A whole new world

Yesterday morning, I wanted a refresher on rigid transformations in the plane, so turned to Bing or Google, I forgot now which.

This led me to reference 1, which did indeed refresh. Once again, I now know something about translations, rotations and reflections. From Topic 1, Module 1, Lesson 6: Every Which Way. With all these modules and so forth listed in something close to reverse order; all very confusing. And a filmic reference which goes with the name of their parent, as snapped above and noticed below.

From there to reference 2, the web site of the author, a mathematics teacher at the La Mesa Junior High School, to be found at reference 3.

With this school being the member of the William S. Hart family of schools, to be found at reference 4. A family which appears to be into secondary education, and a bigger operation than most of our county level local education authorities. William S. Hart was a big player in the days of silent film.

While reference 5 includes the mathematics syllabus which guides the likes of La Mesa Junior High.

So it might be the land of Trump, but they still have a very serious looking public education operation. I wonder if our own schools operate such flashy web sites and provide such flashy online resources?

Reference 1: http://mrpunpanichgulmath.weebly.com/math-8-notes.html. 

Reference 2: http://mrpunpanichgulmath.weebly.com/. 

Reference 3: https://www.lamesajuniorhigh.org/. La Mesa Junior High School in a place called Santa Clarita, a little to the north of Los Angeles proper. Sandwiched between some serious looking green space, the sort of spaces we would call National Parks.

Reference 4: https://www.hartdistrict.org/. William S. Hart Union High School District. Which appears to include all the secondary schools in Santa Clarita and its suburbs.

Reference 5: https://www.cde.ca.gov/re/cc/mathresources.asp. The big government referees. People Trump would perhaps have tried to get rid of, had he secured a second term.

Misleading tastes

Of the various cheeses that I eat, Lincolnshire Poacher from Neal's Yard Dairy accounts for the vast majority, snapped above from the dairy web site.

Presently I am buying rather more than a kilo every two or three weeks, and it seems to stand in the refrigerator for that time quite satisfactorily. But the longer it is there, the darker band visible near the rind in the snap above, gets darker and wider.

And chewing on a bit of dark with brown bread yesterday afternoon, I got all the sensations - both texture and flavour - of the Comté Grande Réserve which I also buy from time to time from the people at reference 1. Most recently by mail order, but I have used their barrow in Borough Market in the past. Perhaps on the way to the Barrow Boy & Banker.

And something of the same sensations at breakfast this morning, although the echo of the French cheese was fainter this second time around.

Perhaps the perception of the texture and taste of cheese is as labile as that of colour, noticed at reference 2.

PS: for the avoidance of doubt, I should add that while we get most of our cheese from Borough and some of our wine from Guildford, we get most of our wine (Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand) and most of our Calvados from Majestic Wine around the corner in East Street and our serious meat from Manor Green Road. Majestic, in part because their wine comes with screw tops, more suitable than wax overcoated corks, for the occasional social drinker. See reference 5.

Reference 1: Home (thefrenchcomte.co.uk).

Reference 2: psmv4: Jigsaw 11, Series 3, Notice C.

Reference 3: Majestic Wine - Buy Wine & Champagne Online. The wine merchant.

Reference 4: Master Butchers Epsom | Local Family Butcher | Fresh Produce Delivered. The meat merchant.

Reference 5: psmv4: From Kimmeridge.

Jigsaw 11, Series 3, Notice C

This being the third notice of festive jigsaw action, the second being at reference 1. 

I offer a diagram of the jigsaw, rather than the jigsaw itself, in order to preserve the privacy of those concerned, a diagram which is intended to suggest the main lines of action. A brown varnished floor, with some image processing artefact (rather than a Powerpoint artefact) suggesting the planks, at least on the laptop on which I type. A brown cardboard box, open and slightly damaged. Two persons sitting in the box, the right hand person being slightly larger than the left hand person. Stuff - animal, vegetable and mineral - visible between.

The fourth day opened with a strong spurt first thing in the morning, jigsaws having re-entered their addictive phase. This left the planks and the box complete, the two heads near complete and the stuff in-between coming on. Back from the daily spin around Jubilee Way and a further spurt saw it finished.

With the grey area of darkness just inside most of the box functioning in the way of the sky in a regular jigsaw. Completed, once I was down to between fifty and a hundred pieces, by means of the fourth of the four modes of operation listed at reference 1. Much quicker than it might look on the page. Very quick once I was down to a few long thin strips of clear water, each one piece wide.

And along way, quite a few surprises of the colour variety. A piece which was entirely wrong in the heap, fitted and which looked entirely right when in position. Quite a few of the surprises arising from the fair hair, which seemed to come, in the heap, in all kinds of strange colours.

Leaving me with a small heap of the distinctive fine dust you get from a new jigsaw. Debris, one supposes, from the cutting of the pieces and their subsequent separation. I wonder now how, in a factory, this last is done.

An entirely satisfactory reminder of my lapsed passion for jigsaws, some notice of which is to be found at reference 2.

The only catch was that around ten pieces (of the 500) from the top right hand corner were indeed missing, a clump of seven and a clump of three. The fact that we had two clumps in the corner suggested something going wrong in the factory, rather than in the home, although we did take a careful look. Something going wrong which would have been picked up by weighing the bagged jigsaw, so they clearly didn't bother with that.

Negotiations with the vendor will be opened shortly.

Reference 1: psmv4: Jigsaw 11, Series 3, Notice B.

Reference 2: psmv2: Search results for jigsaw series.

Part III

Following the spot of exercise reported at reference 1, moved onto the festivities of the day proper. Which, given that we have downsized from turkey to chicken, started out as very much a replay of the meal noticed at reference 2. With one difference being that the stuffing was not cooked as much, perhaps not quite cooked enough for my taste, but it went down fast enough, just the same. And perhaps better cold than the more cooked version. Another being that the wine from Slovenia was preceded by a wine from France, one of the ones from the wine tasting last mentioned at reference 3.

A 2018 Chassange-Montrachet from Patrick Miolane, which went down very well. It was a pity that we didn't have two of them, because the wine from Slovenia did not follow on so well. Took a while for the palette to change gear. Avoiding such problems is, I suppose, one of the advantages of have a proper wine waiter.

