Rowan

At some point following the notice at reference 1, we bought two DVD's full of Rowan Atkinson doing Maigret, and have now watched all four episodes, some of them more than once, and have got more used to Atkinson in the role.

A couple of night ago we did Maigret sets a trap, Maigret on the track of a serial killer of young women, a case which has been running too long, that is to say around six months. On this occasion, this episode worked well, held our attention and interest all the way through, in one sitting. Part of this being that the production team had clearly worked really hard on the period setting, which came off really well. More or less a costume drama. But also reminding one that there were lots of poor quarters, even in rich towns like Paris which had not been that bashed about during the war, in the years after the war.

Captured the tone and texture of the original rather well, and the only fault, and it may only be a fault to those viewers who read the story before the event rather than after the event, was the cramming in of a whole new story line into an all already very busy - not to say noisy - production style. A new story line about how the minister was angry and Maigret's boss (not really his boss in the Paris police organisation of the time, but that is perhaps a bit complicated for TV) is about to take him off the case, giving him just 24 hours to crack it (although he does cheat a bit by going sick). Furthermore, the boss in question, Coméliau, was much better cast in the Gambon version, as an older man, a representative of the old ruling classes, than this younger, stroppy and interfering one. That came much later in the life of the Maigret stories.

The rather tricky, more or less symbiotic, relationship between the police and the press was not much probed (on screen) at all: perhaps that would need an episode in its own right. And perhaps not that different to the relationship between the Royals and the press, or our politicians and the press. They all moan and groan, but they all need each other.

And that said and done, I do still recognise the complaints made at reference 1.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/12/atkinson-maigret.html.

Reference 2: Maigret tend un piège - Simenon - 1955. Volume XIX of the collected works.

New to me

A brown bird, something like a blackbird in size and shape, landed on our back lawn after breakfast this morning, and stayed there long enough for me to be able to take a good look with the monocular. Still not sure what it was, I asked Google, to be taken to the not very helpful RSPB page on thrushes. With RSPB being a very rich charity with a rather poor web presence, about whom I moan from time to time.

But then, somehow, I found myself at reference 1, which was new to me. A site which appeared to contain lots of labelled pictures of all kinds of animals and birds - and I dare say trees and flowers too. What it could do today, was offer lots of labeled pictures of female blackbirds, showing off their variety, their variations and confirming that this was what had just been on our back lawn. Which all seemed much more reliable than just asking Bing or Google for images on the search key 'female blackbirds'.

An outfit which has been around for fifteen years or more. And despite claims that '... In 2009 Arkive was named one of The Telegraph's top 10 best video websites and The Times’ top 10 best education sites (the UK’s two leading quality newspapers) ...', I don't think I have used them before. Where have I been hiding?

PS 1: one downside: on my laptop, the site seems prone to generating server errors which mean that one has to go back to the beginning.

PS 2: two downside: I think you have to know roughly what you are looking for. So if you think something is a female blackbird you can check easily enough. Not yet tried feeding properties of unknown brown birds into their search engine.

Reference 1: https://www.arkive.org/.

Trumpington

An irreverent waking thought arising from the recent death of Lady Trumpington.

A couple of weeks ago we came across the church at Trumpington and the sepulchre of Sir Roger de Trumpington, noticed at reference 1. As I recall, he was on the left hand side of the aisle, at the altar end of the nave. So why don't we honour our Lady Trumpington with a new sepulchre on the opposite side of the aisle? Perhaps the commission could be given to those heirs to the Eric Gill tradition at reference 2?

People have been installing memorials large and small on walls in churches for centuries, although the custom has fallen away a bit in recent years. With the snap left being an early eighteenth century example of the genre from Ely Cathedral. And the custom of full-on sepulchres - with the large sarcophagi for some of our medieval kings round the back of Westminster abbey being notable examples - fell away some time before that. With an sixteenth century example from the Isle of Wight being noticed at reference 3. But why not revive the custom for the occasional eminence?

From where I associated to someone like Branson just turning up at a village church and asking the church warden if he can get on and build his sepulchre inside? Large truck loaded with the necessary waiting just down the lane. Maybe smoothing things over with a nice cheque for the fund for the church roof.

And from there to a former owner of Harrods retaining a perpetual interest in his sepulchre on the roof there. An arrangement which no doubt kept the lawyers busy for a bit. An arrangement which a desultory search fails to confirm, so perhaps it is all an invention. Not a story to be further disseminated without corroboration.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/11/getting-lost-on-way-to-ely.html.

Reference 2: http://www.kindersleyworkshop.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/07/junk-shop.html.

Cet obscur objet du désir

An object which is clearly obscure, probably desirable inside and therefore desirable as a whole, if only to check it out. So it qualifies.

Which I do not, as I conflated this film (reference 1) with that at reference 2. I have seen this second one at the cinema, possibly at a small arty cinema in central London, at least once, but I may not have seen the first at all. Although, given that Buñuel was very much the thing when I was young, the name of this film has clearly stuck somewhere in the grey matter.

I am told that all the small arty cinemas which used to be all over the place in the larger towns of France and Italy have largely vanished. As have, I dare say, the few we had here in London. And I don't help as I have not been to the cinema for years. And sadly, as I type, I realise that even this bland statement represents a lapse of memory, as I now remember that we certainly went to the cinema in 2016 (reference 3) and may well have been since. Perhaps not very often would be more accurate.

Picture by Vermeer (courtesy of Buckingham Palace), carpet by Kelaty (reference 4).

Reference 1: Cet obscur objet du désir - Luis Buñuel and Pierre Louÿs - 1977.

Reference 2: Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie - Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière - 1972.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/05/florrie.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/08/shopping-in-kingston.html.

Southfield Park

A what has become a rare visit to Southfield Park this morning, where I find that the skate board rink has become two skateboard rinks, having now acquired a children's department, in the foreground of the snap left.

So a field, two skateboard rinks, an infants' playground, an aerial runway and an infant-primary school. What more could a park need?

Quite windy, and the only birds to be seen were seagulls - with the parked ones all being very neatly head to wind. I wonder if other birds do this as well?

There was also a low flying, four engined aeroplane heading north east. It seemed rather low to be heading for Gatwick, Stanstead or Luton, but on the other hand it was out of sight before turning west for Heathrow, if that is what it did. Maybe I shall look up that web site which plots aircraft movements.

PS 1: one might, being a bit old-fashioned, add a park keeper's house. A park keeper who might go so far as to tend a few flower beds.

PS 2: now checked and reference 1 seems to be the place, last used around four years ago, arising from aeroplane sightings in much the same place. Maybe because while Horton Hill is not exactly a mountain, it does afford a much better view north than one gets from East Street or Ewell Village. From which website I learn first, that aeroplanes can be held doing an clockwise pattern over Epsom and Leatherhead. And second, that my aeroplane was almost certainly heading for Heathrow, the drill being to turn right north of Epsom, then turn left at Bromley to join the line heading west, down into Heathrow.

