Sunday, July 31, 2011
Lammas Eve
Once upon a time true Brits. used to have their harvest festival on this day. So it is entirely appropriate that today, which happens to be Lammas Eve, yielded the first picking of blackberries, picking two or three pounds from just one cluster of bushes - the cluster on the common side of the junction between Christchurch Road and Horton Lane - in around an hour. Now safely frozen (on trays) and bagged up in the fridge awaiting duty as a tarter up of cooking apple puddings later in the year.
But I also record a mild annoyance with the food packaging industry. Tins of tuna fish come about half full, so despite the fact that the tin does give gross and net weights, one still has the illusion of buying a lot more tuna fish than one actually is, to the point where it would not be too difficult for one person to down an entire tin, wrapped in white bread and cucumber, in one sitting. Not to mention the waste of tin can. As far as I can make out all the suppliers of tuna fish play the same game so no-one is winning. And as far as I can remember, the tins are less full than they were when I was a child. The packers still played the game, but not quite so hard. One more of the wonders of the workings of the free market.
The next matter of record is the two sea marks we went to see during our stay on the Isle of Wight (see September 2nd 2010).
The first sea mark was the former church of St. Helen at St. Helens. We have been there before, but I had completely forgotten that just before it fell into Bembridge Harbour in 1703, it was decided to convert the tower into a sea mark. So we now have a tall brick wall, painted white, and pointing out to sea.
The plaque on the mark also told us that the stones from other parts of the church were picked up by passing naval ships, the crews of which used them to scrub the decks, the stones becoming known as holystones. I remember that they appear in Hornblower books (a gift from a Canadian aunt. Long gone but this particular edition of three (MHR, SoTL & FC) fetches a fancy price in book fairs); not sure if they made it to the films and television series of same. For some reason, I remember that I always read them as 'holly' rather than 'holy', wondering the while what they had to do with holly. More evocative, this mark was more or less the place from which Admiral Nelson embarked for the Battle of Trafalgar in September 1805. Presumably something to do with victualling: I think that the island was an important source of vittals at the time. Did Lady H. have a discrete love-nest tucked into the downs somewhere?
The second sea mark was that on Ashey Down. On this particular day it was rainy so it was another opportunity for me to wear my stockman's coat (see January 11th) while walking with the cows which were grazing on the down. A first. As it happened, an interesting mixture of cows, mainly the black and white sort, some with horns and some quite young, but with a few of the long orange haired, long horned jobs from up north thrown in. We also thought that one of them was a bull. It was certainly of bull size & shape and we thought it imprudent to get close enough to be sure. As it happened, none of the beasts took any interest in us while we strolled up to the mark and down again. Unlike some other beast days when the beasts take it in their heads to follow one about. I have heard that this can sometimes be quite a pain if one is trying to mend a fence or a hedge or something. Lady cows just as curious as lady humans.
PS: be entertained by the post for July 18th at http://kerrysblahblahblog.blogspot.com/. But the fun seems to be missing from the site for the outfit concerned - http://www.fredmeyer.com/Pages/default.aspx.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Suburban shocks
On return to the suburbs, off to the chemists to collect FIL's parcel. I am quietly waiting for it, pretending to take an interest in various preparations to cure smells in mouths and trying not to overhear what other people are up to, when two girls walk in. If they were boys one might have said that they were scarcely old enough to be wearing long trousers; children in fact. Then one of the girls explains that she has been sent by some drop-in clinic and would like an emergency contraceptive, presumably the after the event sort. When questioned she admits to being 14. This particular chemist does not seem to have the stuff in question but does phone around to try and find some. My parcel turns up before this little story reached its conclusion but I left wondering whatever sort of a parent the girl would make, should it come to that.
Next stop WHSmiths where I was quietly waiting again. This time the girl in front, perhaps a year or two older than the last ones, and buys two very fat and very flashy magazines called 'Love'. How on earth can she afford them? What on earth are they about? Mr. Google reveals that I can subscribe to two copies a year for £12 a year but is a little vague on what it might be about, apart from featuring fashion and scantily dressed models. Perhaps this young lady comes from our very own university of the creative arts (http://www.ucreative.ac.uk/) and is looking for ideas. Was she studying for an MA in design, innovation and brand management? What will she do when she has got it?
Then home to do a roll call on catering during our recent holiday in Brading.
Apart from a special mention for the lunch time crab salad in the Spy Glass Inn at Ventnor, I confine myself to fine dining, as pubs like to call it these days. We ate out 3 days in 2 places. That apart, there was something of a gluten fest. with 3 days macaroni with vegetable sauce, touched up with a bit of processed pork of one sort or another. 1 day spaghetti with mince in tomato sauce. 2 days beef pie from the lady who mainly sells vegetables from the town car park. Then 1 day each for corned beef hash, lentils and potato pie. I day unaccounted for. The potato pie - a confection of potato, egg, cheese and onion - served on this occasion with runner beans - was an excellent reminder of what home cooking is all about. Something which, as it happens, could quite easily be served in restaurants but never is; in any event a real treat after rather overdosing on said restaurants at lunch times.
Followed by a roll call on second hand book purchases. Of which there were rather a lot, particularly considering that they were not particularly cheap.
A Collins German dictionary. Two paperback Shakespeares; one paperback Arden and one paperback from Oxford in the same sort of style as the Arden. One biography of Margaret Clitherow, already mentioned. One history of the Indian Mutiny by Surendra Nath Sen and published in Delhi in 1957. Smoke by Turgenev, of which I had never previously heard. Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. This last a war time economy edition in two volumes from the Everyman's Library which was intended to replace my existing copy, also dating from the war but falling apart. Now not so sure: the binding of the Everman's version is fine but the paper is very cheap and the typeface not so hot. The existing one the other way around, binding bad but paper and typeface good. Have to think about this one.
I also had a close encounter with a field from which the rape had recently been harvested. I learn that rape seeds are small black jobs, perhaps a millimetre or so in diameter, in pods about the size of a long thin twiglet. They appeared to be being harvested with combine harvesters with the straw being made into bales in exactly the same way as it if were wheat straw. With the odd thing being that the rape stubble field smelt exactly the same as a wheat stubble field. But how many square feet to the 250g pack of finest marg.?
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Lots of news
Being on holiday, are indulging in newspapers with breakfast, so they are getting read more thoroughly than is usual. I am learning all kinds of interesting facts.
For example, there is the chap somewhere in South Africa who woke up in the morgue fridge some hours after being declared dead. He is now recovering at home. On the basis that an unconscious person would usually die of cold in a fridge, one can only suppose that the morgue fridge was of the same quality as the original declaration.
And another chap call Hague who has decided that the eastern rebels are the legitimate government of the whole of Libya.
Then we have the ongoing saga of the maid who was abused in New York and whose conversation with a compatriot on her mobile phone is now in the public domain. How did it get there? How come, when our newspapers have dined out on hacking for the last few weeks, they are not getting excited about this? Perhaps I missed some perfectly innocent explanation.
Not to mention the ongoing saga of the flat-lining economy. I have said it before, and I say it again, that it is not a good sign when a large rich country thinks that the end is nigh when it stops getting larger and richer. This despite the fact that we are not getting any less rich or getting any less large; there are still plenty of beer and skittles to be had. But sooner or later the growth dancing is going to have to stop. Either we run out of oil or people who are prepared to work harder than we are are going to start getting larger and richer at our expense. Which last would be a good thing given their starting point. Where is the Christian charity that we used to be so keen on pushing down Moslem and other throats?
I then started to wonder about the spectacle of the biggest economy in the world running the roll-over of their debt right up to the wire. First thought was that it was scarcely the sign of a mature political environment. Second thought was that, when you have two serious parties in fundamental disagreement (leaving aside that fact that one of them does not appear to have much of a popular mandate for its position of scrubbing out cheap drugs for the elderly (of which there are lots)), it is going to go to the wire. That is how negotiations work. But maybe in Europe we would have done it in smoke filled rooms rather than on the pages of the Wall Street Journal.
