Trolley 342

Being three trolleys from the M&S food hall, out of the five in the Ashmore passage.

No investment and no return, as the trolley at the top of the relevant stack at M&S had no handle lock for me to plug into and so there was neither coin nor token to be returned.

The inspector calls yet again

Somebody, probably ATG, sent us an advertisement for the inspector calls visiting the New Theatre at Wimbledon, and we decided to give it a go, with the matinée performance we ended up going for coming around last week. The tickets were of the print-yourself variety, dolled up to remind one of old-style cinema tickets. Or perhaps bus tickets. In any event, the sort of thing that was torn off a roll. But half the price of a London performance - and as it turned out, more convenient and much better value for money.

Elderly snap from Street View

It was a damp, cool day, with a strong smell of wet leaf everywhere, rather as if one was in a damp wood in the autumn, rather than in a damp suburb in the autumn. A day which started off well with my discovering that the convenience store in Waterloo Road sold walnuts. Rather nicer looking walnuts that those from Covent Garden and rather cheaper. And, as it turned out, with rather less of the bitter after taste. So far just two or three duds out of what must be around fifty nuts.

Waterloo Road clearly not on the Google camera crew's must-do list, as this image dates from 2012, while our road was done in 2018. The picture frame shop right is long gone since 2012, but the dentist (my dentist, as it happens) is still alive and well and the convenience store centre has not changed that much. Do they base the camera crew's list on the number of times a stretch of street has been viewed? With our road in a popular estate attracting, I would think, quite a lot of traffic from house hunters.

Several chaps on the platform at Wimbledon sporting tops saying 'trespass and welfare officer' in large white letters on their backs, thus solving the dead pigeon mystery at the end of reference 6, with the officers in question presumably being more concerned with mental health than with animal welfare. Perhaps they also hold keys to the long barriers which protect the fast train platforms from suicide attempts.

Before theatre beverage

We took our before theatre beverage at the old frizzle (of reference 4, a member of the Livelyhood pubco), not having been attracted by any of the other possibles on the way, mostly fast food joints of one sort or another, some very large. And the old frizzle was quite large too, with the two front bars having been knocked together, plus more space back left, complete with stage, but no piano that I could find. So no score there. Presumably it got chucked out when the place was upgraded from being an old-time boozer. Staffed by pleasant young females, who, inter alia, offered for our inspection their Christmas menu, although as far as we could make out, the place was not actual open Christmas Day. But we could have a Christmas flavoured lunch for around £25, exclusive of booze but inclusive of a Christmas Cracker.

Slightly alarmed while we took our beverages to see what seemed like huge numbers of school children arriving outside the theatre opposite, waves and waves of them. We had quite forgotten that the play had been a set book for GCSE examinations since what seems like the dawn of time - which must make the play a good earner for the likes of ATG: enough school children doing the play to keep it in more or less permanent production, touring around the country. But we worried that they might be rather noisy. We also worried about the large numbers of advertisements for 'Cinderella' plastered on the theatre, which was not what we wanted to see, but after search of the frontage and inspection of our tickets, we were relieved to spot a small poster for our play.

The children were indeed rather noisy when we arrived in the full auditorium. And they took quite a while to settle down. But settle down they eventually did, though not before I had wondered how long we would give it before returning to the old frizzle. Full credit to the cast for facing them down.

The luvvies

The play, the same production as noticed at reference 3, had worn well. Possibly helped along by the fact that while I remembered much of the body of the story, I had quite forgotten the twists at the end. More smoke than I remember. Once again, I was convinced that the inspector was John Hannah from Miss. Marple and the 4:50 from Paddington, but finding when I checked at home that he was actually Liam Brennan. At least I had the excuse that they both came from Scotland, possibly both graduating from the RADA of the north at Glasgow at roughly the same time.

And we were left with some interesting moral conundrums. For example, if we all do something bad to someone, is it worse if we all do something bad to the same person than if we each do the same something bad, but to different people? One difference being that if just one person is at the receiving end of all this bad, that person is much more likely to end up dead. With such conundrums being meat and drink to the examiners for GCSE.

I was reminded that the play saw its world premiere in Moscow in 1945 and was impressed how topical it has remained, in this era of concentrated Tory wealth in the middle of distributed Tory austerity. Not to mention sleazy sex mixed in with all the wealth - from where I associated to a comment from the Bengal famine to the effect that all the death and dislocation pushed lots of young women into sex work in the towns and cities. See reference 8 - and although it seems unlikely that Priestley knew that much about the famine, as a lefty he was probably aware of it.

