Tate trimmed cheese

Ten days ago to London Bridge to replenish cheese supplies at the Neal's Yard Dairy outlet there. A cool but not cold day with very little wind - so good for cycling.

Very few masks in or around the train. But in a bay near me there was a lady talking at her adolescent son; the sort of flat voice which grates on me. Doesn't matter what it might be talking about, I am put right off. And in this case it was explaining that Babybel was a good form of cheese for sandwiches. Written right off.

Yet another near miss of the long coveted No.36, across the road from the Bullingdon stand I use at London Bridge.

A serious looking bit of conversion on the way to the cheese shop.

To be compared and contrasted with the view in gmaps. Whatever is the chap with the car up to? Whatever it is, I am sure the planners and heritage people would have blocked it in Epsom.

This one seemed to have missed by the developers for some reason. Odd considering that, looking at it again this morning, I feel sure you could do something rather striking with it - perhaps some kind of a bar - while keeping the facade more or less as it is now, with the big windows and big doors. Perhaps glaze these last and have them open onto small verandas? All the pretty young things making an exhibition of themselves while looking out on the street below?

Moving onto cheese, the young lady in the cheese shop was very dismissive of my telling her about the unpleasant white mould which had grown out of a crack, a flaw, in the corner of the truckle from which my last piece of Lincolnshire Poacher had been cut. She had the nerve to tell me that it was all down to my refrigerator. Irritating when you are paying a premium price for a premium product, but I put it down to inexperience. Perhaps an example of how the plague and Brexit combined have put pressure on the supply of good quality counter hands.

When I got home, my nominal kilo weighed in at 2lbs 6.5oz, illustrating the rule that sellers of loose food - like meat and cheese - will always sell over the weight you ask for if you let them. Which I do, and BH does not.

Having a little time to spare before my next engagement, I thought to pay a quick visit to Tate Modern, a place I had more or less given up on since I let my membership, inter alia giving access to the higher grade, more select cafeterias, expire. On this occasion, the turbine hall, which I usually like best when it is more or less empty, had been converted into two creative playgrounds, where everything seemed to be going with a swing. 

Next stop an exhibition of Australian artworks, 'A year in art: Australia 1992'. A free exhibition which brought 'together works which respond to debates around Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land rights in Australia'.  The same Torres Straits where Lucy Irving and Gerald Kingsland borrowed an uninhabited island for a year. Oddly, considering how well known the image above is, neither Bing nor Google could offer a respectable version. Had to make do with this one. From a different era, when people were much less concerned about the founding iniquities of Australia than they are now.

One of the larger works was this painting of the founding of Australia in 1788, executed by one Algernon Talmage of reference 3. With the arrival of the first batch of convicts at what is now Sydney being celebrated by the raising and toasting of the flag. Neither the convicts nor the people then living there were invited to join in.

Hung on spacious lines, but I found the absence of individual captions tiresome. One would have liked to know more.

From somewhere else, something else I found tiresome. At first glance, three patches of blue. On closer inspection, some laboriously executed texturing. There is something to look at, but not something I would spend much time on. Perhaps if they hung on one's own home, one, when drunk, would spend happy hours peering at them from very close range? Blowing all  kinds of bubbles about deep and inner meanings.

Whereas as this one had no such pretensions at all. Just a display of a new kind of blue that the artist creator thought was the business. How much did he charge for it? I associate to the sculptor in New York I was told about once, who simply got the quarry to send lumps of rock around to the chap who made tasteful stands for said lumps to stand on. Sold to the gent. in the flat cap for $25,000. Untouched by artistic hand, although I don't suppose the auctioneer dwelt on that aspect of the work.

And then there was the entertaining video of a colony of ants busily carrying little coloured discs about. I wondered how long it took the artist to find out what colours and sizes worked best.

And the entertaining visual toy. Some of the passers by worked out how to play with it. One of whom was right in front of me, so I got to play too.

I had at first thought to score this one as a fake. A room full of what appeared to be books. Which turned out to actually be books, recovered and each named, as I recall, for someone caught up in a Nigerian tragedy. Checking I find from reference 4 that the artist is British born, although brought up in Lagos, and the names 'printed in gold leaf on the spines of 2,700 of the books, are the names of first or second generation immigrants to Britain, both celebrated and lesser-known, who have made significant contributions to British culture and history. Among names such as Hans Holbein, Beverley Knight, Dame Helen Mirren and Danny Welbeck are also the names of those who have opposed immigration. Other books are unmarked, suggesting that the story of immigration in Britain is still being written'. Memory way off-beam again.

