Better news

[About three-quarters of UK adults used a BBC service for news in 2021/22, according to communications regulator Ofcom © Bloomberg]

Today's puff is for the article in the Financial Times at reference 1. Nominally about the need for impartiality at the BBC - whatever exactly that might, could or should be - but also about the pressing need for our media to give more time to careful presentation of economic news, more time to exploring different views about important political choices and exploring the trade-offs between them. All this fuelled by the report commissioned by the BBC at references 2 and 3.

I have only got about a third of the way through this (very accessible) report, but the impression so far is that the BBC does pretty well, but could do better. That it would be helpful if more journalists were economically and statistically literate, rather than, like our late fat leader, having spent far too much quality time on the Latin and Greek classics. That it would be good if journalists avoided using language which suggested that there were simple, obvious answers to complex problems. That it is all too easy for the news to be dominated by the interests of those who live in the rich south east. And lastly, that the BBC would do well to keep an eye on the tendency of all news rooms to go for flashy headlines and easy-to-digest human interest stories, rather than getting down to serious business.

Not covered in in any of this is the probable lack of interest in any of this at Murdoch's NewsCorp. All they care about is circulation, clicks and revenue. The country can look after itself.

Impressed that the BBC should commission and publish such a report.

References

Reference 1: How to make the BBC a fair arena for UK election fight: Hiding economic trade-offs risks breaching corporation’s aims on broad impartiality, finds a new review - Stephen Bush, Financial Times - 2023.

Reference 2: Review of the impartiality of BBC coverage of taxation, public spending, government borrowing and debt - Michael Blastland, Andrew Dilnot - 2022.

Reference 3: https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/documents/thematic-review-taxation-public-spending-govt-borrowing-debt.pdf. The home of reference 2.

Fargesia rufa

We have finally filled the hole where the oleaster used to be, with its removal noticed, amongst other places, at reference 1.

Having white-boarded the matter in the extension and further discussed the matter on-site, we decided, rather to my surprise, that a bamboo might be the thing, with my theory being that it was not going to spread all over the place in our clay soil, usually rock hard in the summer.

So off to Chessington Garden Centre where a helpful attendant was able to show us around the bamboos on offer there. After some palaver we settled for a smaller variety, Fargesia rufa, dragon head bamboo, but one which will still grow to 3m and more. It also had the advantage that it would fit in our car, good for instant gratification - although this was not essential as delivery was available just two or three days later for the modest sum of a fiver. See reference 2 for bamboo in general, reference 3 for this one in particular.

Then yesterday was planting day, an opportunity to crack out the mattock, the top of the substantial handle of which can be seen bottom right. Cleared the ground, taking out the bay seedlings which were scattered about. Cut out a bit more of the oleaster stump. Left a couple of firethorn seedlings or suckers, products of the larger plant mostly off-snap to the right.

Dug a hole, maybe twice the dimensions of the pot containing the bamboo. Ground quite soft after the frost and the rain, quite a lot of surface roots to be cut out. Very few, if any, worms - or anything else of that sort. Partially backfilled the hole with a mixture of (garden centre) compost and crumbled brown clay and then popped the bamboo in its new home, slipping out of its pot without complaint. Fairly pot bound, notwithstanding. Modest compaction of the surrounding earth using a broom stick handle, but I did not think that watering was necessary.

We shall see how it gets on - not least in further cold snap scheduled for February. According to the RHS at reference 3, this bamboo is good for temperatures down to between -10°C and -15°C, so it ought to be OK. We might even (bubble) wrap it up if it gets really cold - although I prefer not to coddle plants, preferring them to manage under their own steam. That said, to be fair, BH does move some of her pots into the garage when cold is forecast.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/05/oleaster-down.html.

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

Reference 3: https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/137830/fargesia-rufa/details.

Trio

Just a fortnight ago to the Wigmore Hall to hear the Trio Bohémo give us Dvořák's Dumky Trio (Op.90) and Liszt's ninth Hungarian Rhapsody. A programme which will be approximately repeated in June for the Barnes Music Society. I have not counted but we have heard the Dumky Trio quite a few times over the years, say between 5 and 10, with the most recent occasion having been noticed at reference 2, three years ago now, rather longer than I had expected. With just a movement more recently, noticed at reference 3. And with an even more recent performance, misfiled at reference 4. Misfiled in the sense that the search term 'dumky' was missing.

A day when the National Rail Journey Planner was still being temperamental. You just get going with it, then it either freezes when trying to load the list of stations or gives you a bad server error which is completely fatal. What is the matter with these people that this formerly useful bit of online software has been misbehaving for months now? Ever since the strikes of last year.

A cold Sunday morning, but there were still two lots of builders out on houses. There were also two trolleys on Station Approach. Marked down for future action which, I think, failed to materialise.

Examined the fig tree on the other side of the tracks, a fig tree where we sometimes play fig spotting. My theory being that the trees can carry immature figs over the winter which ripen in the spring. But we failed to spot any on this occasion and Wikipedia neither confirms nor denies the theory at reference 5. Maybe I will investigate further.

For a change, we had a talkative guard on the train who appeared to hail from the US. I think a first.

Just missed a shower at Oxford Circus. All-Bar-One quiet and the service was fast.

The concert was very good, particularly the Dvořák. For some reason, a strong association from the Liszt to the rather louche high society of the end of the nineteenth century, despite having been written fifty years previously. A harbinger perhaps. Encore rather fun - and Greek - although I forget now what it was.

We had thought to try All-Bar-One for lunch, having troubled them for no more than tea and coffee for years. But in the end we thought their menu a little young for us and too many of their seats not very comfortable. We are not keen, for example, on eating from high tables on high stools. So in the end, we settled for Ponti's. Where they tried hard to push us off our beaten track, succeeding only partially, with my taking the fried chicken, last tried, as it happens, on the occasion noticed at reference 3, when it was not particularly successful. On this occasion, it was very freshly cooked and rather bigger than I really wanted. Not helped by coming with an overcoat rather than a raincoat. But not bad, and I rather liked the dab of mashed potato made with olive oil rather than butter or milk. Beans on the side also good.

The reliable - in the sense that we always like it - Fiano di Avelino I Favati was missing so we took the next one along on the list, a 2019 Cottanera white called Etna. Which, as it turned out, we liked even better.

