pumpkinstrokemarrow

Now Mr Brown is not Macbeth nor is he a fool. Nor is he greedy for anything but power (unlike his predecessor). But why can't he - or anyone else that I talk to for that matter - see that it would be a good thing if he were to call an election forthwith, without waiting to be forced out. While he has a good majority in the commons there is no requirement for him to go, but it would show respect for the people in whose name he governs. They have got sick of him and his party. They have got disillusioned with politics and politicians generally. So he would probably get hammered in any election soon. But he would get respect for going gracefully and letting the other lot have a turn. The other lot would then have the job of digging us out of the hole we have fallen into. And the electorate might remember why they chucked the tories out in the first place. Labour might even get in again in five years time. As things are it seems likely that they will be out for ages.

Talking of holes, I remember that the hole that Mrs Thatcher is said to have dug us out of was all down to the greed of those dreadful unions. Ironic that the new hole is all down to her spiritual children - that is to say the greed of those dreadful bankers.

And talking of Macbeth, I have recently acquired (from a charity shop), a facsimile of a quarto edition of the Merchant of Venice, described on the opening page as a comical history. Presumably the Elizabethans (or perhaps Jacobeans) had a differant sense of the word comical than we do. OED not terribly helpful, saying mainly that comical pertains to comedy as opposed to tragedy. The fifth and last meaning of comical is given as queer, strange or odd - but the first date is 1793, a little out of range. Another mystery I am unlikely to get to the bottom of.

Curiously, I have read on two occasions in the last couple of days about running amuck, something I knew nothing about before. First, I read in a Huxley travel book of the thirties about Malays who get the hump, perhaps because they have been insulted by a foreman or overseer. (Despite being a thoroughly decent chap, the language he uses would probably not pass the PC test these days). He says that they can go silent, still and deadly, gathering their strength and resolve, and then they run wild with a large knife, killing as many people as possible, in the certain knowledge that they will wind up dead in fairly short order too. There was a sense that killing white people, that is to say interlopers and infidels, was more meritorious than killing their own kind, although that would do if better was not available. This was happening, it seems, to crew members on steamers travelling in and around Malay waters. Amuck being the transliteration of the Malay word for this behaviour. Second, I read a shorter version of the same thing in a Simenon novel of the late fifties.

Yesterday mainly devoted to the construction of a flying curtain rail. The problem is the curtain for the large glazed door in our extension - maybe three metres wide by two high. For ease, the curtain rail was hung off the door frame - but this means that the curtain is resting on the glass and gets damp and mouldy in the winter and after twenty years this is starting to show a bit. So, as part of replacing the curtains, we want the curtain rail to be moved some inches away from the glass, but still inside the door hole as otherwise the curtain will look too big. But we can't just screw the thing to the top of the door hole as this contains a steel beam which I can't fix to.

The good news is that this gives me a splendid excuse to delay painting the extension while I construct a flying curtain rail, sprung off the door frame. A splendid construction of four brackets made of old dark oak, finally finding a home for a very small portion of all the old oak stored in the roof of the garage. I knew that I was keeping it for something. Then finished off with a nice new pine rail, about two inches by one, to be painted something light, and to which the existing white plastic curtain rail can be fixed. Now a suitable number of inches off the glass. Expenditure in curtain shop nil. Expenditure in Travis Perkins modest.

Progress report, following the buildersec report of May 13th inst. On which occasion I was very pleased with myself for a successful bit of minor plumbing. Yesterday evening, toilet more or less ceased to flush again. Investigated state of washer and found that the white plastic that I had made it out of was in a bit of a state. All one end was all cracked to peices. Does it get brittle when kept underwater? Does three or four actions a day of a rough cut, possibly slightly too big washer, do it in after 50 days? Which is about all I have got out of the thing.

BH reminds me that we have a sheet of blue plastic lining the boot of our car. Maybe a bit thicker than that of the white plastic sack I used last time. So five minutes later, in full flush again. We will see how long this one lasts.

