how much does bob mortimer looks like dave social control

 by the time you will have read this horsemouth will be in the wen.

and he will have found a cheaper way of doing it.

but (such was his enthusiasm after actually managing this) that he forgot to ask for his railcard discount. he is therefor paying about £35 rather than £23. 

still. that's an improvement. 

the rail company he is travelling on is being dissolved soon. their trains smell of garlic (is this a side effect?).

rain fell from a cloudless sky on the small piece of station platform that was in the sunshine, 

he was very tired yesterday (after his travelling). 

in the evening he watched a comedy show where the assembled comedians aren't allowed to laugh (meanwhile horsemouth was treading carefullly round a series of political landmines). he was once again reminded of how much bob mortimer looks like dave social control. 

ok he's up.  he's just seen his bother's eldest off to work. today a wander round the hood in the morning then a catch up with some friends. 

books, films, gigs, events march 2026

 books

- diaries: kilvert mostly and fernando pessoa, the book of disquiet 

- the portable hannah arendt. edited by peter baehr

- $hutdown. adam tooze

- a book on joseph beuys reviewed in art in america

- this is a classic: translators on making writers global. essay on marguerite duras.

- anna dezeuze,  blurring the boundaries between art and life (in the museum?), tate papers, 31/1/2012

-  lewis carroll  eight or nine wise words about letter-writing 

- preview of colby chamberlain's  fluxus administration: george maciunas and the art  of paperwork

-  karl marx, the civil war in france, the third address, may1871

- LA review of books article on alice constance austin's llano del rio cooperative colony

- the dedalus book of dutch fantasy

- clive furness on open newham

- newspaper articles on  the possible re-opening of the hereford-ross-gloucester railway and similarly on reopening bromyard station 

- doris lessing, the golden notebook (fragment)

- the WIRE review of 2024 

- crack magazine review of cosmic music: the life, art and transcendence of alice coltrane by journalist andy beta, the quietus and WIRE (april 2002) articles on her

- nlr sidecar RIP antónio lobo antunes, 

- GDN  tansy gardam piece on old technology

- death of habermas (LRB and nlr)

films

- a celebration of marguerite duras (interview with one of her translators)

-  ghost in the shell (original)

- satan's sword  (an earlier incarnation of the (anti)hero samurai in full-moon swordsman)

- boris johnson's  'you must stay home' speech march 23rd 2020

-  LRB's james butler, peter geoghegan and ethan shone on peter mandelson, also political disagreement 

why haven't 'the best ideas' won?, 

- the 1967 french version of  'the invention of morel'  

- a life without writing (bbc sounds)

- bookpilled/ outlaw bookseller/ 

- the black cat (lucio fulci) part

gigs the wave debb show (online)

events

well we shall have to see. 

his achilles' heel (boots on the ground)

 'at four o'clock the people were already moving about in the churchyard with baskets of flowers, and the children were especially busy in flowering the graves...' 

- kilvert's diary, easter eve, march 30th 1872.

in theory (by the time you read this) horsemouth will (probably) be on his way to the wen. he's trying to get his plans together for while he is there, so if you want to see him get in touch. 

remind him not to drink too much (his achilles' heel). 

at the moment he is sitting around waiting to travel with itchy feet (he's been for several walks already). 

will trump put boots on the ground in iran?

and if he does how many will die? 

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

the dream some kind of sales fair - towards the end horsemouth went for a korean icecream. in anotehr dream a domestic living situation, horsemouth had recently moved and not tidied up. horsemouth found several recording devices that howard had given him earlier and that he had forgotten about. 

more or less autobiographical ( the sweet bells of clyro)

'all my books are more or less autobiographical - a rather abstract form of autobiography, I admit.'  - e.m. cioran 

horsemouth has started on the temptation to exist (from whence this quote). he has read susan sontag's introduction and is most of the way through thinking against oneself.  he either bought it in skoob for £3 (this is his recollection) or it was denise's (according to the signature inside the front cover) and horsemouth has 'acquired it' somehow. 

in kilvert-land (on this day in 1872) he is concerned about the bells. 

'for the first time I heard today the sweet bells of clyro chiming down the valley just before I reached the chapel, I could even hear the three bells chime change for the single bell. the west wind brought the sound of the bells up the hill so clearly that it arrested me even while I was walking.'

'clyro church has a splendid bells' reads a local guide. 

'two date back to the medieval church and three were cast in 1887 and first rung to celebrate queen victoria’s golden jubilee. to complete the set, a sixth one was commissioned in 2024...' 

the guide has kilvert buying his first notebook (in which to keep his diaries)  in hay but this seems to horsemouth not so. 

horsemouth has the three volume plommer selection and a single volume selection  (jonathan cape paperback edition) somewhere (or perhaps he has redistributed it away via the powerscroft road book box). kilvert's niece destroyed most of his other writing - 3 journal notebooks survive because they were given away, horsemouth does not know if they contain additional material. 

it's a good job horsemouth didn't spend any time on watering yesterday (it started raining). 

this morning. he has made the transition across the british summer time line. in the morning a dream about hanging out with dj hype (horsemouth was doing his best to be cool). 

horsemouth diagnoses a lack of get up and go

on this day in 1872 kilvert is importuned by a man begging. 

tomorrow he will be waxing lyrical about the bells.

