'to start with nothing...'

'to start with nothing - this morning - again...' 

- glyn hughes blog, life class (final section/ epilogue)

except horsemouth hasn't done this. this is an almost entirely written the day before blogpost. 

next week

he's cleared his going away on the monday with his mum. he's checked the bus and train timetables and it all looks do-able. he's arranged a meet. at the moment he can't seem to find his phone (hopefully it will show up soon). 

assuming it all goes well he will in any event be walking back from pontrilas (best to take a torch). 

horsemouth has been reminded of a line by his friend mr. social control - 'there's no such thing as alienation, just poor public transport.' 

thursday night there's a meeting of the common's water society and there's the anniversary of the birth of andrei sinyavsky. there's the holborn and st. pancras by-election. horsemouth thinks zac polanski has called it wrong (or maybe that particular moment has passed and maybe there will be others).

before all this the weekend

expect the usual attempts to book zoom calls and run eggs up to people. 

horsemouth spent some of the day yesterday listening to new versions (in the plural) of what may eventually be called gravedigger's lament or children's cemetery song. he suspects it is like la columbe on one of the previous far future village band albums - where horsemouth mumbles on in french and the track hides his errors of scansion and pronunciation (mostly). by way of comparison on three sailors dance and fox and hare dance horsemouth's french is fairly tight and rhythmic and works better at driving the song forward. 

anyway. there's no particular hurry, he thinks, to get it out. they have plenty of spoken word pieces and instrumental tracks to chose from. 

horsemouth mustn't grumble (and yet he does)

horsemouth went down and opened up the abbey

he's now half way through his abbey rota duty. 

on his way there he noted that the bin had been emptied already. on closer inspection, on his way back, it turned out the bin had been imperfectly emptied (ah well more for next time). 

horsemouth wheeled it up the drive. 

the thursday is the day horsemouth contemplates going to town if he has bottled out of doing it on a monday. friday is also possible. 

but he wants to go out on an expedition monday (so maybe not friday). remind him to mention this to his mum early. 

it's a bandcamp friday

horsemouth is recommending himself and rob lawson's far future village band. 

horsemouth mustn't grumble (and yet he does)

last night he read chapter 13 of millstone grit (the one about farming and gardening at the luckily titled intake farm). 

'I have not cultivated any land since I left intake farm; I had never done it before. the five years I spent there was the only period when I have experienced that delicious close association with the earth, the weather, the seasons, the plants and other creatures, which comes from working with them to produce a minimal livelihood...

my memories are of physical work that seemed idyllic, because I was not employed by anyone, and because it was part of my happy emotions about the world that was around me...' 

horsemouth is trying his usual strategy of reading the chapters of a book in  reverse order in order not to get trapped in the narrative of it, the path through it that has become over-familiar.

on thursday horsemouth was out in the garden - picking some runner beans, checking on the few beetroot remaining.  he also watered in the greenhouse and picked a few tomatoes. then he went out for a wander on the common and took a few more photos (nothing sensational he feels). 

he didn't feel a rapturous connection with nature. the runner beans have done well this year (but everything else has been pretty much rubbish so far). perhaps the sprouts and the cabbage will surprise him. perhaps there'll be a second crop of peas. 

it is friday morning. in a little while he is off to open up the abbey. 

OMtober (some kind of origami beast)

 om recorded october 1st 1965.

it's a late coltrane skronk fest but there is some chanting.

'rites that the vedas ordain, and the rituals taught by the scriptures, all these am I, and the offering made to the ghosts of the fathers, herbs of healing and food. the mantram. the clarified butter. I, the oblation and I, the flame into which it is offered. I am the sire of the world, and this world's mother and grandsire. I am he who awards to each the fruit of his action. I make all things clean. I am om...'

- from chapter nine of the bhagavad gita. 

 it was recorded in seattle between live dates:

it is also turn the calendars over day

(what gifts will the triple negative calendar bring?)

ok let's take a peek. some kind of origami beast and grand passive central (horsemouth has not a clue what this might mean). 

in the evening has horsemouth done the right thing. has horsemouth done the wrong thing. time will tell. 

outside it is raining and helicopters are circling. weather looks decent in the day coming and decent-ish over the weekend. ah monday is coming up fast. 

it is the morning. sun is up. the sky is blue. 

books, films, gigs, events september 2026

 books

- earthly paradise, colette (dips)

- practicalities, marguerite duras (part)

- segalen, paintings (the introduction)

- some reading on the films of barbara mccullough

- the tyranny of structureless essay

- bruno's dream, iris murdoch (finished)