A modest looking place, in an area full of vines. Not a huge factory at all. Plus the occasional cactus. And it may even be Etna itself on the horizon.

When it came to paying, I wondered what the Italian for 'bill please' was, what the equivalent of the French 'l'addition' was. I thought something to do with quinto, but was not sure and the waiter could not help as he was Egyptian. Reasonable enough when he told us, but it had not occurred to me, despite his having served us on several occasions. Bing comes to the rescue this afternoon with 'il conto', not so far from my quinto. And I dare say making a scribbling gesture with the hand would do, as it does here in Epsom.

Visited the platform library at Raynes Park, but very thin. Nothing even to while away the remainder of the journey home.

Instead, for some reason, we wondered about the active ingredients of Lemsip. Out loud enough for the young lady across the aisle to tell us that there was indeed an active ingredient and it was called Paracetamol; a fact later confirmed by Wikipedia at reference 7, to the tune of 1,000mg if you get the big sachets. So quite a lot of the stuff. You also get sugar and some varieties include caffeine.

The expedition closed with a taxi driver's lament about the volatility of his income. Made worse by all the city types working from home two or three days a week, and worse still by all the strikes. But from the punters' point of view, Epsom Station remains a good place for a black cab and it is unusual for us to pile out of the station to an empty rank. Usually late afternoon or early evening these days, so we can't speak for other times of day.

PS: I have just tried the chat line provided at the Help & Support page provided with the Journey Planner. A chat line which is responsive enough, but where you have to flash the plastic to get any action. Failed again.

References

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

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/01/end-of-term.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/via-sutton.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/new-year-trios.html.

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

Reference 6: https://www.cottanera.it/en/wines/etna-doc-bianco/.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemsip.

Brute force

The FT included the graphic above at reference 2 today, a graphic which tells us that central Asia is a good deal colder than it was here in Epsom a week or so - and that was quite cold enough for me. 

But more important, I felt sure that I had seen and posted such a graphic before. I tried all the search keys I could think of, getting more and more outlandish, for example 'noaa', all to no avail. I tried looking in the place where I keep the images which catch my eye for one reason or another. I tried searching the FT for 'noaa'. Still nothing doing. Eventually I decided that the answer was to eyeball the Word archive copy of the blog for December, which is a lot quicker than paging through the same stuff online, and in fairly short order I got to reference 1, where learn that in December the dark blue stuff was over the northern part of north America, in particular Greenland. That is to say, Nansenland of reference 4.

A correspondent tells me that it is around minus 15°C in Ottawa at the moment. Not quite in the same league as Siberia, but I think I would need to invest in more serious winter clothing - or stay indoors. One can only suppose that the cost of going carbon neutral in such places is rather higher than it is here in the UK.

PS 1: NOAA, otherwise the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a subsidiary of the US Department of Commerce, is to be found at reference 3. Lots of graphics and pictures, but not this particular one, or anything like it. Maybe in the unvisited depths.

PS 2: I now find that feeding the image above into Google image search, turns up both itself and the image at reference 1 in no time at all. Clever stuff.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/12/dubai.html.

Reference 2: Climate graphic of the week: Northern Asia suffers extreme cold: Arctic freeze sweeps across large parts of China, Japan and Korea - Chris Campbell, Emiliya Mychasuk, Financial Times - 2023.

Reference 3: https://www.noaa.gov/.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/12/nansen.html.

More vegetables

BH's foray into the veggie world continued recently with the purchase from Sainsbury's of two matching haggises, one veggie (snapped above) and one regular. 

She elected to microwave it and cooked it looked very much like the real thing, perhaps a little paler. The flavour was much the same too, but the giveaway was the texture, a pasty back texture which made me think flour, even though no flour is to be seen on the list of ingredients. Perhaps some of the beans go down to paste. None of the slight dampness which I expect in the real thing.

But it did contain plenty of different ingredients, with carrots top of the list after water, followed by swede, oatmeal, barley and cooking oil. I don't think I would have done very well at guessing. 

So the overall verdict was not bad, entirely eatable, but not yet as good as the real thing. Which we will be having tomorrow.

PS: also cheap, maybe a couple of quid or so for a meal for two, although Sainsbury's are not admitting to having it on their website this afternoon. Maybe something to do with Burns night having come and gone for another year.

References

Reference 1: https://thescottishbutcher.com/. Lots of haggis, but clearly versatile people as: '... undoubtedly one of our most popular products is our Chicken Pakoras and sweet chilli dip! Our chef Michelle has become famous for these! They are so delicious! Have you tried them yet? If not, add them to your next order. You will not regret it...'.

Adverts

I pay what for me is a significant sum each month for access to the online version of the Financial Times. An online version which is, to be fair, reasonably free of advertisements, and such as there are are mostly for luxury goods of one sort of another, all terribly glossy and tasteful.

However, this morning, the advertisement snapped above has been shown me perhaps a dozen times. The Financial Times appears to be resorting to the advertisement push tactics of a Google or a Microsoft.

This despite an article appearing yesterday (reference 1) about all the fat Tory snouts in the trough of public money which would not have been out of place in the New Statesman of old, the one that still remembered the days of Kingsley Martin. 

To be fair, the question asked by the advertisement is fair enough - what is objectionable is the way that it is being put.

PS 1: on a quite different matter, I am reminded by the coverage of Russia's use of convicts in its invasion of the Ukraine, of all the convicts that found their way into the army and navy which helped bring Napoleon down. From reference 4 we have: 'The expression “scum of the earth” uttered by Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, has become etched in history as a great commander’s miserable opinion of his men. In a letter to Henry, Third Earl Bathurst, from Huarte Spain, on 2 July, 1813, Wellington wrote, “we have in the service the scum of the Earth as common soldiers.”...'. The article goes on to explain that a lot of them had been unemployed and that a lot of them were Irish.

PS 2: Sunday morning: copies of this same advertisement are still coming through, thick and fast. Maybe it is a programming glitch.

References

Reference 1: Sunak’s failure to sack Zahawi adds insult to all our injuries: Tax avoidance and asset-boosting policies contribute to the widespread view that politicians can’t be trusted - Camilla Cavendish, Financial Times - 2023.

