'have been working since august, in general not little and not badly. yet neither in the first nor the second respect to the limit of my ability, as I should have done...' - franz kafka, diaries, 31st december 1914
'unwilling to part with the passing year I drank til late on the last day of december...' - matsuo bashō, the records of a well-worn satchel. (to be continued)
horsemouth has assembled the quotes that will carry him across into the new year.
the quotes that will mark the end of the old year 2020(3).
the quotes that will mark the landing on the first day of the new year 2020(4).
there's a double CD of a young howard (as part of 46.000 fibres) playing with a certain saxophone player (ok ok - it's nik turner from hawkwind, inner city unit, sphynx etc.)
footage has emerged also in which the access panel to horsemouth's brain has fallen off to reveal a small howard driving him (in a being john malkovich kind of way). this was a shock to everybody (including horsemouth). (you can see he looks a little shocked). horsemouth and howard met up online on zoom for zoom beers, curiously enough they were discussing patti smith (howard had been reading just kids) on her birthday.
horsemouth ends the year a little braindead. so far the day progresses as howard predicted it would; wake up, coffee, blog...
it's the anniversary of the birth of american primitive guitarist max ochs(born 1940). he falls out of the scene early after his album hooray for another day and has a life elsewhere. harry taussig similarly. max cuts his american primitivism with beat poetry (you can just imagine how well this would go down with john fahey).
ok happy new year to one and all. horsemouth may write some more as the day progresses, if not see you on the other side with the completion of the basho quote.
horsemouth is up. (good morning! good morning! good morning!)
it is a saturday (notionally) but the end of the year supplants all that. the new year begins with a monday. later today in theory zoom beers with howard.
last night a dream about waiting in the foyer of a hawkwind gig. duncan busto (dj spirit) was there (with an old college tutor of horsemouth's). there seemed to be some delay with hawkwind going onstage. eventually horsemouth got lost wandering round west london for some reason.
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review of the year - the 'embers'
september, october november, december
(incorporating the autumn equinox, samhain, and the winter solstice).
a lot has happened for sure. a lot of it is tucked away while horsemouth tries to get on with the new dispensation.
september
our humble narrator wandered round hereford. he bought kojève's the notion of authority in a verso hardback in oxfam and a stash of V7 pens (that soon stopped working). he is about to return to the wen (he has much of september off).
september in the city was glorious.
soon enough he is back in his bed in his shady basement flat in sunny hackney after an evening out over the park catching up with friends. a walk with TG (coffee and some cake over at the olympic village). howard visited. john from porto came to visit. a wander up to the sally army in walthamstow (and a quick peek into the william morris museum), the hackney museum exhibition at home in hackney: a community photographed 1970s-today.
horsemouth was fascinated by the multiplication of poverties that now goes on - food poverty, energy poverty, housing poverty etc. (but not actual poverty you understand). 'poverty can hide in london better than anywhere else' remarked ernest dowson.
the bid died. given the withdrawl of the lead bidder the forces of good were simply not able to resuscitate it in time to the condition that would satisfy the awarding body and leave themselves with enough time to actually do the thing the consortium was created to do. horsemouth spent a fair amount of time thinking about net zero (in a general kind of way).
met up with enza. zoom meetings. an actual face-to-face mancom. a morning walk with andrew minty. saturday (autumn equinox/ birth of john coltrane), the journey back to herefordshire.
'one cannot have everything (inasmuch as one thing sometimes excludes another)'
and horsemouth was back out in the countryside again. it was rainy and grey. september ends. (now read on).
october (8 bears)
we are into horsemouth's first month back in the herefordshire countryside. we are into octo-ber or 8 bears (one of the -embers even if it doesn't literally say so).
horsemouth had reminded himself to notice the sunflower - he brought it and its sibling back from the plant and produce sale at the village hall (back in may? or june?) and planted it in one of the flower pots. it has come up and even flowered (its sibling was uprooted by a storm).
horsemouth often sees rabbits when he gets up in the morning. mind you he has also seen a number of myxie rabbits over the summer. he does hope that a population can re-establish itself. he views it as an auspicious beast. it is currently the chinese year of the rabbit. next year is the year of the dragon (beginning 10th february 2024).
success! the heating oil was delivered (1000L of it 5th oct). with the third of the tank there already horsemouth hopes this will hold the house out until spring/ summer (when prices are cheaper) but it may not
'it is no longer a question of satisfying the flesh (or the spirit), but of responding to things which from being commonplace and insignificant have suddenly become precious...'
another quick visit to hereford (before it rained). horsemouth made book purchases. one was the history of the runestaff (michael moorcock) one squid. a friday the 13th.
walks around (and a few gardening tasks). we moved from the equinox towards the celtic quarter day that is halloween. we moved towards november. we are moving down the dark half of the year, the long dark tunnel that is the journey down to the winter solstice and then back up towards the light. here in the wilds of herefordshire it is a steady diet of rainy grey days.
horsemouth reset all the clocks (curiously, in a PKD moment, despite their widely differing appearances they all had exactly the same little plastic mechanism powering them).
november
the sun races through the treeline up into the woods on the hill above the house. the sun off to the south east on the horizon (low on the horizon). often a red sky in the morning (it's cold). a week when horsemouth and his mum were down on the abbey rota (opening and closing the abbey) at the weekend his brother and his family were up visiting. horsemouth needs to write things down (or type them in) otherwise he forgets almost immediately.
his brother (and his brother's family) arrived. (ok ok the youngest didn't arrive until the next day). saturday they scattered horsemouth's father's ashes into a hole and planted a shrub on top of them. dad was into growing things that makes sense to horsemouth.
horsemouth and his mum selected the spot.
december
horsemouth is two and a half years into his redundancy/ retirement. it doesn't feel too bad. survival requires him to dip his savings (such as they are). he was on holiday from it for the last six months or so. then he was back to the wen for a few days to meet and greet.
and then it was back to the countryside to the winter solstice and to christmas and to the new year. he got hideously drunk over christmas and as a result was hideously hung over boxing day and thereafter.
horsemouth had not noticed that he hadn't reviewed april (ah well). he's up late but we are in those peculiar dead days between christmas and new year (to be followed by the dead days of january).
thinking about it horsemouth has good positive stuff he needs to be getting on with (round the decarbonisation for example). (two rabbits in the field, pied woodpecker on the bird feeder).
he repurposes a quote from samuel beckett 'to end yet again'. horsemouth will review the start of the year and the end (the middle he will probably leave). he has a number of quotes cued up and ready to go for december 31st and january 1st. he will do a books read and films watched list for december.
he has read some of john michell's at the centre of the world (polar symbolism discovered in celtic, norse and other ritualised landscapes) and baudelaire's intimate journals. he watched (most of) a film on aretha franklin (respect).
