pumpkinstrokemarrow

And failed. A spreadsheet started to behave a bit oddly. Tried a little button down on the task bar and decided that the problem was something to do with something called scoll lock. But what was scroll lock and how did one turn it on and off? Ask the help system. It helpfully explains what I already know, vis that I need to turn scroll lock on or off, but does not tell me how to do this. Some time later, having slept on the problem, it dawned on me that scroll lock was a key on the keyboard. Soon discovered that keying the thing toggled the scroll lock status. But I think this has to count as a fail. After near forty years of IT one ought to know about such things.

Now consumed two thirds of the brussells sprouts harvest in two sittings, that is to say that we have done around 8 plants. Not too impressive. The plants were a fair size but the sprouts were rather small and a good proportion of them - maybe half - had started to open up and were not much use. But flavour OK and they were bug free - which is more than I can say for the January King cabbages. Also rather small but with quite nice heads on them. Strong chewy cabbagy sort of things - one of which had been penetrated by slugs or whatever right to the middle. Cut the thing in half and it looked like a black version of a red cabbage - that is to say black and white stripes rather than red and white ones. Not too good. A reminder of why organic can be a bit of a pain.

About to polish off the turkey. So one day hot, one day cold, one day soup, one day stew. And one day - that is the one that is about to come - in the pot - a combination of soup and stew. Maybe a turkey version of a chowder. The stock - the result of maybe four hours boiling with a few carrots and onions was an impressive white liquid with an interesting white scum on the surface. Should be OK.

A heritage day today at Hampton Court - the car parks to which were very crowded. Maybe the amusements parked in the front drive had pulled the punters. Wandered around the gardens - for how much longer will they be free at this time of year? - and impressed as ever. Some bulbs and irises starting to move. The winter light favoured views of ancient chimney stacks and views across the wide flat gardens underneath the pudding trees (aka large clipped yews). I like the contrasts between the red and white stone and the various sorts of brick on the various walls. Not to mention the buildings proper, which, despite being a great old hotpotch, are good. Properly a main line attraction. An arty person with a camera could have had a field day.

The flatness of the gardens between the W&M extension and the long water made for a differant garden experience - most gardens have a few humps and bumps whereas this one had the pudding trees. There were also a good number of interesting trees, especially in what used to be called the apprentices' garden, and now called the 20th century garden. A little overgrown, perhaps reflecting the lack of money to pay for apprentices - despite there being plenty to pay for fancy new car parking arrangements and a fancy new childrens' centre.

A propos of my recent mention of the ancient Romans being up to speed, it seems that they were on the ball in diversity matters. I learn from Leerssen (see above) that our word virtue is derived from the Latin 'virtus'. He further reports that "the notion of virtus suggests far more machismo than a straightforward translation 'virtue' would suggest. The word indicates an ideal of masculinity (the first syllable is the same as in virile), and may be best translated as 'manliness': the strength of charecter, courage, resolve, self-abnegation and self-discipline that makes men superior to women, or children". To think that the University of Amsterdam allows its faculty members to say such things.

Making good progress on the Christmas jigsaw. Having thought that various key parts were missing and that the pack contained five corner peices, have now nearly completed the border and am slowly working in. The slow start can be excused to some extent by the picture on the box having been slightly trimmed, trimming off a rather distinctive peice of border. Took a little while to find the home for the corresponding peices. Bets are open for how long to completion and for how many peices turn out to be missing - being presently short at least three edge peices, diligent search having failed to unearth them.

I see from the DT that one can now be fined for leaving one's vehicle on the road with the engine running. It seems that one is being fined because of the risk of having one's vehicle stolen, not because of the risk that one's vehicle might charge off down the road without a driver. The fact that the vehicle might be state-of-the-art locked was not deemed to be relevant. On the face of it this seems a bit busy - but there was a suggestion that the owner was really being fined for rather forcefully telling the policeman concerned where to get off. So the line that the policeman concerned should have been chasing after real criminals rather than harrassing decent, law abiding citizens in their homes does not run quite as well as it might otherwise.

I also see that the French are about to cave in to the anti-smoking league with a ban only a bit less fierce than our own. I seem to recall that they tried this once before and that that law was more or less ignored - so we will see how they get on this time. On our recent visit to Paris, I was surprised how little smoking there was in the streets or anywhere else - although the one youth filled restaurant we visited one Saturday night was fairly smoker and smoke full. Maybe the French are no longer the great puffers they were cracked up to be.

And then there is the suggestion that all the cannabis horror stories floating around at the moment are covertly funded by the brewers who are concerned that consumption is displacing consumption of their products. Sounds far fetched, but who knows - tobacco companies go to considerable lengths to fight their corner.

this time from http://elite-tato.blogspot.com/.

Having been asked about Boxing Day, BH detirmined that it was the day when the money put in boxes hanging off trees in the churchyard on Christmas Day was distributed to the poor. A second story, courtesy of OED, was that it was the day that tradesmen such as postmen and other delivery men (from, for example, the fishmonger), came round for their Christmas boxes. One can, of course combine the two, by saying that the first was the precursor of the second. But I find both stories curiously unsatisfying. They both seem a bit contrived. But that is not to say that I can think of anything better. I suppose I would have preferred if it was the day that Saint Boxing was thrown to the lions by the dastardly Herod, this last having missed out on his attempt to catch up with the infant Jesus.

Interesting dream the other day when I had mysteriously acquired a very afro hair style - florid dark blonde curls all over the place plus a modest beard of same. I was quite horrified when I noticed myself in the mirror, so much so that I suppose I woke up. Not sure what would have brought this on, other than a three day old exhortation to wash my hair.

