today on his 82nd birthday renaissance man harry taussig (scientist, tarot card designer, american primitive guitarist) releases an album '80'. many happy returns.

horsemouth will put up a link so you can have a listen and possibly buy it as soon as he can. 

today a zoom meeting about retrofit - a meeting about de-carbonising the social housing sector (something the government have volunteered the social housing sector for).  

now retrofitting the old, leaky and under-invested housing stock of the UK is no small and easy task. the government have just had to re-write their plans for getting to net zero (carbon emissions) because the supreme court had ruled them insufficient.

energy used in housing (heating the housing mostly) makes up about 15% of uk carbon emissions. it is something that must be dealt with. the government has made it a legal requirement for the ALMOs, TMOs, housing associations and co-ops to reach net zero by 2050 (and to reach some intermediate targets by 2030). there is some money from government to help begin this process (but arguably not enough). the social housing sector is expected to just suck up these costs (and like it) after years of austerity in which inflation has increased their costs and the government has enforced real terms rental income cuts upon them.

anyway. like horsemouth says a meeting.

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meanwhile in 1865 with the goncourt brothers jules and edmond and their co-authored journal. .

jules (for once) writes about himself (and his elder brother edmond). he writes as if they were not in fact  indivisible. he writes as 'I' not as the 'we' of the brothers. 

'I can feel in myself something of an 18th century abbe and also something of the chronic perfidy of 16th century italy...

edmond, on the other hand, is almost unbelievably good-natured. he was born in lorraine and is germanic in temperament. I am a latin and a parisian.

(it is as if they were their own novel by zola)

the strange thing is that although we are absolutely different in temperament, taste and character, we are absolutely identical in our ideas, our judgments, our likes and dislikes as regards other people... our minds see alike and see with the same eyes.' 

but they will be divided. jules will die after a debilitating disease. edmond will go on alone. 

ok forward to the day (enough time spent here).