'poor harvests caused by unusual weather conditions'

 anentirelywritteninthemorningblogpost

and horsemouth up late and without his cup of coffee (yet).

yesterday (and for once horsemouth isn't lying it was yesterday when all this happened) horsemouth and his mum went out on the egg mission in the afternoon. it was warm and sunny. they met jack on the way over and horsemouth watched them stop and chat. in the morning horsemouth wandered out on the common - two dudes with a little all terrain vehicle golf cart thing were mapping out the water pipes under the common (unless they were mapping out the power cables). big splotched of blue paint upon the grass. 

horsemouth followed the splotches and Xes back to the cottage on the common st. john's well cottage. it claims to be under video surveillance. 

horsemouth is feeling a little out of sorts. he's back to the wen (briefly) on friday to see a gig. if he comes back the saturday there's no bus up from pontrilas in the afternoon (so he's walking so he is).  for this reason he is unlikely to bring a wheelie bin and bring back more books.

and then it's the equinox, we are off down the long dark tunnel to spring. 

next weekend he would like to be down in london again but he doesn't think he can make it. his mum is off in birmingham visiting the ballet with his brother and wife. 

above can (that drummer is bang on). 

'what a happy afternoon it has been'

 the day before yesterday 

horsemouth walked about 5.2 miles. 

he walked down to the bus stop (0.5 miles), got the buses to the forge filling station and then walked back along the backroads 3.7 miles. later he wandered down to the village hall with his mum (0.5 miles each way).  they called in at the abbey on their way back. 

 yesterday

he dug over the garden a little and picked some apples from a radiantly overburdened tree up on the banking. most of the apple trees are getting old and not yielding much.  he refilled the water trough on the top banking. he watered the garden and did a little weeding. 

not only is it the harvest moon it is also some kind of super moon (it is closer and so appears bigger) and (at some point in the dark hours) there was a partial eclipse.  

horsemouth was intrigued by the empty tarot card the magician -  in this one the magician himself has been removed and that enables you to see what the magician is working with on the table, a cup, a sword, a wand, a pentacle - in other words all the stuff of life. lillies and roses grow around him (or would if he were there). horsemouth likes to believe these are runner bean flowers and perhaps the flowers on pepper plants.  

there are markings upon the table (these horsemouth had never noticed before). 

brod tells us nothing about what kafka is up to. in 1870 for kilvert it is a sunday. in 1871 it is a monday and he is in love 'what a happy afternoon it has been' (his hopes will be dashed). he will seem to make a speedy recovery. 

it's a greyish morning (sun the afternoon and evening). elsewhere sun all day (bastards). 

08:08 tuesday 17th september (long may they suffer)

 an entirely written in the morning blogpost

horsemouth has just opened up the lenovo for the first time in months because of the slow response of his dad's old laptop. it is reassuring to know he has another way out onto the internet should one or the other go down (indeed his old and battered netbook, currently filed in a drawer, might still be capable of it).

last night a big beautiful harvest moon. horsemouth took the opportunity to play the blue oyster cult's harvest moon (probably the last truly classic song by them). he also listened to a live version of in the evening by led zeppelin (still monstrous). 

start your microsoft 365 subscription today (no probably not). 

in IT terms horsemouth merely gets by - once horsemouth has discovered a way to do something he does it that way (same with his guitar playing really). yesterday he tried one of those leo kottke type patterns (round E, A, D). the guitar is back in standard tuning after a sojourn in dadgad and daddad. 

horsemouth has a sniffly type cold (it's probably fucking covid). 

so. politics horsemouth. what about politics? horsemouth (as usual) ignores it. 

the electoral side of it is filthy. 

labour are in (but, as usual, they are not doing anything that different from the tories yet just offering more austerity).  they have promised the country pain at the next budget. of course it they can't improve people's living conditions by the next election they should be toast but the tory vote could still be split with reform then so it is possible they could survive. 

horsemouth thinks the country is in long term decline and that a couple of rounds of austerity should finish us off - we are going the way of japan, a country full of sick old people wandering round deserted shopping centres. 

the tory leadership elections allows him some opportunity for schadenfreude - long may they suffer. he thinks it's probably plausible cad jenrick (though it may be plausible cad cleverley), though it could be kemi bad enoch (she's back and she's black). 

last night a meeting of the communal endeavour. 

it went well horsemouth thinks. the decarbonisation plan for one property was presented and that it's the correct format to enable the communal endeavour to cost what it needs to do and to have a productive discussion with the members in the houses. (he looks forward to having the other 13). 

money is of course too tight to mention. horsemouth thinks people haven't realised this yet

'empire or republic, nothing really changes...'

