pumpkinstrokemarrow

Or to be more precise, perhaps our third visit to Polesdon Lacey of the year. Which means that our household has now accounted for 8 of the 240,000 or so visits the place gets in a year. If we suppose that we will make another two, mental arithmetic suggests that there are another 19,999 households like us.

Back to Epsom Common for once in a while, for an anticlockwise turn around the all weather part, excluding the Wells loop but including the Wheelers Lane loop. I am pleased to say that I saw no signs of chain saw activity although there was an important notice pinned to a tree which may have been threatening something of the sort. Whoever provided the Chainsaw Volunteers with a laminator has a lot of arboreal litter to answer for. But the Volunteers had chopped down a patch of bracken and the cows were back on the case, spraying global warming into the summer sky.

I was reminded of my mother explaining to me that the commies often got their way on boring committees (this was in the early sixties of the last century when otherwise respectable people could still be commies) because no one else could be bothered to turn out for them. In the same way, our Chainsaw Volunteers get away with murder, in this case of trees, because not enough people are willing, able or otherwise competent to turn up for their committees and vote them down.

I then got to pondering about the renovation of the Moore sculpture which has been missing from Hyde Park for quite some years now, a sculpture which, as it happens I used to be quite fond of. A pondering which was prompted by reading that the renovation had been completed and the sculpture reinstated. It seems that, like capitalism, the statue had been in danger of collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions, in this case literally as the creviced white limestone which Moore had used for his material, while pretty, was not very suitable for his design. So the renovators stuck it all back together with an internal, invisble network of stainless steel rods or some such.

Now my father used to propagate a theory that true beauty lay in the successful alignment of structure with function, a beauty which he was accustomed to see in the results of evolution, for example in teeth, his speciality. But in the case of this sculpture the structure was not aligned with the function and is only so aligned now by subterfuge. The sculpture does not work as a piece of stone and is flawed for that reason. Maybe it would have been more appropriate to let the pieces lie where they fell, assuming that they would have eventually fallen. Being a Royal Park they should have been able to wangle an exemption from the various Health & Safety edicts which such a proceeding would no doubt have contravened.

Irritated on our walk around Horton Country Park today, otherwise a bright sunny morning, by the antics of the Chain Saw Volunteers (14th West Horton). Bashing yet another innocent & innocuous chunk of our rough woodland in the name of some ecofad or other.

Ornithological feast this morning. Around 0830 the back garden was very busy with birds on the bushes, particularly the fire thorn with its red berries and the yew with its pink ones. Lots of blue tits and great tits. One regular thrush, one irregular thrush. One green woodpecker, one red, white and black job. Several chaffinches. Several unidentified small brown birds. The odd blackbird, pigeon, starling and robin. One magpie flew overhead, clearly disdaining this veggie. fare.

Yesterday I mentioned people who object to views of high speed trains rushing past the bottom of their gardens. Or perhaps rushing along a couple of miles away, just about in eyesight and earshot. Probably the same people who take a dim view of the pylons and cooling towers which bring them their cosy glow in the winter being visible at all, despite the fact that as structures go they are usually not bad looking. Along with motorway bridges. A lot better looking than a lot of the stuff knocked out by our more arty architects, never mind artists proper.

But the odd thing is that there is another sort of people, superficially similar in appearance with thornproofs and green wellies, but who can't bear to leave nature alone at all. They have to manage it, have procedures, protocols and records. So our in our case, we can't just leave Epsom Common alone; a haven of non-management in our badly over managed lives. We have to fiddle about with it. Chop things down. Pretend to be charcoal burners or graziers. Worry about obscure bats. Worry about the rights of people who want to tear around the woods getting muddy on bicycles.

Is the difference related to the fact that the former are trying to be country people whereas the latter are common or garden suburban people, probably economically inactive?

