pumpkinstrokemarrow

Mozart may have been his thing, but Chopin preludes will have to do for tonight.

The under age drinkers of Epsom are in mourning. The late night burger bar in town centre - Roosters - who have refuelled generations of said under age drinkers has shut. Not clear where they now go and the street cleaners who bagged a fair bit of overtime cleaning up the mess in the morning are not too happy either.

To compound the misery another late night venue - the Boogie Lounge - is having trouble with the licensing people over late night revellry. Maybe the problem arises when, not having Roosters, the youth try and get into Boogie's - which is supposed to be a place for the more mature and discerning drinker - and get refused.

Becoming something of an expert on provincial tips, having recently visited those at Gosport and Guildford. Layout of both very cramped with a row of parking slots in front of a row of green containers with very little in the way of manoeuvring space in front of the slots. At Gosport they are very into you sorting your rubbish which means that if you have a car load of miscellaneous household rubbish you spend quite a long time marching up and down trying to find the right container. You need to know, for example, that tree roots do not count as wood (unpainted) and that the definition of metal (iron and steel) is as elastic as the trusty minding the container. Less bother sorting at Guildford but they make up for that with a very long queue. Makes one realise what a palace the waste transfer station at Epsom is. Not much in the way of containers, just a row of rectangulars holes half way up the concrete wall of the huge waste warehouse, through which one chucks one's rubbish. Large loaders trundle around below pushing it into heaps. Large mezzanine area in front of the holes in which to drive around. All in all a much higher throughput operation, a proper metropolitan operation (despite Epsom presently being in Surrey rather than London. On which subject we hear change may be afoot), although not fast enough to prevent a tip-madness death the other month when an elderly gent had his arm broken and died a few hours later of heart failure. And for a treat yesterday, because we were driving a van, we were allowed to drive into the waste warehouse itself rather than use the holes. We were allowed to park right among the heaps and loaders and get the authentic sights and smells of waste on a warm Sunday afternoon. A very distinctive smell it is too: nothing quite like dustcart smell. This incursion into the warehouse being topped and tailed by visits to the weighbridge to make sure that we were not shifting contraband commercial waste.

Pleased to see that the animal rights people are alive and well at Leatherhead. It seems that a fox got into a multi-storey carpark there and managed to get stuck on a ledge some way up. The rightys organised a full scale rescue and were able to announce that they would be able to release the fox back into the wild very shortly. I think I would have borrowed one of those Harris hawks they use to harrass pidgeons to take the thing out - always assuming that such a hawk would take on a fox.

I forgot to mention that a depraved young mum was seen having a cigarette (yes, a cigarette in this day and age) withing spitting distance of a school gate while waiting for her child this afternoon. It is quite clear that they should set up a 100 metre exclusion zone around said gate. One might then invite householders within the zone to voluntarily relinquish their right to smoke on their own property in order to keep the exclusion zone nice and circular. And just to be on the safe side in case they should attempt to change their minds something should be written into their entries on the Land Register. One could always resort to some sort of compulsion if they do not seem inclined to volunteer. I shall write to to the relevant authorities about it all.

Perhaps I could get sponsored by the contractor who will get the contract for erecting the exclusion zone signage. I should think it ought to come to a tidy £200,000 or so for the first language.

There's trouble at t'pit. Not clear that the deer wire is keeping them off the carrot seeds. In any event, it certainly isn't keeping the mole off who has popped up from nowhere with two new molehills in the middle of one row. It doesn't look like I am going to get anything off the leaf beet which I carefully left (at some expense to be incurred in doing that bit of the Autumn digging in the summer). They are going straight to seed without bothering about any leaf. Leek seedlings nowhere to be seen despite the seeds having gone in some weeks ago. The new peach which put on a bit of growth last year sprouted alright this but now looks to have got leaf curl. Have to consult the quack. And the bamboo is looking very threadbare after its first winter. Lots of leaf loss and no sign of new ones.

But, by way of a consolation prize, the summer cabbage is showing and is now safely wire netted against the pidgeons along with the brussells sprouts and the invisible leeks. And the new cherry which got leaf curl last year and looked pretty sad for most of it is sprouting quite strongly. The thing might even survive.