Reference 1: https://www.flightradar24.com.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/03/horton-clockwise.html.

Pergolesi again

Last week to St. John's Smith Square to hear Pergolesi's 'Stabat Mater' for the third time in five years. Offered, together with a mixture of sacred and profane Neapolitan polyphony, by the new-to-us Concert de Hostel Dieu from Lyon, maybe a dozen of them altogether. The idea was to try and capture the atmosphere of a Neapolitan religious festival - Holy Week - at the time of writing.

A cold damp evening, but I didn't wear a proper coat knowing the cloakroom arrangements at Smith Square to be modest.

Started out by meeting a diabetic guide dog and learning what they were for. I had been vaguely aware of such dogs, but puzzled as to why one might want to sniff out diabetics, in the way of sniffing out marijuana - or charge in the student argot of my day. I finally learned that the idea was that your diabetic guide dog would tell you when you were about to have a hypo or a hyper, presumably of the blood sugar variety. Funny how I had not worked that out for myself.

Arrived at Epsom to find that there were no taxis on the stand at the station - not that we wanted one, but it is unusual for there not to be any taxis when we use the station. On the other hand, there was a beggar sitting outside the station, English, young male, able bodied, articulate and rather noisy. One of three or four beggars who seemed to have staked out Epsom town centre over the past few weeks.

Admired a track cleaning set which came through on the Victoria line while we waited, the first sighting of such for a while.

No.88 bus to Page Street from Vauxhall, slightly disorientated on arrival, not having visited for a while, but we made it to Smith Square without serious trouble.

Stunning start from the contralto (Anthea Pichanick) and the baritone (Romain Bockler), and so it continued all the way through - although I continue to find the Pergolesi less solemn and sombre than one might expect from the title. It is, after all, the lament of a mother for her crucified son. And some of the Neopolitan interludes were very profane indeed, with some very spirited song and dance (in so far as one can dance more or less standing on the spot) from the soprano (Heather Newhouse). A Canadian who seems to have settled in France. Oozing sex according to BH.

The conductor managed to conduct while playing a box organ, standing up. Presumably the organ music was not too challenging for him.

St. John's turned out to be an excellent venue for this sort of thing and sitting in the middle of row G was spot on. Maybe half full - with the audience making up in enthusiasm for what they lacked in numbers.

Sadly it is going to be a while before we hear them again, with Bachtrack offering just the one outing, in June next year, in Halle. Which I can't see us making.

Cheerful taxi driver told us all about the trouble caused by cyclists on the roads and we arrived at Vauxhall to find trouble on the trains. Got to platform 8 to be told to go to platform 6, the gates to which mysteriously shut just as we got to them. But they opened again in time for us to make the train, but leaving at least one cross customer on the platform.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/02/stabat-mater.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/04/return-visit.html.

Reference 3: http://www.concert-hosteldieu.com/.

Reference 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9XUiyfZXFg. The first item on the programme.

Morning drama

Morning drama.

Cat one, probably Burman or Siamese, fairly thin and agile, in the middle of the tree left.

One squirrel trapped out to the right, but sitting on a branch too thin to take the squirrel.

Cat two, fairly fat, known to us as the fat black cat, awaiting developments at the bottom of the tree. Perhaps his idea is that the squirrel can't see exactly where he is.

And thus matter stood when I went past. All gone when I returned, a couple of hours later, so I shall never know the outcome. But one of the two cats has been seen in the past, at least once, with a squirrel in its mouth.

Hat

A hat found lying around in Ewell Village. Gathered up on the grounds that the rightful owners of such things rarely, if ever, bother to retrace their footsteps to recover them. So it might as well go to a good home where it will earn its keep, rather than slowly disintegrating into a mess in the gutter.

I add a small bit of local information. There is building activity in what used to be the Star public house, the refurbishment of which lapsed some years ago. What does the future hold? Is someone going to have another go at making a go of it?

As it happens a pub I rather liked, even if I did not use it very often. A place with room for both drinkers and wives. As I recall, for a while a Morland's house, a company since gobbled up by Greene King. Or was it Marston's? Certainly some odd brewery, one that one did not see much of hereabouts.

Group search key: wca.

Tree

A tree near the letter box just mentioned, of which I have become rather fond over the years. It must have been a good deal smaller when we first moved to the area, while it is now around a foot in diameter at the base. Some kind of cedar?

Group search key: wca.

Letter box

Early on in my morning walk, I came across a letter box which seemed to be full to the brim, so full that I could extract letters from it. Possibly the result of someone posting something rather larger than a letter, but in any case unusual at this time of year. In the course of my investigations, I noticed the little instruction centre right in the snap left. From which I associated to the days when stamp dispensing containers were often to be found attached to the sides of letter boxes. Substantial, steel containers, naturally.

From which I associated to the inventor of letter boxes, one Antony Trollope, better known for his novels about the lower reaches of the upper decile of the population in the middle of the nineteenth century. Although, as it happens, searching the record suggests that my last encounter with the works of Trollope was with his life of Cicero rather than with his fiction. See reference 1.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/10/words-blocking-thought.html.

Group search key: wca.

Invisible mend

The invisible mend first noticed at reference 1, remains invisible four years later. A tribute to the craftmanship of the men that did it. Also to their chosen solution to the serious cracks in this wall - reinforcing bars cut into the brickwork and fixed with some kind of resin. The ladies' clothes shop under the mend being Riche of Ewell.

One of the stations on today's Ewell Village anti-clockwise, which remains my morning walk of choice.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/09/invisible-mend.html.

Reference 2: http://richeofewell.co.uk/.

Group search key: wca.

Trolley 182

A Waitrose trolley, captured in the passage running from TK Maxx to Station Approach.

Maybe I will make the bicentenary before Christmas.

PS: not much competition, as I have yet to see anyone else wheeling an empty trolley, other than in the Sainsbury's car park at Kiln Lane. The sport of trolley hunting has not caught on among the pensioners of Epsom. Not yet, anyway.

Group search key: wca.

Charity

Lots of us feel virtuous about making donations to charity, but few of us make, let alone boast about making, donations to government. But why not?

My thinking goes along the lines that we trust governments to do good stuff with the money that we give them. They put a lot of effort into doing the best they can, given all the circumstances. We may not like everything they do, but that is the way of democracy; you cannot please everybody all of the time. So why not give them some more?

Giving to charity, perhaps for stately homes, for dogs or for distressed pit ponies has the advantage that one is applying a little bit extra to something of one's own choice, something which one might think deserves that little bit extra. Which is fine, but by giving to government one is dumping on them all the bother of deciding which causes are worthy.

There is also the consideration that, just like governments, lots of what big charities do is not going to please all their donors. So I, for example, don't care for a lot of what the National Trust gets up to, but I still give them money from time to time.

So why don't governments make it easy to make donations to them? Set up some webpage somewhere, fill in the amount, click here and the job is done; maybe set up an app for the younger generation. Maybe publish daily tallies of the total collected. While as things stand, it may be that the shredding noticed at reference 1 is as good as anything.

