the screaming lady of leytonstone tube

a long walk around with H.A. (off into the forest)

the meet? 10am chingford railway station.

the plan? some turkish food and then off into the forest.

the result? a cafe breakfast (egg, beans, mushrooms, tomato, chips, tea, 2 toast) and then off into the forest. (the turkish place now doesn't open til 12)

off into the forest

our starter hike? 3 miles to high beech. (there a pint of greene king IPA each - initially disliked but we drank on regardless).

horsemouth gave howard (sorry H.A.) his copy of at the edge of the world by john berger and jean mohr. 

this was followed by 2 miles to loughton tube (with a stop off at a pub in loughton for a pint - sorry horsemouth had forgotten the name - ah. the plume of feathers). 

horsemouth got the tube from loughton to leytonstone. howard was off to stratford in search of a bus. 

at leytonstone the screaming lady of leytonstone tube who has upped the begging anti to screaming with despair the whole time. 

horsemouth then got the bus (W16) to highams park (for much of the journey he was convinced he was on the wrong bus such was the winding nature of the route).  

in the early morning hours a dream about selling his clothing somewhere in dalston (there he was in the shop dressed only in his underwear). today he's unsure what he is doing. he needs to get some replacement coffee.   

but he has his cup of coffee and he has started reading all the names by jose saramago. so far the set up with the giant office of births and deaths (where they have to keep extending out the back wall to keep up with the newly dead). horsemouth's copy is a harvill edition. on the front cover there is someone with tape over their mouth with mor-peg written on it (the cover art for this, as for many harvill books, is by paula piglia). 

literary distribution device (at the edge of the world)

yesterday

in the morning a walk with TG over to stratford for coffee. the velodrome was shut for an event. the first alternative cafe had shut down. they ended up in their usual spot. 

on the way back horsemouth bumped into pete. 

literary distribution device

at one point a dandelion was attached to the end of the zip tie on the chopstick - it was a device for distributing dandelion seeds. later a biro was attached to the zip tie - it became a literary distribution device (earlier it had been a device for fighting of seagulls or midges). 

in the afternoon a lie down (it's been a busy couple of days). horsemouth attempted a book review (having just finished a quiet place). 

today the plan is a long walk around with howard. 

horsemouth has his coffee and some peace and quiet. he was early to bed last night (having finished off a quiet place he read some of jean mohr's at the edge of the world). 

he listened to helen thompson discussing  energy flows in the world economy and what flows from this politically.

'I find it quite hard to know just how bad things could get...' remarks james butler. 

outside a greyish day. (progressively more sun til thursday). 

his legs are quite tired after all the walking about. 

heron in the back garden (to the cruel wars of high barnet)

this morning (as horsemouth made his coffee) there was a heron in the back garden. by the time horsemouth had found his camera and made his way downstairs again it had flapped off to a neighbouring garden. 

yesterday

a visit and then a journey to high barnet.

thence lunch, coffee, and some charity shopping with former work colleague paul clark.

accessions diary

- american avant-garde theatre: a history, arnold aronson, one squid. 

- the well at the world's end volume 1, william morris, pan unicorn edition (mostly for the cover), one squid

- the end of eddy, edouard louis, you remember horsemouth has an autobiography by him, one squid

- all the names,  jose saramago, one squid.

- at the edge of the world, jean mohr/ john berger, one squid. 

then a visit to the barnet museum, a walk back to paul clark's partner's house (toni) and after some car business dinner, a glass of wine, and then horsemouth was off back home on various trainlines. 

within the old power station a consumer paradise

in the morning horsemouth went off to check out battersea power station (the new tube station on the northern line) and the reopened power station itself. (after having done barking riverside the day before).

within the old power station a consumer paradise (so of little or no interest to horsemouth). there was even peppa the pig. control room b (site of the hipgnosis for the album cover of hawkwind's quark, strangeness and charm) was closed (but horsemouth could see that it was there). 

he then attempted to roll away along the riverside but frequently found his route blocked. massed joggers jogged past being healthy. he diverted off into the new builds and then back to the river. by mi6, on efra quay, a poem on an airvent.

