Who are the orchids?

Prompted by a visit to Wisley earlier today, to find out what the orchids are. My prior knowledge stopped after thinking that there were a lot of them and that they were mainly tropical. And knowing that pyramid orchids are quite common in the parts of the south east that we know. There have been quite a lot of posts about them.

From reference 1, I learn that there are maybe 30,000 species of orchid - and that is not including all the many hybrids. Around 70% of these species are epiphytes, mainly living perched in trees in wet, tropical forests. Not parasites, but lazy.

From reference 2, I learn that orchids, a family, are monocotyledons. They are distinguished from other monocotyledons by certain peculiarities of their flowers, one of which is the inferior ovary.

The flowers all have three sepals (one up and two down) and three petals (two up and one down). The down petal is often highly specialised. Bilateral rather than radial symmetry. Male and female sex organs, starting with the ovary below the flower proper, are carried on something called the column.

From reference 3, I learn that the flowering plants, the angiosperms, are divided into two sub-classes, the dicotyledons and the monocotyledons. Roses and cabbages, for example, are families in the first of these, grasses, lilies and orchids are families in the second. but in the jargon of the cladists, monocotyledons are monophyletic - they have a proper common ancestor - and are better, as far as that goes, than the dicotyledons which are paraphyletic, with rather more mixed ancestry.

Reference 4 offers a more complicated version of this story, elaborating the higher level groupings - clades such as euangiosperms, eudicots and core eudicots - which, as reference 3 had already pointed out, is very much work in progress. The core eudicots, aka core tricolpates, include the roses and cabbages. Colpate is to do with the shape of pollen grains, the presence or otherwise of various kinds of furrow or groove.

The snap above, of striate-tricolpate (fossil) pollen, taken from reference 6 and turned up by Bing seems a good place to stop.

PS 1: in the olden days, the split between monocotyledons (primitive) and dicotyledons (advanced) appeared to be both simpler and more basic than appears to be the case now.

PS 2: Monday morning: Sunday was also the day that the Atlantic Storm Beryl caught my eye. I now know that there had been a relatively feeble Storm Alberto earlier in the month and that the alphabetical lists of names are established years in advance. With 21 names on the core lists, which miss out Q, U, X, Y and Z - unlike the Nato alphabet (which I still recite from time to time and occasionally use when talking with the hard of hearing) and which does all 26 letters. Read all about the splendid bureaucracy involved at references 7 and 8. While NATO is to be found at reference 8.

References

Reference 1: Orchid - Dan Torre - 2023.

Reference 2: Britain's Orchids - David Lang - 2004.

Reference 3: Guide to flowering plant families - Wendy B. Zomlefer - 1994. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.

Reference 4: The tree of life: a phylogenetic classification – Lecointre and Le Guyader – 2006.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchid.

Reference 6: The ultrastructure of angiosperm pollen from the Lower Cenomanian of the Morondova Basin, Madagascar - Michael S Zavada - 2003.

Reference 7: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml.

Reference 8: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames_history.shtml.

Reference 9: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/08/breaking-rhythm.html.

Trolley 717

Captured in the outer fringes of the large car park cluster outside the gardens at Wisley. So a bit marginal from the point of view of the rules, but it was a long way from its base and it did need to be returned because although the car park not yet crowded at 10:15, it was set to become so it being a summer Sunday, and one did not want trolleys to be blocking parking slots.

Quite a bumpy walk back to base, so I imagine they must be very bumpy to push loaded, not that I have ever tried.

Not in the same league as the trolley stack at a real supermarket like Sainsbury's. Not least because, as far as I could see, there was just the one size of trolley. And there were two unsightly holes in the handle of mine, which turned out to be where the basket had once been fixed. I could not find a maker's mark, but maybe, if I had gone in for a serious inspection, I would have found one.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/trolley-716.html.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Touring

Last week to London to see the sights, starting with Centrepoint and the public house formerly known as the Tottenham.

A bright morning, warm rather than hot at 10:30 which was good. The solicitors' van was parked on Station Approach again; one day there will be a driver and I will be able to ask him his business there. No trolleys, not that there was enough time for diversions of that sort. Some fancy dress, I thought perhaps Ascot. Lots more fancy dress at Waterloo and it very clearly was Ascot. The slightly later idea of passing the day wandering the houses between the station and the racecourse did not find favour, the delights of fancy dress and the possession of one day Travelcards notwithstanding.

