pumpkinstrokemarrow

And then we have my Marks & Spencer. I was intrigued by a claim plastered over a branch at Worthing that they plan to have a carbon neutral operation in the British Isles (including here the second largest as well as the first largest of them) in the not too distant future. How on earth are you going to produce food in the tropics, process it, package it up and deliver it to Worthing carbon neutrally? Are they proposing to buy up huge swathes of forest which they then devote to carbon lock-down to offset all the carbon blow-up in the rest of their operation? Sufficiently intrigued to work my way through to the corporate part of their web site where I quickly track down something called Plan A, fully of entirely worthy eco objectives. Goal 3 thereof is indeed to make operations in said isles carbon neutral. Worthy indeed. Action 1 thereof will ensure that six hard core agricultural products - for example beef - come from sustainable sources that do not involve deforestation. Worthy but a long way short of carbon neutrality. Action 2 will look into ways of reducing the carbon footprint of six hard core food products. Ditto. Action 3 will have a go at the carbon footprint of 100 clothes factories. Ditto. Action 4 will make their refrigerators more efficient. Ditto. Perhaps I am missing something but on my reading so far my M&S is claiming in its head line a lot more than it is planning to deliver any time soon. Perhaps they have been taking lessons from our politicos. Or perhaps I should be glad that they are trying and stop whinging about their puffing?

Thinking back to the difficulties of politicos, yesterday's Guardian devoted a couple of pages to the killing of a demonstrator in the course of a demonstration which turned nasty. All very sad and made worse by the failure to pin the blame on anyone in particular - and in this case someone bashed the demonstrator very hard on the head and would, to my mind, be hard put to put all the blame on institutional anything - but it was thirty years ago. Are we still so uneasy about our policemen that we are still dragging over stuff which is that old?

And it devoted a couple of column inches to the proposed incarceration of a British football fan in Portugal for an offence committed four years ago. It seems that some football fans ran wild after a match and the presumably infuriated Portuguese handed out some fairly summary justice, more or less the next day. Our chap was given a custodial sentence which he thought had been commuted to deportation but now, four years later, the Portuguese are now calling him in. A process which is facilitated by our integration into the machinery of European justice. Our chap also claims that he was entirely innocent. All very odd. But has the Guardian got the balance of coverage right here? Would a hard-core of discussion of this current issue have done more good in the world than raking over the old one?

When I first heard about this after a few sherbets last night, my instant reaction was that he has bottled it again. First there was the election that never was, then he does not fly up into the cloud of killer dust to emerge the hero of the hour and now he does not say that she was a rude voter and while he had not meant to say so out loud, now that he has he stands by his words. Death to all rude voters!

My bet was that such a display would have attracted a heavy positive endorsement from the rude youth of the nation. A politician with the brass to say what he actually thinks is something to go for.

I shall now go away and try to find out how rude the rude voter really was. I wonder if the DT will get into that sort of detail? Do we really have the much less amusing story of our leader being flustered by reasonable questions he had no pat answer for?

Then back home I came across the efforts of a decapitated horse chestnut tree to come back to life. The tree in question had a trunk maybe two inches in diameter when it was chopped off at around one foot from the ground. The chopping being, I am reasonably sure, more than a year ago. In addition to putting out shoots of various sizes from what is left of the trunk, the longest being maybe 3 inches long, the top of the stump is completely ringed with wannabee shoots which are forming between the bark and the sap wood. A continuous ring of green. Must keep an eye on them and see how many of them - there must be fifty or so starters - make it.

In the case of the tequila bottle on the window cill, the sunflower seeds after a reasonable germination rate, maybe one in three, have all snuffed it, with the tallest not having got much beyond the two inches last reported on April 12, at which date I had been worrying about what would happen when they all started up the neck of the bottle. They appear to have been overwhelmed by the otherwise rather quiet gray mould. Or maybe they do not like growing in waterlogged ground.

That apart been pondering about the potentially game changing development reported by the DT the other day; that is to say that a Russian company (see http://www.morinsys.ru/, a site which appears to have moved down the Mr G. rankings over the last couple of days) is now marketing a cruise missile in a box, or, to be more precise, a standard shipping container. According to the DT the evil wheeze is that bad people can buy these things, hide them on trains, lorries and container ships, from where they can be fired to see off any invasion by good people.

On closer inspection it seems that you need three modules for this to work: a launch module (containing 4 missiles), a support module and a management module. Not clear how many containers you need for this little lot. Not clear how you tell the missiles where to go. Does the management module include fancy radar for target identification? Sounds a bit strong for, say, Somali pirates.

And then, I have no idea how big a bang such a thing might make, but presumably it is only any use against reasonably large targets. Ships, for example. And not masses of tanks bearing down on one. Airborne targets appear to be excluded. On the other hand, depending on range, one might have a go at rear bases or big buildings in town centres.

Can the things be shot down with Patriots - or whatever the current round of anti-missile-missiles are called?

Presumably a launch could be detected and the launcher taken out fairly quickly, but maybe not before it got the rest off.

So is the DT is worrying unnecessarily or not? In any event it doesn't seem to have pursued the story. Plus worrying seems a touch saucy. I imagine that we in the west have been selling all kinds of stuff to all kinds of people for years; bit hard for us to get all holy about the Russkies having a crack at the game. No doubt the Chinese will be at it soon. Dirty business all the same.

Pleased to score a new word repeat 'as as'. The list of possibles slowly gets longer.

I also learn that the more common meaning of TLS is transport layer security, something which has superseded SSL, secure socket layer. Transport sound better than socket: at least I recognise it as one of the 7 layers of the 7 layer model, invented, I think, by a Frenchman. Would an Englishman plumped for 7 as well? Certainly one of the more important occurrences of the magic number 7. I wonder what the most ancient instance is? Don't think the Stonehenge people were on the case.

I had thought that as a mark of respect I would scan in the article, then with some clever geekery turn the two resultant images into one image. But I fail, only succeeding in cropping the two images, courtesy of some bit of HP software which comes with the printer, so that they no longer overlap. But, irritatingly, they now display at a different scale. Paint only seems to be able to cope with one image at a time and even then I have not worked out much about how it can edit that image. Adobe Photoshop starter kit, while present on the PC, has been discontinued by Adobe so I can't unlock it and use it. Needless to say I only find this out after I have gone through their registration rigmarole. Jessop's Picture Manager, also present on the PC, looks to do some of the right sort of things, but again, will only cope with one image at a time. I wonder if the print shop down the road would have done it for me? They probably have a scanner big enough to do the whole thing in one go, but that hardly rates as geekery.

Wondered about including the reverse, but thought this would be a bit OTT. So we miss out on the interesting juxtaposition of an advertisement for the latest Dennis Wheatley ('The man who killed the king') with one for the death of the Marquess of Linlithgow. The Dean of the Thistle (whatever that may be) helped with his memorial service.

Last but not least we have the problem of order. What you post first appears last, given the way the blogspot organises things for me. Would I have done better to have done it the other way around than I did done?

And then we were amused to see yesterday that the water called 'Highland Spring' counts as organic, despite it probably having had the fizz added, as it did not appear to be naturally fizzy. Probably something inorganic from Teeside. Amused, as we would probably sue everyone in sight if we found out that there was anything organic in the water, provided that is that it did not kill us first. Such are the wonders of consumer speak.

