Battery life

Over the past couple of days, BH has been trying out her new lawnmower, with entirely satisfactory results. But we have both been rather taken aback by the amount of power packed into a plastic box about the same size as the mug in which you take your morning tea; power which can be got at by simply making a couple of contacts.

So one of this morning's reveries was to wonder what happened if one took a sledge hammer to a fully charged battery of this kind. Presumably, if one hit it hard enough it would break up, would break into bits - but what would happen to all that more or less free energy? It has to go somewhere.

Does all that electricity just whizz into the ground, eventually dissipating as heat, with the ground being a very effective sink for same?

And then, what would happen if you threw the battery into the fire?

Maybe in this case, all that electrical energy would be converted into some more or less harmless chemical combinations - but one might have thought that for this to happen quickly, there would have to be a considerable leakage of energy of one kind or another into the environment, perhaps in the form of an explosion with a good part of the energy being in the form of a shock wave?

No doubt chemists know all about this sort of thing and prepare YouTube clips so that firemen can learn about it when they are not otherwise engaged.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/new-box.html.

Horton Country Park

Being at Hobbledown (see reference 1) reminded us that we had not been to Horton County Park for a while. So to make up we went two days running, doing the short walk on each occasion.

A warm, sunny day. But this did not stop the runners, of whom there seemed to be quite a lot. Some quite old, some quite fast.

The hedges seemed to have grown quite a bit since we were last there, in my case in the days when the park was an occasional extra tacked onto the Horton Clockwise, a walk I stopped doing, for no particular reason, a few years ago now, in favour of the Ewell Village walk, usually anti-clockwise. Some signs of elm hedge trees still trying, despite being regularly knocked back by Dutch Elm Disease.

A pleasant sit by the pond. A bit down but well supplied with dragonflies and damselflies.

One of the untended fields, looking well

Some polo action in the field attached to the equestrian centre. Some groupies, mainly girls, minding the spare ponies.

Some very tame swallows in the yard - tame in the sense that they did not fly off on my approach. Rather small and scruffy looking, but looking at their faces from the front, I was surprised how wide their mouths were. One supposes, all the better to catch flies with.

Plenty of grasshoppers in and around this patch

About two centimetres long in life

More

More zoom

More luck with grasshoppers on day two, finding a patch of grass with lots of them. I suspect that modern cameras are useful to naturalists, but I expect a downside will be that naturalists are all to apt to take pictures rather than to look, as they would have had to in the days when one drew one's find. Rather as statisticians are apt to stop looking at the numbers when they have got a computer to feed them through.

Field

One of the camels

Field

The nilgais

A bonus was a peep through the fence at the Hobbledown camel field. And next to them were some large fat deer, sitting in a line by the hedge. Pale brown in colour, some of them at least sporting short horns. So not llamas as we had first thought. Back home, turned the pages of Burton (reference 4), thought about nilgais, but decided against on the grounds that the males, according to Wikipedia (reference 3), were not brown but blue. However, this afternoon, I phone them up and a helpful young lady tells me that they were indeed nilgais. She seemed quite amused that I wanted to know.

Back to the polo area, where we were treated to a young man showing us the proper way to get off a polo pony: swing leg over and jump - none of this messing about with stirrups and lowering oneself down in the dignified manner of my day.

On the way out, a polo player of a certain age arriving in his MG, a sporty car favoured by smart young people when I was young. Accompanied by a blonde of uncertain age. Plus what looked like a proper Globetrotter suitcase strapped on the back, made before it became a luxury item sold in appropriate shops in Mayfair. A journey also made by the Belstaff people, once purveyors of outer clothing for serious biker boys. See reference 6.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/hobbledown.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/01/short-back-and-sides.html. Clearly still doing the Horton Clockwise often enough in January last year as there is no mention here of coming back to it. Perhaps the change over was more gradual than I now recall.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilgai.

Reference 4: Systematic dictionary of the mammals of the world - Maurice Burton - 1962.

Reference 5: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/11/dalhousie.html. Where this Burton came from. And who has been both useful and entertaining over the years. Earning several notices.

Reference 6: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2016/02/bells-of-bond-street.html.

Wellingtonia

A Wellingtonia, aka giant redwood, near Ewell Castle School and across the road from Bourne Hall. Looking a bit stressed after the heat waves, with quite a lot of brown foliage.

Presumably a tree of this size needs a fair bit of water, despite being an evergreen.

On the other hand, there is a clump of poplars or some such down Longmead Road which have already shed more than half their leaves - despite being quite near the stream.

So maybe we are just looking at straightforward cases of heat stroke?

Back to El Patio again

A week ago, back to El Patio, a couple of months since our last visit, noticed at reference 1. But this time to eat, so inside on this occasion, not being that fond of eating outside, even when the weather is behaving.

On the way down the passage, on the way to Court Rec (a favourite overnight location for the Surrey police helicopter), we heard some very strange noises from the top of a flat roofed shed, noises which turned out to come from a couple of cats looking at each other in rather an odd way. We wondered whether one of them was not well, but thought it best not to try in interfere - with interference, in any event, being a bit complicated from we were, being on the wrong side of the fence and not having a clue what the relevant house number was, were we to have walked round.

