Wednesday, June 27, 2007
S-day
Four more - counting today - smoking days to go - before the nannies come to town. Must think of some suitable way to mark the occasion. Perhaps a smoke crawl or a puffathon.
I learn from TB that the people who write the rules have cunningly made S-hour 0600 on Sunday morning, rather than the preceeding midnight. Thus avoiding any manifestations or demonstrations at that time. Smoking can expire while we are all quietly in our beds waiting to wake up to a smoke fuelled (much worse than the other sort) hangover. Happy days!
Much news for carrot lovers in yesterday's Guardian. It seems that notable organic carrot growers are having difficulty accommodating the needs of the industrial carrot nexus. More precisely they grow carrots in quantities which are too small to fit in with the large processing machinery in use these days. The Guardian helpfully tells us where we can buy one of the machines in question - http://www.wymaengineering.co.nz/default.asp. A massive great stainless steel (choice of other materials available) contraption which must cost many thousands of pounds. One of its many notable features is the use of plastic brushes rather than carborundum based abrasion - which I remember from my days as a potato peeler operator in camp. Text lifted more or less direct from the website plus picture from same filled up several square inches of page at very little cost - beyond finding out the name of the machine in the first place. It seems that these brushes remove the outer membrane of the carrot and what is left looks beautifully fresh inside its plastic bags for weeks. Unless, that is, they start to acquire unsightly brown patches of mould - which maybe said membrane was designed to keep out.
Made a management decision about knee relief - knees starting to creak a bit after nine months of visits to the baker. Remembering that knees last drew attention to themselves after a year of so of fixed wheel commuting some thirty years ago and that I have read somewhere that one's legs are supposed to maintain the same speed - cadence being the cycle geek word for this - irrespective of the speed over the road. Notwithstanding, however and hitherto, being been brought up in the school where the higher the gear the harder one was, I have tended to change gear very little - resulting in both gear and knee penalties. Now making a big effort to change gear much more often and to use the fourth gear rather than the third gear as the base gear. Even reached the sixth gear today. Might even try the middle drive tomorrow - and not just to see that it is still there.
Happy to report that we have by chance found out where the Oaks horse race was named for - not that I have been to the Oaks for about six years - the move to Friday from Saturday rather disturbing the plot. It seems that the Earl of Derby owned a house called 'The Oaks' near Carshalton, the grounds of which were also used for racing - and he named what is now the Oaks for his house. The house was demolished in the fifties and the grounds are now rather a good park. Bit like a posh version of Nonsuch Park. All this discovered after a visit to a relic of the once thriving Surrey lavender industry. Presumably in the days before real medicine and real washing was invented, aromatic herbs and potions were much more popular than they are now. The relic is question was a large field - several hundred yards square - covered in rows of lavender bushes, of four flavours and mostly in full flower. Quite a sight and quite a smell. There were, needless to say, opportunities to buy lavender products - although some people were clearly just using the field as a good place to walk the dog.
Interesting area, which reminded us of where Essex meets London. An odd mixture of left over real farms, toy farms owned by city gents, flash houses and shacks.
I learn from TB that the people who write the rules have cunningly made S-hour 0600 on Sunday morning, rather than the preceeding midnight. Thus avoiding any manifestations or demonstrations at that time. Smoking can expire while we are all quietly in our beds waiting to wake up to a smoke fuelled (much worse than the other sort) hangover. Happy days!
Much news for carrot lovers in yesterday's Guardian. It seems that notable organic carrot growers are having difficulty accommodating the needs of the industrial carrot nexus. More precisely they grow carrots in quantities which are too small to fit in with the large processing machinery in use these days. The Guardian helpfully tells us where we can buy one of the machines in question - http://www.wymaengineering.co.nz/default.asp. A massive great stainless steel (choice of other materials available) contraption which must cost many thousands of pounds. One of its many notable features is the use of plastic brushes rather than carborundum based abrasion - which I remember from my days as a potato peeler operator in camp. Text lifted more or less direct from the website plus picture from same filled up several square inches of page at very little cost - beyond finding out the name of the machine in the first place. It seems that these brushes remove the outer membrane of the carrot and what is left looks beautifully fresh inside its plastic bags for weeks. Unless, that is, they start to acquire unsightly brown patches of mould - which maybe said membrane was designed to keep out.
Made a management decision about knee relief - knees starting to creak a bit after nine months of visits to the baker. Remembering that knees last drew attention to themselves after a year of so of fixed wheel commuting some thirty years ago and that I have read somewhere that one's legs are supposed to maintain the same speed - cadence being the cycle geek word for this - irrespective of the speed over the road. Notwithstanding, however and hitherto, being been brought up in the school where the higher the gear the harder one was, I have tended to change gear very little - resulting in both gear and knee penalties. Now making a big effort to change gear much more often and to use the fourth gear rather than the third gear as the base gear. Even reached the sixth gear today. Might even try the middle drive tomorrow - and not just to see that it is still there.
Happy to report that we have by chance found out where the Oaks horse race was named for - not that I have been to the Oaks for about six years - the move to Friday from Saturday rather disturbing the plot. It seems that the Earl of Derby owned a house called 'The Oaks' near Carshalton, the grounds of which were also used for racing - and he named what is now the Oaks for his house. The house was demolished in the fifties and the grounds are now rather a good park. Bit like a posh version of Nonsuch Park. All this discovered after a visit to a relic of the once thriving Surrey lavender industry. Presumably in the days before real medicine and real washing was invented, aromatic herbs and potions were much more popular than they are now. The relic is question was a large field - several hundred yards square - covered in rows of lavender bushes, of four flavours and mostly in full flower. Quite a sight and quite a smell. There were, needless to say, opportunities to buy lavender products - although some people were clearly just using the field as a good place to walk the dog.
Interesting area, which reminded us of where Essex meets London. An odd mixture of left over real farms, toy farms owned by city gents, flash houses and shacks.
# posted by Jim @ 3:10 AM 