Also good to read that our favourite cherry is making big fat fees taking the case of a school girl who wants to wear religeous togs at school through all the courts in the land. Surprised to see a Catholic giving an infidel so much time. No doubt all paid for by the legal aid fund. (Perhaps there is another fine new house to be paid for, perhaps next to Mr M's fine new house, reported on in one of today's papers). The French, it seems, got this thing right. They banned all religeous togs from schools on the grounds that their schools were and were going to remain secular. (I think, formally at least, the US is in the same position. But I don't know what they do about this particular issue. And a hot topic there because I got harrangued about it all the way from airport to hotel there once by a gentleman from the society for the preservation of public secularity (or something to that effect)). There was a bit of a row in France when the law was kicked in because they do have a big heterofaithic religeous minority but the majority stuck to their guns - part of their defence being the need to protect children from being compelled to wear said togs. Must enquire of Google how it is all settling down.

Steak sarneaze for breakfast today. Rather extravagent use of sirloin steak but very good. Perhaps a touch undercooked with a hint of that traditional hung flavour that Mr Sainsbury likes to charge you such a lot extra for.

Thinking of pot boilers, was talking to someone in TB the other night. He had been to a concert by either Simon or Garfunkel recently, singing with a four peice band as backup. Presumably he was asked to do all his old favourites from 40 years ago. I can imagine that if you have had success of that sort, you must get really cheesed off having to keep trotting it out when you have moved on. It might bring home the bacon (to change the metaphor) and it might do you good to hear those clapping hands again - but going over old ground - which you might well have preferred to have done slightly differantly - must cheese. I believe Beethoven was not too keen on some of his early but popular works. Wanted them expunged from the canon! And Ian Fleming and Arthur C-D both got well fed up with the golden geese that they had invented. They felt taken over by their creations. Presumably Mrs Potter must feel the same in spades although I have never heard of her opining on the subject.

Spent part of today helping with a clear out of a house which had been continuously occupied by the same couple for a very long time - maybe sixty years with the odd gap while they were abroad. Scary how little of interest to others one accumulates in that time. But lots of stuff which one doesn't get rid of for one reason or another; perhaps of sentimental value for one reason or another - but not to anybody else. Perhaps one just gets too old to care enough to do anything about it. I thought on the way back that it would be one of the few advantages of having a big house (the desire for which, in my case, faded with my twenties): one could have glass topped display cabinets in reception rooms - like those one has in museums - in which you display the cleaned up memorabilia from one's ancestors. In this case the tools of the trade of a naval electrical articifer. Beautiful bits of engineering - but which are now near useless. I think Prince Albert went in for this sort of thing - certainly with geological specimens he and his children picked up from beaches on holidays - but then he could afford the space. He also had the wit to label them. We have been collecting 10 pound lumps of stone from around the country for some time but can now remember where very few of them came from.

In the same way, it always grieves me to see an IBM golf ball typewriter going for £5 in a car boot sale. Wonderfull bits of engineering - but can you find house room for 50 pounds of it?Would one ever use it, even just to make some point?

All of which brings me on to an interesting memory lapse. Today, I conflated two vists to the theatre and was completely convinced that visit A happened on the date of visit B. I was sure that I was right. Not the shadow of a possibility that the BH could be right. However, this did not work with various other facts which I did manage to get right and eventually with the aid of a diary the two visits were made two again. And these visits were both within the last month.

Which makes it suprising that the BH has trusted me with one of her recipes for today's evening meal. Me doing my recipes is one thing, but doing hers is quite another. Particularly since this lentil and smoked sausage recipe is fairly close to the lentil soup that I usually make. I could easily get confused.

12 times Mammoth pumpkin seeds, Dobies, in two closed trays on sunny window cill.

6 times Gold Nugget Squash, Dobies, in pots, marked with green sticks, in shed. All you get in a packet: given the number of seeds in a squash, not bad money if you can get it.

6 time pumpkin Big Max, from Robinsons of Sunnybank (last year's) , in pots, in shed. Rather odd green seeds. Some kind of fungicide?

2 times half rows of carrots, Autumn King 2, Dobies. South East corner of that part of the Northern allotment which is not the deer exclosure. Plenty of black ants. Let's hope they don't like seeds. Also deer footprints in the previous row of carrots. So erected a reasonably firm green washing line about a foot off the ground on the Southern perimeter. Maybe it will keep them off.

