Rubbishy news

From time to time I comment on the rubbishy news service provided by Microsoft. This morning, by way of a change, it brought me something of real interest to me, in the form of an illustrated article about a small, two island country called São Tomé and Príncipe, off the coast of West Africa. Very much the sort of thing you used to get in the National Geographic. Perhaps you still do.

The two islands were uninhabited when the Portuguese arrived at the end of the fifteenth century: then became an important staging post for the slave trade to the Americas; then an important producer of coffee and cocoa; now, independent and not doing too badly. Same sort of area and population as our Isle of Wight.

Useful to be reminded that the UK is not the only country with insular (and sometimes complicated) relics of the colonial era dotted around the globe.

Image from what used to be the hospital of a large cocoa plantation.

Reference 1: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/ravages-of-time-on-an-african-cocoa-plantation/ar-AACbRVa?ocid=spartandhp.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/São_Tomé_and_Príncipe.

Reference 3: https://www.alexishuguet.com/. The photographer's site is pending. But he does do Twitter and Facebook for those who do that sort of thing.

Reference 4: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/piano-11.html. The photograph above reminds me of the pictures of derelict mental hospitals to be found in the book last mentioned here, just a few days ago.

Death of a salesman

Last week to the Young Vic's nearly all black version of 'Death of a Salesman', and very good it was too. Much better than the version we saw five years ago appears to have been, for which see reference 1.

From the Young Vic website

Warm and muggy, but fine enough to take our picnic in the small park across the road from the Old Vic. A park busy with bright young things taking their picnics from a variety of paper, plastic and cardboard packaging. Not very save the planet at all; much less so than our more homely picnic brought from home, in my case of bread (from Epsom) and cheese (from Lincolnshire).

Fake front

We admired the pillared building next to the Old Vic, once, I believe a department store, and now looking to be relic, facing up the new building behind. We noticed what used to be the Bar + Kitchen (of, for example, reference 2), a place which we had liked, had become 'Hello Darling'. We poked our noses inside to be greeted by a bevy of very forward young ladies, some more dressed than others. The place did not seem that busy and they seemed very keen that we should visit later, after our show. BH not so sure and had she seen reference 3, she would have been even less sure: '... With six themed rooms over two floors, exquisite interiors, bespoke cocktails, burlesque and drag performances, we ensure this party's going to be a fun, intimate and a unique social experience. We strongly recommend you dress to the nines to immerse yourself in this extraordinary night. The evening includes up close performances from our friends at House of Q and a welcome drink ...'. Maybe we were a touch old.

Onto the Young Vic with its usual cheerful and buzzy atmosphere, including a number of Internet campers, after the fashion of the Festival Hall. But no indigents that we saw.

Toilets

Toilets disarmingly straightforward about in-betweeners, with the right hand icon apparently meaning that you should take whichever path you felt most comfortable with. You have been warned!

Seats rather basic, but a lot more comfortable than they looked, which was just as well as the first half, while good, again seemed a little long. Second half, with rather more action, was really good, with a fine closing performance from Sharon Clarke (as Linda). We thought the cast was all pretty good, with Trevor Cooper providing admirable light relief as the white neighbour, Charley. Rather more good gags than we remembered from last time. And I had done enough travelling, and turning up at strange places, to relate to the sometimes harsh and dreary life of the travelling salesman. From where I associate to once reading in some magazine about the harsh and dreary lives of seaside wrestlers, another group of professional travellers. Not so many of either travelling salesmen or seaside wrestlers about these days; no more of the commercial tables, fondly evoked by Trollope in 'Orley Farm', last noticed at reference 8.

Perhaps it helped that we had done our homework with Wikipedia (at reference 4) and so did not get lost amid all the dreams, flash-backs and what-have-you - which I thought they managed rather well, all going much more smoothly on the day than one might have supposed from the synopsis. And no-one fell over any of the wires which must have been hoisting the furniture up and down. We only found fault with the use of a Beryl cup and saucer as a marker for the period, roughly the time of my birth, a type of crockery which was in common use in this country at the time, but I do not think that it had made it across the pond. See reference 5.

After the show, back to Hello Darling, to a new bevy of not very dressed young ladies, still not very busy, but after some palaver they decided that the best they could offer was sitting & eating at the bar, which we declined, preferring instead to wander back to the Archduke and the piano noticed at reference 6. I remember now that last time this happened, in a Brazilian restaurant once in Wilton Road, that it was a test, and once they found that one was spending some money and getting into the spirit of things, you got a proper table. But that was some years ago.