According to gmaps he operates without fanfare from the premises snapped above, right on the edge of the village of St. Aubin. There are what appear to be vines behind. With a modest web site to go with it to be found at reference 4. 

Unusually for such an occasion, we did less than half the chicken.

In the interval, while BH was catching up on the Queen, I turned the pages of my collection of annunciations from Phaidon, rather as I had in the margins of the summer meal noticed at reference 5. Apart from wondering why such a high proportion of the virgins were wearing blue cloaks over red dresses, the annunciation which caught my eye was one by Paris Bordone, painted in the late sixteenth century, presently in the municipal museum at Caen. A picture in which the painter seemed much more interested in architecture than in annunciations. To the point where you had to look carefully to find the angel Gabriel at all. Plus I did not think the virgin very appealing.

Christmas candelabra, lately of Montreal

Handcrafted by BH

Slovenia visible in the background

After the interval, Christmas Pudding, taken with both white sauce (syllabub) and yellow sauce (sugar, butter and custard. A childhood favourite). Sauces spot on this year.

Fortnum's treading a fine line between fashion chocolates and Black Magic. Smoked salt indeed. But very nicely presented and generally very good. As of noon today, down to three left.

The next day, chicken was taken cold with a fry-up of left over vegetable. That is to say, rice, cabbage and mashed potato, livened up with a little onion and butter. Demise of stuffing.

The day after that, getting a bit low, so augmented with gluten free chipolatas. Usually bought for children who prefer minced pork to fowl. Taken with regular vegetables. Demise of yellow sauce.

And last but not least, for boiled down for soup on Tuesday. To which I added all kinds of stuff, not least lentils, bacon, crinkly cabbage and noodles. Demise of white sauce and Christmas Pudding. Demise of Christmas candles, that is to say, not those snapped above.

PS: checking up on turkeys, Wikipedia tells me that they come from Central America, but were brought to Europe by the Spaniards and then some, at least, were sent back from England to their north American colonies, possibly as early as the late sixteenth century. Not clear where the ones running wild in woods near Ottawa come from.

Reference 1: psmv4: Part II.

Reference 2: psmv4: More stuffing.

Reference 3: psmv4: From Kimmeridge.

Reference 4: http://www.miolane-vins.fr. The Microsoft default paste gets rather carried away here and so reverted to raw text.

Reference 5: psmv4: Meat from New Zealand.

Jigsaw 11, Series 3, Notice B

Close of business, Tuesday, 29th December.

The jigsaw is now more than half complete. Aim to complete it tomorrow.

Unusually, the mode of completion has been more from the outside in, rather out than from well defined features in the middle.

Linear features, captured from patterns which can be seen on individual pieces, now more or less complete. Luckily, there are quite a lot of these.

The two isolated blobs of interior have, in the closing minutes of the day, been linked to the shore.

The various modes of operation are now coming back into mind. First, identifiable patterns on individual pieces. Second, colour matching. I had forgotten how important this one is. And how relative colour is - sometimes looking very different in the heap than it does in position. Third, distinctive or distinctly positioned holes or prongs. Fourth, sorting by piece shape and trying each in the target position in turn. This last is effective but tedious; very much a last resort.

Good, natural light is helpful. So the light in the east facing front room is good in the morning, the back extension where the jigsaw is gets better late morning, early afternoon. So we have to make do with not very good electric light a lot of the time.

The subconscious seems to do a lot of the work. It does most of the selection of target positions. One then looks at the target position, tries to fix the search key in mind, then scans around the loose pieces, very roughly sorted. Then look back at the target to refresh the search key. Then, from time to time, the right piece just comes to hand. If nothing doing, after a while go for a new target position.

Sometimes one finds pieces without having a target position in mind. One sees a piece and the brain just knows where it goes. Generally when one has been working on a puzzle for a while.

Note that, ideally, each target position is defined by at least two other pieces, in which case error is very unlikely. Definition by one other piece, sometimes necessary, particularly when pushing out linear features, is much more risky. Luckily, no mistakes so far - mistakes being a pain to unpick.

Note that this is a regular puzzle with four pieces meeting at every interior corner. Puzzles which are irregular in this sense are both unusual and much harder.

The bad news is that the top right hand corner is still missing. Maybe the whole corner fell off during the packing process. Given that this is a one-off puzzle, with the buyer supplying the image, maybe quality control is not as strong as it would be a for a series.

Reference 1: psmv4: Jigsaw 11, Series 3, Notice A.

Series 3, Episode IX

Back at the beginning of the month, I noticed at reference 1 the casting of a picnic table on the edge of the deep dark wood. A place where foxes are known to play when they think that no-one is looking. Probably other animals too, possibly even hedgehogs, although it is a long time since one has been seen, here or anywhere else.

This morning, Polly was getting a bit fed up with being confined indoors and decided that the way forward was an al-fresco porridge picnic on the new table. Grandma was out somewhere and Grandpa was fiddling about in his study - probably reading a detective novel - and so the way was clear.

First of all she pinched some of Grandpa's porridge (which happened to be on the cooker, waiting for him to get around to it) and put it into an egg cup, not so much that Pedro and Yuri would have trouble getting it down the garden. Sprinkled a little soft brown sugar on top. She then thought that it would be a good idea to invite the trolls, but she had forgotten that trolls are rather likely to be naughty first thing in the morning and that unlike with people, girl trolls are much more likely to be naughty than boy trolls. So the upshot was that Jill-the-Troll was not allowed to come at all and Jack-the-Troll was only allowed to come as an observer. He was not to be allowed inside the magic circle and he was certainly not going to get any porridge.

Grandpa had done quite a good job on building the magic circle, but he had not done a very good job of clearing up, leaving a large dead leaf in the middle, just to the left of the egg cup in the snap above. Polly is gazing at it crossly, wondering who she is going to task with moving it. Pedro and Yuri had worked hard to get the porridge in place and it seemed a bit mean to ask them to do anything else - so her thoughts went over to Jack-the-Troll. Perhaps if he was to get rid of the leaf, he would be allowed to join in after all?

Which is about how far how things had got when Grandpa got out the telephoto lens for his telephone.

Reference 1: psmv4: Series 3, Episode VIII.

Reference 2: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie - 1926. Claimed by one Dr. O. Tearle of Loughborough University to be one of the best ever, and quite possibly the detective novel in question.

Group search key: wwwy. 