I close with a word puzzle. I had thought that 'goojar' was a word of negative tone used by travellers and gypsies to describe their sedentary fellow countrymen. But I learn today that the same word was current in the Ganga valley of the 19th century as the name of a tribe or caste of robbers and such like who lived on the outside edge of the wilderness by preying on those who lived on the inside edge. Is there any connection?
For example, there is the chap somewhere in South Africa who woke up in the morgue fridge some hours after being declared dead. He is now recovering at home. On the basis that an unconscious person would usually die of cold in a fridge, one can only suppose that the morgue fridge was of the same quality as the original declaration.
And another chap call Hague who has decided that the eastern rebels are the legitimate government of the whole of Libya.
Then we have the ongoing saga of the maid who was abused in New York and whose conversation with a compatriot on her mobile phone is now in the public domain. How did it get there? How come, when our newspapers have dined out on hacking for the last few weeks, they are not getting excited about this? Perhaps I missed some perfectly innocent explanation.
Not to mention the ongoing saga of the flat-lining economy. I have said it before, and I say it again, that it is not a good sign when a large rich country thinks that the end is nigh when it stops getting larger and richer. This despite the fact that we are not getting any less rich or getting any less large; there are still plenty of beer and skittles to be had. But sooner or later the growth dancing is going to have to stop. Either we run out of oil or people who are prepared to work harder than we are are going to start getting larger and richer at our expense. Which last would be a good thing given their starting point. Where is the Christian charity that we used to be so keen on pushing down Moslem and other throats?
I then started to wonder about the spectacle of the biggest economy in the world running the roll-over of their debt right up to the wire. First thought was that it was scarcely the sign of a mature political environment. Second thought was that, when you have two serious parties in fundamental disagreement (leaving aside that fact that one of them does not appear to have much of a popular mandate for its position of scrubbing out cheap drugs for the elderly (of which there are lots)), it is going to go to the wire. That is how negotiations work. But maybe in Europe we would have done it in smoke filled rooms rather than on the pages of the Wall Street Journal.
I close with a word puzzle. I had thought that 'goojar' was a word of negative tone used by travellers and gypsies to describe their sedentary fellow countrymen. But I learn today that the same word was current in the Ganga valley of the 19th century as the name of a tribe or caste of robbers and such like who lived on the outside edge of the wilderness by preying on those who lived on the inside edge. Is there any connection?
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Craig
Might have been a good idea on the beach yesterday. Despite carefully covering those bits which poked out from under the umbrella with towels, the towels slipped when I nodded off and the offside of the right calf is now rather pink.After beach, finished off the second reading of Craig on Germany (see June 12th & 14th). A substantial read with 764 pages of text plus another 61 of appendices and index. Much better written than Steinberg, despite the fact that Craig is also mainly a US person. Perhaps the differance is a stint at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.
But he takes no prisoners. The book has no maps or illustrations at all. Craig clearly assumes that the sort of person who is fit to read his book has access to maps and illustrations of his own. Then the book has quite a few chunks of quote in the original German, with translation in an appendix, but rather more small chunks of German embedded in the text without any translation at all. And even a small number of small chunks of French.
I thought I was lucky in coming across a concise Collins in a charity shop for £1.99, but actually what it did was reveal the poverty of one word translations from a language of which one knows nothing. One gets the general idea but the whole cloud of meaning which the use of the German word is presumably intended to carry with it is missing. Unlike French, of which I know enough for at least some of the cloud to get across the channel. One plus point is that I now know that lametta, cropping up in a jingle about Goering, are either tinsel decorations used at Christmas or razor blades. An Italian diminutive derived from a word meaning a blade.
In other ways a rather depressing read, coming away with the idea that the whole sorry mess of German history 1850-1950 was the result of the 100 year failure to integrate the very heterogenous bits of Germany into a modern state, after the fashion, let us say, of the UK or the US. With the consequent need to provide the plebs with bread and circuses in the form of foreign adventures. More or less inevitable given the bizarre starting point. Next stop the thirty years war to see if that has the answer.
Having done with Craig, interested to read in the newspaper of giant killer seaweed in Brittany, seaweed which has, it seems, killed two wild boars. The item did not explain how the seaweed did it, but it did explain that President Sarkosy has asked the Heritage Council to rule on whether the contribution to global cooling by the seaweed (it has a very high carbon entrapment rate) outweighs the contribution to global mammalian diversity by the boars. Greenpeace and the WWF are briefing counsel.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Culinary affairs (2)
Another crack at the macaroni the other night.
For the first time since I remember, I had a bottle of chilli sauce to use. I thought it was from Bertorelli but Google says they only do restaurants, albeit of the right flavour. In any event, 99% tomatoes with some chilli flavouring added, so clearly a case for dilution. Started with a couple of coarsely chopped tomatoes and simmered them in rape seed oil for a bit. Added a few similarly coarsely chopped runner beans to provide a bit of textural variety. Simmer for a bit longer. Add chilli sauce. Add finely chopped mushroom stalks then, after a bit, coarsely chopped mushroom caps. Bit of grated 'Tesco yellow' cheddar on the side. Not bad at all, although not as good as the previous attempt. BH been given new instructions regarding purchase of such bottled stuff.
Curiously, BH now much more positive on the whole subject of macaroni than she was a week ago. And I have been reminded that it is much easier stuff to whack up into a quick meal than spaghetti.
And the night after that, our second visit to the 'Dark Horse' at Brading. Not a bad place at all and last night I thought to try their apple crumble. Which, for once in a while, turned out to be a dish which we could reverse engineer, the solution we came to following.
Buy 3 litre tin of chopped apple with sugar. Make up a few pounds of crumble mix. Buy some cartons of Ambrosia custard. All this will keep for some days.
Buy collection of miscellaneous small pots from local charity shop. Need to be more high than wide and about right for a single pudding portion. Buy small jugs and rectangular plates, these last about 9 inches by 4, of a size to hold one pot and one jug in a tasteful way. Off white, silk finish, not the bright white gloss finish.
Suppose that one does an average of ten crumbles a day.
Each morning make up ten crumbles by putting a dollop of the apple in the bottom of a pot and a dollop of the crumble on top of that. Smooth. Bake in a hot oven for 10 minutes or so. Set to cool and then place in the fridge.
When one gets the order, put dollop of the Ambrosia in small jug. Place one of the pots and the newly filled jug in microwave and give them a quick blast. Serve on one of the rectangular plates.
Leave spares in fridge and try to remember to use stock in the right order.
Might be a good idea to prime the pump with 5 extra pots on the first day.
A pudding which can with honesty be described as home made, although island produce might be stretching things a bit. And Ambrosia use too much vanilla for my taste.
For the first time since I remember, I had a bottle of chilli sauce to use. I thought it was from Bertorelli but Google says they only do restaurants, albeit of the right flavour. In any event, 99% tomatoes with some chilli flavouring added, so clearly a case for dilution. Started with a couple of coarsely chopped tomatoes and simmered them in rape seed oil for a bit. Added a few similarly coarsely chopped runner beans to provide a bit of textural variety. Simmer for a bit longer. Add chilli sauce. Add finely chopped mushroom stalks then, after a bit, coarsely chopped mushroom caps. Bit of grated 'Tesco yellow' cheddar on the side. Not bad at all, although not as good as the previous attempt. BH been given new instructions regarding purchase of such bottled stuff.
Curiously, BH now much more positive on the whole subject of macaroni than she was a week ago. And I have been reminded that it is much easier stuff to whack up into a quick meal than spaghetti.
And the night after that, our second visit to the 'Dark Horse' at Brading. Not a bad place at all and last night I thought to try their apple crumble. Which, for once in a while, turned out to be a dish which we could reverse engineer, the solution we came to following.
Buy 3 litre tin of chopped apple with sugar. Make up a few pounds of crumble mix. Buy some cartons of Ambrosia custard. All this will keep for some days.
Buy collection of miscellaneous small pots from local charity shop. Need to be more high than wide and about right for a single pudding portion. Buy small jugs and rectangular plates, these last about 9 inches by 4, of a size to hold one pot and one jug in a tasteful way. Off white, silk finish, not the bright white gloss finish.
