another wholly written in the morning blogpost (he's spoiling you he is)
yesterday a visit from both his brother and his wife but also martin and angela. (them of the following review of musicians of bremen - 'like travelling on a soundwave that started with forest swords had flashes of john fahey and ended with an early floyd mashup.')
they chatted. they went down to the abbey and then they waded around in mud and fought their way through briars on the common. it was good to see everybody.
there was a discussion of dad's tools - horsemouth is not very practical, the various chainsaws etc. are not much use to him, his brother, on the other hand, is considerably more practical (so there's a chance they may get some use yet).
horsemouth's brother is up and about and on the banking. it's a bright (but cold) morning. soon breakfast and then his brother and his family are back off to london.
- nostalgia (mircea cartarescu) first and last tale
- viriconium (m.john harrison) ongoing
- fictions: the novel and social reality (michel zeraffa) part
- several issues of the LRB
- 'uk housing is the worst value for money', 'political attacks on the poor have produced penury', article on chega, GDN articles
- william davies, the reaction economy, LRB 2nd march 2023
- diaries 1926-1957 (antonia white) and susan chitty's introduction
- the government's new definition of extremism
- LRB a piece on tom verlaine's book and record collections
- benefit of clergy: some notes on salvador dali (george orwell)
films
- the rise and fall of boris johnson (C4 4part serial)
- ghost stories for christmas (the ash tree, lost hearts)
- LRB who owns kafka? podcast (judith butler) and one 'on giving up'
- R4 documentary on photography collective 'hackney flashers'
- R4 documentary on the edit by mike figgis
- verso books interview jason reid and jeremy gilbert on spinoza, marx, and the politics of work
- losing track railway documentary with kerry hamilton
- jose saramago interview
- LRB podcast on acid house
- outlaw bookseller, novara media, bookpilled, spain speaks etc.
gigs
stick in the wheel and laura cannell at cafe OTO
events
visit to the wen, newick road fire, release of the alice coltrane live at carnegie hall (1971) album, equinox, a womble round hackney ended with a few beers, meeting with__________ in homerton, singaround round minty and jacqueline's, a wander round the marshes with TG (maybe two), facebook lockout, the insulation people came, george galloway wins rochdale by more than 5000 votes.
'today, neither this not any of the other branch lines and narrow gauge railways which made such an extraordinary network over the district, are in existence. I travelled on all those which survived the 1914-18 war, and I lament their passing, as everyone must do who knew them...' - maxwell fraser, welsh border country, batsford (london), 1973, p.168.
this quote horsemouth posted together with a photo of credenhill railway station (just along from stretton sugwas where horsemouth played his first ever solo gig). only colwall, hereford, ledbury and leominster railway station are still in use out of the 54 railway stations in herefordshire mentioned by wikipedia.
before he started on viriconium horsemouth was reading the antonia white diaries (as edited by one of her daughters susan chitty). there's an article that attempts to put the whole scene around antonia white in some kind of context (based largely round a review of the other daughter's biography of her).
'chitty would rewrite white, marry disconnected passages from the diaries, suppress qualifying clauses and phrases, insert invented material or change names. such unscrupulousness is not normally to be suspected...’
horsemouth is sorry to hear this (but the literary review seems like a good read and he is pleased to discover it). in many ways this resembles horsemouth's way with a quote (beware his ellipsis).
good morning! good morning! it is a bright sunshine-y morning out. later today angela and martin (of angela and martin) are coming to visit - horsemouth's brother's family are here already (excluding the oldest boy). at the moment coffee. later today breakfast and a walk on the common. last night diner - a glass of wine (and a bottle of beer with his mum before they came).
yesterday was very rainy. the drainage channel of the common has sprung a leak (horsemouth should probably attend to that. there's a squirrel on the banking and some blossom on the two plum trees (there's another one in the bottom field horsemouth should look at). some jays seem to be disputing over territory.
horsemouth read a really good article on decarbonisation (antimarket, william davies. 4 april 2024)
this uses braudel's distinctions between material existence, markets (where everyone can see what's going on and so profits are low) and capitalism (where there are all sorts monopolies, licenses, restrictive practices, cabals etc.).
it is through capitalism that we must decarbonise if we are going to save the planet but renewables don't offer the high and quick returns that oil does (so that's probably that). unless those high returns can be charged to the consumer (by some of the means of capitalism itemised above) in which case capitalism will embrace renewables.
offshore wind is incredibly expensive, it looks like oil-drilling platforms, and so it happens. for this reason the labour party's embrace of onshore wind is to be recommended (but it may not work).
as the old joke has it;
‘yes, the planet got destroyed. but for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.’
horsemouth should probably get back to ensuring the decarbonisation of the communal endeavour.
last night bright moonlight and a strange thrumming noise.
the baltimore bridge disaster continues to get better - the toxic gak in some of the containers is leaking, the cleanup may take months (years), other ships are trapped in the harbour unable to sail until the bridge debris and the ship (the dali) are removed.
the port is a classic chokepoint or bottleneck (beloved of the logistics/ power to the logistics workers analysts).
the worry is that the cleanup operation succeeds, the ships sail, but that when the port reopens fully in a few years time it will be at a lower level of activity. during that time the higher cost of getting the goods to market, of importing components, drives many firms in the hinterland that serves the port to the wall (and that by that point they will have been asset stripped beyond recovery). it's the major port for the region, many of the prospective cargoes can be shipped out of other ports but the coal terminal is a specialised facility etc. etc. etc.
elsewhere rick beato and friend discuss the collapse of the music industry (a bit historic - CDs, napster, rise of social media, you know the drill - but most interesting) and rick on his own discusses youtube quitting videos - there are even youtube quitting reaction videos. rick likes what he does and he only does stuff out of interest (he says) - he doesn't feel the need to pump out response and product.
another good morning in the countryside. later horsemouth's brother and family (mostly) arrive for the easter weekend.
feargal sharkey on the radio giving the environment agency, offwat and the water companies hell over water contamination. the representative of the water companies gives it a good punt, blaming the increase in population and offwat holding down increases in water charges below inflation etc. etc.
thames water may go under. (horsemouth will be delighted he fucking hates them).
