The bodge: phase 3

The bodge continues!

With BH forecasting a wet week to come, sowing the grass seed yesterday, despite the rain of the day before, seemed like a good idea.

Phase 3a, sprinkle on the lawn seed: 'Shady Place' from Johnsons of Inkberrow in Worcestershire, for whom see reference 2. 

About 425g grams of seed, spread at a rate of around 35g to the square metre. So sprinkling straight out of the box, using the holes provided was not going to work. Instead, finding that the small measuring cup I use when making bread held just about 35g, I used that instead. Just about visible bottom right in the wheelbarrow. The quantity of seed bought was spot on and the box is now ready to be recycled.

The seed was pale blue in colour and there was a modest amount of blue dust in the pack. Modest amount of blue dust blowing around during the scattering - for which I did not mask up. Maybe a combination of lawn feed and bird deterrent - the pigeons not having seemed to have found the seed, getting on for 24 hours later. I was careful to wash up afterwards: who knows what chemicals might have been involved?

Noting in passing that the box said good for up to 20 square metres. While the small print said 35g to the square metre for seeding a new lawn, 20g to the square metre for renovation. Slightly misleading.

Phase 3b, sprinkle some compost on top: J. Arthur Bower’s Multi-Purpose Compost. Given the conditions, this seemed better than mixing the seed with the compost, as originally suggested. Bower's appears to be a popular brand owned by Westland of reference 3, but neither Bing nor Google could tell me who Mr. Bower was, although the wording at the Westland website suggests that he was a real person, not some figment of marketing imagination.

Around two thirds of an 80 litre pack. The parental sieve, probably getting on for a three quarters of a century old now, seemed to work pretty well. With the parental rake serving to smooth out the dents left by the bit of board serving as a scaffold board. A bit of board which was bought more than thirty years ago when we were replicating the sand pit we had at Norwich - a replica which was never as successful as the original, perhaps because the boys were getting older, perhaps because we did not have a nifty circular brick platform to put it on, as at Norwich, where we called it the bandstand. Presumably originally intended for tasteful garden furniture, rather than for imaginative play involving sand, water and plastic dinosaurs.

I might say that FIL's rake was even more heritage, with the tines being nails bashed into the base plate by a blacksmith, rather than the whole thing being made in a factory from a single small slab of steel, as here.

I might also say that 80 litres is about as I want to pick up these days. Very feeble, although in my defense, I might add that the bag was perforated (by design) and the compost was fairly wet.

The lowest point of the renewal, far right, was pretty wet. Let's hope the seed there does not rot.

PS: I am reminded that when we bought our house in Norwich we bought the curtains as an extra. At the eleventh hour, the vendor told us that this did not include the curtain rails. At which point we got cross - and they carefully took the curtains down and took the rails away with them, possibly to dump them in some tip on arrival at their new home? But they did leave the curtains behind, nicely folded.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-bodge-phase-2.html.

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

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

Pitchfork

Ten days ago to London for cheese. An overcast and cool day - and a draughty train until the young man who didn't seem to mind the draught got off at Clapham Junction and I was able to shut his window.

Ominous exit from the concourse area to a lot of builders' huts and builders' gear and no Bullingdons. But it was alright. It turned out that there were Bullingdons at the bottom of the ramp and I was able to get off. Plenty of young cyclists about, mostly ignoring traffic lights. And just two vacancies at Drury Lane, but two was enough. 

Headed up Drury Lane, past what appeared to be a small Korean flavoured café with a queue of young Koreans outside. Bing confirms that it was indeed Korean and called Kangnam Pocha.

I used to like Chinese food well enough, but my very limited exposure to other far eastern food has not encouraged me to diversify. Plus I am not keen on queueing to eat in a crowded café. So unlikely to give this place a go, even though I am in the vicinity often enough, be it ever so good.

Headed off down Shorts Gardens, and was pleased to discover what the yellow plastic thing I had picked up a few years ago was for, there having been various suggestions - incorrect as it turns out - in the mean time. I use ours (visible back right in the first snap at reference 3) as a play accessory for infants, but it seems that they are really an accessory for lashing down sheets of material, more I suspect to give a better grip than the naked strap would give, than to protect vulnerable edges.

And so into the cheese shop. I have been eating Lincolnshire Poacher for some years now, ever since I discovered it in the late-lamented cheese counter in the Epsom Waitrose - subsequently switching to Neals Yard Dairy, who have served well. But their Poacher has been a bit dry of late, so I thought it time to try something else, lighting on the rather more expensive Pitchfork - cheese makers being as into silly names as beer makers. But I suppose you have to call it something - and maybe the marketing people claim that names like 'Brown's Bay No.17' (where Farmer Brown is the cheese maker) don't really cut it - the names of bitters of old and a number of more expensive drinks notwithstanding.

See references 1 and 2.

Nearly got run down by an electric car which I had heard behind me but not computed as something I need to move out of the way for. Couldn't find the shop which had sold me a couple of fine Serrano ham filled rolls on a previous occasion. Probably given up.Thought about taking a snack in the food hall that has sprung up opposite the cheese shop, but decided that it was not really my thing. Maybe I could do something at Waterloo.

So rolled down Kingsway, hanging right at the Aldwych, this being the new arrangement now that the other side has been pedestrianised. Much better for cycles than the old system, which could be a bit hairy at times.

Passed the remnants of a disturbance outside India House, probably the incident mentioned at reference 4.

And so to the top of the ramp at Waterloo. The first time I have taken the pole position for a while.