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

Reference 3: https://swimmingwiththemanatees.com/. One of this morning's holiday offerings from Google. At least I have now discovered that if you open the advertisement, you are then able to delete it.

Reference 4: https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/articles/book-review-all-for-the-kings-shilling-the-british-soldier-under-wellington-1808-1814/.

Recognising upper case letters

This being prompted by taking another look at Dehaene’s book at reference 1. 

It struck me the other day that graph theory with its edges and nodes did not describe upper case letters very well. It seemed to require, for example, three edges and four nodes to describe a ‘T’, where two edges, that is to say two lines, seems both more natural and more informative. So I started to wonder if there was a better way.

Suppose we want to be able to analyse upper case letters, with a view to writing a conventional computer program – that is to say not some kind of neural network – to recognise them. We want to know what is going on, not just to build a black box which does the job.

For present purposes, we suppose the upper case letters to be presented to the computer in black on a white ground, using an array of pixels with 128 rows and 128 columns, which ought to be more than enough. The sort of in-train information display panels with moving orange lights manage with far fewer.

Elements. We allow straight lines, cups and circles. Lines and cups have one line and two nodes each. With a cup being a smoothly bent line. A circle has one line and no nodes. With a circle being a cup where the two nodes have been drawn together, annihilating each other.

Interactions. We allow joining (as in the two lines of an ‘L’), meeting (the vertical line of a ‘T’ meets the horizontal line above, roughly in the middle) and crossing (two lines cross, roughly at their middles. As in an X).

We require a join to involve a significant change of direction, mathematically a significant discontinuity of the first derivative. This makes it a lot easier for the computer to detect nodes.

We suppose that we can program our computer to find and recognise these three elements and these three interactions in our array of pixels.

If our data is reasonably noisy, we might want to put lower limits on the sizes of lines, cups and circles.

The hypothesis is that the computer can then be programmed to recognise the upper case letters of the standard English alphabet using simple properties of those letters expressed in terms of these three elements and three interactions.

The letters

So, adapting the letters shown above slightly, we get the following, marking the ambiguous cases with a ‘#’ and the special cases with a ‘*’.

Letter A. Two lines joined at a node. A third line meeting the other two.

Letter B. One base line. Two cups, on the same side of the base line, each with a join and a meet. One join to one node of the base line, the other join to the other. The two meets coincide.

(#) Letter C. A cup.

Letter D. One base line. One cup joining that line at both of its nodes.

Letter E. One base line. Two lines on joining the nodes of the base line. One line meeting the base line. The three lines on the same side of the base line.

Letter F. One base line. One line joining a node of the base line. One line meeting the base line. The two lines on the same side of the base line.

(*) Letter G. A specialised cup. Alternatively a sequence of cup, line, line.

Letter H. Two lines. A third line meeting the other two.

Letter I. A line.

(*) Letter J. A specialised line. Alternatively, a specialised cup. Alternatively, a line joined to a cup – although this would break the change of direction rule. Alternatively, a sequence of three or four lines – although this sort of approximation is not in the spirit of this model and would also introduce ambiguity.

Letter K. A base line. Two lines meeting that base line, from the same side. The two meets coincide.

(#) Letter L. Two lines joined at a node.

(#) Letter M. A sequence of four lines, joined at their nodes.

(#) Letter N. A sequence of three lines, joined at their nodes.

Letter O. A circle.

Letter P. A base line with a cup joining a node of that line and meeting the line.

Letter Q. A circle crossed by a line. No other points of contact.

Letter R. A base line with a cup, as the P. With an additional line meeting the base line, on the same side as, but outside of the cup. The two meets coincide.

(*) Letter S. A specialised line.

Letter T. Two lines, one meeting the other.

(#) Letter U. A cup.

(#) Letter V. Two lines joined at a node.

(#) Letter W. A sequence of four lines, joined at their nodes.

Letter X. One line crossing another.

Letter Y. Three lines, joined at a single node.

(#) Letter Z. A sequence of three lines.

Which gives us three special cases, not catered for by the model, and rather more ambiguities.

To sort out the ambiguities and otherwise tricky cases, we might appeal to orientation, to vertical or to horizontal. Or assume that the bottom of the image square is horizontal. Or we might introduce line length or angle at a node. Which last jar, being metrical rather than topological properties. The topological sort might be thought to be more robust, although that would have to be tested.

The test

We present a series of test images to the computer, most of which contain reasonable letters but some of which do not.

The computer responds in every case and we have some formula to score the test based on how many it gets wrong. A formula which might distinguish correct letter, wrong letter, null in response to letter, letter in response to null and correct null.

Additional information

Under this scheme, ‘P’ could be confused with both the lower case ‘b’ and the lower case ‘d’.

We do not make much use of circles or crossings, with just two of each. And with Q having both. Although the French use crossings, for example on the ‘7’, to distinguish it from a ‘1’, which is not at issue here.

Graph theory does joins in the sense used above, but does not do meetings or crossings.

Conclusions

There are probably lots of different ways of doing this. But I have no idea whether this algorithmic approach has been made more or less redundant by being able to train a neural network to do the job, with worrying too much about how exactly it does it. Which last might be cheap and effective, but is not terribly satisfying.

A rather different question would be whether a model of this sort bears any relation to what a human brain does. Maybe Dehaene has the answer to that one.

References

Reference 1: Reading in the brain – Stanislas Dehaene – 2009.

Skewered again

A week or so ago, back to the Estrela for a spot of their skewered beef. A day which started bright and cool, but with the clouds gathering by the time that I left the house at 10:45 or so. In the event it stayed dry.

Much humming and harring about whether to get to Vauxhall via Clapham Junction or via London Bridge, with the latter probably being a longer run for the Bullingdon. On this occasion I settled on Clapham Junction, in part so that I could inspect the building which used to be Battersea College, now flats, last mentioned, in connection with double glazing, at reference 1.

Struck on the day by this curious juxtaposition of old and new at Epsom Station - but I dare say a painter of townscapes could have made more of it than my telephone, which makes the old brick tower look smaller in this image than it did in real life.

Not many Bullingdons at Grant Road - the stand in any case rather reduced since its hey-day ten years or more ago - but there was one for me. And so to Battersea Park Road where I decided that the windows were originals. Nicely restored, but original, with putty. Perhaps that was a condition of sale. But what about all the draughts?