A satisfactory Gavi

We both had steak and chips (or frites as they are called in a place like this), a first for BH. Both happy with our choice. Washed down with a spot of Gavi. Followed, in my case, with another go at their Pecan pie, plus a spot of their Calvados.

BH wisely opted to take her Standard from one of the stands at street level, as while present, they were a bit thin on the ground at platform level. And as chance would have it, it contained a not very good review of the very place at which we had been denied access.

An excellent outing. I might have been tempted to go for seconds, but they look to be sold out and I don't have the energy to bother with returns and queueing on the day.

Reference 1: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-revenge-of-understudies.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/03/r.html.

Reference 3: https://www.hellodarling.london/hello-events.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_a_Salesman.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/first-cherries.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/piano-10.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/boring.html. Our last visit to the Archduke had been just a few weeks previously, after the boring conference in the Conway Hall.

Reference 8: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-massive-dose.html.

Mulots

In the Maigret story at reference 1, we have a newly retired Maigret, on his way to London for a rare holiday with his wife, holed up in a cheap family hotel in Dieppe, waiting for the weather to break and the ferries to run. His wife having suggested that perhaps he should go out to a café for a bit of company, he sits himself firmly in an armchair and reads an article about mice and moles in an agricultural magazine that happened to be lying about.

As a result of which I learn from Larousse that the long tailed field mouse, in Latin, apodemus sylvaticus, is called a mulot in French, not to be confused with mulet, a mule, the sort of mule you get by crossing a male donkey with a female horse. Also a mullet, as in red mullet.

And then, on the next page of Larousse, I chanced on the musaraigne, claimed by Larousse to be a small mouse-like animal capable of poisoning small prey with its saliva, in the way of the spiders from which their name is derived. I fail to run this one down in the generally reliable Burton (reference 2) and am reduced to the French version of Wikipedia (reference 3). Where it turns out that the word covers quite a range of small animals, mostly but not all true shrews, that is to say of the family soricidae.

Wikipedia goes to some length to explain that the business of poisonous saliva is pretty much twaddle, current since the Middle Ages and possibly to do with the propensity of bites to become infected. Possibly why Burton says nothing about it.

The mouthful musaraigne was sometimes abbreviated to musette, a word with various other meanings, including what passed for discos in France before the second world war. Otherwise the bal musette. Something that nice girls were not supposed to go to. Something else that Simenon knew all about. From an old word meaning a song, and, by extension, a dance.

Reference 1: Tempête sur la Manche - Simenon - 1937 or 1938.

Reference 2: Systematic Dictionary of the Mammals of the World – Maurice Burton – 1962.

Reference 3: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musaraigne.

A complaint

Since the beginning of time, HSBC bank statements, and before that Midland Bank Statements, have come with two holes punched in the left hand margins for ease of filing in the once ubiquitous two ring binders.

So not best pleased when this month's statement turns up this lunchtime without any hole punching at all. No customer consultation, no warning, nothing. So they have shaved a small amount off the cost of printing my statement, while I get 30 seconds added to my filing time, not including recovery action to deal with the occasional hole punching error.

One assumes that this is all part of the drive to push us off paper. The bigger wheeze for quietly transferring paper handling costs from them to us - which they manage to sell as a plus rather than as a minus.

PS 1: I note in passing that the effect of moving from paper to electronic office notices in the Treasury, probably around the turn of the millennium, was that no-one much read them any more, even on the way to the waste paper basket.

PS 2: I also mention that an older lady bank clerk in HSBC was really pleased a few weeks ago to see our genuine Midland Bank paying in book. Not something that she had seen for ages.

Piano 11

Scraped into the piano roll, despite its anonymity, for its striking image and location, with the piano coming from the abandoned city of Pripyat. One of the reference 1 collection of images.

Noticed here because the whole topic of the Chernobyl disaster came up just a few weeks ago, noticed at reference 2.

Brought to me today by MSN, that is to say the pot-pourri of news brought to my laptop by Microsoft's Edge browser. Mostly fairly rubbishy, but sometimes topical and sometimes interesting.

And over breakfast, I associated to the images of reference 5, the rather different ghosts of the state hospitals of the US, gone the same way as our own mental hospitals. First noticed at reference 4.

Reference 1: Ghosts of Chernobyl - Jeremy Schultz and Gleb Garanich, Reuters - 2019.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/04/chernobyl.html.

Reference 3: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/.

Reference 4: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=Lawrence+State+Hospital+Ogdensburg.

