Hanging on too long

I read at reference 1 that there is a chap in the US called Steve Kirsch who has made a lot of money – say a couple of hundred million dollars – out of a string of start-ups: ‘… a serial entrepreneur who has spent decades pitching the next big thing, whether optical mice (Mouse Systems), document processing (FrameMaker), search engines (Infoseek), digital security (OneID), or e-commerce (Propel Software). His latest start-up, M10, is a spin-off of a spin-off that sells a blockchain for banks…’.

Quite a lot of this money has been used for charitable purposes.

Now around 60 years old, when COVID came along, he thought that rather than invent a new drug, which takes a long time, why not test all the existing drugs, the drugs which have already been cleared for use on humans, about which we already know a great deal, and see if there is one that helps with COVID. An approach which had worked with his own rare form of cancer (Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia). Government did not seem that keen, but plenty of other people thought that this was worth a crack. So Kirsch sets up an operation, used some of his own money, attracted more, and started giving out grants for research. So far so good.

But for some reason he decided to home in on hydroxychloroquine (the antimalarial favoured by Donald Trump) and fluvoxamine (an antidepressant). He hung on to the first long after most respectable people had given up on it, and is still punting for the second, which may actually be helpful, if no alternative to vaccination.

He also punts for a chap from England called Norman Fenton, a mathematician turned risk guru. A chap who does not seem to hold with cutting down on risky behaviour or with vaccines. A chap with a strong background in risk who thought he could make a difference in a field of which he had little if any prior knowledge. A sample of his work is to be found at reference 7.

Without looking at either of these men very carefully, I am left with the impression that there must be plenty of people out there who have been very successful in various ways – but who have come to believe in their own success. That everything they touch will turn to gold. Preferably by tearing down the majoritarian, boring view. Not unrelated to what the ancient Greeks called hubris.

A rather different kind of problem is the need to allow free discussion of scientific problems, without which problems are likely to remain problems for longer than they might otherwise. But this has to be balanced with the need for care with talk which might encourage men and women in the street to do wrong things – like assembling in large unvaccinated  numbers in confined spaces. A tension which goes some way to explaining governments’ penchant for secrecy when evaluating policy options, only coming clean when they have already decided what to do. Secrecy which has, in the past, in my view, often been carried too far here in the UK. How can we have a grown up and open discussion about options for the Budget if they are all shrouded in secrecy?

While from the first problem, the hubris, I associate to the well known problems of having successful people who hang on to power for too long, who do not get out while they are ahead, before they come to believe their own twaddle. As amplified by their nominees – not to say creatures – in the media, for an example of which see reference 8.

I believe most well run corporations have established arrangements for turning over their presidents and chief executives at regular intervals. In our civil service, it used to be the rule that most staff, in particular senior staff, retired at 60, which meant, inter alia, that heads of departments did not usually serve more than five years or so. Then there are countries – not including this one – who have rules about how long presidents and prime ministers can serve. So in the US, one cannot serve more than two terms as president, although this rule was only written down after being broken by Roosevelt during the Second World War. While the Chinese, aghast at what Mao and his immediate successors had got up to, put in place rules about turning their senior cadres over. Rules which the current leader of China has managed to brush aside, just as the current leader of Russia has. Hopefully rules which will be reinstated in due course.

Not that any of this helps with the man who owns his own businesses, like the one with which I started. He can do what he wants without being bothered by any tiresome share holders, rules or regulations – so he – and we – have to rely on a bit of self-discipline.

Maybe all this is a downside of our all living far longer. We have yet to learn how to manage the greatly stretched decline and fall of alpha males.

PS: since penning this, I have remembered about Elon Musk. Not quite sure how he fits into all this: he might have a big mouth and he is controversial, with fingers in lots of strange pies – but he does make a lot of electric cars. There is even one in the next road to my own. 

References

Reference 1: This tech millionaire went from covid trial funder to misinformation superspreader: After boosting unproven covid drugs and campaigning against vaccines, Steve Kirsch was abandoned by his team of scientific advisers—and left out of a job - Cat Ferguson, Financial Times – 2021.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Kirsch.

Reference 3: https://www.skirsch.io/. A very thin version of the man himself.

Reference 4: https://stevekirsch.substack.com/. And there’s more.

Reference 5: https://www.normanfenton.com/. A mathematician who moved into risk: Professor of Risk Information Management, Queen Mary London University. Director of  Agena Ltd.

Reference 6: https://www.agenarisk.com/. ‘Agenarisk provide Bayesian Network Software for Risk Analysis, AI and Decision Making applications’.

