'I burnt my first two notebooks...'

'a year ago today at B's instigation, I burnt my first two notebooks. in this year the whole axis of my life has changed. I have found 'the one thing necessary''. - antonia white, diaries 1926-1957, 21st march 1948.

'... I wrote nothing yesterday, that I keep getting farther and farther from it, and am in danger of losing everything I have laboriously achieved these past six months.' -franz kafka, diaries, 13th march 1915.

what kafka writes is a diary of not  being able to write. for example, in our parallel timelines, 2024 to 1915, he will write something tomorrow and then not be able to write for a long time. 

ultimately he wanted it all burned anyway (excepting the published work). 

horsemouth gives the advice he should perhaps take (make a timetable).  

he looks at the blank page in his diary for the day. 

horsemouth is grumpy. the second campaign of assessing the houses of the communal endeavour is about to happen. 

hopefully they will see the houses they haven't seen yet (and talk to the people they haven't talked to yet). hopefully no one will be missed out and require a later visit at great expense. 

ok phew good everyone has gotten back to the assessors. it  looks like everything will happen and roll on. 

more loft insulation. this will  probably be the measure that is done first (a quick and cheap win). 

thereafter people are essentially free to chose. 

if it's government money (social housing decarbonisation fund) then they are limited to insulation (a fabric based approach), but it's looking like there will be no government money so people will essentially be free to chose any measure/ collection of measures that gets the property up to an EPC C. they will probably chose solar panels (monorail) because this is the measure that means they have to move the least amount of their stuff out of the way. 

of course horsemouth doesn't think installing solar panels will be as easy and as effective as people imagine (but we will see or rather, we will EPC C). 

and the communal endeavour will have properties that have passed EPC C standard  before 2030 and everyone will rejoice and be happy (and  no one need be any the warmer and not one gram less of  carbon will be emitted into the atmosphere but HIST on that). 

horsemouth supposes that external insulation (applied to the outside surfaces of the building) is the next least intrusive measure. (thereafter we are into intrusive measures that require workers to be inside the building).

pardon horsemouth for thinking out loud here. he is adjusting (sideways) his expectations. he's been for a walk and had a bottle of beer. now it has gone dark and horsemouth's day is officially over. he is free. 

this evening (and thursday evening). a documentary on boris's career - less in the sense of steady progress, more in the sense of a careen. is I claudius a bigger influence on him than churchill? 

and he's back. for fucksake.  him and lord cameron of brexit. please just let us get to the end of the decline and fall of the roman empire without a nuclear war. 

an unfortunate bottle of pommard 1937

'had it not been for an unfortunate bottle of pommard 1937, consumed with benedicta de bezer, the diary would have gone back to 1921. on that occasion two 'enormous old journals'  were burned and the office of the dead said over them.' 

from susan chitty's introduction to her mother antonia white's diaries 1926-1957. 

ok. monday night. no kafka quote for tuesday morning.

monday (yesterday by the time you read this) 

horsemouth went for a wander with TG up the valley of the agapemonians to the waterworks park and there had a cup of coffee while sitting in the cafe (jesus the expense). the session produced to photos of horsemouth with a cappuccino mustache which he has shared with the populace. (they seemed to like new humorous horsemouth). 

they then walked back. after that horsemouth snoozed. 

horsemouth has finished the losing track railway documentary with kerry hamilton. it goes beyond the railways to general transport policy, public transport versus our alleged love affair with the car. horsemouth has (excepting his time in the countryside) pretty much always lived in the city. he has never learned to drive. he has always walked a lot and made use of the buses, the tubes and the trains. (he has also travelled on a hovercraft).  

he doesn't cycle much - he may have forgotten how. 

horsemouth (as someone who doesn't drive) is a big fan of public transport and he lives in the best place for it. pretty much everywhere else is fucked for it. herefordshire (on the other hand) was the first place to try bus privatisation. 

boris is back! no fucken way! is this some kind of early april fool joke? they're going to post him off round the red wall seats (and that's going to be harmless is it rishi? how desperate must you be!). 

howard is claiming horsemouth has a spare DX7 keyboard hidden round the place - horsemouth has absolutely no recollection of this whatsoever. to his recollection he has two keyboards he recovered from howard's after recording sessions - a cheap crap casio and an organ that seems to be powered by a rather noisy fan. er. he has literally no idea where any other keyboard would be. he wonders when he was 'gifted' it - if it was a long time ago there's a chance he left it in a cupboard at the previous gaff but he doesn't think so (he thinks it is under howard's bed). 

it's a grey morning. horsemouth types this wearing two jerseys and with the sleeping bag over his knees. the insulation guys have just two houses left to do (but they are quite important ones).

'different days in a different city' (in praise of giving up)

'how time flies; another ten days and I have achieved nothing. it doesn't come off. a page now and then is successful, but I can't keep it up, the next day I am powerless.' - franz kafka, diaries, 11th march 1915.

