Trolley 649

A small trolley from the M&S food hall from the Kokoro Passage. Kept company by the damaged trolley yet to be hoovered up by the recovery team. Do M&S leave this to the council or to the people who run the car park?

Returned to their stack, after which I did a bit of shopping in Waitrose: Calvados, mushrooms and the TLS (in lieu of Guardian which was missing). Onto Smith's which did have a Guardian. Refurbishment of the Ashley Centre continues and I was able to admire some lofty concrete columns, perhaps 67cm by 33cm in section, extensively pock-marked by fixing holes over the years. Presumably, provided these holes are not too deep, say not more than 5cm, they are not degrading their host columns significantly. Which I don't think were carrying that much weight anyway.

After which a stroll around the Kiln-Lane-Gas-Depot circuit, amounting in all to between half and three quarters of a regular Ewell Village anti-clockwise.

Down the shady alley leading to the footbridge, there was lots of this stuff coming. Google Images votes for poison hemlock (Conium maculatum) a member of the Apiaceae (also called the Umbelliferae) family, a large family including all manner of celeries, carrots and parsleys. I don't think this can be right, as such a distinctive name would be familiar. Perhaps more in the US, where most of the images come from? Other candidates were the chervils and cow parsley. This last suffering from the defect that it can grow to a considerable size, so probably likes the sun.

Struggling a bit, I thought of ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria), very invasive and another member of the Apiaceae family, but it is not that either. Leaves all wrong.

Lots of stuff about the family in Bentham & Hooker, but a bit too strong for this late in the day, that is to say after lunch.

All we seemed to be able to agree on was that it was a member of Apiaceae family. I then asked Gemini whether I could add keywords to an image search and the answer was yes - but only on my phone using the Google Photos app. A couple of tries and up comes Google Lens where I can add key words. So far I have got Japanese hedge parsley (Torilis japonica) and Pacific bleeding heart (Dicentra formosa). The former is considered an invasive pest in parts of the US, so possible, while the latter does not seem to belong at all. But early days yet.

Down Blenheim Road, where there were two dog units in the vicinity of what was the Tchibo warehouse, as previously noticed at reference 2. Perhaps it is convenient to park there while they check out various sheds in the vicinity.

It being Day 2 of the kitchen refit, and a Friday afternoon, in the days of van trade a busy time at TB, I thought I would give it a go. 

Public bar reasonably busy - maybe twenty customers, three barmaids and one proprietor - and what seemed to me to be a prodigious amount of noise - conversation rather than anything electrical. Pumps for warm beer present, but not used while I was there - not that that matters to me any more, being confined mainly to white wine. Pool table present. Large and flashy slot machine present, with one panel saying 'Duck shoot' a lot of the time. Searching for which this afternoon turns up plenty of stuff, but not pictures of likely looking machines. But I do end up at reference 3 on account of their selling iSoftBet products: 'leading supplier of mobile and online gambling solutions for both businesses and players'. Not machines you can put in pubs at all, but clearly big business.

For some reason, I was oddly tempted to give this machine a go - but I resisted. Not something that happens very often and I have never made much use of them; but, nevertheless, a temptation I thought it proper to resist for some reason. After which I started to wonder whether people standing around placed side bets on the outcome of a spin, thus cheating the machine operator of his percentage? 10% of turnover or whatever. Altogether a rum business if reference 8 is anything to go by, from where the snap above is taken.

And then, with racing being on the television, I was reminded how posed a picture from Cheltenham in a recent Guardian had looked: to me, very fake. Included above. Also that if we divide content into hard news, social worker news and soft news, the Guardian is presently dominated by social worker news and soft news. Which maybe suits the ladies well enough, but I am giving more time to the FT.

Just before I left, I was pulled up because I was wearing braces in the colours of the Household Division. I explained that I had bought them in Charing Cross Road (reference 4) and that the salesman, who should have known better, had failed to point out this important fact. Which got me off the hook, but I don't suppose I shall stop wearing them. At least not for the present, with their mostly being hidden underneath a woolly (which left to myself, I would have spelt woollie).

I learned that my ancient anecdote from a former Life Guard about billets-doux being slipped into his big black boots still runs. In my anecdote, the writer of one of the billets-doux was terribly disappointed because the Life Guard did not turn up at the rendez-vous with breast plate and so forth. I can't remember how this particular encounter ended. In this chap's case, into the capacious pockets of his greatcoat, while posing for happy snaps with tourists.

Home to BH's own brand leek and potato soup followed by gala pie salad (convenient when one only has half a kitchen) followed by some dark, sweet grapes.

PS: while today, thinking soft news, Microsoft Start tells me of a piece in the Guardian puffing Wellingtonia - from which I learn that there are around 500,000 of them here in the UK, more than five times as many as there are left in their native California - although the ones there are a lot bigger and lot older. Good that I am not the only Wellingtonia counter out there. See references 5, 6 and 7.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/03/trolley-648.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/03/trolley-647.html.

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

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

Reference 5: Hidden giants: how the UK’s 500,000 redwoods put California in the shade - James Tapper, Guardian - 2024

Reference 6: California’s teetering giants - Gabrielle Canon, Guardian - 2024.

Reference 7: Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in the UK: carbon storage potential and growth rates - Ross Holland, Guilherme Castro, Cecilia Chavana-Bryant, Ron Levy, Justin Moat, Thomas Robson, Tim Wilkinson, Phil Wilkes, Wanxin Yang and Mathias Disney - 2024.

Reference 8: https://finmodelslab.com/blogs/kpi-metrics/slot-machine-kpi-metrics.

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