Egg nog

I have noticed before - for example at reference 1 - how advertisements in the Financial Times and the New York Times seem to come in blocks, runs or series.

And I have be seeing a great deal of the one snapped above. Clicking it reveals that it is something called 'Shakshuka with Feta', a dish from the Mahgreb, roughly northwest Africa. The dish is well known to the Internet and appears to be founded on eggs cooked in a tomato sauce. So presumably not an ancient dish, as tomatoes would not have been common there until at least the 17th century. Or did they come in with the European colonisers rather later on?

Obviously something for Bard, with the first half of his answer being:

'Tomatoes are thought to have arrived in the Maghreb region (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania) in the early 16th century, most likely brought by Spanish or Portuguese traders. The first written record of tomatoes in the Maghreb is from a Moroccan cookbook from 1520.

The Spanish and Portuguese had brought tomatoes back from the Americas, where they were originally domesticated. However, tomatoes were initially met with suspicion in the Maghreb, as they were thought to be poisonous. It took some time for people to accept tomatoes as a food, and they were not widely cultivated until the 18th century.

Today, tomatoes are an important part of the Maghreb diet, and they are used in a variety of dishes, including soups, stews, salads, and sauces. They are also a popular export crop from the region...'.

So both earlier and later than I had guessed. The bad news is that it is getting more and more tempting not to check answers to questions of this sort. But hopefully I will get around to it later.

PS 1: I did get around to some checking later, a checking which was confused by the keyboard on the laptop I was using playing up, with keys going missing. But I was able to turn up reference 3 which told a similar, but different story about the tomatoes. Furthermore, it so happens that the Spanish tomato festival mentioned there - La Tomatina Buñol - had featured in the newspapers that very day. So I suspect Bard, once again, of having been a bit creative. Maybe they are going to have to teach Bard to provide proper references, in the way of Wikipedia, so that we can learn to trust him - or not - as the case may be. 

Alternatively, maybe one should stick to questions the answers to which are self-checking. If you ask him to knock out some blank verse about tomatoes in Shakespearean pentameters, you can judge the quality for yourself. There is nothing to check. Similarly, if you ask him to write a letter of application for some job that you are interested in. So this morning, he was happy enough to do something for 'can you write me a letter of application for the post of chief information officer at the tomato marketing board'. And as a place to start, his effort would have served well enough.

PS 2: Friday morning: Google fails to turn up any Moroccan cookbook from 1520. He does however find some very old cookbooks from Bagdad. While Bard, when I repeated the question about tomatoes, gave me an abbreviated version of the story he had given me the night before. No second thoughts of significance.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/07/advertisements.html.

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

Reference 3a: https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/tomato-history.

Reference 3b: A Cultural History Of Tomatoes: You say tomato, I say tomato. Have I made this joke before - Thomas Moore Devlin - 2019.

Steak house

Our recent visit to Cambridge concluded with a visit to an interesting establishment on Hills Road, a little to the town side of the railway bridge, called 'La Maison du Steak'.

Not a former public house, as one might have first thought, rather the house of a coal dealer or his foreman, P Beales and Co, of Coal Wharf. A quick look at a map provided by the Scottish National Library, suggests the unnamed building marked with an orange spot, providing access to what was then a collection of sidings, presumably all devoted to bulk supplies of one sort or another. Among which a local history site suggests that there were a number of coal dealers. Perhaps being consolidated by the time that I arrived on the scene.

I knew about the cattle market, but not the allotment gardens and the Station Farm on the other side of the tracks. All long gone, along with the sidings.

The steak house was busy when we arrived, but we were offered a table outside and as it happened we were dressed enough and it was warm enough for that to be OK. So instead of views of interesting goings on inside we had views of goings on outside. What appeared to be a party of travelling people or similar looking to beano and lots of interesting people walking or pedaling by. Most of the travelling people were smoking real cigarettes.

Unusually, they offered a Gewürztraminer, a wine we had a fancy for a few years back, and so we took that. Quite satisfactory. The archive does not reveal this particular brand, just a journalist called Mure earlier this year, but see references 2, 3 and 4.

We also took some brown bread, which claimed to involve walnut, but actually involved caraway seeds, which was fine as I rather like them. The only catch was that the bread was not of the freshest and, when I was paying the bill, I noticed that it came in plastic bags, so probably not cooked on the spot, probably not cooked that day.