Reference 5: Asylum - Christopher Payne, Oliver Sacks - 2009. With Amazon wanting around £25 for a new hardback, around £75 for a new paperback. Very odd. Not interested enough to research what I paid, but I doubt if it was anything like £75.

A cancellation

Having just noticed a first for a Norwegian violinist (Kraggerud), this to notice a failed first for an Austrian pianist (Fellner). At least a first in the sense that here he was to have given us two Schubert piano sonatas, rather than appearing in a supporting role with the Belcea Quartet, as noticed at reference 1.

A first which was to have been on Saturday, but which has, unusually, been cancelled without offer of a replacement pianist. While I sometimes wonder how ill front-rank performers have to be before they pull. Maybe it depends on age and station, with an older, established performer pulling more often, feeling less need to impress agents and impresarios? Perhaps disappointing their loyal audience is more important?

And then about the hall end. Do they carry insurance for this sort of thing? Does the performer carry insurance? A hall like the Wigmore, with concerts more or less every day, might be happy carrying the risk itself. But then, if there were cash flow issues, perhaps not.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/12/ultimate-visit.html.

Trios

Back home, my first outing to the Wigmore was for a couple of Beethoven piano trios, given by Kraggerud (violin), Brendel (cello) and Cooper (piano). Op.1 No.1 and Op.97, aka the 'Archduke'. The programme explains that Op.1 No.1 was not really the first thing that Beethoven published, but was selected by him, with an eye to fame and fortune, as being appropriate for his official birthday, as it were.

Kraggerud appears to have been a first. The nearest I come to Brendel is a book review by his father, mentioned at reference 1. We have heard Cooper quite a lot over the years, but the most recent occasion seems to be that noticed at reference 2, more than five years ago. And while I had thought that I would have heard the famous Archduke Trio before, I can find no trace of same, the nearest I come to it being the concert at reference 3, involving the Beethoven Archduke combination, but not the right one.

A mild, overcast evening. Much congestion on the up escalators from the platforms at Vauxhall Tube and much heat when I got onto a train to Oxford Circus.

Exit there to picnic at Cavendish Square and apéritif outside the Cock & Lion. Where I was entertained by some not so young men discussing boxing. Or at least one man, seemingly from an East End boxing family, banging on about same to his companions. With 'banging' and 'bangers' being technical terms in this boxing world: not altogether sure but perhaps a banger is a boxer whose main strength is his ability to land strong punches on his opponent. Perhaps a knock out artist.

Unusually, the flowers were not quite right in the hall, there being an error in the placement of the dominant arum lilies, lilies which I continue to confuse with Aaron.

The page turner seemed familiar and the lady next to me explained that he was the Hall's veteran turner; she felt she had grown old with him. I wonder now what he is by occupation: a piano teacher at one of the nearby schools of music?

The two trios were both excellent, with the first clearly being the work of a young man, the second something much more substantial.

Out to admire a rollator with bright red finish, like a show-off bicycle. Someone who is happy to flaunt his (or her) rollator, rather than hiding in the discrete matt gray favoured by FIL in his day. Or perhaps that was all that was available then, in what must be a rapidly growing market. Quite possibly the item at reference 4, to be hand for near £300 from Amazon - perhaps rather more than FIL would have cared to pay.

Just caught the slightly late running 2143 from Vauxhall.

Entertained in my taxi by tales of the (Ford) Cortina of the driver's youth, fitted with a three litre engine and accessories to match. The result being a car which was far too small for its speed. Braking was admitted to be a problem.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/06/winterreise.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/11/johann-baptist-mayrhofer.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-kreutzer-festival.html.

Reference 4: http://www.trustcare.se/p17,en,lets-go-outdoor-rollators-lets-fly-red.html.

Going metric

Without giving the matter much thought, I had thought that until very recently that our weights and measures were sturdily Anglo-Saxon, while the French counted on their fingers & toes and did things in tens.

In the margins of checking something in a Maigret story, I find that, as ever, things are not as simple as they at first seemed.

It seems that in the olden days the French had a unit of currency called the livre, later subsumed into the franc. And a livre was made of twenty sous, and a sou (equivalent to our shilling) was made of four liards, and a liard (equivalent to our once much loved threepenny bit) was made of three deniers, equivalent to our old pennies.

The livre was also a unit of weight, later subsumed into half a kilogram, very roughly our own pound, which last also served for both money and weight. And this livre was made of two marcs and a marc was made of eight onces, equivalent to our ounce. Not to be confused with marc, the strong, working-class liquor occasionally used by Maigret. Roughly the Italian grappa, mentioned in these pages from time to time. See, for example, reference 1.