Labels: OBIE

On checking the last posting and taking a peek at a few others using the excellent next blog button, attacked by a pop-up which appeared to be selling pop music and which seemed to require one to go into control+alt+delete mode to shut the process down to get rid of it. Is this sort of thing legal? What would the proverbial little old lady do? Does it all stem from the problems which started when unloading pictures to blogs?

The bus stop saga continues. The three touch of pink bus stops have now acquired some lurid yellow - but at least it is only lettering rather than a paint job. On the other hand no one has seen fit to put the pavement behind the relaid kerb stones - which is a mess of what I used to call type 1 sub base - back together again. Perhaps the whole exercise is for the edification and amusement of motorists rather than the convenience of those who might be using the buses. Two other bus stops have been planed and have been sitting there empty for a few days - best avoided on a bicycle - although one of them has today acquired a gang of rather lethargic labour.

But good news from South West trains. The coach containing the talking lady computer must have been sent behing the shed - a terrible place where, as boys of a certain age will remember, Thomas's deliquent or elderly friends got sent to be broken up or cannibalised - because on our ride yesterday the coach we were in could only muster a very feeble announcement once per stop - we think the guard must have been reduced to doing it himself. Bliss.

All this on the way to the Millbank Tate which turns out to have a very good collection from the PRB gang. Sadly, the top right hand portion of the gallery is now given over to dustbin art - stuff which I had thought was confined to the power station downriver. Poor old Duveen must be turning in his well lined grave. Will spend the next few weeks trying to identify the site of the Ewell cornfield which features in a small Holman Hunt. Didn't recognise the shape of the hill at all but I suppose it does all look rather differant with houses on it.

Have been largely entertained by Diana Holman Hunt's saga about her grandfather. It seems that, often being short of cash, he often resorted to the production of what he called pot-boilers. One meaning of which being exactly what one might guess - the wherewithal to boil up the pot containing one's dinner. The other meaning being the hot pebble you chuck into the pot to bring it to the boil when application of heat to the base of the pot - perhaps because it is a lump of rock - is ineffective. Other titbits include the facts that 1) ladies were deterred from remaining in the dining room for port after dinner by the circulation of a silver chamber pot for the greater comfort of those gentlemen who had been rather self indulgent. The pot in question now being in the possession of the author; and 2) that terrible country house snob Evelyn Waugh (granted a funny writer) was actually the sprog of a successful retail chemist. Confirmation of the fact that those most keen on pulling up the ladder are those who have most recently climbed it; and 3) people really did sue for breach of promise and non-cunsummation of marriage in the second half of the 19th century. It seems that the famous Ruskin was a victim of this last having been the victim of a dreadful childhood. There should have been child therapists around to help. So the Stone of Venice (to rime with the sword in the stone) will never sound the same again. (Actually reading them does seem rather challenging - but you never know).

Nearer home, in the back garden in fact, the blue bells are now in flower. The large garden variety rather than the woodland sort which I rather prefer but very nice all the same.

A failed soup yesterday. Let down by the trusty Knorr chicken stock cubes for once. I suspect that the failure to add some onions fried in butter to give body was the culprit. On the other hand have been reminded of the virtues of Sharwood's egg noodles.

Not the title of a best seller to which there is now a follow up. Rather the connection irritations which seem to follow from uploading pictures to blogs. Even the BT broadband software seems to thing something is wrong, announcing this fact with the odd pop-up, promising resolution which does not quite seem to come off.

On the other hand, it might have been connection to the various odd academic sites in a search for a digital version of Finnegans Wake. A fair proportion of these sites seem to be very slow, something which seems to disturb the connection. And the way things are looking I am going to have to eat my Tooting words. I thought I could lay my hands on a digital version of said book in about five minutes but after half an hour all I have to show is a rather naffly laid out, incomplete bit of Ulysses text. Maybe the sort of people who are into reading digital texts need lighter fodder - although I would have thought the Wake would be a wonderful text for those who like to analyse with computers. Count the number of times that the word stem 'mast' occurs as part of a compound in a noun clause sort of thing. The search continues.