For the second day running, I took bavette, while BH, also for the second day running, took fish. Quite a long wait, so I probably took too much dry bread (despite the copious supplies of Anchor, visible above) and did not manage much of the salad. Or perhaps the dollops of goo put me off, not having thought to worry about dressing when ordering. As I recall, the bavette was acceptable rather than good.

While we were waiting I was able to admire the building snapped above, which I thought did rather well in the fading evening light. And outdoor art aside, an interesting composition of shapes. I thought perhaps on the site of one Henry Pordage, potato merchant, whom I remember from childhood, but Google reveals nothing of the sort. On the other hand, the map above reveals a suitable building, a little below the orange spot, complete with its own railway siding, which computes.

Wound up with a spot of Calvados, Calva to Maigret and his colleagues, as was proper in a Frenchified eatery.

The refrigerator, on show beside the till. I was interested to see the sign about the beef being mature and air dried, presumably that top left rather that still in its shrink wrappings. Perhaps it is the drying out which gives some of this old beef its rather cracked appearance - not very appetising to my mind, although it has worked out well enough on the odd occasion that we have tried it. At least once anyway.

On the way back to the hotel, another snap of the building previously noticed at reference 5. Whatever it is that they do there, it clearly involves a lot of cable.

References

Reference 1: https://www.lamaisondusteak.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gew%C3%BCrztraminer.

Reference 3: https://www.mure.com/en/. 'A prodigious monopoly cultivated by the Muré family since 1935'. With white horses.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=Gew%C3%BCrztraminer. What looks like the tail end of the fancy for Gewürztraminer.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/an-outpost-of-empire.html.

More bugs

Yesterday, while walking my daily ration of bricks up and down the garden, I acquired a bright green grasshopper, maybe an inch long. First time I have come across such a thing in our own garden, where there is not much in the way of long grass for it to hop in.

Then today, I came across this much larger bug, hanging off the side of one of the bushes growing by the side of the garden path. A dragonfly, or something of that sort, occasionally to be seen over our micro-ponds. Maybe 60mm long.

Quiet enough and it stayed in place long enough for me to go and fetch my telephone. To find that while it looked conspicuous enough in vivo, it looked pretty well camouflaged in silico. Maybe the latter is how their predators, with their much smaller brains, see them - or don't see them, as the case may be. Zoomed in and snipped to make thing a bit easier and Google Image settled for the dragonfly called the southern hawker.

Next stop, Wikipedia at reference 1 for confirmation, not altogether satisfactory as the pictures offered there were not quite right.

Next stop, reference 2, which had been offered by Google Image, where the pictures were much more convincing. And very different from the competition. So female southern hawker it is.

Wondering why hawkers, I asked Bard and the start of his response is snapped above. Being a little tired, I was inclined to let it go at that. To trust Bard. But then I thought that that was a bit feeble and asked Bing.

Which does not differ in any important way, but which I think is a better reply for me. It would have got more marks out of ten.

Bing's reference 1 confirms the gist of the hawker story, while rather confusing the identification of this particular one. Not too sure about reference 2: can one be sure that the journalist has not been lazy and just copied stuff in from Bard or Bing without bothering to check?

I then thought to ask Bard some rubbish, just to make sure he was still awake. First time around, he fell for it, hook, line and sinker, and told me an entertaining story all about this battle, including some dates and about how the silver in question eventually wound up in Ely Cathedral. Then either I had finger trouble or he had second thoughts, and the entertaining story completely vanished, to be replaced by the much more restrained version above.

Almost a useful reminder that he is not to be trusted, that he is inclined to assume that the information you provide is on the level and to spin you a yarn which neatly blends it with what it knows already.

PS 1: next morning I had another go, but he was not to be drawn into waffle on this one! Not to be tricked into dragging up the Ngoni of reference 3. Kept on the straight and narrow. Although he did not think to point out that Sandown is on the east coast of the island, not the west, and has no harbour at all. Just a pier for the steamers of old, now mainly the preserver of sea anglers.

And I think he has got this one more or less right.

PS 2: I have now found an interesting 'view earlier drafts' feature in Bard. One of which is much more similar to the fanciful starting point at Girton.

