Trolley 482

The last of the nest of trolleys in the car park between Epsom Station and the High Street. Yet another trolley from the M&S food hall. Quite clean enough to return to the stack, despite appearances.

Oddly, since my last visit, a day or so ago, someone has put the trolley on its side, removed the blue plastic basket and the black plastic clothes hanger. Value of this last must be close to zero. And I still have no idea where the small black basket might have come from. While the blue one might have come from the Tesco's in the station building.

There was a third trolley tucked in a corner in the High Street itself, possibly a Waitrose trolley for a change. But I thought that two was enough for (what turned out to be) a busy Monday and passed.

Eighteen to go.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/trolley-481.html.

Trolley 481

Trolley 481 was captured at the top of the second passage down to the High Street, as you approach Epsom Station from West Hill. Another trolley from the M&S food hall, which appeared to have taken over the town centre trolley niche from Waitrose.

And it suddenly came to me what the lock was doing on the back right hand wheel, left in the snap above. It wasn't a lock at all, in the way of Sainsbury's, rather a foot operated brake, on something of the same lines as those you get on baby buggies. A easy to use rocker to apply and then release the brake. You just have to work out what it is for.

References

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

Sheep shoulder

A week or so ago, a return to shoulder of lamb, seemingly not taken since end of November last, as noticed at reference 1. The same sort of occasion, as it turned out. And as it happened, the first shoulder from the new team at the butcher in Manor Green Road. A proper shoulder that is, despite earlier mutterings about a shrink wrapped offering with the shank removed. Not the same thing at all: I dare say such a thing would cook OK, but they look most unattractive freshly out of the shrink wrap and dripping. Not to mention the absence of the shank.

5lbs and 6oz, so a little more than on that last occasion, so cooked for a little longer. Oven on at 180°C at 09:30, meat in 09:45. Out at 12:20 and rested for ten minutes for an early start at 12:30 to suit the younger stomach. Pretty much spot on.

Taken with what passes for broccoli in some supermarkets, mashed potato and roast roots. These last including some swede from Waitrose, the subject of a special, bicycle enabled, Sunday morning visit. Where the TLS was missing and proper saucisson sec was still missing. But the two member of staff I spoke with were both very pleasant. Maybe that would have worn a bit thin by the end of their shifts.

First bottle was a 2020 Gavi from Gavi, and although I forgot to snap the back of the bottle, on the original snap, that is to say not the one visible here, I was able to zoom into 'araldica castelvero', with the phrase 'bottled by' suggesting some sort of aggregating facility, from where I got to reference 2. The web site of what appears to be quite a big operation. But where this particular label does not appear, so perhaps an export special. Went down fine.

What was left of the steamed jam sponge pudding, a favourite with both the adult males present. It followed the roast meat well. And I think it did shrink a little before it next appeared.

Second bottle was rather older, coming in at 2012, once again from Frick of Pfaffenheim.

After which it was time for a bit of brain testing using the game picked up in a junk shop in Shanklin, some time before the plague, so probably three or four years ago. I am pleased to say that I made genius on my second attempt, while some of those present failed to get beyond moron.

We were then treated to a lengthy demonstration of nappy changing involving a doll and a young lady aged around 30 months.

After which I moved onto colour work with a slightly older young lady.

Some time later I went on to win at Scrabble, with my being helped along by a good spot for 'czar', which BH looked a bit dubious about but which I did not withdraw. While BH tried for a dodgy word, but withdrew when I looked a bit dubious. Fortunately, her alternative scored more. Both words turned out to be in the dictionary.

The shoulder at the end of the first shift. It went on to provide two more good sized portions the next day, so six adult portions and two child portions altogether, so around £4 a portion.

PS 1: I had thought moron was to do with a quack psychiatrist of the 19th century called Dr. Moroni, but the archive turns up reference 3, which suggests that this non-fact has been lodged in my brain for at least a decade. I was also reminded of a respectable painter called Moroni, represented in the National Gallery, and of the other, probably obsolete, use of moron for a salamander. In any event, I suspect moron in its primary usage of being much commoner when I was young than it is now.

PS 2: OneDrive well behind on synchronising my telephone with my laptop, with lots of snaps from this occasion, eight days ago now, still missing. Am I going to have to resort to using a cable again? 

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/more-sheep.html.

Reference 2: https://www.araldicavini.com/.

Reference 3: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2011/01/pedantry.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/03/iq.html. A previous outing for the moronic game. The cottage pie, mandatory at that time, just about visible.

Trolley 480

The trolleys are coming! A M&S food hall trolley arrived in a road near us overnight Saturday-Sunday. Clocked on our way to Hampton Court, captured and returned after we had returned. Snapped above near some leylandii flavoured debris from the great storm. A large, forked leylandii, one half of which had split away and fallen across the road. Apparently the neighbours turned out to clear it, some of them at least, presumably, armed with chainsaws.