'empire or republic, nothing really changes. it is annoying to hear people saying all the time: 'it is the emperor's fault.' if our generals have shown themselves to be inefficient, if our officers are ignorant, if our troops have had their moments of cowardice, that is not the emperor's fault...' 

it is the afternoon of the 15th when horsemouth types this. you will probably be reading this on the 16th when horsemouth publishes it. thereafter the chances of your reading it diminish drastically. 

september 1870 and edmond de goncourt is in paris (naturally he is keeping his journal),

the emperor has been captured by the germans, paris is about to be besieged. edmond makes a tour of the defences.

'today, I amused myself by travelling right around paris on the ring railway. it is an amusing sight, that vision swift as speed, afforded as one emerges from the darkness of a tunnel, of rows of white tents, of guns rolling along country lanes, of river banks lined with with little crenellated parapets of olden times... a vision constantly interrupted and blocked by a high embankment, at the end of which there reappears the familiar horizon of the yellow ramparts dotted with the little silhouettes of national guards.'  - the goncourt journals, 16th september 1870. 

there turned out to be a few more peas to be had (lurking in the weeds) and horsemouth dug up some carrots and potatoes, he grubbed up the wild-seeded tomato plants (never going to amount to anything now) and dug over a little of the space created. 

dense fog in the morning maybe? (not so much or at least not yet).

this evening the meeting of the communal endeavour with the discussion of the way forward with the decarbonisation. today at some point (dependent on the buses) a wander up the forge filling station and shop to pick up the newspapers and a few loaves of bread. 

'we hold it lawful to pray with these sinners'

'je revois la ville en fête et en délire

suffoquant sous le soleil...' -  la foule (the crowd), edith piaf. 

horsemouth knew that the tune was familiar. it is in fact the tune to que nadie sepa mi sufrir (let no one know my suffering), also known as amor de mis amores and as covered by los lobos (which is where horsemouth first heard it).

of course consideration of the crowd is a very horsemouth thing. he has le bon somewhere and elias canetti's masse und macht (crowds and power). he worked into some of his later theoretical writing but quite how he did it you'll have to wait to find out. 

as sure as eggs is eggs (aching men's feet) - 1 mile there and 1 mile back (uphill and downhill). then horsemouth did some gardening (he grubbed up the last of the peas and later ate them). carrots, beetroot, runner beans, peas - all of them successfully grown by horsemouth (of his other attempts at food growing the less said the better). 

later (after a lie down) zoom beers with howard. maria had been in town, howard had met up with her and been to the tate modern. howard is reading love's work at horsemouth's recommendation - horsemouth wonders how he will get on with it. 

yesterday in 1915 kafka went to the wonder rabbi's, tonight (in 1915) he is unable to make himself go to kol nidre - a night when outcasts are welcomed and all vows to god for the year are repudiated in advance (so that there will be no sin in breaking them - if horsemouth has understood all this correctly). 

'in the heavenly academy and in the earthly academy, by the authority of hashem and by the authority of this congregation, we hold it lawful to pray with these sinners.'

this year it doesn't fall until october 11th after rosh hashanah (october 2nd). 

after today no kafka's diary (at least in max brod's selection) until the 28th. 

yesterday night (in 1870) kilvert dined at the vicarage. today (in 1870) it is hay fair (the church is decorated with plants). 

here at night early sightings of the harvest moon - a waxing gibbous moon horsemouth believes and low on the horizon. 

some annoying typos and copyediting glitches

woo hoo! the first of the decarbonisation reports on one of the properties of the communal endeavour has arrived. monday evening the meeting of the communal endeavour about it. 

there are some annoying typos and copyediting glitches in it but horsemouth thinks it gives the communal endeavour enough information on the cost of the measures and the improvement they bring to the properties' EPC rating to make it a useful document in agreeing the works with members, planning out the works, and crucially costing the works - so that the communal endeavour knows how much it can afford to do in the first wave. 

funds are limited. horsemouth (and his fellow communals) have to work out how to spend the money they have  to the best effect. 

when they have similar reports for the other 13 dwellings they will be in a position to move forward. 

the government requirement (as far as horsemouth understands it) is that the properties be at the EPC (energy performance certificate) level of C by 2030 - horsemouth thinks this is an achievable target. 