'for the first time I heard today the sweet bells of clyro

chiming down the valley...' 

you find horsemouth recovering from a lack of inspiration (it is the usual post drinking slump). yesterday he was in a fluey/ hangovery kind of state and lacked any get up and go.

this morning a bright spring morning (horsemouth has just been out to feed the chickens). in the greenhouse the runner bean plants are coming up nicely. not much sign of anything else yet. in the garden no sign of the broad beans yet (maybe it is not warm enough for them yet). 

a fake and misleading online review

so it's the morning and here he is typing away. 

yesterday on the radio a short comedy show about what it would mean if humans could no longer write and read (it would become much more difficult to collaborate on and achieve anything). 

having just watched a project die (or at least emerge diminished) from the swamps of spreadsheets and email horsemouth feels some doubt about this. he can't help feel that if people could have been gathered on site and have met and talked face-to-face then it would have survived, or perhaps even thrived and prospered. 

this is the kind of thought horsemouth often entertains. 

later some scripted fluff on emil cioran (said choran horsemouth is now informed). cioran is surely the least likely philosopher/ writer to get the scripted fluff treatment (even if you can get over his fascist period). 

ok in his later years he fed the stray cats in the park (heart warming detail) before succumbing to dementia (personal tragedy). himself and his wife, who worked as a teacher to support him, lived in a tiny top floor flat in  paris (heart warming detail). he knew samuel beckett. 

after writing his first few books in romanian he changed to writing in french - the video argued this was to slow himself down and to see the details and articulations of his thoughts better, to avoid easy metaphors and constructions. 

or maybe like the czech milan kundera he just wanted to be read (and not just in poor quality translations, often translations of translations kundera jokes). 

this inspired horsemouth to get out his cioran - he has three, no four; anathemas and admirations, a short history of decay, the temptation to exist, history and utopia (though he's not sure where his copy of this last one is - no he tells a lie, he's just found it). 

some, in the comments, were alleging the video was entirely AI slop 

written by, and read by, AI, which probably chose the graphics as well. doubt contaminates everything. 

as AI gets better. how can you be sure it's not AI? 

if it's not very good and amateurish. if it is poorly scripted (if at all) and delivered. 

here we have a mechanism by which writing can be ended. if it is no longer a communication between humans but merely a set of requirements from a machine. 

ok today a walk to simulate activity. he's just done it. two rabbits bounded up to greet him (and then bounded away). he hurried back because it looked like rain but then the sun cut through the clouds. 

perhaps zoom beers with howard later. 

devices at a standstill. materials good for thinking with.

no kilvert today! (what is horsemouth to do?).

'sheets of copper resting on stacks of felt. copper conducts energy, and felt produces warmth through insulation, but it also blocks currents...'

devices at a standstill. materials good for thinking with. 

a book on joseph beuys reviewed in art in america (you may have to register to see it). 

yesterday horsemouth tidied out the greenhouse a little. then a visit to the village to pick up the newspaper. later he wandered over to south view to deliver a letter for his mum.  bells in the evening.  discussion of AI in the pub after. 

horsemouth should probably refuel at some point. he should also diversify. his savings will probably take a battering. that's of course assuming (crows over tel-aviv) that this isn't armageddon (has no one seen the omen?)

horsemouth has just wrangled a journey (he hopes). it will either be acceptable or it won't. 

ok it's not. but he's done what was asked of him so he's covered. he's just looking at wrangling his own journey -  the cheapest route is via birmingham and rugby (go figure) £23.70. there may be some grief coming back (something about milton keynes). he thinks he can outflank this (if needs be) by getting a single direct to birmingham new street on the fast train. 

next week is holy week (so there would be no bell ringing anyway). phew. so horsemouth doesn't need to feel guilty about taking a week out. 

'years have done their work ...'

kilvert is writing to the bishop of st. david's to give notice of his intention to resign the curacy at clyro on the 1st of july 'when I shall have been a licensed curate in the same parish in your lordship's diocese for seven years and a half'. 

kilvert writes a lot that day in his journal. the best part of two and a half pages. he remembers his first day in clyro,

 'years have done their work and a change has come o'er the spirit of my dream'. 

this brings his journal entry to an end.

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

'... the oldest memories of the human race stand side-by-side with the latest developments. the greatest distances of time and space are bridged.' 

rahel vernhagen on her deathbed. she sees it all. assembles it all into her life. 

(she dies 7th march 1833). 

hannah arendt (who will watch it all fall apart a hundred years later) is less than impressed. 

have the years done their work with horsemouth? have they brought him to this exalted state? 

we shall see. 

outside it was raining heavily. earlier still is was hailing. 

horsemouth was out delivering eggs when the hail hit. it drove him back. he turned back. but then the sun came back out (sort of). and he completed his task. he did this without a hat. he thinks this was unwise. he doesn't want to catch yet another cold (to go on top of his existing one). 

in the evening his mum lit a fire. it required some coaxing to get it going properly. 

'since the first world war, capitalism has been a decadent social system. it has twice plunged humanity into a barbaric cycle of crisis, world war, reconstruction and new crisis...'  horsemouth had one of his earlier bands paraphrase part of this as 'boom, slump, war, reconstruction...'.

horsemouth agrees with the international communist current here (in general if not in the particulars). 

and we are off again. horsemouth doesn't think we are off into world war 3 but he does think we are entering a period of heightened danger. he believes the only rationale that makes sense of the US attacking both venezuela and iran is to deny china oil. but it doesn't necessarily need to make sense, it does not have to rise to the level of a strategy. 

here a beautiful morning. (greying out later but good all day)

along the tremorithic road (in the wood two deer)

'sunset on prince george's county' 

and 

'the world is waiting for the sunrise' 

based on leroy carr (and scrapper blackwell)'s 'how long blues' (allegedly)

'snow storms again, and hay fair' - kilvert, diaries, 25th march 1872.

as a result of his visit to the village the day before yesterday horsemouth is up a copy of the i-newspaper. 'fuel price rises inescapable'  it says 'ere. 

well that's bad news. 

ok yesterday horsemouth delivered the contract back to ewyas harold commons water society. this involved a walk over the common and along the tremorithic road.  there's a cheque that has to go somewhere else on the common, horsemouth thinks he has worked out where that has to go and he may do it later. 

in the wood two deer. 

today his mum is off to the garden centre. 

thursday bells.

friday. 

saturday.

sunday a visit. 

all along the wern ddu ('the solitude of writing')

 '... in the silence the hay church bell for evensong boomed suddenly out across the valley' 

snow on the slopes of the black mountain lit up by the setting sun. kilvert on this day in 1872. (his nature description is getting better - but soon he will move away).

'the solitude of writing is the solitude without which writing could not be produced...'

- marguerite duras, writing. 

yesterday. so horsemouth went into ewyas harold with his mum. having dropped his mum off horsemouth walked up the hill towards walterstone (along wern ddu) and very nice it was too. he paused near the brow of the hill and then walked back down again to meet his mum and they got the bus home. 

a successful mission (thinks horsemouth). (far less hanging around than horsemouth thought he would have to do). 

today. a grey day. shading into rain and cold later.