'There is no record of a battle called the Battle of Girton Priory fought between the Saxons and the Vikings in the ninth century. The only battle that took place near Girton Priory in the ninth century was the Battle of Tempsford, which was fought between the Vikings and the Mercians in 870.

The silver plate that you mentioned may have been the subject of a dispute between the Saxons and the Vikings, but there is no record of a battle being fought over it. The silver plate was probably kept in the treasury of Girton Priory, which was a Benedictine monastery founded in the 11th century. The monastery was dissolved in the 16th century, and the silver plate is believed to have been melted down.

There is a legend that a battle was fought between the Saxons and the Vikings at Girton Priory in the ninth century, but there is no historical evidence to support this legend. The legend may have been inspired by the Battle of Tempsford, which took place nearby.

The legend goes that the Vikings attacked Girton Priory in search of the silver plate. The Saxons defended the monastery bravely, but they were outnumbered and eventually defeated. The Vikings took the silver plate and sailed away.

The legend of the Battle of Girton Priory is a reminder of the turbulent times that the English people faced in the ninth century. The Vikings were a constant threat, and the Saxons were often forced to defend their homes and their property. The legend also shows the importance of monasteries in medieval England. Monasteries were not only places of worship, but they were also centers of learning and culture. The silver plate that was kept in Girton Priory was a valuable treasure, and its loss was a blow to the English people'.

The Battle of Tempsford at least appears to have happened, at least to the extent of appearing in Wikipedia for the year 917. Twenty miles to the west of Girton.

References

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

Reference 2: https://british-dragonflies.org.uk/odonata/dragonflies-2/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/last-knockings.html.

Anglesey Abbey

[Lieutenant Broughton in full dress uniform of the First Life Guards in 1921]

A couple of weeks ago, one of our occasional visits to Anglesey Abbey, a Cambridge version of Poleseden Lacey. Once a priory, never an abbey, then passing through various hands, including those of Carrier Hobson, winding up with the Broughton brothers in 1926. The offspring of a British sewage engineer who managed to hook a widowed oil heiress while working in the US. Very much in the fashion of Mrs. Greville of Polesden Lacey, the money was then used to buy their way into the upper reaches of London society, including a commission in a swanky regiment for his older son. Who went on, with his younger brother, to cut a dash in racing & art circles, with Anglesey Abbey being conveniently close to Newmarket. With the Abbey eventually winding up in the welcoming arms of the National Trust.

The car park was even bigger than the one at Polesden Lacey, quite busy when we turned up mid-morning Into the very smart visitor centre - including cafeteria, shop and all the usual trimmings - where BH managed to get us in despite having left her card at home.

A Wellingtonia in rather cramped quarters. But it was making the height if not the weight. Included here as the rules committee eventually ruled that a score of three was appropriate for the much larger number of specimens to be found in the grounds of the abbey - and this one would be four.

Water works associated with Lode Mill, just visible right.

A number of very busy water flies had gathered at this patch of open water. Nothing to suggest to me what had attracted them there.

A reminder of our yew collecting days. And as well as the Wellingtonia, there were also some big beech trees. Some cyclamen in flower and what looked like an impressive display of dahlias about to be in flower.

Not sure why this one caught my eye, but Google Image suggests morus alba, otherwise the common mulberry. A bush or tree which apart from providing the favourite food of the silk worm, has berries which look a bit like loganberries or blackberries and which are edible.

What I took to be an old pear on the side of the big house. I never did get to the bottom of why pear trees are productive for so much longer than their near relatives, the apples.

Nor did I get to the bottom of how this chimney worked. It did not seem to be convenient to any likely fireplace. Is it worth braving the interior just for a chimney?

Some interesting books in the second-hand bookshop, sensibly priced, although I did not, on this occasion at least, fall for anything. Rather more handsomely furnished and rather better stocked than that at Polesden Lacey.

A large queue in the cafeteria by the time we got there but, as driver, I was allowed to sit. Which did not stop me getting into a muddle on the way home and being carried off along the A14 all the way to Newmarket. Which has the upside of renewing our acquaintance of this interesting old race-horse town and its High Street, decorated with a number of race-horse themed works of outdoor art.

Plus a clock tower which was rather grander than the one we have in Epsom: perhaps a little big for our High Street, but very much the same sort of thing all the same.

All in all, very handsome gardens which we will no doubt visit again when we are in the area.