Perhaps all the young people in the audience will notice that things have not changed that much from the time when Priestley was writing and grow up to be staunch Labour voters.

On exit, we decided it was too early to dine at the old frizzle, so headed home to the Café Rouge in Epsom High Street. Where we remembered the waitress, but failed to remember that she came from Cracow rather than Warsaw and that she detested travelling there by bus. Where I found that I had not got my scarf, so spent some minutes wondering where I might have left it. Was it worth going back for a £20 scarf?

Mushrooms on toast to start, half chicken with chips to follow. Washed down with a spot of new-to-us white, the flashy white having long vanished from their menu. But I did remember to steer clear of cheap Chablis and stick with New Zealand. See reference 7. No Calvados despite the Frenchified ambience, so I had to settle for Courvoisier. But all very good. Maybe we will not leave it so long next time.

Home to find that I had not taken my scarf out at all, despite it being a cool day. Perhaps I had spent too many brain cycles on whether to wear a rain coat or a jacket to have any left for scarves. All this despite my having a clear memory of putting the thing on - a memory which must have been left over from my short excursion to get the Guardian, much earlier in the day.

PS: I was impressed to find that the day after the show, our programme still stank of cigarette smoke, which must have been derived from all the fake smoke puffed out in the course of the show. The real smoke from the modest number of cigars on stage did not amount to much, with the actors not really putting their lungs to work on them. Bit squeamish about it probably.

Reference 1: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/09/an-inspector-calls.html. The small screen version.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/10/priestley.html. A different play by the same man.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-inspector-calls-again.html. The London version.

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

Reference 5: https://www.livelyhood.co.uk/. The parent pubco of the pub previous.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/last-post-for-tippett.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/08/puligny-montrachet-off.html.

Reference 8: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-bengal-famine-of-1943.html.

The dawn of inner thought?

Some three years ago, I came across Hurlburt and descriptive experience sampling, with one consequence being my realising the important part that inner thought plays in conscious life, at least in that of healthy adults. That is to say, saying stuff, saying words in one’s mind, certainly without articulating it out loud and possibly without any visible activity from the vocal apparatus. This was noticed, for example, at reference 1.

Then more recently, I pondered about the sort of consciousness that was involved in reading. More particularly, the lack of consciousness, for a lot of the time, of individual words and sentences. This was noticed at reference 2.

Then today, I observed what might be thought to be an episode in the birth of inner thought in a three year old child. A birth which might go on, for all I know, for some months.

She was playing with her pink Duplo, a gift, I think, from the young lady next door. Play which involved setting up a birthday party for three small children, involving table, chairs, (quite elaborate) cakes and candles. And once set up, the party started. Candles were blown out and cake was distributed. This part of the play was accompanied by a narrative, articulated very quietly, whispered, and I was firmly told to shut up and keep out of it. It was as if speech, which had started out loud, was gradually being internalised. And given that there were neither words on the page nor words in the ether to help things along, perhaps there were words in the head, that is to say inner thought?

Against that, one might argue that there was whispering, there was some sound. And given that her hearing was probably a lot better than mine, it was pretty much for her as if she was speaking at a volume which suited me. And speaking, in an adult anyway, does not need to involve consciousness of individual words and sentences. The words and sentence might just come, while any consciousness around might be directed at the audience, be that one, several or many.

And, digressing, the inner thought of an adult may not be any more conscious than the words on the page. They are there sure enough, because if interrupted in any way, perhaps by Hurlburt’s random bleeper, one can replay the recent words, the most recent, word for word. But in exactly what sense are they conscious?

Yet another reminder that ‘the word ‘conscious’ is not simple, and talking about being conscious of this or that is not simple either’, as concluded at reference 2. More thought on my part still needed.

By way of reward, she claimed the right to climb into her high chair for lunch, without help.

PS: back of Ralph Loren, previously noticed, visible bottom left. See reference 3.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/08/descriptive-experience-sampled.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/consciousness-while-reading.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/12/shopping.html.

A sharp frost

A sharp frost last night, sharp enough that it looks as if a corner of it is not going to shift before the next one.

A corner which starts the day in the shade, and, at this time of year, by the time the sun has worked its way around to the other side of the house, it is too low to reach this last corner, which stays in the shade of the leylandii bushes to its left, that it to say, to its south.

Battery life

Following up the postscript to reference 1, the battery on my Microsoft telephone is definitely showing signs of stress. Slow to charge and generating noticeable heat on the way. Fast to discharge. And with Microsoft, having withdrawn from the telephone business some years ago, now threatening to withdraw service.