Furthermore, when I come to check on gmaps, which I should have done before, I find that the advertising shot is of a building of very much the same sort, but a different one. So Battersea above, unknown at reference 1. A challenge for readers: find out the unknown, without phoning up the double glazing company.

Pushed onto Vauxhall, missing the turning which would have got me under the tracks to South Lambeth Road, and was carried right around Vauxhall Cross. At least five minutes down the pan. But a bonus was an interesting bicycle, with a cheerful young lady in the saddle, which appeared to be made out of box section plastic. Presumably very light. I remember it as being much less clunky looking than the one lifted from Wikipedia above, but neither Bing nor Google offer anything better. Fortunately, I can consult a correspondent on the matter.

Parked up opposite the Canton Arms where I took a breather, then onto to the Estrela. Being reminded on the way that I once bought some very fine kippers at Walberswick. Had anyone now living in the street tried them? I dare say someone there at least knew where the place was. Unless, of course, the name of the place was masked by the name of a local worthy of the nineteenth century. See reference 4.

Skewered beef, rice, chips and salad. Plus a spot of my regular white, noticed for the first time at reference 3. Called Alvarinho Deu la Deu, only marred by the hefty mark-up from online prices.

Admired a Ukrainian flavoured funeral which went around twice, once with a motorised hearse, once with a horse drawn hearse - with the motor bringing up the rear of the procession on the second time around. Lots of blue and yellow flowers.

Learned about the best place to buy goose liver entire, that is to say not stuffed into a tin. For which see reference 3. They also do a large selection of saucisson sec, not dear, but a lot of it the flavoured sort I don't approve of. Nevertheless, something to be looked into.

The next activity was taking a closer look at the concrete art previously sniffed at at reference 5. On this occasion I found it rather more interesting, even if rather badly sited, and started to wonder what it was actually made of and how it was made. Must give it more time next time. Maybe even find out where it came from.

And so onto Vauxhall Station, passing on the rather florid establishment noticed above. But one day I shall have to give it a go.

Onto the platform where I caught a flight of three cormorants, flying high towards the river. Plus plenty of ones on the aeroplane front - but no trains. There seemed to have been an incident between Clapham Junction and Vauxhall which meant that there was no train movement at all. And there was a complete disconnect between the news on the indicator boards, the news from the station staff and the facts on the ground. It looked as if the computer systems were still up but could not cope with disruption on this scale.

Eventually I got a seat on the very front of a train to Epsom, having thought that this was a better bet than the very back, despite being convenient for exit at Epsom.

Blenheim shut around 17:30 this Friday evening. Not a good sign at all. With an update to be found at reference 6.

PS: Fine Foods were sticking advertisements into my email box that same evening, just hours after I had passed on the good news about goose livers to a correspondent.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/trolley-555.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/08/battersea-beef.html.

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

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walberswick.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/hill-start.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-blenheim.html.

US debt

Reading about what seems to be the annual debt ceiling extravaganza in the US, I came across the Treasury website at reference 1 - which struck me as a good example of how economics can be made a bit more accessible to us regular types who are not versed in the lingo of the economists. I have no idea whether our own Treasury offers anything comparable.

I think the chart above is in cash terms, that is to say not adjusted for inflation, and while it looks fairly horrendous, US total debt is only about 140% of GDP, which is high but not unmanageable and costs around 10% of government revenue to service. Two thirds of this debt is owned by people or entities in the US, perhaps pension funds, and a lot of the balancing third is held by China or Japan. In the UK the comparable figure is around 100% of GDP.

But one can see how the Republican obsession with getting debt down gets traction.

References

Reference 1: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide.

Svalbard

[Snow crab: the EU hands out 20 licences a year to fish the prized and lucrative delicacy © Terje Bendiksby/NTB Scanpix/Reuters]

Having done Nansen recently, noticed at reference 1, the piece about Svalbard, aka Spitzenberg, in the FT caught my eye this afternoon.

It seems that back in 1925, Norway was awarded oversight of the place while a number of other countries retained access for mining and other purposes - this at a time when off-shore drilling for oil and gas had not really got going. Access which the Russians and others used to establish coal mines. Research, weather and tourists appear to account for most of the remaining activity.

There is now a dispute about access to the waters of the 200 mile continental shelf, over and above access within the 12 mile limit. Does the 'territorial waters' of the treaty mean 200 miles or 12 miles? A dispute which has come to the boil over a Latvian trawler after a delicacy called snow crab, a dispute which will be dealt with by the Norwegian Supreme Court. A dispute with Norway on one side and everyone else on the other, with everyone else, on this occasion, including both Russia and countries of the western bloc.

Norway is also dishing out oil and gas exploration licenses for blocks between Svalbard and Norway. In fact, all the makings of a very messy row.

I associate to people getting excited about the waters around the Malvinas, aka the Falklands, but I have not heard anything on that front for a while. Perhaps it turned out that there were only penguins and seals there. Nothing much you wanted to eat, and nothing much that you could burn. But I guess that might change now, with Argentina ramping up oil and gas exploration in neighbouring Patagonia, as reported in yesterday's FT.

PS 1: at least they have polar bears instead of penguins in Svalbard.

PS 2: Terje Bendiksby does not seem to have his own website, but if Getty Images is anything to go by, he is very keen on politicians and sport, particularly skiing. On the other hand, I dare say there is plenty of interest at reference 4, but I have not yet poked hard enough to find it.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/nansen-by-another.html.

Reference 2: Trawler’s case tests Norwegian control over Arctic archipelago’s resources: Pressure on Oslo over fishing and other activities around Svalbard will increase, says legal firm - Richard Milne, Financial Times - 2023.

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

Reference 4: https://www.ntb.no/scanpix.

The Chandos

The week before last, one of my occasional visit to the Chandos in the north eastern corner of Trafalgar Square. An establishment I may have first visited with my mother and BH for lunch in what was then the first floor dining room in the long interval of an Easter performance of Bach's St. Mathew's Passion at the Festival Hall.

