Moon visible here at Epsom at 1835, more or less due east, 13 degrees above the horizon. Full, slightly hazed by cloud. No stars visible.
Reference 1 agrees about the direction, but alleges 15 degrees above the horizon rather than 13. Maybe I do need a new astrolabe
Reference 1: https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/uk/london.
Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/02/astrolabe.html. The old astrolabe.
Earlier this week saw my first visit to a public house to take drink (rather than food) since the spring. For which important occasion we chose an evening at the Marquis of Granby. As it happens my first evening outing of any sort since the spring. A house which, when we first came to Epsom thirty years ago, was run as an old-fashioned tenanted house, complete with something called a Parliament Clock, as I recall it, something like the one snapped above, but not as grand. See reference 5. The place has been through several incarnations since then, mainly youthful.
On the way, bumbled about and managed to forgot to take a face mask. Which meant that, to be on time for my rendezvous, I had to cadge a lift off BH, which I don't like doing for this sort of purpose, for which one ought to be under one's own steam.
The Marquis busy enough inside that I certainly preferred to sit outside. Which was what I had planned anyway.
I have drunk Sancerre there in the past, but that, it seems, is a thing of the past. Chardonnay had to do, with the current theory being that I like the average pub Chardonnay better than the average pub Sauvignon. Certainly works in the Blenheim, where Yellowtail has been my regular lunchtime tipple. Starting on the occasion noticed at reference 1. With this one starting out from reference 6.
Only the occasional smoker outside. No other serious drinkers. But there was this bit of heritage woodwork behind us. Perhaps the work of one of those country crafts people whom you come across at theme parks and outdoor events.
Our umbrella did come with heaters hanging off the central pole, but they were not turned on. And for some reason, it did not occur to me to ask to have them turned on. But two hours sitting outside, despite treble wrapping (including hardcore winter pully, hand crafted in the far north), not that clever.
I was reminded of winter smoking in the early years after the ban. Also of the smokers of Ottawa where there is a 5m from the door rule, front and back. A place where it gets a good deal colder than it does here in Epsom. Despite their also having high street shops selling paraphernalia for other substances. And the big Hershey factory down the road at Smiths Falls which is now a world-class marijuana factory doing tours for interested parties from the far east. On which, see, for example, reference 2 for a sensible and sober discussion about the need to make the place a bit bigger still. And about how everyone very pleased that this building was being put to use again, having once been a big employer in the town. Sadly, I can't say that we thought to visit when we were in the vicinity.
No more service after 2140 for 2200 closedown, although that did not hinder the visit of some children on some Halloween errand. Presumably the children of team members.
On return, found time and occasion to do a trolley, as already noticed at reference 4. Modest number of young people on the market square, maybe freshers from the University of Creation, running around. Fair proportion of them having been chucked out of Wetherspoon's. At least one young lady was visibly the worse for wear, being looked after, I am pleased to be able to stay. I kept clear.
Reasonably clear sky, unusually so for Epsom, with Mars to the left of the near full moon in the southern sky. Both high and bright at 2200.
PS: I wonder now about picking marijuana. Does one pick the tips of young leaves, as if it were tea? Does one pick mature leaves, visiting the same plant day after day, or week after week? Or does one simply drop an entire plant of suitable size & maturity into the shredder, with the bits being dried and packed? Perhaps it all depends on the blend and grade.
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/07/changing-guard.html.
Reference 2: https://www.insideottawavalley.com/news-story/8609618-former-hershey-plant-in-smiths-falls-full-again-expansion-in-the-works/. The source for the snap above.
Reference 3: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/10/train-spotting.html. Our own visit seemingly focussed on train spotting.
Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/trolley-420.html.
Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Parliament_clock.
Reference 6: https://www.terreforti.com/en. Not quite a terroir, but cooperative is entirely reasonable. I probably paid about three times the £7.50 or so you can get the stuff online for. Which is fair enough in a pub. And it served its purpose on the day, which is the main thing.
Spotted on the bank of compost behind the new daffodil bed, part of the operation recorded at reference 1. See particularly the last snap of that post.
A seedling which looks to me like that of a cucumber, or perhaps some other member of that family. Seeds for which might well have found their way there from the kitchen waste bin. Presumably brought on by the mostly mild weather, but I imagine the first frost will take it down. Supposed to come up in the spring.
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/09/compost-bin-first-day.html.