So I write off to the Treasury to ask them what to do and they reply, more or less by return of post, that the thing to do is more or less what was envisaged at reference 2, or to be more precise, to send a cheque payable to CRND, to someone who lives fairly near the Bank of England. This has now been done and I shall wait with interest to see how long it takes them to cash my cheque. Transaction charges probably in excess of 1% of the amount involved. But this post apart, I shall forbear from offering the Treasury any further suggestions.

PS: one needs to remember that the sort of webpage I talk of above is not free. Setting such a thing up and servicing it might well be dearer than processing cheques, at least until the thing lifts off a bit.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/jack-shred.html.

Reference 2: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=Shrewsbury+Lamb.

Corbie the crow

For some reason, I was particularly irritated yesterday by a picture in the Guardian of a smug Corbyn saying that he would lead his troops into the no (deal) lobby when it came to a vote. With the Guardian itself being no better, seeming to be doing its level best to print the deal (noticed at reference 1) down.

May and her team have done what they can to balance the various interests and concerns of the half of the country that voted leave, the half of the county that voted remain and our soon to be former partners in Europe. A compromise which nobody much likes but which we can probably live with. Against which background, I don't know what sort of warm and cosy, lefty cocoon Corbyn and his team live in, but from the outside it seems to me to be very unlikely that any deal they would make with Europe would be significantly better or even different from the one we have on the table. Plus, it would be good to be able to move on and to have some government back - sooner rather than later.

Corbyn is the leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition and this is, in my view, one of the times when the 'loyal' bit of his job title trumps the 'opposition' bit. As I have suggested before, time for he and May to give the House of Commons something to do for once and give them a free vote. The attraction of which has not diminished since it was last noticed at reference 2.

If, instead, he succeeds in forcing a general election, he will be straining my tribal loyalty to (old) Labour to the limit. I have never yet voted Tory - but he might prove to be the crow that breaks the camel's back.

PS: perhaps Corbyn being named for a gregarious but quarrelsome scavenger really is appropriate.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/11/brexit-blunder.html. Not looked at since.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/09/worried-of-epsom.html.

Trolley 181

Trolley 181 was captured outside what looked like a Thames Water depot behind East Street. The Thames Water which used to be a Water Board run by the people for the people - that is to say a nationalised industry - and which is now owned by an outfit called Kemble Water Holdings Ltd, in a chain which involves at least seven other companies with at least two of them having a strong tax haven smell about them. No smoke without fire say I!

For some reason just one of these companies is a PLC, not the one at the top of the heap as it happens, with the rest being just plain old LTD. Perhaps the limited liability is the really important bit.

On the other hand, the largest beneficial owner with around 30% is a Canadian pension fund, with other respectable looking pension funds holding further significant chunks. Something under 10% each for Abu Dubai, Kuwait and China. So most of our excess water rates are going to good causes.

And I was pleased to find that Thames Water made it easy to find all this out at reference 1.

Reference 1: https://corporate.thameswater.co.uk/About-us/Our-investors/Our-corporate-governance/Ownership-structure.

Crown

We have just finished our first viewing of the first season of 'The Crown', a costume drama brought to us on DVD by Netflix and made by Left Bank Pictures, now owned by Sony Pictures Television. Ten episodes of around an hour each, covering the period from our Queen's marriage up to the end of Princess Margaret's romance with fighter ace & equerry Townsend.

The opening sequences, arty close ups of crowns, were subcontracted out to the same people who made the visually similar opening sequences for 'Game of Thrones'.

A well made drama, bringing out some of the issues, both private and public, with the period in question having been neatly cut into episodic chunks, although it suffers, as all fact based dramas do, from a confusion between fact and fiction, with this viewer being uncomfortably aware that he could not tell the difference.

Leaving aside the dollops of bad language and the heavy smoking of many of the characters, I was a little taken aback by the warts and all presentation - with at least some of the real people involved still being alive. And, perhaps with an eye to the US market, with most of the big Brits being made out to be terrible twats or worse. Not very nice people at all - or even very effective. Not like proper sensible, business-like people from the US at all.

Writing as a life-long but weakening republican (having been horrified by the thought of having someone like Blair as Queen and having become more sensitive to the value of having the Prime Minister having to make a weekly report to a nominal superior (whom he can't get rid of) with limited knowledge or experience of the matters in question), I don't really approve of warts and all. The monarchy survives as a myth which we in the population sign up to, but it is best for us not to go poking around behind the scenes. At least not too much. Our place is in the stalls, not in the coulisses; we can leave that to the likes of Townsend.

From where I associate to what seems to be our need for myths more generally. Not to say euphemisms and fakes. I remember my mother being very upset to find, when she moved into her new house in the mid 1950's, to find that the pipework of the kitchen had been surface mounted, in view. She had assumed that it would all be hidden away - where it would both be hard to see and hard to mend, although I don't suppose she was particularly alert to this last. And now we have modern kitchens where everything is tastefully finished and with all the inner workings carefully tucked out of sight. Notwithstanding the current fashion in Southwark eateries for all the ventilation ducts and other ceiling fittings to be on view.

From where I move onto the malleability, onto the evolution of myths. The current myth of the Royal Family being very different from that, say, of 200 years ago. Still more from that of a 1,000 years ago. So, to my mind, the royal flunkeys were laying on the need to preserve form and tradition a bit strong. In which connection, see Strong on coronations.

PS: in passing, I got to know that coulisse has the same root as our portcullis.

Reference 1: Coronation: From the 8th to the 21st Century - Roy Strong - 2006. Can't imagine that I would have bought such a book from new and Wetherspoon's library seems a bit improbable, so my copy probably came from a charity shop somewhere.

Pike

I read today in reference 1 of the way that the French used to fish for pike, in the Seine, in the Morsang area.

You go out in a boat and drag for your pike with a net (à la traîne). If that doesn't work you switch to line fishing with live bait (à vif). At least, this was the not very sporting story according to Collins-Robert, the dictionary to hand. So I check in Larousse, where it allows the drag net, but fishing à la traîne is also said to be towing a line behind one's boat, a line furnished either with a lure or hooks baited with bits of fish. From whence traîneau, a sledge.

The net in question is also called a senne or a seine, said to be used both at sea and in fresh water - except that the seine nets in Wikipedia don't look terribly suitable for towing behind a small boat on a river. So I shall settle for the towed line.

Which all goes to show that one needs to be careful when translating words and phrases special to some sport or occupation, particularly if one knows next to nothing about the sport or occupation in question. From where I associate to once being told about getting tangled up in agricultural words by someone taking his War & Peace in the original Russian.

PS 1: the pike in question appeared to be being caught for the pot. With our very limited experience being that pike are very slimy on the outside, very bony on the inside and not very tasty, at least not the way that we cooked it. But I believe that they are, nevertheless, widely eaten in mainland Europe. Don't know about Ireland.

