'the great and terrible things that are in the air...'

'on people's faces and in their attitudes one could read the effect of the great and terrible things that are in the air...

shouts of 'the commune forever'!' went up all over the square, and fresh batallions were rushing off down the rue de rivoli, followed by screaming, gesticulating rif-raf... 

poor france to have fallen under the control of those stupid bayonets...

civil war, with starvation and bombardments, is that what tomorrow holds in store for us?'  - edmond de goncourt, the goncourt journals, 31st october 1870

the paris commune nearly starts then and there (the hotel de ville was briefly occupied) but it is soon supressed (this time).

edmond de goncourt  (reactionary and noble though he is) knows how significant this is - he was a national guardsman that helped supress the earlier commune of may 1848, and yet; 

'is it not an established fact that ideas are more formidable when they are watered with the blood of their martyrs.' - edmond de goncourt quoted in richard b. grant's edmond de goncourt and the paris commune, the massachusetts review vol. 12, no. 3 (summer, 1971).

horsemouth is pleased to be able to unite halloween with the paris commune (truly a spectre is haunting europe—the spectre of communism).

and so it's halloween (all hallow's eve/ samhain). and tomorrow all saints (toussaint). horsemouth will have to check if there's any bell ringing. 

he watched a discussion on the wheel of the year.

'budget is coming! budget is coming!' (repeats chicken little, running around in circles)

''budget is coming! budget is coming!' repeats chicken little, running around in circles.'

so wrote horsemouth in his august 28th blogpost. 

and now it is here... or will be soon. 

will it be as bad as 'people' fear? bad for which 'people' replies horsemouth. 

this is another almost entirely written in the morning blogpost (you will be glad to hear). 

now if horsemouth thought that rachel reeves was going to squeeze the rich dry he would be reasonably delighted but instead he expects a series of measures that do little to address the grinding poverty in which the poor live. 

increasing employer national insurance contributions does not directly affect employees but it does make them more expensive to employ and thus less of them will be employed. in the old days the theory was that people who were employed would be lifted out of poverty but this is no longer the case (if indeed it was ever truly the case). 

leaving the tax thresholds where they are will drive up tax take (but also take more money off poorer people). 

meanwhile mike amesbury MP is in trouble. he has punched a constituent at 2.30am in the morning on the street (leading with his left horsemouth notices) and then followed him down to deliver four or five more punches to the constituent's head before onlookers successfully intervene. 

mike claims he was threatened. in a similar situation horsemouth would have made efforts to make himself scarce early doors rather than hung around for things to get ugly.  

'my advice, unless it was to ensure he can get as much money out of it for his family as possible, was to resign this morning, not let it drag on.' -  former labour adviser matthew torbitt. 

on the other hand it could easily be £82k a year for a couple of years of trial, appeal, recall petition, all while sitting as an independent free from party discipline. 

a greyish morning. today an egg delivery and a taking of the rubbish bin down the drive. 

love is like the lion's tooth

'I dreamt last night I saw an airplane...' - dieter in emily st. john mandel's  station eleven. 

love is like the lion's tooth  is from there also. from a letter in the book (from a letter later published). it's from a poem by yeats that has the young girl and the crone. the lover and dancing. it kind of reminds horsemouth of edvard munch. 

'last night we heard that metz has fallen and that four marshals of france and 150,000 men have surrendered as prisoners of war....'  - the reverend kilvert, diary, 29th october 1870. 

we will get edmond de goncourt's thoughts on the matter on the 31st.

this event is also reported on page 410 of horsemouth's penguin classics copy of zola's  the debacle (published 1871). 

events will soon move on to the paris commune.  zola  and de goncourt will be there at the death. 

well it's 5.15pm and it's dark out there folks. 

and it's 8.26am on the 29th of october and the sun is up. horsemouth has already started work on his books, films, gigs, events october 2024 list. 

emily st. john mandel's  station eleven (2014) features heavily, it's great on the pandemic and the collapse but some of the symptoms it reports for the pandemic are in fact of the financial collapse (2008) container ships stranded offshore with skeleton crews for example. there is of course a joy to the collapse, that it allows the world to be reconfigured. 

too much wine last night (and an ill temper)

3pm: I will sit at the piano and attempt to write another hit song. I will struggle and fail... 3.15pm: I head to the drinks cupboard...' 

- james blunt, my saturday, the telegraph magazine, 19th october 2024

horsemouth can't help warming to him (that's at least pseudo-honesty). 

horsemouth is slightly discombobulated radios 3 and 4 appeared to not be  functioning (what's that about?).  he may have to listen to the world at one on an actual radio. (in the end it restores).

brilliant! 

this dude (roger barnes) has released another video about his life in the small breton fishing port of douarnenez - now this is good but horsemouth would prefer to see more videos on him retrofitting his house.

and sadly it is only actually about 18 minutes long (but then you can watch it again).

from here on in an entirely written in the morning blogpost.

friday a good news phonecall from the decarbonisation people so horsemouth will be taking another look at the decarbonisation stuff today. 

'hot coppers, too much wine last night and an ill temper...' - kilvert is suffering the day after a visit to the hospitable old mill (so it is a short entry in his diary).  tomorrow there will be the bad news of french defeat in the franco-prussian war (horsemouth will check what edmond de goncourt has to say about it). 

an article on the gig economy (and it's behind a paywall)

such was horsemouth's recent discovery. 

you can find much on this (the troubles of musicians in contemporary times) with rick beato and andy edwards on youtube, with jacques attali and michael channan in books. you can also find the more general implications of it in the wider (increasingly 'gig') economy. 

and here is the thing in microcosm - the stuff you do can only be sold through their apps (so you get bottom dollar) if it can even be sold at all. all of capitalism (except the apps) must take this cut in profits as the cost of doing business or face going out of business. all the workers must take a cut in wages if they 'wish' to work at all. 

mind you he also discovered that if you clicked the listen to this story button it would play it for you and that wouldn't be paywalled.  so horsemouth the sneaky and the ever hopeful wins out again. 

horsemouth will look up the book it is reviewing 

horsemouth has taken down the runner beans and beanpoles 

he regards these as being like the wands in tarot cards, garlanded with good fortune (in this case runner beans and runner bean flowers). 