Ernst

My eye lighted upon Ernst Toller’s memoir of reference 1 the other day and having idly turned a few pages, I thought I would read it again. A book first noticed near ten years ago at reference 2. And, oddly enough, once the property of someone or something in Pixham, near Dorking, which we visited last year and noticed at reference 3. The pencil inscription in the front suggesting that the someone or something was ELR and that the book was in habit of being loaned out. Google offers Epsom and Leatherhead Railway, Employment Land Review and the Enlightened Lamp Recycling company, but none of these seem to quite fit the bill. Bing offers nothing at all.

A decently but not lavishly produced book from Bodley Head, properly bound in a dozen or so signatures and printed on the sort of paper that has horizontal stripes from the mould it was made in. Published during the closing years of Bodley Head as an independent publisher, then going then through various hands and winding up somewhere inside Random House. Complete with advertisements for English editions of some of Toller’s plays. Complete with a motif on the spine featuring the head of the Bodley for whom the Bodleian Library from the Morse and Lewis television dramas was named: a motif which I must have come across before but had completely forgotten about.

As suggested by the title, this is the story of someone who started out as an ordinary sort of German, swept into the war along with so many of the young men of his generation. But then radicalised by that war, ending up in the Bavarian Soviet Republic at the war’s end. One spell in prison before the Republic, a longer spell in prison after. With the present book being published in Germany to coincide with the burning of some of his other books by the Nazis, in the early 1930’s.

An ordinary sort of German from the Prussian middle classes from the borderlands between Germany and Poland. An ordinary sort of German who also happened to be a Jew and a writer, this last appearing at an early age, with Toller learning early that adding plenty of spice & colour to more or less trivial items of local news was good for sales. He didn’t get caught out very often. He also wrote poetry and plays and on the evidence of this easy-read book was something of a ladies’ man.

I learn that the short lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, in which Toller took a leading role, was an amateurish mess. Not least because the progressive forces seemed to be more interested in fighting with each other than with the forces of reaction. A lesson they failed to learn when they subsequently allowed the rise of Hitler. It was also a lesson on how a revolution can unleash a great deal of casual, brutal violence - while not achieving its objectives. I am reminded of similar material in Dr. Zhivago, noticed at reference 5 and awaiting final notice.

As well as being reminded of Pasternak, I was also reminded of Simenon, of his book about a young thug at reference 4, a lot of which is set in a prison. To the extent that I wondered whether Simenon read the present book before he wrote his, shortly after the second war, also awaiting final notice. With Simenon, for example, using the same device of the prisoner fantasising about an inaccessible girl, seen at a window.

A few bits and pieces follow.

Toller, like many Jews of his generation was a German patriot, perhaps to the point of being more Catholic than the Pope, as the saying goes. So as a child, he was happy enough to join in German abuse of local Poles. I am reminded of English abuse of the Irish, still going strong in the Customs’ sheds of Liverpool, I have been reliably informed, in the 1960’s. Not to mention the front windows of the keepers of boarding houses. While he, in turn, was abused for being Jewish.

Some evidence of tension between the Catholic Germans of the south and the upstart Prussian, Protestant Germans of the north.

Plenty of parallels with ‘The Good Soldier Švejk’, written in the same part of the world, about ten years previously. Some evidence of the tension between temporary officers and real officers, with the former apt to be officiously unpleasant. Some evidence of older, rear echelon men retaining the patriotic enthusiasms of the young, front line men, long after these last knew better.

The prisons might have been rough places, but not so rough that he was not allowed lefty books in his first prison and play writing in his second. Plays which were performed while he was still inside. There was also proper medical attention, with visits both to the hospital and to the dentist being recorded. Both off-site. There were also some very Švejk-like doctors, more intent on rooting out malingerers and lefties than on medical matters.

I mentioned the bureaucrats rolling on, events in the outside world notwithstanding, at reference 2. In which connection, on page 175, we are told of the officers of the old Imperial army supplying maps to the general staff of the new Revolutionary army. At about the time that Toller learns that revolutionary zeal is not enough: a Revolutionary army needs order and discipline just as the Imperial army did before it. A lesson which the Russians were learning at about the same time, and which they had to learn again at the start of the second war.

And, lastly, I have been reminded that Dachau, later infamous, was a small town near Munich. But big enough to have been home to a first war munitions factory and big enough for the Schloss Dachau of reference 7, postcarded above. Oddly, the Street View vans do not seem to have visited, although they have certainly been to Munich.

References

Reference 1: I was a German – Ernst Toller – 1934.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2011/11/half-day-in-good-ole-epsom.html. 

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/10/heritage-day-two.html. 

Reference 4: La Neige était Sale - Simenon - 1948.

Reference 5 : https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/11/dr-z-part-3-clerks.html. 

Reference 6: The Good Soldier Švejk -  Jaroslav Hašek – 1923.

Reference 7: https://www.schlossdachau.com/. 

Arena Drainage

Around Jubilee Way this morning, the first time for a few days now, what with one thing and another. Very quiet in Epsom. Roads generally very quiet. No cyclists, other than myself, Lycra'd or otherwise. Modest number of joggers and dog walkers.

From Kimmeridge

We took one of the bottles of wine which spun out of the wine tasting noticed at reference 4 last night, a 2017 Morogues Blanc from Domain Pellé. A member of the Menetou-Salon family, with the oddly named Menetou-Salon being a very old place on the eastern fringes of the Loire wine region, also sporting a very fine castle, a castle with old bits but largely a nineteenth century reconstruction.

The wine took a bit of getting into, the top of the bottle being capped with a hard blue wax, requiring the oyster knife - more usually used for opening oranges - and, appropriately, French - to break through it. The cork underneath was relatively easy to remove. But the wine itself was rather good, a far cry from our usual Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. And not particularly dear either. I shall probably buy some more in due course.

Amusingly, grown on Kimmeridge clay (or something of that sort), a geological formation which I now know to be important to fossil people, to oil people and to wine people, and named for a village near Swanage. Perhaps now that we have left Europe, the French will get around to renaming all their geology with proper French names. See references 2 and 3.

Reference 1a: Domaine Pelle - Une famille et des terroirs (henry-pelle.com).

Reference 1b: Morogues Blanc - Domaine Pelle (henry-pelle.com).

