so yesterday horsemouth didn't end up going for a wander and doing a little light reading like he said he would.
instead he was away to lock's garage and then madley plants in search of tomatoes and various other plants. everything was beautiful in the sunshine.
tonightwalpurgisnacht various witchy goings on (allegedly).
ok one of the chickens has died (old age mostly). no horsemouth did not sacrifice it to infernal forces. in a bit he goes to bury it. (but first his coffee).
hey hey! a wholly written in the morning blogpost (first one in a while).
there's no kilvert but there is a coltrane anniversary to wireframe it on. after the rain recorded at the van gelder studio on this date in 1963.
yesterday rain. today a beautiful morning. a bit of haze but otherwise a blue sky.
goldfinches in the garden.
bookpilled has been out thrifting for books (horsemouth will watch this this evening - who is he kidding? he'll crack and watch it this afternoon). ok he's closed the window to youtube so he's not tempted to look at that.
politics. what of politics?
well starmer survives for now. 15 labour MPs voted to subject him to the parliamentary privileges committee.
that list in full;
emma lewell (South Shields)
kate osborne (Jarrow and Gateshead East)
cat smith (Lancaster and Wyre)
luke myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland)
grahame morris (Easington)
mary kelly foy (City of Durham)
apsana begum (Poplar and Limehouse)
richard burgon (Leeds East)
ian byrne (liverpool West Derby)
imran hussain (Bradford East)
brian leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth)
rebecca long bailey (Salford)
andy mcDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornby East)
john mcDonnell (Hayes and Harlington)
nadia whittome
respect to all of these.
meanwhile (andsee horsemouth's notes from yesterday on the use of 'meanwhile'...)
the king goes to washington and talks the old common sense to the congress and senate (but it changes nothing (really)). let us pretend that our imperialisms are kindly and beneficent and wise. the new thing is ugly and stupid, more of a grift than an ideology, but perhaps it is just more honest.
horsemouth had a look at a vote to keep reform and the conservatives out website for his local area. it recommended voting labour. horsemouth doubts that the labour vote in south herefordshire will hold up given their poor showing in office.
of course housing is no longer horsemouth's problem (and won't be for a while).
anyway it's a long way off. even the local elections are a year off round here.
the first real political bump is the may 7th elections. horsemouth thinks labour will lose wales but then he also thinks that labour (nationally) won't really care (any more than when they lost scotland).
dylan riley discusses stagnation and its political effects. to be class conscious it is not enough for workers to just act in their economic interests they have to act in their class interests which means having a vision of a world that is organised differently, one organised politically. this is usually held to be generated dialectically in class struggle. but levels of class struggle are low. there are sectors of workers still capable of defending their economic interests but can the mass nature of a movement to do this be created again given changing patterns of employment.
no help from kilvert today. (nothing until may day).
yesterday a walk over to st.michael's well (and then a loop through the nearby fields in the dulas valley).
on his way back through the woods he found the bottle from some owbridge lung tonic in a stream. the bottle was made of thick, heavy green glass embossed with the firm's name.
benedict anderson's imagined communities has a discussion of biblical 'prophecy' time - where one event 'prefigures' another.
'such an idea of simultaneity... views time as something close to what benjamin calls messianic time, a simultaneity of past and future in an instantaneous present. in such a view of things, the word 'meanwhile' cannot be of real significance.'
it then moves on to discuss railway timetables (the time at bristol must be the same as at london) and a national sense of time (british summer time). we are into the modern notion of simultaneity and uniform empty time and this creates the possibility of 'meanwhile'.
horsemouth (as you know) is fond of the term meanwhile (and of diaries). if he quotes something from kilvert on this day in 1872 he is offering something that partakes both of modern time and of messianic time.
today (for it is indeed today when he types this) a grey morning. grey all day apparently (horsemouth can't know this for sure yet but it certainly looks like it). no the forecast actually says rain in the morning (possibly) and sun in the evening.
rainy days ahead says one of the little weather icons on his computer.
last night (or rather this morning) a dream of marike in some kind of warehouse space. horsemouth watched the shadow with alec baldwin. he thinks dan barker lent him the comic books once upon a time. he realised he had watched it before.
yesterday morning and horsemouth was up and grumpy. there are a number of flies in his ointment.
(ah well).
he'll finish up his tea and then go for a walk and see if that sorts it.