Sunday a week ago was a day for roast chicken with all the trimmings, which in our case includes stuffing which does not get stuffed, rather cooked on the bottom shelf in a pie dish. Can't remember when we last actually stuffed a chicken - or a turkey for that matter, turkeys having been ruled too big for comfort for some years now. Although I do remember the business of sewing up the stuffed fowl and search of the blogs now reveals chicken sewing just eight years ago at reference 1. And judging by the tone of that notice, I dare say there was a bit more after that, maybe with pictures.
Part of the move to pie dish was a hygiene thing, one was more confident that a frozen fowl had been properly cooked when the heat from the outside could get inside, through the vent. Part was one got a lot more stuffing in a pie dish than inside the fowl. And there might have been a transitional period when we did both. But the pie dish has now become traditional in its turn. With the last outing being enlivened by speck from the Alto Adige, as reported at reference 2.
On this occasion, rather than speck, we used dry cured streaky bacon from Manor Green Road, but mosaic cut, in the new way that worked well then. BH reminded me that the official recipe included butter, omitted when I made stuffing as a child, the family having a bit of a down on fat consumption. But somehow, without referring to that recipe, I have taken to adding between one and two tablespoons of rape seed oil to the mix, in addition to the fat from the bacon on top. It seems to improve the result.
Taken with the usual boiled vegetables and one of our remaining bottles of Pierre Précieuse, first encountered at Terroirs, now unvisited since February, as noticed at reference 3. Here's hoping they survive until we feel comfortable eating in their not terribly well ventilated sub-ground dining room. From the same stable as the shell hole stuff mentioned at the end of reference 4 - and once again, started a clear pale yellow and gradually turned cloudy, though not as quickly or as much. Good stuff though. Contemplating buying some more (from the people near Guildford who supply Terroirs).
Dessert bowls out, but no dessert visible. Possibly plum crumble, made with large, pale plums from Spain. Too large I thought to be fit for eating raw, this despite their quite possibly being 'ripe and ready to eat', to use the latest catch phrase turned out by the marketing people at Sainsbury's.
Not much of the stuffing survived the first campaign.
The chicken survived to eat one day cold, one day soup (main) and the last day soup (supplemental). Rather good soup, although I say it myself, involving, inter alia, four ounces of red lentils and four more rashers of the streaky bacon. Better than the soup noticed at reference 5, which used the same bacon, but with the soup ending up a touch salty, what with all the salt supplied by Knorr.
PS: once again, the bacon used in this meal probably cost more than the chicken, certainly more than the chicken used in this meal.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-warning.html.
Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/09/speck_13.html.
Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/02/courtauld-first-campaign.html.
Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/dr-z-part-1.html.
Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-good-afternoon.html.
Further investigations regarding the portrait of St. John in the last post suggest that it really is St. John and it really is the Gospel Book of Abbot Wedricus. Despite the confusion caused by all the variant spellings of the name of the good abbot. Despite the absence of anything about him - in so far as Bing and Google are concerned - apart from the fact that he commissioned this book. Or that it was done on his watch.
And there is, as often seems to be the case, considerable variation between the images on offer, with the left hand panel above being from reference 1 and the right hand panel being from reference 2, probably the same one as was used in the previous post, that is to say, reference 3.
Is the right hand panel a version which has been tidied up by Photoshop or some such? What you would have seen back in the 12th century? Is the left hand panel what you might see now if you made it to the museum in Avesnes-sur-Helpe, which owns the book in question.
Are we going to allow interesting discussions about whether the left hand path or the right hand path is the true path to push all consideration of the image itself out of mind? Has the image itself ceased to be of any interest in its own right, other than as a pawn in the culture wars of the late 20th century?
Reference 1: http://www.all-art.org/Architecture/10-7.htm. Offers the best art history gloss on the matter that I have been able to turn up.
Reference 2: http://artandfaithmatters.blogspot.com/2018/01/deuteronomy-1815-20-art-lectionary.html.
Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-power-of-word.html.
I have often puzzled about how it is that children and young people, with little experience of life, with little grounding, can say novel and true things about life, about stuff which properly belongs to the grown-ups. How on earth do they know? How on earth can they know?
One answer might lie in the words, the facts and the logical apparatus which we teach them.
So we have a whole lot of words, which we denote in what follows by lower case letters: a, b, c and so on. Lion, tiger, pencil, hammer. If we stretch the concept a little, London Bridge or dropping the brick.
We have a whole lot of relations, which we denote by upper case letters: A, B, C and so one. Relations which take a fixed, small number of arguments. So a relation H(a, b, c, d) might be true or false. So it might be true or false that H(a=Mary, b=Jane, c=0.33, d=metres), that is to say that Mary is – or is not – taller than Jane by 0.33 metres.