More or less reprised our last eating menu, that is to say bread and olives followed by paella. Bread made on the premises, pretty good for a restaurant. Olives green with stones, but good all the same. On balance, the paella was better than last time, not cooked to the point of sticking onto the bottom (said by some to be the mark of a true, Andalusian paella). The couple of langoustines on top better than last time, the mussels sprinkled around inside, not so good.

For the first time since the catastrophe, a few years ago now, we took two bottle of wine with our dinner, the excellent 2016 Noradaneve Albariño. Two excuses. First, no aperitif to start, no pudding wine (indeed, no pudding) and no liqueur(s) with coffee. Second, we asked to retain the cork against our not finishing the wine on the premises. They also promised to add a brown paper bag for discretion, should that have proved necessary.

Service good and much entertainment from both staff and customers, including some forwardly dressed ladies of various ages. At least one cuddly baby, about 12 months.

We learned about an Italian restaurant in Ashtead, run by a brother. Maybe a place to visit, even though it would involve car or taxi. Bit of a walk from Ashtead Station. Probably reference 2, snapped from Google Street View above, which looks well enough from its pictures. With the menu including that popular Campanian take on the roast beef of Sunday of England, arrosto di manzo.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/06/back-to-el-patio.html.

Reference 2: http://ziavitalia.com/.

Posh car

An expensive looking car parked outside the dentist in Manor Green Road, a dentist whose sign can be seen top right in the snap left.

I now know that it can get up to 150mph on its engine from Ferrari. Apparently classed as a sports utility vehicle, just the thing for suburban Epsom, but perhaps a bigger market than real sports cars. Yours for between £70,000 and £80,000, depending on which frills you go for, so not as much as I had thought - and you could pay a lot more for a humble Range Rover - but still around five times what it would cost to replace our trusty (if rusty) Ford C Max.

Is the chap around the corner who likes to park fancy cars on the hard standing in front of his house getting his teeth seen to? See, for example, reference 1.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/10/big-car.html.

Trolley 286

The long string of mainly M&S trolleys noticed yesterday has gone from the Ashmore Passage, leaving just this one and the one with the broken handle.

Returned to the M&S food hall where it was taken in charge by a cheerful middle aged shopper who was pleased to be able to put her £1 coin away - it not seeming right to take it, as I had not spent either pound or token to get the trolley in the first place.

PS: note the drain cover, which seems to be more or less permanently adrift from the drain hole it is supposed to be covering. Is really it a safe hole in which to dump incriminating substances on the approach of the boys in blue?

Caterpillar control: episode 2

At the end of the last episode, I was wondering whether to leave the cut back box bushes to regenerate. But within a day or so I had decided that I should not leave them, being reasonably confident that the infection would return - from eggs, debris or whatever scattered about the place.

In little more than an hour with the mattock and spade all three stumps had been grubbed out.

The stumps

Final resting place

Final resting place by the fence, where they will serve to reinforce the aging split chestnut and also as a nature preserve for beetles, of the non-pest variety. The small box plant visible at the bottom of the snap seems perfectly healthy but is growing very slowly, having been there for more than a year now. Perhaps the lack of water and light is slowing things down - and resulting in what leaves there are being rather tough not tasting too good to the caterpillars.

As if they had never been

The next day it was as if they had never been. If you looked you could find where they had been, but that was about it. Note the yew stump left: to think that I had been pleased when I took the yew down a few years back, on the grounds that it gave back some space to the path adjacent and gave the box space to prosper. Which it did for a bit.

The new yew bushes

Off to Chessington Garden Centre with the plan being to buy some honeysuckle box, of which we already have a fair bit, making up our back hedge, where it seems to manage OK in the shade. With reference 2 offering a snap of one from the Common.

But the young man in the bush part of the Centre told us that box had been discontinued because of all the pests that have arrived over the past few years. Honeysuckle box had not been struck off the list, but he did not have any in stock, even in the rather expensive specimen tree section. Not did he have anything else of the same sort in stock. So we settled for a couple of yew bushes at near £10 a pop. Which I thought rather dear for a plant which is very easy to grow: but then, he had them in stock and I had not bothered to bring on any of the various suitable seedlings dotted around our garden myself.

Planted out in no time at all, as snapped above. Including most of a well rotted bag of stable manure, stirred into the top soil and delivered to us from time to time by a chap from somewhere on the western outskirts of London. I forget why he comes round here. Notice the handle of the trusty mattock right.

Wired up

Next worry was about whether the foxes would dig up the freshly dug, damp earth in a quest for earthworms, a food they are rather partial to. Luckily I was able to rustle up enough short poles and enough wire to wire them up, as snapped above. So far the foxes have left them alone.

A bit unsightly, but once the ground has settled down, perhaps in the spring, I can take the wire and posts out again.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/caterpillar-control-episode-1.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/01/honeysuckle-box.html.

Regular annoyance

I must have failed to check some box somewhere which said that I would still like to get paper bills. Which means that I now get emails instead - which is fair enough, but it is a bit annoying that I get plugged into such a complicated world when I click on the link provided therein. The old paper bill was much more (older) customer friendly.

I suppose they have some excuse in that the regulators have told them to include all sorts of stuff about saving the planet, changing tariffs and changing supplier. With my not wanting to know about any of this, at least not in this context.

I am reminded of the management adage of the late 1970's that the way to deal with (civil service) unions was to bury them in information - information which they were badly equipped to deal with but which left them wrong footed. Hard for them to complain that they were not being kept informed.