Reference 2: Loire Valley Wine Guide: Central Vineyard Geology: Kimmeridgian Limestone • Winedoctor (thewinedoctor.com). Preview for free, but it looks as if you have to pay if you want more.

Reference 3: Kimmeridge Clay - Wikipedia.

Reference 4: psmv4: Wine buffs.

Jigsaw 11, Series 3, Notice A

This evening I started what seems to have been the first jigsaw for a couple of years, with the last one that I can find being that noticed at reference 1. And the one before that four years before that, noticed at reference 2. With this one being a regular 500 piece puzzle from Ravensburger, rather than some exotic.

So far I have done the border, less four or five piece from the top right hand corner, including the corner piece. Very frustrating that I can't find any of them in the heap of other pieces. One might think that scanning the pieces, spread out flat on a table, they would leap into focus, but they don't. Maybe in the fresh light of morning they will so leap. Would the eyes do better if the pieces were all the wrong side up, the blue side up, rather than the picture side up? Does the picture distract the eyes from hunting down the edges?

Plus a couple of blobs of interior.

While the snap above arises from another favourite festive activity, checking yet another Agatha Christie adaptation with the words of the maestress. Divergences aside, and they were, as is usual with Marple intrusions, considerable, I was struck that a vicar's son in the late 1930's would be nonchalantly described as nonchalantly chucking an empty beer bottle into the heather out on some heath or other. Hadn't they heard of the environment or litter louts back then?

PS 1: I remember visiting the top of a popular, flat-topped mountain up north some where, probably forty or more years ago now, to find a great deal of orange peel strewn about. You might think that as vegetable matter it would all rot down, but it seems that orange peel takes a good long time so to do up in the cool mountain air.

PS 2: Monday morning: the missing edge pieces have failed to leap into focus, despite a good night's sleep. They continue to hide in plain sight. They continue to attract conspiracy theories, a common enough disease at this stage of the proceedings. On the upside, the blobs grow and the sorting continues.

Reference 1: psmv3: Jigsaw 10, Series 3. October, 2018.

Reference 2: psmv2: Jigsaw 9, Series 3. November, 2014.

Heartening news

Amid a lot of bad news, I took some comfort from reading yesterday that the Chinese authorities are not happy about the near monopoly position of some of their IT providers - their versions of Google, Facebook, ebay and so on and so forth - and are doing something about it. Putting their trust busters to work. So to that extent they are just like us, working in something like the same way. No forked tails or cloven hooves to be seen at all.

A new timeline

In the article at reference 1, I was struck by the sentence: 'King Zoser, who ruled more than 4,600 years ago, built his step pyramid there and it remains a landmark rising above the site. It is the earliest pyramid and first stone building known in Egyptian history'.

Struck because I had vaguely thought that the Egyptians got going maybe five to ten thousand years BC and were building whacking great stone edifices from the word go. With 0 BC being near enough 2,000 BP, that is to say before present.

So I turn to Bing, who turns up a graphic from which I drew that above, where dynastic Egypt, which I take to be the sort of Egypt which went in for edifices, started up around 3,000 years BC. And Wikipedia suggests that, in this part of the world, agriculture started maybe 12,000 years BC, with pots, sheep and goats turning up about some 6,000 years later. The start of what some call pre-dynastic Egypt. At which point there were buildings, quite possibly temples, but they were made of wood and mud-brick rather than stone. So it looks like the FT got it about right after all.

I have also learned that the Egyptians were quite keen on pyramids generally. Not just the big three at Giza, mentioned at the top of the green band in the left hand column above.

Curiously, the graphic is attributed to either HonResourcesShop or to Etsy, but the links given don't work. But, in any event, I suppose it to come from some supplier of educational posters. Things to hang up on the walls of classrooms.

Reference 1: Egypt uncovers Pharaonic treasure trove: ‘There is still more to find’: After discovery of sealed coffins, archaeologists say 5,000-year-old site has yet to reveal all its secrets - Heba Saleh/Financial Times - 26th December 2020.

Reference 2: Etsy - Shop for handmade, vintage, custom, and unique gifts for everyone. People who, as it happens, send me advertising emails most days. Emails which are weeded out by Google and popped into what it calls the promotions tab.

Wellingtonia 19

Having noticed the top of this particular Wellingtonia, hiding somewhere in Hookfield, above Stamford Green Pond, in early September and score the last Wellingtonia later that month, I have finally run the Hookfield one to ground and so scored it. And a very fine specimen it was too.

The regular Ordnance Survey story

This version of the Ordnance Survey story might not have street names but at least it has good contrast, unlike gmaps which can be bad in that regard. Stamford Green Pond can be seen in the top left quadrant, just below the brown B280. The entrance to the loop of Hookfield can be seen immediately to the left of the 'B' of B280.

The irregular version

While this version, more like gmaps, gives many of the street names. The area in question today is bounded by the B280 to the north, Stamford Green Pond and Eastdean Avenue to the west, the railway and Wheelers Lane to the South. Roughly an equilateral triangle, with one vertex lodged on the edge of Epsom town centre, the red ring below the red spot of the railway station in the first map.

A wet, more rain looking likely, so opted for walk rather than ride, and for some reason I remembered about the missing Wellingtonia and decided to go and find it. First line of inquiry, Eastdean Avenue, the first turning past the pond as one heads up and over the hill to Epsom.

Wellingtonia all present and correct, but not in Eastdean Avenue. Carried on down the avenue, somehow missing the turning left into Parklawn Avenue, finding myself in Wheelers Lane. Turned left, hoping, not very hopefully, for another turning left back towards the elusive tree. Instead, I found myself on Fair Green, just short of the B280. Back over the hill, spurning Hookfield and got myself into Parklawn Avenue. Still wrong. Retraced my steps over the hill in the other direction, this time turning into Hookfield. And there, on the Western leg of Hookfield we had it.

Wellingtonia 18

And although I say it myself, rather a splendid specimen it was too, although not yet quite as splendid as the trees of Camberley, noticed at reference 3.

Basal splay

With the fine basal splay snapped above. The postman just visible behind (or perhaps a postwoman, he or she not being close enough to be sure) clearly wondering what on earth I was up to.

With small notice, upper left

The bark proper, to which the owner had seen fit to nail a small notice, house name or number as I recall.