Suppose that one does an average of ten crumbles a day.
Each morning make up ten crumbles by putting a dollop of the apple in the bottom of a pot and a dollop of the crumble on top of that. Smooth. Bake in a hot oven for 10 minutes or so. Set to cool and then place in the fridge.
When one gets the order, put dollop of the Ambrosia in small jug. Place one of the pots and the newly filled jug in microwave and give them a quick blast. Serve on one of the rectangular plates.
Leave spares in fridge and try to remember to use stock in the right order.
Might be a good idea to prime the pump with 5 extra pots on the first day.
A pudding which can with honesty be described as home made, although island produce might be stretching things a bit. And Ambrosia use too much vanilla for my taste.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Culinary affairs
Bought two white loaves now - baking being temporarily in abeyance - the dough of which appeared to have been very wet when put to second rise, assuming that is that there was a second rise. The markings on the ends and edges of the loaves were those of a sponge cake mix rather than those of the bread dough that I make. But if I make dough wet enough to mark in that sort of way, it does not rise. Is it all down to the Chorleywood Process, the devil incarnate of the whole bread crew?
NVQ bakery course clearly calling. I need indoctrination into the ways of the devil, if only to satisfy my curiosity.
On a more positive note, great success with the macaroni sauce last night. The macaroni itself, despite being a few months past its best-by date and sticking to the bottom of the rather scarred Le Creusot pot we presently have the use of, was fine. But the sauce was better than fine. Started by chopping up the stump of the lump of smoked back from Manor Green Road and simmering it in butter for a bit. Add some finely chopped garlic. Added some chopped onion. Add a chopped red pepper ('Heritage' brand from Costcutter). Add a chopped green pepper. Add some chopped tomatoes. Access denied to tinned tomatoes and tomato paste. Simmer gently for an hour. Add chopped mushroom stalks. Simmer for a bit. Add coarsely sliced mushroom caps. Simmer for a bit and serve next to the macaroni. Not, myself, approving of the on-top approach.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Faith
Recently acquired a full length biography of Margaret Clitheroe; published by Burn & Oates, carrying the imprimatur and previously owned by a small nunnery so probably OK.
On this reading, I am very puzzled as to why a good looking young mum with a prosperous butcher for a husband, should convert to the old faith - she had been brought up in the times of unsettled faith after Henry VIII had stirred everything up - and be prepared to die, in good cheer, in an unpleasant way for that faith. Puzzled why someone with so much to lose in this world should do such a thing for the next. Was she more or less mad? Would she be on medication for her own protection if she was living now?
I also read about a number of priests who went to their execution happy in the knowledge that they were about to take lunch with the lord. Which ties in well with the crack made by Richard III in the play written about the same time that Clarence's family should be grateful that he, Richard, had helped him on his way to heaven. A more complex joke in those days of true believers. A modern audience just laughs at the stupidity of it.
Another puzzle was talk of sacrifice. That our lord was such an angry man that he needed his only son to be crucified, to die the unpleasant death of common criminals, in order to slake his anger. Nothing less would do. And that we chose to invent such a lord to worship. I can just about understand that one might have so little anger management on board that one needed a few deaths to slake it - I have read something of the sort about Ivan the Terrible - but to make such a one the all highest seems bizarre. Primitive.
On a lower note, I have been wondering about the use of the suffix 'ese'. So one has Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Burmese and Javanese. Is this some relic of colonialism in the far east? But then I remember Bearnese, a person from Bearn, cropping up in Fred Vargas. Then Maltese. So we have the name for the inhabitants of a place and the name for the language that they speak derived by adding a suffix from the name of the place. Which does not work with Germany, France or England. Is the drill that there are special arrangements for the countries which we talk about the most, in the way that the most common verbs are usually irregular, and then there is a bunch of rules covering the rest? Names of place ending in 'm' or 'n' get 'ese'. Names of place ending in something else get something else. Clearly something to ponder on a rainy day.
PS: another geek note. Good that the Isle of Wight County Council still sees fit to run an open access and free internet facility in the formerly important town of Brading, but bad that their setup blocks copy and paste from notepad. With the result that I fail to get the accent appropriate into Bearn. I have come across this problem in this sort of facility before; must be something to do with providing an appropriate level of security.
On this reading, I am very puzzled as to why a good looking young mum with a prosperous butcher for a husband, should convert to the old faith - she had been brought up in the times of unsettled faith after Henry VIII had stirred everything up - and be prepared to die, in good cheer, in an unpleasant way for that faith. Puzzled why someone with so much to lose in this world should do such a thing for the next. Was she more or less mad? Would she be on medication for her own protection if she was living now?
I also read about a number of priests who went to their execution happy in the knowledge that they were about to take lunch with the lord. Which ties in well with the crack made by Richard III in the play written about the same time that Clarence's family should be grateful that he, Richard, had helped him on his way to heaven. A more complex joke in those days of true believers. A modern audience just laughs at the stupidity of it.
Another puzzle was talk of sacrifice. That our lord was such an angry man that he needed his only son to be crucified, to die the unpleasant death of common criminals, in order to slake his anger. Nothing less would do. And that we chose to invent such a lord to worship. I can just about understand that one might have so little anger management on board that one needed a few deaths to slake it - I have read something of the sort about Ivan the Terrible - but to make such a one the all highest seems bizarre. Primitive.
On a lower note, I have been wondering about the use of the suffix 'ese'. So one has Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Burmese and Javanese. Is this some relic of colonialism in the far east? But then I remember Bearnese, a person from Bearn, cropping up in Fred Vargas. Then Maltese. So we have the name for the inhabitants of a place and the name for the language that they speak derived by adding a suffix from the name of the place. Which does not work with Germany, France or England. Is the drill that there are special arrangements for the countries which we talk about the most, in the way that the most common verbs are usually irregular, and then there is a bunch of rules covering the rest? Names of place ending in 'm' or 'n' get 'ese'. Names of place ending in something else get something else. Clearly something to ponder on a rainy day.
PS: another geek note. Good that the Isle of Wight County Council still sees fit to run an open access and free internet facility in the formerly important town of Brading, but bad that their setup blocks copy and paste from notepad. With the result that I fail to get the accent appropriate into Bearn. I have come across this problem in this sort of facility before; must be something to do with providing an appropriate level of security.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Searching
Another quirk from the world of searching. Last night, I decided that I must go to a performance of the Schubert C major string quintet, D956; a famous piece which I play from time to time on the gramophone but which I do not recall hearing for real.
So I ask Mr. Google about performances of same. He turns out to be quite good about past performances and fairly good about future performances. But future performances is a bit patchy, with the only near relevant one being at a church called Cratfield, of which I had not previously heard but is near Southwold and appears to host a well established music festival.
Next stop the Wigmore Hall web site and I put 'D956' into their search box, which brings up a batch of performances, mostly in the past but one being on 10 December next. Just the ticket. From which we deduce that the part of the Wigmore Hall system where they store information about performances is not visible to Mr. Google. Is it open to web hosts to block the google crawlers? And if so, why would they want to do that? Or is it that the google crawlers can't crawl around databases? Which might be because you can't see the big files which constitute databases from the outside or because even if you could it would not be possible to build a sensible hit out of some string which turned up deep inside one.
The result of which is that lower order venues like Cratfield which store their programme as a single web page which google can and does crawl over are google visible, whereas higher order venues like Wigmore Hall with their sophisticated web sites are google invisible.
Would it be worth the Wigmore Hall publishing a google searchable version of their programme? I would not have thought that producing a report of this sort from their database would be a huge chore - and once it was done it would be done. Should I send in a suggestion to this effect in the hope of scoring free tickets for evermore?
All's well in geekworld!