Reminded of all this the other morning when strolling around Horton Country Park - the site of much worthy occupational therapy on the National Health before the unions of the 1970's deemed this to be exploitation. Nice bright morning, enjoying the stroll and the sunshine, when the peace is broken by the chain saws of the South Horton Conservation Volunteers (sponsored by Husqvarna, see http://www.husqvarna.com/), a group which seems to have got the idea that conservation means chopping things up, perhaps a confusion with the process for making conserves - aka jam - out of soft fruit. One wonders whether the volunteers also belong to the W.I..

It then occurred to me that there seems to be a similar confusion with another c-word of similar length, to wit, contract. So if I contract, I get smaller, but if I contract with you, I get to do something for you, for money. So where is the connection? OED devotes nearly 5 columns to the matter, from which I learn that the word in all its various meanings comes from just the one root. So I am left with the idea that a contract, in the sense of an agreement, circumscribes, contains or limits my freedom of action. My freedom of action is contracted, in the sense of made smaller, to that extent. A bit thin; maybe I will be able to do better in the morning.

PS: and while I think of it, we saw a whole new sort of lycra loony yesterday afternoon. An old lady, in old lady coat and hat, cycling very slowly down Temple Road while conducting a conversation with her hand held mobile phone, Temple Road being sufficiently encumbered by residential parking to make such behaviour a bit of a nuisance. We could not decide whether to applaud her aplomb or to honk her for holding up the traffic. In the end we did neither. We were just held up.

First stop today was a visit to Earlsfield with the idea of turning right out of the railway station rather than the usual left, where the first place that caught my eye was a business originally established to rewind the armatures (if that is the right term) on your electric motor. Since establishment I think they have moved into some related lines of business, which is just as well as I imagine the amount of rewinding business in Earlsfield these days is modest. Presumably, once upon a time, the area was a hotbed of electrically powered light industry.

Into the 'Wandle' for a little something, to be greeted by a sign which said that one was only allowed to smoke in the designated area by the gate, that is to say, by inference, not in the garden at large. Have foodies succeeded in chasing puffers away from their outside foody experiences? The barman was a bit puzzled and pointed out that all the tables outside were equipped with ashtrays and he thought it unlikely that anyone would complain if we used them. Which, as it happened, we did not. Instead, quite a decent bottle of Italian wine at £25, served in rather large & delicate glasses which it would have been rather easy to break. No disabled toilet, but the gents did run to proper hand washing. Owned by the people at http://www.capitalpubcompany.com/, who have bothered to include a rather nifty map showing their outlets.

A little late in the season, I then decided it was time to visit the green alkanet at Raynes Park (see 24th and 28th February 2011), only to find that last week had seen a twinning visit to Raynes Park by the Chain Saw Volunteers (14th West Horton), with the meeting being held in the public house formerly known as the Raynes Park Tavern opposite Raynes Park Station. On leaving the meeting the volunteers were having a smoke at the quiet end of platform 4, when they noticed the thriving green alkanet and trashed the lot. Just as well that it is strong stuff and fighting back, as can be seen in the illustration. But why couldn't they just have their smoke and leave the plants alone?

But I was pleased to find that on the path between Epsom Station and TB, there was a clump of the stuff which they must have missed. Hopefully none of them are reading this.

On the other hand, having been completely sure that the Raynes Park Tavern had been renamed during some refurbishment, as far as I can tell from Google it has not been. Furthermore, while it flies the John Barras flag, this is now just a brand name owned by the people at http://www.spiritpubcompany.com/spirit/en/home, one brand name among many. And their otherwise fancy web site does not seem to include a list of their many pubs so I was unable to confirm absolutely that there had been no name change. Must remember to take a look at the place when I am next going through northbound. Can't see the place southbound. But rather depressing to think that the décor of one's favourite boozer is not the more or less accidental product of a long standing & loving tenancy, rather just the ready-to-go creation of some creation arts graduate in the marketing department of a pubco. Plastic all the way through, despite appearances.