Interesting observation in this week's TLS, about the way that people who, more or less accidently, make a lot of money, generally come around to the idea that they are qualified to opine on the box or in print on every arcane subject under the sun. Soros being a well known example. (I suspect that it is not just people who make a lot of money. We are treated to the views of people famous in one field on the affairs of another all the time). The TLS then spends an entire page, less a poem, on the musings of a recent example of the type, one Nassim N Taleb. The point would have been more impressive had it been confined to a couple of column inches in the in brief section at the back. But maybe the TLS writers are entitled to a bit of holiday too - they can presumably knock this sort of stuff out more or less in their sleep or when more or less incapacited by festive season cheer.

Outing to Leatherhead to walk through the common along the Mole. Mole looking fairly full with interesting damp smells - reminding me of Cambridgeshire rivers from my childhood. The smell varied quite a bit as one walked along. Plenty of pigeons and seagulls, some magpies and other crows, one ring necked parakeet, one jay and one deer. Plus an interesting brown bird, between a thrush and a partridge in both colour and general appearance, lurking in the rushes by the bank. Not particularly timid, taking its time to hoof it to the other bank and invisibility. Not a clue what it was. Two swans, just about managing to make headway against the current with a paddle rate of maybe 6 a minute. Each stroke appeared to be timed to the coming to a halt after the stroke before. Perhaps that way you get maximum distance for your effort.

Reminded that Sprog2 had been rather shocked to see a swan swallowing his returned fish on a fishing expedition earlier in the year. He - and I - thought that swans were veggies. Not sure why though. I now remember that the BH told me years ago of an expedition to the pond with her class and a number of carefully reared baby frogs which were promptly swallowed by the ducks. Much to the shock and dismay of most of the class. Presumably some of the little horrors thought it was great. Presumably the boys. More on the newly minted Sprog1.1 in due course.

At least three trolleys from the Swan Centre Mr S in the river, presumably a hundred pounds worth or more of trolley, even at the price he pays for them. They are substantial objects. Two of them would be fairly easily recovered without getting wet if one had a couple of lengths of rope. Will we return to the recovery and march the things dripping and triumphant back to the Swan Centre? It would be good for a laugh but I am not sure if the company gathered is quite up for it. We could even make a hobby out of it and get our picture in the local free paper being presented with a modest cheque for some worthy (preferably riverine) charity by the local representative of Mr S.

First round of turkey soup today. Left over gravy boiled up with some of the bones and some onion. Strain. Add pearl barley. Simmer for an hour. Add sliced cabbage. Add diced leg of turkey. Add sliced (elderly in this case) mushrooms. Simmer for a few minutes and serve. Amongst other virtues a good accompaniment to what is now rather stale bread. Hopefully the baker will be open tomorrow and normal service can be resumed.

A deer, for the second year running, has found the perpetual spinach. So I doubt whether it will be perpetual for much longer.

Now up to three mice in four days. Never caught so many mice in one campaign before. Good thing that they are dim and keep on going down the same track.

Record beefery the other day. Started off with twelve pounds of brisket on the bone, rather more triangular and less rectangular than last time, and cooked it for a record 14.53 hours, at 120C. Wrapped in foil and collected maybe a pint and a half of gravy from same at the end of the cooking period. Drained off some of the fat, rouxed in (after a fashion) a bit of cornflour and instant gravy available to go with the mashed potatoes, mashed swede and cabbage. Gravy set a bit of a record too. Very hard core extract of beef - part of the flavour being a rather high fat content. Excellent accompaniment to mashed potatoes in small doses. Five of us managed to do three quarters of the beef in one sitting. Good job that BH had judged that a lightweight pudding was the order of the day.

Interesting little wine to go with it from OddBins where the salesman had explained that it was good gear to have with something with a strong flavour but maybe not too hot to have by itself. I was sold by the poncey label (the only English being the made in France bit) and it having numbered bottles. Anyway, two bottles at something under £10 a pop did very well. Red in colour and called Amarande or something like that. No idea where it comes in the Pinot vs. Chardonney stakes. Not a classification which I have ever managed to get to grips with.

And topped off with the first game of Monopoly for about twelve months (at a guess). After a desperate struggle with the younger sprog, FIL was the victor, sitting smugly on Mayfair. I think he was lucky to win against the purples, reds and yellows. And I have just learned from TB that there is a Chelsea Football Club version. The railway stations are names for parts of the stand, jail is jail and I think the places are the players and more important staff. The price presumably reflecting their prices. I wonder how far the game designer was allowed to go at poking fun at the sometimes tacky habits of very rich young men.

Blair1 has popped up again. Seen fit to join the papists at last (although this is only hearsay. Not seen the printed word in the DT myself, let alone heard it one the nine o'clock news). Complete mystery how such an intelligent (if obnoxious) person can, in this day and age, go in for all this three in one stuff. Not to mention dubious policies on celibate priests, abortion, contraception and sundry other matters. Perhaps he is a junkie for the Latin mass, the Latin giving him a nostalgia kick from his fancy school days. But maybe the man has a point there. I invested an hour every weekday in Latin for five years and have not got that much to show for it. So maybe I should go in for a bit of nostalgia too. (But I should not run Latin down. I owe a good part of my knowledge of grammer to Latin classes and I have heard say that it helps with vocabulary. Quite apart from the original speakers being quite an interesting bunch, having experienced in one way or another many of our own political turmoils).

War on same continues. One dead rat is now buried in the compost heap, more or less where he (or she) dropped. Surprised to find it well hot a foot down, despite the cold outside. Much steam rising. We hope that rat poison does not do in the worms which make the compost work.

To add to our problems, mice are now visiting the vegetables which live in the garage but have now caught two in two days with a bread crust baited mouse trap. A better trap (a Little Nipper) than our rat trap in the sense that it is possible to set it on a much lighter touch - something which might not be too clever for the fingers in the case of the much more powerful rat traps. One might have an accident.