Saturday, July 16, 2011
A medley
Today was the day for pheasant for lunch, BH having acquired two small ones from a slightly dodgy stall in an Epsom farmers' market a few months ago, pheasant being something I last recall eating nearly thirty years ago. These ones were roasted for a short while and served with mash and straight (as opposed to crinkly) cabbage. One was enough for the two of us but was a touch tough, quite hard to separate limbs from trunk, so we need to explore alternative cooking options. There were also some rather unsightly yellow streaks in the meat, possibly some kind of special pheasant fat.I was reminded of the chap in TB who claims to have eaten crow in his poverty stricken youth in the fifties (of the last century), his father being given them from time to time by a farmer he did odd jobs for and his mother stewing them up in a large stew pot which was kept going from one week to the next. Cleaned out on quarter days and name days. The connection being that a small pheasant is a lot smaller than the average chicken and one is much more conscious in consequence of eating a small animal. Plus there are lots of bits and bobs. Crows are rather smaller than pheasants so presumably one would be even more conscious. Not to mention all the small birds caught in Brueghelian bird traps (see for example, 'Winterlandschaft mit Schlittschuhläufern und Vogelfalle'. Bottom right) and the four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. Presumably you need that many to make a decent pie. And perhaps the people that ate them just crunched all the bits and bobs up.
Cherries from Spain and Braeburns for desert. Cherries excellent - big fat jobs from the regular Epsom market - but the Braeburns - although they had a good texture - tasted a bit thin, either after the cherries or after the Pink Ladies in the days before.
Followed by a stroll in the garden to inspect the water lilly, recently savaged by a fox. We had another flower, full out in the sun but with curiously bleached & streaked outer petals, which rather took away from the flower as a whole. No idea what would have done this.
Later in the afternoon felt the need for a top-up and tried the large white bloomer with small black seeds we had bought, for once in a while, from the market. I have bought bread from this chap before and not thought too much of it, but this loaf was fine. Fresh with a properly chewy crust, not too hard. Will I ever learn to make bread like this? Presently reduced to making wholemeal along, I believe, with many other home bread makers.
Planning to tuck into crabs' legs with bubble & squeak (from the veg. left over from lunch) shortly.
Pheasant & salad sarnies for tomorrow's picnic.
All in all, Epsom market did quite well out of us today.
I close with some botanical factlets, new to me.
First, orchids are named from the Ancient Greek for balls or testes, from the shape of the roots of some varieties.
Second, the very large orchid family belongs to the asparagus order. So the orchid is really a sort of asparagus.
Third, the lettuce like object which you might use to make a crab salad and which I call endive - and which I do not remember seeing for sale - is the adult version of the juvenile - which I do remember seeing for sale. Illustrated above.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Globular
More bard last night with my first outing to 'Much Ado About Nothing' since attending the Novello Theatre on or about 5th January 2007, this time at the Globe. Comments on the old show apply pretty much to the new: good fun but with too much care & attention lavished on the pantomime side of things, particularly on the rustics of the second half, one result of which was that it was far too long at 3 hours including interval. Good leading couple, and in some sense or other, the globular thrusting stage gave their goings on a different flavour from those under the proscenium arch at the Novello. The only bit missing was the expensive cigars lavished on the Novello show. This one was sold out, the audience seemed to love it (especially the bit about being encouraged to whoop, hiss, clap and cheer at all points (all of which went some way to hiding the words)) and I was reduced to the upper balcony which I did not much care for, old ears not stretching enough far down, whooping notwithstanding.
After some pondering I work out the the 'TE' of several posts around the time of the old show is the initials of a person, disguised for privacy. But it took me a few seconds to work out who it was. Perhaps a lot of seconds in a year or two's time. And the blog search facility produces rather odd results for this particular string, although they do appear to include what I was looking for. The search must be a tricky beast, given the way it sometimes throws out googlies. Perhaps all the blogs are held in deconstructed form in some huge database and the search has to work its way through that, and back out again.
Earlier in the day I had finished with 'Bounce', trailed on 12th July, a book sold on the basis that it exploded the talent myth. On could get on fine without it.
It turns out to be a short book of popular science with a strong sports bias, written by a ping-pong player turned sports journalist. A journalist who topically enough thinks that News Corp. are wonderful people to work for. A journalist with a sometimes irritating writing style, particularly so in the middle half of the book. This perhaps the consequence of someone who usually writes a page having to write hundreds.
While I find the central claim that talent is not necessary unproven, certainly in the case of the more cerebral activities, he does come up with some surprising stories. One can certainly do quite well without what is commonly called natural talent. One particularly striking example was a Hungarian, not particularly a chess player himself, who set out to breed chess champions and who went on to have three girls, all of whom went on to achieve considerable success in the chess world.
There was also some stuff which I recognised about the need to be very careful about calling anyone talented. Being given the label can have all kinds of bad effects, including becoming very intolerant of failure. Success is built on failure! Successful people know how to use failure rather than worry about how to avoid it! Nevertheless, a mantra which works in the school room or the training camp but which needs to be applied with care in the bank.
More convincing are his tales about the importance of good quality and good quantity training. Few if any sports people make it to the top of the heap without it. Ten thousands of hours of it to be precise. A corollary, is that you quite often get clusters of success coming out of very special circumstances. Clusters which die out when their special circumstances are copied or or stop being special otherwise. Perhaps the uniquely gifted coach retires or dies.
The second half of the book moves onto other matters, about sports success more generally. So there is a section on the importance of positive thinking and on how to achieve what he calls 'double think'. This last including the ability to be able to believe, at the time that it matters, that victory is certain. At a time when it is far from certain, but one needs to believe to perform. There is another section on what he calls 'choking', which is what happens when the conscious attempts to take over control from the unconscious. A complete disaster in the case of finely honed skills but something which can happen to any top class practitioner of such skills. Another section on the importance of rituals, amulets and other magic in higher sport. The penultimate section on drugs in sport and the ultimate on black runners. In which last he makes the reasonable point, which I had not thought of or come across before, that the fact that black people happen to be good at sprint running and at long distance running does not mean that being black has anything much to do with running. About on a par with saying that having blue eyes, as I do, says that you have the genes for flannel. He goes on to provide a good, race free explanation for the long distance running, but does not do such a clean job for the sprint running.
So not twaddle at all, after all. I imagine the material would go down well in management courses, so I am a little surprised that I did not come across in my days in the world of work. Cuddles yes, knocking talent in favour of training and attitude no.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
King Kev
Yesterday to see King Richard III at the Old Vic, which was full for the occasion. Quite a young and dowdy audience. Very few people dressed up at all flashily. Two large young ladies sitting next to us, with democratic accents and whose tendency to whisper during the action reminded me of the recent Mellor complaint about the standards of modern operatic audiences. They also appeared to be taking on a fair ration of the vino during the proceedings, rushed out some minutes before the interval, perhaps to stock up before the rush, and stood (along with many others) to clap at the end. We suspected they were part of the Spacey fan club.
For some reason I had remembered the theatre as being rather longer than it was. Perhaps on the last occasion we had been sitting at the very back, perhaps behind one of the pillars, which would have made the auditorium seem longer than it did from where we were sitting yesterday, in the middle of row S. I had had also forgotten that the new owners had messed around with the proscenium arch, building out in front of it, obliterating the first line of boxes and with a large gantry with lights hanging above. Rather spoilt the appearance of things as one gazed forward, waiting for the action. But, to be fair, one forget about it once the action had started. But see comments from the time when we were last there which was on or around March 29, 2009.
Given the size of the cast and the complex goings on, the producer had had the helpful idea of projecting the name of the lead in each scene onto the back of the stage. So 'Margaret' or 'Anne' or whatever. But I could have done with it being done slightly less noisily. I suspect that some helpful explanation had also been inserted into the text.
And then, despite the fact that my copy of the text is clearly described as a tragedy, the thing was played largely for laughs. A sin compounded by the tendency, observed before in the Globe, of modern audiences to laugh in all the wrong places, renaissance sensibilities and preoccupations simply appearing silly rather than tragic. Again, as observed before in the Globe, the men, with the honourable exception of Spacey who was strong, failed to convince as men of war who had just come through 20 years of havoc and mutual slaughter. Far too urbane. And the important point that Richard might have been bad, but was just more successfully bad than all the rest of them, was rather muted. Also that, that after fifty years of Henrican incompetence, another minority was not really such a good idea. Also that Margaret had got fairly dirty hands too; a regular lioness in winter.
