'our civilisation is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness' - werner herzog
so horsemouth learned from a nosferatu video (and so it seems to horsemouth).
we are heading into interesting times once again (gawdeplus).
gaza. ukraine. yemen. sudan. syria (soon again, probably). these are our starting points.
but on top of the thin layer of ice someone has added a clownshow. for from the 20th of january we will be entering trumpworld.
'the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters...' but this is not gramsci, it's a zizekian reformulation.
the gramsci is this; ‘
the crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear'. even symptoms may not be exactly right, the italian says fenomeni morbosi. there is much debate about what situation gramsci was talking about (for he cannot have been talking about ours).
it is a red sky in the morning kind of dawn over the frozen fields. today a journey to the forge in search of the newspaper.
horsemouth would like more retrofit right reports. at the moment he doesn't have all the reports for all the houses and the communal endeavour fast approaches.
it's the anniversary of its showing. (horsemouth believes) the music is by jeremy barlow - horsemouth thinks it is this one (seems likely).
trains between worcester and hereford will not run between january 26 and january 31 while engineering works are carried out. look at this shit! only 4 railway stations in herefordshire and the hereford-colwall-worcester line out of action for 6 days (and almost certainly more).
to be replaced by the irredeemably slow replacement bus
this is horsemouth's happy face.
next week horsemouth is on abbey duty (that'll cheer him up he likes to feel useful).
horsemouth has his coffee. he has fed and unleashed the chickens. he has taken the milk over to the fridge in the garage. remind him to keep the bird feeder full.
there seems a lot less birdlife around at the moment.
this sunday in 1871 edmond de goncourt will be off for a tour of the neighbourhoods of paris that have been shelled by the germans. auteuil is no longer part of paris. the trains no longer stop there. the same day kilvert is up in london visiting.
but that is not today. today is a 'gap in the diaries' kind of day.
above a song from christ stopped at eboli one of horsemouth's favourrite books and one of his favourite films also. it is maara ca pittia caco luppina, a traditional folk song sung by the sicilian actress and director muzzi loffredo, from her 1976 album tu ti nni futti (god she's got a great voice). she appears very briefly in the movie (as the policeman's lover).
there's also a great getting-in-the-harvest song if horsemouth's memors serves.
'... keir starmer says he will back “the builders not the blockers”, implying that supply will fix affordability. that would need developers to increase it to the point where they had to drop prices and then keep building – and incurring losses – while prices continued to fall. obviously they won’t do it. it is deeply concerning that starmer and angela rayner don’t acknowledge that...' - guardian letters.
this seems pretty smart to horsemouth (and pretty much correct) - if the sale price of housing goes down then either the profits for the house-builder have to go down or the wages of the employees (as the major expense) have to go down. it's not that the major house-building companies would go immediately into loss. the real question given this market dynamic is how much higher house prices can go before they become unaffordable to those with the money already even with the artificial scarcity? how high do they have to go to become a risky investment?
horsemouth just added a note in defence of john fahey on his substack. it rehashes various arguments he first made four or so years ago when the american primitive revival was in full swing. there is a lot more to say about the curmudgeon.
it's a cold morning. horsemouth was actually cold during the night. but now he has fed the chickens and has his coffee all is looking better with the world. in a bit he will go out and check if the bin has been emptied.
we are far from the blue nights around the summer solstice. we are in the far north and only just moving away from the winter solstice. soon we will have 8 hours of daylight (lucky us).
on tuesday horsemouth added one piece to substack (on the fall of the house of fitzgerald) and one piece to goodreads (on a hovel in the hills). both of course deal with housing in same way, with horsemouth's reasons for being in the wen. the tension between town and countryside.
he looked at such retrofit reports as are available. there's the odd typo (but nothing too fatal). there's the odd infelicitous phrase or thinly written copy.
really what he wants to is to have all the reports so he can judge the scale of the whole thing - not just the phases one and two to take the houses to a (low) EPC C (50% of it paid for with government money if luck is with them) but the phases three and four taking it all the way to full decarbonisation. the cost of this is not spread across the two or three years of the government programme but across the next ten or twenty years dependent upon the communal endeavour's ability to turn a surplus to pay for it.
in truth horsemouth's 'mission' (should he decide to accept it) is just to see the EPC C scheme up and running (beyond that the future's not ours to see).
today horsemouth takes the waste bins down the drive. delivers some eggs to the crossroads, and he attempts to work out why the phone seems to be off but the broadband is still working (phew).
ok he's plugged the phone cable into the phone socket on the back of the router and now it seems to work (wtf?).
horsemouth likes bea nettles' mountain dream tarot - you can see why, there's that mix of photography and enactment. she was inspired by waite's the pictorial key to the tarot. the book horsemouth originally wanted to find was meditations on the tarot.
