No.30

This afternoon to Travis Perkins on Blenheim Road to see about a new saw and some woodworm fluid. My existing hard-point panel saw now being blunt after some years of intermittent use and my having using up our woodworm fluid on the ladders of reference 3. The points being hard enough to make sharpening impossible, at least at home, but soft enough to eventually get blunt. Notwithstanding, they have done pretty well - and truth be told, I don't really want the bother of sharpening at home.

On my way out, I noticed that the First Line Recovery people opposite must be headed up by another car number nut, as most of their vehicles had numbers of the form 'V29 FLR', where the 29 bit seemed to run from 1 to 30. A quick look around turned up a 30, my next number, only a couple of days after No.29.

I remembered that I scored No.24 at this very place last year, noticed at reference 1, but I had not realised at that time what exactly was going on. Nor had I got the to proper post naming convention that I now use, for ease of tracking and verification. Which was perhaps just as well, as it would have taken the fun out of it to have done the whole lot in one visit. I will be suggesting to the rules committee, that up to one number per visit be allowed, on the basis that Blenheim Road is off-piste and only visited on an occasional basis.

They clearly do do some heavy recovery, as evidenced by No.1 above, but I think their main trade is cars, vans and small lorries. Plus the odd mobile home, as in the snap from their gallery above. Plus they have special caravans into which I suppose they insert posh but broken down cars. One of these being visible behind No.30.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-good-afternoon.html. 

Reference 2: https://www.firstline-recovery.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/09/ladder-nostalgia.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/no29.html.

Tanning

Happening to be visiting Vol.IX Part II of OED this morning, I came across an interesting Irish practise  called 'tanistry' from the days when they had clans and chiefs. 

By which the chief held office for life, but his successor was elected and nominated during his lifetime, with the successor being called the tanist. The idea being that the tanist was the most suitable, the most eligible of the men around the chief. Presumably in those days this meant being a good fighter and a good leader of men.

An upside being that useless offspring of the chief were put aside in favour of someone more suitable. A downside being that election would involve pushing, shoving and uncertainty which does not arise when one has a rule like the first born legitimate son.

From where I associated to having read somewhere that First People tribes in north America sometimes distinguished war chiefs from the ordinary chief, the point being that the two jobs required different qualities. The Roman Republic did something similar with its Dictators - until Julius Caesar spoiled things by getting himself made Dictator for life.

PS 1: checking my email after this post, I was very impressed by Fleur Barron and Julius Drake doing Schubert's 'Auf dem Flusse' from the Winterreise, offered by the Temple Music Foundation, the same people who put on the show noticed at reference 2. Perhaps lawyers are really opera people, and so more tuned into lady singers than I am. The only downside was that the pictures were a second or so astray of the sounds, which meant that one was better off not watching, the absence of synchronisation being surprisingly irritating. Also irritating that I couldn't work out whether the sound was ahead of the sight or vice-versa.

PS 2: on Thursday evening, wanting to hear Barron again, I tried clicking on the link at reference 3 again. Which had worked at the time of posting, but now produced a YouTube message saying that the donor had withdrawn the video. While going back to the original advertisement, which had arrived by email, still worked, still talked to YouTube. Social media clearly more complicated than I had realised.

Reference 1: https://www.templemusic.org/.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/winterreise.html.

Reference 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6XsvPEpd58&t=305s. Fail!

More haggis

Following the foray into foreign haggis last noticed at reference 1, back with our regular haggis a week or so ago.

The day started with the usual spin around Jubilee Way, forgetting to put my helmet on on this occasion, not noticing until I was too far gone to go back for it. Like mobile phones, once you get used to the things, it feels quite odd not to have them - despite having managed without for more than forty years in the case of helmets. More or less unheard of when I was a child, except for the leather strappy things that some club cyclists wore, good for cuts and abrasion - but not so good, I imagine, for head on collisions with the road.

But I did score the No.27, noticed at reference 2.

Home to turn over the pages of one of our books about Eric Gill. He might have been a rum cove, but I found his economy of line in the drawing snapped above very impressive. Not something that I could ever manage, even in the days when I thought I could draw a bit.

So this haggis was from the people at reference 4, via the Sainsbury's at Kiln Lane. Clearly big operators in the haggis world, even running to veggie and coeliac options.

Looked well on the plate: moist, with plenty of barley. Taken with some of the wine from Alsace, from the place with the curious church, noticed at reference 5.

Followed by baby rhubarb, which went down very well on this occasion, with the whole boiling done at a sitting.

Followed by a spot of Schubert (D.960), followed by a 16 brick walk, double my usual effort on an afternoon after Jubilee Way. But then lost on penalty points at Scrabble.

Somewhere along the way I started to ponder on the illegality of cocaine. Collected up a number of interesting documents about same, some of which are listed above, but apart from the post at reference 3 below, they have remained in the pending tray since. In the meantime, my view that cocaine abuse might do lots of damage, but that ferocious criminal sanctions against use of a drug which lots of otherwise fairly decent people still want to use - and do still use - does a lot more damage, is unshaken. 

PS 1: readers need not worry about the use-by date (why not the more euphemistic best-by date?) on the snap of the haggis packet. BH reminds me that she buys them fresh - or at least fairly freshly cooked - and puts them in the freezer. A different part of the packet explains that freezing for up to a month is OK. While my thinking is that you can freeze food more or less for ever: it might degrade in taste and or texture, either on freezing or over time, but it will not become a danger to health.

PS 2: the next morning: in the course of making up bread batch 605, I noticed that the use-by date on the white flour, bought getting on for a year ago, was 12/20. While that on the brown flour, bought more recently, was 2/21. I have, in the past, heard a baker going on about the wonders of truly fresh flour, fresh off the stone, but I have not got to quite that pitch, quite yet.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/discount-haggis.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/no27.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/el-paso.html.

Reference 4: https://www.macsween.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/pfaffenheim.html.

How to do the Easter feast from the easy chair

More news from Houston, where a hundred bucks or so will get you a turkey feast with all the trimmings. Frozen air freight at cost.

