St. Thomas, Hanwell

I was prompted by the visit to Guildford Cathedral to visit another of Maufe's churches, St. Thomas at Hanwell, in west London. Built at about the time that Maufe won the Guildford competition, winning which must have involved drawings, although construction did not actually start until some time after St. Thomas was finished in 1934. The story seems to be that St. Thomas was, in many ways, a test run for the Cathedral, and a very successful one at that.

The church was in Boston Manor Road, a rather busy suburban road, lined with between the wars suburban houses, much like many of those in and around Epsom, and just up the road from the tube station of the same name. Curious about the name, I looked it up to find at reference 1 that Boston Manor was very old, with records going back to at least the middle of the 12th century. There is still a Boston Manor House, dating from the early 17th century, which I might have found had I turned right out of the station rather than left. Presently under restoration by the people at reference 3. Plus other attractions in the area, so perhaps we will be back. Not least for the River Brent, for which Brentford is named, obvious enough once one has been told.

Back at Epsom, I had managed to get rudely shouted at by a middle aged male cyclist, who thought that I had been about to step out in front of him. I can see why he might have thought that, and I did not hear him (not surprising) and I have no idea now whether I would have glanced his way before stepping out into the road if he had not shouted. In his defense, I find that I can shout much faster than I can ring my bell. More effective too.

Mask wearing patchy on the London platform, much better on the train. Quite good on the two tube rides needed to take me from Wimbledon to Boston Manor.

A new to me brand of paving slab, but the chap at reference 7 clearly knows all about them. Presumably the right to have paved advertisements of this sort was built into the price and the associated conditions of sale. The nearest I can think to it this afternoon are the rather ecclesiastical crosses carved into some of the kerb stones in and around the Wigmore Hall, an example of which can be seen at reference 8.

The carving to the east window being the work of Eric Gill, noticed in these pages from time to time. To my mind, like a lot of his architectural sculpture, good on tone and composition, but ugly in detail; ugly in a way that his drawings and woodcuts mostly are not. 

The church was shut up when I arrived, but the pensioner gardening team thought it would be OK if I knocked on the door of the vicarage adjacent, and so it turned out to be. The Vicar - no group practise here - was good enough to lend me his large bunch of keys.

There was no-one else in the church, but it seemed wrong to move all the art work so that I could lift the lid of this handsome looking brown wood piano and find out the name of the maker, so no score.

The church was a little shabby and did not have the look of a busy place, even by today's standards, but it was, nevertheless, a very handsome space. The reredos, the stations of the cross and the unusual pendant light fittings (possibly from Heal's, once of Tottenham Court Road) looked very well against the austere whites and grays. The handsome reredos and some of the other furnishings came from St. James of Portman Square, demolished to pay for this church, and of which I can presently find no trace. Unusual to have such prominent stations of the cross in an Anglican church, but they look well here.

A view down the north aisle. Nothing like as high as those at Guildford, but a similar idea nonetheless.

Unusual carving underneath the organ loft. Another of Maufe's Arts & Crafts friends.

A closer shot of the reredos. It really looked very well.

As it happens, a crucifix very similar to that noticed at Guildford. Perhaps they are both the gifts of people from east or central Europe.

The quiet and decent lady chapel. A good place for private prayer or reflection. A sanctuary from the busy world outside. Sanctuary light - to the left of the altar - not lit. Catholic churches and synagogues perhaps more careful about that.

Curious marks in the floor. Which one of the gardeners explained was linoleum rather than stone, or more precisely Ruboleum, very thick but not hard enough not be marked by the legs of chairs and the shoes of ladies. Perhaps particularly in hot weather.

He then told me that the church helped to make ends meet by letting out the belfry to telephone companies for their aerials. To which end the original belfry windows had to be replaced, as the old oak ones interfered with the signals. And it was awkward to open and shut the new ones without getting toasted by the microwaves.

And explained about the acoustic plaster applied to the roof of the nave, the same as was to be used at Guilford, expensively removed a few years ago.

Sadly, the church hall adjacent (to the right in the snap above) looked to be in rather poor condition. I dare say it was as much as they could do to keep the church in decent condition.

But a fine church. Mr Maufe knew his business.

No bacon sandwich to be had in the Italian flavoured coffee bar near the tube station, nor even, as I recall, any tea. So back to Wimbledon to see what I could find there. On the way to which, the train to Earl's Court was very crowded with people from Heathrow, a lot of whom were not bothering with masks. And no-one offered me a seat either, which they usually do in central London. Not that I am complaining as I usually, but not always, decline.