While all this was going on, having my first download film experience. I am advised that the Independant is offering a free film to advertise its download film (paying) service. Some sci-fi classic, practically in black and white. So I spend maybe half an hour downloading 250Mb of .wav file. Then some more minutes copying the file to a CD as the PC connected to the Internet is not the PC with a loudspeaker. Then some more minutes waiting for Windows Media Player to open the thing up. Then, after this memorable display of communications technology, I get said classic chugging away in a window about 2 inches by 3. Despite the fact that the PC in question was a good deal bigger. And the sound was very low. Couldn't see a way to do anything about either problem. So turned it all off again. Then slightly depressed at the uses to which all this communications technology was being put to. People get Nobel prizes so that I can whang gigabytes of data around the world which I don't even bother to look at. My last depression of this sort was people getting Nobel prizes so that I could have computer generated pictures of toy hedgehogs whanging about the screen.

One might think that in this age of the eco, people would be burrowing around in woods looking at real hedgehogs rather than computer animations. Or at least at pictures of real ones.

But then I drift onto something which has bothered me for a long time. Obviously a very anxious type. And that is that fact that when one releases some artefact into the world, perhaps a watercolour, one has no control over the use that the world makes of that artefact. Your water colour might be being used to wrap chips in, the Arts Council subsidy having made the watercolour cheaper than regular chip wrapping paper. It might have been bought because it reminded the buyer of the dreadful daubs of Auntie Flo, for whom he was having a soft spot. It might have been bought as part of some job lot, by the kilo, to decorate some pub. The buyer might spend what little time he spends looking at the watercolour, picking out the various mistakes and corrections, rather than taking a balanced view of the august vision therein. I might change my mind. I no longer care to represent a tree in quite that way and want to withdraw all productions in which I have done. It goes on and on.

I suppose this is where the old Roman church comes in. Which attempted to mediate your experience of God, to control your experience of him. Relics are kept in elaborate closed chests so that they are not polluted by the gaze of the profane. That is a treat for the adepts alone. The profane bend their knees and dish out their sixpences in the presence of the experience - but they should not expect to actually share the experience.

When I was in the land of work, I often heard it said that a picture was worth a thousand words. And it is certainly true that describing an object without the aid of pictures or diagrams is a demanding and interesting business. Some people are so good at it that they have become famous. However, in the case of road signs that infest the sides of our roads, someone ought to tell the promoter that the inclusion of a little icon next to the two or three words which tell one what the subject of the sign is, is not usually helpful. So, for example, the sign to the Roman villa at Brading (on the Isle of Wight) consists of an icon of a helmet and the words 'Roman villa'. To my mind the helmet is uninformative, and just takes up space which might otherwise have been devoted to making the letters on the sign a bit bigger and so legible from a big enough distance to make taking the road signed a realistic possibility.

The villa itself certainly worth a real visit although http://www.bradingromanvilla.org.uk/ does give some idea. Particularly interesting in that a day or two previous we had visited a much smaller and more modestly presented villa at Newport - stranded in the middle of the pre-war housing estate, the construction of which had presumably resulted in the discovery of the villa. Which gave over maybe a quarter of its floor space to the bathing arrangements. And which was said to be the home for nearly twenty people despite having about the same floor space of a three bedroom suburban villa built in the last century (our house being, I think, described as a suburban villa in the deeds. And I think the word villa is used quite freely when describing houses by estate agents in Scotland. Not seen the usage down here). There was also an example of a special earthernware pot used to fatten dormice for the pot (or perhaps the spit). More disconcerting was part of the lower jaw of a Roman horse. Which looked rather like two plates of bone with the teeth as the filling in the sandwich. Not the solid lump of bone with post holes for the teeth I would have expected. If my jaw is built on the same lines, I might soon be having trouble, having lost all the filling for part of my sandwich.

Nearby we came across the first bank of garages with fancy pointed roofs that I have ever seen. That is to say, a row of small garages each with its own pointed roof, each roof with nicely carved barge boards and what have you. Mock tudor beams stuck vertically onto the triangular bit.

Returning to the fancy villa at Brading, perhaps the most memorable thing was the building that it was housed in. A large roof over a good part of the villa, built out of composite wooden beams, cantilevered with steel connecting rods. Floor suspended from the roof so as not to further damage the floor of the villa. Roof planted with vegetation, red in colour of the day of our visit. Was this some eco thing? Or was it to try and hide the building in its area of outstanding natural beauty? In which case green plants might have worked better.

The display of the villa in the interesting building was mainly directed at school children who, presumably, account for most of the custom. But it was also, disconcertingly to my mind, self-conscious about the archeological process. It was as if they were as keen to tell us about archeology through the ages as about a Roman villa. Do we have 'Time Watch' to blame or has the post-modern disease got into archeology?