Then prompted by some foreigners going out into the fresh breeze for a fag, to wonder whether one would be allowed to smoke herbal tobacco, that is to say dried vegetables which did not include tobacco proper. A quick inspection of the regulations showed that the regulators had thought of that one. I quote: "“smoking” refers to smoking tobacco or anything which contains tobacco, or smoking any other substance, and, “smoking” includes being in possession of lit tobacco or of anything lit which contains tobacco, or being in possession of any other lit substance in a form in which it could be smoked". So infusing something combustible with inorganic nicotine is not doing to do. Maybe one could get some sort of a buzz from drinking something nicotine flavoured? Have to be careful with the dose as Agatha C. tells us that liquid nicotine is quite a useful poison.

Moving onto a higher plane, readers may recall the story of the bankers and the plumbers of August 16, 2007. I was reminded by the TLS entering the fray with a review of some banking books by one Stephen Fay, lately editor of 'Wisden Cricket Monthly', assuming that is that Mr G. has not linked me to the wrong Fay. Anyway, his story was rather different from mine.

We start by extending mortgages to all sorts of poor people who can't afford to buy a house so that they can afford to buy a house.

We then bundle up all these mortgages into things called CDOs which can be bought and sold. If I own the CDO I get the income stream from all the poor people.

We then invent a new kind of insurance called a CDS which enables me to buy insurance against someone, not necessarily anyone I have any legitimate interest in, but possibly one of the poor people above, defaulting on their repayments. CDSs can be bought and sold too and the amount of money tied up in CDSs for some particular default might well be out of all proportion to the size of the default concerned. CDSs become an industry in their own right, nothing much to do with houses for the poor. (I ought to add that these things are not off the wall. There are perfectly sensible uses for the them. The catch is that there are insensible uses for them too).

We then say that if I am holding a paired CDO and CDS that they cancel out and that they do not need to appear on my balance sheet. Which means that if I am a bank I can happily buy lots of these CDOs in the hope and expectation that their value will rise and that they will generate a decent income. A lot more than would be permitted if they did appear on my balance sheet.

There were then some mathematical types whose job it was to work out a fair price for CDOs and CDSs. Very highly paid types with PhDs but who, it seems, got it very wrong. Not helped by their employers being suckered into thinking that mathematical models described the real world. (A corollary of which was that, mathematicians having made models of the world in which sensible equilibria were reached, everybody else believed that the real world (that is to say the world where busybody governments did not interfere with the business of god-fearing bankers) would reach sensible equilibria. A form of mathematical hubris).

The straightforward consequence of all this was than banks wound up holding vastly more CDOs than they could properly afford and which they had bought at the wrong price anyway. It turned out that the poor people who could not afford to buy houses really could not afford to buy houses. Insurance companies were stuffed by collapsing CDSs. Banks were stuffed by collapsing CDOs. So the whole thing unravelled and we are getting our dustbins emptied three times a year and the bankers have had their bonuses cut by 5%. Long live the Trident!

Most of the exhibits were quite striking. Very evocative of the real thing. Green stuff very clever, with trees much more lifelike than I would have thought likely. There was even a tree trader selling all kinds of trees, including a range of palm trees in case you wanted a Riviera set-up. Buildings and people more difficult, but lifelike enough from a few feet away. The whole business reminded me rather of flower arranging; trying to make a very effective display in a small compass. Having shows. Having prizes, although I don't think they were doing this on this particular occasion. An important difference would be that the set-ups, while evolving over time, are permanent, they have a life beyond the day's exhibition. Some of them look to be well known on the exhibition circuit and of some of them carried a board carrying little enamel plaques for each of the qualifying exhibitions they had been to. Another difference would be that some of them at least were a team rather than an individual effort. Don't think flower arrangers do teams.

It had not occurred to me that most of the exhibits would be a cunning mixture of tracks, station buildings and countryside. A few bridges and tunnels. Lots of points and sidings. Generally speaking the idea was to potter around the points and sidings; whizzing round and round was a bit dull. In fact, most of the displays did not have a round and round to go round and round. More backwards and forwards. Marshalling the rolling stock.

I was a little disappointed by the locos. Not particularly lifelike close to, particularly the small ones. There is clearly a limit to how far miniaturisation can reasonably go on an amateur basis. So for me the most interesting loco. was the big one outside which pulled the children about. Perhaps one tenth full size. Proper steam engine burning proper coal. Small enough to take the thing in in an eyeful and to be a sensible building proposition but big enough to be proper. I think, if I was to be enthusiastic about this sort of thing, that this would be the sort of thing I would go in for. Good winter hobby, although in my case there would be a lot of new tools and new skills to invest in.

Alternatively, I could go in for small, but with the target of being able to load, move and unload the wagons without touching them. This would take a bit of ingenuity. Wouldn't count unless it looked at least vaguely like the real thing. Phase 1 would be sand, phase 2 would be water and phase 3 sweets for small boys.

FIL was very pleased to meet a villager from his former home in Devon, along with his club, possibly http://www.exemrs.co.uk/, whose exhibition hall appears to be quite near the site for the giant car boot sale on the Marsh Barton industrial estate, a car boot sale which we have visited on sundry occasions. More important, a villager who recognised FIL and remembered his name - but who had kept his enthusiasm for model railways under wraps.

But then, this morning, I realized that elections have always been a bit of a circus, ever since we allowed people to vote in significant numbers. The first phase was that prime ministerial hopefuls had to be able to perform in the House of Commons. A rather special atmosphere, not unlike that of the debating chamber in one of the better public schools. And no surprise that so many of the hopefuls plied their trade as barristers during the day. The second phase was that prime ministerial hopefuls had to be able to perform on the stump, perhaps on a soapbox. A rather different atmosphere here; open air with a much larger and a more mixed audience. The hopefuls needed big voices and a good dose of the theatrical. In neither case, was the ability to perform very obviously linked to the ability to govern. But the people who did well were usually going to have grit and determination, both useful qualities in public life.

And now we are into the third phase where hopefuls have to perform on television. On which today's thought is that such a skill is not any more useless, or rather irrelevant to the business of government, than that of doing well at debate or on the stump.

But as I type I do see a downside. Prime ministers now derive their power from their ability to bamboozle the electorate at large once every five years or so, not from their ability to bamboozle the members of the house of commons once every day or so. And these last know this. So once elected, prime ministers are apt to have too much power. They are unlikely to pay much attention to their peers in the house of commons. And this is a bad thing. Far too much power vested in the various cliques grouped around the prime minister. Groupies and special advisors rule the waves. Far too few checks and balances.

Moving down from the electrosphere, the TLS alerted me this week to an interesting imbroglio regarding litigious professors of history who like to puff their own work and pan that of others in anonymous and so deniable reviews for Amazon. A practise now much frowned on in the better senior common rooms - conveniently forgetful that reviews in papers like the TLS were also anonymous in the olden days. With one of the panned resorting to serious IT folk to break the anonymity in question, as a result of which we learn that one of those whose judgement was absent on the day was a lady fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge. Which all goes to show that membership of such an august body does not make one infallible. I am reminded of that former fellow, the fragrant Mary (clue: Agincourt). Imbroglio subsequently made it to the national press. Must be a big day for the TLS when one of its stories makes it all the way up the greasy pole.