PS 1: the First Life Guards might sound like a crack regiment now, but it had its origins in Oliver Cromwell's personal guard and the Maison Militaire du Roi of Louis XIV. Charles II, not unreasonably, was careful about his personal safety and built on what had gone before. See reference 5.

PS 2: the wholemeal flour bought from Lode Mill on a previous, if not the last, visit, noticed at reference 4, was used in 9½ from mid October until near the end of November 2013. Where by a half batch I mean making up the last 6oz from Lode with Canadian. In those days, the batches were rather smaller than they are now using 32oz plain white and 11oz wholemeal, rather than 40oz plain white and 16oz wholemeal. The resultant bread appears to have been quite satisfactory, attracting no special comment.

References

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

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Huttleston_Broughton,_1st_Baron_Fairhaven.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Regiment_of_Life_Guards.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/10/two-birds-with-one-stone.html. An earlier visit.

Reference 5: Horse Guards - Barney White-Spunner - 2006.

Reference 6: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2008/08/further-geeking.html. The plebeian origins of reference 5.

Group search key: cmb.

Trolley 587

The last of three noticed at reference 1, after the two large trolleys from Waitrose had been removed. This last one was a small trolley from the M&S food hall. 

On this occasion, there were no other small trolleys in the stack at M&S when I returned this one. Just a rather untidy collection of large ones. But a young lady was approaching who looked as if she might be about to tidy it up.

I take the opportunity to share this snap from Start Daily, which I had not heard of until today, but which arrived this afternoon in my gmail in-box and which I now know is one of a pair of offerings from Microsoft Start: 'The latest in your inbox: Enter your email to get news delivered to you'. Possibly part of the Microsoft News family, a family not too proud to scoop up news, gossip, tittle-tattle and worse from wherever it is to be found. One more intrusion into my already rather busy online life.

Assuming that the Home Secretary really did say something of this sort, perhaps the result will be that busy police officers will now spend 6 minutes rather than 5 minutes on filing away low level crime which they know they have no hope of solving, no hope of catching the perpetrators. Across the country (excluding Scotland where they make their own arrangements), thousands of minutes every week which might have been spent doing something more useful.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/trolley-586.html.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Trolley 586

The two trolleys comprising trolley 586 were captured in the Kokoro Passage this morning, two large trolleys from Waitrose (for a change), one from each side of the railing in the snap above. Litter removed and returned to the stack at the entrance to the store.

In due course, home to take a look at the Financial Times, where my eye was caught by a piece (reference 2) about how water rich Europe is heading for trouble in the water department. How on earth are they going to manage in places which have much less of the stuff than we do?

Along the way, there was a picture of a Google data centre in Saint-Ghislain in Belgium, said to consume more than 250m gallons of cooling water a year, water which is taken from a nearby industrial canal. Gray water in the jargon of water people.

So where does all this water go? Is the data centre cooled by evaporating all this water up into the sky? First off, I turn up reference 3, which tells me that this data centre has all the latest, most environmentally friendly technology going, technology which bears down on both the consumption of electricity and that of water. With data centres generally having something of a bad name for the amount of electricity they get through. But I don't learn what happens to all the water.

So second off, I try Bard, with a short series of questions: 

What does the St. Ghislain data centre do with all the water that it uses?

What does used mean? Does it all end up in the sky or does it get put back into the canal?

Why can you not keep recycling the water through the closed-loop for ever?

Where can I read more about closed-loop systems of this sort?

The answers to first three were quite helpful, if a little repetitive. Bard seems to know quite a lot about it all, prompting one to wonder whether it has been especially groomed to deal with questions which bear on Google's corporate image. In any event, I did not feel I needed to check. And the story seemed to be that while the water was recycled through the cooling system several times, some evaporated, some was lost and what was left accumulated bad stuff. Net result, the system was consuming water. It was also putting lots of it back, albeit in a tainted condition. But when I wanted more, Bard gave up, giving me its standard line when it runs out of puff about only being a language model and not being competent to deal with questions of this sort.

So I don't really know what is going on here. But it does look as if Google are doing better than simply trading electricity consumption (on air conditioning) for water consumption.

PS 1: a fairly monster site, making the data centres which I used to visit occasionally look pretty puny. The canal in question runs across the top of the snap. Didn't spot any electricity pylons or a sub-station though.