PS: I might mention that I have been reading at reference 2 about a special kind of easy chair, once popular in this country, called a smoking chair, fitted with a drawer under the seat into which one could discretely spit, rather than using the floor. This at around the time that spitting in company, or worse still in a public space, was coming to be considered bad manners.

Reference 1: https://texasmesquitegrill.com/.

Reference 2: The Rituals of Dinner – Margaret Visser – 1991. Turned out to turn up what she has to say about disgust, on which there will be more in due course. Half a dozen or more references in the index, which is more than can be said for the Lévi-Strauss on the same shelf, which is odd given the shared interest in table manners. I'll get to the bottom of it.

Reference 3: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2012/01/modern-marvels.html. The book noticed here lives next to that at reference 2. Reading this post, I am tempted to read it again - only put off by the pile of started & part-read books getting a bit tall just presently, this despite all the extra reading time resulting from constraint in other areas.

No.29

Just a few days since I scored a double with No.28, noticed at reference 1, No.29 turned up today attached to a BMW, somewhere on Hunters Road, Chessington.

There was also a No.24, a No.25 and a No.32, all non scoring but encouraging. I expect to go through the early thirties quite quickly, then slow down, then very slow through the forties which seem to be quite thin on the ground. Fifties and sixties will be fast again. Seventies slow. 

On the basis of the experience to date I think 99 is probably a reasonable target. With thanks to Margaret Drabble for reminding me, if not telling me, of this game. For whom see reference 2.

On past the 'North Star', which has looked rather shut for a while now. I wondered why it appeared to have made no effort to tent up their large car park, in the way of our Blenheim. Then I wondered whether they were going down route taken by the Kings Arms of East Street, another house of the same generation, with a large car park, which went for flats. Maybe this freeholder is just holding out until the council and the heritage people face the reality of today's licensed trade. But back home, I find they are part of the Ember Inn family and are planning to open from 17th May. Not a house I have ever used, so perhaps I will take a glass there at that point.

A bit further along the road we have the 'Lucky Rover' at Hook, a cosy looking place which I have been meaning to visit for years. Sadly, it now looks terminally shut up and I may never have the opportunity.

But I did manage to connect with the butcher regarding the Paschal Lamb.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/no28.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/07/a-new-to-me-game-for-long-car-journeys.html.

Week three

The flower shoot is now a couple of inches long, with the flower bud in clear view. A flower bud from which, if all goes well, we will get lots of florets in due course.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/week-two.html.

Group search key: tfe.

Smit

It seems that the present spot of bother at the Suez Canal might prove to be a good earner for Smit, the people last mentioned at reference 1, the people who keep ocean going tugs dotted about the Western Approaches, just in case.

And it just so happens that the front page at reference 2 includes a striking image of a container ship having a spot of bother on the high seas. Not the one above.

Who said that Britannia ruled the waves?

PS: this morning I wondered about running a tow rope from the stuck end of the ship, across to the other side of the canal, from where pulling arrangements could be made. Dry land being better from that point of view than floating on the water. One catch, I suppose, is that suitable rope is not readily available. I associate to pictures of thousands of slaves hauling away on great lumps of rocks destined for pyramids and such like. Pictures from the days when extras were extras not computer animations.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/04/scavenger.html.

Reference 2: https://www.smit.com/#view/grid.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/david-and-goliath.html. The spot of bother.

Sans confession

Just finished re-reading the Maigret short story at reference 1, with the reading yesterday leaving me puzzled about what the point of it was. With the answer being in two parts. First, to paint a portrait of a policeman who doesn't get on, who is grumpy and who has lots of bad luck. Including a bad tempered wife. A policeman  who is actually a very good policeman and for whom Maigret feels sorry. Second, to explain how much what Maigret really likes doing is tramping around some quartier in Paris, soaking up a crime and its context. Not the sort of thing a senior policeman ought to be doing at all. But in this case, Maigret feels so sorry for Inspector Grumpy that he almost leaves him to get on with it, rather than taking it over, which is what he really wants to do.

Two new expressions.

First, 'sourd comme un pot'. Which I now think translates directly to the English phrase 'deaf as a post'. I had been confused by a pot now being a pot or container. Quite possibly the pot used to make soup (potage), quite possibly with vegetables from the vegetable garden (potager). With poteau being post as in goal post and poste being more or less the rest of the meanings for the English 'post'. Confused to the extent of thinking that it was a funny coincidence that the French talked about being as deaf as a pot while we talked about being as deaf as a pot. Whereas the story actually seems to be that the French phrase uses the old version of poteau.

Second, 'donner [someone] le bon Dieu sans confession'. Which can often simply be rendered as trusting someone. While being an allusion to the fact that you are not supposed to meet God, that is to say take Holy Communion, if you are not in a state of grace, which usually meant you need a cleansing confession first. But if you looked as if butter wouldn't melt in your mouth, looked like the picture of innocence, maybe one could take a chance and skip the confession bit.

Bing turned up an example, in translation, from a speech by Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport–Montmorency–Côte-de-Beaupré–Île-d'Orléans, BQ [Bloc Québécois]) during a debate in the Canadian House of Commons: 'The minister is being very naive. We almost want to give him communion without confession, as people used to say when I was young and folks still used those expressions derived from our Judeo-Christian tradition. We would almost be tempted to do so. I would also like him to think about that'. Doesn't sound that different from the sort of nonsense you get in our own House of Commons.

PS: clear from both Bing and Google that this confession phrase is widely used in France and that I have failed to properly grasp the full range of its meaning. With Google turning up this bar in a sea-side town in Brittany called Saint-Quay-Portrieux.

Reference 1: Maigret et l'Inspecteur Malgracieux - Simenon - 1946. Volume XII of the collected works.

Reference 2: Les Nouvelles Enquêtes de Maigret. Published by Edito-Service of Geneva. Printed in Italy. With the present story being in the fifth of six smart, orange covered paperbacks. A collection of short stories sandwiched between the more substantial pre-war Maigrets and post-war Maigrets. Bought when I failed to find Volume IX of the collected works on eBay, with which there is considerable overlap.

Reference 3: https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/37-1/house/sitting-198/hansard.