While at Wimbledon I found, contrary to the BH allegation, that the New Wimbledon Theatre did have its drum and spire on top of its dome. Maybe it got knocked off during the war, and she had seen an old picture, taken before they put it back on again.

And for lunch I came across a new-to-me establishment called 'Dip and Flip' of reference 5, where they were very keen on gravy and where I got a very decent - if rather messy - hot beef sandwich. Not something one can get very often these days. Even the bread was respectable.

One of the other customers had a very large electric scooter, painted in a dingy yellow. The owner said it was good for 50mph so I can only hope that he stuck to the roads. He might annoy car drivers but he is not going to run them down.

Perhaps a shabby yellow version of this one turned up by Bing.

And then I was reminded outside the shopping arcade by Wimbledon station of the ugly public art there - a pair of rather dumpy & grumpy girls, perhaps in dark brown bronze.

Passed, on this occasion, on the platform library at Raynes Park, not having digested my last haul yet.

References

Reference 1: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol7/pp123-128. 

Reference 2: https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/info/20174/heritage_and_arts/1855/historic_houses.

Reference 3: https://www.desertoak.co.uk/project/boston-manor-house-brentford/.

Reference 4a: http://www.thomashanwell.org.uk/. 

Reference 4b: http://www.stthomashanwellchurch.org.uk/media/resources/st_thomas_hanwell_guide_revised.pdf. Lots of information about the church and its building is to be found here.

Reference 5: https://www.dipandflip.co.uk/.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/home-via-guildford.html.

Reference 7: https://otheraberdeen.blogspot.com/2010/08/aberdeen-adamant.html.

Reference 8: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/06/bentinck-street.html.

Private road?

The scene underneath the blacktop at the top of Shaw Close, on East Street just before the turning in to Ewell Village. A close which might once have been private, and so paved by the original builder, rather than by a paving contractor working to recognised specifications... 

Visible yesterday because of resurfacing operations in East Street. Operations which were certainly needed, but the blacktop has been scraped off and there are quite a lot of cast iron obstacles which one does not want to hit on a bicycle. Plus the scraper leaves striped surface in places, a striped surface which sends unpleasant vibrations up through the handlebars unless you go very slow.

We also have the contraption snapped above - an ACKLEA Scorpion - which I have so far failed to compute, despite a quick peek at reference 1. Perhaps something to look at more closely a bit later in the day.

References

Reference 1: https://www.acklea.com/acklea_products/crash-cushions/.

Fake 125

I have finally caved in a couple of weeks ago and decided that I do need a long pole hedge trimmer and the other day we visited Chessington Garden Centre to make inquiries. And the story seems to be that we want a battery powered trimmer from Stihl, for several hundred pounds. The only catch is that there are very few of them in the country and I will have to put my name on the waiting list. So I need to take a look at reference 3 and decide what model to put down for.

In the meantime, the Garden Centre cafeteria looked bigger than ever and there was an impressive range of fakes on offer. A fake to suit every pocket, every home and every garden. With the one above actually being a hybrid of real twigs and plastic leaves; for the gardener in a hurry.

While these plastic flowers would do very well for the smaller pond. Of which, as it happens, we have three. Under consideration. Would they go with the fake terrapin that we already have? A blue terrapin, about five inches long and floating, originally bought on the strength of an allegation that it kept the duckweed down (snapped by Bing below).

The general tone of the shopping sheds, which seem to spread out a bit more as every year goes by, was very T.K.Maxx flavoured. Or very Coach House flavoured, for which see reference 4.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/fake-124.html.

Reference 2: https://www.chessingtongardencentre.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://www.stihl.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/12/gifts.html.

A coddy story

A correspondent sent me a statistical table about the landings of Atlantic cod in Maine since 1950. After some jiggling about, I persuaded Excel to produce the statistical chart above: getting the data into Excel from a pdf easy, getting Excel to produce a labelled chart by year more tricky - and I seem to be stuck with having a complete date, rather than a partial date, that is to say just the year. But what is going on? They pushed catches up until the early 1990's, when there was some sort of catastrophic failure, followed by more or less steady decline down to more or less nothing.

At the website of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, from which the cod came, I find the Commissioner's biennial report for 1968, from which another statistical table is snapped above. We might think that cod is a big deal over here, but in Maine it does not look to be very important at all, at least not in 1968. To the point where the word 'cod' occurred just twice in the report. Something called ocean perch (of reference 3) was much more important - although maybe they have driven that to extinction since then too. As were herring and whiting. And much more important again were lobster and clam. So the shellfish gang are, presumably, the people who really have the ear of the Commissioner. And maybe there is some watery equivalent of the National Rifle Association which keeps him in line, makes sure that he does not interfere with the constitutional rights of sports fishermen to catch, kill and eat whatever takes their fancy.