his stomach feels like it is his (again).
review of the year - the 'uaries', and march
january
john (from porto) was over. other than their usual run over to walthamstow they didn't get up to very much. in the sally army horsemouth bought a hard guitar case (a rockcase by warwick) and a soft padded gig bag (by rosetti).
horsemouth was not (physically) writing very much in his diaries and notebooks. he'd started on his read, listened to, visited list for january. he'd made some notes on his diet and on his walking. the little black notebook has not quite made it up into the diaries and notebooks box yet, the 2023 day a page did not yet feel natural and inevitable. horsemouth was writing it in cheap biro.
horsemouth saw triple negative at cafe OTO. he saw enza, darsavini (newly relocated to west london), john cunningman, john and sarah, TG, demetra, but there were loads of others. and then of course there was matthew and anya and denis.
a friday 13th.
horsemouth was beset by memories of his failings (this is because he hasn't dealt with them). of course the sooner you deal with them the sooner you are free of them.
horsemouth went a number of times to play guitar with catastro/FILLE (about an 8km walk there and back). they played a number of pieces through and came up with a plan to go and play an open mic night. (in the end they didn't do this).
february
a picture appeared to show horsemouth dozing in a private members club while wearing a suit and leather shoes. dozing and reminiscing and drinking a glass of claret. (of course this photo was faked up in photoshop).
groundhog day (once we were sacred bears) imbolc - kind of the midway point between winter solstice and spring equinox (pulled a week or so out of place to align it with the start of the month) the point when one can allow ones-self some hope. if not quite out of the depths of winter at least up into the shallows. at the weekend some sacred cat-sitting.
while horsemouth was up at aldi's punxsutawney phil (the famous groundhog) made his prognostication. six weeks more of winter it was.
your favourite horsemouth song? probably one of the early funny ones.
horsemouth has got some pens so he can make a note of stuff (so he has stuff to mind when he comes to type this in).
horsemouth loves cities because more people can meet and interact and live their best lives. they can move around by means of public transport and bicycles (reducing transportation carbon emissions). trees can be planted to make the streets shadier in summer, there can be allotments and parks. because there is more money up and walking around it is possible for poorer artistic people to make a living - hence horsemouth is interested in increasing the number of members of the communal endeavour (poor artistic types who want to live in the city).
horsemouth is making a number of belated discoveries. the first one is that he is an old man of nearly 60. the photos show him this.
in truth horsemouth suffers from body dysmorphia - he had always assumed he was going to stay at about 30 forever. for a long time he has been positively celebratory about the (not quite imminent) arrival of his bus pass (and later on his state pension) - now he regards it with the warmth usually reserved for the sudden arrival of a tombstone.
that said, the ability to contemplate being able to afford stopping working deeply appeals to horsemouth.
the second unfortunate discovery he is making is that many people are ahead of him in this race to leave the planet, not just random celebrities or influential musicians but people he knows.
horsemouth finds every day in the sun genuinely delightful (despite its sadness). he can't understand wanting to check out early and this is horsemouth saying this.(mad crazed difficult person that he is).
‘the only thing that matters in life is collecting one’s thoughts’ - italo svevo
march
horsemouth was gradually returning to heath from the lands of sickness. the first months of the year were rubbish in terms of his health.
'the only memoirs of any interest have been those written by indiscreet individuals' - edmond de goncourt
horsemouth (as a diarist) is very discrete. so much so in fact that he will not give you the proper names of things. this circumlocution perhaps began as a security procedure (back when horsemouth was paranoid. legitimately paranoid perhaps. but paranoid none the less). it became a game in misdirection (where does horsemouth live? the seaside towns). above all horsemouth is a fabulist who would rather live in a world of fiction (and is prepared to make some efforts to get himself there).
horsemouth's memoirs will therefore not have the ring of truth, they will not be of interest to later historians.
ooof! horsemouth is feeling achey in his joints (and his stomach still isn't right). nonetheless he managed to sleep over the night, in the morning he is trying a judicious application of coffee and may even try some paracetamol. he does hope this is just a continuation from the hangover rather than him being actually ill (that would be a pain).
he dreamed he was out with dan barker, mikey and howard. they started at a scuzzy bar but soon found themselves in some cinema sort of club. there was a band who were playing sat down cross-legged, the main musician playing something like an autoharp.
in the evening horsemouth had watched number 13in the a ghost story for christmas series (originally written by m.r.james, the TV adaption by justin hopper).
this is the sad and unfortunate truth ('on christmas day, on christmas day..').
not much can be done about it now ('on christmas day in the morning')
could this be the last christmas with the tories in power for a very long time?
'I honestly believe – I know – that we can reduce them to 70 members of parliament or less at the next election... 74% of voters have said they will use tactical voting to actively reduce the number of tory MPs... a bonfire of their vanities. yes! I want it so that it would take at least a generation for them to regroup.'
'I had with me a multi-tooled swiss army knife that could pry open just about anything.' - alistair maclean, bear island.
on christmas eve horsemouth watched mark gatiss's version of sir arthur conan doyle's lot no. 249, 'a ripping yarn packed with ghastly scares'. he pronounces it most enjoyable.
it is in fact christmas day. horsemouth is a little horrified. the day finds him unprepared, he will have to do some running around to get things to where they need to be.
for his christmas carol horsemouth offers you il est né, le divin enfant.
'just woke up... sorry am feeling pretty unwell. I don’t think I can chat.'
well that was that plan out of the window. sounds like howard has the dreaded holiday lurgi (aka. stop work and get sick). ok no they did manage a chat - a debrief after lankum, and a recent communal endeavour meeting, a bottle of beer. howard encouraged horsemouth to reframe the meeting in a more positive light.
that just leaves the phonecall horsemouth put to one side on order to leave space for that above zoom call (ahem) which horsemouth is now waiting for. (that went well too)
variously he indulged in some mucking out of the chickens with his mum (just to see how it was done/ in case he ever needed to do it). he did a walk on the common.
we have made it to christmas eve 2020(3). once again here's hoping 2020(4) will be a better year and the forces of light will win out over the forces of darkness and an arcadia and utopia will be established.
showing christmas eve 22:00 BBC2 sir arthur conan doyle's lot no. 249 a mark gatiss ghost story for christmas.
it's probably too late to start hinting about what you should get him for christmas. once again he hasn't got you any presents. you'll have to make do with his presence.