Sunflowers

Following the post at reference 1, the sunflower count is now six going strong and four on the way. The instructions which came with the bucket suggest, without being explicit about it, just letting them all roll, while I favour separating them out a bit, sooner rather than later so that separation doesn't do too much damage. While the fatal damage alternative would be a bit of thinning out. I think these dwarf sunflowers will stand about two feet high when fully grown, so a lot smaller than the regular ones - which we vaguely remember having grown in the past, perhaps on an allotment. Family councils continue.

The seed which was upside down appears to have resumed normal growth, with the first two leaves now poking up just to the right of the matchstick - following intervention to remove the seed case yesterday. And then there are three more on the way. One visible at the foot of the matchstick, the second a little to the right and the third just a speck between the two seedlings top middle. Probably visible if you click to enlarge and look in the right place.

PS: and following the post at reference 2, oranges from Sainsbury's continue to vary a good deal, with this morning's orange tasting more like grapefruit than orange. I rejected it altogether, but BH is thinking about it for later. In November, I put this irritating variation down to cutting costs, perhaps in an effort to get nearer the prices of Aldi, but I suppose we can now add Brexit to Covid, with both providing good excuses for quality problems.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/midwifery.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/11/orange-complaint.html.

The Legacy

Following the advertisement at reference 2, I have now got around to reading 'The Legacy' again, seemingly last read nearly ten years ago and noticed briefly at reference 3. 

A book which is vaguely autobiographical, with the main characters being a version of the author's father (German) and a version of the author's mother (English), moving around between France, Spain and Germany.

The book is framed by a nasty incident in an unpleasant Prussian army version of one of our preparatory schools - at least some of which I dare say were not that much better at the time. An incident which is only closed out at the end of the book, say thirty or forty years later, just before the start of the first world war. 

We get five parts: the rich Jewish family in Berlin; the two not-so-rich Catholic families down south in Baden, a part of Germany where at least some of the upper classes spoke French rather than German; the first marriage; the second marriage (the one which produced the author); and, the end of the affair. With the two marriage parts taking up rather more than half the total of around 350 pages.

Some of the action is driven by the tensions between the Protestant & Prussian north and the easy going, Catholic south. Not all of which was very happy about the unification, still recent when the book opens. While the rich Jewish family rubs along quite happily with the two Catholic families with which it is mixed up by marriage. One of the Catholic families is devout and goes in for duty. The other is comfortably decaying on its landed estate - and produces some peculiar sons, one of whom goes to the preparatory school and another of whom goes through the two marriages mentioned above.

As noted at reference 3, the book is funny and informative and it is easy to lose track of all the people. But I am less positive about it now. We are informed about a kind of people living in a kind of world which more or less vanished a hundred years ago. 

I found the prose style a little irritating and the characterisation weak. While I was amused by the goings on of the two main characters we did get, there were huge gaps in the narrative and I didn't really understand either of them. It was as if the people in the book were just puppets, vehicles for the author to provide an impressionistic view of a chunk of life in the upper reaches of society of the time in question. As far as that goes, perhaps not that far different from her hero, Aldous Huxley. And as far setting is concerned, perhaps a rustic German version of the first parts of the urban Forsyte Saga.

So an interesting read, but I doubt if I will read it again.

Reference 1: The Legacy - Sybille Bedford - 1956.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/02/haggis.html.

Reference 3: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2011/04/health-safety.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/03/threes.html. The end of the Forsyte Saga, just about this time last year.

PS 1: snap of sea urchins mentioned because they are offered by the gastronomic father to the raffish mother during their courtship. And Simenon mentions them in his stories which are set in or visit the south of France. Don't fancy them myself.

PS 2: Google seemed to have updated the template I use for this blog again. No warning, as ever.

PS 3: Google challenged my logon this afternoon by requiring me to translate two of those tricky words designed to trick robots. First time they have done such a thing - at least as far as I can remember.

White stuff

We have been very aware of small trees with white flowers this spring, with lots of them in and around Chertsey Way on the Manor Hospital site and lots of them on the Ewell by-pass, with my passing these on my regular spins around Jubilee Way. There are even some at the bottom of a neighbour's garden. Our own damson tree, at the bottom of our own garden (more accurately, the top), is long gone, so long that I forget why I chopped it down. With being too big to pick no longer seeming like a good enough reason.

We are told, perhaps by the RHS, that it has been a good year for same and we are invited to post our pictures on social media. We may have been given an Instagram hash tag to post against, or something of that sort. Not being into social media my grasp of the jargon is very weak - and I have elected to post my picture, from somewhere in and around Chertsey Way here, instead.

All this has prompted investigation into white thorns, blackthorns, sloes, damsons and other sorts of plum - although we do not yet have any idea of how to distinguish one from another. Hawthorn we can do, but that does not come for a few weeks yet. Furthermore, I don't think it is as easy as the number of petals and I doubt whether colour is very reliable. And it seems unlikely that we will get into counting stamens or anything like that. So who knows where the investigation will end.

No.28

Going round the corner to see if I could get nearer Wellingtonia 29 this morning, I found that I could not get any closer, but I did find no less than two No.28 license plates, just days after waiting months to clock a No.27. Both T28, so perhaps there is something about the T twenties. See reference 1.

How long am I going to have to wait for No.29?

PS: is the odd configuration of chimneys here the result of change after build? Not that that I can see other signs of same.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/no27.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/wellingtonia-29.html.

Wellingtonia 29

With the next phase of lockdown looking likely to kick in soon, we thought a short expedition to the cake shop between Thames Ditton and Surbiton was called for, our first drive out of Epsom for quite some months now.

I had rather thought that Surbiton would include some large old houses which might run to Wellingtonia, and so it proved to be, with our going past one just to the south of the roundabout where Langley Avenue meets the Upper Brighton Road. Couldn't actually touch it without wandering into the owner's garden, but I thought it was near enough to score.

Houses which probably ran to maids and housekeepers at the time they were built, but are rather large for your average suburban family now. Quite apart from cost of purchase, running and maintenance costs must be pretty hefty compared with what we pay for our 1930's estate house here in Epsom. Quite a few, for example, still have what appear to be wooden sash windows.