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

war news

so has trump been negotiating with iran or did he just make it up to keep oil prices down? 

the later. 

does he escalate the war again when the troopships arrive in 6 days time? 

or does he declare victory (and sail away)?

if he stops does israel stop? if israel stops bombing iran but carries on bombing lebanon is that the war over? 

and in further energy crisis news is it all over for decarbonisation? 

probably not. horsemouth hadn't seen the whole thing as a strategy. 

horsemouth king of the castle

interesting.

duras 'summer 1980' an interview with one of the two translators. the interviewer and the translator seem keen on duras for the reason horsemouth is keen on her, because it's all about her. so all of  summer 1980 has been translated (together with lots of other talkpieces).

similarly there is an essay from one of her translators on translating her.

horsemouth has made the discovery that a paper he co-wrote on amending the partial nuclear test ban treaty to a comprehensive test ban treaty way back in 1990 may have been published as a letter  in nature.

nature volume 348, page 279 (1990). if you are interested.

it's a very pretty morning

horsemouth is off, in a bit, with his mum, into the village, by the local bus service.

getting back may require a wait (horsemouth will take a book). 

nonetheless horsemouth is lucky to live in the valley with the bus service up it (the dulas valley has none).

there is a community taxi service (who require booking ahead). there are friends with cars (so getting around is not impossible). 

ok now to check that his mum is up. (she is). 

horsemouth has been out and unleashed the chickens. he has his coffee. he has just put some more hot water in the coffee to freshen it up. 

he can't think of anything he needs to do before he goes to the village. 

of course the village is no problem for horsemouth. he can walk there (bus or not). it's a problem at night (he fancies neither wandering back across the common nor walking back along narrow dark country lanes - if something goes wrong you are well and truly shtooked). during the daytime there is no problem. 

this morning a very pleasant half-dream where horsemouth was king of the castle.

an alternative network of production and distribution (peace, love, and unity)

'one could argue that do-it-yourself practices – like most, if not all, avant-garde utopias – failed in their ambition to change the world.... fluxus certainly never developed an alternative network of production and distribution powerful enough to pose a threat to the art market, and the audience for most do-it-yourself art works often remained limited to small groups among the artists’ friends...'

- anna dezeuze,  blurring the boundaries between art and life (in the museum?), tate papers, 31/1/2012. 

in the evening of yesterday horsemouth watched ghost in the shell (the origin of the 'balkan' singing on makai's beneath the mask). it was most excellent. once horsemouth heard the track in a club in prague. it's nice to hear the song in the context it was originally intended for. 

prior to akira horsemouth's only real exposure to manga was the children's tv series marine boy. 

when horsemouth was keen on drum and bass one factor in its popularity with him was the dubplate system of musical production - the newest tunes were not available for sale to all but were made available on dubplate to various DJs and radio stations so that they could be played live as it were. 

the playing of records and the going to the club nights thus became the musical event (rather than a band playing live to promote a record). this was a profound change in the economics of the music scene made possible by the grafting of the new digital production technologies onto the earlier reggae system of pre-release music. this was a temporary and unstable marriage of convenience.

horsemouth viewed it (in perhaps a utopian fashion) as an escape from attali's economy of repetition and into his economy of composition (as outlined in his book noise: the political economy of music). these changes had to happen not just at the level of musical structure and performance but also at the level of the economy of music. broadly anything that increased the amount of improvisation in music did this.

this was all supposed to inaugurate an era of peace, love, and unity (to quote MC fats). well no, the connections between music, its economy and their social effects was more complicated than that. 

the music industry fought back, first with a tidal wave of shite indie (britpop) and then with a tidal wave of boy bands. the technology, the scene, the music, in any event, it all moved on. MP3 (remember that) and file sharing (napster) came along as well. the music industry fought back against that with streaming (spotify etc.) leaving us in our current sorry state. 

outside mist and sunshine. no zoom beers with howard last night. instead horsemouth watched ghost in the shell and read more hannah arendt. 

he read little rock from the portable hannah arendt as if it were from the origins of totalitarianism (which it could be). it could certainly be from on violence. here is a moment in hannah's thought that is distinctly out of tune with modern thought. 

but then the whole of the origins of totalitarianism  is in its detail harder to assimilate to modern conditions than its current reputation suggests. 

3 weeks of the war/ two-and-a-half years of trump remaining/ how bad can it get?

'by the great oak of cross foot and the green lane to cwmpelved green, where the idiot girl phoebe sat laughing by the fire while her grandfather was groaning in bed and a black cat rushed in and out through a broken window pane...' - kilvert, diaries, 20th march 1872.

on the 21st it snows in kilvert-land.

here the weather decent-ish until tuesday.

3 weeks of the war

'if 2020 taught us anything, it is how ready we must be to revise our worldview.' - adam tooze, $hutdown, conclusion. 

horsemouth is currently in how bad can it get? bargaining mode. 

and the answer is pretty bad. 

'I believe the world has not yet well understood the depth of the energy security challenge we are facing, it is much bigger than what we had in the 1970s... it is also bigger than the natural gas price shock we experienced after the russia's invasion of ukraine.' - IEA executive director fatih birol. 

the economic harms are staggering  and the longer the war runs the more they are baked in. of course the oil shortage/ natural gas shortage/ fertiliser shortage harms china but it also harms american citizens, british citizens, EU citizens. 

the increase in the cost of transport will cause inflation in almost all commodities, shortage of fertiliser will cause rises in food prices, electricity and gas prices will rise, interest rates will stay high throttling investment.

the poor will get poorer again (but even more so). 

however, ever the dialectician, horsemouth sees the good that can come out of this in breaking US hegemony.

two-and-a-half years of trump still remaining (conservative estimate) 

assuming he leaves office when he's supposed to (it's not like he doesn't have previous for election tampering and coup attempts).

last night (fairly early on) a dream where horsemouth was in a house with a girlfriend (a girlfriend from the past, a girlfriend from the future,  he couldn't tell). the house was very full of things but it all seemed bright and happy. here a cold misty morning but probably quite good later on. a walk into the village to get the newspaper. 

there's some evidence of growth in the greenhouse. 