We have done alright at Benugo in the past, so I thought I would give their outlet up on the Mezzanine a go. I settled for a bacon and brie roll, warmed up in the microwave - and did not like it at all: a soggy roll, full of goo, that is to say more or less melted Brie. I should have gone the extra mile and gone to the Northcote at Clapham Junction for one of their fine bacon and egg baps. See reference 5.

PS: in the margins of penning this post, amused to read about the possibilities of virtual sleep overs. Only troubled by visiting youngsters being virtually tiresome. See reference 6.

Reference 1: https://trethowanbrothers.com/.

Reference 2: https://trethowanbrothers.com/products/pitchfork-cheddar. The cheese I bought was nothing like as yellow as this cheese looks on my laptop. More cream coloured. Plus, not veggie at all: made with rennet and wrapped in lard. Perhaps lard impregnated cheese cloth.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/04/treasure-hunt.html. I feel sure that there is a better shot out there, but search has so far failed to turn it up.

Reference 4: UK to review security at Indian High Commission in London after breach: Tensions remain high following Indian authorities’ removal of barricades around British diplomatic buildings in New Delhi - Chloe Cornish, John Reed, Peter Foster, Financial Times - 2023.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/06/cheese-bacon-and-egg.html.

Reference 6: Inside the cozy but creepy world of VR sleep rooms: Going to sleep in virtual reality can alleviate insomnia and loneliness — if you can avoid being harassed by kids - Tanya Basu, MIT Technology Review - 2023.

Beethoven turned over

This being notice of some research into Ludwig van Beethoven’s genome, centred on some locks of hair, but supplemented with some family history and some public genome databases.

A collaborative effort involving 33 authors, 28 institutions, 7 countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Germany, UK and USA), 3 continents, 173 references and copious supplementary material. One wonders how an effort of this sort is managed. Did the team go in for occasional away-days in some attractive Sicilian resort town, perhaps Taormina?

Five of the eight samples of hair which were examined, listed in the figure above, almost certainly came from the same individual and the state of the samples was consistent with an early 19th century date. Comparison with other samples suggested a north German origin. 

Various more or less exotic medical theories which had been derived from the Hiller lock, No.7, can now be discarded.

Comparison with living relatives suggested what is coyly called an extra-pair paternity (EPP) event at some point prior to Beethoven’s birth.

The team failed to find genetic evidence for Beethoven’s hearing loss or for his gastro-intestinal problems. On the other hand, they did find genetic evidence for liver problems, including the cirrhosis of the liver which probably killed him. It also seems that Beethoven was quite a heavy drinker, at least for some periods of his life.  And that he had Hepatitis B in the last months of his life, if not at other times. It is possible that it was chronic from birth.

And lest we worry about the invasion of privacy, it seems that he asked for the details of his health to be published after his death.

He appears not to have been a coeliac, which might have accounted for or exacerbated his bowel problems – something I notice because my father-in-law (sometimes FIL in these pages) was a coeliac, which caused him serious problems in his middle years and was something of a nuisance after that – although it did not stop him living into his nineties.

Technical notes

Contrary to what I had thought, a hair has a complex structure, involving several, cylindrically arranged, layers of cells. So one can recover both chromosomal material from the cells and what I think is called meta-genomic material from the hair as a whole.

A catch being that old hair DNA is apt to be rather fragmented, to come in very short sequences. Which can be pieced together, but does make things more difficult.

Conclusions

An entertaining piece of work, with the expense justified by its novelty and the celebrity of the subject. 

No doubt there is more of this sort of thing to come: a micro version of the macro stuff pioneered by David Reich and noticed at reference 4. 

I would have thought there was room for coverage somewhere between the loud tones of reference 1 and the learned tones of reference 2. Something for the general reader with an interest in science. Perhaps a lecture at the Royal Institution? But not something I am qualified to attempt myself – beyond the few notes offered above. 

References

Reference 1: Celebrity Death Finally Solved - With Locks of Hair - F. Perry Wilson, Medscape – 2023.

Reference 2: Genomic analyses of hair from Ludwig van Beethoven – Tristan James Alexander Begg, Axel Schmidt, Arthur Kocher, Maarten H.D. Larmuseau, Göran Runfeldt, Paul Andrew Maier, John D. Wilson, Rodrigo Barquera, Carlo Maj, András Szolek, Michael Sager, Stephen Clayton, Alexander Peltzer, Ruoyun Hui, Julia Ronge, Ella Reiter, Cäcilia Freund, Marta Burri, Franziska Aron, Anthi Tiliakou, Joanna Osborn, Doron M. Behar, Malte Boecker, Guido Brandt, Isabelle Cleynen, Christian Strassburg, Kay Prüfer, Denise Kühnert, William Rhea Meredith, Markus M. Nöthen, Robert David Attenborough, Toomas Kivisild, Johannes Krause – 2023.

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

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=reich. 

More brick

I am always on the lookout for bricks to add to my small collection, but actually coming across bricks which are suitable and when it is convenient is unusual. So yesterday I was pleased to come across this one in the course of my morning outing.

Quite a heavy brick, with quite a lot of mortar in the frog which needed cutting out. But as luck would have it, old yellow mortar which did cut out, mortar which was not irrevocably bonded to the brick underneath. Unlike the new, grey mortar noticed towards the end of reference 1 - a case of soft brick bonded to hard mortar. Too much cement.

PS 1: a bricklayer in TB once told me that another problem with new, grey mortar is that it cannot accommodate slight movement in the masonry, perhaps the result of dry weather, resulting in unsightly cracks. Just the sort of thing to get mortgage company surveyors going.