yesterday (as was) a wander down to the crossroads in the village to drop off some eggs then a wander up onto the common just for the sake of wandering around. he also took the recycling bin down to the bottom of the drive (remind him to bring it back up this morning).
he was a bit bored so he constructed his books, films, gigs, events list for march 2024. he's a little early with this so he will add anything else he may happen to read or watch before the end of the month before he puts it up here.
it is the morning he has just checked the bin - the recycling hasn't gone (nor has the neighbour's), they must have shifted when they do the pickup.
over at goldsmiths the usual carnage (the hustle never ends). management plan to cut between a quarter and a sixth of all academic staff. this will affect people horsemouth knows (horsemouth guesses).
outside it is a beautiful day - horsemouth and the bbc had been predicting rain. ok no - now it's pissing it down. betwixt and between have a new set of recordings out - horsemouth will punt it again come bandcamp friday (april 5th?).
it's the evening of the day before and horsemouth has had toothache most of the afternoon. he has had some coffee, he has had some paracetamol, he has had a beer, he has tried sleeping through it. what he really should do is get back into the habit of going to a dentist and get it sorted out like he was planning to do march of last year.
toothache in his teeth, arthritis in his fingers, baldness, pity the poor old mule.
here we have a track by wadada leo smith featuring pianist anthony davis, bassist malachi favors and drummer jack dejohnette. and here we have sonny and linda sharrock (definitely) with bernard "beb" guérin (bass) and famoudou don moye (drums) (probably). october 3rd, 1970.
today (when it happens) is the take the eggs round, take the bin down to the bottom of the drive, day. horsemouth's books have been scattered to the four winds round the house by his mum, he has gone and retrieved the kafka diary (not that there is now an entry until 7th april). the stuff that will be published by him in his life has already been written (mostly), the stuff he wanted burned has yet to be written. his life is an endless tortured round of not being able to write (so he tells us - in his diary that he wanted max brod to burn).
the comparison can be made with antonia white where she did burn two of her diaries. we arrive on the scene and start reading after the major events of her life (and her subsequent life is now inexplicable).
the m.john harrison is going well - before and between the early fantasy fictions (the pastel city, a storm of wings) are interleaved the later more literary fictions viriconium knights, lords of misrule, strange great sins... while there are good lines in the earlier fictions his project is still in the shadow of michael moorcock. but he is becoming himself.
horsemouth has been watching a fair few reaction videos of late. videos where people claim to be listening to and reacting to pieces of music for the first time. sometimes they claim to be singing coaches or guitarists, but mostly they just claim to be ordinary schmoes and to know nothing about the bands they are reviewing. like karaoke, or MCing, they have inserted themselves into the music, made their playing of the recording a performance in and of itself.
in baltimore the key bridge is destroyed by an out of control container ship. in portugal 30% of portugal’s 15-39 year-olds have left the country because they can't afford to live there.
'in the likelihood that you no longer have even the remotest recollection of me, I am introducing myself once more...' - letter franz kafka to felice bauer september 1912 from a lecture by judith butler.
'britain’s housing crisis is likely to be a big topic in the election campaign...' - adam corlett, principal economist at the resolution foundation.
well probably not actually...
not that it isn't a crisis. not that it isn't a disaster. but british people have no way of realising how much worse they have it than other europeans (if indeed they do). further while its effects are felt at every level of society it is a crisis concentrated at the bottom among the very poorest (and merely an asset bubble for the people at the top).
in fact if it is as gary's economics argues, then what happens next is that as interest rates start to fall the money of the rich is deployed to buy up as many assets (and for assets read houses) as possible reducing the supply for ordinary people to buy and to own and leaving them trapped renting. because renters are now a captive audience rents continue to rise (further impoverishing the poor).
this would be horsemouth's prediction.
what the country needs is a giant campaign of not so much as house building as flat building, of building social housing (but that won't happen either).
horsemouth listened to a radio 4 documentary on feminist art and particularly photography collective hackney flashers (active 1974-1980) whose exhibition who's holding the baby?(1978 centrepoint kingsland road) was organised to highlight a lack of childcare provision in east london in the 1970s. there was a 40th anniversary event maybe there'll be a 50th?
meanwhile scott benton MP resigns after being caught in a times lobbying sting, suspension, recall petition (you know the drill). so a blackpool south by-election (a majority of 3690 at the last election). could be 2nd may. it's the 23rd by-election this parliament (is that a record?).
auto-(re)translation into english of a line from do not go gentle into that good night (dylan thomas) from a portuguese translation of it (and sounding like a ronnie james dio black sabbath lyric).
horsemouth follows it by this the original in brackets.
(... wise men at their end know dark is right)
the poem itself is a villanelle. a poetic form that became popular in england (and thus presumably wales) in the late 19th century.
'the villanelle consists of five stanzas of three lines (tercets) followed by a single stanza of four lines (a quatrain) for a total of nineteen lines.[8] It is structured by two repeating rhymes and two refrains: the first line of the first stanza serves as the last line of the second and fourth stanzas, and the third line of the first stanza serves as the last line of the third and fifth stanzas.'
horsemouth has not been reading poetry, he has been reading viriconium by m.john harrison (a sort of urbanist fantasy collection, the city is the star, the city and the prose style). he's nearly finished reading the pastel city (1971), which together with a storm of wings (1980), are earlier, and almost straight ahead fantasy novels. but when he returns to these themes in 1982's in viriconium and 1985's viriconium nights it is with the concision of the short story and a much better prose style. the new wave of SF wars over literary fiction are over, or have been won, for the victors careers in literary fiction, for the losers genre nothingness.
the dispensation will not remain that way for long.
horsemouth is tired after doing some digging in the garden. tonight a new tv serial (it's not twin peaks). then probably the news (more horror).
it is the morning rainy and grey (all week apparently). today horsemouth will be recovering from digging the garden and will probably go for a mild walk (in the rain) at some point.
it was a tunnel. short and sweet. under the wire and free.
the escapee hadn't gone far but horsemouth had to worm his way in under the fir trees to chase it into the corner. he then used a broom to sweep it down towards the gate (figuratively) and then back into the enclosure.
the excavated hole he filled up with rocks. he's going to have to reinforce the top fence the same way he can see.
but for now the perimeter is secured.