beyond that is achieving full decarbonisation by replacing gas-fired combi boilers with electric air-source het pumps and thus removing that source of CO2 emissions. now this will cost considerably more and it will take the co-op a lot longer to build up the reserves to pay for these. 

here the government target is 2050 but horsemouth wants to get there much earlier. 

as usual all of this stuff makes horsemouth a it grumpy (less the stuff itself more the imagining the kinds of arguments he will have to have to get it done) so he'll pack it in for the night and revisit it in the morning. 

yesterday roughly 6 miles walked - two walks into ewyas harold and back. horsemouth walked in to pick up his mum's medicines but they weren't ready yet (so horsemouth had to come home and go back out again later - there's annoying). today an egg delivery. the weather looks good. 

friday the thirteenth

'... distractedness, weak memory, stupidity!' - franz kafka, diaries, 13th september 1915. 

franz kafka's diaries (at least in brod's edition) begin again. they begin again with a new diary. 

today (when you read this) is of course friday the thirteenth. it's rare because this is the only one in the year (normally you get two and perhaps sometimes three). ok no horsemouth is wrong there's another one in december. 

2025 will have just one friday the 13th as will 2027 and 2028, 2026 will have three friday the 13ths one each in february, march, and november. 

yesterday a successful morning. horsemouth got his mum up early and saw her off on the bus to ewyas harold  (matter of fact he went with her to ewyas harold and then walked back over the common - meeting a woman and her two terriers - one of which was deaf). 

this is a good thing (his mum introduced to the local bus service). it's a good at least to the neighbouring village with a shop and a doctors  etc. to get further up (to the forge filling station) or into hereford this might be a bit more of a problem, it's two buses. like horsemouth says there's a handful of buses a day and it doesn't run sundays and bank holidays (but at least it's a start). 

the problem would probably be the big tescos shop (horsemouth thinks he might manage it with a wheelie-bin or a rucksack. 

in between times he brought the recycling bin up from the bottom of the drive. for a brief moment the skies opened and the rain tipped it down. 

he then went down to the bottom of the drive to pick his mum up from the bus when she came back. later a visit from the guy to take a look at the aga/ raeburn whatever it is (an old friend of his father's).

in the day slightly embarrassed for what to do horsemouth picked some peas, and then some carrots, and then some beetroot. 

in the evening bell ringing so horsemouth ate early and returned late. 

'these hard times can't last much longer' (even if they do)

horsemouth saw this piece by prog-lord andy edwards on the band income/ expenses  problem. it is a simple fact that most bands do not make money instead they cost the band members money. 

this is very possibly why horsemouth took up the folk music and acoustic instruments thing (lower barriers to entry). 

andy goes a little off-piste a few times but his heart (as a music teacher)  is clearly in the right place

horsemouth saw a friend's question on small business people trying to survive when all their increase in business is swallowed up by increased housing costs etc. (the running to stand still scenario). oscar wilde in his the soul of man under socialism jokes at some point that the tragedy of capitalism is that all the bosses want from the working class is their labour which is a tragedy because they have so much more to offer. 

and ultimately this is a drag on the economy (not to mention creativity) because the creative talents of all the people unable to afford to try new things can no longer be used. 

in the end the music will get made because the barriers to entry are low (unless you are making prog or jazz-funk like andy) and what people feel must find expression.  as to anything else (food, housing etc.) horsemouth  really doesn't know - the current strategy seems to be for the rich to own everything and to charge the poor such high rents for their use, this means  that next to nothing is left to run the rest of the economy. 

ultimately skip james survived and came back (so anything is possible) 'these hard times can't last much longer'  (even if they do).

to horsemouth a similar moment happens with the founding of hip-hop, the poor and the marginalised create something new out of next to nothing (two turntables and microphone, stolen car-paint, pieces of cardboard). similarly now a new economy of music is being born - the dj arrives with a memory key of tracks (there's no need to even cut the track to dubplate), they sell the track as a download (no need to get the record pressed to vinyl), onto the next track.

ok this morning horsemouth is up early and out the door to take his mum to a doctor's appointment then he's back  sharpish to let the guy looking at the stove in. 

tory leadership bingo card ('after every war someone has to clean up...')

horsemouth can't remember where he read this wislawa szymborska poem- was it in dubravka ugresic's the ministry of pain?

