Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Pumpkins out
Unlike the unfortunate Lord Browne, some of my pumpkins felt able to come out this year. Ten of the twelve seeds planted in covered seed trays on a sunny window sill (it seems my earlier spelling of cill was obsolete when Murray came out. Is anything other than poor spelling bringing the 'c' to the fore?) have now come up and will be ready for hardening off outside in a few days. A record for me. On the other hand the seeds planted out in the shed have done badly, despite being moved into the sun during the day. Out of a dozen marrow, a dozen pumpkin and three dozen sweet peas we have three sweet peas to show so far. Maybe I should stop economising on the potting compost and buy some more, rather than assembling scraps from around the shed.
More news from Howell Hill. The speed camera now has two sets of calibration lines, one pointing up the hill and one down. Maybe the thing can be swivelled from Ken's control bunker to catch the rush hour traffic - down the hill in the morning and up the hill in the evening. Or maybe they have to get some expensive consultant to come up from Hastings and swivel it by hand and then recalibrate it. The cost of which might exceed what the borough are going to get out of it. But then maybe these cameras are like lots of expensive corporate toys: a lot more money in the maintenance than in the purchase.
Have been reading about Shackelton's last expedition to the Antarctic. Which prompted some musings about the word concert. The men on the expedition used to have concerts on Saturdays to keep their spirits up. No doubt very participatory affairs with everybody - lack of talent or shyness notwithstanding - being obliged to contribute. And then I think for Pepys a concert was when a group of musicians happened to feel like singing in concert. With or without an audience. I will have to check with what verb he went. But with both sorts being rather differant from me solemnly marching off to the QEH to sit in serried (not so suited these days) ranks to hear the el supremos of the quartet world do something in the middle distance. Which reminds me of a parallel thought about stories. It seems that somone brought up with a strong oral tradition - story tellers at the fire or tall stories in the bar - might find the idea of reading a book, in private, most peculiar. What on earth is the point of reading to oneself? In silence? Where is the fun without an audience, without other participants?
More news from Howell Hill. The speed camera now has two sets of calibration lines, one pointing up the hill and one down. Maybe the thing can be swivelled from Ken's control bunker to catch the rush hour traffic - down the hill in the morning and up the hill in the evening. Or maybe they have to get some expensive consultant to come up from Hastings and swivel it by hand and then recalibrate it. The cost of which might exceed what the borough are going to get out of it. But then maybe these cameras are like lots of expensive corporate toys: a lot more money in the maintenance than in the purchase.
Have been reading about Shackelton's last expedition to the Antarctic. Which prompted some musings about the word concert. The men on the expedition used to have concerts on Saturdays to keep their spirits up. No doubt very participatory affairs with everybody - lack of talent or shyness notwithstanding - being obliged to contribute. And then I think for Pepys a concert was when a group of musicians happened to feel like singing in concert. With or without an audience. I will have to check with what verb he went. But with both sorts being rather differant from me solemnly marching off to the QEH to sit in serried (not so suited these days) ranks to hear the el supremos of the quartet world do something in the middle distance. Which reminds me of a parallel thought about stories. It seems that somone brought up with a strong oral tradition - story tellers at the fire or tall stories in the bar - might find the idea of reading a book, in private, most peculiar. What on earth is the point of reading to oneself? In silence? Where is the fun without an audience, without other participants?
# posted by Jim @ 3:33 AM 
