Sunday, September 16, 2007
Better books
Another full day, this time between Clapham Junction and Battersea.
The first discovery was that there is a much better class of book in charity shops in this area, particularly in the Rumanian orphan ones, than there is in Epsom. From one of which I make the interesting discovery that, each year, the grunt work on maybe 500,000 US tax returns is done in India courtesy of the Indians being able to view scanned versions of the input documents through something called the virtual tax room. Maybe being a rank and file accountant is not going to be too great a career choice in the US for too much longer. And they do the same trick with X-rays and such. The US doctors, not wanting to disturb their golf or their sleep, have the things looked at over the wire by more Indians. Partly enabled, it seems, by massive investment in communications links during the dotcom boom. Good to think that said boom has good legacy.
The second discovery was that it is quite easy to get lost between Clapham Junction and Battersea park, heading North by West by North from the Latchmore rather than North by East. The differance meant that we had our picnic sitting on a large slab version of the stuff they make kitchen worktops out of - which I assume to be a granite version of chipboard - outside a flashy new building by Battersea Bridge. The building had a very large empty atrium area facing onto the river. Will have to make a point, next time in the area, of finding out what use they make of it. Not obviously the best place to put a car showroom, although plenty big enough for one. There was also a large steel barge, more or less in original condition, being used for something stationary which was not bulk storage. All very suspicious but we were not moved to make enquiries.
On the way to the picnic we come across a very odd nut tree. Unlike a proper nut tree it had a proper trunk but the twiggy bits and leaves looked quite like hazel twigs and leaves and the nut bit looked like an outsized hazel nut cluster, the wrapping with beech nut tendencies and the nut being of normal (long) hazel dimensions. Opened the thing up and one had something looking very like a hazel nut, slightly flattened. Smelt about but not quite right. Not bold enough to eat the thing.
On the way from the picnic we came across Ramsome Dock, a dock we have never been to before. Now clearly the home of many exiled Islington folk. Including a rather bizarre, but quite well stocked butcher. Who did foreign things like trimming the fat and meat off the thin end of the fore ribs - as if they were lamb chops.
And onto another first, to wit an exotic church from the Phillipines. It seems that some of them got a bit fed up with the Catholic church and founded their own version - Inglesia in Christo - which now has some million or so adherants. Their current leader being the gandson of their first leader. Not really very proper as they do not believe in the Trinity. But they had done a very nice job of colonising a redundant, relatively new, Anglican church and had a small sub-tropical garden which regularly won prizes for the best kept garden in Wandsworth or something. A fitting introduction to the gardens of the same sort in Battersea Park, our ostensible destination.
Having finally got to the Park, quite unable to recapture the bubble experience previously reported on, despite their being very fine red granite benches to lie on and give it a go.
PS and why has blogger started to lapse into German?
The first discovery was that there is a much better class of book in charity shops in this area, particularly in the Rumanian orphan ones, than there is in Epsom. From one of which I make the interesting discovery that, each year, the grunt work on maybe 500,000 US tax returns is done in India courtesy of the Indians being able to view scanned versions of the input documents through something called the virtual tax room. Maybe being a rank and file accountant is not going to be too great a career choice in the US for too much longer. And they do the same trick with X-rays and such. The US doctors, not wanting to disturb their golf or their sleep, have the things looked at over the wire by more Indians. Partly enabled, it seems, by massive investment in communications links during the dotcom boom. Good to think that said boom has good legacy.
The second discovery was that it is quite easy to get lost between Clapham Junction and Battersea park, heading North by West by North from the Latchmore rather than North by East. The differance meant that we had our picnic sitting on a large slab version of the stuff they make kitchen worktops out of - which I assume to be a granite version of chipboard - outside a flashy new building by Battersea Bridge. The building had a very large empty atrium area facing onto the river. Will have to make a point, next time in the area, of finding out what use they make of it. Not obviously the best place to put a car showroom, although plenty big enough for one. There was also a large steel barge, more or less in original condition, being used for something stationary which was not bulk storage. All very suspicious but we were not moved to make enquiries.
On the way to the picnic we come across a very odd nut tree. Unlike a proper nut tree it had a proper trunk but the twiggy bits and leaves looked quite like hazel twigs and leaves and the nut bit looked like an outsized hazel nut cluster, the wrapping with beech nut tendencies and the nut being of normal (long) hazel dimensions. Opened the thing up and one had something looking very like a hazel nut, slightly flattened. Smelt about but not quite right. Not bold enough to eat the thing.
On the way from the picnic we came across Ramsome Dock, a dock we have never been to before. Now clearly the home of many exiled Islington folk. Including a rather bizarre, but quite well stocked butcher. Who did foreign things like trimming the fat and meat off the thin end of the fore ribs - as if they were lamb chops.
And onto another first, to wit an exotic church from the Phillipines. It seems that some of them got a bit fed up with the Catholic church and founded their own version - Inglesia in Christo - which now has some million or so adherants. Their current leader being the gandson of their first leader. Not really very proper as they do not believe in the Trinity. But they had done a very nice job of colonising a redundant, relatively new, Anglican church and had a small sub-tropical garden which regularly won prizes for the best kept garden in Wandsworth or something. A fitting introduction to the gardens of the same sort in Battersea Park, our ostensible destination.
Having finally got to the Park, quite unable to recapture the bubble experience previously reported on, despite their being very fine red granite benches to lie on and give it a go.
PS and why has blogger started to lapse into German?
# posted by Jim @ 11:38 AM 