'after every war

someone has to clean up.

things won’t

straighten themselves up, after all.

someone has to push the rubble

to the side of the road,

so the corpse-filled wagons

can pass...' 

this follows on from a top five polish authors piece in the grauniad. this featured some names new to horsemouth (and lead to further recommendations). 

here one of howard's golden glows from 11th september 2016. 

so how does horsemouth's tory leadership bingo card look now?

round two (as selected by the 121 tory MPs)

jenrick          33  

badenoch      28 

cleverly         21

tugendhat      21 

stride             16 and out. 

'there’s been nothing like it since the “who? who?” cabinet of 1852, so called because when the list of obscure names was read out to the aged and deaf duke of wellington, he kept asking, “who? who?”'  remarked the guardian. 

the danger (for the tories) is that left to the members (and it will almost certainly go to a vote of the members when they have whittled it down to the final two) that they would chose a nutter (again). 

badenoch leads the field both in the nutter stakes and with the membership, the membership would clearly like badenoch versus tugendhat (nutter versus captain sensible - but they're not going to get it), the MPs would probably like jenrick v. somebody other than badenoch. basically if badenoch goes before the members she will likely win it against anybody. 

at the start of the next round (assuming no ballots are 'lent' yet) they will have mel stride's 16 votes to redistribute among the four remaining candidates . 

when they are down to three candidates (at the end of the next round) there will be more votes to re-distribute but jenrick is not yet sufficiently far ahead of badenoch that he can comfortably  'lend' votes to tugendhat or cleverly (or whoever) to keep badenoch off the members' ballot. 

horsemouth was going to carry on with telling you about his theoretical adventures but he may delay it now until after october 12th (the anniversary of his derek bailey piece).  

first cut (revisited)

 https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/first-cut-deepest

so to follow on from horsemouth's lost in translation we have his review of ben watson's derek bailey and the story of free improvisation (first cut is the deepest. metamute, 12th october 2006). 

broadly here horsemouth continues his thinking about attali in terms of one of his major influences adorno, both in terms of adorno's  philosophy of modern music and in terms of his aesthetic theory.  

broadly horsemouth sat on valencia town beach for a month and read the watson and aesthetic theory back to back.  watson is a big adorno fan. 

horsemouth was fortunate to be offered the opportunity to review ben watson's book on free improvisation guitarist derek bailey because it is a good object with which to think the kind of sense that adorno might have made of free improvisation and thus (perhaps) the way in which attali deploys it. 

attali cites adorno's philosophy of modern music in the bibliography of the french edition but this bibliography is not reproduced in the english edition  so anglophone critics are unaware of or deny the connection.  

in attali (at least in the first edition of bruits/ noise) improvisation is the noise that overcomes the music of repetition (recorded sound) ushering in a new era of composition. in both adorno and attali repetition (lack of development) is fatal. 

however as anyone who knew horsemouth at the time would tell you his real musical interest was in drum and bass, the mixing together of records and MCing. this was where he thought attali's improvisation and composition were really coming into being. 

-----------------------------------------------------------

here in the countryside a rainyish, greyish morning. today looks like a bit of a wash out but wednesday looks decent, thursday a cold night. horsemouth has been reading the kilvert. he's been away visiting and is now making the return journey. 

horsemouth is concerned, he is worried a frost will eat his vegetables, , it is due to go down to 2C thursday night. 

creation destruction (creative destruction and the destruction of creatives)

https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/lost-translation

here 20-odd years after its original publication horsemouth reviews an article he wrote about jacques attali's bruits; essai sur l'economie politique de la musique (1977). while  there was an english translation in 1985 (the thing horsemouth had actually read in depth). horsemouth pegged his article on the publication of a re-written and re-edited french version in 2001. 

it was the first of a series of articles he wrote for mute following a trajectory through noise, improv, play, repetition, theatrical doublings, zombies and finally back to noise again. then exhausted, and faced by the global financial crisis, he gave up. 

he thanks the people at mute who enabled him to do this. it was most useful to him. 

one of attali's claims is that the political economy of music prefigures the wider political economy (and that the political economy of music can be read in the structure and form of the music itself). 

at the time 'the political economy of music was changing due to digital forms of production and distribution'.  we were in the creative destruction phase of napster and mp3 - the old CD and vinyl music industry was being destroyed and the new streaming services and social media model had not, at that point, arrived to replace it. 