It being a route I had not done for a while, it took me a while to find my way from the top of Drury Lane (orange dot right) to Earnshaw Street (red thumbtack left) - but I got there in the end and was pleased to find a slot on the Bullingdon stand there.

From where I was able to admire one end of Denmark Street, the centre of the popular music scene in the 1950s and still showing some signs of musical life. The building on the corner was no doubt a proper public house at the time - with drunks and warm beer - except that the corner with the turret on top looks a bit grand. Surely not a Lyon's Corner House? Maybe the whole block is some kind of heritage zone now?

The block about which there was a huge amount of fuss when it was built, I think in the 1970s. Mainly because the developer preferred to hold it empty rather than let it on what he regarded as bad terms. As a piece of architecture, I think that it has stood the test of time well.

But there is always a 'round the back' even at the best kept blocks.

A briefing meeting at the Flying Horse, aka the Tottenham, the heritage pub noticed at reference 1. There was an infestation of high chairs, but there were still some low chairs at the back, from where we were able to take in the exotic interior. It was decided that London Bridge was the way forward, with the Elizabeth Line (see reference 2) and Ascot options being discarded.

And so to London Bridge via Bank. Not quite the Elizabeth Line, but plenty of walking involved as befits the modern tube experience. Including, as I recall, a long travelator, one of those contraptions which save you the bother of walking down a long passage. Thinking with my fingers, I imagine that such a thing speeds up rush hour transit of such a passage in a useful way.

A visit to Guys and its handsome chapel, complete with one person in quiet prayer and another in more florid prayer, in front of the altar. I was reminded of reading in the Ramsey book noticed at reference 3, that there are a lot more Anglicans in far flung places these days than there are in the mother ship. We took a light lunch in one of the cafeterias around the place, this one perhaps called the Shed. Staffed up by a couple of young psychology students, presumably choosing to stay in town and make a bit of money rather than legging it for the long vac. Perhaps they did bars in the evenings.

Lunch took the form of a couple of toasties. A more high-calorie snack than I am used to, but it did the business. Supplemented with a plastic cup for 15p (water free) to get my pills down with - quite forgetting that I was already carrying a bottle of water. Cup paid for by card as the cafeteria was a cash-free operation. The transaction charge on the credit card must have exceeded the nominal charge, but I suppose it will bear down on use of disposable cups by regulars. There was also a microwave so that you could heat up your own ready meal, an option one or two people were taking.

A look around the market, where we took in the well stocked display at Ginger Pig. All kinds of stuff which is quite hard to get these days. Including liver and lights and all that sort of thing.

I fell for some broad beans, 2kg at £5 a kilo. There were some good looking cherries at around £10-£12 a kilo, but I declined, having already both declined both BH's offer of a folding shopping bag and decided against bringing the rucksack deployed on a recent visit.

We found where one could buy paella for £10 a pop, getting quite a decent portion, but nowhere to sit. In any event, we no longer needed lunch and we were certainly not going to stroll around with the stuff in the way of the many holiday makers.

Next stop a taxi to Bartholomew the Great. The driver not seeming to know where it was, managed to drop us nearer the nearby Bartholomew the Less. We peeked in but did not take a proper look, keeping our powder dry for the real thing, which was as impressive as ever, fancy Kray funeral notwithstanding. Took in the couple of pianos already noticed at references 4 and 5.

The organ, more or less in what used to be the crossing.

Looking the other way.

Some heritage pipework. We were told that the church attracted regular congregations of several hundred, including a healthy sprinkling of young families. Not just Anglo-Catholics travelling in from far and wide to take in the bells and smells.

And so to the nearby Hand & Shears, the pub which saw my bar tending exploits as a student. In those days famous for its Directors' Bitter from Courage, but still a good looking establishment with a good atmosphere. In much better shape than when I visited some years ago, in the margins of something data protection flavoured, all the thing at the time, the thing that means the surgery won't talk to me about BH's missing prescriptions and which gives stroppy young clerks in estate agents all the excuse they need to be obstructive. Progress of a sort I suppose.

I took my first bitter for a while and very nice it was too. Quite a nostalgia fest. Gives the illusion of a real pint in the snap above, but actually it was a half pint. Maybe I will start allowing myself a pint or so a week, fluid intake restrictions permitting. Another nostalgia fest in the form of the beans, visible right. We remembered back to the days when I used to grow lots of them, pinching out the leads (with the blackflies) on the morning of the Derby.