But at least the Commissioner has a shiny new boat to keep an eye on things.

While, given that the supply of biennial reports seemed to have dried up in the early 1970's, I am none the wiser about the cod catch collapse.

References

Reference 1: https://www.maine.gov/dmr/commercial-fishing/landings/documents/cod.table.pdf.

Reference 2: https://www.maine.gov/dmr/commercial-fishing/.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_fish.

Glossary

My reading of the ‘Faerie Queene’, announced at reference 1, is proceeding slowly, and I am now into the second pass of Book I (of VI). It so happens that the edition I am using, that at reference 2, comes with very little annotation, very little apparatus. It is a book intended for those who are already familiar with Spenser’s language – a lot more different from ours than that of his contemporary Shakespeare, not to mention Richardson’s ‘Clarissa’, a lot nearer to Spenser in time than it is to us, but which reads modern in comparison. For those who are reading an old friend, for pleasure.

While I have been using the glossary to be found at reference 3, but it is far from complete. Furthermore, printed off on sheets of A4, it is not particularly convenient to use.

So this morning the hunt was on for something better and I asked Bing for dictionaries of early modern English. I thought that maybe Oxford – the home of ancient English studies and to people like the late Tolkien – published such a thing. But nothing doing.

I did turn up reference 4, which almost certainly contains the information that I need, but again not particularly convenient as a reading aid. Learning on the way that the Department of English at the University of Toronto has made deep studies into early English. Perhaps they have pinched that particular crown from our Oxford.

It then occurred to me that my full-on OED (reference 5) probably contained the information that I need in book form, rather than on the computer. A brief inspection suggested that this was indeed the case, and, for the words I tested, Spenser was often the source cited. Which was all well and good, but at a dozen or more fat volumes, not particularly convenient either.

Then I had the bright idea that what I wanted was not a general purpose dictionary at all, but rather an annotated edition of the book in question. From where I rapidly get to an annotated edition from Longman (reference 6), a page from which is snapped above (with thanks to the Amazon preview feature) , and now bought from Abebooks. It appears to be very much the Spenser equivalent of the Arden Shakespeare. Quite possibly the sort of thing that BH was supplied with when she did Spenser at school. She also reminds me that it is all so much easier to understand when you read it aloud. Don’t really understand why this should be so, but it is. With the snag being that reading aloud is not something that people of our generation are much into; need to go back 150 years or so, when neither electric light nor spectacles had been invented.

So the plan now is to read from the reading edition, but to turn to the annotated edition when I get stuck. Which should work much better than having to get up and go and consult either the computer or OED.

The perils of adult learning at home. Maybe I would have got there rather quicker with a teacher.

I associate first to the little books that some schools used for the teaching of Latin. So you got a chunk of Caesar’s ‘Gallic Wars’, for example, complete with all the vocabulary and notes needed by the schoolboy to decipher the Latin text. Some at the bottom of the page, some at the end. I used some of them as a adult, at the time I was (unsuccessfully) trying to revive my O-level knowledge of Latin.

And second, the Spenserian characters like ‘Despair’, who strike me as doing in allegorical clothes what a modern analytic – not to say Freudian – psychiatrist might do with a patient: Spenser is going over at least some of the same ground. Maybe the same could be said of Burton (of melancholy) or Bunyan (of progress).

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-second-monument.html. 

Reference 2: The Faerie Queene – Edmund Spenser – 1590. My edition that in two volumes, of 1909 from OUP, via Parker’s of Oxford. Edited by J. C. Smith.

Reference 3: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Faerie_Queene_(unsourced)/Book_I/Glossary. 

Reference 4: https://leme.library.utoronto.ca/search/word. Inter alia, a huge online dictionary of early modern English. 

Reference 5: Oxford English Dictionary - Murray and others - 1879-1915.

Reference 6: Longman Annotated English Poets: Spenser: the Faerie Queene - edited A. C. Hamilton - 2001. Revised second edition. Text edited by Horoshi Yamashita and Toshiyuki Suzuki. So not just the Canadians getting in on the early English act, we have the Japanese too. Although I suppose it is possible that these two are actually Japanese-Canadians, based in Toronto rather than Hiroshima or somewhere like that.

Piano 47

As mentioned at reference 2, this piano was captured in a side room at Guildford Cathedral. It looked very like the Knight piano which my (late) younger brother played on for many years. Bought in part because Knight was one of the few respectable, home-grown piano makers at the time, perhaps the mid 1960's. But see reference 3. I think this was the first time that I have come across another one.

