Life in Minnesota

[An analysis from reference 10. Page xxiv says that capitals are language families, lower case are individual languages. Dagger for extinct]

Life in Minnesota, that is, in the middle of the 19th century. When central heating had not been invented and there were still plenty of Indians about, a lot of them angry about the theft of their way of life. A lot of them speaking a language called Dakota, which went on to give its name to the two states to the immediate west of Minnesota.

Dakota being just one of a complex web of languages used at that time in north America, the classification of which continues to absorb much brain power. By the second half of the twentieth century it was estimated that there were just 20,000 speakers of languages of the Siouan family left, while at the time the novel of present interest is set, it seems that quite a lot of the settlers from parts further east spoke it.

All this prompted by reading the historical novel at reference 2, set in and around the six-week Dakota War of 1862, using material from reference 3 and its purchase prompted by the article at reference 1. As always with historical fiction, I am slightly uneasy about the blend of fact and fiction. One just hopes that the author has done her homework and has not made things up which do not need to be made up. In any event, it seems that Moore has plugged some of the gaps in Wakefield’s account using material from her own, troubled early life.

Inter alia, the (largely fictional) chronicle of a housewife, caught up in the middle of this war, telling us of just one of what one imagines to be many unsavoury episodes in the colonisation of what is now the US. And to think that some people in the US have the cheek to be sanctimonious about similarly unsavoury episodes in the European colonies and conquests.

Part of the heroine’s early life is spent in a place (in New England) which doubled as both a workhouse – called a poorhouse in the US – and a mental hospital, which sounds a bit grim. But to be fair, even when one separates out the two functions, there is going to be a good bit of overlap. Some US background is to be found at reference 8.

One of the way-stations in the novel is a place called Shakopee on the Minnesota river, now a southern outpost of the presumably then non-existent Minneapolis. Up on the northern fringes of the Mississippi valley which fills so much of the continental middle of the United States.

At one point, we are told that the Dakota (glossing here, the various tribes in and around Minnesota speaking Dakota of one flavour or another) women loved to spend warm evenings sitting around a fire smoking and gossiping, the racier the better. With the men being quite keen too. No books or televisions to keep them amused. I was moved to inquire what we did to manage gossip and the best that I could do was the commandment about not bearing false witness, but BH thinks there is more explicit guidance in the Old Testament, advice drawn on by the Scottish hell-fire preachers of old. And turning to Bing, I find there is plenty of stuff in both Proverbs and the New Testament, with Christians in the US quite apt to get stirred up by the whole subject. With one post telling me about how bearing down on ‘gossip’ was sometimes used as a corporate device to crack down on any kind of dissent.

Wars are messy and worse from the point of view of those caught in the middle. In this case the many half breeds, the colonists living among, with or as natives, the natives living among, with or as colonists and the children of such people. All to likely to be despised, mistreated and worse by the those on both sides. I associate to those now caught in the middle of the conflict between the Ukrainians and the Russians – the troubled legacy of which will be with them for decades to come. Think Northern Ireland.

We are reminded that the native tribes were often fighting among themselves, sometimes torturing each other, long before the colonists turned up with their supplies of manufactured goods, weapons, booze and disease. But colonists they were, taking the land from the natives and destroying their way of life. Rather more drastic than, say, the still violent  and oppressive takeover of Saxon England by the Normans.

Colonists who, collectively, did not link the savage if useless revenge taken by the natives to their own behaviour. They just went in for savage revenge of their own, sometimes dressed up in Biblical or judicial clothes.

Mistreatment of natives may have been made worse by the shortage of Federal funds arising from the Civil War, then absorbing huge numbers of men and vast amounts of money.

An interesting, easy-read book. Quite short at just 170 small pages. Maybe I shall move onto other books by the same author, perhaps references 4 and 5.

PS: not for the first time, most recently after the service noticed at reference 7, I wondered about what has taken the place, if anything, of the ten commandments in the education of our children. My own upbringing was public service atheist, but I remember a certain amount of religion from my primary school, some more from my secondary school, this last Bible history rather than Bible. There was also a certain amount of civics, but that was more in praise of the English way of politics – more plausible then than now – than about morals. Or about the evils attendant on bearing false witness, either in a legal setting or in telling salacious & entertaining but untrue stories about one’s neighbours. But then, I was on the sciences side of the great divide. Perhaps those on the arts side did rather better, in this regard at least.

References

Reference 1: At Odds with Two Worlds – Brenda Wineapple, NYRB – 2023. ‘Susanna Moore writes of the past with quiet insight, through the eyes of women who frequently move from a form of innocence to some collision with history’.

Reference 2: The lost wife – Susanna Moore – 2023.

Reference 3: Six Weeks in the Sioux Tepees – Sarah Wakefield – 1863. A book which Moore makes use of in her fictional version, a book which I may well once have owned, but now retired.

Reference 4: Miss Aluminum – Susanna Moore – 2020. A memoir.

Reference 5: Sleeping Beauties – Susanna Moore – 1993. An autobiographical novel.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_Moore. A few years older than I am. Knocked around a bit. Moderately prolific, with ten books listed here, a mixture of fiction and memoir. Strong on families that don’t work.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/05/ascension-day.html. 