(but first he watered the garden)
a wander down by the abbey across the fields along the road up along the footpath towards the almshouses stopping within sight of the orchard (and back again).
today meanwhile is one of the days on which the john coltrane album crescent was recorded in 1964 (the other was june 1st). horsemouth just gave the title track a listen. he has it somewhere (most of his CDs are now in drawers making finding them when you want to play them difficult).
ok by a process of elimination he's come round to the conclusion that it must be in a bag on top of the wardrobe. ok no. it must still be out in the garage (that's possible).
it was in the garage. he's recovered his slab of john coltrane CDs. he will listen to it again today and on june 1st (remind him).
here it is a beautiful morning. horsemouth is up slightly later than usual. last night he began reading benedict anderson's imagined communities (a further investigation of nationalism to go with his reading of herder).
here it moves towards the end of the month (thirty days hath september, april...). horsemouth should start on his end of the month lists. after all he has a gig to report.
and this is the mutation horsemouth is trying to undertake, to move away from his concern with the communal endeavour (many of whom, to be honest, never wanted horsemouth's concern anyway). if all goes well the communal endeavour's attempts to raise the properties to an EPC C will move into the doing phase - at this point we move from things that help the co-op as a whole to doing things that benefit individual members in the houses.
this (horsemouth is saddened to admit) he finds much less compelling.
for cioran politics is an egotistical, envious business and best recognised as such. horsemouth is inclined to sugar coat his egotism and enviousness with rhetoric about the greater good of the greatest number but, he is sad to say, it's egotism and enviousness all the way down.
horsemouth likes to get on and do. if toes get trodden on along the way to the greater good he's quite bad at reflecting on that.
horsemouth has been listening to some early orbital concerts (they were an interesting bunch). here a gig by various followers of alice coltrane, brandee younger, the ashram choir etc.
of course a book called history and utopia is liable to contain some jottings about utopia. now given the depths of cioran's negativity you wouldn't expect him to be able to find much positive to say about the various utopias but he has definitely done his reading, hesiod, cabet, saint-simon, pelagius, robert owen etc.
he sees them all as attempting to return us to hesiod's golden age.
of course he finds voices against such foolishness also - dostoevsky for example. he instructs us to make that mutation of pride and abandon our attempts to re-obtain the golden age.
horsemouth went for a wander on the common. he met a flock of sheep - all hand reared and named. 'that's red circle. that's cloud (because she looks like a cloud). that's surprise (because she always looks surprised) ...'
they were placid beasts. unbothered by humans or dogs (perhaps too much so).
'I went up the cwm this afternoon. the road was cut to pieces by the ponderous timber carriages dragging timber down from the cwm dingle, and old james jones the stonebreaker was in despair...
the country is filled with the ringing strokes of the chopping axes...'
- kilvert, diaries, 24th april 1872.
horsemouth is back from the bell-ringing
to his shame the bell rope slipped through his fingers last night and he had to be rescued. other than that it went ok. (er,) he could have done without that happening. but sods law was in effect.
afterwards beer (which cheered him up). plus he managed to sell some eggs (so that has cheered him up also).
incidents of mirror travel
‘in the side of a heap of crushed limestone the twelve mirrors were cantilevered in the midst of large clusters of butterflies that had landed on the limestone. for brief moments flying butterflies were reflected; they seemed to fly through a sky of gravel.’
it's yesterday evening when horsemouth types this (as compared to the today when you will probably be reading this). all is good. it is still daylight out and he has locked up the chickens for the night (and fed and watered them before you ask).
he has spent the day (off and on) reading edouard louis' the end of eddy - his life is still terrible (but then again it's not actually as terrible as just about every other member of his family).
'she thought that she had made mistakes, that without meaning to she had closed the door on a better future... she didn't understand that her trajectory, what she would call her mistakes, fitted in perfectly with a whole set of logical mechanisms that were practically laid down in advance and non-negotiable.'
he wandered about on the common for a bit.
today
as will be. he will start working on learning plain hunt again. remind him about the eggs (he was going to take eggs). try to make an effort.
it's a greyish morning. the bbc weather says it's going to clear and then be good all next week but then be rubbish the week after. hopefully the runner bean plants will be established by then.
he's been out to unleash the chickens. he has his coffee. he has had a letter (his savings seem to be holding up ok).
'held a consultation with mrs. venables about my love affairs, plans and prospects. I see how it will all end. alas, who could have believed that I could be such a villain?'
- kilvert, diaries, 22nd april 1872.
it's all coming to an end for kilvert. soon he will leave clyro. later in his middle age he will marry and end up as curate of nearby bredwardine. (but before that he will return to clyro briefly).
tomorrow no kilvert. (what will horsemouth do? what will horsemouth do?).
ok he's off outside to listen to the radio. (one o'clock news and such).
his afternoon got sucked into waiting for a TESCO delivery and then into arguments over whether he'd ordered what he had been told to order.
last night he re-posted some photos from his POPLARISM voice over for suke driver. there he is in the iron shirt (the red pinstripe suit) with his beard shaved out but some sideboards left on attempting to resemble george lansbury. all this to help him get into character for his reading.
as usual any photo he posts does much better than anything he writes (there's a lesson in this horsemouth).
he started reading edouard louis' the end of eddy (he is reading more but he is unable to settle on one particular book). edouard grows up skinny and gay and bullied in some roughneck northern french town. now we know from the reading his biography of his mother that things will eventually come good for him (but not right now).
horsemouth (being horsemouth) is unlikely to tell you anything about his love affairs (plans and prospects).
today a greyish morning and cold. horsemouth worries about the runner bean plants he put out.