on the plus side of the wildlife horsemouth has now seen 5 rabbits at the same time. he also saw the male rabbit spraying (in a similar way to the way tomcats spray) - which he didn't know happened (until now).
orson welles/ walter murch/ er. will self(?) interviewed about the edit by mike figgis - we think we are cutting down, really we are building up 'to make it seem more coherent than it probably is'. jason reid and jeremy gilbert discuss spinoza, marx, the politics of work (and breaking bad/ better call saul, fight club, office space, sorry to bother you, negative solidarity, 'we are all in this (but in our isolation)').
horsemouth doesn't write much about palestine because it's simply too depressing.
horsemouth cannot see a way through to where it is likely to get any better. while the world's attention is focused on gaza the israeli settlers occupy more land in the west bank. israel is incapable of stopping itself, to be made to stop it will have to be forced to stop, and the US is unwilling to force it to stop. russia and china were right to veto the US 'wouldn't a peace deal be nice' motion in the UN security council.
history (and the people of the third world) will judge us harshly for our failure to stop this genocide. as it (and they) will judge us harshly over sudan, yemen, syria, libya, iraq, afghanistan and over our treatment of refugees from these conflicts and from others.
the sun has risen from behind the hill opposite (it has moved in its starting point up the edge of the skyline). horsemouth finds the orientation of his mum's house odd (his window it is sort of SE facing). if he thinks of the window nearest his bed as the front door of his south facing house in hackney it sort of makes sense. it looks like being a good day. (the rest of the week is looking a bit shit).
the black cat visits (but the birds are too smart for it).
yesterday was the release of the alice coltrane live at carnegie hall (1971) album. it's a great racket they're making - the john coltrane stuff revisited (leo, africa) does it less for horsemouth. horsemouth also watched some early pink floyd (interstellar overdrive live from rome 1968). he listened to some engaging german prog by novalis (sounding a lot like camel).
the bbc weather for their location reports rain in the morning and mixed fortunes for the afternoon. tomorrow should be decent. thereafter a rainy week (and at the weekend probably more rain).
yesterday the sun shone (but there was a nip on the air). horsemouth took a wander down to the abbey and again upon the common. last night strong moonlight (the worm moon is coming).
today possibly zoom beers with howard (or possibly a zoom cup of tea). perhaps a bottle of beer with his mum instead. tomorrow horsemouth should start on some planting.
'incapable of writing a line' - franz kafka, diaries, 23rd march 1915.
it's march 22nd. as part of the year of alice coltrane the live at carnegie hall (1971) album has been released.
horsemouth is out in the countryside having made his escape from the wen. he's up early (he's not sure why). ok he went to bed early.
just as horsemouth was leaving london he had a phone won't charge meltdown (it seems to be charging ok now fuck knows why that was). horsemouth realises he has been carrying around a lot of stress related to the communal endeavour. hopefully everything from here on in will flow smoothly (but if it doesn't then it doesn't).
it seems strange to horsemouth that this sort of rage used to be a daily occurrence while horsemouth dashed around the city from badly paid booking to badly paid booking. horsemouth wishes he was smart. he wishes he didn't run at everything like a bull in a china shop. (on the other hand, a lot of the time, that's actually what it needs).
back in the countryside there are lots of daffodils and primroses. the tulips are up. there are birds but horsemouth hasn't seen the rabbits yet (nor the black cat). to be fair he saw two of the rabbits in the next door field when he was coming back from a walk on the common. he saw a rabbit actually up on the common itself.
this weekend horsemouth will be settling in (maybe zoom beers with howard we shall see).
next weekend his brother, his brother's wife and their youngest is up and visiting.
a ground floor and first floor of the three-storey house destroyed by the fire. three people left the building before the fire brigade's arrival and four were taken to hospital by london ambulance service.
31 calls were taken regarding the blaze. the first was received at 1242 and the fire was under control by 1528.
when horsemouth wandered past (rubbernecking) an hour later lower clapton road was still blocked off (and rendered a pedestrianised paradise) as far as powerscroft road. the buses had been redirected down chatsworth road and up powerscroft causing a vast bottleneck.
it doesn't take much for this city to bloodclot up.
horsemouth was coming back from walthamstow and book buying mission - sally army by william morris museum, scope and british heart foundation at the top of the market.
some interesting books in scope but nothing of major interest or at a price that made me want to buy. saw a william empson (some versions of pastoral) but scope wanted six squid for it... (so it was a no).
in the evening horsemouth attended a meeting of the communal endeavour but no sooner had he got the key task of the evening done than further horrors exploded out of the grave. for a brief second it looked like a procedural objection would sink the whole thing.
so ends the day of the equinox.
on the thursday horsemouth heads home. he will write more in the morning.
it is (of course) 130 years since the martian invasion. when only poor personal hygiene and unchlorinated drinking water stood between humanity and oblivion. there will be (discrete) celebrations throughout the month of august.
it's the equinox. it is nowruz. iranian and kurdish people are jumping over candles.
equinox was a science and technology show. the music was by david vorhaus of early electronic music band white noise (featuring the even more famous delia derbyshire). orbital redid the title track for the famous rave new worldepisode.
'6th november (1994) rave new world, with charles grob, alexander shulgin. narrated by tom baker, produced by phil craig, directed by paul sen, made by mcdougall craig productions.'
bbc weather gives sunrise as 06:02am sunset 18:14pm (for horsemouth's location) - so not quite a perfect 12 hours (there's some bodging with how much of the sun is over the horizon at either end).
later today horsemouth has a meeting to attend of the communal endeavour. the trick is to prepare a speech but not to think too much about possible objections (it will just make him grumpy).
