in which horsemouth once again fails to blow up parliament and the king

once again horsemouth (that cartoon character) fails to blow up parliament and the king on the state opening of parliament. he would in fact be following in the footsteps of a previous attempt by guy fawkes -  blowing up the house of lords while the king is speaking to them (and the commoners allowed in). or he would be if he were going to do it.

alas, he knows nothing about explosives and he doesn't fancy going to jail. he is merely attempting to be witty. he is wearing some kind of a historical costume to demonstrate his harmlessness. 

the king will announce the business of the government for its remaining year before the next general election. this is their last chance to bribe the electorate with its own money/ talk the kind of trash that racists and bigots want to hear/ give the gas and oil companies licenses to pump more carbon into the air/ have some tax cuts for their rich mates. 

there's a whole bundle of ceremonial around this (but horsemouth disdains to read about it). this  is precisely this kind of bollocks that guy fawkes was trying to prevent. 

of course it was the explorer freya stark who visited the valley of the assassins thus returning to us with wisdom's alternative to war. but relax tyrants horsemouth is a shandy drinking lightweight who is not about to kill anybody. 

of course if it were to happen horsemouth would condemn it as terrorism. (of course he would) and say how it was playing into the hands of the fascists and authoritarians. as the old crass joke has it you can't bomb a social relationship. ideally what horsemouth would like to see is the legitimacy fall from that ceremony and people simply ignore it - it's a bunch of old men gathered in a room, so what. 

here the sun is up and horsemouth is about to go and get his second cup of coffee. the sun races through the treeline up into the woods on the hill above the house. it looks like a pretty good day (off and on).

elsewhere he is reading erling kagge's silence in the age of noise - another explorer kagge is a big fan of silence. silence is difficult to talk about, to write about, it requires careful not speech, careful not writing, it requires space to be left for it. the book was a quid from upstairs at the charity shop in hereford - it seems more correct for horsemouth's mood. 

the news from the world continues to be terrible. horsemouth wonders what the payback will be for killing thousands of children in palestine. 

nothing to say (but it's ok)

good morning!  good morning!  good morning!

the sun a giant fireball ascends into the heavens. we have just passed the first of the golden hours. sunrise 0715 sunny intervals and a gentle breeze. 

horsemouth has written some other words but he is saving them for the state opening of parliament and the anniversary of journey in  satchidananda day. 

therefore he has nothing to say but what is not in his head yet. 

horsemouth put up a link to dennis morris's photos - he turns out to have been an important figure in punk - photographing bob marley as a schoolboy, photographing the sex pistols, designing the first PIL album cover. his post on werner herzog got more likes (and his post on a freeview showing of john schlesinger's terminus got more likes still). 

to the islands with ingmar in a car horsemouth blogged three years ago (based on a dream). 

'a point here the concept of mixing was, to most people, absolutely alien.' 

greg wilson appears on the tube  in 1983 and demonstrates mixing between two record decks. the crowd are utterly bemused. this is not what music is. he's not playing it himself they are just records. where are the guitars? where are the keyboards? this isn't a performance he's just playing records! why would we watch that? 

horsemouth has the guitar tuned up in open G minor. this is  robbie basho's 'blue' tuning (dgbflatgbflatd), sometimes taking it up to an openG tuning (dgdgbd - dogged gibbered). soon he will return it to standard tuning and start practicing songs again. 

basho also tended to use an open Cm (cgcgceflat horsemouth guesses). 

that tuning the d string down to a bflat is really quite important. horsemouth does not tend to raise the pitches of strings when he retunes guitars away from standard. the note on strings tuned higher than usual should decay faster than it would otherwise have done (and conversely sustain longer for strings tuned down). 

horsemouth caught rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic once again

so the tory MP found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence will relinquish the conservative whip until his appeal (when it comes) is  ruled on - very nicely delayed. and as we know with the overcrowded court system  that can stretch out a very long time. and during this time he is still voting in parliament. because this was a fine and not a custodial sentence horsemouth thinks he doesn't face automatic deselection. (trebles all round!)

horsemouth gives the following example from the benches opposite - back in 2021 horsemouth was considering  the conviction of claudia webbe MP and the likelihood of her being recalled and losing her position as an MP. as of now she is still an MP because despite losing her appeal the sentence was reduced to below the level that would trigger a recall petition. she has not been allowed to come back as a labour MP and still sits as an independent since then.

she lost the party whip in september 2020 - and so has had an additional three years on an MP's salary (£82k a year) and will almost certainly have most of a fourth. 

3 years or 30 years what does it matter? 