First stop, O2, from whom I bought the telephone. Where there were two young girls who did not seem to have a clue beyond agreeing that it sounded as if the battery was on its way out but no, they did not sell batteries any more.

Second stop, Carphone Warehouse next door, from whom I used to buy my telephones. The young man there was rather more informative. It seems that you cannot take the back off the telephones of today and if the battery goes, you either have to get a new telephone or send the thing back to the manufacturer. Presumably batteries have acquired more years of life since I bought my telephone. With the result that it is not worth the mainstream telephone shops selling batteries anymore. Perhaps sir would like to visit one of the telephone repair kiosks on the High Street? This being the Ashley Centre.

Which kiosks turned out to be shut on a Sunday. All very tiresome.

Next thought was that perhaps I can get the repair shop to swap the battery in my current telephone with that from one of the other telephones we have in odd drawers?

Thought after that was that I should pay a visit to the fine new Microsoft shop which has recently opened in Oxford Circus, diagonally across the circus from Niketown. Have a moan at them.

All of which remains very tiresome.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/little-green-men.html.

Floating voter

From East Street

With some help from Microsoft

Back at reference 1, I announced by intention of becoming a tactical voter, that is to say not voting for my own party, the Labour Party.

Before I get into the serious business of voting, a little levity from East Street, where I noticed this morning a row of five small blocks let into or stuck onto the south western flank wall of Rosebery House. Possibly owned by the Rosebery Housing Association, but I cannot find anything like a catalogue of the property they own on their website. Perhaps next time I pass, I will pop in and ask. In the meantime, the small blocks are revealed by Microsoft to contain reverse relief images of bats. Someone, somewhere has a sense of humour. Pity they did not think to glaze the images with some contrasting colour so that they were more visible from the road.

Back with voting, there was a rather sad looking huddle of Labour people canvassing for the upcoming election outside Metrobank, at the main cross roads in the middle of town. I told a rather tired and dispirited lady that I proposed to vote Liberal, as their flier had told me that in the recent European elections they had done much better than Labour in this area and that their chap stood a much better chance of toppling failin' graylin'. But this lady mustered the energy to tell me that this was not right. Their chap stood a better chance, a well presented railway driver whom I think I met on the last occasion, if an unfortunate occupation given that the upcoming strike on Southwestern Trains is going to annoy a lot of people who live in the constituency but who work in town. I said I would check, which I have now done, at least up to a point. The results of this checking follow, but the bottom line seems to be that the Liberal flier - or at least my reading of it - was rather economical with the truth.

Tactical

I find that there are lots of people out there who want to help with tactical voting. The people at reference 2 for example. With their answer seeming to be that there was not one in Epsom. And I failed to find out what 'TBC' stood for. Next stop one of their references, the databank maintained by the Houses of Parliament research people. And from reference 3 you can download an Excel workbook which gives all the general election results going back to 1919 or so.

Excel

A well presented spreadsheet, with just two catches so far. First, it is organised by year of election rather than by constituency, so I had a bit of work to do to produce the above snap for the Epsom constituency. Second, they do not always list the parties in the same order. Hopefully I have straightened that out.

UKIP no show

And the story seems to be that while the Liberals might have been the runners up in the past, they appear now to have been overtaken by Labour - provided that UKIP are not running, which they are not on this occasion. The bad news is that the combined progressive vote is well short of the Tory total and has been since 2005. Indeed, the Tory vote has been climbing since its low in 2001: failin' graylin' might be failing in other respects, but he does know how to work his seat. So where did the Liberal figures come from?

Europe - Epsom

Europe - Southeast

So allowing that these Epsom figures may not be quite the same as the Epsom parliamentary constituency, on a low vote, the Liberals did indeed beat the two large parties. But they also just lost to Brexit - who as a single issue party, clocked up an impressive vote - being in a minority on that single issue notwithstanding.

Free debate

So I think the numbers are for the Conservatives and that it is not at all clear that voting Liberal is a better use of my vote than voting Labour. So voting Labour is today's intention; back in my ancestral home, where I am comfortable. And to prove that we are serious, we shall be attending the debate put on by UCASU - that is to say the Students' Union of our University of the Creative Arts. We need to participate if we want to get a result! And it will be interesting to see the inside of the place once again, it being more than twenty years since I was last in there.

It is perhaps worth repeating that I think that Corbie's present line on Europe is OK in the situation we now find ourselves in: 'I will negotiate the best deal that I can, then put it to the vote'. Not exactly leading from the front, but OK.