therefore he is sad to take them down. he will research the edibility of the beans on their own when properly boiled (he has way too many to replant them all). he also grubbed up the tomatoes (frost damage). 

the peppers he has moved indoors already. monty don recommends planting out the broad beans soon but he also recommends that if the mud sticks to your boots then gardenwork is best avoided.. 

at 4pm yesterday horsemouth  zoom beers'd with howard - just as soon as they were getting on to zola and the  the rougon-macquart series and the interesting stuff the connection cut. 

howard has been reading zola's his masterpiece (essentially a novel about zola's childhood friend paul cezanne and his art). horsemouth replied that the equivalent in balzac would probably be the unknown masterpiece (featuring poussin). 

it's the morning. beautiful sunshine and a dew. horsemouth has his coffee. the clocks seem to have sorted themselves out (mostly) as we move from british summer time to daylight saving time (or whatever it is). 

an entirely written in the morning blogpost (pretty much)

an entirely written in the morning blogpost (pretty much).

on his way to the train out of hackney horsemouth found a copy of station eleven (2016) by emily st.john mandel. this is a canada/ US set post-apocalyptic novel. he has started reading it already.  it starts, an actor is performing in king lear (act 4) and then he dies onstage and the great long predicted global flu epidemic hits...

we have lived through this story and now we are out the other side into the forgetting.  

but (blessed be) we didn't emerge into the post-apocalypse but merely into a continuation of the decline of the west. 

horsemouth bumped into jacken elswyth on the train back they had a long chat from worcester shrub hill to hereford. she was off to a gig with her folks (alula down) and haress out in wales (gregynog near newtown, powys).  her parents were there in the car park at hereford to pick her up but horsemouth was pegging it off down the road in the vain hope of catching the bus. he had some hopes when he got to the bus station (there was a solitary young man at the stop) but it turned out to be a false hope and horsemouth headed off to hogarth's to nurse a pint and wait for the 1630 (1630 on a saturday 1620 otherwise except for sundays and bank holidays when you can forget it). 

as a result he wasn't home until 1730 and missed his nephew joe (who had been up in herefordshire for the week he was away).

in his time up in the wen he saw - howard, mike H, TG, john, sten, daryll, ian, colin and enza (and he saw jacken on the train).  he got some photos taken in the big empty pub and at the natlib, so a pretty successful visit. 

he repo-ed a number of books from howard, the gillian rose (he finished reading it on the train),  two diana athill's (somewhere towards the end and alive, alive oh!), the edouard louis, a thoreau writer's journal...

discipline and miracle

'however satisfying writing is -that mix of discipline and miracle... 

-  it is a very poor substitute indeed for the joy and agony of loving.'  

- gillian rose, love's work, chapter 5.

it is typical of horsemouth to pick a quote about writing (it is less typical of him to pick a quote about loving). he has edited the quote (such is his trickery)  to make it appear a comparison of writing and loving. but in the original quote they are much more intertwined.

'however satisfying writing is -that mix of discipline and miracle, which leaves you in control, even when what appears on the page has emerged from regions beyond your control -  it is a very poor substitute indeed for the joy and agony of loving.' 

or it could be edited to make writing the subject (or is it the object?),

'... writing... that mix of discipline and miracle, which leaves you in control, even when what appears on the page has emerged from regions beyond your control...' 

and yet the thoughts are (not artlessly) intertwined.  for the paragraph is straight off into a discussion of loving and so on to the next paragraph (and even the chapter0 

'in personal life people have absolute power over each other...' 

so news. big news. the big wheel keeps on turning. life keeps on giving. 

meanwhile today horsemouth returns to the countryside. 

today's book-box find conquered city (victor serge) in the gollancz edition. it will go well with his unforgiving years and birth of our power that horsemouth has already. 

 

preparations for a dawn raid

today horsemouth went up to the storage unit in highams park with his friend (to check that eveything is good for their remove tomorrow morning). 

tomorrow morning horsemouth will go up early in the morning to help with the remove before diving off by train to the phoenix office for a meeting about decarbonisation. he will then be done for the day (broadly) and will return home to recover. it will be about 1 o'clock.

today having taken the train from clapton up to highams park they took the bus down into walthamstow to visit the william morris museum. 

the main visiting exhibition space was shut (once again - they seem to have no luck with it). 

they had a look at some of the japanese prints upstairs (some hokusai and hiroshige) persumably owned by brangwyn. one guy had moved to london in 1910 and did a japanese woodblock print of bournemouth. 

'urushibara moved to london from tokyo in 1910, becoming a key figure in the revival of colour woodcut printing in britain. this print shows the seaside town of bournemouth. after the outbreak of the second world war he was forced to repatriate to japan. brangwyn expressed concern that after 30 years his friend was 'ordered to clear out of the country', which would be 'hard on the poor man... who will be a stranger in his own country'.'

they called in at the salvation army across the way but horsemouth could find nothing that interested him enough to put his hand in his pocket. 

they then began the long march back to hackney. (taking it in the reverse of their usual direction). they paused at the filter beds cafe for coffee (and a glass of water). 

once home a somewhat knackered horsemouth insisted on having a lie down, some beans on toast and various cups of tea until he had enough energy back to go for a short walk round the neighbourhood. later diner (tvp mince, sweetcorn, peas, red onions, plum tomatoes and pasta).

they will be up at evil am in the morning to do the remove. 

there was the possibility of meeting up with minty and max et al. (but sadly horsemouth was too knackered to go and recognised the necessity of getting a good night's sleep before tomorrow's dawn raid). 

horsemouth did the evil am remove with john (it went well) and then went off to his meeting on the decarbonisation of everything. on his way he passed classes of protesting school-shildren from st. dominic's 'save our school' they chanted (horsemouth gave them the obligatory clenched fist salute). 

this evening diner with a friend. friday horsemouth does his own remove to wierdshire. 

ok so this is the way it is looking at the minute (tuesday evening)

john fromporto will arrive directly. 

horsemouth is not clear what he will be up to with john on the wednesday yet (maybe their traditional walk up into walthamstow). thursday horsemouth has booked dinner with enza in the evening and a meeting with colin in the morning. 

