A day at the library

The hunt for reference 2, noticed a week or so at reference 1, continued at the end of last week. And apart from bad news on the box, a pleasant, slightly breezy day. Just the weather for a spot of cycling around London.

Being caterpillar conscious at the moment, I did notice that some of the old established box bushes around the Meadway Roundabout (noticed, for example, at reference 3) had been badly damaged by the green caterpillars. I don't suppose spraying them is going to happen, but will replacement? Will any of the owners of the large houses thereabouts care to contribute either time or money? Sadly, I rather doubt it.

Things got worse in that I was scheduled for a haircut, something I always try to put off, for no good reason. Perhaps I dislike having to sit in a queue in a place with trashy TV and/or radio. But I restored my good mood of earlier in the day with the bit of trolley therapy noticed at reference 4.

A slightly squeaky mum on the train, with two bouncing boys and one quiet baby. I thought that she was going to be tired by the end of the day.

A few Bullingdons at the bottom of the ramp at Waterloo, so was able to pedal off from there to the stand across the way from the Masonic Temple, which was full. Luckily there were a few spaces in the stand around the corner in Newton Street.

The record

Strolled through Covent Garden to the cheese shop in Shorts gardens, where I was served by a new young lady from Pennsylvania. Poacher as usual - not quite as smartly wrapped as usual - plus, for a change, a bag of fresh cob nuts (the grey squirrels having stripped our own trees, as usual). I think there must have been some mistake as inspecting the receipt when I got home I found that I had paid only 48p for them. Slightly too damp and fresh for me on the first day, but they soon dried up a bit. I suppose I have got used to the kiln dried versions from the mainland, rather bitter by comparison.

Wondering about the allegation that there were no cob nuts and no hazel nuts in Pennsylvania, I came across reference 5 which talks of Ontario, not so far away in either miles or weather, being big in the nut world. Furthermore, asking Google for nuts in Pennsylvania turned up a picture for a hazel nut seedling for sale at reference 7. So what was the young lady on? Although to be fair to her, acorns, beech mast and walnuts did seem to be more prominent there.

I also noticed a blue cheese from Colston Bassett in Nottinghamshire. Which I noticed, having once been familiar with Wootton Bassett, now Royal Wootton Bassett. Wikipedia reveals that there are lots of Bassetts dotted about the country, although not what a Bassett is. Neither does OED, so clearly something to be looked into on a slow day.

Falun Gong poster

A demonstration of yellow robed people outside the back door of the British Museum, I think to do with Falun Gong, who appear to make use of the swastika in their logo. Which, despite the long history of same in the east, is perhaps unfortunate - but I don't suppose it is why the Chinese authorities are so touchy about them.

On into the UCL precinct, grown hugely bigger since the far-off days when I used to try to attend their famous dances without paying. Something which seemed very cool at the time and, as I recall, involved climbing over a rather large gate somewhere around the back.

Recto

Verso

A lord from Lyme Regis, a place we thought we knew well

Inside there were plenty of people about, so perhaps it was just as well it was still the long vacation, and on presentation of bus pass and warfarin card by way of identification, I was issued with a one day pass for the library, a place which turned out to be very large and well equipped. Slight disconnect in that the chaps who issued my pass were not the same as the people who took the money, who were inside the library proper, the other side of the gates that the pass enabled. Needless to say, I needed the help of a passing young lady to present my newly minted pass to the right orifice on the gates.

The paper

Having paid my money, I was offered a large and flashy computer screen, from which I was able to get to reference 2 in pretty short order, mediated by something called JSTOR. There was talk of downloading my paper to a stick, although I could see no hole for such a thing, but it was OK to photograph the thing with my telephone, with the legibility under zoom of the results back at home on my laptop being, to my mind, a considerable tribute to image processing technology. Probably not legible here, even under click to enlarge.

Model with dog facilities

My business completed, a leisurely ride town through Holborn and the Aldwych on the third Bullingdon of the day. A sentimental journey through a part of town which I used to know well. Nearly had a contretemps with a bad mannered van from Addison-Lee on the Waterloo Roundabout. parked my Bullingdon at the pole position at the top of the ramp at Waterloo, from where it was snapped up in seconds. Otherwise an uneventful journey to the Half Way House at Earlsfield to take refreshment wet and dry.

To find myself surprised to find that the model building, which I have noticed before, was a whole building, rather than just one side of one. Labelled the half way house, despite not bearing much resemblance to the real thing. Plus a dogs' corner below.

The bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich was much better than I was expecting. Worth paying more than double what I pay the market restaurant in Whitecross Street for a more ordinary bacon sandwich. And I was spared the side of crisps and salad, which always irritates. Plus a spot of Picpoul, a wine I generally find satisfactory in public houses.

While taking these refreshments, scored a far eastern gentleman outside cycling with some sort of contraption perched on top of his helmet. I thought a camera, rather than a light. Was the camera running all the time? What use was made of the images? How often were they recycled? Then a white lady cyclist turning left into Magdelan Road while talking on her phone, held to her mouth. She should have been pulled for a traffic offence.

Scored a couple of ones from the platform at Earlsfield, then a short stop over at the Raynes Park platform library, from which I abstracted a large proportion of the otherwise rather thin stock.

The day's haul

The booklet about the library, dished out for free. A history of Germany through its art - from which I learned about Hitler's curiously erotic taste in visual art and that 'Buchenwald' meant beech wood. Also that this last was re-purposed by the Russians in the years after the war to help meet its own requirement for concentration camps. The book looks like a good find, now near the top of the reading list. A rather curious and expensively got-up book of poems and pictures from Faber by one Tim Burton - according to the puff a sensitive rendering of the anguish of adolescence. See reference 8.

All in all, a good day.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/phenomenological-space-time.html.

Reference 2: Phenomenological space-time: toward an experiential relativity - A J DeLong – 1981.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/04/cheese.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/trolley-285.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=fibrous+brown+material. Some bug, perhaps to do with too many posts in a month, means that this post does not appear in the expansion of the relevant September to the right. But guessing the name of the file works at reference 6.

Reference 6: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/09/final-report.html.

Reference 7: http://pnga.net/. The Pennsylvania Nut Growers Association.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Burton.