Trolley 285

Somewhat traumatised by both a haircut and the news from Westminster, I thought a bit of trolley therapy was in order. And as luck would have it, a fine supply in the passage from the late Ashmore Insurance through to the station. Between 10 and 20 of them, mostly from M&S, despite my having mentioned the matter to them twice now.

Someone has broken the handle off the trolley right, but I think it is an M&S trolley, and I think it is their responsibility to deal with it: maybe not a legal responsibility, but a moral one as a proper part of the Epsom townscape.

While my contribution was to remove three trolleys from the back of the stack (as snapped) and return them to the food hall, where, as it happens, there was no shortage, either of this regular size or of the large size. A large size which only rarely makes it onto the sort of streets which I walk. A pound invested, and a pound recovered.

Something to mark the first day of this once proud country as a banana republic.

PS: ironically, under the leadership of someone of mixed race, born in foreign, shuffled into power on a hate-foreign ticket.

Breakfast factlet

I read in yesterday's Guardian over today's breakfast that, for the first time for more than eight years, we recorded a trade surplus - trade in goods and services - in June just passed.

Heartening that such a thing should happen at all - but we should not get to excited as this surplus is, in large part, a bounce back from stockpiling for some Brexit deadline.

Convergence

I remember, many years ago now, being very impressed that honeymoon was the same in French - la lune de miel - as it was in English.

While yesterday evening I was very impressed to find in 'Maigret au Picratt's' that rust was the same in French - rouille - as it was in English. Same in the sense that while the word was different, the figurative uses were much the same. With there being talk in Maigret, of a lady acrobat who had grown too rusty to be an acrobat and had had to go in for exotic dancing. Rusty joints by analogy with rusty hinges.

But divergence in that the French also talk of people with TB spitting rusty, that is to saying spitting blood. I don't think we do that.

PS: in the course of checking the spelling of honeymoon, Bing saw fit to tell me about the film advertised in the snap left. Don't suppose it will be coming to Epsom, with our Odeon not being very strong on exotic. Plus a reminder that as lunatic comes from lunar, month comes from moon.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=picratt. Some previous notices of this particular Maigret story. Turned up again following an outing on ITV3, to be noticed shortly.

Hobbledown

Ten days ago to Hobbledown, the operation which has replaced the children's farm carved out of the farm down Horton Lane which used to be attached to the Epsom Cluster by way of occupational therapy. A place we have visited in the distant past. Visits which extended, according to BH, to buying a Christmas turkey from them. On the other hand, they did decline our deluxe rabbit hutch, made by yours truly, when we had had enough of rabbits, even though, to our eyes, it was vastly better than a lot of the hutches that were on show. The deluxe rabbit run went to a Treasury Knight for a cucumber frame.

The programme

The day started rather wet, but it was due to clear by midday, which indeed it did, although the wet start may have resulted in a disappointing turnout for the last day of their wildflowers summer festival. Prices seemed a bit steep for ordinary folk, but we pensioners got in for £10 each, which, as it turned out was very good value, with lots to do and see.

A misplaced sign?

A well presented place with plenty of staff and virtually no litter. Bark chippings made a very good soft fall carpet around play equipment - although I have no idea how they kept that clean. And we were amused by the sign about enjoying the animals, snapped above. Perhaps some team member had a sense of humour?

Lots of good acts, somewhere between the bottom end of fringe theatre and the top end of busking. Two groups of musicians, one wandering about the picnic tables, another on stilts. Some acrobats from Ghana. A rather scatological Punch & Judy man - the humour having brought up to date since I had last hear it. Very Roald Dahl on bodily functions.

Quite a reasonable supply of animals, domestic and otherwise. Including some otters which were busy sharing a crab, which they washed in their pond before crunching it up. I wondered about all the bits - I think the gills - which we are not supposed to eat. Perhaps they have more powerful digestions than we do. But no big cats and no big bears, which meant that caging and management requirements generally were much simpler than they would otherwise have been. And no great loss as far as I was concerned.

Quite of reasonable supply of customers by the end of our afternoon, mostly young families.

An interesting display of hawks and falcons - at which I finally learned that falcons took their prey on the wing while hawks and owls took their prey on the ground. Which was why, with falcons, you got them to perform by swinging a lure about. As it happened, most of the birds on display were foreign and all bar one of them had been raised in captivity. I was slightly surprised that it was OK to take them from the wild at all. I also learned that these birds do moult, a process which is not necessarily incapacitating. The young lady doing the talking was also very into showing respect for the birds, which meant, inter alia, that you never touched or petted them.

The younger men of the party tried their hands in zorb balls, rolling energetically them around a zorb ball course arranged on a patch of grass. There was also an element of dodgems about them. BH had a go on the zip wire. I took notes.

The view (not mine) from the interior of a zorb

It can be seen from the snap above, the these zorb balls were well made things, a bit like an inflatable mattress, contrived into the form of a hollow sphere. With a sort of pluggable port hole through which you climb in.

Large numbers of very tame sparrows operating among the benches provided outside the main café.

Trial by shop on exit, as is proper at such a place. A very satisfactory visit and I dare say we will be back on a pensioner afternoon before too long, to have a proper look at all the animals.

Home to macaroni cheese. Recipe from the Radiation Cook Book adjusted to the extent of bringing the amount down, but using proper cheese - Poacher - rather than supermarket, and adding a finely chopped onion to the white sauce, cooking the onion in the butter, before adding the flour. Served with our second and last bottle of Pomice from the Isle of Wight. That is to say the Tenuta di Castellaro Bianco Pomice 2011, from Sicily, as noticed previously. All very good it was too.