Blair2 continues to annoy. He is now quoted by the DT as saying that he never even thought of resigning. Moving into the land of options we have option 1: the DT has got it wrong. Option 2: Blair2 is lying. Option 3: Blair2 is even more arrogant than I thought (perhaps he is a shy man. The shy can be surprisingly brutal). How can he say this when a third of his governing police authority voted for a motion of no confidence in him? To my mind, either of the last two options disqualifies the man from public office. Depressing how people in power cling on well past their sell by date - while most sports people, who are often thought of as a bit dim and uncouth by comparison, manage to get out a bit more gracefully.

But the DT may well have it wrong as I see in the Metro that a lady was charged an interest rate of 2.6m% for a modest loan, a rate to which the accompanying sums bore no resemblance. Perhaps the reporter responsible came from one of those bog standard comprehensives which Blair1 was going to abolish and which continue to fail to teach arithmetic. One might have thought that newspapers would bother to check their headlines with a bit more care, but no.

I continue to wonder in a seasonal way why it is that bears are considered so cuddly. As the DT pointed out a few days ago, bears are a fairly violent lot and most of them are big and fast enough to be very scary. So why are childrens' book and festive occasions full of kindly bears? Even the bears in Goldilocks are reasonably domesticated. Is it a hangover from those distant days when tribes had totem animals which did not have to be cuddly? Just important or significant for one reason or another? Not convinced by the whole business being invented by whoever invented teddy bears or A A Milne. To my mind, they must be symptoms of something deeper. Is it that we want to identify with big scary animals? Or what?

Readers will be pleased to hear that the hundred's of thousands of pounds spent by the council on computerised car park signs all over the borough have not been entirely wasted. I learnt on the way back from Cheam that as at 1027, of the several thousand paying car park places in central Epsom, a paltry 47 were left. Option 1 the signs don't work, option 2 commuters to London take up most of the space in car parks and option 3 a wave of shoppers has arrived in Epsom. Not sure which option I back.

Not impressed by yesterday's DT which tells me that while the Bermudas have the highest standard of living (on average) in that part of the world, the two thirds of the population which is black is poor. Much anguish in the DT about the black two thirds getting a bit cross. But why on earth do the whites not see sense and transfer a good chunk of their wealth to the blacks before these last get seriously cross and they all lose the lot? I'm sure the BBB here could be full of good advice about how to do this - and that might get them off our backs for a few weeks.

We deduce that the world has not moved on much. Now half way through my 1,000 page tome on Louis XVI bought at a knock down price from the Library of France, and have learned that the aristos around 1780 were pretty hopeless too. The king, who might not have been the best thing since sliced bread, was no fool (despite what I thought when I started out. No fool, despite being a bit feeble on the husband front and being rather too keen on a middle class suburban life style (with hobbies) than was appropriate for an absolute monarch (a disease which, it seems, afflicted quite a lot of them, including his predecessor, Louis XV)) and meant well. He knew the state was bankrupt and that something had to be done to cut down the payroll and to make the tax burden fall more evenly across the country and across the classes. But the clergy and the aristos could not see further than their own greedy noses and faught tooth and nail against any sort of serious reform. The result was, as they say, history. I guess we were lucky in England that Henry VIII had sorted out the clergy, and that the wars of the roses and the Tudor monarchs between them had sorted out the aristos - at least the aristos of the sword sort which plagued France. Perhaps also, being a smaller country, we had done more to iron out the provinces. A few anomalies up North like the Prince Bishop of Durham and the Lord President, but that was about all. Whereas the French were still stuck with lots of provincial anomalies plus powerful people to fight for them. Fascinating stuff. One can see why people are still writing books about it all.

Yesterday was the day of the slide rule. Having acquired a posh slide rule (made by Thornton) some forty two years ago, the thing has been preserved at the bottom of my desk for the last thirty eight. Two years ago I let the instruction book go. But yesterday I found out that for some sorts of sums a slide rule is a lot quicker and more convenient than a calculator. The only thing missing is a couple of linear scales so that one can use it for addition as well as multiplication. Thing worked fine and smoothly despite the long interval. Didn't need greasing or anything like that.

Unlike the large wooden slide rule I have, which needs to be waxed regularly to keep it in reasonable running order. Elaborate box wood affair (same style of engraving as a carpenter's folding rule of yesteryear) about two and a half feet by one foot, with an effective length of about ten feet, acquired from the Department of Employment, where it used to be used, along with lots of others, for the compilation of employment statistics. Wonderful thing which, failing use, ought to be in a glass case or hung on the wall. But not used because far more fiddly to use than a plastic one - if running to rather more decimal places - and no funny scales to do powers and sines and things. And not hung up because no wall space left. Must find a good home for when I wind myself up to parting with the thing.

Today will be the day of the fish cake. Bubble and squeak having morphed into same as reported on 4 December above. Let's hope it turns out as well as the first time.

Have decided the system needs a break from the pints of Early Grey (weak, without milk but with lemon) I have been drinking every day lately. Back on the green tea - the last bout of which was terminated by it acquiring a fishy flavour (see above). The current bout is a sort of green tea which comes in small green balls, say a couple of mm across which open up into small leaves, maybe a couple of cm in length. Experience enhanced by using a proper tea cup, rather than the Beryl ware which is our usual fare. The green Beryl ware from the Wood's ware range which was near universal with British Rail, mental hospitals and teacher training colleges (in no particular order) in the late sixties. After that, for a while, it was very easy to pick the stuff up from car boots sales. We have rather a lot of the stuff in consequence. Good everyday stuff which one does not get tired of.

But the green tea has been doing the work of several pints. Been pondering, on the way to Cheam, on the economics of Northern Rocks. My understanding goes as follows. A bank A borrows £Bbn at i1% interest and lends lends the same amount at i2% interest where i2 is bigger than i1. B is a large number but less than 1,000. Then there is a rule (rule(1)) that the bank must have B times C cash in the piggy bank as working capital to cope with the in and outs on the loan book. And another rule(2) that it must have B times D in capital assets of reasonable quality - near cash assets to back up the actual cash.

