hark! is that the first housing minister of spring?

hark! is that the first housing minister of spring?

rachel maclean MP appointed  minister of state in the department for levelling up, housing and communities.

'in may 2022, during an interview on sky news, maclean suggested some people struggling with rising prices could consider working more hours or getting a better-paid job.' (wikipedia)

it is something of a joke in the housing sector that housing ministers never last long in post (49 days is - horsemouth believes - the record). and there are a lot of them because it is the ministry for leveling up, housing and communities (and several other things that michael gove is keen on).

it's a complicated picture. gove is still the boss man, the minister of state for housing and planning is still lucy frazer, lee rowley is still in there as parliamentary under-secretary of state for local government and building safety. (you see after grenfell building safety is important but they still can't make any real progress with it because the unsafe shit has been built already). 

yesterday's book was flow my tears the policeman said (charity shop walthamstow. two squid, SF masterworks series). it's a classic PKD headfuck of a novel (reality not being reliable check, time being out of joint check, women being mentally ill check) and in the middle of it an intense discussion of the hazards of love (and the concomitant grief and mourning). horsemouth read it a long time ago and had largely forgotten it. .

while PKD is someone who loves and appreciates women he is no feminist - he sees women as dangerous, irrational creatures (but at least he sees them)..  in general his male characters have their difficulties also, defects of perception and affect (they are also dangerous irrational creatures - but less so). often he gets you on their side by means of sympathy, making them nebbishes and working stiffs at the mercy of a technological world. 

here our protagonist is a singer and a variety show host, the result of a government eugenics program, he is constantly described as 'magnetic' and persuasive. he's just not that sympathetic a character, but our entry to the book is his fall and king lear type wanderings.  the policeman is the real sympathetic character here - a normal 'ordinary' person who is merely smart, hard working and principled - he is the mechanism of the second part of the drama. his grief is the real heart of the book. 

and the grief is given musical form by dowland (lachrimae - tears). 

horsemouth walked up, probably 5 miles there and back, through the valley of the agapemonites in the mist and fog. horsemouth has reconfigured his PKD bookpile to allow for his new purchase - there it has gone up into the stacks.

this morning he went for a quick wander (while the broadband connection was restoring itself) in the mist and fog and with the school run parents and kids. 

tomorrow horsemouth is off sacred cat-sitting. he will be up in the cloud forest. the lamb track horsemouth first heard probably 25 years ago. it's nice and relentless (it's his favourite thing by them, the pseudo drum and bass they did, the thing for which they are famous,  he just finds fussy, the vocals overly mannered).