Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Snowy news
Got through to Cheam again today. Lower Hill Road and Manor Green Road a bit bad with frozen snow to cycle on. Bigger roads more or less OK, although the carriageways a bit narrow for overtaking cars - or cars overtaking bicycles for that matter. Everybodys' manners very good. I am pulling over so that cars can overtake me when there is a bit of space and cars are pulling over so that I can overtake them when there isn't. But for some reason the traffic into Epsom is backed all the way back to the railway bridge just before Cheam. Just about moving but certainly backed up. Not really accounted for by the modest hole in the road at East Street. Bit of a pain to get past it all on the way back. Reduced to cycling on the wrong side of the road.
My snow pillar is more or less down to a stump now and the largest of the snowmen next door is leant over at a surprising angle. Can't see the head staying on for the rest of the day.
BH spending part of the day taking note of who bothers to clear the pavement in front of their houses. Quicker to make the list of those that do, rather than the list of those that don't, these last being in the majority. As I have remarked before, standards of civicity are slipping. Too many people think that someone else, possibly the council but certainly not me, should be doing this sort of thing. As part of my fight against the trend, I am becoming a litter bore. That is to say making a big performance of picking up litter along the road on the way home for ceromonious deposit in our great big dustbin.
To mark the cold we have been having oxtail, or to be more precise two of them, finding along the way that oxtail is not cheap, particular if one takes into account the high proportion of bone, gristle and fat. And so we were reminded how little oxtail tastes like oxtail soup (the sort from Mr Heinz that is). One supposes that this is due to traditional flavourings and colourings being added by Mr Heinz, but we were not any clearer when, having turned the remainder of the oxtail into soup by liquidizing it together with the remains of some stewing steak and its gravy, that soup tasted more like oxtail soup than the oxtail had done before it.
Also been having another go at Burke's Peerage, another book to hand for the advertising breaks. Where we read all about one Sir Patrick Alexander D'Estoteville Skipwith, 12th BT. of Prestwould. Now, apart from having a long name, he also has a long pedigree, starting with the younger son of a companion of the conqueror. (Something, as it happens, that he shares with the BH, although, sadly, from a cadet twig in her case, so she does not figure in the good book. That apart, I assume that to count as a companion to the conqueror one has to both accompany and be posh. Bakers taken along to feed the posh persons don't count). I then wonder why, if his pedigree is so long, he is only the 12th BT.. Ploughing through the pages devoted to the Skipwiths, I find that the 1st baronet was created on 20 December 1622, the baronetcy being invented as a wheeze to raise money by that careful Scottish monarch, James I. Notionally, to raise troops to fight in Ireland, so for some of the history of the order, the Red Hand of Ulster figured in a baronet's device. Prior to that, one did indeed have knights but it seems that that sort of knighthood was something conferred for valiant deeds, either done to be done, and was not hereditary. So one might knight someone after a long vigil in a church before a battle, or one might knight someone after a battle for stirring deeds. And the ability to make a knight was not confined to the monarch. But just to keep things confused, Ireland ran to three hereditary knights, the Knight of Glin, the Knight of Kerry and the White Knight. So there.
My snow pillar is more or less down to a stump now and the largest of the snowmen next door is leant over at a surprising angle. Can't see the head staying on for the rest of the day.
BH spending part of the day taking note of who bothers to clear the pavement in front of their houses. Quicker to make the list of those that do, rather than the list of those that don't, these last being in the majority. As I have remarked before, standards of civicity are slipping. Too many people think that someone else, possibly the council but certainly not me, should be doing this sort of thing. As part of my fight against the trend, I am becoming a litter bore. That is to say making a big performance of picking up litter along the road on the way home for ceromonious deposit in our great big dustbin.
To mark the cold we have been having oxtail, or to be more precise two of them, finding along the way that oxtail is not cheap, particular if one takes into account the high proportion of bone, gristle and fat. And so we were reminded how little oxtail tastes like oxtail soup (the sort from Mr Heinz that is). One supposes that this is due to traditional flavourings and colourings being added by Mr Heinz, but we were not any clearer when, having turned the remainder of the oxtail into soup by liquidizing it together with the remains of some stewing steak and its gravy, that soup tasted more like oxtail soup than the oxtail had done before it.
Also been having another go at Burke's Peerage, another book to hand for the advertising breaks. Where we read all about one Sir Patrick Alexander D'Estoteville Skipwith, 12th BT. of Prestwould. Now, apart from having a long name, he also has a long pedigree, starting with the younger son of a companion of the conqueror. (Something, as it happens, that he shares with the BH, although, sadly, from a cadet twig in her case, so she does not figure in the good book. That apart, I assume that to count as a companion to the conqueror one has to both accompany and be posh. Bakers taken along to feed the posh persons don't count). I then wonder why, if his pedigree is so long, he is only the 12th BT.. Ploughing through the pages devoted to the Skipwiths, I find that the 1st baronet was created on 20 December 1622, the baronetcy being invented as a wheeze to raise money by that careful Scottish monarch, James I. Notionally, to raise troops to fight in Ireland, so for some of the history of the order, the Red Hand of Ulster figured in a baronet's device. Prior to that, one did indeed have knights but it seems that that sort of knighthood was something conferred for valiant deeds, either done to be done, and was not hereditary. So one might knight someone after a long vigil in a church before a battle, or one might knight someone after a battle for stirring deeds. And the ability to make a knight was not confined to the monarch. But just to keep things confused, Ireland ran to three hereditary knights, the Knight of Glin, the Knight of Kerry and the White Knight. So there.
# posted by Jim @ 3:54 AM 