All of this means that the idea for the bank is to make A as big as possible - assuming always that i2 is indeed bigger than i1. Banks being, like the rest of us, greedy, will try to cheat. The particular cheat in vogue is to parcel up a proportion P(B) of the loan book and sell it on, its value being a function of its size and the differance between i1 and i2, that is to say the net income stream the new owner might expect from the loans making up P(B). P(B) then disappears from the loan book of bank A and something is added to its cash or capital account - or perhaps paid to share holders or share option holders. Bank A is then free to build up the loan book again without breaking rule(1) or rule(2). And so on, ad infinitum. Now some banks were crafty and actually sold the P(B)s to somebody else for cash - so that when all of a sudden i2 became smaller than i1, the P(B)s became liabilities rather than assets (and certainly not capital assets of reasonable quality) and the whole business model has collapsed - they didn't have the problem. The somebody else did. Some banks, however, were not so crafty and sold to some subsidiary of themselves, perhaps something obscure in Jersey. In which case, rule(2) kicks in and the bank has to unbundle the P(B)s back onto their loan book, which is apt to mean that the bank has then broken rule(1) big time and has to unwind its loan book as fast as possible. Net result, bank A is no longer in the business of lending money to anyone much.

A nice tidy story which accounts for the facts as I know them. But now many other stories would have the same explanatory power?

And before the government gets all high and mighty about people working fiddles by juggling things between current and capital accounts, let's remember that the government does exactly the same thing with its PFI projects, amongst other things a wheeze to reduce the official figure for government expenditure for EC/eurocrat consumption.

But there is one loose end. When the Bank of England pours money into the system to try and free things up again, is it just printing the money (a rather inflationary activity) or does it have a big piggy bank of its own. My bet is on the former so now need to find out to resolve the bet in time for Christmas.

Modest amount of rat sign again and a fair bit of bait has gone. Perhaps word is spreading in the ratty world of tasty blue snacks to be had in the compost heap at number xxx. So the bait stays down for a bit yet.

Talk of rats reminds me of the decline of civic virtues on our estate. It is no longer the case that everybody takes responsibility for the bit of pavement and road in front of their own house. So odd bits of litter and broken glass might stay there for days. The BH and I are starting to show our age by conspicuously picking up of litter in front of other peoples' houses and ceremoniously dropping it in our own dustbin. For example, a middle size branch arrived on a verge about a week ago and had been sitting there ever since, to the peril of weak sighted passers by. This has now been retreived, chopped up and lost down our garden. The work of five minutes. But why could the householder involved not bother? The same householder had the cheek to park a large unused car, wrapped up in a plastic bag, opposite their own house on a bit of road where flat owners struggle to find a spot, when his or her own house had a very large off street parking bay. At least did have the cheek. After about a month of this someone must have had a pop at them and it is now on the parking bay where it belongs.

On a road a bit further on the way to the station there are some large box plants in the verge, maybe 1 metre square by 2 metres high. These plants are getting infested with brambles. Again, one might have thought that the householders in question might have taken a few minutes to excise the brambles before they take over. But no. I suppose, sitting in their fine houses which are probably worth £750,000 a pop (so one might think that they ought to know better), they think that it is up to the council to tidy plants. Maybe they spend more time on the phone harrassing the council to do something about them than it would take to do it themselves. Matter of principle you know.

And then there was the young tree in the bank, in front of a short row of houses, just before the railway bridge. Planted at some considerable expense and expired one hot summer because no-one could be bothered to chuck a bucket of water at it from time to time.

But we do find time to take male strippers to court. I see from the DT that one busy CPS office has seen fit to take a make stripper to court because his fancy dress included a policeman's uniform with no less than two truncheons, these last constituting an offensive weapon. The case being thrown out, said CPS office is now putting an appeal together. They would all be much better employed taking the brambles out of plants on my estate. Alternatively, we only have half the story from the DT and would take a differant line had we the other half.

This weekend, reminded why roast beef is the business, having gone in for boiled for a bit. A very special bit of roast fore rib. 5.5 pounds, cooked for two hours at 180C, served with white rice and crinkly green cabbage. Brown on the outside and red on the inside. No gravy. A very simple (if not very cheap meal) but just the job. Followed by apple crumble with cinnamon but without sultanas. Cold yesterday with more crinkly green cabbage and mashed potatoes. These last being basic whites from Mr S and they are not terribly good. Tend to be a bit lumpy even when thoroughly cooked and thoroughly mashed. Maybe we have to up our game to taste the differance or duchy originals. Must also protect what is left of them in the garage from frost.

Which reminds me that I was interested to find out the other day, that the heir to the throne is not a grocer after all. Perhaps his grandmother's ghost had been giving him a hard time about being in trade. It seems that he has built a brand name which he simply sells on. So if I think I have the business in organic sausages for vegetarians, but need a bit of image to go with them, I apply to the heir to use the Duchy Original brand name. After various sweeteners, some of the folding sort, said permission is forthcoming. The heir is a bit richer (but without actually being in trade) and my sausages are on the move. Everybody is a winner.

Having been stocked with proper bread by other means, on the the Chessington run this morning and was reminded why I don't like cycle lanes - at least the sort they have around here. Cycling along past Chessington World of Adventure (the neighbouring Chessington Garden Centre appearing to be packed, presumably with people buying their decorations followed by having Christmas lunch in the Chessington Bistro), in the rather grotty cycle lane, when the back wheel went down some hole and then slipped sideways in an alarming way before forward momentum took hold again. Wouldn't take much more to have one into the side of one of the fortunately small number of four wheeled vehicles who misjudge the clearance.

There have been no rat signs - in the form of burrows or tunnels - in the compost heap for some days now. So hopefully they have been done in - and hopefully without their carcases doing anything unpleasant to those that might be eating them. On the other hand, something is still at the bait, something which appears to be gnawing it rather than swallowing it, presumably mice. Need to think about whether to withdraw the bait or not - taking into proper account BH's dislike of rats anywhere near the house.