Reference 7a: Bayesian network analysis of Covid-19 data reveals higher infection prevalence rates and lower fatality rates than widely reported - M. Neil, N. Fenton, M. Osman, S. McLachlan – 2020. A sample of the product.

Reference 7b: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.25.20112466v1.full.pdf. The source of the snap above – which I have not taken the time to try to understand, let alone come to a view. For me at least, that has to be left to the majoritarians. 

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/richard-sharpe.html. 

Richard Sharpe

Mr. Sharpe, being a former banker and long time associate & advisor to leading Tories, including our fat leader, is also the incoming chairman of the BBC. When married, he and his wife were thought to be worth around half a billion - in any event rich enough to have his portrait painted, snapped above. Clearly one of the chaps.

According to yesterday's Guardian, he thinks that most people, while paying lip-service to the desirability of there being a relatively impartial news offering, are not prepared to pay for it and mostly actually prefer the more entertaining, if thoroughly mendacious, offerings of the likes of  Murdoch with his Sun newspaper and Fox News television channel.

Which may well be true, but the outlook for democracy in the country that goes on about being its inventor is not good when our ruling classes think that our interests - or perhaps their interests - are best served by winding down one of our few respectable news operations.

PS: while at the same time running on about how awful it is that Putin is in charge of news in Russia.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sharp_(BBC_chairman).

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News.

Trolley 500

Made the half millennium with more than a day to spare before All Fools' Day on Friday. Present thinking is that there will be two celebrations to mark the occasion, one away and one home.

It being another M&S food hall trolley, from between the street food shacks of Ebbisham Square. Returning it to the stacks, I decided that the problem there was that M&S have only two trolley lines in their stack, but more than two different sizes of trolley. A complication which busy shoppers can't cope with.

The proceedings had started with finding that the mystery trolley noticed in the margins of reference 2 having migrated to Station Approach, where it remains a mystery.

While in the Kokoro Passage, we had a completely non-standard trolley, albeit reasonably substantial, from Aldi or Lidl - my blockage regarding distinguishing between these two organisations continuing. Didn't think to look at the maker's plate. And not convenient on this occasion to wheel it up to the store at the end of Upper High Street, and I held out for M&S, successfully as it turned out.

But given that I have never visited this store, if this trolley is still there next time I pass, I will take the walk and take a look.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-499.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-498.html.

Piano 54

Snagged in St. Stephen's church in Rochester Row, of which more in due course.

A real German Bechstein, made in Berlin. Seemingly my first Bechstein, with the nearest previous being the Zimmermann at Lyme Regis, noticed at reference 3. Not least because the Wigmore Hall sports Steinways, in complete disregard of their beginnings as the Bechstein Hall. But I should add that I have some difficulty with the spelling, alternating between 'Beckstein' and 'Bechstein', which may well have confused my search.

Ebay offered just the one this afternoon. Which has the same legs, but does not look quite as long as the one in the church, but the oblique view might be deceptive. And I suppose 'seller refurbished' would need to be probed. I also suppose that the seller would allow a prospect to give it a try.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/piano-53.html.

Reference 2: http://www.sswsj.org/. The church.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/piano-5.html.

Reference 4: https://www.bechstein.com/en/. The pianos.

Group search key: pianosk.

Captain Hook

Walking my bricks yesterday afternoon, I came across a very long pole with a serious looking hook on the end. I thought probably left on the wrong side of the fence when the fencing people were putting back a neighbour's fence panel at the bottom of our back garden, that is to say the top of the back garden, as it actually runs uphill, a fence panel taken down in the storm we had a few weeks ago, noticed, for example, at reference 1.

Sadly, long enough to touch a hanger left in the neighbouring oak tree by the tree people in the autumn just past, but not long enough to dislodge it.

Now dismantled, in much the same way as drain rods, and awaiting return. Although I am not sure that the fence people would bother driving back for perhaps £30 worth of tool. Not worth their time.

But it might serve as a prop for a story for young people, all about how the famous Captain Hook wanted an extension, so that he could reach into ships he was pirating without having to bother to climb into them. It's certainly a serious and vicious looking hook.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/trolley-480.html.

The scammers are coming!

I got a text very early this morning about the failed delivery of a parcel and I was invited to go to a post office flavoured website to arrange a delivery time. I vaguely remembered getting messages like this in the past. I couldn't think what parcel, although I do have a book outstanding from foreign. Maybe it was that. And maybe their computer works overnight on this sort of stuff.

So I go to the website, dressed up in Post Office clothes, and give it some details, including address and date of birth. It then asks for the modest sum of £1.48 (or something like that) by way of a redelivery fee, popping up a little window into which I am invited to put my card details - card number, expiry date and CSV. At which point I pause and ask Bing about these people, to be directed to an article in, I think, the Evening Standard, about the latest scam.