We have a whole lot of facts, that is to say relations which are either true or false. So H(a, b, c, d) is true while K(a, d, h) is false. Normally, we would have lots of facts for every relation. The sort of facts which we might express by the rows of a worksheet in Microsoft Excel.
Then some rules. For example, for all and any x, y, z, if we have A(x, y) and A(y, z) then it follows that A(a, z). This being a rule which says that A is a transitive binary relation. For example, ‘is less than’ is such a relation among numbers. If 5 is less than 7 and 7 is less than 23,678 then 5 is less than 23,678.
The brains of children and young people can then crank the handle and turn out all kinds of interesting propositions – without their having any real-life knowledge of the things which the words stand for at all. Some of these propositions will be new, unexpected – and true.
And it all hangs together to the extent that the words, the relations, the facts and the rules all hang together, amount to a true description of the world. That the grown-ups have handed down a machine which works, which cranks out the right answers when you power it up.
Then as we grow up, we are sometimes surprised to learn that something we have learned in this bookish way is actually true. Or, more complicated, we learn that something we have learned in this bookish way is not always true. That the rules we were taught when we were small need to be changed a bit, to be qualified. Or perhaps to allow a few exceptions.
Another angle is that by using their language, we learn to see the world in the way that our elders and betters see it. To that extent, our behaviour is conditioned by that language. To some extent, we mould ourselves and the world at large in their image. To the extent that we are able and energetic, able to build new language, we mould ourselves and the world at large in our own image.
The fact that all this works says something important, something deep, about the world in which we live. Perhaps most important, that the stuff on our Earth is organised into different kinds. The Earth is not just a great old muddle; a lot of it has been organised into things, things which we can give names, assign words to. Things like mountains, river, antelopes and pangolins. Human beings even. Actions like kicking the dog or praising the child. Things about which we can say things. Things for which there are facts and rules.
All this despite the second law of thermodynamics: organisation really does emerge from the void, from the welter and waste. For which see references 1 and 2. Or as St. John is said to have told us, in the beginning there was the word. For which see references 3 and 4.
Perhaps it is time to pop down to the Blenheim to take something for my digestion.
PS: I think the image above is of St. John and is taken from the 12th century Gospel Book of Abbot Wedricus. But, so far at least, this has not been properly corroborated, even to the extent of finding out who Abbot Wedricus was. But the book might be the property of the Societé Archéologique et Historique, Avesnes-sur-Helpe, France.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-story-about-tree.html. For earlier notice of welter and waste.
Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics.
Reference 3: The gospel according to St. John – St. John – 100CE or so.
Reference 4: http://biblescripture.net/John.html.
I dreamed this morning about getting a piece of beef top rib from a version of the butcher that I used to use at Cheam, one use of which is noticed at reference 1. Pineger's. A version, in that the shop now seemed to have a downstairs for ordinary customers and an upstairs, a bit nearer the cutting action, for special customers.
So I was upstairs while the butcher cut my top rib out of a hind quarter (which I now think is the wrong quarter). He arrived at a large joint in two halves. Large bone on one side, meat on the other. An image perhaps derived from the shin I bought last year from the butcher at Manor Green Road and noticed at reference 3.
I peer closely at the beef, being careful not to actually touch it, to find some smaller flat bones of the sort I was expecting, between the large bone and the meat. He should have made his cut between these smaller bones and the large bone.
He explains that to do that, the whole cutting operation would have to be done in a different way, and proceeds to do this different cutting on the other hind quarter, getting something much more like what I was expecting.
But I get his first attempt, which he puts in a large aluminium tub, rectangular rather than round, which he invites me to carry off to the paying place. This being the coronavirus friendly way of doing things. I ask about the ticket for the meat but he tells me that the paying place will know. Not clear what happens about wrapping it up, but I don't ask about that. I look around and eventually light upon a side table containing a large paying contraption.
There is a young lady counter hand come up from downstairs with another tub for payment, appearing to contain a couple of ready meals rather than meat.
I find that I have forgotten to bring my wallet with me. At which point I wake up.
Reference 1: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2009/02/snowdrops.html.
Reference 2: http://www.fxbuckleybutchers.ie/. Bing didn't turn up anything relevant for top rib, but Google found this Dublin butcher who has heard of it - although the illustration above does not involve any of the bone that I expect. A cut we used to have reasonably often, starting with the butcher that used to operate next to the station at Harringay West in north London, near fifty years ago now.
Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/09/shin.html.