My other foray onto the Internet has not been that successful either. Prompted by a note in the DT which alleged that urban foxes live for a shorter time than country ones - my recollection being that it had previously reported things the other way around and having a low opinion of sub-editing there - did a google on the subject. Plenty of relevant hits, some of which appeared to be respectable and trustworthy (there were quite a few of cuddle a fox today variety). We learn that a fox kept in a nice comfortable zoo might well live to be 10 or 12 but in the wild maybe 2 or 3. Mortality in the country down to shooting and dogs; in a town down to being run down on roads. Nothing much on relative mortality in the country and in towns. But coming to think about it this is perhaps not so suprising. It would be reasonably expensive to mount the kind of survey needed to answer the question. And since it is entirely possible that one needs to kill a fox in order to detirmine its age one might have trouble with the RSPCA. And I had forgotten - if I ever knew - that fox fur was once widely used by ladies and that shooting for fur accounted for as many foxes as shooting because vermin.

The DT also advises us that a recent study has ascertained that living increases the chance of dying by 28%. Also that alternate day consumption of bacon (or related products such as luncheon meat) increase the chance of catching a wide range of lung complaints by 97%. I wonder if whoever wrote these studies up ever had any training in statistics - or whether they were funded by the same gang that pays for people to construct unmade beds.

Passed what looked like a dead green finch sitting by the side of the road on the way to Cheam today. Viewed from the top as one cycled past it looked a bit short and fat for a green finch but I could not think what else it might be. Maybe a juvenile. So given that I have not seen one this year I think I might score half a tweet for a probable dead one.

But I think I get two tweets for a sighting of an anonymous hawk on a cleared part of Epsom common the other day; first time for a long time that I have seen such a thing around here. A large brown bird with pale belly and lingish tail, on the ground when first seen then flew up into a tree stump. Rather bigger and longer than a pidgeon so a bit big for a kestrel. But I am not sure what that leaves.

Third ration of Bakewell tarts for our London picnic today. Hopefully it won't rain despite the change in the weather.

Global warming continues in Epsom. To the extent that I find a bumble bee expired on the downstairs hall floor. Was the heat responsible for the odd pink extrusion at the side of the head? The thing seemed to be otherwise undamaged. Now on patio where we will find out how fussy the blue tits whom I think are nesting there are about insects. Do they only eat them when captured live? Without pink extrusions? I seem to remember that some animals in zoos insist on live food.

We will also see how the heat does for the new playing field at the school on the way to Cheam. It appeared to have been returfed - having been an expanse of yellow mud for some months - some time in March - since when it hasn't rained. Maybe its really astroturf - although I have only ever seem that used on enclosed playing areas.

Just past the school we had a couple of those community police people. The presence on the streets. Much derided, but maybe this is a way to get said presence at a good deal less than the cost of real police people and providing career opportunities for decent middle aged folk without too many other options. At least one would not get the abuse that traffic wardens - another home for the same consituency - get.

Perhaps I should have summoned them to deal with the youth crossing the road at the roundabout on the Ewell by-pass on the way to Nescot - the college further education place. The lead youth thought it very cool, having seen me a few yards away - to carry on crossing the road with his nose in a nosebag, right in front of me. At least his companions saw fit to pause, perhaps because they were unsure about my stopping distance, rather than because of manners.

Or to attend to the nifty Ford pouch which I found in the road, containing things like the drivers manual for a car and various other bits and peices. Why would an honest person throw such a thing away? I returned it to the Ford show room a bit further down the road who looked slightly bemused. Will it hit the bin or will they trace the owner of the vehicle to which it belongs?

Roast shoulder of lamb yesterday with rice and cabbage. Five pounds at 185C for 2 hours was slightly too long but not a bad peice of meat none the same. Suprisingly little fat for this particular cut: perhaps a quarter of a pint where we would normally get near a half. Maybe English is a bit older and so not as fatty as their frozen New Zealand cousins. For once preceeded by a chick pea starter of Mediterranean specification and followed by pudding of apples and blackberry - this being the last of last year's tray frozen crop from the allotment. Accompanied by Margaux - the bottle containing which was completely agnostic as to whether it was a Chardonnay or not.

My first Soduku for some weeks today. Perhaps a consequence of having got up rather earlier than usual. Rudimentary checks failed to find an error in the finished product - although I was lucky to have finished having hit a mistake around the half way mark. Unusually, I hit upon a correction which only involved switching two numbers.

