'to live your life is not as simple as to cross a field'

'2 august. germany has declared war on russia - swimming in the afternoon.' - franz kafka.  

'to live your life is not as simple as to cross a field.' - old russian proverb, quoted in a poem from doctor zhivago by boris pasternak. 

'tuesday 2 august. I should have mentioned yesterday that I dined with coutts, where we were very merry. friday the fifth of this month is now fixed as the day of my departure.' - boswell's london journal 1762- 1763. 

horsemouth is up early. the weather is good out there. boswell will soon be leaving london (he is off on his travels). he will be back. 

horsemouth is on the hunt for poetry and readings and suchlike for his dad's memorial service. his dad had taken to carrying around a copy of the rubaiyat in the truck, there will be something in there, or there will be something in dr. zhivago. 

today horsemouth and his mum go to get the car insured and drop off some clothes for his father to wear in the coffin with the funeral home. yesterday they did the big shop at TESCOs - horsemouth endeavoured to make sure they ordered everything in bulk so as to reduce the number of needed social interactions. this afternoon the man who puts the lawnmowers and strimmers round will come so that he and mum can agree what needs to be done. thursday his mum will handover the tupperware for the change and some table-cloths to assist with the village fête on sunday (but will not be attending). 

horsemouth has to do another round of contacting friends and relatives soon, 

remind horsemouth he's got to post his monthly read, watched, gigs been to list here. 

today's music is paul bley and annette peacock's improvisie.

horsemouth was also taken by an account of patti smith's early days in new york focusing on the bookshops she (or robert mapplethorpe) worked at, brentano's (mid-town and university place), argosy books and, where she worked for a number of years, scribner's bookstore. 

last night a program on achieving net zero/ decarbonisation by 2050 it is, of course, a major challenge (and probably will not be enough).  the government's solution seems to be more nuclear power and more giant cracking plants to produce hydrogen from oil (so it's carbon neutral at point of use but not necessarily in the production of it). the program ably summed up the problems with decarbonising the 15% of UK emissions that come from heating and lighting the housing stock (and then there's the 25% that is transport).