'people must be capable of making and keeping promises to one another, such that there isn't a constant threat that everything will start all over again.' - william davies, the reaction economy, LRB 2nd march 2023.
so alice coltrane slowed down to 24rpm. (heavenly).
after the genius of the six-bullet russian roulette player story in mircea cartarescu's nostalgia horsemouth was finding the kids on the estate story dull so he switched to the last tale where an architect becomes unsuitably over-enthusiastic about car horns. (at a time when such a thing could barely be purchased in rumania). this is going well.
nostalgia was originally titled and published as visul ('the dream') and was first published in a mangled by the censor version. both of these are terrible titles in horsemouth's opinion (but nevermind).
tomorrow for the equinox (early in the morning). tomorrow night there is a management committee meeting of the communal endeavour - horsemouth should hurry up and write something for it. (but first he needs to go and get some bread for toast for breakfast).
horsemouth is back from a womble round hackney in the near rain to be greeting by sunshine blasting in his window this morning. looks like a dry day with sun mostly and reasonably warm (for the time of year) darn it.
the womble round hackney ended with a few beers and then a pizza and some music. the beers were not in horsemouth's original plan (but he was happy to acquiesce and embraced the idea with alacrity). today he feels pleasantly sleepy. of course if he'd been more patient then he could have done his wandering around in the sun today but it seemed psychologically important to him to get the wandering in.
they talked of many things while criss-crossing solvent consumer land (like where does all the money come from?).
one of his flatmates has visited and deposited some fucking aluminium in the front garden - horsemouth will have to ascertain whose it is and chase it off to another location (he doesn't want to be looking out of his bedroom window at a waste dump).
he has opened the window. it's a monday but it feels like sunday.
'a drunkard's love of drink may not be admirable but at least he loves it enough to risk the hangover.'
yesterday horsemouth felt low.
he is beset by the notion that he has fucked up. this is his dragon year and yet nothing seems to be going his way. (perhaps he's looking at the wrong things). it's the afternoon of the sunday and, while he's not hungover, he is a bit jaded and out of sorts.
perhaps everything will go his way this year after all (but he's just not seeing it yet because he is looking in the wrong places).
someone for whom the year is not going well is rishi sunak - and there's still the election to actually fight with 62 of his merry men (ok now 63 - what a difference a day makes) not answering the call but deciding to retire instead. (apparently the record is 75).
... and records are made to be broken. people are talking about october 2nd (for the election) - this gives plenty more time for plenty more tory MPs to lose the will to live.
antonia white has returned to the catholic church and is going through a phase of religious mania. curiously it is being introduced to a follower of meher baba (dorothy kingsmill - also a follower of gurdjieff) that breaks it.
horsemouth has been reading the LRBs also - a good piece on italo calvino.
all the houses of the communal endeavour have been assessed.
grey morning. we move towards the equinox. some people are under the cosh some float free. there is no justice.
this year in addition to his usual celebration of the paris commune horsemouth will also be celebrating the mokrani revolt in algeria which entered its decisive phase two days before the declaration of the commune on the 16th of march 1871. here is an edited segment of the wikipedia entry.
'the mokrani revolt... broke out on march 16, 1871, with the uprising of more than 250 tribes, around a third of the population of the country. It was led by the kabyles of the biban mountains commanded by cheikh mokrani and his brother bou-mezrag el-mokrani [ar]...
a number of causes have been suggested for the mokrani revolt... ordinary people were concerned about the imposition of civilian rule on march 9, 1870, which they interpreted as imposing domination by the settlers, with encroachments on their land and loss of autonomy.... news of the insurrectionary paris commune also played a part....'
it was in the end defeated and prisoners from the conflict lived and died in the same new caledonian prison camps as prisoners from the paris commune.
horsemouth is feeling slightly under the weather having missed a meet up he was supposed to attend (he thought it was tonight) and having gone out with_____ for a few earlyish beers in homerton. he had thought that today was going to be the great diary clash (but it turned out to be yesterday).
they met up at 4pm at homerton railway station and probably by 4.15 they were sat down drinking - horsemouth drank about 3 and a half pints of beer (__________ four). regretably horsemouth purchased some over strength pale ale for the first two pints (very tasty though they must admit) so they ended up a bit drunker than they intended a bit earlier. roughly half way through ________ paused for some fries and some flatbread and humous. wisely they called a halt earlyish and horsemouth was back home with plenty of time to spare. (not that he made good use of it).
when is a hobby not a hobby?
this was one of the topics under discussion. horsemouth firmly expects not to make any money out of his music or to be made famous by it. it's a hobby (it may as well be a train set). there was a discussion of art and craft. and of the early new school hip-hop (eric b and rakim, gangstarr etc.) the bar were playing.
howard's plan is to do some playing and recording over the summer holiday.
horsemouth's plan is to have a shower and then get some bread for toast for breakfast. he's had his coffee (very fine it is).
wander over to the velodrome yesterday morning with TG.
horsemouth has collaged the government's new definition of extremismwith the all that is solid melts into air portion from chapter 1 of the communist manifesto (the paragraph beginning with 'the bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production...').
horsemouth supposes that this point in the communist manifesto is that capitalism (via its class the bourgeoisie) drives change, and it must drive this change or cease to exist, and that this change, acts (to quote the government definition of extremism) to;
1) negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; or
2) undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights; or
3) intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2).
it can be objected that in many ways capitalism brought the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights into existence, but this system is not identical with capitalism and therefore may well be destroyed by it when its usefulness to capitalism is over. just as capitalism destroyed the feudal order in order to come into being. it may destroy the existing order if there is a faster buck in it.
similarly capitalism is not identical with 'the fundamental rights and freedoms of others' and may destroy these also if that is what capitalism requires.
so to recap, by its action in which all that is solid melts into air. all that is holy is profaned it maycreate a permissive environment to undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights or negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
by horsemouth's argument (thus) capitalism is extremism.
ok so we have the aims of extremism (as characterised in the government's new definition), those that it acts to achieve. but what is extremism itself?
'extremism is the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance.'
horsemouth has lent his copy of on violence (hannah arendt) to his brother. but (other than sorel) is there an ideology of violence? or of hatred? or of intolerance? does not everybody claim to be motivated by love and what is good (eventually). e.g. white power racists tend to claim that they love the white race.
but it is not this end of the wedge that will be brought to bear but the thin end of this wedge. and the thin end of the wedge is the '(to) intentionally create a permissive environment' clause.
in some ways the redefinition of extremism is an attack by the state upon the symptoms (populism, racism, islamism) unleashed by the changes in capitalism/ western foreign policy but it is also an attempt to capitalise on those populist symptoms electorally. it is an engaging monkey trap but horsemouth doesn't think the electorate are that interested - they have already decided the tories are dead meat.
and, indeed, capitalism may itself be in the process of being destroyed (and replaced by something worse).
last night horsemouth watched the rise and fall of boris johnson - it was the final episode (so presumably we are into the fall). but what's this? boris returning? boris returning to campaign for the tories in exchange for being made a lord? that may be a good enough place to temporarily park his ambitions while the tories are in opposition and whilst the necessary post-defeat blood-letting goes on, but what then?
will he swim out to sea like reggie perrin? or will, unchastened, he return to be crowned king again.
today horsemouth has no plans. he has some pasta to keep him going and the remains of the fake bread. the antonia white diaries 1926-1957 goes well. saturday horsemouth will be writing about the algerian (kabyle) rebellion against the french in 1871.