It would have been all too easy to have blithely sailed through the transaction. How on earth HSBC can be expected sort out such people from all the thousands and thousands of small but legitimate online traders who must have sprung up over the past couple of years? And the bad people now know my date of birth - possibly not very difficult to obtain otherwise, but one would still rather not.

Someone appears to have gone to a fair amount of bother to fake all this up. Maybe there is a dark web market place where you can just buy what is needed, more or less ready made?

Snapped above, with the long session identifier redacted, just to be on the safe side.

Trolley 499

I returned to the street food stalls at the entrance to Ebbisham Square for Monday's second trolley. Never having a pound coin at the right time, I had to settle for yet another trolley from the M&S food hall, rather than disconnecting the two Waitrose trolleys on the right. The trolley on the left looked OK, but had clearly been bashed at some point, as the front left hand wheel did not make proper contact with the ground. Nonetheless, judged fit to be returned to the stack.

Carried on up East Street, where I was pleased to see that the creationists' mess first noticed at reference 2 had all been cleared up. No rubbish and no trolleys to be seen.

While having passed through the underpass by Screwfix into Blenheim Road, I was pleased to see that the travellers, also first noticed at reference 2, were nowhere to be seen. So day 1, conspicuous; day 2, breeding but inconspicuous; day 3 vanished.

Perhaps when we celebrate the 500th trolley, we will cause a disturbance with a hearty rendering of 'there were nine wanzy trolleys standing in the stack'. Wanzy seems to work better than Wanzl.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-498.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-492.html.

Suites

A fortnight ago to the Wigmore for some cello suites from Gary Hoffman, a cellist whom we have not heard before. We considered going for the second shift in the evening, but decided against because a Holiday Inn  room in Welbeck Street which would have made that a runner was far too expensive.

Three o'clock start meant a leisurely morning, a light lunch and set off at 13:00. A bit of damp in the air, but nothing too serious. Six policemen on motorcycles waiting at the junction by All Bar One in Regent Street, waiting for some small but noisy demonstration to kick off from outside the church at the top of the street.

Thinking that something with cinnamon might be the thing, we passed on All Bar One for once, in any case a little crowded, and headed for Olle & Steen, taking in the fancy shop window snapped above on the way. No idea what the white furry thing might have been made of, but BH thought that it was unlikely to be a furry animal: people selling that kind of thing these days do it behind closed doors. In the event we decided that Olle & Steen were a bit crowded and we were not very hungry and settled, for the first time for some time, for something in the basement bar at the Wigmore Hall. But the buns at Olle & Steen do look good, and I am sure we will get there eventually.

Mask wearing in the hall is weakening. On the up side, no phones and only one cough. On the down side, the young man right in front of us, probably a teenager out with gran or something of that sort, was clearly very bored and kept moving about.

He failed to damage the recital though, which was very good. And the encore of the sarabande from Suite No.5 was well chosen. A little to my surprise, given that the suites are made up of dances and that BH is into dance, she did not recognise the music as being dance music. While I am no dancer, so me neither. Perhaps if one saw people dancing to it, one would get the idea? Something to ask about on some suitable social medium?

Afterwards, off to Ponti's, which became fairly crowded with mainly young people by the time that we left. Perhaps there for a spot of something restorative after a busy day's shopping? We got there by a slightly longer route than was strictly necessary, but that did mean we spotted the red building with white trim snapped above. Presumably one of the older buildings in the row.

Bread and olives to start; pizza for him and (the usual) chicken salad for her. All very satisfactory.

The wine, from the Piedmont, was fine, although I failed to find it on the Internet, with neither Bing nor Google obliging. Plenty of Roero Arneis but nothing according to Casadoni. The nearest I got was a Gavi from Google. I will have another try tomorrow.

I scored a plane at Clapham Junction, two two's (the first for quite some time) and a cheerful drunk at Earlsfield. I had forgotten how aeroplanes heading for Heathrow, but viewed from Earlsfield, often make a sharp right turn to the west somewhere over south east London. Confusing for the spotter who is just starting out. Moon visible at both places, obscured by cloud. Two washers, only one of which made it to the collecting jar at home. 

Various bits and peices from the Raynes Park Platform Library. Three near twenty year old numbers of 'The London Column', a newsletter for London Freemasons. Quite a lot of fancy regalia to be seen. Quite a lot of charity. Plus the odd royal highness and the odd lady. A catalogue for a Peroni sponsored exhibition of fashion pictures at Somerset House. Quite a lot of female leg and the odd breast. I failed to find when this exhibition was on, but I might stop and ask if I am passing the place. An opportunity to revisit the door through which I entered upon life in an office. On the left as you face the main entrance in the Strand. A flyer for an auction of very expensive fancy goods at Christies. Nothing like the sort of thing to be had from the furniture and fittings department at T.K.Maxx and well out of my pocket's comfort zone. Last but not least, two quite recent numbers of the BMJ. A far cry from the solemn and serious journal I knew when I was small. Soft pink cover as I recall. While now there are still quite a lot of job advertisements, so at least some professions still do it in print.