Spent a couple of hours or so shirt free in the allotment sun yesterday. So far no burning - which is not bad for me. Did most of a row for carrot seeds which was finished off and seeded this morning. Reminded how much vegetable seeds differ, one from another. Which reminds that seeds, stamens and pistils are the life blood of the plant taxonomer.

Saw a most interesting garden shed, mostly constructed of discarded garage doors (of the pressed aluminium variety), with various anti-burglar devices and various interior mod-cons. All most ingenious - but I think I shall muddle along shed-free for a bit yet. Taking the few tools that I used down with me is yet to be pain enough to push me into sheds. But who knows: shedophilia might take me yet.

Had the hose on the potatoes for a couple of hours - the underground being damp enough but the surface drying out - not having had any rain for a month or so now. Hard to know whether potatoes count as underground or near surface - so run a bit of water into the ground to be on the safe side. A near neighbour's potatoes are well up now - say more than six inches high - but he may get hammered by the frost yet - as we both did last year. In my case, one more serious potato challenge along with the very dry summer.

Hastings haddock again on Friday. Sliced onion on bottom of dish, fish on top of that, few knobs of butter and topped up with foil. 180C for a little less than an hour and just the job. Having neither added water or pepper a plus as far as I was concerned. Served, naturally, with mashed potato and cabbage.

Have now completed filling in my living will and have got it signed by all the great and good. Next job is to get many copies and lodge them with said great and good. Hopefully I will manage to avoid being semi comatose at the receiving end of a peg feeder.

Plenty of more sprightly gerries have come out in the sun though. Yesterday there was a bunch of cyclo-gerries on a training run through Cheam. Nearly all white haired but all blue lycra with fairly serious bikes. As the owner of a reasonably respectable Trek I got a few nods. Bit let down by lack of lycra.

And today on the common more evidence of chain saw activity by the eco-gerries. Quite large swathes have now been semi cleared to bring it into line with some bucolic adenic state which is supposed to have existed a hundred years ago. I just wish they would just take up something innocuous and private and stop meddling with public spaces.

Second ration of Bakewell tarts from the baker today, having decided that their Eccles cakes are not really up to snuff. One Bakewell tart must be the equivalent of a Mars Bar (and costs rather more) - but very good. Just the thing for a hot afternoon with one's Earl Gray. (or Grey).

Sowed some summer cabbage seeds out in the allotment: Golden Acre Primo (II). In the allotment because our shed seems to be rather cold and germination seems to take ages there. Maybe do better with a cold frame. In any event not a crop I have done very well with in the past.

Odd story in testerday's DT about a girl who got banned from all the fun at her school because she declined to do extra revision after school. League tables are all very well, but for my money extra revision is optional. One should be able to elect not to be a blue stocking, however undesirable that might be in the great scheme of things. In this case the girl in question seemed to be doing OK anyway. Perhaps - as if often the case with seemingly odd stories - we are only getting half of it.

Classy senior moment. Was trying to top up my pay-as-you-go mobile phone so had flexible friend in the left hand and the phone in the other; all ready to roll into action when the computer lady on the phone sprang into action. Unfortunately, I put the flexible friend to ear instead of phone. Luckily, brain, even in its present state of decay, fairly quickly worked out that this was not going to work.

Computer lady on South West trains clearly has stamina. I think on my visit to London yesterday she managed to find something to say about every thirty seconds. Irritating cow. Whereas the one on Southern trains on Wednesday appears to have given up altogether and that on Great Northern trains could only manage one on a 45 minute (that is to say about the same journey duration as Epsom to London) trip to Cambridge. Perhaps you don't get bombs or have to mind the step North of the big river.

I wonder what the penalty for swamping the loudspeakers in some sort of fast setting foam goo would be - perhaps the sort of thing that they use to stick window frames in with these days. Perhaps a conditional discharge like that for the coughing major who tried a bit of physical remonstrance with some dreadful teenager. Perhaps we are supposed to ask for their name and address so that we can pass it onto to the police so that they can go and talk to the parents. Perhaps the busies should put up helpful signs on jogging tracks advising people who are molested to contact a member of the track supervision team (this being more or less what the South West trains computer lady does - without, it seems, having given much thought to the problem of getting hold of a member of the team at short notice when in an 8 car train in the middle of the night...).

Has been a busy day. The digital camera seems to be a success although I still don't seem to have got the hang of posting them. I keep getting the pop-up for broken connection; happily not fatal.

