Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Bin alert
We conducted spot check of the bin situation in our road at 0730 Monday, Monday being bin day. Brown bin alternate day. Out of 137.5 households (the 3 suspected squats counting as 0.5 each), 27% did not appear to know that it was bin day at all. 38% did not know that it was the alternate brown day and had put out their green bin (old-style) . 41% did not appear to have any food waste - and it seems unlikely that all of them compost all their food waste. 22% did not appear to have any newspapers, glass or tins - and again it seems unlikely that this is a true reflection of the numbers not generating any such waste. So we clearly have a long way to go. Perhaps the council ought to organise a litter night at TB, with a free pint for everyone that turns up with their recycling leaflet. Alternatively, an obvious opportunity for any busy who has tired of neighbourhood watch.
On the other hand, the Internet bizzies are alive and well. It seems that the provider of every bit of software on this PC has decided to go in for online update this week. There seems to be no end to the unsolicited pop-ups inviting me to take the latest whizzy release of whatever it is. All very tiresome; although one hesitates before rejecting them as the updates may actually be useful. So, for example, the PC spent some time yesterday taking an update from the BT Broadband Online Support System (B-Boss to cognoscenti, aka B-Brother). But I took it because it may save time when the time comes for the next huddle with their Bangalore help desk.
A very kind review of 'Brooklyn' in a recent edition of the NYRB (see 14/6/2009). It was a review by a lady which may partly account for it being kinder than my short notice. Review extended to 7 columns (less a couple of smallish pictures), so a substantial affair. First column given over to a slightly relevant anecdote drawn from the reviewer's own life. Remainder more or less given over to a resume of the book, which is good, considering how few reviews bother to do more than wave at it occasionally, in the margins of punting some hobby horse of the reviewer's. In this case the chosen comparator was James rather than Joyce. Maybe there is a connection of exiled single women, but James is very dense compared with Toibin. Perhaps I should take a peek at both Brooklyn and James again.
There was also an interesting peice about the economy, in the course of which it was explained that the financial services sector, while doing stalwart duty in keeping the rest of us going, also manages to absorb a large chunk of national product in their own pay and rations. The actual size of the chunk being a rather dodgy quantity. The article talks of the sector generating 30% of all corporate profits, where this excludes pay and rations. Corporate profits being what funds the income drawn by shareholders but not that drawn by employees, so presumably only a small proportion of national product. Must take another peek at those tricky national accounts in my remaindered annual abstract of statistics. But either way, this seems to be quite a big bill to pay for efficient allocation of capital (this being what we are told the financial services sector is for, apart from the dull businesses of insurance and retail banking). Particularly when they have been spectacularly bad at it of late.
Then, on the way to Cheam, got to pondering about who were the winners in the banking mess. So we start with a farmer, in the fringes of some big mid western town in the US, who sells his land to a developer. Better than not growing alfafa. So the farmer has got his dosh and so he is OK. The developer pays a builder to build the houses. The builder gets his dosh so he is OK. The developer then sells the house to a punter so he is OK. The farmer, the builder and the developer have now trousered the (as it turns out) inflated value of a lot of houses. The punter borrows the money off a bank, this last being gorged with cheap dosh from the hard working Chinese who have nowhere else to put it. Punter, being sub-prime, doesn't meet his payments. So the banks, or perhaps in the long run, the Chinese, take a bit of a pasting. But there are clearly lots of winners in this game. So why are they not spending us out of the recession?
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Windows continued
New window has now got to the assembled stage, the expected blood sweat and tears not having materialised on this occasion. Ordinarily, for some reason, however much preparation there is, the actual glueing up stage, when one is past the point of no return, is usually rather fraught. On this occasion, for some reason not so, although it was harder, oddly, to pull the joints up (with the not very often used sash cramps) with glue in than without. Maybe the glue, despite its white gooey appearance is more contact than you might expect and it bonds at every pause in the pulling up process. In which case, it might not bond very well at the end of the pulling up process. We shall see. Despite worries about squareness, the two diagonals were just under a quarter of an inch out at 52.5 and 52.75 inches respectively. Hopefully this will not prove a challenge when the glass man cuts the glass, nor when I poke the thing in the hole. Did allow a bit of margin for this sort of thing. And the theory that if you cut the tenons square the thing will pull up square has stood up reasonably well.