It took a while to track down a label, but I think I found one inside, not being able to read that zoomed above at the time. I also found a rather battered label explaining the the soundboard had been made from [something] European Spruce, as used by the maestro, that is to say Stradivarius.

I think my brother's Knight was retired in favour of a Yamaha upright, which needed a bit of post-purchase tweaking to get the sound right, shortly before he died.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/piano-46.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/home-via-guildford.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Pianos. A company which finally expired in 2003.

Home via Guildford

That is to say, Axminster to Epsom via Dorchester, Ringwood, M27, M3, Alton and Guildford - rather than our more usual A303. A journey which included the long wall around at least part of the Charborough Estate already noticed, more than ten years ago, at reference 2. A journey which also included the Wellingtonia already noticed at reference 1.

A chunk of the wall, as captured by the Street View people. Lots of Winterbournes, including Winterbourne Zelston, but no Zelstons pure and simple, so no use for the alphabet game. Have to stick with Zeals in nearby Wiltshire.

Having paused briefly at a layby on the A31, we decided to picnic outside Guildford Cathedral, where picnic tables had been provided on the grass across the road from the cafeteria. And then, on a whim into the cathedral.

Since we were last there, there has been serious and expensive work to remove the asbestos flavoured acoustic plaster from the roof and they took the opportunity to refresh the paintwork. It really looked very well indeed. Perhaps the light was just right. The snap above serves to remind, but does not do it justice.

Sadly, with the acoustic plaster gone, there was a terrific echo, so that one could almost hear conversation at the west end when standing under the crossing. We were told that choirs didn't like it.

I couldn't find a label on this probably grand grand piano, and I didn't like to take the cover off and lift the lid. I don't suppose the trusty would have approved. I suppose I could have asked him, but as they say (about credit) in public houses, refusal often offends. But there was a piano in a side room which I shall score shortly.

Some care had been taken to match up the grain of the stone at some of the joins. All adds to the cost.

Oddly enough, I had been asking Bing for an example of the cross like this just a few days previously (in the connection with the Faerie Queene of reference 8), but from the Italian Renaissance, which I had sure I had see in the National Gallery, but failed to come up with quite what I was looking for.

The fabric of the church was fairly plain, severe even. But there was plenty of rich, not to say lush, furniture and fittings. I learned later that the architect had lots of friends who were into that sort of thing. 

Left with a desire to know more about the building of the cathedral and while the shop did not have a book about that, it did have a book about the architect (reference 7) which has served well and on which I shall report in due course. An easy read.

At least four more places to visit, by the same architect. Canadian memorial at Brookwood. RAF memorial at Runnymede, the Magna Carta memorial at Runnymede and the church of St. Thomas by Boston Manor tube (a southwestern outpost of the Piccadilly Line) . This last visit was accomplished just a few days later and will be reported on in due course.

PS 1: having been reminded in the Treasury of one Jane Toller, mentioned at reference 6, I was pleased to find when we got home that I was able to put my hand on her pamphlet about British Samplers in no time at all. A souvenir that is, not for reading.

PS 2: the Charborough people were once mixed up with the Turbervilles. Did Hardy lift Tess of the d'Urbervilles from the Turberville Window in Bere Church, in Dorset?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/wellingtonia-42.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2012/12/southern-passage.html.

Reference 3: http://www.charborough.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charborough_House. A seriously big house. Fairly recently owned by the splendidly named Admiral the Hon. Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax. Still a bit of a mystery how they keep the death duties at bay: paintballing, logs and charcoal only go so far. I think a visit to the nearby church at Almer is indicated, next time we are in the vicinity.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/11/handl.html. A Maufe mention.

Reference 6: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/05/guildford-cathedral.html. What seems to be the last proper visit to the cathedral.

Reference 7: Edward Maufe: Architect and Cathedral Builder - Juliet Dunmur - 2019.

Reference 8: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-second-monument.html. Going quite slowly, now on my second pass of the first book of the six. Taking longer than expected to get used to the deliberately antique language, antique that is even for 1600.

Reference 9: https://thetipsypigs.co.uk/. The grass outside the west end of the cathedral is used for all kinds of things, including festivals of gin and outdoor cinema. And these people have dropped a pin on gmaps. I wonder whether you can stop people dropping pins on your property, pins you might not want?

