting purposes also - weeks must be allocated to months, if every month was 4 weeks we would have a 48 week year (but in fact most months have two or three days over) so instead 4 months are allocated 5 weeks (so far so good). however as each common year is 52 weeks and a day (and a leap year 52 weeks and 2 days pretty soon you require an extra week to keep everything in sync - thus we get 53 week accounting years (probably once every 6 years or so). this would also mean an additional 5 week month in the accounting year.
13 Moons (for there are 13 moons in the year), up near the st.john at hackney church, have some prints of andrew minty's for sale (well done dude).
when records were vinyl records (rather than CDs or digital files) there was the problem of timing the performances so that the time available on each side of the record would be usefully used (and that the tracks would follow on nicely from each other). this used to be referred to as the tracksequencing of the record. great efforts were made to ensure the album flowed as a whole.
he has been reading the whisperer in the darkness (lovecraft does the hill country) and the music of erich zann (lovecraft does evil old paris). he listened to some of the moroccan music paul bowles recorded and released in 1959 (the chanting is great)
it was clear skies last night so it is brighter and colder out. this morning maybe a walk with TG. in a bit finish off the coffee and eat a bowl of museli (then perhaps some toast). the book box by the tower seems to have died.
tomorrow horsemouth goes early for a meeting to discuss the decarbonisation of social housing.
there is government money to help with the early stages of this but the government want to be ale to show that the programme has been effective and that they are getting value for money so it is a trifle bureaucratic. fortunately there are smart young people on hand to assist them through the process. otherwise horsemouth seriously thinks they would be sunk.
of course while much of the bureaucracy vanishes if you don't use government money that still leaves the problem of accessing adequate technical expertise. retrofitting old houses is by no means a straightforward task.
it is the first of november. wait horsemouth will turn the page on the calendar (gulls on posts by a loch). the hell mouth is closing, the fish gods out on devil's reef will have been fed for another year (apart from a small snack near may eve).
horsemouth slept well. at first in the darkness (sunset is now something lie half past four) there were small children walking around (and a few incongruous fire works), later horsemouth went upstairs to watch our mutual friend - the lovers make their declarations (brave people) but not all their efforts are crowned with glory. our anna friel is a sensible girl, she knows to live the lifestyle she must marry well. overall these lives the dank rule of money and class presides.
the first tranche of money (horsemouth is told it is a tranche of money) from the government to help with the heating bills (a whole 66 pounds) has arrived in horsemouth's bank account - horsemouth is not sure how best to handle it. the power company tell him he will be 200 pounds in arrears within 12 months (they are peering into the darkness of next winter). the government help only covers through until april, the power company will probably up his direct debit before then. horsemouth can either let people reduce their bill that they pay him now or he can hold it back and roll it over until the bill goes up and use it to pay that then.
horsemouth's main goal is to ensure that no-one ends up out of pocket or feeling hard done by, and/or shivering in the cold. he's got two votes for roll it over so far.
he read lovecraft's the haunter of the dark (strange goings on in a disused church in providence rhode island). it is one where the power of electricity (and street lighting) keeps the forces of darkness confined and at bay (literally). he is moving on to the thing on the doorstep. the national grid are refusing to guarantee that there will not be rolling power cuts in the winter.
when he is inspired he will read more of rouuseau's reveries of the solitary walker.
today horsemouth will get on with the necessary reading ahead of a meeting (probably thursday). at some point they have to do another zoom meeting with the social housing decarbonisation fund people (in addition to the regular friday consortium meeting) and horsemouth would like to appear prepared.
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