Cheese and other matters

Time to replenish the cheese after our swing round parts west, an outing resulting in the rides snapped above. I also get two emails from TFL, containing long reference numbers which do not appear above. Not sure what value they are supposed to add. Perhaps they are more intended for people who do apps on their telephones.

A wet start to the day, so I thought perhaps go to London Bridge. As it turned out delayed, so I settled for Waterloo, being entertained by the drumming of the rain on the thin canopy roof, possibly rolled aluminium, while I waited. Rain more or less stopped by the time I got to Waterloo, so pulled one of the few Bullingdons remaining on the ramp and pedalled off to Borough.

New to me young lady served me at the cheese shop, managing just about the right weight, but it two rather unequal pieces. But I did learn that she once used to live in Surbiton and she had a nice smile, probably more important in retail than any ability with the cheese wire.

Pulled a second Bullingdon and managed to lose the superhighway in the vicinity of Elephant & Castle and had to loop around the Imperial War Museum to the north, rather than slipping between Elephant & Castle and the Museum, as I should have. But this meant I was able to admire the pair of large naval guns outside the front entrance. I also just missed some kind of an incident, with half a dozen response vehicles parked up by a bus stop outside the museum, with one chap being patched up in the bus shelter. No idea what it was all about and I did not like to stop to find out.

Back on route, I was puzzled by large numbers of boys, say 12-15 sort of age, playing football on Clapham Common West, in white shirts and long trousers. Around 13:00 but there seemed to be too many of them for it to be something unorganised. Don't the schools that use the Common as a playing field bother with changing for games?

Two traffic violations on exit from the Common, both on slip roads intended for buses and cycles, but with neither set of lights budging in my favour for what seemed like ages. Maybe they need a bus to trigger them. Eventually pedalled on through.

Thought about taking refreshment at Soif, but decided against, mainly because I didn't like their bread very much. Not a patch on the Trafalgar Square stuff. Surprised to find at reference 1 that it was near four months since I did visit them, fully intending to take BH on the strength of that visit.

Opted for a bacon and egg roll from the Northcote instead, passing this failed temperance billiard room on the way. First, wondered about what it was that had been built on the roof. Second, wondered how decent the place was in its temperance days. The few billiard rooms that I have known have been rather dodgy places, more so than the average public house.

Egg and bacon roll slightly better than last time in that the roll, while not a proper soft bap and was still from the same stable as last time, was a bit softer and you could fold pieces of it over one's bacon or egg.

On exit, I wondered whether I would still be able to get up Battersea Rise. Seeing a young chap standing on his pedals, something I have not done for years, I thought probably not. It turning out that the Northcote was in a bit of a dip, with the road rising on both sides. The other side looked interesting, I thought, getting in a bit of a muddle with my geography, maybe an outpost of the Victorian pile, now a school, which one passes on one's way into Clapham Junction from the south, bottom left in the snap above.

The possibly interesting building turned out to be St. Mark's church, firmly closed to visitors. Which was a pity as, judging from the exterior, the interior might have been interesting.

Then there was this east end shed, different brick from the church proper, so probably not part of the same building campaign. Some sort of ancillary parish function? A small school?

This part of the church yard looked inactive. Is there a brave developer prepared to take on massed ranks of graves and heritage folk, with a cut of the take going to church funds? Perhaps turning into some kind of public green space would be better.

Just down from the church, a house I have yet to visit. Perhaps passing up on both Soif and the Northcote on the next occasion?

And a slightly odd collection of houses on the other side of the road. Didn't manage to get the whole row of them in the one shot.

And so to Clapham junction where a sharp shower necessitated deployment of the sturdy folding umbrella, still the one bought from the Hudson Bay Trading Company in Ottawa High Street, aka Rideau. The shop still exists, and while it might be Ottawa's iconic department store, it is now hiding under an underpass.

Similar noises from the Clapham Junction roof as there had been from the Epsom roof earlier. Similar, but not identical, so presumably covered with a different sort of panel.

Passed on both the Falcon and Wetherspoon's, but thought to try the Earl Beatty at Motspur Park for a change. Changed trains there to find it completely enveloped in scaffolding. Arrived at Epsom, passed on both the Marquis and Wetherspoon's (again), opting for the Cricketers on the pond. Taking in a few trolleys on the way, as noticed at reference 2 and 3. At the Cricketers, I found the barman being rated by the manageress for supplying coffee with all the trimmings (or top dressings, to borrow an agricultural phrase) to someone who had only paid for a regular coffee.