While on compost matters, should record that we have started to compost confidential waste (that is to say, material which one of those identity thieves might use). We were tearing the stuff up and then putting it into a large tub of water (see above) which was then stirred from time to time. Eventually it went down to a sort of porriage which was dumped in some quiet spot in the garden. One down side was the rather unpleasant smell from the stagnant water. Another was the tendency for mosquitos to lay their eggs in it, at least until the Autumn. In any event, got tired of that game and the torn up paper now goes straight to the compost. All those dodgy metal oxides in the dyes used on the paper won't affect our organic status as the rat poison has already done for that. And, hopefully they will leach out into the allotment (and so into the ground water, and so into the water supply?) rather than getting into the cabbages there. Maybe, even, they will be a supply of scarce trace elements and the cabbages will pick up?

Second potato trench on the allotment now finally finished, after a rather longer time than I was expecting. Will there be another before festivities kick in? Pruned the apple trees for the first time. Didn't need much as it has taken this year to recover from the depredations of the deer last year. Odd the extent to which the differant varieties are growing into differant shapes. No doubt this can be corrected by careful pruning in years to come. No natural shapes wanted here.

Lunch was the remains of the beef - guess what - boiled up with what remained of the stock, some more pearl barley and some fresh cabbage. Not as thick as the last one but clarity compensated (seems to take a direct object in US speak so no need for a for in this context) by volume of meat. Suprising how small pillars of meat hold their shape in this context. Maybe 2mm by 2mm by 10mm. Some cut with and some cut across the grain.

Dinner was kidneys again. Rather pale brown out of the shop rather than the deep (deeper than arterial blood) red-brown-purple I associate with fresh kidneys. Maybe it is just the blood draining out of them the longer they sit in the tin - the gallon tins this sort of thing seems to arrive from the wholesaler in. Compensation in this case extra carraway seeds and the result entirely acceptable if a bit paler than usual. The tomatoes in the sauce were a bit wintry too - all pale and crunchy with a hard yellow core - not like the sort of thing one can buy from a hot country - like France or Spain - in the summer - at all. Or FIL's greenhouse. Another factor in the pallidity.

Earlier in the day I had been accosted by a cycling lady, all tooled up in Lycra, the black and white of which went well with her grey hair, who thought I ought to join in some cycle round the nature trail thing they do for starting out cyclists in Nonsuch Park. Children welcome. I tried to explain that I preferred to cycle on roads and was rewarded with a leaflet about safe cycling on the road. With helpful hints on how far away from the kerb one should be. Oddly, I did not spot anything about helmets - which most cycling adults around here seem to wear. I suppose I should. But all a bit odd since our combined cycling years were probably in excess of a hundred.

She did have one on me though. The route to Cheam is vaguely East, but twists and turns a good bit. So on a winter morning one has significant stretches in the teeth of a low winter sun which makes one more or less blind. Only remedy seemed to be to hold one's hand up to block the sun. But she carried sun glasses along with her spare tube and tyre levers. On the same topic I remember a rather grim drive South from Fort William one early January morning. Brilliant morning for a bit of hill walking and there were plenty of walkers out - but far too brilliant to drive against. Lucky we did not come unstuck somewhere.

And lastly some signs that smoking might be relaxing a bit. Two items, people are starting to light up discretely, after dark, on railway platforms, and nobody is fussing. One of the villains in question was a smarly dressed young woman - and did not appear to be a hoodie at all. To be fair she stubbed out very smartly on seeing a railway official in the distance. The other was a cigar shop in Wardour Street where, horror of horrors, people were sitting down and smoking inside. Was the owner just taking a flier for Christmas or had he really got hold of some loophole?

And I wonder what happened to the two conspicuous villains - one had a strip joint in Soho (and was legally advised on the matter by our late lamented leader's consort) and believed that he could get people to stop smoking before any council inspector got far enough into the building to catch anyone in flagrente - necessary it seems to secure conviction. The other had a perfectly regular, if large, pub in Blackpool. The council did get around to fining him £500 or so plus costs in October or so - which he could probably cope with if it did not escalate - but we never heard whether he persisted. Perhaps the powers had a quiet word with him and he saw the error of his ways.

On the other hand, I am told by an informant from TB that the Irish government has neatly escaped any opprobium it might have incurred by officious enforcement by dumping enforcement on the fire regulations people. They, of course, can have a fine time with all those leantos with dodgy electrics and naked flames.

I had forgotten what a blunt instrucment the biro is. And how tricky scanners can be. Very picky about the corner markers. Must do better.

I have moaned about these people before, but I shall have another go. Now, my multi-processing capability is not what it used to be. That is to say, I am now down to two channels, which means that I cannot send a text message on my mobile, drive the car and decipher the forests of road signs at junctions all at the same time. In fact, it is getting very hard to sort out the wood from the trees in said forests, even when I am not sending a text message. I suspect that part of the trouble is that the signage contractors get paid by weight and they put a lot of effort into persuading the government buyers that they should always buy lots of very heavy ones. Then there are probably three teams of buyers: one for the blue signs, a second for the green signs and a third for the white signs. Based in Newport, Belfast and Cumbernauld respectively so as to provide jobs for the celts. And because they talk a differant lingo they certainly don't talk to each other, beyond competing to see who can get the most signs onto each junction. Net result of all this is that when going clockwise through the Gatwick junction on the M25, I managed to get onto the road to Gatwick rather than carrying on down the M25. And twice on the same run I nearly missed an exit. The first time because there were three exits very close together and the three lots of signs were mixed up in a confusing way; the second time because the hard shoulder turned into the slip road in a way which meant that I was not sure that the slip road was the slip road.

Would it help if a herd of cognitive psychologists was put on the case? They could get PhDs doing junction experiments on unwary motorists (their having been deemed to have signed consent forms by failing to tick a very small box on their tax disc renewal form).

