the torch trees of paradise (east of the strait of hormuz)

'the blossoming fruit trees, the torch trees of paradise blazed with a transparent green and white lustre up the dingle in the setting sunlight. the village is in a blaze of fruit blossom. clyro is at its loveliest. what more can be said?' 

- the reverend kilvert on this day in 1872. 

in the morning a walk into ewyas harold to post a letter and to buy some coffee (about 1 mile there and 1 mile back). his mum thinks there is some advantage in buying 1st class stamps before the price goes up but horsemouth thinks the price has gone up already (though, of course, it will go up again at some point). 

thereafter some more gardening (planting two rows of carrots) and some reading. 

what is in the news? 

the strait of hormuz - so the US navy will now be blocading the easy bit, east of the strait of hormuz. the ships of world powers (china, russia) will probably get a pass (being too much trouble to stop), the ships of smaller countries will probably get boarded and impounded. 

quite how this is supposed to free up the world supply of oil is anybody's guess. horsemouth just thinks it is designed to produce fluctuations in the price of oil that can be bet upon by the super-rich producing super-profits. 

the driving up of the price of oil and fertiliser will drive hundreds of millions down into poverty (and possibly millions to famine and death).

what horsemouth really wants to talk about is axel rudakubana. yet he is hesitant because he knows it is a dangerous 'hot' topic. 

you may think rudakubana is just evil - the question then is how all the state agencies involved failed to stop him before the attack happened. 

to horsemouth there are unexamined facets to the story. 

as a kid axel was in a children in need advert (horsemouth thinks he's got that right - yes he starred as dr.who in an advert that has since been taken down by the bbc). this work he got through a casting agency. that's got to have been pretty cool for a youngster. pretty important. 

a brief moment of light. 

maybe it stirred up jealousy. maybe it started the bullying.

later we have him taking knives to school (allegedly to deal with bullies) and being referred to prevent three times. we have him arrested by the police on a bus in possession of knives (but not charged). we have it taking the best part of a year and a half for his autism diagnosis to come through. we have him spending the best part of two years in his room, ordering weapons off the internet and terrorising his family. we have him released from mental health care 6 days before the attack being classified as not a risk.

even the cab driver thought he was a wrong'un but dropped him off anyway. 

and so despite many failures of state intervention it is all his family's fault and all his fault and all the fault of the police, the local authority, the education authority, the local mental health services. 

is it worth mentioning that all these bodies are under-resourced. struggling with cuts. probably not. 

(hell chuck the cab driver on the pile as well). 

prevent particularly irk horsemouth - rudakubana was referred to them three times but they did not intervene because he was not ideological. he was later pronounced not mentally ill (so it was not mental health's job either). 

like grenfell we have an orgy of buck passing and so many institutional failures by people with letters after their name who were being paid to care. so much so it will be difficult to prove any criminal responsibility.