Lots of regional variations, but I think this was the general idea. Not very metric at all. With most of these words surviving in colloquialisms used by Simenon in his Maigret stories.

PS: in newspeak, a sou is five centimes; a nod to the nickel of the US.

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

More click n'collect

A day for two click and collects, socks from M&S and calvados from Waitrose.

Ask at one of the M&S checkouts for the collection point, and the ladies there knew all about lost looking gentlemen and gave me very clear directions. And so to the collection point, summoned a young lady with a bell, the sort of thing you get in hotels, presented my email and got my socks. No nonsense with bank cards, photo id or anything else of that sort.

Onto Waitrose, where I now know about keying my order number into the contraption on the service desk. Then, while waiting for my calvados, I took a look at some of the fruit available in the vicinity, lighting upon these cherries, more than twice the price of the not very satisfactory ones from the market, noticed at reference 1. For some reason, I was put off and did not buy. Perhaps they have pitched the price wrong for someone who usually buys a kilogram of cherries at a time. Maybe I would have been happier with £5.50 for a pound?

The calvados turned up, in a rather more sensible sized box than last time, mine on presentation of passport. This despite the fact that the photograph in the passport is a good deal worse than the one in my senior person's bus pass, which they don't accept. Sensible enough that it fitted into the small rucksack I had brought for the purpose. Which was just as well as I discovered a very old piece of cheese from Fortnum & Masons in it, looking very brown: it must have been there for months, having been put there as an alternative to the refrigerator indoors. Luckily in a sturdy plastic bag, so disposal to the compost bin not a problem.

PS: rucksack in place of the contraption noticed at references 2 and 3, the rope of which proved too short to properly accommodate the large box from Waitrose.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/first-cherries.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/10/removal-day.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/12/wine-hunt.html.

Fives

A recently fallen tree by the stream running along Longmead Road. Zooming in on the (roughly triangular) leaves suggests poplar to me, and there are quite a few poplar trees along the boundary of the industrial estate, just to the east of the stream. This one not very healthy, to judge by the interior of the trunk - plus the fact that it has blown over.

Otherwise the walk was an occasion for pondering about the incidence of fives in the world. Does five rival seven in this regard? A ponder started off by petals, at reference 1, and continued, for example, at reference 2.

The fingers and toes of humans, and quite a lot of other animals come in fives.

The lobed leaves of maples and sycamores commonly have five lobes. As do those of the hawthorn. But in this last case, inspection suggested the lobes forming in pairs by way of the lead lobe splitting into three, giving a sequence of one, three, five and occasionally seven.

Then there are leaves which form in rosettes, for example horse chestnut leaves. But these turned out to be a counter example, with there being a lot of variation, but with seven seeming to be the most common number.

Then there were the spines of the berberis that I have been pruning over the past couple of days; vicious spines which I thought came in rosettes. But inspection on arrival back home proved me wrong, with two or three spines growing at the base of each cluster of leaves: they do stick out, but not a rosette at all, and certainly not a rosette of five.

Last up were the leaves of the araucaria down our own road, but inspection failed to reveal the organising principle. I think I would need to take one apart to work it out and I did not like to break a chunk off someone else's (young) tree - so that one will have to wait.

Work in progress.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/abbotsbury.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/fives.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/poundbury-to-holne.html. Containing a couple of snaps of an araucaria.

Sloppy reporting

According to yesterday's Guardian, the RHS is very interested in cuckoo spit, this because cuckoo spit is produced by insects suspected of being involved in spreading a bacteria - xylella fastidiosa - which is causing a lot of damage to plants in continental Europe. The European Commission is taking action. See references 1 and 2. Cuckoo spit which I remember as being common in the grass and such like growing by the sides of the roads leading to my primary school in a village north of Cambridge. But that was sixty years ago; perhaps things are different now.

The Guardian had suggested that the RHS was wanting sightings of cuckoo spit and we have some of the same, snapped left, outside our back door. So off to the RHS website which does not seem to know anything about the matter, nor does it have an email address for general inquiries, so I phone up the number given for their Vincent Square headquarters. After the now-usual recorded messages, I get through, quite quickly, to a young man who knows all about it; I am clearly not his first call of the day on the subject.

He pointed me in the direction of reference 1, although he also pointed out that this site, some part of the University of Sussex, was having problems because of the amount of interest. Which indeed it is: 'due to the high levels of interest generated by the BBC article about insects and Xylella, our iRecord reporting site is currently experiencing difficulties. Apologies for the inconvenience. Please try again in a few days'. I also get the impression that what they are really interested in is sightings of the insects themselves, rather than their spit; perhaps they want to know which particular insect. All of which is much more complicated than pointing my telephone at the (handsome) rose outside our back door. Maybe I will get back to it mañana, as they say in southern Europe.