'a day of wild driving snow, with a fierce bitter wind from the east. mr. venables had a terrible journey to the chapel, on of the worst he has ever had.
preached on the story of balaam extempore this afternoon from numbers xxii, 22 and made a miserable exhibition, very nearly breaking down...'
- kilvert, diaries, 21st april 1872.
the leigh folk festival 2026
horsemouth has been contemplating the leigh folk festival (june 25th to june 28th)
this year featuring the mighty lou and leo (who, as you know, he knows) plus roshi nasehi, belinda kempster and fran foote, diana collier (with a band), and the owl service.
you see that makes a pretty good line up (horsemouth is assuming a sunday in the fishermen's chapel rather than saturday main stage, though to be frank it could be the friday in the fishermen's chapel - time will tell).
kick off times seem to be pretty much about 11am.
the rest of the line up he pretty much does not know.
last year himself and howard were put off by hearing a radio show of musicians playing at the festival (all of the modern singer-songwriter type, young people with 4 chord cycle songs).
one year they were put off by rail strike hell.
now unless he is covered by a relative this will mean something like going down the saturday night, visiting the festival on the sunday and returning on the monday. he just cannot make the 'travelling up on a sunday morning' work, even if he could get a lift into hereford/ abergavenny/ newport - well ok maybe newport it would work).
some friends are doing a bookfair may 22nd to 25th, horsemouth would like to go to this also but again struggles to see a way he can do it.
last night the AGM of the commons water committee
a spring on the common is fed with water from the malvern hills, it is distributed by old military infrastructure (and more modern alkathene pipe) round a series of water tanks before being sent down seven or eight 'lines' to various of the houses and farms mostly on the edges of the common. the longest line is about 1.2km.
a schematic of the various pipes and flows is a complicated beast (horsemouth is reminded of the water supply system to the castle in ismail kadare's the siege, the one deliberately designed to baffle human understanding).
but, driven on by the goad of a regulation 18 order, progress is being made.
horsemouth thanks the board for their hard work. horsemouth notes (in his humble opinion) that they are a good strong board with a wide range of skills.
it's the 20th of april 1872 and kilvert is returning to clyro.
'left dear hospitable ilston rectory at 8.15 and drove to killay station with mr. and mrs. westhorp and henry. there I bade them all goodbye and they drove on to swansea. as I was taking my ticket hughes, rector of bryngwyn, clapped me on the back. he was going to hay...'
kilvert is obliged to accompany him in third class.
the next day in clyro 'a day of wild driving snow'.
meanwhile in the wilds of herefordshire...
horsemouth mostly spent the day reading isaiah berlin's three critics of the enlightenment: vico, hamann, herder and in particular the essay on herder - herder and the enlightenment. which, at about 92 pages, is a decent readable length.
now herder originated the term nationalism but there's less comfort there for a modern day right winger than you might suppose because he's not a fan of the state. his model of nationalism is a more cultural and linguistic one.
'we live in a world we ourselves create'
herder was big into the people and their culture. in his wikipedia entry he is praised for his tantalisingly incomplete ideas.
a friend proposed benedict anderson's imagined communities as a way out of horsemouth's perplexity - he'll look at that soon. he read it a long time ago and has mostly forgotten it.
in the evening he carried on reading italo svevo's my life.
today another beautiful morning. he has planted out most of the runner beans and they seem to have survived the cold night.
on this day in 1872 kilvert is in the gower but plommer (his editor) has not left us a diary entry for this day. kilvert will return to clyro tomorrow probably using the reverse route to the one he used to get there, using railway lines no longer in existence.
last night horsemouth read a little of italo svevo's a life (poor clerk trapped in boring job and straightened circumstances).
horsemouth's enthusiasm for local politics is somewhat dented. he has realised it is a long time until he gets to exercise his democratic prerogative.
'this year is what's known as a fallow year for herefordshire council, which means we don't have any scheduled full term local government elections taking place on 7 may 2026.