Borders

I thought to check on the borders of Afghanistan this morning, with the map above summarising the result. Shia Iran to the west, that is to say to the left. Pakistan to the south. Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikstan to the north. India might just about get in through disputed Kashmir, but I think not. China does get in to the east, through the narrow Wakhan Corridor, a device invented by us British at the end of the 19th century to put a stop to Russian ambitions to push even further south. The Great Game of Buchan stories. I dare say Kipling too. A very hilly, not to say mountainous, part of the world. The southern border of Afghanistan is maybe 500km north of the seaside, not a huge distance in the context of a huge place like the Imperial Russia of old.

Not so long ago Turkmenistan, Uzebekistan and Tajikstan all formed part of the Soviet Union, and one imagines that Putin and Russia still have plenty of interests and influence there.

I don't suppose that any of these places are very keen on more militant Islam. Enough problems of their own already and they are not going to want that that sort of thing on their doorstep.

A Midsummer's Night Dream

A dream set in and about the Barbican Theatre in London, and a performance of  'A Midsummer's Night Dream'. The dream started with some work flavoured scenes, of which all I can now remember is that they were not much to do with any work that I have ever actually done.

My ticket had been carried over from the previous year, was more or less incomprehensible, so I knew neither start time nor seat number, and was jammed in with a whole lot of bits and pieces of paper in the inside breast pocket of my jacket.

I don't seem to know the area very well, managing to get rather lost. But getting warm and thinking I have plenty of time, I stop in a fashionable city bar to take refreshment. I am rather put out that a large glass of white wine costs me £25, but it turns out to be very good wine, most unusually so for a public house. And thinking about it now, not such an unreasonable price for a third of a bottle by restaurant standards, where the markup on wine is huge.

Eventually find my way to the corridors of the busy theatre. I keep bumping into ladies that I know slightly. Waking, not actual ladies, nor ladies that I actually know, from previous dreams or otherwise, although I do associate to the sort of people who used to work for the Government Social Survey in the 1970's. People who were apt to talk a lot, to read the Guardian and to live in Clerkenwell or Islington. But still in a muddle about start time and seat number.

The show starts and I seem to be in the corridor running down the outside of the wrong side of the Greek-style, raked auditorium. I persuade a doorman to let me in anyway, to find the aisles inside full of people milling around and people sitting around, not paying much if any attention to the proceedings. A large auditorium, about the same size and shape as that of the theatre at the Barbican, but very different in detail.

Proceedings which take the form of a series of musical numbers, with long gaps between the numbers. More milling around.

Eventually, in one of the gaps, I make my way to my seat, a very good seat quite near the front, but on the other side.

My seat is empty but occupied (as it were), so on the suggestion of the gentleman in the row behind, I sit down in the one next to it. Very fancy seats, a bit like those in an aeroplane or, for that matter, the Epsom Odeon deluxe seats, installed a few years ago. The lady returns and seems to know me. Very talkative anyway.

Much action up front, but nobody is paying much attention. Much clowning around, on and off stage.

I find my trousers covered with jets of brightly coloured sticky stuff; the sort of thing you might squirt on a child's birthday cake from an icing bag - or from a large tube of toothpaste for teeth or paint for an artist. The lady adds some more for good measure. All very tiresome as I am due back at the office later.

At which point I wake up.

References

Reference 1: https://www.blogtorwho.com/the-dream-qa-highlights/. The source of the snap above. 'Earlier this month [in 2016] BAFTA Cyrmu held a screening of BBC’s newest version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Russell T Davies reunited with BBC Cymru Wales to deliver a modern, magical take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one that is likely to delight and challenge all who love the work of William Shakespeare'. A show that we managed to miss.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/06/a-dream-for-third-millennium.html. The last performance of the play that we went to. I don't think we have ever seen it at the Barbican and I can't find any trace of the circus version from Iceland that we saw at the Young Vic. From which, inter alia, I remember an acrobatic lady with a hole in her black tights. While all that Bing wants to tell me about is a modern dress version in mud from 2017. Quite different.

Bearings

Having mentioned bearings at reference 1 and youth at reference 2, we have something of the sort at the corner of Meadway this morning. This time with a car.

It looks as if something needs serious repair with a cylindrical part and a couple of large ball bearings lying out in front. I thought about collecting the bearings as a souvenir, but then thought better of it. Perhaps if they are still there tomorrow.

No idea - yet anyway - as to what might have happened to give this result.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/diy-not.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/hookberries.html.

Hookberries

We took the third lot of blackberries from inside Hook Road Arena, where there were not as many berries as I was expecting, possibly because we had missed the first wave. Possibly because the groundsmen had been doing some cutting back. But picking from about four places, we filled the main tub and the two picking tubs. 

