'just blew in from the windy city...'

it is due to get windy - like 60 plus miles an hour on saturday. horsemouth was due to wander up to the forge again to pick up the newspapers but he'll see where the weather is. here he's waiting for it to start. 

'meteorological winter starts on december 1st and lasts until the last day of february. It covers the 3-month period that is statistically the coldest quarter of the year, so all official winter stats are taken in this period.'

horsemouth wakes up in the morning. half a tree has been snapped off at the bottom of the bottom field. fortunately it has fallen his mum's side of the fence (and not in the road where it would be blocking traffic). 

he's been over to feed the chickens but he's not letting them out (in case they blow away). 

there are a number of tall trees nearish to the house it is these that horsemouth worries about. he doesn't want any of them falling on the house itself risking damage to the roof. he doesn't want any of them to fall and risk taking out the power cables or the phoneline. 

(if that happens horsemouth will be unable to post up his blog)

lionel shriver has been getting after michael gove (now editor of the spectator) for his response to covid while in government first in the pages of the spectator and then in an interview.

she wondered out loud why there had to be an element of compunction, why it couldn't just be managed with appeals to people's self-interest. for instance today is a very windy day, the official advice is to stay home, horsemouth thinks people will have no problem taking it. 

now horsemouth thought the government (after a slow start) broadly got this right, that lockdown was necessary and that elements of compunction ('you must stay home') were necessary because brits are not swedes.  people don't like to discuss covid though, they wish to forget, it is unassimilable to wider political debates. (it has, however, driven a lot of people crazy). 

further to a recent gig there's a gwenifer raymond out and about in brighton video, at 1.09 gwenifer is in a used record store in brighton and she pulls out a copy of alice coltrane's atomic peace. earlier she is at home and pulls out a copy of eggland by the lovely eggs (cover designed by her brother). now that horsemouth thinks about it they are named after a mikhail bulgakov short story, 

she makes the point that guitarist isn't her main job. she makes her money in computer games design.