A house which, unlike Hall & Woodhouse houses, still took cash. The manageress thought her clients might object to card only. Presumably worried that card is more visible to the taxman. Which it might well be in theory, but I doubt if it is in practise.

A house with slatted blinds. All very functional, but they do inhibit the deployment of fancy& attractive curtains, of which there is still quite a selection to be had from suitable shops. I suppose in public houses, the décor people make up for the consequent lack of colour and visual interest by buying in suitable bric à brac. Wouldn't have done for a tenant's wife in the olden days, ladies who might have taken an interest in such matters, but then you don't get many of them these days.

PS: and who, under seventy and without professional interest, would have a clue who Earl Beatty was?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/06/cheese.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/trolley-537.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/trolley-536.html.

Trashy read

A few days ago, perhaps under the influence of something or other, I needed something light & trashy to read and my eye wandered to the bookcase full of Agatha. My hand wandered to the volume containing the yarn detailed at reference 1.

Which I have now read. Now with most Agatha stories, I start off thinking that this is pretty bad stuff, but then her knack for telling stories gets hold of me and more or less carries me through to the end, perhaps skipping the just odd page here and there. Not so on this occasion and I had to work at it to get through to the end.

I think my summing up would be that this a lower class, cut-price version of the sort of silly story that John Buchan - sometime Governor General of Canada - would knock out between his bureaucratic assignments. Say the 'The Three Hostages' of reference 2. 

We have various very evil revolutionaries. People hell bent on destroying us. Russian, German and Irish. People who would not hesitate to make use of the draft of a very dodgy treaty we thought of making in 1915. I associate to the now infamous Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 - although looking at things a hundred years later, it is not very clear how we could have done a better job of carving up the Turkish empire, an empire which had managed to contain, to shut up or otherwise accommodate all the various aspirations and ambitions of the Middle East for centuries. The problem for these revolutionaries being to get hold of the draft. And therein lies the story.

A committee of said revolutionaries, only known by their numbers, chaired by No.1. A device later used by Ian Fleming, and, I dare say, others. Another wheeze Agatha shares with Fleming is lots of flashy living, which in her case takes the form of a flashy car and extensive meals at places like the Ritz or Claridge's. Perhaps people wanted vicarious flashy in the 1920's just as much as they did in the 1950's.

A prototype of Captain Hastings. The dim but decent Englishman who keeps the story on the straight and narrow. Maybe not so hot with his brain, but not so bad with his fists should need arise.

A reprise of the artful dodger, the working-class street boy from the slums of Farringdon, Battersea or somewhere like that and who affords much aid to Sherlock Holmes.

What I took to be a discrete bit of anti-Semitism in the form of the very rich Julius Hersheimmer from New York. Shamefully for us, plenty of it about at the time of writing. But neither Bing nor Google are giving anything away on that front. 

A walk on part for Inspector Japp, who went on to much larger roles in the Poirot stories.

Much talk of a disaster scheduled for the 29th. I read in the month of my birthday, I but cannot now corroborate that. Wishful thinking. Projection. Who knows?

Unusually for me, I spotted the villain more or less on the first page that he appeared. For once my reading of the tea leaves was spot on.

PS 1: the snap from Abebooks above reminds me of the occasion when I lighted upon a very expensive copy of Dr. Zhivago in Abebooks and very nearly hit the buy button. After which I failed to persuade HSBC to reduce my credit limit to reduce the risk of accidents of that sort. See reference 3.

PS 2: Manor Collectables of Lincolnshire appear to have no independent existence outside of Abebooks. Presumably some freelancer operating out of his garden office.

References

Reference 1: The secret adversary - Agatha Christie - 1922.

Reference 2: The Three Hostages - John Buchan - 1924. 'The Three Hostages is the fourth of five Richard Hannay novels by the Scottish author John Buchan, first published in 1924 by Hodder & Stoughton, London'. The book where I first read of the once notorious Seven Dials district of London, now gentrified. Or at least commercialised.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/01/dr-z-part-4.html.

Greed

It seems that gangsters can never have enough loot. In this case, I am not very surprised to read in the FT today (reference 1), that Russia is selling off grain from the parts of the Ukraine that it has occupied, going through various subterfuges to disguise its origins from potential buyers who might otherwise be a bit squeamish.