In any event, when freedom of movement is restored, I dare say Surbiton will prove a good hunting ground.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/wellingtonia-28.html.

Group search key: wgc.

David and Goliath

This picture was brought to me on start-up this morning by Microsoft News from the indy100 news channel, to be found at reference 1. Bizarre that such a small digger can make a difference to such a large ship. Bizarre that one of the banks of such an important waterway should be nothing grander than waterlogged clay.

Wikipedia provides a warning note at reference 2, in that this news channel, once proud to be independent of the likes of Murdoch (Sun, Times) and Black (Telegraph), is now a joint venture between a former member of the KGB and a Saudi, with neither country being well known for decent and honourable newspapers. There is also a link with Al Jazeera, an alternative source of news about matters Middle East, an organisation which appears to be owned by the Qataris. With Qatar being a monarchy with a long history, which included escaping from our clutches as recently at 1971.

Reference 1: https://www.indy100.com/.

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

Reference 3: https://www.aljazeera.com/.

A year in bricks

Today is the last day of the first year of walking bricks up and down the back garden as an alternative to, for example, the Ewell Village anti-clockwise. The trouble with this last being that it involves walking through the middle of both Epsom and Ewell, both places where it is hard to avoid other people. That said, after the first burst of lockdown, March and April last year, I switched from walking to cycling, having discovered that it is much easier to avoid people from the top of a bicycle.

The snap above shows the sixteen bricks in the down position and the end of this afternoon's walk of half a heap. It being my custom to do half a heap on the afternoons of a Jubilee Way morning. The right hand brick marks the active heap, a helpful marker when I am half way up and half way down. Easy to forget which way one is going. The wear and tear rather more noticeable than it was a year ago, when I raised the subject at reference 2.

The pivot table above gives the year in numbers. A slight untidiness in that the months at the start and end of the year are both incomplete. 

What it does not tell us is that bricks were not walked on 101 days out of the 366 (2000 being a leap year), about 1 in 4. Knowledge derived by allowing null lines in the record, an inclusion originally driven by the need to improve the appearance of date pivot tables, rather thrown by missing dates. This being one of a number of quirks in the data design, done on the hoof rather than by proceeding in an orderly fashion, taking proper account of the requirements. Requirements which are not always, as they were not on this occasion, well known at design time.

With this graph, drawn from the numbers above shows the effect of cycling kicking in after April and a minor bump for the second lockdown, during which outings to places like Hampton Court Palace and Wisley Horticultural Gardens were suspended.

The total height of 14,760 metres is higher than any one mountain but it is the height of Skil Brum and Gimmigela Chuli taken together. The former is 7,410 meters high, in Pakistan at the western end of the Himalayas, known as the Karakorams. Just right of centre in the old Italian snap above. Looks like a tough cookie from here.

While the latter is 7,350 metres high, on the border between India and Nepal, at the other end of the Himalayas. A much more recent snap.

On the way, I came across reference 1, which mountain buffs are invite to peruse.

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

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/03/bricks.html.

Infestations

BH has an email account which she does not use very often. But useful to have.

Last year it got infested with what appeared to be Italian & Instagram flavoured emails. I probably looked at one or two of them, but there was nothing of interest to this non-Italian speaking, a non-Instagram user, so they just got archived or deleted unseen. They seem to have come to an end.

But this year it is infested with what appear to be emails from Biglots of reference 1, seemingly some kind of warehouse operation selling household and garden goods. I learn from reference 2 that it is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Is it a coincidence that the Mettler Toledo advertisements that have started arriving in my email account come from the same town? See reference 3.

Which brings me on to today's depressions. Brought on by reading the article at reference 4 brought on by the book at reference 5. First depression is the huge number of clever & educated people working at hacking into computers all over the world. Computers which might be controlling the Sizewell B power station or the petrol pump at Kiln Lane up the road. And no honour among thieves as they are well up for hacking each other. Second depression is the huge black market in what are called exploits, that is to say exploitable weaknesses in the computer networks of important organisations or in widely used system software. A huge market in which governments all over the world, including the UK and US, are active: it's not just the bad people and long hairs who are doing it. Third depression is the ease of entry into the business. It might help, but you don't need the backing of a state: a bunch of people in some connected shed in Bulgaria would do. Or the Isle of Wight for that matter, although my experience of the connections there is that they are not very good.

I would say in defence of the clever & educated people who invented the Internet, all the malign uses to which it could be put were not so clear at the time. Nor was it clear how difficult it would be to build & deploy defences.

And I suppose it is a start that our fat leader has sprayed the cyber word all over the recently published security review at reference 6. Even if the archaic language in which the title is couched looks a bit silly in this day and age.

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

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

Reference 3: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/a-miscellany-for-friday.html.

Reference 4: Weaponizing the Web: Nicole Perlroth’s investigation into the shadowy world of cyberweaponry predicts an unsettling future for global - Sue Halpern/NYRB - 2021. 8th April.

Reference 5: This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race - Nicole Perlroth - 2020. Bloomsbury.

Reference 6: Global Britain in a competitive age: The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy - Presented to Parliament by the Prime Minister by Command of Her Majesty - 2021.

Another Audley End

With this one being on the eastern fringes of Windsor Park rather than in the north eastern fringes of Essex. And ender home to rhyme with starter home rather than stately home. Which we got to know about as a result of a fancy bit of cardboard being pushed through our letter box, a bit of cardboard offering us a new home in an exclusive retirement village in Englefield Green, near Windsor Park. Otherwise a little to the south of the River Thames and a little to the west of the M25. Quite handy to the airport (enlargement pending).

With the core of this village appearing to be some Victorian pile, with lots of turrets and spires. We supposed that this core contained the public areas and offices, while the homes themselves were in large new sheds around the back, in the way of many old country hotels.

Closer inspection suggests that this is not entirely fair, with the pile in question having started in the early 19th century as a large house, but subsequently did time as the Indian Engineering College and more recently as student accommodation. Maybe the pile is bigger than I had given it credit for. But you can read all about it at reference 3.