PS 2: at first confused by talk of the nearest railway station being at Corbeil, with Gmaps is not admitting to any such. However, Simenon is usually fairly careful with his place names - at least I can't remember when I last caught him in error, if ever. So I persist, and eventually get to the Gare de Corbeil Essonnes, a couple of miles up the road from Morsang. Can't think now why it took me so long - I had even started to wonder whether the station in question had been zapped by some French version of Dr. Beeching - they must, after all, have had the same issue as us of having too much track for the car owning world. Too much lunch maybe.

Reference 1: Signé Picpus - Simenon - 1941. Volume XI of the collected works; somehow missed out, first time around.

Handl

Last Saturday to Weston Green to hear the Ripieno choir offer a choral celebration of the work of Jacob Handl, together with some from his contemporaries. Handl having been born in 1550 in what is now Slovenia, on what was then the uncertain border between the lands of the Hapsburgs and the lands of the Ottomans. Also, it seems from Wikipedia, the site of an early infestation of Protestants, sorted out by the counter reformationists during the century which followed Handl.

The first outing for the choir's new conductor, Huw Morgan, a chap with a considerable Bing footprint. Including, for example, a video clip of his time as organist at the Stanford Memorial Church in Stanford, California. Both he and the new organist, Jonathan Holmes, are linked with a place called the Monmouth School for Boys, an establishment which was founded four hundred years ago, just one year before the secondary school which I attended. Very much the same sort of place, and as is the fashion these days, a member of a family of schools, all mixed up with the Haberdashers' Company.

Fine concert, only slightly marred by confusion over when to clap, with my not caring for clapping between successive short pieces. It would all be so much simpler if the people organising concerts put a note in the programme telling the audience the form. I thought that the conductor may have joined in the singing at various points, not something that I can see his predecessor having done.

Audience a little thinner than usual, with the church something over half full.

In the interval we wondered about the font, which looked to be a lot older than the church, and we learned afterwards that it was a bit of architectural salvage from Churt, an old village on the south western extremity of Surrey and on the western extremity of the Weald. The village even went to law on this last account, something to do with church taxes.

And once again, we admired the fine design of this small and unpretentious church (All Saints, Weston Green), with narrow aisles which reminded us of the far grander Guildford Cathedral. Which turned out to be entirely proper, as the two places were the work of the same architect, Sir Edward Brantwood Maufe, RA etc. A church which was one of the last products of the Anglican revival which petered out after a century or so, after the second world war. Some confusion as to whether the sanctuary light was hanging over the main altar or in the small chapel to the left. I plumped for the latter. Which prompts the thought that all the maiden aunt money which used to go to churches and missionaries must now go to birds, cats, dogs and other animals. Is the world a better place on that account?

PS: I do not much care for the current fashion for animating words and phrases on one's computer screen, so that if your mouse accidently drifts over them, you get pop-ups offering unsolicited further information, sometimes so much further that it comes with video clips with sound. I keep my cross references tucked away at the bottom of the page. Thoughts prompted by looking up the conductor in Wikipedia.

Reference 1: http://ripienochoir.org.uk/.

Reference 2: https://www.habsmonmouth.org/.

Will I ever learn?

Once again, just about two months after the last occasion, on more or less the same errand, I fell yesterday for 40 pages of TLS for £3.50.

Instead of a monster edition of everything that Evelyn Waugh ever wrote, we have three books totalling around 1,750 pages about the life and times of Oscar Wilde. Not greatly encouraged by the performance noticed at reference 2. Fast forward.

Ten pages of books of the year by literary and other celebrities. About three column inches each. Fast forward.

Fast forward to page 26 to an article written around a couple more books about depression and the efforts of big pharma to cure it, or as some cynics would say, to make a lot of  money from it. A not very flattering mention of the Cipriani noticed at reference 3 - but without serious dissent from his cautious conclusion: the drugs do seem to be better than doing nothing. So not doing the drugs - is not a good plan. But remember to take care to get one that suits; this is not a one-size fits all world. Read the article but pass on the books.

Fast forward over the article about happiness, to land on a depressing article about Gaza. A place with about the same area as the Isle of Wight but with 15 times the population, that is to say around two million. The heirs to all those who fled or were ejected from what is now southern Israel at the time of the 1948 war. A mess which is now 70 years old, looking to be getting worse rather than better, with no end in sight. Depressing both for the misery it represents and our collective failure to sort it out.

Fast forward to find an unusual, Turkish flavoured take on the Arab Revolt and Palestine, reprinted from 1938, just before the end of the 40 pages. Ostensibly a review of a book called 'The Arab Awakening' by George Antonius. Available from Abebooks for around £15 including postage, if you don't mind waiting for it to come from the US.

And that was about it. Now taking bets on how many months it will be before I next give it a go.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/09/literary-stuff.html. The last fall.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/01/wilde-two.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/04/belgravia.html. No follow up post in the event, having failed to get sufficiently to grips with the two papers concerned.

Ham and cheese

TFL record

Last week back on the cheese, on what turned out to be a mild and overcast day. Chose the short raincoat (from Cordings) as being more suitable for cycle work than the long raincoat (from charity shop), supplemented with folding umbrella (from Ottawa).

Pulled a Bullingdon from the second position on the ramp and cycled off to a well gummed up north side of Waterloo Bridge. Seemed to be waiting for ages for the buses to make a move. But it could not have been that long as the whole journey only took a little over 12 minutes.

Shorts Gardens also gummed up, perhaps with motor traffic come to admire the Christmas decorations strung across the street (in mid November). Took the usual kilo or so of Poacher and toyed with the idea of getting something a bit fancier, perhaps a spot of Gubbeen, but decided against. Maybe I was right, maybe 70g of hard cheese a day is enough.

Thinking of lunch, I was lucky enough to come across a little shop in Neal Street which sold excellent ham rolls. See reference 1. The first roll was taken on the step of the Seven Dials monument, from where I was able to admire a variety of smartly dressed people, including a procession of Chinese, the men in business suits, the ladies in elaborate dresses (if that is the right word), split up the sides from ankle to knee. I enjoyed the roll so much that I bought another, and took this second one on the smokers' bench, thoughtfully provided outside the crystal balls shop in Shorts Gardens, a hundred yards or so to the east of the cheese shop.

Smokers' bench

Having finished my second roll, I thought it best to make way for a small group of fake smokers, fake in the sense that they did not appear to be smoking real cigarettes.

Pulled a second Bullingdon for a gentle roll down the Aldwych and then back across Waterloo Bridge, from where I was able to admire the fully shrouded Big Ben, hanging its head in shame, as it were, at the abject failure of our political classes to bring Brexit to a satisfactory conclusion. To get to grips with, inter alia, the fact that, with the popular vote split right down the middle, winner take all is not a good strategy and some kind of compromise is in order - in which connection I suppose it would have helped if we had had more practise at the coalitions, the deals and the horse trading that most Europeans seem to be at most of the time. Without coming to grief either.