Probably not a coincidence that we also read that Russia has suspended the sale of genuine Ukrainian wheat through a humanitarian corridor involving western Turkey, that is to say the city that used to be called Constantinople.

References

Reference 1: How Russia secretly takes grain from occupied Ukraine: Documents and photos reveal a complex shadow operation managed by private companies and arms of the Russian state - Polina Ivanova, Chris Cook, Laura Pitel, Financial Times - 2022.

Acorn and out

Following the effort at reference 1, a day or so later there was another effort, this time following BH advice in the matter.

That is to say cooked in a dry frying pan, not that different to what you might do with chestnuts on the front of an open fire. I think the cooking was fine - but the product tasted rather nasty. Dry and crumbly with an unpleasantly bitter aftertaste. Took a bit of swilling about with water to get rid of the stuff.

I dare say that they can be made palatable, but I am not going to invest any more time in finding out exactly how. Maybe Dorothy Hartley was right after all: best left to the pigs.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/oven-to-tableware.html.

DIY

Or, to be more precise, a spot of fence maintenance, more than twenty years since it was put in.

On return from the first spin around Jubilee Way for a few weeks, I noticed that the upper rail, top right was flapping around and projecting maybe an eighth of an inch beyond the face of the post into which it once slotted. The sort of thing which could get much worse if I left it.

Nail bar, club hammer, claw hammer, panel saw, G cramp and sundry lengths of timber from the dismantled garden shed deployed to force it back into position. The sundry lengths of timber serving to force the post the necessary eighth of an inch towards the road. Rail now nailed down and feeling nice and secure, but we will see how long the patch lasts.

Collateral damage in the form of a dislodged brick. wedged back into position. Pouring a spot of grout down the crack would probably make an unsightly mess and not thought to be a good plan at all.

PS: on the way back from Jubilee Way, there was still life in the Manor Green Road butcher. Still life in the sense that the front window display consisted of a pig's head, ears spread, nose forward. A good sign in that it suggests that the new team - which I have not yet had occasion to visit - has reverted to taking in entire pigs. Maybe they know a thing or two about butchering them.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/loft-ladder.html. And this only just over a week since the last bit of DIY. Hopefully in the clear for months now.

Hunting times

We decided to celebrate the Wellingtonia centenary noticed at reference 1 with an overnight stay at the Huntsman of Brockenhurst, to be found in the snap above and reference 2 below. Bad start in that on coming out onto the A337 we turned left rather than right. As it turned out, right would have been right, but it took a mile or two of wrong before we worked that out.

Given a rather splendid room, actually three or four connecting rooms over the front door. Quite narrow rooms but plenty of space. All rather good for the money. One of the rooms contained both a shower and a bath and I had a go with the latter. A large, freestanding fibre glass affair, such as can be bought in the better B&Q outlets.

Perhaps the idea was that it was for two. We did not do that, BH leaving me to work out the taps for myself. Water, which I managed, was hot and plentiful. While I could not work the contraption to the left at all, possibly intended for washing one's hair. Luckily washing my hair was not on the agenda.

Another catch was that it would be quite easy to scald oneself with these centre fill taps. Another was that there were no handles to help one out. But a plus point was that one could work the taps by hand, rather than by foot.

Plug in the middle of the bath, rather than at one end. Took me a little while to work it out. Maybe there should have been some laminated instructions pasted to the wall? A3 should have been big enough.

And so down to the large dining room, quite busy for a Monday evening. Started with garlic bread, the sort that comes as a thin disc of pizza bread, on this occasion heavily oiled. But there was a lot of it and it ate well enough. Followed up in my case by a chicken, ham and pea pie: not bad, but the internal white sauce had curdled a bit. Maybe I should have applied some of the deep brown gravy supplied in a jug on the side. Vegetables good if a bit thin on quantity. Looks well enough in the snap above, but not as good as the chicken pie supplied by the Five Bells to the west - as noticed in passing at reference 3 - maybe it was a mistake to take chicken pie two days running. Pills to be popped visible top left.

Wine from the Clair stable of New Zealand. Taken in at least two places before, ASK in Epsom and the old fire station at Waterloo, as can be seen from reference 4. Probably something that warms from Scotland. All in all, a good restaurant which suited us well. The only oddity on exit being that it was charged on the spot, rather than settle up on exit in the morning.