Home to study the closing pages of a previous find, 'The Handbook of British Flora', printed in 1954. The Cyperaceae or sedge family (LXXXVIII) and the Gramineae or grass family (LXXXIX), between them occupying near seventy pages. And where I was pleased to find a mention of that important plant, Carex Pendula more or less at the junction between the two families. One of perhaps 100 species of Carex. All this followed by a section headed Cryptograms, but I have yet to bottom out exactly what these are, apart from their not having flowers, despite the word Flora being included in the title of the book. Something else for later.

PS 1: checking, I find we have heard Hoffman before, about ten years ago, as noticed at reference 2. The only other two Hoffmans I could find in the archive were of the Dustin variety.

PS 2: at some point during the day, or perhaps that night in a dream, I had an important conversation about the mysteries of multiple cause of death from the statistical point of view, an important matter when it comes to counting up deaths attributed to COVID. But no idea now whether it was a real conversation on the train or a fake conversation in a dream.

References

Reference 1: http://www.gary-hoffman.com/biography/.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2012/11/schubert.html.

Reference 3: https://www.thehouseofperoni.com/en-gb/.

Trolley 498

Trolley 498, from the M&S food hall was captured in one of the two car parks to be found between the back of the town hall (bottom left in the snap below) and the fire station on Church Street (middle right). Car parks which BH is familiar with, but of which I needed reminding.

I believe that the one near the fire station was subject to the attentions of the eco-spark then known as Swampy, at the time that it was being laid out, quite a long time ago now. Something about birch trees of special ecological importance.

Trolley returned to the near empty stack of small trolleys at the Ashley Centre entrance. No pound coin in the handle lock.

There were a couple more trolleys in an alley, but they were judged to be on private property and so disqualified.

There was another across the market square from the M&S front entrance. Outside Crystal Nails and next to the passage for Ashley Flooring. However, any label there might have been on the handle was missing. There were receipts from both Waitrose and M&S in the basket. It was a proper Wanzl trolley, so probably from one of the big supermarkets, but I did not recognise the cut of the handles. Which you do get in far-away Sainsbury's, at Kiln Lane, but their handles are red rather than green, as can be seen at reference 2. I had a look in Wilko, where it might well have done, except that all the trolleys there that I could see did have the Wilko label on the handle. And, furthermore, the handle locks on most of them had been crudely taped up, which was not the case here.

So this trolley was not taken, having nowhere to take it to. An upside was finding out that Wilko did offer two sizes of replacement washing line - the plastic sort with the wire core - of which more in due course.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-497.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-493.html.

Wellingtonia 71

Continuing the run at Worcester Park, this fine Wellingtonia was captured in St. Mary's Road, a rough lane off The Avenue, just before you get to the church of St. Mary the Virgin. Not a Roman church, as the name might suggest, but a proper Anglican church.

A fine, handsome tree which rather dominates the front garden of the house concerned. BH would never buy such a house, even if she is coming around to the merits of the trees.

Once again, we failed to get inside, with both church and church hall firmly shut up. Maybe we shall have to wait for the next relevant heritage day. With such a thing having got us inside ten years ago, as noticed at reference 3 - notice which suggests that we should not get too excited about what we are going to find inside.

The full spire. Made of lead sheeting covering a timber or iron interior? Odd how the colour mix has completely changed from that of the previous snap.

Students of architecture might like to ponder on the merits of various sizes of spire - given that one might be thinking that this small one is a bit silly when compared to a proper spire on top of a tower - but it does seem to work nonetheless. A touch of decoration to finish off the roof line. Not to mention the Freudian aspects, which people from the chattering classes liked to point up back in the 1960's.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/wellingtonia-70.html.

Reference 2: https://www.cuddingtonparish.org.uk/.

Reference 3: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2012/09/bible-studies.html.

Group search key: wgc, wpa.

Wellingtonia 70

A couple of weeks ago, spurred by the distant sighting noticed at reference 2, we had an outing to Worcester Park, thinking to start at The Avenue, an interesting road which runs south west from Worcester Park station. A road which we last visited back in 2019, before the plague, as noticed at reference 3.

With the present outing to be reported on more fully shortly, but we start with this fine specimen from Dene Close.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/wellingtonia-69.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/chiaroscuro.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/10/outside-box.html.