Reference 1: https://www.xylemfeedinginsects.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylella_fastidiosa.

Scorriton

Scorriton being a village near Holne which we visited at the end of our stay there. Part of the interest being dispute about whether it is spelt 'Scorriton' or 'Scoriton', with our understanding being that it is said with a short 'o' which usually makes for a double 'r'.

The story from the Ordnance Survey

Official sign

Mill wheels

Just before the off, I snapped the steps leading up out of the back of our cottage, which I believe to have been made out of worn out mill wheels, my understanding being that these last did not used to last very long at all, and so there would be plenty of scrapped ones about. All the steps exhibiting the characteristic radial grooves, and at least one, off snap, the circular edge.

Hole - large

Headed off down the track to Scorriton, probably once a road, now sinking back to being a track. The large green dashed track on the map above. Lots of large holes in the banks, with the one snapped above looking a bit big for a rabbit - but if not a rabbit what else was it going to be?

Steps

Then a curiously well made set of steps, leading up out of the track. Why would someone have gone to the bother? Brain must have been in neutral as I did not think to climb up and take a look.

Holes - mainly small

More holes. Earthworm tunnels exposed by erosion? Or perhaps earthworms are just a bit dim and carry on pushing out in the open air? Somewhere along the way a water treatment works, discretely hidden behind the hedge. And so into the village. A proper rural backwater, with farms and suchlike, not on the road to anywhere much. One of which would sell us clotted cream rather than scrumpy (see below) and which looked as if it had sold milk in bottles, not so very long ago.

Rustic machinery

Rustic bus shelter

It struck us that if walls could talk, this bus shelter might have had some tales to tell.

A very satisfactory lunch at the Tradesmans Arms, in my case involving lasagne (made, it turned out, on the premises) and a perfectly decent sauvignon blanc. The proprietrix sounded a bit south London to me, while the lady cook might have been from the Philippines. Wouldn't like to say where the pleasant young waitress came from. But if not the daughter of the house, how would one wind up in such a place on a weekday lunchtime?

As we left a B&B party turned up on foot, having walked the fifteen miles from Ivybridge. One of the ladies was wearing trainers near identical to my own, in fact the waterproof version of my own, and we agreed that one had to choose between wet feet and hot feet. I moaned about their short life, sometimes as little as four months. And this morning, having turned up reference 5, I wondered whether they were on an older persons singles holiday.

The dining extension had been contrived with lots of windows and with fine views over the valley below. Lots of swallows swinging about. Even some sparrows, said to be common but not here in our part of Epsom.

The Methodists

Perhaps from the days when the working classes went to chapel, for one time and place in the week when the ruling classes left them alone.

Rising to the top

But even on Sundays, there had to be someone in charge, as testified by the commemorative stones let into the base of the building, at a handy height to be read.

Development opportunity

Rustic, working stable

Nettles

The leaves on these nettles seemed particularly large, but that may have been the sauvignon blanc talking.

Gill

We closed the day with a final visit to the church at Holne, running into, inter alia, another Gill of the Gills, seemingly quite common hereabouts - with a Tavistock member of the clan being noticed at reference 3 and an arty one at reference 4. While this chap put in sixty of his ninety years as vicar of Holne, just leaving him enough time to pop over to Cambridge to get his MA (CANTAB).

Anachronism

I have already noticed the chair, part of which is snapped above, included again here as one of our party was quite sure that Border Collies - the sort of thing that stars in 'One man and his dog' - were not around at the time of the Deluge. I might also mention that somewhere along the line we came across a regular collie, not often seen these days.

Collie?

At least I thought it was a collie at the time, a tall thin hunting dog in format, mainly brown, but nothing like as hairy as the dogs turned up by both Bing and Google. Perhaps the show fashion is for long hair.

And that closes the recent holiday in Devon.

PS: amused this morning to find that the place that Scorriton is twinned with is in the department of Calvados, with Calvados presently being my strong liquor of choice.

Castle Fontaine-Henry

The castle there is very ancient, and named for the good friend of the builder, one King Henry II of England. At least according to Wikipedia. See reference 1. So far, I have found accounts of its place in the Normandy landings and advertisements for holiday cottages, but no suggestion that Calvados is to be had. Perhaps, as with scrumpy in England, you have to go there in person and pick up on hand written signs posted on farm gates.

