Trolley 572

Last year, after what I think was an absence for some years, I made it up the hill on Derby Day, even if I failed to hang around up there until the big race, quite late in the afternoon. This year, I decided against. Too much bother for not enough booze, having moved onto short rations in the interval.

But I did make it into town and was able to bag another trolley from the M&S food hall in the Kokoro passage.

On the way down West Hill into town, where there were about as  many cars as the day before (Ladies' Day) and where the Liriodendrum had come into flower. A tree with unusual flowers which I notice from time to time, for example at reference 6. One of the state trees of Kentucky, home, as it happens, to a rather bigger Derby than the original; bigger that is in the size of the purse. See reference 7. 

Porsche took the honours for the poshest car: the days when one would see plenty of Rolls Royces and such on West Hill on Derby Day being long gone.

The Marquis and the house which used to be called the Albion were decorated for the occasion, while Wetherspoon's had not bothered with their terrace bar this year. Quite a decent number of customers though. Not much fancy dress from the ladies but there were a respectable number of gents wandering around in frock coats and top hats. One went to far as to have striped trousers and to be smoking a cigar.

Racegoers apart, the town seemed quite quiet at around 11:30, although there were a good number of police men and women about. I had forgotten quite how much red was in their helmet badges - but one doesn't see that many helmets in these days of car patrols rather than foot patrols.

So a bad moment for a couple of rough looking men to get into a fight near McDonald's: they had a dozen police on top of them in no time at all. Perhaps they should have waited until later in the day, by which time the police might have moved up the hill and might well have had more on their plate to worry about than a scuffle in Epsom town.

Coming across Hook Road on the way home, I remembered the long ago days when the Derby was on a Wednesday and the late Queen used to drive to Epsom, perhaps from Chessington Station, while the primary school children from round about would line the route and wave flags. The thinking in our road was that King Charles was not a horsey person and would not be putting in an appearance: perhaps he has delegated the job to one of the many horsey sub-royals?

Home to a roast half leg of lamb (fat end rather than thin end), something we have not had for a long time. Rather good it was too. I remembered some more long ago days when such a half leg used to feed my family - in which I was one of four children - for two days: day one hot, day two minced. Stomachs and purses have clearly got a bit bigger since then.

PS 1: in the course of a stopover at Raynes Park earlier in the week, I picked up a rather tatty paperback by Beryl Bainbridge on the off-chance that BH might like it. An author of whom I had heard but never read; at least, I think not. In the event BH has made a start, while for some reason I associated to a cluster of books about the antics of posh people in the country, books which came with lurid cartoons on the front covers and some of which, at least, were made into television programmes. But I could not bring the names to mind, getting no further than 'Blandings', which I thought was Wodehouse and wrong, although it does turn out to fit the description. I tried Bing to no avail. I then tried Google which turned up a list of the 1,000 best novels in the world put together by the Guardian back in 2009, with three pieces devoted to humour. See, for example, reference 3. I was pleased to find that I had heard of quite a lot of the humorous books, even owned a respectable proportion. Beryl Bainbridge got a couple of entries or so, as did Tom Sharpe, including 'Blott on the Landscape', which was clearly the right answer. And I learn from reference 4 that he did time at Cambridge Tech, last mentioned in these pages at reference 5. I also thought that one might like him better on the page than in the flesh.

PS 2: another memory wrinkle, in that while I was fairly sure I had mentioned the Tech quite recently, I had quite forgotten the context. I had quite forgotten about Patricia MacCormack.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/06/trolley-571.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/06/up-hill.html.

Reference 3: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/19/1000-novels-comedy-part-three.

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

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/04/more-animal-consciousness.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/06/casual-dining-in-epsom.html.

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

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