3 years ago horsemouth found a copy of the 1992 NLR (new left review) it discusses a great crisis in the world economy (and here we are again). of course the overheatings and seizing up of the great machine of trade is small beer when compared to climate crisis. indeed the disruptions of the climate crisis may be so great that moving towards net zero will be revealed as a comforting dream. we tend to view the ecological pessimism of UTOPIA as a mcguffin - something designed to move on the plot -  but increasingly it looks like it is a real and accurate description of the future and net zero as a mere 'rearranging of the deck chairs on the titanic'.

the decarbonisation of social housing is still a thing. it could still happen. there could still be government money for it (or perhaps different pots of moneys). there may still be a way through that does not involve the benighted paupers of the communal endeavour paying for it all. regardless of its effects upon the climate crisis it would just be useful to the members to have their heating bills reduced. 

it is november. one of the embers. the photograph for the month in the countryfile calendar is a very scalped and pushed over tree from near beachy head.  (the ace of trees in the countryfile calendar tarot? or the fool in a tree tarot? december's photo seems to be the nine of swans.) 

no zoom beers with howard as yet and none this evening he was up at docklands and by the time horsemouth has eaten he would be knackered. a few fireworks in the distance. 

it is the morning of the 5th. it looks like a nice day out there. no kafka until the 12th. wednesday - the 8th - journey in satchidananda  day.  horsemouth is kind of stuck for a title for this blog post. 

ah. one has appeared. 

toast for breakfast?

toast for breakfast? do we think? 

do we think getting found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence is enough to get you bounced as an MP these days? (parliament isn't even back in until the 7th). he has a fair amount of previous too. 

horsemouth has bought  a 2024 dore abbey calendar (from the abbey). whodathunk it - retail therapy in the green fields. 

the triple negative book will not be arriving until mid-november say his sources. horsemouth is looking forward to it. (horsemouth has said that before but it bears repeating)

another thing he has said before is that one advantage of being out of the seaside towns at the minute is that he will be missing bonfire night (which he guesses will mainly be celebrated tonight). 

a year ago horsemouth was reading  lovecraft's the haunter of the dark (strange goings on in a disused church in providence rhode island). he picked up a 2021 diary from the colenso road book box - it won't match the days of the week and the date until 2027 but horsemouth is determined to keep it and use it that year. 

6th november 2021 horsemouth had become interested in recall petitions and getting MPs slung out of parliament. 

yesterday a glorious autumn day, a meeting on zoom. and then run up to tescos to buy his mum a small mobile phone (for in case the car breaks down or suchlike). horsemouth thanks the young man who sold them the phone and was very attentive.    

mcCoy tyner and alice coltrane. elvin jones and ron carter. gary bartz and wayne shorter.  three tracks feature alice coltrane. there's that fake national geographic cover. the mcCoy tyner solos horsemouth finds too noodly for his tastes but the rest of it really rocks. 

today rainy and grey on an epic scale. nothing today horsemouth thinks. maybe zoom beers with howard. 

'I have written nothing...' (failure to blow up parliament and the king)

'because I had slept very little during the night, did not work anymore, partly too because I was afraid to spoil a fair passage I had written yesterday. since august, the fourth day on which I have written nothing...' - franz kafka, diary, 3rd november 1914. 

'only one regret. I hate to leave while there is so much going on.' - luis bunuel, my last breath, final paragraph. 

horsemouth types this on the afternoon/ evening of the 2nd november (but it will be the 3rd when you read it). 

horsemouth may have to find something to read. he is finding listening to the covid inquiry and the news (mostly israel/ palestine) depressing.  the xavier de maistre (a journey around my room) has very small text - this makes the slim volume very stylish, but also difficult to read late at night. 

horsemouth has made the mistake of not going out for a walk in the break between the rains (or a slip-slide in the mud more like) this would have lifted his mood. he noticed a 2024 dore abbey calendar for sale  in the abbey (he may have to go out and buy one). 

the triple negative book will not be arriving until mid-november say his sources. horsemouth is looking forward to it. 

one advantage of being out of london at the minute is that he will be missing bonfire night (and the month of firework detonations before and after). bigot that he is horsemouth will gladly have fireworks for diwali but not to celebrate the failure to blow up parliament and the king (which as an added bonus would also have prevented/ delayed the union of england and scotland). 

he listened to  '... an hourlong manipulation of sounds, noises and voices taken albums originally released by the cook and folkways record labels...' by matmos from the NTS/ folkways day. it's enjoyable but sound is just sound beyond a certain level of  digital reconfiguring. this he finds more impressive because it involves a turntablist remanipulation of  locked groove samples. 

nice footage of john coltrane at the house up in dix hills in the clip at the top of the page (horsemouth went on to listen to a love supreme after this). there's some nice footage of alice coltrane (appearing here as 'mrs. coltrane'), michelle coltrane and john junior. 

last night horsemouth read a little of explorer erling kagge's silence - in the age of noise. (like werner herzog he is a great walker). 

it's the morning of the 3rd. horsemouth is up and golden sunshine is blasting in the window. last night there was a facebook outage (lots of running around and swearing). 