About a fortnight ago, another go at a stew mainly made of onion, tomato and saucisson sec. The latest of a run of maybe four of them. With the third being reported at reference 1. Taken with macaroni, green salad without dressing and a drop of Sancerre. More exactly, Sancerre La Moussière Alphonse Mellot 2018.
We liked the wine, and I am pleased to find today that the Mellots are a real family of vignerons, rather than the brand name of some wine combine. Not that there is anything wrong with combines and blending, a cheap route to a reliable & affordable product, but small and real is more cuddly.
Unusual cork, in that rather than being straight cork, or even reconstituted ground cork, it seemed to have been made from slices stuck together.
There probably would have been dessert, probably even a spot of Calvados, but I forget what it was. Possibly Lincolnshire Poacher taken with Jacob's Cream Crackers, the table water biscuits having been exhausted.
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/food-in-devon-first-day.html.
Reference 2: http://www.mellot.com/presentation/presentation.php?LangueSite=en.
Struck by this picture of polling in Tanzania, presumably taken in the last day or so. They may have their problems there, but coronavirus does not seem to be one of them.
Poking around, I get from June: 'the corona disease has been eliminated thanks to God," Mr Magufuli told worshippers in a church in the capital, Dodoma ... Mr Magufuli has repeatedly said the health crisis has been exaggerated and urged people to attend services in churches and mosques, saying that prayers "can vanquish" the virus'. And from August: 'more than 88 days have passed since Tanzania reported even a single new coronavirus case — far longer than any other African country. Tanzania’s president has declared the scourge “absolutely finished” and encouraged tourists to come back'.
Which all seemed a bit suspicious - until I looked at the map of Africa provided at reference 1, which suggests that much of Africa has indeed got off relatively lightly. For some reason or other which we will no doubt get to know about eventually. Along with Canada, Russia, China, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina.
Tanzania is a large country of around 55m people, maybe two thirds Christian, one third Moslem. It is not as if I pay much attention, but I do not recall reading of serious trouble between the two faiths. Perhaps inter-faith troubles are dwarfed by other kinds of diversity, with Wikipedia reporting more than 100 different languages.
While here in Europe we seem to be getting into trouble again - while most other places seem to be getting out of it. This being the helpful chart provided by the Financial Times. For me, the most helpful single graphic that I have come across. Updated on a weekly basis.
Reference 1: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/.
There is now starting to be some action on the bird feeder, some two weeks since it was put up for the winter. See reference 1.
Sundry tits and robins at it at around 0830 this morning. Also a nuthatch, which counts as a tweet hereabouts. Last reported here in May, at reference 2, although we did get one while we were in Devon.
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/feeder-time.html.
Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/05/hook-road.html.
Greeted this morning by an advertisement in my email-box from Ernst & Young, who invite me to 'start your career with EY: try our new augmented reality experience to find out where your strengths lie'. My knowledge of EY being limited to their being one of the big four accountancy outfits, the people who give clean bills of health in exchange for fat fees to all kinds of dodgy undertakings. I don't think I ever came across EY in the world of work; at least they made no lasting impression.
No idea quite why Google and EY between them think that I am the right person to send this sort of advertisement to. Was it because I signed up to Zoom yesterday in an effort to participate in a meeting next week? Did the age bit of my profile with Google get corrupted somehow?
A quick poke around at reference 1, an expensive looking bit of web-art, turns up lots of striking pictures, but no opportunities for accountants. Lots of jobs on offer for lawyers and IT people; perhaps the combination of Brexit for lawyers and Covid for IT people. Puzzled about the seaside shot above, which looked vaguely familiar. Conferring with BH, we thought looking west, somewhere on the southwest coast. She also explained that it was one person under the umbrella not two, as I had thought. Perhaps with dog. But conferring with Google Images, they tell me that the picture is very EY flavoured (reminding me that EY is the only big outfit to make use of the Treasury model of the economy) - but also that it is of Robin Hood's Bay, up north. Out of iStock, by Getty Images. We have been to this bay, but it was a long time ago, and it seems unlikely that that is why the image seemed familiar. Perhaps it was really all about subconsciously coveting the fine umbrella. In any event, the Google Image people scored this time.
PS: the caption that comes with iStock talks about a couple, so BH perhaps wrong about that one. No score this time.
Reference 1: https://www.ey.com/en_uk.
Reference 2: https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/robin-hoods-bay-in-the-rain-gm493795847-40843858.
In reference 1, an article based on the book at reference 2, I was rather taken aback to read that in the US, in 2013, 45% of mastectomies were performed as what we would call day cases. Otherwise, out-patient or ambulatory. The allegation being first that this was often unpleasantly, not to say dangerously, inappropriate and second that this was a consequence of most health care in the US being delivered for profit, mostly paid for by insurance, rather than as a public service, mostly paid for from general taxation.