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up and about in the morning. there's a woodpecker around (he can hear it woodpecking). it's that woody resonance to the sound. grey low moving cloud. today and christmas day the weather rainy and rubbish. ah well at least there are cheeses and beers and maybe the odd glass of wine.
horsemouth has just seen a rabbit. here's muireann bradley, she starts of with candyman (the reverend gary davis) and horsemouth didn't catch what the second tune is called. she can play it all for sure.
that announcement by jeremy hunt about re-pegged the local housing allowance (LHA) 30th percentile of local rents in april next year all sounded very generous. horsemouth was shocked (yes shocked) to realise that it wasn't so generous because the benefit cap – which caps someone’s housing allowance – will not be uprated next year.
in any event LHA rates will be frozen from 2024 onwards creating “arbitrary shortfalls between rents and housing support” according to the resolution foundation. horsemouth found this in the torygraph in an article on pity the poor landlord, you would of course not find this out from the guardian (because it is not their reader's problem).
'we are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. as we were. as we are no longer. as we will one day not be at all.'
RIP joan didion two years ago. (curiously enough horsemouth has no joan didion here.) if it helps imagine she's joni mitchell. imagine it sung.
she kept a notebook (to aid her memory for the particular, for that couple in the bar that one time).
'the impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way any compulsion tries to justify itself...'
giovanni anselmo of italian art movement arte povera has died. 'humble materials' in the service of resisting the commodification of art.
'there is a need for the most absolute freedom of choice or use of materials...'
here a mix of howard's from 7 years ago which trespasses on horsemouth territory (ali farka toure etc.).
ah god dammit an argument. a phonecall later 'today'. the phonecall he thinks will be fine.
horsemouth has a rule. the rule is 'do whatever is easiest and don't overcomplicate things.' the way to keep things simple is to have simple wants and goals.
but sometimes a desire to avoid conflict will lead him into difficulty.
often horsemouth will let events decide the course of action (in the end events decide most courses of action). often the man thing is to keep his mouth shut and to refrain from arguing for what he believes in and if he can just do that often he can get what he wants.
other people have irrational wants and desires. horsemouth will often sit back, work out if the ask is a dealbreaker, and if it is not let it go through on the nod. I mean why fucking argue?
all this is a very tiring way to do politics (or indeed life) and horsemouth is fed up to the back fucking teeth with it all.
he is finding it hard to remain civil.
but on the other hand it is almost always easier to keep schtum and let it all roll on.
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horsemouth did a little studying of fixies (fixed rate deals for gas and electricity) - the price cap is going up in january (then down in april, then back up in october). what horsemouth can't seem to find out is what the new cost per kwh will be for gas and electricity and the standing charges for january will be, this would help him make a rational calculation his supplier blithely assures him it will be 'below the new energy price cap.' the fixie offer has penalties for leaving the deal (£75 per fuel) so horsemouth would be locked in for a year (this probably doesn't suit him).
he will have a think about how much he would actually save by doing this and whether it is worth the fucking hassle.
in an ideal world horsemouth would have a smart meter already (and it would work perfectly) and he would be able to sell his under consumption. in this ideal world the consortium would have worked and doughty workmen would be slapping insulation on the outside of his house as we speak with the government footing half the bill.
horsemouth is sad to report this is not an ideal world.
in the morning of the thursday horsemouth watched the live stream of the winter solstice from newgrange. the sunlight penetrated the barrow at sunrise, well shortly after actually (there was a 15 minute window- it was touch and go whether the clouds would part to permit it to happen).
later he went for a walk on the common. later still he went out and cut some mistletoe.
horsemouth republished the poem he wrote in 2021 about the winter solstice.
later still dowth (near newgrange) was opened in the afternoon between 2.30pm and 4pm. the setting of the sun on the winter solstice was the time when the passage was illuminated.
the moon is a decent size (but it is up behind clouds).
this morning he will attempt the same livestream neolithic experience with stonehenge
last night on tv a choice between the detectorists (BBC 2) or the treasure of abbot thomas (freeview 82). the detectorists won out in the end.
the cover of surrender, for example, is based on a photo jesus amongst the fans taken by richard young at the great british music festival at the kensington olympia in 1976, jesus being a well known london hippie scenester.
but what he was really looking for is the origin of the title.
the solstice is when the sun halts on the horizon (and the days get no brighter or darker) when we are all paused in cosmic reflection (as we are now). and er... this is what we tend to get up to over the winter solstice as a break is imposed on us. a title similar in sentiment to alice coltrane's 1973 album reflection on creation and space (a five year view).
horsemouth is up. there is some light on the horizon. here it is cloudy. the beeb say sunrise at 8.17 UTC. it is a difficult angle where he is. he's just been down to the bottom of the drive to collect the recycling bin. there was some rainbowing in the clouds (nacerous clouds).
it looks like being a grey day with possibly some sun in the afternoon.
the year moves towards its appointed end and towards its new beginnings.
welcome to the winter solstice. the shortest day of the year. well more the sun rising and setting at particular positions on the horizon.
to celebrate here's buck curran wandering round bergamo with robbie basho's old 12 string.
some will say the winter solstice will take place on friday, december 22 at 3.27am, some will focus on sunrise on the 21st or sunrise on the 22nd.
the buck curran tune was named after the solstice (but it was actually played on january the 13th winter solstice 1, a tribute to steffen basho-junghans. this means horsemouth can play it again on its first anniversary january 13th 2024).
not only he will try to be up early (on the 21st) to watch the sunrise at newgrange in ireland (er. but it may be cloudy), he will also try again on the 22nd (stonehenge).
it is the evening before the day we are ostensibly taking about and all through the house the central heating was purring...
horsemouth has been being grumpy again. he dropped out of the christmas shopping task (knowing that would really annoy him) but he couldn't avoid the random phonecall from the bank.
soon horsemouth was furious again and ready to kill (no. not really. he's a shandy drinking lightweight).
how bad tempered is horsemouth? once, 20 years ago, they were rude to him in a branch of tescos - he didn't buy anything from them for 15 years.
today (as will be) the visit to TESCO.
tonight more TV and more reading of bear island.
how family demographics have changed in london
there's a guardian article with a graphic showing the change in proportion of households with at least one dependent child from 2001 to 2021. it shows six boroughs where this proportion is in the decline - islington (-7%), hackney (-9%), tower hamlets, westminster, lambeth (-10%) and southwark (-11%).
this (as horsemouth's friend merv observes) is leading to school closures.
but in all the other boroughs (and barking and dagenham in particular) the proportion of households with children is rising. it is simply that families can no longer afford the inner cities (but it is also that families age out of having dependent children while still probably living in the same bit of london).
the argument is made that this is happening in other major cities. it probably is (but we will never find this out from the grauniad who have like one roving reporter for the entire rest of the country).
horsemouth's view is that the cities (where the work is, where the money is) are the place to be. but you are in fact renting your space there - in this way (high rents) you are really taxed, the rent is the way the value you have created is harvested. now that horsemouth has finished working (or at least this is his plan) the city is much less the place to be but he is used to it and his friends are there.
while the housing situation (overall) continues to be royally fucked the situation with the communal endeavour continues to be hopeful (if annoying). it is all a matter of perspective (and of keeping things in perspective).