(there may, however, be by-elections)
this is part of the normal local election cycle. we elect all of our councillors every four years. our next scheduled polls are due to take place on 6 may 2027.'
ok and then horsemouth has to wait until august 2029 (probably) for his next slice of general election democracy action.
yesterday morning he heard the bells from the abbey while he was having a quick dig in the old garden. this made him feel slightly sad because he should be ringing the bells to get in his practice but he finds the abbey bells a bit scary.
yesterday a walk on the common (usual route).
howard went for a wander round the olympic park (including a visit to the new V&A). there, what should he find, but a poster for the hackney homeless festival.
horsemouth's band were about then but they didn't play (this was a bad move on their part). back to the planet, RDF, the rhythmites, the sea, the tofu love frogs, anorak lovechild, the co-creators, one style MDV, that's probably the cream of that crusty scene.
ah the levellers were there as well. only senser are missing (unless of course you know different).
horsemouth was there (er. in the audience), everyone he knew was there (probably), he remembers sussanah being there (so probably billy and that lot).
frankly, given the state of his memory, all the rest of it is a blur.
oystermouth castle stands nobly upon a hill overlooking the town and bay. the lurid copper smoke hung in a dense cloud over swansea, and the great fleet of oyster boats under the cliff was heaving in the greenest sea I ever saw...'
'I read. it is like a disease, I read everything that comes to hand, everything that meets my glance: newspapers, schoolbooks, bits of paper found in the street, recipes, children's books. everything in print.'
- from the illiterate by Ágota kristóf, describing her childhood in hungary.
horsemouth read the notebook by her a long time ago. and yesterday he read an article on her in the LRB and a few other things he found on google books. she learned to speak french and then read french later in life (this is why she is the illiterate) and then began to write in it (like e.m.cioran, like milan kundera, like samuel beckett).
she was another writer who burned their diaries.
it's still a bit cold in the mornings and overnight. this is making horsemouth hesitant about planting out the runner beans (he's got the bamboo frame for them in already). the overnight temperatures are staying low all week.
17th april 1872 kilvert is on holiday in the gower.
'as we lay on the high cliff moor above oxwich bay sheltered by some gorse bushes there was no sound except the light surges of the sea beneath us and the sighing of the wind through the gorse and dry heather.'
meanwhile, the same day, at nearby killay there is a coal mining accident. two men and a pony are drowned when a section of the pit floods and third man, a rescuer, is hideously burnt when his unshielded lamp explodes some firedamp.
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we move towards the may 7th elections
voters in scotland and wales will elect representatives to their national parliaments.
a number of local council and mayoral polls will take place in england.
in northern ireland, local council and assembly elections are not scheduled until may 2027.
reform can be expected to do well in wales because it is not first passed the post but proportional representation - the caerphilly defence of voting to keep reform out will not work. similarly for the greens (and indeed your party should they actually run any candidates) they should do well and achieve fair representation.
scotland MSPs are election on an additional member system (broadly designed to produce proportional representation).
elsewhere it is first passed the post and this, together with more than 2 plausible parties, can result in distortions (horsemouth recommends the gallagher index to measure these).
the problem in many seats is working out who the keep reform out party are. in the caerphilly by election (conducted under first passed the post) it was clearly plaid cymru. who it will be in council elections up and down the land is not clear.
it is the collapse of horsemouth's belief in radical or protest politics that leads him to electoral politics.
but he doesn't really believe in that either.
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today it looks like rain (according to the weather forecast). the weekend and next week look pretty decent.
last night a decent bell-ringing. horsemouth needs to work on understanding called changes. he's chasing after plain hunt but maybe he needs to build his skills first. he needs to remember to change on the handstroke not the backstroke.
yesterday horsemouth went for a wander on the common
(the usual round probably about a mile or so).
he suspects he may have to do it several times over the course of the day. he was preparing for a meeting and he wanted to be as calm and as easy going as it is possible for him to be.
he also had an egg delivery mission.
however he doesn't want to ask about the eggs in case that is the wrong thing to do, he thinks he'd rather wait until the eggs are offered. as he looks out of the window his mum is pulling some rhubarb.
horsemouth has put some pepper seeds and some basil seeds in a tray in the greenhouse. he doubts it is warm enough yet for them to get going but he will see. otherwise the runner beans continue to grow well - horsemouth will plant them out after sunday (when the weather has warmed up). the broad beans look to be on the go. otherwise no sign of anything else particularly.
the onion bulbs have arrived so horsemouth will get those planted out this afternoon (or it might be an idea to get it done now before it starts raining again). anyway they are done now (now to see if they come up).
flowers wise - some sweet peas and nasturtiums are on the go.
