Wednesday, May 28, 2008
More lapses
I worked out during yesterday that in my roll-call of television detectives I had missed two notables - Marple and Maigret - although the third with M, Morse, I had managed - so it can't be a problem with M's. I guess Marple was missed because she was a lady and I was focussing on odd male detectives who treat their side-kicks badly - who as it turned out were very much in the minority. Missing Maigret was odd as I am very much onto Simenon at the moment, both by way of autobiography and a roman dur. Maybe it was the absence of badly treated side kick which saw him off. And having now got to ten big television detectives, I suppose the actual number must be twenty or more. Clearly a popular genre.
A propos of roman dur, happened to be browsing in Harraps and find that while we have big cheeses, the French have big vegetables. And while we have big wigs - meaning much the same thing as big cheeses - the French only have old wigs, meaning old fogeys. According to Harraps anyway they don't seem to have our sort of big wig at all.
Sorry to read about the giant lobster from Lyme Bay the other day. A pity that the young lady who discovered a giant lobster couldn't just leave the thing down there to grow even older. She had to bring it up for display, and when the local aquarium did not want it, had it boiled up for grub. One might have thought that in this digital age she could have captured it for her Facebook entry on her super-dooper underwater digital camera without needing to capture it for real.
Took what turned out to be a journey into the past yesterday. Train and tube to Camden Town to take a look at the post-fire market. Fire turned out to have affected rather less of the market than one might have thought from media coverage although there is plenty of other development nibbling away at the edges of the area - which I hadn't realised was from the glory days of railways and canals. Acquired two more Huxleys (my original stock having been chucked out some years ago), one of which was a collection of travel essays I have not read before. Not allowed into the round house as it was full of works of some sort, so proceeded up Haverstock Hill. Not allowed into some grand and converted town hall as the desk staff had run out of visitor passes. Continued through Belsize Park where we couldn't find a pub on the Eastern side of the road which I used to use. Maybe it has turned into one of the many food places there. Continued on to Hampstead High Street where the BH was most unimpressed by the coffee supplied by a large old pub on the Western side of the road. Complete with milk which seemed to have lumps of yoghourt in it - the milk still being quite palatable, but not in the coffee. A pub which went in for what looked like rather coarse lady artistes on weekend evenings. On to the Flask - through a book shop where the Huxleys were half the price of those in Camden Lock - where they went in for open mike sessions on weekend evenings - a phrase I had only recently become acquainted with. A Youngs house with much better beer. Having got used to Newcastle Brown at TB, spurned the Youngs Ordinary at 3.8% or something and went for the special at 4.5% - which I liked better than I remembered. Through what seemed to be a very posh part of town - complete with a well donated in 1689 or so by some Earl to the poor of the parish and the site of a pump house (I had not realised that Hampstead was a spa town at one point) and onto the Heath, where we have not been for a very long time.
Down the Western edge of the Heath, through Hampstead Ponds, down onto Parliament Hill Fields to a very splendid childrens' playground and paddling pool. Past a very large and splendid red mattress kite. Over the bridge and into what is still darkest Kentish Town. Found a huge Catholic church - St Dominic's Priory. Fancy chapel to the side at the altar end. Iron walkway around the top of the nave at aisle height. All most impressive, must go there again having read the blurb on their web site (http://www.op-london.org/index.html). And after a bit of fiddling about I learn from Wiki that the letters OP after a name stand for 'Ordo Praedicatorum', a not much used name for the Domincan Order.
Into a pub where we found a lady whose daughter went to the school where the BH used to teach 35 years ago. So onto the school - big, three storey red brick affair - which had not changed much apart from various accretions to the playground. And then onto what used to be a giant boozer on Kentish Town Road, The Oxford, which is now a middle sized boozer with a gastro bit at the back. So we indulged in gastro, watered down with Hook Norton. Not bad at all. And they were redeeemed from being a gastro pub by supplying a book of matches with the bill.
Yet another place to which we must pay another visit soon.
A propos of roman dur, happened to be browsing in Harraps and find that while we have big cheeses, the French have big vegetables. And while we have big wigs - meaning much the same thing as big cheeses - the French only have old wigs, meaning old fogeys. According to Harraps anyway they don't seem to have our sort of big wig at all.
Sorry to read about the giant lobster from Lyme Bay the other day. A pity that the young lady who discovered a giant lobster couldn't just leave the thing down there to grow even older. She had to bring it up for display, and when the local aquarium did not want it, had it boiled up for grub. One might have thought that in this digital age she could have captured it for her Facebook entry on her super-dooper underwater digital camera without needing to capture it for real.
Took what turned out to be a journey into the past yesterday. Train and tube to Camden Town to take a look at the post-fire market. Fire turned out to have affected rather less of the market than one might have thought from media coverage although there is plenty of other development nibbling away at the edges of the area - which I hadn't realised was from the glory days of railways and canals. Acquired two more Huxleys (my original stock having been chucked out some years ago), one of which was a collection of travel essays I have not read before. Not allowed into the round house as it was full of works of some sort, so proceeded up Haverstock Hill. Not allowed into some grand and converted town hall as the desk staff had run out of visitor passes. Continued through Belsize Park where we couldn't find a pub on the Eastern side of the road which I used to use. Maybe it has turned into one of the many food places there. Continued on to Hampstead High Street where the BH was most unimpressed by the coffee supplied by a large old pub on the Western side of the road. Complete with milk which seemed to have lumps of yoghourt in it - the milk still being quite palatable, but not in the coffee. A pub which went in for what looked like rather coarse lady artistes on weekend evenings. On to the Flask - through a book shop where the Huxleys were half the price of those in Camden Lock - where they went in for open mike sessions on weekend evenings - a phrase I had only recently become acquainted with. A Youngs house with much better beer. Having got used to Newcastle Brown at TB, spurned the Youngs Ordinary at 3.8% or something and went for the special at 4.5% - which I liked better than I remembered. Through what seemed to be a very posh part of town - complete with a well donated in 1689 or so by some Earl to the poor of the parish and the site of a pump house (I had not realised that Hampstead was a spa town at one point) and onto the Heath, where we have not been for a very long time.
Down the Western edge of the Heath, through Hampstead Ponds, down onto Parliament Hill Fields to a very splendid childrens' playground and paddling pool. Past a very large and splendid red mattress kite. Over the bridge and into what is still darkest Kentish Town. Found a huge Catholic church - St Dominic's Priory. Fancy chapel to the side at the altar end. Iron walkway around the top of the nave at aisle height. All most impressive, must go there again having read the blurb on their web site (http://www.op-london.org/index.html). And after a bit of fiddling about I learn from Wiki that the letters OP after a name stand for 'Ordo Praedicatorum', a not much used name for the Domincan Order.
Into a pub where we found a lady whose daughter went to the school where the BH used to teach 35 years ago. So onto the school - big, three storey red brick affair - which had not changed much apart from various accretions to the playground. And then onto what used to be a giant boozer on Kentish Town Road, The Oxford, which is now a middle sized boozer with a gastro bit at the back. So we indulged in gastro, watered down with Hook Norton. Not bad at all. And they were redeeemed from being a gastro pub by supplying a book of matches with the bill.
Yet another place to which we must pay another visit soon.
# posted by Jim @ 1:41 AM 