PS: depressed this afternoon by yet another article in the NYRB about how the party of the rich men, that is to say the Republicans, has managed to capture and hold onto a large proportion of the votes of the poor men, who ought to be voting for the Democrats, the people who do not do big tax breaks for the rich and who do do health care - and other goodies - for the poor. A trick they manage in part with help from gerrymandering of a sort and on a scale not seen in this country. In fact, about the only thing we do in that way is play politics with the timing of the implementation of the recommendations of the successive Boundary Commissions, which have more or less determinant effects on the makeup of the House of Commons. The other depressing snippet is that, somewhere along the way, I learned that the Biden hopeful, the chap at the centre of the Ukraine row, is also the chap who made Delaware one of the best places in the world to look after your dodgy money. Well in front of Juncker who did much the same thing for Luxembourg, before going onto to greater things at the Commission. Is it any wonder that rank and file voters are a touch cynical?

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

Reference 2: https://tactical.vote/compare.

Reference 3: https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8647#fullreport.

Reference 4: https://www.fatsoma.com/discover. Who knows who these people are, but they now have my email address.

Shopping

My winter windcheater having been declared to be old, last Sunday had been declared a shopping day.

By way of preparation I spent a little time with Cortana & Bing, to find that both the word and the concept of windcheater had more or less vanished from the world of men's clothes. That is to say the simple, sturdy, somewhat waterproof, cotton jacket which many men and boys wore outside when I was young. A world which now seems to be dominated by puffer jackets which one might have thought were designed for the Arctic wastes rather than suburban Surrey. The nearest I could get was one or two offerings from Ralph Lauren via John Lewis. Furthermore, I have a soft spot for Ralph Lauren, as the label on a fine, red dressing gown which I bought from TK Maxx for the knockdown price of £60. The only thing wrong with it being a logo in the form of polo player having been sewn onto the front of the thing in such a way that one can't get it off without making things even worse.

By way of getting myself in the mood, a spot of Bach followed by a spot of Rossopomodoro. The idea being that that would leave me on the spot and in a mood to buy clothes.

A dull misty start to the day, with the trains to Vauxhall being in a bit of a state: planned engineering works combines with a points failure somewhere. So after deep thought, we decided to drive to Sutton and to park n'ride from there. Not a route that I knew, but we did well enough apart from an older gentlemen who did not seem to understand the concept of filtering left at traffic lights. I was moved to use the horn for the first time in what must be years - with my being surprised at how hard you have to hit the horn (on our Ford C-Max) to get any action. Yet another bit of poor detailing at the bottom of the Ford range. But a car which, I might say, has been very reliable mechanically, not ever having given us any trouble.

A very small platform library at Sutton, which failed to provide in-train entertainment. On the other hand we had a handsome (and well spoken) black girl using her journey to put her makeup on and a gaggle of middle aged white ladies all geed up for an outing to the Ideal Home exhibition, something we have not been to for many years. Maybe as many as forty five. Plus an older white gent in a trilby sporting what looked like a much loved version of a service book saying 'Gregorian' in large letters on the front, so presumably off to a proper Latin mass at Westminster Cathedral. However, checking this morning, I find that Gregorian masses are indeed rather special, but not by virtue of being said or sung in Latin. Reference 2 may provide the answer.

Annoyance

Half way through the last paragraph, I must have hit a wrong key, and the black pop up snapped above appeared on the screen, on top of Edge and its windows. Keyboard locked. Black window not visible in Task Manager, the window for which was partly obscured by the black pop up. Closed everything down and was about to restart, when clicking on the start button made the thing go away. Something which has happened once or twice before, perhaps a feature/bug of the second-hand EliteBook from HP which serves as my laptop.

Out at Oxford Circus to find another Maserati SUV, hard on the heels of the SUV noticed at reference 3. Maybe Range Rover need to watch their backs. And to find that the All-Bar-One at the top of Regent Street have stopped serving Smarties with their teas and coffees. BH most put out, especially as she was slimming.

Pet shop

Bath shop

Into Wigmore Street, where we found that the unusual pet shop, of which we had first heard just a few days previously, was up and running. Is their main trade rich old ladies with cats and lap-dogs in their mansion flats? While the shop which sold dangerous stone baths - the ones with all the angles and corners - reference 5 - also did bathroom trivia at around £600 for three.

Programme

And so into the Wigmore Hall where there were people queuing for returns. Ms. Podger clearly a draw, although, according to the record, we had only heard her once before, at a concert at St. John's a couple of years ago, noticed at reference 1. The programme on this occasion was: Sonata No.1, BMW.1001 [Bach Werke Verzeichnis], four parts; and, Partita No.1, BMW.1002, four parts doubled, that is to say eight.

