Monday, May 31, 2010
Getting a taste for it
Today discovered that our hotel had its very own ancient monument and so to that extent there was no need to go dragging around the country at all. A heavy half barrel made of iron bars covered a stony hole in the ground from which, so the little plaque told us, an urn had been removed to Truro museum. We can now spend the evening finding out exactly what it was.
That out of the way, moved onto Holywell Beach, a large beach nestled behind the much larger Perranporth Beach (which I had been intending to go to) and an army camp and run by the National Trust. It turned out to be a good wheeze as it meant that BH could flash her shiny new NT card (the orange one like a low grade credit card, not the green one you stick on the windscreen) and we saved 3.50 on the day's parking. (This being from an Internet cafe in town, the library being shut today. Perching on a high stool, squinting through the outdoor specs. and having to manage with a rollerball rather than a mouse. But, more to the point, the key that says pound gives a '#', so no pound on the 3.50).
But yet another fine beach. So fine that on this occasion I would have gone for a swim had I been tooled up with costume and towel. Few too many people about for expedients. Waves a bit on the big side for body surfing but I think I would have managed. But there were other compensations. At one end of the beach, the eastern end, there was a strange cleft in the cliffs with water dripping down through it and covered with some strange multi-coloured green stuff, some strangely white. Maybe twenty square metres of the stuff. Not clear whether it was sea weed or moss. The stuff at the bottom must have been sea weed being under water at high tide but the stuff at the top must, one would have thought, be moss, being well above the high water mark. Can sea weed grow in fresh water if it is near salt water? All very strange looking anyway. Picture from the trusty Nokia to follow in due course when I am properly online again.
The other end of the beach was bounded by some high, dark gray cliffs. Very strange and a little frightening. Would be even more so in rough weather. Looked to be something slatey stood up on its end and very twisted. Streaks of quartz so maybe metamorphic. A lot of deep clefts, just the thing for smugglers of yore apart from the fact that they must have been fairly well flooded at high tide. Reminded of the wood cut we have at home called 'Slate Rocks' which is forbidding in a vaguely similar way, despite the rocks in the wood cut being much smaller and daintily parked on sand, rather than rearing up in front of you. Unfortunately, the wood cutter in question died some years ago so I doubt whether I am going to be able to find out where her slate rocks were taken from. Her parish was Kent but I doubt whether there would be many there.
Spent the rest of the day browsing in our new Turkish dictionary where I found lots of loan words (for example, diskotek), presumably reflecting lots of interest in things European. As a dictionary, a much more scholarly affair than the Welsh dictionary, as befits its origins in the town of Morse. And got an interesting take on the sort of English words that it was thought a Turk might want to look up in the early fifties when the thing was first compiled. I suspect that the world has moved on a bit. Lots of abbreviations get explained (for example, four meanings are given for MD and one for MDT) and quite a lot of French words (for example diseuse) which one would not have thought were in very common anglophone usage now, get translated. Got a bit stuck on 'psoriasis' which seemed to be a something disease in Turkish but with the Turkish-English option being missing was completely unable to find out what the something was. Tried skin, chronic, genetic, heriditary, scaley and chalky (these last two being taken from Troilus and Cressida), but no joy. Apart from deciding that the Turks do not seem to have a medical sort of word for the condition. Perhaps they don't get it. When we get home I shall have to run the offending down word in Mr. G..
That out of the way, moved onto Holywell Beach, a large beach nestled behind the much larger Perranporth Beach (which I had been intending to go to) and an army camp and run by the National Trust. It turned out to be a good wheeze as it meant that BH could flash her shiny new NT card (the orange one like a low grade credit card, not the green one you stick on the windscreen) and we saved 3.50 on the day's parking. (This being from an Internet cafe in town, the library being shut today. Perching on a high stool, squinting through the outdoor specs. and having to manage with a rollerball rather than a mouse. But, more to the point, the key that says pound gives a '#', so no pound on the 3.50).
But yet another fine beach. So fine that on this occasion I would have gone for a swim had I been tooled up with costume and towel. Few too many people about for expedients. Waves a bit on the big side for body surfing but I think I would have managed. But there were other compensations. At one end of the beach, the eastern end, there was a strange cleft in the cliffs with water dripping down through it and covered with some strange multi-coloured green stuff, some strangely white. Maybe twenty square metres of the stuff. Not clear whether it was sea weed or moss. The stuff at the bottom must have been sea weed being under water at high tide but the stuff at the top must, one would have thought, be moss, being well above the high water mark. Can sea weed grow in fresh water if it is near salt water? All very strange looking anyway. Picture from the trusty Nokia to follow in due course when I am properly online again.
The other end of the beach was bounded by some high, dark gray cliffs. Very strange and a little frightening. Would be even more so in rough weather. Looked to be something slatey stood up on its end and very twisted. Streaks of quartz so maybe metamorphic. A lot of deep clefts, just the thing for smugglers of yore apart from the fact that they must have been fairly well flooded at high tide. Reminded of the wood cut we have at home called 'Slate Rocks' which is forbidding in a vaguely similar way, despite the rocks in the wood cut being much smaller and daintily parked on sand, rather than rearing up in front of you. Unfortunately, the wood cutter in question died some years ago so I doubt whether I am going to be able to find out where her slate rocks were taken from. Her parish was Kent but I doubt whether there would be many there.
Spent the rest of the day browsing in our new Turkish dictionary where I found lots of loan words (for example, diskotek), presumably reflecting lots of interest in things European. As a dictionary, a much more scholarly affair than the Welsh dictionary, as befits its origins in the town of Morse. And got an interesting take on the sort of English words that it was thought a Turk might want to look up in the early fifties when the thing was first compiled. I suspect that the world has moved on a bit. Lots of abbreviations get explained (for example, four meanings are given for MD and one for MDT) and quite a lot of French words (for example diseuse) which one would not have thought were in very common anglophone usage now, get translated. Got a bit stuck on 'psoriasis' which seemed to be a something disease in Turkish but with the Turkish-English option being missing was completely unable to find out what the something was. Tried skin, chronic, genetic, heriditary, scaley and chalky (these last two being taken from Troilus and Cressida), but no joy. Apart from deciding that the Turks do not seem to have a medical sort of word for the condition. Perhaps they don't get it. When we get home I shall have to run the offending down word in Mr. G..
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Newquay continued
Leaving the library yesterday, I found that they were as keen on unloading books as the people in Surrey and I could have as much as I could carry for £2 or one hardback for £1. So I went for the £2 option and am now the proud owner of a large if rather elderly text on bio-chemistry, an English-Turkish dictionary and a Welsh-English/English Welsh dictionary. For none of these things would I contemplate paying full price for. But I have already learned something from each one of them. So I now know something about the weak bonds which are important in organic chemicals and something about why water is such a strange and important quantity. On the Turkish front, I know that if you know no Turkish, a dictionary that only works in one direction is not much fun. Quite hard work to learn Turkish factlets when you can't go round and round. On the Welsh front, I am reminded that languages like Welsh are a bit stuffed when one wants to move then on from druids, sea weed and festivals of song. Awash with loan words to cover the contingencies of modern life. And they do not seem to have any word with approximates to our approximates. They have to make do with 'about' and 'towards' which do in some contexts but do not sound anything like as grand.
Library itself, like the town at large, full of thin, brown and slightly scruffy young people. Presumably there is plenty of action in the local DSS office. Up at Fistral beach there were lots of battered campers, by no means all VWs, parked up under the signs saying, quite clearly, 'NO OVERNIGHT PARKING'. I wonder if there was any busy brave enough to challenge them? Would they be challenged in high season? And at least one battered saloon car parked up in the town centre car park overnight, full of maybe four or five of said thin brown people who sounded as if they had been up all night and indulging themselves in something or other. Still quite full of themselves at 0930. I have never been any good at this sort of thing. Staying up all night has always been a penance rather than a pleasure and I would certainly not be very full of myself at 0930 after the event. Don't know how they do it.
Town otherwise normal in that there were maybe 5-10 charity shops. Slightly abnormal in that there were 5-10 churches. The principal church, high CofE was very large, apparently rebuilt after a fire in the nineties of the last century. Big nave, two aisles of nearly the same size, all barrel vaulted and nicely decorated. Thin gray granite columns, new but with early English features. Fancy chancel with rather Romish decorations. Lady chapel. Stations of the cross. But as far as I could make out it was CofE, coming under the Bishop of Truro. See http://www.achurchnearyou.com/newquay-st-michael/. No M&S but one gents. outfitter - which was just as well as I had forgotten to pack certain essential items of clothing. Lady in the shop very understanding. One tobacconist, just to remind us that we were indeed in the provinces. Quite a few people smoking in the street too.
On going back to the beach had a very senior moment. With all these young people bounding around in their swimming costumes and with me wrapped up in trousers, orange windproof jacket (from Millets) and sensible trainers (from Niketown), I suddenly felt old. Did not feel that I could cut the mustard on a beach of this sort any more. Maybe that is why all the older people in the water go in for boards so that they can decently wear a cover-all wet suit.
I thought the right thing to do was play watching the tide come in, a game which necessitates running quickly backwards every few minutes or so if one does not want to get wet socks. Not a bad game at all on a sunny day on the right sort of beach. Accompanied, twenty yards to the right, by the three year old playing the same game with her Mum.
While all this was going on I did learn about a new sort of surf board. A rather wide affair which you stand on holding a long handled paddle. The idea seems to be that you paddle out through the waves and then surf back in. Paddle assisted and standing all the way in both directions. I imagine that an up side is that you can surf for further and faster on quite small waves; a down side that you cannot manage big waves at all. Only two of them to what must have been a hundred or so of the paddle free people.
On the tweet front, lots of herring gulls, crows and starlings, quite a lot of these last being quite young. Some pidgeons. One kestrel, one tern and one skylark. Have to see if we can find some finches before we go.
