it should work out (we'll be ok)

forward to the tuesday (and thus the wednesday and the thursday)

horsemouth's plan (in as far as he does such things) is to travel up on the wednesday now rather than the tuesday. he was relying on his brother being able to come round with the car to load things into it again (like the previous time) but his brother is otherwise engaged tuesday evening. (so that plan is now a no go). 

now the plan is for horsemouth to travel up to the wen on the wednesday morning, sort out some stuff at his house,  travel up to highams park with a careful selection of materials and put it in his brother's car (before his brother's son drives  it up to hereford). (er. and then do a meeting of the communal endeavour).  

ah! but the weather is not looking good! (storms and shit!) 

ah well if he fails to do that at least he can get on with the packing. 

horsemouth should depart earlyish wednesday morning. his brother's son should arrive late-ish wednesday evening. it should work out. (we'll be ok).

there should be a TESCOs delivery weds 11am-12pm for his mum but horsemouth thinks the staff will be good. 

thursday horsemouth thinks he is over to howard's.  

friday saturday sunday run and play. 

the issue is when to come back

monday would probably suit horsemouth best (bus back to the door - if he's transporting more stuff back). 

horsemouth has been watching feuillade's les vampires (to go back to the early days of the french villains in gimp masks  trope). it is most enjoyable. irma vep makes an appearance. 

he's up. he's fed the chickens but the sky has clouded over. 

a general plan to do more cultural production

horsemouth is slightly over half way through the year. in solstice time we are on 7/12ths of the way through. 

how is his cultural consumption (and production) going?

gigs

in the first half of the year horsemouth only managed to go and see two gigs. in april - alula down in malvern and in may - soft white underbelly (aka. the blue oyster cult) up in the wen. 

he hopes to manage to go to see jazz jamaica at the anniversary of the anniversary of the release of babylon. 

that's a pretty poor showing. he would have managed the tapestry festival in southampton (but he bottled out). 

similarly no CDs or DVDs purchased. 

he played no gigs himself and undertook no recording. he practiced a few things. he brought back the 12 string to the wilds and has tried some things on that. 

he did listen to the the dave webb show on new river radio pretty religiously. 

films sorcerer, les nuits rouges,  amarcord (fellini), 

books

he reread milstone grit by glyn hughes (which is one of his favourite books he thinks). anais nin's journals volumes 2 and 3 likewise. human acts by han kang scored big with him. alberto manguel's  packing my library he found a bit dull truth be told, but both these last two were books he bought (during a trip to abergavenny) so that's all to the good. 

he bought far fewer books than he would normally do. he read fewer than usual (he suspects).  

he read lots of diaries (as usual) and posted about them, often in sync with the days, kilvert, the reverend william poole, kafka, edmond de goncourt, h.d. thoreau,  the book of disquiet by fernando pessoa (where it gives dates) etc. 

he didn't keep a physical diary himself  (particularly) but he did keep up this blog (with only the odd day off for hangover or sickness). he transferred some of his better prose over to substack in the hopes of enticing a better class of reader (but fundamentally he's against the whole idea of fine writing in the same way he's against the whole ide of fine dining).

he didn't write any letters. he has a plan to get into that.

as well as a general plan to do more cultural production 

yesterday he wandered into the village to buy some coffee. on his way in and back he passed the bell-ringers ringing for a church service. he paused to chat with sylvia and libby.  he has at least stuck with the bell-ringing and is beginning to see some progress (one year later). 

last night silver objects drifted out of sight pushed by a strong wind high up. later a rainbow (after the rain). 

he listened to a michelle coltrane gig from the hartford jazz festival (live streamed on youtube). she's about two hours in. the stuff when they let the harp player go (olivia tilley) is decent (paramahansa lake). the stuff with michelle and the two women from the ashram choir is decent. the band on their own are a bit  jazz fudge (but then they're young) - the blue nile was decent. the bassist lonnie plaxico is well regarded. 

he watched his friend zali's livestream from vienna. 

howard has bought some music by some russians - foresteppe. 

shimmy she wobble (anaïs)

horsemouth was listening to springtime in azalea city by john fahey. he thinks it could be a stranglers organ instrumental (it also reminds him of a rundown in time was by wishbone ash). 

fahey crops up on arhoolie records mississippi delta blues jam (together with bill barth) under assumed names (r.l. watson and josiah jones respectively). horsemouth probably knew this before but had forgotten. the shimmy she wobble track is on it too (but performed by different people again). 

outside the weather is changeable. horsemouth waits in for a zoom call from howard (when he could have gone out and gone for a walk). howard had not gone to southampton as planned. the did zoom beers as usual.

they discussed the political issues of the day, horsemouth's marrows, and the correct way to pronounce anaïs. 

earlier he was picking the last (nearly) of the gooseberries. hence he is (still) wearing trousers. 

ultimately the berry patch needs sorting out/ pruning back/ access routes cut into it. it is un-useable as it is. most of the fruit has been eaten by the birds or shaken to the ground. they had gooseberry pie for tea though (and it tasted good). 

