'from the beginning of autumn to the end of winter'

'this book helped us pass the time. from the beginning of autumn to the end of winter.' 

- marguerite duras (and jerome beaujour) in  la vie matérielle, translated into english (somewhat strangely) as practicalities.

if you have the -uaries and the embers you have 6 months, or half the year. 

similarly with the equinox to equinox (autumn and winter). 

by way of compensation the weather in september is normally pretty good. outside it has clouded over but earlier it was bright and sunny. here overcast until the saturday (allegedly). (and as usual the weather is much better in hackney). and (to be fair) the sun has come out again here. 

and (also to be fair) now it is drizzling. 

later on much internet kerfuffle but it seems to have settled down and now horsemouth is perusing his old blogposts. 

indeed in the morning the internet seemed to be out and horsemouth was contemplating a day without it making do with just what he had saved on his laptop, the world of books and the world of nature. 

our coltrane album of the day (first meditations) was recorded 2nd september 1965 but not released until 1977. coltrane decided to substantially re-record it with a new band and so this version lay in the vaults. 

the embers (badenoch rearranges the deck chairs on the torytanic)

the embers

september

october

november

december

so you see how it goes. fully a third of the year. (and we start here)

on september 23rd at about 1am in the morning we have the autumn equinox and we enter the dark half of the year which runs through until march 20th. 

but we have a few weeks before it is that. before that horsemouth is due up to town for a flying visit. 

calendar day

we go around and turn the page on the calendars. the calendar to rule them all is the triple negative calendar which commands release the bat-moths!

badenoch rearranges the deck chairs on the torytanic

cleverley is gone from housing to attempt to become mayor of london. priti patel is gone as shadow foreign secretary.  

horsemouth firmly expects the tories to do better than expected at the next general election at the expense of reform but that will still leave them with only the hope of a reform/ tory coalition as a chance to get into power as compared to a labour/ liberal coalition that horsemouth expects to get more seats. 

(of course it could got he other way)

horsemouth thinks there is a limit to farage's popularity and he doesn't think there's anything else to reform (yet). he thinks that the tories will be progressively forgiven by their electorate for their last time in office and rehabilitated. he thinks that labour will dig themselves out of the pit they are in enough to escape humiliation at the next election. he thinks the lib dems will basically stay where they are. he thinks the greens/ independents/ your party will get some seats but not enough for it to be a true breakthrough. 

horsemouth is up. he has his coffee. it's another beautiful morning. he's already been across to the chickens and taken the milk over to the garage.  

books, films, gigs, events august 2026

 books

- the separation, christopher priest

- bruno's dream, iris murdoch

- the ivington diaries, monty don (intro and dips)

- unhappy consciousness, ryan ruby, nlr sidecar

- colette (earthly paradise) dips

-  eric de mare's photography (paragraph on alfred watkins)

- a report on the economic benefits of railway stations 

-  chronicle of the guayaki indians, pierre clastres (started)

- todd mcgowann on the death drive (LA review of books)

- LRB jeremy hardy on forest fires, james butler on j.d. vance's conversion

-  enthusiasm (neil cummings and marysia lewandowska)

films

-  roy scranton being interviewed about the dark mountain manifesto and paul kingsnorth

- sorcerer the william friedkin remake of the wages of fear

- to live and die in LA (william friedkin)

- ukrainian girl buys farmhouse in spain 

- thrift-a-life, bookpilled, outlaw bookseller, andy edwards ( no one wants to listen to your music ),  jude etc.

-  a new possible overground station on the top end of the old surrey canal

- pharoah sanders at the festival musique ouverte de chateauvallon (1977)

- R4 war of the worlds drama

- R4 documentary on montaigne 

-  jean-pierre melville documentary

-  joe brainard, wikipedia entry and journal entry, quoted in introduction by paul auster 

- r.b. russell bibliomania piece

- LRB review of rob scranton's impasse, 

- FT how to fix the housing crisis (wrong answer)

gigs wave debb's online dubswamp transmissions

events

exhibit by nora chipaumire, visit to the wen (much walking), scarecrow themed birthday party, silver machine on top of the pops day. 

a flashback

horsemouth has been having a flashback to when he was involved with the communal endeavour and the kind of discussions he would have (more often than not in his head) with radical critics of the communal endeavour.  

of course this is ridiculous. he is no longer a member of the communal endeavour and (while he remains sentimentally attached to its development possibilities) he is no longer involved in its decisions. 

it is this sentimental attachment that is at the root of it. 

the development possibilities are an interesting problem and horsemouth had little time for radical critics (except they occupied, and continue to occupy, a large chunk of his head. he's tempted to email in and ask. 

another thing horsemouth was interested in 

was picking up old wood, tiles and (in particular) shelves, cupboards etc. he liked natural wood, he liked furniture. he almost never bought furniture, instead decorating his room with the things that he found (wombles style). 

one example would be the various sanded, stained and varnished wine boxes in which horsemouth kept many of his books and records (student style). 

one of his regrets is not being able to bring much of this stuff with him. he could do with some shelves now (for his many books). 