I was pointed to a paper coming from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the people at reference 4. From there I quickly got to reference 3, probably not quite the right place, but quite good enough. Statistical Brief #201.
From Table 2 of which (snapped above) I learn that over the period 2005-2013 ambulatory breast cancer surgery has become a much larger proportion of the total, to about one third of all bilateral mastectomies and about one half of all unilateral mastectomies.
Now while it may well be true that there is a lot to be said for ambulatory surgery and that it can now be used for many more procedures than used to be the case, these proportions do seem high to this layman.
The story here in the UK, as explained at reference 5, seems to be that patients usually go home the following day, to recover for some weeks at home. But some go home the same day and some might stay in hospital for a week.
I shall try to find out more.
Reference 1: Cancer under capitalism - Nellie Hermann, NYRB - November 5, 2020.
Reference 2: The undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care - Anne Boyer - 2019
Reference 3: Trends in Bilateral and Unilateral Mastectomies in Hospital Inpatient and Ambulatory Settings, 2005-2013 - Claudia A. Steiner, Audrey J. Weiss, Marguerite L. Barrett, Kathryn R. Fingar, P. Hannah Davis - 2016.
Reference 4: https://hcup-us.ahrq.gov/.
Reference 5: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/mastectomy/.
I have just taken a look at a paper on its way to peer review which suggests that the antibodies resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infections do not stick around for as long as one might have hoped. Just one bit of evidence in what appears to be a rather complicated picture.
No doubt when this paper emerges from peer review, something will have been done about the rather ineffective colour coding of Figure 2, particularly in the rather busy left hand panel. More or less illegible on this laptop, even when zoomed. Fortunately, the underlying data is provided in Table 2, at the end of the paper, from which I learn that London is at the top and the Southwest is at the bottom.
Reference 1: Declining prevalence of antibody positivity to SARS-CoV-2: a community study of 365,000 adults - Helen Ward, Graham Cooke, Christina Atchison, Matthew Whitaker, Joshua Elliott, Maya Moshe, Jonathan C Brown, Barney Flower, Anna Daunt, Kylie Ainslie, Deborah Ashby, Christl Donnelly, Steven Riley, Ara Darzi, Wendy Barclay, Paul Elliott - 2020.
Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2. For an explanation of the terminology in use here.
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| The trolley, by gas light |
Another flash in the trolley pan, with trolley 420 collected yesterday evening from the grass bank leading into the railway bridge over West Street. The one which flooded again the other day, after the heavy rain. Something which used to happen regularly in the olden days - until one day, when they did something clever to the drain, since when, as far as I can recall, it has been pretty good. Perhaps it is just a large soakaway drilled into the chalk below which needs to be cleaned out every ten years or so, cleaned out of all the mud, grit and rubbish which washes down into it from West Hill.
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| The location, by day light |
A bit over a month since the last trolley, this one from M&S had been lying on the bank for a few days, but it seemed best to wait until the traffic died down in the evening before recovering it. With the post visible in the first of the snaps above being the one decorated with two yellow signs in the second. With this second snap giving a rather misleading impression of the distances involved, with camera to bridge appearing a lot further than it really is. Perhaps because, to the naked eye, the bridge would seem much larger than it does here. A cunning trick of our brain's optical arrangements.
A small trolley which was not labelled 'food hall' in the usual way, but which was labelled 'M&S', so left outside their front door, hopefully to be returned to its stack when they open in the morning. Having been out in the rain and untouched (except by me) for a couple of days, it should not need sterilising or hosing down with disinfectant. Not that they are going to know that.
Another possibility is that one of the parties of happy young people who were loitering about the market square will have thought it a good jape to take it for another walk.
But a score for me, nonetheless. And to think that six months ago I was pushing to make the half millennium by my birthday, and failing that, by advent.
PS: note that the recent shift to UTC (formerly GMT) from summer time, has shifted the days kept by Blogger. This post would have scored to last thing Tuesday, not first thing Wednesday, in summer time.
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/09/trolley-419.html.
These two words, cropped up in some HTML which I did not want to have to be looking at this morning, as noticed in the previous two posts, continue to intrigue me. How did they get there? Should I be concerned?
So I ask Google about the second one to get a paltry 17 hits. It is clearly a very special word, even though the 'ms' bit might stand for 'Microsoft'. Most of the hits seem to be about detecting people who are using a machine translator on your lovingly crafted web page and making a bit of a mess of it. But one of them seemed to be some reasonably hard core material about web security, from which the snap above is taken. Too hard core for me, anyway.