'both karl marx and joseph schumpeter wrote at length on the 'creative-destructive' tendencies inherent in capitalism. while marx clearly admired capitalism's creativity he... strongly emphasised its self-destructiveness. the schumpeterians have all along gloried in capitalism's endless creativity while treating the destructiveness as mostly a matter of the normal costs of doing business' - david harvey, wikipedia article on creative destruction.

as an (ex-)musician horsemouth was mainly at the time interested in what this would do to the musical commodity and to music itself. the implications for the wider economy were of less interest to him. 

it is somewhat ironic that technology that enables the distribution of creative products (the internet) actually serves to destroy the basis on which creativity has been (financially) rewarded. on youtube you can find a number of 'content creators' where they were involved in the music industry (rick beato, andy edwards) but the youtubing about music is currently their main gig. 

in addition to the review shows and top tens there are the reaction videos where you can watch people listening to bridge of sighs  for the first time (and getting paid for it). 

now horsemouth was never a big fan of the (then) actually existing music industry and is not sorry to see it go (or at least reduce). horsemouth always liked the folk music school of actually just playing music for the hell of it - of not (particularly) expecting any financial reward from it. that said this is pretty much all that remains - music as hobby. 

a similar blight spreads over all the so-called creative industries.  it is another irony that being creative is so widely praised and promoted  at a time when it becomes unrewarded.  this is why horsemouth speaks of creative destruction and the destruction of creatives. 

indeed there's that whole notion of the gig economy (facilitated by the apps of platform capitalism) of a radical (if alleged) de-skilling and casualisation of all productive activity (in the style of musicians and their temporary employments 'gigs'). 

more detailed studies of attali's theories are now available - he would probably recommend eric drott's music and the elusive revolution: cultural politics and political culture in france, 1968-1981 and his rereading jacques attali's bruits. 

'a dream makes the choice for me' (horsemouth makes an unfortunate discovery)

here the mighty adrian lawrence (official burnt toast) live from rich mix  back in 2010.

spooky things go on in edith piaf''s my life. 

'I live in a world full of signs and portents and I always take care that I don't ignore the warnings.'

so it is no surprise we get the chapter title a dream makes the choice for me. 

tomorrow is publication day- the anniversary of horsemouth becoming a published author with his review of jacques attali's relaunched bruits. he will endeavour to write something thoughtful about this. 

meanwhile horsemouth makes an unfortunate discovery that one of his legacy projects has vanished (fairplay there had been a falling out). he has deleted the project from his list of glorious achievements. he may still have it all sitting on disk somewhere (or that too may have gone west in the intervening years). if the disk of it is still around then there will also be an earlier cut of it so events may lead to an increase in the amount of material available. if not (well then not)

here it is rainy and grey but still warmish for the time of year. the weather is currently looking quite hopeful but the forecast says torrential downpours. 

vegetable report

the runner beans are doing well (probably too well), they've had another load of peas (there may be a last small load to be had), the beetroot have done well, the carrots less so, the spinach bolted (again), there's some lettuce still, the leeks are a little underwhelming, the cabbage has recovered from being ravaged by caterpillars, there's some chard, there are tomatoes (despite horsemouth's neglect), there may even be some small peppers (eventually). if horsemouth digs around in the disused vegetable patch he will find some potatoes. they should go and get the damsons some day soon and after that there will be the apples. 

zoom beers with howard

zoom beers with howard (two bottles) discussion of horsemouth's proposed reading - brock's pioneers of the peaceable kingdom and the shakers- two centuries of spiritual reflection. 

some monkeying about with zoom backgrounds as well. 

departure into the wood (ganesha chaturthi)

it is the day of the departure into the wood in robert holdstock's novel  mythago wood. 

thereafter time is strange in the wood and we cannot say how long the events take. 

there is a similarity with raymond williams' novel people of the black mountains.  in both the landscape has history and myth associated with it and one can get lost in it. 

williams was from nearby pandy just north of llanfihangel crucorney, near abergavenny, so his is a book of mountains rather than of woods.

it is the beginning of the ganesha chaturthi (though one should really begin by avoiding seeing the moon on the 6th). 

success with the washing machine - it has a new pump and horsemouth and his mum have  a supply of de-limescaling liquid/ pouches? (horsemouth is not quite sure). you see there was horsemouth catastrophising uptown and downtown but really all it was was expensive. 

horsemouth has been reading kafka's investigations of a dog (as titled by max brod 'forschungen eines hundes'). our observer dog cannot explain the strange behaviour of the dancing dogs from within dogish behaviour but we can because we recognise it as behaviour that dogs can be trained to do. of course, it is in a long list of animals doing human things  in kafka, benjamin apparently couldn't get on with it. 