he's also been out dead heading the sweetpeas (really you should dead head them in a pre-emptory fashion and display the flowers round your home).  it might be time to re-plan and rearrange the flowerpots round the house. 

he watched william freidkin's sorcerer (the one with the tangerine dream soundtrack). it takes a good 20 plus minutes to get to our south american hell-hole, horsemouth thinks this is a defect when compared to the h.g. clouzot original wages of fear. overall though he thinks it's worthy. he saw it on tv as a kid - and later he bought the record of the soundtrack.

he also listened to a R3 drama on the opening up of erik satie's flat after his death (one curiously mixed with jorge luis borges's the aleph). 

today (tomorrow when he writes this) a day with no literary diary references that horsemouth can spot in his usual sources. (except for kafka in 1916, for whom a small bird flies out of a chimney, and then flies away). 

in the night it has rained so horsemouth is excused watering again (except in the green house which he has done).  they seem to be out of ground coffee. horsemouth will have to check if the village shop is open (or do without). 

last night (well, this morning really) a hans bellmerish dream. 

'my night and moonlight walks'

'it requires considerable skill in crossing a country to avoid the houses and the cultivated parts...'

-  thoreau, a writer's journal, 19th june 1852. 

'I have not put darkness, duskiness, enough into my night and moonlight walks. every sentence should contain some twilight or night...'  -  thoreau, a writer's journal, 25th june 1852. 

a greyish day (the friday) which perhaps cleared up later.  allegedly rain over night and then from early sunday morning rain off-and-on until wednesday(!). 

horsemouth is at least spared watering the garden/ deprived of that pleasurable task (though the plants in containers and those in the greenhouse still require attention) and he's spared the guilt of using common's water to do it. the water butts attached to the guttering are about half full now, that will give him some leeway when the next dry period comes. 

horsemouth watched a youtube video on storing marrows (it may be possible). he's chopped out about 6 of the larger ones and has put them into the garage loft for storage. he's going to make an effort to cut new ones and get them cooked when they are more courgette sized. 

the thing it reminds him of most is invasion of the body snatchers. 

and of course there is still plenty of time for the few beetroot plants to grow. (the few carrots and onions likewise). the spinach he reckons they will have to freeze in epic quantities. 

he reckons they'll have enough potatoes. 

horsemouth will harvest the nasturtium fruit and attempt to 'seed' the bankings with them. similarly he will collect the sweet peas and plant these out again. he will collect poppy heads and other wildflower seeds. 

he'll go and check on the damson trees. (looks like another bumper crop on the way). 

friday a walk over the common to ewyas harold to pick up the hereford times (mostly for the tv guide). horsemouth makes it about a mile each way if he goes over the common. 

saturday morning there's been rain in the night. the chickens don't seem to be laying and off their food. so there's an egg shortage. 

a russian woman has been found living in a cave in india with her two daughters having overstayed her visa. 'we painted, sang songs, read books and lived peacefully,, .' she said. 

'... I decided to stay at home and am very glad that I did.'

on this day in 1871;

'a superb cloudless morning. the summer has come at last.'

kilvert has decided not to go to a picnic in maesllwych castle.

'... I decided to stay at home and am very glad that I did.'  

look at his dream that night and judge if that was the correct decision.

'I dreamt last night that i saw my own grave. it was a green turf mound among the graves of the venables and a laurel bush grew at its head.' 

horsemouth (after the exhaustions of losing his temper) is somewhat down.  

he's been struggling through the guidance for ECO4 and ECO+ (now renamed the great british insulation scheme). he is trying to work out what could work. but this is actually someone else's job (so he'll leave it there). 

phew. that means he can go on to worrying about something else. he's done the walk on the common. bell-ringing tonight (last night by the time you read this). 

bell-ringing? horsemouth is making progress. afterwards the angel of grosmont and the english women's football team penalty shoot-out versus the swedes. (tense that was). 

howard is off to the tapestry festival in southampton saturday/ sunday (probably). he may get lucky with the weather - looks like it will rain at some point  (but only when no one is onstage). 

horsemouth is not going. 

it's a good(ish) line up (especially for free) but horsemouth would have to book a hotel room probably for two nights etc. and be away from his mum until the monday (because it's difficult to get back to hereford from there on a sunday night and then there's only a cab coming back his way). 

similarly for doing just the one day.  

in any event horsemouth should be up in the wen tuesday day (22nd) to pack so that his brother's eldest can bring more of horsemouth's books and stuff back to the wilds. 

thereafter horsemouth will be free for social engagements. 

howard out in east ham. perhaps minty in stepney. perhaps bumping into friends in london fields. a walk with TG. perhaps ayesha and hannah. 

when will he be back in the wilds? - there are three runners; 

friday - bus to his door (providing he's back by 1620 or walk from pontrilas if before 1830) or prevail upon his brother's eldest for a lift. 

saturday - prevail upon his brother's eldest for a lift back from ewyas harold (or walk with whatever worldly possessions he is bringing back up hill and down dale and over the common - about 2 miles).

monday - bus to his door.