'... was in chotek park. most beautiful spot in prague. birds sang, the castle with its arcades, the old trees hung with last year's foliage, the dim light.' - franz kafka, diaries, 14th march 1915.
no more kafka for the next 8 days.(and then he will surface to say he is 'incapable of writing a line.' )
'I have read tom's [note]book. I had no right to perhaps, without telling him but he has read mine and I did... when I read tom's book I thought 'my life is over'.' - antonia white, diaries 1926-1957, 14th march 1935.
horsemouth has been on a shopping trip to aldi. (behold he has returned from a hike!). he walked back (one and a half miles) with an 8-9kg rucksack. this is probably more food than he can eat in his remaining time but he can take some things with him back to herefordshire and leave others here for future visits.
the evening meal was a cheap aldi pizza with spring onions, peas and fake feta cheese on it.
it looks like the DX7 is gone forever. horsemouth paid howard a tenner for it but horsemouth probably never then picked it up and brought it home. it was probably left in the basement of reighton road (a house that has since been sold and redeveloped). this is a pity because there are online patches for it available that will get you away from the dreadful sounding presets on it.
we are dealing with the time since horsemouth returned to h*****y, following his sojourn in pop(u)lar, a time roughly from july 2016. soon(ish) it will be his tenth anniversary of his return back to this (admittedly very pleasant) corner of the wen. he hasn't made as good a use of his time here as he might have done. oh well. horsemouth wrote a horsemouth his life so far back in 2013 but has not updated it since.
it is due for an update.
since 2013 he has played live and recorded as part of musicians of bremen. he has played live solo and with pete holmgren, and with enza, and recorded with catastro/FILLE. he has voiced over an animation and written, performed and part-directed (with catastro/FILLE and enza) the fall of the house of fitzgerald (he also did some music for it with catastro/FILLE).
anyway he's been a busy bear but perhaps not as busy as he would have liked.
horsemouth will be around until early next week he thinks.
he will (in all probability) be back in the wen for the april 25th pink moon and AGM of the communal endeavour. at some point the assessors of the communal endeavour's houses will become the designers of the measures that will make it possible to achieve an EPC C for the properties. once they have designed those measures it becomes a matter of presenting these to the members in the houses at a meeting - probably somewhere around the AGM horsemouth hopes (so that he can be there for it).
a friend is over visiting earlier in april - he'll come down for that as well. hey the sun just shone in the window (the weather might be improving).
'a year ago today at B's instigation, I burnt my first two notebooks. in this year the whole axis of my life has changed. I have found 'the one thing necessary''. - antonia white, diaries 1926-1957, 21st march 1948.
'... I wrote nothing yesterday, that I keep getting farther and farther from it, and am in danger of losing everything I have laboriously achieved these past six months.' -franz kafka, diaries, 13th march 1915.
what kafka writes is a diary of not being able to write. for example, in our parallel timelines, 2024 to 1915, he will write something tomorrow and then not be able to write for a long time.
ultimately he wanted it all burned anyway (excepting the published work).
horsemouth gives the advice he should perhaps take (make a timetable).
he looks at the blank page in his diary for the day.
horsemouth is grumpy. the second campaign of assessing the houses of the communal endeavour is about to happen.
hopefully they will see the houses they haven't seen yet (and talk to the people they haven't talked to yet). hopefully no one will be missed out and require a later visit at great expense.
ok phew good everyone has gotten back to the assessors. it looks like everything will happen and roll on.
more loft insulation. this will probably be the measure that is done first (a quick and cheap win).
thereafter people are essentially free to chose.
if it's government money (social housing decarbonisation fund) then they are limited to insulation (a fabric based approach), but it's looking like there will be no government money so people will essentially be free to chose any measure/ collection of measures that gets the property up to an EPC C. they will probably chose solar panels (monorail) because this is the measure that means they have to move the least amount of their stuff out of the way.
of course horsemouth doesn't think installing solar panels will be as easy and as effective as people imagine (but we will see or rather, we will EPC C).
and the communal endeavour will have properties that have passed EPC C standard before 2030 and everyone will rejoice and be happy (and no one need be any the warmer and not one gram less of carbon will be emitted into the atmosphere but HIST on that).
horsemouth supposes that external insulation (applied to the outside surfaces of the building) is the next least intrusive measure. (thereafter we are into intrusive measures that require workers to be inside the building).
pardon horsemouth for thinking out loud here. he is adjusting (sideways) his expectations. he's been for a walk and had a bottle of beer. now it has gone dark and horsemouth's day is officially over. he is free.
this evening (and thursday evening). a documentary on boris's career - less in the sense of steady progress, more in the sense of a careen. is I claudius a bigger influence on him than churchill?
and he's back. for fucksake. him and lord cameron of brexit. please just let us get to the end of the decline and fall of the roman empire without a nuclear war.