Group search key: wgc, wpa.

Jigsaw 13, Series 3

Yesterday saw the completion of a very jolly, 100 piece jigsaw. A regular jigsaw with ten rows and ten columns and with the right number of pieces, that is to say four, at each interior corner. None of that nonsense of corner meeting side.

Given the rather Biblical assembly of animals - mammals, birds, reptiles and a few other odds and ends - we had the value add that once the jigsaw had been assembled, it could be used to play I-spy. In which connection, one of the younger participants was quite happy with most of the Biblical assembly, but took exception to the presence of penguins, which she somehow knew was not quite right. A reminder to us older folk that penguins were probably not known to any of the writers of our Bible; probably not even to the translators of the time of good King James.

PS 1: a very ecological assembly point, in that the interior slats of the table top were recycled from pallets, with the odd nail hole still being visible as a reminder. We were not told where the carcase and legs came from, but the company concerned does specialise in recover and recycle.

PS 2: thinking more about penguins, I thought to check. First, while they are confined to the southern hemisphere, plenty of them live in temperate waters and one species lives in tropical waters. Not just the Antarctic and its immediate surroundings at all. Second, they appear in the foreign record in the late fifteenth century and were spotted by Drake on his travels in the late sixteenth century. So they might well have been known to the translators mentioned above. I wonder now whether there are eco-sparks up north who think that they should be introduced to the Arctic regions to provide some more food for the climate-stressed polar bears?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/12/jigsaw-12-series-3.html.

A whole new triffid

Given that the current aloe plant is a long way off flowering, having been taken back to a single shoot relatively recently, I thought that these three shoots, strategically arranged around the thin green marker pole, quite possibly Ohio Buckeyes (Aesculus glabra var. Wisleyarnis), might be a stand-in for this year. Maybe they will do better than the foxgloves, which failed to come up at all.

If all three run, we will have to think about appropriate thinning. Execute or transplant? Wait till next year to decide?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/archangels.html. The last notice.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=tfe&max-results=20&by-date=true.

Group search key: tff.

Trolley dreams

The trolley saga is clearly hotting up, making it to dream world last night.

For some now lost reason to do with work, I was in the large Dickins & Jones in Oxford Street. The store which has been closed for years and a name which is now merely a bit of branding within what is left of the House of Fraser empire. With some relevant heritage to be seen at reference 1.

A shop which had departments for both luxury cars and luxury boats, to the point where I came across a convertible being driven (slowly) around the shop floor at some point. But the arrangements for getting from one floor to another were were very odd, involving some rather small and very antiquated lifts.

At some point I decided that I was bored and that it would be good to take the afternoon off, something I did quite often in the last third of my time in the working population - with the leave allowance and the flexi allowance seeming to be able to cope. At which point I found myself wandering along the south bank of the river, but a south bank which was rather terrain vague in Simenon-speak, not all covered with flashy new buildings at all. Rather like the south bank west of Vauxhall Bridge used to be before the developers got going. Tatty light industry buildings, vacant lots, the odd public house, all sorts.

Something was wrong with my mobile phone. This was important for some lost reason.

And then I spotted this wonderful trolley to add to my collection. Unlike any of the other near 500 which I had collected up until that point. Sadly, on closer inspection it turned out to be an unoccupied wheelchair. I did not think to look at the little metal plate, which would no doubt be somewhere, to see if it was made by Wanzl, the ubiquitous trolley people.

I think I must have woken up at this point.

PS: we used to have a Dickins & Jones in Epsom, one of a small number of provincial outlets. Now just about hanging in there as a House of Fraser. Probably not for much longer, which will be a pity - and a blow for the Ashley Centre. Who will they be able to get in in their place?

References

Reference 1: https://housefraserarchive.ac.uk/company/?id=c1473.

Reference 2: https://www.wanzl.com/en_GB.

Disaster

For the first time for months, I have been charged a Bullingdon supplement for breaking the 30 minute limit, a supplement which takes the total charge for the day to £4. I don't think there is any kind of annual rental for my key, so at least the charge for the day does not have to include its share of that.

The day in question was cold and damp, with a suggestion that it might rain, so it seemed best to carry my portable umbrella from Ottawa, a souvenir of our trip there back in 2014, so I shall be sorry when it finally conks out, not that it is showing any signs of wear yet and I still have the original bag. With the topical reference 1 being another souvenir. Which also reminds me that cameras in telephones have come on a bit since 2014. And where the talk of dual language prompts the suggestion that the Russians and Ukrainians should send a joint mission to Canada to find out how they deal with the vexed question of mixed language there. Now, I think, more or less sorted out after various troubles in the past.