- richard diebenkorn, quoted in sketchbooks, the paris review 215

- nlr, victor serge, polycrisis (who will pay?), blind guesses (dylan riley)

- john berger, jacobin

films

- shadow of the vampire

- william davies joins james butler over at the LRB on intellectuals

-  70up (both parts) plus a few clips of interviews with cast members

- thrift-a-life/ bookpilled returns with his clothing resale side-hustle

- deep adaptation interview

- bande a part madison scene, JLG

- dancing dervish

- london's olympic towers are cracking

- peter oborne being a genial reactionary (again)

- can britain's broken energy system be fixed? R4

- don cherry and the new eternal rhythm orchestra 

- outlaw bookseller, bookpilled, 

- LRB on nature in crisis

gigs dave webb (online), backgarden denise, dave, claudia, graham 

events

harvest moon, equinox, visit to the wen, guests visit, birthday of john coltrane (100th anniversary), 11 years since howard released the first golden glow. 

yesterday (again) something different

 

memento mori dore abbey michaelmas 

horsemouth's parents moved here in about 1980 so horsemouth has been seeing this fellow since then.

he is gradually fading out of existence (as are we all). 

in the meantime he rests on his shovel (having buried more of the dead). 

horsemouth was up at his usual time to open up the abbey. 

a saint catherine (the clue is in the wheel)

horsemouth can see shapes and faces in the wall behind her (can you?). 

hope (again)

horsemouth is sick of fucking hope.

he hates the smell of hope in the morning. it smells like defeat. 

he's sick of dreamy sound that comes into people's voices when they imagine that things can get better. 

does horsemouth think there will be diesel shortages? he thinks it is a distinct possibility. 

he makes a good speech (he promises loads of stuff for 2030 when you'll have to elect them again to get it). nonetheless it is an improvement. it is a politics done competently. one that at least addresses the major issues even if there is 'no money' to actually deal with them. 

let us see the budget anyway. 

----------------

last night  it rained. this morning a bright sunny morning. horsemouth was surprised to find something he'd written (typed in) the day before. he'd forgotten to lock up the garage (or it had blown open) and the black cat was in there. 

rob sent him some of the new stuff he is working on (and very good it is too). horsemouth sent rob a version of the lyrics to les corbeaux by gribouille (now renamed gravedigger's lament  or some such). 

today the bins, the eggs, the chickens, the abbey. 

yesterday a walk on the common

yesterday a walk on the common 

taking photos, cropping them, and then converting them to black and white.

horsemouth was mainly looking for good old decrepit technology as if they were from the world of the far future village band. he also tried to anonymise them so that the original dwellings etc. could not be identified. 

the one of the house is probably the best (horsemouth feels). 

so how do you do it? 

point, click, shoot. hope for the best.  there are rules governing this sort of thing (apparently). 

rules horsemouth doesn't know. 

so he gets what he gets. 

september is nearly done

horsemouth has already done his books, films, gigs events list. a surprisingly good month (all things considered). he's just remembered he must do the abbey tomorrow morning as well as the chickens) and the milk. 

he didn't go into town to do a book-trawl (like he vaguely planned). 

in the morning

horsemouth is up. he's done the chickens and the milk. now he's off to do the abbey and then a cup of coffee for when his mum wakes up. 

this. an almost entirely written the day before blogpost. 

ABBEY ROTA (bargaining with time)

monday

we are into the last few days of september.

a year ago horsemouth was packing up and leaving hackney. it is a year since the bermondsey folk festival.

and then it is OMtober an honourary ember beginning (as it does) with the anniversary of john coltrane recording OM.

at the end of that month we are into halloween and the celtic quarter day of samhain. these are not (perfectly) evenly distributed between the equinoxes and solstices having been moved forward a week to fit in with the start of the calendar month. 

thus you see horsemouth bargaining with time. 

new starts

ok so horsemouth has powered up the zoom recorder. named a new project and set it to record. he has seen on the screen that signal is being received. 

at 3.30pm a brief(ish) zoom session with howard (after which horsemouth had a beer). 

horsemouth (and notionally his mum) are on the abbey rota. it is good to feel useful once again.  he is typing this here so that he remembers in the morning. 

in the evening jeffrey lewis mentions a band but horsemouth can't see how the name is spelled. after an internet rabbit hole chase he finds it - woelv. 

the morning

he remembered it and is just back from the abbey. it was surprisingly warm in the abbey. horsemouth wondered if someone had left a heater on.