PS 2: I have just been reminded of the post at reference 2. The advent of products like 'ChatGPT' just adds to the worries expressed there about the possibly bad consequences of clever and interesting IT. In any event, more news on the ChatGPT front shortly, which may include a go with the Google offering 'Bard'.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/06/pork-feast.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/04/possibly-bad-science.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/02/chatter.html. A first outing with ChatGPT.

Nonsuch

A relaxed outing to Nonsuch Park yesterday, with the primary objective being to catch the daffodils. Part of being relaxed was parking in the car park near Cheam Village and nearest the park action, rather than the car park down by the exit from Stoneleigh, which involves rather more of a walk.

Strolled down to the house and round into the gardens, where the daffodils were all present and correct. There were also a row of south facing benches, just catching the morning sun which was coming around from the left, so we sat there for a bit. With BH taking much pleasure in all the passing infants, mostly cute.

Then down to the grove of substantial pine trees, including a previously scored Wellingtonia, that is to say rather more than a year ago, as noticed at reference 1. The base of this tree is visible left in the snap above. A modest number of daffodils, lots of purple dead nettles and some cyclamen. No doubt other stuff to come. Some strange flower heads which appeared to be dropping off some of the pine trees, giving off lots of pollen when tapped.

Bing turns up the snap above, from reference 2, which fits the bill. The paradox of pine trees not being flowering trees having been solved.

Then there was the matter of another large redwood, not quite the right shape for a Wellingtonia and I suspected its relative, the coastal redwood.

Which on closer inspection was indeed the case. Flat needles in opposing pairs, not like scales of a Wellingtonia at all. More like a large version of the yew.

Back around the edge of the pines, where there were lots of grey squirrels, some being fed and quite tame. Harmless enough here, but I would not want them to be fed in our garden where they count as a pest on account of their taking all our hazel nuts.

And so to the café where we bought tea and cake. One a tray bake version of an almond and marzipan tart, one a tray bake version of an apple crumble. Neither looked all that much, but both tasted OK. No sign of currant buns or anything of that sort, toasted or otherwise. Although the café does have a proper kitchen out back. Quite possibly not presently used.

We actually took the tea and cake around the other side, sat on the east facing steps of the big house, where we were able to catch the sun again. From where, it was clear that the Wellingtonia was a good bit taller than the coastal redwood: the former stood out above the crowd, the latter was one of the crowd.

Home to lunch, after which I took my first back patio siesta of the season. Quite warm enough to nod off nicely for an hour or so. There was a bit of cloud about, but it did not seem to be troubling the sun. Mainly blue sky.

Followed by a double ration of bricks, some compensation for an otherwise rather lazy day.

PS 1: the following day, I discovered that someone has been planting daffodils in Court Recreation Ground. At least, I don't remember this bank of them. But it does come to mind that there are Friends of the recreation ground who do such things.

PS 2: I was having trouble computing what it was below and to the left of the green litter bin, just beyond the daffodils. Perhaps part of one of the felled trees? Then zoom suggested that the seemingly unbroken slab of grey was actually in two parts. On the right, one had a large bough sticking up from the body of the trunk, partially occluding the litter bin. On the left, one had the path swinging around to the right, before swinging left again through the far trees. The combination of eye and telephone conflated the two into one slab of indecipherable gray. One slab which is now breaking down into three, now that I know the answer: the brain has pushed some instructions down to the vision centre. A trick of the point of view. Had I bothered to change my position a bit more between snaps, all might have been clearer sooner.

References

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

Reference 2: https://joshfecteau.com/meet-the-pines-scotch-pine/scotchpinemale/.

Reference 3: https://joshfecteau.com/. Clearly into birds as well as bees, that is to say trees.

Smetana

Just over a week ago to the Wigmore Hall to hear the Smetana Trio give us Dvořák (Op.65) and Shostakovich (Op.8), a reversal of the advertised order which, in the event, worked well.

A trio whom we first heard 18 months ago or so, as noticed at reference 2. Which also reminds me about the silly mound erected at Marble Arch at about that time.

On the way, the place of the frame house has been taken by a huge makeover further up Meadway. A house which started life as a modest dormer bungalow, albeit on a large plot, was subject to a major extension some years ago and is now the subject of what appears to be a huge L-shaped wraparound, taking up one side and the back of what is there now. Not altogether clear whether the present roof will survive or whether the occupants are still there. It rather looked as is if they were: perhaps they are spending so much on the makeover that they cannot afford to move out for the duration.

Thinking with my fingers, one wonders why they didn't just knock the existing building down and start over, but perhaps this would have been more than the neighbours, in what might be a conservation zone, could stomach.

We had worried a little about trains. Would they have recovered so early in the morning - 09:45 or so - on a day after a strike day, but in the event, all was well.

A wagtail on the way in to the station and a very large herd of young people - say teens - on the platform, together with their minders. There was a flavour of organised outing about them, but I didn't spot a likely looking person to ask before we slipped up to the hopefully quiet country end to board the train,

All Bar One at Regent Street was quiet and the service - including a New Model teapot - was fast. Cool weather notwithstanding, the various, obviously more cool, outlets on the way from Oxford Circus, were doing much better business, both inside and out. Thought again about taking lunch there, to give them some return for all our teas and coffees, but were uneasy about the seating, a lot of which was high stools, which we do not like.

The daffodils were doing well at Cavendish Square, but sadly the box trim to the borders had been devastated, presumably by the same caterpillars which did for ours. See, for example, reference 4. Caterpillars which seem to be rather capricious about the places that they attack.

I also learned about how daisies can get established in a weak or weakly managed lawn. I suppose the flat rosettes of leaves  mostly survive lawnmower attack. In any event, I rather like them - see, for example, reference 5 - but I have to allow that there may be other views.

