Observations from a Hill

  Truss, Truss, oh where to start? Lampooning Bozza was easy: a sociopath with an insouciant and easy disregard for all but himself, pricked up and pompous in the blind faith in his own intellectual and class superiority; a cartoon of a man whose clay feet were self-evident when his mettle was truly tested. Truss, by comparison - likened by many to be batshit crazy (not my words) - seemed to be a naif on the grand stage she had engineered her way onto: indeed the leading role of which she now occupied. But no, her history is steeped in the murky realms of neoliberal macroeconomics, the cult place of worship of big business and right-wing governments alike. Right-wing 'Think Tanks' abound, in the UK and US in particular, with secretive hyphae that stretch underground across the G7, via banks, hedge funds and 'wealth-management' firms, and into the fabric of governments across the global north. Boiled down to a phrase, the ideology underlying all current right-wing econom...

There's a lot of stuff in this week's New Statesman and the papers & etc. that I will get to tomorrow; it's just my head's not up to processing it all as yet: I have been making notes, though - some very interesting and pertinent comment regarding the current shambolic economic situation and its roots - more later... Pictured is my Digitech Guitar modelling processor which I bought about ten or twelve years ago, and which has pretty much remained unused in a drawer ever since. It has a hideously difficult to navigate user interface and a lot of very naff and questionable amp and effect models, and when I bit the bullet and bought a small valve amp, I put it to one side. I wrote the other day of the glorious Vox Beast that I am temporarily the custodian of, and how that if I used it to its full potential, I would probably be mobbed by irate neighbours and possibly arrested for breach of the peace; so I thought I'd dig this thing out of its resting place and see ...

I read with some amusement in today's i , that RP - received pronunciation, AKA the Queen's [or now, King's] English is now being recognized as an accent . When I was growing up, posh people spoke 'proper' and the rest of us plebs had 'accents' or even spoke in dialect, heaven forfend. I've long held the view that the Queen, God bless her, spoke in the strangled tones of someone who'd suffered rather poor elocution lessons, often sounding in her early days like - shock, horror - a person of lower station or actress - trying to up their linguistic game. The fact is, that all accents are just that: accents. How any particular accent is judged societally is down to whether or not we see beyond the vocalisations of those concerned. Let's face it, there's posh and there's poshest: all the public schools output young adults with accents that vary according to school. An Etonian is as distinguishable from a Harrovian to a linguist, as a Scouser...

  Feeling a tad mortal today, for reasons various and vicarious. A visit to see an old friend of forty-odd years in his care home, yesterday, brings life and its brevity into sharp focus. We have together seen off so many other friends, family and colleagues in those four plus decades that it seems almost alien that, at this last, the core of our circle is, also, crumbling. What I will offer, is the first stanza from his favourite poem: T.S Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The volume of Eliot's collected works I draw from was owned by one of my lecturers at Bangor University (then UCNW) where I studied postgraduate linguistics: Mike Anthony, who was a force of nature with an unfortunate congenital heart issue that struck him down far too young. Here's Prufrock, as Alan used to like to read over dinner - so many meals shared over the decades - so much wine drunk and so many cigars smoked, so much laughter...   The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - T.S Eliot ...

Here's a question. Whose country, actually, is this - the UK as a whole I mean, as my country, Cymru, has yet to secede from the Union and rejoin the EU as a small country - I've been apparently been labouring under the misapprehension that we operate a democracy here. Demos: of the people, the populace . Now I'm not going to get into the historical detail of the Ancient Greeks' ideas of what constituted the populace - slave-ownership kind of gets in the way here - but, the people who actually live in a country, or union of countries, generate the wealth and actually are the major economic component of them, really are the true 'owners' of those countries and unions. Unless you believe in the Divine Right of Kings, the Church and land ownership - which follows from the above - we really should by now have a rather more balanced and equitable vision of where we stand and go as a society. But, none of it, if the Kwarteng-Truss Axis is to be believed. As far as it...