PS 2: Bard had no trouble working out that St. Ghislain was the same as Saint-Ghislain. A Belgian saint from the middle of the first millennium. They appear to know a great deal about him at reference 4 - while Bard contents himself with an abridged version which he says comes from Wikipedia. So he does know something about sources.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/trolley-585.html.

Reference 2: Europe’s water crisis: how supplies turned to ‘gold dust’: Drought, leaky pipes and poor policy among several factors contributing to continent’s scarcity problem - Alice Hancock, Camilla Hodgson, Alan Smith, Financial Times - 2023.

Reference 3: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/st-ghislain/.

Reference 4: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06547a.htm.

Group search key: trolleysk.

An outpost of empire

That is to say the Station Tavern of Cambridge, a proud member of the Youngs family of Wandsworth. Part of the redevelopment of the area around Cambridge Railway Station, for which see reference 1. 

To kick off, entering the precinct from the Hills Road railway bridge end, we were greeted by the bollard above, presumably containing, or once containing, something electrical, contrasting oddly with the rest of the precinct.

The view down to the Italianate booking hall of the railway station, just about visible to the right of the bus and now, after various vicissitudes, once again the booking hall. Albeit rather dwarfed by its surroundings. Student accommodation blocks right and left. To think that just beyond the bus one used to have the rather seedy station hotel, home to all kinds of steamy goings on according to adolescent gossip. There was also a flour mill, for which see below and reference 2.

Quite busy outside and after sampling the outside we moved inside to eat. I opted for the bavette au champignon du pré, a variety of beef which seems to have become a must-have menu item in places of this sort since we first came across it in darkest Devon, quite near an electricity sub-station and noticed at reference 3. Maybe it has dethroned belly pork, another once cheap cut, which swept across the fine dining world, across the world of pub grub, a few years ago.

Quite highly flavoured but quite eatable and coming with an impressive amount of goo, which had the added and important virtue of being confined to its pots. The chips, as I recall, were rather good.

Staff very young and cheerful, clientèle more mixed.

As we left, I noticed a young couple working their way through a mixed platter which seemed to consist of sausage rolls, Scotch eggs and other stuff of that sort. Maybe a splash of lettuce. Perhaps they needed refueling.

Some outdoor art. Being very arty art, I presume that the wrapping is all part of the performance. I don't remember looking closely enough to check whether the rope is built in or added on after, but zooming suggests that the rope is real enough and after. 

Odd that some young drunk has not taken his clasp knife to it one dark evening.

What is left of the flour mill, complete with its Italianate trim. A slightly less ornate version of what you get on the water towers of the Epsom cluster of (mental) hospitals, perhaps part of the same wave of architectural fashion. That apart, all very Vauxhall, with Gail's taking the spot bottom right which used to be the Station Hotel, mentioned above.

As seen from the eastern parapet of the Hills Road Bridge. A fairly serious fence, and a few police vans, so perhaps a facility shared between British Transport Police and Network Rail. Described today by gmaps as 'Cambridge power signal box of excellence'.

While from the western parapet we had some more outdoor art, thoughtfully provided by AstraZeneca. I had thought previously noticed, but I failed to find anything today.

And so back to Travelodge, complete with buffet breakfast and RingGo parking. My second parking app! And our car may be the one that is third from the left on the bottom row, even though I can't pick out any of the identifying dents, even with zoom. But a very useful and reasonably priced hotel for all that - even if their booking system was giving me system errors this afternoon.

A bridge that I may have bused over two thousand times and cycled over one thousand times. A bridge from which I once spotted one of the last steam locomotives to work Cambridge Station. A locomotive without any train as I recall. 

And it was entertaining to watch all the (mostly) bright young things puffing across the bridge on their rather heavy looking cycles from the window of our hotel room the following morning. I might puff now, but I don't think I did then!

References

Reference 1: https://www.thestationtavern.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://www.cb1cambridge.co.uk/about/history.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/dining-out-west-part-one.html.

Reference 4: https://www.travelodge.co.uk/.

Group search key: cmb.

Moon present

It seems like a long time since I last saw the moon and I was quite surprised to see it early this evening, rising above the houses on the other side of our road.