That out of the way, it dawned on me that it was just about seven times seven days since I interrupted bread making and that with seven being such a strong magic number it was was clearly an auspicious day to resume. So I did: Waitrose flour, Sainsbury's rape and Tesco yeast. Had not forgotten too much about the process, the only error being not to think to turn the oven on at the right moment with the result that the second rise was a little too long. I had also forgotten the rather different taste of the white bread I make to that from a bakery, not that that stopped me consuming the former at a considerable rate. My very own foody experience. See http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8152054/Bread-20110120.xls for further details.

A dress rehearsal for the Midsomer gathering of the Chain Saw Volunteers (14th West Horton), caught by an intrepid camera from the borough 'Insight' team, from the very magazine from which I read that central government is instructing local government to withdraw funding. Which all goes to show that all governments bang on about reducing red tape and not interfering while carrying on doing just that. Even in paltry matters such as borough rags. Notwithstanding (a Frenchy might use 'quandmême' here?), I am pleased to be able to put faces to all those dead trees.

Note that volunteer etiquette discourages the exhibition of weapons or dead trees in photographs of this sort as it encourages showing off of the worst sort, rather than volunteer spirit of the best sort.

Been struck in various places over the last few days about the merit or otherwise of the provision of free entertainment in public places, entertainment which come in the form of flickering pictures and noise or just noise. TB often offers the unusual combination of flickering pictures from one machine and noise from another, a compromise which appears to satisfy both those who like to watch the racing while they drink and those who like to have some music.

Generally speaking, I find both a bit irritating. Depending on mood and context, one can often block the noise but I find the flickering much harder to deal with, even if it is at the periphery of the visual field. One really needs to have one's back to it, not always convenient.

Particularly irritating are those small waiting rooms you often get at the bottom of big office blocks furnished with large televisions. OK so the things are cheap and have become a bit of a must have amongst the office management fraternity, but why they should think that the average waiter would rather watch the box than read the paper, prepare for the coming meeting or just doze is beyond me.

Some shops don't do badly either. Once upon a time it just used to be shops catering for young people who played loud music to scare away older people. And some shops used to intersperse the music with spoken word advertisements, a particularly tiresome genre. I even recall some tale about supermarkets supplementing the oxygen in the air, which taken together with jolly martial music, stimulated the buying buds. But now even quite decent shops do it, M&S for example, a shop which used to be above such stuff.

And then there is always South West Trains. Once they discovered that they could pipe announcements into carriages there was no stopping them. And over and above the central computer generated guff, they even gave the guards discretion to use the thing as they saw fit - and some guards are quite keen. This for material which 99% of passengers find neither diverting nor informative.

On the other hand, I remember having a chat with the keeper of a small hotel about it, one of those small hotels with a big empty breakfast room. The keeper explained that she had experimented and found that, on the whole, customers found silence in a big empty room a bit oppressive. They liked a bit of light music, light both in the sense of easy going and in that of being quiet, in the background. Such music also served to cover the conversation of others if there were more than two people in the room; customers also liking a bit of privacy.

There is also the angle that sometimes one finds some conversations in waiting rooms really irritating. Perhaps one is waiting for a bit of dental treatment and some loud gent. is banging on ad nauseam about how his last experience of this particular treatment (as luck would have it) went completely pear shaped. Completely oblivious in his desire to sound off that his soundings might not be to everybody else's taste and with his interlocutor far too polite to tell him to can it. A bit of noise can mask such things a bit; a case of two wrongs making a right for once.

PS: made it onto Epsom Common for the first time for a few weeks the other day. All the way around Christ Church and back, a trip somewhat marred by the discovery that the Chain Saw Volunteers have been at it again since I was last on this stretch of the all weather path. Big trees, little trees, all sorts. But I don't suppose I am going to find the energy to put in a complaint to their forthcoming annual meeting on 24th April (see http://www.epsomcommon.org.uk/). Perhaps some concerned reader will act on my behalf.

Took a turn around Epsom Common this afternoon to be greeted by the remains of about 20 more mature trees laid low by the chain saw volunteers. Logged and neatly stacked to provide habitat for the lesser grey spotted death watch beetle. I continue to look forward to the day when these people take up a more discrete hobby, one which does not disturb the rest of us so much. Perhaps a tiddlywinks league sponsored by Wetherspoons (London, South West)?