Wigmore Hall was into queueing for returns for once and pretty full inside, with just a few gaps for the halt and the lame, which are only to be expected given its largely older audience. Enthusiastic on this day and we wondered whether the London Czechs had turned out in force.

The music worked very well and we had what I think was a jolly Haydn encore which put me in mind of Brahms' first piano quartet, a quartet which I once had a passage with, started on the occasion noticed at reference 3. 

For lunch, we actually made it into All Bar One, having talked about it for a while, not very busy on this occasion and we had proper seats, not far from the windows. Sparkling water, a carafe of Picpoul. Some kind of exotic salad for BH and paella for me. BH was pleased with her salad and I was pleased enough with my paella, which seemed to stand the boil-in-the-bag treatment pretty well. But it was not really enough, so I went for a second portion, which made it a rather expensive dish. I was also rather full.

The musak was subdued, just about right to provide a bit of privacy, and the ambience was pleasant, more café than the restaurant that is Ponti's just down the road. A pleasant change.

Some additional entertainment in the form of a Muslim lady of middle years, wearing a big red coat with a matching head scarf. The whole set off by a lot of make-up, including bright red lipstick, matching nail varnish and a lot of jewellery on her hands and wrists. BH says she had quite fancy shoes too. So clearly dressing up is not completely off-limits.

Back at Vauxhall, we supposed that this bright yellow handrail had been strapped on top of the heritage one to provide support for the shorter passenger. Paint aside, will it last as long as the heritage one has?

We were also struck by the narrow appearance of some of the elements of this tower, the one with the crane. The things developers will do to shoehorn some volume into a small and oddly shaped footprint! One supposes that a more authoritarian regime than ours would have ignored property rights, bulldozed what was there before and built a nice tidy series of identical blocks - which can have its points despite the bad example set by many post war housing projects, both here and abroad. I must make time to explore at ground level and find out what there is for all these thousands of flat dwellers to do when they are not holed up in their flats. Assuming that is, that all these flats are actually occupied.

Scored some aeroplanes while we were waiting and another at Raynes Park. Not helped by low cloud which the aeroplanes were popping in and out of.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/carducci-two.html. The day, as it happens, that I first saw media notice of our explosives problem. While today, there is talk of ramping our armaments industries back up onto what now appears be a prudent level. The era of peace after the cold war has turned out to be rather short-lived, not helped by our triumphing over the fall of the Soviet Union and our generally tactless behaviour subsequently. But, to strike an analogy of sorts, recognising that a hooligan might, on a good day, have been headed off by more help during his (or her) formative years, does not mean that punishment is not now appropriate. Mitigation perhaps, exoneration no.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/via-sutton.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/04/adaptations.html. Which, having muddled up Brahms with Mendelssohn, took a while to turn up.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/caterpillar-control-episode-1.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/trolley-559.html.

The bodge: phase 2

After the rain of Friday, I moved onto phase 2 of the bodge yesterday, that is to say Saturday, morning, with the results snapped above. With the ground bottom centre being a good deal wetter than elsewhere: no visible water, but not far off.

Let's hope that there is not too much more rain over the next few days, or phase 3 might get pushed into April with its April showers.

The small, English bluebells to be seen coming up right. While down the bottom of the garden, the big continental bluebells have more or less taken over. The primroses along the back fence more or less invisible here, just about visible on the original on my laptop. The trunks of one of our two hazels visible top right; hazels which never produce any nuts for us as the grey squirrels take them young.

Marked the occasion with a fluky win at Scrabble later in the day. I had been trailing a bit in a low-scoring game, when BH put a terminating 'A'  near the middle of the right hand column of the board. Thus allowing me to get a 'Q' on a double letter and 'QUAIL' on the nearby triple word. Which at 69 put paid to BH's ambitions: 69 as her 'A' was actually a non-scoring blank standing in for an 'A'.

The word quail seems to crop up quite a lot, rather more than mere chance would suggest. But it is too early in the morning to consider why this might be so.

PS: the telephone seemed to have a problem with all the different textures involved here, not being able to manage all of them at once. But I suppose going for the central grey is a reasonable choice for it to make: the right choice as it happens. With the green centre left suffering in consequence.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-bodge-phase-1.html.

A curiosity

For some reason this evening, with no idea now what the prompt was, I wanted to know what happened to Richard Cromwell, briefly Protector on after the death of his father Oliver Cromwell in 1658.

The Oxford History of England does not bother with such personal trivia, but I learn from Wikipedia that Richard went on to long life. Born in 1626, the third son, he succeeded as Protector in 1658, abdicated the following year and went into exile in 1660, the year of the restoration. He returned in 1680 or thereabouts and seemingly lived privately on the income from his estate in Hampshire, presumably not confiscated after his abdication. He died in 1712 at the age of 85, a record for head of state longevity only recently broken by our late queen, Elizabeth II.

Not a bad result for the time. The only sad note is that after going into exile he never again saw his wife of ten years, who had borne him nine children, of whom five survived. She died in 1675, five years before his return. Perhaps they had agreed that the lesser evil was for her to stay behind with their children.

PS: nothing about his two elder brothers. If he was so unsuited to high office, what was their problem?

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cromwell. The source of the image above: 'Proclamation announcing the death of Oliver Cromwell and the succession of Richard Cromwell as Lord Protector. Printed in Scotland 1658'.

More statistics

Prompted to look at refences 1 and 2 the other day by an email from Medscape, people who turn up all kinds of both odd and interesting stuff with a vaguely medical flavour. I got as far as wondering what the chart snapped above tells us. Should we care that we appear to be slipping down the world league table of life expectancy, while Japan is holding steady at or near the top? And while France, rather more like us in other ways, which had been holding steady above us, may be starting to slip down?

