horsemouth: 'meditations, behaviours, projects '

ok here a rainy, grey morning.

yesterday a beautiful sunny morning (if not that warm out). horsemouth elected to go for a wander (it was muddy). 

meditations

two unrelated discussions have broken out on a friend's page. 

the minor discussion was one on the high death rate among krautrock musicians  following on from the death of damo suzuki (and the stupidity of this british name for the genre). horsemouth (slightly off topic) contributed the dead tangerine dreamers (edgar froese, klaus schulze, conrad schnitzler), dead unknown cases member stefan krachten, and (more on topic) dead sometime CAN man rebop kwaku baah to the pot.

damo suzuki, michael mooney, rebop kwaku baah - see, all of CAN but not originally german. 

the more dangerous discussion was on neofolk.

behaviours

'if you have a neofolk friend, 

now is the time, now is the time

for that friendship to end.' 

- the special aka, racist friend (adapted)

as far as horsemouth understands neofolk it is the application of industrial musical techniques to folk material (perhaps there's a vice versa there also or some other chiasmus).  he doesn't think that music made in this way is automatically tainted with fascism, he thinks good-hearted people can make music in whatever genre they like. the problem is not with a genre per se (ok no much of it is terrible)  but with the individual histories of the people involved. 

that said industrial music itself has a number of aesthetic problems that can draw people into fascism or at least fascist cosplay. 

various later-to-be neofolk types were drifting round stamford hill in the wake of psychic tv in the mid to late 80ies, one particular dickhead was wandering around this predominantly hassidic jewish neighbourhood wearing a tottenkopf (ss deathshead) ring.  arsehole (seriously). 

people can change.  (it's just that horsemouth doesn't believe they have). 

horsemouth avoids fascists and fascist cosplayers alike. he does not wish to give them his money or the time of day or go to see them play. 

projects

meanwhile horsemouth's brother asked him a question;

- will installing a ground source or air source heat pump instead of gas boiler be taken into account with the EPC (energy performance certificate) rating?

horsemouth replied that a heat pump would improve your rating on the part of the certificate that deals with the property’s environmental impact rating  but not on the part that deals with the energy performance of the property (the EPC rating itself) - this is a measure primarily of how well the building retains heat, if the heating is adequate to heat it (and secondarily it is a measure of how much generating capacity solar PV panels or solar water heating panels would replace).

is he  right ladies and gentlemen?

the fact is that the EPC certificate was initially designed to let people know if the property will be easy to heat or a fridge. the environmental impact rating (tonnes of CO2 emitted per year) is a bolt-on but it will eventually become important as the government starts to monitor CO2 releases from housing. 

in herefordshire (but slightly related) energy news his mum has ordered the heating oil for the second part of winter. this should take them well into the summer when prices should be lower (hopefully). horsemouth should probably measure the heating oil tank to see if they can order double the amount in summer. 

horsemouth had a go at potting up some seeds (though he will have to wait until the weekend to do the onion seeds). he raked some leaves off the garden amd checked on how the self-seeded leeks were doing. beneath the ground are potatoes that he thinks he will dig up and replant more evenly. his plan is to use up the remaining amounts of seed his dad left (both vegetables and flowers). remind him to try and get some sunflowers going.