Note the wheel nearest the camera, with what looks like a wheel lock. No idea what might set it off and I have yet to come across one which has been set off.

Thought about a celebration beverage at Wetherspoons, but the inside looked a bit crowded and the sun had gone off the terrace, so I abstained, strolling back home via Hook Road instead.

Passing through what I now believe to be the remains of a veggie market in the square.

Passing at least two clumps of broken glass in verges, broken glass which one might of thought that the householder adjacent would have cleared up by late afternoon. But well outside the 100m radius of home that I limit my own clearings up to. There are limits to how busy one can decently be.

Picking up a dark washer to add to my collection, maybe an inch in diameter, along the way. The first for a while.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/trolley-479.html.

Wellingtonia 67

This quite decent specimen was captured in the margins of a visit to Reigate, to see about an even more decent specimen in Bell Street, a little to the south of town centre.

On the northern approach to Reigate, on the A217, just before the railway crossing, just outside a modest housing development called 'The Dell'. As luck would have it, the railway crossing was shut as we approached it, causing traffic to back up and slow down, which meant I had time to spot the tree and pull in. 

Presumably once guarding the entrance to a substantial house, now sold off for this development of nine, very desirable town houses. You can rent one for £2,000, including the Neff appliances in the kitchen. Never heard of them, but perhaps they mean that I will be able to tick one more box in one of the YouGov brand awareness surveys that I take from time to time. 

By way of comparison, you can rent a retirement flat in Weybridge from McCarthy & Stone in Weybridge for between £3,000 and £4,000, although I don't think their flyer said anything about kitchen appliances. Which seemed to me to be rather a lot: you could go to a care home for that and have done with.

PS: gmaps tells me that Bell Street is also the southern leg of the A217, the one that runs through to Gatwick, having got rather lost in the middle of town.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/wellingtonia-66.html.

Reference 2: https://www.neff-home.com/uk/. You might think that the name was uncomfortably close to naff, but it does mean that you remember it, which is, after all, the main thing.

Group search key: wgc.

Trolley 479

Returned to the car park opposite Epsom Station today, the one under the newish block of flats, armed on this occasion with a pound coin, with which I was able to release a large M&S trolley. Perfectly clean and decent so I don't suppose it had been there that long. And it was under cover.

Returned to the stacks, where the muddle continues. I was, nevertheless, able to get the trolley into one of the stacks, but while the next trolley along had a handle lock of the right sort, its chain had got lost, so I was unable to recover my one pound coin. Very tiresome.

Market much busier than last Saturday, when I now know the council banned the stalls with awnings, which probably added to the absenteeism. 

PS: not sure where either the black basket (small) or the blue basket (regular) came from. Need to give that matter some thought, before I return to collect the other trolley.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/trolley-478.html.

On doors

Prompted by something about anaesthetics in reference 1, I have been poking around to try and find out something about how general anaesthetics work. With there being a long standing interest in whether this might inform how consciousness works – with the presumption being that it ought to.

Part of the answer seems to be that, despite some general principles, a large amount of work and a large number of facts, there is still a great deal to learn. We might know a good deal about the relatively small number of general anaesthetics in common use, a good deal about how to administer them and about how they affect the consciousness, awareness and responsiveness of the subject. But a lot of the molecular detail is still missing. How exactly is it that they reliably do what they do?

What follows is an attempt to bring some order into this layman’s knowledge of the matter, expressed, as is my wont, as a box model. Bearing in mind, as always, that these models are, to some extent at least, a matter of taste. There are usually lot of different ways to draw them.

I restrict myself to vertebrates, all organised in much the same way and for present purposes, perhaps all much the same.

Vertebrates are made up of cells. Cells can be organised into types, hundreds of them. Neurons are specialised cells and I believe that they come in around a hundred different varieties. Cells are often built into large assemblies, but that is not the whole story as there is also the extracellular medium, usually watery.

As with a machine or a ship, it is often convenient to break a vertebrate down into a hierarchy of parts, here called regions. So it might be convenient to break a body down into organs plus supporting structures. It might be convenient to break a brain down into a couple of hundred of regions – and lots of work has gone into defining regions of this sort in an effort to promote communications between the many teams working on brains.

In principle, there is a many to many map between regions and cell types. This region has that distribution of cell types. One might try to get statistical and specify the amount of variation one might reasonably expect between individuals. So, on average, A% of the cells of region B of species C will be of type D. And A plus or minus E will include F% of individuals. Or moving from percentages to numbers, on average, region B of species C contains A cells of type D. And A plus or minus E will include F% of individuals. Where A, E and F are numbers and B, C and D are names. In practise, we do not know many numbers of this sort, although eference 2 gives the flavour of how much we do know about how many neurons there are in a brain – without much regard to type of neuron or region within the brain.

In the case of neurons at least, it is convenient to think of regions of the cells, possibly four of them: dendrites (input side), cell body, axon hillock and axon (output side).