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meanwhile horsemouth attended the meeting he was going to attend.
it went well. the vote went the way horsemouth hoped it would. he was reminded of why he doesn't like those meetings (he doesn't like the people).
ok to be fair he does like some of the people (just the ones he doesn't like he really doesn't like).
he supposes he should chill out with it. as work it's done. he can let it go and move on. the meeting worked well in itself (the people worked well together). the pains-in-the-arse are no longer his pains-in-the-arse.
it is an interesting problem though. previously the co-op's involvement with the members domestic arrangements was limited to their rent. now the co-op will (probably) have to encourage the members to ask the power companies for smart meters (horsemouth expects some resistance there). perhaps the smart meter wars have been won.
for the hay to llechrhyd journey AI tells horsemouth he can use the national rail journey planner (sadly not - pretty much all these train lines and train stations are passed and gone).
to make the equivalent journey today horsemouth would need to take a bus (two buses in fact) into hereford or abergavenny and then by train to newport and then across to swansea and then on by bus he guesses (yes. 28 minute journey, four buses an hour, £3).
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oh dear. horsemouth has consented to go to a meeting (he's getting annoyed and anxious about it already).
the issue is simple
to go ahead or not to go ahead.
to take the money offered or not to take the money offered.
he has been for a walk to clear his head (and his head is somewhat cleared). this probably won't last.
horsemouth has missed alula down in malvern for record store day this year (damn drat and blast). his head was not in the game.
'although they are the most private form of writing, there have been few diarists who have not in their heart and hearts hoped that their daily confidences would be read by other eyes. philip larkin's order to burn his diary after his death was a most unusual one...'
ok look. there was also kafka (it's just that brod disobeyed).
this anthology contains examples from eighty diaries: the diarist as eye-witness; the diarist in love; the diarist as naturalist; the diarist at war; the diarist as artist; (etc.). all these are good sub-headings. horsemouth may make use of them at a later date.
'the blossoming fruit trees, the torch trees of paradise blazed with a transparent green and white lustre up the dingle in the setting sunlight. the village is in a blaze of fruit blossom. clyro is at its loveliest. what more can be said?'
- the reverend kilvert on this day in 1872.
in the morning a walk into ewyas harold to post a letter and to buy some coffee (about 1 mile there and 1 mile back). his mum thinks there is some advantage in buying 1st class stamps before the price goes up but horsemouth thinks the price has gone up already (though, of course, it will go up again at some point).
thereafter some more gardening (planting two rows of carrots) and some reading.
what is in the news?
the strait of hormuz - so the US navy will now be blocading the easy bit, east of the strait of hormuz. the ships of world powers (china, russia) will probably get a pass (being too much trouble to stop), the ships of smaller countries will probably get boarded and impounded.
quite how this is supposed to free up the world supply of oil is anybody's guess. horsemouth just thinks it is designed to produce fluctuations in the price of oil that can be bet upon by the super-rich producing super-profits.
the driving up of the price of oil and fertiliser will drive hundreds of millions down into poverty (and possibly millions to famine and death).
what horsemouth really wants to talk about is axel rudakubana. yet he is hesitant because he knows it is a dangerous 'hot' topic.
you may think rudakubana is just evil - the question then is how all the state agencies involved failed to stop him before the attack happened.
to horsemouth there are unexamined facets to the story.
as a kid axel was in a children in need advert (horsemouth thinks he's got that right - yes he starred as dr.who in an advert that has since been taken down by the bbc). this work he got through a casting agency. that's got to have been pretty cool for a youngster. pretty important.
a brief moment of light.
maybe it stirred up jealousy. maybe it started the bullying.
later we have him taking knives to school (allegedly to deal with bullies) and being referred to prevent three times. we have him arrested by the police on a bus in possession of knives (but not charged). we have it taking the best part of a year and a half for his autism diagnosis to come through. we have him spending the best part of two years in his room, ordering weapons off the internet and terrorising his family. we have him released from mental health care 6 days before the attack being classified as not a risk.
even the cab driver thought he was a wrong'un but dropped him off anyway.
and so despite many failures of state intervention it is all his family's fault and all his fault and all the fault of the police, the local authority, the education authority, the local mental health services.
is it worth mentioning that all these bodies are under-resourced. struggling with cuts. probably not.
(hell chuck the cab driver on the pile as well).
prevent particularly irk horsemouth - rudakubana was referred to them three times but they did not intervene because he was not ideological. he was later pronounced not mentally ill (so it was not mental health's job either).
like grenfell we have an orgy of buck passing and so many institutional failures by people with letters after their name who were being paid to care. so much so it will be difficult to prove any criminal responsibility.
'the time of the singing of birds had come' quotation from kilvert's diary this day in 1872.
in this he echoes the song of solomon 'the flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land' (song of solomon 2:12). here the turtle is (of course) the turtledove (unless you are john fahey).
here in the wilds the weather is a bit more equivocal. (frost this morning)
the anniversary of a waterintobeer musicians of bremen gig in 2019
horsemouth will dig up more details (and maybe even a photo).