Checking with reference 1, I find that it was indeed there, 76% gibbous, SSE. Perhaps 7° above the horizon. With my own guesses about both direction and altitude generally being pretty wide of the mark.

While checking with my own records, I find that I last saw the moon at noon on the 9th August, when it was an old moon, so not so long ago at all. Memory playing tricks again.

Furthermore, I had thought that 'gibbous' was a term properly used of a waxing moon. A thought which is not allowed by Webster's. I shall check with OED in the morning.

PS: now checked. Gibbous means between a half circle and a full circle, a convex object, once used to describe the shapes of things other than moons, in any case without regard to whether they are waxing or waning. OED thus agrees with Webster's. And while crescent is indeed growing in its origins, think 'croître' in French or 'crescendo' in Italian, it too is now used to describe shape rather than direction of travel. That said, horns left is waxing and horns right is waning. Which can be seen, after a fashion, in the waxing gibbous moon we started with.

References

Reference 1: https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/uk/epsom.

Wellingtonia 106

A clump of three young trees captured fairly near the beginning of our expedition to Anglesey Abbey. Part of the extended cluster starting at the entrance.

A rather oddly lit and textured view from the inside, lightly zoomed, but enough so that (if you click to enlarge) you can make out the unusual scale form of the leaves.

In time, the second snap is only 25 seconds removed from the first, but I don't think the second is the inside of the first. Rather, some from inside some neighbouring, unscored tree.

These two snaps also serve to remind me that the retired Microsoft telephone took snaps with the same aspect ratio as most laptop PCs while the Samsung snaps are nearer square. That is to say if we define aspect ratio as the ratio of the length of the long side to that of the short side, without regard to which way round the snap is, looking at some old snaps Microsoft seemed to come in at around 1.82, while looking at some current snaps Samsung seems to come in at around 1.33. The present HP laptop is around 1.76 and when using Microsoft's Snip & Sketch tool you can have whatever you want. All very complicated. With another story at reference 2.

PS: some days later: I am reminded this morning that a few years ago, every new PC or laptop that one bought seemed to have a different aspect ratio from the one that it replaced. This irritated me in that Powerpoint slides were very much geared to the shape of the screen on which they were prepared, or at least they were by default, with the result that, when the aspect ratio of the screen changed, one's slides got smaller.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/wellingtonia-105.html.

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

Group search keys: wgc, cmb.

BM

Reading a piece in Thursday's Guardian occupying most of page 3 (reference 1) about thefts of bits and pieces which probably spanned many years, I felt quite sorry for the British Museum.

I imagine that they must have metropolitan basements and provincial warehouses stuffed full of dusty old artefacts for which they do not have display room. Dusty old artefacts which might be catalogued after a fashion, but only actually get looked at once in a blue moon. I would imagine that preventing petty theft of such stuff would be very difficult, even just knowing that it has happened after the event would be very difficult, and that it would easy to do nothing and just trust one's staff. Who, in the olden days at least, would have mostly been old retainers. None of you here-today-gone-tomorrow agency staff favoured by the present government.

As it is, it seems all too likely that vast amounts of money will be paid to know-it-all young consultants from Price Waterhouse, who will, no doubt, propose all kinds of expensive, fat-fee-generating solutions. They might even have the neck to propose one of their own at the next director. In any event, a public rolling of a few heads to demonstrate resolve.

PS: I remain in favour of giving those dusty old lumps of Elgin marble back. If the Greeks are so keen on getting them back, why not do the decent thing? Promote a few bits and bobs from the basement to take the space so freed up. So it might set a bit of a precedent, but it should not be beyond our collective wit to devise a sensible protocol for adjudication and, if appropriate, return. And, furthermore, in this digital age, the case for hanging on to a lot of this stuff is, in any case, much reduced.

PS 2: from where I associate to some Assyrian alabaster. To be more precise, some famous bas-reliefs depicting an Assyrian king on a lion hunt, also held by the British Museum. But having read Carew at reference 3, who was rather shocked by the whole business, even at this distance in time, I now know that 'hunt' is a euphemism for previously captured lions being driven onto the king's spears in an enclosed arena. Once within range, the king slaughtered them, rather messily. All staged to show off his power and prowess. I wonder if the Iraqi's are agitating to get these bas-reliefs back?