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

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

Reference 3: http://www.zorbing.us/.

More parrots

A few minutes with Bing and I now know that the parrots of Lumley have a long history, far longer than that of the parakeets of Ham. As they say in films and novels, any resemblances to real life are entirely coincidental.

It seems that they started out as martlets, a heraldic bird looking something like a swallow, then became parrots or popinjays in the early fourteenth century, following an advantageous marriage with a parrot bearing family and settled down to their present parakeet likeness some time after that.

Clearly a proper family as there were a few executions and rehabilitations along the way. Also a clear connection with Scarborough, noticed masonically at reference 3. Their northern residence, now a fancy hotel, is to be found at reference 2.

Most of this information comes from reference 1, the work of a former chemistry teacher from Hamilton, Ontario. A member of the Sewell family, of similar antiquity to the Lumley family, but bearing bees rather than parrots. Possibly a distant relative of the lady who wrote 'Black Beauty', but this connection has yet to be made.

But none of them can match BH's much grander descent from a companion of the conqueror. See, for example, reference 4.

Reference 1: http://www.robertsewell.ca/lumleyarms.html.

Reference 2: https://www.lumleycastle.com/history/.

Reference 3: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-lumleys-of-cheam.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/06/snow-on-trollope.html.

The Lumleys of Cheam

A bit more than a week ago, BH happened to notice an item, I think in our free local newspaper, I think the Epsom Guardian from Newsquest, which drew us to the Lumley Chapel in Cheam, which apart from being heritage also had a connection with Nonsuch Park, the place where there used to be a real Nonsuch Palace and where there still is an expensive architectural model of same. For the palace see, for example, reference 1. For the chapel, one can start at reference 2 and, if there is not enough on the page for you, follow the references given there.

A rather wet afternoon, but we managed to park quite near St. Dunstan's, the large Victorian church which replaced the church of which the Lumley Chapel is the remnant, having once been its chancel. With St. Dunstan having been a political cleric in England in late Saxon times, often in trouble with the king of the day - troubles which may have provided the quality time he needed to brush up his metalworking skills, which earned him his current job description of patron saint of armorers, goldsmiths, locksmiths, and jewellers.

The plaque

The interior

The church was busy with a wedding, but we found a notice telling us that we could get the key of the chapel from the public library next door. Which turned out to be a large shed like building of the early 1960's. Rather handsome inside, although it may well be cold in the winter and hot in the summer.

The white polystyrene on the wall at the end may be an art work, may be an art project for a local school. Or it may just be some rather moth-eaten insulation panels waiting to be covered up again.

Substantial lych-gate for the Victorian church

Literally, corpse gate, from the Old English. The place where the bier containing a corpse was kept between death and the burial service, before the days of refrigeration.

Some oldish yew trees in the graveyard, none to healthy. One large cedars. Quite a lot of rather grand monuments, although not as grand as the ones in the chapel to come. Clearly bourgeois rather than noble. Maybe even the odd artisan, although many of these preferred to do their own thing in their chapels - having had quite enough of their bosses during the week.

And so in to the chapel, a very old building used to store all the better memorials from the old church, featuring a much newer decorated, white plaster roof from the late 16th century (see reference 3).

Noticed for Dubois, a name from Agatha's 'Pale Horse'

Some Lumley's portrayed in the chapel of Nonsuch Palace

A John Lumley, inherited Nonsuch Palace in 1580. I think he had to hand it on to Elizabeth I a few years later by way of a fine for being a Catholic, only semi-legal at that time.

Ring necked parakeets

These parakeets seem to have been an important part of the Lumley arms - although I have no idea how they got there. I thought that they had turned up in Ham Common quite recently, in the 1970's, presumably escaped from some pet shop. Now breeding fast and perhaps the most common of the larger birds in and around Epsom.

A chap who was keen on his family history

A lot more parakeets

The mark of the Masons

A chap who collected lots of letters after his name. Slightly confused by his being the Earl of Scarborough as I had thought that was the stamping ground of the Sitwells (Edith, Osbert and so forth). Something to check up on in an idle moment.

An untidy corner

A bit of fancy ceiling

Presumably the relatives for which the bottom half of the memorial had been designated moved away from the area and declined to come back, even in death. Perhaps the various wings of the family had quarrelled about something.

North wall, with something old, something new

Out to find that the wedding was still going on, so having returned the key, we set off to have a look round Cheam - a place I used for bread, fish, meat and greengrocery for the first few years of my retirement - until too much cycling did my back in - which I learned later was a reasonably common complaint among senior cyclists. Fortunately, the back seems to be able to cope with a modest amount of the sit-up-straight stuff on a Bullingdon.

Bread morphed into a cake shop. The man in the fish van retired. Butcher still there, although it looks as if it may have changed hands. Greengrocer still there and has not changed hands. He couldn't do me any walnuts (which I used to get from him often enough) but he could do some quite decent plums and some quite decent cherries. Although these last, coming from the market, could not match the quality control of an M&S or Waitrose and there were a few chuck outs.