To complete the story I should mention that there is a fourth team for the retards, this one based in London. They put up the signs which make smiley faces at me when I cycle past them at less that 30 miles an hour. 21 miles an hour in this particular case, down hill somewhere near the Bonesgate. Not being able to crank it up to 30 miles an hour any more, even down hill near the Bonesgate, I don't know what it does in that event. And a fifth team for the lines on the roads. I forget where they are based - perhaps in Jersey so that they are exempt from health and safety legislation and so can't be sued when they make a fatal blunder. Let's hope the ideas floating around for sign free zones catch on.

In the meantime I wonder whether all the differant signage contractors are all actually owned by the Megasign Corporation out of Atlanta, itself a front for some shadowy outfit from Shanghai. They find they do better business if they appear to be a bunch of entirely separate, cuddly small businesses to the buying teams, rather than a single, whacking great monopoly. Let alone a Chinese one. Think of the threat to national security.

Sunday was an eye of Silverside day - a three pound peice of meat which looked as if it had been cut from a single muscle with the grain running the long way. Gently boiled for several hours with some lard, onions, carrots and swede. Good gear and not bad cold - although because we forgot to wrap the leftovers in foil, a little dry. And the left over liquid and mushy vegetables made really good broth: mash it up a bit with a potato masher, add some pearl barley, simmer for a bit and then add some finely sliced crinkly cabbage just before serving. No need for seasonings or stock cubes at all. Which is not always the case.

Having mused about robots, I came across a bit in the DT about a parrot which imitated someone's mobile ringing and them laughed when the person came to answer him (or her). Now supposing the story to be true (the DT not being the most reliable rag, quite apart from their sloppy proof reading), what exactly is the parrot up to? It seems a bit far fetched that a bird brain, even that of an old and mature parrot, should manage a sense of humour, although I believe some people believe that their mammalial pets do. Does the owner simply reinforce the originally randomly generated behaviour by hemp seed rewards?

And then took lesson 4 from my geek course. This took the form of getting myself signed up for MySpace - a product which appears to be of the same order of complexity as Facebook. How do people find the time to learn how to drive these things? Not as feature rich as a Microsoft product but they are certainly trying. I have clearly not the got hang of it yet as I now seem to be getting Myspace flavoured emails from people I have never heard of. Should I be worried? Should I be worried that I have less friends on Myspace than the chap at number 13a down the road?

I read in today's DT that the central nannies have been persuaded by some computing contractor to build a super new computer system to build bank accounts within which the frail and elderly can take back the management of their life. The bank accounts will be populated with whatever money might be left over after building said computer system. Flop or fly, a tribute to the ease with which computer systems of this sort can now be delivered to the population at large.

Now while the thought that the frail and the elderly might like to get a bit more control back is a good one, and the idea that there ought to be a bit more visibility of the costs of their care is a good one, one wonders whether one could not have achieved the same result without such a performance. Just told the people who manage the front line nannies (aka care workers) to be a bit less bossy and to give their customers options rather than directives.

As it is we are going to need a whole new layer of nannies who are authorised to explain to the customers how the new system works, who are authorised to work it for them (most of the customers will not be wanting to do this for themselves), who can police the system to make sure that one particular gang of meals' providers is not banging the PCT with crates of Xmas hooch to thank them for putting a bit of business their way... One could go on. Another victory for process and procedure over contact and care.

On a more cheerful note I also read that Toyota have built a robot that can play the violin after a fashion - and this is just a bit of showing off, not what the thing is for. Another one that can play the trumpet. Now that is really something; something that I would like to see the insides of. How do you make a hand that is sensitive enough to make the notes on the fingerboard? The thing is presumably quite good at analysing a note that it hears - but how does it turn that information into tuning hand movements? Perhaps the thing does not go quite that far. But it does need to be able to run the bow over the strings in the right way - which must need some kind of aural feedback to the bow hand to work properly. Does it read the music from a score, in the way of a real musician or has the score been read into its memory? What range of scores can it play from? Are they expressed internally in much the same way as they are on the score you or I might buy or is their some special intermediate language which is more robot friendly? All of which would be fascinating to know about. Sadly their web site is very bland. Nothing about the workings and no buttons to get interesting pdf downloads.

On a slightly more mundane level, I learn from a TB informant that one no longer needs to insert small windmills into large water pipes in order to guage the flow in them. One simply has a gadget which bounces a beam of light of some sort across the pipe and deduces flow from the appearance of the returning light. Now what does fast flowing clean water do to a beam of light which enables one to do that? One might think that swirling around sort of water or dirty water would have more chance.

And moving from new to old technology, I learn that the Dome on the Rock was very likely built by Christians. The Muslims might have conquered Jereusalem but they did not exterminate the pre-existing population and were generally quite tolerant of them. So almost certainly made productive use of them in service of the prophet. Also that the style of the thing is very much that of a contemporary Christian church. Not some new revelation, but very much building (in every sense) on what had gone before - less the pictures of people, prophets, saints, angels and gods which were not approved of.

Kept out of the three quarters finished second potato trench by rain again, but still managed to get to Cheam. Old fashioned yellow capes really do what they say on the tin and they are not that sweaty inside. But the poor old fox who was hit by a car a few days ago is now nearly washed up. A wreck of leaves, twigs and fox all mushed together by the rainwater washing down the hill. On a more cheerful note, acquired a very fine pork chop which went down well for lunch with fresh white bread. Or to be more exact, acquired two pork chops but decided that two was a bit OTT for lunch with toad in the hole coming up for tea. Moderation is the secret of success once one can see the gray hair.

Advent service on Sunday evening at Guilford cathedral. Interesting to see a modern cathedral at work after our recent visit to Ely. In the dark, the place was suprisingly impressive inside - the absence of any kind of rood screen blocking off the centre of operations helping rather than hurting - although the detailing of the stone work was a bit uneven. Not as good, say, as that on the outside of what was County Hall. The nave seemed to me to be about as big as King's College Chapel - although with the weaker choir (about half of which looked to be teenage girls) and weaker audience there was much less noise. On the other hand, the choir was not into the show-off stuff that they go for in Cambridge (at Christmas anyway) and the more modest showing was somehow more holy. More humble in the face of God. And I liked the Advent antiphons - things I had never heard of before, never mind heard.