'the sufferings of paris during the siege? a joke for two months. in the third month the joke went sour. now nobody finds it funny any more, and we a re moving fast towards starvation...' - edmond de goncourt, on this day in 1871
tuesday there's the taking the milk delivery over to the fridge in the garage. (remind him he tends to forget).
monday
horsemouth debated going into town but he didn't seen the bus go past and wouldn't want to be stuck in town or walking back (if that were possible).
there was a plan to photocopy something for a renewal letter. but the photocopier/ printer hasn't worked in a while. horsemouth now remembers there was an abortive mission to find a photocopier locally but the nearest one was at locke's garage. however that didn't stop him from being trapped in tech-support hell explaining the scanner/printer/ photocopier without ink for a full half hour.
and the day didn't get any better thereafter. there was the letter that needed to be sent but no envelopes and stamps could be found. off goes muggins to the village to get the stamps and envelopes but when he gets back it is decided that he needs to go back to the village to post the letter now that it is completed rather than say er. buy an envelope and stamps and complete it then and there there and just pop it in the post box.
hopefully that's the last we've heard of it (but horsemouth is not convinced he thinks it is bad gear it will be back).
ah well even if that is the case it is at least temporarily solved (and that will do for now).
it is tuesday and the week deepens. the good news is that the reports on getting the houses up to an EPC C and beyond have arrived. or at least some of them have arrived and the others are coming. on the 20th there's a mancom hopefully they can get these approved and off ruond the members in the houses.
last night a good book video by michael martin including one book by a russian orthodox cleric who helped design their national grid system pre-war (the pillar and ground of the truth by pavel florensky).
'... the world, this vast system of contradictions, holds all forms of decay in great esteem...' - baudelaire, intimate journals, as translated by christopher isherwood.
monday the week begins
what sense will horsemouth make of the week?
it said rain for sunday but then down to -4C, -5C overnight (brrrr.) tuesday, wednesday, thursday, snow again friday and saturday. if the snow sticks (or the drive freezes over) horsemouth will have to think about the milk deliveries (tuesday, friday), the post/ junk mail delivery (possibly any day) and the bins.
at the moment it looks like the great thaw has removed the snow. now to see if it will rain again and freeze.
horsemouth thinks he has problems. back in the paris of 1871 on this day edmond de goncourt really had problems.
'the shells have begun falling in the rue boileau and the rue de la fontaine. tomorrow, no doubt, they will be falling here; and even if they do not kill me they will destroy everything I still love in life, my house, my knick-knacks, my books...'
horsemouth is showing you his 6th march 2016 golden glow mix (his first) because it's the 6th of the month and he's trying to extend out his winter solstice garland of tracks. the photo was taken by john fromporto at no.1 the thames (shortly before he headed off to porto).
are you ready for the kick off of the trump presidency? 20th jan
the sometime musician of bremen on coffee, getting bored, tv, and when he finds the time to write his amazing blogposts. (this being a parody of a column in the telegraph magazine).
6am horsemouth is asleep. it's winter. it's dark. he sees no point in being up. when he worked he would often be up at these hideous times of the day (and then be travelling across the wen fuelled only by coffee) but now that he doesn't have to he doesn't have to, and so he doesn't. he's not one of those hard-working celebrities you read about.
8am it's light. this is more typically when horsemouth will be up now (because there is daylight). he gets up. gets dressed. goes downstairs with his coffee cup. as the kettle boils he opens the curtains. then he makes coffee in the cafetiere. as it brews he puts on his coat and takes the slops out to the chickens. having filled their bowl he fills two small bowls with the chicken feed and lets the chickens out and fills their troughs in the chicken shed with the feed. he checks for eggs and makes sure they have water and then returns to the house.
in the summer he will water the garden and the various flowerpots and he will be up earlier (more like 7am).
sometime around 9am his mum is up and she puts out the breakfast things and cooks breakfast (usually toast and porridge on a weekday, a boiled egg at the weekend). horsemouth will have opened up the laptop and finished off his blogpost. any photos he posts usually do much better than anything he writes (and yet still he writes).
after breakfast he turns to tea and finishes off his administrations. if there's time he will listen to the radio 4 news briefing and look at the grauniad (society and business mostly - horsemouth is interested in housing and net zero). he'll check his email (to see if there's any communal endeavour stuff to get on with), ft.com, maybe the LRB or NLR.
at some point he will get boredwith himself and either go outside to find a job to do or go for a walk.
11am weekdays a walk on the common or constructive task outside.
saturday (of late) usually a trip to the forge filling station to get the newspapers, two loaves of bread and sundry items. today it was a trip to the forge. bus to pontrilas, bus to wormbridge and then a 4 mile walk back.
today one of the sundry items was a bag of kindling wood.
he will sometimes skip this if the weather is too bad and delay it to monday. really if his mum is no longer going to be driving they should shift the paper order to the village shop in ewyas harold - an altogether shorter walk.
he has some fencing he should be getting on with.