'setlist... - satan (gospel blues), the werewolf (michael hurley), the devil,worldes blisse, when the faun met alice (musicians of bremen - you may know these from horsemouth’s solo set last time), painbirds (mark linkous - sparklehorse) he played last time also. they revived sad and lonely and dorothy. new to the set this time a version of blue crystal fire (robbie basho) and katie cruel (trad. karen dalton), lastly they took a crack at keith hudson’s turn your heater on...'
horsemouth is lucky he recorded this information. it dates back to before he blogged everyday (well ok he was blogging every day on facebook but that's semi-hidden behind some resource saving tool). he didn't start blogging every day on blogger until september 2020.
'visual poetry, poetic visions, action music and musical actions, happenings and events...'
- dick higgins (member of fluxus)
yesterday horsemouth read parts of american avant-garde theatre by arnold aronson. he started on page 162 with the bits about fluxus (because he'd read about fluxus before) and then read the chapter on performance art as a whole. he is gradually expanding out to the point where he can claim to have read the entire book.
this morning a frost (to quote the ruts 'it was cold in the night') but beautiful sunshine also. for horsemouth a trip into the village to buy coffee and to post a letter.
'in the hot unclouded afternoon I went slowly up the hill by wern y pentre...'
- kilvert on this day in 1872
'... you know only a heap of broken images...' - t.s. eliot, the wasteland.
here (yesterday) it has just hailed (and then the sun has come out again almost immediately) and now (yesterday) it is raining.
this makes horsemouth regret his moments of watering (so unnecessary). the weather is looking a bit pessimistic for the next few days.
yesterday (as will be) a zoom beers meet with h.a. (as he is now called).
h.a. was drinking lager. horsemouth was drinking 0% lager.
h.a. (can you tell who it is yet?) is giving up on facebook. they discussed gentrification and the arts and the way art galleries are full of talentless dross (mostly big paintings done with a lightbox because they fill the space up nicely).
theu talked about books (horsemouth displaying his haul from his recent visit to the wen). then they talked about films.
h.a. recommended all we imagine as light(gentrification crops up here too). he's taken out some temporary membership to the bfi.
horsemouth recommended lots of georges-henri clouzot (les diaboliques, the wages of fear etc.).
they both expressed their enthusiasm for carry on screaming and fearless vampire killers.
this morning rainy and grey. horsemouth is just back from feeding the chickens. he's found his copy of all the names and so has recommenced reading it.
'alas, how soon the time will come when I must go away and leave it all and when I shall see no more the beloved scenes which have been so familiar to me for so many years. in the prospect of their loss how doubly precious, how sevenfold dear they have become...'
- francis kilvert, on this day 1872.
he meets a fox-hunting man from painscastle and officiates at a funeral.
horsemouth has been gardening. he's put in some more compost and planted a load of beetroot seeds in one of the raised beds (hopefully they will come up). he thinks he will put peas in the others (his mum is not so keen, she thinks they are a lot of work for not much food). down in the old garden some nasturtiums he had planted have come up (he's just been down to water them and give them some encouragement).
in the greenhouse he has filled up the pots for the tomatoes etc. with fertiliser and compost ready for the tomato plants (when they come).
yesterday he was up the hill to deliver the eggs to martin and sylvia (about two and a half miles all told). the jack-in-the-hedge grows well.
'deleuze was right that written language came first, before scraps of language were incorporated into vocal utterance.' - from the april page of the triple negative calendar 2026.
this also makes reference to a sociologist called scott hamilton who horsemouth thinks is this person here. he tells an interesting tale of angus maclise's suitcase.
in the evening horsemouth watched a youtube vid on the radical group aufheben, he then downloaded the aufheben article on decadence - one of the theses of the international communist current, that ever since 1914 capitalism has not been progressive but a break on the development of the productive forces and thus humanities march towards liberation from necessity. (horsemouth does hope he's got that right).
later as he retired to bed he could not find his copy of all the names so he started on william morris's the well at the world's end (and in particular lin carter's excellent introductory essay).
in the night it has rained. the weather is taking a colder, greyer turn. the chickens seem happy enough.
cold overnight, sunday and monday night - best keep the runner beans in the greenhouse a while longer. everything has survived but not much else has come up. ok horsemouth tells a lie the broad beans are showing signs of activity (he hopes they survive).
horsemouth has been out to feed the chickens and unleash them for the day. he told them he was back (all important matters should be communicated to the chickens and to any bees likewise).
the next stage is to plant up the raised beds (now that there are more of them) - peas, carrots, beetroot suggests horsemouth.
