horsemouth homelessness minister (and landlord)

a written entirely in the morning blogpost.

so homelessness minister, landlord, and east london MP rushnara ali has turfed out her tenants to replace them with people paying £700 a month more (classy). of course this is a moderate rent rise and not in the least bit grabby by modern standards. neither is telling the first set of tenants that she was evicting them to sell the house particularly dishonest by modern standards. 

but it's not very good is it? it's not exactly leading from the front on homelessness and poor housing. surely there's a bit of a conflict of interest here. (or is it just useful experience? rushnara's a landlord - she'll know)

'all the women in my books have lived in this house…' 

- marguerite duras, les lieux de marguerite duras

he watched marguerite duras talk about the houses where she (and her characters) have lived. this was mostly meaningless to him (because he has in fact read very few of her novels). horsemouth finds her sexual politics pessimistic (but probably accurate) and this is one of the key factors in the novels. her thoughts on writing and making films he finds extraordinary. and it is nice to see her house at neauphle-le-château (as mentioned in practicalities), it's a beauty.

we listen to her playing piano. we watch clips from the films. 

she chainsmokes throughout the interview (which horsemouth finds distressing, imagining the smell, and the smell sticking to the furniture) like a proper french intellectual. 

horsemouth's copy of practicalities seems to have vanished into the racks (which is strange because his racks are much reduced). ah no. good. he's found it. fuck me it's battered. he's parked it next to the millstone grit. 

yesterday a walk down to deliver some eggs. 

today. probably a walk into ewyas harold to get the hereford times (and some paracetamol, you can't have too much paracetamol in the house). later some bell-ringing. 

tomorrow. horsemouth has things he'd like to go to in london but he thinks he won't be going. he has to have a chat with his brother about moving stuff.