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

Reference 9: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/06/winnebago-diversion.html. A previous outing for the Winnebago who appear below the Dakota in the snap above.

Reference 10: A guide to the world’s languages: Volume 1: Classification – Merritt Ruhlen – 1987. My copy lately of Royal Holloway and Bedford New College Library, probably via Abebooks.

A local record

BH broke a local record this afternoon, extending a word she had put down earlier to nine letters. She did not do so well with the first installment, missing the double for her 'Q', but did get the double for the second installment, netting her around 50 points altogether. After the event we thought about having a local bonus scheme of the number of letters squared each time this record is broken, but I don't suppose we will get around to it. Not that it would happen very often.

While I used all seven of my tiles with 'WORRIED', netting more than 60 with the 50 point bonus.

I took a chance with 'RUFFED' and was challenged. Whereupon, spread over more than five columns, OED offered two and a half columns of nominal meanings, more than a column of verbal meanings, mostly admitting a past participle, not all obsolete or foreign, plus some compounds and other odds and ends. I was reminded that a ruff is a term from whist like games, when you cannot follow suit and are allowed to trump; a term I have probably used in the distant past. Also that birds can ruff up their feathers. In the words of 'Perry Mason', a once popular courtroom drama from the US, objection overruled. The fact that I had been thinking of a verb derived from the Elizabethan and Jacobean ruffs as in lace collars was irrelevant.

'ZO', top left, is a bit marginal, in OED as a regional variation of 'so', but allowed by custom.

Including a penalty of 2, I won by 293 to 247 points, continuing a run of rather low scoring games. At least BH has the consolation that she would have won without my fluky bonus of 50.

PS: the (Samsung) telephone has certainly brought out the shadows thrown by the sun from the window to the right. Shadows which I had not noticed during play.

Cats

The cat, known to us as the fat black cat, hoping that a bit of avian action will move within reach. Sometimes a cat will climb down into the leylandii - but not this one. To used to his meals being delivered.

Ascension day

It so happened that on Ascension Day (reference 1) - forty days after Easter Sunday - this year on Thursday, 18th May - we were visiting Buckfast Abbey (reference 2) - and we used the opportunity to hear their (sung) Conventual Mass. Perhaps the second occasion on which I have heard mass, the first being a Christmas time service at Westminster Cathedral, quite some time ago now. 

It seems quite likely to me now that this mass was conducted on quite old-fashioned lines - the presence of ladies in the choir apart - compared with what one might have in suburban churches here in Surrey, but I have not gone so far as to make inquiries on that point.

Proceedings started with a tour of the gardens. Handsome gardens, only slightly infected by outdoor art, and maintained to a higher standard than we manage in most of the public parks and gardens here in Surrey. Starting with an early break under a conveniently spreading chestnut tree. Plenty of cars in the car park and some coaches in the coach park.

The araucaria noticed from time to time, for example at reference 3, was looking well. It looks to me as if the tree has gained a rosette of branches at the top and lost one from the bottom. Perhaps there is some gardeners' rule about taking out the bottom rosettes. Or perhaps they tend to fall away from natural causes, with big suburban specimens often only retaining their crowns.

There might be another gardeners' rule about pots here, with there being an outer, tasteful earthenware pot and an inner, black plastic pot, perhaps as supplied by the garden centre.

Moving on into the Abbey itself, a view of the altar, the replica of the Barbarossaleuchter (top left) and a ornamental column (middle right) which I do not remember seeing before. But I don't suppose that it is actually new, just that I haven't noticed it before.

The front of the handsomely printed order of service. We hung onto ours, although they were collecting them up at the end. Not sure why, given that there is a date on the front which would complicate re-use, even supposing the interior content did not change - which one might think it would. New year, new ideas. New choir master, new ideas.

Three or four of the officiants had elaborate robes with a lot of green and gold. One, presumably the Abbot, had a mitre and, I think, a crozier. One was in a wheel chair. An altar boy. Plenty of bells and smells. I only noticed one or two monks in monkly black, so I suppose the rest of them were officiants.

Quite a big congregation, perhaps fifty of us. I suppose a mixture of villagers, pilgrims, tourists and strays, like ourselves. Most of them took communion, prompting discussion later about the various schools of thought on the matter of how often one should partake. A hot topic, I believe, for the controversial nuns of Port-Royal-des-Champs in the sixteenth century, although this is not mentioned at reference 4. But the once famous book at reference 6 gets a whole chapter in reference 5. Very roughly contemporary with disputes about the proper places of bishops in the world and communion tables in the church leading to our own Civil War.

There was a fair bit of music, most of it sung, presumably in Latin, by the choir, roughly ten men and ten women, all adults. I say presumably because it was the sort of singing in which I do not pay all that much attention to the words, often quite hard to make out anyway.

I thought the choir was very good, often moving and all the better for the music being, in the main, fairly straightforward. Little if any of the show-off stuff they tend to use at places like Kings College Chapel, particularly on high days and holidays.

