pumpkinstrokemarrow

The second dream was entirely new. Driving with BH along a rather dark and depressing road, enclosed on both sides by high embankments. Possibly up north somewhere. The odd thing was that the road, in fact all the space between the embankments, was about half a metre deep in dark, murky water. As we go along, I think I see a baby, floating on something or other on the water. White. Other cars are going past doing nothing. After about half a mile we stop and wonder what to do. We think that the current is too fierce for us to attempt going back. So we decide to push on to the railway station just ahead. Get there. Leave BH in the car while I go up to the station, on the top of the left hand embankment. Try to talk to the chap who I think is Mr. Station through some tatty railings. He turns out to have a badly disfigured face and to be very stupid. And not to be Mr. Station at all. Actually, it is a Mrs. Station ensconced in a wooden booth the other side of some more railings and who is far to busy to bother about babies. I decide to cross over to the other embankment, across something rather like a lock gate. Without railings, which would usually bother me but not on this occasion. The vertigo part of the brain must be off-duty. Find myself in some buildings which could easily be the railway station. Two more chaps come through, one old and one young, and I ask the young one where the station is. He turns towards me, I see that he also has a badly disfigured face. He is rather rude, quite unhelpful and disappears with his companion through a door. I go through another, to the right, and find myself in a street. The two chaps turn out to run a large shop full of a huge variety of brown leather handbags. Beyond the handbag shop, the street stretches away to the left, lined on the left hand side by a continuous series of market stalls, the sort of thing you might get in France. I give up on finding the station and go back to the BH. We decide to drive on.

And then there were two advertisment puzzles. The first was a first. That is to say someone had taken a display advertisement, quite large, maybe four inches by two and a half, placed among the sits. vacant part of the DT, and advertising his availability as CEO of a suitably large concern from August. Never seen such a thing before. I wonder if he got any replies? The second was also a first, although of a rather differant nature. About 1700 yesterday evening, two cards were pushed through the letter box, both advertising car hire and both the same size. Rather differant designs although probably from the same card shop. Same sort of feel to the things. But differant telephone numbers. Differant business names, neither involving KBRC. But one had a 'KBRC' logo with a http://www.manorcars.biz/ address while the other had no logo with a http://www.kbradiocars.co.uk/ address (this second address not appearing to work). So I think they are the same outfit. But why bother to put out two cards? Was the thought that this would give them two chances of getting the business?

Sadly, a recent coup on the secondhand book front has turned out not to be such a coup after all. Readers may remember my delight at acquiring a brand new copy of Burke's peerage for two or three pounds, rather than the published price of three or four hundred pounds. But I now discover at http://www.psbooks.co.uk/ that they do the same book for about a hundred pounds. So still a coup, but not quite such a big coup.

But it has earned its keep today. A propos of a visit to Syon Park to watch Lord Egremont unveil a plaque, have been looking into his background. I thought that perhaps Egremont was perhaps a courtesy title for second sons of the Duke of Northumberland who owns Syon Park. Or something like that. But the truth turns out to be much more complicated. His father was the second son of the fifth baron of Leconfield. His elder brother gets killed at El Alamein without issue. He (the father) was created first baron of Egremont (at least the second creation, there having also been earls in the past. Now extinct) in 1963, possibly for unpaid secretarial services to the then PM, possibly also on account of his wife being the Rt Hon The Dowager Lady Egremont of Cockermouth Castle. Became the sixth baron of Leconfield on the death of his father in 1967. Making the present incumbent the second baron of Egremont and the seventh baron of Leconfield.

It seems that the Wyndhams, this being the family name of the Egremonts, first came to fame when one of them helped Henry VII win the battle of Stoke back in 1487. Some years later, Henry changed his mind and had his head chopped off. But the family lived on and went from strength to strength. To the point where one of them married a sister of the Duke of Northumberland, who presumably brought Petworth House with her, once a Percy property and now a Wyndham property. She also was mixed up with Cockermouth Castle. From all of which we deduce that, the present Lord Egremont may get on with his fairly distant relative, the present Duke of Northumberland, and so been able to facilitate this ceremony at Syon House, still a Percy property and nominally their London Seat, their having flogged off the big house in the Strand. Or perhaps Northumberland Avenue.

I am reminded of a conversation, presumably fictional, between two Frenchmen about a third Frenchman. Frenchman 1 says he did not think that any of Frenchman 3's ancestors had been beheaded. Frenchman 2 says that he is not really surprised as he had never thought that Frenchman 3 was really a gentleman.