and then friday he's away back to wierdshire. 

he's already done his walk around with TG. he's still feeling a little under the weather. 

in a bit he will cook some more pasta red onion, chillies, vegan mince, red kidney beans, plum tomato sort of stuff (he was relieved to find the 'vegan-friendly' mince lurking in the freezer). 

wednesday morning he's off to highams park to check on someone's self-storage. thursday morning early he's off there to help with the relocation. he may shift his meeting with colin to permit him to help out more.

the tree in the front garden is gone (this is leaving him feeling a little exposed). 

horsemouth pulls a sickie

horsemouth has pulled a sickie and excused himself blogging (sorry about that).

after failing to catch up with howard on the saturday horsemouth went out to the wilds of east ham  for some food .and a quick chat with him in the pub. (pint and a half - there are photos).

he then returned home for a quick lie down before going out to soho to meet mike. after a quick pint outside the coach and horses they were away for an italian meal (followed up by dancing til late).  they had a look at the hazltt house on their journeys.

as a result horsemouth got shockingly drunk on a sunday and ended up missing his 10am monday morning with TG (sorry dude). he did have a quick visit to the nat lib (there may be photos). 

sad to say horsemouth spent most of his monday hung over. it wasn't that he had a headache it's just that he felt knackered, anxious and sick. in the evening he did the mancom (pausing to go throw up at one point). after he had thrown up he felt much better. 

this recovery continues this morning while he types this and has his coffee. later john fromporto arrives. before that colin comes round for a visit. wednesday morning there's rematch with TG. possibly weds afternoon a crossbones thing.  

horsemouth back in the wen

phew. after a day of feeling anxious horsemouth is starting to cheer up.

he's had the phonecall from his mum (so he knows she's ok) and she's phoning again tomorrow night when his brother's eldest gets there. 

saturday night a quiet one at home. due to two cancelled trains on the trot he missed howard.

(howard thoughtfully sent him a photo of some wetherspoons food).

sunday night horsemouth will be out in soho (seeing the visiting mike heidt he believes).  weather drizzly rainy etc. until the evening when it cheers up. 

monday night there's a meeting of the communal endeavour (but before that horsemouth will go and see colin). he may even get in a walk in the morning with TG. 

thereafter the weather looks surprisingly decent. there may be a midweek thing with andrew minty et al. (there may be a zoom meeting wednesday). 

it's the morning. horsemouth is up late-ish. he has his coffee in a bit some museli and then a quick shopping trip in search of bread. he's already wandered up the hill to check out the local book-box (a bit thin and malnourished) and down to the book-box where he got the harry partch last time (nothing nothing nothing). 

the tree is gone from in front of horsemouth's window. horsemouth's room gets more light (but it is also more exposed). it is no longer a leafy dell. soon the repairman comes to investigate the damp spot on the wall near horsemouth's room and the subsided bit of floor near the kitchen. 

horsemouth may go for a wander up to walthamstow (nah it's too rainy).  he's off to howard's for lunch and then away into the centre this evening. 

trains and tribulations ('ashamed you should be to call this coffee')

ok horsemouth is feeling a bit guilty but he is planning to make a run to the city this morning. 

on a weekday the first bus in would be at 0720 (horsemouth's school bus). but not on the weekend, on the weekend the first bus is at 0920 er. maybe...  one page claims it does not exist and that there are now no buses til monday.  another page claims two buses down to pontrilas, three coming back, nothing from mid afternoon onwards (so you are walking so you are). 

no buses sunday normal service will be resumed on a monday morning (unless it's a bank holiday in which case nothing nothing nothing).

his replacements are not arriving until sunday. he hopes everything will be ok in his absence. and this gives him pause about the whole thing. 

ok he got to the railway station and there was a rail replacement bus (which didn't show up in time) so he's on the next train. he had a look at getting the train via newport and paying extra (but that wasn't running). really it would have been better to ask 'what's the best thing to do' because they would probably have said get the next train (which is what in the end he did) 

at one point he gave up and walked back to the bus station. there he noticed that the next bus out wasn't until 1220 (which he should have known) so he wandered back to the train station there he found people getting on the next train. 

sadly this was not the end of his travel misfortune - the london train from worcester foregate street was cancelled (several minutes after it was due to arrive and after it had been replaced on the arrivals board). the next train was not until 1410. horsemouth went for a walk down to the flooded river (and bought  shite cup of BR coffee left over from the good old days 'ashamed you should be to call this coffee'. 

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

monday he will have to turn his thoughts to the communal endeavour and the decarbonisation of that august institution. his main mission for today is to try to meet up with howard. it is supposed to be a decent day with sunshine out here. down there it is supposed to be rainy in the morning. howard has located a pub near paddington. 

his main fear is that his brother's eldest won't be able to get to the house sunday evening because of renewed flooding (but we shall see). 

his mum has a humongous case of red eye (he feels bad about leaving her). 

eel oil (and an elder twig)

 'old james jones was breaking stones below pentwyn. he told me how he had once cured his deafness for a time by pouring hot eel oil into his ear, and again by sticking into his ear an 'ellern' (elder) twig and wearing it there night and day. the effect of the eel oil at first was, he said, to make his head and brains feel full of crawling creatures.' - kilvert's diary, 18th october 1870.

on 14th october 1870 edmond de goncourt went to meet burty at the tuileries and to have a look around the royal palace. on the 31st there will be the first attempt to declare a commune and goncourt will be there to see it. 

kafka (at least in brod's edition) has gone quiet for the month.

earlier a walk over the common to ewyas harold to inspect the mud - the flood waters having drained away as fast as they rose up (mostly). horsemouth came down via the playing fields and then made his back along the road. the weather is now good and cheerful. he will have to check the route of the dore. 

horsemouth is back to the wen for a visit

horsemouth's current plan is to depart super early saturday morning to be in the wen mid saturday afternoon (perhaps to get a spate of drinking in). sunday the weather is rubbish. monday evening there is a meeting of the communal endeavour. otherwise horsemouth is free for social engagements. 

his plan (likewise) is to return either friday or saturday or perhaps monday.

thursday night horsemouth was out bellringing and then over to the angel in grosmont. one guy had on a not my circus not my monkey  t-shirt. there was a game with coins and mad dog. this morning he doesn't feel too bad on it. breakfast in a bit. 

it's flooding down in ewyas...