'gove will also confirm that the government is watering down housing targets, a move that industry sources said will have a dampening effect on building across the country...'
see. no real hope of the government sorting it out.
meanwhile peter bone MP is gone (he's an ex-MP, he has ceased to MP, you get the parrot) - there will be a by-election (with a bit of luck he'll run as an independent and split the tory vote). and meanwhile 2 there's scott benton MP - will he be suspended? (the seventh by-election the tories have had to face).
at COP 28 ahem. 'the transition away from oil and gas' (really? is that the best you can do?) they remember the tears of alok sharma ('sharma fiddled while rome burned').
horsemouth thought he had a copy of the village schoolmaster with him but he does not (he has the country doctor instead).
oh dear. it looks like horsemouth has left the kafka diaries back in the seaside towns. he has a couple of entries noted down in his diary. he will endeavour to reinstate regular kafka diary entries in the new year - he has a kafka quote for new year (together with quotes from edmond de goncourt and basho)
there was a discussion of IRCAM as a glorious moment of modern music being taken seriously as a cultural force.
in the UK music concrete was made by moonlighting BBC stage managers gathering up the tape recorders overnight. this music was fit only for children's science fiction series (dr. who, the tomorrow people, the changes) and regional radio station idents. as a result it thoroughly infiltrated the culture. within the british scheme of things it's comparatively low cultural capital meant it was a DIY channel for a sort of european futurist dream. it wasn't part of some russolo/ stockhausen/ mitterand/ attali 'white heat of technology/ new cadres of mandarins' thing.
if there was an advantage to IRCAM it is that sociologists could observe muppet labs 'where the (musical) future is being made' and watch the wave of cheap digital roll past it.
yesterday evening a meeting of the communal endeavour. horsemouth was a little off form and didn't handle it so well. it got to him. they got to him. he's had a bottle of beer and he is sure he will shake it soon. tomorrow morning a check in with colin to check his recollection of the match).
horsemouth is reading bear island by alistair maclean - the film crew stuck on the freighter on their way there are getting murdered off (horsemouth is finding it very therapeutic).
there he's going to post this early/ late at night and see if he has any more thoughts in the morning. night-night.
his main thought is that he really must re-learn to choose his battles. he must also re-learn to care less. it is not so important. whatever goes wrong can be attempted again later. that's him done for a month (basically).
back from a walk over to the post box and then up the hill past southview to the cwm. horsemouth couldn't find a postbox or a letterbox at the cwm so he just stuck the letter to the door (hope that's ok). on the way back the village hall was open so the poor blighters from community payback could make use of the toilets etc.
earlier a walk up on the common (trying not to get too muddy).
soon some farting about with christmas decorations (tomorrow the full horror of the tree and at some point the full horror of tescos).
the golden glow winter solstice celebration continues.
here we have horsemouth selecting and playing tracks by lata mangeshkar, sproatly smith, lemmchen grundschule, canned heat, alice coltrane, that'sthe first five tracks, way back 18th december 2015 (so getting on for a decade ago). it has been a long time since he listened to it. it was a very early golden glow, the third one howard had done.
it's the afternoon/evening of the night before and it is growing dark. soon (the solstice) we reach maximum darkness (a mere 7 hours 45 minutes of daylight). later more tv.
tonight's reading bear island alistair maclean, fontana, film tie-in edition 1980. book box ( gratis)
the cast are film-makers, not scientists researching climate change as we were told in the movie. this is a wise change for the script-writers to make, if it were a film about the murder of film-makers it would already have an element of farce (think the shadow of the vampire). the doctor (our hero) has brought a small medical library with him and diagnoses aconite poisoning.
this evening (on the day when when you read this a monday) a management committee meeting on zoom (he will have to get his reading and preparation in before the meeting). tomorrow (to that) a kafka quote. friday the winter solstice sunrise in the morning. sunday the final golden glow of the winter solstice season thereafter christmas day, horsemouth's brother and his family are around for a few days, last moon of the season, then the dead dull days either side of new years.
he will continue with some entries from the tarkovsky diary instead.
'the myasnoye house is nearly finished. all that has to be done now is to glaze the veranda, and make the summer room out of it. lay on the water. tiles on one kitchen wall. gas. outside lavatory. bath-house.
the stove and the fireplace have turned out superbly. they draw really well. the fire heats up the house, which retains the heat.
when shall I be able to stop worrying about hose, mod.cons., and my chances of working.'
- tarkovsky, time within time: the diaries, 18th december 1973.
horsemouth could have stretched more time up in the seaside towns (he would have liked that). but he was faced by an unpredictable journey and this tended to weigh upon his head.
horsemouth availed himself of the free wifi on the trains and in the stations.
yesterday (his brother having picked him up at the station). he helped clear some things out of the garage. it's very dusty and this made him cough and splutter a lot. then they ate and then they watched tv (and drank a glass of beer).
tonight vigil but last night hidden assets. his brother had been watching shetland.
we removed your content says facebook.
we can't show this content says facebook (so horsemouth doesn't know what he's done). this happened a while ago didn't it?
let's go all crimewatch - did you see anything? on or about horsemouth's facebook page?
the post as removed about four hours ago. horsemouth doesn't remember putting anything up (and certainly not then). cybersecurity they say. phishing - this does not sound like horsemouth. he's just not interested in that stuff.
other than the above horsemouth mostly spent his time re-reading his old blog posts. he's (temporarily) in his old bedroom round the darkside of the house. he's had his first cup of coffee. he's scheming on a second.
his mobile is on the fritz (this makes phoning ahead and arranging to be picked up at the railway station , like he would usually do, difficult). that said there was broadband on the train the last time he tried it (so he may be able to message his brother from his laptop who may be able to receive it). failing that there may actually be a bus out of abergavenny (horsemouth has checked the timetables and there seem to be buses - but this is no actual guarantee).
should he attempt to return on a sunday there would be no buses (so no fall back plan - his brother would not, perhaps, be around to move him).
ok so far the plan is working. he's successfully on the train out of paddling pool and his brother has offered to pick him up at the other end. he will message him again when he's on the train out of the one of one thousand new ports (porto novo).
when horsemouth is back in hereford he will get a new burner.
if he didn't see you this time he is sorry to have missed you. he has been remiss he should have been out last night to see a friend's daughter's band etc. but no. in the day he saw john and TG for falafel and he went for a walk over to the aldi book box (lefebvre's the production of space er. but in french). to get around people (given people's schedules)would have taken at least a week and finally he was disadvantaged by the upstairs/ downstairs nature of the roundhouse gig.
in the evening he went for beers with his housemate ian up to the elderfield and saw the neighbours from two doors over.