On the way out, I dealt with the trolley which I had noticed the day before. See reference 2.

I then eyed the advertisement involving a horse from Lloyd's bank, the one that tells me that the black horse will always be with me if I sign up with them. Which prompted the thought that horses do not live very long, so perhaps Lloyd's are pushing it a bit. Checking, I find that 30 years is a long life for a horse. Contrariwise, it is unlikely that I will last that much longer, so perhaps their horse would be with me for what is left of my life.

Not much masking on the train and no Bullingdons at all at what is left of the once busy stand in Grant Road, on the northern side of the tracks at Clapham Junction. But the stand at Falcon Road did my business, and so off to the A3205 and Battersea Park Road. Where I got the buzz of a near miss from a blue VW beetle No.368 outside what I think used to be Battersea College, the place where the young FIL did a bit of night school at some point.

It took a few minutes to check, but I think the story is that it has been known as both Westminster College, Battersea and the Battersea Polytechnic Institute, it is a Grade II listed building (No.206986) and has now been converted into flats. Which explains the lack of the signage you would expect from a building that still did education.

Just past the Dogs' Home, I was surprised to get a fine view of the Shard to the East. Checking this morning, I find the spot in Street View and I have learned that the Street View vans work nights, in which case the image can be rather degraded. Rather dark and grainy, although it does not appear to be raining. But I think that it is the Shard in the middle of the snap.

Also surprised at the lack of signage outside the shiny new Battersea Power Station Tube. You were told that it was a tube station, but not which one. Which seemed odd.

Then we had 'The Duchess Belle' which looked as if it must have been quite a place in its time. Probably still worth a visit. Must factor that in to my next expedition to the area. No idea how old the snap above is.

Hung a right into Thessaly Road which took me between the Nine Elms Market and a big, old-style council estate. Old-style enough that it could still carry a reasonably healthy looking block of shops, which is more than can be said for a lot of the estates around Epsom.

Then having gone on about Springfields at reference 3, I come across another one at the Wandsworth Road. But beware: according to their website, Sunday evening worship has been plagued out. Unlike the people at reference 4, they presumably do not believe that our Lord will take care of his own.

The weights and measures shop in Wilcox Road. It would be fun to own a butcher's beam balance to cope with things - like joints from the butcher - that are two big for our kitchen scales. But then, they didn't seem to have one of those, and in any event, I suspect they would cost far more than I ought to be spending on a contraption which I would get out once in a blue moon. Even at a car boot sale. Pity about the reflection. Better luck next time.

The very nearly full stand at Teversham Lane. Although not clear why a stand in a remote part of the South Lambeth Road should be full. If nothing else, it suggests that stand maintenance during the day is not what it might be.

Snapped at the Canton. Seats old enough to have been shaped to fit - not something that modern chairs are likely to bother with. 

Then, having my duffel coat, made from wool and looking rather substantial, I mused about the way that Simenon quite often notices quality English cloth. While the suits from our late lamented fancy gents outfitter in Epsom sold mainly German suits. Or very expensive tweeds from Scotland. And while I think of it, a lot of photographs on the Belfast (of reference 5) featured men in duffel coats - where I wondered about how wind proof the toggled-up front would seem in the Arctic. With the wind well able to cut into mine here in Epsom.

Moved onto calf's liver at the Estrela. Calf's liver on toast, the best such liver I recall having had. Really very good indeed. And on this occasion, I remembered to bring the unusual bottle back home with me as a souvenir. It stands on the window sill in front of me as I type this, along with another unusual bottle from Newlands Corner. Finding the reference to that one is left as an exercise for the bored reader.

More Vauxhall skyscape. Including, on this occasion, the end of the public house, now with a Brazilian rather than pint of your best flavour, where I first learned about slow roast oxtail.

More of same.

A drug dealer, heading for the lush pastures of Stockwell and Brixton? No point in having it if you don't flash it about.

Firmly shut, which was a pity as judging from the exterior, the interior would have been interesting, not to say impressive. Surprised to find that it was C of E rather than something more exotic, not that the website at reference 6 is much into architecture.

Spot of Monkey Shoulder at the Half Way House at Earlsfield, with the front bar busy with a Mum & baby group. One very cute toddler who was being very busy with her baby brother. Helping him to learn to walk, feeding him and so forth. Mum explained that this was the consequence of the four year gap. Just about right for that sort of thing. Plus the right arrangement of sexes.

Acquired a picture book about Judy Garland from the Raynes Park Platform Library. Of some interest in that we had watched a film about her fairly recently. Twice even.