Library itself, like the town at large, full of thin, brown and slightly scruffy young people. Presumably there is plenty of action in the local DSS office. Up at Fistral beach there were lots of battered campers, by no means all VWs, parked up under the signs saying, quite clearly, 'NO OVERNIGHT PARKING'. I wonder if there was any busy brave enough to challenge them? Would they be challenged in high season? And at least one battered saloon car parked up in the town centre car park overnight, full of maybe four or five of said thin brown people who sounded as if they had been up all night and indulging themselves in something or other. Still quite full of themselves at 0930. I have never been any good at this sort of thing. Staying up all night has always been a penance rather than a pleasure and I would certainly not be very full of myself at 0930 after the event. Don't know how they do it.
Town otherwise normal in that there were maybe 5-10 charity shops. Slightly abnormal in that there were 5-10 churches. The principal church, high CofE was very large, apparently rebuilt after a fire in the nineties of the last century. Big nave, two aisles of nearly the same size, all barrel vaulted and nicely decorated. Thin gray granite columns, new but with early English features. Fancy chancel with rather Romish decorations. Lady chapel. Stations of the cross. But as far as I could make out it was CofE, coming under the Bishop of Truro. See http://www.achurchnearyou.com/newquay-st-michael/. No M&S but one gents. outfitter - which was just as well as I had forgotten to pack certain essential items of clothing. Lady in the shop very understanding. One tobacconist, just to remind us that we were indeed in the provinces. Quite a few people smoking in the street too.
On going back to the beach had a very senior moment. With all these young people bounding around in their swimming costumes and with me wrapped up in trousers, orange windproof jacket (from Millets) and sensible trainers (from Niketown), I suddenly felt old. Did not feel that I could cut the mustard on a beach of this sort any more. Maybe that is why all the older people in the water go in for boards so that they can decently wear a cover-all wet suit.
I thought the right thing to do was play watching the tide come in, a game which necessitates running quickly backwards every few minutes or so if one does not want to get wet socks. Not a bad game at all on a sunny day on the right sort of beach. Accompanied, twenty yards to the right, by the three year old playing the same game with her Mum.
While all this was going on I did learn about a new sort of surf board. A rather wide affair which you stand on holding a long handled paddle. The idea seems to be that you paddle out through the waves and then surf back in. Paddle assisted and standing all the way in both directions. I imagine that an up side is that you can surf for further and faster on quite small waves; a down side that you cannot manage big waves at all. Only two of them to what must have been a hundred or so of the paddle free people.
On the tweet front, lots of herring gulls, crows and starlings, quite a lot of these last being quite young. Some pidgeons. One kestrel, one tern and one skylark. Have to see if we can find some finches before we go.
Friday, May 28, 2010
A freebie from Newquay
Not having had a chance to visit the excellent facilities at the Western Regional Capital Lbrary recently, thought it was time to try those of Cornwall, happening as we do to be down in Newquay for the RTTS festival. The largest and noisiest festival for VW owners in the land. See http://www.runtothesun.co.uk/. We coming a bit blind but the locals tell us that plenty of folk turn up for it and we did come across some ancient VW campers on the road here. Various all night bashes on the beach on offer.
Bar in our hotel has spiffing views, nouveau cuisine and beer from the spiffing brewery at St Austell. The only catch was that the beer came in bottles kept in the fridge. But once thawed out were not bad. Whoever did the bottling knew his business and did not push too much fizz into the mix.
Breakfast haddock was very nouveau. Quite a decent portion of organic smoked haddock - that is to say the stuff which has maybe been near some smoke and nicotine rather than painted with yellow paint - with the BH and I getting half each of a decent sized fillet. Cooking seemed to involve a lot of butter and the cooked fillet was topped with a dollop of spinach and a poached egg. 17 drops of some greenish buttery quantity nicely arranged around the edge of the round white plate; breakfast drizzle I presume. Poached egg turned into a sandwich with some none too fresh sliced white bread (the only alternative was sliced brown bread) worked OK, although towards the end of eating it I realised that the poaching had involved vinegar. Something which holds the poached egg together, handy in a restaurant, but not good for the intended flavour of poached eggs. At least to those like me who don't much care for the taste of vinegar around cooked food. Last time such a thing happened to me was at the GW hotel in Swindon (http://www.thegw.co.uk/) in those far off days when I used to work for the Ministry of Justice. Excellent hotel which actually ran to having a cook cook your breakfast from scratch, only flawed by the vinegar business.
This morning to the town beach, where I last body surfed some 50 years ago and still have the body board to show for it. Maybe last used it five years ago, finding it easier to surf without a board these days. Maybe something to do with the size of the waist. Really good beach with something for nearly everyone. Lots of flat sand and very regular me sized waves. Rocks and rock pools. Lots of children running about doing their thing. But I don't think I am going to make it into the water for all that. May is pushing things a bit for those of us who think it a bit wimpy to wear wet suits.
Bar in our hotel has spiffing views, nouveau cuisine and beer from the spiffing brewery at St Austell. The only catch was that the beer came in bottles kept in the fridge. But once thawed out were not bad. Whoever did the bottling knew his business and did not push too much fizz into the mix.
Breakfast haddock was very nouveau. Quite a decent portion of organic smoked haddock - that is to say the stuff which has maybe been near some smoke and nicotine rather than painted with yellow paint - with the BH and I getting half each of a decent sized fillet. Cooking seemed to involve a lot of butter and the cooked fillet was topped with a dollop of spinach and a poached egg. 17 drops of some greenish buttery quantity nicely arranged around the edge of the round white plate; breakfast drizzle I presume. Poached egg turned into a sandwich with some none too fresh sliced white bread (the only alternative was sliced brown bread) worked OK, although towards the end of eating it I realised that the poaching had involved vinegar. Something which holds the poached egg together, handy in a restaurant, but not good for the intended flavour of poached eggs. At least to those like me who don't much care for the taste of vinegar around cooked food. Last time such a thing happened to me was at the GW hotel in Swindon (http://www.thegw.co.uk/) in those far off days when I used to work for the Ministry of Justice. Excellent hotel which actually ran to having a cook cook your breakfast from scratch, only flawed by the vinegar business.
This morning to the town beach, where I last body surfed some 50 years ago and still have the body board to show for it. Maybe last used it five years ago, finding it easier to surf without a board these days. Maybe something to do with the size of the waist. Really good beach with something for nearly everyone. Lots of flat sand and very regular me sized waves. Rocks and rock pools. Lots of children running about doing their thing. But I don't think I am going to make it into the water for all that. May is pushing things a bit for those of us who think it a bit wimpy to wear wet suits.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Waves of fashion
Most serious endeavours are the subject of waves of fashion, and scientific endeavours are no exception. Not that his altogether a bad thing; the current fashion may reflect some current - and entirely reasonable - preoccupation or policy imperative.
One aspect of this was that in the seventies of the last century, the way to get funding for your way out research project was to tie it into defence in general and whacking the Russkies in particular. That way the munificent DoD would cough up. Some otherwise respectable lefties got into trouble when it turned out that their funding had been contaminated in this way. Then in the nineties, it was the turn of AIDS. The only way to get funding was to tie your project into AIDS and any scientist in AIDS-denial was cast into the outer darkness. Today it is the turn of the global warming people.
Perhaps what the funding people have to do is to have a three way classification of research projects. Category A projects fit in with current fads and fashions. Category B are not too bad and Category C are in the outer darkness. The first thing that is done with an in-bound grant application is to classify it. This is the business of some entirely independent outfit, committed to classification for classifications sake. No axes to grind. Head count capped at 1,000 plus contractors. Rather in the way that the Central Statistics Office used to be able to move the world by moving some item of balance of payments expenditure from one classification to another. Or that its successor can move the world by juggling with PFI items in the national accounts. Then once an application had been classified, the funding people could look at the merits of the thing. The catch being that more or less anything goes for Category A but you had to be brilliant, stellar even, to get your dosh if you were in Category C.
All this brought on by the maverick doctor who thought he would save the world by doing research into side effects of the three-in-one jab for children. Leaving aside the detail that he bent, if not broke, the rules in detail, how should we deal with such a thing?
With hindsight, it seems that he did a lot of damage. Lots of children did not get immunised and a lot more children than usual caught measles. Some, presumably very small number of, children did not have a catastrophic reaction to the immunisation because they had not had it.
He did this, by tapping into my basic fears about the wisdom of injecting a whole lot of bugs into my precious child. It is well known that you can feel pretty rough after one of those all-in-one immunisations for the tropics. Some people - like me - are apt to pass out at the sight of a needle. So there is a lot of fear here waiting to be stirred up. So we now suppose that the conventional wisdom, the scientific and medical fashion, is for three-in-one jabs. Then along comes this chap who disputes that conventional wisdom. Threatens you with autism or worse. Do we want to allow this dispute to take place in public, when we know that if he turns out to be wrong, a lot of damage will have been done to the immunisation program? Do we want to fund him at all? Do we want to ban debate of this topic which has already been settled? The is precedent for such bans in other contexts where, for example, one does not allow an issue to be debated more than once every so many years. The losers have to lose gracefully and accept that they cannot hog the airwaves. There are other issues which need to be dealt with.
But in the scientific world we are supposed to free and open. A scientist should be free to pursue whatever his fancy suggests without let or hindrance from the powers that be. Which was all well and good when most scientists were country parsons with good livings, who had subbed out their day job to some curate and who had plenty of time to indulge their scientific interests without being bothered by the bishop or anybody else. But these days are gone. Most science requires team work and lots of equipment. Few people have private incomes. So most science has to be funded, either by governments or by corporations. Who are going to have their agendas.
Luckily there are still some fields of endeavour which can be ploughed on the cheap. Little more needed than an Internet and MS Office capable computer together with a supply of paper for the printer. Maybe the odd biro.