the defeats in serbia, the stupid leadership.' - franz kafka, diaries, 15th december 1914.
it is a rare occasion. the war makes it into kafka's diary.
horsemouth is back from his wanderings.
wednesday - 5 miles (homerton to home and back again three times) plus another 1.2 miles roundhouse from camden road (and back again), plus probably a mile or so down to wagamama's for howard to eat and back up to the roundhouse. horsemouth ate some beans and drank a mixed fruit juice to keep howard company, he was still full having eaten at enza's earlier.
horsemouth had thought he might see myk and siobhan (and others) at lankum (but he did not). horsemouth and howard were upstairs, myk, siobhan and the masses were downstairs.
thursday 4 miles down to the office (and back) to meet colin and then out for a walk over to the olympic park for coffee with TG (and back), another 4 miles. he's nipped up the hill to check out the powerscroft road book box (nothing special).
and now horsemouth has a blister on his foot and is hobbling about the place.
and now (thursday evening) he's lying in his bed. back propped up by some cushions having had a lie down in the afternoon. he's not particularly contemplating reading anything. he's just had a shower. perhaps he will watch the 6 o'clock news on tv. perhaps a cup of tea.
the tory MP scott benton is in trouble. he's been caught being naughty and it now looks like he will get a 35 day suspension (long enough to trigger a recall petition and a by-election). the tory whip had already been removed from him back in april but of course the rest of the tory party could vote to save him (but they may not). anyway crossed fingers.
horsemouth listened to the webb david show over on new river radio. more clanking industrial techno dub from an interzone near you.
he's a bit stuck for something to do (having done the things he had booked). plus he has walked a hole in his foot and would like to avoid doing too much more walking. to return saturday or monday (advantage buses) or sunday? horsemouth will consult his brother.
'my work goes forward at a miserable crawl' - franz kafka, diaries, 14th december 1914
this morning horsemouth will be nipping into the office to visit colin and andy. then he will be nipping back homerton way and off for a walk with TG. hereinafter he has no plans.
last night he went out to see lankum play at the roundhouse. it was their biggest gig yet they said. it was good but it left horsemouth slightly cold (but then he was observing it from up in the gods). an expanded ensemble, amazing harmony work, a shane mcgowan cover old main drag, a sinead o'connor story (about playing shane mcgowan's 50ieth).
but before that tea round enza's. a four course tea. thanks en - it was delicious.
and now horsemouth must be off about the day's business. he's slightly hung over (he had 3 howard had 2).
so horsemouth's brother described their mother's bank. horsemouth was annoyed (and he wasn't even there). he went off for a stomp round the common - vituperating imaginary enemies until the rain had cooled him down.
'instead of working - I have written only one page (exegesis of the 'legend') - looked through the finished chapters and found parts of them good.' - franz kafka, diaries, 13th december 1914.
this morning (by the time you read this) horsemouth should be engaged in returning to the great wen - assuming everything goes to plan he is back early enough to meet up with enza, then return home and then go off to the lankum gig (to meet up with howard but siobhan will be there somewhere). thursday morning he will be nipping into the office to visit colin and andy and then off for a walk with TG. thereafter he has no plans.
horsemouth questions the wisdom of attending the great wen, socialising and such like, when the next wave of omicron covid is getting going (but what can one do).
the COP looks like a wave of fuckery. the hour is getting so late and the need to lie and pretend to be doing something is diminishing. the climate minister and the uk government were taking it all very seriously, he left early, he was flown back to vote on an immigration bill. well done youth for not letting COP go down unopposed.
horsemouth has a tv thing to watch with his mum (and then the news probably). then bed. sleep. and in the morning off to the wen.
facebook invited horsemouth to become the admin on a group but when he checked with the people currently running the group they were fine without him. a friend has got his recording set up back working again (horsemouth has probably botched his opportunity to go in and test it).
horsemouth has done some marking up of the 2007 RNLI year planner to permit him to use it as a diary of 2024 for the first 59 days (after 28th february he will have to alter all the dates are abandon it for another notebook).
it is the morning. it's 7.39 and it is dark out there. merest glimmers of light on the horizon. (horsemouth can't see why anybody would be up at this time except for work purposes). it is cloudy (so there are not even any stars).
phew. horsemouth just got a most surprising email. it has thrown him all into a lather. in the words of the song 'the hustle never ends'. horsemouth is tired. he just wishes it could be easy (just this fucking once).
first he needs to get clarity about what he is seeing (what he is seeing now could contain lots of different things already, or conversely they could not be in there yet and he needs to know which it is). then he needs to get perspective on it and 'mourn' the bad news in it so he can present it most effectively,
but first he needs to begin this bargaining and then close it down so that he can go to sleep.
phew. ok it's the morning. it seems to have worked. horsemouth has his head round it.
the horsemouth on the golden glow guest DJ season begins.
horsemouth listened to his selections from the 12th december 2021 (12.12.2021).
there's some great stuff here -the staple singers etc. (horsemouth was going to lift that tune (well the rolling stones version)). then popul vuh wearing their folk hats (is it?).
the photo adorning it is from the fall of the house of fitzgerald or rather from one of the set up photo sessions (horsemouth thinks taken by suke).
the season is clustered around the winter solstice (22nd december this year). there will horsemouth curated golden glows the 12th, 18th and 24th. he may post up some of howard's from their respective days in december as well.
next year (2024) is a leap year.
it contains a pesky leap day (february 29th).
thinking about diaries from other years that might have the same dates and days of the week, only diaries from leap years would count because only they would have the leap day, and only one in four years is a leap year so presumably it could take four times as long for the days to match as it does for a normal year. a brief websearch reveal that leap years repeat every 28 years -e.g. the leap year that was in 2012 will repeat in 2040.
in this way what 2024 most resembles is 1996. what it resembles least is 2010.
horsemouth has just found his dad's (barely used) 2007 RNLI year planner - it too (like 2024) begins on a monday the 1st january but it is not a leap year (so it parts company with 2024 at february 28th). horsemouth may use it as a diary for next year and relabel the other 301 days of the year. alternatively he may wait until 2029 when it will match for the entire year.
so the best laid plans of mice- horsemouth is delayed in the countryside. he will be back in the wen on wednesday. he's just been for two walks - one over to the abbey, round by the river and back , the other up dick's pitch onto the common and round by the track overlooking ewyas harold to the prospect and back. this time as he returned down hill he did not fall over in the mud.
we are roughly 11 days off the solstice, when we turn a corner in the long dark tunnel and begin to head up towards the light. we are roughly 21 days (3 weeks) from the end of this calendar year 2020(3) and the start of the new one 2020(4). normally horsemouth bemoans the previous year and says he cannot wait to get it gone.
