'he had taken all of obsolescence as his province'

fenchurch street station is a station horsemouth thinks he has never used before - marylebone barely, paddington often, liverpool street, london bridge many times, victoria on ocassion. from here horsemouth will depart to leigh-on-sea to see various bands play. including a band called the owl service who (pardon the pun) are named after a crazed alan garner book where stiff-upper lipped english holiday makers in wales go crazy beset on all sides by welsh character actors who have clearly gone to the german expressionist school of acting. it is  all very angular and very celtic. very colonial it is too. there's even a 'you can't trust them' speech at one point. it's quite arthur machen in a way - in wales the sun only has to come out for the welsh to go all celtic and revert to human sacrifice.

as someone born in england but brought up in wales horsemouth can't help but respond to this one. under normal circumstances horsemouth will claim to be welsh, one of his grannies was probably welsh (though the herefordshire family won't admit it) and he looks pretty welsh (of the dark variety). though the other granny was scottish (but born and brought up in yorkshire), horsemouth digresses...

here. fortunately perhaps in a way, the sun has gone in. two of the chinese poppes have come up on horsemouth's balcony (pale purple flowers - horsemouth is bad at describing colours, practically to the point of colourblindness). they're in the same pot as the nasturtiums (and various semi-flowering weeds - chickweed etc.). horsemouth is going for a cottage garden effect - all this in the plastic waste and storage buckets he has found - he needs to find some more (perhaps get some winter onions in).

he's feeling unenthused by his education reading - and so he's started on moravagine by blaise cendrars which looks like a promising little potboiler - the last one to the ends of the earth was enjoyable enough (it reminded horsemouth of celine journey to the end of night).

(at first horsemouth typed project)(and variously mis-spelled obsolesence - he was sure there was another c in there somewhere) 

horsemouth is reading arthur machen's hill of dreams  which seems like a victorian preview of christopher priest, the uncanny of the countryside in summer. machen (and horsemouth pronounces it like the village just up from bedwas with a 'ch' as in 'loch', or as in ernst mach) lived in stoke newington (his character moves from caermaen (caerleon?)  to acton). it's engagingly twisted (ina psycho-sexual way). lord dunsany (inventor of gnolls) compares him, in his love of the countryside, to turgenev or, closer by, richard jeffries. the book it is closest to is de quincey's confessions of an english opium eater (which crops up a few times).

this is the second great book in a row horsemouth has borrowed from andrew - the previous one was journey through britain, a walking lands end to john-o-groats memoir, by john hillaby). he's also reading some stuff by the edu-factory collective on education.