On the waves of horticulture front, pleased to report that the hawthorn has been really good this year, although brought on a bit fast by the recent heat. Quite spectacular with waves of its peculiar pong wafting over you as you cycle along. Presumably the bugs like it. The small hawthorn tree in our front garden has been really good too, having had a bad year last year. Happened to look down on it in the dusk the other day and it really looked something. Great waves of sculptured white; domed a bit like the top of a palm tree. BH almost reconciled to it. She does not like its size.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Justice for all!
While I do not have a view on whether a rather scruffy bunch of protesters should be allowed a permanent encampment outside the mother of democracy as we know it, I was amused to see that the police men removing the chief protester wore blue surgical gloves. Were they to stop the protester being contaminated by police germs or to stop the police being contaminated by protester germs? Perhaps, in the future, the police will have special scene-of-arrest screening teams in support so that protesters can be properly screened for germs before they (the arresting teams) have to get their hands on them.
Not so amused to see two children hauled up to the Old Bailey for the attempted rape of another child. While, from where I sit, and perhaps from where the court sat, it is not possible to be very confident at all about what went on, I am fairly confident that the business of investigating this crime and bringing the delinquents to justice has done a lot more harm than was ever done in the first place. Have we managed to wreck three lives that started off only damaged? What were the jury thinking of? Said to be our last defence against when our authorities go gaga. Were the defendants and their families that bog standard? The DT claims that this is all the result of some misguided justice project from New Labour and that things are done much better in Scotland. I put it down more to our collective and rather unhealthy obsession with sex in general and its application to children in particular.
Back at home able to relax with the much less contentious business of chicken soup. Arriving home a little late for supper the other day, all I had to go with was some chicken stock, a small amount of lightly cooked cabbage and a small amount of properly cooked chicken. Searched the cupboard for something to strengthen the soup with and failed to find any noodles (http://www.sharwoods.com/), my usual recourse in such a situation. But I did manage to find a tin of butter beans. So drained them and added them to the stock. Brought the thing to the boil, simmered for a couple of minutes then added the cabbage and chicken. Looked very pretty and tasted rather better than I had hoped.
Today was able to approach the soup more conventionally. Needing some rolled belly pork for tomorrow's sandwiches, was able to retain the bone as a by-product. This was then boiled up for an hour or so. Meanwhile, simmer four ounces of pearl barley in the other half of the chicken stock. Strain pork stock and remove meat from the bones, trying to avoid the little white marbles which seem to abound in this particular cut. Cut up half a pork tenderloin left over from some previous soup. Mix the whole lot up and bring back to the boil. Add half a slivered white cabbage and some rather elderly mushrooms. Simmer for a few more minutes. Serve with fresh split tin white - to make a change from my usual bloomers.
Made desert of our first crack at the cherries from the US which have just arrived at Cheam - very fine and sweet they were too, despite looking a little palid - that is to say not deep crimson all over - and our second crack at the giant dates - these being still date shaped, rather large and somewhere between the dates in boxes which come with a white plastic spear at Christmas and the bricks of stone out dates which come from Mr S. at any time of the year, in flavour. Achieved what for me is a first by spending more at the greengrocer than the butcher. Now time for a siesta.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Beginnings
For once in a while a blogaster. Lost an entire post due to some session time-out thing, despite the 'saving now' light flashing from time to time. Maybe some unpleasant interaction with the email sub-system, open at the same time. First time I have lost so much in one go. So off we go again.
In the beginning, to my mind anyway, what are now the established religions were a force for good. Not nice to bash your aunty kind of thing. This was progress at the time. But by the time my parents came along the established religions were a force for the repression of the toiling masses and so I was brought up as a card carrying atheist. Not even baptised. And now we have Messrs Dawkins and Hitchens, who while banging on about how awful god is, appear to have forgotten, if they ever knew, why god was invented in the first place.
But all their banging on has not blunted the desire to know about beginnings and endings. So in Genesis we have two stories about how it all began. Most big religions have something to offer on that front. And then there are other people who have dumped god but who still want to know how the universe began. Others who want to know how planets began. Others again who want to know how life began and others how humans began. With these last including at least two sub-species. Those who attack the problem from an evolutionary point of view and those that attack it from the baby point of view. How babies start off rather unlike humans and quite rapidly become humans. An evolution in microcosm. Bickerton, noticed on 24 December, being an example of the first line of attack.
Just recently I have been reading a contribution from the second line of attack, to wit a book called 'The Philosophical Baby' by Alison Gobnik. A gentle, popular canter through the process of babies turning into people. A popular canter that manages to avoid the jokey style which mars the Bickerton effort.
Impressed by her approach to footnotes of which there are none. But she does claim to provide references to every bit of evidence she cites, via end-notes onto a bibliography. Plus an index for when you lose your place. Uncheckable by me as I do not have access to the sort of university library which carries this sort of stuff and I am not going to pay one of those Internet information services to get it for me. I will have to take her on trust. I think she is deserving.
Moving onto the substance, striking how her babies are into learning and being nice to each other, and to us. Miles away from the anger and angst of the Freudian babies, who appear to have been cast into the sin-bin. For now anyway. I do not think it will be too long before they pop up again, perhaps in newish clothes.
It seems that it is not that hard to do experiments about how babies think and it seems from them that babies think quite a lot, in interesting ways rather more than we do. (A plus, of course, that you can do experiments without whacking out zillions on large hadron colliders. I wonder, in passing, looking at the doom and gloom in today's 'Independent', whether these last will survive the crunch). But to continue, as adults we are very much locked down into whatever furrows our environment has seen fit to put us. Which is good for focus and getting to work on time after a night on the lash, but not so good for what the training people from when I was at work called lateral thinking.
One of the things they are good at is stories. With one of the interesting things being that while their stories might be populated by various outrageous beings, once those beings have been declared, they have to behave in otherwise sensible ways. They have to behave according to the rules. Rather as the outrageous beings in the better sort of science fiction. This is a good way to explore what the rules are and what the rules might be. At the same time, the babies appear to identify with these outrageous beings much more strongly than we would. So if such a being is hurt they feel the pain in much the same way as they would feel an organic pain, if that is the right term. Despite the fact that they are well able to distinguish fact from fiction. A word Gobnik uses a lot is counterfactual, something she believes that animals are very bad at.
Which is very similar to a point which Bickerton makes about the rather rudimentary language of some animals. They can talk about the here and now but they are useless about talking about what might happen tomorrow. A point which is blunted by the fact that monkeys can and do lie.
Much to be thought about.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Broadband flagging in the heat?
Broadband took a while to get itself up this morning. The lights in the little black box taking a while to stabilize with them all on. The third from the left stayed off for a while with the second from the left blinking manfully as it tried to establish the connection. Got there in the end. BH offered various theories about how the heat could get into the works.
Prior to that had been happily reading 'Prospero's Cell', a memoir of 1937 Corfu, acquired on a bank holiday car booter (3 May) and which I have now got around to looking at. Well worth what I had thought was the exorbitant sum of £1.49 I paid for it. Oddly, his better known brother (the animal lover, Gerald Durrell) and the rest of his family, apart from his wife (although even her only known as N.) have been air-brushed out of the story, despite, as far as I can make out, having been there at roughly the same time. Book itself quite a glossy production from the US, but would have been improved by a decent map.
I learn something about the Greeks. Including, for example, the fact that their olives were harvested in the spring, without the aid or sticks or mechanical contraptions, at a time when the weather could be pretty grotty and when the next lot of flowers were trying to come out. Bit of a strain on the tree which has a tendency to bear well only every other year in consequence. Harvesting hard work for the women; not at all like the jolly, sun lit occasions of the margarine adds on ITV3.
Moving on to breakfast, not thinking it proper to read a book over a meal, even when by myself, I move onto the 'Epsom Guardian'. For some reason this is OK. First stop is a full page advertisement which has been taken by a chiropractor in Worcester Park with a fancy sounding qualification from somewhere in Canada. As well as chiropracting in general he is also punting a fancy sounding machine which will sort all manner of back problems out. I wonder if he is really a franchise for the machine rather than a free standing practise? What does a full page advertisement cost? Presumably not all that much given all the pages devoted to advertisements for personal services, houses and cars. I have never spotted a rates card; perhaps rates are a closely guarded commercial secret and negotiable on the day. £1,000?
Moving onto the houses, intrigued by a small ad. offering a building plot, enough for 4-5 bedroom house, garage and garden for £27,000. Sought after Surrey village. Road frontage. Houses all about. Plenty of villagey facilities. So what is the catch? Sounds like quite a good investment to me. Buy plot, build house. Spend maybe £400,000. Sell house for maybe £600,000. Perhaps viewing would reveal all. But I didn't pick up the phone to get a reveal. Started to think that owning a plot in some village some miles away was all a bit of a bother. Given that I would not want to build right this minute, how would one keep squatters and rubbish off of it? Would one gets lots of bother from the council about this untidy bit of land?
Eye drifting up the page, there was an ad. from some gang who would buy one's house, more or less over the phone. Any condition, any status. Reading the small print, it looks as if this gang is into buying up the houses of people who are about to be repossessed. You then pay them rent to stay in your house. They pay off your mortgage and go on to make a good living out of your wreckage. But I guess there are takers for services of this sort so who am I to say that we ought to have a rule which says they shouldn't exist?
Talking of rules, slightly puzzled by the Germans banning short selling. Which I understand to be a bet that the price of something is going to fall. The actual format being that you borrow the something from someone for a fee, then you sell it at today's price, wait, then buy it back some time later when the price has fallen and give it back to the owner. Now while one might not care for people who have the market muscle to move the market around with bets of this sort, not at all clear how you make it illegal. You can't make an unpleasant idea or intention illegal, you have to make an actual format illegal. Then the legal eagles just dream up a new format for another fee, which does the same thing but which is not covered by the illegality. And so it goes on. All very puzzling but I doubt if I am going to give quality time to sorting it out. Retired to get away from serious brain sort work.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
In contravention
Confidence much boosted by the success with the hose reel yesterday, this morning went into action on the kitchen clock which has been misbehaving for some months now and which has been mentioned to me on several occasions.