A little later well entertained by a fun costume drama called the Trumph of Love, based on a play by Merivaux. According to Wiki, despite being written in 1732, this 2001 film was the first screen adaptation in English and one which received only modest reviews and which did not, in any event, do very well. Fiona Shaw rather dominated the proceedings, to the extent that one thought that she was able to put a good deal of herself into her role as a love struck, middle aged blue-stocking.

And in between times tucking into Underworld by Delillo. I read Libra some time ago and rather liked it. Think I tried something else by him since then and didn't. This one is described as the 'number 1 international best seller' and was derived, I think, from my recent expedition to the charity shops around Battersea. It is also rather fat, in the way of books of that description, perhaps the same number of words as Ulysses and, to my mind, rather reflecting of the US fascination with Joyce. The burbling on about the daily workings - public and private - of entirely ordinary people. The capturing in print of things we might do and think, but do not, on the whole, expose to public or any other kind of view. Not altogether sure that so much exposure is a good thing. Another Delillo fascination seems to be capturing all the many threads that lead into and away from some notable - possibly entirely fictional - event. To try and capture that flapping of the butterfly wings in South Georgia which caused the ice cap in Surbiton to melt away (but which, is, of course, why you have never seen it). Another is his interest in how the maximum amount of use can be extracted from photographs or videos - usually but not always taken by furtive organs of government. The very modern fascination (one which I happen to share) with the relation between the thing and its sign. His language reminds me a bit of that of Cormac McCarthy so perhaps they went to the same creative writing course. His subject matter reminds me of another US fascination - or rather nostalgia, nostalgia for the life of first generation immigrants in their teeming tenements on Lower East Side, in Bronx and Brooklyn. Something for which I can think of no analagy for on this side of the pond.

On the down side, for me anyway, a rather pretentious flavour hangs over the whole book (or at least the two fifths that I have read) - but then, as my brother used to say, the line between being arty and being pretentious can be a bit tricky. Not reasonable to expect one to get it right all the time.

Two bad ones in the last couple of days. First, while watching BH carry the waste bucket off to the compost heap, I open the cupboard door under the sink with the intention of tipping what was left in the tea pot into the same waste bucket - which was not, as it turned out, there. One half of brain plugged into compost was not connected to the other half plugged into tea. Stopped in time.

The good news is that there are signs that the rats are taking the bait in the compost heap. Let's hope that it does its stuff. Presumably I will no longer be able to call anything grown on my allotment organic as I can't imagine that whatever the active ingredient is in the rat poison qualifies. So what do organic people to about rats? Perhaps they have a rat shoot with special shot guns in the way that it is alleged Harrods have an annual rat shoot in their extensive basements. But then perhaps not, there being a strong correlation between membership of the orgies and membership of the veggies.

Second, while looking for a pub I used to visit occasionally near Clapham Junction, managed to walk right past it. Was not convinced that this was the case until we hit the terminal T-junction. On the other hand, the error meant that we found two new pubs, both interesting, in differant ways, and sampled one entirely new beer. There turned out to be an excuse in that the missing pub had been refurbished and no longer sold warm beer, an example of that rather large number of pubs which seem to have gone in for rather precious refurbishments, presumably in an attempt to grab lady trade to make up for the absence of smokers.

But I am becoming telekinetic (or something) because the car came out in sympathy and had it's senior moment. That is to say it refused to start for BH. Option 1, flooding. Option 2, damp weather and car standing in drive. Option 3, one of the cells in the battery gone. Managed to start the thing, then again later that evening and first thing this morning so maybe we are looking at option 1. For some reason all our cars seem to end up suffering from starting problems. No idea what it is we do to them. Let's hope this one - which has so far been good in that department - is not about to join the club.

In an effort to keep the brain on the move and having got bored with Soduku (not, I hasten to add, because I found the puzzles so easy), had a go at the code word underneath. Got as far as seeking a five letter word of the form 'b--mb-' and settled for bimbo, thinking that bombe was too obscure for this sort of puzzle. This resulted in the puzzle containing a very large number of o's which clearly did not work. I tried bombe and that seemed to result in an unhealthy population of e's. Gave up at that point. The answer was indeed bombe - with the quibble that bimbo is in my OED (a sort of drink) and bombe is not. Will I have another go?

Managed to get to the baker and almost back before I started getting wet. Set out just after a sharp shower, everything looking very bright and beautiful. Bark of the trees glistening blackly. The beech trees in the run up to Cheam looking particularly special. But then caught 5 minutes from home by the next shower. But my posh new sweater - rather a hand me up from the sprog - holds up well; just about the right warmth to wear over a shirt but without a jacket in this sort of weather. Multi coloured affair with the colours of a Jacobs sheep, hand spun and presumably hand knitted by some energetic old lady in the Northern Isles somewhere. My second most posh sweater is about twice the weight at2 pounds and 2 ounces, came from a charity shop, and only claims to be hand assembled. Nothing about hand spinning or knitting on the label and it only came from lowly England rather than the more interesting Celtic fringe or the Northern Isles.

The Metropolitan Police continue in the news with the resignation of a senior officer over some expenses and relationship kerfuffle. Very British that someone resigns without being (seen to be) pushed over some footling misdemeanour - but not a flicker when some dreadful cock-up results in someone's death. As they always used to say when I was little, about the only thing a civil servant could be sacked for was for fiddling his or her expenses. Never mind the battleship sinking with all hands or losing the department of ag and fish.

