'cold and empty. I feel only too strongly the limits of my abilities'

who knew that the apocalypse was going to be so slow and expensive? this was the rhetorical question posed by the girl on the website. 

possibly ballard. came back the response from one of horsemouth's friends. (horsemouth had posted some ballard recently come to think about it).

yes. replied horsemouth, he likes to give that impression that he's a  a connoisseur of apocalypses.

horsemouth and zali (for it was he) then imagined the breakfast in the ruins scene of aldiss, ballard and moorcock sitting around in pyjamas, eating hard-boiled eggs and discussing the end of the world. 

zali imagined them in derry and toms famous roof garden (and beset by attack helicopters). 

'pesky critters' said moorcock unshouldering the afghani stinger knock-off anti-aircraft missile. 'where did that one crash?' aldiss gestured vaguely with his wine glass. 'not buckingham palace again surely...' 

heavily scaffolded this kind of fanfic, one reliant on the original creations of aldiss, ballard et al. and their public personas. if you were to 'file off the serial numbers'  (and disguise the original source material) what would to happen?

'pesky critters' said horsemouth unshouldering the afghani stinger knock-off anti-aircraft missile. 'where did that one crash?' zali gestured vaguely with his wine glass. 'not buckingham palace again surely...' 

probably a diminution of the piece's effectiveness. (maybe not).

virginia woolf writes of the difficulty in writing when you are starved of the resources to do so - she starts in the male oxford colleges (which being a woman she can only visit on invitation).  they feed her well and it is very comfortable (because they are rich). it is from an essays about essays series by david runciman. 

peter conrad (who also writes in oxford colleges) is out in belem in the lisbon of the 70ies, 80ies. up on the hills the ambassador's residences, down by the river the shanty towns. he goes down the hill to investigate and it results in the first memorable scene in the book (which given that it is about half way in is a pity). 

it takes more than material comfort to write (but nothing can be written without a certain level of comfort). it takes an encounter (horsemouth tends to shy away from these). or perhaps what the encounter shows is that conrad has not gone deep, he writes from exteriors but not from himself, 

'cold and empty. I feel only too strongly the limits of my abilities.'  remarks kafka this day in 1914. yesterday in 1914 he writes 'the end of one chapter a failure: the other chapter, which began beautifully...' 

yesterday horsemouth buried daisy the dog (go well little creature). they buried her with the things that related to her life - lead, harness, muzzle, bed, a squeaky toy, a tennis ball to chase. horsemouth hopes that he has buried her deep enough and that she has a good decomposition. the grave goods with her are mostly plastic and so will last forever. he hopes he has set an explicable  scene for the archeologists. 

last night the detective serial. 

today a visit to the village to post something off.