Back at the ranch I'm clutching at straws to put off starting the redecoration of our extension. So, this evening, we are now the proud owners of a meshed gate between our house and one of the boundary fences, thus denying foxes passage between the road and the back gardens, at least in this part of the road. Maybe it will slow them down a bit. Learnt along the way that cutting the wire plaster lathing that Travis Perkins sold in lieu of a small bit of chicken wire, is quite fiddly if one it doing it with wire cutters. Maybe plasterers have some sort of shears. Also, being rather sharp stuff, the cause of sundry small cuts. Was lucky that the lathing was the right width - despite the top of the gate being nearly 2 inches wider than the bottom (these old- fashioned workmen not being very into their verticals when they put fence posts in) - and so had only one 75cm cut to make. Quite enough for one day.

Only managed one lentil soup on the island. Must have been preoccupied with the crustaceans. But learned that Le Creuset saucepans - which I had thought were a bit of an expensive nonsense - do have one useful property. That is, that boiling red lentils do not boil over, which they almost invariably do at home, not having the patience to stand and watch them while they come to the boil. The lid of the Le C pan is, for a start, very heavy. Maybe there is a better seal than that achieved by Prestige with stainless steel. Then the interior of the slightly domed lid is covered with iron pimples, maybe 2mm high, maybe cast into the lid when it was first hatched. This will clearly have an effect on the way that steam will condense inside; that is to say that condensation will drip down over the whole surface of the boiling liquid, rather than just down around the edge. Are these drips enough to burst the bubble of rising lentil which causes the boiling over? In any event, no boiling over.

The first lentil back home was flavoured with the remains of some stewed celery (being discounted to 25p at Mr S), liquidised, instead of the usual sliced carrot, which was unavailable. The celery changed the texture and taste of the resultant lentil soup in some subtle way, very much for the better. Maybe it was the peanut oil added to help the original cooking of the celery along. Not that I would have known that the addition was celery, had I not added the celery myself.

The second lentil back home is now under construction for breakfast and has boiled over as I blog. The occasion being the loss of a tooth and the resultant temporary loss of crunching capacity. But, not having used dentists much for quite a long time, quite impressed at the lack of post-extraction pain. I remember feeling quite bad after having had wisdom teeth out (thirty years ago, in a place which is now a red hotel in Leicester Square, then a dental hospital), once the cocaine wore off. On the other hand, I did not get the cocaine high that I got on the occasion after that. Tooth out, go into shock. About an hour after that, on a high for about an hour. Prancing around Broomhill Park (near Palmers' Green) with the family. Then modest pain kicks in. Go to bed and all over in the morning.

Why is it that some people find having lentil soup (or stew for that matter) for breakfast odd? How long ago did we move to having particular foods at particular meals, or at particular times of day?

Woke this morning to a chippy dream. Having been on the beer for some days on the trot, something I can no longer manage in real life, we decided to go to the cinema. Get to the cinema and find that the waiting area is tricked out rather like a pub. Homely ladies behind the jump. They also serve food, which comes out of a little cupboardy kitchen behind the left had side of the bar. With all but one of our portions of fish we get chips, dumped liberally onto the plate. I go to get the chips for the last portion, by which time a small chef is esconced in the small kitchen. I grab a handful of what turn out to be white plastic forks. Drop those back in their bowl and grab a handful of chips. Chef looks very severely at me and I drop the chips back in their bowl. He does a stunt on hygeine. He then calms down and start to prepare me a proper portion of chips. That is to say, take a slice of white Mother's Pride. Sprinkle some white bread crumbs on it. Sprinkle on some other bits and peices which I can't remember. Sprinkle a few chips on top of that. Top up with another slice of Mother's Pride. Squish the whole thing down to the dimensions of a cucumber sandwich and present to customer. Take back to the others who are not impressed by the diminutive size of my portion of chips. Seeing the state of my hands, BH almost does a stunt on hygeine but decides not to. Beer on scene. Wake up.

The acessible parts of the fascia boards on the garage and the extension are now finished. Something more than a year after I started on them. Amazing how little time one has once one is retired. Little bit tacky around the edges, not having been done for a long time, but I have great faith in Dulux Exterior Weathershield Gloss (Brilliant White). Hate to think what they put in it and what it might do to you if you snuff it or otherwise ingest it, but it does a very good job on holding dodgy woodwork together.