A by product is that I learn that there are all sorts of people out there contributing reviews to Amazon. Some of them are quite long and many of them are more or less anonymous. Will I ever be moved to read one? Will I ever be moved to contribute a review myself? Amazon do send me emails from time to time asking for them - presumably they send such emails to all their many purchasers.

Ramp clangs shut, the Hercules climbs up into the sky and heads for the dust cloud over the North Atlantic. Evil looking whirling mass. Much more scary than one might have thought. Dives into the middle of it and flies around in it for a day and a night and then, tired and dirty but entire, heads for home.

Lands at Lynham, just as the sun is rising once again over the Wiltshire plain. In the meantime, the Lords Mandelson and Campbell have been busy. An honour guard of wounded veterans from Iraq has been assembled to see Gordon off the plane and into the open top Rollers which is to lead the cavalcade into Wootton Bassett. Gordon comes down the ramp, tired but triumphant and steaked with unpleasant looking yellow dust, as is the Hercules. But he holds his peace while he inspects the honour guard and climbs into the waiting Rollers which carries him through the cheering throng until he reaches the Town Hall. He climbs onto the waiting scaffold to proclaim to his patiently waiting friends and fellow countrymen that the skies are open once again. True Britons can get back to Blighty from the Costa del Crime, or, indeed, from wherever else they might have been stranded. Tumultuous cheering. Messrs Cameron and Clegg step forward to shake the hand of the great man and immediately tender their abdications so as to give him the so richly deserved clear run in the upcoming elections, which last had been forgotten about during the great crisis.

Sadly, a fantasy. What actually happened was that Gordon took his porridge and then took the 0913 from Euston to Redditch. He travelled second class.

There is, however, a postscript. Analysis of the dust collected on one of the missions that was actually flown has shown that it is, in combination with spring greens, highly carcinogenic. We now face the prospect of spring green fields across the country being closed down before crop incineration by the territorial army wearing space suits. Spring green prices in the cabbage pit at Frankfurt Anderoder (this bit of business having been filched from Chicago some years ago) have rocketted. Maybe I should try and get my allotments back.

Then entered onto the trail proper, running from Clapham Junction, along Lavender Hill and the Wandsworth Road to the big Sainsbury's at Vauxhall. First bit of interesting nature was opposite the exit to Mackay Road and consisted of some sort of an acer in full flower. The thing was covered with small green and white flowers, with the young leaves coming on behind. Looked splendid in the late afternoon light. The second bit was a bit further along and consisted of a whole lot of variegated ivy draped over a wall. The point of interest being that it was covered with clusters of shabby black berries. The variegated ivy growing up the back of our house has just one such cluster, despite being about the same size overall. This I know from the day before yesterday having been the day for said ivy's spring trim.

At this point moved off nature onto politics. Passing a largish Labroke's betting shop, I suddenly thought that I should have a punt on Gordon Brown being the next prime minister. On the grounds that first, we were going to have a hung election resulting in Labour and the Liberal Democrats forming a coalition. And that second, it would be good for some good to come out of a bad result.

Next stop a rather smaller William Hill's betting shop, the clients of which appeared to be mainly interested in the horses. Young lady behind the armour glass looked up election bets on her computer to find that there were very few of them. I could have a bet on Labour being the largest party after the election but not on the prime minister after the election. Not too impressed, so I thought I would try the next William Hill's, this one in Wilcox Road, to see if I got the same story. This young lady was rather more helpful. Having ascertained that the standard offerings did not include what I wanted, she phoned her HQ to see if they would give me a price. Same odds as Labour being the biggest party I was told. Didn't sound as if whoever she had spoken too had given the matter much thought. But given that the odds were 16 to 5, which I took to mean that if I bet £5 I would get £16 plus my £5 back, I decided to pass. Not going to have a flutter on that sort of return.

Later in the evening I was introduced to Paddypower (http://www.paddypower.com). He had a much bigger menu of bets including the one I wanted, but only offering a derisory 5 to 2. Resisted the temptation to flash the plastic at the computer - particularly since I had also learned that the Liberal Democrats were not very keen on Gordon and might suggest rather firmly that he stood down in favour of someone more pliable, less likely to eclipse their good selves and less likely to taint them by association with past failures. I suppose that all depends on how hung the hung election was. Anyway, not now moved to bet at anything less than 5 to 1.

Between the two William Hill's shops, discovered a shiny new theatre which I thought was called BT but is actually called LOST (http://www.losttheatre.co.uk/) the confusion arising from their lost logo which reads in the road rather like bt, but which is rather clearer on the web site. Presumably this shiny new theatre is supported by public funding. Maybe they get the building for free, provided they stump up the running costs. I remember an allegation that people who fund the arts love capital projects and hate running costs; clearly forgetting that if theatres could be made to pay there would be no need for public funds. Maybe I get to visit the place one day, the present attraction being a festival to celebrate what is billed as the largest concentration of Portuguese and Cape Verdeans in northern Europe.

As a result of which I learn that the Cape Verde islands, unlike the Canary islands, started off uninhabited and are now mainly black and Creole with few whites. But presumably, like the Canaries, very poor after bunkering died down and before tourism took off - which in the case of the Cape Verde islands is only just happening now. Much emigration.

All a bit of a pain considering that the PC is on the latest service pack for XP with automatic update enabled and so should be behaving itself. Is my MS Corporation gently hinting that it is time I went to Windows 7 or whatever we have got up to now? Is it down to the PC garage to try and get the whizzing and whirring sorted out? Would any such attention disturb the presently stable broadband connection? Would a new PC disturb same? One more thing to be put on the list to be thought about tomorrow.

Now I only have yesterday's DT to go on, but it seems likely that the air traffic people will turn out to have overreacted to the volcanic dust drifting down from Iceland. The story seems to be that some years ago an airplane got into trouble in parts east as a result of flying through volcanic dust, on this particular occasion getting down in one piece. We then, along with everybody else, put in place some bureaucracy to worry about volcanic dust, with a brief to play safe. Didn't happen very often so there was no need for careful risk assessment or cost benefit analysis. Nor for experiments, perhaps using the drones now available, so as to reduce the risk to life and limb. But we did leverage the theoretical modelling work on the movement of radioactive dust done in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. So now, some years later, said model raises an alert and the whole of western Europe grounds its' airplanes for days.

Now a politician, when deciding whether to back the geeks on this one, would be mindful that if flying was allowed and a airplane went down, his head would be on the block. As it turns out, flying was not allowed and his head is on the block anyway. Companies who have been hurt baying for compensation from government. Probably the same sort of companies which are usually baying for small government, less regulation, all that sort of thing.

I guess the answer is that, going forward, we will spend a bit more money on research so that next time around we will be able to make a better informed judgement. Maybe spend £10m a year on something which might happen every twenty years but costs £10b when it does. Put like that sounds like a reasonable investment.

Turning to loftier matters, puzzled by a whole page article about fake photosynthesis in the 'Independent' the other day. Leaving aside the possibility that they lost a whole page rather close to the time when the presses had to roll and that in consequence they had to patch in some stored junk in a hurry, I don't understand why fake photosynthesis is such a big deal. Plants have been turning sunbeams into baked alaska for a very long time and are presumably quite good at it. Where is the value add of faking? You are still going to need to spread a lot of something out in the sun for it to work. Why not just spread the stuff we get for free, like duck weed, like they already do in the southern states of the US of A?