Breakfast in the morning turned out to be in a pay by the item format. Full English was an item, so it seemed simplest to do that. And it was rather good. Breakfast was also charged on the spot, making one think that room, dinner and breakfast were all free-standing operations with their own accounts. Nothing wrong with that, but unusual.

We could have had something called Shakshuka, something we have learned since has spread almost as far as sour dough bread. From north Africa and clearly the latest thing in the world of hospitality. Bing turns up lots of it, including the snap above. I wondered what they would make of it in the sea ports with a significant population of people from that part of the world. The sort of port that figures in at least one episode of the north eastern Gently saga.

We may well be back, when we return to do the two ornamental drives properly.

On the way out we noticed that some of the windows were in bad need of repair. Maybe the window money had been spent on refurbishment of the dining room. 

Which prompted a wonder about the age of the place, our first guess being the beginning of the 20th century. With the courtyard accommodation out back dating from roughly the same time: proper brick built, not the sheds you get in most places.

Next stop the Scottish National Library which shows the site being occupied by a rather different house called the 'Crown Inn'. Was the inn knocked down to make way for the present building?

PS 1: while I was up in Scotland, I thought I would take a look at the Rhinefield Ornamental Drive.

But in 1871 it does not seem to be visible at all. By my reckoning, running north, passing just to the east of Stage Park and Stag Hill nursery. With the car park not far from the river of the same name. All very puzzling. And I still haven't looked up what an 'inclosure' is, presumably some relic of Norman forest law. Rather savage in Norman times, as I recall.

PS 2: when we got home, I took a peek at the confirmatory email to find that breakfast was included in our room rate. The refund was quick and efficient.

PS 3: loading up the image of the Huntsman above, I wondered what sort of a fist the Google AI machine - the one that plays chess, go (a Japanese board game) and does protein folding - would make of taking out the clutter. The people, the blue van and so on.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/wellingtonia-100.html.

Reference 2: https://thehuntsmanofbrockenhurst.com/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/sub-tropical-gardens.html. Chicken pie No.1.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=clair+wine.

Access denied

Hopped off the train at Waterloo earlier today, all raring to go for the traditional bacon sandwich taken before concerts at St. Luke's, to be red-lighted on the ramp. Try three or four bikes, that is to say Bullingdons, but the same story. Try a few more down Stamford Street, but the same story. Decide that something is wrong with my account.

Decide not to get a taxi to St. Luke's, which would have given me time for my sandwich, but decide instead to walk. I need the exercise.

Decide also not to attempt to use one of the competitor bikes littering the pavements, mostly in lurid colours. Maybe that is something I should do in slower time.

Some hours later, that is to say this evening, I get around to logging into my Bullingdon account to find that it has been suspended. All bikes safely returned to base, so missing bike is not the problem - checked because it would be easy enough to push one's bike into a post without it locking in properly, although I have yet to fail in that particular way. Then there is a message about something being wrong with my payment details. Go to payment details, which seem to be blank, and fill them in. Which is all fine and dandy, but I still seem to be suspended. Time to talk to a person.

After a little while I get through to the right number, which is answered after only a short wait. Account reactivated. No idea what went wrong. Not obvious why the trouble at reference 1 would have carried forward in this way, after more than a month and after several rides - if indeed that was the root of the problem. But the call centre operator was confident that next time I put my key into a post it would not be red-lighted. Maybe I will make a special expedition to Waterloo to be sure.

So not the end of the world, but tiresome to get to the big town, expecting an invigorating ride, but to be reduced to foot slogging or going down the tube. Tiresome also that walking seems to be harder work than cycling these days.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/09/cheese.html.

Wellingtonia 100

Not strictly the 100th as I have slightly tweaked the order, but this majestic pair of trees captured on the Rhinefield Ornamental Drive, not far from Brockenhurst, seemed an appropriate marker for Wellingtonia No.100.

It took an infuriatingly long time to get into Ordnance Survey online maps this morning, collecting various bizarre central server errors on the way, but I get there in the end. With the ornamental drive top left, in the area bounded by the A35 (left) and the A337 (right). We parked at the southern car park, known to the Forestry Commission as the Blackwater Car Park. Two paths are provided, one slightly to the west of the road, one slightly to the east, so one does not have to share the trees with cars.

It might have taken us a little while to find the place, but it was well worth it. Most impressive from the word go, with lots and lots of very tall trees. Not many Wellingtonia, but there were the two snapped above. Plus the odd coastal redwood.

Started with the low life, rather than with the high life.