PS 3: not forgetting that if you were an Assyrian farmer, lions were dangerous pests which you wanted rid of. A job for the king. Rather as getting rid of troublesome boars was a job for the Greek king.

References

Reference 1: British Museum chief says extent of losses was not clear when concerns were raised in 2021 - Harriet Sherwood, Guardian - 2023.

Reference 2: Assyrian Lion-Hunting at the British Museum - Osama S. M. Amin - 2016.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/07/cuddling.html.

Not a blackberry

A plant spotted at Anglesey Abbey which struck me as some kind of mutant blackberry.

This afternoon I zoomed in a bit to help things along and Google Images made a clear ruling in favour of the wineberry or Rubus phoenicolasius - a species in the Rubus (blackberry) genus in the Rosaceae (rose) family. An originally east Asian form of raspberry which has done well in parts of north America and Europe.

About as far as zoom can usefully go. With fruits which are edible and can be used to make tarts and pastries. Good for hedgerow harvesters in that there are no toxic lookalikes.

PS: just a short entry for rebus in Bentham & Hooker. Just over 2 pages listing just 5 of the many species identified by Wikipedia. Not including this one.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubus. Blackberries (some of which are also known as brambles), raspberries, dewberries, cloudberries and wineberries - amongst others of roughly the same sort. Apparently a challenge for systematic botanists.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubus_phoenicolasius. Wineberries.

Group search key: cmb.

Wellingtonia 105

This Wellingtonia was captured towards the end of our recent visit to Anglesey Abbey. Rather smaller than the one at reference 1, so perhaps either a bad spot or they were not all planted at the same time, in the same campaign.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/wellingtonia-104.html.

Group search keys: wgc, cmb.

The last bottle

Back in 2020 we were prompted to buy six bottles of a sweet German wine from one Dr. Hermann. Quite a decent sweet white, but one which I clearly went off, as the last bottle has been sitting in the cupboard for what seems like years, although actually only a little over three.

For some reason, yesterday evening we thought we would do the last bottle. First glass rather good, second glass rather sickly. So we only did half the bottle, despite it being a very modest 9% by volume, instead of the more usual 12% and more for most of the wine that we drink. So fine as an apéritif or a pudding wine, but not for slurping over a spot of costume drama. Plus it comes with an inconvenient cork. I don't suppose we will be buying any more - at least, not until we need some pudding wine, which is not very often.

Reference 2 suggests that the price climbs quite quickly with age, although I could not find this particular year. While reference 3 seems to think that this year - 2006 - is a good buy at 15 euros. 

I had forgotten what I paid Majestic, but gmail search reveals all in no time at all. A useful archive facility.

PS 1: reverting to solid food, we paid a visit this morning to the interior of Cheam Arena, a Turkish flavoured shop in North Cheam, first noticed at reference 4. It turns out to be a larger and flashier version of the store I use at Clapham Junction. So as well as the fruit & veg outside, inside there is lots of general grocery, mainly foreign, a large fresh meat department, a good selection of preserved & cooked meat of one sort or another and a very respectable bakery department. So I was able to buy BH some new-to-me Turkish delight from ikbal - rather like a soft nougat - and no doubt called something else over there, some more sausage, the very same as that noticed at reference 5, and an Iranian version of the Turkish flat bread I like. The Iranian version being thinner, much bigger in extent and rather paler, but otherwise very much the same sort of thing. Very good it was for lunch too. Only £1.50 or so, so rather better value than rolls from Costcutter, good though they are too. The Arena also offered decent looking white bloomers. I passed on sheep's head. A pity that they are probably out of comfortable cycling range these days.

PS 2: the Turkish phrase for coconut appears to involve the word 'Hindistan'. Perhaps the Turks were getting coconuts from somewhere on the Indian subcontinent long before we had heard of the things here in England.

PS 3: while this chap, offered by a London correspondent, is more into DIY on the food front. Rather more tricky than the snaps offered at reference 6, so we shall have to compare notes. Exposure, focal lengths and all that good stuff that proper camera buffs go in for.

References

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/05/a-majestic-promotion.html.

Reference 2: https://wp.weingut-drhermann.com/.

Reference 3: https://www.vivino.com/IT/en/weingut-dr-hermann-erdener-treppchen-riesling-auslese/w/2695793?year=2006.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/06/cheam-arena.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/kosova-suxhuk.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/camera-notes.html.