'we have entered humanity’s most philosophical age — for this is precisely the problem of the anthropocene... we have to learn how to die not as individuals, but as a civilization.' 

- roy scranton, 10th november 2013, NYT.

more doomster-ism from horsemouth. 

he must have been listening to that paul kingsnorth feller (and who was that other one?). 

of course the 'fall' is a long one. equivalent (but different) to the dark ages. 

meanwhile it's flooding down in ewyas harold (to be sung in the style of stevie ray vaughan's texas flood) and indeed there's a bit of a puddle at the crossroads (whence horsemouth delivers the eggs). 

the dulas brook is culverted where it goes through the village but not enough to stop it from being forced up onto the road (horsemouth would expect similar problems for the houses just downhill from the old trout inn as was). measures have been taken to create a wetlands park between the trout and ewyas harold but it is obviously not enough to soak up all the rainfall from the hills further upstream.

there must be another spot where the dore cuts across the road down from the housing estate. 

the power (and thus the broadband) is still on at least. 

horsemouth should take a look at how the stream that borders his mum's place is doing (it runs down off the common and onto the road). the water sits ontop of the fields in the valley but it does not look as if the dore has broken its banks. 

horsemouth is wondering how hereford itself is doing. 

the climate is set to get warmer but wetter over winter. campaigns of reforestation and flood permissiveness (upstream) must be encouraged. the main thing is to slow down the water getting downstream. 

it's the morning. a classic red sky morning. the sun is up and ascending into the blue heavens. 

a plan to slash affordable housing (such are the benefits of socialism)

'depending on who you speak to, this change is either a practical step to get more homes or the council sacrificing the needs of its citizens to benefit private companies.

the council have asked developers to build 35% affordable homes in all their builds since at least 2001. but recently they haven't delivered on that target... on average, over the last five years, they've only managed to deliver 15%.' 

- tom howlett, ITV central news 14th october 2024, housing campaigners outraged as birmingham city council plan to slash affordable housing targets. 

this is the ongoing problem. the housing associations (who would have bought these properties) are financially knackered as a result of the government lowering their rent levels by fiat in order to reduce the housing benefit bill. this means, in the builder's story, that they cannot afford to buy the s.106 flats that the builders would be building and without the sale of those flats being agreed the developments cannot get permission to go ahead. the s106 flats are in any event usually a nice little earner for the construction industry but obviously nobody makes as much money on them as commercial developments. 

the construction industry will be busy but at the end of it the poor will still be homeless, stuck in temporary accommodation and costing local council (and thus local council tax payers) a fortune.  

such are the benefits of socialism.

meanwhile the tory party is still in disarray. 

to keep the rabid tory party members happy badenoch and jenrick must promise more reform type policies and to keep the one nation tories out of the shadow cabinet. the one nation tories have replied that if there are no shadow cabinet jobs they'll be leaving for more lucrative work elsewhere and there may be some by-elections (thank you and goodnight). 

more kerfuffle in the new year then. 

yesterday a somewhat ungenerous article in the LRB on soviet era dissidents - illustrated with a photo of sinyavsky and yuli daniel in the dock at their trial in 1965.it would go well with masha gessen's dead again: the russian intelligensia after communism. 

given sinyavsky's enthusiasm for the letters of a.k. tolstoi horsemouth thought he might give them a read. however he can't seem to find them anywhere. 

horsemouth isn't convinced that sinyavsky is not in fact on about leo tolstoy. anyway. 

he did find out that a.k. tolstoi had written a novel about the vordulak in french (la famille du vourdalak. fragment inedit des memoires d'un inconnu). this was the basis for "I wurdulak", one of the three parts of mario bava's 1963 film black sabbath, featuring boris karloff. 

ok that was an entirely written yesterday blogpost. horsemouth is waiting for the rain to lighten up before going and feeding the chickens. 

a dissertation on obscurity (fahey establishes rapport with the tasmanians)

'in prison chekhov's letters depressed me and a.k. tolstoy's gave me real pleasure.' 

- abram tertz, a voice from the chorus.

'I now loath writing and don't know what to do. I would gladly take up medicine or get a job of some kind, but I no longer have the physical adaptability. nowadays when I write or even just think about it, I have the same feeling of disgust as if I were eating soup out of which a cockroach had just been taken...'  - chekhov's letters, 25th july 1898, as quoted by tertz. 

this letter does not make it into lillian hellman's the selected letters of anton chekhov. 

at the start of the year (1898) chekhov was much concerned by the dreyfus affair and zola. at the end of the year he sends a letter of appreciation and advice to a young(ish) maxim gorky (30). by this point chekhov was 38,  he had lost touch with theatre (he claims). towards the end of the year his father died. he is planning on buying land in yalta so as to have somewhere warm to spend the winter on account of the TB in the upper part of his lungs. 

and yet soon this will be the time when he writes three sisters and the cherry orchard. chekhov and gorky will meet in yalta. 

horsemouth's copy is a picador from 1984. the glue is going in the spine and pages are starting to fall out. he's read the entries for 1898 and lillian hellman's introduction. 

it is the anniversary of the recording of live in tasmania by john fahey. it was recorded october 15th, 1980 at the university of tasmania in hobart. horsemouth has chosen the track fahey establishes rapport with the tasmanians, a dissertation on "obscurity".

'a legendary character in concert, fahey was apparently in one of his unpredictable good moods...' -  1981 review for rolling stone by charles m. young.

it is an album where fate and the gods seem to be in alignment. there is some inspired substitution of poor live takes with already recorded tracks and added crowd noise, various older songs are revisited and retitled to suit local conditions. 

horsemouth likes some obscure shit (indeed he does).

obscurity is important to horsemouth. he likes the stuff that is resistant to being made stadium sized.

today another rainy grey day.  

reading the torygraph money section ('it feels like a scam')

ok horsemouth got bored sunday afternoon and typed most of this in. 