Reference 1: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontaine-Henry.

Reference 2: https://www.tradesmansarms-dartmoor.com/.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/tavistock-day.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/newgill.html.

Reference 5: https://www.walkthetrail.co.uk/holidays/26/dartmoor-exmoor--the-two-moors-way?itinerary=0.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/01/shopping.html. Suggesting that my present trainers are around five months old. I shall inspect them this morning and try to estimate how much longer they have to go.

Newtin report

The tins noticed at reference 1 have now seen two batches of brown bread and it is time to make an interim report on their performance.

The first batch, No.517, involved a first rise of four and a half hours and a second rise of two and a half, with the dough being slightly odd in an obscure way. Very good second rise. Looked splendid coming out of the oven, but getting the loaves out of their rape seed oil greased tins was a bit of a performance, despite the loose bottoms. Bread tasted good though and the frozen loaf tasted a lot fresher when first thawed than was usual.

Read the instructions on the tins for the second batch, No.518. First rise of four hours entirely normal, but the second rise was very slow, just about making it to the top of the (new) rims in five hours. I had changed greasing from oil to butter & flour, as if I was cooking a Madeira cake, but I can't see that that would have affected the rise; much more likely to have been the low temperature, the day having been cool and the central heating off. The loaves cooked to something above the rims, maybe as much as an inch, but having come away from the tins at the sides, coming out without any problem at all, just as has been the case with the cheap tins from Hong Kong. And the finish on the loaves was quite different, although this is probably not to be seen in the snap above. Tasted fine two hours out of the oven and I doubt whether I could have told the two batches apart in a blind tasting.

So jury still out on the new tins.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/shopping.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/diy.html. An entry point to the (now) old tins from Hong Kong.

Trolley 265

A Sainsbury's trolley, captured near the West Street footbridge. Captured a second, non-scoring trolley on the way back by the north eastern flank wall, the path next to which I was pleased to find very recently litter swept. Sainsbury's looked pretty busy, bank holiday notwithstanding.

On the downside, all the shrubs planted around the back of Sainsbury's, away from the public gaze, were not being looked after and are being taken over by convolvulus, brambles and such like. Far enough gone that it would now be quite a big job to clear them.

A pity, given that someone went to the bother and expense of planting the shrubs in the first place.

This making a total for the day of seven trolleys, three scored.

Trolley 264

Three Waitrose trolleys, captured in the passage, with at least two sorts of handle lock.

Note the heritage drain, with both cover and liner appearing to be cast iron. All looks a bit casual, not up to current regulations at all.

Scored as one.

Trolley 263

Two trolleys from the M&S food hall, captured  in the passage, nicely set off by some heritage flint work. Nicely thanked by an M&S trolley lady on return.

Scored as one.

Phantom cuckoos?

Following our hearing many cuckoos in and around Dartmoor, I have been hearing cuckoo like noises here in Epsom. Typically first thing in the morning, say around 0600, when there is plenty of bird song generally.

We certainly used to hear cuckoos in the past at this time of year, with the birds presumably coming from the nearby Epsom Common, a mainly wooded habitat, not that different from the fringes of Dartmoor.

Some of the cuckoo-like noises are probably the fragments of the distant cooing of doves and pigeons, sharing their two beat rhythm at least with cuckoos - and the cuckoos are just phantoms, projected by the tweet-hopeful brain onto doves and pigeons. While some are probably ticks of some sort from inside the house, perhaps a dripping tap, with each drip associating to the second beat of the cuckoo.

But there remains a nagging doubt, a nagging possibility, that these noises really are cuckoos. We shall see if they get clearer in the days to come.

Hexworthy

Another pleasantly warm day for our visit to one of my brothers-in-law, whom we carried off for lunch at the Forest Inn at Hexworthy.

Reliant

Before picking him up, a pit-stop at Buckfast Abbey, already busy with five bus loads of visitors. We thought that some of the buses at least were for groups from churches. While some of the people were actually smoking real cigarettes, including some ladies. Somewhere along the way we also spotted our first Reliant Robin for a while, reasonably common forty years ago. Wikipedia tells me that they were big in the 1970's and 1980's, while my recollection was the fact that the (resin in the) fibre glass shell burned very well was a significant factor in their ultimate demise. Bing offers lots of horror stories about fires involving the stuff.

Interesting flower

New-to-me bed of blue flowers thriving outside the entrance to the cafeteria. BH thought first ajuga and second shrimp plant, with both of them having features in common. But it is not the first and I don't think it is the second, described as an evergreen Mexican shrub, also known as the false hop. More work needed.

