psychic abilities (birth of liquid plejades)

today is judee sill's birthday. today grey all day (it looks like). 

'judee developed her psychic abilities at this time and became a gifted reader of tarot cards...'

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excepting the above an entirely written in the morning blogpost

during horsemouth's chat with mike the concept of a boo-leader became important (not a cheer-leader but a boo-leader). here we were, endlessly pointing out the ways in which society was bad. 'you. yes you. boo. you suck...' and so on. 

coming up abram tertz (andrei sinyavsky)'s birthday. horsemouth has started collecting quotes and re-reading a voice from the chorus.

how paranoid is horsemouth? 

when the platform pacer (on his recent journey to cheltenham) said he used to work in cheltenham horsemouth only really knew GCHQ as an employer in cheltenham, he therefore assumed he was dealing with some signals intelligence spy type (probably hacking his laptop while he was using it on the train). by way of comparison the old dude on the bus, the young engineer in abergavenny, horsemouth does not suspect of perfidy. 

hmmm

something has complicated his mood

maybe this is the right thing for it (he listened to it last night)

tangerine dream's birth of liquid plejades

edgar froese – christopher franke – peter baumann

with additional musicians

florian fricke of popol vuh– moog synthesizer

steve schroyder (earlier member) – organ outro

the cello intro played by

christian vallbracht

joachim von grumbkow; credited as jochen von grumbcow; co-founder of hoelderlin

hans joachim brüne

johannes lücke

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ok just heard the version of trois matelots (3 sailors dance) with accordion (it sounds rocking!). 

an adventure to cheltenham (during which he has many conversations)

an entirely written in the morning blogpost. 

horsemouth has been off on an adventure to cheltenham. 

permit him tell you about it in excruciating detail. 

the journey there

'ok just up (6am). coffee. bus out at 7. 

still dark out. first traces of dawn on the horizon. beautiful stars and moon (orion particularly fine). sunrise at 07.18...' 

by sunrise horsemouth was already on the bus - chatting with the driver about guitars. at pontrilas there were loads of youngsters off to college (many of whom ended up standing). there was a seat at the back end of the bus with an oldster (87) from pontypool who made use of his OAP bus pass to travel round wales. earlier in his life he'd been a prolific world traveler - borneo, fiji, australia, the states, canada, every european country excepting kosovo and moldova etc. 

like horsemouth he had never learnt to drive. 

hereford railway station in surprisingly good time (given the usual gridlock at belmont) - no hitches this time in buying the tickets. sad to say the 0826 to worcester was suffering a 20 minute delay so horsemouth took the train to newport (passing by pontrilas) changing at newport onto the edinburgh train (strange to say). 

at newport he got chatting to another platform pacer like himself. he'd worked in cheltenham and was going up for a visit. at cheltenham railway station horsemouth was planning to walk the mile and a half to the bar selected for the meet but wanted to get his bearings first (to avoid diving off in completely the wrong direction). the platform pacer offered to direct him to a bus but fortunately horsemouth had drawn himself a little map and was soon headed in the right direction. somewhere on st. george's street he lost confidence in his direction and asked for reassurance from a man doing the strimming and the woman who emerged from the office (and who had a smart phone). 

he missed the sign for the somewhat narrow imperial avenue but (by means of being parallel to it) arrived at rodney road just up there he found tailors the bar where he had agreed to meet mike. 

the last day of summer

mike waited outside the bar in a fisherman's shirt (vented at the back/ large pockets). there mike had a glass of wine while horsemouth had an IPAish thing. the house with the bar in it had previously been the residence of the victorian civil engineer sir benjamin baker (forth bridge, aswan dam, early london underground). 

they then went back to visit mike's hotel room (pausing only to get some quick photos of mike in by a hare and minotaur statue - sophie rider 1995 on the promenade). 

this they followed up with a glass of wine on the terrace outside (playing some jazz) before moving on in search of food. 

it was a bright sunny day. the last day of summer (remarked horsemouth). 

somewhere along the way they passed by the former residence of nevil maskelyne the magician.

they had an IPA each and then a lager (as part of the meal deal). horsemouth had grilled halloumi with fries, mike a croque monsieur before high-tailing it back to the hotel to pick up horsemouth's bag and head back to the rail station.

sadly the newly redecorated pub directly by the railway station was shut so they couldn't get in a sneaky pint pre-travel. 

the return

thence (a delay on the train up to worcester) horsemouth returned via newport trying to work out if this was the smart move. at newport he got on the train to chester (via hereford and abergavenny). if he'd carried on to hereford he would have had to wait on hour for the bus and then walked back across ewyas harold common in darkness as it was he got into abergavenny early enough to give himself enough time to walk to the bus station.

a youngster kindly offered to walk him down there. the youngster was studying to be an engineer and was most interested in offshore wind generation. they discussed the sheer scale of the build out of the national grid that would be required. horsemouth wished him luck with his studies. 

the bus out of  abergavenny was £5 this was considerably more expensive than the £3 bus to and from hereford (and, needless to say, strangely not in line with andy burnham's mythical £2 bus fare). nonetheless it got horsemouth into pontrilas early enough to do the 2 mile walk over the common in daylight. 

and home. 

ok just up (6am). coffee. bus out at 7.

it is the afternoon of the day before 

a radio show on housing

once again the government has promised (once again the government has not delivered).

oh well fail again. fail er. again... (get re-elected. £82k a year ker-ching!)

horsemouth has delivered the eggs, had a small bottle of beer, locked up the abbey and fed the chickens. please remind him to feed them and let them out tomorrow morning (done). 

he's done with the abbey rota (for the next while). he is free. 

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ok just up (6am). coffee. bus out at 7.

still dark out. first traces of dawn on the horizon. beautiful stars and moon (orion particularly fine). sunrise at 07.18.

trying to work out which books to take.

horsemouth is anxious about his journey.

he worries about waking up and getting out of the door early enough. 

he worries that his card is going to klux up again at a crucial point.

he worries that there's going to be some kind of rail stoppage that gets him into _____ late.

he worries that he fails to catch up with mike.

he worries that he misses the train back/ bus out of hereford.

he worries that he slips and falls over in the mud on the common knocking himself out etc. 

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ok nice chat on the bus to an 87 year old from pontypool/ cwmbran. he was off to do the triangle (abergavenny - hereford - brecon - abergavenny and back). 

train via worcester delayed - so horsemouth is coming to you via newport now. gets in at 10.57 allegedly - horsemouth will message his meetee from the newport train. so they're on to meet at 11.30. now to check whether he has made the right decision. just going past pontrilas now. 

looks like a reasonable decision. plenty of trains from newport.

season of mists (to start with nothing...)

 'to start with nothing - this morning - again...'  - glyn hughes blog, life class (final section/ epilogue)

'season of mists' -john keats’s 1819 poem to autumn

this is an entirely written in the morning blogpost (except for the first quote which horsemouth is repurposing). 

it is a gorgeous morning (but cold). the sun shone through the fogs and mists. horsemouth walked down and opened up the abbey - the night before he had not had to close it up because there was an event there. sadly this disrupted his routine and he forgot to lock up the chickens. they were all there this morning (none had been snaffled by the fox) so no harm done.

tomorrow horsemouth is up early and off on his travels (and then back in the evening). it all depends on that early start. 

the entirely written in the morning blogpost is commonly supposed to be more improvised and thus more authentic. 

what will horsemouth do today? he will deliver the eggs up the hill. he will continue to plot his escape (requiring as it does an early start). most likely on the morrow he will unleash the chickens, bolt down a coffee and serve up a prewritten blogpost. 

saturday a brief zoom beers call with howard. 

'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.