pumpkinstrokemarrow

First stretch, Waterloo to Stockwell via the Oval. A not particularly salubrious area where I learn that Job Centres do not have toilets for their customers. But, in my case, being decently spoken opened the door of the toilet for the disabled. Playing the old boys' card was helpful too. Too bad if you are one of the the sturdy beggars who populate these places: but it is probably also true that, collectively, the sturdy beggars who are so keen on being shown 'nuff respect man' are not very good at respecting the sanitary property of others.

As far as I could see the shrine to Jean Charles de Menezes has finally vanished from outside Stockwell Tube Station. Not that this sorry affair was ever brought to a very satisfactory conclusion, not at least to my mind.

Second stretch, the more familiar Stockwell to Clapham Common. I was reminded of what a smart suburb this must have once been with lots of grand houses. Pepys died in one of them, at that time a house in the country. There was also a grand building which had once housed a branch of the Royal Arsenal Cooperative Society, from the glory days when the cooperative movement held its head high. There also used to be a very fine Courage pub a few yards north west of Clapham Common tube station. All red plush, polished woodwork and saloon bar. I think it is now an O'Neill's and not the same at all.

Third stretch, from Clapham Common to Tooting Broadway. Balham market was down to one stall but perhaps that is a day of the week thing. Maybe it still functions on Saturdays. Tooting market was alive and kicking though. Paid a visit to a couple of charity shops to check on the standard of their books. Both quite good and I emerged with a rather good AZ road atlas of Great Britain and a slightly soiled 'Hamlet' from the Cambridge School Shakespeare series. First thought was that it would be a good teaching aid, although it had very little to say about the poetry of the thing. The focus was on content rather than on rhyme or rhythm. Do school children still get taught about meters? Second thought was that it might be a constraint for a good teacher. The book gives what might well be a perfectly decent appreciation of the play. But at the same time it forces you down its road; it might discourage one from straying off its beaten path. Rather in the way that seeing the film of the book before reading the book can force you down the film's way of seeing things. Makes it much harder to make one's own way. The Arden editions are both more informative and more neutral - but certainly less accessible. Although not as inaccessible as the Cambridge editions for grown ups - edited for the syndics of the Cambridge University Press by the late Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and John Dover Wilson. As it happens, I have the 'Hamlet' in this edition; the same sort of thing as Arden but printed very small and with the notes consigned to the end, rather than printed at the bottom of the page. First appeared in 1934. Don't like it at all. It also occurs to me that I probably have more copies of 'Hamlet' - three - than I have seen productions - discounting the Oval effort noticed on 26th November last, the last probably being a Sir. P. Hall effort at the theatre at Leatherhead. A theatre which now hardly functions at all. The world has moved on past it.

But the prize of the day was the fine Slazenger umbrella I found on the train home; much better quality than the one I was carrying. A nicely made thing. So I proudly carried two umbrellas the rest of the way home, only to find in the morning that one of the plastic fittings at the apex of the brolly, the things which attach the ribs to the apex, had broken in half. The umbrella still worked and the previous owner may not have noticed the defect, but it was only a matter of time before the loose rib end would break through the fabric covering. Could not see any way to mend the thing, so, sadly, consigned to our green wheelie bin.