Many years ago, we came across lots of large wood ants' nests in Stoke Woods, just outside Exeter, but have only rarely come across them since. These woods yielded two, of which the more interesting is snapped above, with shadows.

The top was alive with ants. A lot more alive than would appear from this zoomed close-up, although the ants are visible on this laptop.

The view from the western path as we headed south.

The base of one of the pair of Wellingtonia snapped above. The accompanying sign tells us that they are the largest trees in the forest but does not tell us who planted them or when. And I am not convinced that they are the largest: they might be the tallest and they might well become the largest by trunk volume, but there are a lot of other large trees round about.

I close with some more low life.

Altogether a very fine place and I hope we shall get back before too long. And when one has done this ornamental drive, there is another one on the other side of the A35, the Bolderwood Arboretum Ornamental Drive.

I shall report on the following centenary celebration shortly.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/wellingtonia-99.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/wellingtonia-95.html. The start of the story.

Reference 3: https://new-forest-national-park.com/rhinefield-ornamental-drive/. The official story.

Group search key: wgc.

Ringwood

After Lyme Regis we headed off for the New Forest, pausing to catch our breath at Ringwood. An old market town tucked in under the bend to the east of the A31, at its junction with the Salisbury Road. With most of the old town being just below the 'M' for museum in the snap above - a snap which nicely illustrates the advantages of maps made by cartographers rather than computers and not paid for by people paying to have their pin dropped in. With the other sort of map being included at reference 2.

A mysterious hole in the coast road heading east out of Lyme Regis. A sink hole no less. Now guarded by lots of cones and some lights, pending the arrival of workmen to do something about it. Maybe the same geology as drove the large buttresses noticed at reference 4.

A bit further on, this serious looking bit of agricultural machinery. Closer inspection revealed it to be a Horsch coulter, a contraption which unfolds to do all kinds of stuff, including planting seeds. All is explained at reference 5.

Fully deployed in this snap lifted from reference 5. One can only suppose that one has to have a lot of very big fields to justify what must be the considerable purchase price. The Internet is coy about price, so my guess is more than £50,000. Maybe there are lots of them in fields of the Ukraine.

Escaped from the A31 to find ourselves in a large car park, next to a surprisingly lively shopping centre, with the old town just beyond.

Facilities by Danfo, the people we had come across earlier in the year at Shanklin, on the other island and noticed at reference 6. I don't recall coming across needle disposal before, at least not in this context.

Coffee etc at a large and airy coffee shop, where BH spent quality time admiring all the cobwebs in the upper reaches. Clearly the cleaners stopped at mop-height.

And so onto the large and handsome church of St. Peter and St. Paul, perhaps once in the gift of the head of the Compton clan, memorialised above.

The handsome chancel.

Looking west from the east.

Extra mural activities. Which I had assumed were something churchy, something bible study orientated. But checking today I find that it is an IT training company, to be found at reference 7.

Suitably refreshed, we headed out east, to learn the hard way that while the A31 eastbound might carry you across the New Forest, it does not provide much in the way of access to the forest. Stony Gate failed us, only providing access left, while we wanted access right. Pushed onto Cadnam where there was a proper junction and we were able to head back south along the A337.

I had completely forgotten where we took our picnic, although I did remember BH buying the bread for it at Lyme Regis, thinking perhaps that it was a fairly leafy car park at Ringwood, quite possibly equipped with benches, so it may well be that we picnic'd at one of them. But looking at the map today, it all comes back to me. The picnic was taken at the Cadnam Cricket Ground, just off the A337, snapped above. A place where the grass had been cropped very short by the horses scattered all over. I associated to the Surrey disease whereby people keep far too many horses on far too little ground, which last eventually turns into mud. Bit a very pleasant place for a picnic for all that.

Do not be confused by another cricket ground turned up by Bing, across the water, outside Southampton. Stick with reference 8.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/fake-153.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/piano-63.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringwood,_Hampshire.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/sub-tropical-gardens.html.

Reference 5: https://www.horsch.com/en/products/seeding-technology/disc-seed-drills/avatar-1225-/-1825-sd.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/07/danfo.html.

Reference 7: https://www.doulos.com/.

Reference 8: https://cadnamcc.play-cricket.com/home.

Fake 153

A reprise of the fake at reference 2, that one in Yaverland on the other island, this one in Ringwood in Hampshire. In the church dedicated to both St. Peter and St. Paul. Maybe that was thought to cover all the bases.