Back home to peruse two rather different obituaries for Nicol Williamson, one from the Guardian and one from the DT. That in the Guardian dwells on his huge talent, talent which was rather spoilt by his unpredicability. That in the DT is much less kind and uses the occasion to take a pop at Lawrence Olivier, alleging that his need to hog the lime light drove a host of young talent such as Williamson and Burton onto the bottle and into lucrative but otherwise second division film, often fantasy. While Williamson is portrayed as an exhibitionist drunk, along the lines of the late Oliver Reed. Contrariwise, the obituary closes with a lament for the passing of the days of these unpredictable giants in favour of dull but reliable. Certainly not much in the way of giants to be seen on my recent outings to the Globe.

All of which led me to wonder, not for the first time, what an odd trade it is to spend your day pretending to be someone else. At not being yourself. At this point I ought perhaps declare an interest in that I went to a school which was quite hot on the then fashionable teaching of drama and which ran to a quite decently equipped, small teaching theatre. The catch was that I discovered very quickly that I had no aptitude at all for the acting lark; a lack of aptitude which translated in the world of work to weak performances as after dinner speaker, lecturer or presenter - although it did get better with practise.

Going back to the wonder, the next thought was for the science fiction story in which the ruling classes were so indolent that they hired actors to perform their ruling roles for them. Then there was that rather different ruling class, the Sun King, who starred as himself in his own production; a good part of his life was a performance, perhaps even to the way he treated his various mistresses. Courtiers is his sort of court would also be performers, albeit second division. We expect our own ruling classes to turn in good performances at things like coronations and royal weddings. We expect our politicians to be masters of the small screen. Prime Minister Blair was, I believe, a master of that particularly obnoxious genre, the decent chap in cardigan and chinos, clutching a mug of coffee, not so very different from you or me.

In more humble spheres, we might have role models. We might ape the fashions and manners of our favourite football star or soap star. Or television detective. We might go on training courses where we are expected to act something out in the interests of some teaching point or other. When we take the chair at a meeting, we assume the demeanour and gravitas appropriate to the meeting and if it were a legal meeting we might emphasise the point by wearing funny clothes and talking a funny language. A bit of ritual to prop up the performance. Some people are alleged to  project the appearance of some readily recognisable type, an appearance behind which the real self can dwell in peace and quiet, unaffected by the noise and bustle of the outside world.

So while we do not go as far as pretending to be someone else, running along a script written by a third party, some of us do spend a fair part of our life in a role, pretending to a role in the case that we are not very good at it. Perhaps to the point where what we are is what we pretend to be - rather than anything else? What counts is what is shown to the outside world, the show put on for the outside world; anything else that might be swirling around inside is of lesser importance and certainly not for public consumption. To that extent we are what we choose to be in our dance to the music of time.

Professional actors just get a bit more license; they are allowed to vary their diet in a way which the rest of us are not and to get paid to educate or entertain us in the process. Amateur actors can try out being someone else, to see if some new role would suit them better than the one they are in. While the rest of us are supposed to stick to just the one role, at least at any one time; splitting being generally regarded as a bad thing.

Deep stuff. Perhaps I had something odd for lunch.

Had two rounds of cabbage soup recently, as a result of which I can report a new soupoid. I normally make cabbage soup by simmering four ounces of pearl barley with twelve ounces of diced pork tenderloin and some sliced celery sticks for an hour or so, then adding lots of white cabbage sliced sauerkraut wise for the last five minutes. First round made in this way went down very well. Come the second round however, neither fresh nor frozen tenderloin to hand, and so I thought I would try making the soup with some cold cooked pork that we had instead, adding it at the end rather than the beginning, together with some mushrooms by way of compensation. And I am happy to report that the second round was entirely OK, even though the broth did not quite have the body it should have and the texture of the pork was not quite right. But an entirely satisfactory substitute in an emergency.

