'industrial america shall be abandoned and left to rot in one long sunday afternoon of oblivion'

so says jack kerouac in desolation angels (a book horsemouth thinks he bought as a teenager. hmm no this edition is a 1986 printing that's too late). horsemouth hears it declaimed by jim morrison. kerouac sits high up on desolation peak watching for fires for the forestry service. but already it is not true solitude, already there is radio. the fire-watchers can talk to each other. 

horsemouth is back in the seaside towns. it looks like the babysitting is off. (he awaits clarification. he thinks he read a text to this effect but he seems to have deleted it). ok no it seems to have been on the whole time.  

horsemouth was quite sad to leave his parents (he does worry about them) but they are in the best possible place to ride out the pandemic. the isolation that he always thought was the disadvantage of their life now seems him to be an advantage. they live in the middle of the countryside, they have few points of contact with the outside world. in terms of prepping they even have a generator should the grid go down, a tank of fuel oil for the heating and a good solid vegetable garden. 

there were problems with the phone line while horsemouth was there but even so he could probably email his dad (failing that there's always the royal mail). his mum is phoning sunday he believes. 

on the way back the train and the underground were decently busy. it looks like the carnival of the world is getting going once again. horsemouth's plan is to stay sat down and wait and see what this brings. 

horsemouth expects the pandemic to be going on for the rest of his life. when they pronounce the pandemic over it will still be going on. it will come to be like a more lethal version of the winter flu - he thinks life expectancies will fall. we have less time to run and play than we thought. it therefore becomes more important to use the time we have. 

61 years on from kerouac writing desolation angels and industrial america has been abandoned several times over in successive rust belts. the commuters avert their eyes and drive on to somewhere where life is supposed to be happening, the last of the malls will die, the themed retail opportunities and leisure destinations will be deserted and shuttered. mickey, minnie and pluto will wander round the magic kingdom scavenging for food. 

when he got back horsemouth cooked and then he opened a bottle of beer and listened to the talking politics podcast (who are - they admit it themselves - bad at prediction). it's the last one until september. in september they hope to meet face to face and do the podcasts from the studio. 

horsemouth could have hidden out at his parents for longer (time will tell if coming back into town so early was the right thing to do).