The fake is the plastic flowers, while the elaborate pulpit behind does not really count as a fake, more a reprise of a style imagined for the high Middle Ages. While the lectern in front would not do for Downing Street at all, where I read (in yesterday's Guardian) that it has become the custom for each inbound Tory prime minister to have a personalised lectern, all ready and waiting for when he or she first turns up. While Blair and Brown, for all their faults, made do with something more utilitarian. Maybe even tubular steel.

Now that Rees-Mogg has left the scene, I don't think we have a Tory pretentious and silly enough to aspire to a pulpit of the church variety, but maybe the carpenter formerly known as Viscount Linley, now to be found at reference 3, could be commissioned to knock up a range of lecterns, lovingly crafted from endangered tropical hardwood, better able to stand the damp of Downing Street on a winter's evening than the native gear, a range from which inbound prime ministers could make their choice. Their first act as the monarch's first minister.

PS 1: I wonder who was pretentious and silly enough to commission the room snapped above from reference 3. Must have been very rich whoever he or she was as I don't suppose it came cheap.

PS 2: the rule that real aristocrats should not engage in trade, other than in land, tenants, cattle and so forth, seems to have been well and truly repealed. Our new monarch makes a great deal of money by selling the Duchy branding to the grocery trade while this carpenter sells accessories for your private bar. Fancy - and expensive - versions of the things sold in the shops attached to our stately homes.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/fake-152.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/08/fake-148.html.

Reference 3: https://www.davidlinley.com/.

Group search key: fakesk.

Coloured wars

The lead editorial in Monday's Guardian was about the war which has been going on in the Tigray region of Ethiopia for a couple of years now. This being just one war among the various wars past and present in and around the Sudan and Ethiopia.

A map of the relevant part of Africa. Note how Djibouti owns Ethiopia's access to the sea. But Ethiopia does include the source of the Blue Nile, lots of mountains (central) and some deserts (north and east).

A map of the relevant, northernmost region of Ethiopia, that is to say Tigray.

I have not yet been able to find out what the war is about, although it seems that the Eritreans to the north and the Ethiopians to the south are pitted against the Tigrayans in the middle. About all that there seems to be agreement about is that this war has done a huge amount of damage: many people killed, many more damaged (this last involving a lot of sexual violence) and many more still hungry. Estimates of deaths so far look to range up to about half a million, mostly starvation rather than violence.

Given the amount of coverage of the war in the Ukraine and that this war in Africa is nearly invisible in UK media, and I dare say in most other western media, it would be understandable if people of colour living (say) south of the Mediterranean, thought that the west only cared about carnage when it involved white people and was near enough home to be threatening. Why should we care about them? Just a lot of white folk hell bent on destroying each other again. Let them get on with it. And if we get some cheap gas, oil and wheat from Russia along the way, then great.

To be fair, our record in the west on fixing other peoples' problems is not good. But we might take a bit more interest than we appear to be.

References

Reference 1: https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1127481. September 2022. 'Ethiopia’s people are once again “mired…in the intractable and deadly consequences” of conflict between Government troops and forces loyal to Tigrayan separatist fighters, who are all likely responsible for war crimes, top rights investigators said on Thursday'.

Reference 2: https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129572. October 2022. 'Ethiopia: UN chief ‘gravely concerned’ by escalation in fighting across Tigray'.

Reference 3: Report of the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia - Human Rights Council - 2022. A/HRC/51/46. Written in the dense language of big international organisations. But there is a lot of information here.

Sub-tropical gardens

At Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, nestled between sea and down, we have the Botanic Gardens, home to all kinds of exotic plants from far-away places. And a place which does a roaring trade in the export of Echium pininana to most of southern England. And for all I know, places further north.

While at Abbotsbury, tucked into the eastern end of Lyme Bay, just to the north of the Isle of Portland, we have the sub-tropical gardens. Where, I learn from reference 1, that in addition to a lot of trees they have Christmas attractions to rival those of our own Chessington Garden Centre.

Operations commenced with a visit to the churches of Long Bredy and Little Bredy, taking our picnic on a bench outside the latter. Lightly cooked baguettes from a shop in Lyme Regis - where it is a lot easier to buy pasties than bread - and cheddar cheese from Neal's Yard Dairy. Not sure now whether this particular cheese came from their branch in Covent Garden or the one next to Borough Market.