sunday is less of a runner,  it is either prevail upon his brother's eldest to pick him up from hereford, or, get the bus to hay and get out at kingston and walk 4 miles (with his possessions worldly so probably less possessions).  

in any event he is back for august the 1st for a showing of babylon at the QEH (and probably back the next morning). 

is horsemouth striking the right balance here do you think?

it's friday morning and horsemouth is a little hungover (but not too badly). 

springtime in azalea city

'the personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself.' - anais nin, journals volume two, quoted in the introduction by gunther stuhlmann.

oh dear. horsemouth just had a meltdown and ended up kicking the chicken shed door a few times. seeing as he wasn't wearing boots at the time this was probably a bad idea. it doesn't look like he's broken any toes but he's certainly bruised them. (oh yes I should say so)

one of the local buzzards has had a go at snaffling a chicken - horsemouth thinks the chicken has gotten away ok and that they still have six. he thinks he counted six at one point (but if it turns out the buzzard has got one then them's the breaks).  the crows (of course) made a lot of fuss and horsemouth headed over to see what he could do. 

he'll go chicken counting again in a bit. phew they still have six chickens. 

really the only way to have this not happen again would be to completely cover in the enclosure and not let the chickens out for exercise beyond that. this is currently horsemouth's preferred solution. 

he has some eggs to deliver (at some point).  

has he calmed down yet?

well he's getting there. as usual, when he thinks stuff needs to be done, horsemouth just wants to do, and he can get frustrated when he's not allowed to do that.

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he's had a look at the more up to date ECO4 guidance and it is all looking much more possible - he thought he'd been steered into a distraction but in fact it looks like a runner. (no one is more surprised than horsemouth). 

ECO or the energy company obligation is how the various energy suppliers work off their fines from the regulator. horsemouth thought that this would have to involve a direct deal between the tenants in the house and their particular energy supplier but it seems like the communal endeavour itself can do a deal with an energy supplier but it still needs the details of  at least one eligible person living in the property (eligible either because of ill-health or poverty). 

so there may be a way forward that way. 

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it's the morning. it has rained during the night and is overcast and misty first thing. where the sun shines water evaporate from the shed roof. it having rained excuses him watering, he likes watering as a task but he knows he should be attempting to conserve water. they have put up a fence around the commons water tank - he's not sure how that will help but hey ho. 

the marrows are huge and there are too many of them (live and learn horsemouth). he thinks he will do ok with the potatoes. the spinach and the runner beans have done well. the carrots, onions and peas he didn't plant enough of. the broad beans have been a bit of a disaster. 

'my greatest skill has been to want but little...'

a friend has something new coming out

one track available now 

(the rest available 

august 1st 2025)

no kilvert until the 18th but we do have 

some thoreau from today in 1851 (in his walking by night phase).

'meethinks my present experience is nothing; my past experience is all in all. I think that no experience which I have today comes up to, or is comparable with, the experiences of my boyhood.' 

and yet thoreau recognises that he has led a fortunate life; 

'I perceive that I am dealt with by superior powers. this is a pleasure, a joy,  an existence which I have not procured myself. I speak as a witness on the stand, and tell what I have perceived.'

and yet he must come to some decision about what he must do for a living;

'I have since learned that trade curses everything it handles; and though you trade in messages from heaven, the whole curse of trade attaches to the business.' 

'my greatest skill has been to want but little...' 

the west midlands is in drought after a dry spring and a hot summer. 

of course we still have half of july, august and september still to go (and then we are back into the seasons of rain er. hopefully). the last email horsemouth saw from the common's water people said that the central tank was refilling nicely (but, of course, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance). 

but yesterday (of course) it rained. horsemouth was feeling a little cooped up (like it was winter again). and it was st. swithin's day (so there's that old superstition about there now being 40 days of rain). 

the water butts outside have filled up by about a 1/3rd, horsemouth thinks they'll get another bout of rain in before the evening. then we are not reliably back into hot and dry until next week. 

(so flooding soon he thinks) 

yesterday  

it rained. 

horsemouth was feeling a little cooped up (like it was winter again). 

yesterday 

horsemouth attended a meeting on behalf of the communal endeavour (on that there decarbonisation lark). he did some reading on eligibility for ECO4 and copied it into a facebook post to help him remember it but he left a link attached to it and facebook told him it was spam. 

most of the properties are EPC Ds - so only eligible for innovation measures (where the communal endeavour argues it is doing something new and exemplary), only one house is an EPC E and so eligible for more conventional measures (and then there are the eligibility criteria of the members in the houses to be met - total household income less than £31k, long-term illnesses etc.). 

once again he doesn't think ECO4 is a runner (but this time for a different set of reasons). 

he's not sure why he's doing this stuff, because he won't be there to see any of this. 

it's a cooler morning. 

he will not be there

the grauniad was asking 

what proportion of your household income do you spend on housing?

by the end of it horsemouth was on about 90% (maybe 100%). add on to that travel costs to work, snack food while out at work and heating costs in winter, and he was using his savings to top up his earnings. 

granted he didn't work the entire year or the full 40 hour working week. 