Skimming (the quite short) reference 2 this morning, I am not all that much the wiser, although I am now wondering why the authors left the US off the chart above, one of the countries which has done even worse than the UK, with one point in common between them being the huge and growing gap between rich and poor.

I learn nothing about the countries who are making it to the top of the league.

I am reminded that in the middle of the 20th century, the UK still had the trappings and standing of a big and important country. That is much less true now.

But I am still wondering whether we should care. If we choose to spend what dosh we have on more goodies now rather than on more health to come, is not that a reasonable life style choice for a country to make? Or should the gloss be that the rich are getting richer, in part at least, by cutting back on health for the poor?

I had hoped for rather more.

PS 1: chart notwithstanding, life expectancy in this country is still growing.

PS 2: I have been irritated by one of the authors before. See reference 3. Plus a walk-on part at the rather more recent reference 4.

PS 3: not best pleased this morning to find that Microsoft's Edge has taken another slice off my screen. So where we had the top two rows of the screen for tabs and current address and the bottom row for the task bar, there is now an additional task bar in a right hand column, including important items like shopping and games. Not to mention something called E-tree. Will I get around to learning how to turn it off? This on top of Edge becoming ever more intrusive, with ever more unwanted pop-ups.

References

Reference 1: UK Sliding Down the Ranks of Global Life Expectancy - Dr Sheena Meredith, Medscape - 2023.

Reference 2: Falling down the global ranks: life expectancy in the UK, 1952–2021 - Lucinda Hiam, Danny Dorling, Martin McKee - 2023.

Reference 3: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/search?q=danny+dorling.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/global-warming.html.

The bodge: phase 1

Part of the back of our back lawn - the chunk bordering the northern boundary - is pretty bare. And there is plenty of moss, there and elsewhere. Consulting reference 1, I find that starting over is recommended, a process that involves serious digging and which would take around a year, start to finish, including leaving the new-lawn-to-be for a few months to settle before seeding it.

This all seemed a bit drastic compared with the BH suggestion, gathered from gardening programmes on television and gardening magazines from the RHS, that it was enough to scatter a bit of seed and compost mixture on the offending patches. Maybe just a spot of spiking or raking to start off with.

So I have gone for a compromise, and will lightly dig over about one half of the northwestern segment of back lawn, that is to say about half a small fork deep. I managed about three quarters of this yesterday, taking out a fair number of surface roots, some quite large, in the process. To which end, the axe end of the trusty mattock proved its worth. A modest number of small worms. With the ground turning out to be surprisingly dry, despite all the recent rain - so perhaps the rain really does just run off the compacted clay - with this ground not having been disturbed for at least thirty years. With downhill being from left to right in the snap above.

The idea being to leave the dug over ground for a day or so, then to rake it down to an acceptable tilth, then to move onto the seed and compost mixture. Job done in seven days rather than seven months. And not too much damage - in the sense of sunk quality time - if it doesn't work out. 

Compost and shade loving lawn seed has been bought and is ready to hand.

Part of my thinking being that, since I am taking virtually nothing out, and putting very little back in, it all ought to settle back to more or less where it started.

References

Reference 1: The Lawn Expert - Dr D G Hessayon - 1997.

Cadogan Hall

This to notice what has become a rare visit to the Cadogan Hall at Sloane Square, with the last visit, more than four years ago now, noticed at reference 4. This one was advertised by email and I picked up on it as an afternoon concert, so suitable for us.

Mozart, including a symphony (No.38) and two piano concertos (No.23 and No.27 (the last of the series)). The concertos, at last had probably been heard before, quite possibly with Dame Mitsuko Uchida in the chair. On this occasion we had Elizabeth Sombart whom we have not come across before, and I rather liked her subdued platform style and I rather liked having the piano and its direction separated, having found conflation with Uchida slightly distracting. For Sombart see reference 6.

On the day in question, a Sunday, we had to drive to Sutton to get a train, spotting various new-to-me Wellingtonia on the way, but not having time to score them. Left for another day. Got to the station to grapple with the younger persons' parking machinery, as noticed at reference 7. Slightly surprised to have to pay £9.15 for our senior discounted return tickets to Victoria, only a very small discount on what a senior Travelcard would have cost from Epsom, now £11.15. I might say that senior shows here too, with getting the last receipt out of my wallet being a lot faster than trying to extract the same information from my laptop, albeit in a different room.

Passed this building at one point. Clocking the rather ugly corner jointing, I wondered how long ago it was that a builder would buy special bricks to fit the case, or perhaps have them made up especially. Maybe that never was a reasonable option: you just had to keep your buildings on the square. I associate to the Ashey Down sea mark of reference 9, built in 1735 without any ugly corner jointing - but then that was probably stone rather than brick. Different process.

Several planes spotted on the flight path to Heathrow while the train was stopped at Clapham Junction.

The off at Victoria to stroll through to Sloane Square, that is to say to stroll through my stomping ground as a second year undergraduate. Regular memory lane job, something I do from time to time, but too many hits on the archive to check up on the last occasion.

