Trolley 689

This trolley, a medium sized trolley, basket slightly stove in, from the M&S food hall, was captured while neatly parked up out back at Wetherspoon's, on the other side of the western entrance to the Ashley Centre.

Returned it and then continued on my way to the blood department at the hospital, where I was interested to come across the screen snapped above. I get to a Sangix powered appointment system at home, via reference 2 below, but Sangix central is to be found at reference 3.

Quite possibly headquartered in Prague, in the building snapped above from Street View. Koperníkova 10. I have been rather impressed at the way that the Czechs, not that long escaped from the Soviet orbit, have made visible inroads into all kinds of big businesses in the UK. Must be busy and go-ahead people.

So do all my hospital appointments sit on some database in the basement of Kopernikova 10? Should I care or worry about it? In any event, I don't expect that I will. Leave that to the NHS security team - which I imagine is big, swollen with all kinds of expensive contractors, some of them expensively trained at public expense at GCHQ.

Out to admire what is probably the Wellingtonia which is nearest where we live, a fairly young specimen. Had we planted one on arrival, I dare say ours would have been getting on for this big by now. Maybe if we watered it lots.

The very distinctive scale leaves to be seen in the zoom above.

And a bit nearer home, some evidence that what I consciously see is the product of both top-down and bottom-up processing. From a distance, I mistook the three cross members of the pallet above for three of those long, light weight blocks with two holes running vertically through their middles, that one uses for building extensions. The sort of thing snapped below from eBay. Three blocks sitting on their sides on top of a sheet of old plywood or some such. A clean and tidy image, all very clear, all very focussed. Then, as I got nearer, it all suddenly clicked into what you see above. A click, not a smooth transition.

And so home, to a lengthy monitoring phone call with the Office of the Public Guardian, aka the Court of Protection. Not for the first time thinking that one of the benefits of being rich would be that one would get out of this particular job.

PS 1: a bit later, a bit bemused by the message about AI from Medscape, from whom I get lots of emails offering me various snippets of medically flavoured news. Good of them to fess up, to come clean about it, but I am not sure where it leaves me. Do I stop reading these snippets on the grounds that they are no longer trustworthy, but rarely important enough for me to bother checking them?

PS 2: a bit later still, I came across the piece in the Financial times at reference 4. A search of the archive reveals that I did indeed know of this Erpenbeck and owned two of her books, bought near ten years ago. I am now rereading 'Visitation' and apart from finding it all rather strange, it is taking me a while to recognise that I have indeed read it before. I wonder if BH had a go at the time? Will I move onto her new novel?

PS 3: while this morning I come across the piece at reference 6. I learn that not only is football very big in Turkey, but also that it is in a bit of a state. Perhaps, to take a leaf out of the Guardian's book, reflecting in microcosm all the divisions and problems in the state at large? 

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/05/trolley-688.html.

Reference 2: https://www.epsom-sthelier.nhs.uk/blood-tests.

Reference 3: https://www.sangix.co.uk/appointments.

Reference 4: Jenny Erpenbeck’s ‘Kairos’ Wins the International Booker Prize: Translated by Michael Hofmann, it’s the first novel originally written in German to win the major literary award - Alex Marshall, New York times - 2024.

Reference 5: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/06/erpenbeck.html.

Reference 6: Turkish football’s season from hell points to deeper societal malaise: Country’s dominant sport joins the ranks of those institutions in which the public has lost faith - Adam Samson, Financial Times - 2024.

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