and in part this was because in the last few years of his employment they'd started taking money off him for a pension and horsemouth used this as a justification for toping it up. he could top up by at least the amount they were taking off him for his pension (and then by the amount that they were putting in for his pension) because he was still saving right?

he was sunk beneath taxation (but not beneath NI much to his chagrin). 

he could (of course) have gone and got another job (to support him in the first job). he had (lamentably) failed to keep up his side hustles as modern terminology has it. he could probably have gone the working tax credit route (but he didn't fancy the bureaucracy).  

he took the cheapest route to any work (round the outside of zone 2 rather than through zone 1) and often walked to bookings and to social events if he could. 

and his life(style) was only possible because his rent was comparatively low.

that said, he's not complaining (particularly). the life involved a lot of fun and was a solid distraction. that was why people were there, opined horsemouth, because it was fun. 

given the fact that he was running to stand still (or working to be able to show up for work) horsemouth, for a while, contemplated moving to porto (where the rent was roughly half what he was paying for a similar set-up). 

there he would have been spending money out of his savings where as back in dear old blighty he was only dipping his savings. (of course the difference in these figures was completely marginal). 

it was covid and redundancy that broke horsemouth of the habit of work

he still had various projects that he wished to complete and then there was his musical and social life (and the availability of books from the new book boxes), all this conspired to keep him in the wen. 

and there he would have stayed..

but then his dad got ill and  died and horsemouth (effectively) moved back to the wilds. 

he has yet to finish up and leave his room in london though (and stop paying the rent on that or his share of the gas and electricity bill). 

that said he is sad to leave various projects uncompleted. he often finds himself having conversations in his head where he is laying out the situation as clearly and fairly as possible (as he sees it) but realises he will now never need to have those conversations (because he will not be there). 

it's the morning 

it has rained in the night (but obviously not heavily). bbc weather thinks it will rain more today. horsemouth must say he is enjoying the cooler weather. a proportion of his soul did shrivel at the sound of rain on the conservatory roof (the sound of winter). conversely he felt joy at the sound of the water butts, fed by the guttering on the house, filled up. 

he's been across to unleash the chickens and over to the garage to put the milk delivery in the fridge. 

'two or three french or italian boys were singing the marseillaise...'

'in the street two or three french or italian boys were singing the marseillaise to a beautiful harp and violin accompaniment...'

today (in 1871) the reverend kilvert will be going to hereford to see the dentist (and his laughing gas apparatus). he will use the railway line that used to run between hereford and hay and then on to neath and brecon (imagine how useful that would be). there he will hear two or three children playing la marseillaise (this he will enjoy despite its revolutionary reputation of which he would not normally approve). 

la marseillaise got its popular title when volunteers (fédérés) from marseille sang it while making their entrance into the city of paris on 30th july 1792. 

today a lot cooler 22C or so (at least according to bbc weather). cloudy in the morning possibility of some rain in the early hours of tuesday morning. 

tomorrow (tuesday) actual rain all day. 

horsemouth watched a reaction video to argus  by wishbone ash. the guy gurns away, he hears the bass, he hears the guitar, the drums. he's an ex-guitarist he can hear the guitar tones. he hears yes and jethro tull and he hears intimations of iron maiden.

he has also been watching loads of le homme sans visage a georges franju/ jacques champreux fantomas style shocker which he has managed to find entire on a certain streaming platform. 

horsemouth has remembered he has his own mixcloud page and has added all the golden glow mixes he sourced tracks for. it provides you with a kind of indication of the sort of stuff he listens to (when he's not listening to one of  howard's ambient mixes which he did yesterday).

above you see a photo of horsemouth's room back in the wen (yuck messy isn't it).  messy and uncomfortable but beautifully arranged to maximise storage.  at the moment it looks like horsemouth's return to the wen for the 23rd to the 27th is on - he will probably  travel back the day of the 22nd so he can pack and get his brother's eldest to take another load of (mostly) books up to the wilds. 

horsemouth is much less fond of the room since he agreed to the bushes in the front garden being chopped down. 

horsemouth is not moving his furniture so he will have to find ways of either passing it on or dismantling it and hiding it in the junk room of the house. 

ok horsemouth is enjoying the cooler day so far. 

a fair example of the kind of things he is interested in and writes about

'as I sat at breakfast I heard the drone of the bagpipes... I find them intolerable. a droning, wailing whine, no tune. I had rather go into battle to the sound of a barrel organ.' - kilvert, journal, 13th july 

tomorrow (in 1871) the reverend kilvert will be going to hereford to see the dentist (and his laughing gas apparatus). he will use the railway line that used to run between hereford and hay and on to neath and brecon (imagine how useful that would be now). 

there he will hear three children playing la marseillaise (this he will enjoy despite its revolutionary reputation). 

horsemouth is up earlyish. he has fed the chickens (who seem to be off their food) and opened up the green house (he should probably cover it over with a sheet to cool it down still more). 

horsemouth has received an invitation to a share-and-share-alike cultural productions page. he will probably accept in the hope  that someone somewhere may find his stuff interesting. 

he used to play guitar (he still plays guitar) and has recorded. he has voice-overed and acted in a self-produced film. he has written slabs of theory. 

these days he mostly 'writes' a daily blog (about not very much). he has done this for a number of years. once in a while he will 'publish' something on substack. a few times a year he will go to a gig or receive some of a friend's music and then he will tell you about it. 

a few times a year he will release some of his own music (or suchlike). 

he's mainly interested in diaries these days. diaries and writing. the above is a fair example of the kind of things he is interested in and writes about.

he writes in the third person using a persona horsemouthfolk in honour of the famous reggae drummer (and actor) leroy 'horsemouth' wallace. 