'I ought perhaps to have put in my will that they should all be burned at my death.' - antonia white, on her diaries, from a diary entry made 24th june 1964.

it is monday again. well... 

actually horsemouth writes this on the sunday. 

he is live from the seaside towns. by the time you read this he will have been in the seaside towns for ten days and once again he must admit that the problem is less his circumstances than himself. 

it is a rainy grey and horrible day (he supposes it would be no better in the countryside. indeed bbc weather assures him that there is little to choose between them).  he is at least up the antonia white diaries (powerscroft road book-box you have redeemed yourself). 

saturday night horsemouth played round minty and jacqueline's. he took the laramie and tuned it standard (not an ideal solution) and borrowed other people's guitars when they weren't in use. minty and jacqueline sang, himself and morven sang, morven sang, various people percussed (lisa and sorry-I-didn't catch your name of walthamstow). horsemouth stayed out late - he only drank two bottles of beer and a glass of red but he still feels underwhelming this morning, ok the day has already shifted into afternoon. he has an invite up to the park jams. 

today we will have the result of the portuguese elections. 

now the story of portugal is not the predictable europe-wide rise of the far right or of populist candidates but instead the story of bloco de esquerda and the geringonca. horsemouth hasn't checked the NLR or the LRB recently. in the LRB a piece about  tom verlaine's book and record collections. 

'... they’re a reminder of different days in a different city, where the bookstores and record stores stayed open late, and you could poke around in them even after a night out at CBGB, and the stuff that you’d get there was cheap, and the space that you needed to store it was cheap, and, even if you worked in a bookstore, you could afford an offset press and start your own poetry imprint, or find a loft space in soho and start your own band.' 

elsewhere on the LRB a discussion of giving up (and in some ways writer's block).  

in a bit horsemouth goes for a wander round the marshes with TG. we will see how lively he feels after this. 

what will be will be

oh dear howard had to drop out of the musical evening. perhaps they can get in a meet next saturday. in a bit (for it is the previous day still) horsemouth will start walking down towards minty's. he will take a guitar. tbh he's not really feeling the music at the minute but maybe something will come. 

(something came. it all went well)

last saturday would have been a good time for horsemouth and howard to meet up but horsemouth thought he would be knackered after a wander round sahf lunun. (see that would have been good that would have got in a meeting with max and all the other old gits). that got cancelled and this wrongfooted his entire weekend and the subsequent week.

maybe horsemouth and howard will catch up on the sunday. 

last time (ok in september) he'd been straight off the train and straight up london fields to chat with the masses, hang about in the sunshine etc.. the meeting and greeting had all worked like clockwork. the next night lankum etc. 

this time he was straight away off to a stick in the wheel gig (friday night) which was cool but then saturday was cancelled (and so on...). the town was much colder than horsemouth remembered it being - obviously there wasn't much hanging around outside that could be done. 

yesterday  a little tidying up round the house with the infuriating vacuum cleaner and the infuriating (broken) mop. he did a little before the insulation dudes arrived also (he has some pride). 

horsemouth's spatial sense is not bad but it took him a while to realise that there's a lightwell to the rhs of the bathroom  that runs down to the kitchen level beneath it. consequently there may have to be internal insulation fitted to the inside of these walls. (it may be possible to poke the insulation down the little gap between the kitchen wall and next door's garden wall, or peel back the lead work and drop it in from the top - in fact, thinking about it, this is probably what it needs, who knows?). 

the houses are not the simple shapes they are held to be, they have been extended out the back (and all that bollocks), there are those pesky flat (an uninsulated) roofs. 

now internal insulation is cheaper to fit (no scaffolding) but it is more faff and hassle and disruption (and more redecorating afterwards) for the occupants of the house. for a house like horsemouth's where everybody seems to have a hoarding habit it's a stretch to imagine everybody successfully piling there stuff in a place where it is not in the way. 

still no point in speculating on what will be. (what will be will be). even though horsemouth is doing it here. 

'time be put in parentheses... the novel thus assumes the guise of oracle'

accessions diary day 2

fictions: the novel and social reality by michel zéraffa 1976 (cover painting by michael forman)  - 75p sally army.

age of revolutions by eric hobsbawm - - 75p sally army. 

walk down to sally army - 2 miles there and 2 miles back.

the michel zéraffa horsemouth just bought for the cover really and after a cursory examination of the refences revealed lots of good people borges, barthes, caillois, balibar, macherey, auerbach, todorov and jakobsen, foucault, blanchot, lévi-strauss, lukacs,  eco - the usual suspects (plus an equal number that horsemouth has never heard of). horsemouth has read the first chapter - he's going to have to go back and re-read it (but it is nicely written so that's no suffering). 

age of revolutions horsemouth hasn't started on yet.  

