'a town without intimations'

horsemouth is very taken by albert camus description of oran in the introduction to his the plague (red cross I think it was - no british heart foundation - lewisham - two pounds fifty, when horsemouth got it home he discovered that he already had a copy - undisclosed charity shop 25p, but by then he'd started reading it... and anyway this just gives him a duplicate copy for disbursement). the reading of it goes smoothly and quickly (like camus' early stories that horsemouth read recently), it's like a j.g.ballard or defoe's journal of the plague year, or the opening set up of the decamaron or the opening set up to artaud's theatre and it's double, or foucault on the social discipline necessary to overcome the plague. (anyway it goes quickly p.84 so far)

it even opens with a quotation from defoe's robinson crusoe,

 'it is as reasonable to represent one kind of imprisonment by another, as it is to represent anything that really exists by that which does not!' - robinson crusoe's preface to the third volume of robinson crusoe. (there are of course several games being played here).

further to this horsemouth has also finished ronald blythe's account of an east anglian village akenfield which is truly great - he ends it by interviewing a gravedigger (who wants to be cremated and his ashes thrown straight up into the air). horsemouth may have to find another copy to give to is parents.

this morning horsemouth trammed it to lewisham and wandered from there over blackheath and down through greenwich. the sun shone and then it pissed it down. by the time horsemouth was home it was sunny again. for the next 4 days horsemouth works, and then similarly for the next 3 weeks, and then what?