'now at least the moon is full (and I walk alone)'

'now at least the moon is full, and I walk alone, which is best by night, if not by day always. your companion must be sympathetic with the present mood. the conversation must be located where the walkers are, and vary exactly with the scene and events and the contour of the ground.' 

'at the foot of the cliff hill I hear the sound of the clock striking nine, as distinctly as within a quarter of a mile usually...' 

h.d. thoreau, a writer's journal,  12th july 1851, walk begun at 8pm. 

damn it. it's the anniversary of thoreau's  birth and  horsemouth didn't know it (drat). 

it is actually the morning of the friday (as horsemouth types this). it is a hot sunny day and horsemouth is hiding indoors. he is slightly bruised by beer after last night's bell-ringing. 

in a few more lonely minutes it will be the afternoon. 

and it's the following morning of the 12th. horsemouth is up and has fed the chickens. he's looking at the cabbage white butterflies (knowing that soon he will be removing their caterpillars from his runner bean plants). the birds seem to have eaten all the easily accessible gooseberries so horsemouth will have to go after the more difficult and dangerous to reach ones. 

hopefully the heat wave will break in a few days and work outside will become more possible. 

last night (or was it in the daytime) a bit of the french tv show that nuits rouges was made out of. in the evening a history lesson on the CCRU. nothing on the tv (that he would want to see). he's reading volume two of anais nin's journals. she has bought  a printing press but she has gifted it to her n'er-do-well friend gonzalo to help him with his political work. only once she gets to new york again (in volume three) will she buy another one and learn to operate it and begin self-publishing her own works. 

walking after midnight (a full moon to the south and near the horizon)

last night a full moon to the south and near the horizon (allegedly).

in 1851 thoreau is going through a phase of walking by night (as the chapter in his a writer's journal is called by its editor laurence stapleton). 

long passages these - typically three or four pages. 

'july 11, 1851. friday. at 7.15pm with W.E.C. go forth to see the moon, the glimpses of the moon. we think she is not quite full; we can detect a little flatness on the eastern side... 

the moon is silvery still, not yet inaugurated... 

now we are getting into moonlight. we see it reflected from particular stumps in the depths of the darkest woods, and from the stems of trees, as if it selected what to shine on, - a silvery light... 

how simply and naturally the moon presides.' 

thoreau has much to say. 

he goes out again the next night (but on his own this time). 

the moon will be full (more of this tomorrow). 

on july 21st he is off on a walk in the morning, thinking he will write better in the afternoon because of it. 

august 5th he is out watching the half moon. august 12th he goes for a bathe in the river by the light of the full moon. 

'the diary will never be published' (the dream)

'the diary will never be published.' - denise clairouin (as reported by anais nin in her journals, volume two.)

'I mastered the mechanisms of life better to bend it to the will of the dream. I conquered details to make the dream more possible. with hammer and nails, paint, soap, money, typewriter, cookbook...

I sewed and mended, all for the sake of the dream...'  - anais nin in journals volume two, january 1937.

horsemouth has shortened anais's list (she, the ever practical, finishes off her list with douchebag). 

so the thing with the house in the wen's electricity went well - now there's a second lot due the morning of tuesday the 29th july  (cue a similar problem horsemouth guesses). 

ok. horsemouth contemplates another walk on the common. (just done it).

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in the evening horsemouth watched judex (georges franju 1963) which he found complete and entire (and as far as he can remember largely ad free) on a certain streaming platform. god it's great (and it features a rooftop fight similar to the one in the later nuits rouges (1973) and an amazing masked ball). 

of course it's all fantomas really. but just as bram stoker's wife not wanting to have the copyright of dracula  infringed so excessive demands for payment from the estate of fantomas caused other early film serials to be chosen instead (judex), or similar characters to be invented (dr. mabuse/ nuits rouges).  

tomorrow horsemouth will have to deal with the thing that's most pressing on his mind at the moment. (ok no he's dealt with it already but there will still be stuff to deal with tomorrow). 

it is the morning. and it is another beautiful morning. the birds have been striping the berry trees. 

it's easier to write at night

 '... I had an obsession with short-wave radio and I was always amazed at the way in which the radio signals would become stronger as daylight faded. I felt as if psychic energy levels would also increase in the night.' - peter gabriel

a friend notes;

'G.P.O. had a theory that It was easier to be creative in the small hours because everyone else was asleep and there was more psychic energy floating around...'

horsemouth thinks it's easier to write at night because there's no where else you can be and nowhere you have to be and there and no people to see and no work to be done. 

to this day horsemouth thinks he should be doing 'stuff' in the day - as if 9 to 5 were special hours that were intrinsically 'work' shaped. 