EQUINOX

'so can I just write some bullshit here and save it for the day when I am back online again?' - horsemouth, 19/03/2026

internet connection wifi runaround

horsemouth was quite proud of the last blogpost he wrote using the lewis carroll letter-writing/ george maciunas art administrations thing.

yesterday

horsemouth supposes what he will have to do is wait for his brother to finish work for the day (and then turn the router off and on like he usually does). 

ok bell-ringing booked. (must tell mum). 

the heating oil is ordered (it is expensive). horsemouth doubts the wisdom of ordering it now but it may not be any better by the start of next winter/ later on in the summer etc. he will then either curse himself for a fool for having not ordered more or curse himself for a fool for having ordered too much too early. 

there's a trip to the doctor's for his mum one morning next week. horsemouth has worked out the bus going down he wants to check the timetable for the bus coming back (1058 or 1258 he guesses to be ready for the 1120 or the 1320). he suspects the appointment is in the sweet spot of journey, long wait, appointment, even longer wait.

can you tell that he is not looking forward to it? 

he thinks one way round it is to go for food/ coffee etc. 

the wifi is absolutely giving him the runaround (but at some point soon his brother will pack up for the day and then horsemouth can sort that fucker out with absolute router brutality).  

that did it. if not horsemouth would be stuck out here with no communications.  

good bells. horsemouth is out of the avoiding disasters bit and into the productive work. the angel of grosmont afterwards. 

today. horsemouth has no interest in going to a garden centre (the day's proposed activity) he just wants some seeds so he can grow some food - it doesn't strike him as unreasonable. misty morning. trip to the garden centre has been cancelled. 

the week after. horsemouth will be hiding out in the wen again. 

yesterday horsemouth took a walk round up onto the common via abbeydore crossroads (and then back down via dicks pitch).  after that he got irritated. but really there's no need. 

some advice on letter-writing (flux administration)

tuesday the 19th of march 1872 and the reverend kilvert is off visiting;  

'I called on my old friend richard meredith of colva, the land measurer, who lives in bridge street., just above hay bridge. I used to go there and talk to him very often but I have not been now for a long time. he seemed very glad to see me, for he was much exercised in his mind by the errors and heresy of the nicolaitans... 

I am ashamed to say I know as little as he did and care to know less...'  

from there on the conversation moves on to the masons (about a page's worth of description) and then onto the praying habits of two jews from poland whom meredith had met in an inn in neath. 

horsemouth has been much concerned with letter writing 

(or rather the fact that he is not doing it). 

lewis carroll offers some advice on letter-writing (how to begin a letter, how to go on with a letter etc.), and in particular how to keep a letter-register of your correspondence (something horsemouth has not yet succeeded in doing because he has not yet succeeded in writing any). 

(horsemouth has checked his dover edition of the unknown lewis carroll but does not find the essay there. he does find reproductions of lots of carroll's photos and some of his drawings.)

we might find a parallel in colby chamberlain's  fluxus administration: george maciunas and the art  of paperwork.

'maciunas tampered with the structures of bureaucratic modernity to establish new models of collectivity...' 

well it's a bright and beautiful morning and horsemouth has his coffee. his brother is up visiting. horsemouth has seen to the chickens. in a bit, when he is sure everyone is up, he will go and get the bin from the bottom of the drive. 

today a meeting. 

'what is the commune, that sphinx so tantalizing to the bourgeois mind?'

'on the dawn of the 18th of march, paris arose to the thunder-burst of “vive la commune!” what is the commune, that sphinx so tantalizing to the bourgeois mind?

“the proletarians of paris,” said the central committee in its manifesto of march 18, “amidst the defeats and treasons of the ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck for them to save the country by taking into their own hands the direction of public affairs ... ”

but the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes...' 

- karl marx, the civil war in france, from the third address, may1871. 

but of course this begins not with karl marx's summing up but with the people of paris defending 'their' canons and this happens on march 18th 1871. 

of course the sphinx does not deal in riddles but in specific prophecy. 

the commune/ the pandemic

horsemouth has been reading more of adam tooze's $hutdown - an account of the pandemic in terms of its economics and the actions of central banks. capitalism was saved ladies and gentlemen (huzzah!) by the incurrence of debt (boo!) which we will now all be repaying until the end of time. 

and the current war upon iran will not help either.

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

beautiful morning out there. misty, but sunny, but cold. horsemouth woke up round about 6 but stayed in bed until 7. he has his coffee (let him take a sip - ah that's better). weather looks good until sunday. 

when the dust settles

kilvert has decided he must leave clyro. 

'mr. venables told me I must write next week to the bishop to give notice that I mean to resign the curacy of clyro on july 1st...'

horsemouth is putting some effort into understanding the grand scheme 

it is no longer his concern but he feels concerned (you understand).  

marike (at the time of some previous grand scheme) had a thing about pots of money - the government might not want to pay to house poor single people but it might want to pay to train people in construction skills, so maybe a scheme that did both might succeed in getting funded (and so on).

by way of comparison the modern situation appears much easier. 

there is government money to bring cold old social housing up to a decent standard (an energy performance certificate C standard). indeed for a brief period it looked like there were two pots of money that could be used,  one deriving from the fines levied upon power companies when they misbehave (the energy company obligation (ECO) with this made available to those in social housing). and a designated government scheme for social housing. 

but the government are winding up the ECO scheme after many poor installations (so that is no longer available) and the money from the government scheme has to be spent by a particular time (fast approaching). 

the ambition is being shaved off the great plan leaving the mission of compliance for as many properties as possible. 

and when the dust settles it will be possible to see what more needs to be done and what money remains to do it. but it won't be horsemouth doing this because it is no longer his business (in the metaphorical sense of that). 

================================

hey the weather looks good clear through to sunday! cold at night mind you, then a greyish day and then sun.

horsemouth has his coffee. 

kharg island freakout blues

 'hi friends. it's day eleven of the imperialist war on iran and I'm still alive...'  - random facebook vid

if horsemouth has understood the situation correctly then trump has realised that iran borders on the strait of hormuz through which 20% of the world's oil flows. iran is thus in a position to close off that supply with drones, missiles, mines, or indeed a motorboats with a rocket launchers on the back. 

trump has invited the oil tankers and cargo ships to sail through (protected by the US) and he has invited other nations to send boats to protect those first boats (though what would protect these boats from attack is not clear). 

strangely nobody seems very keen. 

alternatively trump seems to have implied that he could destroy the kharg island oil terminal (from which much of iran's own oil is despatched) if the strait of hormuz is not opened. (thus further limiting the world's supply of oil). 

iran has argued the strait of hormuz is open - just not to iran's enemies. 