I grant that there is the pure science buzz to the thing. Faking something tricky like this is fun. Might prove to be useful one day. But I don't yet see that it is a big deal, with the sort of bigness usually thought to be needed to justify a whole page in such an august newspaper. Option B, maybe I just skimmed the thing too fast and missed the essential factoid which made the whole thing fly.

For more exotic fare we tried the pub at Shave Cross (http://www.theshavecrossinn.co.uk/index.htm) where I learned that the verb 'to jerk' has at least two meanings in the culinary world. The meaning that I knew was the process whereby one tears strips of meat off an animal, usually a cow, and dries them in the sun. The dried strips, known as jerky, then keep more or less for ever and can be chewed at one's leisure. Not for those with dentures. Used to be popular among riders in southwestern parts of the United States in the century before the last. The new meaning is spicing up chunks of fresh chicken prior to grilling, the product being known as jerk chicken. Which I sampled on this occasion. Very good it was too. Followed by goat curry served a la Islington. That is to say one got a bowl of excellent goat curry (minor quibble about the lack of bones. It seems that Islington folk, having vegetarian tendencies, are not keen on bones), served on a square white plate on top of a round white plate. There was also a neat mound of enhanced boiled white rice, some carrots and some French beans, all arranged in a line. Formal rather than cottage style. First time I have had goat curry since a summer fair in Brockwell Park (http://www.brockwellpark.com/). Followed by some very decent cheddar (minor quibble about the bread provided which was a bit sweet to go with cheese. But at least I could have bread rather than biscuits). The establishment also ran to some good beer and the largest selection of rum that I have ever come across. Including the Mount Gay Rum for which I have a soft spot on account of having the umbrella.

Rum which caused us to ponder on the difficulties our politicians face should they think of being honest about the cuts in public spending which will be needed later this year. According to a recent issue of the Independent, the Great British Public wants public services to the tune of 50% of GDP while thinking that they can be paid for with tax to the tune of 25% of GDP. This can easily be checked by discussions over beverages in bars across the land. And the Great British Public will withhold their votes from anyone with the temerity to suggest that 50 does not equal 25. Or that if you cut funding by 5%, services have to be cut by 5%. Not paid for by illusional efficiency gains. So given that we have three parties, it is going to be very hard for any one of them to break rank, as if one breaks rank, the other two will stand aside and watch the foolhardy one get squashed in the polls. Sadly, the rum did not penetrate far enough to generation a solution. But it did temper my ire about the conspiracy of silence on this matter. The politicians have their problems too.

We suppose that we live in a class ridden country containing persons of two classes, 1 and 2. Class 1 is also called the middle class. Class 2 used to be called working class because they did all the work. We further suppose that we aspire to a classless society with everybody in class 1, thus abolishing the working class. Presently, class 1 contains A people and class 2 contains B people. We suppose that the reproductive and migration arrangements are such that the total population does not change over time. We have decided that the route to this utopia is through education (which is a well known to be a determinant of the class of children) and we have identified two options. Option 1 says that we have posh schools which take a random C% of the children from class 1 and a random D% from class 2. If you go to a posh school you have an E% chance of being assigned to class 1 on graduation. E is supposed to be reasonably near 100. Otherwise you are assigned to the class of your mother. Option 2 says that we have bog standard schools which take everyone. If you go to a bog standard school you have an F% chance of being assigned to class 1 on graduation. F is supposed to be significantly less than E. Otherwise you are assigned to the class of your father.

But woke up to read another short story from Maupassant - Les Tombales - about a variation on the streetwalking theme. As I read in the introduction, the man really is a master at the form. Makes my only other recent foray - Father Brown stories by G. K. Chesterton - seem rather slight by comparison. Not that they are not well crafted; but they are slight.

Had our annual visit from the Gas Board this week and they have scored a plus point. They managed to service our boiler without trying to sell us a phosgene detector (did you know that 3 people have died in the last 10 years from phosgene poisoning brought on by dodgy cat food? You know the sort of thing they come up with) and without telling us that we were going to have to chuck our boiler (which they recommended in the first place) away, rebuild the kitchen and install a shiny new one. All down to some shiny new regulations they have just put out. Bill maybe £15,000. Maybe they have twigged that us punters are getting fed up with this stuff. Also that we have a plumber down the road who assures me that our sort of boiler will be maintainable for years and that when that fails there are still people who make boilers which exhaust up the chimney. Including one boiler that both breathes in down the chimney and breathes out up the chimney - the catch being that it is a trifle dear.

But they could not restrain themselves from noticing that we had removed the boiler door, the shiny new regulations saying that there must not be a door in front of the boiler in case it impedes breathing in. Without regard to the fact that in this case the breathing in vents on the boiler are at the bottom of the boiler and that the boiler door stops well above the boiler vents. Nonetheless, we have to go through the ritual of putting the boiler door in the garage every time the man from the Gas Board visits us. Luckily, modern door fittings not too challenging and not full of ancient paint, unlike those on most of the other doors in the house.

In fairness, I ought to say that they really merit two plus points. Because while not trying to get more money out of us and getting on with servicing the boiler instead, they also thought to replace our rather tricky controller with a rather less tricky one. That does not throw a wobbly when there is a power cut or when there is a move to summer time and which is generally rather easier to use than the the one it replaces. We will see how we get on.

While Halifax and HSBC have between them scored a minus point. Trot down to Halifax to renew our ISAs, having transferred appropriate amounts into a current account and clutching cheque book to same. Very pleasant young lady behind the counter. Yes sir, three bags full sir. You can pay more money into these ISA accounts. But no, you can't do it here. This particular account does not allow branch transactions. But no, you can't renew your ISAs as they do not expire until the end of the month. Second thing fair enough, if tiresome, but first thing very tiresome. She is quite happy to take a few minutes to write down the necessary sort codes and account numbers for me. Unnecessarily as it happens. But no way is she going to take a cheque. Real pain the way the banks are going down the same road as the mobile phone people and festooning all their many offers with all kinds of petty rules and regulations. Which they know 99% of us are never going to get to the bottom of. As with the mobile phone people, not designed to give us choice or information, rather to maximise their take from our piggy banks. And, incidentally causing this piggy bank owner much irritation.

So back home and plug into HSBC. Where I find that it is going to take three logons over three days and four transactions to do the business. In the course of which I have fired up three transactions and scored one. Forgotten that there are limits on this sort of thing, limits not terribly well described in the help system, as it happens. So between them, Halifax and HSBC have managed to transfer most of the transaction cost to me. All in the name of service. More irritation. But I suppose they can say that I would be even more irritated if my money went missing.

Following the Conchord ensemble rendering of Schubert's Octet last Saturday, having been listening again to my recording of same, by the Melos ensemble, from which I have had much pleasure in the past. But now, having heard the thing live, the recording has gone flat. I can't hear half of what I heard from Conchord. Inter alia, most of the cello and double bass seems to have gone missing. Perhaps, with just eight players right in front of you, the visual clues are really important. Really help you hear what is going on, rather as if you were lip reading the thing. So I thought the answer might be to get a score and try listening to the recording with that. Slightly surprised to find that Amazon can deliver me what they call a study score on Monday for around £10. A good deal less than we paid for each of our tickets for the Conchords.