so he's back from the wen (with a new cough and cold naturally). he will reflect on some of the events from his visit as they occur to him.
so horsemouth has been in the city (the wen) since the evening of monday 30th of march but now it's time to say goodbye (again).
yesterday a white cat in the back garden.
he didn't do much visiting art galleries this time (ok he tells a lie, as he typed this he had a plan to visit one but it didn't come to fruition). he spent his time visiting people and visiting tube stations and railway stations and vast infrastructure projects (old oak common).
he saw his brother, his sister in law, dave and claudia, andrew minty, paul clark and toni, colin, TG, peter, howard, enza and michaelangelo, suke, mattin and whomsoever he saw at the triple negative gig - anthony, demetra, matthew and anya, denis, john and sarah, TG (again)...
(more people will be added as horsemouth's memory and linguistic abilities are returned to him).
it's the morning. horsemouth doesn't feel too bad on it all things considered.
all that now remains is to get to the railway station and get back to his mum's. this all depends on whether the station works at milton keynes have completed or whether they have over run. (don't let horsemouth overthink it).
so horsemouth was early. but then again so were TG and mattin. but mattin was busy, and so TG and horsemouth crossed the canal and advanced into the green. horsemouth's initial plan had been to get TG to ferry him up towards walthamstow (and then abandon him to the return journey), then he proposed tea in leyton, but neither met with approval.
they ended up doing was going to their usual haunts in the olympic park.
topics of conversation. freud totem and taboo vs. agamben homo sacer. (horsemouth could remember next to nothing of how the argument worked). improv - eddie prevost interviewed versus derek bailey.
the village
later, after their coffee (two girls with violins and baggage go slowly past). a slow wander round the bit of the park they usually cut out (including the dead end). down to the canal. back along to the canal and to TGs for lunch in the back garden.
back at TGs
at TGs a brief listen to 25 gun salute by gunshot (possibly their last truly great tune thinks horsemouth).
and the sun shone and all was beautiful and joyous (though horsemouth was avoiding the bit where the people were).
lea bridge station
horsemouth crossed the canal again and made off in the direction of walthamstow. when he hit the lea bridge road he bottled out and decided to use lea bridge station (for the first time he thinks in the nearly 10 years it has been open) returning via tottenham hale (also possibly for the first time ever he thinks) walthamstow central etc.
and here (4pm) he is (having left home round about 9am).
later a snooze.
today an afternoon wander with enza (that should tire him out). but first remind him to put the washing out.
meanwhile the US bullies its way round the world and the astronauts circle round the moon.
well the morning he just farted about until 11 and then he was off to see enza. he just made the earlier train and so got there a little early he hung around outside the hospital. a tibetan lama walked past (with an entourage of two) and he wandered back.
earlier there had been a little girl with a plastic trumpet on the train 'hello ello ello ello' she kept saying, 'you can blow the trumpet as loud as you want when you get off the train' said her mum.
later (after lunch) himself and enza and michelangelo were up the park where they bumped into suke. the masses were out (partying like it was summer). rollerblading, skateboarding, cycling. running, sunbathing, walking their dogs, stopping off for a pint, pushing babies in prams.
eventually horsemouth returned via the train. and the sun shone. and still the people partied like it was summer already.
what will tuesday look like for horsemouth?
well he has nothing booked. (ok he tells a lie, he has something booked for the morning).
the weather will be getting progressively better each day.
he bought/ sought more books this visit - perhaps his collecting aversion is over and he is back into the sunny uplands of building a library. he's even reading at a decent pace (helped by lots of tube journeys admittedly).
he's up. his brother is back. last night pizza and a half-glass of beer.
horsemouth got the overground over to willesden junction. his main reason in going there was to witness the constructions of the HS2 facilities at old oak common.
after a brief mooch round the station he headed off down old oak lane (with a diversion round stephenson street) and the acton railwaymen's houses and onto loverose way before continuing round old oak common lane into the dead end triangle of wells house road.
escaping that he carried on to the bus stop on brunel road where he chickened out and got a 7 (eventually returning through ladbroke grove). the labyrinth of streets had defeated him (he did not make it to the city on the hill with its skyscrapers and so forth).
strangely as a walk this is not very impressive. it being a bit above a mile.