'conflict with diary writing. while I write in the diary I cannot write a book... if I were a real diarist, like pepys or amiel, I would be satisfied to record, but I am not...' - anais nin, journals, volume two. 

writers (based on the ones horsemouth saw on the creative writing course at goldsmith's university) often swore by early in the morning (either before they go to work or after the kids have gone to school) for (horsemouth guesses) similar reasons. 

writers often have routines. you will sometimes find videos on youtube of people attempting to follow such-and-such a writer's routine. 

horsemouth's routine used to be to write in the morning before he went off to work. then it became to write the day before and finish it off in the morning (like he is doing now). he's waiting for inspiration to strike.

horsemouth is trying to water the garden less (to help with the possible water shortage). he's hoping that roots are deep enough and plants sufficiently well established. (he can't tell you how relieved he was to see water coming out of the taps - nor how quickly this has faded to just a commonplace occurrence).

a guitar and flute take on one of robbie basho's early tunes from a very echo-ey church. this is two or three minutes of unintelligible description followed by  robbie basho genius.  there's a whole concert up there (basho, debussy et al.)

there is a golden rabbit in the room (let the dog see the rabbit)

'I went to fez without a diary. I wanted to lie in a hotel bed, in a strange place without the diary, to break the flow of self-examination, of the diary as mirror, as assurance, diary in place of talk... life passed in fez as I passed, leaving no trace, no shreds.' 

- anais nin, journals - volume two, june 1936, journey to fez april of that year. 

the process begins again

at the house in the wen an engineer from NONO has been. he has taken loads of photos of the company head/ main fuse. he will contact the appropriate team who will come and replace it (the metal cover, the asbestos insulation) and then the smart meter can (finally) be fitted. 

in the end it all passed off smoothly

but of course we really are no further forward with this than we were four years ago (or whenever it was). the last time this was all promised. horsemouth has been with this power company since april 2021 on the smart meter tariff (when they were promising to fit a smart meter soon).

but from april 2022 he was on their more expensive simpler energy plan (their post the ukraine war gas shock tariff) so having a smart meter would not necessarily have saved him any money. 

before that  the house was with another power company (BLUB) since july 2018. 

in any event soon enough horsemouth will give up the account 

he will submit his final reading and pass the task over to his housemates.  the amount left in the account will be handed back to his flatmates (about £72 each). horsemouth thinks the free government money from the ukraine war gas price shock has been spent for everyone. 

he thinks NONO will initially ask for a higher direct debit (and in any event it will probably be divided between three housemates rather than four). 

it's a bright and beautiful morning out in the wilds. next year horsemouth thinks fewer marrows. he will get only a handful of carrots this year. it looks like he will do well with the potatoes (but he can't really tell yet). 

horsemouth is trying to formulate his strategy 

as you know horsemouth wants the government money (the government is offering some money to help decarbonise the nation's social housing stock at least as far as getting the properties up to an EPC C). that's his focus at the minute. there may be other pots of government money but right now he's not interested in them until the communal endeavour has the first pot of government money. all the other pots can all be dealt with later (is horsemouth's opinion). 

there is a golden rabbit in the room. let the dog see the rabbit. 

perhaps there is a better way

interesting (it is not just horsemouth who is losing his temper and feeling hard done by). 

horsemouth (usually) tries hard not to lose his temper (or at the very least make sure that people don't see that he has lost his temper). 

his general theory is that if he loses his temper he has lost.

and yet every once in a while he must toys out the pram to ensure a fairer distribution of tasks and maintain his psychic economy. 

it's better than bottling it up. 

this morning there's supposed to be a visit to the old domicile to carry out some electrical conversion works. horsemouth thinks he has done enough to ensure that this happens (and hopefully this will happen). 

the electrical works will enable the replacement of the existing meter (nearing the end of its operational life - allegedly) with a smart meter. horsemouth regards this as a good thing in that it will enable the house to access cheaper tariffs (by doing their washing etc. at times of cheaper electricity etc.)

he also understands there is some EPC (energy performance certificate) benefit to it. 

similarly horsemouth is still chasing this government decarbonisation money but perhaps the limitations upon it (and the strings attached to it) are simply too onerous. perhaps the budgets are too tight. perhaps they don't have the team to deliver it fully assembled. 

perhaps there is a better (cheaper) way.  

in any event he will be taking his name off the bill fairly soon and redistributing the amount held in the account to the other housemates. they will then need to sign up for a new account. (at least that's his understanding of the process at the minute).

similarly his involvement with the communal endeavour (a housing co-op) will cease fairly soon and his emotional involvement in trying to get deals over the starting line will finish. 

the important thing to recognise is that despite his frustrations with people the toys are in fact toys and present an interesting problem to be dealt with that (at some level) he enjoys.  he will be upset to have to stop playing with them. 

it is interesting to see other people suffering with this. 

ok he's had his dinner (the two of sandwiches) and he has a cup of tea. he now contemplates a wander on the common. 

wander on the common done. horsemouth managed a reasonable well paced wander round (as opposed to a stomping about the place screaming for vengeance). 