Along the way, took some time out to replace the inner vice pad on my rather low bench. A bench which used to double as a coffee table in our nuptial bed-sit and which was made out of shuttering timber rescued from the last rebuild but one of Croydon Art College. At the time I built the thing I never bothered to put proper pads on it, but have put up with the improper pads on an improper bench ever since, apart from the short interval in Wood Green when I had a proper bench. This last made out of an odd roof timber, tapering from 12 inches to 6 over its twelve feet, rescued from some demolition site and then chopped in half, joined together and given legs. But, on this occasion, tiring of more serious work, decided to take a time out and fit a proper inner pad, made out of a 12 inch square of 1 inch oak, varnished on one side from somewhere or other. I might remember where at some point. Fitted with the unvarnished side outwards in the interests of grip. Now I am worrying whether a pad made out of oak will not be too hard and bruise the various bits and peices it is intended to enclose - unlike the old pad which was made out of something relatively soft, but neither pine nor beech. Looked, in grain, a bit like something I used to call obechi, although it had become brown rather than white. We shall see how long it takes to get onto the outer pad.
Yesterday finished 'Brooklyn' by one Colm Toibin (can't do the funny accents which authentic paddies seem to require in a name of this sort). An interesting read for various reasons. First, it is the third book this year which has been read by both the BH and myself at roughly the same time. Second, the rather flat prose reminded me a bit of the Joyce of the 'Dubliners', while also seeming too long. Too much of the time one felt one knew what tone picture was going to be painted and, in the event, little value was added by the actual painting. At the same time, CT managed to maintain the suspense. One was wondering all the way to the end how it was going to turn out. Third, it was a ladies book. I felt rather like an intruder reading all this stuff. Rather as if I was reading a ladies' magazine. A feeling that it is proper to maintain separation of the sexes, at least for lay people. Knowing all is for professionals and good luck to them. The subcontinentals did not have it all wrong when they invented castes.
I end tweeting. For some reason, I have been very conscious of starlings this year. A bird which was very common when I was small and has not seemed very common in Epsom. But this year, while they are not much into our garden, there have been plenty about. Have been moved to blog them, as I recall, on two occasions, and have seen them on plenty of others. Maybe it is all to do with global warming.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Rain
Kept out of the three quarters finished second potato trench by rain again, but still managed to get to Cheam. Old fashioned yellow capes really do what they say on the tin and they are not that sweaty inside. But the poor old fox who was hit by a car a few days ago is now nearly washed up. A wreck of leaves, twigs and fox all mushed together by the rainwater washing down the hill. On a more cheerful note, acquired a very fine pork chop which went down well for lunch with fresh white bread. Or to be more exact, acquired two pork chops but decided that two was a bit OTT for lunch with toad in the hole coming up for tea. Moderation is the secret of success once one can see the gray hair.
Advent service on Sunday evening at Guilford cathedral. Interesting to see a modern cathedral at work after our recent visit to Ely. In the dark, the place was suprisingly impressive inside - the absence of any kind of rood screen blocking off the centre of operations helping rather than hurting - although the detailing of the stone work was a bit uneven. Not as good, say, as that on the outside of what was County Hall. The nave seemed to me to be about as big as King's College Chapel - although with the weaker choir (about half of which looked to be teenage girls) and weaker audience there was much less noise. On the other hand, the choir was not into the show-off stuff that they go for in Cambridge (at Christmas anyway) and the more modest showing was somehow more holy. More humble in the face of God. And I liked the Advent antiphons - things I had never heard of before, never mind heard.
A little later well entertained by a fun costume drama called the Trumph of Love, based on a play by Merivaux. According to Wiki, despite being written in 1732, this 2001 film was the first screen adaptation in English and one which received only modest reviews and which did not, in any event, do very well. Fiona Shaw rather dominated the proceedings, to the extent that one thought that she was able to put a good deal of herself into her role as a love struck, middle aged blue-stocking.
