a new dispensation coming/ the new thing is being born

horsemouth was asked how he was.

he replied.

'there's now a bus service from hereford to a village a mile and a half away on a sunday... there will be  evening buses out of hereford from the end of september.

I've been singing (badly) in french, whistling and telling stories over at the far future village band on albums II, III and (soon to be) IV. 

how are you?'

this doesn't exactly answer the question though does it? 

horsemouth is grumpy and bored. the recipe that sustained him through the last two to three years is coming to an end. hopefully there is a new dispensation coming/ the new thing is being born. 

yesterday he had a go at singing les trois matelots (well at least the start of it). 

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'I wonder in what terms other people tell their life histories. accounts based on chronology or external facts seemed to be the most popular, you start at the beginning of your life then trundle along towards on the present on the rails of public events...' - marguerite duras, practicalities. 

so horsemouth and his mother watched 70up the concluding (they tell us) episode of 7up the series where a number of children were followed from the age of 7 years and interviewed every 7 years.

horsemouth watched 21up (he guesses) while he was at sixth form college.  

he guesses this will be much discussed today. 

the group has more boys than girls (this would not happen now) and thus women's experiences are already marginalised. it has only one BAME kid in the whole bunch. unless someone is coming out aged 70 in episode 2 there are no LGBTQ+ characters. 

the first off is that it is a pretty strong argument for the post war boom. nearly all of the kids grow up to be materially 'successful' (houses, cars, families) not just the posh kids but the working class kids and the kids from the children's home too. 

it is a world of material success where someone who has worked as a deacon and then retired to france is almost presented as the failure. it is difficult not to make a wild diagnosis of depression but we are with the film makers definitions of surviving and thriving. had this character retired to spain and the sunshine would we think differently of him?

secondly (and inevitably) is is presented as a strong argument for marriage and children (not just as accumulator of capital but as life-work).  

we are told it is the last. can people not bear the pain of burying these characters? or watching them succumb to dementia? we have already buried the director. 

the physicist stakes his career on nuclear fusion (which in this alternate reality does not happen). he ends up divorced and surviving cancer. one of the posh kids splits off in the direction of art and becomes a documentary film director himself, he seizes control of his narrative.

external facts intrude little into this account. but the post war boom is a major (unacknowledged) factor in this and it, indubitably, has come to an end. the steadiness and predictability of these lives must look unachievable to those who are 21 now. 

ok more on this in a week's time when episode 2 is broadcast.