All cells have a cell wall behind which they do their business, a wall which can be characterised as a lipid bilayer. Such bilayers have a convenient tendency to form spheres – or something not that far removed. Spheres which are closed and more or less impermeable except at special places here called doors. For which see reference 3.

A door is a single molecule of a protein, a molecule which crosses the lipid bilayer from inside the cell to outside the cell, to the extracellular medium, sometimes in a tube-like configuration. Most cell input-output takes place at these doors. A cell which cannot do input-output for any reason will not last for long, if only because a cell is alive and needs energy, in some form or another, to stay alive.

By default, doors are shut as unrestricted input or output is a bad thing, usually fatal. But doors may be either opened or blocked by binding events between the door protein and special molecules called ligands – which might also be anaesthetics, or, contrariwise, toxins. I think that binding events are quite short, parts of a second rather than lots of seconds.

Again, one might try to get statistical and estimate how many doors a cell of any given type has. A number which, in the case of a neuron, might be many thousands. One might try to estimate the distribution of the duration of binding events. For the doors important to the brain called ligand gated ion channels, see reference 4.

Turning to the right hand side of the model, vertebrates might involve thousands of distinct proteins, some in large amounts, some in small. Some hundreds of these thousands might function as doors. As noted above, doors which are controlled by ligands, which might work from inside the cell or from outside the cell – this last being the case with anaesthetics. A door protein might have several sites at which a ligand might bind, perhaps working on the door in several different ways. In the case that we have several bindings on the same door, some kind of integration takes place to arrive at door behaviour.

Then any one binding event will take place at a binding site, a pairing of a host protein with a visiting ligand. Some, perhaps most, binding sites, will work with a number of ligands – some natural, some life enhancing and some toxic.

Additional information

We have only looked at doors connecting the inside of a cell with a medium which hosts the cell, the extracellular medium. For example, doors on the boundary surface between the walls of the intestines and the lumen, more or less the world outside. On the boundary surface between the alveoli of the lungs and the world outside. And of particular importance here, on the boundary surface between the interior of a neuron and the interstitial system within which the neuron is suspended, is situated. 

We have not looked at doors providing a direct connection between two cells and we have not considered the grouping of cells into sheets, larger assemblies, structures or organs.

Even so, inspection of the workings of even this part of the machinery in vivo can be difficult, in part because they happen very quickly, but it seems that computer simulations have got to the point where they can sometimes do better in silico. To which end one might use something like the CHARMM computer package (of the not very accessible reference 5) and one might need a large computer. Perhaps not so far from what the Deepmind people are doing with computing the folding of proteins, for which see the even less accessible reference 6.

Conclusions

The box model might be along the right lines, but there are not a lot of numbers to attach to it. Either because I have yet to find them or because they are not yet there, possibly because we do not yet have the necessary technology to make the estimates.

Notwithstanding, we know enough to know that the number of potentially interesting combinations is very large. Enough to keep lots of laboratories busy for a long time.

References

Reference 1: Feeling and knowing: making minds conscious - Antonio Damasio – 2021.

Reference 2: The human brain in numbers: a linearly scaled-up primate brain - Suzana Herculano-Houzel – 2009.

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

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligand-gated_ion_channel. 

Reference 5: CHARMM: The Biomolecular Simulation Program - B.R. Brooks, C.L. Brooks and others – 2009.

Reference 6: Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold - Demis Hassabis and many others – 2021.

The real Wallander

Having dabbled with the Branagh version of Wallander, we are now stuck into the real thing with the chance purchase of three boxes from Epsom's CEx (of reference 1). For us, a big improvement, despite the need for subtitles.

A sort of cross between Morse and Midsomer Murders, although the detective action is much more of a team effort than either - and probably more realistic to that extent. Morse for the music loving lead detective and Midsomer Murders for the improbable and complicated stories and the scenic views. Sufficiently complicated that I have usually lost the plot by the end of the story, a loss mitigated by the music, which gives one plenty of clues about how things are going.

Two other things stand out. First, lots of the serious criminals are immigrants from the Balkans or troubled parts further east. One wonders how much of an issue this really is - or is it just a producer cross about the number of immigrants that have been let in? Second, there are lots of serious guns on view and lots of serious shooting. Although, as with our own detective soaps, lots of going in without bothering with backup, never mind the heavy squad, the paramilitaries. And when they do call these last in, as often as not it is a false alarm. All power to the lone detective! Or getting more sociological about it, solo action trumps the collective, the bureaucratic.

References

Reference 1: https://uk.webuy.com/.

Nonsuch herald

A week or ago saw a return visit to the Herald Copse snowdrops at Nonsuch Park, following the visit about a month previously, noticed at reference 1.