That apart, an entirely new fish recipe. Bought two smoked mackeral from a Bangladeshi fish shop in Balham (the street where the market is) on Easter Sunday. Wonder what to do with them. Settle for a fish stew, vaguely a l'Estrella. So melt butter, add pounded pepper. Add about four finely chopped onions. Cook for a while. Add six chopped tomatoes - would have done better with beef tomatoes rather than the rather feeble ordinary winter ones. Cook for a while. Add 100 grams or so of chopped elderly bacon peices of uncertain appearance. Cook for a while. Skin and bone mackeral which turned out to be much mushier than expected. Maybe they had been frozen for some portion of their life. Simmer gently; serve with white rice and cabbage.

All turned out much better than I thought likely half way through the proceedings. Another time I would use proper bacon and add at the beginning - this would be less salty and with better flavour. And maybe cook the rice in with the stew. All in all a good invention. As they say, you have to speculate to accumulate.

Not so pleased at the latest wheeze of the Whitehall control freaks. Having completely failed - to be fair, along with most of the rest of the world - to manage sea fishing effectively, they now decide that the way forward is to license all the people who go sea fishing for fun. People whose collective impact on sea fish must be very close to zero. A scheme which one imagines will cost about as much to run as it will collect and achieve nothing beyond fattening the contractors who dreamed it up and annoying the people who like to go fishing. Some of whom, again to be fair, like to keep rather odd hours. When we will ever learn?

Or is it perhaps a googly from the RSPCA who having done for hunting foxes, now want to move into the cruelty to fishes business?

PS must ask the RSPCA what it thinks we should do about the plague of urban foxes.

Seen my second hummer. Windows open, loud music, didn't see the occupant. The first was in Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight. What people buy these ridiculous vehicles for I can't imagine. Perhaps they are the latest fashion item for candymen. Tax 'em off the road!

Plus further sightings of the special van that goes around valeting wheely bins. I think the drill is that the wheely bin is put inside the van where it is hosed down, presumably with some tastefully scented detergent. Does one pay so much for inside and so much for outside? Does it have to be empty before the valet will do his business - and if so how do you coordinate his movements with those of the waste operatives? How much does one pay? Will it catch on any better than the floral/foliage covers which one can stick on the outside of wheely bins to brighten them up/camauflage them? Ours is ivy flavoured. A custom from Scotland I think, but a custom which only has two punters in our road. Perhaps they would do better if the stickons had rather more lively patterns. Celebrity faces? If one was a celebrity, would one care to have one's face adorning a wheely bid?

Reasonably amount of planting today. Another shortish row of Centurion onion sets. A seed bed of Autumn Mammoth leeks and a seed bed of Beford brussel sprouts. Never grown the latter before - but enough people on the allotment field do so I don't see why I shouldn't manage.

Hops sprouting well. The largest hop has a shoot more than a foot high, the other two following a bit behind.

Transplanted dandelion starting to pick up with a second flower.

Some of the willow sticks which I am using to mark rows have been well chewed at the ends on the ground. Presumably mice going for the sap - of which one would not have thought there was all that much in the circumstances. Squirrels must be more intelligent, stripping the buds ends of live sticks. Ruined a young horse chestnut tree in the garden doing this - although they did not seem to bother with adult trees which could far better cope with the damage. So perhaps not so intelligent after all.

Almost caught by something called Easter bread at Cheam today. A confection of something called unbleached flour, orange peel and saltanas; the whole covered in flour. A proceeding I do not approve of as it gets everywhere and does nothing for the taste of the confection in question. So settled for a second round of hot cross buns instead; buns which are not hot but which are covered with rather more sugary goo than I remember. Not bad all the same.

Talking of bus stops, those in Cheam are painted a orangy-yellow sort of colour. But given that Cheam is in London and therefore in the Livingstone domain, they set no precedent for Epsom council, run by a residents association to whom Livingstone and all his works are no doubt anathaema.

Some of the verges on the way home from Cheam have some of the small white flower which seemed to carpet the motorway verges back from up North and which clearly thrives on whatever it is that traffic chunk onto the verges. Must find out what it is called.