sergio mendes has died (here with lani hall). horsemouth has been singing this a lot to himself (or is it toure kunda). 

there is a rather amusing venn diagram type illustration online (horsemouth was about to say zen diagram but of course this would be a blank page).

in the diagram there is (of course) a lot of common space between music that I like and music my friends like (this is how we expect it to be) but there is very little common space (if any) with music that I make and music that makes money - therein lies the comedy. 

yesterday was bandcamp friday. he assumes you have all purchased and downloaded your preferred musicians of bremen tracks but if you have a friend you think might like them please circulate them around.

it's a dark grey morning. horsemouth has just turned the lights on and it's 8.19

 '... the postman came in with the latest news, the evening standard, williams tore the paper open and we saw the reports of saturday confirmed and that a republic had been proclaimed in paris under general trochu...'  - kilvert's diary, thursday 6th september 1870. 

while the reverend kilvert lives a quiet life in clyro the franco-prussian war goes on. horsemouth will be dropping back into that autumn and winter of 1870. (and later in 1871 and 2025 the paris commune) 

it is bandcamp friday (horsemouth will have to recommend an album for you to purchase). 

horsemouth has posted a little of this to substack the evening before. now he will turn off the computer, read for a little while, and then go to sleep.

in the morning they are due a visit from a washing machine engineer (9am - 12noon)

oh dear. horsemouth just had a minor meltdown - they want some more info on the machine but horsemouth can't submit it on their email form and the call centre is taking its sweet own time about answering (so fuck them then). if they needed these numbers surely they should have taken them during the first call. 

horsemouth tends to think it is a limescale blockage and can probably be sorted out by bombing the machine with calgon - if it isn't, or if it's too late, then it's fucked and it's a new one anyway. parts (for which they would need to know the make and model of the machine) are really not no nevermind. 

it is the afternoon of the day before when horsemouth types this  and it has started to pelt it down. it's rain all tonight and it's rain all friday. the weather here-on-in is remarkably rubbish. ok on closer inspection it is not as bad as it at first appeared to be. 

with a bit of luck the washing machine repair lorry will get trapped by the flood water (or be washed away). 

the real source of horsemouth's grumpiness is the net-zero consultants - they have gone a bit radio silent and this is making horsemouth a bit anxious about the whole thing. 

now horsemouth wants to get on and get it done. he wants to spend the money the communal endeavour currently has in the best possible way and then (secure in the knowledge of what they have to do and how it is roughly going to cost) begin planning in how they will fund the rest of it.

there is an argument (of the type justice) for spending a chunk of the money on the worst performing property (because it is considerably colder than any of the other properties).  

horsemouth thinks the money would best be spent getting as many properties up to the EPC C standard as possible. and then at least the communal endeavour will know it has complied with the regulatory requirements upon it (and it should save people some money on their gas and electricity bills).

up at the house on the common there's a video surveillance sign up and someone has been in and taken down some of the larger trees in the back garden with a chainsaw (a very big chainsaw by the looks of it).

meanwhile in the house of commons when keir starmer got up to give his speech of apology for the grenfell disaster many other MPs also got up and left to be self-important and invaluable elsewhere. nice one MPs! keep it classy. members of grenfell united including people who had lost family members in the fire were in the public gallery. 

it's a dark grey morning. horsemouth has just turned the lights on and it's 8.19. there is serious low cloud and there is serious fog. horsemouth has a slight headache but when he has finished the thing with the repairman his week is over. 

jenrick vs. bad enoch (possibly cleverly)

'I came to douarnenez to escape britain, 

to escape a situation that I couldn't cope with....

um... and not going to make any political points 

and I'm certainly not going to argue about economics, 

I'm just going to say how it felt to me...' - roger barnes

and still it goes on roger. all those contradictions and unpleasantness are still working their way through. 

so horsemouth has booked a washing machine repair man for friday. the engineer will email him to tell him the time slot the night before and phone immediately before. horsemouth is not convinced it is economically worth it (but fuck it, it's not his money).

pantomime dame priti patel is gone already from the tory party leadership contest! 