BH has tray frozen the first half and is bagging them up as I type this. Second half to follow later today.

Just one of the various stretches of bushes. Plenty of bushes, even if supply of berries not brilliant.

By the time we left perhaps half a dozen dog walkers had arrived. One or two of which had what looked like fighting dogs, with big ugly heads and big mouths. I don't suppose it is only drug dealers who like to have them.

The entrance to the arena had been upgraded with galvanised iron kissing gates - and we were told all the other entrances had been similarly upgraded. At the time I wondered why on earth why, but now it occurs to me that it might be to stop under age youths from using the arena for motor cycles. Perhaps motor cyclists had taken to roaring around the place at night, making a lot of noise and tearing up a lot of grass. Although the grass on this occasion looked good.

Perhaps giant car boot sales having morphed into pigmy car book sales for the duration has helped too.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/pondberries.html. The second (small) lot.

Warrington

Warrington is a town - or perhaps a city - of 200,000 million people or so - sitting on top of both the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal, roughly half way between Liverpool to the west and Manchester to the east. A borough with 22 wards, councillors and a borough council. I dare say there is a mayor with mayoral regalia. You can read all about it at reference 1.

And no doubt the council busies itself with parks, dustbins, street lighting, strategic plans and all the other good stuff that successive central governments have thought local government are up to.

So interested to read in the FT this morning that they have lent £151m (so far) to an investment company called Icon 3 Holdco, which is indirectly controlled by an entrepreneurial type called Matt Moulding. The core of the operation seems to be a company called THG, aka The Hut Group, to be found at reference 2. Which as far as one can tell in sixty seconds, is some kind of glossy, web-enabled marketing operation. They can turn your new lipstick - or whatever - into a money spinning phenomenon. There is also mention of places like Jersey. No doubt the Virgin Islands if one looked a bit harder. Various wheezes to make inspection, regulation and taxation difficult. Is there a whiff of something unpleasant about all this? I associate to another entrepreneurial type, now deceased, from the other side of the great divide, called John Poulson.

Now, on the one hand, I believe the central government has taken far too much power into its own hands (and into those of its cronies), power which would be better with local government. In particular, central government should not be micro-managing the banking arrangements of local government. They should be left to manage their own affairs.

On the other, given that council are funded on a annual cash basis from the public purse, not at all clear to me that they should be involved in lending money, let alone on this scale, to companies of this sort. I dare say Warrington needs to have some cash reserves so that it can deal with the unexpected - like floods and plagues - but I am not all sure that it should be using those reserves in this way. And Warrington is not the only council at this sort of thing. And some of which might be funded by the Public Works Loan Board, possibly now part of the Debt Management Office of reference 3.

Puzzled of Epsom.

References

Reference 1: https://www.warrington.gov.uk/.

Reference 2: https://www.thg.com/.

Reference 3: https://pwlb.gov.uk/.

Wellingtonia 42

A drive-by capture on the A31 eastbound, just past the Ringwood branch of the In-Excess family of garden centres. Snap above lifted from Google, showing the distinctive crown looming up in front of us.

From closer up. The doubled up trunk may be due to a failure in Google's cunning splicing technology - something one does not come across very often.

Doubling up still present but not quite as marked. Which prompted me to wonder how exactly Google does it. So off to Bing who turns up reference 3 which says Street View images start out as high resolution video images. Some of the technology and some of the leg-work may come from the people at reference 4, Immersive Media. From where I get to reference 5 and the next snap.

I am clearly not the only one to have wondered about all this, as there is a huge amount of stuff out there about all this. I dare say even to the point of there being competitions to find the oddest mistake in the splicing programs. But to get to those programs is going to take more time than I ought to spend on this sort of thing, fascinating though it might be...

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/wellingtonia-41.html.

Reference 2: https://www.in-excess.com/.

Reference 3: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/the-tech-behind-googles-street-view/.

Reference 4: https://immersivemedia.net/.

Reference 5: https://www.trekview.org/blog/2019/history-of-google-street-view-cameras/.

Reference 6: https://friendsoflv50.org.uk/. The oldest, floating, wooden lightship in the UK. A serious bit of maritime heritage from up north. Apparently something that the Immersive people are really proud of. But it would take me a while to learn how to drive it. Maybe someone younger who knows all about computer games?

Group search key: wgc.

Pondberries

The second pick of blackberries, a very modest pick, came from the bushes around the back of Stamford Green Pond. Visited for the purposes of feeding the various birds there with rolled oats: pigeons, ducks, coots and moorhens, including some very young moorhens. There were some seagulls and geese about but they stayed out of the way.