 OK - digression and diversion from current events and Tory dickwads: pictured is the Vox combo that Joe acquired partly with my advice from an eBay seller up the coast. I thought at first that it was a late model AC-30, judging by the photos, but when I opened it up in the workshop, there was a slight surprise in store. Instead of the four EL84 output valves I had expected, this thing had EL34s in situ, which meant that instead of 30 watts, this thing would output at least 100 watts of pure sonic delight/mayhem/deafness, etc. This combo was based on a not-too-well-received amp head, shoe-horned into an AC-30-sized cab, sometime in the 1980s. However, in the transition from standalone amp head to combo, something magical seems to have happened. What you see here, is an amplifier with the same glassy chime as a classic AC-30, but chucking it out at - yes, folks - 125 sodding watts: this thing is LOUD, and is now officially named The Beast. Anyone who has crashed a few power chords t...

OK - two things - firstly, there is currently a large scar and a smaller void in our living-room wall, pictured. This is down to our need to expand our heating portfolio from simply relying on electricity, which is currently ludicrously expensive, even given the belated cap currently on offer by the Kwarteng-Truss axis. We are negotiating for the installation of a wood stove by a local firm of some decades experience, and had set to in hopefully exposing the original ingle in which to site said appliance. The reality, on exposing the infill that the cowboys left after their 'building work' in the late '70s, was that there is no extant lintel and only block/brickwork of somewhat dubious quality, all the way to the ceiling. The upside of our investigations, however, is that the flue is clear to the roof void, and the vent which Tex Ritter and his mates, thankfully, left to vent the space sits directly under the line of the flue. So we've decided to have the stove sit out ...

  I'd say, let's eat the rich, given that's all that will be left to the vast majority of this archipelago's inhabitants, given Kwarteng's fuck-all-you-plebs budget statement: only an old Etonian could have stood up and pronounced such a vile and deluded statement as he, today, proffered. Truss - whose agenda is as opaque as her personality, has let loose the Tory attack-dog on our economy, and Christ alone knows where this will lead us. And I don't think the rich would taste too good either.   We've been given a budget that basically allows the already rich to prosper further at the expense of everyone else. A budget which will send state borrowing into the stratosphere at a time when inflation and bank rates would suggest to the prudent - conservative? - mind that borrowing is not exactly a good idea. A budget which cuts taxes - mostly favouring the wealthy. A budget statement which includes union-bashing and penalizing the least well-off of our society [T...

Despite all evidence to the contrary, our gloriously imperious and unfortunately, totally inept, government, are dead set on the ludicrous course of allowing fracking in the UK. Jacob Ree-Smug as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of the United Kingdom, has firmly nailed his colours to the mast of his crumbling three-mast-er in what would seem to be a perfectly blatant example of self-interest. The Minister for the Eighteenth Century obviously has a pecuniary motive when it comes to this issue: I ain't found it yet, but I'm sure Private Eye, et al. are on the case with this one. But the thing that sticks in my craw, is his attitude in Parliament: his self-opinionated, self-centred, entitled, condescending and frankly, rude approach to anyone who dares naysay him: but I guess that being offensive is OK if you're a toff [classist slur most definitely intended]. It's instructive to note that a company (or rather nest of companies) co-founded b...

  Just watching "The Post", the film about the Washington Post at the time of the McNamara revelations about the Vietnam War. The attempts of all and sundry to quash the findings of the study, which threw the reputations of Presidents and their advisors and staff, let alone the secret services into grave doubt, are echoed to this day by the shenanigans of governments diverse, not least our own. One day, maybe, we'll be free of this crap, but until that day, it's incumbent on good journalism and moral propriety to bring these people to book, and redress the inequities and, frankly, crimes that the 'great and the good' deem fit to foist on the rest of us in their mad, bad attempts to control the world and mould it into their own image, godlike. They're wrong. We know it. Just shout, but please, please, in an informed way: look to your history and the facts...

  In the aftermath of Queen Elizabeth II's funeral, the papers are still full of the event, and probably intend to run with it for a while yet, in some form or another. Simon Kelner in today's i [Kelner's View] talks about the sound of silence that he assumes obtained in the world beyond the epicentre of all things Royal & funereal: London and Windsor. How typically metro centric, but I guess understandable, the myth-hysteria extending to the provinces and the Anglophile world beyond our shores, fuelled by a totally committed media machine pushing back against the existential threat of privatization by our rank Tory government. The Beeb did good, however, as they always do on these occasions, whether I agree with the message de jour or no. Not so here in Rachub, though. Whilst admittedly, yesterday was generally quieted by the Bank Holiday, we, as I wrote yesterday, observed silence for someone we actually knew , rather than the essentially abstract figurehead that the...