Six microphones above centre, one discrete streaming contraption far right, floral compositions in red and green. With the flower lady seemingly going through a phase of green flowers. Perhaps she was visited recently by the green dye salesman.

Podger very good, as expected. She came in three varieties: back to the audience for most of her tuning, facing the audience but passive & waiting, facing the audience and playing. There was quite a lot of tuning, presumably required for challenging solo work.

Audience included another older gent., complete with pale brown tweeds, waistcoat and another trilby. Probably a button-hole but I don't remember now. An element of Bach/Podger groupiness about the audience, although I did not see any actual duffel coats. While in front of me, I had an older lady out with her daughter who was a bit of a fidget. Probably her daughter's thing rather than hers. And sometimes her fidgeting set up an odd vibration in the top of her hair do, fast and not bearing any relation that I could discern to the music. From which readers can deduce that it was slightly distracting.

Took our sherry on the way out - about the only time we take sherry these days - with the sherry bars of my youth which sold cheap sherry by the half pint being long gone - and from there onto the branch of Rossopomodoro on the third floor of John Lewis, overlooking Cavendish Square, last visited getting on for six months ago, noticed at reference 4.

Dough stirrer

Menu

On this occasion a sort of potato croquette to start, with a bit of meat sauce and grated cheese on top. Called panzarotto and said, by the menu, to be the latest thing in Neapolitan street food, in some ways the equivalent of the poutine from Quebec, another place both poor Catholic. See reference 6 for our first, and possibly best, venture into the world of poutine. Main course turned out to be another filling dish, new to us, called 'Trofie Patate e Pesto' and mainly made up of pasta and potato. Not bad, but while I finished mine, BH was defeated by the last tablespoon or so.

Recto

Verso

The wine was satisfactory, even if my camera hand was a bit crooked by the time I got around to the verso. For a local view see reference 7.

Dessert

Tea for her and grappa for him, yellow on the second attempt. The waiter assured me that he had had far too much the night before to be interested in whopping down the white that the bar had issued by mistake. I thought the yellow was rather good.

Even in John Lewis

The body of the shop was in fine condition for the Christmas rush. But even in a Tier One shop like this, the decorations slipped a bit on the back stairs.

The bag

Pushed on down to the gents' fashion department and eventually found the Ralph Lauren stand. I almost went for something very like a windcheater (cotton), but BH persuaded me to try the very slightly puffy jacket (polyester) which I eventually bought. Probably both a bit warmer and a bit more waterproof. And not only had a good chunk been knocked off the original ticket price, we got another chunk off when we got to the till. BH explained that this sort of thing is normal in ladies' fashion, where you can watch the price of things drifting down as the season progresses. Essentially a Dutch auction. Pleasant young lady from Wicklow on the till, who told us of the beauties of the mountains there - of which I have heard before, but have never managed to get there, just the same. Pleasant manners only marred by them being switched off after the 30 seconds allowed - something I first noticed at the registration desks of big hotels in the US. And perhaps because we were paying in the gifts department rather than the clothes department, we only rated a very small carrier bag.

Counting

Regular readers will know that I sometimes play counting games. This one, in the train back to Sutton, was quite challenging - but I found it helped to set up a rhythm my moving the head very slightly from side to side as I went, getting to a reasonably stable count of around 46.

Cheating

Pleased - and surprised - to find this afternoon that, with the aid of rotate, zoom, mouse, snip and sketch, that I was spot on.

The pub

On the way home from Sutton, as BH was driving, I had time to notice the new-to-me public house snapped from Street View above. According to reference 8, built in the 1950's, with the original having been damaged by bombs during the second war. Was it just the middle 1950's, with the two wings later or what? Plenty of people living in the area but can they still fill the place with casual diners? Lots of places like this in and around Epsom have gone down over the last twenty years or so. Just a few more years before the owner convinces the council that flats are a better option? With perhaps just a small , continental-style bar on the ground floor, given that the reviews suggest that this is the only pub still in the area?

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/12/more-enlightenment.html.

Reference 2: https://lms.org.uk/. Pope Gregory does get a mention.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/auto-tweets.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/07/art-fair.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/06/big-bath.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/10/poutine.html.

Reference 7: https://vinumetcervisia.blogspot.com/2013/10/gavi-conte-di-alari.html.

Reference 8: https://www.pubsgalore.co.uk/pubs/69465/.