The deal I found was that you bought a 75% equity share in your ender home - leaving me wondering whether the balancing 25% gave the developers the right to rack up the substantial service charges every year. Insufficiently interested to check.

PS 1: according to the cardboard, things have moved on a bit since the Street View van last paid a visit. Note the bit on the right, where a bit of old facade has been preserved to front up what I take to be new shed. A lot of that sort of thing going on in London. Maybe this faking keeps the heritage people quiet.

PS 2: has the tree on the left, possibly an Araucaria, survived? Clearly something to look out for.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/06/audley-end.html. Our last visit to the other end.

Reference 2: https://www.audleyvillages.co.uk/our-villages/coopers-hill.

Reference 3: https://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/themes/places/surrey/runnymede/egham/coopers-hill/.

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

Chicken Little

Having done rather a lot of beef a few days previously, as noticed at reference 2, we thought that the chicken the Sunday following should be restrained. Not the chicken itself, which would continue to be a full-on grain-fed, woodland-reared full-and-happy-life chicken from the Sainsbury's taste the difference range of same - but we would omit the stuffing which we have taken to having with it. The sort of thing noticed at reference 3.

But the day started for me with a run around Jubilee Way, setting out with no sign of wind, but there was wind by the time I got to Ruxley Lane. Fortunately, a wind blowing down a hill, say the one that starts after you pass the Ruxley Lane junction on the way to Tolworth Tower, is not usually as bad as one might expect, as one seems to get into the wind-shadow of the hill as one goes up it.

The refurbished market square in Epsom busy with what mostly looked like street food.

Getting back home in time for my apéritif  before chicken.

Which was snapped above before the arrival of the all-important boiled vegetables. Taken with wine from Majestic, that is to say King's Favour, rather than something organic from Guildford.

With the bowl in which the dessert was cooked being quite old now, floral white pyrex (or something of the sort) having been off the shelves of shops (other than charity shops) for some years. Possibly from the land of FIL. 

Wound down by reviewing the state of Woodcote, a review which resulted in the capture of Wellingtonia 28 a couple of days later.

Day two, cold.

Day three soup, construction of which involved orange lentils, bacon, onions, leeks and potatoes.

Day four pie, construction of which involved chicken,bacon, onions, leeks and potatoes. But in a rather different format to the soup of the day before.

Chopped the bacon, chopped the onions and cooked them for a bit in butter. Added about a tablespoon of flour. Cooked for a bit longer. Added a small amount of water. Added leeks.

While this was going on, boiled some potatoes and mashed them.

Cut some button mushrooms in half, stirred into the frying mixture and turned the whole lot into a pie dish. Spread the mashed potato on top. Cook at 165°C or so for an hour - just a matter of warming everything up and browning the top. No need to overdo it.

Turned out very well, with the water content just about right. Always a bit hit and miss with these sorts of things, as once the pie is in the oven, no possibility of further adjustment. And pies which are either too wet or too dry don't do at all.

BH, as a sometime fan of various televised bake-offs, was invited to do the next one with pastry. She did not seem very enthusiastic, but I shall work on her.

PS: a left over turkey version of this pie used to be a regular feature of Christmas, both when I was a child and then later with our own children. But, be it chicken or turkey, rather fallen into disuse of late.

Reference 1: Kylling Kluk - Thiel - 1823. An early appearance of Chicken Little in print.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/dry-run.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/12/more-stuffing.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/wellingtonia-28.html.

Offers

Investigating the possibility of purchasing the book at reference 1, I visited Abebooks, eBay and Amazon - with this last making the offers above. First, amused by the heterogeneity: why on earth did Amazon think I wanted to buy fish oil to paste on my dog? Second, I had to look several times to convince myself that I had got the prices right on the right. Who on earth would spend £2,000 to read electronic copies of a massive collection of statistical print?

Presumably not a student, but maybe an academic library would want to purchase one Kindle copy which it could it then serve to all its customers at no extra charge? Better than paying a similar amount for just the one printed copy?

Sadly, the book at reference 1 remains unpurchased. The thirty pounds of more for a decent copy was too much for something I was only ever likely to dip into for a few days, then put on the shelf.

Reference 1: In all likelihood: Statistical modelling and inference using likelihood - Pawitan, Y. - 2001.

A good effort

BH on good form this afternoon, with her opening shot being 'aproned', which she was a bit uneasy about but which OED revealed to have been in use since at least the early seventeenth century, often but by no means always in conjunction with a material word, as in 'a leather-aproned, sweating man came to the smithy door'. The word was not huge but doubled as it was the first go plus the seven letter bonus of 50 took her to 76, establishing a solid lead. But not quite as good as my effort last summer, noticed at reference 1. Or, indeed, that at reference 2.

In the last quarter of the game I got within striking distance, but BH pulled off a late triple word while I got lumbered with both Q and Z, too late in the game to make good use of them. I took a chance with 'zit' which also turned out to be in OED, seemingly as an alternative spelling of 'sit' and not disqualified by being marked as dialect, obsolete or foreign. A bit marginal, much more so than 'aproned', but we allowed it to stand.

But it was not enough and I lost by 263 points to 297, not counting the penalty of 26 for my Q and three E's. So comfortably through the 550 barrier, but well short of the 600 barrier, breached just the once at the end of last year and noticed at reference 2.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/07/a-new-record.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/12/through-glass-ceiling.html.

First off the blocks

As far as we are concerned, the Young Vic is first off the cultural blocks, having moved our tickets to see Cush Jumbo do Hamlet under the direction of Greg Hersov from last summer to the coming October. Having had to make do with her appearances on ITV3 as one of Vera's assistants in the meantime.

Kings Place was an also ran, also offering a few shows of interest in the Autumn, but that required more positive action, action which was not taken. In part because we are not yet sure about travelling through Vauxhall and onto the tube to Kings Cross in the rush hour. And I'm not sure about doing the Bullingdon thing for an early evening run of that length. When it might well be dark as well as wet.

Reference 1: http://www.talawa.com/. Something else that Hersov is involved with.