(that didn't take long)

kemi bad enoch          22votes

james cleverly            21 votes        

robert jenrick             28 votes

priti patel                   14 votes

mel stride                   16 votes 

tom tugendhat            17 votes

looks like it's going to be jenrick vs. bad enoch (possibly cleverly) (gawdelpus). horsemouth expects the bottom three candidates to fold and their votes be redistributed among the remaining three. one more will be eliminated next tuesday and then four will give speeches at the tory party conference and then they'll fight with knives until only one remains. 

actually no they'll whittle it down to two and then the party members (if there are any left) will get a vote. (or maybe the MPs will attempt another stitch up and foist one candidate on the rest of the party without a vote). 

they are apparently under strict instructions from the 22 committee to keep it clean and not brief against each other i.e. not to fight like rats in a sack over it (more is the pity). 

cleverly he thinks is a bully (after the calling stockton north a shithole event), jenrick is just an ambitious and unprincipled  stuffed shirt, bad enoch is the real bad news though - a young thatcher style ideologue in the gove style. 

horsemouth cannot make up his mind whether it is better that the tory party elect an unelectable right winger or a safe pair of hands centrist. ideally horsemouth wants them out of power for as long as possible and a right-winger is probably better to do that, their vote split by reform, but the longer they are out of power the more the right wing reaction grows because it is not being recuperated in parliamentary politics, the greater the temptation to unite the right and come to an arrangement with reform that maximises both of their electoral chances. 

a grey morning. horsemouth will go and get the bin in a minute. 

on the thesis that 'there's a deep evil at the heart of the west'

great. bollocking train disruptions on horsemouth's new route over september weekends. horsemouth has the return portion of a ticket he needs to use before september 25th but he must also be back at the homestead the 27th/ 28th/ 29th to cover for his mum being away at the ballet in birmingham (with his brother).

get out your diaries and start planning 

'there's a deep evil at the heart of the west' opined a friend (in a private communication). horsemouth agrees - look at gaza (failure to intervene), look at iraq and afghanistan (intervention), look at libya (look at all the fallout from the arab spring),  look at the former soviet union (driven to the brink of collapse) and  the wars of succession from it.  

the one that worries horsemouth at the moment is the civil war in sudan. this could kill millions - through the war itself and through the famine that will result.

let's have another live aid gig says a bright spark. it will be inspiring and demonstrate our humanity. 

at the bottom of it is a failure to value all human life equally. 

a friend has taken to rattling on about 'illegal immigration' by which he means refugees and asylum seekers - but people need to flee warzones, people need to flee oppression, people need to flee poverty, and soon enough people will need to flee climate change.

faced by what it takes to be a refugee crisis there has been in europe  a turn to the right, a turn to racism and a turn to tighter asylum legislation some on the left are moving from refugees welcome here to a refugees not really welcome here... position. 

the ruling class are stuck. 

on the one hand they know that western societies and their growth are not wholly generated from within but by material extraction from the developing/ underdeveloped world (sorry these are slightly old terms that demonstrate a commitment to development as if it were a given). these resources include the skilled labour that the west needs but is unwilling to pay for the training of (doctors and nurses for the NHS etc.). these new workers pay into tax, benefit and pension systems that take care of the ageing western populations. here we have legal immigration and this has been boosted up in the belief that it will drive growth.

horsemouth subscribes to the great non-replacement thesis, that given the low birthrates across the world populations will soon begin to fall and there will be shortages of workers/ tax-payers etc. governments will then have the choice of either permitting large scale immigration or going into decline. 

the numbers of asylum seekers/ refugees is a sideshow compared to this. you cannot defeat racism by pandering to it. 

so the tory leadership candidates, and think carefully about this - what would you actually trust them to run?

the real question is - is any of them actually serious? or are they all just chancers?

let's get a list from somewhere...

the tory party leadership election 2024 was announced 5th july - so we are about two months in - sunak's successor will be confirmed, it is expected, 2nd november.  the conservative party conference will probably be used as election rallies by the various candidates. 

six condidates are standing

kemi bad enoch

james cleverly (wait for it wait for it)

robert jenrick (where to begin with the perfidy and entitlement of this one) 

ugli patel (ok ok it's a cheap shot horsemouth admits it) 

mel stride (who?)

tom tugendhat (corporal clegg in sean's excellent formation)

now the tories are faced with two choices (basically);

strategy one - try and act serious like adults, have some actual policies, wait for labour to fail. this would be stride and tugendhat horsemouth guesses. kemicleverlyjenrickpatel, on the other hand are basically strategy two people (just imagine if they had children ladies and gentlemen). 

strategy two - join in with the rioting, lead the populist charge, alibi burning down asylum hostels (while calling for longer jail sentences for the perpetrators). 

oh the competence (you may say), oh the competence and experience, oh the delivery. oh the pure raw talent of it all. 