PS: Mr G. has just taken the opportunity to tell me about a manufacturer of gas detectors. Perhaps he has worked out that I don't want the ones from the Gas Board!

Nearer home, I had a pop at French theorising on 1 April, and we have now had a sample of same. BH alleged, over crumpets, that frozen food went off much faster if the container in which it was in was too big and contained too much air. Nonsense, sezzaye. If the stuff is frozen it will last forever, barring the steady growth of ice crystals inside the food which may damage the texture. Bugs do not grow on frozen food. So my theoretical position was that the amount of air in the freezer was irrelevant. Now BH had presumably read her wisdom in the cookery pages of the DT or some such. Wisdom no doubt derived from observation of going off by some domestic scientist. Written down so no less than the revealed truth. All this neatly illustrating dialectical materialism at work. Out of the dialectic between the observation of matter and the theorisation about matter, comes the correct dialectical materialist answer. Or put another way, we adjust the observation, the theorisation or both in such a way as the conflict between them disappears. Maybe the new to me book by G. V. Plekanov will throw some more light on the matter, although first impressions not too encouraging. Looks to be fighting very old battles.

On a less elevated plane, I alleged over bread and butter, that Welsh Rarebit was a variant of scrambled eggs. Nonsense, sezzshe. Welsh Rarebit is made by stirring a little beer into melted cheese, the mixture then being spread on toast. Nonsense, sezzaye. But at least I had the good manners to check and it turns out that she was more right than I was. According to the Radiation cookbook, Welsh Rarebit is a flavoured combination of melted cheese and cream, Variants included using a little flour or adding an egg. Some more modern cookbook suggested some beer. Perhaps the childhood friend with whom I occasionally had the dish went in for the egg variant, leaving the brain box hard wired to scrambled eggs rather than cheese on toast.

I wonder how much difference that it makes that with cheese on toast one toasts one side of the bread, adds the cheese and then toasts that, while with Welsh Rarebit one toasts both sides of the bread then spreads the cheese concoction on one side of the toast? Then sprog 2 has variants involving tomato ketchup or tomato puree under the cheese.

On Tuesday, being a brisk, bright day, to Brighton to take in a bit of sea and sand. Pleasant hour snoozing on the shingle bank. Then off to the pier, as one does, where we were interested to discover that one of the valued corporate customers of the Tarot consultant was the Deutsche Bank. The Tarot consultant impressed by having a very proper gypsy barrel to consult from, but failed to impress by the fact that the barrel was propped up on blocks, someone having removed the shafts and wheels. By then well past lunch so thought that fish and chips ought to be OK, given the high proportion of eateries which sold them. Went for the place at the entrance to the pier which was doing a brisk trade, the 'BIG FISH TRADING CO.'. Service brisk and efficient, with cod and chips twice with one mushy peas turning up in good order in two natty cardboard boxes. All looked clean and fresh. But chips a bit taste free, clearly designed to be dowsed in vinegar and ketchup. Mushy peas not very warm. Cods a bit odd: small, pale batter, no fish skin, watery and not very warm. Rather fishy sort of taste that white fish is not supposed to have. We suspected that, despite the turnover of the place, the cods were delivered to the shop ready battered, cooked and frozen and were just warmed up at the point of sale. Which, I assume, is what most pubs that do fish and chips do, but many of them pull the trick off, unlike the 'BIG FISH TRADING CO'. Have to try one of the many other places next time.

Couldn't quite bring myself to take them to the tip quite yet. Partly because I remember that a game with the smallest one used to be to whirl it around one's head on the longest possible line. You are out when the thing touches the ground. Requires some strength to keep it up. Clearly a game to be renewed on Stamford Green one fine summer's day.

On 1 March I commented on the apparent loss of my balance when being pushed from MobileWorld to Talkmobile. Pleased to report that, mysteriously, a text message from Talkmobile announced yesterday that my balance from MobileWorld had turned up. The message did not say what the balance was, but my current balance with Talkmobile is more than I put into it at Wilkinsons, so something must have been added. I wonder why it took so long? Has it been hanging around in some sin-bin waiting for some call centre operative to deal with it on a quiet day?

On the other hand, given up on the online version of the senior railcard. No reply to my third email; perhaps reading it was too much of a challenge for the computer that has been delegated to deal with these things. Down to Epsom station and bought the one year version. The person behind the jump did not have any problem with my passport number at all. But, given that the application form included my email address, perhaps I will get some stroppy communication from some control centre enquiring why I have two senior railcards registered to just one email address, in the absence of proper authorisation.

On 14 March I reported on some DIY activity with locks. Well, the day before yesterday, we had some more of the same sort, this time with spectacles. Two of my three pairs of spectacles have spring loaded side arms, which means you get a more positive grip on the head. The catch is that the eye which fixes the arm to the body of the spectacles is not fully part of the arm, rather connected to it by a spring in a box, with this connection being a source of weakness. On the last occasion I lost such a connection I was still at work and far too busy and important to attend to such matters, so stumped up the couple of hundred quid needed for a new pair. Oh no sir. We can't repair something like that. Those spectacles went out of production months ago. On this occasion, a bit more time and energy. Dig around in the box and find and old pair, complete with both arms of the same type. Start off by trying to fit the eye from the wrong old arm into the newer socket. After a while, realise that there is a left hand arm and a right hand arm. Moving over that hurdle, discover that the eye and socket on the newer spectacles are not quite the same as those on the old. So down to the garage and load up FIL's metal work vice into the wood work vice. Out with all the small files from the naval uncle. Fiddle about for maybe an hour and wind up with an old eye which fits the newer socket. Fiddle about for another quarter of an hour and wind up with an old arm fitted into the newer spectacles. The screws for this task are very small and it is quite possible I started off by trying to fit the old screw into the newer hole. All looked the same to me. In fact, quite hard to see them at all on the carpet.

Very impressed with myself. Didn't have to stump up the couple of hundred quid and not many people are going to notice that the two arms on my long range spectacles do not quite match.

Spider still turning in appearances on the window cill germination box. And have tried new food in the Tequila bottle, which had failed to get beyond the grey mould stage. New food being some rather elderly sunflower seeds which have been sitting on the desk (vintage Vauxhall overground station) behind the window for some time. Quite a few of them have now germinated and the tallest is getting on for two inches high. Need to think about whether it will be a good plan to let them out of the top of the bottle. Got a few days before it goes critical.

Hampton Court in good fettle yesterday. Daffodils a little past their peak now but still looking rather good. Plenty of hyacinths in full flower and plenty of tulips not far behind. The large formal garden in good form; a tasteful composition now involving a fair bit of blue and white in addition to the winter greens. The two sunken gardens in top form; almost breathtaking when you first glimpse the first. Second not quite so flashy but still a very fine garden. And not all of us relate to flashy anyway. The mystery grey green leaved plants from our last visit (29 March) now look to be phloxes. Definitely not crown imperials. One point to me. BH & FIL were in the crown imperial camp. The plants which really were crown imperials looking very well.