I don't suppose one of the aforementioned Surrey churches would use medieval notation for any of their music. Maybe places like All Saints of Margaret Street. While they might like to but couldn't run to it at St. Barnabas of Ranmore. Finding our various visits to these two places is left as an exercise for the diligent reader.

Quite a lot of talk of the Lord and of sin in general, but nothing of a more practical nature. Not that that would really be appropriate on the day one celebrated the arrival of the second member of the Trinity at the other place.

A service with more emphasis on ritual than on the word, which is what one would expect. With our own Anglican church struggling manfully to strike a sensible balance between the two. A balance they perhaps managed, at least some of the time, during the nineteenth century, in the days of the parsons of Barchester of Trollope's novels. 

Very glad to have been.

PS: the original Port Royal is now mostly a ruin, as snapped here from reference 7. The Paris branch survives as a maternity hospital.

References

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

Reference 2: https://www.buckfast.org.uk/.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/araucaria.html.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port-Royal-des-Champs.

Reference 5: The story of Port Royal - Ethel Romanes - 1907.

Reference 6: La Fréquente Communion - Antoine Arnauld -1643.

Reference 7: https://www.famillefrancetrotteuse.fr/port-royal-des-champs/.

Noises off

Lying in bed this morning, before the rest of the road had really woken up, I heard this strange howling noise. Not very loud and whatever it was was some distance away.

The first thought was the howling of some wild animal, but then, here in suburban Epsom that was a bit unlikely. The second thought was the sort of noise you get from an accelerating electric motor, say a milk float of old or an electric locomotive of today. BH offered the suggestion that it was the wind in the trees or the telephone wires singing in the wind.

The noises continued intermittently, and eventually got closer, resolving themselves into the rich panoply of noises you get from a dustcart at work. All kinds of noises which I was unable decipher without being able to see what was going on. Noises which one probably did not get in the much simpler dustcarts of old into which the rubbish from dustbins was tipped by hand, with goodies being picked out into brown jute sacks, one for each dustman, hooked onto the open end of the container. And as far as I can remember, such compaction as there was was done by tipping the whole container up from the cab end, rather than by hydraulic ram inside the container. But then, how were they emptied? Puzzles for another day.

But odd how all the interesting and complicated noises that one gets at close range from a dustcart of today are stripped down, are reduced, to this much simpler howling noise at long range.

I then moved onto the wheel of fashion, whereby the electric milk floats of old went out of fashion - for reasons unknown, but which Bing could no doubt run down for me - and electric motor vehicles are now coming back into fashion, some years later.

Clearly time for breakfast.

PS: this morning being Monday morning, Greenwich time. The blogger software is somewhere in the rather later Pacific time.

Royal pork

There was a party in our street to celebrate the recent coronation, on the day after, the Sunday, so as not to interrupt viewing of same on the box.

A party which included adults eating early evening, with the form being to bring your own main course, while other stuff was provided on a communal basis. Our form is to use cold roast pork on these occasions, which I can take in white bread sandwiches and which BH can take with salad and so forth.

So off to the butcher on the big day to collect my pork. He turned a whole shoulder of Old Spot into a roll - of which I took half - while I admired all the prepared meat in his display, which came in all sorts of colours, all sorts of shapes and in all sorts of flavours - and which was presumably intended for barbecues - something which we do not do.

My half of the roll weighed in at 4lbs 11oz, slightly more than on the last occasion, noticed at reference 1. So I thought that 2 hours 45 minutes at 160°C should do it, with the outturn being that I actually turned the oven off after 3 hours. Always handy to have a bit of flexibility as to timing.

So crackling salted and the roll stood in the kitchen for a bit to take the chill off it, then into the pre-heated over at 14:45. Oven off at 17:45, meat plated up and back into the still warm oven to settle shortly after.

I then did clever things with the roasting tin to convert all the brown stuff left behind into onion gravy, with freshly pounded black pepper on this occasion. Balcony scene over - for which see reference 2 - this served on bread as a tea-time snack.

A little more water and some brown rice left over from the Friday and the balance of the gravy did for my breakfast on Sunday. Thus fortified, I pedalled off to the big Sainsbury's at Kiln Lane for one of their large bloomers. This because, more than ten years on, I still can't make the sort of white bread needed for meat sandwiches. Brown bread not the thing at all: brown bread with cheese good, brown bread with meat bad. And being picky, white bread is also needed for things like cheese & tomato and cheese & onion sandwiches. White bread is better for bread and butter, unless the bread is very fresh, when both are good, albeit different. On the other hand, old & dry brown bread is quite eatable, good even, while old & dry white bread is not. And so it goes on. All very complicated here at Epsom.

In the event, these pork sandwiches were spot on. White bread fresh, meat cooked but not dry.

Then, by the Monday, we were once again into cold pork with boiled vegetables. With BH dealing with all the crackling, her back teeth being in a rather better shape than mine.

Repeat performance on the Tuesday. Waste starting to accumulate, but the current theory is that while the crows and magpies hoover the stuff off the back lawn fast enough, the lingering smells attract the foxes, which is a bad thing. So pork waste now goes into the food recycling caddy: maybe the council get to do something better than feeding the crows with it.