An establishment which is probably named for the Chandos family, a family from up north which first came to prominence in the service of the Black Prince. The title fell into abeyance, but revived for a descendant through the female line for services to Queen Mary I. The coat of arms on the pub signs does not appear to bear any relation to the arms for either the first (above) or second creation (to be seen in Wikipedia), but they do seem to have got the right motto (not the one above), so I dare say I am missing something.

It being my first evening in town for some little while, I prepared with a substantial lunch of potato pie, taken with Brussels sprouts and a spot of Huxley in the Bedford biography, a biography which survived the cull noticed at reference 1. I learned that while Huxley loved to talk, his wife loved to drive fast cars. It seems that Huxley's books ran to a custom built Bugatti from Turin, with extra leg room in the passenger seat for Huxley's legs - he being very tall. In those days you went to Turin to collect it from the man himself. Followed by siesta.

I had forgotten to charge my telephone, so I thought to take the spare cable should a plug offer itself. And as it turned out the proper eight coach red & yellow train from Epsom was defective and we had a four coach white and cream train instead, but one which came with plugs by every seat. At which point I discovered that I had brought the Kindle charging cable rather than the telephone charging cable. Not allowed enough time to come round properly after the siesta.

But I did learn that plenty of young people got their news by scanning the headlines and pictures offered by the likes of Microsoft on their telephones, without bothering to actually read anything under those headlines. Nothing so old-speak as paying for news or bothering to read it. Looking at the pictures is the way ahead. Is it any wonder that we have the problems just noticed at reference 2?

Strolled across Hungerford Bridge to find that the Chandos was rather crowded downstairs, with all the wooden booths taken. But I made my way upstairs where there was a window seat where we could wait the few minutes until a table became free.

Good atmosphere, mainly young people with an arty tinge to them, possibly of a stage or creative bent. And it was surprisingly cheap, given the location. So thanks to Sam Smith's.

Along the way I learned that at least some people do use most of the 20 odd gears on their bicycles - while I use just two, and one of those for more than 95% of the time. I have never been convinced by the theory that one should maintain cadence for maximum traction - but it seems that most serious cyclists are so convinced. However, I doubt whether I shall change the habit of a lifetime. Not least because I think my hill climbing days are over: I very much doubt whether I could still make it to the top of Epsom Downs, never mind Box Hill. Which last, I should say, I have never attempted in the course of our thirty years here at Epsom.

Thought about catching a train to Waterloo East from Charing Cross, but settled for the walk when I discovered that, contrary to what I had thought, not all the trains from Charing Cross stopped there. And I certainly did not want to be carried off into the wilds of Kent. With the bonus that I was reminded of the fine view from the bridge that you get at night. There were also large numbers of young people milling about, both on the bridge and on the south bank beyond, with some of them displaying a fair amount of flesh, despite the cold.

Arrived at my platform to find a new-to-me contraption, seemingly some kind of gate control unit. But I have yet to work out what exactly it might do. 

Climbed onto the train to watch the performance of a young lady who just missed it. An irregular or she would have known that once the doors are shut at Waterloo, they stay shut, complain as much as you like. There may be a spot of flexibility out in the country, but not there.

PS 1: there is also the question of the overdue visit to the Chandos Chapel, properly the Chandos Mausoleum, which I first learned of in the course of the outing to St. Luke's noticed at reference 3. Said to be open on Sundays and quite near the Canons Park tube station, on the Jubilee line from Waterloo, albeit quite a few stops. No excuse at all.

PS 2: there seems to have been another sneaky update from Microsoft. If I walk away from my laptop, I now seem to have to do a CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring it back to life, rather than just hitting return or clicking the mouse. An older person might have taken rather longer to work this out. Cursing the meanwhile.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/01/huxley.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/choices.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/06/chandos.html.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandos_Mausoleum.

Choices

The Financial Times has taken to banging one of my favourite drums. To the effect that we would do better if public and political discourse made more effort to explain to the public, to the men and women in the street, that most of the things that we want more of - like health or foreign holidays - involve trade-offs and that there are few free lunches available.

The first piece, reference 1, is about three bad choices that the great British public have made - but probably won't take responsibility for. First we opted for Brexit, the costs and pain of which will be with us for a long time. Second, we have opted for a low-tax regime while wanting a high-tax standard of public service. Which will never add up. Third, we are very bad at getting anything done. Yes we need more houses, but not anywhere near me thank you very much. And you are not going to build a special school or a prison anywhere where I might have to walk or drive past it. The banana syndrome of reference 3.

The second piece, reference 2, is about how we fail to recognise those trade-offs. One example being the waiting time at A&E departments. Sure, it would be nice if we got the average down to half an hour, but most people don't expect their taxes to go up in order to get there. Surely somebody else can pay? Perhaps some of those people who splash out on things like Bulgari watches? Another being the abuse of stop and search. Do you stop and search lots of people and catch lots of villains or do you use stop and search very sparingly, thus avoiding annoying (or worse) lots of innocent people? Yes, a better trained police force might do better, but you are not going to magic away the underlying trade-off. Or the cost of having a better trained police force.

PS 1: while the crows snapped above have chosen a tree between Upper Court Road and Lower Court Road (Court for the Epsom Court farm which used to be on this land) for their morning congregation. I associate to the rather larger tree in Brading where there was a big, evening congregation. See reference 4. While for Epsom Court see reference 2 in reference 5.

PS 2: later: I have just read of another example of our not getting things done. It seems, for reasons which I missed, the government has blocked the building of a big electricity interconnector between Portsmouth and France. What is going on? Is it the Russia/Ukraine connection? It is not as if the government is being asked to stump up the dosh.

References

Reference 1: We, the people, are to blame for Britain’s economic woes: The UK economy looks sickly against international comparisons, so let’s be honest about the three causes - Chris Giles, Financial Times - 2023.

Reference 2: Politicians are unhealthily obsessed with getting to zero: The key to making sensible policy is to be honest about the trade-offs involved - Stephen Bush, Financial Times - 2023.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/12/trolley-551.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/07/twit-log.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-blenheim.html.

Jigsaw 17, Series 3

As advertised at reference 1, the ambassadors was completed yesterday afternoon and snapped along with John North's book of the jigsaw. About five days' worth. I think the fourth time that I have done this particular puzzle, with the first occasion, back in 2013, noticed at reference 2. While I am reminded by reference 3 that the picture we know and love now is almost as much the product of the art of the conservator as that of Holbein.