For some reason, which I can't now remember, to do with what we were going to do afterwards, we decided to park in the top car park, the one accessed by the entrance just past the High School for Girls entrance, the High School which appears to have made over a chunk of its land and buildings to a branch of David Lloyd. A girls' grammar school built by Surrey County Council in the 1930's and led in the first instance by one Ms. Dickie, who put in more than 25 years before retiring in 1964. Several headteachers later, the school is now part of something called the Girls' Learning Trust which appears to be headquartered in the Wallington member of the group. No doubt the group sports a senior management team which pays itself far more than the modest local government officials who used to staff up Surrey's education department. Greed at the top seems to get everywhere these days - and, as I read today, even into royal charities.

Weather a bit changeable, but if you had a good coat (as I did) and picked the right spot on the line of benches to the right of the snap above, quite warm enough to sit in the sun and doze. And admire the new-to-us box trim and topiary pillars of the the flower beds.

Onto the pine copse where we were able to admire the coastal redwood, not far from Wellingtonia No.62.

Snowdrops seemed a bit thinner than in previous years, an impression not helped by the track driven through the middle. A pity that whatever it was could not have waited until the snowdrops had died down for the year. Maybe not helped by too many people and too many dogs, not all of whom know to keep out.

On the way back to Epsom, picked up the Wellingtonia noticed on the way out, and separately noticed at reference 2, parking in St. Paul's church. Handsome bit of detailing just above where we had parked the car. I don't suppose it is the sort of thing that a church of today would care to spend its money on.

Auditorium format inside, seen here through a window as the place was firmly locked up, despite there being a few other cars. No crosses or candles that I could see, so probably no incense to please the nostrils of The Lord either. Even less of a churchy feel to the place than at the Baptist church noticed towards the end of reference 3.

Home to tidy up and then, for a change, to the Cricketers at Stamford Green Pond. Ratty all present and correct, looking big and cylindrical rather than rat shaped. Overfed or pregnant?

I went for the steak, which was OK but which had probably been cooked straight from the freezer, which meant it was pale, a bit stringy and not particularly tasty. But then it was not particularly expensive either. Chips chunky, but of the oven variety. All flavour outside and white mush inside. I think I prefer the thin chips you get in quite a lot of places these days - not least McDonald's. BH quite happy with her chicken salad, as usual.

And she took her salad with a pint of warm bitter shandy - order by mistake instead of a half pint - which meant that I had the bottle of wine to myself, a new-to-me branch from New Zealand, the people at reference 4.

Where you are invited to unleash your inner creature: 'at Leftfield, we’re exploring a wide world of flavour through the lens of wine. Unleashing our inner creature to create Leftfield wines that let you unleash yours. Sip or slug, swirl or swill, come with us and take a step into the creative side of wine. You’ve unleashed your inner creature, we’ll raise a glass to that'. Not to sure about all this inner creature stuff myself - thinking that sometimes inner creatures are best left inside, where they can be attended to by the Superego - Freudian concept which I believe will be rescued from its present obscurity one day. Or as the lady once told a nosey television journalist: 'if I told you all my inner secrets, they wouldn't be secret any more, would they'.

We also met an older chartered accountant and his wife who, as it happened, remembered the previous version of St. Paul's, replaced by the present building in 1989. He was also a sometime church organist and they were celebrating, almost but not quite teetotally, the fact that it was fifty years since their first date. Checking today, I can find no trace of the previous building, not even in the usually reliable (if sometimes bad tempered) Pevsner. Perhaps the previous building was more by way of a shed than a church. Perhaps even one of those corrugated iron jobs you come across from time to time.

Steak notwithstanding, a decent lunch in a pleasant atmosphere. We thought respectably busy for a midweek lunchtime.

PS 1: the chef looked terribly young. Six weeks at a Nescot cookery course before he was unleashed on the world of casual dining?

PS 2: Nescot being another educational establishment where the chief executive goes in for partnerships with sheiks in the Persian Gulf and pays herself a huge amount of dosh. Well in excess of a quarter of a million pounds a year as I recall. And it sounded as if her husband was doing pretty well too. But perhaps I should not carp. Perhaps she should be given a Queen's award for services to export.

PS 3: I remember the Queen's award from the 1960's, a time when we were still worrying about our disastrous balance of payments. A time when still exported stuff rather than services and when we were still aiming for balance, rather than plugging the hole with sales of real estate to Russians, Arabs and the like. No doubt the Chinese too. It took me a while to get Google to disentangle this award from the present award given for enterprise. But I finally got to the logo I remembered, even if it is blue rather than black, even if I did have to convert it from svg to jpg format. With a bonus being the bit of history at reference 5.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/01/wellingtonia-62.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/wellingtonia-66.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/12/two-churches.html.

Reference 4: https://leftfieldwines.com/pages/leftfield.

Reference 5: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C486.