'they say that the writer loses one reader for each chronicled dream' - mircea cărtărescu, nostalgia.

of nostalgia by mircea cărtărescu (yesterday's purchase) horsemouth has only read the first chapter on the roulette player (who survived his attempt to play russian roulette with a revolver containing 6 bullets). he'll read more later (it was an engaging read). 

this is one of the things horsemouth misses about the seaside towns when he's at his mum's - even though hay-on-wye is up the road - there just isn't the same access to strange and uncommon books for a quid or less - this is a function of the sheer concentration of people. these are the kind of discoveries you can make almost every time you go for a walk or  to a new area.

and on that subject horsemouth passed a locked book-box on his way home (doesn't that rather defeat the intention of the thing). 

today (this evening) horsemouth goes round to minty's for a sing-around. he's a bit out of practice. he may get some in in the day or he may trust to luck. 

'I will never write anything else again... my reader is no one else but death.'

despite having 'enough books several times over' horsemouth has bought another book. 

he has bought  nostalgia by mircea cărtărescu. one squid. (charity shop the end of powerscroft road (rspca? scope?)). penguin modern classics edition. 

price (he has been spoiled by the book boxes) and the fact that the author was east european played a part in his decision. horsemouth guesses this illustration (found on the blank pages inside the back cover) is the roulette player - a previously down on his luck character now gambling his life while playing russian roulette. 

his copy has been annotated by a previous owner. based on the a short pronunciation guide to the romanian language  written by the translator julian semilian within, advice on how to pronounce the authors name has been written on the back cover (meercha curturescoo). sadly this is not completely correct (it should be méercha cúrturescoo). 

there are two drawings on the blank pages at the end of the novel, the other seems to show the author (from the photo on the back cover) aged. 

there are a few marks in the margin either indicating particularly good lines or the need for a new paragraph. only the first chapter is so annotated, at p.24 there's a 'cf. zweig!' at p.20 there's a comment 'only force majeur' on the roulette player's decision to play with 6 bullets.

the annotations end after the first chapter - maybe the previous owner was an actor performing it as an audition piece or a playwright considering dramatising it. 

the edges of the front and back cover have been reinforced with sellotape. (in case anyone recognises their copy).

anyway it has supplanted ice in his reading affections. 

horsemouth had another wander out round the bookshops in  the afternoon but nothing spoke to him from off the shelves. there was a picador borges (no he way wrong it was italo calvino time and the hunter a picador edition but it wasn't in particularly good condition, and it was two fifty and horsemouth has unread borges and calvino  sitting around here anyway). 

today he plans to make it down to the sally army near the bottom of mare street (it is closer than the walthamstow one).

horsemouth is up. the coffee has done its work.  this is a written entirely in the morning blogpost

he had a plan for saturday (but it will have to be delayed until next saturday) and in truth it's not much of a plan. horsemouth's strategy is to trust to luck - has that worked out for him? well no it hasn't gentle readers. 

this saturday he will be playing music and singing and he's a little out of practice.  he will probably be meeting howard at stepney green tube (and they will proceed from there). he's not even sure what guitar he will be taking. 

oop the sun is just making it over the houses opposite and into horsemouth's room. the coffee is nearly done and a little cold. the binmen have been and taken the recycling. 

if there was no facebook (tell me what you'd do)

'the facebook lockout briefly opened up the possibility of horsemouth making better use of his time (but also of more boredom)... 

but the question goes - what would he do if there was no facebook?'

(and what if I told you to go on twitter?). 

he was glad to get back on because of the vast amount of reconnecting with people he would otherwise have to do (checking he'd got their email, asking them for their phone numbers etc.). postal art he supposes he should get into. 

facebook enables him to be seen. (where as otherwise he would have to act the goat more in his private life).   

'he will (of course) continue to post regularly on here (on blogspot) until that too is removed from him.'

it is the afternoon of the day before. despite being in one of the most interesting places on the face of the planet horsemouth is bored (again). 

now read on. 

he's done his meeting for the morning. and in walking there and back (roughly 2 miles each way) he's probably done most of his 10,000 steps. he's been to the shop and bought a loaf of bread and to the church where they do the food bank to pick up some of the potatoes they had left over (they may end up eaten or in the compost heap). 

he had baked beans on toast (with humous) for dinner. 

the compost heap seems good (despite some idiot constantly leaving the lid off and attempting to dispose of plastic and paper in it).  the neighbours don't seem to have moved.

it is two weeks to the equinox

horsemouth was thinking about how he's a little uninspired by the music of late and if that will come back to him.

9pm a documentary on boris. 

today is altruvista day.  

altruvista is an edited version of a piano solo by alice coltrane  that was recorded on march 7, 1967, at the van gelder studio in englewood cliffs, new jersey, during the session that yielded the john coltrane album expression. ogunde and number one from that album were also recorded that day also.  

it is, let us not forget, the year of alice, 

there's a scaffolding lorry outside (perhas next door is getting scaffolded).