(the circle) of compassion is the first single from surya botofasina’s second album
featuring vocalist midnightroba (roba el-essawy) of the legendary attica blues. it's a pleasantly noisy affair, no excess of good taste.

headline - landlords face wipeout under labour 

front page article. campaign. inside pages 6 and 7. 

yes. the featherbedding of landlords is ending even if buy-to-let mortgages aren't. people who are using it as a pension will be driven out of the market to be replaced by very much larger private equity firms. rents will rise. housing waiting lists will rise. the number of people in temporary accommodation will rise. hell the number of people homeless on the street will probably rise. 

the tax raids on small landlords began under the tories (and may continue under labour).  the courts system is fucked 

page 3. 'I have £140k in student debt - it feels like a scam.' (says young doctor)

well that's because it is. it is effectively a graduate tax (except that the government aren't getting the money).  more than 8000 graduates on plan 2 loans owe more than £100k. the largest debt owed by a graduate to the student loans company was £231k as of jan 31st this year (so, by the inevitable action of interest) it will be higher by now). the face value of outstanding loans was £236 billion in march. the bet is that enough graduates will earn enough to repay the cost and the interest and the planned level of bad debt. if not the government (i.e. the taxpayer) will have to pay. 

given the fucked status of the economy that may well be a bad bet. 

the debt is held by students from poorer backgrounds - students who are unlikely to have access to the bank of mum and dad and thus will be stuck renting (see above). 

back page. katie morley (your consumer champion) investigates a couple who were arrested by the police in front of their children because they hadn't been absolutely careful about dealing with inheritances. 

here's a story from an earlier point in the cycle.

'last month, we cheered when my daughter became eligible for 15 hours’ free childcare, and this week her nursery’s fees increased by almost the exact amount of money we would have saved...' - séamas o’reilly, the observer, 13th october 2024, the thing about parenting is that it is, basically, financially ruinous. 

can you see the pattern?

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it's a grey and rainy monday morning. horsemouth has just been out to feed the hens. he thinks he glimpsed a rat tail in the woodshed. last night some carrots and the last of the runner beans for dinner. there's some sprouts in the garden horsemouth is speculating if they will grow enough to be worth eating for christmas dinner. leeks also. 

next week horsemouth is due to be up in town. 

 

get three coffins ready (ten nails in the coffin of rock)

'horsemouth has been out and fed the chickens. in a bit he will have to go and unlock the abbey. 

ok an entirely written in the morning blogpost. wait. let him go get another cup of coffee.' 

the bones of horsemouth's mornings are roughly the same. 

horsemouth has posted a link to andy edwards ten nails in the coffin of rock. like rick beato's stuff this is an account of the death of a musical form from the inside by jobbing musicians who were there.

in some ways what horsemouth finds most interesting in derek bailey and the story of free improvisation is his account of being a jobbing dance band musician.  

horsemouth admits it. there was a time when he thought he was good enough to make it as a musician but in the end he had to admit that he wasn't and go and get a day job.  this cause him to think about what he had been engaged in - what had motivated him for the first half of his life.  in many ways what horsemouth wrote on music was similarly inspired by the technological changes that were altering the musical commodity. 

ok today nothing nothing nothing. his reading of on photography goes well. 

back in 2017 horsemouth was off to play max's closing night for his mirkwood exhibition and it's pharoah sanders' birthday (he would have been 84 today). 

ashram sun (to the tune of black hole sun)

horsemouth was having a dream about being in flat with matthew and anya. he was holding forth about rock vocalisations. this led him to the use of non-words in the teaching of phonics.

yesterday beautiful clear blue skies. planes high up. sunshine. 

this morning - grey and lowish cloud. 

'photographs furnish evidence. starting with their use by the paris police in the murderous round up of the communards...'  - susan sontag, on photography.

but we have all this to come. we are still in october 1870 with the prussian siege. edmond de goncourt has got his meat ration card (10th october). in clyro kilvert is aware of the siege and keeps an eye on the newspapers.

horsemouth has been out and fed the chickens. in a bit he will have to go and unlock the abbey. 

ok an entirely written in the morning blogpost. wait. let him go get another cup of coffee.  

footage has emerged of  terry ollis era hawkwind playing the roundhouse as part of the atomic sunrise festival (9-15th march 1970). they are showing the film of it (together with footage of early genesis and david bowie). 

elsewhere the keyboard player from alice coltrane's worship ensemble has brought out an album  horsemouth likes what he has heard of it. he hears ashram sun to the tune of black hole sun. 

a bit of excitement. horsemouth and his mum spotted a deer in the top field moving cautiously up the hedgeline.

 

on photography (book as prop)

outside a frost. inside nice and toasty due to the wonderful application of central heating. the sun shines into horsemouth's eyes from across the valley. 

today an entirely written in the morning blogpost (you lucky lucky people). 

last night bellringing followed by a solitary pint (people had things to do in the morning).

last night the aurora borealis but horsemouth was too busy with the world of humans to notice. 

the niece of one of the bellringers showed up to practice with a copy of susan sontag's on photography. now it has been a long time since horsemouth has read this (and she had only got as far as the diane arbus section america through photographs, darkly). the book itself had seen batter days - it had been shoved in the bottom of a canvas bag that had been accidentally left in a  puddle. 

horsemouth took it as an opportunity for conversation. horsemouth actually has a copy of it here. (found it!) he should get on with reading it. 

some photos have surfaced of horsemouth in howard's back garden the day after the gig at waterintobeer (thanks martin). 

we are talking august 25th (something like that). howard had the don and moki cherry book organic music societies (horsemouth is pictured reading it here). horsemouth should have borrowed it as proposed.

as horsemouth remembers it there are more photos of him using the book as a prop and getting it photographed against more of the flora in howard's garden. (book as prop). he will try to get hold of these. 

he has asked. these photos are on the physical film in the film camera on the table that has not yet been developed. 

and so he will have to wait. 

ok today (a friday) horsemouth has no particular plans - oh shit he's got to go and open up the abbey (back in a bit).

'no one has ever died from contradictions'

tory MPs have voted for kemi badenoch and robert jenrick to proceed into the final round of the conservative leadership contest.

james cleverly has been knocked out of race.

conservative party members will now vote on which of the final two will become their leader.