Perhaps as a result of soup deviance, for once in a while I did the Christchurch Road-Horton Lane-West Ewell-Longmead Road-Manor Green Road circuit anti-clockwise this morning rather than clockwise, and adding in the East Street leg for good measure. This circuit is far and away my most common walk and clockwise is far and away my most common direction, so I shall ponder further on what may have prompted and/or triggered this change. Will it happen again in the near future?

That apart, the only unusual note was some people loitering with what looked like intent on a piece of rough ground between Horton Land and Christchurch Road, one of them wearing a hi-vis. Were they a pride of dealers simply trying to fix up the next deal or were they a clutch of surveyors simply eyeing up a bit of old hospital land with a view to a spot of infill? Something which I had understood to be off-limits under the terms of the dissolution of the asylums, but will probably become on-limits as part of the drive to promote affordable housing. At least the cause is a bit more worthy that that of the chain saw volunteers, if equally intrusive visually.

Yesterday to Winkworth Arboretum, an attraction well down the National Trust League table. Half way down the second column - numbered 51 to 100 - at a paltry 86,381 visitors last year. Compared with Polesdon Lacy, in the top ten with more than a quarter of a million. But yesterday was a good day for them with car parks and overflow car parks fully occupied. The trusties were mostly well spoken ladies, some of them young and hearty. One of the latter was the Guinevere mentioned yesterday and another was organising a well patronised and popular Halloween trail for children.

I moan from time to time - most recently on December 20th - about the antics of the Chain Saw Volunteers. No problem when they trash chunks of our natural heritage.

But when it comes to making our local school bigger - Stanford Green Primary - which could be done with much greater comfort if the school was allowed to grab a chunk of green space - no go at all. All the ecofaddists are parading the streets of Epsom. Chaining themselves to the railings of the town hall.

What I have in mind is that the school has pots of land, the only problem being that it is landlocked. Only one narrow road to the outside world; a road which reaches the outside world near enough to our own house to mean that we have lots of Chelsea Tractors parking outside at school start up time in term time. So a simple solution would be to punch through, from the pots of land, to Christchurch Road, well away from our house and possibly through the allotments. Maybe grab a bit of Stamford Green to make a roundabout so that the Chelsea Tractors are not a hazard to themselves or others on the reasonably busy Christchurch Road.

If the allotment holders get too stroppy - and they include plenty of people well up for making an effective fuss - just buy up one of the houses on Christchurch Road. Although one might argue that growing food on allotments is not very green at all. Much more efficient to grow food on a large scale. All this small scale farming dreadfully inefficient. One only has to think about the enclosures in the past: all very sad for the cottagers at the time but you can't stop the march of history.

Maybe sell one or two of the pots of land for housing to pay for it all.

PS: one should remember in all this that there is no-one who makes as much fuss about smoking as an ex-smoker. Or in this case, an ex-allotment keeper (twice).

Quite taken aback the other day. As I point out from time to time, I have been an atheist all my life. No truck, at least on my own account, with Allah, Jehovah, Jesus or the Virgin Mary. Then, quietly minding my own business, reading about a Russian called Florensky. Or rather, of mixed Armenian-Russian stock from Tiflis, the same Tiflis where Uncle Joe went to school, at very roughly the same time. It seems that this Florensky was a very talented chap, good at mathematics and all kinds of other things. But that when he was in his early 20's he saw the light and after various trials and torments became a priest in the Russian Orthodox church. Something that was not that unusual at the time for intellectuals not attracted by the Social Democrats or violence. And all of a sudden, between mouthfuls of bread and butter (it being breakfast time), I suddenly thought that maybe there was something other than the physical world of gluons, glue sticks and Newcastle Brown. Maybe Euclid's fourth postulate has some ethereal existence, other than on ancient papyrii? OK, so not as bad as seeing the Angel Gabriel peeping out from behind a cloud but tendencies in that direction. A road to Damascus moment. Or perhaps a Eureka moment.