in which horsemouth once again fails to blow up parliament and the king

once again horsemouth (that cartoon character) fails to blow up parliament and the king on the state opening of parliament. he would in fact be following in the footsteps of a previous attempt by guy fawkes -  blowing up the house of lords while the king is speaking to them (and the commoners allowed in). or he would be if he were going to do it.

alas, he knows nothing about explosives and he doesn't fancy going to jail. he is merely attempting to be witty. he is wearing some kind of a historical costume to demonstrate his harmlessness. 

the king will announce the business of the government for its remaining year before the next general election. this is their last chance to bribe the electorate with its own money/ talk the kind of trash that racists and bigots want to hear/ give the gas and oil companies licenses to pump more carbon into the air/ have some tax cuts for their rich mates. 

there's a whole bundle of ceremonial around this (but horsemouth disdains to read about it). this  is precisely this kind of bollocks that guy fawkes was trying to prevent. 

of course it was the explorer freya stark who visited the valley of the assassins thus returning to us with wisdom's alternative to war. but relax tyrants horsemouth is a shandy drinking lightweight who is not about to kill anybody. 

of course if it were to happen horsemouth would condemn it as terrorism. (of course he would) and say how it was playing into the hands of the fascists and authoritarians. as the old crass joke has it you can't bomb a social relationship. ideally what horsemouth would like to see is the legitimacy fall from that ceremony and people simply ignore it - it's a bunch of old men gathered in a room, so what. 

here the sun is up and horsemouth is about to go and get his second cup of coffee. the sun races through the treeline up into the woods on the hill above the house. it looks like a pretty good day (off and on).

elsewhere he is reading erling kagge's silence in the age of noise - another explorer kagge is a big fan of silence. silence is difficult to talk about, to write about, it requires careful not speech, careful not writing, it requires space to be left for it. the book was a quid from upstairs at the charity shop in hereford - it seems more correct for horsemouth's mood. 

the news from the world continues to be terrible. horsemouth wonders what the payback will be for killing thousands of children in palestine.