horsemouth is waiting for the musicians of bremen covers to arrive

ok he tells a lie. it’s here! (and very pleased horsemouth is with it too). 

the islomanes (the lovers of islands) await ‘the island of their hearts desire’. 

horsemouth has temporarily swapped his reading affections to reflections on a marine venus (lawrence durrell). it’s during the second world war, lawrence arrives in rhodes, it has been bombed to fuck and the local population and the german garrison are all suffering from starvation as a result of the blockade. we have been introduced to the supporting cast early - to see if we like them and will be reading on. soon lawrence is having a fine old time. 

it’s a day for birthdays, debussy and john lee hooker for example (and two of horsemouth’s friends) and a czech writer whose name horsemouth has forgotten (wadislav klima? ladislav klima). 

for horsemouth symmetry ceases - he will not now recover it until he is nearly retired. he is within striking distance of his bus pass (now that no one would be caught dead on public transport) but still unfeasibly far from his pension. how far he is from his death he does not know. predicting such things has become a bit more difficult. 

outside it is sunny (though it has rained overnight). horsemouth must get on with getting out there just in case it’s a morning thing. next week probably back to the wen (the seaside towns) (weather dependent). there’s a plan to hold a meeting in the fresh air (outside) - the weather for wednesday evening looks like this might be possible. otherwise horsemouth may well delay it until the week after.