  Interesting framing of perspectives today, of all days - a national holiday as our late Queen is sent on her way, with all the pageantry, colour, solemnity and religious ceremony of a State Funeral - and the funeral of a local man we attended this afternoon as the Queen's hearse made its way to Windsor for the private service and committal. Where the late Monarch's passing has been marked by an extended period of organized national mourning, lying in state, and a full Anglican cathedral service, Mike's life was remembered by his widow and friends at our local crematorium with a humanist service that was as brief and succinct as the Royal funeral was, frankly, long and verbose. National or personal, it all amounts to the same at the end. "The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne" - Chaucer

  A decompression day, today, as autumn and morning chill insinuates, and so I offer a Zen story, the import of which will mean more to some than others... A Cup of Tea Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to enquire about Zen.     Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.     The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. 'It is overfull. No more will go in!'     'Like this cup,' Nan-in said, 'you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?'   If this requires explanation, you need to think on, or maybe not... Source: 'Writings from the Zen Masters', compiled by Paul Reps, Penguin Books

    On a rendezvous trip to Chirk today, we'd arranged to meet at the last pub in England, just over the border. I'd feared that the place would be derelict, as it had closed some time ago, but on arrival, it was very much open and the family we were meeting were already inside. Entering the place was like stepping back in time: a pub! A proper pub! Open fire, people at the bar, others seated at proper pub tables, actually talking to each other, drinking pints. The current owners seem to have remembered what a public house is actually for. I only hope that they can sustain their business: I'd resigned myself to the fact that the real pub as a species was already practically extinct, save for the very few outliers that we personally know about. No hipster beards, no slate plates and not a lot except decent beers, salty snacks and good company. My idea of heaven... The place should be grade one listed. Please visit and support The Bridge Inn, Chirk Bank, Shropshire, you won...

Despite the semi-clandestine Thatcherite/globalist/corporate/robber-baron moves currently underway under cover of the royal funeral preparations and the accession of the new monarch [cf yesterday's post], there are some positives to be found amongst the outlying organs and feeds available to those who really find themselves quite unable to consume the groupthink of the mainstream media. Yvon Chouinard, founder of the Patagonia performance-clothing brand, but more importantly to any climber or former climber, one of the most significant of the Yosemite extreme-climbing pioneers, has decided to hand over his company and fortune to a non-profit organization in the fight against climate catastrophe, in a move echoing some other, perhaps more widely-known billionaire names, including Bill Gates. Also, in an article in this week's New Statesman, The NS Profile byline speculates on how vocal the new King might be on the environment: given that he expressed his frustration at his leaky...

Under cover of funerals regal and the general nationwide wringing of hands and handkerchieves, Kwarteng-Under-Truss have signalled quietly that they intend to remove the cap from bankers' pay, along with the other tax cuts proposed recently, neatly heralding a free-for-all feeding frenzy for the New Aristocracy. Whilst the nation would appear to be swearing fealty to our Ancien Régime, the real power-grab is taking place under wraps, only to be reported on by the few remaining real news outlets: the likes of The Guardian, FT, The New Statesman, Private Eye, et al. The rest of the media is all wall-to-wall Royalty. A good day to bury  - whether it's good or bad depends exactly where on the wealth spectrum you sit - news, the smokescreen the current events afford the government, is tragically convenient. We're facing a climate/energy/financial crisis axis, the like of which is simply unprecedented: a potentially world economy destabilizing event, that our government seems mor...

... Oh The, Well The Dark, actually. Anyone that gets that oblique reference and lets me know by whatever means, will get the Luxe Harpo & The Wunderkind Obscure References Award for September 2022: basically nowt but the warm glow that you know something that 90%+ of the population don't... The rag pictured was stuffed under my windscreen wiper while we were having lunch at The Royal Oak, Betws Y Coed this afternoon: in my case a pint of Gold from Conwy breweries and a nice Welsh Rarebit, served with a lot of unneccesary stuff: coleslaw and crisps, anyone? I think I've mentioned this organ before in passing, but this issue seems to crystallize the essence of the conspiracy-theorist mentality. Just about every article in this dubious periodical is straightforwardly contrarian, and not in a good way. The headlines and subs carry the basic flavour of it all: 'Covid shots alter DNA', 'Earth is cooling, not warming', 'Energy policy should pull away from rene...