The trail goes cold at this point, but I think the pork did one more meal with a bit of snacking left over. Maybe a meal involving salad, that is to say cold vegetables, rather than hot vegetables. So something over eight adult portions altogether, which makes it sound more economical than it seems when you are paying for the joint in the first place.

PS 1: the day that I penned these remarks above about the colour of bread was, as it happened, also the day for the 687th batch of bread, brown as it always is these days. Most of the whites were in the early days, back in 2011 or so, when I was still trying. While brownish was the batch when I bought the wrong bag of Canadian from Waitrose and did not have nearly enough wholemeal flour to make up what was by then the regular recipe. While my faith in Microsoft's pivot tables was moderated this morning by its failing to count the one row where colour had not been coded, despite there seeming to be a bin (row 7 in the snap above) for that very category. Now corrected to 'White'.

PS 2: monarchists will be pleased to read that I am now using the 'Royalty' white bread flour from Wright's (of North London and reference 3) rather than the 'Alto', the one with the Italian flavoured packaging, which I had been using for two or three years. For some reason, unknown to me, it seems to work better for me. With the brown part of the deal still coming from the Canadian wholemeal from Waitrose.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/04/a-spot-of-old-spot.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/05/second-bite.html.

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

Licensed dining in the far west

During our recent visit to the west country we were able to sample the food in a number of hostelries, in which category I include, at a stretch, a monastery. Institutions which did , I believe, once offer bed & breakfast to deserving travellers, at a time when there was not much else on offer.

First up was the 'Old Inn' in Hawkchurch, near Axminster, a very old house, I think, now run by the local community, which probably accounted for the absence of any kind of warm beer, which would have been a problem for me in the past. Commercial tenants were, presumably, unable to make the place pay, along with thousands of other tenants up and down the country.

I took garlic bread, entirely satisfactory as to both quality and quantity, followed by roast chicken - probably called 'chicken supreme', which seems to tie in with the sort of thing which Bing turns up. Fortunately, they went easy on the sauce and it did come with quite a decent portion of green vegetables, unusual in English eateries in general, never mind public houses.

The snap above was needed to jog the memory: I had forgotten about the mushrooms and the sauce, although I had remembered about the supreme.

Others took fish and chips and they too appeared quite happy with what they got.

Next was the 'Twisted Oak' on the south western outskirts of Exeter, just across the Alphin Brook from the A30. The green spot marks the spot, Ordnance Survey not seeing fit to mark this particular house - with the form now being a half empty blue beer mug rather than the traditional letters 'PH'. The now purely recreational ship canal visible right, the presence of which probably had something to do with Exeter docks being badly bombed during the war. The weekly sewage boat was the last regular user, in the bad old days when such stuff was just dumped out at sea.

A much more serious operation than the one at Hawkchurch, one which I imagine is very busy on fine weekends, although quiet enough when we were there. And very pleasant it was too in the glazed extension with a selection of young children running around the tables outside. Food satisfactory, although I thought my portions of garlic bread and lasagne were on the mean side for the money. Read all about it at reference 1.

No twisted oak that I saw, although there were quite a few trees about, including this rather battered one in the lane outside. I think that my Microsoft telephone would have done rather better with bright light, without my needing me to do anything about it - but with the catch there being that you could not see the screen.

Next was the 'Rock Inn' of Yelverton, to be found at reference 2, a place where (unusually) I have taken rabbit in the past. On this occasion I took the smoked haddock: a decent portion of haddock - bigger than is usual - with decent accompaniments, arranged in a sort of pile in a sea of some kind of white sauce - sauce was which all very well in itself, but which should have been supplied on the side. And, speaking for myself, I shall be glad when the cooks in these places move on from piles.

Rounded out with a decent lemon meringue pie, even if the chef - or perhaps the kitchen hand - could not resist playing with the brown goo.

A useful establishment, one which was busy this Monday lunchtime, mainly with groups of pensioners like ourselves. One of the stones at nearby Crapstone - our actual destination - snapped above.

Next was the 'Sea Trout Inn' of Staverton, a Palmers house, for which see references 3 and 4. It would be interesting to know if the rather international menu was the standard Palmers offering or whether they allow their tenants to free-range. 

My brother-in-law and I both went for the pie, which came on top of the aforesaid pile, underpinned by quite a decent portion of slivered, lightly cooked cabbage flavoured with cumin. I thought the cabbage was rather good, but my brother-in-law was not at all impressed by any of it, spending a lot of time spearing suspicious morsels on his fork for closer inspection. Not at all up to the proper pie and chips which he might have had in a proper chipper - had there been one to hand. All a bit unfortunate as he had been fine with the fish and chips he had taken in this very place in the past, possibly on two previous occasions.

Luckily, he was much happier when he had got his sugar fix down, a confection of toffee, brownie, ice cream and chocolate. Note also the arty crockery and my festive sparkling water, visible right.