1pm radio 4 news, FT.com something like that taken with a small pot of tea and two cheese sandwiches. thereafter this saturday his mum had a visitor so horsemouth hid upstairs not wanting to make small talk.
4pm it's dark. horsemouth starts farting about watching youtube.
this is typically when horsemouth writes his blog posts.
thereafter it's a solid diet of youtube a different bias or andy edwards (usually either music or politics - or some strange and unlikely combination of the two, but sometimes films or tv shows of yesteryear).
this saturday he watched an alan plater play set in victoria park and chrisp street market featuring dennis waterman, jan francis and the mike westbrook brass band.
most saturdays he will have an arrangement with howard for zoom beers. they will drink a bottle of beer or two while discussing cultural production and bickering amiably. (but not this saturday).
at some point horsemouth will nip out to the chicken sheds to lock up and feed the chickens (bringing in any eggs he may find).
7pm his mum yells for dinner. once again his mum almost always cooks (horsemouth should really cook more and similarly he should make sure he does more of the washing up and putting away). horsemouth is a lazy lacto-vegetarian, this saturday his mum had cooked a quiche.
9pm if there's something on tv horsemouth will watch it with his mum. it's usually a crime/ detective thing with a vaguely improving message (but not this saturday).
10pm if there's nothing on then horsemouth will watch the news with his mum. she may stay up and watch the football after but horsemouth will watch up until the weather and then say goodnight and go to bed.
see look what you've made him do. he's only just noticed the time and he has missed the news.
then he's up to bed, turns off the laptop and starts to read. if he finds anything interesting he makes a note of it in his notebook. he will check this in the morning for useful quotes from the various diaries he is reading (in their various time lines - it's 1871 and things are hotting up for edmond de goncourt).
11pm but pretty soon he's asleep.
he sleeps like a log (usually).
the days of the week
saturdays you (now) know.
sundays are pretty similar. here in the wilds it has snowed so he doubts there will be much he can get on with.
mondays the week begins.
tuesdays there's the taking the milk delivery over to the fridge in the garage.
wednesdays there's the taking the eggs down to the crossroads and taking the bins down the drive.
thursdays there's bringing the bins back up the drive. thursday evening horsemouth goes off to the bell-ringing (and there is more often than not beer after)
fridays there's the taking the milk delivery over to the fridge in the garage.
mid january and again in mid april horsemouth and his mum will be opening up the abbey in the morning and closing it down in the evening for a week. ok seeing as it is dark and wintery at the moment horsemouth will probably be doing this on his own.
this morning snow. the chickens are unsure about what to do with it and are sticking close to the sheds. his mum has taken one look and is back to bed. he can see the tracks where the cat has been.
'at 8pm. I went out on the terrace. there was a keen clear frost and the moon was bright in the cloudless sky... children's voices seemed to be calling everywhere...' - kilvert on this day in 1871 (nothing now until the 12th).
'to fair haven on the ice partially covered with snow. the cracks in the ice showing a white cleavage. what is their law ? somewhat like foliage, but too rectangular...' - thoreau, 4th january 1852
kafka, ah but there is no kafka (that brod wants to tell us about) except in other years.
'I walked past places where I'd been happy or miserable or bored and all of them felt exalted because the world had been revealed as so frighteningly tenuous and unpredictable.' - olivia laing - a painting by giovanni di paolo, broadcast on this date in 2022 as part of the 'viewfinders: ways of seeing at 50' series.
more frost overnight. last night a zoom beer with howard. when horsemouth went out to feed the chickens he found a dead robin (alas poor beastie). the water in their bowls required the ice breaking on them. this morning he has seen another robin, a woodpecker, the jays are out.
today a journey up to the forge and back (assuming the bus is running).
bookpilled is back! (and rocking the gorpcore). today's books? the drought and crash.
interesting. looks like 2024 will be the 53 week year and 2025 the 52 week year (so we are still in the accounting year 2024).
this means that 2024 (a difficult year for the communal endeavour) gets an extra week's boost while 2025, looking like a good year, won't miss the extra week much.
horsemouth has the new RSPCA calendar up but he doesn't like the look of it much. (it's all bloody horses, horses...). hopefully there will be an abbey calendar soon.
he has marked out his and his mum's turn on the abbey rota (which comes round soon).
in the diary
friday (today when you read this) horsemouth hopes he can avoid a visit to ewyas harold (his mum is down for one next thursday and the thursday after by which time the weather looks cold but decent). instead he faces a womble up to the forge on saturday (when the weather looks disgusting - rain in the day, sleet in the evening).