Medieval chains

The handsome book at reference 1 was one of my Christmas presents. More or less the ideal present in the sense that it was something that I had noticed and liked, in the book shop attached to Buckfast Abbey, but which was a bit too dear for a casual purchase. Despite the fact that we visit the abbey several times a year, with a sample of those visits being noticed at reference 3. So BH sneaked around the back when I wasn't looking and bought one against the Christmas following.

A handsome book, from Merrell, who appear to specialise in the better class of picture books and who are to be found at reference 2. A book which, curiously, does not seem to include the usual page of publication details, Library of Congress catalogue numbers and all that sort of thing - and I had to go to Amazon to get the publication date. Printed in China. While the snap above is the start of what looks like a glowing review in the Antiquaries Journal.

A book arranged as a series of learned chapters about this or that aspect of the abbey. Mainly printed in two column format and lavishly illustrated throughout. My only quibble would be that it is a large book and that when reading by table lamp at night, not always easy to get the whole of the page evenly illuminated.

Last night, I happened to be reading about the goings on in and around the twelfth century. Item one, was a row involving lawyers between the Abbot and the Bishop of Exeter about fish rights at Staverton. With an old bridge (over the River Dart) at Staverton being noticed at reference 4.

Item two, the Norman foundation - on a Saxon foundation - derived from Savigny Abbey in the Manche, in Normandy. A place which spawned a couple of dozen or more daughter houses, maybe half of them in England and one of them as far north as Calder in Cumbria, for which see reference 5. But although the brand did quite well, the Cistercians did much better and it got to the point that in 1147 there was an agreed takeover by the Cistercians. No doubt the leaders of the Savigniacs were properly looked after by their new owners. Just like small but successful brands, or chains, of eating houses are gobbled up by bigger brands, bigger companies now.

Item three and leaping forward a few centuries, the abbot at the time of the dissolution in 1539, one Gabriel Dunne, was properly looked after. He returned to preferment in London, where he appeared to have lived in some comfort until he died in 1559, to be buried in a place of honour behind the altar of St. Paul's and leaving lots of money (by the ecclesiastical standards of the day).

No doubt more nuggets will surface in due course.

References

Reference 1: Buckfast Abbey: History, art and architecture - Peter Beacham (editor) - 2017.

Reference 2: http://www.merrellpublishers.com/. Sufficiently small and cuddly that if you want to talk to them about publishing something, you get to talk to Mr. Merrell. Not to be confuse with the well known brand of trainers now swallowed up by the Wolverine Work World corporation.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=buckfast+abbey.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/critical-national-infrastructure.html.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calder_Abbey.

Wellingtonia 66

A trio of young Wellingtonia snagged on the roundabout on the roundabout which gives access to Northey Road (right) from the road to Cheam. A roundabout which I used to use five or six days a week when I was cycling to Cheam every day for my bread, ten years or more ago now. But that was, almost as many years before I started collecting Wellingtonia and they would, in any event been quite small then, below the scoring threshold.

The first tree, with the lead shoot having been lost about ten feet from the ground, act of god or otherwise. A forked tree in the making.

The second tree, possibly in the same case as the first.

The third tree. This one looks to be entire. The group should be rather impressive in years to come.

The fairly new, church behind, top right in the aerial view above. To which I shall return in due course. In the meantime, previous notice is to be found at reference 2. On which my present recollection is that I did have a word with one of the policemen there, but a word which did, indeed, fall well short of quizzing during the ceremony. So I was well short of the full story.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/wellingtonia-65.html.

Reference 2: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/06/addictions.html.

Group search key: wgc.

A black morning

I read this (Thursday) morning that the ex-policeman who should have been retired, has made his play. So the Ukrainians, all their various faults notwithstanding, are for it again. I don't know how they fared in the first world war and the civil war which followed the revolution, but they took a battering during Stalin's collectivisation and they took another battering during Hitler's invasion which followed that. One might have hoped that after more than half a century of peace, things would have settled down, that Russians and Ukrainians would have learned how to get along.

But who knows what is going to happen to them now.

Hill start

A bright, cold morning for my last visit to London, at least the southern periphery of, getting on for two weeks ago now. The mysterious clutch of portable contractors' cabins were still present in the car park next to the station at Epsom, complete with serious fence and padlock, but no sign of any activity. Are the cabins a base for people working the railway lines at night? There is a small notice giving a telephone number in case of need, but I didn't think that curiosity counted as need. Perhaps it will next time I pass.

Reminded at the station about how pavement furniture can outlast the circumstances of installation by very many years, in this case SR for the Southern Region of British Rail. I associated to the drain covers of the city formerly known as Königsberg of reference 2.

Onto the train, where there were four ladies of middle years in the next bay who were having an earnest discussion about how to avoid paying tax when passing property onto children. Which caught my ear as I had just been reading in Maigret about a dying rich man who gave nearly all his money to his daughter a few months before he died, 'entre vifs' being the phrase at the time, so avoiding the worst of whatever they did about inheritance tax in France in the 1950's. Funny that giving all your money to the church or to the RSPB is OK, but giving it to the government, arguably a better cause than either of them, is not.