All in all, the production was very Spacey centric, with the honourable exception of the ladies who made a valiant effort to provide some sober and sensible balance. Buckingham was a presence, but a comic rather than a sober one.
Quite long at 3 hours, but it rattled along OK for the 2 hours before the interval, which seemed to chop Act IV, Scene 2 in half, although the programme was agnostic on this point. Last third, after the interval, seemed a bit slower. Perhaps, Richard having finally made it to the throne, it was all down hill.
Towards the end I was pleased to see that Margaret was carrying what appeared to be a middle sized & middle aged Globetrotter case for her travels. That is to say a grey fibre glass affair from what used to be a fine brand, much patronised by regular travellers, such as people who worked for airlines and tour companies. I own several of them, all bar one from car booters. Sadly, the first one that I owned was damaged by a parking meter and when I came to replace it, Globetrotter had gone far downhill from their glory days and amongst other crimes were using a light grey fibre glass to which they applied a dark grey paint, paint which gradually flaked off with use. Most unsightly. I doubt whether you can buy them at all now.
On the way home, following up the agnostic point, I searched the programme for any mention of work on the text, which had presumably been fiddled with for the occasion. But I found no mention of anything of the sort; the only writer getting a credit was the bard himself and no-one living was credited with preparing the text for the production despite the fact that we had been invited to shell out £9 or something for a copy. We were not even told what text had been used as a foundation. Perhaps one had to shell out the £9 for information of that sort. The £4 programme was there to tell us about parallels with Gadhafi and stuff of that sort.
Having been warmed up in this way, and ready to pay attention to the words as well as to the action, it would now be good to see a more traditional production. Probably not worth trotting up to Hampstead to see the one there put on by Hall junior; from the write up it looks far too much like this one. A sort of cut price, bloodied up version.
Luncheon
Roast rib of beef for lunch, the first time for a while. 5lbs 9.5oz done for 1 hour 50 minutes at 190C followed by 10 minutes with the oven turned off. Basted with about 1oz of lard and oven door opened once for further basting at around the 1 hour 30 minutes mark. Served with boiled flat cabbage and boiled newish (taste the difference) potatoes. Best beef we have had from Manor Green Road since I can remember. Excellent texture and flavour. Might even pop in and tell him so if I happen to pass tomorrow.
Followed up with a Pink Lady for desert. Not quite as good as those we had last week, but still a very good apple considering it did not grow any where near here any time recently. The web site (http://www.pinkladyapples.co.uk/) tells one nothing about who grows the things or where, but does have a South African competition, so maybe from there. On the other hand, I have read about half the crop of them from Washington State going to McDonalds so who knows.
Common sense rules!
We found a 'Daily Mail' on our last expedition to London which, inter alia, contained two heartening draughts of common sense.
The first told us that buying solar panels for your roof was a big con put on by a consortium of eco. panel manufacturers, builders and the government. It seems that you can spend £15,000 to panel up your roof in order to save £100 a year. Murdoch and his kind wouldn't touch such an investment with a used 'News of the World'. Nor would I. I have never seen any trustworthy sums about the matter but my prejudices on this one are stroked by the headlines to this article and I can continue not to think about panels without bothering to read any further and without guilt.
The second was a half page article (with half as much again for the headlines) by a rather solemn looking chap who writes under the name of Christopher Booker. That may even be his real name. And he goes one further. The whole eco. thing is a big con. The lunatics have taken over the asylum. Not altogether clear who stands to gain on this one, apart from all those scientists banking fat grant cheques for their pet projects (or perquisites) dressed up in eco. clothes. Just like in the days of the cold war when anything dressed up in defence (or even attack) clothes was good for a few bob from the good ole' DoD.
His beef appears to be that we are having to stump up lots of dosh to fund all these pet projects and vastly more to fund a switch away from gases claimed to be green house by a bunch of long hairs. His argument appears to be that because temperature is not climbing up and up in a nice tidy way, the whole claim that temperature is climbing is tosh. That claims that changing weather is bad or that this changing is caused by green house gases are tosh. In fact, tosh everywhere.
For myself, I find the sober language deployed in the Stern Report (readily available from some Treasury website) more convincing than the populist style of this article. I am not convinced that just because the world has been whizzing around for billions of years without disaster, that we are not heading for one now. Is it not just the sort of thing it might be better to play safe on?
PS: according to Wikipedia, despite Christopher B's apparent solemnity, he was one of the founders of 'Private Eye' and harbours heretical beliefs about both evolution and the health risks associated with smoking. He may even be a flat earther. Glory be! Clearly a suitable person to be telling the readers of the Daily Mail all about the niceties of climate change.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
The wrong model railway
A couple of weekends ago we happened to pass a brown sign on a motorway exit saying 'to the model village'. As it happened we had an hour or so in hand and BH wanted to visit the place from which FIL had fond memories of visits, many years before. So we followed the brown signs, which did not let us down for once, and found ourself outside the entrance to Bekonscot (http://www.bekonscot.co.uk/). There was even somewhere to park. On entry, we claimed to the man at the window that this was our first visit for 50 years and we were not impressed that he seemed so little impressed. I didn't see how he could have known that we were overdoing it a bit; it was only BH, not the pair of us.
The model village and its model railway occupied maybe an acre. Houses, railways, ponds and plants packed tight and immaculate over the whole. In the bright morning sunlight the whole was most attractive; a bit silly, but fun. There were pubs, hotels and restaurants. Care homes and hospitals. Cement factories and coal mines. And lots of railways. I was very impressed that they had brought in a chunk of real signal box with real (Westinghouse) signalling & control equipment and had wired some of the railways up to it. In a concession to the modern era, the rest of them were controlled by a computer.
One nice touch was a model of Enid Blyton's house which had been presented a few years previously by the then mayor of Beaconsfield. Another was that the place, despite being a fairly serious attraction, was run by volunteers as a charity.
An anachronism was the model of a fox being hunted across some fields. Drag hunting not yet having reached Bekonscot.
And the fish had a scaly problem. The coy carp might have been splendid but they were on the scale of whales rather than fish, relative to the human inhabitants.
Very pleased with ourselves we reported back to FIL at the end of the day, only to find that it was the wrong model village. His model village was at a place called Bourton-on-the-Water (http://www.theoldnewinn.co.uk/), was entirely different and certainly of greater grandeur and antiquity. Enquiries with Mr. Google suggest that the two places were built at roughly the same time, in the thirties of the last century, at a time when such model villages were a lot more common that they are now. There is also one at the Isle of Wight so we will clearly have to go there when the summer hols. come around.
Monday, July 11, 2011
What price the new extension?
Thought to pop into Wickes this morning to see if they had anything suitable for measuring the water that goes in my bread, which they didn't. But they were offering plastic sheets which could be used as tarpaulins. Cheap blues ones for domestic use or dear green ones for the professional. I settled for a cheap blue one, 4 metres by 5. Get it unpacked to find that there are indeed eyelets around the edges, although one is missing, so rather easier to hang than the thing we found up on the hill after the Derby the other year. A much smaller green cloth affair which was probably some piece of camping equipment but which, mysteriously, had eyelets down only one of the four sides.Start to think about erection to find that I only installed five scaffold ties into the fascias of the flat roofs on either side of the patio. Down to Screwfix to buy some more where I find that they come in fives at a price which clearly scared me off buying ten last time around. But this time not scared off and the sixth tie is now installed. Open to offers on the four remaining.
Followed by trial installation of the blue sheet. Various false starts but ended by having one long edge of the sheet tied to the extension side ties (off the top right of the illustration) and draping the other long edge over a rope strung between the garage side ties.
Which results in a rather nifty semi-outdoor, semi-enclosed, more or less shower proof and completely private dining area. Beer bottles are full but they are there for illustrative purposes only.