There was also a fine bank of carex pendula against the drive of a nearby house. And a lot of mature trees scattered about the estate, although nothing else as big as this one, apart, perhaps, from a eucalytus.

Closed the outing with the detailing noticed at reference 4. Back home I got to wondering why there were so many mature trees. Then we had the mews, converted into pensioner flats, at the top of the hill, and the lodge at the entrance to Hookfield. Both seemingly belonging to some now absent big house on that side of the road, that is to say to the south of the B280. A little time with Cortana, Bing and the National Library of Scotland turned up what I wanted, reproduced below in their proper order, that is to say not in the order in which I found them.

With this high resolution image provided by the local history people at reference 5, people who provided a wealth of other, relevant information. The Hookfield Grove estate as at 1811, at which time the big house looks as if it was on what is now West Hill. With some back history including a turkey dealer found drowned and naked in his pond, in circumstances which were a touch suspicious. But not suspicious enough that he was denied proper burial in the City, where he did his dealing.

The big house, actually an old manor house, sporting an impressive range of outbuildings and yards, including a melon yard. Perhaps the gentry of the time were into competitive melon gardening, rather like the competitive leek growing of the midlands of the first half of the 20th century. And old house pulled down by a purchaser in the middle of the nineteenth century, a chap who had made money by trade in the colonies, who then built a new house, more or less in the middle of the estate. The house whose gardens once included our Wellingtonia and the other mature trees dotted about the estate today.

1866

Turning to old Ordnance Survey from Scotland we have the estate, shortly after thisnew  house was built, with the old house and its appurtenances being yard of some kind, rather than being incorporated into the park. Not much development yet.

1912

But the developers were coming, with a lot of new building around the perimeter of the estate.

1932

Twenty years later, most of what is now Hookfield appears to have been laid out, with building started on the bottom leg, the one running parallel to Wheelers Lane. And assuming that the surveyors had been careful about trees, no doubt one could find the present tree, somewhere just to the west of the house proper.

1938

And six years after that, the estate as it now is was largely built, but leaving the big house in the middle of the Hookfield ring road.

The hotel

With that big house being turned into rather a grand hotel, the Hookfield Park Hotel, at some point, clearly of a kind with the mews and lodge mentioned above. The sort of place which Agatha Christie or Miss. Marple might well have frequented. But not Poirot, unless he was on a case, his tastes being rather grander. The sort of place which was once quite common, now largely vanished. Perhaps a weekend trysting place for the local middle classes, complete with dinner dances on Saturday nights.

Pulled down in the late 1950's and replaced by what is now Lindsay Close. Not yet investigated who Lindsay might have been. The last owner of the hotel?

Maybe I really have got the local history bug, as advertised at the end of the last venture of this sort, at reference 6.

Reference 1: psmv4: Wellingtonia 18.

Reference 2: psmv4: Painshill.

Reference 3: psmv4: Wellingtonia 14.

Reference 4: psmv4: Detailing.

Reference 5: Hookfield – Epsom & Ewell History Explorer (eehe.org.uk).

Reference 6: psmv4: Scotts Farm Road.

Group search key: wgc.

Part II

Just returned from a run around Ruxley Lane. Cold enough to work up some appetite, not so far as to leave me tired.

Festival of Powergen vans around a very modest hole in East Street. Perhaps their standby crews are all young men, happy enough to get triple time for Christmas, particularly given that the pubs are shut. 

One convenience store open, also in East Street, just past Kiln Lane. Aldi at Ruxley Lane shut. 

Solo Powergen van somewhere on Ewell by-pass. 

One other cyclist, maybe half a dozen joggers, including one young lady taking her dog for a run. I had expected more cyclists. Maybe they will come out tomorrow, traditionally a day for sports of all kinds.

No lorries or vans, but quite a lot of cars out, given that we are in more or less zero bubble land, including one otherwise unmarked police car with flashing blue lights. As far as I could make out, the blue lights were built in the regular light assemblies. Certainly not just stuck on the roof with magnets in the way of television crime dramas.

Two trolleys, large size, in two different places. But passed up as too much bother with a cycle, especially given that I was not carrying a key to my smart new cycle lock from Halfords. A lock which I had tried to buy from Fudges in Upper High Street, but was defeated by a talkative customer and the prices of their offerings, more suitable for motor cycles than pedal cycles. A lock which has been used at least twice now, if not today.

On the other hand, the brake blocks which I did buy from them need a little more attention, as the back brakes are binding slightly and need easing off. Funny how much odd noises of that sort irritate. But maybe tomorrow.

Reference 1: FudgesCycleStore Brompton Electric Bikes Repairs.

Reference 2: psmv4: More maintenance.

Part I

That is to say, first installment of festive fare, lunch on Christmas Eve.

Notwithstanding the remarks at reference 2, or even because of them, we went for lamb cutlets on this occasion, the first time we have chewed on them for quite some time, probably years. Taken grilled with mashed potato (hidden) and stewed celery (visible), which worked well.

Don't know what prompted me to do stewed celery, but we did have a not very fresh stick in the vegetable stand in the kitchen and it suddenly came to me that it could be stewed with tomato. What actually happened was that I started a couple of onions in a knob of butter. Then added the celery, put the lid back on, and simmered for a while. Then added some quartered tomatoes and simmered for a short while longer. No added water. It turned out rather well, and despite appearances in the snap, the tomatoes were indeed cooked. With some left over potatoes heated up in the oven and masquerading as roast potatoes. While the spoons were an oversight, not noticed at the time of snapping. While I had forgotten how much spluttering, sputtering and smoke you get when grilling fat meat, with the smell lingering for some hours. One advantage of the outdoor barbecue being that you can share this smell with your neighbours.

Unusually, the magpies took the left over fat rather than the crows, which did not turn out at all.

Later in the day, turned the pages of 'Murder is Easy', noticed at reference 1, turning the pages rather than reading them as I failed to get properly into the thing, unusual as the Christie story usually overcomes her very flat prose. And it turns out that the adaptor had indeed taken considerable liberties with the story as supplied by Christie. Miss. Marple being added to the mix. Rape and abortion being added to the mix. Oddly, dodgy antique dealer, black magic and orgies on the hill being removed from the mix, despite the latter being fully included in the adaptation of 'The Pale Horse'. Superintendent Battle being removed from the mix. The class and servant talk being thinned out a bit, not of great interest to today's audiences, most of whom will have never known servants. The newspaper proprietor being morphed into an aspiring politician. And I dare say there is more, but this adaptation is rapidly fading from memory, getting muddled up with the one that followed a day or so later on the way.