The small tub had not been for oats, but for raisins to form part of a snack for Felicity. The half-eaten apple was another part.

Rewarded by the sight of a large rat as we got back onto the path running along the front of the pond. And so home to cook the blackberries, along with the half-eaten apple and another.

As it turned out, just about the right amount of sugar and water, sometime I often get wrong. But then, on this occasion I had two supervisors. Down in one.

The leaflet top right turned up just before we tucked into the blackberries, featuring the work of one Chi Chi Maté Langlah, BA(Hons), Fashion Promotion and Imaging, UCA Epsom. We wondered where Chi Chi came from and what her life course would turn out to be. Presumably not High Street photographer, the breed being more or less extinct.

A leaflet which was by way of a massive thank you to the residents of Epsom for making the students of UCA (and their spending money) so welcome.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/blackberries.html. The first lot.

Reference 2: https://www.uca.ac.uk/. A university with no fewer than five campuses. Apparently 'the guardian's top-ranked creative university', although the website does not clarify which guardian that was. Presumably not the sort that ladies are supposed to carry around with them in certain Moslem countries.

Reference 3: https://chichimatelanglah.wixsite.com/mysite/project-04. Possibly based in the Netherlands. Whatever else she learned here in Epsom, it appears to include generating a substantial web presence. The photograph above is one of hers, not sure if is also one of her.

Military secrets

Yesterday evening I happened to be looking at the West London Landranger Map from Ordnance Survey, Sheet 176, and my eye landed on Northwood, a little to the east of Rickmansworth, on the northwestern sector of the M25.

Mainly on account of a naval chap with whom I had once done some work, I remembered about the naval headquarters there. So where was it?

I was not particularly surprised not to find it as I thought that it was the custom to omit sensitive military installations, be they ever so large and visible on the ground. An important munitions dump near Edgehill coming to mind - sufficiently important that the local council ran paper fire drills - this from a local council employee taking a pipe in a public house nearby.

However, ever curious, I ask Bing and he comes up with reference 1. Complete with detailed instructions on how to get there; on foot, by car or whatever.

Thus armed, I trace the route in gmaps, Satellite view, and it is not long before I get to the place, just to the west of Oxhey Woods. All present, labelled and correct, although the Street View camera van was not allowed through the reasonably serious looking gate house.

I then go to the online version of Sheet 176, and find the place all present, labelled and correct there too. And given the capabilities of online maps, it would have been quite hard to grey it out or camouflage it in an inconspicuous way. I associate to greying out large lumps of employment at such places in my days with the late, Annual Census of Employment.

And while it is present in my deluxe edition of the London AZ, it is very discretely labelled, sufficiently discrete that you would have to know what it was and roughly where it was beforehand.

So not an unreasonable outcome. You are not going to hide such a place from the enemy professional, but no need to make it too easy for the disaffected amateur.

PS: we might not have much left to command these days (think aircraft carriers without aircraft), but we do at least have the command structure, the command infrastructure. Lots of bunkers, admirals, air marshals, generals, permanent secretaries and secretariats. All that sort of thing. Not least an imposing map room, where our fat leader can be press-opportunitied while poring over a map. From where I associate again to an incident in the Good Soldier Švejk, an incident involving a map, a colonel and a cat. Pages 436-7 of the Heinemann edition of 1973. Translated by Parrott, sold by Foyles, late of Charing Cross Road. Where today, I also noticed some mild anti-Semitism, more having sport with racial stereotypes than seriously abusive, more virulent forms of which were endemic in central Europe at the time of writing.

References

Reference 1: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/northwood-headquarters/northwood-headquarters.

Dignity in dying

I was pleased to see an piece in the FT today (reference 1) in support of allowing people with terminal complaints a bit more choice about exactly how and when they terminate. Something which one might think the party of free choice and non-interference by government in private affairs would go for, but it doesn't. Something which one might think our Parliament would get on with, but they don't - despite a massive majority for changing the law among the population at large. Despite the example of a number of other countries. Perhaps our arrangements for government might better be described as geriatric than as venerable.

Flash your plastic at reference 3 if you want a relatively painless way to help move things along.

PS: I recall reading once that the Mexicans dodge the issue. They don't allow assisted suicide, but they don't control the sale of barbiturates suitable for euthanising pets either - and which if properly administered are also suitable for humans. Perhaps the Church still has a big voice over there, despite scandals and falling rolls.

References

Reference 1: The time is ripe for citizens’ voices on assisted dying: British politicians are nervous about supporting reform but public panels could break the logjam - Robert Shrimsley and FT - 2021.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/01/more-irish-matters.html. My most recent notice of this subject.