120 tory MPs took part, here's the breakdown of the vote:

42 for badenoch

41 for jenrick

37 for cleverly

whomsoever they select may not last until the next election anyway.

in theory the members favour kemi. whether they will actually deliver on this is another matter. 

so concludes yesterday's business and horsemouth moves on to a wholly written in the morning blogpost. 

'no one has ever died from contradictions. and the more it breaks down, the more it schizophrenizes, the better it works...”

― gilles deleuze, anti-oedipus: capitalism and schizophrenia

horsemouth has found a pull-quote from his various youtube watchings (in this case a video 'explaining' the renegade nick land and accelerationism). horsemouth has slogged his way across a thousand plateaus (he took it on a camping holiday to the czech republic) but that was a long time ago. 

horsemouth's youtube recommendeds is filling up with the whole sick crew of modern racists (they have a conference, they have a magazine, the guest spot on each other's shows).

horsemouth's friend from the states has arrived and is pootling around london (horsemouth himself is stuck out in the wilds). hopefully horsemouth has timed it ok so that they will actually meet up when his friend returns to the wen from his progress round the country.  

oops that's just reminded him he must be away up the abbey (and then back to bring the bin back up the drive). 

'moderate - in today's conservative party, is a synonym for doomed.'

round three (as selected by the tory MPs).

clever trevor 39 

robert jokerman 31 

kemi bad enoch 30  

little tommy tugenhadt 20 

more carnage tomorrow!

when we are down to 2 it goes to the tory party members (who are madder than a box of frogs). 

'moderate - in today's conservative party, is a synonym for doomed.'  yet it may not be. cleverley may well do well out of pretending to be moderate. horsemouth is thinking clever trevor versus robert jokerman for the final.  

oh dear horsemouth had a meltdown yesterday. he dislikes having more than one thing on his plate at any given time (not literally you understand, but metaphorically). if his insisting on doing it his way had worked he would be hailing it as a victory but instead he went down to defeat (so he has to recognise it as a meltdown). 

and it's the morning. horsemouth has his coffee.  it doesn't look that good outside (but hey at least it's not raining). ok probably a frost tomorrow morning ot the day after. good news! it looks like there's progress with the reports on retrofitting the houses of the communal endeavout up to EPC C standard. 

of late horsemouth has been listening to a lot of right wingers on his youtube (he won't name them he's not in to dishing out free advertising for racist trash). he continues to find the coming storm (over at R4) very useful. 

october is a kafka free month (at least from the brod edited kafka of 1915). tomorrow meat rationing is imposed in goncourt's besieged paris of 1870. on that day in clyro an acrimonious farmers' dance after a market where nothing has sold.  

'I shall speak straight out (because life is brief)'

'when anything of interest happens within or around me I make a mental note to tell you about it' - sinyavsky in a letter to his wife from prison, 1965.

title quote is sinyasky also (but re-punctuated in a horsemouth style). 

'we do not wrote a phrase - it writes itself, and all we do is to clarify, as far as we are able, the accumulated meaning concealed within it.' - - sinyavsky in a letter to his wife from prison, 1966.

horsemouth has been reading a voice from the chorus  by abram tertz/ andrei sinyavsky in preparation for the anniversary of sinyavsky's birth on october 8th (next your is his centenary). this book is compiled  from the letters he sent to his wife from prison. two a month for the 6 years of his sentence. after his release on 9th june 1971 he collected them into a book.

'because of the strict censorship control over what sinyavsky could and could not write in these letters, his references to camp life and to conditions there are of necessity subtly oblique. more open is the revelation of the inner world of the author's thoughts and reflections...'  - from the quartet encounters description of the book. 

it is a very rich sauce. horsemouth finds he is reading less and less and the sinyavsky suits this (in this it is perhaps even better than rousseau's reveries of a solitary walker or carlo levi's christ stopped at eboli).  

hail sinyavsky!

'housebuilders say that homes previously agreed to be built as affordable housing, under what are known as section 106 contracts, could be allowed for sale on the open market.' 

the argument is that the housing associations are too poor to buy the housing built for them as section 106 and that this should be sold on the ordinary market with the funds generated going to build more housing. the main result of this would be to help the government get closer to its total target for building new housing  but reduce the proportion that is social housing (or even 'affordable housing'). 

the government can then pick up the tab for housing the people not housed in these section 106 flats as housing benefit later on and the housebuilders can make increased profits. 

horsemouth forsees bigger profits for the housebuilders kerching! result!

it's a pretty good morning out there. horsemouth has fed the chickens and taken the milk over to the garage. in a bit he goes to open up the abbey.  

this is the voice of YOUTUBE (we know that you can hear us)

so who does horsemouth listen to on youtube? 

andy edwards - a somewhat over-excitable brummie drummer (and drum teacher) and, more recently, youtuber. horsemouth is mostly there for the prog and jazz funk but andy has a side order of theorising about music, musicians, and the new economic conditions musicians  find themselves in that horsemouth finds really interesting. though, to be fair, some of his political analyses are just rubbish (opines horsemouth).  so it's not an unqualified seal of approval. 

rick beato - horsemouth is less interested in the interviews with the great and good of music that with rick's theorising about what has gone wrong with music. similar to andy edwards above (or perhaps the other way round) the music industry chewed him up and spat him out but now he makes his money out of youtube. 

outlaw bookseller you know. a pontypridd boy reviewing SF and living in bath. he also goes for walks (those are pretty good too).

bookpilled is similar but younger. he also does a clothing reselling advice page and occasional travel and autobiographical content. 

to some extent as you listen to people you become embroiled in the web and weft of their life story. 

ok horsemouth will carry on with this another time. he will add to the list.  

here's a great radio 4 documentary - annie briggs interviewed first by the serpentine and then up in scotland. a meeting by the serpentine/ a memory of the erewash. 

horsemouth has been reading a voice from the chorus  by abram tertz/ andrei sinyavsky in preparation for the anniversary of sinyavsky's birth on october 8th.

in a bit horsemouth will peg it out of the door and go and open up the abbey. it's an average-ish morning (for the time of year). 

yesterday a walk back from the forge filling station

this is not an entirely written in the morning blogspot - horsemouth still has some material from yesterday he is unwilling to chuck away just yet. 

horsemouth has been watching zodiac (1976) - a whodunnit solved with astrology, character actors galore type series. detective and astrologer solve crimes by means of personality profiling. 