PS: I have just learned from the DT that the Abney Cemetery that we visited last year (see May 5th 2010) has been infested with tropical rat mites. Rather unpleasant things by the sound of it so we were lucky to have missed them.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Florals
Yesterday to Hampton Court to see all the flowers of the show outside the gates to the Palace gardens. Very handsome some of them were too. And the show tradition of rewarding exotics with gold stars continues; it seems to be much easier to get gold stars with cacti or bonsai which don't grow naturally here than with stocks or aubretia which do. That said, the exotics were fascinating and this year I was much more taken with the cacti than the bonsai. But much more taken altogether with the specimens illustrated. Someone at flower show knew his cabbages.
The show was very up to date too, with some show gardens especially designed to encourage us to reflect on breast cancer or the plight of grey spotted newts. What twaddle; worthy of the brit art crew.
As ever, a good proportion of the space was given over to merchandise with a vaguely garden flavour. So there was a selection of more or less ridiculous huts to erect in your garden, mostly coming in at between £5,000 and £10,000. I don't think Champions (http://www.championtimber.com/) bothered to turn up; their stuff obviously not being up to snuff. The prize for imagination goes to the chap who was selling lovingly crafted replicas of shepherd's huts - the sort than run along on iron wheels - at the top end of the range. It seems that lots of people just love have one of them in their garden for use as a study, a spare bedroom (they are vary carefully insulated) or whatever. An important advantage is that you only need the wonga, there being no need for planning permission to install an agricultural implement in your garden.
In fact, an awful lot of the merchandise was entirely unsuitable for us suburban folk, whom I imagine made up 99% of the visitors to the show. But I suppose that we only visit on the basis that for the day we can pretend to have the sort of garden for which this sort of stuff might be vaguely suitable. Which would bring one around to the idea that the show organisers have to pay merchandisers to provide a show, rather than the other way around. And that it would be quite fun to have a peek at the accounts. Who pays what to whom. Do the RHS subcontract the whole business to Merlin Entertainments (the people that run Chessington World of Adventures)?
However, this is all froth. My only real complaints were the sarnies and the beer. The former were in rather short supply and those that there were were something short of hale & hearty and the latter, despite being described as traditional ale, was cold Adnams out of a gas tap. And I had thought that Adnams was a reputable brewer.
But what irritates me about this is the way that the legal profession is steadily getting its claws deeper and deeper into the day to day running of the country, claiming the right to second guess all kinds of relatively unimportant administrative activity. Is this their response to our attempts to give the legal aid bill a haircut? If one avenue for profit closes, open up another?
I allow the need for something of the sort as a remedy of last resort. But I do not allow its being invoked by anyone with a beef. It is not a very efficient way of doing business.
Rather less serious was the deep concern felt by HRH The Prince of Wales over the discovery that in a carefully selected sample of 600 adults resident in this country, a significant proportion were able to estimate neither the number of miles of dry stone wall in the country nor the number of miles of hedgerow in the country. There was even a hint that some of the 600 did not know what a dry stone wall was. What on earth is the chap on? Why would anyone other than a member of the chosen few with a deep interest in the matter have a clue? Or did the DT make it all up?
Saturday, July 09, 2011
Man bites dog
We have not quite achieved that but we do have a couple of oddities.
First, the case of the fox biting the water lilly. The lilly, now a few years old, throws out leaves in two sizes, large and small. The large possibly from the original bud and the small from a new bud. The large leaves have grown larger year by year and are now about 6 inches in diameter and quite often they stick up out of the rather small pond. This has now attracted the attention of some fox which has bitten a couple of them off and generally pulled the lilly around in its pond. At least, we assume it is a fox. Can't imagine a cat, a rat or a bird doing such a thing. Yet another reason to invest in a catapult.
Second, the case of the crow biting the heron. Some months ago, there was a large hole in the road up Longmead Road. It seems that some large junction box was leaking oil and required the attention of Balfour Beatty no less; far too big a junction box for Murphy's men. While the leak was being attended to, some of the leaking oil found its way into the stream which runs up the road, so full of the spirit of eco., Beatty's men installed booms and absorbent mats in the stream to soak the stuff up. Booms and mats have been abandoned in situ and yesterday I happened to be gazing at all the aquatic and other detritus which has accumulated around them when I happened to spot a heron standing in the middle of it. Heron then legs it and takes up position behind a tree twenty yards off. After about ten seconds it emerges, flapping further up the stream, being buzzed the meanwhile by a crow. Odd that such a big bird should be intimidated by such a small one, relatively speaking that is. I caught up with the heron again several hundred yards further on, at the junction with Hook Road, where it had been lurking in some bushes.
Friday, July 08, 2011
Participative democracy
We start on Wednesday when I was entertained for half an hour or so by the sight of 4 or 5 MPs in an otherwise empty House of Commons - the place where democracy as we know it was invented - droning on about Afghanistan. It was a bit of a puzzle exactly what purpose was served by this bit of television, although, in fairness, I imagine that now broadcasting of the House is up and running the marginal cost per broadcast hour is probably not much. Less than that of the tackiest reality show of the ordinary sort.
Most of what I heard was very dull. Some of it was very badly delivered. Some of it was read, verbatim, from scripts. Some of was delivered by a former statesmen, now in retirement but perhaps doing his bit to try and show beginners how it should be done. Perhaps trying to recapture his glory days. But I am not sure that there is all that much interest outside of the whips' offices in the training of MPs. Perhaps the point is that all proceedings are broadcast, with the lightest of editorial touches. We get to see what our governors get up to; which would be so much more worthy if our governors did much governing these days. I don't suppose that the people who actually make up our policy on Afghanistan even bothered to read the transcript, never mind attend in person.
And then today I participated in a democratic event of a different sort, at least I almost participated. I was at breakfast when FIL rushed into the kitchen to announce that the PM was going to make an announcement at 0930 sharp. So I trotted into the sitting room and fired up the appropriate channel (under direction from the BH). Had the PM decided to nationalise the News of the World, that fearless exposer of scandal at, for example, the Ely Hospital in Bristol, rather than see it sink? We sat and waited while some talking head extemporised, doing quite a good job of it as it happened. At 0938 I decided to resume breakfast. Some minutes later I was summoned to find the man in full flood. Doing an excellent imitation of Blair looking solemn and serious while remaining a man of & for the people. I lasted a couple of minutes before breakfast was resumed.
Now while it is a bit poor that journalists see fit to nose around in peoples' mobile phones, it is slightly odd that the media work themselves up into such a frenzy over this unacceptable tip of an otherwise acceptable iceberg. Journalists have poked around in bins for ever. They have used fancy cameras outside (or over) peoples' houses for a long time. And there are lots of people who like to read the product over their eggy soldiers. All kinds of people are authorised to tap our phones and tap our email now and into the foreseeable future. There are cameras everywhere. Not to mention the ones at airports which provide the operators with a low grade peep show.
And then there are all those people who like to share their intimate details in the course of conversations with their mobiles on crowded trains. The lots of people who go to a lot of trouble to get their affairs into the media. The some people who are prepared to hang up all kinds of dirty washing in no more than the hope that they will get their 10 minutes in the sun.
Perhaps all this frenzy reflects our unease, our collective guilt.
On the supposition that the media frenzy actually reflects some feelings in the population at large, one goes onto the thought that the great British public needs an emotional bath of this sort from time to time. A bath which is usually triggered by a tragic death or a missing person. I suppose the present bath is at least about tragedy at one remove. What A. Huxley fingered nearly 100 years ago as a violent passion surrogate (see http://www.huxley.net/bnw/seventeen.html), in his story something to be administered by injection rather than by transmission. In his defence we can say that radio was fairly new at the time and television had hardly been thought of.
PS: there is good news too. The jelly lichen on the patio has pushed up after the recent heavy rain. Must lurk dormant underground, ready to spring into visible life when circumstances permit.
Thursday, July 07, 2011
DIY completion
After yesterday's posting, decided that what the tables needed as a finishing touch was metal corners - things which wrap around the corners of a wooden box, for example a carpenters's tool box, and are fixed with one screw on each plane - to stop the exposed corners to the plywood tops getting damaged. We are not talking birch ply here, rather some lower grade stuff from the corners of which one could quite easily take quite a bite.