Pototoes now all safely in the ground, the Desiree not have sprouted nearly as much as the Kestrel. Maybe if one kept them in the fridge one could slow the sprouting down? Clearly the shops do something because theirs are largely sprout free. So I can now start worrying about water. Ground drying out fast and I don't think potatoes are very keen on dry - although the theory is that all the compost underneath them acts a reservoir. We shall see.

Must move on to all the rest of the planting now: more leaf beet and onions sets; leeks (my record for which is on a downward trend), cabbage and carrot. Then the all important question of marrow, pumpkins and all the rest of that clan. Will I do better with the indoor seeds that I usually manage? The idea being to have plants six inches high which one can put out in May all ready to go. That way one gets a longer growing season than the much more reliable (for me anyway) putting seeds straight in the ground in May. Will we try the blotting paper and airing cupboard method advertised somewhere or by somebody?

Pumpkin coloured and presumably flavoured soup today. Remarkable how long the things go on even if one turns most of them into Halloween lanterns.

Had the smallest ever forerib of beef during the week. A meagre 2 and a quarter pounds. Actually went in for pre-heating the oven for once (the thought being that one needed the additional precision that that gives one), did it for an hour at 185C and it turned out just about right. Not the same as a proper big peice where with luck one can achieve a bigger range of texture, colour and what have you - but for a mid week snack not bad at all. Rounded off with further rhubarb. Finished off in lunch time sandwiches the following day.

Epsom is now the proud possessor of three re-paved bus stops. Two in the road, one in a lay by. All in a tasteful shade of bitumen black with just a hint of pink. Not sure what this rather dingy colour signifies; perhaps it is the undercoat for something more striking. A few years ago a patch of road outside the interesting Cornerstone School was coloured a lurid yellow - a shiny version of the sort of paint that one does yellow lines with - and it lasted about a week until the wave of protest had them scrape it off again.

Second wave of potatoes is on the move. Dobies cunningly made the maincrop Desiree a lot smaller than the second early Kestrel so I have more row to prepare. Only having two thirds of a row left from said Kestrels, had to commandeer what was to have been the runner bean row. We will see how well the potatoes compete with the comphrey there - the various bits of root of which seem to be impossible to eradicate. Last year they popped up all over the place. Now half way through a third leaf mould trench to take the remainder.

Continue to have to water the leaf beet seeds and onion sets - both being on the move and ground surface being very dry. Let's hope that the water gets turned on fairly soon.

Picking up some more bits and peices from Liverpool, the visit to Port Sunlight was very rewarding. It seems that the Lever Bros made a huge amount of money out of inventing the first cheap and effective laundry soap and then reinvested a large chunk of it in the community. This included a very large and flashy barrel vaulted congregational church - which could easily be mistaken for something a bit higher - a very large model village after the Bournville model and a special lodge for the masons in his employ. The regalia for said lodge are displayed in a discrete part of the Lady Lever Gallery - the less discrete parts of which display the art collection they put together. Amongst other things, two important Holman Hunts. The Scapegoat which I found much more impressive in the flesh than I was expecting - perhaps the best thing there. And May morning in Magdalene which I did not understand at all. There was also a very large public house so he managed not to be too stuffy about his munificence. Last but not least a very impressive war memorial; very well set off by its gardens. The memorial to Lever himself - erected by his grateful employees - not so hot. I wonder how much arm twisting was involved in getting the subscriptions in - similar things in London for admirals and what have you erected by their adoring rating are a bit unconvincing. All in all a place to visit again.

The hole in the middle of Howell hill has now shrunk to a patch in the middle of the road, surrounded by a cluster of cones. While passing it, I was passed by a middle sized white van belonging to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The thing is, what was such a van doing going to Cheam? What war grave do we have in the vicinity?

It prompted me to wonder what will happen to the first world war graves in the longer term. The big memorials might last a long time - say a thousand years - but it seems unlikely that the graveyards will. The one that I know best at Madingley (actually a cemetary for US airmen from the second world war) is immaculately cared for and the headstones look as new - but how long will it last? Will we ever bite the bullet and plough the things up? The cemetary at Arlington contains a lot of civil war headstones and as I recall it the grass around them is still cut from time to time, but they are gently mouldering away. No-one is painting them or redoing the lettering, so perhaps in time it will be easy enough to collect them up and re-use the ground.