Reference 3: https://www.dignityindying.org.uk/.

Porcorum

Our last stop in Dorset, after a brief inspection of Eggardon Hill, one of the ancient hill forts dotted around this part of Dorset, was Toller Porcorum. A place we have passed nearby many times but never, as far as I can remember, actually visited. BH taking possession outside the church snapped above.

The story might have been that the real Tollers started out in the East Midlands, where my part of the family went in for growing fruit to be sold in the nearby towns of Bedford, Huntington and Cambridge. In those days it was normal to run pigs under the fruit trees to keep the grass and weeds down and to hoover up fallen fruit, this last being no use for market. Housewives were fussy about appearances, even in those days. The fruit and pig businesses prospered, but being under separate management, their interests diverged. One thing led to another and the pig side of the family eventually departed, never to be seen again. We only learned later that they had set up as Toller Porcorum, in the west country, taking on the sort of fancy name that people liked in those parts. Gave them a sort of connection with Latin and the Church; gave them a bit of what they would call tone over the pond. While my paternal grandfather plied his trade in Hemingford Grey, just outside Huntington, living in a house now called 'Orchard House', while the orchard which was out back is now a small housing estate. On the northern corner of The Thorpe (a very old track or lane) and Langley Way (a very new, estate road).

The church uses pretty much the same brand of mousetrap that we use.

Indoor, craft duties for the wives, while their menfolk are out and about, dealing with the porcorum.

An old school bell had found its way into a corner of the church. Nice clear tone when I hit it with our back door key, a Chubb mortice lock key, much more suitable as a clapper than the ubiquitous but skinny Yale.

Presumably some  kind of a memorial, but easy to mistake from a distance as an ecclesiastical ashtray, for the convenience of gentlemen busting for a fag after the sermon. From where I associate to a garrison mass in 'The Good Soldier Švejk', probably in Prague, where the colonel lighting up during the proceedings was a signal for everyone else to light up too. With the result that clouds of smoke could be seen ascending through the dust laden beams of light coming in through the windows on high.

Back to the 'George' at Axminster for a spot of pub dining.

Started with mackerel, which came in a very small portion sitting on top of a sort of savoury salad. Given that there were mackerel boats less than ten miles away and that mackerel used to be a very cheap fish, we thought they were a bit mean with it. But actually it was all rather good, and probably quite enough for a starter.

Followed by roast beef, probably left over from lunch, but actually rather good. And a generous portion. My only mistake was forgetting to ask for gravy on the side, forgetting that places of this sort rather like to slosh the stuff on. Most of it down though, notwithstanding. With the result that I was too full for a dessert.

Washed down with a nice little 'Tooma River' Chardonney from the land of rabbits and convicts, aka the Warburn Estate. But it is a big operation and I dare say they do specials for the trade, so this particular bottle was not to be found at reference 5. Must have thought it OK though as, unusually, we ran to a second bottle. Some sideways looks as I removed the second half of the second bottle to the privacy of our bedroom upstairs, where the snap above was taken.

Note the A4, hard covered notebook, just visible bottom right. The sort of notebook favoured by client advisors during my time with CCTA in the mid 1980's. An organisation which has now vanished under many layers of reorganisation. Whose headquarters building on the north eastern corner of Vauxhall Bridge was demolished some years ago in favour of expensive flats.

The new flats are visible left in the snap above, much the same size as the office block had been. I used to keep my bicycle in a sort of basement broom cupboard, accessible from steps down from the right. But I am pleased they left Moore's 'Locking Piece', much more my sort of outdoor sculpture than the sort of stuff that usually gets put up in London.

In any event, a good meal.

References

Reference 1: https://www.geograph.ie/profile/3076. An aspirant.

Reference 2: http://www.tollerporcorum.org/. Life with the Tollers.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/02/claim-to-fame.html. The famous Toller. From the East Midlands branch.

Reference 4: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2012/12/memory-lane.html. A visit to the East Midlands.

Reference 5: https://www.warburnestate.com.au/. 'Carmelo is Chief Winemaker at Warburn Estate and has spent over 20 years dedicated to producing wonderful wines. The estate is owned by the 3rd and 4th generations of the Sergi family - whose winemaking heritage was brought to the area from Italy in 1952'.

Reference 5: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/documents/25k-raster-legend.pdf. Sometimes needed when using the online product. I have just been reminded how much county boundaries wriggle when seen at 1:50,000. Even to the point of following the stepped boundaries of medieval strip fields.