2020 (year zero - the pandemic year) is the year that changes it for horsemouth - he is riding out his dead end job to the end of the rails and is perfectly happy (if a little grumpy) to do so. but then the pandemic intervenes and offs his alibi job, they offer him a little redundancy, he takes it. he has neglected to provide himself with a second stream of income but he has thoroughly learnt the lesson of the pandemic - it is possible to live on very little.
we thus move from the year of his redundancy 2020(1) to the first year of his retirement 2020(2).
and this is the pattern he is in for the first four months of the year 2020(3) - reading, lounging around, farting about on the internet. and then he gets the phonecall - his dad is ill, he goes back to the wilds of herefordshire to help out, but his dad's cancer has been caught too late and he dies while undergoing chemotherapy. there is then the arranging of the cremation to be done and then there is his mum to be supported through the changing times. that is the next four months.
then there is the last four months of the year (the 'embers') when he has essentially replicated his retirement lifestyle in the countryside (with about four weeks or so of 'holiday' in the horsemouth city).
in 2020(4) the pattern for the next few years will come into being.
black crow white poop
this is what horsemouth has just observed. the sun is up the sky is blue. horsemouth thinks he will post this up now and then return to it if he has any more thoughts.
so the day that horsemouth is NOT in the wen. it is a monday.
in preparation for the horsemouth on the golden glow guest DJ season horsemouth listened to his selections from the 12th december 2021 (12.12.2021). it's not the best of his selections (but it's pretty damn good).
14.41 saturday the 9th of december - horsemouth is back from a walk on the common (he only fell over in the mud the once thanks for asking).
mum has bought 25kgs of peanuts for the birdfeeder (and thus for the birds). (jays, crows, magpies etc.). horsemouth knows this he has just carried the sack out to the woodshed and poured the peanuts into a storage bin. in other bird food news there seems precious little holly with berries on it (but plenty of rosehips).
today he returns to the wen. probably arriving mid to late afternoon. he has no particular plans for the monday. tuesday a walk. wednesday a meet up and a gig in the evening.
horsemouth will take the kafka diaries with him - it has entries on the 13th, 14th and 15th. he has copied some of the more suggestive lines into his diary already (that reminds him he will have to get another diary - what with january 1st 2024 being a monday his current diary just stops dead on december 31st). and he will have to pick up some more books (raid the local book box, a run up to walthamstow probably, etc.). he will try and bring back some tins of non baked beans, some lentils, perhaps some coffee and fakemeat also.
remind him to pick up various passwords and his financial documentation.
ok bollocks to that. the best laid plans of mice etc. carnage out at paddling pool makes getting his substitute out of town difficult and getting horsemouth back into town problematic. typical BR opined horsemouth (and then realised it was no longer BR).
the decision has been taken to gong it all off in the direction of wednesday. horsemouth will now be arriving wednesday peoples. he will attend a gig and then be free to meet and greet - thursday, friday, saturday, he may try stretching it out sunday.
yesterday was the 44th anniversary of the 1st ever gig he went to hawkwind on the live 79 tour. he thinks he has memories of the gig but he has no recollection of the support band (doll by doll) at all.
'the field next door has been neglected for a number of decades but it has not (miraculously) turned into mature woodland.'
horsemouth starts this quite late (like at about 8pm the evening before).
this morning the surveyor visited.
horsemouth recaps some of his thoughts from yesterday.
ideally horsemouth would plant more trees but it is not really his decision to make.horsemouth would like to plant trees and get into enhanced carbon sequestration.
permit horsemouth to fantasise here.
he'd also like to get out of heating with oil fuelled heating and a wood burner (but he suspects that's a pipe-dream). that wood fuels are renewable is no longer a bonus, because burning wood emits CO2 (a greenhouse gas) and can cause air pollution and respiratory problems for owners. the wood burner may in any event be banned soonish (they were regulated in 2022).
he does have to admit it looks good. and seeing as the wood burned comes from trees felled on the property it has not had to travel very far.
horsemouth would probably like to get into insulating the property more, air source heat pumps and solar panels (but his mum is against solar panels on the house for some reason). insulating the property more would either mean ripping off all the creeper from the outside of the house to fit external insulation or narrowing corridors/ rooms etc. to fit interior insulation.
there's some insulation in the attic (he has seen it) that at least is good to know.
all this is definitely more trouble than it is worth at this stage in the game. (which is why it is just a fantasy).
but then these are the trade offs horsemouth and the communal endeavour will face when they come to insulate the communal endeavour's houses. the whole process is proving more arduous than one would expect. yesterday horsemouth missed a zoom meeting of the consortium due, in large part, to forgetfulness. seeing as the communal endeavour will now be paying for it all how much money the communal endeavour actually has coming in each year will become more important. the endeavour will be stabilising at its new turnover and surplus as the new properties come on stream.
this is net zero viewed in the microcosm (house by house) but it is also about building huge amounts of electrical transmission infrastructure (pylons) to shift the electricity from where it is generated (on giant windfarms out in the north sea) to where it is consumed (in the prosperous and populated south). meanwhile the department of energy security and net zero (DESNZ) wrestles with the intractable shit show that is sellafield.
'yesterday for the first time in ever so long an indisputable ability to do good work. and yet wrote only the first page of the 'mother' chapter.' - franz kafka, diaries, 8th december 1914.
this was published as a fragment in an appendix to the german edition of the trial. here's a link to the kafka project that makes fragments like these available and then (to google translate ) we get...
'suddenly, at lunch, it occurred to him that he should visit his mother...'
kafka is getting there though. his prose is becoming drier and more precise. what he writes ends up as pieces we know.
benjamin zephaniah has died
horsemouth saw him live twice he thinks. cath asked him to recite this one (and he did) at a poetry gig up in wood green probably 85 or 86, almost certainly a benefit) and horsemouth saw him with a band at chat's palace (top gig - with the poison girls?) almost certainly another benefit.
yesterday horsemouth made one attempt to go for a walk (but a cold rain was thrown in his face and this discouraged him).
this morning the surveyor visits. staying with horsemouth's early morning thoughts, rather than dealing with the items on his list, this provides an opportunity for horsemouth (and his mum) to have a think about the property for over the next few years. stuff will need fixing and replacing and horsemouth just isn't that practical.
ideally horsemouth would plant more trees but it is not his decision to make. this would require some fencing (to stop the sheep eating the young trees - as they are won't to do). left ungrazed and unattended fields round here have a tendency to revert to giant briar patches (fairly quickly). we would need to get into the mysteries of succession. the field next door has been neglected for a number of decades but it has not (miraculously) turned into mature woodland. horsemouth would like to get into carbon sequestration and out of feeding the neighbours sheep.
he'd also like to get out of heating the property with oil fuelled heating and a wood burner (but he suspects that's a pipe-dream) and probably insulating it more.
of course this would mean reversing a lot of the work his parents undertook when they bought the place back in the 80ies. his mum has apple trees that yield too many fruit, dead trees that need taking down.
horsemouth lifts the above quote from a description of annie ernaux's writing technique (currently being serialised on radio 4). to him it seems to resemble something by georges perec.
he's been trying a new review of the year technique. he has grouped the year into 4 month periods - round the major events (for him) of the year, and tried to write differently about it, looking at what he has to say that was not about what he was immediately reading etc.