It took 20 seconds longer to get back than to get out, perhaps because the southern end of the bridge was even more gummed up than the northern end had been. Came near to getting a first in the form of parking the Bullingdon in the same slot that I had taken one from earlier, but had to settle for the next door pole position instead.

Pole position

With the brown bag by way of evidence. Rewarded myself with a spot of 2017 Falanghino del Sannio from Le Cabin, above the entrance to platform 1. Bottled by the people at reference 3. Light and pleasant - a relative as I now know of the Greco di Tufo which we look out for. And I remain a fan of the mezzanine conversion at Waterloo: someone did a good job there.

Reference 1: https://www.enriquetomas.com/en/.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki. Somewhere along the way, I passed the shop at the top of Neal Street which now sells crystal balls and which once sold me a remaindered copy of Bourbaki on sets. Which I still have, largely unread. Crystal balls clearly a big business in Covent Garden.

Reference 3: http://www.laguardiense.it/.

Market failure

Small, tatty building

Something over three years ago a derelict two storey building in East Street burned down, a building which had, as I recall, been used by some branch of Epsom councils social services department for the delivery of support. The fire being described at references 1 and 2.

The badly damaged building was demolished and there is now a small block of flats, quite smart looking, mostly off the snap above, to the left, but shown in Street View below.

Next to the derelict building was a small, rather tatty looking building, something to do with one of the motor car operations on the Kiln Lane industrial estate behind Sainsbury's; perhaps left over from some ancient use of the site, before the arrival of the industrial estate. As is shown in the snaps above and below.

The flats

At the time, I thought that it was a pity that the developer of the flats had been unable to buy out the small building - more an advertisement than a place to conduct business - and incorporate the site into his plans. Not only would more flats have been built, but the result might well have been more attractive than what we have now, or are likely to get in the near future.

This to my mind is an example of market failure: the tatty building is up for sale anyway, but three years too late to be of any use to the flats. The market, more or less left to its own devices, did not come up with a particularly good result.

Maybe the reason was that the developer was greedy. Or that the owner of the small building was greedy. Or that the owner of the small building was old and decrepit and unable to attend to business. Any of which could have blocked achieving a better result. But whatever the reason, it is not clear that we would want an all-powerful council which could knock heads together - at least not for a relatively minor planning matter such as this. My point is simply that market forces are not that clever, they don't always deliver the goods, whatever some of the strange beasts inhabiting the right wing of the Tory party might like to think - or at least say. While I say that what they are most worried about is the possibility of governments interfering with their right to make excess money out of the rest of us, and making a shibboleth out of market forces is a good way for them to push back on that front. An argument that I am sure Shaxson of reference 3 would agree with.

PS: a counter argument might be that small is beautiful. That small might be messy, but it is better than a string of more or less identical blocks of flats. One needs this sort of thing to bring a bit of attractive diversity to the scene. It is what gives our old market towns their tatty charm. And while East Street, a lot of which was redeveloped fifty years ago, may lack charm, it does have diversity.

Reference 1: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-31532023.

Reference 2: https://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/11803788.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/11/city-boys.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/11/city-boys-episode-1.html. Market forces at work again.

Trolley 180

Captured on the Sainbury's side of the rail underpass by the Screwfix on Blenheim Road. Wheel lock present but not deployed.

The suitcase may have been cut open, but was in any case empty. I suppose I should have taken it with the trolley to Kiln Lane, but I was not sure of finding a suitable bin there. Perhaps, if it does not move meanwhile, I will take it next time I pass by.

20 to go to the bicentenary!

To the rose

A week or ago to Kingston, to see 'Don Carlos' at the Rose Theatre there. A play by Schiller, very loosely based on the life and times of the first-born son of the rather solemn & serious Phillip II of Spain, the chap who once married our Mary I and who went on to send the Armada to claim what he might have thought was his by right of marriage. Seen off by the suitably nonchalant, bowls playing pirate known to history as Francis Drake. This first son was more or less mad, but Schiller leaves out that side of things, concentrating more on national rights (of what is now mostly Belgium) in the face of overbearing suzerains. And, having declined the offer of 'Mary Stuart' last year, a first Schiller for us. We might have been put off on that occasion by the phrase 'a new adaptation by'.

To find that a good part of the road along the river that we use on the way from Surbiton has been given over to a two way cycle path, in the way of Farringdon Road, two way paths which I continue to find a bit unnerving when they are busy. On this occasion however, the cycle path was more or less empty and the cars were confined to what was left of the road.

Into the car park opposite the theatre (and next to the police station) where, rather to my surprise, I made it all the way to Green Nine without clipping the kerb to any of the ramps between floors. Must be a first.

Down to the bridge over the Hogsmill, to find plenty of fish there, all pointing up the Hogsmill, holding their position against the current with very little apparent effort and coming in two sizes, large and small. Maybe the small ones were this year's crop, who will attain full size next season. On the other hand, I read somewhere, not that long ago, that cod fish just carry on growing and growing. Something usually happens, so very large ones are unusual, but there is no particular upper limit. On which basis fish would not come, neatly, in just two sizes. Something with which to tax a fishy person next time I come across one such.

Into the theatre to find a reasonably full house, but with a rather pensioner outing flavour about it all, with just a few representatives from the chattering classes. One of whom chose to sit out front on a cushion - which I thought odd, given that I find sitting thus for hours most uncomfortable, if sustainable at all, that he was not a young man and did not look poor.

Quite an old production, said to date from 1995.

The set was rather dark and rather spare, but did involve upright chairs and a lot of serious lights on poles pointing at the chairs, unlit. Quite a lot of music. All a bit forced and pretentious to my mind.

The play started very fast, to the point where one had to really concentrate to hear what was being said. But it got better, with the second half having real power, mainly, to my mind in the form of the king, played by Darrell D'Silva, very much, for some reason, bringing Lear to mind. Maybe it was nothing more than playing, than being a forceful older man with white hair. While the programme (and the snap above) featured the heroic Marquis of Posa, rather than the prince who gave his name to the play. The three ladies entirely competent, but with smaller roles than the men.

A good outing. Let's hope the Rose don't stop doing this sort of thing.

Out, we for the first time in a while, decided to eat after play, and headed off for the 'Shy Horse' by Malden Rushett. A place which we like well enough, is convenient, but which we, nevertheless, do not seem to visit that often. With the last visit, just about a year ago, being noticed at reference 1. On the way, slightly disturbed by some lane changing antics in our vicinity. Presumably slightly tired young men hurrying back from work to something important. That said, commuter driver manners were generally very good, with plenty of give and take - only marred by a cyclist who declined to use the large cycle lane provided, preferring to more or less block our part of the road.

Shy Horse quiet when we got there, but it warmed up as our meal progressed.

From the 'Starters, Sharers & Grazers' (!) part of the menu I selected stone-baked flatbread to start, a foodies version of cheese on toast. Rather good. Then I went for slow-cooked pork belly, a dish for poverty stricken students and young marrieds in our day. Apart from the carrots, quite possibly prepared on the premises but which were not very warm, also rather good, if rather dear for what it was. Passed on dessert but took a drop of Jameson in the absence of Calvados - which our waitress had never heard of, but she did have the good sense to go and ask. The 2015 Sancerre - a type of wine which seems to be flooding onto the pub-grub scene - satisfactory. See reference 4.