I made the mistake of taking a No.17 bus back to London Bridge, which seemed to take forever. But at least trains to Epsom were up and running when I got there.

Home to a quick dish of beans, served in a bacon & onion flavoured white sauce. Very good they were too - with a kilo of beans yielding just about 200g of beans. Say three portions to the 2kg - so not a cheap vegetable, despite their being very easy to grow - this last probably being a good part of why I used to be so keen on growing them. While Jude the Obscure used the stalks to fire his oven. Good, as I recall, for a flash fire. Not much good for the long haul.

Having shown the way, BH did very well the next day with the balance of the beans. A slightly thinner sauce, which I think was an improvement. There was probably some green salad.

PS 1: the beans were quite young which meant that we need not need to go in for two tier cooking, with the maturer beans getting rather more time. While BH does not get nostalgic about the gluts of overripe broad beans she has had to deal with over the years. To the extent of peeling them and making them into a bean paste.

PS 2: Lübeck would no doubt be an interesting visit, but a bit of a stretch to ride there on this advertisement, which arrived this morning. Even supposing that they let  me in. I had to look up what cGMP might be. Nothing to do with the Greater Manchester Police, possibly something to do with the Good Manufacturing Practise of reference 7. Important and complicated stuff, a lot of it from Europe, stuff which Farage and his kind want to go DIY on. But my money is on cyclic guanosine monophosphate, all mixed up with ion channels and neurotransmission generally.

PS 3: while over my second cup of tea I learned from the April 2023 number of 'Drinks Business', about Latour getting out of the en primeur market back in 2012. Which I from reference 8 to be a sort of futures market for fancy wine. You buy the stuff on the basis of what it tastes like in the barrel, years before it is blended, bottled and released for sale. All very speculative, but offers the wine manufacturer some money up-front. Money in the hand, rather than money which might be years down the track. And the wine might, in the end, turn out badly and either not be saleable or not fetch a very good price. A bit like the potato futures market I learned about, many years ago now, at a very wet agricultural show somewhere near Norwich. I remember that even further back, I bought my one and only bottle of Château Latour from an old-style wine merchant's shop just off Soho Square, probably on the eastern side of Greek Street, but long gone. An experience, but not one which was repeated. While the snap above, lifted from the depths of reference 10, offers a wine shop at No.3, about the right place, but I think that the Gay Hussar was there at the time in question too. More digging needed. Impressed that someone has gone to the bother of cataloguing the history of the street in this way.

References

Reference 1: https://www1.camra.org.uk/pubs/flying-horse-london-128749.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/ealing.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/ramsey.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/piano-87.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/piano-86.html.

Reference 6: https://thehandandshears.com/.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_manufacturing_practice.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_primeur.

Reference 9: https://www.chateau-latour.com/en. A rather pretentious website.

Reference 10: https://www.alondonmiscellany.com/post/greek-street-then-and-now.

Two issues

The first of these was prompted by the piece in this morning's FT at reference 1 about troubles in the olive groves of Spain, the biggest producer in the world. It seems that these troubles are to do with it having been too hot in the summer. I thought I would take a look, leading me to references 2, 3 and 4. With reference 5 providing the rain graphic above. A few take-aways follow.

While the olive is important in some countries - with the big producers traditionally being the big consumers - it is not a staple in the way that wheat is. If the olive fails, one can always make do with rape seed oil or palm oil.

Trees can be badly damaged, if not killed, by cold.

Heat is good for oil production, but trees can be badly damaged, if not killed, by excessive heat.

Trees need a cold period to get flowering going. This seems to exclude the tropics.

Trees, very roughly speaking, need about 600mm of rain a year.

All of which notwithstanding, a tough and versatile plant, well suited to food production.

All this, and history, means that olive production is concentrated in the Mediterranean region. It does not get much further north or much further south. However, production is now pushing into the southern hemisphere, with a lot of activity in Argentina and Chile.

So it may be that Spain and Italy are in for a hard time in the olive department, but the rest of us will probably get by.

The second was an arty matter. Looking at some of Monica Poole's foxgloves this morning, I was reminded that to satisfy the tax man in the 1960's, the producer of wood blocks for sale was obliged to deface them after pulling some number of prints, possibly 25, if he or she wanted to avoid becoming liable for some additional tax. So this was what one did: one laboured for weeks over one's block, produced one's 25 prints - that is to say a limited edition of 25, marked serially by the artist, for example 17/25 - and then destroyed the block. Perhaps by scoring hard, right across the middle of it. Perhaps by planing down the cut surface so that it could be reused.