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

yesterday horsemouth spent some time sitting out in the sun reading or listening to the radio. he then watched satan's sword  an earlier incarnation of the (anti)hero full-moon swordsman. 

he maintained his interest in utopias (and often the ruins of utopias)

he followed an LA review of books article to alice constance austin's llano del rio cooperative colony and then on to an overview article on it (with links to other utopian communes in southern california). 

'alice constance austin (the architect)...  proposed a city composed of courtyard houses of concrete construction, built in rows for a more equitable distribution of labor... each kitchenless house would be connected to a central kitchen through an underground network of tunnels. within the tunnels, railway cars would deliver food, necessities, laundry, and so on...'

aldous huxley lived there for a while (and indeed wrote about it).

interestingly what the article fails to mention is that, despite having its origins in the labour and socialist movements,  and in common with many housing developments in the US  of the time, llano del rio was whites only. 

there were similar african american communes at lanfair (dunbar). but still. 

'it rained a lot in lanfair in those years and in the spring, as far as you could see was beautiful golden poppies all over the valley. it was beautiful, a few other different wildflowers in the mix, but the predominant flowers were golden yellow poppies...'

it is the morning. horsemouth was just dreaming about being in a band rehearsal with pete and ross and the DAT machine (it was a dream of the type wrangling dream apparatus). 

horsemouth has his coffee. let him take a sip. 

as if it had never happened (disbelief)

'if one word could sum up the experience of 2020, it would be disbelief.' - adam tooze, $hutdown, introduction, first sentence. 

we are moving into the sixth anniversary of the COVID pandemic and lockdown. horsemouth has got adam tooze's $hutdown down from the racks (perhaps it has enough narrative drive to enable him to read it). 

boris johnson will not make his 'you must stay home' speech until march 23rd. 

the problem with the pandemic is that it changed nothing. it is an irruption rather than an event. some people get to work from home a few days a week (but then some people got to work from home before the pandemic). most actual workers had to continue on traveling in and working through it. 

as tooze notes, it's not like the world began 2020 from a place of peace - the 2008 financial crisis had ended the globalisation and the 'neo-liberalism is good' era and spawned counter-movements such as trump(1)  and brexit. the world was mad enough already before covid arrived - in a way covid arrived to capstone off that era and as a necessary moment of pause and exhaustion before the post-globalisation new thing could begin. 

in some ways the oil shock that is happening now as a result of the US re-opening the forever war will be more significant.  the world has returned to the global warming train tracks it was on before the pandemic as if it had never happened. 

horsemouth thinks it will break the US as world hegemon as the irresistible force of american military power runs up against the immovable object of the iranian regime. it will produce a cultural crisis in the US similar to that post the vietnam war. this did not find expression or release until watergate, the failure of the carter presidency and the iran hostage rescue mission (and so we begin again). 

'you gave me bad advice'  yells trump at bibi. (bibi shrugs)

this was should teach the west  a number of useful things - the need to distance themselves from the US, the need to distance ourselves from israel, the need to distance ourselves from oil. 

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

it's the morning. a very pleasant day yesterday. horsemouth has a slight headache (he's definitely got a cold whatever he says to the contrary). 

the coffee is doing its work. horsemouth's headache is clearing. 

'a strange fit of nervous restlessness'

'after dinner today I was seized with a strange fit of nervous restlessness such as I have never felt before. I should think it must have been something like the peculiar restlessness that comes shortly before death. I could not sit still or rest for a minute in any posture. the limbs all kept jumping and twitching and I should have liked to set to  run only I felt so weak and wretched... I got up and walked about but nowhere could I rest...'

kilvert on this day in 1872. (we can't leave him like this)

'after a while I fell asleep or dozed in my chair and afterwards I awoke better.'

oh dear horsemouth lost his temper the morning of the friday. (a friday the thirteenth lest we forget). it's the failure to go out bell-ringing and socialising. fortunately he got a lift back with the bus driver and they had a chat about music (so this cheered him up).

soon kilvert  will be applying to move from clyro. we have only a few months left. this could be what has been weighing on his mind. 

horsemouth has developed an interest in full moon swordsman - horsemouth doesn't understand if his signature move is a real physical effect or a supernatural effect (but it looks pretty cool). 

outside a bright sunny day (but cold). there's been a frost (hopefully the last one of the spring). no great plans for the day having delivered eggs, gone into the village and mucked out the hen shed yesterday. 

'I dread it yet I am drawn to it' (a gothic episode)

'rain was creeping over the hills from the west and blotting out the mountains. below lay the black and gloomy peat bog, the rhos goch, with the dark cold gleam of stagnant water among its mawn pits, the graves of the children.

this place has always had a strange singular irresistible fascination for me. I dread it yet I am drawn to it.'

- kilvert, on this day in 1872. 

tomorrow kilvert suffers 'a strange fit of nervous restlessness'. 

yesterday (the thursday) a rainy day (rain all day). horsemouth's mum went off in a car to purchase a particular plant for a particular aunt. 

today the weather looks like it will be decent. saturday the morning looks decent. from midweek next week it looks good.  

this is a relief frankly because the all rain days are hard on the soul.  horsemouth will wander in to ewyas harold to pick up the hereford times and up the hill to deliver some eggs. he may also muck out the chicken shed. there are things to be done but not quite enough things to be done (nor can they be done in an efficient manner). 

anyway. he's up. he's fed the chickens. 

things to do

in the churchyard at dore abbey a new bench. '212 souls'  a memorial to those who died at abbeydore workhouse in its near century of operations (1837-1930) and are buried in unmarked graves in the churchyard. 

at least that's the figure obtained from perusing the archives. (it could easily be more). 

yesterday horsemouth also went for a wander up on the common (though not up to its highest point due to the mud) and he delivered eggs. 