PS 1: a plus of the adaptation was the performance of Shirley Henderson, whom we had liked in the film 'Topsy Turvey'. Whom I now know to be a girl from Fife who has done well since graduating from the Guildford School in the Barbican in 1986.

PS 2: Topsy Turvey was first mentioned about five years ago at reference 3. Searching the archive for which caused Windows Explorer to splutter a bit. Cured by closing it down and restarting it, after which the search which caused the trouble has been completed. An occasional feature of Windows search, in this case of a folder of getting on for 200 Word documents. A fairly static folder, so Windows search does not have the excuse of continual change for losing its indexes.

PS 3: a light frost this morning. More visible on the extension roof than on the back lawn. Not as much as we had expected from yesterday's forecast.

Reference 1: psmv4: Pennyroyal.

Reference 2: psmv4: Fewer pies.

Reference 3: psmv2: The Mikado visits Leatherhead.

Redwings confirmed

The redwings showed up again at 1425 this afternoon, sitting on the blackbird-stripped firethorn outside the study window for long enough to be clocked with the monocular. Not very many of them, maybe half a dozen. Maybe something has gone wrong with their internal calendars this year.

PS: but a bit depressed to read that our fat leader is cranking up to claim a massive victory over Europe in general and the Commission in particular with his Brexit agreement. I wonder if the Europeans are irritated by this sort of thing - or do they just think it as childish as it seems here in Epsom. And just the sort of thing you might expect from a country dumb enough to leave the Union in the first place.

Reference 1: psmv4: Redwings.

The next frontier

Early this year, I noticed the dwindling of the kelp forests of Tasmania at reference 1. More recently there was a piece in the NYRB about seaweed generally and the possibilities of farming the stuff. A piece which ended on a cautious note: do we know enough, can we manage the activity well enough, for it to be safe for us to move to industrial scale seaweed farming?

Then yesterday I noticed an video piece in the FT about seaweed farming, from, I think, the people at reference 4. And to listen to them you would think that seaweed farming is fusion for food: no inputs, unlimited outputs to consume, no waste products to dispose of. And it seems that a fair bit of it is already going on.

I think I am with the NYRB on this one, a bit uneasy. Given that we have done so much damage to the planet already, is it wise to risk doing a whole lot more? That said, seaweed farming does appear to offer us a lot, so maybe it is right to give it a go. But not to go in too fast. Let's feel our way a bit, take a bit of time before we start on the equivalent of opencast mining or forest clearance.

Reference 1: psmv4: Forests at sea.

Reference 2: The Oldest Forest: The promise and pitfalls of commercializing kelp - Lucy Jakub/NYRB - 2020. December 17, 2020 issue.

Reference 3: Seaweed: sustainable crop of the future? - FT - 2020.

Reference 4: Seaweed Solutions.

Reference 5: psmv4: And another irritation. A moan about the use of video clips in the FT.

Door up

Following the contraption construction reported at reference 1, there was no longer any excuse not to get on with rehanging the study door. Which turned out reasonably successfully. The door does bind a little at the point of shutting, but it does shut and I think it will do.

The contraption did indeed stop the heavy door flapping about in an unpleasant way while I fiddled about with the hinges. Plus a plentiful supply of wedges with which to fiddle with the heights and angles. And the door still fitted in its hole well enough. No need for hard-core plane action. A door which, I might say, had had to be adjusted to allow for some movement in the frame over the years, probably the result of disturbance under previous management to the door close to, but not exactly, underneath.

The strategy of cutting blocks of softwood into the damaged part of the door frame, while leaving just enough behind to mark the position of the hinges, worked well enough, avoiding the fiddly business of fitting hinges from scratch. Glued and screwed, with substantial screws, a lot more substantial than those used on the hinges themselves, so the new blocks should take the strain.

The alternative suggested by the insurer's carpenter was to move the hinges away from the damaged parts of the frame, but I differed. The damaged parts would still need to be mended and the hinges would, visually, be in the wrong place.

Repairing the damage to the lock part of the door frame and of the door itself went well enough, with more cutting in, with more glueing, screwing and pinning. Not an invisible mend, but neat enough, and when painted up will look well enough.

But fiddly business notwithstanding, it was perhaps a mistake not to replace the hinges, cheap, lightweight things compared with what I should have used for doors as heavy as this. One of the doors downstairs, for example, has full on rising butts, a world away from the hinge snapped here.

I am now busy with making the plaster good, and hopefully the length of architrave mentioned at reference 2 will be back in place by Boxing Day.

Reference 1: psmv4: A contraption.

Reference 2: psmv4: A trap for the unwary.

Not yet peaked

Around a month now since I last retweeted (if that is the right word) my favourite viral graphic from the FT. And contrary to what I hoped then, we have not yet peaked, even if we are levelling out. Perhaps the odd news is that the rich, western countries of the northern hemisphere seem to have got it worst again - with the good news being that at least they have the financial and other resources needed to be able to respond.

And maybe part of that response in the longer term will be rolling back the globalisation we unleashed on the rest of the world. Taking back some of the manufacturing of, for example, pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies, that we outsourced to places like China and India. Whatever will the WTO say about that?

Reference 1: psmv4: Good news and bad news.

Pennyroyal

Pennyroyal came up about three months ago now, at the end of reference 1, there spelt as two words. A herb described more fully at reference 2. A herb once used for all kinds of things, both on bugs and on humans, including mixing it with alcohol and using it as an abortifacient.

Then a couple of evening ago, it cropped up again in a 2009 adaptation of an Agatha Christie story called 'Murder is Easy', one of those stories into which the television people have seen fit to intrude Miss. Marple, presumably on account of her pulling power. 

A story in which abortion turned out to have an important role - a story line which might well have been of some interest when the story was written in 1939, with legalisation near thirty years off. However, it seems that this adaptation did rather drastic things with the story as supplied by Christie, and the abortions may be just another intrusion. Luckily, I find we do have a copy of the story as supplied and checking there will start forthwith. Sadly though, given our failure to buy a modern television, which could have done an action replay for us, we shall just have to wait until the adaptation comes around again to find out exactly what went on there, to compare and contrast properly. 