It struck us that this Cheam crossroads must have been a thriving shopping district say 75 years ago. Now slowly declining, with lots of what were shops and banks now eateries and bars of one sort or another. Just like Epsom really. On the other hand, there were a lot of very old buildings to be seen there, much older as far as that went than Epsom, despite Epsom having been invented as a watering hole in the middle of the seventeenth century.

It now being 1600, we did not find tea & cake to suit and the new church was very firmly locked up. So home to take tea there.

PS: we are told that the television Lumley is some descendent of these Lumleys.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=nonsuch+palace+model.

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

Reference 3: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1183440.

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

Postscript one

Following the notice of the dancing king at reference 1, off to Bourne Hall library to return the two opera books and to see what they could do in the way of opera CD's or DVD's.

DVD's were a bit thin, but there was a substantial collection of classical CD's, more or less in alphabetic order by composer. Amongst which I found some Rameau (who was the next big star after Lully, that is to say, a bit more than half a century after), but no Lully. Moved onto to the collection of opera CD's, where there was quite a lot of Lully. Two of each, Rameau top row in the snap above, Lully bottom row.

Only allowed a week and I get charged £1 for singles and £1.50 for boxes, probably the same regime as that for DVD's.

Home to find that the Anacréon was performed by the same people that we had heard and enjoyed at the Wigmore Hall, noticed at reference 2.

While the Amadis was a rather fancy edition, with several CD's packaged in a sort of book which included various notes and a bilingual libretto. Rather handsomely done, with this book being No.239x in a numbered edition, with the last digit or so being lost under the library bar code label. From which we learn that Surrey Libraries still had a budget for this sort of thing in 2013, when it was published. Or perhaps pressed is the technical term. Done a bit of prologue so far - and so far it lives up to the expectations set by the dancing king.

And I was pleased to find that the Wikipedia page for Amadis (reference 3) lists this very recording.

PS: perhaps the French like this numbered copy business, with the Mauriac bought ten years ago and noticed at reference 4 being numbered too. Which I happened to know as, the two volumes having sat on the shelf for a decade, a couple of days ago I thought to get one down and read some more of it.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-dancing-king.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/courtly-songs.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadis_(Lully).

Reference 4: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=mauriac+karnac.

Some contrasts between old and new

As its title suggests, reference 1 is a book which takes a look at mental disorders around the world. I have yet to finish this small book, but part of the story seems to be that while the main lines of the western classification of mental disorders do map onto the rest of the world, there are plenty of differences of detail in the presentation and management of those disorders.

In the chapter on the communication of distress, there is a suggestion that we in the west are very focussed on the self, on the subjective experience and are open to what I might call psychological discussions about same. Whereas in other parts of the world, distress tends to be expressed in more physical terms.

In his explanation, Leff suggests a story for me which involves two salient differences. First, other parts of the world – he was writing near forty years ago – tend to have peasant economies, with lots of subsistence farming: lots of threats, uncertainty and rural poverty. These last can cause plenty of distress. Second, other parts of the world tend to have extended families in which the roles, responsibilities and duties of the various family members are both defined and important; roles, responsibilities and duties which may be rather old fashioned and restrictive, particularly in so far as they affect the women of the family. This last also can cause plenty of distress.

But a positive feature of subsistence farming is that there are plenty of things to do which do not require too much skill or application. Compared with life in the fast lane in the west, it is relatively easy to find useful and helpful slots for people with problems. To which thought I add two more. First, in the civil service of old there was both the duty and the possibility of finding occupation for a reasonable share of the people with problems; with both duty and possibility having eroded over the last fifty years. Second, I remember stories of village idiots. People with serious problems who were just left on the fringes of villages, possibly restrained in some way, while the rest of the village got on with its business. So things were not that great in the olden days.

And a feature of the extended family is that there has to be restraint if it is to work. People have to do their duty without making a lot of fuss about it. Social conformance is important, much more important than self-expression, than wallowing in self. The expression of personal feelings might well be regarded as distasteful, as rather shameful, certainly not something you would go to the doctor or anyone else about. So on the credit side, people do not learn to make a fuss about mental disorders – and to that extent those disorders do not exist. From where I associate to the various epidemics – not to say fads and fashions – of psychiatric disorder which afflict the west from time to time. Furthermore, there are established roles for people to slot into; they can just slot in, rather than trying to go it alone – and failing. But on the debit side, they do not learn how to make a fuss, how to talk to a psychiatrist, instead tending to couch their distress in misleading physical symptoms and complaints. With traditional healers, perhaps because they have more relevant background and experience, sometimes being good at dealing with this sort of thing.

There was also the observation that older languages tend to be rich in words for all the minutiae of family relationships – distinguishing, for example, maternal aunts from paternal aunts. Leff also points to the intriguing suggestion in reference 2 that ‘I’ emerged relatively late in the evolution of language.

Perhaps there are anthropologists and sociologists out there who have picked up on all this, have run with these particular batons.

Afterthoughts

Talk of rural poverty reminds me that my father, brought up in rural Huntingdonshire, used to talk of rural slums. Not so many years that we had that sort of thing here in the west.

I had thought that word ‘distress’ might be related to the word ‘stress’, but this seems not to be the case, at least not according to OED. Rather to old French meanings of the word ‘district’. With old English meanings of ‘distress’ being more physical than psychological: so distress might have been used transitively to mean to crush or overwhelm in battle. Another plus point for the story above.