Further to yesterday's post I tried what should have been obvious and visited the Hampshire web site. It now seems reasonably clear that the Isle of Wight is very nearly a proper county, doing all the things that proper counties do except for police which it shares with Hampshire.

I have also learned that the Roman church takes a firm, sensible and enforceable line on thought crime. That is to say, it is not a crime. It is not even necessary to tell your confessor about it, although if you are posh you might choose to consult him about it. But once you tip over the line and do the deed, then you are 100% guilty and need urgent confession. Now while this is the sensible approach, I do fret a little about it. Suppose I spend months pondering about, dreaming about murdering my boss. This is rather unhealthy and stains one. But not a crime either to church or civil authorities. Suppose I even go as far as making plans and collecting the necessary equipment. According to my informant, this is still not a crime to the church authorities although I guess it might become one to the civil authorities. Especially if one is conspiring with a colleague who shares your dislike of your boss. Clearly food for much heat over strong brown ale here.

Food for thought takes me back to the island, where we have become instant experts on the purchase and consumption of crabs and lobsters.

Started off at the 'Boat House' at the bottom of Puckpool Hill. Beer a bit strong, something called 'Holy Joe', some kind of local confection, but drinkable. But the lobster starter was good at maybe £6. A few slices (cross wise) of a large lobster tail, tastefully arranged on a little bed of exotic lettuce and so forth. Maybe some of that brown vinegar stuff lurking at the bottom.

A few days later and wet and windy walk from Sandown, along the beach to the end of Shanklin. Lunch in a pub called the ‘Fisherman’s Cottage’. Crab salads – very nicely arranged on slightly pink glass plates. Very large portion of crab – white and yellow meat mixed – which I liked better than I expected. But I would still rather have white. If I want mixed, Shippams do it much cheaper. Not a bad deal at all for £9 or so. Plus another strong local beer with a funny name which I preferred to ‘Holy Joe’. We learn afterwards, walking back along the front, that crab salad of this sort is very much the local thing. All the eateries are at it.

Oven chips, not too good, but much geed up by the use of a pink sauce served with the crab. A fishy ketchup which hid much evil. Can see now why the Belgians go in for mayo on their chips. Small hot baguette, presumably fresh out of the freezer via the microwave. Again, not too good but edible.

The pub was decorated with, amongst other things, some photographs of what looked like floating and rigged three deckers (HMS Victory is such a thing, but no longer afloat). Didn’t know that they co-existed. But then I have no idea when photography kicked off.

Another few days and we are off, bright and early in the morning, to Captain Sam’s for lobsters. Two cooked lobsters, each about right for one, for £16. Served by cheerful young lady from up north somewhere. Brought them back to the refridgerator. Some time later, peeled the lobsters, not very neatly. The cottage kitchen knives are all of the serrated or toothy variety and they do not cut very cleanly. And the great architect in the sky seems to have made a bit of a mess with the teeth in the primary claws. All over the place, lots in places where you wouldn’t think that they would do much good at all. But the lobster itself, very good. Starting to get a taste for the things.

But the lobsters prompted an urge for the OED, abandoned back at Epsom. Can’t think how repugnant gets to mean what it does. How do we get there from pugnare, to fight? And then where does indefatiguable come from? What does the prefix ‘inde’ do?

On the day we went for a swim at Priory beach, went for lunch to a not very busy small cafe on the front where we got some very good crab salad sandwiches. £4 a pop. Crab meat with higher proportion of white than the earlier crab salad. Which I prefer. Two sandwiches filled one up good and proper. The cafe appeared to be being run by a couple of kids in their spare time and was presumably a hangover frome when this was a much busier beach – when Seaview pier was still up (something exceptional in its day, being a suspension pier. It was just one of two in the country).

For our posh meal of the holiday, to a place called the 'Priory Hotel', just above the beach of the same name. Extraordinary place; a clutch of quite old buildings on the site of what used to the the priory farm. Towering folly with posh antique clock from the US. Product of a lady from the US, nuts about heritage. Genuine French romanesque doors with tympanums (?) adorning two of the doors and the whole with elaborate carvings. They would presumably count as heritage piracy these days.

Pea soup made out of frozen rather than dried peas. Odd how much differance that makes. Lobsters – far better carved than I managed with our 2 for £16 - although vastely more expensive. Slightly bigger too. Came with a leaf salad with bits and some sort of brown goo. Very good. Pudding served on dinky glass plate, neatly contrasting with those the other courses were served on. They even managed some very decent bottled local beer, for consumption after we had had enough wine.