Do I feel a Powerpoint (©Microsoft) diagram of the story coming on, often a very useful aid to pensioner comprehension?

PS: will it take us another thirty years to sort out assisted dying and recreational drugs, two other delicate topics which we seem to be stuck on?

Reference 1: psmv4: Haw jelly.

Reference 2: Mentha pulegium - Wikipedia. The source of the snap above.

Detailing

Made a detour this morning to take in the Zestan development in Court Lane, on the edge of Court Rec., I development I have been noticing for some years now, most recently at reference 1.

The place still looks very new, but it is also starting to look lived in, so perhaps by this time next year it will have settled down.

In the meantime, I complain about poor detailing. Arty bricks topped by neat railings; fair enough. But what is holding the tops of the brick columns together? Even if there were a concrete spine, it looks all too likely that the bricks at the top will start to flake away over time - with the old fashioned solution being a copying stone. But Zestan, despite their arty pretensions, didn't manage to think of that or anything else. Perhaps a neat, black finished steel collar, to match the railings?

Unless, that is, I malign them, and something cunning but unseen is tying it all together.

PS: I think the Wellingtonia mentioned near the beginning of reference 1, must be one or both of the juveniles in Longmead Road.

Reference 1: psmv4: A walk in the park.

A modest, mid-week beef

Last week, we thought we ought to fit in a quick beef, the last of the year. The first since the middle of November, noticed at reference 1. Given that it was supposed to be a quick beef, I had thought to buy just the one rib's worth, but as it turned out that looked a little too skinny, so I settled for two, which weighed in at 6lbs 11oz. Consulting precedents of June and November, we decided on 2 hours at 190°C, including resting, aiming for forks down at 1330. So snapped above tied and guyed, with plenty of fat, as there should be, all ready to go into the oven at 1130. Inspection at 1320, then back in to rest for the final 15 minutes.

Pity about the hand wash left

Further consultation about the amount of rice needed and settled on 5oz. Which took longer to cook than I was expecting, so we did not actually make it to the table until 1345.

Rice left, crinkly cabbage behind, Pierre Précieuse right. Advent candle under starter's orders. The beef, as it turned out, was spot on. Ran out of cabbage, bit of underestimation there, but there was a little rice left.

Towards the end of the proceedings. A bit of the crows' portion can be glimpsed at the bottom, and I have to say they were on the case very smartly on this occasion. Almost as if they had been looking out for it, despite it being the middle of the week rather than a Sunday.

By the end of the bottle, the wine had turned a little cloudy, but nothing like as much as the shell hole (from the same shop) noticed at reference 2. A wine which we like, despite the manageress at Terroirs thinking it rather unusual, odd even - to the point of consulting a colleague about it. One of the good things about the place being that the staff really do know something about the wine they are selling, care about the wine they are selling, even going so far as to have staff tastings when things are quiet in the afternoon.

Wound down with a spot of blackberry and apple, passing on the biscuits and cheese on this occasion. It was, after all just a mid-week beef. But I didn't pass on altogether on the Calvados.

On the Scrabble which followed, our combined score just broke through the lower barrier at 500, with BH not being very impressed that I won, considering what had been taken beforehand.

While I was very impressed with Beethoven's Op.18.4 string quartet which followed the Scrabble, drawn from a boxed set recorded by the Quartetto Italiano, a quartet who retired thirty years ago and whom I don't think I ever heard live. Almost the first music I have listened to since the start of lockdowns and the first time I have listened to this quartet for a long time. And I am pleased to be able to say that its magic has returned. See reference 3 for an old notice.

Days two and three saw cold beef and hot boiled vegetables, as is our custom after roasts. Very good it was too. Snapped above at the end of day three, with the crows' portion accumulating top and bottom left.

A bit thin by day four, so supplemented by cauliflower cheese. Dismember middle sized cauliflower. Cut off outer stalks and slice once lengthwise. Cut up inner stalk into approximately 1cm^3 cubes. Separate out the florets. Cook serially, adding outer stalks to the boiling water first and florets last, with the former getting maybe eight minutes the latter four.

Heat about half a litre of green top milk with a peeled and quartered onion, this last to give a bit of flavour.

Brown an ounce and a half of flour mixed in with the same amount of butter. Stir in the milk, keeping the sauce on a gentle heat. Stir in two ounces of cheese, but keeping the last bit back.

Make a nest of the outer stalks in a pyrex dish. Inner stalks and florets in the middle. Pour sauce over, sprinkle the remaining cheese over that. Cook in the oven for 40 minutes, starting at 150°C, rising to 180°C to finish the browning.

Nibble at the onions with a bit of the cheese sauce scraped off the sides of the saucepan, properly so-named on this occasion. Rather good.

We ate nearly all of the cauliflower cheese at a sitting, rather to my surprise. Rather good, but I think I would raise the milk to a pint another time. I like my cheese sauce thick rather than thin, certainly not runny, but not set.

Beef now down to a few bits and bobs. Only fit for snacking. Snacking which would have been better had we had some fresh white bread, which we didn't. But not bad, all the same.

Reference 1: psmv4: Fore rib.

Reference 2: psmv4: More dumplings.

Reference 3: pumpkinstrokemarrow: Leurre erratum.

Reference 4: Quartetto Italiano - Wikipedia.

Found furniture

A bit of brown wood furniture appeared at the bottom of our road this morning. As luck would have it, BH not busy at the time, so we took the car down the road and gathered it up.

A substantial piece, just about four feet high and a little over two feet wide, rather heavy for one to get into the back of the car, let alone onto the wheelbarrow. Indeed, the white wood planks with which it is made are rather heavy for the size of the piece. The back is good quality, old style plywood. Surprisingly, the joints, yet to be investigated in detail, appear to involve nails or pins. Doors work well enough, including the first ball catch I have seen for a while. Common enough when I was young. Door handle slightly damaged but still workable. No woodworm that I can see, at least not yet.

I suspect the piece of having been produced for qualification purposes. The sort of thing you might make as a carpentry student at secondary school or as an apprentice joiner. But maybe DIY?

A bit shabby looking in this snap, but not wet. Hasn't been out in all the rain, rather at the back of a garage for years and finally ejected. Hopefully it will clean up OK. Maybe it will even be allowed into the study, where there are some books accumulating on the floor. In which case it might be prudent to tie it into the wall.