References

Reference 1: Psychiatry around the Globe: a transcultural view – Leff J. – 1981. I arrived at Leff – a civilised and interesting writer – via a complicated route which started with O. Sacks, moving onto A. R. Luria and then with my wondering what exactly the symptoms of hysteria were, a diagnosis which has more or less vanished from the western scene. No discipline!

Reference 2: The Gift of Tongues – Schlauch M. – 1943.

Titbits

I read today of Johnson strutting his stuff at Biarritz. One wonders how much he has set the other, more seasoned leaders wondering whether this is going to be his first and last performance; whether he is coming on a bit strong for a newbie.

While I read at reference 1 that:

'The President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, decided  to profoundly overhaul the format and ambitions of the G7 around  a central goal set out in his speech before the 73rd session  of the United Nations General Assembly: combating inequality. There are three dimensions  to this decision.

Taking the initiative to transform the G7 to restore its relevance and effectiveness, in the spirit of strong multilateralism, with no second thoughts about shaking up working habits and opening it up to key partners: African countries and four other major democracies, with which the Biarritz agenda has been prepared throughout the year.

Addressing the great global challenges of inequality, protection of the planet, and defence of democratic freedoms, through tangible commitments and building on expanded partnerships and coalitions of stakeholders such as civil society which provide direction.

Addressing crucial subjects, the importance of which is immediately clear to our citizens: international security and crisis management, the challenge of digital transformation for our democratic societies, climate crises and biodiversity. Responding to these issues is urgent'.

All good stuff  - if both confused and stuffy in tone (perhaps it was originally drafted in pompous French and then worked over by numerous committees) - but no China, India or Russia - which might improve cosiness and coherence - but does it get results? What sort of a discussion can you have when half the world is missing? What will Johnson decide to do if it ever gets to be his turn? Do the Tories really believe in addressing inequality?

I could not find the caption to the snap from reference 1 included above, but presumably it is the seafront at Biarritz. I would have expected serious waves rather than a flat calm, but perhaps this last was better suited Johnson's morning dip. Did he do a Sanditon for the assembled press corps?

More important, earlier today, I was moved to nip up to the tip on the Longmead Estate here at Epsom, there having been rumours of it being shut for today's bank holiday. I am pleased to be able to report that at 0930 it was open, although there was new queue on what ought to have been a gala day, with queues stretching down at least as far as Screwfix. Will they bother for the next bank holiday?

Reference 1: https://www.elysee.fr/admin/upload/default/0001/05/808379a5c67e61b03c3e899f98c59c2937df9b70.pdf.

The dancing king

That is to say 'Le Roi Danse', a costume drama from Belgium about Jean-Baptiste Lully, a Frenchman of Italian origin who invented the French version of opera during the reign of Louis XIV, an invention involving the collaboration of first Molière and then Quinault. A drama first noticed at reference 1.

We saw the DVD for the first time a week or so ago, taking it in in two sittings over two evenings, not successive as I recall.

Our own books did not yield much about Lully, but I then remembered that Surrey's performing arts library had relocated to Bourne Hall and paid them a visit. I did not find anything particularly about Lully, but I did find references 3 and 4 which provided very serviceable introductions to his operas and from which I share a couple of snippets.

That it was normal for French nobles and even kings to perform in the elaborate 'ballets de cour' of the seventeenth century - including here both Louis XIII and Louis XIV. Presumably the kings declined to portray anything less than a senior divinity - but odd considering the uncertain status of actors recorded in the postscript below. Also odd considering it is quite tricky to remain regal while prancing about on a stage. Although BH reminds me that our own Good Queen Bess was rather fond of energetic dances.

There was much debate about whether it was possible to translate the spoken poetry of French drama into song and much work by composers such as Lully to fit the rhythms of poetry - perhaps Alexandrines - to the rather different rhythms of music. A theory of music festival - and I wonder what my brother would have had to say about it all - professing as he did to hate both the theory of music and the theorists - despite having had, on occasion, to teach the stuff himself. With one bit of theory here being that it was good practise in French drama to tell rather than show - while effete Italian opera (with its castrati) was more into show rather than tell.

Then, having absorbed a bit of background, we had a second go at the DVD, once again taking it in in two sittings over two evenings. All very successful, with me really liking the stately music and leaving me keen to get at the real thing.

One of the scenes showed us Lully being very cross that it was Molière's name which appeared on the title pages (as above) rather than his own - and he was very determined to do something about it. His collaboration with Molière ended shortly thereafter, in favour of Quinault.

Another showed us the king at his council table, which was indeed covered with a carpet or cloth, as mentioned at reference 6. I suppose that councils started having tables when the meetings of the councils started having refreshments, documents, memoranda, minutes and so on and so forth. Whereas in the olden days it was enough to sit in a circle, provided only that the king had a much bigger chair than everyone else.

I was struck by way that being an entertainer to an absolute monarch would bring on bad habits and bad personality traits in both entertainer and entertained. And reminded that in many ways Louis XIV, like Napoleon who followed, was a bad thing. Far too find of extravagant displays, of battles and of wars. And while he did perform in some of the displays, I don't think he appeared anywhere near the front line in many - if any - of his battles. At least Napoleon was a joiner-in as far as that went.

And I was reminded of the way that the jobs of impresario, writer or composer and performer were all mixed up in these early days - as it was with our own Bard. No proper division of labour.

