in the 75 days of the phony war (and the longterm plan)

awesome! roger barnes tells us more about retrofitting his house in a small french fishing village. (he's going to be heating it with a wood burner so horsemouth doubts how ecological it will now truly be but horsemouth was interested to see his air-source heat pump water cylinder for supplying the hot water). 

other than this we have an entirely written in the morning blogpost. 

horsemouth is up. he has his coffee. he has fed the chickens. he has been out to the garage to get a bottle of milk. 

how did trump win? 

well (for a start) five million more americans voted for him than kamala. kamala looked to horsemouth like a perfectly good candidate who ran a  perfectly good campaign (in the limited time she had available). it didn't touch the economic pain of much of the country in a cost of living crisis because that's not her experience.

horsemouth is amused to find himself a defend the status quo person (rather than a fuck shit up person). if the rich get what they want out of trump (tax cuts) this will drive inflationary pressures and make the american poor even poorer (ho hum). 

we are in the 75 days of the phony war - before trump's bullshit really starts. 

is horsemouth now a doomster?

well there is the question of how the world fails as it falls back from a globalised capitalism - if indeed there are trade wars, if indeed it does this. more protectionism doesn't mean that capitalism is less of a global system (well it does but perhaps not in a historically productive way that leads anywhere). free trade is an ideology of a capitalism that never actually existed

ultimately horsemouth expects the destabilisation caused by the climate crisis to be decisive. in kubler-ross speak net zero and decarbonisation are bargaining- you cannot alter the underlying situation but you can make yourself feel better about it by talking a good talk. society will rebalance at a lower level of consumption for vast numbers of people (this is how decarbonisation will actually be achieved).

he expects global trade to die back and such production as there is to be onshored but he expects the market-place to remain global and platform-mediated. the super-rich will remain super rich. 

today (in 1870) edmond de goncourt goes to call on victor hugo. goncourt questions him on what he now makes of paris having returned to it,

'yes I like paris as it is today... now it's a quagmire, a ruin, it appeals to me... it's beautiful, it's grandiose!'

hugo comments on the new boulevards (and on the german armies occupying northern france); 

'... the empire did nothing to provide a defence against foreigners; everything it did was designed to provide a defence against the population.' 

horsemouth is hoping to get the net zero and decarbonisation of the communal endeavour going again (he knows there is a contradiction here - but what can one do).   

'the light of the flames flickers on their sombre, fanatic faces.'

6th november 1915 kafka goes to visit the model of a trench outside prague. 

'view of the antlike movements of the crowd in front of and in the trench.'

kafka  is only just back from his war bond mania of the day before. later a strange fragment obviously a quote (but where from?).

'the light of the flames flickers on their sombre, fanatic faces.'

not all the election results are in but it looks like a trump victory this morning. (plus the republicans look like winning a majority in the senate and the house of representatives races and so be in a position to enact whatever crazy legislation comes into their heads). 

for horsemouth (filthy lefty that he is) this is bad news - trump now has four years to actually slide the US into fascism. as usual it is not that horsemouth is a great fan of the status quo or the democratic party, it's that he doesn't like this lot in power. horsemouth has few friends in america (ny, san fran, texas) he wishes them all the best of luck. 

the oligarchs have called it. their guy is in. god help us all. 

but it's also that the people have spoken (those registered to vote, those who bothered to vote, given the vagaries of the electoral college system) and roughly half of them (perhaps slightly more) want trump. 

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above don cherry keeps the music moving. 

'little friend, pour forth'

 5th december 1915 and kafka is having a manic episode.

'(it) began with my considering if and how many war bonds I should buy. twice went to the office to give the necessary order and twice returned without having gone in. feverishly computed the interest... I felt myself directly involved in the war...' 

but then,

'gradually my excitement underwent a transformation, my thoughts turned to writing... with pains in my heart crossed the stone bridge a ta run, felt what I had experienced so very often, the unhappy sense of a consuming fire inside me that was not allowed to break out, made up a sentence 'little friend, pour forth' - incessantly sang it to a special tune, and squeezed and released a handkerchief in my pocket in accompaniment as if it were a bagpipe.' 

horsemouth has just started re-reading alice w. flaherty's the midnight disease an account of graphomania, compulsive writing, and writers block. elsewhere rick beato and andy edwards go at it over creativity and the age when people do their best work (in horsemouth's case long gone). 

elsewhere, yesterday evening, he listened to controlled weirdness interview noted scenester miss pink. there's a deptford connection to back to the planet which horsemouth hadn't realised. 

he acquired at some point in the day a stiffness in his neck and shoulder (too much time on the laptop he thinks), he will try to get it under manners today. 

'come and reminisce if you think you're old enough'

'my journal is that of me which would else spill over and run to waste, gleanings from the field which in action I reap.'  - h.d. thoreau, writer's journal, 8th february 1841.

horsemouth  is still feeling out of sorts. he went out for a wander on the common but was soon back. the sheep are back in the field (he'll see if his mum mentions it).  today (at midday) a decarbonisation meeting on zoom. 