Interest in such matters perhaps first prompted by discovering, a few days ago, a graveyard in a disused quarry in the centre of Liverpool, underneath the Anglican cathedral. A large dank hole, frequented, one imagines, by the best and brightest from Toxteth (just across the road) after dark. This is where the illustrii of Liverpool were laid to rest in the nineteenth century, after suitable procession down the processional ramp. Many of these headstones have now been gathered up and are used to line the sides of various paths. Perhaps Atilla the Hun had the right idea having himself buried in an unknown place in the bed of a river (the gravediggers being dispatched after the event (which included temporarily diverting the river) to make sure the secret was safe): that way one's grave never gets abused or misused.

The cathedral itself was huge and was very visible, the dark red sandstone brooding over the city. While very impressive, the place did not have a very sacred feel to it, inside or out. And the detailing of the interior was not quite right. The idea - reasonably sensible - was that the huge space and huge columns needed to be broken up with a bit of ornament, to be given a bit of life. But it doesn't work. You just have a modest clutter of stone bits and peices breaking up the lines of the place. The worst offender being the bridge built across the nave towards the other end from the alter. The lady chapel was on a more human scale (perhaps the size of Guildford cathedral - a place which I suppose to be of a similar age) and did have a much more sacred feel to it - enhanced when we visited by a black lady quietly singing in it. All in all we thought that the thing must be a bit of an embarassment to the ecclesiastical authorities, a giant red elephant. No wonder it took so long to finish the thing - having been started in 1900 or so it was not finished until the late seventies. But as with other public sector ventures, very hard to stop once you have started no matter how silly the thing has come to seem.

Which prompts the further wonder about what will happen to my late gang - CJIT - when a large chunk of what is now the Home Office is gobbled up into a Justice Ministry. Will it be shafted by all the people in DCA whom it has been annoying over the years? The greasy pole will be in constant use while it is all sorted out!

I am very pleased to be able to report that according to an email leaked from No 10 early this morning and reported in today's DT, Sir Gordon Ponsey is to be raised to the life peerage as Lord Ponse for services to school kitchens.

The notes for editors included some of the following material. The Ponse is the name of a house in St George's Hill, Sir Gordon's present domicile. He may, of course, now need somewhere a bit grander. The award was made for breathtaking initiative in the serving of Scouse pies at the Wallasey City Technology college, formerly a bog standard comprehensive, now a model of educational achievement. It seems that their course on (or perhaps in) soap studies rivals the best. The initiative consisted of serving the pies on triangular white plates, together with a puddle of coulis distilled from the finest brown sauce (only to be found in the furthest corners of Tuscany) and a drizzle of mushy peas. It is understood that Sir Gordon now proposes to move to the Railton Road where he hopes to repeat his success, perhaps with a move to black plates in order to show respect.

Had a further opportunity to review the spread on signitis on our road system. Two bad messages and one good. First bad is that I have discovered a new species in the form of a single sign which informs you both that speed is unrestricted and that there are speed cameras in the vicinity. Quite a lot of these on the A303 but they are spreading North. Another mixed message from the Blair team. The second is that, nature abhoring a vacuum, the M40, previously a nice quiet road, is now being decorated with many gantries, signs, cameras and other parephrenalia to make our journeys safer. One wonders what they all cost; presumably the brain children of another gang of consultants stoking up the signage industry. And so another bastion has fallen to the nannies. The bit of good news is that if you care to pay a £4.50 supplement to travel on the new Birmingham by-pass, you have the treat of 40 miles or so on a camera free - and fairly car free - road. Average speeds fairly high. Very large sign announcing presence of cameras more or less the second you come out of the toll zone.

In the course of all this made it to the penultimate performance in the big theatre at Stratford before it is rebuilt, of Coriolanus. Perhaps because it was the performance before what we assumed was some giant luvvy-fest in the evening and perhaps because it was a matinee, a bit patchy - and not helped by the auditorium being a bit hot. Casting patchy. Crowd scenes didn't really come off. Overall, a bit of a comic book production, painted in loud colours. Including some bits played for laughs which I thought should not have been and an ending which seemed to have taken leave of the script. And as happens rather too often, a bit of before-show revision would have made for a better experience. Language a bit dense to take in on the fly. But all in all, a good experience despite the moaning. Enough good bits to keep the thing afloat.

Car parks in Stratford quite reasonably priced - considering that one supposes the place to be one of the premier destinations in the country.