Presumably a huge growth industry for those legally fascinated by the whole business of breaking into other peoples' computer systems. That is to say gamekeepers rather than poachers.
I associated to an excellent talk I once went to about the Internet at which the knowledgeable talker explained that security was far from the minds of the people who designed it. They just wanted to get stuff done. And by the time that they realised that there were lots of bad people out there, all kinds of weaknesses had been concreted in. Far too late to take them out.
And if I have trouble sleeping tonight, perhaps I shall puzzle out who the git Taylor is.
PS: the next day: regarding reference 3, Wikipedia now tells me that the proportion of blacks in the US as a whole is around 15%, that in Missouri rather lower at around 12%. There are 30 people in the snap below. And the web site generally does not look too clever from a diversity point of view.
Reference 1: https://taylor.git-pages.mst.edu/. The home of the snap above.
Reference 2: https://git.mst.edu/users/sign_in. Something to do with Missouri? The place where they have Missouri Breaks?
Reference 3: https://www.mst.edu/. What does colour of clothes code for? Why are the faces all so very white? Do our universities do police departments? And before one starts frothing, the Archbishop of Canterbury has one. As noticed at reference 4. And I think the Dean of Westminster comes close.
Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/03/canterbury-close.html.
Getting on for a fortnight ago now, what may turn out to our last outdoor lunch of the Blen of the season. Weather not very good that day and we thought about risking ASK indoors in town - once a bank and after that a public house called 'The Old Bank' we used to use early evening before dining out. We were a good deal older than most of the other clients and rather out of place, but it was a good jumping off place for other things nonetheless. But in the end we donned coats, fetched out our umbrellas and headed off to the Blenheim.
The only noteworthy event on the way being chatting with a neighbour while her dog munched at the grass verge. It seemed to be getting through quite a bit of the stuff. But then I think I have read that foxes eat quite a bit too. Nonetheless, I can't recall when I last actually saw such a thing.
The lady at the Blenheim remarked on our absence for a couple of weeks and then saved our thinking about anything by assuming that we would have what we usually had. In fact, always had. Fish and chips for her, burger and chips for him. Plus a spot of something warming - needed on this occasion.
It all turned up. The number of chips was substantially increased and the amount of mayo in the coleslaw was substantially decreased. Both changes for the better.
But the weather got more threatening, with the new-to-us cutlery bucket set off by the dark clouds behind. A bucket which I might have scored as a fake.
Umbrella deployed a few moments later, soon to be joined by a larger umbrella brought out by the concerned barman. We thought about taking dessert indoors, in the event sticking it out. The rain soon passed.
Various unusual lorries sailed past. Unusual in the sense that they were both large and not delivering to the shops adjacent. What were they doing in Manor Green Road. Another case of satellite navigation gone astray? Taking maps at face value?
Passed a fine example of a brick from the Dorking Brick Company on the way home. Better than anything in my collection. Which, as it happened I added to from the skip in the road on the way home. The skip previously noticed at reference 2.
When will we next be there? Will we brave the interior?
PS: I am pleased to say that the msthash and msttexthash business noticed in the last post (reference 3) does not seem to have infested this one. Maybe something from clever from Microsoft or Google has spotted it and neutralised it.
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/09/black-sheet.html. Getting on for a month ago now.
Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-brick-scene.html.
Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/end-of-days.html.
Our last day in Devon was a quiet day, getting ourselves ready for what, for me anyway, is a long drive. A drive which the people above compute to be 190 miles, three and a half hours worth - on which I might agree the miles but not the hours. We allow about six, including breaks. The rather distasteful ear wax removal advertisement right, perhaps arriving on my laptop because Google knows more than I might suspect about my age and condition, has been cropped.
Up onto the road across the bottom of Holne Moor for a short walk there, to catch the beginning of what they call the autumn drifting. Whereby the country people roundabout drive the ponies free-ranging on the moor into a more or less enclosed space for counting or sorting or something. We never did quite get to the bottom of what was going on, apart from it being a social occasion.
Some of these people were on foot. At least one that we saw was on a horse. Some of the young men were charging about on quad bikes. Hefty country ladies in proper country clothes nattered and chattered. We did not, on this occasion at least, see any of the ponies.
We felt sure that this rather large & loud sign about motorhomes had arrived in the course of our stay, perhaps towards the end of it. An up to date version of the sign noticed towards the end of reference 1. Plus some out of season primroses.
