pumpkinstrokemarrow

Prompted by a visit to Knightsbridge have been doing a bit of googling, two bits in fact, and both with entirely successful results.

Firstly, I wanted to know the name of the wigs that Jewish ladies wear on marriage, having first come across the things in a film called 'Hester Street'. The only catch is that the word I come up with - shaytel or sheitel - does not ring any bells - although it is hard to see how there would be another word. It also transpires that the whole subject of hair or head covering for ladies married or unmarried has generated a good deal of debate over the centuries, a debate which is not dead yet. Maybe this is how the Orthodox keep their wits sharpened.

Sadly, when I had an opportunity to visit Hester Street a few years ago, nothing of the film was left. I think the area had been taken over by a newer wave of immigrants from Korea.

Secondly, I wanted to know where all the Hans's behind Harrods came from. It turns out that the area was originally called Hans Town - a style of district naming much used in what is now more or less central London - for one Sir Hans Sloane of Sloane Square fame. Clearly a very successful gent as his heirs got themselves made into earls. So Mrs T was not the only grocer to achieve fame and fortune in the wider world.

But their very success prompts the thought that given that Google Inc are so dominant in this particular space, is it right that they should continue to be a company, albeit a relatively benign one? Does the old labour argument about ownership of the commanding heights run here? I certainly was given quite a talking to by a barman in an Irish bar in the Oxford Road area of Reading about how one could not leave this sort of thing out there in the corporate world. Something that needed to be run by the nation for the nation - leaving aside the problem of which nation one has in mind here.

Moving onto even more ponderous matters, not sure that today's DT should be giving air time to a wife beater. It is one thing for a suitably solemn social worker to write an article about the crime but it is quite another to give the criminal air time: the latter transforms the crime into an experience, a performance or something one might see on Big Brother. Something it is entirely OK to wring one's hand about in public without attracting any serious opprobrium. For vaguely similar reasons not sure about writing large obituaries on the decease of very unpleasant people.

Harvested the last of the broad beans yesterday, which when shelled will take us up to more than a gallon of dried beans. Some destined for soup, some for planting and some for a neighbour's chickens. The plan being to plant them in November, leaving me enough time to buy some proper seed beans should the retreads not work. Maybe I shall plant them two to a hole - something I have never done with seed beans - although I have heard of the practise from others.

Much perturbed by signs of someone having been in the fruit enclosure - without having been careful enough to replace the latch properly. Fruit all seemed to be there but it is not the thing - and I very much doubt if the excuse of ball in enclosure was available, it not being term time. On the other hand, the complaints of gooseberry theiving may be unfounded. BH tells me there has been correspondance in the DT about the long list of animals that will take ripe gooseberries. So maybe gooseberries are on the lengthening list of things which have to be netted to keep the bad guys out.

Although not all of them. The winter cabbages are all safe from attack by birds behind their nets but are not safe from attack by butterflies. Several of the cabbages being badly munched. Maybe I should not worry too much though as the things are growing very slowly and it does not look if there would have been much in the way of Christmas cabbage anyway.