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in the woods on the way to the common another silver birch has fallen over. the roots are rotted out (it's obviously not been well for a long time). it blocks the path but did not go over the line of the fence. 

horsemouth went up onto the common and wandered around for a bit (not using his usual routes). today he'll take the eggs up the hill. 

in the afternoon 3pm-ish a zoom beer with howard. howard seems to have had a good summer holiday and to be well rested. with the music out of the way he has been able to focus on art and walking, reading and writing and all that sort of stuff. 

there's a spider's web on the window but it's inside the window. horsemouth is not sure this is the most sensible use of their resources (but we shall see). 

rainy day (the film of disquiet)

rainy day (rain all day)

except for sunday morning (and then again on monday).

except it didn't rain all day. in the afternoon it stopped. 

horsemouth predicted more of that flooding business. but he went to check the stream running off the common - that's normally a good indicator. no flow yet that must mean the soil is still soaking up the rain/ it's pooling on the surface and hasn't reached run-off levels of rainfall yet. 

so jean-luc godard had a plan to film fernando pessoa's the book of disquiet 

‘a sort of song of gestures, the gestures of cinema’

but it never happened. it joined a long list of his unmade and abandoned projects. it was due to be filmed in portugal. 

today has no particular connection with joe henderson and alice coltrane but it does have a connection with mike oldfield hergest ridge was released on this day in 1974 and it does have a connection with boyd and ruth-mae rivers who were filmed this day in 1978 by alam lomax. 

soon one third of the year left (the embers). 

soon the autumn equinox. 

the morning

decentish morning so far. horsemouth has been out to the chickens. maybe a trip up the hill to deliver the eggs. 

outside it is raining (it is yesterday also)

outside it is raining (it is yesterday also)

horsemouth dug up some potatoes and then he picked some plums. 

the winter is due to be an el nino winter (thus more rain - maybe). 

ok the rain is over (for now). 

in a bit horsemouth will go out and lock up the chickens but for the moment one of them is still wandering about on the banking. (ok he's done it). their enclosure is a quagmire once again (that didn't take long). 

now (yesterday evening as will be) there's a full moon out of the window. the clouds have just obscured it. 

over on new river radio the wave debb show (which horsemouth is currently listening to this being a friday night). 

what will you find in the horsemouth folk archive?

a garden party

thunder blossoming gorgeously

a narrative that accounts for its own production 

the almshouses of hereford (no.1 in a series) 

 a dutch barn assembled by f.h. dale of leominster

an alhibi

outside it is raining (it is the morning by now). horsemouth misses the sunshine. he was imagining holding forth about john fahey at a gig of some sort. 

garden party

'if you don't think climate change is damaging the world try malaga airport at ten on a summer's evening...' 

it's the 28th august 2005 and monty don is having a garden party or rather, in his absence, his garden has had a party. (monty's point above is less about climate change and more about over-tourism). 

'the cardoons and hostas had been terribly ravaged by slugs. bindweed, thistles and nettles nestled insouciantly with their carefully cultivated cousins...' 

monty (montagu) don and his wife have been working on the garden since they bought the house in 1991 'a derelict house with a two acre field.' monty is a writer who gardens/ a gardener who writes. 

so  much for horsemouth's writing from yesterday.

from here on in entirely written in the morning.  

horsemouth has been chopping the creeper and ivy off the front of the house (but first some photos). and he brought the recycling bin back up the drive. he has pretty much excused himself watering on the basis of rain. 

the starting point for the growth was about half way up the house - the main aim is to stop it growing into the chimney pots (horsemouth has thus caught it just in time).  ideally he would have caught it before it got up onto the roof tiles. 

the bits further up the chimney will require a longer ladder (or horsemouth to lean out of the window). not all sides of the house are similarly afflicted. 

tonight the wave debb show live from new river studios 8-10pm. in the day horsemouth will finish cutting back the creeper on the sides of the house. he may wander the eggs up the hill.