yesterday a walk back from the forge filling station 

horsemouth keeps calling it a garage and people keep correcting him. it was a sunnyish day so it was a beautiful walk (something just north of four miles all told).  on the bus on the way up a gaggle of women intent on a day out in hereford. 

in the evening a zoom beer with howard - howard was in the pub diarising when horsemouth first messaged him.  

howard was in the big empty pub on the corner rather than the pub with pizza.  

he is reading love's work by gillian rose (in the penguin modern classics edition), horsemouth used to have it in the blue vintage publishing hardback edition.

horsemouth should really get on with plotting his insulation of the world (or at least the houses of the communal endeavour). the form itself does not go live until 30th october but there is a pdf guide to it online. horsemouth supposes there is the work that can be agreed upon and done that does not affect the bid and then there is the work the government will part pay (should the bid be successful)  for to be conducted over the next 3 years or so. 

horsemouth could do with understanding the finances of the communal endeavour better over the next few years - there's the money to match fund what the government are offering already but will that be enough (of itself) to get all the works necessary done?  

outside it is rainy and rubbish (in fact it's not particularly good all week). should it stop raining at any point horsemouth will attempt to get out for a walk. he has a plan to be back up in town towards the 20th. 

this is the voice of the BBC

'when the night shows

the signals grow on radios

all the strange things

they come and go, as early warnings...'  

- peter gabriel, here comes the flood. 

horsemouth has just deleted the little he had saved from yesterday so that he can give you an entirely written in the morning blogpost. 

he will however re-use a portion of a comment he made on a friend's facebook post and this will help him to tell you about horsemouth's relationship with radio 4 (and the news media in general). 

really  horsemouth only does the the the newses - 0530 news briefing, 1200 news summary 1300 world at one (or equivalent - there is thus always a major whole in his saturday).  he simply can't do 0700 today he can't deal with people arguing away about bollocks early in the morning (it's just an unpleasant sound). 

by 1800 he's on youtube so he doesn't listen to the R4 news then. he will watch the 2200 ten o'clock news on tv with his mum, the news and the weather and then off to bed skipping the regional news (sad to say). 

he often turns off the world at one (and never listen to question time) because he simply can't stand the dismal level to which political lying has fallen (and who are these entitled cunts anyway?).

do they think they're better than us? asked the angry young man in the pub - well on £82k a year (and a side order of public service)  horsemouth guesses they do. if horsemouth were on £82k for a part time job he would feel very pleased with himself. 

horsemouth further supposes that it's a representative democracy - they are supposed to think more deeply about the issue and thus vote in a more thoughtful way than their electors (and should the people not like it they can always vote them out at the next election (goes the theory)). 

they work for us goes the angry young man at the pub - yes but not in any way that the contract in enforceable, they are not our delegates, recallable, up for reselection every year. 

sorry horsemouth has gone off-piste onto the muddy fields of political representation, 

back to radio 4. 

money box (on the other hand) always sounds eminently sensible to him (if a little depressing). 

the explicit coverage of uk politics he also finds infuriating - under the tories he just found nick robinson etc. egregiously chummy with the utterly fecking useless ruling class. laura K on the other hand he just thinks of as comedy (kind of like spinal tap), a clear case of a fox running with the hounds and doing plenty of barking. 

doubtless the political commentators will find it easier to attain the correct critical distance under labour (but he has not bothered to check yet and if he did he doubts it would please him any better). 

horsemouth is a fan of radio 4's coverage of US politics because he finds americans invariably smart and helpful (if a little mad). thinking aloud (sociologists telling you the bleedin' obvious) horsemouth will also often tarry with. 

he doesn't listen to the comedy much (but then he doesn't watch much comedy either). 

horsemouth also does a side order of radio 3

not late junction and all the other music as might be expected but the essay and anything talky. 

really horsemouth is more likely to watch videos on youtube or read articles on wikipedia. 

he watches a lot of novara media but to be honest he also often turns this off (or finds himself opening up another window and watching something else). the core team can all argue and are good on their feet but the political world is intractable. true they don't tend to get on the lying bastards but instead they get on the well-meaning, there's a distinct absence of angry young men  from the pub and their inconvenient opinions. 

today horsemouth goes up to the forge to pick up the newspapers and a few loaves of bread. 

two fragments (hannah arendt) postcards

'today  I sent my first postcards... they are capital things, simple , useful and handy. a happy invention.' - kilvert's diaries, 4th october 1870.

hannah arendt's poetry has been discovered, translated and will soon be published. she said in an interview that she knew a lot of german poetry. still it is a shock to realise she wrote it also. 

'this was the farewell/ many friends came with us/ and whoever did not come was no longer a friend.'  - untitled, hannah arendt, september 1947.

'gentle whispering melodies/ sound from the darkness/ we listen so that we can let go.'  - 'W.B' (1942).

it's a bandcamp friday horsemouth is recommending alula down once again (because they're great).

however the main album he will be recommending to you is lou's album and it doesn't even seem to be on bandcamp. 

and now a matter of great interest to communal endeavour members

so the CPI for september is released october 16th this forms the basis of maximum permitted rent rise of CPI +1% applied by most housing organisations in april but not applied by the communal endeavour until june (because of the need to vote on the rent rise and other various historical reasons). 

for august 2024 the CPI was 3.1%. so the likely rent rise next year would be about  4.1%.  the members are free to reject the rent rise (of course) but then it's not clear where the money would come from to do the things the communal endeavour needs to do.

tragedy. last night no bell-ringing for horsemouth (his lift was ill). the week before curtailed drinking. tomorrow and saturday the weather looks decent.  however this morning his mum has a lift into the nearby village and back (horsemouth is going to try not to go). 

here it's a foggy morning. the stuff in the garden looks ok so presumably no serious frosts yet. 

his mum and himself were up picking apples in the top field yesterday (there are some pears too). all the plums and damsons are in. 

stop that pigeon!

'how odd, all the news and letters we get from paris now coming by balloons and carrier pigeons...' - kilvert's diary, 3rd october 1870. 

it's 1870. paris is besieged by the germans.