Off-beam being a phrase which fell from the keys readily enough, but which I thought I ought to check. Where on earth did it come from? I thought the beam of a ship, but that did not help much. Webster' suggests that the phrase does indeed come from the direction of the ship, but off the guiding beam, rather than off the beam of the ship. I shall check with OED in due course.

On exit, I came across this Soviet era poster celebrating, from left to right, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. With an important work by the second of these being noticed as recently as January. A book which I would like to get around to reading, although it does not seem too likely just presently. While I remember that my father once owned a book by Stalin on the question of nationalities, almost certainly published by Lawrence & Wishart, a hot topic even in his day. My recollection is that his line was that you gave them all the languages, dances and costumes that they could possibly want - provided that they toed the line in political matters. A line which once seemed quite enlightened - but one which does not work so well in the changed circumstances of today.

The thought on this occasion was that you could set this image to a class of creationists. With the task of the week being to bring it up to date with Chairman Putin, possibly dropping one the present four. But then I thought that it might be more accurate to use the heads of such luminaries as Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, people to whom Chairman Putin seems to look to, the idols of autocracy, rather than to the idols of the left. Perhaps forgetting that Catherine was a German, in rather the same way as our own ruling family is essentially German.

The late afternoon scene over Southwark Bridge.

An arboreal art-work waiting for its permanent stand. Replica of the Golden Hinde to the right, complete with a stack of substantial looking timber seasoning below. Complete with slatting to let the air in.

I was amused by the blue plaque which had been faked up from somewhere, about this dock being open access for parishioners of St. Saviour's, a parish which had a long and complicated history before being abolished, swallowed up by some neighbouring leviathan. I wonder what happened to these docking rights at that point? Did the Archbishop have to go to the House of Lords to get some special act passed? Another good day for the lawyers, civil and ecclesiastical? See reference 8.

I wonder why they didn't bother to pick out the letters in a contrasting colour? They went to enough bother with the Golden Hind down in the dock. Which is blocking access to all-comers, never mind qualifying parishioners.

I failed to find a snack that suited, so pushed onto the Barrowboy & Banker, just by the bridge. Busy, but I managed to get a seat on the mezzanine, overlooking the main action, where there was space, but a great deal of noise coming up from below. The ceiling, not far overhead, must have been acting as a sounding board. I learned about a potential source for Wellingtonia in the New Forest, the Rhinefield Ornamental Drive, clearly a place to be visited. Maybe even to stay in the associated hotel. See reference 6.

While my wine sat on some substantial, repurposed oak. Or perhaps it was not repurposed, just spring cleaned. Have to go back to check properly.

Outside, I learned that more telephone literate people than I have a Bullingdon app, rather than carry the key that I use. Does much the same thing and attracts much the same annual fee, but it probably also does things like warn you that the stand you are approaching is either empty or full. Depending on your hire status.

The scene when I got back to Waterloo. Which presumably means that they have to have people at hand during the morning rush hour, to pass the Bullingdons through their hiring posts for registration.

Back at Epsom, my driver was able to solve the mystery of the black cabs which seem to be more or less permanently parked at the West Hill end of Meadway. They don't belong to taxi drivers, rather to a taxi dealer, resident in the area, who finds it convenient to trade off the road rather than from a proper yard. Irritating for more regular people who live nearby and the less regular people who want to get free parking for the station.

PS: a taster from the Rhinefield Tall Trees Trail. Western Red Cedar rather than Wellingtonia, but there are some of those too. From the well illustrated reference 7.

References

Reference 1: https://www.babybel.co.uk/. Clearly a big brand to put all this effort into their website.

Reference 2: https://www.hawksmoorltd.co.uk/. 'Building excellence as standard'. With, no doubt, prices to match.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algernon_Talmage. Perforce, a gaucher.

Reference 4: https://www.stephenfriedman.com/. The people who responded to my query about 'nigeria room books tate modern'.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/01/muddling-through.html.

Reference 6: https://newforestwalks.co.uk/walks/rhinefieldtalltrees.html/.

Reference 7: https://www.andrewswalks.co.uk/rhinefield.html.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwark_St_Saviour.