This particular clock hung over the back door, was powered by the mains (which means it needed to be adjusted every time we had a power cut, something which has been happening several times a year in recent years) and was made by a gang called Metamec. It seems that this clock, at least it if it was in working conditions would be collectable. See for example http://www.watneys.com/collectables/clocks. Ours is now in our green wheelie bin and FIL's kitchen clock from Argos is in temporary residence in the kitchen. Not sure if it will ever be a collectable.
However, to get the old one into the bin, I had first to disconnect the thing from the mains, to which it was connected via a natty little fitting in the wall. So, turn off the computers. Turn off the power at the mains - not thinking it worthwhile to establish which of the dozen or so fuses controlled the kitchen clock. Did it count as a lighting circuit or a power circuit? Remove screws from natty little fitting which turns out to be rather a decent fitting from MK. Proper job. Which consists of a small flat wall socket plus a small flat version of a three pin plug to which the clock is wired. All very discrete. So I remove the plug from the socket, disconnect the clock from the plug, put the plug back in the socket and turn the power on again at the mains. Easy peasy. Safe as houses. But have I contravened Electricity Works Regulations (Domestic) 2002? Which, so I am informed, mean that I am not supposed to do any electrical work in my own house involving screw drivers. That I have to hire someone licensed and regulated by the Electricity Works Council (Domestic) to do the work at some hugely inflated rate. The result of all this is that when my heirs or assigns come to sell the house they might have trouble preparing the HIP. Where will the certificate be for the missing clock? That says it was removed according to full panoply of the relevant regulations? Not my problem.
While I am at it I should also confess to a similar disregard of regulations earlier in the week when I took down a partition wall containing a wall light and a light switch without turning the power off. In my defence I can say that the plaster on this wall was pretty ancient and fell off its (sawn) lathes without any bother at all. Just a few smacks with the wrecking bar. Little bit of care around the electrical fittings and they swung free, clear and undamaged. Even managed not to break the light bulb.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Brain power
It being a nice balmy evening yesterday we thought we would stroll down to the Italian restaurant which has been installed in what used to be the King William IV, a place we last visited to our entire satisfaction 29 December last (http://www.enzoatkingwilliamiv.co.uk/). Doing a reasonable evening trade, mainly mature and sensible people like ourselves. I started with cold baked vegetables which does not sound to hot but was fine. Thin slices of courgette, aubergine, mushroom and tomato, dosed with olive oil. Went onto to something called gnocchi which I have never come across before but which tempted me because the menu item included the words potato dumpling. They turned out to be white, the size and shape of a small plum and came with a tomato sauce and some melted cheese. Simple and satisfying. Although perhaps not so simple to make without a bit of practise. Finished off with an average tiramisu. The whole geed up with some Peroni beer, some Sicilian wine the name of which I forget and two sorts of liqueur. Excellent meal.
But by the time we got home, brain must have more or less been in neutral. After about half an hour of padding around doing nothing much, decided that I needed to put my indoor spectacles on. Searched upstairs and downstairs, high and low for the things but I could only find the case containing my sunshine spectacles. Eventually found the other case on a bookcase, containing my outdoor spectacles, my already having my indoor spectacles on. Which I had certainly not worn to the restaurant. So I had completely forgotten that I had changed spectacles on arrival. Never mind that I had thought that I needed to change them when I already had.
So today, needed to rebuild confidence with a suitable challenge. So we decided to go for flat pack hose reel. An additional incentive was the 15% off at B&Q - not that any of us could be bothered to check that 15% off B&Q prices actually worked out less than other people. Neatly slotted into a disabled bay and in we went to be confronted by a shelved array of hosing products, maybe 6 feet high by 8 feet wide. Less choice I think than Homebase, although the same sort of deal. Hozelock or own brand. Brain still not in too good nick. Gazed at all the hoses and the boxes of fittings and failed to compute. At least it took a while. Changed down a few gears and attacked one connection at a time. Got there in the end and bought two reels of hose, one with fittings one without, one flat pack reel and a connector. Two reels because 30m is not long enough for the whole garden and the connector to join the two together. At least, so I thought.
Get the stuff home, remembered not to throw the instructions out and settled down to assemble the flat pack reel. Brain now motoring as I managed this in about 15 minutes without any cursing, broken finger nails or any other disaster. Install one reel of hose in the reel and install the other reel of hose on the tap. At which point I realise that the connector is surplus to requirements as the end of the tap hose can plug into the side of the reel. BH very pleased with her new toy - the connections of which do not appear to drip, let alone leak.
The old flat pack hose (the sort of hose which rolls up flat. Clear plastic waterproof tube protected by a nylon outer tube) consigned to the dustbin. This has served well for more than twenty years but is a bit battered. Fittings were missing and it did leak, never having been the same after the foxes had a go at it one night. But it was very easy to get in and out of the shed and did not take up much space. We shall see if the rubbery replacement is an improvement. A good test will be to see whether it survives us or not.
The one remaining puzzle being the apparent demise of flat pack hose. They still exist on the Internet but they do not exist in any of the three shops for this sort of thing near us. I still think they are a good deal. So why does no-one else? Was there a plot by the rubbery hose people to drive the flat hose people off the market place? Another example of the workings of the free market?
Friday, May 21, 2010
Drills reprised
Someone about my size and shape pretending to be a builder. The contraption is more or less spot on. Maybe a model or two later than the one I was using. Thanks to http://www.jcb.com/ for the picture.DIY timewatch
At the same time as playing with the hydraulic drill, indulged in a spot of taking old house to pieces. Just like taking furniture to pieces, gives one an excellent insight into how the thing was made in the first place. Up to a point that is. Given that the house in question has been serially mucked about with over the last three hundred years or so, mainly downhill in an easterly direction, so lots of relics and vestiges on and under the surface. So we had a very smooth concrete lid to a trench, maybe six inches under today's floor. And three inches under another part of today's floor some old flagstones. Various shapes and sizes, averaging maybe a foot square. Maybe blue lias (see http://www.bluelias.co.uk/). More or less finished on the top, rough cast underneath but with the under edges bevelled away to make it easy to get the top more or less rectangular. Traces of old brick walls, the purpose of which was lost in the mists of time. Drains which vanish into rough cast stone walls, never to be seen again - although they must go somewhere or the place would have been rather stinky. One tea-cup handle of some blue and white ware.
Sundry small bones, probably chicken. One larger bone, possibly the bottom end of a femur. One would have thought a cow more likely, particularly since the next door lane used to be the town shambles, but the picture of a human femur I could find in Britannica online looked more like the thing we found than the picture of a cow's femur which Mr G. dug up for me at http://www.shopzilla.co.uk/. He wasn't so hot on humeri. He got me onto, via an advertisement which looked helpful, what turned out to be some people called Nuffield who want me to get them to reshape the head of my right femur. Do they get some surface grinding contraption from JCB to do the business? It seems that despite being an NHS outfit, it is not above paying Google to pop up adverts alongside my bony searches.
Pondered about the possibility of a chicken having been placed sacrificially under the threshold at the time of original construction. Bricklaying informants at TB tell me that such things were quite common in the times of their fathers.
Ground under the house very various. Mainly disturbed ground with bits of sharp broken stone, broken tile, bits of root, the aforementioned bones and other oddments. Some ground black, some brown and some yellow. All fairly damp. Broke through into what seemed like undisturbed ground once or twice. One can see how timewatchers might get excited. You discover the end of something which you decide must be something interesting. Get really geed up. Maybe a bit of Saxon pottery. Spend half an hour wheedling the thing out of its sticky clay bed a foot or so below floor level to find that it is a common or garden pebble. But the possibility keeps one on the case.
While this was going on amused to hear of the doings of a rusticated old Etonian in a house down the road, this one being a televised house by a river (http://www.rivercottage.net/) rather than a blogged house in a small town. This chap has done so well selling the good life by the river that he has been able to afford to get himself a nice new wife and a nice new house in the country and not to have to live in the shop any more. No more smelly customers who went to bog standard schools. No more damp winters by the river. No more organic carrots. No more slugs in the lettuce. Long live home delivery from the nearest Waitrose! Despite the rustic supplement to the delivery charge. Which is all very well, most of us are glad not to have to live in the shop. But in his case, living in the shop is the whole point. The fact that he does not care to do it any more makes one wonder why we should carry on thinking that it is all so wonderful and paying him so well for the thought.
A bit differant if you are a luvvy. You are paid to pretend to be a sexed up version of an eleventh century Scottish king. But we all know that it is a pretence. It is not necessary for the thing to work for the luvvy to be a king or even to like the thought of being a king. Pretending to like stringy rhubarb does not seem quite so cool somehow. For that to work, you do really have to like it? Or do you? I shall reflect further.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Nature notes from Dorset
Started off the proceedings by finding out that aerial attack on one's vehicle by a herring gull gives as striking a result as parking underneath one of those trees which drips something sugary from their leaves. This last happening to us last year in Weymouth. The answer, I suppose, is to travel from Weymouth in the winter when there are no leaves on the trees. And not to feed the seagulls, summer or winter.
Then there was a badger snuffling around in a short grass field in the daylight. First time I have seen one in the wild, alive. As opposed to dead by the roadside. Then a buzzard parked up on something in the same field on the following day. Clearly quite keen on whatever the something was as it did not flap off when we parked to peer at it. Then sundry deer and rabbits. And, last but not least, but sadly when I was in a pub, another badger ambling down the lane with a rabbit in its mouth. Must have been a dozy or sick rabbit to allow itself to be grabbed by a badger which one would think was a lot slower, at least at running, than a rabbit. Might have a fast enough grab though.