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

perhaps there is a better way. 

horsemouth finds the losing his temper tiring. like he says if he loses his temper then he loses. 

bookpilled is off down mexico way. but before that a review of 7 books including two histories of science fiction. horsemouth is pleased to see him back again. 

today a walk into ewyas harold to post a letter. 

the great leak (common's water)

at the moment it looks like there was no one great leak from the commons water system.

what there was a series of smaller leaks and a spring with less rainfall than usual on the hay hills that drives st. james's well from there the water goes down to a large tank and then distributed out along various lines. 

the level in this tank was found to be very low. 

it was thought that there had been a major leak (most probably at the places where plastic and metal join because this is difficult to achieve) but there was no obvious sign of it on the common (a dirty great damp patch for example). 

however as the individual lines and houses were turned back on one by one no major leak appeared (there was no sudden and continuous  loss of water in the tank). 

the trick will be to continue to monitor water levels in the tank.

horsemouth suspects there is no one great leak, there's just lack of rainfall on the hills and more demand (but time will tell). 

he will moderate down his watering of the garden. many of the plants are established. the skies perpetually promise rain but so far have not delivered. 

horsemouth is up early (for no discernable reason). 

it was good to meet everybody and to have a common purpose. 

following that horsemouth got in swift zoom beers with howard (two beers fursty ferret). 

horsemouth hopes he hasn't fucked anything and has done the right thing

 'so? does everyone have their survival kit yet?'- a portuguese friend comments on the power outage.

a walk into ewyas harold using the shady pathway along the edge of the common. 

to pick up a copy of the herefordshire times and a half a loaf of bread for more than horsemouth would normally consider paying for a full loaf of bread. 

on his way up he bumped into neighbours dealing with the having no water issue on his way back he called in to see how attempts to find the leak were going. 

the tank had been refilled. the manhole cover on an inspection pit was opened. two valves were turned there was the sound of flowing water. the valves were shut off again. 

the water seems to be definitively off at his mum's - horsemouth has turned the stopcock in the kitchen (he hopes in the direction of off). he turned off a stopcock that probably services the outdoor taps. and one the other side of the fence pointed out by his brother (that just seemed to rotate round with no resolution). 

ok horsemouth once again hopes he hasn't fucked anything and has done the right thing. 

tonight it is due to rain. this is a good thing because it will water the garden. horsemouth will try and leave some buckets and such like out. 

well it's the morning and it hasn't rained. a crow is preening itself in the nearby treetop looking like a feather duster. 

the demographic transition of horsemouth (exit - voice - loyalty)

when horsemouth started this living lark he was very young.

but later on he was older

and later on, he was much older still. 

and, perhaps because it's expensive to raise children these days, there are more older people about in the west these days (and far fewer youngsters).  this is known as demographic transition. (there are other factors but let horsemouth shuffle them to the side for the time being). 

this is a bit of a problem 

this is a bit of a problem because older people tend to retire, stop working, start taking their pensions and live longer before they die (sadly not all in good health and this can also rapidly become expensive). 

meanwhile there is a shortage of younger people to do the actual work and pay the taxes (that fund the state portion of the pensions enjoyed by the old). the non-state portion of the pensions enjoyed by the old are funded by dividends from investments which again depend on the overall state of the economy and a supply of younger workers to do the work. 

efforts to encourage younger people to have more kids to produce more workers seem to be failing all over the world.

there are three solutions to this problem 

- immigration, import more young workers, 

-  decline, let the economy stagnate and reduce, or 

- innovation, where new technology increases productivity so that more work can be done by fewer workers. 

horsemouth supposes that what eventually happens will be some combination of all three in various proportions (and he doesn't hold out much hope for innovation). 

horsemouth has nothing against immigration (his life has been immeasurably better because of it and he expects that to continue) but a vocal minority in the UK are against it so he expects it to continue to happen but to simultaneously be disparaged by the political class who will continue to talk about trying to solve it as if it were a problem. 

even without further large-scale immigration the population will not fall below 2022 levels until 2072. 

horsemouth has nothing against decline either. he's not a cake-ist (you can have your cake and eat it) he's a pie-ist (there's a pie of a limited size - the gross domestic product or GDP) and what ordinary people need is a bigger slice of that pie (not GDP per head but workers share of GDP). 

the overall size of the pie may shrink but the ordinary people's slice of the pie may increase.

still horsemouth is doubtful. he thinks what we are headed for is decline, with ordinary people's slice of the pie decreasing even faster. 

larry elliot in the grauniad thinks a falling UK birthrate could be a good thing. 

'the combination of an ageing and gently falling population could result in living standards rising. older people tend to save more and that means the ratio of capital to worker will increase. there will, in other words, be fewer workers but they could well be more productive.' 

horsemouth thinks that the relationship between capital employed and productivity is not that simple (as a pie-ist horsemouth thinks that old people do not automatically save more and have more of the pie - and even if they do having to spend it on care and health costs doesn't mean they get to keep it. care and health are not necessarily the most innovative and productive bits of the economy).