Next, the cafeteria at Buckfast Abbey of reference 5. An abbey with a modest number of monks, but a considerable operation nonetheless, catering for large numbers of visitors and producing the famous Tonic Wine, well known to the winos of Glasgow. An operation which includes a very pleasant and reasonably priced cafeteria. Lots of pies and pasties, but I went for the chicken pasta bake, topped up with a couple of their cheese scones. Nothing special, but entirely serviceable.

Next, the Riverford Field Kitchen. A rather special establishment which will get its own, rather special notice.

Next, the 'Duchess of Cornwall' at Poundbury, this one run by Hall & Woodhouse, another west country brewer and pubco. A rather grand establishment which we have stayed at several times before.

Dinner was another pie, another pile. A pile which came with gravy on the side, which was good, but which was very mean with vegetables, other than mashed potatoes. A pie which was a little rich for my taste: maybe these west country pie-men should pay a visit to Barrow-in-Furness, where they take their meat pies very seriously indeed, but usually cutting the meat with some potato.

Tried chocolate mousse or something of the sort for dessert. Again, a little rich for my taste. Nowhere near as good as a decent tiramisu - which they generally are in London.

Wine a serviceable white rioja from the people at reference 7. The sort of thing that might cost a tenner in a supermarket.

Breakfast was a bacon bap, not bad at all. And the white toast to follow was pretty good too. While the tinned peach halves which I had started with were very good - even if I did take two of the four intended for all of us. Maybe they refilled when I wasn't looking.

Nearly last was the 'George' at Lacock, a little way outside Chippenham, not far from our new queen's country pad. A place which claims to be a pub of very long standing. A Wadworth's house, people whose bitter I once used to like. To be found at reference 8.

I opted for the roast beef lunch, thinking that that ought to be OK, given that it was one of the Sunday roasts. But the beef was rather dry and overcooked - if plentiful - and it had probably arrived at the pub in the form of a shrink wrapped, square cylinder of beef - no question of properly moist roast beef on the bone or anything like that. And they were a bit mean with the vegetables. Furthermore, the cabbage, such as it was, was nearer raw than I cared for.

On the other hand, the chocolate mousse tart, served with mango ice cream, was rather better than the mousse at Poundbury.

All washed down with some more sparkling water.

With just a breakfast at the 'Angel' of Chippenham to follow, now a Best Western. A limited buffet, not unlike that offered by Travelodge, and perfectly satisfactory. Including one of those conveyor belt toasters which, for once, had been set up properly and delivered white toast which was the right colour. But maybe it had taken them a while to get it right as there was a plaintive little sign asking us not to adjust it!

All in all, not too bad. But it was good to get back to home cooking, involving, inter alia, a proper supply of green vegetables and an absence of both goo and gravy.

PS 1: I got the display above while trying to access a famous pie shop in Barrow. Not sure what, if anything, I should do about it. I think - hope - that I declined for the moment.

PS 2: while nearer home, TB (aka (the) Blenheim, a one time Derby winner), has now reopened. Maybe we will be resuming our occasional lunchtime visits - but I will need to check it out in person as their online presence is a bit thin just presently. The new team have not yet percolated through to the list of houses provided at the Greene King website, if indeed that is where they are headed. Hopefully BH will be able to rise above the rather unappetising lumps of salmon she was presented with on our last visit.

References

Reference 1: https://thetwistedoak.co.uk/.

Reference 2: http://therockinnyelverton.pub/.

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

Reference 4: https://palmersbrewery.com/.

Reference 5: https://www.buckfast.org.uk/.

Reference 6: https://www.duchessofcornwall.co.uk/.

Reference 7: https://www.elcoto.com/.

Reference 8: https://www.georgeinnlacock.co.uk/.

Reference 9: https://www.greeneking-pubs.co.uk/.

Addicted to betting

Before I expelled Facebook from my laptop, I used to have occasional exchanges with a teacher in Kenya who was very into our Premier Division football and betting on same. So the article in the MIT Technology Review at reference 1 caught my eye.

The story starts with a company called Safaricom who built a very successful mobile money app called M-pesa (M for 'mobile' plus the Swahili word for money). A good result of which is that a lot more Kenyans now have access to the sort of banking services which we take for granted. A bad result of which is that a lot more Kenyans have the necessary cash or credit to get into online betting. With another company called SportPesa being only to happy to take them on.

What with one thing and another, including the shortage of decent jobs for people with tertiary qualifications, there has been a regular epidemic of online, more or less addictive, gambling. Lots of people are getting themselves into a pickle. An epidemic which is spreading to other parts of the continent.

I have tended to be fairly permissive about these things: I might not care for the sort of people who pay themselves the hundreds of millions of pounds a year which they have sucked out of online gamblers, but nor did I see prohibition as the answer. Not a good plan to make illegal something that lots of more or less respectable people want to do.

A line complicated in the case of the Kenyan government by the revenue that online betting provides - a complication which we know all about here in the UK with our heavy taxes on tobacco and alcohol.

Nevertheless, I think that they are trying to push back, to get the volume of online betting down, while stopping short of banning it. Maybe for the moment this is the right thing to do. In time, when they have proper jobs, suburban gardens & barbecues to attend to, maybe Kenyans will lose their interest in betting.