In-between times, had a new toy to play with. To wit, one small petrol engine, looking rather like one of those small generators you can use to power up your power tools on a building site, but on this occasion powering up the hydraulics to work a hydraulic drill. Full sized drill, just like its pneumatic cousin, weighing in, guessing, at fifty pounds or more. Quite heavy enough when it is maybe forty years since one used such a thing in earnest and maybe ten years since one used one at all. Quite effective at smashing through masonry, stone and concrete. Managed neither to get the thing stuck down a crack nor to snap the drill bit. The former requiring one to lift the fifty pound drill off the stuck bit - which would be a bit hairy single handed - and the latter requiring one to snap the plastic. Entirely appropriate that the thing should be made by JCB, that well known manufacturer of vehicles with hydraulic attachments. But not so well known that it had occurred to me that the drills that one can attach to the ends of their arms were hydraulic rather than pneumatic. Obvious when one gets around to thinking of it.
On the way home read about new departures in our legal world. It seems that part of the New Labour Project was to further empower our judiciary. Not a written constitution but an understanding that there are some things that are not done. Governments are supposed to be helpful, honest and open. Human have rights - this last being helped on its way by the European initiative of the same name. With the result that lawyers can now boss the government about if the former think that the latter are getting out of line. Not to the point where the lawyers can go against the expressed wish of parliament, but if the lawyers think that government is getting out of line, they can insist that parliament is express about it; to make it quite clear that government is being instructed to do this thing in contravention of accepted standards of administration and behaviour. Rather in the same way that we read of permanent secretaries asking their ministers to provide express direction to do things that they, the permanent secretaries, think a bit dodgy. Direction that is then lodged in a reasonably public place.
Now on the face of it, empowering lawyers in this way sounds like a good thing. There is something to hold our over mighty government in check. But then one thinks that the thing doing the checking is a bunch of very highly paid professionals who conduct their business in what might just as well be ancient Japanese. A bunch who have a clear financial interest in making as much of a meal of such matters as possible. Also a bunch who have rather blotted their copy books recently by striking down proposed strikes by the toiling masses on the basis of very flimsy technicalities.
Do we really want to open the door to all kinds of judicial meddling in the affairs of the executive, to open the door to more or less to anyone with enough dosh to pay for the meddling ticket?
But where will we find someone better qualified to do the checking? Something which is clearly needed given the way governments behave these days. When will the Guardian and the Independent get around to weighty articles on the subject?
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Ovine puzzles
Continuing to muse about pecorino, said by the article in Mr W. to be made of sheep milk. But the English for sheep is sheep, the French is mouton (or mutton by the time it got here) and the Latin is ovis. Those familiar with European Community statistical systems may know of something called the Enquete Ovine - which I believe to be the sheepy equivalent of the decennial census practised on persons. So no pecorinos to be found in the immediate vicinity. However, turn to the P section of Lewis and find that pecus is Latin for domestic animals in general, with beasts being a near equivalent in rural English, and that a pecus balans is a bleating beast or a sheep, with bleating being the balans bit. Sometimes abbreviated to balans and said to be poetical rather than rural. But this may be a red herring. Perhaps pecorino is the Italian diminutive or pecus giving us small beast, so sheep, rather than big beast which is cow.
Wouldn't be nearly so much fun if I had an Italian dictionary and got the answer direct.
What is not so much fun is a further defeat by the Shearings web site. First of all we select an 8 day bus holiday in Wales. All well and good. Click on give me more details and we get taken to a 5 day version of the 8 day holiday. Start again and this time click on book holiday rather than tell me about holiday and this time it sticks with us. Maybe it likes one to buy sight unseen? Press through to stage 5 of 8 of the booking process. Name and address, special needs, seat on coach and so on and so forth. But then it asks for an email address. Type it in and the thing announces that this email address won't do as it is already in use. Hmm. Go back to the beginning and try again. We have to change seats as the thing has not yet released the seat from the failed booking. But never mind, press on. Fail for the second time for bad email address. Give up at this point. I only have one email address. What would happen if we had a bed-sit house with one computer and email address full of people who like coach holidays? Are Shearings going to deny themselves this important slice of business? Do they only allow any one email address to appear it at most one booking at a time? On the grounds that no-one in their right minds would want more than one? We await a call from the Shearings' call centre with interest.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Beethoven
Beethoven time again on Thursday with our second visit to the Takacs Quartet Beethoven Quartet season at the QEH. Opus 59 No. 1 and opus 130 with the big ending, the opus 133 Grosse Fuge. Impressive stuff with the first quartet nicely balancing the rather heavier second. Very taken with the stand-in second violin, one Lina Bahn (http://www.linabahn.com/), with the result that I heard much more second violin that I usually manage. Audience very taken with the whole performance with most of them standing up to clap at the end.
The two gents. were given what appeared to be bottles and the two ladies got flowers. Which, on the basis that the bottles would have costed about as much as the flowers and would not, in consequence, be hundreds of pounds worth of vintage burgundy, got me wondering about how important a freebie of this sort would be to a performer of this sort.
If we suppose an audience of 1,000 paying an average of £20 each, we have a take of £20,000. We further suppose that the venue takes a quarter, their agents take an eighth and expenses another eighth, we are left with £2,500 a head for some rehearsals plus the performance. At say 52 performances a year, one a week, we arrive at a gross income of £130,000 a year. Good money but not humungous. But enough that they should not be too bothered about the odd bottle of plonk.
Although I have heard that performing people can be a real pain about other sorts of extras. Their agents supply hirers with long lists of requirements which must be met to the letter at pain of the performing person throwing a wobbly or worse. Sardine and cucumber sandwiches made with soft rye bread without carraway seeds and with the crusts removed. Sardines to be purchased from Waitrose. Four half litre bottles of Highland Drain naturally organic water, two cold and two room temperature. One small jar of Brylcreem. Lemon Sherbets which must be bought in the High Street sweet shop in Sherbourne. And so on and so forth.
On the culinary front starting the make the acquaintance of a family of sheeps cheeses called pecorino. Today's was from Alio's Deli. down the road (the Epsom one, don't know if the Walton one is any relation), is a hard pale yellow cheese with a dark rind and comes from Sicily. The whole cheese being perhaps 9 inches in diameter and 4 deep. Very good it was too. He carries a dozen or more different sorts so we will have to work our way through them. Then there are the dozen or more different sorts of salami - which I much prefer to the German or Hungarian versions. One difference being that the meat is chunked with the fat rather than being coarsely minced. He also sells giant aubergines, more or less spherical in shape and maybe 5 inches in diameter. Aubergines not my favourite vegetable but perhaps we will get to try one, one of these days, for the crack.
Friday, May 14, 2010
World moves on
For a short while I used to have business with EDS in Yorktown House in Camberley. Often used to get lost getting there. Today, having business nearby, I thought I would check that EDS really was nearby nearby. Search high and low with Mr G..
Eventually, I find out that EDS, a large computer services outfit which used to make a lot of money out of big government, was bought a couple of years ago by HP. Who seem to have very efficiently effaced all trace of the old EDS from the net. At least that part visible on the first page of zillions of hits. Leaving a herd of other outfits which are still using the name. Would never have thought that there were so many of them.
Sic transit gloria mundi. Or perhaps one ought to say 'sic transit gloria webbing'. But it doesn't have the same ring.
FIL's tooth
Some weeks ago, a large flake fell of the front of one of FIL's upper incisors. Rather in the way that large flakes of stone fall off the dressed stone blocks used to face houses in Edinburgh New Town. Some kind of sandstone, laid with the grain vertical? Anyway, he finally got around to the dentist yesterday and about 20 minutes later the tooth was as good as new, plus a filling repaired somewhere else. Cost £45. It seems that these days they can use some sort of oral polyfilla to mend damaged teeth. No need to drill a socking great hole into which to plug a great plug of amalgam. You can just paste this stuff onto the damaged area, wait a short while for it to harden, then buff it up, rather as if you were polishing a car. I wouldn't have known it was a patch. Clever stuff.
Moving off FIL's tooth and passing quickly over Jenkins' Ear (something one used to do in GSCE History), we land on an interesting piece in last week's TLS about universities, penned by a Distinguished Fellow of All Souls College. Whatever one of those is. I bring various things away. That universities started out as places for training priests and court officials, most of whom were priests anyway at that time. Good tie in here with the Barlow book (see above) which has a lot to say about the role of the 12th century church in building the civil institutions we have today. The allegation that most third world countries do not give a toss about the humanities. They chuck their dosh at useful people like mathematicians, engineers, accountants and opticians. No room at the inn for Anglo-Saxon studies or hut circles. Maybe the Indian Army in the time of the Raj generated more Sanskrit scholars from the ranks of bored soldiers than the liberated universities of India do today? Which results in the surprising claim that one third of the world's learned humanities articles come from the UK. This despite the fact that UK further education has become obsessed with original research. The purpose of education is no longer to educate but to extract new facts out of old. Education workers are no longer prized for their ability to transmit their knowledge and enthusiasm to their pupils. So what place would the chap who did the Wake research of the last post have in our brave new world? Do we want to have place for such chaps?
My own position is that the world would be a poorer place if we did not have people who wanted to do such stuff, but they ought to do it under their own steam or in their spare time. Not sure that I want to throw government money at paying people to do it. Nor am I sure that we can afford to give everyone a posh education who wants one. Or whose parents want one for their offspring.