Garratt Lane clearly the place to try and source such things. The first possible shop, the place, as it happens from where I bought the padlock for our garage, turned out to be an empty shell. Dead and buried. At the second shop, the proprietor, perhaps an Italian, sold all kinds of DIY ironmongery and knew exactly what I was talking about but did not stock them. Most apologetic. The next two shops were more household hardware and run by subcontinentals, and while they did have DIY ironmongery did not have the things in question.
Next I thought to try Broadway Market, a superior version of the indoor market we used to have in Epsom when we first moved here. And I thought I had struck gold when I came across a stall run by a West Indian selling salvage ironmongery. Sadly, while he also knew exactly what I was talking about - he had the things on his own toolbox - he did not sell them. As a consolation prize I bought myself a couple of short fat Jamaican cucumbers from the stall opposite. Air freighted from Kingston, which might account for the price of £1.20 each. Turned out to be very like the ridge cucumbers I used to grow in Cambridge. White flesh inside rather than green and with a tendency to go watery in the seedy part in the middle. Rather harder and crisper skin than regular cucumbers. But no ridges. All in all, good gear.
Carrying on down Mitcham Road tried two or three more household hardware stores without success. But then, more or less at Amen Corner (see May 16th), came across Ace Mica Hardware (http://www.acemica.co.uk/) which claimed to have everything one could possibly want for DIY. And they did indeed sell case corners from 'Securit' at £1.40 for 4, including screws. I declined the strap on the grounds that I was finishing a table not a case.
By the time I got home, I had decided that the half inch screws which came with the corners were not really the thing. While the half inch three screws at a corner would indeed meet at a point, I wanted something a bit stronger. Less than half an inch of thread in softwood was not going to hold too much. Riffled around in my screw box - containing perhaps 10kg of screws - without finding anything terribly suitable. So the following morning, that is to say this morning, down to Robert Dyas to see what they could do, which turns out to be 30 one inch No. 4 for £1.40 or so. Not ideal but better than what had come from Securit. Proceeded in an north easterly direction to Wickes, which did not, as it turned out, improve on Robert Dyas. Not really into small screws at all; more carpenter than cabinet maker. Cut back to Screwfix who were not really into small screws either - in fact screws only occupied four or five out of the four or five hundred pages in their catalogue, despite their name - but they did have a packet of 200 3mm by 30mm turbogold twin thread for £3.03. Good value and much more the length I was looking for although it turned out that the 3 bit meant diameter of the shank rather than that of the head. So the heads were rather bigger than I wanted.
The 8 case corners are now fixed to the table tops with one 3mm by 30mm screw apiece, driven through the face of the tables rather than their edges and dipped in wood glue for further security. Rather as with teeth implants, knocking the corners off now will do serious damage to the infrastructure. The only fly in the ointment was the fact that screw manufacturers have mucked around with the shape of cross head screws again so that none of my cross head screwdrivers fitted the cross heads in the snug way that they should for confident driving. But I did manage.
I note in passing that BH's late uncle's vernier callipers tell me that the 30mm length screws are actually 29.5mm in length. I ought to be able to get another decimal point but I find first that my eyes are not up to it, even with a magnifying glass, and second that I am not terribly sure how to read a vernier any more. Back to school on that one.
I also note in passing that Kentish cherries were £2.50 in Epsom Market this morning, compared with the £1.50 in Broadway Market. Good quality thought so I do not mind the extra £1 too much.
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
DIY
Following the post on June 27th, I can now report that the project is just about on schedule, with the illustration being a view of the underside of the near complete table from the left hand side of the second trestle. Note the pleasing two tone effect.Yesterday to lunch at our local branch of the Barons Pub Company (http://www.baronspubs.com/), a company which appears to come without an apostrophe, a pub called the Star, a convenient walk across Epsom Common from where we live.
Inside dining room should have been fine but was rather spoilt by musak, so we settled for dining under the giant red umbrella out front. A sufficiently giant umbrella that it had a slender black post holding up each corner, in addition to the overhead white steel. Comfort was enhanced by rather spectacular hanging baskets - baskets which the waitress told us had been going strong for weeks, the work of some hanging basket contractor who trundled around once a fortnight or so to make sure that all was well. I wonder now what all this flower dressing must have cost them.
Started off with a very satisfactory couple of pints of Sharp's Doombar. Didn't fancy any of the starters - nothing light like bread and oil or olives - so moved direct onto the main course, in my case calves liver. Which was served on a four inch diameter cylinder of mashed potato tricked out with a bit of veg. to earn its fancy name (colcannon) and which was OK but not great. The liver was cut a bit thick, included the odd bit of pipe, was a bit over cooked and the accompanying gravy was over flavoured. Was then tempted by the cheese but on reading that it came in the form of a cheese medley, with celery, some kind of marmalade and biscuits, decided to abstain, despite its being perfect to share. After three pints of Doombar, did not feel up to negotiating something more sensible.
The menu also included my second meeting in as many weeks of a posset for pudding; posset being a word which has negative associations for me and checking with OED reveals that one meaning is the stuff which babies sometimes eject orally after feeding - which might account for the negative associations. The other meaning is a drink made of hot milk curdled with something alcoholic, fortified with sugar and flavoured with spices. Used as a cold remedy. I do not suppose that is what the menu meant either.
But despite this carping and moaning, we will be back. The place has too much going for it to be avoided.
Back home to a couple of encouraging tit-bits from my latest NYRB. Item 1, lots of young Muslims are much more interested in getting some basic democratic facilities at home than in whacking the infidel. Bin Liner, his violent methods and his death all a bit old-hat. Item 2, Syria might have its problems, but it is also a haven of religious tolerance in a generally rather intolerant part of the world. The ruling clique are from a hill dwelling sect with rather eclectic beliefs, which most other Muslims regard as infidel and which was much oppressed over the years by the sunnis of the plain. But when the hill dwelling sect got into the chair, they went in for religious toleration of all the various faiths in their part of the world.
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Another titbit
In the form of an impressive crane from that reliably entertaining site http://englishrussia.com/. This crane was used, it seems, to start the construction of a nuclear power station in the Crimea, construction which after vast expense was canned. The crane is now being used to take the power station down. Yet another place with cooling feet about nuclear power.PS: Mr. Google has deduced on the basis of this post that I really really need a sewage pumping station. Not sure how he worked this out at all.
Imogen Cooper
Following the concert on or around December 9th 2009, have gotten around to hearing Cooper again, this time at the Wigmore Hall. Pretty much sold out and we, perhaps for the very first time, were sitting in the very back row (X) where the acoustics did not seem to be quite spot on. That is to say there seemed to be the odd rumble after the event, perhaps feedback from the microphones or perhaps something to do with our being under the small balcony at the back of the hall.
Four preludes from Debussy, Book II, whereas I think the Pollini ones of June 28th were Book I. Very good, perhaps improved by being played first in the concert when one is better able to absorb all the froth. Main course, Beethoven's piano sonata No. 17. Desert, a nocturne and a ballade from Chopin. Short encore for the enthusiastic if mainly grey audience. Cooper did a very good job on this nicely balanced programme - with programme design sharing something with dinner design - lasting just about the hour allocated by Radio 3.
Off to the chemist (http://www.johnbellcroyden.co.uk/) after the show to see if I could buy a measuring cylinder for my breadmaking, my requirement being for a cylinder which can measure between one and two pints of water with half fluid ounce graduations. The sort of thing that one used to used in chemistry classes at school but which does not seem to be available from cook shops and cook departments. The chemist did stock this sort of thing but sadly not one meeting this particular requirement. He could do a conical measuring glass, measuring up to half a litre with 50ml graduations, at around £45 (not going to spend this for breadmaking anyway), but nothing cylindrical with small graduations. On the other hand, he did seem to do a selection of surgical instruments. Presumably they cost even more. Next stop school suppliers.