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yesterday in the afternoon/evening.
food at dave's (claudia was away) and a walk down to leytonstone (across the hollow ponds) to the pub (horsemouth got out at a pint and a half) and then back again with the daylight slowly fading (then horsemouth walked back up to highams park).
on his way back he found italo svevo's a life in a bookbox, which is not, as he first thought, an autobiography, but a novel about a very fernando pessoa type character.
on their way to the pub they saw the screaming lady from leytonstone tube (she was only making some noises not full blooded howling).
you see this is getting on for about 5 miles yet because horsemouth knew where he was going(ish) it didn't feel that far.
a long walk around with H.A. (off into the forest)
the meet? 10am chingford railway station.
the plan? some turkish food and then off into the forest.
the result? a cafe breakfast (egg, beans, mushrooms, tomato, chips, tea, 2 toast) and then off into the forest. (the turkish place now doesn't open til 12)
off into the forest
our starter hike? 3 miles to high beech. (there a pint of greene king IPA each - initially disliked but we drank on regardless).
horsemouth gave howard (sorry H.A.) his copy of at the edge of the world by john berger and jean mohr.
this was followed by 2 miles to loughton tube (with a stop off at a pub in loughton for a pint - sorry horsemouth had forgotten the name - ah. the plume of feathers).
horsemouth got the tube from loughton to leytonstone. howard was off to stratford in search of a bus.
horsemouth then got the bus (W16) to highams park (for much of the journey he was convinced he was on the wrong bus such was the winding nature of the route).
in the early morning hours a dream about selling his clothing somewhere in dalston (there he was in the shop dressed only in his underwear). today he's unsure what he is doing. he needs to get some replacement coffee.
but he has his cup of coffee and he has started readingall the names by jose saramago. so far the set up with the giant office of births and deaths (where they have to keep extending out the back wall to keep up with the newly dead). horsemouth's copy is a harvill edition. on the front cover there is someone with tape over their mouth with mor-peg written on it (the cover art for this, as for many harvill books, is by paula piglia).
in the morning a walk with TG over to stratford for coffee. the velodrome was shut for an event. the first alternative cafe had shut down. they ended up in their usual spot.
on the way back horsemouth bumped into pete.
literary distribution device
at one point a dandelion was attached to the end of the zip tie on the chopstick - it was a device for distributing dandelion seeds. later a biro was attached to the zip tie - it became a literary distribution device (earlier it had been a device for fighting of seagulls or midges).
in the afternoon a lie down (it's been a busy couple of days). horsemouth attempted a book review (having just finished a quiet place).
today the plan is a long walk around with howard.
horsemouth has his coffee and some peace and quiet. he was early to bed last night (having finished off a quiet place he read some of jean mohr's at the edge of the world).
this morning (as horsemouth made his coffee) there was a heron in the back garden. by the time horsemouth had found his camera and made his way downstairs again it had flapped off to a neighbouring garden.
yesterday
a visit and then a journey to high barnet.
thence lunch, coffee, and some charity shopping with former work colleague paul clark.
accessions diary
- american avant-garde theatre: a history, arnold aronson, one squid.
- the well at the world's end volume 1, william morris, pan unicorn edition (mostly for the cover), one squid
- the end of eddy, edouard louis, you remember horsemouth has an autobiography by him, one squid
- all the names, jose saramago, one squid.
- at the edge of the world, jean mohr/ john berger, one squid.
then a visit to the barnet museum, a walk back to paul clark's partner's house (toni) and after some car business dinner, a glass of wine, and then horsemouth was off back home on various trainlines.
in the morning horsemouth went off to check out battersea power station (the new tube station on the northern line) and the reopened power station itself. (after having done barking riverside the day before).
within the old power station a consumer paradise (so of little or no interest to horsemouth). there was even peppa the pig. control room b (site of the hipgnosis for the album cover of hawkwind's quark, strangeness and charm) was closed (but horsemouth could see that it was there).
he then attempted to roll away along the riverside but frequently found his route blocked. massed joggers jogged past being healthy. he diverted off into the new builds and then back to the river. by mi6, on efra quay, a poem on an airvent.
'river efra stubbornly underground, resurrects a coffin sends it bobbing down the thames, the dead will not stay buried in its persistent spring.'
well here we are april the first and horsemouth is about to head up out into the woods.
having raided the sally army horsemouth is up a copy of charles lancaster's seeing england: antiquaries, travellers, naturalists (50p).
yesterday a visit to barking riverside (aka. doomed megalopolis). the elevated overground making a huge swerve out of barking down into it. is it high enough above the (tidal) river to avoid flooding? time will tell.
having walked around the foreshore and back along the least promising road (passing infrastructure way but missing bastable avenue) at one point horsemouth was sat in a coffee shop. at another he was playing tubular bells in oyster catcher park. buses from barking arrived and departed.
horsemouth likes the edgelands where development is incomplete. where ideas are roughly sketched larger than life just to occupy spaces until something else comes along.
then to dave and claudia's for a catch up. whence back via the various hostelries on wood street.
today (as he mentioned) a wander round the woods. in the evening a meet up with minty.
