pleasant greens

in the end horsemouth did not end up listening to much of the folkways NTS day (he'll have to do that today) because he found out that BBC sounds had released a fourth series of the lovecraft investigations and that they had released the whole series.

as a result horsemouth binged it.

the series as a whole updates lovecraft to the modern day britain, america, france and the middle east  and puts in the true crime podcast genre. as a result of listening to the series horsemouth went back and re-read lots of the original lovecraft stories on which it was based. 

now he holds that the haunter of the dark  is not as great as previous series (it is anti-climactic or rather post-climactic after the events at pleasant green) but it is still very good and it holds out the possibility of further series (horsemouth should check if those have been commissioned). it has spooled off the radio into a fake research notes website.

the series has mad establishment occultists in this series the haunter of the dark of the esoteric fascist variety. now these sorts of people actually exist and have existed - as an example here is proponent of a synthesis of hinduism and nazism, french-born greek fascist savitri devi, and captain jfc fuller author of the star in the west: a critical essay upon the works of aleister crowley.  whose gibbering is available on archive dot org. both of whom appear in the serial. 

in many ways the point of the mad establishment occultist trope is satire, that the political actions of the ruling class are so evil that they may as well be actual satanists or worshipers of yog-sothoth.  

of course the esoteric fascist bollocks continues in the real world and in the modern day with the likes of the order of nine angles etc. (horsemouth always misread this as the order of nine angels). 

horsemouth can't see the point in racism and xenophobia (he feels these to be negative emotions at best of no practical use and at worst positively harmful, whenever he notices himself feeling these emotions he feels shame and disgust), similarly with fascism, nazism. sod the lot of them (may they rot in hell). horsemouth can't see the point of doing evil (it's just evil).  if you want to demonstrate will then try doing good. 

horsemouth has a sunny and optimistic take on what is sometimes termed human nature and a sunny and optimistic take on what is sometimes termed progress but he accepts that the world does not progress through its joys but often through the overcoming of its miseries. 

there is (of course) a conservative position that in its critique of modern society resembles what horsemouth takes to be the radical western marxist critique of modern society. it is possible to discuss these ideas and read these authors. 

today (in a little while) the washing up. then a discussion about tasks for the day. in the evening horsemouth attends the management committee of the communal endeavour (by means of zoom). having done his piece of good for the month he will then curse humanity (they are a pain in the arse to deal with it must be admitted).