And in between times tucking into Underworld by Delillo. I read Libra some time ago and rather liked it. Think I tried something else by him since then and didn't. This one is described as the 'number 1 international best seller' and was derived, I think, from my recent expedition to the charity shops around Battersea. It is also rather fat, in the way of books of that description, perhaps the same number of words as Ulysses and, to my mind, rather reflecting of the US fascination with Joyce. The burbling on about the daily workings - public and private - of entirely ordinary people. The capturing in print of things we might do and think, but do not, on the whole, expose to public or any other kind of view. Not altogether sure that so much exposure is a good thing. Another Delillo fascination seems to be capturing all the many threads that lead into and away from some notable - possibly entirely fictional - event. To try and capture that flapping of the butterfly wings in South Georgia which caused the ice cap in Surbiton to melt away (but which, is, of course, why you have never seen it). Another is his interest in how the maximum amount of use can be extracted from photographs or videos - usually but not always taken by furtive organs of government. The very modern fascination (one which I happen to share) with the relation between the thing and its sign. His language reminds me a bit of that of Cormac McCarthy so perhaps they went to the same creative writing course. His subject matter reminds me of another US fascination - or rather nostalgia, nostalgia for the life of first generation immigrants in their teeming tenements on Lower East Side, in Bronx and Brooklyn. Something for which I can think of no analagy for on this side of the pond.
On the down side, for me anyway, a rather pretentious flavour hangs over the whole book (or at least the two fifths that I have read) - but then, as my brother used to say, the line between being arty and being pretentious can be a bit tricky. Not reasonable to expect one to get it right all the time.
Advent service on Sunday evening at Guilford cathedral. Interesting to see a modern cathedral at work after our recent visit to Ely. In the dark, the place was suprisingly impressive inside - the absence of any kind of rood screen blocking off the centre of operations helping rather than hurting - although the detailing of the stone work was a bit uneven. Not as good, say, as that on the outside of what was County Hall. The nave seemed to me to be about as big as King's College Chapel - although with the weaker choir (about half of which looked to be teenage girls) and weaker audience there was much less noise. On the other hand, the choir was not into the show-off stuff that they go for in Cambridge (at Christmas anyway) and the more modest showing was somehow more holy. More humble in the face of God. And I liked the Advent antiphons - things I had never heard of before, never mind heard.
A little later well entertained by a fun costume drama called the Trumph of Love, based on a play by Merivaux. According to Wiki, despite being written in 1732, this 2001 film was the first screen adaptation in English and one which received only modest reviews and which did not, in any event, do very well. Fiona Shaw rather dominated the proceedings, to the extent that one thought that she was able to put a good deal of herself into her role as a love struck, middle aged blue-stocking.
And in between times tucking into Underworld by Delillo. I read Libra some time ago and rather liked it. Think I tried something else by him since then and didn't. This one is described as the 'number 1 international best seller' and was derived, I think, from my recent expedition to the charity shops around Battersea. It is also rather fat, in the way of books of that description, perhaps the same number of words as Ulysses and, to my mind, rather reflecting of the US fascination with Joyce. The burbling on about the daily workings - public and private - of entirely ordinary people. The capturing in print of things we might do and think, but do not, on the whole, expose to public or any other kind of view. Not altogether sure that so much exposure is a good thing. Another Delillo fascination seems to be capturing all the many threads that lead into and away from some notable - possibly entirely fictional - event. To try and capture that flapping of the butterfly wings in South Georgia which caused the ice cap in Surbiton to melt away (but which, is, of course, why you have never seen it). Another is his interest in how the maximum amount of use can be extracted from photographs or videos - usually but not always taken by furtive organs of government. The very modern fascination (one which I happen to share) with the relation between the thing and its sign. His language reminds me a bit of that of Cormac McCarthy so perhaps they went to the same creative writing course. His subject matter reminds me of another US fascination - or rather nostalgia, nostalgia for the life of first generation immigrants in their teeming tenements on Lower East Side, in Bronx and Brooklyn. Something for which I can think of no analagy for on this side of the pond.
On the down side, for me anyway, a rather pretentious flavour hangs over the whole book (or at least the two fifths that I have read) - but then, as my brother used to say, the line between being arty and being pretentious can be a bit tricky. Not reasonable to expect one to get it right all the time.