On this occasion, I wondered whether the chap on the right, the cleric, chafed at having to wear sober, muted clothes. Expense was permitted, but not ostentation. But did he secretly hanker after dressing up like the dandy on the left? Did he do exactly that in the privacy of his private apartments? With perhaps just his lady friend on hand to clap?

On this occasion also, for the first time, I embarked on the skull bottom centre before I finished the border, although that did come shortly after. Then most of the tiled floor, then the fur trim and purple shirt left, then the central carpet and then the aristocratic toys. I wondered about the expense of both the fancy clothes and the fancy toys, which must have represented the wages of years and years of agricultural labour, the lot of the vast majority of the population of the time. What about a bit of levelling down?

This left two lakes of green, the large one above and the small one in the middle. And two lakes of brown or black, the large one right and the small one left. I tackled the latter two first, and soon realised that I would get on better if I sorted the relevant pieces by shape, which had not proved necessary with the previous two puzzles. Then deciding that it was better still if they were all orientated - with respect to the pattern of prongs and holes - the same way.

After that, the process was to fill the in the two lakes, working from the outside in. In this case there were plenty of the two hole then two prong pieces and the corners between the two prongs had distinctive shapes which were fairly easy to pick out of the pile. And once one got to the point where every piece in the pile had to fit some piece which had already been placed, it was easy.

The small green lake was slightly darker, and so easy enough. But the large green lake contained mostly regular pieces - hole, prong, hole, prong - which mostly had undistinguished shapes and colours. Which made for a lot of trial and error.

I found rotating the pieces in the mind to test there for a fit quite difficult, slower than actually attempting to place them on the board. Perhaps that skill will come back with practise.

Next up the Foppa? Not yet counted how many times it has been done already, but I do know where it is. With thanks to the National Gallery for the use of their snap.

PS 1: hitherto, snaps in posts have been indexed by a pictorial key along the bottom of the screen, a key which today seems to have vanished. On the other hand, rotating the wheel on my mouse does scroll me back and forth over the snaps. Have the chaps at Google been fiddling with the templates again? Something that they seem to do from time to time.

PS 2: maybe a about time I got back to the National Gallery. I don't remember when I last visited, although a cursory search turns up a visit in the summer of 2019, noticed at reference 4. After that, rather to my surprise, several visits to the National Portrait Gallery, but none to the National Gallery.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/jigsaw-16-series-3.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/02/jigsaw-8-series-2.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/12/jigsaw-1-series-3.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/06/room-55.html.

Group search key: jigsawsk.

The great lifting

Woke up this morning to find that the frost had finally lifted. The garden was free of it, except perhaps the micro ponds which one cannot see properly from the house. We were even spared the fog. Now that we have had at least two cold snaps this winter - compared with I think one relatively mild one last winter - maybe that is it?

Time to go and look at the snowdrops of Herald Copse in Nonsuch Park?

While yesterday morning, I was still able to admire the four sorts of frost out back, with the frost seeming to amplify the different textures of different plants, with the juniper, centre in the snap above, looking really pretty. Sadly, the snap does not capture that. Lost in translation.

Concrete wall, lower left, of my own construction. Slightly surprised to find from references 1 and 2 that that was getting on for ten years ago. I would have guessed much more recently.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/08/yard-retaining-wall-phases-4a-4b.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/08/yard-retaiining-wall-phase-1.html.

Avocado news

Since I last reported on our potted avocado at reference 1 in October, it has been moved from the upstairs landing window to the study back window, above a radiator, where it has put on a fair bit of growth.

Not sure about the heat when the radiator is on and not sure about how much water is wanted, but for the moment it seems to be doing alright.

Current thinking is to repot in the spring and relocate to the back extension, where there is less heating and an exposed flat roof. Then, put it outside in the summer months.

Reference 2 not particularly helpful, but it does suggest that growing the plant is easy enough but that getting it to fruit is more challenging. And might involve quite a wait. While reference 3 tells me that grown indoors in a pot, an avocado will only last two or three years before going into a decline. All food for thought.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/trolleys-538-and-539.html.

Reference 2: https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-grow-avocados/.

Reference 3: https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/avocado/growing-guide.

A story about reading

I was interested to read at reference 1 how large chunks of the US primary education system have or had been taken over by snake-oil, that is to say a method for teaching children to read which did not work and which did a lot of damage to a lot of children. The full strength method was called whole word reading while the diluted version was called balanced literacy. The general idea was that phonetics was stuffy and old-speak - and, worse still in many liberal eyes, promoted by President Bush the younger. Something he was doing, as it happens, when he was told of the terrorist attack on the twin towers.

Damage notwithstanding, we are told of at least three people did very nicely out of it. And I dare say there were lots more.

One of the features of this method is the use of cueing. When the learner hits a new word, rather than try to decipher it letter by letter, he or she is invited to guess using the context, a guessed word which might be the right sort of word - while being entirely the wrong word, say pony instead of horse. I am reminded of all the people working on artificial intelligence who think that they have cracked it when they can get their computer to have a reasonable go at predicting the next word on the basis of what has gone before. Perhaps forgetting that an important part of intelligence is being able to say something new.

The story is told in greater detail at reference 2, but I have not yet got very far there.

On the other hand, we are pointed to the Dehaene book at reference 6, published in 2009 and which I now know I read back in 2015. A book in which the snake-oil in question is roundly condemned. So this is very much old news and I was left rather irritated that reference 1 had not been clearer about the time line, about key milestones in the story.

And while the damage is the most important part of this story, another element is the way in which a faddish cure for difficulty in learning to read swept through the US. With one of the conclusions of the Dehaene book being that too much of teaching is hijacked by fashions and fads imposed by politicians, parents and educationalists. Something which my mother, who taught for many years in what in Cambridge were then called village colleges, went on about when I was a child and BH, a reception teacher in Kentish Town at the time, rather more recently. From which I deduce that not all that much has changed.

PS: turning up my copy of the book, I quickly learn that maybe one in ten adults in countries like the US have trouble reading, are not competent readers. I remember that my mother always asserted that there were lots of people about who never managed to learn to read, despite the efforts of their teachers. A big problem which was generally swept under the carpet and not talked about. Much less make a serious effort to do something about it. In which connection, I think that Dehaene argues towards the end of his book that tools which could have helped are only now becoming available.