Having passed on the Abbey, yet again, opted to get out at Clapham Junction, to find that there were no Bullingdons in Grant Road, so I had to walk up to the stand in Falcon Road where there was just the one. OK, but the gears were not in great shape and needed a bit of attention, although I did not think to press the red signal button when I parked it.

Making an awkward turn out of Falcon Road into Lavender Hill, I found that I had to get off and walk the second half of the hill, as far as the red brick library on the right, the first time such a thing has happened. All very undignified. And, slightly later, having resumed the saddle, I was overtaken my a young lady on an electric scooter. Worse still. No such problems reported on the last occasion, maybe four months ago, noticed at reference 1.

The good news was that it was more or less downhill all the way to Vauxhall after that, which I had not noticed before. And good to take in all the interesting buildings once again. Hung a right into Wilcox Road, no longer home to a market, and a bit decayed, but far from dead. And the heritage scales shop is still there, scales as in Avery. A place I ought to take the time to visit.

Onto South Lambeth Road, where I admired the impressive but apparently disused church. Eventually run down to the Stockwell Baptist Church, built in 1860 or so with money provided by a pottery manufacturer. He must have sold a lot of pots.

A slightly older version. There is what was rather a grand house next to the church, to the north, and I dare say there were others before the present housing estate was built. While opposite, there are substantial, terraced houses.

With some of the end-of-terraces having done rather well for themselves. Notwithstanding, infected by the lumps on the roof disease, just like suburban houses nearly everywhere. No doubt the various streets have seen various ups and downs, in the sense of the social standing of the inhabitants, over the years.

Crossed the road and made my way back north to the Canton Arms, where I learned that they were still dishing out boxes of LFR tests somewhere handy to Stockwell Station, and would be until around 15:00. Would I make it in time? Also that the Canton Arms had only been struck down three times in two years, despite having around a dozen staff on the books.

Took a spot of something white. Not busy, but a reasonable sprinkle, including two ladies who took up station next to me, one of them sporting a fancy looking if small small poodle, complete with overcoat. Possibly an Equafleece, quite a lowly brand for a lady with reasonably fancy accents as well as a fancy dog. The days when the Canton Arms was a boozer for working men with fags and such being long gone - although some of the paintwork out back, snapped above, probably dated from that era.

And so onto the Estrela Bar, where we took lunch in the upstairs restaurant, a good deal quieter than their main bar dining area. Knowing the size of their portions, we settled for one portion of seafood paella for the two of us, which was plenty, given that we had already taken a bit of bread, sausage and olives. Taken with a drop of Pêra-Manca, rather good. Also unusual in that the bottle was tapered, being slight wider at the top than the bottom. Notwithstanding, a heavy bottom and a heavy bottle.

Right front label, wrong colour and certainly the wrong price. At least, I assume so. But see reference 4 for the full story. I shall have it again, should occasion arise. 

For a change, a dessert from the dessert cupboard. A soft yellow quantity, shaped like a cake and cut in slices like a cake, served with some sort of golden syrup.

Topped off with a spot of aguardente, which came in a full-on, warmed goblet. Bing says that to be proper the stuff should be made of sugar cane, but usage had broadened to include anything which is between 30% and 60% alcohol by volume. I did not think that what I had was anywhere near the top end of this range, but who knows?

Across the road to try my luck in the library, as noticed at reference 5, where the lady in charge, as well as a library card, was able to give me a handy box of lateral flow tests. Purple, compared with the green at the Canton and the blue before that at Epsom. 

Outside, the moon was visible, quite high in the east, across the road. Maybe 30° to 40°, but not keen enough to check with the rather good moon-date website at reference 6. 

By now, past four o'clock, so no point in walking down to Stockwell.

So turned left to admire the Vauxhall skyscape, the building of which I believe was set in train by our fat leader during his stint as mayor. What was the Wheatsheaf, once a quiet public house, visible behind the bus stop left. Now the establishment where I first took baked oxtail: oxtail has not looked back since, as regular readers will know. I think the Holiday Inn right used to be a council building of some sort, then named for a famous black man, perhaps a cricketer.

What used to be the Builders' Arms or something like that, visible back right, now the Vauxhall Griffin (for the people who used to make cars) or something like that.

Apparently some sort of art work. Not clear whether the good people of Lambeth have paid for it, or whether it was extracted from the developer as a token of his appreciation to the planning people. A nearby young lady with shapely thighs wrapped in shiny black plastic didn't have a clue. While the telephone got into a dither and had to be rebooted, a process which, fortunately, only takes a minute or so.

Just missed an Epsom train at Vauxhall, so called in the Half Way House at Earlsfield to wait for the next one. Spot of Monkey Shoulder, complete with various finger prints. Just the one aeroplane from the platform. Seems like years since I was scoring threes there.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/abbey.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/06/breslau-drain-covers.html.