'I remember a corner in brescia... a church in verona...' 

- franz kafka, diaries, 4th november 1915. 

tomorrow an interesting day for franz (but today less so). 

horsemouth is up and reminiscing about the deptford free festival fired up by two old dudes discussing it. there was a whole scene down there. back to the planet were the main band to come out of it (horsemouth opines).  dave (mr.social control) played there loads. the guy mentions ruff,ruff, and ready (who horsemouth thought were excellent), they later split to become fat dinosaur and the co-creators. (the co-creators were wonderful). 

the guys also do the london rave and hip-hop scenes (so horsemouth will be returning to it). 

horsemouth is told one of the old punk bands opens with the terrace chant of 'come and have a go if you think you're hard enough' changed into 'come and reminisce if you think you're old enough'.

two wonderful sisters, three wonderful sisters...

'went about a great deal lately. fewer headaches...' 

- franz kafka, diaries, 3rd november 2015. 

kafka is going about with miss r. and  'the two wonderful sisters esther and tilka; they are like the contrast between a light on and a light off. tilka especially is beautiful; olive-brown, lowered, curving eyelids, heart of asia ..'  

and yet he dreams of esther.  

'half asleep I had a long vision of esther, who, with the passion she impresses me as having or everything spiritual, had the knot of a rope firmly between her teeth and swung energetically back and forth in the empty room like the clapper in a bell (a film poster I remember).'

we are with kafka until the 6th. we are back with edmond de goncourt on the 7th and kilvert on the 8th. 

horsemouth was reading a review of love's work (and gillian rose's other works) and who should appear in it but rahel varnhagen (as earlier written about by hannah arendt). 

in some ways there is a repeat of thoreau's admonition from yesterday;

'we should not endeavour coolly to  analyse our thoughts, but, keeping the pen even and parallel with the current, make an accurate transcript of them.' in some ways rahel is praised by arendt for doing this, but she is also called a schlemihl, a shadow, an unfortunate. 

there's a lot here and horsemouth is not going to struggle with it first thing (once upon a time he 'understood'  a lot of this, or at least he could swim in that pool). 

NTS has put out a compilation of instrumental guitar, mapping out the european analogues of the american primitive guitar movement. there was a show on NTS as well. 

the pen (even and parallel with the current)

 diaries notices

- only one kilvert diary entry for the next two weeks (1870)

- only one entry from edmond de goncourt (1870) also

- four days solid of the kafka diary (and then about two weeks of radio silence) (1915)

- thoreau has quite a lot to say (but it's not very date specific)

- similarly with john clare's letters and sinyavsky's letters to his wife.

'reintroducing the freeze on local housing allowance is deeply disappointing for the hundreds of thousands of families struggling in temporary housing or facing eviction..' - the women’s budget group thinktank.

from here on in a written in the morning blogpost.

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'we should not endeavour coolly to  analyse our thoughts, but, keeping the pen even and parallel with the current, make an accurate transcript of them.' - h.d. thoreau, a writer's journal, 7th march 1838. 

yesterday was a difficult day. horsemouth was slightly run down and grumpy after thursday evening. there was a zoom call with howard but horsemouth was still on the tea. horsemouth's mum seemed moody as well. the new roof is on the wood shed. the washing machine repairman is coming on the 8th. horsemouth and his mum still have a full-ish tank of oil against the winter. 

today he starts the day (at least) a bit more cheerful. 

monday a meeting with the RISE team supporting applications for the government's decarbonisation funds. horsemouth does hope he can get it up and over the finishing line this time. any money the government can kick in leaves the communal endeavour with more money in its pocket to do the next stages of decarbonisation. of course the government money would come with various strings attached (PAS 2035, fabric first approach).  

it's all go in grosmont

as they entered the pub don't fear the reaper came on. the lad with the white face (who had earlier been sitting stock still on the banking opposite) was there. earlier some ghosts had been projected on a wall. later still the shanty singers came in. 

it's all go in grosmont. 

earlier horsemouth had been directed to the church by a group of children who were prowling around in the dark, it was a narrow climb up the bell tower to the ringing room. the ringing room was very nicely appointed (carpeted, comfy chairs). the ceiling was comparatively low, the ropes vanished up into the ceiling. 

the owl service have released a new ep including a re-imaginings of the theme to fulci's zombie flesh eaters and various other excellently synthy horror movies. truly it was a golden age for this sort of stuff. 

the film has come back from being developed  from howard's camera from the debrief session in his back garden round about august 25th/ 26th.  

here we see horsemouth with don and moki cherry's organic music societies. (horsemouth has cropped this photo from howard's original).

horsemouth forgets what point he was trying to make with these photos. 

horsemouth wakes up not tip-top but mercifully hangover free. today is grey-ish day (but hopefully rain free).