There was an absolutely spiffing smoking den with a whopping great lime tree. A small courtyard, nearly enclosed by old building. Warm and quiet. The lime tree was the most healthy speciman I remember seeing. And not a bad cigar from the giant Tesco, my usual brand having gone awol. Something called a Helix from Conneticutt. Didn’t have that odd flavour I associate with cigars from over the pond. Saltpetre or something. And by good fortune, the smoke attracted a red squirrel, which ran across the opening to the den. First time I have seen such a thing.

On our last evening, to Pete’s cafe at the far end of the Puckpool Park part of the esplanade. Licensed place doing snacks and light meals, licensed. Very cheerful place run by four or five young people. Quiet when we went in but doing a good trade on the barbecue by the time we left. Crab salad for me – very good, the proportion of white to yellow meat continuing to climb, only marred by failing to stop the balsamic vinegar underneath the salad. Maybe £9. Quiche for the BH. Very natty individual portion job. Followed by Bakewells. Not as good as Cheam but similar enough to suggest that the Cheam ones come off a van rather than out of his oven.

Now back from the other island, the Isle of Wight that is, where we have now spent 7 of the last eight summer holidays. Escaped to Wales last year but the pull of the old was too great. Two dreams of interest.

BH woke up on the middle Sunday having dreamt about writing a stiff letter to the Isle of Wight council. Lots of dogs on the beaches, despite lots of signs saying that they were forbidden during the summer. Diggers on the beach, especially on Saturday. That is to say a large yellow JCB charging about, moving sand from one place to another, on the first fine day for a while. Diggers on the road in Lake on Saturday, doing something fairly routine. Do they really need the overtime that bad that they have to bung up the only road down the east coast of the island while they patch a small hole in the pavement? Then having a sign calling the battery at Puckpool a mortar battery when one would clearly not use mortars for coastal defence (and when the very inaccurate old poster in the ‘Boat House’ gents shows guns which, despite the inaccuracies, are clearly not mortars). Plus a number of other things we can no longer call to mind. We have clearly reached the age of complaint rather than the university of the third age.

Curious waking dream of my own on the morning of departure. Arrived somewhere with BH and luggage, perhaps off a boat. For some reason need to get back to Elizabeth Street in Victoria (where I used to live, many years ago, when a student). Took a taxi. Taxi seemed to have no idea how to get to the street and my geography of the bit of London we seemed to be in not too hot. Turned down a very narrow alley, the end of which turned out to be blocked by some complicated assembly of cranes, concrete lorries and what not. Concrete being poured. Tried to reverse out by which time the entry similarly blocked. The blockage clears. Reverse out past a green van. Go on some long detour. Find ourself in a small square – at least an opening, with benches and trees, very Parisien (Parisienne?) but not square. Park next to shop while the driver goes in search of directions. Think about doing a runner but remember in time that we have lots of luggage in the boot. Wife goes into the shop, which has a sale on, in search of bargains. I have the idea that the shop is owned by the taxi driver’s wife. Wake up. Was it a racialist thought crime that the driver was a small brown man, from India or Pakistan?

Got back to an email about crime. Or more specifically about a sherrif (or is it sheriff?) in Arizona who believes in making prisons hurt. He runs what sound like very unpleasant ones and his constituents love it. Re-elect him every time. He is clearly feeding the desire for revenge on the bad guys. But I wonder if it really works? Are his rates of reoffending any better than anyone else's? I suppose it would be a result if his offenders simply go somewhere else to offend on release. What is the level of violence inside his prisons like? I would have thought that banging up a lot of young violent people without diversion and with excessive heat (during the summer days) would lead to a fair amount of violence between prisoners. Is this going to make them better people? Is it decent to keep other humans, however unpleasnt, in such conditions? Is it decent to encourage and feed rather ugly pleasure in revenge? I am reminded of the people who used to guzzle sizzle burgers outside prisons at the moment when someone was electrocuted. The bottom line is that I am rather dubious about the whole venture.