The form back in 1969 or so was that you got off the train with your suitcase at Victoria and took a stroll to find a newsagent with cards in the window where you could select somewhere suitable to live. I think the newsagent in question used to occupy the premises above, complete with a lady of middle years who might easily have had her curlers in, Coronation Street fashion. The sort of newsagent which sold papers, cigarettes, tobacco, sweets and stationary. No doubt other odds and ends. The name Cullen's comes to mind, but neither Bing nor Google offer any comfort on that front. The lady of middle years sends me off to nearby Elizabeth Street where I am able to move in, with my suitcase, on the spot. I remember that the young lady friend of the lady in charge (who lived in the basement flat), was able to make up my bed with hospital corners. No parental vans full of belongings in those days. I might also say that the suitcase involved was pretty cheap and cheerful compared with the sort of thing that people lug about these days. No zips! No extra pockets! No straps and buckles! No wheels! No anything much.

But the street opposite, the one with the blue blinds, along with other streets round about, did have a good sprinkling of rather louche hotels where one (if so inclined) could take one's lady of the night - of whom plenty used to hang around Victoria Station, particularly in and around the passage leading out to Buckingham Palace Road. Both hotels and ladies now gone. But the passage survives in a slightly altered form.

A house I used occasionally during my time in Elizabeth Street, at the time a rather tired place catering for taxi drivers, bus drivers, builders and people of that sort. I think a Watney's house under a different name to that above. The posh people - frocks, blazers, accents, the lot - used the Wellington down the road. A place which has slipped badly downhill in the intervening years.

There is still a dentist occupying the ground floor of the house in question in Elizabeth Street. I suppose that once you have tooled a place up, there is every incentive to pass it on as a going concern. I had a first floor room, at the back, with a blind made of thin split cane. I thought it very cool. Nothing like it at home.

Round the corner into Eaton Square where we came across a chap wearing a very smart bowler hat. Clearly the subject of a first class brushing. We agreed that many years ago such a hat had been the mark of foremen on building sites. He did not appear to mind the connection.

Into the cafeteria at Peter Jones, called a food hall on their website, but actually much the same as the cafeteria in the (John Lewis) store in Oxford Street. Except that here we had a bag lady, complete with bags, who could just about run to a portion of chips. I only thought about offering something more after the event - but perhaps it was just as well not to get involved.

We looked down on the tree snapped above and from where we were sitting we did not work out that we had an entire tree. But I suppose, given that we were in uber-fashionable Chelsea, we should have worked it out. The sort of thing that Tate Real used to go in for at Christmas - but I think they have something more advanced these days. Probably involving used cardboard boxes or something of that sort.

The concert went down very well. I had forgotten that the Cadogan Hall is rather a good venue, a handsome building, once a church, with tiered seats so everyone gets to see what is going on. Reasonably full and a rather more democratic audience than you usually get in the Wigmore Hall.

I am reminded by reference 8 that it was a Church of Christ the Scientist, so not a regular church. And also that, when the church audience fell away, Mohamed Fayed, the one-time arms dealer, then the owner of Harrods, failed to get permission to turn it into a palace, so it has survived as a concert hall.

We passed plenty of flash cars on the way back to Victoria. Ferrari, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Maserati and Porsche. The odd slum dweller's Range Rover. Several fancy registrations.

A good day out.

PS: no rotational loss of definition problems with the programme snapped above, despite being taken in artificial light late this gloomy afternoon. See reference 5 for more.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/piano-67.html. Capture 1.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/piano-66.html. Capture 2.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/fake-155.html. Capture 3.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/chelsea.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/carducci-two.html.

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

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/more-privatisation.html.

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

Reference 9: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/08/sea-mark.html.

Mint

As part of the move to veggie-life on Wednesdays, we thought it would be a good idea to increase our local supply of mint.

The place selected was the shaded space around the new bamboo, last noticed at reference 1. The mint and the bamboo, both being fairly invasive plants, could fight it out between them.

The mint in front, marked with a white pole, was a cutting nurtured over the winter on the kitchen window sill and planted out some days ago now. While that at the back, marked with a green pole, was bought the day before yesterday from Chessington Garden Centre - where a good part of the centre is now taken up with the new season's garden, garden room and conservatory furniture. Furniture which, for me at least, always brings T.K. Maxx to mind. That aside, we shall see which mint does better over the year to come.

While last year's Baby Blue (of reference 2) has still to recover from the heat of last summer. May recover over the year to come? A couple of daffodils of what is sometimes called in these pages the 'new daffodil bed' visible right, with more of them coming up with flowers rather than coming up blind, this year rather than last year.

PS 1: a mint cutting which came last year from a pot outside our (rented) holiday cottage on the Isle of Wight. BH thought it a fair exchange for watering the pots every day.

PS 2: I remember now, that towards the end of allotment life, I went through a phase of growing various kinds of mint there; for amusement and ornament rather than for consumption. A bamboo plant too, the history of which is to be found scattered around reference 3. More than fifteen years ago now.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/fargesia-rufa.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/01/baby-blue.html.

Reference 3: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=bamboo.

Cheese

The time for cheese came round again a few days ago. An overcast day, which would have been mild enough if it had not been for the cold north wind.

No trolleys on Station Approach, but there was a common, that is to say pied, wagtail. And there was a flat dweller, a young man, emerging with a large and powerful looking dog. As usual, one wonders why such people feel the need for such dogs. One wonders about the company that they keep and about their occupation.

Having decided that the cheese shop at London Bridge was the way forward, there had been a suggestion from the TFL website that the Bullingdon stand at the Hop Exchange, the one I usually use at London Bridge, might not be open. Backup stands at Duke Street Hill, just the river side of the station, and at Park Street, Bankside, had been identified and located. The latter at the other end of the same street, as it happens, as the cheese shop, although I had never penetrated that far.