Beech tree

Impressive beech tree across the road from BIL's flat. Followed by lots of sheep and ponies, young and old, on the way to Hexworthy.

Ponies

Lunch at the Forest Inn entirely adequate, although I found the lemon meringue pie a little sweet, pleasantly served. There was a farm just down the road selling lemon curd, perhaps a way of dealing with surplus eggs, but I did not think to ask if that is where the lemon bit of the pie came from. In any event, more likely to have been ready made. Unless, that is, making pies is what the cook does in the slack season?

During our meal we were entertained by a young lady sat right in the middle of the bar area, working her telephone and laptop pretty hard. It seemed that she was the advance guard of some film unit on its way to doing something army flavoured on the moor. She also had a fine sense of her own importance and tactless enough to make an extensive restaurant booking somewhere else, despite there being likely to be plenty of space where she was sitting. I don't suppose the proprietrix minded that much as it provided her with a bit of company in-between times, but we thought she could have taken herself off to the side somewhere in the dinner period.

We also had an older gentleman who remembered tickling for trout in the river below.

Bird feeders

Back via the Ashburton Road which meant that as well as a whole new menagerie of sheep and ponies, we could take in that well known beauty spot, Badgers Holt. Really nice place to wander along and sit by the river, although I dare say on a summer weekend it might get uncomfortably crowded. But maybe we will get around to trying its restaurant next time (reference 4).

Someone had hung a range of bird feeders on a tree next to the car park, but while there was plenty of bird song to be heard, no birds to be seen. Note the moss in the tree - evidence of it being damp, not to say just plain wet, for a good part of the year.

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliant_Motors.

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

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/10/fine-dining.html. I feel sure that we visited the place in 2018, probably more than once, but no trace to be found.

Reference 4: http://badgersholtdartmoor.co.uk/.

Corky

Yesterday morning, I happened to notice that one of the small trees on Clayhill Green, maybe three metres high, was not looking very well, and went to take a closer look. To discover that the branches and trunk looked very corky, to the point where the tree might well be a young cork oak, not something one comes across very often, at least not in this country.

Back home, I asked Bing and he turned up reference 1, where the damaged cork leaves look very much like those snapped above, with the damage seeming to be a result of frost, leaf miners, or some combination thereof.

PS: more information about cork oaks is to be found in the Euforgen website, at reference 2. With Euforgen being a subsidiary of Forest Europe of reference 3. Not clear whether our current membership derives from our membership of the European Union - but if it does, we will presumably need to reapply if we want to stay onboard. I wonder how strong the Brexiteers are on forest cooperation? Do they take the view that they are they just another bunch of tiresome do-gooders trying to stop us importing infected and infectious, but perfectly usable, timber from the US?

Reference 1: https://hortographical.wordpress.com/2017/04/14/cork-oaks-assessing-winters-damage/.

Reference 2: http://www.euforgen.org/fileadmin//bioversity/publications/pdfs/1323_Cork_oak__Quercus_suber_.pdf. Including a handy distribution map, which does not include the UK, nor indeed much of France, and which does show Portugal as being the centre of the cork tree world. But maybe global warming will push its distribution north.

Reference 3: https://foresteurope.org/.

First cherries

I bought our first cherries of the year yesterday, from the stall nearest Wetherspoon's. A cheap but not very reliable stall and as it turned out the cherries were not that good; not very sweet and with quite a lot of them overripe or damaged. Perhaps cherries which had been bought earlier in the week and were now past their best. Perhaps I should have known that £2.50 a pound was not enough for Class A cherries (according to the well-known and well-liked EU fruit classification scheme).

Perhaps part of the point of the large awning over the stall was to make it harder to see the true state of the fruit. But even in the full light of our front room they snapped OK and you have to look quite hard to see the two or three Class B fruits which happen to be visible.

Last year, the first cherries, probably from the same stall, were rather dearer and nearly a fortnight later. See reference 1.

Plate quite possibly from the Cutlack's most recently mentioned at reference 2, one of the last redoubts of the green Woods Ware known as Beryl. Once the staple of mental hospitals and cafeterias up and down the land, including, for example, British Rail and BH's teaching training college, now only to be had from retro people on ebay and the occasional charity shop - and still well known to the stage dressers of period dramas on the silver screen. Good steady stuff in a restful green which one does not tire of, in the way that one tires of more strongly stated patterns. Fashion patterns even. And tea cups which do not have the great thick lips of the coffee cups in places like Costa.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/06/assembly-with-pudding.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/shopping.html.

