be sure that my grave is kept clean

outside it is a beautiful sunny morning. the sun is already high in the sky. as usual horsemouth thinks he should get out into it and blog later (but the urge to blog is too compelling). 

earlier horsemouth dreamed of his reward. horsemouth's reward? for all that hard work? well stranger things have happened. 

horsemouth has a most itchy insect bite on his foot.

yesterday horsemouth went with his mum to keep the ancestors' graves clean in stoke prior graveyard.  at the back of a church a  marquee was set up ready for a reception (some portaloos also). cheerful people in suits wandered round. they did not call in (as they usually do) to the queen's woods on dinmore hill for a coffee or an icecream. horsemouth opines (from having checked the neighbouring grave) that even with the grit on top if it is just left the successive waves of plants dying off and back will eventually produce enough soil to support wildflowers (as in the the other the graves in the graveyard, ox-eye daisies seem very prevalent) but he would not object if they decided to take the grave all modernist. 

a friend's mum has died. horsemouth has made his condolences.

last night he watched a little of jan svankmayer's alice, then he finished off watching the giallo the strange case of mrs. ward. 

yesterday was the anniversary both of lewis carroll telling the tale of alice in wonderland for the first time but also the birth of al 'blind owl' wilson of canned heat. like fahey wilson was another blues enthusiast who could really play the old time material.

meanwhile that rascal robert jenrick has been busy. not only is he of the opinion that mask wearing will soon be a personal matter but he also has an opinion about the relative mortality rates in flat fires. only three people a year die in flat fires he says - surely we should stop making such a fuss over inflammable cladding. 

yes but not in 2017 robert. that year 72 people died in flat fires and all in one go, in one flat fire, now what was the name of that tower block?

horsemouth proposes that this is not an outlier but evidence of a trend (the trend of people to die in flat fires when a government derelict of its duty has allowed napalm to be installed on the outside of the block). 

the issue of course is not that we should learn to live with covid but that we should learn to die with covid and keep quiet about it (and be jolly grateful to our betters for looking after us so well).