Cancelled

The Surrey chapter of the Astrological Union had planned a major event on Epsom Downs late yesterday afternoon, with thousands planning to go there to observe the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, low in the south western sky, at around 17:00 local time. With this event also landing on the astrological version of a triple word spot on the Scrabble board by being the day of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. An event of great psychic power - but power which can only be harvested by ocular observation: you have to both know and see. Not like billiard balls at all, balls which do their stuff whether you are looking or not.

Sadly and with heavy hearts, after consultation with the Chief Constable of Surrey and the Chief Medical Officer for the Downs Conservancy, the committee decided that they had to cancel this (at most) once in a lifetime event. Given the numbers involved and the fact that it would be dark, social distancing was not going to happen, despite the wide open spaces. 

As it turned out, there was heavy cloud most of yesterday, and the conjunction was not visible from anywhere near Epsom, short of hiring an aeroplane from Brooklands to lift one above the clouds - with the various helicopters used by Chelsea footballers at their facility at Stoke d'Abernon not being good for this particular job.

While the various street caterers who had laid in perishable supplies against this event are talking with their insurers about whether their business continuity clauses were going to fly.

PS 1: the image above was a fake generated by computer for the people at reference 1.

PS 2: for the avoidance of astronomical doubt, posted on the morning of Tuesday, 22nd December. Blogger works to Pacific time of some sort and sometimes gets the day wrong.

Reference 1: Welcome to BBC Sky at Night Magazine - skyatnightmagazine.

Out of Africa

I  was really annoyed yesterday afternoon to find a whole family of foxes down the bottom of the garden. Not only were they there, they were bold with it; shouting at them was not enough and I had to make a run at them before they deigned to lope into the next door garden and eye me up from there.

The business end - not yet sharp

Then I remembered that I had some east African spears in the loft. Spears which came in two halves, with cupped ends and joined together by short pieces of wood, tapered at both ends. No doubt all carefully lashed when in use for real.

The adaption

And it so happened that I had a suitable size pole, once a broom handle, to adapt a spear for European use. Drilling the necessary hole in the end with a brace and bit took a bit more effort that I was expecting as the lead-in screw did not hold well in the end grain - but we got there. Tapered piece of wood glued into the hole, the whole bound with wire for strength and shoe lace for safety - drawn from the still well-stocked FIL stash of same. I dare say a factory would have managed a nice brass ferrule, in the way of a top-of-the-range Marples chisel of old.

Job done

The completed spear, about seven feet long, has a nice balance, more or less by luck, with the point of balance being just behind the join, just where it should be. One should be able to make a decent throw - and there is enough weight in the thing to do serious damage. Whether I will actually get to use it is another matter.

Probably not necessary to bind the business end to the wood, given the intended use. But perhaps it will just take up residence next to the sheep's skull.

Expert witnesses

Quite by chance a few days ago, I picked up my copy of the book by Frances at reference 1, primarily about the difficult business of classifying mental disorder in the US – perhaps for statistical, diagnostic or insurance purposes – and turned a few pages again. A book first noticed some years ago now at reference 2.

This led in due course to the paper at reference 3 and after that to the debate in the US about the execution of criminals of low intelligence.

I learn that for what seemed like good reasons at the time, in large parts of the US, discretion had been replaced by fixed seven year terms for rapists – discretion which had resulted in excessive punishment of black rapists. But fixed terms resulted in some very dangerous people being released onto the streets, all too likely to reoffend.

The workaround was to use a candidate diagnosis of mental disorder – paraphilia not otherwise specified – as a tool to lock such people up in mental institutions which amounted to prisons.

Frances takes exception to this use of this candidate diagnosis, rejected for inclusion in the standard list of mental disorders several times, as a vehicle for the incarceration of dangerous rapists. The proper solution was to have proper sentencing for the original crimes.

He also takes exception to the decriminalisation, the medicalisation of rape. In his view, most rape is a straightforward criminal matter which should be punished in a straightforward criminal way. I failed to turn up any discussion which threw useful light on the extent to which bad background could extenuate crime. On what exactly a straightforward criminal was. In any case, the issue here is as much taking a dangerous person out of circulation as punishment.

Whereas:

Few if any countries punish children for crimes. The boundary between child and adult being rather arbitrary, but it is at least clear;

Few if any countries punish the mad for crimes. With being mad being one sort of mental disorder. With the boundary between sane and insane being anything but clear; 

Few if any countries punish the mentally handicapped for crimes. With being mentally handicapped being another sort of mental disorder. With the boundary once again being anything but clear;

Incarcerating people for crimes they might commit is a tricky area. But the risk of offending again is certainly taken into account in sentencing and in considering someone for parole. While people who are deemed to have severe mental disorders often get locked up, often more or less indefinitely, often without any crime having been committed. Preventative detention;

my own view is that Frances takes his argument a little too far. I think that someone’s mental health, or lack of it, is something which should be considered in criminal proceedings and that psychiatrists have to step up to this plate – while agreeing that the wheeze of paraphilia not otherwise specified is rather unsatisfactory, with an unpleasant whiff of the Soviet abuse of psychiatry for social control purposes about it.

While noting that the use of expert witnesses, be they psychiatrists or phlebotomists, does bring problems of its own, not least because not all experts make good witnesses.

In much the same way as the boundary between sane and insane is unclear, the boundary between normal intelligence and low intelligence is unclear, not fit to be used as a criterion to decide whether someone should be executed or not. Someone in favour of capital punishment generally might argue here that if you have committed a capital offence, going through what might be regarded as the intelligence test lottery is part of the punishment. At the margin, it does not really matter whether slightly too few or slightly too many offenders get executed. They have all committed capital crimes and most of them deserve what they get. But I am not in favour of capital punishment generally and do not so argue – while I do argue that not having capital punishment at all would do much to mitigate the problem of capital offenders of low intelligence.

PS: according to Wikipedia: ‘paraphilia (previously known as sexual perversion and sexual deviation) is the experience of intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, situations, fantasies, behaviours, or individuals’.

References

Reference 1: Saving normal – Allen Frances – 2013. 

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/06/dsm-5.html. 

Reference 3: Paraphilia NOS , Nonconsent: not really ready for the courtroom – Frances & First – 2011.