Down the passage to TB for one for the road, as they used to say. Where things were a touch camp. A far cry from the days, maybe thirty years ago, when it used to be 'Gigi's', a sort of cocktail lounge, with a very attractive local girl as manager. She once told me that she found it a bit hard to be firm with people she had shared a playground with and she eventually moved to Hampshire to manage a house down there.

It seemed odd to be in a place which I had been using since before most of the present staff had been born and who would probably have no interest in my memories of that time. Perhaps it made me feel old.

Fine, bright gibbous moon over the pub as I left.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/10/trolley-11.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-487.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/springfield.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/03/cups-and-crosses.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/belfast.html.

Reference 6: https://www.stanneandallsaints.org.uk/. 

Trolley 497

This one in the passage between Barclays Bank and the Plaice to Eat, that is to say a chipper we use from time to time. Notable for its large portions. Captured from past the gate, so strictly speaking on private property, but the rules committee nodded it through over the airwaves. Repositioned for the purposes of the evidential snap. 

Front left looked a bit depressed, but it was taken in charge by a shopper just before I got to the stack. Clearly not bothered by minor depression.

Racing towards the finishing line now. Quite hopeful that I will make it in time for All Fools' Day, a week from today. Serious plotting for suitable celebration underway.

Continued preparations for a different celebration by exploring the salad offerings in Waitrose. Not that great and a lot of pre-cut green stuff in plastic bags, but I managed. Plus a bottle of own label fizz, which I remember as being quite acceptable. Which also had the merit of lifting me over the bar for a free Guardian, the last one as it happens, this being around 17:00.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-496.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/09/shin.html. Possibly the last occasion we had fizz from Waitrose. Nothing recorded against.

Trolley 496

This one captured just before the Co-op in Station Approach. One which became two, as there was another one from the same stable round the corner, the same size, so easy enough to wheel. To which end, town centre pavements much better than the pavement up East Street, fairly bumpy in itself and full of obstacles like tactile slabs.

Returned as one, so only scored as one. But for some reason I was unable to get it into its stack properly at the M&S food hall. Couldn't compute what was jamming when they were half way in. Left it for the trolley supervisor to sort out. A 16 year old part-timer, moonlighting from Glynn?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-495.html.

The pretence continues

A few days ago our Chancellor delivered his Spring Statement, presumably the equivalent in Treasury life of what used to be called the Budget, delivered with much pomp and circumstance. Shrouded, before delivery, in massive amounts of ego-enhancing secrecy. Now mostly seen through its media coverage, but this morning I thought I would go back to the horse's mouth, that is to say to reference 1. Which, to be fair, is there and is easy to find, even if there is rather a lot of it.

I start from a position that: our health and social care services need to be rebuilt after the ravages of the plague; we have spent a great deal of money on the plague, a lot of it borrowed; we need to spend more on defence in response to the threat from Russia; and, prices of imported energy and food are set to rise. All of which means that our standard of living otherwise is going to fall. All this stuff has to be paid for.

Against a background of a country which has been living beyond its means for years and where the distribution of wealth is pretty dire too.

So the Spring Statement contains an executive summary which, after fairly bland warnings about invasions and prices, moves onto all the great things our government has done and how it is going to cut taxes right, left and centre. How enterprise in the private sector is going to solve all our problems. How it is going to level us all up, that is to say the rich will get slightly richer and the poor will get slightly less poor.

But failing to point out that while transferring all kinds of services from the public sector to the private sector might make public finances look a bit better, it does nothing for our standard of living, with private sector services, particularly health and social care services, generally costing a lot more than their public sector equivalents. And what about the pig's ear our privatised gas companies have made of security of supply? Where are all the storage facilities and who owns them?

Then, straying slightly beyond the Executive Summary, I come across a more or less unintelligible economic summary at Table 1.1, reproduced above, a table which hides the parlous state of the country underneath all its talk of growth and change. Growth which it is high time we weaned ourselves off, along with weaning ourselves off our dependence on unsavoury and foreign rulers.

Depressed, of Epsom.

PS 1: note also the complications arising from sanctions against Russian businessmen illustrated at reference 2. Russian money has taken root, here and elsewhere, and rooting it out, if that is where we are headed, is going to be a messy and expensive business.

PS 2: on a slightly more cheerful note, I am reminded this morning that for those needing a top-up of their diet of Guardian, there is always JSTOR, part of the not-for-profit educational operation called ITHAKA. Lots of good stuff on their daily digest, to be found at reference 4. Presumably, as far as Trump and his followers are concerned, more or less a bunch of commies.

References

Reference 1: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spring-statement-2022-documents.

Reference 2: Holland & Barrett struggles to pay interest on €415mn loan: Russian-linked owner LetterOne remains confident payment will be made despite processing issues - Robert Smith, Daniel Thomas, Stephen Morris, Financial Times - 2022.