Speaking for myself, I find it quite hard to destroy my own creations, perhaps a piece of writing, perhaps a piece of carpentry or a chunk of concrete. At least as far as the finished article is concerned: I can be brutal with drafts and with failure. I can also destroy (or eat) plants that I have grown - which might also have consumed a good amount of care and attention.

A related issue is the difficulty some of us have with pruning our writings. Once the sentence or paragraph has emerged onto the screen or the page, we find it hard to cross it out. So we might find it helpful to have an editor to push us into doing the right thing.

So it all seems to vary a good deal, vary between people and vary with time and circumstance. But I still think I would find destroying a block difficult.

PS: the image above is not that in question, but it is very much the same sort of thing. And I am reminded how poorly woodcuts of this sort reproduce electronically, even with all today's pixels.

References

Reference 1: Soaring olive oil prices hurt sales of ‘liquid gold’ in Mediterranean heartland: Poor harvests hitting production have forced up the cost of key ingredient - Barney Jopson, Susannah Savage, Financial Times - 2024.

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

Reference 3: Oleiculture in progress - E. Marone, P. Fiorino - 2012.

Reference 4: Olive Cultivation in the Southern Hemisphere: Flowering, Water Requirements and Oil Quality Responses to New Crop Environments - Mariela Torres, Pierluigi Pierantozzi, Peter Searles, M Cecilia Rousseaux, Georgina García-Inza, Andrea Miserere, Romina Bodoira, Cibeles Contreras, Damián Maestri - 2017.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_annual_precipitation.

Tactics

At reference 1 I reported a softening of my attitude towards tactical voting. Maybe I did not like it much, but if that was the price of keeping out a Tory of the far right...

In this, I may well have been influenced by two things. First, an assumption that in this suburban constituency - Epsom, Ewell and Leatherhead - the Liberals were a bigger threat to the Conservatives than Labour. Second, an assumption that the Liberal candidate would be more or less honest about such a matter, so I remembered the graphic in her leaflet snapped above, below and right.

But this lunchtime, BH cracked out her stash of leaflets and we found a rather different graphic in the Labour leaflet snapped above, above and left. So who was to be believed? Next step was to ask Bing about polls and I looked at a small sample of those offered. One or two were disqualified by being impossible to snap.

One. Polling report UK. I pass on describing the Conservatives as vacant, content to put it down to a Freudian slip on the part of some IT person.

Two. Election polling.

Three. Election maps.

And lastly, four. The YouGov quoted in the Liberal leaflet. From all of which I deduce that candidates use the poll which suits them. I suspect that it is going to cost me serious time to make an informed judgement about the quality of these polls - bearing in mind that the pollster might have an agenda too. And that is not going to happen.

It would all be so much simpler if we had provision for second preference votes, but we don't. And the Liberals have not done a deal with Labour here. So who knows?

At least if I vote Labour and the Tories come in just ahead of the Liberals, I will have been wrong but I will have backed my own horse. I might add, that I like the Labour candidate more than the other two. 

PS: you might think that a wealthy suburb like Epsom would be immune to Farage and his kind, but sadly this does not appear to be the case. I am reminded that Leatherhead, now in the constituency, was once a place for London overspill. So while it is a very rich area overall with lots of fancy residential property, that might not be the whole story.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-new-face-of-epsom.html.

Trolley 716

First spotted yesterday morning in the depths of the car park between the passages, and still there when I returned to check that same afternoon.

Returned to the near empty stack at the food hall, where I rewarded myself with a further 650g of cherries. The first this year from Kent, variety 'Grace Star'.

Not a Canadian cherry for a change, rather an Italian one. The snip above being taken from reference 2. Seemingly a website devoted to advertising, olives and cherries. While google turns up the more obviously respectable horticultural supplier at reference 4. Catalogue at reference 6, from page 29 of which the snip below is taken. They might be specialists in micro-propagation.

The catch was that after the very sweet Spanish cherries we have been getting, these ones tasted a bit thin. I expect they will be better when the palette adjusts down from all that sugar. Maybe some other flavour will come through!