Two Bridges

The day after fish and chips at Tavistock, we did a spot of what passes for hill walking for people of our age and disposition, choosing Bellever Tor for this purpose, passing over BH's choice of heading more or less due north from Two Bridges to Wistman's Wood, slightly off the top left of the map snapped below.

Bellever Tor

A fine morning, warm enough in Holne, and there were plenty of ponies, some not long in this world, on and around the road up to the moor. Parked up at Dunnabridge Pound Farm and made it up and down in around two hours. Including the compass problems already noticed at reference 1.

Supplementary wire

There were some cows on the first stretch, properly fenced, unlike the free range animals on Epsom Common. With the stone walls supplemented with barbed wire where appropriate; probably cheaper and more effective than repairing the stone walls. Plus skylarks, cuckoos, pheasants and one buzzard.

Quite windy on the top and there was indeed 360 degree vision, as suggested by the blue panorama sign on the map - but you could only get it by standing next to the trig point, where it was uncomfortably windy. No question of standing on top of the thing. Notwithstanding, a rare treat. Perhaps to be repeated on the Isle of Wight in the summer, where we know of one or two places.

BH taking stock on the way down

Sale of the Gales site

Google's take on the situation

The gate from the Gale brothers of Moretonhampstead has clearly seen better days, but I forget why I saw fit to make it centre stage. Perhaps it was just an accident, it being quite hard to see the screen of my telephone when the sun is bright, even in the shade. The gate must be quite old, given that Google turns up a heavily sealed legal document concerning the sale of the Gale's saw mills in 2007, containing the plan snapped above as an appendix. Presumably there was more money in houses than gates, as the Google snap suggests that most of the site is now houses. I suppose they might still make gates in the remaining sheds, probably under some other name.

And so to lunch at the Two Bridges, just a few minutes late for the 1300 start. Greeted by one of their geese - white with orange beaks - being bullied by the others. Much consternation among guests, receptionist phones vet to be on the safe side. Geese which have been there for years and which we pass regularly on our visits to the moor.

Dining room busy. Proper dining room with white tablecloths and napkins. A second piano, looking rather like the first, noticed at reference 3.

The main wine

Lunch came with a table d'hôte menu. I had a white terrine - made of I forget what - followed by pork belly. Both good, although the mashed potato which came with the pork belly was not helped by being flavoured with mustard - perhaps a device to disguise the fact that it is being recycled. Taken with a drop of Sancerre from Daulny. Which Bing suggests is good value for money, with plenty of people selling it, but does not turn up a website for the man himself, although I now know he is called Etienne Daulny and that he come from Verdigny, on the Loire, south east of Orléans. And that he has made it to YouTube at reference 4. Followed by something called Godminster cheese, taken with a drop of house Malbec. Nothing much like my usual Poacher, being much softer, more like a processed cheese. But it went down well enough for all that.

Godminster awards

Not sure where the Godminster comes from, as their address is in Bruton, signs to which we pass when we go down the A303. Perhaps we will go and take a look one day. Maybe to inspect one of their wedding cheese towers, yours for £250 or so. See reference 5.

On the next table we had a chap munching his way through a giant ploughman's platter. Clearly a very well paid ploughman. With this chap being on some kind of a mission for the Daily Mirror in connection with sightings of big cats out on the moor, some of which turned out to be dogs, easy to eliminate from inquiries with their non-retractile claws.

All very good, and they do a much grander version for dinner, unusually for residents only. It would be a fine place to stay, but in the end we could not quite see our way to it, not wanting to spend a whole week in such a place. Too much hotel grub for my liking, despite their offering a cut down menu for a bar dinner, should you not be able to stand the pace. But maybe we will think of something. Plenty of people clearly had.

Anti-kayak boom

A place to paddle

A spot of shade

Reasonably busy, 1530 on a weekday

Outside to inspect the West Dart, which was very pleasant. Including lots of swallows over the water. Plenty of clutch work on the way home, but no new smells.

Horseshoe gate

And so back to Holne, with the last snap of the day being the lucky horseshoe gate to the house next to our cottage.

PS: as I type, the police helicopter seems to have finally stopped hovering over our road, on a couple of occasions directly over our back garden, quite low and quite noisy. Perhaps one of our neighbours was having something interesting with their barbecue.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/attention-all-points.html.

Reference 2: https://www.twobridges.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/tavistock-day.html.

Reference 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEWG4d9tfT0.

Reference 5: https://www.godminster.com/.