Reference 3: https://www.jstor.org/. JSTOR for journal storage.

Reference 4: https://daily.jstor.org/. The daily digest.

Reference 5: https://www.ithaka.org/. Perhaps some link is intended to Odysseus and his homeland of Ithaca, but I have yet to see what it might be. Perhaps, rather, the link is to the city in upstate New York.

Trolley 495

A new stash was turned up this morning, in between a couple of the wannabee street food sheds in the passage leading to Ebbisham Square, that is to say the Library and sundry other attractions. Very much the haunt of deliverers of mail order food.

I didn't have any coin of the realm on me this morning, having more or less stopped carrying the stuff about, so I could not take the top two trolleys apart. Settled for the third trolley, from Waitrose. The tray looked like it had been bashed and was a little depressed and I was not convinced the flap by the handle was working properly, so I thought it best to return it to Waitrose's back door and goods entrance, rather than to the front of house stacks in the Ashley Centre. As I arrived, a chap popped out of the back door, took one look at the trolley and pronounced in fit for service.

I made my way back to the library to see if my logon there still worked, which it did, despite their systems having been updated since I was last there. And I was pleased to find that the search engine provided made this very blog the very first hit on the search key 'psmv5'.  It seems unlikely, given the upgrade, that the search was privy to any of my previous activity on library computers, which might have given it a clue. Previous activity which is probably available to both Microsoft (as the owners of Windows and Edge) and Google (as the owners of Chrome) on the computers here at home, old though they may be.

PS: Wikipedia tells me that Ebbisham, heritage speak for Epsom, is probably a corruption of the Saxon Ebresham. From which last, the name wandered through various variations, ending up as Epsom in the early eighteenth century.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-494.html. 

Trolley 494

Picked up in the Kokoro passage, in the margins of an early morning visit to Epsom, and returned to the M&S food hall on the other side of the market. In through the front door, the theory being that the clothes department in M&S is usually a lot quieter than the Ashley Centre around the other side, so less plague risk.

A trolley where the back right hand wheel, the one with the baby buggy style brake, previously noticed, had something wrong with and was clunking every time around. But returned to the stack nonetheless.

Outside, no curly endive to be had from the Thursday market greengrocer, although he did do packets of ready cut mixed leaves, some of which were curly. But not my sort of thing and, being ready cut, may not keep until Saturday.

Then a young lady, either a dancer from the Laine School of same or a jogger. Small, lean and very fit looking, but wearing not much more than a bikini. Not quite what you expect in the market.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-493.html.

Reference 2: https://laine-theatre-arts.co.uk/.

Trolley 493

The trolleys at the creationists are all full of rubbish. And there was so much rubbish this morning that a lady from the office next door was taking a picture to send to the landlord. She was not best pleased. What on earth are they up to?

However, the trolleys at the block of flats a bit further along were accessible. A mixture of Sainsbury's, Waitrose and M&S trolleys, all seemingly in clean and decent condition. Returned the top two to the stack at the front of Sainsbury's. Quite enough to be wheeling along the road.

Then for once, ventured into the store to see what could be done in the way of saucisson sec and kabanos. It turned out that they did do saucissson from Bastide, although one had to be careful not to get the cheese flavoured one and it was not the same format at that once sold by Waitrose: long and thing, rather than short and fat. While the alleged shelf of Polish goodies turned out to be quite a small shelf and certainly did not include any kabanos. Although they may have had some of those very thin ones which I don't like at all in among the chorizo in what passed for the charcuterie shelf. A wickerwork affair, very artisanale.

On the other hand, I did pick up a couple of tins of fancy Vietnamese crab against a crab salad in a few days time. Hopefully I will be able to find an curly endive, rather better for crab salad purposes than lettuce. But where has all the English crab in tins gone? They fish enough of them out of the sea around the Isle of Wight - and I dare say other places around our coasts.

I find that the Sainsbury's plastic bags that you now pay 20p for are a lot more substantial than the ones you used to get for free. Well worth keeping against a future occasion.

On round the Ewell Village anti-clockwise, to find that the travellers who had set up camp down Longmead Road had been moved on, with just a few wisps of straw to show where they had been. A much better result than I had been expecting - but then I found that they had only been moved on to a less conspicuous spot at the top of Blenheim Road.

Along the way acquiring two lengths of hard core earth bonding, that is to say with six cores rather than the usual one. No idea what sort of load it might be used for. Maybe an electric boiler? And two improper washers. The first, a small one, was slightly shaped, not quite flat. While they had forgotten the hole in the second, sticking a nut where the hole should be. But added to the collection just the same.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-492.html.