God, there's a lot in the news and journals today, never mind the dear old queen's protracted funeral proceedings [I'm not a churl, and will not make political comment - later, maybe]. Kwarteng-Under-Truss are to press ahead with their tax-cutting strategy to address the 'lack of economic growth', despite the fact that it will not even touch the sides for the vast majority of the UK's population. Likewise, the reversal of the NI rate of contribution. The fundamental thing about the Tories is that they always accuse the Labour Party of fiscal irresponsibility: tax and spend, etc. So what does every Tory government of the modern era do? Cut taxes and borrow to fund public spending. I'm sorry, but am I missing a nicety here? Do as I say, etc. springs to mind with these people. I notice that Rupert Soames has retired as head of outsourcing gravy-train Serco, having 'turned around' the waste of space company from the brink of a well-deserved demise, havin...

Just a short note: the above picture was taken the other day, the curious cloud above the house exhibiting a refractive phenomenon I know not the term for, the bottom lobe of the thing looking rather like mother-of-pearl in its iridescence, a softened and pastel rainbow sheen not unlike the surface of a soap bubble, and likewise evanescent and ephemeral.

In the absence of anything else in the offing - apparently - today, I was reflecting on the royal accession ritual played out yesterday at St. James' Palace: centuries old and somehow just a tad out of touch with now, as evidenced by the instantaneous transmission of its message throughout the world and by its use of the phrase 'liege lord'. Really? In the twenty-first century? I'm sorry, but I lost my forelock to age and male-pattern baldness long ago... So, to mark the occasion, I writ a pome...     Pursuivant "How pertinent the Pursuivant?" The Savant quizzed, as trumpets Trumped in-voluntary's royal assent; Accession, Succession: Arcane as half-mast-trousered Mason's legs and Aprons jewelled and tawdry, The Master's pledge, trad but gaudy;   Hanging in the silent, pendant air of Loss. Deep. And. Private. Made public by Tradition and Convention too ag e- d for Relevance: trappings dug deep in the soil Of History's fabric, which, to catch una...

  OK, weird confluence approaching: Monday the 19th. September. The late Queen's funeral and the slated first day of my jury service, which I guess will probably be postponed due to the State occasion, or one would suppose and hope. As I said yesterday, it feels fin de siècle at the moment, and being called to pass judgement on a fellow human being or beings in a court of law at the age of sixty-seven, feels like a rite of passage I imagined had passed me by on my journey through life. Frankly, I don't feel particularly up to the task, or even particularly willing to engage with it, but engage I must, according to law. The Romantic in me imagines all manner of Twelve Angry Men scenarios, but the actuality will be inevitably be stultifyingly mundane. However, it remains that this is a civic duty, and I'm beholden to society to perform it to the best of my meagre abilities. It's a curious and small connection to the late monarch and her distinct will and ability to just g...

  Monarchist as I am not, and will - probably have already - tire of the protracted and imposed national mourning that is pretty much given blanket coverage across the media, and which is set to last a fortnight at least, I still sense a fin de siècle in the offing. I did catch the new King's speech this afternoon, and whilst I really don't feel any personal connection or affinity with the monarchy, it was a heartfelt and genuine speech, son to mother. I hope that he will try to move our monarchy into the twenty-first century and reduce its footprint on society, much as many other European monarchies and governments have, with a view to eventually phasing out what is, after all, a hangover of medieval feudalism, which in our current era offers little of real value or import - save tourism - to our countries. The issue with a 'constitutional' monarchy - itself a problematic concept as we don't have a constitution, in the sense that others would understand - is that ...

Feels a bit discombobulating as a definite non-monarchist, to still be jarred by the news of the death of the Queen. I suppose having been brought up in an era when unquestioning loyalty to Queen, country and the Commonwealth was the default, ushered in by the Elizabethan Serenade and having lived almost an entire life with this person firmly placed at the head of our society and culture, it's only natural that a change such as this should feel a tad momentous: after all, she's been part of all our scenery for as long as we've been around. Sad for the relatives, sad for the people who identify with her cultural significance, and a bit weird for the rest of us...