on the monday march 11th 1872 kilvert sees his love daisy and they have the chance to have a good chat but she talks of the dissenters stealing 3 bells from the 6 at llanigon church instead. (this seems to horsemouth quite a major undertaking). 

tomorrow a gothic episode.

in the morning grey skies and a cold wind. his mum is up early (citing 'things to do'). 

a grotesque boiling down

'he becomes a grotesque boiling down of all the preposterous characters he has ever impersonated' 

-  h.l. mencken.

horsemouth's reading of the dedalus book of dutch fantasy goes well 

he's on his fourth or fifth story having read aletrino's in the dark, jan arends' breakfast (where a crusty old gent in a retirement home turns into a monkey - temporarily), and asscher's the secret of dr. raoul sarrazin (spoiler: the secret is he has a library of blank books - very fashionable in these days of AI thievery). 

he should return to his sensible reading also (the portable hannah arendt). 

instead he sat out at the bench and listened to the world at one (on an old school (digital) radio).

at the moment horsemouth needs a number of things to get on. he needs sand and cement so he can fix the patio wall knocked over by the milkman, he needs more seeds and such like for the vegetable garden (peas, carrots etc.). the number of raised beds has been increased - these will be good for the kind of vegetables that have to be picked (peas etc.) rather than the kind of root vegetables that have to be dug up (carrots, potatoes). 

last year the marrows came to over dominate the garden. while it looked good neither horsemouth nor his mother particularly like marrows (and neither do any of the family). 

today it looks like decent weather (but hereafter it all goes to shit for a while). 

so far the morning looks pretty decent. 

in good news triple negative have a gig coming up. 

in bad news horsemouth has a cold. or rather,

 'at the moment horsemouth has what many casual observers would assume to be a ‘cold’ - dripping nose/ slight cough... in fact these minor ailments are on a timer.'

'because I have nothing to say...'

'just as people sometimes work because they are bored, I sometimes write because I have nothing to say...' - fernando pessoa, the book of disquiet, entry dated 10th march 1931.

this wednesday the recycling bin goes out. thursday the bells. 

this friday is a friday the 13th (and there's a dave webb technodub show). 

the weather does not improve until this saturday. it remaining rainy and grey throughout. 

this sunday is mothers' day. 

horsemouth has just (monday) lunched going into town, because he would probably only buy more books and he has enough already. he could do with reading more. he has the dedalus book of dutch fantasy and the portable hannah arendt to be getting on with for starters. 

something horsemouth wrote about another war  four years ago 

(with the names redacted to protect the guilty).

'meanwhile the news continues to be fucking terrible. the ________ of _________ continues, those who can, flee. there is a strong media push for us to cheer on the _________ers but horsemouth would point to grozny, fallujah, syria...

to horsemouth's way of thinking actual wars with bombs and guns are more often than not bad news for the working class (who get to fight and die, be bombed and be shot, but don't get to profit from the reconstruction contracts). 

horsemouth suspects that _____ is unable to solve _____'s real problem - the politico-economic problem  of how to integrate it into global capitalism while still maintaining his rule, and so has adopted fighting wars as a means to stabilise his regime. ___________ and its client states on its borders are stabilised by oil and gas revenues but the world is marching away from oil and gas and this war will accelerate that trend (and retard it at the same time). 

_____'s regime could fall - an actual war is a pretty desperate gamble...' 

2 years 9 months of trump's presidency to go

horsemouth's mum's house is heated with fuel oil. it is towards the end of winter and the tank is low. had prices not gone high (as a result of trump's adventure war in the straits of hormuz)  horsemouth would probably have filled it up a little just to cover water heating across summer. as it is horsemouth will try to get it to last out until the end of april. in the autumn he will come back for a refueling of the whole tank at whatever price needs to be paid . 

meanwhile this morning horsemouth dreamed of getting new fangled electronic tickets to a gig with howard. but also lethal, lethal and his two sisters. 

the sun has been up and bathed everything in a golden glow but now it is hidden behind the clouds. 

'it’s not like this war has started with the world in a settled place...'

- lord jim o'neill, the ex-chief economist of goldman sachs asset management (and former government adviser).

9th march kilvert goes fishing. 

on the 8th he was instructing the young when he was informed that on palm sunday  'jesus christ went up to heaven on an ass.' 

a month on and mandelson has his passport back (because he's not a flight risk). the whole epstein scandal (the oligarchy caught in the act being sleazy and corrupt) moves to the back of people's consciousness because there's a war going on. 

horsemouth listened to the LRB james butler, peter geoghegan and ethan shone discussion on it to remind himself what was going on (when it was going on). 

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

it's another misty morning in the wilds. the chickens are out foraging (which is a good sign). horsemouth is quite tempted to go into town (just for something to do). he could do with picking up more seeds for the garden (for when the weather gets better). 

'I for one welcome the collapse of the two party regime...' (the caerphilly strategy)

kent brockman channel 5 news (last known sighting)

the moment of danger when material long supressed in political debate reaches the surface 

in london two prominent council bods have defected from labour to reform. robin wales and clive furness. 

reading the clive furness piece is instructive. 

horsemouth doesn't see that as a program capable of winning office in newham (getting a lot of votes from the disgruntled yes, winning office no). 

like gorton and denton newham has a sufficient ethnic population unlikely to warm to reform's message to make electoral success there unlikely. it's not that people from ethnic minorities don't vote for reform (or become reform politicians) it is just that they are less likely to do so. 

but then the election is a four-way split making it harder to predict (greens - independents - reform - labour residual). 

both greens and reform have a lack of in office experience but 'hiring in' expertise from the previous regime does not look insurgent - it makes reform look complicit with the sins and inefficiencies of the past (before they get to commit their own).  

what the collapse of the two party system does is make any elections more representative (in that propositions formerly outside the mainstream - from the left, from the right, are now votable on) but also less representative (because it's now even more of a three plus way split rather than a straight choice between two opposing propositions).

of course just because something is voted for this doesn't mean it will actually happen - electoral arithmetic, bureaucratic inertia, vested interests, the 'deep state' etc. all can conspire to prevent people's deepest wishes being fulfilled  (and even then just because something voted for happens it doesn't mean it is good for the people who voted for it).  

out here in the wilds horsemouth's strategy will be the caerphilly strategy - voting to keep reform out. he thinks that there is a limit on reform's support set by nigel farage's personal popularity above which it cannot easily go. 

horsemouth was surprised when the greens took north herefordshire. he was surprised (when looking at the results from the last general election in herefordshire south) how well labour had done (they had come close to taking south herefordshire) but they won't be doing that this time horsemouth supposes. 