So off to London Bridge, where the journey was enlivened by a loud young man with very short hair and wearing a big brash orange coat, shiny leather-look black trousers and various large rings on his fingers. He was conducting a series of loud conversations on his telephone about the possibly attempted, almost certainly targeted theft of a car, I think a Range Rover, with at least one of his interlocutors figuring in more than one of these conversations. To judge from his talk, he probably spent quality time watching television crime dramas - not that I can complain about that. His telephone may also have been responsible for a background rumble of popular music.

Through the station, through the (tourist) busy Borough Market to the cheese shop where the story at the cheese shop was that the hitherto reliable Lincolnshire Poacher had got older, that for some reason or other their buyer had taken to buying slightly older cheese. Perhaps nearer two years than one year old. While my recent experience has been that I have been buying too much at once, with the result that it does not go the distance. So I have dropped down to one lump from two. Hopefully the upside will be better cheese; a possible downside will be more shopping.

It turned out that, while there was stuff going on in the vicinity, the Hop Exchange stand was open and I was able to pull my Bullingdon there for the run down to Stockwell. With the snap above proving that the registration number does indeed get through to my ride history further above.

Quite a lot of puddles about, but I got myself to South Lambeth Road without incident, and made my way to the Tate library, where I got stuck into reference 1, a more or less random part of my digression among the connectivity matrices arising from resting state fMRI brain scans. It seems that without going to the bother of looking at how these matrices change over time, it is possible to use them to identify people and to determine sex. There is also a plug for something called partial correlation. Which all went to provide a bit of balance to other stuff which I had been grappling with.

And so to the Estrela, where I took something different by way of lunch. I had noticed before that they seemed to do half bottles, and closer inspection of the wine list revealed half a dozen or so of them - unusual in restaurants. I took a two year old Vinho Verde, as snapped above, which did very well. From Muralhas de Monção, and while I failed to track it down to its source I did learn that 'the bouquet shows grass, lemon-lime, and grapefruit aromas. The palate leads with soft lemon lime flavors, the bright acids counter-balanced with ginger snap. Fresh, bright, and just slightly frizzante on the finish'. Some consolation for not being able to run down any arty shots of morning mist over vine clad hills.

More success with Monção, a town in the far north of Portugal, more or less on the border of Spain. A place with, as far as I could tell from Street View, with a lot of relatively new buildings. I failed to find the presumably old walls sketched above.

Having had a meat and sausage festival on the visit noticed at reference 2, I went for skate on this occasion, something which BH used to do from time to time and which I used to rather like. Here one had a whole small skate rather than half a big skate, encased in batter which struck me as being terribly salty, and I did not much care for it at all. And having been impressed that they we able to offer cabbage, disappointed that it was badly overcooked. It had probably been sitting around, perhaps in a Bain Marie, in the kitchen for rather too long.

Wound up with a spot of their brown Aguardente, taken with almond tart. This last was, in the event, improved by asking for it to be served with cream rather than ice cream, even if the cream did come out of a toothpaste tube.

Having sat indoors for a bit, it seemed a cold walk to Vauxhall Station. And I failed, once again, to make it inside the rather florid looking bar noticed after the concrete art at reference 3.

For once, nothing doing at the Raynes Park Platform Library, where the stock was very thin indeed. Not even something to amuse me while waiting for my train.

PS: I was passed this morning by a young man on some kind of power assisted bicycle, heading past Screwfix for the underpass. A bicycle which was as big, heavy and fast as a small motorbike and it seemed quite wrong to me that there was no requirement for corresponding registration and insurance. One could do serious damage with such a thing, particularly on a shared used path. He was not wearing a helmet, and, furthermore, it seemed most unlikely that he would dismount at the underpass, as he would be requested by path-side signage.

References

Reference 1: A Comparison of Static and Dynamic Functional Connectivities for Identifying Subjects and Biological Sex Using Intrinsic Individual Brain Connectivity – Sreevalsan S. Menon & K. Krishnamurthy – 2019.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/02/new-bag.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/skewered-again.html.

Continued

It is clearly a time for confusions, at least here in Epsom.

Waking up this morning, I managed to convince myself that 'concierge' was the French word for a male concierge, typically for a hotel or for a rather swanky block of flats, the sort of thing that Poirot or Bertie Wooster might live in. There was another word, of about the same length and also starting with a 'c' which was the female concierge, the often prickly older lady who lived in rather confined quarters at the bottom of apartment buildings. An older lady who more or less checked everybody in and out, who knew all about what was going on and who was often quizzed by Maigret about some recently deceased tenant.

But a word which was blocked by 'concierge'. A word which would come back to me if I left it all alone for a few minutes. The sort of thing which does, in fact, happen to me quite often.

However, checking in a few Maigret stories after lunch (blade-bone, the first in years, to be reported on in due course), it seems that 'concierge' does for both men and women. Confirmed by Wikipedia at reference 1. All very odd.

I then thought to ask Bing for some images, which turned out to be rather thin on the ground, although I did get the one above. Culled from the post at reference 3 from the blog at reference 2. From the book at reference 4, not available from Abebooks, but available at a good range of prices from eBay. I managed not to hit the button.

Google did not do much better for images, but it turn up the one included above, in the first instance from reference 5. A fictional concierge, taken from a screen adaptation of the best-selling book at reference 6. Starring one Josiane Balasko, a French actress plus who is just about the same age as I am. Made about 3 years after the appearance of the book. I did hit the button for the book, at Abebooks and we will see about the film in due course.

Reference 5 points out that 'concierge' is not used by respectable people any more and that 'gardien(ne)' is what you should say. They clearly have some French equivalent of the Guardian keeping an eye on such matters. But confirmation that 'concierge' is indeed sex-blind.