Back for lunch of baked white pudding (second time around, this time maybe groats). Served with boiled vegetables as is proper. While later in the day, after packing and another short walk, we finished off the Dundee cake.
It seems that in the course of the week I had managed rather less than 500g of Lincolnshire Poacher, brought down from town. Perhaps a little less than I would usually eat in a week at home.
Something of the view from where we parked our car when not in use. Looking roughly east. Quite bright considering that it was about 1800, not long before dusk.
PS: the Blogger software seems to have got into a muddle today. Every couple of minutes or so I have to nip into HTML view from Compose view and remove a bit of trailing code which seems to be causing trouble, things called msthash and msttexthash, which I don't recall seeing before. Google does seem to know about these things, but not in a way which makes any sense, is any good to me. Not something that I suppose the usually helpful tech experts at BT are going to be able to help with either.
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/food-in-devon-second-day.html.
The morning after the dream about washers noticed at reference 3, we thought it time to take another look at Buckfast Abbey. Which turned out to be more open than I had thought likely after perusal of their web site on my telephone.
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| Cherry |
The canteen was more or less open, slightly modified. On the first visit, I took tea and something described on the menu as a Cherry Bakewell. Which turned out to be a flapjack with some white icing on top. No pretence at all about their being cooked on the premises. And closer inspection reveals that they were actually made in Honiton, on the other side of Exeter. And this afternoon that these very flapjacks feature in a very noisy video on the home page of reference 4. On the second visit, I took bacon and bean soup, which might well have been made on the premises. But I did not like it very much: thin, red and with too much salt. Followed by a couple of pies, adequate but not good. And I have been reminded that taking a chicken pie after a beef pie does not work very well. There seems to be some clash of flavours on the palette. A case of needs must, their having run out of beef. So not up to their usual standard.
Onto to the Abbey, where I managed to register on some kind of track & trace enabled tablet set up at the entrance.
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| Some effective detailing |
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| Some poor detailing |
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| Good detailing |
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| Weakening faith? |
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| A station of the Cross |
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| More detailing |
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| Barbarossaleuchter |
PS: as it has turned out, the last couple of weeks have not turned up any more washers. Clearly going off the boil.
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/araucaria.html. In the margins of the present visit.
Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/02/courtauld-second-campaign.html. Finding out about the original Barbarossaleuchter, the one in Aachen.
Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/washers.html.
Reference 4: https://www.devonvalebakery.com/.
Reference 5a: https://www.buckfast.org.uk/. The home of the well-known tonic wine, well known at least on the streets of Glasgow. Sadly, I did not like the stuff at all the last time that I tried it, so we still have a small bottle to dish out as a Christmas present at some point.
Reference 5b: https://www.buckfast.org.uk/vocations. A bit of the site I had not come across before today.
Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/03/cups-and-crosses.html.
On return from Devon, given the second wave of the plague, we thought it best to stock up on bread flour and yeast. Leavening of wholemeal from Waitrose hopefully not a problem. Power, water and salt hopefully not a problem.
So another 16kg bag of English (?) flour from Wright's of Ponders End and another 500g packet of Italian yeast from Charles Saunders Ltd via Amazon. Yeast snapped darkly above. Maybe the telephone couldn't handle the window.
So we should be good for at least three months.
PS: batch 583 left the oven at about 1450 this afternoon without incident or accident.
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/04/batch-556.html. Notice of the last yeast.
Reference 2: http://www.charles-saunders.com/. Not a particularly friendly web site, so I will probably stick with Amazon. Just clicking on repeat order...
Another titbit from the FT table, this time an operator called Ambrey, which seems to specialise in the muscular end of marine insurance. People who sport a very arty web site with lots of entertaining pictures. Including a very youthful looking senior management team. One assumes that it is no coincidence that their HQ is in Herefordshire rather than in the City.
Maybe one day we will get to visit the cathedral there, proud possessor of one of the oldest surviving naves in the land. Up there with Durham, up and to the right. On the other hand, I don't think that the Bishop of Hereford is in the same league as the Bishop of Durham at all: I suppose that endowments count for more than age in that department - but Wikipedia is, for once, unhelpful. Further digging indicated.
With apologies to the people who sold me my trusty Trek road bike. At least I thought they had, but reference 2 suggests that they make bikes rather than sell them. Whoever they were, their shop was in South Croydon, probably on the Brighton Road, not far from Waddon railway station. I remember the cycle back to Epsom being a bit of an effort.
Reference 1: https://ambrey.com/.
Reference 2: https://www.specialized.com/gb/en.
While reading the article in the FT mentioned at the end of reference 4, I thought to ask Google maps about a place called Mendocino in California, a small coastal town a couple of hundred kilometres north of San Francisco. Once a lumber town for this last.