I close from a further titbit from Barlow. The derivation of the word 'fine', as in parking fine, is 'finis' or end. A fine was a way of closing something, achieving closure in psycho. speak. Someone had done something wrong but one did not want to execute the chap and imprisonment was expensive. So one closed the something with a fine.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
A close reading
Ex TLS, 14 May, delivered a day early to faithful subscribers. Interested to see that there are people out there with time for very close readings of that difficult work, 'Finnegans Wake'.Red in tooth and claw
Rather different sort of nature note this morning. BH has been happily watching the nesting activities of two robins in the ivy over the top left hand corner of her kitchen window. Breeding empathy between females. And observing, for example, that they do not fly into the nest when she is observing them. Elementary precaution. But not enough to put Franklin off the case, a cat not previously known for his feral vigour. He twigged and before we noticed he had jumped from the window sill up into the nest, struggling a bit as not very good at climbing the ivy. All the leaves get in the way of the twigs he might latch onto. BH chases him away. Firmly transfers him to the front garden and locks the door. A few minutes later he jumps down from the extension roof and grabs something - an egg or a chick - from the nest which he carries off behind the compost dustbin to consume in private. BH most put out, although luckily disturbed at that point by the telephone ringing. By the time she had dealt with that, temperature had dropped. Franklin continues to hover in the hope of being able to grab something else.
Which gives rise to various problems. How did Franklin, who disdains pidgeon chasing on the lawn, know that robin activity in ivy means interesting things to eat in the ivy? Fairly sure this would not be something that his mother taught him. Why did he care enough to make it back from the front by an alternative route? How did he know about the alternative route? What do the robins do? Do they get divorced? Do they start over? Start over in a new nest or have another go with the old? Again, not matters on which they would have been guided by their parents. If these things are coded in brain cells, how does that code get there? Seems a bit far fetched that it is all derived in some mechanical way from the coding of genes.
Different sort of red in tooth in the margins of the visit to the Couper Gallery the other day, when we noticed a helicopter hovering over No. 10 Downing Street. Now prime ministers, despite appearances, are generally energetic and aggressive people or they would not have made it there. So generally susceptible to a bit of military flummery. I bet they are all deeply impressed - as indeed they should be - by the ceremony of the keys to the nuclear missiles, something which one assumes is done very soon after kissing the hand of the monarch and having been fully empowered to act on her behalf. So the thought ran through the mind, as we stood on the peace pagoda on the bank of the river, that outbound prime ministers are allowed one last bit of military flummery. They are allowed to press the red panic button which has a helicopter stuffed with special forces sent over from the Battersea heliport. In then hovers over the chimney of the prime ministerial residence, lowers a grapnel and hauls the outbound prime minister up through the chimney into the helicopter, his arms and legs flailing in an impressive way, and which then whisks him off to honourable exile on some remote island in the outer isles. He is given a list to choose from. A sort of reverse Father Christmas operation. Meanwhile the inbound prime minister marches in through the front door to the sound of trumpets and the popping of flash bulbs, especially procured from Harrods for the occasion. As with all well managed brothels, outbound customers never bump into inbound customers.
The word apotheosis comes to mind, which links to the virgo immaculata of yesterday's second post.
PPS and why, on what must have been about the 10th post of this post, did Mr G. get around to telling me about http://www.zooplus.co.uk/. The post in question changed an 'in' to an 'on'. Maybe there is an element of time dependence or chance about these advertisements.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Nature notes
Having occasion to repot an aspidistra cutting, discovered that underneath works on much the same lines as nettles or couch grass. That is to say there is a single rhizome (I think that is the proper term for a rooty thing of this sort) with a single terminal leaf. Previous leaves at about 1 inch intervals back along the rhizome. No leaf buds visible. Presumably, when the terminal leaf is big enough or old enough, the rhizone breaks out of the base of the leaf (bottom right in the picture), resumes its forward march (from left to right in the picture) and raises a new leaf bud in its own good time. Lots of fleshy roots springing direct from the rhizome and not branching. Arrangements which account for the slow progress of the cutting.Those particularly interested should trot along to the botanical garden on Tenerife where the things are used as ground cover under the trees. Presumably a bit more vigorous in the sub tropical climate there. Does not appear to be a web site for this splendid garden although plenty visible with Mr G. Ask for 'jardin botanico tenerife'.
Water lilly doing much better this year, already having reached the three leaf stage, albeit red and small. Hopefully it will be stronger this second year of its stay with us.
Lilly of the valley in flower underneath the nearby hawthorn tree. Not too many of them yet but hopefully they will spread.
And, following the negative report of 8th April, pleased to report now that our cuckoo pints (arum maculatum) (not to be confused with virgo immaculata) are indeed in flower, as were those in Dorset a couple of weeks ago. Flowers a bit puny compared with those in Dorset but perhaps they will get bigger as the years roll on, provided I suppose, that we don't crop them for their sago.
Moving into the larder, more problems with livestock in the dried vegetables. Last time it was small black bugs in the elderly pearl barley, on this occasion it was what looked like the same small black bugs in the lentils - which had not been in our jar for all that long. Lentils looked fine in the jar but by the time they had been turned into soup, black flecks over the surface. Need a microscope to be sure that the black flecks were insects but it seems quite likely. Presumably the eggs are laid in the immature, soft lentils while still in the pod and they hatch at their convenience some time later.
BH was already going to complain to Mr S. about a small lump of a porous stone in one of his packets of lentils - maybe a square centimetre in area and quite thin, with a lentil embedded on one side - but we can't be sure that the bugs came from the same packet. She is thinking about whether to bundle the stone and the bugs into one complaint.
Arts and crafts
Yesterday to the Couper Collection, housed on a big-government funded collection of barges somewhere near Battersea Bridge. On entry very pleased to discover a new work by The Dame Emin (aka our Trace) called 'Detritus with rope', held at the collection pending transfer to the Tate Modern for permanent display, except that is when it is on tour.The Dame is probably in of a bit of a state today as both she and her work are part funded by big-government, something our new found leader is sworn to abolish or worse.
Apart from providing barge-space to the illuminatii of the bigger art world, Max Couper appears to be a worker in multi-media with a special interest in sheet steel. A number of constructions of this sort are on show, including a large table, a sliding door and a contraption. He also collects bits and pieces from boats so there are lots of shackles, sheaves, chains and bolts tucked away in odd corners. Does the occasional opera and still displays a dress that was once worn by that other dame, The Dame Judi. Builds barge gardens, suitable for barge barbies in the summer. And builds connections with the community. All in all, rather an interesting venture. We shall visit from time to time to see how he gets on. http://www.coupercollection.org.uk/.
Penetrated a little way into the nearby Royal College of Art sculpture department, the doors of which were not protected by key card or entry phone. Must report them to the health and safety gang. Sadly, BH was lagging behind a bit and she got nabbed by a trusty, at which point we were ejected. So we did not get to see much of what young sculpture students get up to, although it did appear to involve lots of power tools, plywood and paint. Told to come back for their June show.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Stop press!
Emergency ward 10! Animals have broken through the back half of the two part lid to the compost heap. The timber must have been rotten enough for them to push a lump out and so get a mouth-hold on what was left. White band is where they have been chewing. Patched up for now, plenty of Cuprinol applied and I hope the smell of this last will slow them down a bit. Hopefully also without taking the organic out of the compost. New lid on list of things to do this summer.Top vice
Following on from the leader note at the end of yesterday's posting, read somewhere that the top vice of our late leader, Mr Blair, was vanity. Pondering this morning on his strange combination of piety and greed, I am not so sure. Qualities he shares with William the Conqueror, possibly somebody he would like to be able to claim descent from.
This brought on by my persual of 'The Feudal Kingdom of England' by one Frank Barlow, purchased from the Oxfam shop at Sherbourne - a place mentioned in the book, as it happens, as one with a big church and a big castle, both important items in the 12th century. The book is the third volume in a ten volume history of England published by Longmans in the middle of the 20th century. A history which seems to have vanished under the rather heavier Oxford history of the same name. Barlow was a historian of the old school: he tells the story of kings and their friends & neighbours, uncluttered by concerns for women and other toiling masses. And a good story he tells too.
A story helped along with various fold out maps, bound into the book as separate items, produced by hand well before the advent of computer graphics. The only fault being that they do not fold right out and they are not at the end of the book. So one cannot read the book while consulting them, one has rather to flip backwards and forwards. But I suppose it all sticks in the thinning brain cells better that way. Which is just as well, as family relationships were both complicated and important.
I had forgotten, for example, that William I's claim by birth to the throne was better than that of Harold. That there was much intermarriage between the Saxons (home and away sorts), the Normans and the French, although, to be fair, a lot of this was Norman thugs marrying beautiful and noble Saxon heiresses. On two occasions a mid twenties previously married heiress, these ones French as it happens, had to marry a mid teens lordling. One of these marriages (Eleanor of Aquitaine, cast off wife of Louis VII) worked better than the other (Matilda, widow of the Emperor of the Romans). Must run in families as the new husband of the first was the son of the second. Someone in their mid teens counted as an adult in those days but, nowadays, such a union is more or less unthinkable. Baby snatching if not peddary.
Forgotten also how, in those days, the primary allegiance was to one's immediate lord. Society was built out of such incremental arrangements and one had little regard for remoter connections. Countries hardly existed.
In the middle reaches, this seemed to mean that a baron had his knights - this last being a Danish word. Some of these would be quartered in his household for immediate action, others would be out to pasture on their own manors. The upside of this last was that they were not fighting and quarrelling in your hall; the downside was that they were apt to become independent and shake you off. Stopped responding to your trumpet. Much the same system as that of a Saxon lord with his thegns - a word presumably related to the Scottish thane. Barons and their knights were keen on fighting; that was what they were trained to do. So fighting animals, who could reasonably be expected to lose, was popular, although fatal hunting accidents were common, with William II not being the only illustrious victim to the noble sport. But the chances of getting killed hunting were still a lot less than those of getting killed in a serious battle. So battles not terribly popular among the knightly class for all their martial strutting.