'river efra stubbornly underground, resurrects a coffin sends it bobbing down the thames, the dead will not stay buried in its persistent spring.' 

(artwork: hidden rivers. hidden times, dorothy smartt).

he crossed over to research the second hand shops of pimlico (which he remembered as being quite good). 

in the evening a meet with minty at the sourdough and craft beer place by st. james' railway station. (he was on good form). and then a walk back.

today a meet and then off to sunny high barnet. 

horsemouth: antiquary, traveller, naturalist

well here we are april the first and horsemouth is about to head up out into the woods.

having raided the sally army horsemouth is up a copy of charles lancaster's seeing england: antiquaries, travellers, naturalists (50p). 

yesterday a visit to barking riverside (aka. doomed megalopolis). the elevated overground making a huge swerve out of barking down into it. is it high enough above the (tidal) river to avoid flooding? time will tell. 

having walked around the foreshore and back along the least promising road (passing infrastructure way but missing bastable avenue) at one point horsemouth was sat in a coffee shop. at another he was playing tubular bells in oyster catcher park.  buses from barking arrived and departed. 

horsemouth likes the edgelands where development is incomplete. where ideas are roughly sketched larger than life just to occupy spaces until something else comes along. 

then to dave and claudia's for a catch up.  whence back via the various hostelries on wood street. 

today (as he mentioned) a wander round the woods. in the evening a meet up with minty. 

how much does bob mortimer looks like dave social control

 by the time you will have read this horsemouth will be in the wen.

and he will have found a cheaper way of doing it.

but (such was his enthusiasm after actually managing this) that he forgot to ask for his railcard discount. he is therefor paying about £35 rather than £23. 

still. that's an improvement. 

the rail company he is travelling on is being dissolved soon. their trains smell of garlic (is this a side effect?).

rain fell from a cloudless sky on the small piece of station platform that was in the sunshine, 

he was very tired yesterday (after his travelling). 

in the evening he watched a comedy show where the assembled comedians aren't allowed to laugh (meanwhile horsemouth was treading carefullly round a series of political landmines). he was once again reminded of how much bob mortimer looks like dave social control. 

ok he's up.  he's just seen his bother's eldest off to work. today a wander round the hood in the morning then a catch up with some friends. 

books, films, gigs, events march 2026

 books

- diaries: kilvert mostly and fernando pessoa, the book of disquiet 

- the portable hannah arendt. edited by peter baehr

- $hutdown. adam tooze

- a book on joseph beuys reviewed in art in america

- this is a classic: translators on making writers global. essay on marguerite duras.

- anna dezeuze,  blurring the boundaries between art and life (in the museum?), tate papers, 31/1/2012

-  lewis carroll  eight or nine wise words about letter-writing 

- preview of colby chamberlain's  fluxus administration: george maciunas and the art  of paperwork

-  karl marx, the civil war in france, the third address, may1871

- LA review of books article on alice constance austin's llano del rio cooperative colony

- the dedalus book of dutch fantasy

- clive furness on open newham

- newspaper articles on  the possible re-opening of the hereford-ross-gloucester railway and similarly on reopening bromyard station 

- doris lessing, the golden notebook (fragment)

- the WIRE review of 2024 

- crack magazine review of cosmic music: the life, art and transcendence of alice coltrane by journalist andy beta, the quietus and WIRE (april 2002) articles on her

- nlr sidecar RIP antónio lobo antunes, 

- GDN  tansy gardam piece on old technology

- death of habermas (LRB and nlr)

films

- a celebration of marguerite duras (interview with one of her translators)

-  ghost in the shell (original)

- satan's sword  (an earlier incarnation of the (anti)hero samurai in full-moon swordsman)

- boris johnson's  'you must stay home' speech march 23rd 2020

-  LRB's james butler, peter geoghegan and ethan shone on peter mandelson, also political disagreement 

why haven't 'the best ideas' won?, 

- the 1967 french version of  'the invention of morel'  

- a life without writing (bbc sounds)

- bookpilled/ outlaw bookseller/ 

- the black cat (lucio fulci) part

gigs the wave debb show (online)

events

well we shall have to see.