Clondaw Robin Blog – October 2026

Autumn is now upon us and I look forward to the advent of warm rain to keep the last of the insects at bay. As a bonus, it tends to see off the most annoying human beings too. Never underestimate warm rain, it wants to be your friend.

Talking of friends, we have a new horse here, Los Blanco. I really expected him to turn up wearing a sombrero, drinking tequila and waffling on about not needing any stinking badges. As it happens he seems to be perfectly normal. In one way, that is a good thing. On the other, it rather undermined my plan for the October blog to be why the new bloke is a nutter.

It may surprise you, dear reader, but even where we are down in the summer field, we have a pretty good handle on what is going on. When horses are tuning up their jumping in the loose school, we know because every so often one of them kicks a barrel and a rich, resonating rumble tumbles down the hill to us. Now we have moved to the bath field (come and visit, and you will see why it has that name) and the older horses can laugh at the active racehorses that they do not have to do any of that nonsense these days, then we tease Winnie and Jack that they have it all to come. Alas, from there it quickly seems to spill out into quite a strenuous argument, often on a totally unrelated topic, but that is the way of the world, and a mere equine influencer, such as myself, is not going to change it. I mean, I don’t care if a cancelled meeting at Wincanton gets moved to Timbuktu, or if s red car is faster than white one, or who is on Celebrity Traitors. Nor do I care what North Korea is doing, or how many years people from the same family have been president of Gabon.

{There must be some things that concern you? – Ed.}

Well, any threat of a haylage shortage is an obvious worry. And the number of films and telly programmes being remade by HBO Max so soon after they were last done is a worry, but mainly from a point of view of how they will cover the career of a certain Clondaw Robin.

{I would not lose too much sleep over that – Ed.}

Also, they appear to have turned down the new series that I pitched them.

{Wow. It must have been utterly terrible for HBO to turn it down – Ed.}

That’s what Privatearing said. It was “The Adventures Of Clondaw Robin Hood.” In which a brave chesnut horse takes from the rich to give to the poor. My, erm, I mean his, arch enemy would be The Clerk of Leicester. Partially because neither of the runs I had at Leicester went very well and partially because if I chose an official from Nottingham, it would make it seem that I was just ripping off traditional Robin Hood stories.

Anyway, time for this month’s question. It comes from a Mr M. Scorsese in America, I think it says New York but I am not sure, because it is a nice, hand-written missive. He says that we would be very interested in my script as a one off feature movie, but can I rewrite it to be set on Staten Island? Well, clearly the answer is no. I know as much about Staten Island as I do about Borneo, and I know so little about Borneo that I might have just made it up and it isn’t a real place. However, Privatearing, who is not the brightest horse around, does know some obscure4 facts and tells me that Staten Island has a zoo. And if you have a zoo, you have a cast at your fingertips. Backinforglory said that if I rewrite, I have sold my soul to the devil of mass media consumption. So, Mr Scorsese, the final answer is yes, I will do it.

Martin Scorsese reading my script. Note the thickness – it will not be a short feature. Also not that eminent directors do not get harassed by insects when reading scripts in the way that up and coming writers seem to be.