The tipping arrangements were unusual, that is to say I had never heard of them. Tips were allocated to your server and each server had a tip profile which controlled their distribution. So much to me, to much to other front of house, so much to kitchen sort of thing, as was explained to me at the till by the pleasant young lady whom I took to be the manageress. No doubt all kinds of interesting analyses could be done if one had access to the profile file.

A good place. We shall no doubt be back at some point, although our track record suggests it may be some months.

PS: checking, I don't think it was just the adaptation word which put us off Mary. According to the rather florid language of TimeOut: 'Lust, pride, skulduggery: this riveting drama about Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I is a fight to the death between two killer queens. And it’s stunning. On the night I saw it, Lia Williams was Elizabeth and Juliet Stevenson Mary. But they switch. Their roles are cast by a flipped coin at the start of each performance; the winner going on to keep her head; the loser losing it' and I now think that it was the random switching that put me off. It struck me as a gimmick which would not result in a better production.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/11/festive-menu.html.

Reference 2: https://www.vintageinn.co.uk/restaurants/london/theshyhorsechessington.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos,_Prince_of_Asturias. A bad pedigree, with enough inbreeding to make the Forest of Dean look respectable, compounded by various early life disasters. Should have been red-flagged by the social services at birth.

Reference 4: https://www.henribourgeois.com/en/vins/sancerre-blanc/. 'Subtle yet  powerful, its persistence and harmony find their origin in the exposition and quality of the terroir'. 'Perfect with belly pork'.

Veggefest

From time to time I buy tickets for things from some people called Eventbrite and from time to time they send me lists of events in which they think I might be interested - which, indeed, I sometimes am.

Today's lead offering was a vegetarian night out in Stoke Newington - and if you wanted to make a night of it there is the Rose Hotel a few doors away, which looks interesting in Google StreetView. Probably best to check, as the associated web address (for this last) seems to have expired. Alternatively, the railway services of Greater Anglia are only a few steps away at Hackney Downs.

An area which we once used to know slightly, mainly on account of the huge market that used to be held on Saturdays on the Kingsland Road. A market from which, in our day, you could buy live eels - from a small boy who could cut them up for you if that is what you wanted. Don't suppose he is still there. Don't even know if the market is still there. Has the area been gentrified? Is it full of all kinds of dubious clubs?

Reference 1: http://emilysbar.co.uk/. The premises at which the event is to be held. Where the past events look interesting. I have also taken my first peek at the phenomenon called Instagram.

Trolley 179

Captured at the top of Epsom High Street, where it joins Upper High Street, outside what is presently the Zig Zag café.

Easy enough to get rid of the litter as there was a litter bin just off snap to the left and the damp weather had softened the two cardboard tubes to the point where folding them up for the bin was not a problem.

More of a problem was deciding where it came from, given that the branding on the handle had worn off. The deep red plastic trim at each end of the handle was a colour that Sainsbury's used for their trolleys. On the other hand, the trolley was of much lighter construction than theirs. Thinking on my feet, I settled for Wilkinson's, mainly on the grounds both that they were a cut price operation and that their shoppers would be buying stuff which might be bulky but which would not usually be heavy.

And it turned out that Wilkinson's did indeed have trolleys of this kind, if not this particular model. At least not on view at the entrance.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/04/trolley-146.html. The last Wilko trolley, around six months ago.

Old Boot two

Tunnel

Ambience rather more fine than one usually gets for fine dining in public houses, and we were sat in the antique brick vault snapped above. I did not think at the time to ask what it was for, and Bing does not help. I thought maybe an old oven or maybe an overground cellar from the days of floods in the Fens, with the sturdy arch taking the weight of the barrels above.

Bread and olives good. Worth a mention as the bread in these places is often very poor.

Wine good. A Gavi from Tenimenti Ca' Bianca, part of  the Gruppo Italiano Vini.

Roast pork poor. One suspected that it had been cooked some time before and warmed up in a microwave. Roast potatoes undercooked. But there was a dollop of crinkly cabbage and, I think, dollops of various other vegetables. Plus an individual Yorkshire pudding, fresh enough, but served with the wrong sort of meat and a pale shadow of what you might get if you could be bothered to cook a proper one yourself, something which only happens very rarely in our own kitchen.

Calvados

Passed on pudding, but they did sell Calvados, as befits a group with a French name (Blanc) and it came warm with the trimmings snapped above, to remind us that we were indeed fine dining.

Very pleasant young team front of house.

Fairly busy by the time we left, around 1400 on a Sunday afternoon.

Gutter for bicycles

A reminder at the station that we were near Cambridge, in the form of a side gutter up the stairs, up which one is supposed to wheel one's bicycle. I would have thought that carrying would be less awkward, provided that the stairs were not busy. The only other such gutters that I know come with the footbridge over the Cam leading to the lido at Jesus Green, a place which I used to use before school in the second half of my time at primary school. The far off days when small children were allowed out at funny times of day on their own! On the main roads too.

By the time we got back to Ely, a crescent moon was visible to the south, horns pointing left. So actually a waxing moon, as explained towards the end of reference 3.

Reference 1: https://www.gruppoitalianovini.it/index.cfm/en/. The home of the wine.

Reference 2: https://boothiston.com/. The home of the pub.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/04/winters-tale.html.

Group search key: yla.

Old Boot one

A week or so ago to take lunch at the Boot in Histon, a public house which, according to reference1, has existed since at least 1765 and was recently made over by the Raymond Blanc organisation. A name I have heard of, although I didn't know on what account until I asked Bing, when I found that he is slumming it a bit in Histon. Although he would not be the first to discover that there is more money to be made out of ordinary folk than out of the luxury goods trade. In which matter reference 2 does not help.

Started out in the Tesco's next to Ely Station where we made the discovery that the rice cakes used by slimmers the world over come with all kinds of flavours, including Marmite. A reminder that slimming is a big business.

Into the train to take us to Cambridge North, where we happened to sit next to someone who told us he had just been released from prison. He may have been having a lark, but both he and his young lady looked well up for it. We told him about Marmite.

Out at the shiny new station at Cambridge North, complete with a small encampment of travellers a little way down the road, a toilet suite which was out of action and a mathematical puzzle by way of a fascia. I thought maybe something to do with cellular automata, perhaps a tribute to the Cambridge mathematician who invented one called life, one John Conway. Although it may be that he is disqualified first for not being a Trinity man (the Science Park around the station is on Trinity land) and second for being a brain drain and currently located in Princeton.

Onto the Boot, to which I shall return shortly.

Out to coffee in Cambridge where I made an interesting town planning discovery. In our part of Epsom, people building residential sheds in their back gardens is the big issue. In the centre of London, people building underground complexes under their houses is the big issue. While in Cambridge, some of the residential streets face one proper road but have another, improper road along the back, used for cars, dustbins and so on, not so unlike the mews of the fancy parts of London. Here, the big issue is building one and two storey residential garages, complicated by the drains running out back rather than out front.