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

it's a grey morning. from here on in a written in the morning blogpost. 

he was reading his blogposts from back in 2020 (the pandemic year). the heartwarming season ending montages, the sudden appreciation of neglected books. he was on a roll (rather than just rolling the rock).  he has started on the dedalus book of dutch fantasy. 

right now it seems doubtful the sun can break through the mist. (but it will). 

'not a mumbling word' (altruvista day)

recorded this day in 1967 altruvista by alice coltrane (edited out of a longer composition). 

also recorded that day ogunde (based on ogunde varere, an afro-brazilian folk song)  and number one both released on the posthumous john coltrane album expressions. 

'the tichborne case has collapsed and that detestable villain, scoundrel, imposter and liar is I am happy to say safely lodged in newgate to take his trial for perjury...'  

on this day in 1872 kilvert comments on a noted victorian lost-child impersonation scandal (made into a film 1998).

not a mumbling word

this is phrase used by US cultural critic cornell west. 

'and what did he have to say about this outrage? not a mumbling word...' 

horsemouth is sometimes criticised for his relative silence on the big events of our times. he just doesn't see the point. he prefers to focus on things within his reach, or that were within his reach (social housing, insulation etc.). 

the US has sunk a shipload of iranian sailors (allegedly returning from a training exercise) leaving them to drown. and what for? to provide a tik-tok clip. in a way what is surprising is that they didn't arrange to film it more. 

it is, once again, like something out of 1984. 

when the bombing stops, and the iranian people come out onto the street, will they be able to depose their leaders unassisted? probably not. and will the bombing stop? probably not. 

the financial chaos unleashed by war suits the US. petrol and gas will become more expensive due to scarcity leading to super profits for the oil companies, hampering countries and firms that depend upon trade and development. it lowers predicted returns on assets in the rest of the economy making assets cheaper to acquire for those with money already. it makes borrowing more expensive.  

the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. 

but it doesn't suit all of them. it hampers the development of the gulf states and their transition away from oil (into tourism and wealth management). they would rather not have a stupid war on their doorstep.

but in many ways is hastens the end of the US as world hegemon (a position it only occupies because china does not deign to assert itself as a military power).

it could all blow out very quickly (think of venezuela) or it could go on until iran is rubble (think palestine) or it could bog down into an interminable forever war (think iraq, afghanistan, sudan etc.). horsemouth has no way of knowing. he's not particularly smart (he's been fooled before). he has no crystal ball. 

as sad a tale as you will ever hear (and the wa-aa-aar... drags on...)

horsemouth waits to hear where the grand scheme is going. 

it was the best of schemes. it was the most beautiful of schemes. but it can't be done as is. 

forward to the scheme that can be done. 

it is ten years since the mixcloud mix done above. horsemouth selected the tunes and howard constructed the mix. it still sounds decent - judee sill, alice coltrane, art ensemble of chicago, milton nascimento. carlos santana, van der graaf generator. 

horsemouth very much enjoyed doing these mixes. he thinks that as time went on they got better, simultaneously wider and more focused.

today is also the death day of mark linkous (sparklehorse) who died by suicide in knoxville, tennessee, on this day in 2010. as sad a tale as you will ever hear. 

horsemouth has planted out some seeds out but he's not sure if he's not making a mistake. the weather is looking rainy and shit for the next two weeks, it may be that he would be better off waiting. (anyway. too late now). it may be that the weather forecast is showing him the long term average rather than an accurate reflection of what the weather will be. 

horsemouth is back from the bell ringing. it went well. a bit of dodging and then a plain hunt on 5. (all practice to improve horsemouth's bell control). afterwards the angel in grosmont. 

today. not the best looking of days. a walk into the village to pick up the hereford times.

horsemouth on the fringes of society

having completed today's blogpost 

(largely written yesterday but only completed this morning) 

horsemouth has started immediately on tomorrow's

no kilvert today (or if at least there was plommer does not record it). 

the portable hannah arendt goes well. there is a kind of soap opera to her life and of course there is the film. 

young student. affair with heidegger. studies with jaspers. repudiates philosophy. flees nazis but doesn't exile to palestine. refugee. ends up in paris and then america. thinks, writes. controversy. sudden death in mid project. 

there is a pleasing adornoesque harshness to her judgements. take, for example, an off-hand comment from 1946;

'a decent human existence is possible today only on the fringes of society' 

horsemouth on the fringes of society

horsemouth wouldn't say only but he does think that the fringes are a good place to hide. long ago he took his friend mr.social control the ranting poet's advice about getting a day job and using that to support his art. (though admittedly a lot of things had to happen before he could take that advice). 

the day job (supporting deaf students in higher education aka. beachside donkey rides) was good to him as was his social housing with the communal endeavour. his life shifted to a new pattern. he had only to add acoustic guitar music to this and he had a lifestyle. 

this supported him for the best part of 25 years. 

elsewhere back in the world things are following their usual sub-optimal path (horsemouth waits to hear just how sub-optimal). he supposes if it can be got to an ending then that is sufficient. 

currently he doesn't have these problems. he is still on the fringes of society but in a different way to the earlier dispensation. 

the evening before a moon outside the window. in the morning mist and cloud. 

'misty blue and lilac too

never to grow old...' 

the murder of cwmgwanon wood

'the cwmgwanon wood is being murdered. as I walked along the edge of the beautiful dingle and looked sadly down into the hollow, numbers of my old friends of seven years standing lay below on both banks of the brook prostrated and mutilated, a mournful scene of havoc, the road almost impassible for the limbs of the fallen giants.'  kilvert on this day in 1872. 