PS 1: there were some heavy gamblers in TB in the olden days, including one or two problem gamblers who had managed to kick the habit. People who could not walk past an open betting shop without placing a bet. People who would rather bet than eat. Maybe even people who would steal to bet. But for the moment, problem gambling notwithstanding, I still favour the middle road; discouragement & support rather than prohibition.

PS 2: there was a second postscript which touched on this last at reference 5.

References

Reference 1: How mobile money supercharged Kenya’s sports betting addiction: In Kenya, and elsewhere in Africa, the rapid spread of smartphones and mobile money has come with a stubbornly persistent vice: online gambling - Jonathan W. Rosen - 2022.

Reference 2: https://www.ke.sportpesa.com/en/sports-betting/football-1/.

Reference 3: https://www.sportpesa.uk/.

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

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/05/starbucks-reserve-roastery.html.

Around Epsom

A stroll into Epsom the other day, to make sure all was well and to check on the trolley situation. In the event, no trolleys but a modest amount of water was to be seen at the western end of the High Street. More usual for the water to be on the other side of the road, blocking the pavement outside the Marquis, that is to say where the yellow tubs are.

Further evidence for the BH theory that what is now the High Street used to be a spring line, apt to disgorge water soaking down from the downs to the south. I vaguely recall talk of ponds as well.

Snapped at the other end of town, off East Street. The ivy used to go right to the top of this house, but the top triangle was stripped away some years ago now, the rendering cleaned up and redecorated - but leaving the white wisteria now in full flood.

Unfortunately, Samsung by default seemed to think that I was snapping the ivy, so the focus on the white not very good at all. Or perhaps it thought that I was interested in cars. In any event, I expect that it will be some time before I get around to doing something about this default: much more pressing matters to attend to.

While through the tunnel to Screwfix, across the road from which one can admire the results of the pause in the mowing of most Epsom verges during May outside what used to be the Tchibo headquarters, operations centre & warehouse.

Possibly ox-eye daisies, as per reference 1, but I need to take a closer look to be sure. BH much better at this sort of thing than I am - but at least I am better on trees.

Still no pyramid orchids.

PS: the gates to what was the Tchibo compound, visible far right, have now been reinforced with a large concrete block behind. The sort of block that can be made up into low walls, originally intended to defend construction workers on motorways from careless cars.

References

Reference 1: https://welshwildflowers.com/tag/large-white-daisy-of-roadsides/.

An early morning outing

Prompted by a piece in Wednesday's Guardian (reference 1), curious about what meaning a price change since 1209 might have (£10 then equals £16,427.96 now) and having once done time, more than thirty years ago now, very near the bit of the Department of Employment which then did the RPI, I did a little digging.

My first stop was the Bank of England website at reference 2, where I completely failed to find the widget concerned. In fact, I thought that the search facility provided there was pretty hopeless, at least as far as this widget was concerned. So I asked Bing, and he turned it up straight away at reference 3, deep in the monetary policy part of the same website.

I then wanted to know what was so terribly wrong with the RPI and tried the ONS website at reference 4. Where I got on much better, quickly finding my way to references 5 and 6.

One difficulty is that these price indices, particularly the RPI, are built into all kinds of important calculations and you cannot just change the way you do the sums because they have fallen out of statistical fashion or because you are having a slack Friday afternoon. You have to go through a whole mountain of due process.

A second difficulty is scope. What things are in the index and what things are out? Which people are buying the basket of goods & services that your are pricing? The outcome of which is a range of indices, each meeting some particular need. The trick being not to have too many of them because that becomes confusing for everybody.

A third difficulty arises from the incomplete information about prices which goes into indexes of this sort. At the lowest level, say the price of a 500g tin of low-sugar baked beans, you get prices from a number of shops, perhaps a dozen or more, every week, every month or whatever. You then need to aggregate those price changes to give you one figure for baked beans. But you don't know the sales volumes by shop and so you can't do weighted averages, which would be proper - you have to do unweighted averages. And it seems that the RPI makes a lot of use of something called the Carli formula, invented by an Italian statistician some hundreds of years ago. A formula which has now been discredited and better formulae are available. But a formula which those on the worker side of wage negotiations like because it delivers a maximum estimate for inflation. 

Notwithstanding which, the RPI has been struck of the list of approved statistics and publication will cease in the not too distant future...

References

Reference 1: Initial values: How CPI, RPI and CPIH measure up - Larry Elliott, Guardian - 2023.

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

Reference 3: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator.

Reference 4: https://www.ons.gov.uk/.

Reference 5: Consumer price inflation detailed briefing note - Andy King, ONS - 2020.

Reference 6: UK Consumer Price Statistics: A review - Paul Johnson - 2015. Lots of good stuff here - and the source of the snap above.

Second bite

Following the outing to Richard III noticed at reference 1, I thought to give it a second go, taking the time for a bit more homework this time.