After Ely onto Clacton to see the seaside, not being a place I recall having been to, despite having been born up the road at Felixstowe. There is a differance which became clear as we went on though: Felixstowe is in Suffolk while Clacton is in Essex. So around Clacton, for example, we had two or three hairy bits of aggressive driving - people in smart cars flipping across the lanes in their desperation to get ahead. But one has to give them nerve and skill even if one does not applaud the business as a whole.

Our first division hotel had not got our booking - despite the booking having been made through what looked like their website rather than an agent (must keep an eye on the bill) - but being the slack season there was no problem with our superior double with sea view. And a very nice room it was too, although an interesting shape which resulted in the ensuite being about the size of a cupboard with one of those showers with clinging curtains the size of an even smaller cupboard. Rainy evening in which we found it hard to find pubs - in fact we only managed one proper pub and one worky. After we were done we found a few hotels and a Witherspoon on the sea front but none of them could really be called a pub. And we didn't find any more when we left the following day. Perhaps the place was built by one of those temperance builders that were knocking around until recently (I think Laing was one of them).

One of the hotels on the front was called the Geisha hotel and boasted what it called the only revue bar in Clacton in its basement. One assumes that revue is a code word for strip or perhaps even burlesque (a term I was reminded about by going to a local rendering of Gipsy last year). A warming up bar on the ground floor looked reasonably busy.

Bright and cheerful if cold the following morning so we had a stretch on the esplanade, splendid thing miles long which must cost a fortune - apart from the sea itself there looked to be a fair bit of movement in the low sandy cliffs behind. Bought some cod from a chappess at the end of the pier. She said that it was by-catch - the sort of cod which is out of quota and usually gets chucked back (dead) to avoid trouble with the trusties. Or maybe she said that (like stallholders talk with a nod and a wink about stuff falling off a lorry) just to make it sound better. Either way not sure about the morals of buying the stuff - which was a bit small but very cheap and probably very fresh.

Decided that as it was small (and might go soggy), chowder would be a better bet than baked - particularly as we had some quite decent smoked streaky bacon. So simmer cod for a few minutes, remove and flake. Cook potatoes in the water. Meanwhile fry up the bacon in butter, add onions. Stir whole lot together and serve. Very good - although the cheap white potatoes from Mr S (probably not 'taste the differance' - this now being the Mr S euphemism for regular - a wheeze to get prices up on the sly) were a bit softer than desirable.

This should have been followed the next day by white pudding. However, it felt decidedly soggy. On opening, a damp sheen on the surface. When sliced more or less fell apart. When fried (in lard) got interestingly large and glassy bubbles. And would not fry to a firm brown crust as it usually does. Black crust and still falling apart. Smelt OK but decided that it was off. On inspection, the sell-by sticker mysteriously missing from the wrapper. More poor stock control at Cheam? Had the seal on the (shrink wrap plastic) wrapping gone? Was it ever there? Did they know? Irritating the way that people who you use regularly will still palm you off with dodgy gear if they think they can get away with it.

Must be getting pious as we paid two visits to Ely cathedral in the course of two days - perhaps encouraged by having acquired annual passes - which one gets for the price of a single ticket plus the bother of filling out a gift aid form. Seems quite a reasonable system: the one time tourists pay rather a lot but locals or regulars pay rather less (per visit). In any event, first visit in the afternoon, which being in the winter meant it was fairly dark. All most impressive though. Back in the morning for a second helping when it was much lighter, and saw it all in a differant light, as it were. This included finding a number of the green men (which I had never heard of before) secreted away in the detail of the carving. All very pagan it seems and not all the trusties are very pleased about their being there. I think they are a bit of up-market graffitti by the stone masons who, having been more or less chained to the place for life, wanted to get one over the clerk of works or the foreman or whatever. Then the Prior's door which contained the only bit of (legitimate) animal or people carving that I saw. Animals of all sorts, including the odd dragon, although all a bit worn and weathered. Then the stained glass museum, up at the triforium level, from which one got a differant take on the upper stone and paint work. Museum itself most instructive. I learnt, for example, that the heyday of stained glass in England was during the 19th century gothic revival (Prots and Puritans not so keen before then - all thought to be a bit Romish at best and pagan at worst) and that there is a fair bit of secular stained glass. That the Scots were more open to continental fashions in these matters than we were: we more or less stuck to replicas of what had gone before. Presumably part of the point in the olden days was that stained glass was durable, a lot more durable than painting.

Ely, like other old towns, is very into its heritage, part of which we learn is eels. I had never made the connection. However, it is now cemented in as we had eels for dinner at the Lamb hotel. Strips of smoked eel, the shape of long thin crab sticks, served with salad as a starter. Tasted like a mild smoked mackeral but with a rather differant texture. A bit cleaner and more chewy. The hotel - which was fairly old - also boasted an interesting steel contraption holding up the main staircase, a very high temperature and what appeared to be a lady staff. Very friendly they were too, up to an including quite a decent pint of (Greene King) IPA. I also know a lot more about how credit card transactions in hotels work - in particular, why exactly they like to see your card three times. Town as a whole very well pubbed - although most of them were pretty quiet. There was also a baker - a proper baker but with an older staff which made one suspect the baker would die with them - so we were OK for picnics for a couple of days. Corned beef mashed up with chopped tomato (a trick we learned from an older East End couple in Wood Green 35 years ago) rules.

Quite a good number of charity shops as well, in one of which I acquired a novel about modern China - say the eighties - published in translation by the University of Louisiana. If the book is fair, it seems that rural China has not changed as much as one might think since the arrival of the reds. They still have long running feuds between rival families and old men in the hills still take their goat's milk straight from the goat. A practise which seems strangely foreign and savage. They also seem quite keen on alcohol and tobacco.

Which reminds me that Nanny Harman - having been caught with her hand in the till, drunk in charge of an umbrella or whatever - ought to be punished. I thought that being made to sit in the stocks outside TB while she consumed two entire packets of Gaulloise (full strength) would be appropriate. She would be allowed to whack back some Stella if that helped her get the Gaulloises down.