More prosaically, we are puzzled by the constitutional status of the island. It has a council which appears to function as a county council but does not call itself such. It has a number of subordinate units called parishes and towns, rather like the very old-speak urban district councils, rural district councils and parishes. Being not terribly big, is it linked up with Hampshire for various purposes? There is a page on their web site called 'what is a council?' but it is agnostic on this particular question. Maybe it really is an anomaly in the almost seamless, post 1974 reorganisation web of counties, along with the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. I remember the 1974 reorganisation because at about that time we went to a lot of bother to build fancy gadgets into the population statistics systems to accommodate any future reoganisation without sweat. Which turned out to be a splendid case of bolting the statistical door after the horse had bolted.

On a research expedition to the grounds of Osborne House (on the other island), we unearthed the attached fragment of what appears to be a posh persons' wedding table layout. No honourables but plenty of foreigns.

Have restarted painting the fascia boards, having stopped for the winter more than six months ago. Now maybe only a week away from finishing them. Next stop the extension - for its second painting since we have been here. Amazing the amount of time that abandoning the allotments has freed up!

And now for a geographic Eureka moment. South American geography has always been a bit of a problem for me, but I have now come across a solution, which goes as follows. South America consists mainly of a triangular Brazil. To the north and west Brazil is bounded by a ring of smaller, round countries, starting with French Guiana in the north east and ending with Uruguay in the south. To the east is the ocean. The bottom of the continent is two long thin countries, Chile to the west and Argentina, rather fatter, to the east. All quite straightforward now. Leaving aside the minor anomalies that Argentina separates Paraguay and Uruguay and that Peru and Columbia join forces to prevent Equador making it to Brazil. The only remaining puzzle is to find out the basis on which the Pope, whose geography was probably worse than mine, divided the continent between the Spanish and the Portuguese. Which bits speak Portuguese apart from Brazil?

Three dreams to report. There is not much to say about the first. I just woke up feeling very anxious in a very Chinese (or possibly Japanese) flavoured way. The story behind this East Asian anxiety was completely missing. All very frustrating.

The second has a bit more body. Driving a white van to pick up some building materials left over from a job. Not sure which of two houses along the road it was so called at both to be on the safe side. Then, on getting back into the van, found the dash covered in sheets of white A4 paper with someone else's scribbles all over them. Time to head off home. A bit anxious about driving as I had my big boots on, far to big to work the pedals with any safety. Headed off in a southerly direction, somewhere on the wrong side of London, a fictitious somewhere which I visit in dream from time to time. But this time there was an escape road, ahead on the right. Onto some sort of steel ramp, like those on ferries. To find a wall rising up in front of me. But it is only a sort of flap which can be pushed down by driving slowly into it. Then find myself going down a sort of concrete spiral with hairy hair pin bends. These underground precipices not good for the vertigo. Then suddenly emerge on a wide, well lit ramp heading up, rather like that when gets over the half way point in the Dartford tunnel. Then emerge into the sunlight, well on the way home. Wake up.

The third seems to be a conflation of various places and situations, all real. Something to do with the BH wangling an invitation to a dinner party, said to be for family and friends, but when we get there it turns out that we are the only friends. Why have we been invited? The large family involved seemed at times to be one family, at others a second or a third. They didn't seem to know why we were there either but the head, the mother, was very good about it. A kind and efficient hostess. Middle aged, had been good looking when young. The venue seemed to veer about as well. And sometimes there seemed to be a whole lot of down and outs at table, opposite me, sometimes not. Don't know much about what we were given to eat, beyond that it involved small lumps of turkey sitting on large rounds of soggy bread, rather like those large rounds of soggy Yorkshire pudding they serve sausages in up north. There were three or four very posh, untouched joints of turkey in the centre of the very crowded table. Each shaped like half (cross ways, not length ways) a rather pointed, shiny purple rugby ball. Perhaps a bit bigger than half a rugby ball. Also the shape of the blue and white crochet covers we have for boiled eggs. Lots of glasses and other table furniture. Sat next to a rather rude young doctor with little conversation. Large garden after the meal. Then onto a flat which had been allocated to us for the night. Young family allocated another on the same staircase.

After all these nocturnal traumas, off to inspect the moss garden to recover. The various sorts of moss continue to grow, slowly. Some of the shoots about an inch long now, sticking straight up in the sheltered environment. Various odd plants, very small. Various grasses, growing very slowly. Maybe they don't like the very damp environment.

