'our revels now are ended'

'it is my design to recount the singular adventures of my life. some of them have been strange and some beautiful. in bringing them back to memory it is doubtful whether I have not dreamt them.' 

- anatole france, at the sign of the reine pédauque. 

the last ever points of view

howard jacobson presents it. he talks about notebooks/ essays/ a voice (broadcast).

did he know? did he know it was going to be the last?

the title? 'our revels now are ended' 

that gavin barwell is on the radio talking about the house building targets. horsemouth has just turned it off in disgust.

(but he will have to listen to it again in a minute).  

like any of the housing ministers from that era (pickles the unfunny clown for example) he's the real murderer of the 72 dead of grenfell - on his watch the failure to learn the lessons of the lakanal house fire and implement the necessary changes was continued. 

horsemouth is in favour of building more housing but it is only in part a shortage of housing problem, it is in many more ways an affordability problem, a problem of low wages and low benefits, a problem of multiple poverties. 

ok let's try barwell again. 

barwell knows all this. 

he's making sense (ah. he's a  non-executive director of clarion, the largest housing association in the country). his talking about getting rent certainty for housing associations (following on from michael gove's 5% plus inflation effective reduction in real terms in HA rents (and thus HA incomes). barwell says this was during the cost of living crisis but really gove's aim was to lower the housing benefit bill. 

to horsemouth barwell always looks like those oriental masks from brazil by terry gilliam. 

'our revels now are ended. these our actors,

as I foretold you, were all spirits and

are melted into air, into thin air;

and, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

the cloud-capped tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,

the solemn temples, the great globe itself,

yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

and, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

leave not a rack behind...'