his contacts went silent/ the heat descended

'it is no longer enough to lament the populism, or be nostalgic for blair and clinton. it is not enough to campaign on being more serious and diligent than our predecessors. we must change...' - rory stewart, former conservative politician. 

an entirely written in the morning blogpost.

the entirely written in the morning blogpost used to be the unremarked norm but the disappearance of work (and travel to work) has put paid to them. wheras previously horsemouth would make notes towards the morrow's blogpost the day before now he actively types it in the day before and takes great care to maintain the fiction that it is all written on the day on which it is published. 

horsemouth has completed his week in the wen he now returns to the countryside. the train out is not until 1150 but he wants to be on the move early to avoid the heat of the day. 

yesterday he was mostly incapacitated by a) the heat and b) a persistent hangover/ hangxiety. his contacts went silent/ the heat descended. 

last night a slightly disappointing novara media roundtable. the novara media crew aren't from 'the middle of nowhere' as they would put it - they are all from the prosperous south east and from ethnically diverse backgrounds. they think the recent rioting is about the defence of some particularly english history against an encroaching modernity.  but it is not. it is straight out economically determined, people are being driven down into poverty and political marginality (and they don't like it).

peace has been astroturfed. whether it will hold is another matter.  the current ruling class think ' being more serious and diligent than our predecessors' will be enough (horsemouth doesn't think so). 

horsemouth returns to the wilds to watch it all on the ten o'clock news.

in the end he's out on the newport train (it was the idea of getting on and off to do the replacement bus at charlbury that did it). this is about £20 more expensive (so about £10 per journey says horsemouth, getting into psychological bargaining mode). perhaps it gets him into hereford early enough to get an earlier bus out.