Home to bread and cheese: cheese from Mr S. and bread from Cheam. The cheese was, I think, described as taste the difference and looked like rather pale cheddar. It was called applegate or some such. And just to make sure you could taste the stuff, it had been dusted with paprika pepper and impregnated with smoke flavour, this last guaranteed to be neither organic nor natural and so not to contain any of the carcinogens associated with organic smoke.

I close with more vocabulary. I woke up the other day wondering where a sledge hammer came from and what its connection with sledges was. A special sort of hammer for knocking the wedges out of a deconstructible sledge? No. OED tells me that there are two quite different sledge words in English, both derived from the Baltic, one meaning a heavy hammer, the sort of thing a blacksmith might use and the other meaning a sledge. I suppose we have come to append the originally superfluous hammer to sledge as the things became less and less common. Less common than the snowy sort in most peoples' experience. How many youngsters have ever swung one? Not that I can talk. I find now that about 10 swings of a 14lb hammer and I have to pause for breath. Odd that such a constrained activity takes so much out of one.

All that aside, a good read. She deserves the many prizes she is said to have collected.

Yesterday to hear the Conchords at the Dorking Halls, that is to say the ensemble variety rather than the flight of variety. Continuing in the vocabulary vein, curious about where the word came from, the flight variant and the neighbouring condors having left me with the idea that maybe there was a bird of this name: OED for once unhelpful, not providing anything more than a heap of conch words, some long and curious, to do with conches in particular or shells in general. And http://www.conchord.co.uk/ not much help either.

Programme was the Beethoven Septet followed by the Schubert Octet, both pieces which I thought I knew quite well but which I do not think I have heard live before. The point here being that I had missed a lot. Didn't know them as well as I had thought. Interesting line up including a stand-in first violin for the proper one who had flu, a second violin for the Octet who was very visibly pregnant and a change of cello between the Septet and the Octet. All very splendid, although I found it took a movement or so to switch between the controlled and classical mood of the first and the romantic chiaroscuro of the second. And hearing these pieces on the box, I had realised neither how big the parts are for the first violin and the clarinet nor how important the cello and the double-bass are as a pivot between the rest of the string section and the wind section. Tremendous climax to the Schubert, requiring an energy from the cello which perhaps explains the half-time switch. BH very impressed. We shall keep an eye out for repeat performances - although I do not think I have noticed either being done before. Is it a number of people problem? There being fewer mouths to feed in a quartet than in an ensemble?

Rather shocked yesterday by the claim in the DT that all the main parties have sophisticated voter databases which, amongst other things, tells them what the voters in the relatively small number of marginal seats what to hear, so that they can then go out and say it. Now political parties are supposed to listen to their voters, but they are also supposed to have a program which they offer to the voters. Not to make the thing up as they go along. This database sort of thing seems a little light on vision.

But some old fashioned politics in Cheam Village this morning with a herd of blue sweat topped young adults milling about outside Lloyds Bank. Lots of balloons, cameras and what have you. Sweat tops carrying the logo 'DC10', which I had thought was a sort of aeroplane but which an older lady was very pleased to inform me, having just worked it out all by herself, stood for 'David Cameron for No 10'.

Senior railcard for the BH also turned up this morning. A undistinguished credit like card carrying little that one could decipher beyond the name. I am now at my third email about mine with the provider. The reply to my first explained, quite reasonably, that having established an email orientated account for the BH, I could not then set up another account for me with the same email. But the account that I had already set up for the BH could ask for an additional railcard for me. Which I then tried, to be blocked at the passport number part of the operation. Much checking and rechecking but all to no avail. Tried the driving license option but the number on mine appeared to be entirely wrong; its parts not matching the boxes provided at all. Got a reply to my second email in good time, but a reply which appeared to have been sent without reading my email too carefully. Perhaps it was generated by a computer. We will see what their third email does. In the meantime, I have discovered that the passport number does indeed incorporate birth date, even more en-clair than that on a driving license. Which reduces the need for the railcard people to have access to the passport database.

Another brush with them in authority yesterday in the form of a visit to St George's Hospital in Tooting. Start off, this around 1700 Friday afternoon, up some side street off the High Street and ask a passing lady if the side street does indeed provide access to the hospital visible a few hundred yards away. She looks at me as if I am some kind of troublemaker but finally deigns to wave in the direction of the hospital, which I take to be a yes. Proceed OK to an entrance to be confronted by a large and complicated map of the large and complicated cluster of buildings. The map seems to suggest that access to the main entrance is achieved by going in a subsidiary entrance and doubling back, rather than going in the main entrance itself. But situation on the ground seemed a little different with the main entrance itself, next to an on-site M&S, being open. Wander in, looking for some kind of a main reception. There is a low rise desk with a young man sitting at it which I decide is not the main reception. I am looking for something much grander. Proceed into the rather shabby heart of the building; not dirty but just a bit institutional. Maybe it is always going to be like that in an institution of this sort. Also very open with little visible security: I wonder if that causes problems? Find a sign saying 'Information point' which sounds hopeful. Find my way to the information point which turns out to be an small and empty kiosk in a small and empty canteen. Back into the corridor where I accost passing man in white coat who breaks off rating some underling to cheerfully explain that the low rise desk was indeed the main reception and that I ought to think myself lucky that anyone was there at all given the time of day. Back to the low rise desk where the young man is chatting with what appears to be his girl friend. But he is happy enough to break into that and deal with me, quickly and efficiently, and with a sensibly pragmatic approach to the Data Protection Act, something which some outfits - including some Epsom estate agents - can get awfully pompous about.

But it remains odd that such a huge operation does not see fit to have a slightly grander main entrance and reception. OK so the main reception at the Treasury used to be fairly low key, but it is a lot grander in the refurbished building in Horse Guards. Chaps and chapesses in smart crimson blazers behind a smart counter bristling with computers last time I was there. At least that is what I remember.

Maybe hospitals are reorganised so often that it is not worth having a decent reception area. As soon as the thing was up and running it would be time for the next reorg..

Today was the turn of steak and kidney again. Good, dark brown kidney, a bit fresher than they sometimes are. A deviation in the form of caraway seeds and pestled black pepper added at the start of the proceedings. Couple of ounces of red lentils (Whitworths) added towards the end. Total cooking time around 3 hours. Very good too. And a portion to be frozen against some domestic emergency.

Wigmore Hall decently full if not packed. Not quite your usual Wiggers crew. More young people and more people from the sub-continent. Some in very flashy evening attire. Audience made up in enthusiasm for the gaps in the stalls. I was enthusiastic too. Without the sturm und drang of our chamber music; more calm and peaceful, albeit with plenty of drama of its own.

Plenty of points of similarity with our chamber music. Long tradition. You had to devote your life to the sarod and to the ragas to be any good at it. Aristocratic patrons and jobs on the court payroll. The sarod came into its present form about the same time as our grand piano. You got 4 ragas in two hours; so length of raga the same order of length as our stuff. Leaving aside the tabla, you could have solos, duets and trios. It was complicated, so there was something to hold you. Unlike say, some of our folk music, which while both affective and effective, is too simple to hold one for any length of time.

