another day at the horsemouth auto-icon memorial gardens visitor's centre

well hello! and how is your visit today? we do so hope you are enjoying your visit to horsemouth auto-icon memorial gardens. should you get lost there is a full colour map available from the dispenser just by the door (best to take one now just in case). there’s a lot to see and horsemouth himself just knows you’d want to start with his ocelot collection.

but first of all a word about security. for the security and safety of all horsemouth auto-icon memorial gardens visitors suspiciously burly ‘park keepers’ patrol the park at all times. anyone caught failing to act with appropriate tact and decorum will be escorted from the premises.

properly used this bequest to a grateful nation should be available for centuries. (we wouldn’t want it to go the way of the j.g.ballard theme park over at shepperton). 

and secondly (this won’t last much longer honest) a word about decorum. there must be (to misquote up pompeii) ‘decorum in the forum’ - should you leave a comment in one of the many visitor’s books around the park they should be of the format ‘how wonderfully clever/ witty/ creative/ ecological you are mr. horsemouth, you and your auto-icon memorial gardens’.

we know that horsemouth wouldn’t want anyone attending the theme park to be confronted by an dark and disturbing material that had gone unexpectedly off script.

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yesterday (well a few days ago now) horsemouth attended an online children’s birthday party (best party ever!). there was cake (the other side of the screen). there were presents (ditto). there were birthday cards. the goody bags presented a bit of a logistical problem (but uncle matt handcock has said that there is no problem with the supply of goody bags it is just their distribution that presents a massive logistical challenge). there was singing of happy birthday (somewhat foiled by bandwidth and latency issues). the candle was blown out on the cake.

one child (bless) said that boris johnson was sick with corona virus and had been seen crying. there was the main stage - the birthday room and little thumbnail windows of children and their parents watching at home. the easter bunny was in attendance (and so, a little while later, was a black cat). horsemouth took as his style guide the goldie looking chain corona virus lockdown video.

eventually it dawned on horsemouth that he had been attending a cabinet meeting.

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the next day - bright sunny morning a little cold, the window is open at the top (just a little) to let some fresh air in. later some work. a check to see if the setback has resolved itself. horsemouth sits here with a coffee. he’s already freshened it up with some hot water and may need to do so again.

the problem with the lockdown is that it works too well with his agoraphobia. left to himself this is pretty much how horsemouth spends his summer holidays anyway (well he might visit supermarkets in search of bargains more often or go on longer walks). he would almost certainly by now gone round to howard’s, or minty’s, or pete’s to work on some music. or perhaps he would have gone for rather too many beers somewhere with howard. there would have been co-op meetings (followed by the pub for not enough beers), there would have been some work, horsemouth would probably have got in a visit to his folks in the green over easter.

several of horsemouth’s friends are using the lockdown to work on their art (minty and myk). horsemouth is a little envious. he should use the time to work up his solo set and a few more crowd pleasers for sing-alongs.

the first problem is that horsemouth is using up his summer holidays now (so what will he do for his summer holidays?). the second problem is that having survived wave one of the corona virus (touch wood) horsemouth returns (perhaps too early) to the mundane world of doing enough work to pay the rent (the amount of work he is doing is certainly too small to pay his rent and furthermore it is taking too long for him to earn enough to pay the rent by doing it).

there is a change in how the work is organised (this alone is enough to make horsemouth nervous) and there is a change in how the work needs to be done (it will take horsemouth a while to get comfortable with this).