Midwifery

BH, for reasons which will become clear later in the year, wanted to grow some miniature sunflowers, so purchased a suitable kit from the big Sainsbury's up the road at Kiln Lane. That is to say a small but tall bucket, two packets of compost, one packet of seeds and the instructions. I have never seen these last but I imagine that they have been conserved somewhere.

In the snap above, the two larger seedlings, at north and east, managed by themselves. The others all required assistance, usually to ease the seed case off the first leaves. Sometimes also to part the first leaves, the tips of which can get stuck together. A butcher's skewer did quite well, as would a large needle. While the matchstick marks a seedling which came up upside down and which needed to be turned over. Not yet clear whether this has been successful. While that to the right of the matchstick is being very slow. Not yet clear whether action will be needed.

I was taken back to the days when I used to rear pumpkins, which needed similar attention. Which makes it quite understandable that plants with these tough seed cases produce lots of seeds: only a small fraction of them are going to make it in the absence of humans.

PS: for some reason we have a small supply of butchers' skewers. Sharp pointed, twisted steel bars, about an eighth of an inch across and five inches long. Not things that seem to come with the Sunday joint these days.

Flapping

In the course of walking my bricks yesterday, along with a high half moon, maybe 45° above the eastern horizon, this being around 16:30, we had a middle sized bird sitting on the top of a tall tree, perhaps the size of a pigeon, maybe 100 yards to the east. After a bit, it took off and swung around in large irregular circles using a distinctive burst of flaps then glide flight pattern. Climbed a bit, then sank back a bit, then over again. Eventually disappearing to the east.

A bit later there were some crows flying about, and they seemed to go in for steady flapping, so it wasn't an isolated, small crow.

This morning I ask Bing and she turns up the informative reference 1. From which I learn that if wings are extended in glide, rather than folded back along the body, this is a well attested flight pattern of many larger birds, say a jay or larger. Of which we have a fair number here in Epsom. Nevertheless, I was not close enough to see whether wings were folded back during glides (nor, indeed, did I think to look) and I don't care to hazard a tweet.

Reference 1: https://sandiegogreg.blogspot.com/p/how-to-identify-birds-in-flight.html.

Wellingtonia 28

Following the excursion reported at reference 2, we thought we ought to go and take a look at the dog house, otherwise Woodcote House. We were pleased to find that there was a fine stand of Wellingtonia in their front garden, looking very tall and thin.

We were now in Chantry Hurst, a private road off Street View, very much in the centre of one of the grandest, if not the grandest, housing estate in Epsom. Not a shop or a public house to be seen anywhere. But there was quite a lot of black and white work, what passed for faintly Tudor in the first half of the last century.

While this large house, near the bottom of Pine Hill, was in a rather different style and rather run down. We learned that was much upset in the area about the proposal to knock it down and replace it with a cluster of 'desirable executive houses in this most sought after part of Epsom'. Rather a pity in a way, as it was rather a handsome house, even if we could never have aspired to buy it, never mind find the money needed to bring it up to scratch.

While at the very bottom of the hill, not only was there a yew tree of quite respectable size (left in the snap above), but also a relic of late 19th or early 20th century estate iron work, in the form of an old gate. How did it escape being tidied up by whoever it was that developed the estate? The sort of thing you come across in the Isle of Wight from time to time. Or indeed on hunts for old moats in Epsom, as noticed at reference 3.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/wellingtonia-27.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-woodcote.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-hunt-for-old-moat.html.

Group search key: wgc.

Week two

Following the tentative report at reference 1, the flower shoot of the front room aloe is now getting on for an inch long.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/week-one.html.

Group search key: tfe.

El Paso

At some point yesterday I came across the curious snap above in the FT, said to be part of a surge of migrants coming through or from Mexico (left), across the Rio Grande (centre) and on into the US (right) at El Paso.

Wanting to delve, I turn to gmaps and after a while I find what appears to be the place in question, Parque Las Tortugas in Ciudad Juárez. The former translating as Turtle Park and the latter being a city with a million and a half people, across the river from El Paso. Turtle Park, complete with turtle flavoured climbing frames, does not look that different from similar parks here in Epsom. While to the right we have a dense grid of streets full of single storey houses. Houses which look well enough in the bright sunlight, but some of which would probably not look too clever at close quarters.

While on the US side of this rather unimpressive river, we have rather better looking housing, plus, for example, the downtown branch of the El Paso Community College, a college sporting a number of rather grand facilities scattered across the area. What we would call a large and well-endowed university. See reference 1.

I then thought about the mayhem wreaked in Mexico and central America generally by the US hunger for cocaine. And then about why cocaine was so very illegal - as it turns out to be more or less everywhere in the world except for some South American countries and for Portugal. But I did not come up with any very convincing explanation of why this should be so, so that remains work in progress, with references 2, 3 and 4 being what I have turned up to start with. With the story so far at reference 2 being that the drug which did far and away the most damage was alcohol - legal more or less everywhere in the non-Muslim world. 

Reference 1: https://www.epcc.edu/.

Reference 2: Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis - David J Nutt, Leslie A King, Lawrence D Phillips – 2010.

Reference 3: Effect of drug law enforcement on drug market violence: A systematic review – Dan Werb, Greg Rowell, Gordon Guyatt, Thomas Kerr, Julio Montaner, Evan Wood – 2011. 

Reference 4: Drugs Research: An overview of evidence and questions for policy - Charlie Lloyd and Neil McKeganey – 2011. 

No.27

Registration plate No.27 was spotted today, heading east at the junction of Chessington Road and Ruxley Lane, that is to say towards the end of my spin around Jubilee Way. Didn't have anything like enough time to get my camera out, but it was a small format white van, a little scruffy, something like, but rather older than the Volkswagen Caddy Cargo snapped above. A very proper snap it is too, including both a bicycle left and a lady mechanic (or at the very least a lady valet) right.

Unfortunately, while I have seen a No.25, a No.28 and a No.29 since the provisional No.26 noticed getting on for a couple of months ago at reference 1, I have still not seen a No.26 on the road, so I shall have to pursue my submission to the rules committee, to which they have not yet bothered to reply. And if they ultimately rule against that sighting, that will now be a touch awkward.