So I learn that the Rose production is not the first to have put a black lady in the leading role, as Danai Gurira did it last year in New York's Central Park, as snapped above and as noticed at references 2 and 3. Roughly half way between the ages of Adjoa Anjoh in the role and Richard III at death. From where I associate to my mother complaining that actors good enough to play the role of Hamlet were often much older than one imagines that he would actually have been. To deal with which, in the immortal words of the late Sir Larry, one could always resort to acting. This, I believe, in the context of a discussion about method acting.

Also that Henry VII, who got his throne by winning at Bosworth, went to some trouble to trash the reputation of the chap who lost, Henry's claim to the throne by right of (male) descent being pretty shaky, even by the standards of the day. A trashing which found its way into Shakespeare's play and which has largely survived to this day. Picture above, of one of Richard's last moments of glory, from reference 9. Which claims that years of research went into this painting, but I wonder, finding it strangely unconvincing. Did noble lords really go into battle at the end of the fifteenth century dressed up in this parade armour?

I wondered about Richard thinking of marrying his brother's daughter, Margaret of York, who ended up as Henry's wife. A marriage which would have been well within the prohibited degrees of the time, not to mention the list at the back of my slightly later Book of Common Prayer.

I was also reminded of the difficulties some people have in adjusting to the peace after the war, a difficulty which might well have been shared by Richard III. A difficulty noticed by both my mother and Agatha Christie, in the context of Battle of Britain pilots.

The resultant crib sheet.

The second go being in the afternoon, a little time to spare in the morning, which started off with a weigh-in at the self-service kiosk at the Ashley Centre Surgery. A weigh-in which seemed a bit easier than the first time that I tried it, some months ago now, so perhaps there has been a software upgrade in the meantime. Weight fairly stable at a touch under 100kg - but a hefty 15kg more than I remember weighing as a student. I think it has edged up steadily, ever since.

Back home via what was the Tchibo operation in Blenheim Road to check on the flowers there. Plenty of cowslips, as previously noticed, but still no pyramid orchids.

On to the polling station at the back of Christ Church, where I learned that my senior bus pass qualified me to vote and that dementia would not have disqualified me. I wondered whether the voting of the demented was a bigger problem than the voting of the unqualified - this last being the problem which prompted the spending of a lot of money to implement pictorial identification of voters. A new rule estimated by the Guardian to cost £40m over the next ten years and by the Electoral Reform Society £180m over the same ten years. I remember reading a figure of £100m or so, but cannot presently trace it. A waste of a lot of money, whatever.

No trolleys on the way to the station, but there was scaffolding going up one of the fairly new blocks of flats there. Perhaps they were affordable flats, built to affordable standards.

On the train to Raynes Park, to be told by O2 that my recently acquired telephone had run out of data. The solution to this problem being already noticed at reference 6. Next up was a rather fat lady eating some kind of white paste out of what looked like a large tube of toothpaste. Most off-putting.

The snap above gives some idea of the long walk at Raynes Park from a town train from Epsom to a country train from Waterloo, otherwise the train to Kingston.

Needing a snack at Kingston, I was pleased to find something called a cheese and olive stick at the stall the Olivier Bakery (of reference 7) were running in the market. Just the thing to knock off before a theatrical performance - the days when one got going with two or three pints of bitter being long gone.

A few fish to be seen in the Hogsmill, along with a couple of grey wagtails, one with a much longer tail than the other. Long tail, adult male; short tail immature female?

Auditorium not as full as the online booking system had suggested. I wondered whether blocks of seats had been held by other systems, other sellers, perhaps without access to central records. Some school girls upstairs.

Dividing the play into three parts, with the first two taken before the interval and the third taken after, I nodded a bit during the second part, although less than first time around. Something which happens to me quite often at both theatres and concert halls - although not when watching television at home. I must make inquiries as to why this might be so.

Nodding apart, the play worked better this second time around: a fairy tale, a morality tale which worked. The improbability of it all did not seem to matter any more. I got on better with the leading lady. And I continued to like the staging. But I did wonder whether all the smoke being blown into the auditorium was good for our lungs.

One phone seemed to go off on two or three occasions. What on earth was the owner thinking of? Fortunately, less disruptive than one might think.

Out to check on the fish and wagtails again. All present and correct.

I had thought to take a beverage on the way back to the railway station, but there was only the one opportunity and the service there was too slow for me. On the other hand, I passed a young lady being photographed outside Bentalls, a lady in full dress from, I thought, Japan or Korea, complete with elaborate head-dress. She looked rather splendid, but I did not think to ask if I could take a snap, despite that probably being what she was there for.

Having failed at Kingston, I joined what seemed the very large number of people getting off at Motspur Park to give the 'Earl Beatty' there a try for once in a while. Which turned out to take rather longer than one might have thought, as the contractor building the new footbridge (with lift option) had blocked off a large chunk of the intervening road. The same as the new footbridges which seem to be springing up at various points on the Southwestern Trains network. Including, as we found in Axminster a few days later, the station there. Not identical, but very much from the same stable.