PS: the first story in a recently acquired number of 'The Spirits Business' was all about delays in the introduction of the Scottish deposit return scheme, whereby people buying drink in single-use containers would pay a deposit, returnable against return to an official recycling point. The idea being to motivate all of us, on all sides of the fence, to recycle more of these containers than we do now. On other hand, Celtic sensibilities aside, there is a lot to be said for a UK wide scheme, although that is not where we appear to be at reference 7. And it is all terribly complicated, with the devil in the detail. But clearly a candidate for case study on business administration courses.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/trolley-715.html.

Reference 2: https://en.excelentesprecios.com/grace-star-cherry.

Reference 3: https://en.excelentesprecios.com/.

Reference 4: https://battistinivivai.com/en/products/grace-star-eng.

Reference 5: https://battistinivivai.com/en.

Reference 6: https://d1cz0rz7wd02u0.cloudfront.net/media/pages/CRXL2ESNSEKH4OM7oQJ3Gq0E6R2u5RpPf1nqHQ2h.pdf.

Reference 7: https://consult.defra.gov.uk/environment/introducing-a-deposit-return-scheme/supporting_documents/depositreturnconsultdoc.pdf.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Trios

Ten days ago to the Wigmore Hall to hear the Gould Piano Trio, a trio last heard near 600 trolleys ago and noticed at reference 1. Brahms Op.101, Dvořák Op.90 (aka Dumky). The Brahms we did not know but we have heard the Dvořák often enough over the years, most recently last November, as noticed at reference 3. A justly popular piece.

Unusual M&S trolley with a green handle on Station Approach. Presumably a left-over from some previous colour scheme. In the event, I did not capture it later.

Trainset down to four coaches which meant that it was rather crowded by the time we got to London, but we did get a seat, which is just as well these days.

Slowed down in Olle & Steen by several people in front of me in the queue with big takeaway orders, half a dozen items and more, which they were not well placed to process quickly. One chap in particular was buying lots of stuff to eat but nothing to drink and I failed to compute what he was up to. Taking them back to his flat nearby? Back to his family in a nearby hotel? BH thought that it being Fathers' Day might have had something to do with it.

For a change, I thought I would try their sausage roll, snapped above. Not bad, and I liked the sausage better than those we put in rolls, but the bun seemed a little doughy and undercooked. and I expect I will be back on the Kløben at the next visit.

Wigmore Hall near full for what I thought was an excellent concert. I recognised just one of the three musicians, recognised in the sense of a sense of having seen him before somewhere. I would not have been able to say where.

The Brahms seemed very lively and I liked it rather more than I was expecting. It probably helped that I was - not surprisingly - reminded of Brahms' nearby piano quartets, for which we had a passing thing a few years ago, kicked off by an orchestral rendering of Quartet No.1, as noticed at reference 4. While the Dumky was as good as ever.

Off to the Wigmore for lunch, the pub, that is, which is attached to the Langham Hotel. It turned out that they had lots of reservations for Fathers' Day, despite looking pretty empty, but they managed to fit us in, on the high chairs that we do not much like, despite their being all the thing in pubs at the moment, as we like to have our feet on the floor. Maybe something to do with packing in lots of young people when it is busy, young people who do not mind standing at table.

I took the crab crumpets followed by beef, while BH took the hake. The beef was good, and the gravy was on the side, as is proper. The vegetables were good, even the carrots and greens, but they were a bit tight with supplies, particularly considering the elevated price. BH was quite happy with her hake, a fish that I am not keen on, finding it rather fishy. Silly, but there you are. Picpoul, water and Jameson to drink. Maybe a spot of Earl Grey for her.

Gentlemen with reservations were given small gifts on exit, possibly in the form of one or two chocolates, but we did not qualify. Otherwise the service was very good, attentive without being pushy or forward. And to be fair to the reservations, most of them had been taken up by the time we were leaving. Given the obscure location and appearance, perhaps people staying at the Langham, wanting the authentic public house experience?

Out to get ourselves to Vauxhall, where we amused ourselves with the platform indicator display, much more fun that the overhead version. We liked the way it had been programmed so that trains seemed to jump onto the screen; very eye catching. I also managed a two-aeroplane-in-view.

Good haul at Raynes Park, including the Morley Magazine which managed to slip into reference 5. Can't get the staff. Haven't got very far with any of it yet, but I do commend the article about hearing with your teeth at reference 5, from which I learned that the deaf Beethoven managed something with a thin stick jammed between his teeth and planted on top of his piano. A bit awkward, I dare say, but it does give you some hearing.