The registration plate started T27. I did not get the rest of it, but Bing turns up plenty of them, including the one above. I suppose the rules committee would allow it as the second block of numbers is separated from the first by a hyphen, but perhaps it is just as well I don't need to trouble them with this one just presently.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/02/no26-provisional.html.

Lie detection

I was prompted by the article at reference 1 in the Guardian a few weeks ago to do a bit of digging. Do people really think that I am lying if I reply to a question too slowly? So what if they do?

The first part of the story, reference 2, based on work with more than 7,500 young people from the US, the UK and France, is that, other things being equal, people are indeed more likely to think that you are lying if you appear to reply to a question slowly. With the tests involved being constructed so that you have no information about whether someone is telling the truth apart from the telling itself. In mitigation, it also seems to be the case that sometimes people take other factors into account, perhaps the need to delve a long way back into memory for the answer to the question.

The second part of the story, as told for example at reference 3, is that people who are lying do indeed take a bit longer to reply than they might otherwise. Telling the truth is easier, requires less brain power, and comes quicker. Cunning experiments have been devised to simulate everyday lying in an experimental context.

I think that a lot of this work is driven by the fondness for lie detector tests and lie detector machines in the US. Machines which have now gone on from your wet palms to tell tale blips of electricity under your scalp.

This tendency to deduce lie from slow is all part of our learning how to get along in society. We have to get along with other people and this includes knowing when they are lying or otherwise trying to mislead us for some purpose of their own. Perhaps to sell us a second hand motor car which they know to be a bit dodgy. Misleading which goes at least as far back as the chimpanzees. Maybe we come with some of the necessary machinery when we are born, but in any event we spend a good many years working it up, working up the necessary skills with our eyes, ears and brains. Noting that getting along, does not mean that we have to get it right all the time. For the species as a whole, getting it right most of the time is probably good enough, so it does not matter too much if the algorithms involved are a bit rough and ready.

The problem now is that we do want to be right nearly all the time, for example in a court of law, and this tendency to assume that a slow reply is a lie rather overdoes things - and is quite hard to calm down, even though being told to disregard speed does help. It is all too easy to get it wrong.

Which brings me back to murder mysteries on ITV3. What you need is proper physical evidence, not peoples’ stories about what they were up to on the day in question.

References

Reference 1: Answer questions quickly or people may think you are lying, researchers say – Natalie Grover/Guardian – 2021. Tuesday, 16th February. 

Reference 2: Slow lies: Response delays promote perceptions of insincerity - Ziano, I., & Wang, D. - 2021.

Reference 3: Using response time measures to assess ‘guilty knowledge’ - Seymour, T. L., Seifert, C. M., Shafto, M. G., & Mosmann, A. L. – 2000.

Brain power

This morning I thought to ask BH about something from the distant past, perhaps 30 years ago. She could not answer on the spot, but she announced that she had told her brain about the matter and fully expected the answer to pop out in a day or so, thus demonstrating impressive control over the workings of her subconscious mind. Putting it to work, as it were.

I associate to two phenomena of the same sort.

First, a climber instructor who told us that when out in the wild, he knocked his head on the pillow an appropriate number of times before going to sleep, and this would serve as an alarm clock, waking him up at the intended hour. I forget whether he knocked his head for the number of elapsed hours or for the time of day that he wanted to wake up. What would be really cool would be if his brain could manage either trick, on demand.

Second, it fairly often happens that I give up tired on some problem in the evening, deferring it to the next day. And then waking up the next day with the problem more or less solved.

Which might point to a reason for having consciousness: it enables us to put stakes in the ground, telling the brain where it is to go.

From where I further associate to the everyday sporting phenomenon, of a sportsman being able to consciously initiate then unconsciously execute some tricky command, like kicking a football into a bucket which is 20 metres away, a trick I think I have seen performed, on a video clip that is, by a Premier League footballer. Possibly David Beckham. All he needs to do is to decide to do it; his brain and body can then take over. A story complicated by the fact that I dare say that such a trick requires a great deal of practise, practise which would be under much more conscious control.

PS: Mettler Toledo, mentioned at reference 1, still think it is worth putting an advertisement my way this morning. After a bit of fiddling, I got past the automatic divert to their Leicester operation and got through to their corporate headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, from where they offer a huge range of laboratory equipment. Maybe some of it is even made in Leicester. Maybe this visit to their site will keep the advertisements coming for a few weeks yet. But I leave what will happen when third party cookies (aka tracking cookies) come to an end, probably some time next year, for another day.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/a-miscellany-for-friday.html.

Reference 2: https://www.mt.com/us/en/home.html.

Dry run

Friday eight days ago was earmarked for a dry run of a dish we intend to be festive with in a week or so's time. Not completely a dry run as it is a dish which we use to have from time to time in the distant past, but not for many years, at least in so far as I can recall.

Proceedings started with a cookbook which we have had for many years, featuring all kinds of things that can be cooked involving cream, butter, milk and cheese. Published by the Ebury Press of National Magazine House on behalf of the Milk Marketing Board. The location being Soho rather than next door to the Elizabeth Street in Belgravia, where I once bedsitted it for a year or so.

So their beef Strogonoff, in addition to beef, onions and mushrooms includes soured cream. Which we omit.

But the day started in the presently ordinary way with a spin around Jubilee Way, winding down with a Wellingtonia in St. Ebba's, noticed at reference 1.

Onto the butcher to pick up some rump steak, about a pound and a half of it, and half a white pudding. This last was turned over to BH to practise on for lunch, when it was taken with bread, on the grounds that although we have white puddings on a regular basis, she has never cooked one. I might say she did very well. 

In the afternoon, polished off a Maigret story involving a young lad who pinched his favourite pipe in the course of visiting Maigret's office with his mother. A pipe which went on to figure quite largely in the story that followed. With Maigret and Simenon both being pipe people who take a dim view of a favourite pipe being lifted. At least, on this occasion, he got it back.

This left me in fine form to commence activities. Phase 1, cut the steak across the grain into strips, maybe an inch and a half by half an inch by three sixteenths of an inch. Set fat aside for the crows in the morning.