I also had my first sight of a Köchel catalogue (of the works of Mozart), the eighth edition as it happens, a fact proudly proclaimed on the spine. A fat tome with more than 600 entries involving continuing controversy about how to deal with works discovered after the date sequential Köchel numbers had first been set. I also learned that Mozart was into lists as well as numbers, and made a start on the catalogue himself, in his own lifetime. Perhaps, had he lived now, he would have been another spreadsheet enthusiast.

Caught the Norwich train which dropped us back to Ely. Lots of locals on board, not like travelling south from Cambridge at all.

Reference 1: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/cambs/vol9/pp90-94. We used to live a little to the southwest of the quaintly names Intercommon Furlong.

Reference 1: https://www.raymondblanc.com/.

Group search key: yla.

Listed stones

A few weeks ago I learned about the existence of listed milestones, with some of them reaching the august heights of Grade II, for example that known as #1028710. Since then, I have been keeping an eye out for such things.

The post snapped left, while not exactly a milestone, probably on the Witchford Road out of Ely, is in the same department and it is quite old. So I thought it qualified.

When there is a bit of free time, I shall look into the rules which are probably to be found somewhere among references 1 and 2.

PS: Bing does quite well with the number, listing the right answer as hit 2, with hit 1 being an old Rolls Royce with the same heritage number. Then further down the page are what look like the part numbers for cars.

Reference 1: http://www.milestonesociety.co.uk/.

Reference 2: http://www.msocrepository.co.uk/.

Group search key: yla

Able and greedy - will travel

From time to time I moan about greed and about how there is far too much of it in our world. Made worse, to my mind, by the rich both getting a lot richer and by more or less boasting about it. The poor are getting  envious & cross - and may some day break out their pitch forks. Or vote for Brexit.

So I was interested to read over breakfast about the rise and fall of a titan of the car industry, one Carlos Ghosn. A Brazilian of Lebanese descent, who went to a fancy school in France and who went on to a stellar career in the car industry, ending up as the boss of the confederation of Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishu, between them making more than 1 in 10 of the world's cars. So the chap is clearly very gifted, which probably includes both being very clever in the way of examinations in Geography & Mathematics and being very good at all that interpersonal, cuddling stuff.

But he is also very greedy and it is his greed which was the trigger for his downfall, with his only caring to declare around half of his £10 million a year Japanese salary to the Japanese tax authorities. It is not clear, but he may well be drawing a salary in France too. He is also accused of various other peccadillos, probably stuff like using the company jet to take off for a weekend with his mistress in the Caribbean, possibly on an island tax haven, possibly rented to him by that other titan of tax evasion, Richard Branson.

Depressing that such talents and such greed should co-exist in the same person. I would have hoped that the former would have squeezed out the latter.

PS: there is also a suggestion that he was left in post for too long. There really ought to be a rule that no-one can be in an important job for more than ten years. No exceptions.

Trolley 178

Captured by the footbridge over the railway line at the bottom of West Street.

On return, found what looked like trolley 177 parked as an outlier to the main stacks outside the front door. That is to say someone had moved it from the special needs section.

Rewarded myself with two packets of crumpets from Warburtons, via Costcutter. I am pleased to be able to say that there was no mention of the sour dough which seems to have infested crumpets from Sainsbury's.

PS: on the way out, I noticed that the  hole noticed at reference 1, maybe a fortnight ago, is now under repair. Looked like a full rebuild of the top of the drain - which will presumably need a few days to go off, before taking heavy traffic.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/11/clear-and-present-danger.html.

From the void

A swarm of Bacillus subtilis, millions if not billions of individuals, whose electrical activity can force distant neighbours to join a biofilm. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

An example of a complex structure emerging from the void, perhaps from nothing more complicated than the vagaries of potassium mediated electrical signalling, perhaps an evolutionary precursor of what our neurons get up to.

But dangerous in the sense that the signalling is not species specific and the signals from one kind of bacteria can be received and acted on by individuals of another kind. Mixed race indeed - or, more positively, an elementary example of symbiosis.

Brought to me by Neuwrite West.

Reference 1: Species-independent attraction to biofilms through electrical signalling – Humphries, Jacqueline and others – 2017.

Reference 2: Ion channels enable electrical communication in bacterial communities - Arthur Prindle, Jintao Liu, Munehiro Asally, San Ly, Jordi Garcia-Ojalvo & Gürol M. Süel – 2015.

Driving while disqualified

For reasons which I need not go into, I was curious earlier today about the penalties for driving while disqualified.

First stop was a number of sites along the lines of reference 1, all of which confirm that driving while disqualified is a serious offence. Furthermore, in these days of cameras and computers everywhere, one is quite likely to be caught, which is apt to be an unpleasant experience. Arrested on the spot and carted off to the police station to be processed. Handcuffed, searched, finger printed, the works. And if you make a fuss, you might get held in the cells for some time, just like in Morse or in Lewis.

Second stop was the Road Traffic Act 1988, s.103, which one might think was the relevant bit of legislation. One gets to a web site (reference 2) carrying it fast enough, but you would be quite wrong if you thought, as I did, that you were going to get a couple of screens defining the offence (scarcely complicated) and laying down the penalties (probably fierce). Rather it is some legal gobbledegook designed to keep lay people at bay.

But dig a bit harder, and third stop was the helpful reference 3, which explains everything. On a good day, one might avoid prison, but one probably would get a hefty fine, extended disqualification and a community service order. For repeat offenders, good days much less likely.

PS: I have not investigated whether there would be another lot of penalties for the offence of driving without insurance, a corollary of driving while disqualified.

Reference 1: http://www.drivingban.co.uk/drivingban/drivingonabanwhilstdisqualified.htm.

Reference 2: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/103.

Reference 3: https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/drive-whilst-disqualified-revised-2017/.

Trolley 177

Captured at the top of Kiln Lane, maybe a hundred yards from the start of the Sainsbury's site, so a scoring capture.

Wheeled in to the sight of a double rainbow to the north west, left hand portions, inner rainbow a lot brighter than the outer rainbow.

Returned to the special needs department by Timpson's, to find that it was so special needs that there was no other of its particular kind there. Given that the shine had gone off the metal, suggesting that it had been outside for a while, perhaps this particular model has been retired? Will the trolley jockey who deals with it spend his fag break wondering where it came from? Or am I known to the jockeys as the busy taking the bread out of their mouths?

Tweet two

Situation reversed this morning at 0900. Same yew tree, but this time a song thrush, a bit smaller than yesterday's redwing (despite what it says on the RSPB website), in company with a male blackbird and having a good feed on the yew berries, getting them down at the rate of one every twenty seconds or so for a bit, presumably till the upper part of its digestive tract is full up. Or maybe it has cheek pouches in the way of tits.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/11/candidate-tweet.html.