Except that neither Bing nor Google turns up anything other than this very article on the key 'albert jefferis electronic dentures'. Has Mr. Collins been a touch inventive?

Notwithstanding, inspection of references 7 and 8 suggest an odd, but respectable magazine. The transient links with UNLV and sex toys can be overlooked.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/03/trio-sunday.html.

Reference 2: https://www.gouldpianotrio.com/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/11/trio-gaspard.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/04/adaptations.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/grilled-chop-ends.html.

Reference 6: Bite me: A brief history of dentistry and music - Paul Collins, Believer - 2008.

Reference 7: https://www.thebeliever.net/.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Believer_(magazine).

Reference 9: https://www.unlv.edu/. 'The University of Nevada, Las Vegas wishes to acknowledge and honor the Indigenous communities of this region, and recognize that the university is situated on the traditional homelands of the Nuwu (noo·woo), Southern Paiute (pai·oot) People'.

Chicken dinner

Having dealt with trolley No.708, as noticed at reference 1, I thought a visit to TB was in order. Arrived to find a small van, the sort of thing often used for street food, in the forecourt, labelled 'Pinsa'. It seems that this is the currently trending name for pizza. For which reference 2 appears at the top of the Bing list, its prize for being the most infested with advertisements. I dare say one can do better if one goes down the list a bit.

Inside, the new-to-me barmaid, explained that Pinsa was an evening and weekend thing. But the food snapped above was available every day, lunchtime on. I wondered afterwards whether the Sri Lankan flavour had anything to do with the Costcutter next door, given the the proprietor comes from there, but I did not think to ask at the time. But we will make the effort to give it a try before too long.

In the meantime, I computed that the wine, by alcohol content, probably cost about the same as the lager, that is to say just over a fiver for a large glass. This is, in most pubs, if memory serves, true of spirits but not of wine. 

Home, spot on time, to chicken dinner. In the course of which I managed to decipher the label on the steel - Kai Cutlery of Japan. A steel which I bought at a car booter, probably for a pound or so, and which has served very well over the years. I believe that you can spend a lot on such things, even going so far as to diamond dust them. However, steels are not dear at reference 3, although I could not find this particular one, and are missing from reference 4 where they do whetstones. Of which I already own several, but have not used for sharpening knives for a long time. Far too much bother.

Blackberry and apple crumble for dessert, with custard. Probably getting towards the end of the blackberries now, with new supplies due in July. Pill pot and wine visible left.

Après dessert took the form, for a change, of a spot of Proust rather than a spot of Calva, at the time unavailable. Taken from somewhere in Volume 2 of the Random House edition of 'Remembrance of things past' in the Scott Moncrieff translation. I had forgotten about the length of his sentences - but I am moved to have another go today.

It was quite a big chicken and what was left over served well cold a couple of days later. After which there was not quite enough for a third round, so we moved onto soup and boiled the stripped carcass up with a carrot, some onions and a stump of chou pointu. The resultant stock with 6oz of red lentils came to just over 2 pints and was given a preliminary boiling that same day. We had toyed with the idea of chicken soup with noodles, but when it came to it, lentils won out.

Cooking completed a couple of days later. A little too much to my mind, leaving the lentils with a sort of sandy texture, a bit like a coarse semolina. But perfectly eatable all the same.

The potatoes had been added to the lentils half an hour before the off, while the onions were cooked in a little butter on the side and only added to the mix at the last minute - which meant they still had an agreeable bite to them.

Seconds, with plenty of onion visible. Enough left of the soup for it, with a whack of water added, to serve for half a meal the next day. Warmed up for the purpose in the microwave - in which I find it easier to reheat such stuff without it catching.

PS: a melonic aside. A couple of weeks ago I bought a water  melon from the convenience store in Waterloo Road, maybe 10-12lbs of it, getting on for twice as long as it was broad, not spherical in the way of the miniatures sold by the supermarkets. Brought home in the Karrimor rather than on foot. We put cling film on the cut side and for its last few days - it lasted well under a week - it lived in the refrigerator. It did very well, going the distance. My only comment was best to cut it with stainless steel as the blue steel of our big kitchen knife - visible on the chicken dish above - seemed to taint the flesh slightly.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/trolley-708.html.

Reference 2: https://anitalianinmykitchen.com/pinsa-pizza/.

Reference 3: https://housewares.kaiusa.com/.

Reference 4: https://kai-europe.com/en/?v=79cba1185463.