References

Reference 1: Misreading the Cues: The “balanced-literacy” method of teaching children to read has predominated in American schools since the 1990s. It has been a failure - Christine Smallwood, New York Review of Books - 2023.

Reference 2: Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong - an American Public Media podcast created by Emily Hanford.

Reference 3: https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/.

Reference 4: https://www.americanpublicmedia.org/. A not for profit outfit - but I have not yet managed to work out whether that means that their stuff is free.

Reference 5: https://hechingerreport.org/sold-a-story/. But it does seem to be free here.

Reference 6: Reading in the brain - Stanislas Dehaene - 2009.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast. I thought it best to look up what one of these was.

Reference 8: https://mollygreen.com/homeschooling/. One of the many sites turned up by Bing that offers whole word reading. The source of the homely snap above.

Batch No.676

A record breaking batch of brown bread yesterday. The record in question being the proving time: more than four hours being needed for the first rise and then five hours for the second rise. This despite the central heating being on for most of this time and both the airing cupboard for the first rise and the front room for the second rise being quite warm. Total cooking time around 11 hours.

In the event, the second rise was perhaps a quarter of an hour too long - I find the timing of the second rise quite tricky - mostly because the oven took something like 20 minutes to come to heat, rather than the usual 10 minutes. Perhaps a combination of cold kitchen - old door, a large, single glazed window and a hole in the window to provide ventilation for the boiler - and weak electricity supply on a cold winter's evening.

In the event, one loaf (left) bubbled a bit, the result of too long a second rise, and the other (right) sank a little in the middle. A new outcome, but probably the same cause. At least neither collapsed, which can happen when the second rise is too long and the outer skin of the loaves has been weakened enough by the bubbles.

We shall see what they look like inside shortly.

PS: later: the left hand loaf looked good inside. Well risen, with no dense layer at the bottom. It tasted good too, taken with butter rather than with my more usual cheese. Right hand loaf went into the freezer getting on for 12 hours after it came out of the oven. Maybe it will be OK.

Icicles

Last time I noticed them, at reference 1, the patterns in the ice on top of our micro ponds was angular, radiating out from the three rims. Yesterday it was the turn of contours, possibly following the line of the flood water as it sinks back down, the pond at the right in the snap above being the lowest, by about an inch or so.

The blue tortoise may have been a folk remedy for duckweed, introduced with a plant from a kindly neighbour. The duckweed has now been eliminated by organic chemical means, but the the tortoise survives.

And it must have seemed cold on the day that we didn't get into the Palace, as noticed at reference 2, as I was moved to make dhal that afternoon. despite having taken lunch out.

Butter, garlic, black pepper, onion, water and orange lentils. In that order. Plus the chopped stump of Polish sausage tossed in at the end. Probably around 45 minutes start to finish. I think we did the whole lot in the one sitting, so I must have got the quantities just right - although I forget now what they were. Probably in the region of 4-6oz of lentils.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-blenheim.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/access-denied.html.

Seeing red again

In one of Allan Hobson’s popular books on dream science, probably the twenty year old reference 1, he makes the point that most people do dream in colour, at least some of the time. This being convincingly demonstrated by his systematic study of dreams – something which, incidentally, Freud never bothered with. He liked writing up his speculations and intuitions,  most famously in reference 2, but did not bother too much with systematic study, despite his early scientific training.

In my own dreams, I am not aware of much colour: they are not exactly all shades of grey, but there is not much in the way of bright, easily identified colours either. I might know the colour of something, but I do not experience the colour – from where I associate to the labelling possibility of the layers of LWS-R, for which see reference 3. I experience real colour from time to time, probably less than once a fortnight – this despite the fact that I am able to report dreams in the morning more often than not. To be fair, what I am not able to do is to report the dreams I am having when I am woken up in the middle of the night. I might well wake up, but I am not woken up in the way of the subjects of Hobson dream laboratory work, which is not the same thing at all.

So this morning, for a change, I had a waking fragment which involved a red blanket, or something of the sort, folded over something long and narrow, perhaps a bar or rod of some kind, which then morphed into a red Post Office van, complete with a golden crown – although in the fragment I missed most of the branding – apart from the red colour – and put the crown in the wrong place. Perhaps my memory holds something out of date.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Is my failure to see much colour in my dreams anything much to do with the fact that one generally dreams with one eyes shut and in the dark? The retinal cones (of reference 4) which generate colour vision, but which need quite a lot of light to work properly, will be relatively inactive. So the downstream areas of the brain which do colour processing will not be getting much stimulation from the eyes. Does this make it that much harder for the brain to convert the rather weak colour imagery available from memory into proper hallucination of colour?

Hobson does talk of large chunks of the brain being more or less offline when we are asleep, the result of chemical manipulations in the brain stem, but I don’t presently recall him addressing this particular point – beyond asserting the we can and do dream in colour, at least some of the time.

PS 1: the fact that, in response to the cold snap, we have recently added a heavy off-red woollen blanket to our bedding may well be part of the trigger for this fragment.

PS 2: some time ago I read a well known book about consciousness called ‘Seeing Red’ by Nicholas Humphrey (reference 5) and was clearly impressed given the number of mentions at reference 6. I shall take another look, but I don’t suppose it touches on present concerns.

References

Reference 1: Dreaming: An introduction to the science of sleep – J. Allan Hobson – 2002.

Reference 2: The interpretation of dreams – Sigmund Freud – 1899/1954.

Reference 3: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/09/an-updated-introduction-to-lws-r.html. 

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_cell. 

Reference 5: Seeing Red: A Study in Consciousness – Nicholas Humphrey – 2006. A nicely produced little paperback from the Belknap Press. I am prompted to give it another look

Reference 6: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=humphrey. Previous notice of Humphrey and his book. 

Rules for jurors

This being a record of a quick canter through the Internet this morning.

The canter was prompted by a short, truncated piece about a juror conducting online research in the print version of yesterday's Evening Standard.