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

Reference 4: https://www.cartuxa.pt/en/. I am told elsewhere that: 'Pêra Manca is a cult wine produced near Évora, in Alentejo. It has a long pedigree that is intertwined with the history of Portugal. Pedro Álvares Cabral took bottles of Pêra Manca in the voyage that resulted in the discovery of Brazil, in 1500. The wine continued to gather fame, wining gold medals in Bordeaux in 1879 and 1898, but its production ended with the death of the vineyard’s owner in 1920'. Resumed 1990.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/a-real-post.html.

Reference 6: https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/uk/london.

Emergency rations

I have failed to renew supplies of saucisson sec following the stew reported at reference 2, with Waitrose sticking with flavoured own brand - involving things like cheese and truffles - which I don't approve of, and not having ventured further afield. For some reason, not even to the big Sainsbury's at Kiln Lane which might well something which suits.

With the result that, yesterday, we were reduced to using the Monroyo cured pork loin, procured in the margins of trolley No.474, noticed at reference 1.

The usual drill, with the minor variation that I put in the raw potato chunks (rather than the recycled chunks I sometimes use) about 30 minutes before the off, rather than the usual 45 minutes, which can leave late season whites a bit soft and crumbly. With the result that the potatoes were perfectly edible but a little too firm. Maybe 40 minutes next time.

And the pork was pretty good, except for an oily, highly flavoured after taste. As noted at reference 1, I suspect it of having been plain cured but then shrink wrapped in some kind of savoury, red oil. A mistake as far as I was concerned. Clearly need to work a bit harder at sourcing sausage.

No added water on this occasion.

PS 1: note the rather overdone contrast between the red carrot top and the brown stew below in the first snap. Is this the same problem which often afflicts reds on our Panasonic television?

PS 2: OneDrive behaving oddly on Camera Roll this morning, a folder which is updated on a sporadic basis from my out-of-support Microsoft telephone. As far as File Explorer was concerned the snaps were there, some of them marked with a cloud icon for offline. But as far as Photos was concerned they were not there. The next snap chevron which should appear to the right was either absent, or clicking took one back to the beginning of the folder. Presumably the result of my trying to do stuff while OneDrive was trying to do one of its sporadic updates. A product which, I might say, generally does rather well at its complicated task. At least as far as I am concerned, with my only big complaint being that I can't work out how snaps are stored on the telephone, despite it being branded Windows 10. I suspect it of trying to be too clever when it tries to organise all my stuff for me - and now the telephone version is out of maintenance, it is not going to be tidied up. And the accessible documentation never was much good.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/trolley-474.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/steam-rising.html.

Where has all the jelly gone?

Four years ago, the jelly lichen on the rough part of the back patio was clearly doing very well, as shown at reference 1. More recently it has been doing badly, and I am not sure if it appeared at all last year. This year there is a sprinkle. Is it going to grow in the weeks to come? Why has it gone missing for a year or more?

PS: quite a lot of the bits of dead oak twig which fall onto our back garden have blobs of spongy looking black stuff on them. Maybe these are jelly lichens too and I clearly need to take a proper look. Which prompts a need for the sort of pocket microscope which my elder brother often used to carry about. The size and shape of a large fountain pen and very handy for looking at stuff in the field. Can Amazon oblige? Answer yes, with plenty of them less than £20. But the only one that looks like a fountain pen comes in at £80... Perhaps a spot of advice is in order.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/03/old-phone-two.html. A good year for jelly lichen.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collema. A list of the jelly lichens.

Reference 3: https://www.britishlichensociety.org.uk/. 'A lichen is not a single organism; it is a stable symbiotic association between a fungus and algae and/or cyanobacteria. Like all fungi, lichen fungi require carbon as a food source; this is provided by their symbiotic algae and/or cyanobacteria, that are photosynthetic. The lichen symbiosis is thought to be a mutualism, since both the fungi and the photosynthetic partners, called photobionts, benefit'. Lots of good stuff here about lichens in general, but not all that much on jelly lichens in particular.

Trolley 478

Captured in another part of the same car park as the previous trolley. Returned to the stack at M&S where I was actually able to push it into one of the two stacks. No pound coin this time.

Starting to think about the celebration for 500 trolleys. Home or away? Epsom or London? Beef or other? All kinds of possibilities.

What about the place at reference 2, passed many times on exit from the Wigmore Hall, peeped at once - but never sampled? The first restaurant I have come across in this country which sells its meat by the 100g. In fact the only other place ever was a restaurant just outside the Porta San Gallo, which sold Florence steak by the etto, that is say, according to Bing, about a third of an ounce, which seems rather small unit in which to sell a steak which must have weighed, with the bone (no doubt in the price), more than a pound. In any event, much better than anything we have had since, and while it looked dear enough on the menu, the bill was not that strong. And I was allowed to take a puff after our meal, it still being just about warm enough to eat outside. While I think at the Beast it might be, with a déjeuner arrosé easily coming in at well over £100 a head. I was also surprised at how short their menu was. Maybe the place at reference 3, where we last had a Florence steak, is more in our league.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/trolley-477.html.