at some point (ok midday) there will be a post-bid consortium meeting. there may be new stuff on the table (or there may not). remind horsemouth to remind his mother (in case she wants to cart him off shopping or something). today decent weather (mostly). 

horsemouth a one mule orgy of narcissism

wait! boris johnson has talked about an orgy of narcissism?

boris johnson?

boris johnson is a one-man orgy of narcissism!

more covid inquiry stuff. 

as usual the british press are too busy with settling previous scores (brexit and barney castle) to deal with the material in front of them. surely there is more we can learn from the government's response to covid than 'oh miss he swore!'.

the main strategy seems to be throw dominic cummings and matt handcock under the bus (this is mainly because they are so widely disliked).  

with matt handcock it is entirely fair and justified. 

dominic cummings (on the other hand)  is just a small highly efficient teams bore. he's not that clever. he's not that special. the fact that he took the british political class to the cleaners is an expression of the weakness of the british political class, of their failure to understand the public.

anyone who looks at a million votes for UKIP only getting them one MP can see that parliamentary representation is broken.

and this reveals an essential tragic truth about the uk - the political class can get away with having no understanding of the people they rule over because the political system as a whole insulates the ruling class from any need to understand the people. the people don't have enough power for them to matter (most of the time). 

horsemouth is however happy to see that the political class cannot learn. it means they will get rinsed again. 

it comes to something when the saviour of the nation is held to be the institutional inertia of its civil service. 

'and finally the drowned world by ballard...' 

matt (bookpilled/ thrift-a-life) is still down mexico way (looks like). well done matt. well escaped dude. he's funding his long holiday through patreon etc. (reviewing SF novels, giving advice on clothing reselling). he's often a smart, perceptive reader and critic (not always but often enough) and his life journey (LA - san diego- mexico/ stand up comic- worker in a writing mill - youtube blogger) is interesting. 

however he will persist in using  the term 'sci-fi'. 

now there are many of horsemouth's friends who don't like the term sci-fi. sci-fi just sounds rinky-dink and cutesy and a bit streamlined and 1950ies (like the fins on a corvette). it's not as bad as gernsback's original scientifiction (but nearly). 

for most of horsemouth's friends if you don't use the term SF you are just a rube of some sort.  speculative fiction means you are pretentious (and don't want to admit you have been reading mere SF) and similarly if you should be caught drivelling on about 'third stream' or whatever it is called. 

meanwhile...

well it's a rainy morning. (and more rain to come). last night horsemouth started on xavier de miastre's a journey around my room. xavier (under house arrest) zeroes in on the microcosm. 

unbolt the door (push past small obstacles)

'yesterday, after a long time, made a great deal of progress; today again virtually nothing; the two weeks since my holiday have been almost a complete loss - I see the task and the way to do it, I simply have to push past small obstacles but cannot do it...' - franz kafka, diary, 1st november 1914. 

montreal writer mavis gallant described the motivation for writing as 'a jolt that unbolts the door between perception and imagination'  in the preface to her collected stories. here it is dramatised at the  start of her memory and invention.

'once, it must have been around 1992, when I happened to be working all day, everyday, on a story set in the paris of 1953, I was stunned and bewildered to step outside and discover the shape of cars, the casual clothing, and clean facades of the nineteen nineties.

the shock - a true shock because it brought me to a standstill - lasted no more than a couple of seconds. had it gone on I might have believed that part of my mind had been severed and sent adrift. as it was I accepted it as a fragment of the power if memory to influence time.' 

of course this is the danger of this time of year (it is samhain when horsemouth is writing this) but by the time you read this we will be safely into november (one of the embers remember) and kafka's quote about the work of writing will come more into connection. 

horsemouth has had the belated realisation that the two halves of the year are not equal. 

jan-feb-march has 90 days, april-may-june has 91 but july-august-sept and oct-nov-dec both have 92 days, so 181 days in the first half of the year, 184 in the second. (standard year rather than a leap year). a leap year is slightly more even. if the year were taken starting with april that would be more even still for a standard year (and exactly equal for a leap year). 

in the day he went for a walk on the common  and then watched some of the UK covid 19 inquiry livestream. 'useless fuckpigs... morons... cunts' - said dominic cummings of some of his colleagues (or ok he'd called them that in whatsApp messages). just in case anyone thought we were dealing with a plandemic. 

'if this is the plan, then we don't have a plan...' - lee cain

bonus points for the person with the persistent cough (this is kind of the point of it/ a measure of how far we have come).

they have got dominic in and punished him for his bad language. they have punished him for his temerity for attempting to replace the original plan (nothing can be done. let it rip. stack up the bodies) with a better one ('build our way out of it' or some such bollocks). of course everything would have gone more smoothly if he'd just known his place. 

horsemouth tends to argue dominic deserves a medal for covid (and then to be taken out and shot for brexit). 

friday a meeting of the consortium (now that the consortium is over) and another kafka quote.