'had it not been for an unfortunate bottle of pommard 1937, consumed with benedicta de bezer, the diary would have gone back to 1921. on that occasion two 'enormous old journals' were burned and the office of the dead said over them.'
from susan chitty's introduction to her mother antonia white's diaries 1926-1957.
ok. monday night. no kafka quote for tuesday morning.
monday (yesterday by the time you read this)
horsemouth went for a wander with TG up the valley of the agapemonians to the waterworks park and there had a cup of coffee while sitting in the cafe (jesus the expense). the session produced to photos of horsemouth with a cappuccino mustache which he has shared with the populace. (they seemed to like new humorous horsemouth).
they then walked back. after that horsemouth snoozed.
horsemouth has finished the losing track railway documentary with kerry hamilton. it goes beyond the railways to general transport policy, public transport versus our alleged love affair with the car. horsemouth has (excepting his time in the countryside) pretty much always lived in the city. he has never learned to drive. he has always walked a lot and made use of the buses, the tubes and the trains. (he has also travelled on a hovercraft).
he doesn't cycle much - he may have forgotten how.
horsemouth (as someone who doesn't drive) is a big fan of public transport and he lives in the best place for it. pretty much everywhere else is fucked for it. herefordshire (on the other hand) was the first place to try bus privatisation.
boris is back! no fucken way! is this some kind of early april fool joke? they're going to post him off round the red wall seats (and that's going to be harmless is it rishi? how desperate must you be!).
howard is claiming horsemouth has a spare DX7 keyboard hidden round the place - horsemouth has absolutely no recollection of this whatsoever. to his recollection he has two keyboards he recovered from howard's after recording sessions - a cheap crap casio and an organ that seems to be powered by a rather noisy fan. er. he has literally no idea where any other keyboard would be. he wonders when he was 'gifted' it - if it was a long time ago there's a chance he left it in a cupboard at the previous gaff but he doesn't think so (he thinks it is under howard's bed).
it's a grey morning. horsemouth types this wearing two jerseys and with the sleeping bag over his knees. the insulation guys have just two houses left to do (but they are quite important ones).
'how time flies; another ten days and I have achieved nothing. it doesn't come off. a page now and then is successful, but I can't keep it up, the next day I am powerless.' - franz kafka, diaries, 11th march 1915.
'I ought perhaps to have put in my will that they should all be burned at my death.' - antonia white, on her diaries, from a diary entry made 24th june 1964.
it is monday again. well...
actually horsemouth writes this on the sunday.
he is live from the seaside towns. by the time you read this he will have been in the seaside towns for ten days and once again he must admit that the problem is less his circumstances than himself.
it is a rainy grey and horrible day (he supposes it would be no better in the countryside. indeed bbc weather assures him that there is little to choose between them). he is at least up the antonia white diaries (powerscroft road book-box you have redeemed yourself).
saturday night horsemouth played round minty and jacqueline's. he took the laramie and tuned it standard (not an ideal solution) and borrowed other people's guitars when they weren't in use. minty and jacqueline sang, himself and morven sang, morven sang, various people percussed (lisa and sorry-I-didn't catch your name of walthamstow). horsemouth stayed out late - he only drank two bottles of beer and a glass of red but he still feels underwhelming this morning, ok the day has already shifted into afternoon. he has an invite up to the park jams.
today we will have the result of the portuguese elections.
'... they’re a reminder of different days in a different city, where the bookstores and record stores stayed open late, and you could poke around in them even after a night out at CBGB, and the stuff that you’d get there was cheap, and the space that you needed to store it was cheap, and, even if you worked in a bookstore, you could afford an offset press and start your own poetry imprint, or find a loft space in soho and start your own band.'
oh dear howard had to drop out of the musical evening. perhaps they can get in a meet next saturday. in a bit (for it is the previous day still) horsemouth will start walking down towards minty's. he will take a guitar. tbh he's not really feeling the music at the minute but maybe something will come.
(something came. it all went well)
last saturday would have been a good time for horsemouth and howard to meet up but horsemouth thought he would be knackered after a wander round sahf lunun. (see that would have been good that would have got in a meeting with max and all the other old gits). that got cancelled and this wrongfooted his entire weekend and the subsequent week.
maybe horsemouth and howard will catch up on the sunday.
last time (ok in september) he'd been straight off the train and straight up london fields to chat with the masses, hang about in the sunshine etc.. the meeting and greeting had all worked like clockwork. the next night lankum etc.
this time he was straight away off to a stick in the wheel gig (friday night) which was cool but then saturday was cancelled (and so on...). the town was much colder than horsemouth remembered it being - obviously there wasn't much hanging around outside that could be done.
yesterday a little tidying up round the house with the infuriating vacuum cleaner and the infuriating (broken) mop. he did a little before the insulation dudes arrived also (he has some pride).
horsemouth's spatial sense is not bad but it took him a while to realise that there's a lightwell to the rhs of the bathroom that runs down to the kitchen level beneath it. consequently there may have to be internal insulation fitted to the inside of these walls. (it may be possible to poke the insulation down the little gap between the kitchen wall and next door's garden wall, or peel back the lead work and drop it in from the top - in fact, thinking about it, this is probably what it needs, who knows?).
the houses are not the simple shapes they are held to be, they have been extended out the back (and all that bollocks), there are those pesky flat (an uninsulated) roofs.
now internal insulation is cheaper to fit (no scaffolding) but it is more faff and hassle and disruption (and more redecorating afterwards) for the occupants of the house. for a house like horsemouth's where everybody seems to have a hoarding habit it's a stretch to imagine everybody successfully piling there stuff in a place where it is not in the way.
still no point in speculating on what will be. (what will be will be). even though horsemouth is doing it here.
fictions: the novel and social reality by michel zéraffa 1976 (cover painting by michael forman) - 75p sally army.
age of revolutions by eric hobsbawm - - 75p sally army.
walk down to sally army - 2 miles there and 2 miles back.
the michel zéraffa horsemouth just bought for the cover really and after a cursory examination of the refences revealed lots of good people borges, barthes, caillois, balibar, macherey, auerbach, todorov and jakobsen, foucault, blanchot, lévi-strauss, lukacs, eco - the usual suspects (plus an equal number that horsemouth has never heard of). horsemouth has read the first chapter - he's going to have to go back and re-read it (but it is nicely written so that's no suffering).
age of revolutions horsemouth hasn't started on yet.