Into the Earl, which I learned had joined the Greene King family. With whom empty picture frames are deemed to be suitable wall furniture. At least at the Duchess of Cornwall, a Poundbury house run by Hall & Woodhouse rather than Greene King, they print off copies of old masters onto some kind of canvas to put inside the frames.

Home to find that our star had got herself into trouble by commenting, in the course of an appearance on some chat show, that the line-up on the balcony after the coronation looked terribly white. Which checking, I found was indeed the case: all very stuffy and old-fashioned looking. One might have thought, having gone to some trouble in that department at the Abbey, that they could at least have found a black page boy for the day. But then, our star might have thought that that was worse.

Checking again today, I find that Bing cannot manage to turn up the right pictures for the search term 'balcony after the coronation charles III 2023, which one might have thought was easy enough, while Google had no trouble at all. With the one included above coming from Al Jazeera, somewhere in the depths of reference 8. Silly hats or what?

PS 1: I learn in the margins, that Olivier was born in nearby Dorking, his father was a high church parson, while he himself did a stint a choirboy at the church noticed at reference 5.

PS 2: how many readers have got a clue who Earl Beatty was?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-twisted-king.html.

Reference 2: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/11/theater/richard-iii-review.html.

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

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

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/10/a-new-church.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/05/samsung-day-three.html.

Reference 7: https://www.oliviersbakery.com/.

Reference 8: https://www.aljazeera.com/.

Reference 9: https://www.studio88.co.uk/.

Reference 10: http://armchairgeneral.com/the-guns-of-the-battle-of-bosworth-1485.htm. Argues that while artillery was used by both side in this battle, it was pretty primitive and unlikely to have been decisive. What was decisive were long bows, lances, spears, swords, maces and axes.

Tulips

We managed to catch the tail end of the tulip extravaganza at Hampton Court Palace this year, a soft alternative to the one at Wisley, having been put off this last by substantial road-works en-route and the probability of full car parks and considerable crowds on arrival. In the event, while some of the tulips were past their best, not to say over, there was still plenty to see.

Parked in the station car park on the other side of the river and walked across to the Palace, where we learned that the Palace car park had filled up within minutes of opening, uncertain weather notwithstanding. We were told that this was most unusual.

The next item was the front grass damaged by the ice skating rink of winter past being resown as a meadow, with all kinds of stuff, as well, I suppose, as some grass. Another fad sweeping across visitor attractions with a bit of spare ground.

Quite a lot of the tulips were in tubs rather than planted out, with the snap above above taken from the line-up in front of the new meadow.

Onto the Tilt Yard cafeteria for morning coffee, where the tulips were going over, but still looking pretty good. Pity about the outdoor art visible right - yet another fad sweeping across visitor attractions. I took my tea with a veggie version of a sausage roll, this last being rather too big for me, certainly as a mid-morning snack. Maybe three quarters of the price for half the length. Veggie taste much the same as the real thing, that is to say caterer grade sausage, but given away by the curious texture.

The Wellingtonia captured about a year previous and noticed at reference 2, was present, but was looking a bit thin, despite the recent rain. Maybe it had suffered during last year's hot dry summer.

A rare breed show in the margins of the Royal cabbage patch, quite a lot of which had been given over to tulips rather than cabbages, although, to be fair, there were still vegetables to be seen.

Past the buttercups in the Wilderness, left unmown to let the bulbs recover, and on to the East Terrace gardens, where BH was pleased to find a family of goslings in the canal.

Privy garden looking well, brightened up with a mixture of tulips and late daffodils.

The two sunken gardens also looking well, but quite different, one from the other.

Thought about pies, as on the occasion noticed at reference 1, but this time we were put off by the queue and headed off to Bridge Road instead, where we were able to admire the mistletoe last noticed at reference 3. Pizza Express full. Chinese shut lunchtime. Didn't fancy the pubs, only really wanting a snack.

So wound up in the café with the green shade, snapped above by Street View, a place we have used from time to time in the past. I took a beef roll, in which the beef was plentiful, properly damp and tender. Only slightly let down by the microwaved white baguette. Followed by a slice of Victoria sponge, not bad for a café, not too laden with sugary goo. Tea. All very satisfactory.

Incidentally, a place which appears to cater to locals, dogs and tourists. All very friendly. 

Interested to see this morning that at the time Google was going round with their camera, Devonports (of reference 4) were selling the three luxury apartments which had been carved out of the upstairs - following, according to Bing, planning permission for two being granted in 2019. River views all. I think the one in the roof is that snapped from reference 5 above. With the two front dormers below. The perfect bijou gaff for £550,000 or so. So well over half what we might get for our desirable suburban villa in nearby Epsom.

Just a few drops of rain during our outing, so slightly surprised on return to Epsom to find that there had been what looked like a sharp shower there.

PS: possibly the last post to be provided by my Microsoft telephone - never having worked out how the photo files or the OneNote files were organised. And I don't suppose I well ever get to find out about the Samsung equivalents, never mind bottoming them out.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/off-to-palace.html. The corresponding visit last year, just a couple of days adrift.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/wellingtonia-75.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/access-denied.html.

Reference 4: https://devenports.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://devenports.co.uk/properties/DVN210086.