Another feature of the displays was a lot of fancy cloth and a lot of fancy clothes. Must have been quite sweaty in the summer for Lully, who, on the evidence of this film, had an energetic style of conducting. But I think they put off the heavy gear when it came to dancing. From where I made a reciprocal association to the fashions of Pakistani ladies today, noticed at reference 1.

Next, off to Bachtrack of reference 5, to find that there is not much Lully done in this country, but that there are to be what looks like a couple of touring productions of 'Le bourgeois gentilhomme' in France next year. Maybe we will make it to Caen for the one that gets there in May. No so very far away.

In the meantime, I take a peek at Amazon to find that I can buy DVD's of staged productions of Lully but that they come in at around £35 a pop. Which despite the much larger expense involved in going to Caen, seems rather a lot, so I have desisted for the moment. Maybe I should be going back to the performing arts library to see what they can offer...

PS: two facts about Molière reported by Wikipedia: 'Molière suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis ... he collapsed on stage in a fit of coughing and haemorrhaging while performing in the last play he had written … and which ironically was entitled 'Le Malade imaginaire' ... Molière insisted on completing his performance. Afterwards he collapsed again with another, larger haemorrhage before being taken home, where he died a few hours later, without receiving the last rites because two priests refused to visit him while a third arrived too late ... Under French law at the time, actors were not allowed to be buried in the sacred ground of a cemetery. However, Molière's widow ... asked the King if her spouse could be granted a normal funeral at night. The King agreed and Molière's body was buried in the part of the cemetery reserved for unbaptised infants'.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/kensington.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/09/sullivan.html. This morning I associated to 'Topsy Turvey', a film about the making of the G&S hit 'The Mikado', last mentioned in this post. Another lush costume drama, with some basis in the truth, with a musical theme.

Reference 3: The Rise of Opera - Robert Donnington - 1981.

Reference 4: French Opera: a Short History - Vincent Giroud - 2010. I was amused to be told by the library people that I cannot renew this item. Someone else out there has been digging into the catalogue of the performing arts library! Late of Vaughan Williams House, Dorking.

Reference 5: https://bachtrack.com/.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/basket.html.

Phenomenological space-time

Someone or something pointed me at an article in the New Scientist recently about our perception of time, on which I shall report in due course, and in which there was a reference to reference 1. For reasons too tedious to go into, I was reading this article in a version which had the text formatting stripped out, which meant that you could neither click on nor expand the reference and it was some time before I tracked it down.

In the course of all this, I was pleased to find that if you send an inquiry about such things to the New Scientist itself, you do get a helpful reply after a day or so. A proper organisation which actually does service the in-boxes of the email accounts which they choose to make public.

The article in question turned out to have appeared in Science, a sort of US equivalent to our 'Nature', published by the AAAS. Now I do have a login with these people, but a free login which does not confer digital access to this particular article and they do not seem to have a buy single article option, in the way of a lot of other magazines. Or even buy a single issue for around $10 option in the way of Scientific American. So what to do?

First thought was that the Royal Institution has runs of scientific journals on their bookshelves. Fairly extensive bookshelves, so perhaps they carry Science. I was just going to pop in, but on this occasion I thought to phone, to learn from a helpful archivist that they do not have a walk-in library any more and that the runs of journals to be seen on the shelves are more by way of décor, part of what you are buying when you hire a meeting room.

Second thought was the Westminster Reference Library behind the National Gallery, which I have used occasionally in the past. Phoned them up to find that they certainly did not carry the actual magazines and that they probably did not have digital access either.

Third thought was one of the libraries at UCL, the website for which suggested member of the public could walk in for around £7.50 a pop. They should carry such a magazine. So off to London to see what I could do.

Off the train at Vauxhall to find no Bullingdon's in the long stand in the tunnel under the tracks, reinforcing the impression that TFL are not putting as much money into them as they were. Reinforcing my irritation that the various competitors are allowed to litter our streets with their cycles.

But there were a few left at New Spring Gardens Walk. So pulled one and off to Westminster and Trafalgar Square to find no spaces in the stand at Willian IV street. But there were a few left in the small stand behind the National Gallery. Journey time of 18 minutes and 57 seconds, well inside the 30 minute limit. Decided it was time for a little something and headed back towards Terroirs for a drop of their Pierre Précieuse, first taken more than three months ago on the occasion noticed at reference 3; DeLong would have to wait until later.

The open space in front of the National Gallery even fuller of tourist stuff than usual and I was irritated by a chap who had commandeered a large plot so that he could charge passing tourists to draw their own heart, in chalk, on one of the paving stones so enclosed.

Three out of the four cheeses were Brexit proof

Terroirs all present and correct, with staff as cheerful and competent as usual. Bread and butter followed by a sort of rabbit stew. All as good as we have come to expect. Plus, of course, the Pierre Précieuse, which continues to satisfy. Possibly also a spot of Ciello Bianco, from Sicily, while I was waiting. Followed by a spot of Kirkham's, from Lancashire, taken with mixed bread. Kirkhams's looks to be a single farm cheese (see reference 4), like Lincolnshire Poacher in that regard, and tasted a little like Cheshire: not bad, but I still prefer Poacher. Rounded off with a spot of their bottom of the range but still quite decent Calvados, taken outside, while we watched the goings on in the street - which did, after all, contain Charing Cross Police Station.

Goings on which included a van from Berry Bros, from St. James's on the posh side of the square. Surely they weren't delivering to Terroirs?