'if there are going to be fewer young people, it is bad for the economy as well as a waste of individual potential for them not to be working. to that extent, the motivation behind the government’s botched welfare reforms makes sense...'

at some point the young will give up on reforming the system and start to EXIT from it in significant numbers. moving abroad for significant proportions of their working lives, dropping out of work and consumer society, merely working enough to survive etc. etc. 

the problem will then be to produce a new culture of capitalism that will entice the young back in - a seeming change in their political representation and reward and life chances. 

the alternative would be to close down all possibilities of EXIT. 

or a combination of the two. 

horsemouth is old(er) but he's also not quite out of the woods yet.  

horsemouth is back from the bell-ringing and slightly bruised by beer. he seems to have a blocked nostril. 

the water on the common (aqueduct)

'when brancusi died he bequeathed his studio to the city of paris asking that it be kept as a brancusi museum. the city of paris  neglected it, and it remained closed. people broke in through a transom, and stole the smaller statues. the rain was allowed to fall into the studio.' 

- footnote, anais nin journals, volume two. 

‘I hope that we’ll be able to return in one way or another, before too long, and in better times.’ 

-  a guardian columnist signs off during the covid pandemic. 

yesterday a busy day both tree cutters/ national grid and an inspection of horsemouth's taps etc. in seach of the leak that drained the water tank on the common. (not guilty)

the common is the reclaimed by nature remnants of a former military base (that's where the major steel pipes that bring the water across from st. martin's well come from). to this has been added all the individual supplies coming off it to the houses. there is no real map of all of these. such maps as do exist are accurate to within about 20 feet. 

in this the water supply resembles the water supply to the castle in ismael kadare's the siege in that it has no discernable overall logic. 

'... the turks decide to find and cut the underground aqueduct supplying the garrison with water. the architect attempts to use scientific methods to locate the aqueduct, but to no avail...'  (wikipedia)

the water seems to be back on to the house but is very spitty. a supply of bottled water has been delivered (so horsemouth and his mum are good for the apocalypse). 

when water runs in the pipes it can be heard underground but when there's no water to run...

horsemouth has scrambled to water the garden and the greenhouse. at the weekend rain (probably). 

and the tree cutting has been done (so that's good for a few more years). 

today. the usual grind and a spot of bell-ringing (hopefully).  

he may like it so much that he never returns to you (in this random eternity)

 '...I'm better when I haven't slept 

 and can't sleep, 

 I am more truly myself 

in this random eternity.'

- fernando pessoa, the book of disquiet, 

fragment 38 (152), dated 2nd july 1931. 

yesterday 

oof. horsemouth was doing a meeting in the morning. the time for consultations may be over the time to put the scheme of works in may be here.  

or we may have run out of time to put the scheme together and a simpler less complicated plan might be the way forward.  it is, in any event, a legacy project from the reign of horsemouth and people might not have the enthusiasm to get it done in the way he has proposed when he is gone. 

or it may be that it must needs be done over an extended timescale thus driving up costs in which case it is dead already (maybe). 

today 

the power will be off while the national grid (or whoever) do some work cutting back the trees that have grown up next to the power cables. horsemouth will endeavour to get all things done before they arrive. it is supposed to be a rainy day (so maybe that date will stretch). 

horsemouth will still be contactable on his mobile (as long as he remembers to plug it in and recharge it- ok he's doing it now) but he will be out of internet and landline contact for the duration - he will be on an internet fast/ digital detox.

who knows! he may like it so much that he never returns to you.

interesting (or rather, this could get interesting). the water from the common has cut off. apparently there's a leak somewhere and they're out looking for it. 

horsemouth is trying to get the last few sentences in before the juice cuts off. 

the real satie-day

 on the centenary of erik satie's death 

'satie teaches what, in our age, is the greatest audacity: simplicity' - jean cocteau

in many ways one of the great things about erik satie is that he comes from outside. he comes from the world of  cabaret, of jobbing musicians and songwriters, and into a (grudging) kind of classical acceptance. 

his is an era where the piano has democratised music making and music theory overlaying earlier folk forms but it is a very grudging acceptance because he is not writing (until the end) the extended pieces that are expected of classical composers. 

debussy and ravel are hastily wheeled on to attest for his bona fides (but not les six, or subsequent composers he was an influence on, because they are not well known enough, the cultural position of modern classical music having fallen in the meantime). 

'despite being a musical iconoclast, and encourager of modernism, satie was uninterested to the point of antipathy in innovations such as the telephone, the gramophone and the radio. he made no recordings, and as far as is known heard only a single radio broadcast (of milhaud's music) and made only one telephone call.' 

new fragments of satie have recently been released.

pianist alexandre tharaud plays 27 short pieces by satie discovered in archives and published for the first time, the fruit of research carried out by satie specialists sato matsui and james nye.

in addition to being the centenary of the death of erik satie it is also the birthday of rashied ali. 

today a cool morning (but that doesn't mean very much).