'mary wollstonecraft was influenced by rousseau’s reveries of a solitary walker (the most charming of his books largely because he claims to be disillusioned and not to care anymore).' the ernaux is almost as if he were to pass off one of his other books as autobiography. horsemouth dug reveries... out of his bag yesterday.
for a brief second horsemouth imagined that robert jenrick had resigned because he supported human rights and felt that the government's rwanda policy as it stands was an affront to human rights (which it is) - but no, he doesn't think it is enough of an affront to human rights. for a brief second he imagined robert jenrick was having an attack of principle.
yesterday horsemouth walked over to the nearest village with a shop to purchase a jar of pickles (and confirm that his card is still working).
wednesday (so today when you read this) his aunt and uncle are coming (maybe) to take his mum over to keep the ancestor's graves clean in sunny stoke prior churchyard. horsemouth (with the other hand) will be delivering eggs (in the afternoon)
thursday is not clear. horsemouth hopes not very much.
the surveyor is coming friday - house, buildings (garage, chickenshed, woodshed, 2 greenhouses), land (two fields up a fairly steep hill). sunday horsemouth is travelling back to the wen.
horsemouth was intrigued to see that three of his friends share a birthday. oh dear. someone unfortunate has just popped up with happy birthday wishes. hmm. this could be problematic. (at the very least the one would not wish to see the other.)
horsemouth is up. it is a rainy grey day (not properly rainy until the afternoon but particularly good for visiting the ancestors).
the house is heated by an oil-fueled aga/raeburn type stove in the kitchen that runs the radiators and a wood-burner in the front room.
the oil in the tank has gone down by 18cms in the 9 weeks since horsemouth got it refueled, there is 50cms remaining (with some margin of a week or two for resupply) so that's another 25 weeks worth at current rates of usage. if it gets colder however usage will be higher. horsemouth's plan is to try to time it so they do a big re-order in spring/ summer when the price of oil tends to be lower (but he thinks he will fail).
ah good the paracetamol and the coffee are dealing with his headache. horsemouth will nip downstairs and refuel on the coffee.
wow! horsemouth has just had a meltdown. who would have thought ordering blinds could be so annoying.
horsemouth is trapped in no mobile phone signal hell - this makes ordinary commercial transactions an utter pain in the arse.
horsemouth in 1st world problems hell.
horsemouth is resorting to drink as we speak. sings 'hello drink my old friend...'
(a little while later) no worries. horsemouth is rapidly resuming equanimity and the world is assuming a rosy, beneficent disposition (to quote drugstore cowboy). this may be the prompt horsemouth needs to a) change banks b) stop trying to facilitate every wish of every person he may meet.
ok it is a rainy grey morning. horsemouth is looking forward to the end of his stint in the wilderness. he is frankly exhausted and has started making bad decisions that his arse doesn't have the energy to cover.
this is always a good point to stop at (or indeed before).
in an ideal world everything is still cushty and can still roll on. horsemouth suspects he is not in the ideal world.
'roses and gold' sings robbie basho in what could be a perfect husker du song.
ok preliminary investigations seem to indicate that everything is still ok (and horsemouth has wandered into the nearby village and purchased a jar of pickles and the bomb squad were not called).
'... in the diary you find proof that in situations which today would seem unbearable, you lived, looked around, and wrote down observations...' - franz kafka, diaries, 23rd december 1911.
horsemouth has spent some time today attempting to compile a summary of the year month by month but not mentioning what he was reading or watching (this is strange for him). (it's a bit odd - what else does he usually do in these blogs? what can he do if he doesn't do that?).
p.s. he has seen a rabbit. that was good. he always worries that the myxomatosis is going to get them all (as it has done for rabbits ever since he was a kid).
today zoom beers with howard (well one beer). a rainy day. he went for a walk in the drizzle and mist to sober up.
horsemouth here adding the second of tarkovsky's illustrated martyrology (but in russian) headings. he apologises that it's not better shot. the previous one was the clipped from online, this one was photographed using his laptop camera).
horsemouth has a martyrology (well a lives of the saints) he has jacobus de voragine's the golden legend.
horsemouth did have a minor kvetch here about not having a killer kafka quote lined up but he has found such a quote (there was a little folding over in the corner of the page which horsemouth then investigated). and yet he worries if it is the right thing to deploy it. it's a bit positive, it looks upon the bright side and finds redemption there. now this is fine for any other writer (but not for kafka). there - horsemouth has shortened it to make it less positive. more aphoristic. more enigmatic.
in full it is an unusually positive kafka quote but by december 1914 kafka was well on his way to curing himself of this.
it's a grey morning (but not yet rainy). this is pure luck (almost 50-50). no particular tasks for the day that horsemouth can remember. he is keeping an eye out for the black kitten and for the rabbits of far hedge. what he mostly sees are the grey . squirrels of doom. the bird feeder is quiet.
thrift a life/ book pilled is reminiscing about his job before the clothing reselling (thrifting). he's visited his old place of business at a writing mill ('4 years down the tube'). they send them all to work from home. he starts to double job, he starts thrifting on the side. eventually they fire him and the fact that it's not 'all your eggs in one basket' gives him some 'locus of control'.
the reselling is more 'tangible' and 'immediate' versus the 'corrosive malaise' of bullshit work.
and now he's escaped the thrifting itself into 'meta-thrifting' (advising people on how to thrift) and into more what he wants to do - you tubing/ travelling/ book reselling. he's back in san diegoafter six months in mexico. where next for our intrepid explorer?
following on from matt's adventures in the world of clothing and books reselling we have a perfectly good article on 'degrowth' (make do and mend, knit your own and er. clothing reselling). but you've got to love the guardian/ observer (they have this absolutely perfect (s)elective blindness...)
'meanwhile, people are still facing severe financial struggles, with 1.8m UK households – almost 3.8 million people – reporting having suffered destitution at some point in 2022, according to the joseph rowntree foundation.'
so grauniad it's not so much people too principled for consumption but 3.8 million people too poor for it!
'a KPMG survey found that two-thirds of UK consumers planned to cut discretionary spending this year.'
but hey non-consumers! remember your under consumption is young, aspirational, hip, groovy and happening...
so how was it for matt? endless hours listing. dancing at the whims of the platforms. back and neck problems. trouble with inventory. dead stock. strange slowings down. poverty and homelessness nipping at his heels.