But then there were the points of difference. A father and two sons on the sarods, with the father being given public respect; very much in charge. The ragas, while composed and persistent, were played without rehearsal and without score. Variation and innovation was allowed. To that extent more like our jazz (about which I should say that I know next to nothing). More playful, with more visible interaction between the players. The guru even gave orders from time to time. The audience clapped a couple of times during rather than after a raga. Something I find irritating, but maybe OK in this context.

Surprised on arrival to see the stage dressed with lots of microphones and two small loudspeakers. As it turned, out the instruments themselves were not wired up like electric guitars, but I came away unsure whether we were being given anything from the loudspeakers - other than introductory remarks. The volume and timing of the drone was a bit puzzling if it was not assisted. However, the performance was being recorded, which might have sufficiently accounted for electrification.

I shall go again should opportunity arise. And will try and take a closer look at a sarod if I pass a shop which sells one.

Readers may have heard of a certain Jerry Fodor, a philosopher with a large internet footprint. I have been following him in a desultory sort of way for some years, his interests running parallel to my own - although this following has never quite got further than reading the articles he publishes in the likes of the LRB. Never read the books. Perhaps frightened to. But now, it seems, he is following in the footsteps of those many eminences who get a bit silly in old age and try to make last minute impressions on fields of endeavour other than their own. Perhaps it is a form of hubris. Having achieved god like status in one's own field and perhaps, in unrevealed truth, having run out of puff, one comes to believe that it will works in other fields. Or do they just get the idea off all those celebrities who see fit to give us their views on everything under the sun. I am a formerly celebrated reader of news on daytime TV, therefore I am a good person to lecture you on the management of nuclear power stations. In this case, Jerry has seen fit to write about how nearly all the evolutionary biologists have got it wrong. After asserting his belief in evolution and his lack of belief in the almighty, he goes on to assert that natural selection is not the big driver of evolution. Maybe intelligent design is lurking there somewhere after all. I found the review of the book in question a bit hard to follow, although it closed with the suggestion that Jerry thinks that real science should be driven by nice neat universal laws like those of the natural numbers or of gravity (although I am not sure that these last are that neat these days), and that anything that is not is not science. Will he be put in pillory by whatever establishment(s) give him tenure? I don't think I will be moved to break my duck on reading his books.

I did ought to log that there are other views about all this. The Sunday Times thought that the book was a brave and welcome challenge [to current orthodoxy], unlike my source, the TLS, which thought that it was the sort of thing that give philosophy of science a bad name.

Paid a visit to the Oxfam bookshop at Kingston the other day, where we continued to mine their seam of old lefty books. There must be a steady trickle of old lefties expiring in the Kingston area, with the result that their heirs and assigns are passing on their libraries to Oxfam. More convenient than pegging over to the rather grander Amnesty bookshop at Hammersmith. So having bought a good biog. of one J. Stalin last year, on this visit I get what is billed as the last major work of G. V. Plekhanov, Fundamental Problems of Marxism, Lawrence & Wishart, 1969. Reprint of the 1908 first edition. We will see how I get on when I have finished with the three novellas by Amelie Northomb, a French speaking but possibly Belgian lady of whom I had never previously heard. First novella about a quiet decent couple (although not so quiet and decent not to have more or less got married when they were six years old apiece) who retire to a secluded corner of the country to find, when it is too late, that they have a very odd neighbour. Whose opening gambit is to come and sit, mute, in their sitting room from 1600 to 1800 every day. More or less mute anyway, with a vocabulary which rarely strays beyond 'yes' and 'no'. The novella chronicles the effect this has on the quiet decent couple.

Today opened negotiations with http://www.senior-railcard.co.uk having decided that a saving of 30% on most rail fares was worth the £25 odd a year the rail card cost one. Struggled through the usual online rigmarole to buy a three-year card for the BH. Having parted with certain details from her passport. Does this mean that the railway people can tap into the passport database to check who the BH is? Or does it just mean that there is a fair bit of information coded into the very long passport number that I had to tell the railcard people about?

Then, being game today, I thought that I would have a second go on my own account. Got about half way through the rigmarole when the railcard people announced that I had already used the email address I was proffering and perhaps I would like to proffer another. As if the BH and I are the first people to share an email account? Why should such sharing disqualify me from the otherwise attractive offer of railcard? Have sent off a query through the contact email. We will see what they say. They being some gang contracted by I am not quite sure who to run the online part of this service.

Yet another gang with whom I now have logon, password, known facts and so on and so forth. Which I am supposed to remember and secure. More on that matter shortly.

And, for the first time in months, two small birds in Manor Green Road. A chaffinch and a greenfinch. Can't remember when I last saw either in our garden.

And, solved the mystery of the balls on the trees. Small balls that is, maybe half an inch across, dark in colour and hanging off the end of twigs of trees in Southfield Park where the new school is. Happened to get a close up of some in the garden of Clandon House (http://www.clandonpark.co.uk/) the other day and it now seems that these balls are the flower buds of ash trees. Buds which, just presently, look a bit like very small bunches of purple grapes. Must keep an eye on them as they develop. Leaf buds still firmly shut.

Met three interesting coves (a rather quaint term which the DT tells me is favoured by the Upper Marquis of Mandelson) in TB the other day. Let's call them A, B & C. A was swarthy, bearded and early twenties. B was twenty. C was teens, a younger brother to B. A, B & C were on the district, the anti-graffiti assault team No. 13, and had finished a touch early. With the result that they had been at TB since around 1300, whereas I had turned up around 1700. I was told afterwards that they had been hitting the sauce big time with the result that while they were not lurching about or slurring their words, their mood had become somewhat unpredictable. Enter A, B & C. B starts on C for not showing 'nuff respect to their mother (not present). C gets a bit fed up with this after a while. Exit C. B starts hanging off the neck of A and going on about how everybody better had show him 'nuff respect or he would sort them out big time. He had seen things and done things and could sort anyone out in the pub. He was the star of the anti-graffiti assault teams. Seemed to have what BH would call a seriously low self-esteem problem, usually the result of a defective childhood environment. And he did know about anger management courses. A tries to calm B down a bit. Then B starts a conversation with me. As it happens we have a perfectly sensible and banal conversation about the organisation of the anti-graffiti assault teams. A listens in for a while. After a bit the conversation turns to a certain depot. Where is that sezzaye, all innocent of any offensive intent. A flips. What do you mean you don't know where the depot is? What kind of a prat are you? B tries to calm A down, an unexpected reversal of the earlier position. Punter has no reason to go to the depot. Why would he know where it is? Eyebrows of B contract and lower. He really is rather upset. Things start to look a bit wobbly. But luckily they suddenly get bored. Exeunt A & B. Some time later the manager, well schooled in the peaceful resolution of these things, talks them out of the establishment. Not altogether clear how they were going to get home. I hope it did not involve driving.

My first factal is the observation that I now find that Easter is not an ecclesiastical word at all, rather an Anglo or Saxon word meaning the spring goddess. The sort of goddess who would both sacrifice and mourn over her young lover. Also that Christians were not the first and are not the only people to go in for hot cross buns and baptism, this last being originally a midsummer event, at least in our relatively northern clime. So the pope thought he better make midsummer day the day for St John the Baptist so that the newly converted did not get into a muddle. He may have cheated a bit by making it June 24 rather than June 21, in the interests of keeping the calendar neat and tidy. All this from a little book by Lawrence Whistler which I found at the bottom of a heap yesterday.