Which turned up these buildings on Main Street. Which I thought fair to score as fakes on account of their brass.
Here in Epsom, suburban garages often sport little parapets in front to cover up the corrugated asbestos (or whatever) behind and buildings in town often sport little parapets to cover up the fact that there are pitched roofs behind. Something, it seems, that one was once ashamed of, despite pitched roofs being much better at keeping the weather out - which is, after all, the point of a roof in our climate - than flat ones. Nevertheless, deceptions rarely carried through with the brass of these two.
Perhaps I need a more careful look around Bognor Regis before passing judgement. But visits there presently on the back burner. Hopefully the lobster spot will still be there when we get back. For which see references 3 and 4.
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/fake-113.html.
Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/no-score.html.
Reference 3: https://www.facebook.com/The-Lobster-Pot-196142523732838/.
Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/09/elmer-one.html.
Reference 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=E4QSl5u3ofM. For Mendocino.
Instead of a spin around Ruxley Lane or Jubilee Way, yesterday's constitutional took the form of a walk home from Stoneleigh.
The first part of the no-score was coming across what I thought were some coastal redwoods in the margins of Bourne Hall, redwoods which complemented the Wellingtonias already scored there, for example at reference 1, but which did not themselves score.
The second part was seeing a car with number plate starting 'N24' on the Bourne Hall rotatory, just days after scoring No.24 at reference 2, having had to wait weeks after scoring No.23. Just like waiting for late night buses; they always seem to come in twos.
Then into Longmead Road where I noticed a fine conifer in Gibraltar Crescent, a Crescent laid out with a decent amount of grass and verge. Possibly in the 1950's. A fine conifer, but a pine tree and certainly not a Wellingtonia. So no score here.
Picked up a nearly new pink bobble hat for a young girl from the verge. Which had made its way there from somewhere in China.
Forgot to check whether the non-scoring young Wellingtonia, also in the verge, were all present and correct. The ones noticed, for example, in the second half of reference 3.
Perhaps because I had been wondering about reading about our fat leader's sidekick trying to work out what is going wrong with our track & trace system. From where I associated to parachuting big cheeses into failing computer systems to try and find out what is wrong with them. A parachuting in which is almost always a massive nuisance and disturbance for those trying to build or run said computer systems, but which sometimes gets results. I remember one occasion when the (very clever & able) big cheese called for a mountain of paper, worked his way through it and worked out that a key index was missing from a key database. Problem solved and all the nuisance and disturbance was worth it. But I remember rather more occasions when it was not. The big cheese thrashed about for a few days, making a considerable nuisance of himself, then retired without having achieved anything - but at least admitting defeat and leaving the regular chaps to get on with it, to work their weary way through all the error logs. There might be a mess, but it was their mess and they, as it turned out, were the people best placed to sort it out. No doubt many lectures in MBA courses are given over to the best way to manage this sort of thing.
Home to be rewarded by a still warm bread pudding, made with fresh white bread rather than stale brown bread, for dessert at lunch. Something which when we needed the calories more we had quite regularly, but now more for using up odd stumps of brown bread. Not the same at all.
PS: and just after this was posted, I discovered another tree nut in the Financial Times. Reference 4 clearly something to be read over breakfast. And I can lament the fact that the one time I was within striking distance of Muir Woods (a National Monument near San Francisco), I failed to make it - the result of attempting to walk it, rather than take a bus or pay for a taxi.
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/06/wellingtonias-8-9-and-10.html.
Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-good-afternoon.html.
Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/07/identification-of-wellingtonia-closed.html.
Reference 4: Wish I were there: the glory of California’s redwoods: One of the great wonders of the natural world is still there to inspire us - Hugh Carnegy/Financial Times - 2020.
More or less by chance we came across this bit of critical national infrastructure in the course of our visit to the Sea Trout Inn at Staverton, across the River Dart from Dartington, near Totnes, the place with the long hairs, beans and tofu. Otherwise the electricity sub-station at Bumpton Cross. I forget what drew our attention to it.
Presumably has the same place in the power transmission scheme of things as the sub-station at Malden Rushett, near us, one of a ring of such things, more or less around the M25.
A reasonably discrete place which one could easily miss if one was not looking out for it.
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| Just about visible through the trees |
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| By the front gate |
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| Base of pylon previous |
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| Presumably quite a small power station in the scheme of things |
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| More bees on ivy in the pub car park |
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| Maybe wasps |
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| The cutlery barrel |
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| The bridge at Staverton |
