the decline of book reviewing (the defenestration of the greased piglet of downing street)

phew. good morning. sten is still alive (the assassins have failed again). 

‘sweet, bland commendations fall everywhere upon the scene’, elizabeth hardwick observed in her 1959 the decline of book reviewing.

 ‘a universal, if somewhat lobotomized, accommodation reigns’.

never mind book reviewing. horsemouth is experiencing great difficulty in even getting the books read. john clarkson in far off porto is shooting past him. horsemouth is stuck at the burning ghats with allen ginsberg (processing the bodies of dead indians).

also in portugal. john reports that the fall of bloco izquerda from their position in the government coalition is less noticed than the electoral success of chega (enough!) and other  right wing parties. for years since the revolution the fascists could make no headway in portugal and there was a cordon sanitaire against doing coalition deals to allow them into office. this has fallen. fabian figueirido (leader of bloco izquerda) writes about it. 

horsemouth will have to do more reading about how the portuguese elections actually work (he had imagined it was a proportional representation system but john thinks not). no wikipedia seems to think it is PR.

last night on tv louis theroux was in the world of the fascist internet trolls (jesus that was dispiriting). it's all the medicine show

here in this most united of kingdoms the greased piglet still has not fallen. it is tenaciously holding on to power (with its little trotters). if it fails it will be thrown out of the window and onto cobbles of downing street. 'while it only takes 54 tory MPs to compel a confidence vote, there is a larger and more important figure. that is 181, the minimum number of votes against him needed to ensure his defenestration.'

ok some activity over at hawkbinge towers (so they are not dead yet). yesterday horsemouth gave the chronicle of the black sword a listen (and the earth ritual preview). this is when he parts company with hawkwind. 

horsemouth liked the cottage industry synth duo (of dave brock and harvey bainbridge, church of hawkwind) that forms within hawkwind in the 80ies, the songs huw lloyd-langton brings are (mostly) good, even if (after levitation) his lead guitar is stretched too thin/ laid on too heavily on all the other tunes. there's a fair amount of the lyrical influence of michael moorcock and bob calvert still. there are still good things to be had. 8oies musical production is digitally  clearer and in many respects this does not help hawkwind in this period. the analogue scuzz of 60ies and 70ies recording is currently much more fashionable.  

soon enough rave will come. 

today (a monday) horsemouth does not know. he has the window open to ventilate his room. in a bit he will go for a wander.