on coming to the end of a week in the forest

horsemouth is coming to the end of his week in the forest.


this was his last charity shop find - 50p


day six in the forest - the charity shops of leytonstone a big MEH 

yesterday horsemouth awoke in the forest and walked down past the hollow ponds to leytonstone (but there was no joy to be had in the charity shops there). later he wandered off to lou and martin’s do down at water into beer. that went well. martin played (opening with ornithologist’s arms) with his daughter singing harmony, horsemouth traded him for one of his CDs, then his son played violin (a variety of jigs and reels), two young dudes played - very singer-songwritery, nice jazzy chords and runs, kind of aztec camera etc.

then lou played, no banjo this time just guitar and voice, a gillian welch one, the one about her dad, milly, and a new song about deaths in custody (horsemouth thinks clinton mccurbin one was the last song he remembers being written about deaths in police custody, but they never go away.

horsemouth will do you a review of martin’s CD soon.

an after gig pint in a weatherspoons and then back to horsemouth’s main gaff by train and foot (pausing for a bag of chips to soak up the alcohol).

now he’s back up in the forest (he has just fed the forest cats). the bird feeder is full. he’s ‘zombied’ some illustrations of contributors to city am. a quiet day today (then off to max’s birthday) a final tidy round and clear up tomorrow (the last day in the forest).

emile zola (the flood, blood, three wars is done), horsemouth has returned his attention to mary wollstonecraft’s the wrongs of woman. in the madhouse the two communicate by notes left in books and by reading each other’s marginalia.


day five in the forest - horsemouth finds the magic money tree (turning on the taps of love) 

ladies and gentlemen, horsemouth has found the magic money tree - it was in walthamstow all the time! that dominic cummings hits the ground running, testing multiple similar ads online, the message - deliver brexit/ promising increased spending on public services. the key problem with promising increased spending on public services is that people don’t believe it - they have been told that it couldn’t be afforded for years and have internalised this belief and repeated it, there is no magic money tree.


but now horsemouth has found it (project fear advisory) the pains of brexit can be avoided. the peril of turning on the taps of debt funded spending is that it reveals austerity and deficit reduction as the ideological project it always was and all the suffering it caused as avoidable. how do you like them lemons?

horsemouth was surprised to see lemons growing on the magic money tree but there you go...

there is a complicating factor - brexit - which (project fear advisory) will fuck the economy (at least in its current form) and thus adversely affect uk plc’s ability to repay. international finance (those bastards) will of course have to charge more interest on their loans (purchases of government bonds and the like) to cover the risk that we will default (or more likely inflate away our debts). what may help or may hinder uk plc with this project is that trade war and economic slowdown is hitting china. the US and the EU - government debt begins to look like a good bet for the money slooshing round the world finance system in search of some kind of return somewhere. but will post brexit uk government debt have such a rosy glow to it?

what does a graph of economic output and brexit look like (project fear advisory)? - like a swoosh apparently (how very modern, how very reassuring). the nhs is of course the litmus test of how much uk plc’s owners love their citizens - turn on the taps of love - but not unconditional love, no, there will have to be changes... but the main problem (as with any course of treatment) is that it takes a while for the patient to actually feel better...

and in fact feel better may never come - once we are working away to pay the interest on this new debt we are the slaves of globalised finance (once again) and certain phrases will return - there is no alternative (for example). of course we will all be in this together (one nation tory) once again but of course some will suffer more than others - how about er... the working class? I mean after the sterling job they did of defending their pay and conditions during austerity who can doubt that they will fight off any attempt to make them pay for brexit as well (after all it’s not like it’s self-inflicted, and it’s not like the middle-classes won’t be queuing up to tell them this).

horsemouth is back online from the forest - he has had a day off from the world wide communion (though that’s not from want of trying). it is good to know such an existence is in theory possible. he, of course, had to make his own entertainment, to amuse his own boredom (hence his discovery of the magic money tree).

he read zola’s juvenalia the flood and three wars (after reading gustave flaubert’s juvenalia - in the same hesperus edition) - zola thinks war is inevitable, he castigates hugo for being a dreamer who wants to found a united states of europe (pfft - like that could even ever happen), for believing in international community and a new golden age.