books, films, gigs, events may 2025

 books

- han kang, human acts

- alberto manguel, packing my library

- the various diaries (as and when)

- lesley hazleton. england, bloody england 

- richard jefferies, after london (opening chapters)

- samuel taylor coleridge, kubla khan 

- various substack things

- GDN articles on passivhaus, 

- max reeves interviewed on tradfolk

- hereford times, golden valley parkway snubbed again

- new NLR and sidecar including jensen suther, peter gordon's adorno 

- 

films

- near dark

- two weeks at sea

- outlaw bookseller, bookpilled. andy edwards (the musical stuff not the political stuff)

- sapphire and steel 

- the dave webb show on new river radio

- slade in flame

-  a radio show on the incredible string band (mixcloud) 

-  a documentary on sparklehorse

- a few clips on townes van zandt associate (and all around nutter) blake foley

- LRB marina warner and adam thrilwell on kafka 

- architectural digest, frank lloyd wright's hidden woodland utopia

- radio 3, the essay, song detectorists

- R4, anatomy of a firetrap

- the copsford project (youtube), reading from copsford, 

- dorothy carter

gigs

- soft white underbelly (aka. the blue oyster cult)

events

sun ra arrival day, may 22nd—25th sun ra festival  in birmingham (alabama), a visit to abergavenny, a visit to the wen, afternoon in the pub with pizza with howard, TG walk around, gig with mike T, the 7th anniversary of the release of musicians of bremen volume three

'to start with nothing - this morning - again'

'it seems that these days I mostly write to communicate with friends - I write poems, especially.'  - glyn hughes, blog,10th december 2009.

'to start with nothing - this morning - again' - glyn hughes, the opening line to the final section of life class his autobiography in verse.  

zoom beers with howard

horsemouth is trying to tempt a review of glyn hughes's  millstone grit out of howard. (well he can't read and review it again as he would like to because howard has the book). horsemouth was trying to find something by glyn hughes (we've just missed his birthday on the 25th). horsemouth found a website with a blog from the last few years of his life. his neighbours remember him at least. 

horsemouth loves the fact that the edition he owns is a bookclub edition.

howard is nearing the end of his musical endeavours for the year and was discussing the final fixes and sending it all off for mastering and writing horsemouth a letter. 

'its just something to make the moment stay and you don't forget that time that's all.' - annie eliza courtenay in a letter to her son tom (the famous one).

horsemouth and howard were discussing people who write in the morning and then never publish what they write in the morning. writers who are writing to develop their writing muscle. horsemouth is not sure it works like that. horsemouth agrees it is important to write (similarly the way it is important to practice singing or playing the guitar or any activity you want to do well) but he is not sure that success in writing necessarily comes from being well practiced and exercised. 

this is an archetypal worked out the day before blogpost. it benefits from horsemouth being able to edit and re-edit and being flexible in what he wants to say. 

last night horsemouth was feeling a bit overworked and tetchy despite a perfectly pleasant day out. he's found it a bit hard to let go off so he's just gone to bed. 

a grey start but later a perfectly passable day. sunday maybe some rain. 

horsemouth's aunt and uncle used to have a copy of the rolling stones' high tide and green grass he always used to pester them to play it when he went round as a kid. come to think of it the cover shows low tide and no grass - they are all lined up by the riverside, brian in pole position, mick and keith next in the bating order, the bassist and drummer (who) just about squeezed into shot, all looking a bit surly and troublesome. here it is played on a reel-to-reel tape machine (glorious). 

the apparatus in the corner of the bell-tower

bell-ringing done for the week

there was a point in the day when horsemouth thought there was no lift to the bell-ringing (and he was sad) but then he found out it was on at the abbey (so walking distance). he didn't go out to the pub after - though that would probably have been possible.

horsemouth had had a beer in the afternoon (when he thought the bell-ringing wasn't running) and that threw him slightly. 

there was an apparatus in the corner of the bell-tower horsemouth will have to ask what it is. it may be a dreaded carillon - no not enough bells, it may be a chime, yes it's a chime but one played with an ellacombe apparatus. 

'the system was devised in 1821 by reverend henry thomas ellacombe of gloucestershire, who first had such a system installed in bitton in 1822. he created the system as an alternative to using his local ringers, so that he did not have to tolerate behaviour that he saw as unruly... an example was in 1875 when he weighed in with a diatribe against a ringing competition at slapton in devon, when he wrote, 

"we blame the vicar and churchwardens for allowing the bells to be so prostituted for the benefits of a publican's pocket..."' 

otherwise it was a fine day of watering and planting things out (more beetroot, more spinach).

soon it will be possible to wander over to the village and wander back after the pub in the twilight. we move into the bright 1/8th of the year - the 6 1/2 weeks round the solstice. 

here it is a grey morning horsemouth has fed (and unleashed) the chickens and taken the milk over to the fridge in the garage. he's out buying tomato plants at some point (but then he may also have some zoom calls to do). 