'the woods are to be felled to pay for de winton's gambling debts...'  kilvert noted in his diary on the 3rd of february. some see this as a decisive moment for kilvert that encouraged him to resign his curacy and move away. 

here in the wood on the way to the common a few trees have fallen over, uprooted, felled by winter winds and rain, the whole wood on the hill above the house just grew on the ruins of an old military base and in that wood many trees have fallen over or branches been snapped off.  

more railway stations

one thing that would improve horsemouth's life out here is more railway stations. in particular one at pontrilas (er. golden valley parkway).  at the moment the combined bus fares into hereford are about £8 (return) and your last bus back is at about 6.30 or so at night. this is a severe discouragement from visiting the town (given the relative paucity of the second hand book shopping). 

that said he's not averse to the opening up of other lines into herefordshire. at the moment herefordshire has 4 railway stations covering its entire breadth - hereford, leominster, ledbury, and colwall. it used to have 55.

in competition (in some ways) with the re-opening of pontrilas railway station is the re-opening of the hereford-ross-gloucester railway (with a stop at tintern which would be most useful for tourists going to the abbey.  this is a mere 22 mile stretch. 

similarly reopening bromyard station would be good as well (as would a line to hay-on-wye). 

in wales, and around cardiff in particular, the trains are going great guns. 

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

horsemouth was a bit grumpy. he went out and attempted the job his mum suddenly marched off and attempted to do earlier. he has been told he shouldn't do another job (and this has pissed him off big time). 

ok it is the evening and he is beginning to be able to be philosophical about it.  

he's enjoying the above track trans love airways from don cherry's relativity. 

it's a misty morning. the sun a white disk in the grey murk. getting bigger. 

the sweet influences of the pleiades

'.. the quick lights of the stars and the bands of orion, the sweet influences of the pleiades and arcturus with his sons.'  - kilvert, diaries, on this night 1872. 

the pleiades, the seven sisters, used by ancient greek navigators for navigations and later the inspiration for the subaru logo.

today the death of jackson c. frank and the birth of arthur machen. 

kilvert goes for supper at the castle. 

how does horsemouth feel about iran?

well after ukraine, afghanistan, palestine, iraq, sudan, syria, libya, tunisia, egypt, lebanon, various attempts to form a kurdish state etc. he does not feel optimistic. whoever takes the west for an ally embraces a viper.  it could all go to hell in a handcart for 90 million people in a matter of weeks. horsemouth's general advice is to flee rather than stay and fight. he has little feeling for the nation state. 

if the west was so keen on democracy in iran it could have left mossadegh in place (but no - what was valuable to the west then was control of oil and gas production. horsemouth has no idea what they are up to now - and he suspects neither do they). 

horsemouth promulgates machiavelli's advice about the need to avoid foreign wars (and mercenaries) and to take care of one's own population first. this is essentially the MAGA position which trump is betraying right now by this war. (unless like venezuela it is just a robbery and kidnapping). 

oh dear the milkman has knocked over a bit of the patio wall (and left a note apologising). last night another episode of little prophets (which horsemouth is enjoying enormously). horsemouth is trying to move his waking up in the direction of 7am so that it will be 8am when the clocks go forward. 

everything is cracking up

'the point is,' said anna, 'as far as I can see everything is cracking up.' 

- doris lessing, the golden notebook, second sentence. 

horsemouth tells a lie 

the WIRE review of 2024 does contain an album he recognises wadada leo smith and amina claudine myers central park's mosaics...  but he swears down this is the only one. 

on this day in 1872 kilvert's got mail 'a letter from mr. venables with an account of their doings in london...' 

at the end of the week a bandcamp friday and the 10th anniversary of horsemouth's first mixcloud mix. 

in a bit horsemouth will go out again and dig up earth and fling it in to boxes (hopefully he will remember to chuck the muck in first to fertilise next year's growth). 

he has potted up the runner beans from his uncle (now to see if they come up).

saturday horsemouth watched the 1967 french version of the invention of morel  by adolfo bioy casares. it's quite a sad tale really. our castaway is watching the bourgeois in their house in their time on a loop and  by dint of careful practice (and at great personal risk) he can insert himself into it as if he had been there for real. he sets the machines to record again and inserts himself into the action aware that this will lead to his death but also his everlasting life as the machines play the loop of life in the house on repeat. 

there is the italian 1974 film version with anna karina in the role of faustine. (horsemouth has watched this one as well, but a long time ago).  

horsemouth has started on the portable hannah arendt wuth peter baehr's editors introduction. he had earlier dived in to her conversation with gunter graus (oct. 28th 1964) but has backed up to try to get an overview. 

today a grey day. tomorrow possibly some sun. we are at 11 hours of daylight. 

unceasing wonders (jackson c. frank)

'the news from other countries might just as well be from other planets, so far away did they seem now...'  - doris lessing, memoirs of a survivor. 

in kilvert land (1872) queen victoria has been attacked in buckingham palace by arthur o'connor.

here (in the wilds) an entirely written in the morning blogpost.

last night, before he fell asleep, horsemouth was reading the WIRE review of 2024 and in particular their archive/ re-released category. as usual, of their many records, he only recognised a few. 

at number one there's alice coltrane's the carnegie hall concert from 1971 (hail alice, in what was the year of alice). 

at number five there's emahoy tsege mariam gebru's souvenirs,  at fifteen a creation rebel compilation, at twenty seven nusrat fateh ali khan's chain of light  and at forty-eight dorothy ashby's afro-harping. broadcast get two look ins. 

in terms of new music there is literally nothing he knows.

march begins  

'shipwreck everywhere' cheerfully remarks the triple negative calendar (in a lift from petronius' satyricon).

it is another month with a friday the 13th. (though after this there will not be another visitation until november). there will be a bandcamp friday.  

a solid day for horsemouth yesterday. he mucked out the henshed. he walked into ewyas harold across the common (and didn't fall over) for the hereford times. he changed the battery in a clock and got it started again. he started on filling the new raised beds. more on that today. 

so far a dry morning but the weather forecast predicts off and on drizzle (and a surprisingly decent week thereafter).

tomorrow, his diary has reminded him, one of the two jackson c. frank days. tomorrow is the anniversary of his birth. the day after will be the anniversary of his death. here he is from later on in his life. you can hear his ragged breathing.