A couple of holy pictures from Long Bredy, left in the body of the church, right hidden away. Both apparently from the same shop. Probably something Victorian, but provenance otherwise unknown.

A contraption installed for the greater posterior comfort of the organist at Long Bredy. Hopefully he never singed his coat tails. Or perhaps it was a her: my father's elder sister played organ in the church of her native village, despite not being churchy in later life at all.

Outside, a curious door at the top of the tower. What is going on here?

Not clear whose mortal remains were kept in this enclosure, up against the back wall of the church yard. But clearly worth a bit of ironwork.

They seem quite keen on substantial buttresses in this part of the world. Perhaps the ground hereabouts is a bit shifty?

Moving onto more worldly matters at Little Bredy. Would you care to have an advertisement of this sort stuck onto the side of your car? It comes to mind that the late Princess of Wales was quite keen on this sort of thing. All to do with keeping her looking young and trim - to which end many are prepared to put up with all kinds of horrors. Read all about it at reference 3.

The centre of operations, all very discrete. Who knows what goes on behind the net curtains on suburban estates?

After all of which we headed off to the gardens, from where something sub-tropical is snapped above. Growing in a pot and sporting the curious name Vasconcella pubescens, aka the mountain pawpaw from the Andes. Presumably edible.

The fine view of Chesil Beach and the Isle of Portland we got by climbing to the top of the gardens. Note the wedge shape of the Isle, absence of which was complained of at reference 5.

We also had buzzards being chased about by seagulls. The presumption being that buzzards will take the chicks of seagulls, so the seagulls get into the habit of attacking the buzzards, even when there are no chicks to be taken. We were told the buzzard defence is to roll upside down and rake any seagull within reach with its claws, but I had failed to bring my monocular along and I failed to see any claws in action.

A lot of very tall trees, from home and away. Including this candidate Wellingtonia. But it was labelled and turned out to be a coastal redwood, not the same thing at all. The Sequoia sempervirens of reference 6.

Some outdoor sculpture, rather whimsical in flavour, but not as irritating and intrusive as the stuff at Wisley.

Invited to leave by a siren, a leaving routed through the shop, not very big, but stocked very much the sort of thing on offer at a national Trust place. Or perhaps Chessington Garden Centre. Notwithstanding, a good place, to be visited again when we have more time.

We ate at the Five Bells of Whitchurch Canonicorum, where the afternoon session was just winding down. I took a very reasonable chicken pie and chips. Maybe a green vegetable. On exit, the near full moon was just about visible, rising among the clouds to the east.

The church there is notable for its relics, something that our True Prot churches do not go in for much. See reference 4 for the visit.

A nightcap at the Royal Lion where I was able to admire this complicated bit of carpentry. I suspected a late nineteenth century iron pillar propping up the ancient timbers. Cased in stressed pine so that it fits in.

There was also a matching, long case clock made by one Edward Jeffery of Andover, but I have had no more success in tracing him than in tracing Mr. Smallcombe of Essex, whom I had come across in Ryde and for whom see reference 7. Perhaps in times gone by there were lots of people making clocks, very few of whom were well known or successful enough to have made it to one of the various clockmaking directories of today. By way of comparison, how many of the many tax evasion consultants active today will be visible online in 250 years' time?

PS 1: ornamental junk not a problem at all in Lyme Regis, some very old, some new and some of which is snapped at the top of this post. With the three items along the top once being the property of Kew Gardens. Did the shopkeeper know the back history?

PS 2: how does someone who dates his resignation to St. Crispin's Day and asks the Prime Minister to convey the important news of his resignation to our new monarch, get to be elected in the first place? All this is a near illegible hand-written note. Is there no end to buffoonery in high places? Is this really the sort of example we want to set to all those struggling countries pondering about whether western-style liberal democracy is really the way forward?

References

Reference 1: https://abbotsbury-tourism.co.uk/gardens/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/littlebredy.html. An earlier visit to Little Bredy.

Reference 3: http://sublimeshrewsbury.co.uk/. Turned up by Google on presentation of telephone number. Plus the snap above.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/mixed-relics.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/shaldon.html.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens.

Reference 7: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/04/antiquarian-researches.html.

Reference 8: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/07/nuts-1.html. Earlier notice of St. Crispin. Where I seem to have muddled up the Battle of Hastings (where we got whopped by the French) and the Battle of Agincourt (where we whopped the French). Not to mention the Battle of Patay (when it was the turn of the French to whop us again).