Decided at this point that there would no be little point in visiting the library at UCL, so that has to wait for another occasion.

So across Hungerford Bridge to admire the flashy clothes of some of the holiday makers there. From there into the Festival Hall to find some sort of community event going on in the Clore Ballroom, a community event which involved a lot of young people and a lot of brass instruments. Trying to find out this morning what this might have been, I find that I have missed two important events.

First something called 'Kiss My Genders' which does not look like my sort of thing at all, with the puff including: '... Kiss My Genders is a group exhibition celebrating more than 30 international artists whose work explores and engages with gender identity ... Spanning the past 50 years, Kiss My Genders brings together over 100 artworks by artists from around the world who employ a wide range of approaches to articulate and engage with gender fluidity, as well as with non-binary, trans and intersex identities ...'. The Guardian is alleged to have thought that it was just the thing.

Peppa Pig

The Hasbro operation

Rather more relevant, a Peppa Pig event, to which, had it not been so hot, we might have been tempted. Not least because we read in yesterday's Telegraph that the Pig franchise has been sold to Hasbro (reference 5) for £3b or so. Who says that we don't make anything any more? A company once called Hassenfeld Brothers for the three brothers from Poland who founded it in Rhode Island in 1923. The place more famous for its Rhode Island Reds; or at least it was when I was small, as I had story books which featured them.

Clouds, looking east

Lots of interesting clouds to be seen from the train. Not like anything I recall seeing.

Reference 1: Phenomenological space-time: toward an experiential relativity - A J DeLong – 1981.

Reference 2: https://www.aaas.org/.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/alien-cheese.html.

Reference 4: http://www.mrskirkhamscheese.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://hasbro.gcs-web.com/corporate.

Reprieved

Since the post at reference 1, I have continued to dip into this book (reference 2) about the doings of Roman emperors from time to time. But latterly, I been starting to wonder whether I should be giving quality time to such a book when there is so much else to do. So many unread (or half read), more recent books lying around the study. Is it time for it to be retired?

But then on Friday, I noticed a near full page obituary of the author, Sir Fergus Millar, in the Guardian, where I read that Sir Fergus was an eminent scholar of the old school, one who probably regretted the passing of the Oxford of his youth in the late 1950's and the rise of numbers, bureaucracy and worries about funding. And this was probably his best known book.

So I have decided that it should be reprieved and that the axe should fall instead on some other work, some other fat tome which has been decorating our book shelves for little more than symbolic reasons for far too long.

PS: fairly sure that I never paid anything like $50 for my copy, with or without postage. Fairly sure also that I bought it in a shop, rather than knowing about it first and then clicking it. Furthermore, while the cover illustrated above is the same as that on my copy, the books there are said to come from Cornell, which mine most definitely does not. Duckworth.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/04/records-old-and-new.html.

Reference 2: The Emperor in the Roman World - Fergus Millar - 1977.

Domaine Chatelain

Having a small excuse to celebrate last week, thought to move up a notch from our usual Villa Maria sauvignon blanc and try for something from Waitrose.

Settled for a 2017 Pouilly-Fumé from Domaine Chatelain, the people at reference 1. Perhaps my wine was a special for the UK market, as it does not seem to appear among those offered in French. And a bit less than double what I usually pay Majestic for Villa Maria.

Started off well enough, promising even, but somehow it went downhill as the bottle went down, ending up with a rather thin and shallow taste. Most odd. Is the experiment replicable? Can I be bothered?

PS: the writing bottom left is my trying to write the word 'Function' by hand and not getting on very well. My handwriting never was too good and now I write so little by hand it is bad, it taking quite a few goes before I was reasonably reliably producing something legible.

Reference 1: https://www.domaine-chatelain.com/.

Basket

This morning's wild goose chase was triggered by the phrase 'des fauteuils à la corbeille', in the context of a première at a famous theatre, in the course of the Maigret story at reference 1. With fauteuils being chairs and corbeilles being baskets and with the problem being whether the baskets bound to the chairs, making them a particular sort of chair or whether the baskets bound to the preceding verb.

The chase centred on the various meanings of corbeille, from where I was led to anse, a handle of some sort, where I was particularly amused by the phrase 'faire danser l'anse du panier' which seems to mean claiming that you spent rather more than you actually spent when doing someone else's shopping for them; the sort of thing that urban servants were all too likely to get up to, particularly when they were on the way out, after the first world war - a problem which Agatha probably knew all about. Literally, to make the handle of the shopping basket dance.

On the way I discovered that the word usually used for office, bureau, was also used to describe the computer screen with its various bars and icons that you get with systems like Microsoft's Windows and that the corbeille was the recycle bin thereon.

Also that bureau was so named for the coarse woollen cloth used to cover the coarse wooden tables originally used for desks in 14th century Italy. Not that my Elementary Latin Dictionary (from the famous C. T. Lewis, of the even more famous Lewis & Short) admits any such word.

In the end, I decide that we are talking about two different areas in the theatre, the stalls and the basket. With Larousse claiming that the basket was the area immediately above the orchestra pit, a claim which is not supported by the snap above.

PS: the snap above is taken from the online booking system for the Salle Richelieu of the Comédie-Française in Paris. Not the way that we do such things at all.

Reference 1: Pietr-le-Letton Simenon - 1929. Volume I of the collected works.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/withdrawal-symptoms.html. Now on the second read of this first story, second time around.