'they say that the writer loses one reader for each chronicled dream' - mircea cărtărescu, nostalgia.
of nostalgia by mircea cărtărescu (yesterday's purchase) horsemouth has only read the first chapter on the roulette player (who survived his attempt to play russian roulette with a revolver containing 6 bullets). he'll read more later (it was an engaging read).
this is one of the things horsemouth misses about the seaside towns when he's at his mum's - even though hay-on-wye is up the road - there just isn't the same access to strange and uncommon books for a quid or less - this is a function of the sheer concentration of people. these are the kind of discoveries you can make almost every time you go for a walk or to a new area.
and on that subject horsemouth passed a locked book-box on his way home (doesn't that rather defeat the intention of the thing).
today (this evening) horsemouth goes round to minty's for a sing-around. he's a bit out of practice. he may get some in in the day or he may trust to luck.
he has bought nostalgia by mircea cărtărescu. one squid. (charity shop the end of powerscroft road (rspca? scope?)). penguin modern classics edition.
price (he has been spoiled by the book boxes) and the fact that the author was east european played a part in his decision. horsemouth guesses this illustration (found on the blank pages inside the back cover) is the roulette player - a previously down on his luck character now gambling his life while playing russian roulette.
his copy has been annotated by a previous owner. based on the ashort pronunciation guide to the romanian language written by the translator julian semilian within, advice on how to pronounce the authors name has been written on the back cover (meercha curturescoo). sadly this is not completely correct (it should be méercha cúrturescoo).
there are two drawings on the blank pages at the end of the novel, the other seems to show the author (from the photo on the back cover) aged.
there are a few marks in the margin either indicating particularly good lines or the need for a new paragraph. only the first chapter is so annotated, at p.24 there's a 'cf. zweig!' at p.20 there's a comment 'only force majeur' on the roulette player's decision to play with 6 bullets.
the annotations end after the first chapter - maybe the previous owner was an actor performing it as an audition piece or a playwright considering dramatising it.
the edges of the front and back cover have been reinforced with sellotape. (in case anyone recognises their copy).
anyway it has supplanted ice in his reading affections.
horsemouth had another wander out round the bookshops in the afternoon but nothing spoke to him from off the shelves. there was a picador borges (no he way wrong it was italo calvinotime and the hunter a picador edition but it wasn't in particularly good condition, and it was two fifty and horsemouth has unread borges and calvino sitting around here anyway).
today he plans to make it down to the sally army near the bottom of mare street (it is closer than the walthamstow one).
horsemouth is up. the coffee has done its work. this is a written entirely in the morning blogpost
he had a plan for saturday (but it will have to be delayed until next saturday) and in truth it's not much of a plan. horsemouth's strategy is to trust to luck - has that worked out for him? well no it hasn't gentle readers.
this saturday he will be playing music and singing and he's a little out of practice. he will probably be meeting howard at stepney green tube (and they will proceed from there). he's not even sure what guitar he will be taking.
oop the sun is just making it over the houses opposite and into horsemouth's room. the coffee is nearly done and a little cold. the binmen have been and taken the recycling.
'the facebook lockout briefly opened up the possibility of horsemouth making better use of his time (but also of more boredom)...
but the question goes - what would he do if there was no facebook?'
(and what if I told you to go on twitter?).
he was glad to get back on because of the vast amount of reconnecting with people he would otherwise have to do (checking he'd got their email, asking them for their phone numbers etc.). postal art he supposes he should get into.
facebook enables him to be seen. (where as otherwise he would have to act the goat more in his private life).
'he will (of course) continue to post regularly on here (on blogspot) until that too is removed from him.'
it is the afternoon of the day before. despite being in one of the most interesting places on the face of the planet horsemouth is bored (again).
now read on.
he's done his meeting for the morning. and in walking there and back (roughly 2 miles each way) he's probably done most of his 10,000 steps.he's been to the shop and bought a loaf of bread and to the church where they do the food bank to pick up some of the potatoes they had left over (they may end up eaten or in the compost heap).
he had baked beans on toast (with humous) for dinner.
the compost heap seems good (despite some idiot constantly leaving the lid off and attempting to dispose of plastic and paper in it). the neighbours don't seem to have moved.
it is two weeks to the equinox
horsemouth was thinking about how he's a little uninspired by the music of late and if that will come back to him.
9pm a documentary on boris.
today is altruvista day.
altruvista is an edited version of a piano solo by alice coltrane that was recorded on march 7, 1967, at the van gelder studio in englewood cliffs, new jersey, during the session that yielded the john coltrane album expression. ogundeand number one from that album were also recorded that day also.
it is, let us not forget, the year of alice,
there's a scaffolding lorry outside (perhas next door is getting scaffolded).
judee sill, alice coltrane, RZA, robert schumann, more judee (on backing vocals this time), art ensemble of chicago, willie nelson, gene clark, nico, william harris (bullfrog blues), milton nascimento, robbie basho, delphine, the reverend gary davis, john fahey, stella chiweshe, santana...
horsemouth will probably attempt to get back onto facebook (having been caught up in the great facebook lockout yesterday). later he's got to go to a meeting. (two miles there and two miles back). he is back with you.
yesterday horsemouth walked up to walthamstow (five or six miles all told - up through the valley of the agapemonians back along the black road). he didn't buy any books. later he went out for a tour round the local book boxes - again nothing. in truth he has enough books several times over (just not the right ones). his reading of ice continues.
the facebook lockout briefly opened up the possibility of horsemouth making better use of his time (but also of more boredom).
horsemouth seems to have been either hacked or 'facebooked' by some annoying not working facebook feature. either that or they are under attack from some denial of service attack. either way he's locked out. he will go for a walk around the block and then try again.
and again...
and again...
they seem to have stopped at least attempting to deal with it. perhaps waiting for it all to cool down. he will try to get a friend to leave a message on his page.
he will (of course) continue to post regularly on here (until that too is removed from him).
he supposes there is still email.
but the question goes - what would he do if there were no facebook?
he basically uses facebook for all his communication - either leaving meaningless drivel so that people may like it or messaging people to arrange meetings. he only uses other video-conferencing tools (than facebook's) because everyone else did.
if you see this please take a look at his page to make sure there is nothing untoward on it. horsemouth tries to keep his financials and his online existence far apart so he feels reasonably safe.
yesterday the insulation people came. they were smart and pleasant. the woman (alice?) had some software on her phone that rendered photos as 3D plans (awesome). liam and alex wandered round with tape measures and little lazer distance meters getting the dimensions of the rooms, the size of the radiators, the boiler spec etc. later a chat about how the house was heated/ used. (horsemouth emailed off to them such stats about energy usage as he has from the bills).