It may have been that the population of local government bizzies and assorted nannies was in decline for years as a result of the confiscation of their powers by central government. But the population is certainly bouncing back on the crest of the eco-wave and the amount of direction on how to dispose of our rubbish is reaching epidemic proportions. And I believe most of it to be nonsense. It seems to me to be quite obvious that the best thing to do with organic waste of all sorts is to landfill it. That way it does not rot and in due course will become coal for the benefit of our posterity - whatever that might be in some hundreds of millions of years or however long it takes to make coal. (I'm not sure I would bet good money on hoomans being around in a thousand years never mind a million. We don't seem to be learning how to organise ourselves quickly enough). The next best thing is to incinerate it in a power station. At least that way you get the benefit of the heat. The worst thing to do is let it decompose naturally, throwing all that carbon and heat into the sky where it is no use to anyone.

On the up side, I suppose it is a tribute to the success of the IT industry, that the eco-nuts can even think of weighing our rubbish as it leaves our dwellings and recording the results on a national eco-crime database.

Yesterday, amongst other things, was a car day. We start off with a Maserati on the way back from Cheam. Black sports car, rather shabby and dull looking. None of the splash of a Ferrari. Most disappointing. Why would one spend a year's income on such a thing? But then, sitting outside a bar in Howie Street, we see a very flashy looking pastel blue sports car with an elevated roof. That is to say, the entire roof section had been pushed up by about a foot so that the occupants got some fresh air on what was a very hot afternoon. The two occupants were black and dressed in blue clothes which matched the car. Exhibiting our racial stereotypes, I said footballers and BH said dealers in substances. We learnt later that this was the latest thing in show-off car. Next, a very smart BMW drifts into the parking space about two feet from where we were sitting and the two occupants drift into the bar. And last, a Mercedes convertible drifts into the parking space across the road. The driver pushes some buttons and the roof unfolds itself out of some compartment at the back of the car and neatly installs itself. Driver gets out, pushes some more buttons and the windows rise, sealing up the vehicle against passing bad people. All most impressive.

Several other events on the way to Howie Street. We were pleased to find that the Mona Lisa cafe restaurant is till alive and kicking down the Kings Road (where, as an aside, I note that there were lots of shops selling costume jewellery. Much better than one could get in Epsom). Where we had once been for breakfast many years ago having parked the car more or less outside, by chance. Excellent place, without web presence of its own to post here but featured in lots of guides. Very good taramisu yesterday.

Prior to that, in a charity shop in Battersea Park Road, acquired for 50p, a book by one T R Ybarra, which appears to be a memoir of a Caracan childhood by the son of the daughter of a US diplomat and a Venezuelan general and war hero of one of their then frequent civil wars. Whoever owned the book cared enough about it to paste the dust jacket inside the front cover and a hand corrected and signed typed letter from a cousin of the author to the author inside the back cover. Who was the owner to go to such trouble? The memoir appears to be full of more or less outrageous anecdotes, one of which was about some forebear, the first archbishop of Caracas. It seems that he was such an important man that it would not have been fair for any one locality to have all his mortal remains, so they were shared out. The gravestone marking one share had come back into the family as a treasured heirloom and read: "Under this stone lie the heart and eyes of Don Francisco de Ybarra, first archbishop of Caracas". Presumably we can trust the Lord to reassemble all the bits of the day of judgement.

Prior to that, some debate in Battersea Park about the large fish lazing about in the lakes there. From a distance, they seem too long and thin to be carp and have the shovel snout of a pike - while being a bit fat for pike. Long flat and shallow dorsal fin. Narrow tranverse stripes across the dark back. One even jumped out of the water for our inspection, exhibiting a very pale belly. Two of them finally came close and we decided that they really were carp after all. But were they all carp?

And lastly, needing a bit of nose-bag on return to Epsom, tried our luck in the Cafe Rouge there. Sat outside for about fifteen minutes, along with half a dozen other parties, with no action. They didn't even bother to tie us down by getting us something to drink. So moved across the road to Wetherspoons where we were quickly (say 10 minutes from order to delivery) served with what we were going to have had at Cafe Rouge - a Ceasar salad - for about half the price. Something over £11 for two decent meals and two drinks. Chicken not that great but plentiful - presumably a job lot from Thailand or somewhere which also did service for half a dozen other dishes on the menu. And Wetherspoons sell warm beer which is more than can be said for Cafe Rouge. The down side was that the place was rather crowded and noisy. Lots of youff. But an excellent deal for all that.