verified badge (horsemouth media diary)

'get a verified badge for less sign up for meta verified on the web and get all of the same benefits at a discount, including a verified badge.'

whassat? something about a verified badge?

maybe gregor samsa could use this as ID when they dispute his identity and tell him he is just a parisian bed bug when he gets called in for work. 

look horsemouth shouldn't moan. he makes large-scale use of their corporate servers and internet infrastructure  in exchange for having to look at their filthy advertising for things he is (by and large) not interested in buying. for him it is a good deal. paradoxically horsemouth likes the anonymity of it all. 

perhaps it blocks a better world coming (so what). 

at some point (monopoly established). they will take it to a paid service, or the particular malls horsemouth visits (facebook, youtube, blogger, the guardian, the LRB, the NLR, FT podcasts etc.) will get paywalled up. and then horsemouth will toddle off elsewhere. humanity has done something amazing and here horsemouth is preening like a narcissistic  bower bird. oooo look on his works (and despair). 

horsemouth media diary

the new NLR is out - the new (september-october 2023) edition. (horsemouth realises this link will take you to whatever the current edition is). 

there are three free articles (the rest are paywalled already); perry anderson on the juridical nature of international law. nancy fraser's theses on recognition, redistribution and representation, and dylan riley on martin wolf's the crisis of democratic capitalism (you remember horsemouth was listening to radio 4 show about this).

he read an LRB article from 2020 by jacqueline rose on camus' the plague. the novel de nos jours antin. counting versus the horror. one thing standing in for another (another robinson crusoe reference). 

the sun is up it is shining everything is sodden with the morning dew. by tomorrow serious frosts (horsemouth will endeavour to get the last of the tomatoes in). 

he listened to the don cherry scandanavian radio sessions, an interview with the ever reasonable dude from the resolution foundation pleading for someone in government to be sensible for five minutes. 

dave in portugal laments the end of tax breaks for entrepreneurial types moving to portugal (a similar situation to ireland and the tech companies maybe). these lower tax for incomers deals are understandably unpopular with the local population (who have to pay full whack on some of the lowest wages in europe). whether these are the main cause of gentrification is another matter (airbnb may be a more proximate cause dave argues), horsemouth will have to check with his portugal sources. 

he was due to have a chat with his brother but they will probably do that later. instead he watched a jazz divas at the BBC show. 

tomorrow kafka surfaces again. it is 1914 and he is just beginning to find his feet with the writing. it is starting to happen (but slowly). 

horsemouth's reading of the history of the runestaff goes well (he's read the jewel in the skull and is onto the mad god's amulet). he is largely rereading it out of nostalgia (that and the fact that there are plenty of moorcock books available second hand). he's enjoying it but he really wants is more of the british being evil.