Another diary post, and another lovely day spent with old friends: a trundle around Cemaes Bay, and a fine afternoon repast at the Black Lion, Llanfaethlu. From there to visit number one son James at his place at Llanddeusant, and thence home to Rachub. A light supper of cheese toasties and copious beverages of variously alcoholic nature later, we settled into an evening of the kind of natural banter and laughter that only comes with the intimate familiarity of soul-mates: priceless...

  So, let's see what we've fed this day by our in-and-outgoing-PM's - Boris' speech this morn spoke of major successes, all - naturellement - occasioned by his own fair hand, including the usual litany of Brexit-having-got-done, fastest vaccine rollout, fastest growing economy, blah, blah, blah... '...job done!'; despite that the naysayers within his own party inconveniently - for Boris - having earlier defenestrated the bugger because they saw the naked Emperor for what he actually was. 'We've fixed the Social Care System!': I mean, really? The man really is either seriously delusional or on heavy psychedelics. At the other end of the day, The Truss, also newly returned from Balmoral and an audience with a Monarch who must wonder what, in God's name, is going on, and spared a soaking by a brief hiatus in the weather's fury, duly monotoned a stilted, scripted speech which trotted out a narrative which, after a brief, nay perfunctory, encomiu...

  Diary post, and very late due to over-indulgence: we're hosting old and very good friends for a few days, and to be frank, I need sleep, and so I bid one and all, Nos Da!

  Changing times, changing seasons: the comparison between Gerry's place in South Shropshire and Fairview Heights, vis-à-vis climate impact, is marked. The normally verdant South Shropshire qualified as a blasted heath, whereas our little slice of microclimate twixt sea and mountain has survived - so far - pretty much intact. We've had some welcome rainfall and the wildness of our gardens prospers, as do its natural inhabitants, so all is OK for the time being. The uncertainties of politics, economics, and the environment still remain, however...    

Back from our short break in Shropshire, unloaded, unpacked, fed and now watering ;0) Watching the men's Hundred final [missed the women's this afternoon], and I have to say, lurid onscreen graphics aside, the format is growing on me: it has its own subtleties and niceties, and while it could never replace the more traditional forms of the game, it's entertaining, nevertheless. Behind the TV is Jane's rather Game of Thrones-ish Art-Deco-ish Goth-ish table lamp, bought at Rosie's curio and antique shop in Bishop's Castle the other day: it's rather fine, but we've added a frosted glass dome to it, although I want to get a glass globe to complete the thing... On the political front, it looks like we've going to be lumbered with some brand of far-ish-right Tory government from Monday on, comprising a Cabinet of hands-off-big-business apologists under the leadership(!?*) of the Truss: possibly the least qualified person to head a government for generation...

  As if further proof was needed that the outgoing PM has probably never had a grip on reality, real life or really anything at all, outside his own monstrous ego, he comes out with the most fatuous, condescending, and out of touch statement of his entire career to date: buy a twenty-quid kettle to help cope with your astronomically-large energy bills this winter, and wait twenty or thirty years for the nuclear power industry to catch up. Cheers, pal. You may be able to afford a direct debit of a grand-plus a month for heat and light: normal people can't. On top of such insufferable bollocks, we now find that the energy companies are trying to go cap-in-hand for public bailout money to stay in business, due to the threat of the inevitable massive default in payments that will occur, either deliberately in some cases, or, with the majority of the population, simply because of the practical inability to cover the outrageous sums involved. Two things. First and foremost, why should a...

Pictured, foreground, is the old Rolleicord TLR camera that I bought from a late acquaintance and sometime chess opponent, Ken McCoy, back in the 1980s or early '90s for £25. To be fair, it saw little use at the time and has ended up as a film prop. And therein lies the enigma of yet another example of bizarre synchronicity, other examples of which I've touched on before. This particular one, however, is a doozy. The Rollei's use as a prop was as a period camera being used to photograph a total eclipse of the sun in a scene set in 1999. I remembered today, that the Rollei probably still had a film in it, which I loaded in exactly that year, and that the only two exposures made onto it were of the [partial, in North Wales] eclipse that happened for real back then. My son - whose movie-making I refer to - was just seven when I took the two photographs of the partial eclipse, reflected in a bucket of still water in the garden of the house where we were then living. The connect...