Toss in no less than three tablespoons of flour, which was fine, but which I shall cut down on the next occasion. Fry for a few minutes in some butter, stirring to stop the wet flour sticking. Take the snap above. Add a finely chopped onion. Fry for a few minutes longer. 

In the meantime, boil some white rice. Just as with bacon sandwiches, this is a dish which does better white than brown. Use some of the rice water to loosen up the beef. I thought about a little tomato puree, but didn't know where it was hiding when I thought about it, and subsequently forgot. Try are remember for next time. At the last minute add the button mushrooms.

Serve with some of that all year round broccoli that they sell in Sainsbury's. A distant relative of the purple sprouting broccoli which I used to grow on the allotment - and used to eat raw when very young.

Flowers provided by BH, again from Sainsbury's. Bought tight and last just about a week, which works well just presently. Plus a couple of bottles of wine from Tracy-sur-Loire, for lack of which had to move on yesterday to the stuff noticed earlier in the day at reference 4.

All went down very well. My only adverse comment being that a little less flour would have been better. Plus maybe a spot of tomato puree, maybe a spot of black pepper. Not too sure about this last.

Dessert was grapes and or cheese and biscuits, that is to say Lincolnshire Poacher from Neal's Yard and Water Biscuits from Carr's. I think I had taken too much first course to need cheese, so stuck at grapes.

PS: the red book under the sun hat middle left, looks to be the fine map purchased on the occasion noticed at reference 5. Got down to confirm the location of Baltimore, as noticed at reference 6.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/wellingtonia-27.html.

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

Reference 3: La Pipe de Maigret - Simenon - 1945. Volume XII of the collected works.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/a-wine-for-friday.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/09/army-navy-co-op.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-woodcote.html.

A wine for Friday

For some reason, failing to find the Pierre Précieuse I was looking for at reference 2, I tried looking for paradis and wound up with some of the wine snapped above. Checking this morning, it turns out that I had tried wine from this particular place before, as noticed at reference 1, but that was not in my mind at the time of this purchase.

I think Racines is about back to the roots of winemaking. Heritage wine.

BH was very puzzled by my rendering Les cailloux du Paradis as 'Stones of Paradise', which she did not think was much improved by swapping stones for flints, as suggested by Littré. While this morning, the usually helpful Linguee is no help at all.

While I was puzzled by the naked cork. That is to say the cork had been dated and shoved into the neck of the bottle, but there was no plastic or foil wrapper after that, something which I don't think I have come across before. Maybe something to do with being orgo & eco, for which see below.

Did rather better with Sologne which seems to be a flat, rather boggy area on the headwaters of the Loire, between the Loire and the Cher, with Orléans at its northern tip.

And Etienne Courtois turns out to be a well known organic wine manufacturer, who does not allow chemicals within 500m of his land. Which accounts, it seems, for the slight smell of cider, the slight fizz and the tendency to go brown if left open for any length of time. 'Claude [the father of Etienne] regards the soil on his farm as a living organism. He lives in harmony with nature and the wines he crafts are a pure and vibrant testament to outstanding Biodynamic winemaking'. Nevertheless, we thought the stuff rather good and look forward to having some more in the not too distant future.

PS: not to be confused with the painter Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois, a French gentleman in the same league as the painters mentioned at reference 4.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/tippett.html.

Reference 2: https://shop.lescaves.co.uk/lescaves-shopfront.

Reference 3: http://www.jennyandfrancois.com/wines-2/france/claude-courtois/.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/through-glass-ceiling-again.html.

A miscellany for Friday

That is to say various bits of trivia.

First, following notice at reference 1, I have now completed the 2021 Census for this household, a process which, for the two of us, took about half an hour. I thought that whoever built the application had done well. There were no hitches, either technical or statistical - where by this last I mean that all the questions were properly supported and one knew their answers. No pondering about exactly what they meant.

On going into gmail to check that the confirmatory email from the census people had indeed arrived, I found that Google thought it was worth telling me about gadgets that I could buy for the measurement of pH values. Can't think what I might have done to put this idea into their head.

Then there was a repeat of the business of reference 2, with most of the mail in my promotions tab seeming to vanish. On this occasion recovered by logging out and logging back in again. Trust takes another knock. From where I associate to our fat leader and his loose talk about breaking laws and agreements: each time he does it, other peoples' trust in him is knocked, and it will eventually dawn on him that it is much each to destroy trust than it is to build it up again.

Second, a correspondent told me that he has now put an app on his telephone which tells him what music he is listening to. I think that this means that he can be listening to music on some far flung channel on the radio - perhaps from somewhere in Australia - and wondering what on earth it is. And now, he can just fire up his app on his telephone, hold the telephone to the loudspeaker on his radio and job done. Clearly the technology noticed at references 3 and 4 is coming on.

The only problem was that I thought that I had last thought about this much more recently than in 2017, so it took me longer than it might otherwise to turn those thoughts up. Older memory does it again.

Third, I read over breakfast in Wednesday's Guardian (they have to do a week these days), that Baluchistan is in the market for something called a reverse osmosis desalination plant which will be able to pump 5 million gallons of drinking water a day out of the sea. We are referred to reference 5 and I now know that this particular part of Pakistan, on the border with Iran and just across the water from Oman, was sold by the Sultan of Oman to Pakistan in 1958. Now being developed, with the help of the Chinese, as a major port. The land behind is more or less desert, far from the rivers flowing down from the Himalayas, and so in need of this sort of electricity guzzling technology. Technology which seems to be deployed all over the world, not just in the Persian Gulf.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-census-is-coming.html. 

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/worried-of-epsom.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/11/music-identification.html.

Reference 4: An Industrial-Strength Audio Search Algorithm - Avery Li-Chun Wang – 2003. Available at http://www.ee.columbia.edu/~dpwe/papers/Wang03-shazam.pdf.

Reference 5a: http://www.bppra.gob.pk/tender_detail.php?do===AZtxGbkNzd00karhXT31TP. 

Reference 5b: http://www.bppra.gob.pk.