Knights were expected to fight from horses. According to Barlow, Hastings was the last English battle where a shield wall was deployed after the Saxon fashion. And, as it turned out, it was eventually ground down by the horsey Normans. But Barlow clearly a romantic; quite enthusiastic about how the shield wall kept on going (Close ranks! Close ranks!), long after all hope of winning was lost, with a good proportion of them being hacked down where they stood. I wonder who stripped the corpses of all the goodies? Did the Normans take the time or did they have to get on with conquering? Stripping being, I believe, normal practise in those impoverished days. Not sensible to bury the tackle with the bodies.
And then there was the church. Which, despite its various faults, was a force for progress. It was religion and the church which pulled the knights back from the senseless savagery of the Vikings. And church which invented education and law, with the conflation of clerk and cleric being evidence of the same.
All in all a good read. Thoroughly recommended.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Water beet
Following the visit of 27 May last, we thought it time to take another peek at the giant water beet in the Isabella Plantation. That is to say a large water loving plant which looks very like the leaf beet I used to plant on my allotment on the grounds that it was very easy, cropped well and did not seem to mind growing on bad soil without being fed. Parked on this occasion in the handy disabled persons' car park and found that the giant water beet was doing very well indeed and about to come into flower - at which point it will probably look rather less like leaf beet than it does now.
As it happens, the azaleas were in their prime, something I have not seen before. Splashes of vivid colour all over the place, nicely balanced by the soft spring green of the wood - or plantation - in which they had been planted. Some of the larger azalea flowers were rather impressive close up too. But very few insects so not clear that the presumably large amounts of nectar were being put to good use. Perhaps the weather is supposed to be a bit warmer when these things come into flower. All in all, another very fine garden, not that much further than that at Hampton Court, so I guess we had better stick it on our bring forward list of things that must be done.
Rounded off the visit by some not very distinguished tea in the economy class section of Pembroke lodge. Not sure if it was the milk, the tea or the paper cups, but the flavour of the tea not that great. But it was economy. In business class there looked to be a wedding going on, where the people on the lawn appeared to be being offered water. From a jug, not even sparkling organic from the Pentland Hills. Perhaps things will warm up as the festivity progresses. Hope so as it was cool when we were there and is probably a lot cooler now. Very multi-cultural with some very splendid - if not very warm - outfits. Prize goes to what I assume was a west African gent. in full fancy cotton robes; fancy on a white base. Very smart he looked too.
On the way home, knocked off St Andrew's at Ham. A brick church in three parts: first the nave, then a south aisle then a fancy new chancel. Interesting painted roof to nave, more interesting roof and (fancy) decorations to the chancel. All a bit high church considering some expatriate Lutheran Germans - mainly young women and children - were about to start divine service (in German) as we left.
Rounded off the day with another variation on the organic smoked haddock with rice theme. Ingredients in descending order of importance by weight: haddock (50%), onion, white rice, orange pepper, celery, butter, white cabbage (shredded), cumin and black pepper. Topped up with cold beef sandwiches on white bread, this last not quite up to the usual Cheam standard. Bit damp and squashy.
Interesting new-to-me theory about the global bust in the TLS last week. Their story is that, in the western world at least, the last decade has been the decade in power of the baby boomers. People who have never had it so good. Dodged the draft. Snuffled powders. Who have never known any serious trouble. Been healthy and comfortable all their life. They never knew the global bust of before the second world war or the war itself and its aftermath. So all much too relaxed about everything. Far to inclined to be optimistic about things, to believe what their bankers say and to take chances with global welfare which their parents, having known global badfare in all its glory, would never have taken. The exception that proves the rule was said to be Frau Merkel, brought up in the dingy glow of East Germany and so well on the ball when it comes to knowing how bad badfare can be.
Saturday, May 08, 2010
Pie day
Yesterday finally got around to trying one of the individual steak and kidney puddings which have turned up in the butcher at around £2.50 a go, from the real pie company at http://www.therealpieco.co.uk/. Sold unfrozen and warmed up in the microwave, having first removed it from its wrapping and added a little water to the plate. This turned out to be entirely necessary as the pudding would have been quite dry without, this last presumably being an aid to keeping. But a good pudding. Plenty for one person. We shall do it again.
We then started to wonder why there were not more pies in shops. There are pork pies but not much else - apart, I suppose, from those flat tinned jobs that Fray Bentos used to turn out. And the baker at Cheam sells them along with his sausage rolls and cakes. Maybe cooked meat pies have been mostly zapped by the healthy people on the grounds that they need careful stock management if we are not to snuff it of food poisoning. Whereas pork pies are sealed up in a bug proof jelly and less prone to bug attack.
Today another crack at fore rib. While buying the pudding, I had happened to notice rather a good bit of rib. Bright red with plenty of fat, inside and out. 6.5 pounds done for 2.5 hours at 180C then rested for 0.25 hours, oven opened once. Served with swede, cabbage and rice. Very nice too, although it will probably turn out to be at least twice the price per portion as the pudding. But something more than half a pint of beef dripping as a makeweight.
While we are on the subject of good food, noticed another nasty case of bestitis in the Independent the other day, something I have been moved to moan about before. On this occasion some bright spark had thought fit to rank all the cooks in the world, that is, at least the ones with big enough egos to get onto the media radar, and give us an ordered list of the top ten. What a lot of nonsense. How can you possibly say one decent cook is better than another decent cook without any kind of qualification? One might say that this cook is not much good at steak and kidney puddings and that I like the steak and kidney puddings from Fred more than those from Mary, at least in the winter. But it is a big step from there to say that Fred is the best cook in the world. In the same vein, the BH has good hands for cakes, as her Mum did before her. While I have become the man for stews and soups, after a rather slow start.
It also seems to be the case that those who creep to the top of these sorts of heaps seem to go in for rather odd food. When did any of the creepers in the top ten last make a steak and kidney pudding? Or serve fresh, still slightly warm seed cake in their so elevated establishments?
Digressing from slightly warm, I am reminded that a lot of processed meat products - meat loaf, beef burgers, sausages - might start out life light and fluffy. Like the fine meat balls I had in Worthing the other day at http://www.istanbulworthing.co.uk/. But once you let them go cold and are into reheat mode, they are and stay very solid. As I learned in Sherbourne recently with a meal deal burger. Very large and very cheap, but also very solid. Same problem with bread pudding which is a far superior animal cooling than cold.
Returning to bestitis, I wonder whether this unpleasant disease will start to calm down if and when we manage to get shot of New Labour and their obsession with scores and ranks? Will the inbound lot be just as bad as far as that sort of thing is concerned?
Friday, May 07, 2010
Its that senior moment time again
Another new species of senior moment discovered yesterday morning. Can't remember the actual subject but the moment went like this. For some reason, started wondering when I had last been to Portland Bill. Some other part of the brain supplied a video clip of me at Portland Bill. The answer to the wonder. But then yet another part of the brain realised that the video clip was a phony. Second part of the brain, wanting to be helpful to the first part, just invented the video clip. Plausible but entirely invented. I guess I would have to start to worry if things like this started to happen very often.
For the moment reassured by an old species of senior moment. A couple of weeks or so ago we realised that we were not get any incoming calls on our telephone. We don't get that many so it took a while to realise. In fact, took a few beverages and an email to get me to move on the matter. At which point we worked out that we could make outbound calls OK and that we could take inbound calls OK, provided only that we managed to know that the inbound call was there. That is to say the telephone was not ringing but if you picked it up you were connected and could have a conversation.
Phone British Telecom. Talk to computer. Talk to person. Has sir tried unplugging everything and plugging it all in again? Tried the test socket lurking behind the plate? No, sezzaye. Never mind, I'll do a line test. Some minutes later, maybe there is something wrong with the line on our side. Some more minutes later, maybe there is something wrong with your telephone. No, sezzaye, your telephone. I pay you rent for it. You do something about it. After the third iteration of this last exchange we get some movement. OK, sezzee, I will send you a new one and we will see if that sorts the problem out. Over and out.
Some days later new telephone has not arrived. BH getting restive. Phone British Telecom. Talk to computer. Talk to person. Oh sir. The order for your new telephone does not seem to have been placed. I will place it now. It should turn up in the post in a few days. Or rather, in getting on for a week, given that we have a bank holiday weekend.
Some days later new telephone has arrived. Plug it in and try ringing it on the mobile. Same story, no ringing but if you pick up the handset you can take the call. Ah, sezzaye, very wisely. Clearly some problem exchange side. But fair to try out our end first. BH getting more restive but goes out about her business. I start to play combinations with buttons under the new telephone. Then it occurs to me that maybe I ought to plug the telephone direct into the socket, by-passing the splitter which provides the Broadband (which had and has been providing uninterrupted service, apart from the usual whirrings and stirrings) and the extension lead which provides telephonic services while one is watching Coronation Street. New telephone springs into life. Try old telephone. It springs into life. Put splitter back in line but leave the extension lead out line. Both telephones still work. Me knocking up a nasty bill on my pay as you go mobile while all this is going on.
So, for once in a while, British Telecom were right. I should have gone through all the tedious rigmarole they set down in the telephone directory. In my defence, I suppose I can say that the fact that the telephone was nearly working blinded me to the fact that it might be that it was the extension lead that was nearly working and that the telephone, the exchange and the main lead between them were fine.
BH came home and I thought it best to give her a line about weak exchange signal being jollied into life by the new telephone. Thought I might get some earache if I was generous with the verite. She seemed OK with it. But I wonder if she knows really and is just being nice? Mustn't damage senior male pride sort of thing.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Vote cast
My voting card has been torn into the smallest pieces I could manage and deposited in our outdoor compost heap, underneath the yesterday's contribution from the kitchen. Not that this act prevents me voting should I change my mind in the next 8 hours, but it does mark the occasion. One up from just snoozing in front of afternoon telly, tuned to something at least slightly more interesting than the election.
Been pondering this morning about the fact that whatever I chuck at Wikipedia, it seems to come up with something. Like the Isaac Watts of yesterday. There must be a lot of people out there happy to populate the thing.