Cathedral

Our visit to Ely continued with a good visit to the cathedral. The symphony in stone still works its magic, inside and out.

Masonic Hall

But the first event of the day was the Masonic Hall, somewhere between the car park and the cathedral. One imagines that the Masons are still quite strong in a country area like this without that many other diversions.

Quince pears

The second event, a bit further along, was a clutch of what BH told me were quince pears, from the large-leaved tree above. It seems that we had been told all about them by a volunteer in the walled garden noticed at reference 1. We refrained from lifting any of them, not that I suppose anyone would have minded.

Nave

We sat for a while in the nave, mainly to admire the vaulting of the walls of nave and aisles: the relatively brand new Buckfast Abbey was not in the same league, although we liked it well enough on the day of our last visit, noticed at reference 2. The masons at Ely put those of Buckfast to shame. The ceiling painting is relatively new, 19th century, and BH did not care for the way that the figures were head towards the altar, which made them appear to those of us in the nave look upside down. While I wondered about where they took the design from.

Coke fired heater

One of the once coke fired heaters scattered about the place, this one, I think, in the north transcept. Lost among various stuff being stored there against an upcoming brass band concert.

Some sort of performance art to mark the end of the First World War going on in the crossing, with someone dropping red poppies from the lantern up above, so that they fluttered down onto the octagonal plinth and altar underneath. Complete with carefully placed and lit candles. With elaborate camera taking it all in. I was a bit disappointed that they had not rigged things up so that the next batch of poppies was dispatched by sending a code up from a mobile phone to a contraption. Instead, they just talked on said mobile phone to a person. Were they practising for the real thing, scheduled to take place during aforementioned concert?

There were also a number of clear plastic outlines of military figures attached to pews. A manifestation of the current fashion - not to say fad - for rather florid memorials, involving numbers of large and small manniquins, for the first world war. As far as I am concerned, it is time to stop. Perhaps the powers that be will find that a century is a convenient time at which to draw the line. While I associate to the recent story in the Guardian about how, for many people in central Europe, the first world war did not end until the early 1920's - so 1918 does not have the resonance for them as it might have had for us.

Green man

A detail from the florid carving of the Lady Chapel. One of the smaller of the green men scattered around the cathedral, mostly hidden in stone foliage.

Paint job

Defaced, with green man above

Oddly, whoever carefully knocked the faces off all the devotional figures did not think it necessary to knock out the green men - while one might have thought that proper Puritans would get even more excited about the latter than the former.

We wondered if there had ever been a time when the Lady Chapel was complete, with all its carvings and statues and with its full paint job. It would be an interesting project to try and create a virtual version of what it might then have looked like. Perhaps one could take a video film of the chapel and then get the computer to finish things off properly?

Echo still as good as ever, which must be interesting from a musicians point of view. Would it be a good thing or a bad thing? But all in all, given the times we live in, a slightly depressing monument to gross religious intolerance in the past, in our past.

Brass missing

Someone seems to have pinched the brass plates which once adorned these tomb stones. One supposes that metal was dear then and the market for stolen metal even stronger than it is now. It had not occurred to me before that the plates were cut into the stone, a cutting which must have been a long and tedious job: something for the apprentice, or something for Friday afternoon after the pub.

More paint

Note the traces of decorative paint work to the vaulting. And another of the once coke fired boilers right.

Quite struck on this occasion by the difference in style between the nave and the chancel, with each being very uniform in itself. One building campaign for each. Some cathedrals are much less tidy in this respect.

By which time we were getting cold so retired to the café, taking in the cathedral bookshop on the way, where I fell for the handsomely produced reference 3. Clearly at Mölnlycke, a small town near Gothenburg, they still know about book production. Unlike us who seemed to have subbed a lot of it out to China. An interesting aperçu into the northern European doings of the church around the time of the Conquest, a time when there were still pagans about. The sort of people who still knew all about the cross quarter days of reference 4.

I also fell for a cheese scone, the best scone I have ever bought from a café, despite there being a bit too much Cayenne pepper for my taste.

Next stop, Ely's fine bookshop. I found that they still had the two different editions of the letters of Van Gogh, at three or four volumes each. Not yet found a taker after getting on for three years. From which we deduce that they have a lot of money tied up in stock. So not yet in the grip of the finance wizards, the chaps who care about sales per unit volume per unit time per thousand pounds of capital deployed. See reference 5.

Our Trace

And one letter to the left of G for Van Gogh, they found room for our Trace, that monument to the gullibility of the chattering classes. See reference 6 for notice of one of her 'London River' series.

Opposite, we were pleased to see that Eli's the pork butcher was still alive, but it was rather busy so we didn't care to wait to get one of his pork pies to supplement our picnic, which we ended up taking on a bench quite near the large cannon guarding the western approach to the cathedral. A bench recently vacated by a couple of JW's (or perhaps Mormons) on Saturday duty.

Wound up the day's proceedings with a trip out to Witchford, once the principal town of what became the Isle of Ely after the cathedral was built. The church of St. Andrew was shut and we did not care to knock up one of the church wardens for the key, only I don't suppose they would have minded.

Beldam memorial

But there was this fine memorial of a leading light of the Beldam family, who died at the end of the nineteenth century. A memorial which surviving the railing stripping of two world wars. Probably the chap who for £150 bought one of the top selling horses at the Lincoln Horse Fair of 1903. Probably a relative of the chap who was prosecuted with Robert Wheaton for assaulting Sophia Wheaton, the latter probably being the daughter of the former. Some grubby muddle after the pub shut? Fine 1/-, but it does not say whether this was what they paid jointly or what they paid each.

Village store?

Perhaps the large house left ran short of money at some point and let what had been the trap shed to some Old Mother Hubbard to run one of those little village emporiums, the sort of thing that was just about alive when I was little.

Competitor to 'Quickie'

Walked back into Ely to dine at the Prezzo there. Italian style hummus, lasagne (rather a lot of white sauce) and tiramisu (mini swiss roll format). Adequate rather than good, but the service was good and the ambience was good. Much better than at the Epsom branch, where the trade is a bit young for us. We wondered whether it was a franchise, explaining the difference, but I could find nothing on the web to support that theory.

Not much wine to choose from, so we settled for this light wine from the Veneto, bottled for some people at Effingham, just a few stops on the train from us at Epsom. A label to rival that for the 'Quickie' sold by Greene King in their houses. See reference 7 for an early encounter.

Wound up with J&B (a higher grade blended whisky which I believe does well overseas). OK, except that I said no ice, they forget and fished it out before giving it too me. Which did no favours to either appearance of the glass or flavour of the whisky. But the service was very good otherwise and it seemed a bit churlish to complain.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/parke.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/buckfast.html.

Reference 3: Bishop Osmund: a missionary to Sweden in the late Viking age - Janet Fairweather - 2014.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/11/endellion-at-40.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/12/topping-books.html.

Reference 6: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=Couper+Collection.

Reference 7: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/04/gravitational-waves.html.

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