'a carpet of flowers... the abyss beneath'
horsemouth is two and a half years into his redundancy/ retirement. it doesn't feel too bad. survival requires him to dip his savings (such as they are). he's been on holiday from it for the last six months or so. next week back to the wen to check out the financials and meet and greet.
saturday evening - folk horror themed shows on radio 4extra. two walks today both up on the common. both via the fussell bench. his mum claims there is something on at 9.
'afternoon at werfel's with max and pick. read 'in the penal colony' aloud; I am not entirely dissatisfied, except for its glaring and ineradicable faults...' - franz kafka, diaries, 2nd december 1914.
it is of course tempting to read kafka's diary as a story of the artist succeeding due to hard work and determination - and to assemble the quotes in such a fashion that they prove this. and we are after all in the hands of max (brod) here - kafka wanted almost all his unpublished output burnt - brod didn't do it.
'this volume brings together everything that franz kafka himself published; none of his other works, it would appear, was intended for publication.' - max brod, epilogue, in the schocken books (NY) edition of the penal colony: stories and short pieces.
kafka reads the penal colony to werfel and friends at the start of december 1914, but it is not published until 1919.
'"it's a remarkable piece of apparatus" said the officer to the explorer.' - franz kafka, the penal colony.
kafka had something of a pre-death career and reputation, meaning that brod had publishers interested when he emerged with kafka's (unburnt) novels.
metamorphosis (german: die verwandlung) was first published in 1915 in the october issue of the journal die weißen blätter. the first edition in book form appeared in december 1915 in the series der jüngste tag, edited by kurt wolff.
do people nowadays care about werfel and brod (and kubin)? the 'prague circle'?
barely.
horsemouth has read kubin's one novel the other side. he has one book by werfel somewhere he thinks. nothing of brod's.
and yet in addition to the diaries and the penal colony horsemouth has a country doctor by kafka with him (in a nice edition for the prague tourists with illustrations by karel hruška). he will pick up more kafka when he next goes home or he may find it here, they are the kind of books that were very popular in a strange kind of way when horsemouth was younger - think of how often you see those penguin paperback editions of metamorphosis.
the christopher priest short story the head and the hand is a kafka lift - both the penal colony and the hunger artist at once.
horsemouth did some digging to find kenko-koshi (as quoted repeatedly by tarkovsky).
he is variously known as urabe kenkō (卜部 兼好, 1283–1350), yoshida kenkō (吉田 兼好), or simply kenkō (兼好), his most famous work is tsurezuregusa (translated as essays in idleness). you can get some of the text here. horsemouth downloaded the full text as a pdf.
there are more illustrations in tarkovsky's diaries horsemouth may have to scan them (they are really quite beautiful). writing by hand you are more likely to include drawings and scribbles.
forward to saturday
it's the wickerman day on radio 4 extra. (beginning 17:35 with a wickerman edition of the verb). horsemouth is not sure what he is up to. there may be zoom beers with howard (nope that's sunday). there may be a trip to tescos. it's a cold and frosty morning out there.
'I am very strongly affected by diaries and archives and 'laboratories' of every kind. they're a wonderful catalyst.' - andrey tarkovsky, time within time: the diaries, 18th february 1971.
tarkovsky has been reading dostoyevsky's notebooks (there's a plan to make a movie). they were sold him by a bookdealer called the hippopotamus. he begins his own notebook (on 30th april 1970) with the following quote (beneath his name, the title of the book in its russian edition 'martytology' and the date. a facsimile of the title page can be found in time within time, there is something in seeing the manuscript, something hand-written);
'when you are bored, sitting all day long in front of your ink bottle, aimlessly jotting down the odds and ends that come into your head - you can find that what you have written is enough to drive you mad.' - kenko-khosi, notes to relieve tedium, 14thC.
steffen basho-junghans left the world on this day in 2022. steffen was east german. he makes the point in an interview video that there was much less 'culture' from the west available and people had to go out and find it. similarly people had to know how to fix their own cars and make their own entertainment (the service could not just be purchased). horsemouth has had friends make similar statements.
horsemouth has had an even more moderate year than last year in terms of cultural production.
he played only one gig last year, at max's book launch way back in april. thanks to max for putting him on and enza for taking photographs.
horsemouth did no filming or recording in 2023 (some recordings from 2022 languish unfinished on soundcloud). horsemouth played some guitar with pete and with catastro/FILLE (but no gigs were played or sessions recorded). he bought no new musical instruments. he did pick up a few spare guitar cases though.
horsemouth was involved in no golden glow mixes in 2023 (they may not all be vanishing due to a change in mixcloud policy as howard and horsemouth at first thought but there will be no new ones).
he thanks howard, enza, catastro/FILLE for joining him in his creative endeavours and all who have read, watched, listened to him, or liked or commented on the things he has produced (thank you people, horsemouth is very grateful).
2023 was his second full year of retirement. (following on from his redundancy nearly two and a half years ago).
for yet another year he didn’t manage a foreign holiday (in 2022 he hoped to manage one in 2023, but no such luck). since the diagnosis and subsequent death of his father he has spent a lot of time at his folks (which has been good mostly, though not without its frustrations).
his mum almost entirely does the cooking. he continues to be a lazy, morally compromised, lacto-vegetarian.
he kept on writing this blog (and scribbling in his physical diary).
he read a fair bit (though not with the concentrated effort that he has managed in previous years). he watched a lot of clips on youtube. he didn't listen to much music (he did not get around to replacing his amplifier). he listened to webb david's techno-dub show on new river radio, and the music of robert lawson. he gave up waiting for the hawkbinge podcasts to come out. he watched a lot of thrift a life (even though he was wearing a DIJ t-shirt one time), outlaw bookseller, spain speaks and novara media.
he did a fair amount of walking (sometimes with enza, TG, ayesha, or minty, more recently on his own).
in 2023 the decarbonisation of social housing has become quite a thing. his efforts have not been crowned with glory (so it is back to the grind with it next year).
horsemouth is still one of those economically inactive over 50 retirees destroying the economy you have been warned about.
he has spent his way through the redundancy cheque and the tax-free cash sum bit of his pension. he is living (just) on his savings and on his small works pension. he is spending hardly any money at all (except for rent). he will have to check exactly how much he has left.
he bought far fewer second hand books and fewer CDs than he would have in a normal year, in the first half of the year book boxes replaced second-hand bookshops in his affections. in the second half he made a trip up to hay-on-wye for his birthday but other than that he's just been reading less.
his homestead (the gaff)will probably have taken a further dive while he's been away. the living room will once again be fucked. there will be some stuff in the corridors. the back garden will remain fucked. horsemouth no longer gives a shit.