Which prompted me to think that for those who prefer meta-knowledge to knowledge and fancy a bit of FE, one could dream up all sorts of worthy investigations into the content of Wikipedia. Coverage, accuracy, spelling. Comparisons with older sources such as Chambers Encyclopedia. How much of Wikipedia is actually put there by people paid to do it by someone with an interest? How many Wikivandals are there out there? How long would it take to find some nook of knowledge which has not been properly covered and where one might make a contribution?
And then there is meta-meta-knowledge for the even fainter hearted. One could dream up various honours based around Google and Wikipedia. Orders of the Gog and orders of the Wick. Google might be persuaded to run bashes for the higher orders. Invites to silver service dinners at Mountain View for those at the top of the heap, regular dinner at a Marriot Hotel in London for those in the middle, finger buffets at the Holiday Inn at Chessington for those at the bottom. Plus a free pass to the World of Adventures (low season).
The general idea with Google, for example, would be the amount of stuff about a person visible on Google and the ease with which it could be found. So if, for example, a search on name alone without title or affiliation, results in the person appearing in the top 10 hits for 10 out of the last 12 months you get an expiring Order of the Gog, third class. By expiring I mean that the order is only good for so long. It is confiscated if the person falls out of the rankings.
So the task is first to devised an honours system along such lines for Google and Wikipedia and then to persuade the two organisation to throw some money at awards ceremonies. Google would be rewarding attainment and Wikipedia would be rewarding effort; a throwback to my school reports which had one column for the one and another for the other. They tried to persuade us that effort was the more worthy of the two but I am not sure how many of us were convinced.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Carriage entrance
North London progress
Needing to maximise the return on our investment in senior citizens' railcards, decided on a swing through north London yesterday. So, tube to Seven Sisters where, in what appeared once to have been quite a posh shop, we found a diverse indoor market. Plenty of hairdressers, community action and a Latino cafe. This last was happy to sell us the Latino equivalent of that Glaswegian delicacy, hot frittered Mars bars, to wit, two plantains slow fried and then finished off with mozzarella and guava jam filling. Served fresh from the microwave. An interesting and filling dish. The meals of the day looked good and there was also home made black pudding which did not look much like our sort. Might have involved some real pig.
Headed on south over the crest of Stamford Hill. Several Kosher butchers and one serious looking baker. But no restaurants, not at least as far as we could see. After which we came across the Abney Park Cemetary. More or less abandoned in recent years but now being turned into a nature reserve, although there still seems to be some burial action. Splendid place full of the funerary ambitions of all the local tradesmen. And very grand some of them were too. But the grandest was for one Isaac Watts who, it seems, penned many of the ditties that we used to whack out at school assembly. It also seems that having been employed as tutor in the house of the Lord Mayor, one Sir Thomas Abney, he subsequently married the widow and they lived happily ever after in her marital pad in Abney Park. Wikipedia says that he was buried in Bunhill Fields which seems to be somewhere quite different. Confused.
There was also the fanciest cemetary chapel I have ever seen, sadly rather delapidated, but including a very grand entrance for the coffin carriages. Same sort of thing as that at what used to be the Treasury building. And some very grand entrance pillars at the main entrance. But rather unpiously built to an Egyptian flavoured design, presumably reflecting our perception that the ancient Egyptians were very keen on matters funerary.
On to lunch in a little cafe with some of the best salt beef I have had for some time. Not quite up to the grand stuff you used to be able to get in Great Windmill Street but a good deal better than the usual fare. Kept in hot water which might have helped to keep it loose and soft. Made the mistake of having it with mustard in a crusty roll. Mustard too strong and the roll too crusty. Both detracted from the flavour and texture of the beef. Will know better next time.
Pushed on through the Turkish quarter - Anatolian rather than Cypriot we thought. Lots of it with lots of restaurants and bakers - but one can't sample everything in one visit. Also the mosque of the previous post. Just past the mosque there was an establishment called the Rose Hotel. 24 hours a day and the best value in town. Not altogether clear what sort of business the hotel was in.
Called it a day at Haggerston where we sat in a little park behind the tracks and admired a shut but live church and some post war flats - the four storey brick jobs with outside walkways, tiled roofs and chimneys - being turned into rubble to make way for the next generation of social housing. Also some rather handsome older housing, just the thing for an up and coming banker willing to take a punt on the area. Caught the 149 to London Bridge then the RV1 to Waterloo which nipped along Upper Ground just south of the river. Didn't know buses used it. Transport costs for two for the day £13 and a few pence.
I like the new bus maps which give a street map of the immediate area you are in, marking the bus stops and what have you in a clear way, then opening out into a tube map style map of the bus routes so that you can see where you might be going. See, for example, http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/gettingaround/maps/buses/pdf/londonbridge-2163.pdf.
At Waterloo got an LRB for once in a while, where I thought I had found the quote of the election. So the LRB says that Robin Blackburn says that Marx says that (paraphrasing) the slice of the National Pie allocated to the toiling masses is more commonly known at the National Debt. Clearly a prescient chap.
But this was capped this morning by the butcher at Cheam who observed, while chopping up my chops, that for a country of some 55 million people, we don't get much to show for it come election time.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Turks
What appears to be a well tiled mosque with a Turkish flavour somewhere in Stoke Newington. Note dome over the back of the building. Curiously, cunningly disguised by the front of the building being a grocery. What did it start life as?Monday, May 03, 2010
NSPCC
Not what you might be thinking at all. Rather the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Chickens, registered as a charity on 1st April 1986. In our role as road rep. for this gang, down the A303 to the second roundabout past the junction with the M3, then back up the eastbound carriageway for a mile or so, then take a minor road on the left. About half a mile up the minor road there is a model chicken farm in a roughly square field of maybe 8 acres on the left. We could tell that it was the right farm as a large wagon collecting organic vegetables pulled past us as we peered over the gate.
The outer perimeter of the field was marked with a hedge, maybe 5 feet high and 2 feet thick. Immediately inside that, with a DMZ of maybe 1 foot, was a 5 feet high fence. 2 inch wire squares below with two or three strands of barbed wire above. Presumably fox proof. Then the outer part of the field proper was some kind of green stuff. Couldn't tell what is was. The square in the middle was more or less bare earth. But dry with no puddles to be seen. At good intervals in the middle square stood three chicken houses. Maybe 30 yards long, 4 wide and 3 high, arranged in two stories. Roofed with some kind of blue plastic sheeting. Ramps down to the ground. Massed chickens at the tops of the ramps watching the world go by. Much smaller number of chickens poking around on the bare earth. And an even smaller number in the green stuff. There did not appear to be any barriers so this must have been the way they liked it.
Two or three awning erected for those chickens which liked to be out of the shed but in the shade. Didn't notice any cockerels. Not sure what is needed in that department. Perhaps nothing if the chickens are destined for the coq au vin.
At the spot from where we were watching we could here a subdued but nevertheless considerable cackling. The noise inside the sheds must have been tremendous. But overall, we thought a model establishment. We would be happy to buy a free range premium for chickens raised in such a place.
Given that we were in this part of the world, thought we would take in a few Dorset churches. Started with those at Compton Pauncefoot, South Cadbury and Corton Denham. All much the same sort of thing. Small places of considerable antiquity, built in attractive yellow stone and much restored by the Victorians. The first had a good deal of stained glass in a number of different styles, some from Belgium. Must have cost a packet in the first place and was costing a packet more as a good part of it was under restoration, although the restorers did not mind us creeping around while they worked. Must be a tricky business to judge by the number of small tools that they carried. Didn't like the Belgium stuff very much - neither the design nor the colour - and a lot of the remainder had become rather dull with years. Offended the Pugin dictum that stained glass needs to live in its window in an organic way. You are not just planting a picture in an awkwardly shaped frame. The second was strangely unholy. Did not feel much like a church at all. But the third, half way up a hill with a landmark tower, did feel holy. Much the holiest of the three. A place with proper atmosphere, in which one could sit and reflect - or even meditate - should the mood take one.
Then down to Sherborne to the Minster. A very imposing place for a country town which must have cost an even bigger packet. An early example of fan vaulting running the length of the church. Sitting in the nave while the Tallis Scholars performed, irritated by three solecisms. First, the mullions of the large east window ran from top to bottom without regard to the shape of the window as a whole. No tracery to bed the mullions into the top of the outer window. Another violation of the Pugin dictum. Second, the fourth arch holding the tower up over the crossing, that at the entrance to the chancel, had been cut back so as to make way for the fan vaulting there. But the effect from the nave, the arch at the exit from the nave being very solid, was wrong. Unbalanced. Somewhat mollified in the morning when I was able to view the arches from the crossing, from where they looked much better. Must have run out of vaulting money as the south transept had what I think is called a double hammer beam instead.
Tallis Scholars most impressive; doing stuff well suited to the locale. Got a lot of sound and tone out of at most ten voices. So much so that I was convinced at the end of the first half that they were being discretely supported by an organ. Investigation showed that this was not the case. I was told that acoustics in the minster were good. Nobody knew why, all a bit of a hit and miss business it seems. All in all, much more my sort of thing than the Christmas fare offered by the rather larger but also younger and entirely male choir at Kings College. They have got a bit too tricky and tinkly. But another bit of famous fan vaulting just the same.
Third solecism was the clapping at the end of each of the eight or so pieces. Not something I care for ordinarily and certainly not in an ecclesiastical context.
Fifth church was the Methodist chapel nearby. A most impressive building inside, despite having been built in two shifts. Light and airy and entirely suited to the more cerebral methods people. The sixth and last was the church at Castleton, the bit of Sherborne which had grown up in the shadow of the bishop of Salisbury's castle. Another low church place with fine panels behind the altar table reminding one of the Lord's prayer and Creed.
The Dorset people do well in that all six churches were open to visitors, despite some of them being well isolated. And one of them, at least, at 0800.