in the diaries
kafka is out for the count until april- at least according to brod, meanwhile the siege of paris begins in earnest and edmond de goncourt will have something to say about it. kilvert will mention it in passing (for they are alive at the same time) and earlier on thoreau will continue to have his opinions.
horsemouth will republish his 6th march 2016 golden glow on the 6th january (er. and then again probably on the 6th march).
on the 12th january it is the anniversary of the death of alice coltrane. on the 16th january the anniversary of the broadcast of alan plater's land of green ginger (1973).
monday 20th january the communal endeavour meets (virtually). trump will be inaugurated. hopefully there will be progress on the EPC C thing by then. it will be the lunar new year and from the 29th the chinese new year also. it will be the year of the snake and the year of the dragon will be over.
at some point horsemouth will want to get in a visit to the wen (having missed his chance in november). he was surprised by how much he was actually up in the wen (knocking on two months worth) when he came to add it up.
it is the evening of the day before. in a bit horsemouth will go out and lock up the chickens.
it is the morning. horsemouth has won through against the paucity of actual material by listing things out. he's back from the bell-ringing. he has been out to unleash the chickens and feed them. there's a frost on the ground and standing water has frozen. remind him to fill up the bird-feeder.
'ten minutes before 12 o'clock again on the confines of a dying year, and thought runs backward over the 12 months past..'
the reverend william poole of hentland and hoarwithy sits alone and contemplates his works on 31st december 1858. this is from a diary horsemouth bought at the local abbey, another diary rescued from oblivion, the manuscript of it having been found in the amnesty international bookshop in york.
'we are close to the tipping point at which elections begin to lose legitimacy because the majority do not take part...
now when horsemouth was an anarchist this would have delighted him. it would have been proof that the people were too smart for the system of government. now he tends to see it as a problem, a symptom of the wider crisis of representation.
horsemouth would welcome automatic voter registration (it seems ridiculous to him that it is not in place now), similarly with scrapping the requirement to have ID in order to vote in an election (this recently introduced requirement he just regards as voter supression). extending the franchise to 16 he regards as politically dangerous as would be delaying it.
'the turnout gap between 18- to 24-year-olds and over-60s was 21 percentage points...'
that the old vote but the young do not. but the old need the young to show up to work to pay taxes to pay for their pensions.
and the youth are leaving (allegedly). the rewards for having accumulated student debt are just not here (in the uk). low salaries, high student debt repayments, high housing costs - it's all pretty hellish and horsemouth doubts the government's actual ability and willingness to deal with it.
oh dear. horsemouth's friend who is his regular lift to the bell-ringing has taken a tumble coming down off the common over christmas and fractured her leg. so that's the end of horsemouth's lift over for the next while. there's a chance her husband will come from work to pick him up for tonight and then horsemouth will ask around to try and sort out some lifts for future weeks.
horsemouth has been listening to the max ochs album (whose birthday it was yesterday (in 1940)). it is is brilliant.
and what will happen in 2020(5)?
in 2025 the decarbonisation of the communal endeavour will begin to happen. the target is a low EPC C for all the co-op owned houses (EPC C asap!). the assumption is that the ex-local authority flats in blocks owned by the communal endeavour are either an EPC C already (given the boiler upgrades they have received) or are near an EPC C and so will be relatively straightforward to get up to an EPC C standard by 2030 (the government's deadline).
horsemouth is contemplating giving up his room in a shared house in the wen. of course should he do this it will be difficult (if not impossible) to move back (hence his hesitation).
it's all about a balance of greed and opportunity - greed, he could save £8k a year if he doesn't have it, opportunity, if he did keep it when will he get the opportunity to visit it.
horsemouth should get on with some more recording and he should put out another CD - either of his historical offcuts or of new material. he should endeavour to play more gigs (the one a year of the post pandemic period is not sufficient). he should endeavour to learn more tunes.
he will endeavour to get some shelves built/ brought home so that he can store more of his stuff at his mum's.
he will endeavour to get up to hereford and hay and the wen more to get in more books.
so a 53 week year for accountancy purposes (we have established this).
friday 13ths in 2025? september and december.
saturday 1st february and march.
horsemouth expects politics to continue to be fucked (and to be essentially ununfuckable).
-----------------------
so here it is. the last few hours of 2024. and pfft! the year is gone. (at least he didn't get hideously drunk over christmas this time).
following on from 2023 horsemouth has mostly been hiding out in the wilds. there have (paradoxically) been more things holding him here than in the earlier phase (broadly since his birthday). horsemouth has returned to the wen for various flying visits totalling probably a month he guesses (but it's more like two).
(january 28th to february 6th, 1st march to 22nd march, 23rd to 26th april, 18th may to the start of june, 26th june til the 9th july 24th to the 27th of august, 19th october to 25th october, he was due to get away on the 18th of november for a week but sickness intervened).
he heard the fireworks (and then rolled over and went back to sleep).