My second is a suggestion for whichever tier of local authority is responsible for mending holes in the road. Given that the budget for holes in the road will be spent this year well before all the holes in the roads have been mended; that the budget for next year will probably be smaller; and, that the tier in question shows no sign of diverting funds from the cycle track, the tree felling, the road furniture or the road marking budgets (to name just four pots which could do with being a lot smaller): it is hereby suggested that road mending supplies are made available to such volunteer groups who want to spend their Sundays mending holes in the road. Road mending supplies would include type 2 sub-base (rough, dirty stuff which goes at the bottom of the hole), type 1 sub-base (a more stony and porous variety which goes next), base course and wearing course. Bitumen or some such to seal the mended hole. The lead volunteer would be expected to attend a course in DIY road hole mending at local authority expense but would also be expected to provide the tools for his team, in order to demonstrate bona fides. Both team and tools would need to be exhibited at the depot before supplies would be forthcoming. On presentation of before mobile phone shots before supplies and after mobile phone shots after supplies, supplies for a second hole would be forthcoming. And so on and so forth.

All of this, in addition to getting some holed mended, after a fashion anyway, would increase the supply of male-bonding opportunities in the borough and might well divert manpower from tree felling operations. The only catch that I can think of is that we might need some special primary legislation to suspend H&S regulations for these activities and to remove any liability for unintended consequences from both the volunteers and local government. All consequences acts of god and so neither actionable nor insurable.

My third is the allegation by the DT that our government, rather than having a grown-up discussion with voters about where the cuts ought to fall, has just released several billions of pounds for projects dear to hearts in marginal constituencies. This in a country which likes to make pompous noises when it hears about the same sort of thing being done as part of congressional elections over the pond. The trouble is, while it sounds entirely probable, quite hard to check up on. Quite hard to check up on any individual case, which might be more or less easy to justify on its merits. But one could take the big picture. If 85% of project funding in the last six months just happened to fall in Labour constituencies with a vulnerable majority, but which were not lost causes either, one might have a case. Maybe Satchi & Satchi have got some clever intern from Eton who can do the leg work on this one.

My fourth is the allegation by our Sri Lankan corner shop keeper that we should not buy cheap red lentils from Cyprus. We ought to be buying the far superior product from Whitworths, people for whom, as it happens, I have a soft spot, having used their small pink bakery cookbook (probably free with two coupons from flour bags) for forty years or so. Once home, we find that Whitworths red lentils are maybe half as big again as the regular variety. Maybe nearly three millimetres across rather than two. The germ of the lentil much more visible too. On this occasion the lentil soup was made with a mixture of regular and posh lentils so not much of a test. But it is true that the texture of our lentil soup does vary quite a lot from one batch to the next and that this may well have something to do with the quality of the lentils. Most other food stuffs come in different qualities, so why not lentils? It had just not occurred to me before.

On the other hand, PC not so well this morning, having been thrashing around now for getting on for quarter of an hour and only just starting to calm down. I wonder if it would work better if it denied access until it had finished thrashing, rather than providing very low grade access at the same time as thrashing.

On 1st April I reported thoughts on lamb cookery. I can now report the outcome. Chose a recipe from a womens' magazine involving a sauce involving jam and having onions and water in the bottom of the baking tray, baking without trivet. All turned out very nicely although, to my mind a touch overcooked. With two legs of lamb weighing in at 5.5 lbs each (close enough for me to suspect that the two legs came from the same lamb), opted for 30 minutes to the pounds with a bit over: three hours cooking plus half an hour standing. 180C for the first half; 160C for the second half; 80C for the standing. No foil. The various cookbooks we consulted had varied their advice between 20 and 45 minutes to the pound, with this particular recipe being at the upper end of that range. We will have another go with the same recipe, maybe doing one leg for 2 hours at 180C plus half an hour stand. The important thing is to arrange things so as to have a little flexibility as to time; a failure in this case as the oven needed to be kept at heat longer than I wanted in order to accommodate some sausages. But, all in all, a success. Two legs down to four bones for two dogs in 57 minutes.

Recovering the following day, interested to read about the new management arrangements in schools. That is to say, the children in schools get to have a childrens' panel which interviews prospective teachers and advises the governing body about same. It seems that this is quite common practise these days, with some of the children involved being as young as 11. At least according to the DT. It seems quite bonkers to me; in the words of the bard of the blen (aka TB), the lunatics are taking over the asylum. I presume the idea is to make the children feel more involved and grown up by involving them in the management of the school but I believe the result will be to further weaken the authority of teachers in the classroom. Children should understand, for as long as it can be managed, that the grown-ups know best. Let them get some secondary education first and start playing at being grown-up after that. If they want to flex their muscles a bit before that, let them be prefects. Be head of a table in the dining hall. Be on the committee of the history society. Be on the committee of the anti-litter-league. Be the star of the football team. But leave running the school to the grown-ups. The professional ones that is. Not too keen on giving too much power to parents either.

So either this is all for real, in which case it is wrong. Or it is for show, in which case it is patronising. Not sure which would be worse.

Yesterday evening saw a film called Moon, four star rating by both the 'Sun' and the 'News of the World'. For most of the time we had just one actor plus the voice of Kevin Spacey as the computer. Good special effects: lunar mine quite credible. Considering the very modest number of ingredients, a very good film altogether. Held together by the interesting conceit of wondering what it would be like to discover that one was a clone of somebody else, complete with his memory. And orientated towards the US market by the whole thing being a massive evil deed perpetrated on the qt. by Big Corpa in the pursuit of Mammon. Still find it odd that the US film going public is so turned on by this sort of thing. Perhaps the same love-hate relationship with Big Corpa as that with children we noted on March 15.

I doubt whether I shall go as I find it hard to sit still with a civil tongue through this sort of thing. But all those that can and who care about the life of trees in Epsom are encouraged to attend.

My complaint with these people is that they are always chopping things down, playing at farm and generally fiddling. They don't seem to be able to leave well alone. So, for record, I set down some thought on how I would like to see Epsom Common managed. See also posting of 10 February.

Article 1. Epsom Common is a wood and is to be managed as one, with as light a touch as is consistent with providing access to the public. It will be unusual for such management to involve killing trees. It will not be managed on a commercial basis: the idea is to have a natural, vegetarian and organic wood, not to make money out of selling dead trees.

Article 2. Epsom Common is neither nature preserve, site of especial scientific interest, park, heath, farm nor rough grazing. There is plenty of that sort of thing elsewhere.

Article 3. Epsom Common is not to be used for grazing farm animals, including here horses, cows, pigs or sheep.

Article 4. Epsom Common is not to be used by hobby country craftsmen, including here those who like to make charcoal, hedges or hurdles.

Article 5. The management committee may, at its discretion, arrange for the culling of deer. They breed too fast and do too much damage to be tolerated in the restricted confines of Epsom Common.

Article 6. The management committee shall set a good example by maximising the amount of carbon locked down on Epsom Common and minimising the amount of carbon blown into the air in the course of its management. Until and unless we come to know better, this shall be interpreted as allowing trees to take it over and avoiding the use of internal combustion engines, large, live or small.