Sunday, June 17, 2007
Spiders
Was impressed yesterday by a couple of strands of spider's web across the top of our watering can being quite undisturbed by a stream of water from a hose being used to fill the can up. I waved the stream around the strands but they did not seem to flicker. Presumably they are too thin to offer enough resistance to the water to put any strain on them - and I seem to remember that their strength to weight ratio is most impressive.
Also impressed by the various stray rocks sticking out of the ground in Tunbridge Wells. Big lumps of sandstone, getting of for the size of a small suburban house. Not something one is used to coming across in the civilised South East - although we do know a large odd rock sticking out of the ground in a heath just to the West of Studland Bay - just on the boundaries of civilisation.
Tunbridge Wells is also the possessor of a very proper old bookshop called Halls. Large two storey affair with proper bookcases and steps for mounting them. An outdoor built in cupboard for the cheapies. And most of the books appear to have sensible prices - so not just a place for the stockbrokers who live around there to buy some high status wall furniture. Old fashioned enough to run to a postcard of the shop but not a website.
Which reminds me that I was pleased to see that, according to a report from the Royal College of Art in the DT, conceptual art is now on the way out; has run its course. Maybe the next money spinner from the arty mob will be a touch more sensible. Maybe it will result in things that said stockbnokers will not mind putting on their walls. In the meantime, I suppose we will have to put up with the terrible twins (Hirst and Emin) appearing in the ranks of arty great and good for some years yet.
Black pudding for breakfast, the man at Cheam being out of white pudding. Interestingly, coming from the same supplier, the black pudding, apart from being black rather than white, tasted very like the white pudding. Flavoured with the same widely used spice the name of which I fail to put my finger on. And un-English enough not to include those large chewy white lumps which I am not very keen on. Something that neither the French nor the Scots do with their black puddings. BH says that some people call them blood puddings - which she finds more attractive as a name than black pudding - but while the name is fair enough I can't remember when I last heard it used. Maybe the Germans do it: given their passion for sausage it would be odd if they did not make some form of black pudding.
A failed tweet the other day. On the way to TB and saw a large bird flying quite high overhead. Long body with long thin wings and a shallow forked tail rather in the way of a swift (rather than a swallow). Whole thing rather bigger than a crow. It was being pestered by some of the parrokeets we get around here so I thought that maybe it was a hawk being seen off by said parrokeets. However, got to the RSPB web site after TB and the shape I remembered did not tally with any of their raptor offerings. So mystified. Maybe it was a stray cormorant - they have quite long bodies and also the flap, flap, flap and glide mode of flying that my bird was exhibiting. Don't know about the wings though. Have to get the RSPB to use up some of its inheritances and get a proper identification set up. If fork tailed then goto question 123 sort of thing, like they have in fancy plant books. At least our dictionnary of gardening (now retired to the roof) uses such keys to enable you to identifiy the fuschia you are holding among the hundred or so possibilities. The catch being that you need a good botanical vocabulary and a maginifying glass to use it.
Also impressed by the various stray rocks sticking out of the ground in Tunbridge Wells. Big lumps of sandstone, getting of for the size of a small suburban house. Not something one is used to coming across in the civilised South East - although we do know a large odd rock sticking out of the ground in a heath just to the West of Studland Bay - just on the boundaries of civilisation.
Tunbridge Wells is also the possessor of a very proper old bookshop called Halls. Large two storey affair with proper bookcases and steps for mounting them. An outdoor built in cupboard for the cheapies. And most of the books appear to have sensible prices - so not just a place for the stockbrokers who live around there to buy some high status wall furniture. Old fashioned enough to run to a postcard of the shop but not a website.
Which reminds me that I was pleased to see that, according to a report from the Royal College of Art in the DT, conceptual art is now on the way out; has run its course. Maybe the next money spinner from the arty mob will be a touch more sensible. Maybe it will result in things that said stockbnokers will not mind putting on their walls. In the meantime, I suppose we will have to put up with the terrible twins (Hirst and Emin) appearing in the ranks of arty great and good for some years yet.
Black pudding for breakfast, the man at Cheam being out of white pudding. Interestingly, coming from the same supplier, the black pudding, apart from being black rather than white, tasted very like the white pudding. Flavoured with the same widely used spice the name of which I fail to put my finger on. And un-English enough not to include those large chewy white lumps which I am not very keen on. Something that neither the French nor the Scots do with their black puddings. BH says that some people call them blood puddings - which she finds more attractive as a name than black pudding - but while the name is fair enough I can't remember when I last heard it used. Maybe the Germans do it: given their passion for sausage it would be odd if they did not make some form of black pudding.
A failed tweet the other day. On the way to TB and saw a large bird flying quite high overhead. Long body with long thin wings and a shallow forked tail rather in the way of a swift (rather than a swallow). Whole thing rather bigger than a crow. It was being pestered by some of the parrokeets we get around here so I thought that maybe it was a hawk being seen off by said parrokeets. However, got to the RSPB web site after TB and the shape I remembered did not tally with any of their raptor offerings. So mystified. Maybe it was a stray cormorant - they have quite long bodies and also the flap, flap, flap and glide mode of flying that my bird was exhibiting. Don't know about the wings though. Have to get the RSPB to use up some of its inheritances and get a proper identification set up. If fork tailed then goto question 123 sort of thing, like they have in fancy plant books. At least our dictionnary of gardening (now retired to the roof) uses such keys to enable you to identifiy the fuschia you are holding among the hundred or so possibilities. The catch being that you need a good botanical vocabulary and a maginifying glass to use it.
# posted by Jim @ 2:51 AM 
