Trolley 593

Trolley 593, a medium sized trolley from the M&S food hall was captured outside TK Maxx, returned via the Wetherspoon's passage to the M&S entrance inside the Ashley Centre, hard by the trolley stack.

On the way there, I had been struck by a young man maybe twenty yards behind me, pouring bad language and bad temper into his mobile phone. Clearly a young man with substance problems, anger management problems or both. Probably best not to bump into him, let along step on his toes, even by accident. I was quite pleased that he turned off and that possibility did not arise, even remotely.

Having parked the trolley I walked around the food hall a few times, until I found the basket stack containing the dried sausage, mainly Spanish (which I am not that keen on), but including some proper saucisson sec from Bastides of reference 2. Two 300g sausages, enough for two sausage stews.

Although not as proper as the very expensive saucisson that I once bought from Autun, from a butcher's shop which just about in sight of the cathedral. A very old fashioned sort of place, probably long gone, with the saucisson much more freshly made than is usual, rather in the way that one could once buy very fresh kabanosi, before they had been dried out. Probably not the place snapped above in the Rue Guérin, to be found at reference 3. My place was just old fashioned, not touristy. Mind, this was near thirty years ago.

Next stop the Epsom Clinic, mainly to find out where it was against a COVID visit later in the week. It turned out to be a quite a large place run by the local health authority, open but unattended, without a person in sight, on the ground floor at least, which seemed a little odd.

I was running a little late and thought a light lunch was in order, so the next stop the Los Amigos café in East Street, known for the quality of its bacon sandwiches. Possibly Portuguese, possibly Brazilian. On this occasion it was fairly busy, not least with young people from the nearby dancing school and the occasional home delivery man. It being a veggie day, I opted for a fried egg sandwich on thick factory white, rather than my usual bacon sandwich. Very good it was too, and I would only fault them for cooking the egg on a hot plate rather than in lard (or possibly beef dripping) in a frying pan: you need the hot animal fat to put a proper crinkle on the bottom of the egg.

And so home to read about one Jim Jordan, wannabee Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, a very important position, second in line of succession to the throne. Now about sixty, he spent his young adult years as a wrestler, taking up full time politics, in the first instance in Ohio, about thirty years ago. A big supporter of Trump, a big supporter of the anti-abortion movement. Small government man. More to be found at reference 4, where it does not, however, say anything about his religion, his god, if there is one.

I also read that Ohio is home to some of the worst gerrymandering in the US, with his 4th district being one of the worst in the state. A state that elects 10 Republican congressmen to 5 Democrats, despite the popular vote in the state being fairly evenly divided. Also winner takes all when it comes to the Electoral College for President - along, I believe, with most other states.

The snap above shows the gerrymandering at its worst, in 2013 or so, and I think things have got a bit better since then, although I have not been able to work my way through the thickets of the www to where we are now. I do know that there was a boundary revision last year, which managed to miss the elections of November of that year. Maybe the revision will be that used next November, with the story seeming to be that these elections are held every two years. 

Notice also the funny numbering arrangements. One supposes that there is plenty of history there.

Maybe our arrangements seem to them as complicated as their arrangements do to me!

PS: a snap from reference 5. I wonder who puts this website together? Can his staff do whatever they see fit, or is their central guidance, central construction or what? Easy enough to find out, I dare say, but that might be a job for tomorrow.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/10/trolley-592.html.

Reference 2: https://www.sacor.fr/.

Reference 3: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boucherie_Saint-Louis.

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

Reference 5: https://jordan.house.gov/.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio%27s_congressional_districts.

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