so far pretty much a repeat of the EPC (energy performance certificate) process but here the intention is to have it lead on to a design for the retrofitting of insulation measures
an interesting fact that horsemouth took away was that while it might be less disruptive to fit external insulation (despite the scaffolding etc.) it was also more expensive than fitting internal insulation (horsemouth doesn't know if this is true when you take into account redecoration costs but we shall see). indeed it looks as if one member has already has (naughty naughty). further it seems like people who horsemouth expected would be having conniptions about the disruption internal insulation would cause have in fact become sanguine about it.
half the homes have been surveyed (another two more will be done thursday). there'll be another campaign in two weekends time to pick up the remainders. and then a meeting of the householders.
earlier horsemouth had been out for a walk with TG. later he farted about on the internet and watched the last episode of martin sheen's port talbot set thing and lost hearts (one of the bbc ghost stories for christmas). the martin sheen is a folly, but a generous folly. its take home message is the need to free oneself up from the ghosts of the past to let the new thing be born (but horsemouth doesn't see it that way). in lost hearts the ghosts show up to ensure justice.
tomorrow morning he has stuff to do. at the weekend there's something over minty's.
the sun is shining and horsemouth has his coffee (he's just been to get a refill). in theory his brother is up in the wilds of herefordshire. horsemouth is not high on a mountain top he is down in the swamps (but it's ok). later today a visit from the insulation people. this morning perhaps a walk (the bench 10am).
of course where he lives is on a slight hill falling down to the canals and rivers of the the lea valley or accelerating up into the hills of stamford hill and tottenham. (you can witness this process from springfield park). where horsemouth is the incline is less dramatic.
horsemouth's thought processes were greatly concentrated when the downstairs flat two doors up from him was flooded (rainwater run-off rather than rising sea levels). there's going to be lots more of this going forward (at least until AMOC - the atlantic meridional overturning circulation - collapses and at that point the country will become colder and drier). this may work well with global warming by working against it.
the drainage system is the sewerage system (so horsemouth is very glad his flat hasn't flooded). the real issue is converting the acres of concrete and tarmac to grassy fields that can soak up rainwater (rather than roll it off downhill) and planting lots of trees (to catch rainwater and pump it out of the ground).
already much of spain is in drought and this will doubtless intensify over the years. the south of france, italy, greece.
horsemouth has been reading ice by anna kavan. the world is freezing up, our hero is on a fool's quest.
horsemouth will have to get out and about and tell people that he is back.
'me and room service...' - jackson c. frank, blues run the game.
'the year of the death of ricardo reis... this follows ricardo reis, who has returned to lisbon after several years living in brazil, he was a doctor but he gave up practicing medicine when he moved back to portugal and he basically lives in a hotel and just wanders the streets and reads newspapers...'
moments of comedy. a documentary on saramago that seems only to be able to describe the plot mechanics of his books. horsemouth then followed this with a review of his books that attempts to discuss his books without access to the plots of them.
'all my novels are based on something impossible' - jose saramago. (here we have a review with 'the impossible' amputated. but strangely the reviewer gets the plot mechanics of the history of the siege of lisbon into the review - sort of).
in a similar way to the continued survival of ricardo reis (a fictional homonym of the poet fernando pessoa) we have jackson c. frank born yesterday (2nd march) and dying today (3rd march). in between frank packs in a life full of joys and miseries. he leaves us songs to remember him by.
yesterday horsemouth was supposed to be going out for a wander round charlton (but the assembled multitude cried off due to bad weather and health and safety). fair play - horsemouth can't be dealing with an industrial accident this late in his career. instead he lazed round the house and read a little (ice by anna kavan).
in spain (well catalonia and andalucia for sure) a drought. drowned churches, whole sacrificed towns, rise up as the reservoir waters sink.
today? probably a visit to the supermarket.
'in a 2008 press conference for the filming of blindness he (saramago) asked, in reference to the great recession, "where was all that money poured on markets? very tight and well kept; then suddenly it appears to save what? lives? no, banks." he added, "marx was never so right as now", and predicted "the worst is still to come.' - jose saramago wikipedia entry.
before the gig horsemouth and howard snuck off for a quick pint in a local hostelry and then (to be fair to the venue) they bought another in cafe OTO. lou, mike, myk and friends were there, luke losey arrived (horsemouth apologised for failing to recognise him on a previous occasion). lou has an album coming out (well done homegirl).
on his way back horsemouth failed to find any food (he was looking for a chip shop).
horsemouth is up. he's had his coffee. he's been for a wander down to the local shop. at some point he'll have to make a run to aldi.
today is the anniversary of jackson c. frank's birth. tomorrow will be the anniversary of his death.
'autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. a man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.' - george orwell, benefit of clergy: some notes on salvador dali.
today horsemouth does a meeting (over zoom). then he gets on a train. he goes to a gig. he goes home. sleeps. gets up. goes for a wander round charlton. sunday he doesn't know. monday (afternoon) a discussion about insulation. thereafter he does not know.
hmm looks like horsemouth is getting blackballed over at american primitive guitar - his two posts from last year - 27th september and 23rd march are still 'pending' (hell soon they'll be fossilised). matter of fact he hasn't had anything published there since 27th october 2022. looks like he has pissed one of the admins off (or something). it was probably his excessive enthusiasm for suni mcgrath.
the games people play. why bother.
er. it's not like he noticed. he can still like (and maybe even comment). he'll give it a go - that's more participation than representative democracy gives him.
today horsemouth finds out how the by-election in rochdale has gone. (and it's a bandcamp friday as well).
george galloway wins by more than 5000 votes. horsemouth once saw him walking down cheshire street in bethnal green during his time there. just as the brexit party, ukip and reform have dragged the tory party rightwards (enabling them to connect with disgruntled voters) so horsemouth expects parties to form to the left of labour (which hopefully will drag labour leftward ditto ditto). galloway has brand recognition but in a way horsemouth puts more hope in movements arising out of local councils (such as lutfur rahman's in tower hamlets).
the advantage of an MP is that it is more difficult to suspend one (powers to remove recalcitrant local authority administrations are well developed). but it is not impossible to suspend MPs, develop recall petitions etc. (horsemouth has been making a study of this of late). galloway's challenge is to keep rochdale later this year given labour relaunching with a safer candidate and to build a movement to take it all forward.