horsemouth and the gwangju uprising

check it out! 

an entirely written in the morning blogpost

horsemouth has unleashed the chickens and poked his nose into the greenhouse. he has had his first cup of coffee and will shortly be departing for downstairs after a second. 

at some point he will go and get the bin from the bottom of the drive. 

ah yes. he's just remembered he's got to go and open up the abbey. 

back with the coffee. 

horsemouth has been reading han kang's human acts a novel focused on the gwangju uprising in korea on may 18th 1980. curiously he seems to have been reading it on the correct dates with the army retaking the city on the 27th of may. 

thousands died. 

later one of the survivors is working in a translator's office - they are translating an english book on crowd psychology (or rather crowd morality), a chapter on the 1968 student uprisings is left out in order to facilitate the books passage past the censors. horsemouth has no idea who this writer could be (if in fact they are not fictitious). 

and here horsemouth is cultivating his garden. 

the first set of runner beans have started reaching the top of their poles. horsemouth has added two more sets. the potatoes are in. horsemouth planted out some spinach yesterday (at least he thinks it is spinach he won't really know until it comes up). the problem now is finding the space to put in the carrots etc. 

he has spotted an errant pea plant and stuck some twigs round it (to give it something to climb up). a few of the pea plants have flowers on them. there seems to be a random lettuce

really horsemouth could do with getting some tomato plants. one of the pepper plants in the conservatory has fruit on it (the others do not).  at the moment the greenhouse is used more like a potting shed.

at the other end of the garden he has put some nets over the strawberries (thank you julie). 

ok it's off to the abbey.

when the vampires met the old farmer

last night horsemouth watched near dark (eighties vampires on a roadtrip, the perfect film for I love the night) and a number of excerpts from films by ben rivers. he mainly watched two years at sea (old dude wanders round scottish farm, cuts down trees, goes boating on a lake, takes a shower, clears out a caravan etc.) all in a gorgeous black and white. 

horsemouth has been out to unleash the chickens (he has just remembers he needs to go down and open up the abbey). 

last night his mum came down with him to lock it up. 

it's the 7th anniversary of the release of musicians of bremen volume three. here horsemouth presents it to you in a slightly spruced up player.

a few years ago horsemouth had howard video him playing some guitar in the ruins of his back garden. (not howard's back garden - that is going from strength to strength). the theme from sliabh na mban and a version of when the faun met alice. 

'if it had been possible to build the tower of babel ...'

outside it has been raining

horsemouth feels like it is a sunday.

but it is not. it is a monday.

and by the time you read this

it is the tuesday (at least). 

following on from a substack post made up of the best lines from his blogposts from 10 years ago horsemouth has attempted to repeat the experiment. sadly it shows that his lived experience (or at least his reading) has becoming less compelling.

'if it had been possible to build the tower of babel without climbing it...'  he edits the kafka to make it more aphoristic. let the reader do more of the work (says horsemouth). let the reader build the tower and transgress on god's kingdom and have their language vanish out from under their thought.

'if it had been possible to build the tower of babel without climbing it...' 

'if it had been possible to build the tower of babel without climbing...' 

'if it had been possible to build the tower of babel without...' 

outside it has been raining II 

this is good for the garden and the plants. it is due to rain more overnight too. (horsemouth will let you know how that goes). 

'if it had been possible to build the tower of babel ...'

(horsemouth is reminded of gil-scott heron's arguments against the space shuttle). 

then the peoples of the world would not have many languages. 

monday afternoon a zoom call with howard. in the morning a walk on the common. 

ok horsemouth is going to go and put the milk in the fridge in the garage and wake up his mum. 

here a decent enough(ish) morning. later more rain (allegedly). 

women with long hair in maxi-dresses dance at stonehenge to blues rock

 an entirely written in the morning blogpost

horsemouth is back in the wilds. he successfully walked from kingstone (4 miles or so) and then bumped into martin and sylvia at the pop-up cafe at the village hall. 

thereafter he had a lie down to recover. 

 in a bit he goes to open up the abbey. (he will go and close it up at 5pm in the evening. 

today rain (tomorrow even more rain) - horsemouth may be excused watering the garden - but for the moment the weather looks good. it has been a long dry spring - in theory a warmer climate should produce wetter weather but actual weather is notoriously chaotic and unpredictable. 

outlaw bookseller in pensive mood 'you can't read SF all the time because you don't really develop any taste beyond that'. so what is he reading and listening to instead? well he tells us. it is a difficult moment for the channel. there is a pressure to produce to  keep the views up high.

similarly bookpilled still has back and neck problems but there he is in the garage unpacking book-boxes to find stuff to sell. 

both have got some kind of patreon thing and yet both still post stuff on the tube. 

above women with long hair in maxi-dresses dance at stonehenge to blues rock. this is how horsemouth thought the future would be (it may indeed be how it turns out to be).