the election will follow the  truss pattern  - whittle the field down to two, and then let the utterly barking conservative party membership vote on them (yes that went well). the tories need to energise their ageing base (to get them out to get the vote in) and so a mere coronation by the MPs amongst themselves (the sunak pattern) will not do it. 

the story (no, worse than that, the narrative) is that reform (plc) is on the rise and the tories are on the decline - a good solid performance in opposition (making all the right noises) could save them and reveal reform as five seat/ four million vote chancers. 

mordaunt (and excalibur) are gone and braverman is sitting it out. corporal clegg and major cleverly (the ex-military men) have branded with union jacks, enoch with 'renewal 2030' (isn't that a bit far off kemi? like the other side of the next election?), three have gone with a simple, direct 'for leader', two with a combination of 'unite'  and 'win'. 

it's another grey day with rain. horsemouth is pleased with his tory party leadership election coverage so far. 

whatever happened to these tunes? 

well the musicians just ran out of time (and energy) to get them done.

horsemouth has given them s re-listen and they sound better than he remembered (well some of them do anyway). 

'are you a fan of his music or looking for more information about his work?'

 what does copilot say?

'horsemouthfolk, also known as horsemouth helliwell, is a musician with a unique history. he played guitar in a band called bush house in the 1990s, which attempted to blend brooklyn afro-beat with hackney vibes. he has a presence on platforms like discogs and myspace, and has performed solo shows, such as one in south london.'

more year of alice stuff excerpts from a rare interview with alice coltrane from WDET detroit public radio. there were some other things with ravi and michelle coltrane, horsemouth will try and look them out.

it is the morning. it is a rainy morning. 

this is a mostly written in the morning blogpost.

it is four years on from when horsemouth learned of the death of refugee sudanese poet abdel wahab yousif (drowned while trying to cross the  mediterranean). horsemouth (briefly) did some online research about sudanese poets (and that was it). 

'even if you get planning approved today, it takes on average two years before you can sell the first home, so it’s not going to happen quickly. as they say with trees – the best time to plant one was yesterday.' 

- anthony codling, housing analyst at investment bank RBC capital

this is the problem with the government's housebuilding plan. it is yet another announcement of the intention to build enough housing which will be followed a few years later by admissions of failure and the announcement of a plan to build enough housing. 

and it all takes too long to build enough housing to actually move the dial on housing availability. further the kind of housing built (upscale housing designed to turn a good profit) is not the kind of housing needed (social housing to house the poor). 

housing is becoming a scarce asset and as a result is now of interest to private equity firms swollen with money from online businesses. a vast centralisation of wealth is taking place as the rents vanish up into the corporate heavens. . 

it is five years on from when horsemouth was bemoaning his lot as his wages fell and his rent rose but really (it has turned out) he has enough for his needs and he has no dependants. he will scan his email box. at some point the communal endeavour will restart for the autumn season. 

er. it doesn't look like there is much he can get up to today (rainy all day). 

SOND - the embers begin

'by the time I die, so much will have been said about me that no one will know any longer what kind of person I was.' - edith piaf, my life, opening lines. 

it's the first day of september (and of the 'embers' - september, october, november, december, SOND before we enter the -uaries, january and february).

meteorological summer is over and we enter meteorological autumn. the autumn crocus is already up.

the critical day is the autumn equinox. 22nd september at 13:47. we are roughly 3 weeks off the equinox (aka. long dark tunnel day) when we enter the dark half of the year (the half of the year with the least daylight) and this will take us through to the winter solstice and then back up towards the light.

the washing machine seems to have stopped working. it will not drain, it is an e18 (bosch) error - there are some things horsemouth and his mum can try (before they admit it is fucked and buy a new one). it is 14 years  old. 

horsemouth has started on the edith piaf as his first book for november. it's great so far with a grim account of her childhood and then her life in le milieu (the criminal underworld). horsemouth regrets not putting the work in to learn non, je ne regrette rien. 

horsemouth has started doing some reading about the celebrations for ganesha this month - from roughly the 6th (preparation work that includes avoiding seeing the moon) to the 17th (ganesha immersed in water to say goodbye), not that he will be able to do much about it being away from his ganesha statue. 

over the weekend (and monday) rubbish rainy weather. 

it's the anniversary of the first ever golden glow (from september the 1st 2015). howard plays tracks by peggy honeywell, ted lucas, skubi, led zepellin, mariano rodriguez and more.