The truncation being frustrating, I turned to the Internet to be taken to a service called pressreader which offers a facsimile of the article in question. The only complication being that it truncates one sentence earlier than my print version. Maybe they worked from a different edition. I have not bothered to investigate how far this pressreader service goes - for example which newspapers it covers - and whether I would be invited to contribute if I persisted with it.

The charge was that the juror conducted online research and so my next step was to ask the Internet about that. I did not turn up a juror manual, but I did turn up plenty of stuff and I include five of the more helpful offerings in the references below.

The story appears to be that jurors must come to their decision on the basis of the evidence presented in the court and of any directions that may have been given by the judge. I believe they are allowed to pass questions to the judge during their deliberations, although I have not found anything about that, beyond a suggestion that such questions are rather discouraged. So asking Bing or Google what they might know about a defendant is clearly out of order: such asking may well, for example, turn up stuff that has been explicitly excluded from the trial, say malicious gossip about a defendant by neighbours who loathe him for some unconnected reason or other.

There is plenty of stuff about how juries, possibly overwhelmed by information, might be better supported in their work.

And I dare say there are grey areas, such as possession of prior knowledge, not readily available to the public at large, which has a bearing on the case. Maybe candidate jurors with such knowledge are supposed to be disqualified or otherwise excused.

But the rule seems clear enough in practise. No poking around on your laptop, not even with the very best of intentions. Although I can see that no laptop at all for the duration might be a bit difficult for some people.

And I can see that some jurors might feel a bit frustrated. A juror who feels, for example, that the police or the lawyers have not done their work properly, and that some line of inquiry has been neglected. But here again the rule is clear enough: it is not for jurors to second guess that work. Their job is to come to a verdict on the basis of the work that has been done - not of that which has not been done. And if they are really unhappy, they always have the option of refusing to convict.

PS: I should say that I have never been a member of a jury.

References

Reference 1: https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/jury-foreman-sentenced-over-internet-research/5111157.article.

Reference 2: https://www.law.ac.uk/resources/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-jury-service/.

Reference 3: https://www.gov.scot/publications/methods-conveying-information-jurors-evidence-review/pages/2/.

Reference 4: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/juror-misconduct-offences.

Reference 5: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/juror-convicted-for-internet-research.

Access denied

About ten days ago we thought it was time to pay another visit to Hampton Court Palace. Bright and clear and not too cold. Maybe there would be some spring flowers on the way, if not in much flower.

Parked up at the station in the usual way and strolled across the river to be told by the cheerful chap at the gate that the Palace was now shut on Mondays and Tuesdays. A fact which I have just confirmed at reference 1. It had not occurred to me to check, assuming that a visitor attraction of this eminence would be open seven days a week - although, to be fair, it has been clear that they have been struggling since the plague hit. Even putting the infestation of wicker art aside, the garden is not maintained to the same high standard of old and the flower beds are not what they were.

So, headed back across the river to take refreshment, refreshment which we would otherwise have taken in the Tiltyard café. Catching the striking infestation of mistletoe snapped above.

I think we took our tea and coffee in Henry's Kitchen in Bridge Road, a place with a pleasant atmosphere and which sold delicacies like bacon and egg sandwiches. I thought perhaps we might go back their for lunch, but BH pointed out that these particular delicacies were only sold until 12:00. Not a killer blow, but damaging nonetheless.

After which we took a stroll along the river, running high and fast. Not a good day to fall in. On the way back across the river, for the third time and this time taking in the various expensive contrivances to deter terrorists, we came across a couple of ladies who said they had come a long way to see the Palace and were more than a little put out. I think from Australia, probably come up for the day from their hotel in London. Not impressed by our talk of other attractions in the immediate vicinity and looked to be heading back to the railway station. Perhaps to the Tower of London.

Headed towards Kingston on the Palace side of the river. We wondered about whether there was or ever was a tow path. Was this ever the sort of river where horses towed barges?

We passed a residential barge moored to a bit of a path, flooded. A barge which was made of steel and so might be a bit prone to cold and condensation, but the back door was slightly open and there must have been a good fire somewhere inside. There were also some solar panels on the roof. Having once been told by a waitress in the posh part of Kings Cross that narrow boats get moved on every fortnight, which makes living in them a bit fraught, we wondered about the arrangements at Hampton Court. Where most of the boats that we saw did not look as if they moved on in that way.

For a change, headed into what is now the Mute Swan and which used to be Bluebeckers. Busy for a Monday lunchtime and not all pensioners either. At the table next to ours, for example, was a couple from Bromley who had walked from Twickenham. The gent seemed to know all about restructuring chains of failing shops and leasebacks, that well known - and sometimes successful - wheeze for getting a bit of cash to keep oneself afloat for a bit. While his lady told us that Bromley not the shopping town it once was.

Garlic bread had far too much of some green goo. After that I took shoulder of lamb on the bone while BH took fish cakes of salmon and haddock. Both good - except for the gravy which I should have asked for on the side - and both good value. Couple of glasses of house red with which to wash it down.

A sideboard which was very like the one in BH's former home in Exminster, possibly having come down from a grandparent. I associate now to the restaurant opposite St. Luke's where we came across the tall boy (or tallboy) which used to live in my parents bedroom and now lives in ours. See reference 3. A restaurant which we rather liked but which, sadly, did not last very long.

Hampton Court Railway Station under some serious scaffolding.

While the raised beds adjacent carry a notice telling us about the long serving member of staff who looks after them, which we thought a nice touch. And BH was able to have a chat with the lady concerned.

The former Wetherspoon's by the Hook Junction on the A3 is still empty. Presumably built in the far off days, well before Wetherspoon's was invented, when big pubs could make a good living on roads like the A3 - but it is hard to see how the present building can be put to productive use now. One hopes that it is not the no doubt well-meaning heritage people that are blocking its recycling. That there is some more substantial difficulty.

PS: the Mute Swan is now a member of the Brunning & Price family, to be found at reference 2. While Bluebeckers do not seem to exist at all, despite filing accounts last year recording the business as public houses and turning over around £20m. All very mysterious. Plus, our efficient waiter was carried over from the Bluebecker days. Did the Bluebecker people jump into the Brunning & Price wagon when the going got a bit rough?

References

Reference 1: https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/#gs.nn9mrf.

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

Reference 3: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/11/cupboard-love.html.