'paris has never known an october like this. the clear, starry nights are like nights in the south of france . god loves the prussians.' - edmond de goncourt, the goncourt journals, 3rd october 1870..

horsemouth was raised on stop that pigeon where dick dastardly and mutley went after wacky races. the theme music was based on early jazz tune  tiger rag. the weather will not hold. it will be a very harsh winter for the besieged parisians.

this morning a bright sunny morning but cold. 

and on the subject of cold   

- how is the plan to insulate the properties of the communal endeavour going? 

horsemouth has started doing the reading on the warm homes: social housing fund wave 3.

if the communal endeavour bid for this and are successful in their bid this would pay roughly £7,500 of the cost of retrofitting each of the endeavour's 11  EPC D properties to EPC C and one EPC E property to as near to EPC C as can be achieved within the funding constraints. one endeavour property at EPC C already could perhaps be billed for on an infill basis. 

this would be of great assistance in meeting the government's 2030 deadline for the retrofit of all social housing  to an EPC C standard. 

where as previous waves required a minimum number of properties (100), and a consortium to be formed to provide that minimum number of properties, wave 3 does not require this. there is no minimum number of properties and Co-ops not in a consortium can apply. 

this fund opened for applications in the week beginning 30th september 2024 and will close at midday on 25th november 2024. this is a tight timescale but the endeavour has already done a lot of the work before for our wave 2.2 bid. 

successful projects will be notified 'early in 2025' (which probably means march if last time was anything to go by). all grant funding must be spent by 31st march 2028. 

the best route forward would  be to consult with the various people then circulate this email round the communal endeavour aiming to get their permission to go ahead soon.  this scheme can not be used to pay for boiler replacement (probably the quickest and most efficient route for raising house energy performance) but (as far as horsemouth understands it) as long as the endeavour pay for it themselves there is nothing to stop them from doing on their own. 

'waves of steel hurled metal at the sky'

here's the interesting thing. 

horsemouth is not improved. is just as tetchy today as he was yesterday. 

horsemouth is of a very simple opinion - if people want something done in a particular fashion then they should do it themselves. 

ah the sun has just come out (he may go for another walk). 

horsemouth and his mum are on abbey duty next week

tbh the weather is looking a bit rubbish. 

horsemouth likes duty and he likes structure and he's capable of getting up in the mornings and doing things almost immediately. for example most mornings he lets the chickens out and feeds them before he has had a cup of coffee (and indeed in the summer it was the same with watering the garden or taking the milk to the fridge in the garage).  

delivering eggs or taking the rubbish/ recycling bins down the drive (and then back up the next day), tasks for later in the day, horsemouth is good with all of these. 

horsemouth is thinking about being in london from the 18th to the 25th. a friend is over visiting. 

later today a presentation by michelle coltrane and brandee younger about alice coltrane's life and work at the university of michigan.  the department has a youtube channel so perhaps  the talk or perhaps the michelle coltrane/ brandee younger gig on the 4th will be on it. 

tory leadership contest 

there's a new yougov poll from 29/09 

jenrick's pull with conservative party membership is  improving (well he did call his daughter thatcher). if it's jenrick/ badenoch then the vote is likely to be 

jenrick   48% 

badenoch 52% 

otherwise against all the other candidates  jenrick wins. 

(of the 802 tories in the sample only 634 would say so still more wriggle room than the media are presenting it as).

meanwhile... war in the east

this tune seems to suit the times very well. 'waves of steel hurled metal at the sky'

elsewhere horsemouth watched an interview with paul kingsnorth, a 'collapsitarian', a 'doomster'. so what does global warming do? it collapses the empire that is world capitalism. the problem is that while we have seen empires collapse before we have never seen a world empire collapse. 

and empires collapse slowly, they do not fall over night. people live generations within them. 

now horsemouth agrees that we are on kubler-ross strasse with global warming, moving down grief street, we are at bargaining and denial, of course solar panels and smart energy systems will keep the lights on and save us, well save some of us, for a while.  on the other hand there could be a collapse but not sufficiently far to allow a new world to be born. 

(watching kingsnorth should not be interpreted as agreeing with all his positions). 

top of the page one of howard's golden glows (from this date in 2016).

postcards from octoberon (mistakes napoleon made)

 october the 1st through history

'a heavy cold white mist, very raw and chilly... at the vicarage I saw one of the first 'post cards' that have been sent. it was from lilian to mrs. venables, very bright and cheery...' (the reverend kilvert, possibly 2nd october 1870, or possibly the monday is misdated). 

soon (october 4th) kilvert will send his first postcard and pronounce it  'a happy invention'. 

october 1st 1915 kafka writes four pages on the mistakes napoleon made (particularly in his russian campaign). these writings show evidence of considerable study. perhaps kafka is obliquely commenting on politics and history, perhaps not.  

horsemouth is writing this on a monday afternoon. 

he's feeling a bit odd and tetchy waiting for the first of october (then all the calendars can be turned over). the countryfile calendar for october is a squirrel in close up. 

'the UK’s summer was the coolest since 2015, according to the met office, but would have been considered warmer than average during 1961 to 1990. and although wet weather ruined many summer holidays, rainfall was actually 5% below average.'

tomorrow the increase in energy charges for october to december hit (roughly a 10% increase). it bites again in january when there are likely to be further increases. the standing charges for both gas and electricity have also gone up as charges per kwh have fallen from their peak (and then gone back up again). per kwh of energy gas is still a third to a quarter of the price of electricity - for this reason people would be much better off using the gas central heating to heat their houses. he suspects that most members of the communal endeavour skimp on heating their houses either because they cannot afford it or because they cannot get the agreement of recalcitrant housemates to pay their fair share of the heating cost. 

the leaves have started to come off the trees and are spiralling down. 

it is the morning

it is rainy and grey. 

as usual it is difficult to know what to do with the wider world or even uk politics. as usual horsemouth take refuge in the small and the local. but the small and the local contains within it the attitudes that alibi the evil that goes on in the wider world. over the timescale of rocks human history and human conflict is very small. even as we see the marks of the industrial revolution  and of its ending in the closing of coal fired power stations and blast furnaces. horsemouth tends to view human history as carnage but it a blink of the eye in terms of the giant world wide system of climate and nature