Reference 2: https://www.beastrestaurant.com/london/.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/08/to-london-town.html.

Trolley 477

Trolley 477 was captured in one of the underpasses running between Station Approach and the High Street. A Waitrose trolley yielding £1 on return to its stack in the Ashley Centre.

The substantial, sawn off I-girder visible top right presumably being some relic of some previous activity of the occupiers of the building, before, perhaps, they sold off most of their back yard to the car park developers.

The rest of the stack left for another occasion.

While in Station Approach itself, in the bit of rough ground just before you get to the open air car park next to the tracks, was a non-scoring basket. Returned to the Tesco's next to the station ticket hall, thinking it odd that the rare baskets did not score, while the relatively common trolleys did. But that's the rules for you.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/trolley-476.html.

More rubbing

Back to the Rubbing House earlier in the month, the second visit in as many months, after a long absence. With the first visit being noticed at reference 2.

A substantial, mixed sharing starter, very Mediterranean. Rather better than one expects from pub grub. Followed, for me anyway, by more calf's liver. And I remembered to ask for the gravy on the side, in a jug. Pretty good, but not quite as good as last time, perhaps because I didn't use enough of the gravy. Perhaps because I overdid the starter a bit.

Notwithstanding, a good meal at a very reasonable price. One can why the place was busy, even on a Monday lunchtime. We thought that the proprietor might have been doing front of house, so perhaps a place which gets the benefit of more care and attention than is apt to be the case in a managed chain restaurant, be the chain ever so hot on quality control.

And as well as eating, we had an opportunity to look at some old family photographs, possibly from the early part of the 20th century or even earlier, including a very striking hand tinted photograph of the head of a lady. Not the one above, but one which does give something of the idea. Popular until swept away by the arrival of colour photography after the second world war. See reference 6.

It seems that the Japanese were very keen on the technique, with the example above offered by the Royal Asiatic Society at reference 7. A society with a rather colonial ring to it, but which still exists and looks to have a large library and large collections.

Back home in time for a quick foray into Epsom, resulting in the capture of trolley 467, as noticed at reference 3.

PS: on the day, I did not notice the Jockey Club Catering building, according to gmaps, just a few yards to the south of the Rubbing House, as snapped above. Their reference 4 is a little unusual, but it does include a number of helpful, if rather noisy, videos. So I now know how a bottle of wine should be presented and poured at table. And moving onto reference 5, I find that the Jockey Club, having started as a club for turf people - presumably both the nobs who paid and the chaps who rode - back in the middle of the eighteenth century, has moved on and is now, in the main, a racecourse operator, having taken on Epsom in 1994. The implication being that all the catering at its various venues are run under the one umbrella, in effect, a chain of restaurants. Must look out for the building next time we are there.

References

Reference 1: https://www.rubbinghouse.com/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/01/to-leatherhead.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/trolley-467.html.

Reference 4: https://jockeyclubcateringteam.com/.

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

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand-colouring_of_photographs.

Reference 7: https://royalasiaticsociety.org/japanese-hand-tinted-photographs/.

Trolley 476

Having returned trolley 475 and heading north east along East Street again, trolley 476 turned up, neatly parked in the cycle rack to the side of Defoe Court, the housing facility for young people of reference 4, but part of the group at reference 3, itself part of the group at reference 1. People who look to be doing good work in a neglected sector of the housing market.

Returned to Sainsbury's at Kiln Lane, after which I returned to East Street to resume my interrupted Ewell Village circuit.

Reached the bottom of Longmead Road, where the cold breeze eased and the rain started. Two middle sized trees down, both on the eastern side of the stream and well away from the road. From a distance, both appeared to have been snapped off at ground level.

One small tree, albeit large for a verge tree, down in Manor Green Road. Half a leylandii down near the junction with Christchurch Mount, with this larger, once forked tree, split in half at the fork.

Twenty four trolleys to go for the half millennium!

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/trolley-475.html.

Reference 2: https://www.sanctuary-group.co.uk/. 'We are a registered, exempt charity, which means instead of returning a profit to shareholders, every penny we make must be used to improve homes and services, and build new social housing. We are a housing association, which means we provide affordable, social housing for some of the poorest people in society. We own and manage more than 105,000 homes. We are committed to building more social housing and believe it is critical to creating a housing market that functions for everyone. This will include a range of tenures to support more people into home ownership, as well as helping to meet the need for additional rented homes'.

Reference 3: https://www.sanctuary-supported-living.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://www.sanctuary-supported-living.co.uk/find-services/young-people/surrey/defoe-court.