PS: it occurs to me that the problem may have arisen, in part anyway, because Simenon/Maigret often talks about stopping by at the 'loge' to quiz the concierge, on the way in or on the way out, while avoiding the 'c' word itself. He also talks about the 'poire' which the concierge can squeeze to let people in without having to get out of bed in the middle of the night. He might even talk in terms of  'donner moi la poire' for let me in or let me out.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concierge.

Reference 2: https://vintage-maison.blogspot.com.

Reference 3: https://vintage-maison.blogspot.com/2011/09/fabulous-french-book-from-post-war-era.html.

Reference 4: Sortilèges de Paris - Cali François - 1952.

Reference 5: https://vingtparis.com/unspoken-rules-of-paris/the_gardiengard/.

Reference 6: L'Élégance du hérisson - Muriel Barbery - 2006.

Confusion continues

I complained at reference 1 of being denied a hearing of Schubert's late sonata for violin and piano, D.934 and reported having bought a disc rather than a CD my mistake.

Then at reference 2 we had notice of imminent arrival, notice which was fulfilled.

The disc turned out to be a CD after all. Checking back with eBay, there are a number of copies of this CD for sale, some marked as such (slightly obscurely), some not. I think the answer is that I failed to notice the obscure marking.

The notes with the CD explain that three of the pieces on it were juvenilia, while D.934 was badly received when first performed in Vienna in 1828. I thought it was rather good, despite being something of a show-off piece, to show-off the performers rather than the composer. I also rather liked what I have heard of the juvenilia. So a good purchase, prompting the first serious outing of the hifi for a while.

The only fly in the ointment being that, as it turned out, I did not get to find out what the various postal systems involved - the seller being in Germany - would have made of a disc. A CD is not much of a challenge for them at all. Not to mention our letter box.

The next step was to trace the illustration, a view of Vienna from Leopoldsberg by Rudolf van Alt. It has a rather sketchy appearance, so perhaps it is just that, rather than a full-on studio painting. Bing turns up a rather small version, one of lots of works by van Alt, while Google Image Search turns up the museum where it lives. From where I get the image snapped above, but without download. I have to use Microsoft's Snip and Sketch tool. 

It does let me save the html, which I took a look at, and which probably contains a pointer to the image file on the museum's server. But I am not enough of a geek to find and extract the right pointer - there were lots of them - and even if I had got that far, the server might well have denied my request. More geekery required. Something for another day.

PS 1: fortified by breakfast, I take another look this day and notice that a folder has arrived along with the html. Inspection of which reveals all the many pictures on this web page, mostly in cut-down form but this one proper, included above. Getting on for a megabyte of it and much better quality. No need to go to the host server at all.

PS 2: but then, going into reference 3 again, this time in English rather than the default German, a picture download feature has now appeared. No further need of the html at all. So we start and end with confusion!

PS 3: the story is rounded off by juxtaposition of the two images above - lower left and upper right. The changes of colour are quite subtle and there is, I think, some loss of detail in the Snip & Sketch version. Curiously, they appear more alike here than they do above. Perhaps downsizing brings them back together. Perhaps it is all in the mind, in the busy brain.

PS 4: the snap of the CD I started with is not very clever either. Another indoor shot, in poor light, rotated and cropped. With the other recent example to be found at the top of reference 4. It comes to me now that I have noticed before that my telephone does not do very well in low light, nothing to do with shaking hands. I dare say I could fiddle with the settings, but that would be another bit of unwanted geekery.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/solidarity.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/amazon-would-have-done-better.html.

Reference 3: https://www.wienmuseum.at/en/.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/carducci-two.html.

Huddersfield

It is now more than six years since the West Yorkshire police shot dead a man who was probably a career criminal in the course of what they euphemistically call a hard stop. I had been taking an interest in this matter, which seemed to be making little progress when I last looked, in 2021. However, it seems that the review by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) was concluded and the inquest was completed towards the end of last year, concluding that Yassar Yaqub was lawfully killed. The IOPC did make some fairly bland looking recommendations about record keeping.

However, I have seen no explanation of why the police failed to stop or arrest the occupants of the vehicle in question without killing one them, albeit one who appears to have been armed at the time. Which as far as I am concerned is all very unsatisfactory. Why, for example, having stopped the car, was there no loudspeaker invitation to surrender, to leave the car with hands up?

See references 1 thru 4.

But there is some good news at reference 5, in that things have got better since 2016-2017, as can be seen from the snap above.

PS 1: my impression had been that the sometime director general of the IOPC, one Michael Lockwood, an accountant, had done a good job. Things were looking up. However, in December of last year he came under investigation - no more information given - and was told to resign. There is presently an interim director general, one Tom Whiting, another accountant, who has spent quality time with local government.

PS 2: on a related matter, I record some sympathy for the HR department of the Metropolitan Police. You need policemen who are willing and able to deal with violent and quite possibly armed young men. To which end you need to be fit, to be trained and to have a good streak of aggression. On the other hand, you need policemen who are all sweetness and light in other circumstances. What with one thing and another, it may not always be easy to find enough qualified candidates. Not altogether frivolously, I associate to late medieval romances (and their 19th century makeovers) about knights in armour who were savage and successful on the battlefield - maybe fighting foreigners who did not really deserve any better - but who were also gentle and attentive lovers in the boudoir.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=huddersfield&max-results=20&by-date=true.

Reference 2: https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/news/inquest-concludes-following-police-shooting-yassar-yaqub.

Reference 3: https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/cy/recommendations/recommendations-west-yorkshire-police-february-2021.

Reference 4: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-62988076.

Reference 5: Deaths during or following police contact: Statistics for England and Wales 2021/22 - IOPC - 2022.