Then proceeded in a southerly direction towards the National Gallery where I wanted to take a peek at their two Vermeers and at Miss. R. Venus, my recently having hung a reproduction of same in my study. It was quite striking how different the two Vermeer were, despite their being in different rooms and despite their both being of a woman at the virginals. Good to see the real Miss. R. Venus; she helped to put the reproduction - perhaps 1.25 feet wide to the 5 feet wide of the real thing - in perspective, the shrinking having given the reproduction a sort of photographic sharpness not present in the original. Very nice she is too.
Quite striking also how good the lighting is in the National Gallery. In some of the bigger rooms I visited, natural overhead lighting. Vastly superior to that in Somerset House.
Outside we were entertained by a piece of plant art. That is to say a large vertical hoarding planted up with greenery. An effective homage to the Hampton Court Flower Show which is on just presently: we will find out whether they do hoardings too in due course.
PS: Wikipedia tells me that Cooper is almost exactly a month older than me. What a coincidence! Perhaps the power (for me) of her playing is a result. Born under the same stars and all that.
Monday, July 04, 2011
Continued...
I came across another sort of marketing recently with an outfit called Hamell - market research not the one man punk rock band. See http://www.hamell-communications.co.uk/. I came across them in connection with a skin complaint and thought without thinking (as it were) that they might have been conducting research into the complaint in question. But, once again, I was quite wrong. They conduct research into how to move one's medicine from a prescription only status to a pharmacist status - which I think means that your pharmacist can give it to you off his own bat or if you ask for it but that it is not on open display - in a revenue maximising way. They are clearly a very go-ahead outfit as they also offer risk analysis. Not altogether clear what risks it is that they would be analysing but presumably they know. They have the Powerpoint.
Now I don't have any difficulty with having outfits which do this for a living. I was simply struck by their being a need. Could only happen in a rich, market-driven world.
I then move off to the chemist to buy some goo for the complaint, goo which I thought was called Dermal 500. I caused much confusion with both pharmacist and myself until I realised that the 500 bit of what I thought was the end of the name was actually the quantity, which happened to be printed underneath the name on the bottle.
Today I go back to the same chemist, confident that this time I have got it right. Quite wrong. This time the confusion arose because they have changed the shape of the bottle with the result that the box is now like a very large box of toothpaste rather than the box (not cylinder) for one of those round squat bottles of whisky. But we get there in the end.
Houellebecq runs on about a similar thing in his Goncourt prize book. You just get really attached to the design of your Rolex (or whatever) and then they go and change it just before you need to buy a new one. The design you know and like has vanished from the face of the earth - unless, that is, you like to browse the car booters.
Sunday, July 03, 2011
Marketeers
Becoming something of an expert in the activities of people who pester one over the phone. Some of whom are honestly selling something, some of whom are pretending to do a survey and some of whom are actually doing a survey. They seem to have a penchant for calling in the early evening and weekends and to have a remarkable knack for annoying BH - who had thought that by signing up to something called the TPS she was exempt. (The telephone preference service being an operation run by the direct marketing industry and supervised by the Information Commissioner. See http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/).
It all came to a head last week when we get a series of calls, all from the same gang, but a gang which is not deterred by simply asking them to go away. Along the way we acquire the words tns and cantor to bite on.
Onto Google, and tns rapidly resolves itself into a serious looking outfit with a serious looking website at http://www.tnsglobal.com/. Possibly some sprig of our very own Taylor Nelson here at Epsom. Quite a lot of jobs going. I could for example be a VP in Canada answering to the description 'we are looking for a motivated, consultative client service professional who wants to leverage the best and most comprehensive research toolbox in the industry'.
I then move in on cantor which resolves into another serious looking outfit with a sufficiently cunning website that I am unable to capture the fascinating guff they put on it. See http://www.kantar.com/. For some reason, I try another of the Google hits at http://www.kantaroperations.com/ who admit to a substantial operation in India. Is it a call centre? But bigger in the UK and in North America. Quite a lot more jobs going. If I fancied something a bit techy I could try for 'a rare and exciting opportunity has arisen within the Kantar Operations Global Technical Solutions and Development Team for an experienced consultant/programmer/developer already well versed in the Dimensions platform and related technologies (e.g. HTML, XML, JavaScript, Flash/AS3, .Net etc)'. All of which suggests that IT has a big part to play in this operation. Probably a bit old for this, so I try the contact us tab instead. Fill in the various boxes, including a complaint about persistent callers. In just under two hours I get a serious looking reply from a person who has a name, postal address, email address and telephone number. It turns out that if you get a computer to generate random numbers to call for market research purposes there is no rule which says you have to pass that random number against the TPS exclusion list before calling it. Because, while marketing is included in the TPS, market research is excluded. However, if I care to supply my telephone number, they will see what they can do.
Which I do. In just under an hour I get another reply explaining what is going in and that I can go onto the Kantor exclusion list which will at least stop us being pestered any more by them. We hope that we are now on this list.
BH not completely mollified, but I am. This email exchange might have been largely computer generated, but it was quick, informative and, I hope, effective. My only beef is that the chaps & chapesses on the Kantor front line did not seem to be able to take no for an answer. That required email intervention.
Sadly, BH even less mollified when she was called by some other gang at around noon this Sunday morning. Don't the people who do this sort of work have hangovers to look after?
Friday, July 01, 2011
Leni R.
Just finished another cast off from Surrey Libraries, this one a hefty 40p and about Leni Riefenstahl. Translated from the German of a professional cinema buff, that is to say the Director of Cinema at Berlin's German Historical Museum, oddly enough located in the reconstruction of the Royal Brandenburg-Prussian Arsenal. See http://www.dhm.de/.
Being written in Buffish, a bit heavy at times, and not a biography in the usual sense at all, which was a little frustrating. Nevertheless, Leni R. was an interesting bird. Part of the interest being the way in which her star waned for twenty years after the war, then waxed again. And the complete absence of any sense of guilt at having produced the far and away the best propaganda films to have come out of Nazi Germany. Also far and away her best work; without it we would have never heard of her. As it was, she was for a time very cosy with the shiny new Nazi regime, and the recipient of much government money with which to make said propaganda films and to bankroll a fancy lifestyle. And, incidentally, government money which gave rise to an unseemly dispute after the war about royalties. Who did the films belong to?
According to the Director, by using the excuse that she did not know what was going on, applying to her own case the chosen excuse of most of her compatriots, she become a symbolic villain. Someone to be cast out and shunned. But this passed with the passing of her generation, she being lucky enough to outlive most of it.
But the bit which really caught my eye was the way in which she, and she may have been one of the first to successfully do this, conflated the event with the report of the event. The thing itself and it's report became hopelessly intertwined. So we have the Führer, at some solemn moment of the party rally, taking the salute of the multitudes from his limo, with Leni R bottom up in the road by the side of the limo getting the best possible camera angle. She got involved in the planning of the rally to make sure that it was camera friendly. Going further, at the Olympics, some of the shots were staged after the event. They were not live footage at all, but included in the film as if they were. The report of the event has become more important than the event itself: not that this is new. We have been doing it at least since Homer wrote up the Trojan War - and think of how many events you have been to which are far more fun in the telling than they were at the time. Think of all those tourists for whom getting a snap of Big Ben is much more important than looking at the thing. What is new perhaps, is that the process of getting the story to tell has become more intrusive.
But what sort of a royal wedding would it be without huge number of camera people and press people all over the place? Without a giant press room with all kinds of interesting and expensive facilities for all those hard working gents. and gentesses. of the press? And I am going to sue the News of the World because they don't think I am important enough for it to be worth hacking into my mobile phone. Defamation it is to be sure.
This is not to knock the practise. Vicarious participation in important events is an important part of the lives of those of us who do not get invited to important events. Events like royal weddings, football matches and Christmas Carols from Kings. But we tolerate this exclusion, and vote for the people who do get included, provided that we are included from our tinny laden sofas.
PS: I thought about going to Amazon to get DVD copies of the films. But I suspect I have enjoyed reading about the films more than I would enjoy the films themselves. I suspect they would look old and creaky. Interesting to a buff but not to a couch potato. We shall see.