Reference 5: https://www.karrimor.com/. No carrier bags for cycles that I can see here - but then mine might be fifty years old. Not perfect, but they have served well enough and are still fitted to the Trek.

The new face of Epsom?

For years we have had Failin' Grayling, but he is standing down this time around and we have a new candidate for the blues, one Mhairi Fraser. She is some kind of lawyer and has some local roots.

Her official site at reference 1 is fairly bland, apart from an entirely worthy pledge to do what she can about the provision of mental health services across the country - worthy indeed, but a pledge which appears to overlook who has been in charge of that provision for so many years. And apart from a pledge to double the number of trains serving Worcester Park, Stoneleigh and Ewell West. What?

However, the Express, who ought to know about this sort of thing, brings on a bit more colour at reference 2. I read that Fraser was a speaker at a February Truss event where she told the enthusiastic audience that Sunak's extension of the smoking ban was just another bit of nanny state - while reserving her especial ire for the Covid lockdowns, a very big bit of nanny state.

Plus, in the past she has described Donald Trump as incredibly refreshing, neither sexist nor racist, certainly not a felon (and she should know as a lawyer), even travelling to the US to see him win the Presidency in 2016. She had never been so excited about a politician. Furthermore, she is more bothered about Islamic terrorism than Russia. Perhaps some of her best friends are not Ukrainians or Poles or Estonians.

Maybe the Liberal Democrat - another busy lady - will see her off. Will I swallow my red pride and indulge in a bit of tactical voting?

References

Reference 1: https://www.mhairifraser.uk/.

Reference 2: https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1863819/Who-is-mhairi-fraser-tory-candidate-epsom. Mhairi Fraser: Rising star with key role at Liz Truss’s 'Popular Conservatives' launch: While well-known MPs spoke at the launch of Liz Truss's Popular Conservatism event, there was one unknown rising star among the line-up: Mhairi Fraser - Christian Calgie, Express - Febuary 2024.

Reference 3: https://hopenothate.org.uk/2024/05/29/the-tory-trumpista-of-epsom-ewell/. A more lefty take on it all.

Not a good place to be

I read this morning at reference 1 that Kenya has got itself to a bad place. A country of some 50m people, so not that much smaller than us, probably a young country. But a country where servicing the national debt is soaking up more than a third of government revenues and the current government wants to get this down a bit by raising taxes.

There has been much debate about this, but the necessary bill got through Parliament and is just waiting on presidential assent - assent which is not quite the rubber-stamp business it is in this country. We now have rioting in the streets to help him make up his mind, rioting which has drawn down a vigorous response, some deaths and a lot of injuries.

Some of this may be young rioters not wanting to pay for the profligate ways of their elders which got the country into the pickle it is now in. Certainly, a lot of them are unemployed which does not help: too many young men with not enough to do and not enough money in their pockets.

My first thought was that the rich west should just forgive the debt, which might involve governments (or the IMF or whatever) paying off non-government holders of debt. But second thought that was, while there might end up being an element of this, there has to be a process of negotiation. We can't make it too easy or all the other countries with a lot of debt will want the same. They have to wean themselves living off debt, and we in the west have to wean ourselves off lending them more than is proper or prudent.

Either way, a reminder of where one can get to if one lives on credit - as we do here in the UK. I also remember when Macron got rioted at for trying to raise the price of fuel. He was only trying to save the planet - at least that is the part of the story which I remember.

PS 1: the snap above is a more or less random offering from central Nairobi from Street View: what looks like some kind of outdoor market. There is a cathedral near by, but I failed to get close to it.

PS 2: the Edwin Sifuna website of the billboard does not seem to be working this morning, despite Bing knowing all about it. In the meantime, there are references 3 and 4. The latter badly infested with advertisements, quite a lot them for ladies swimwear.

References

Reference 1: Kenya’s Ruto warns of ‘attack on democracy’ after protesters storm parliament: President addresses nation after five killed and dozens injured when police opened fire on anti-tax demonstrators - Andres Schipani, Financial Times - 2024.

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

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Sifuna.

Reference 4: https://citizen.digital/opinion-blogs/edwin-sifuna-inside-the-witty-mastery-mystery-methodology-and-magnificence-of-a-super-senator-n335985. '... Even in fiery times, in times of insurmountable challenges and scarlet-hot politicking, Sifuna still came off as a cool deliberator, a fluent communicator and a lawyer with a hunger for constitutional expertise and little interest in abstraction...'.

Koza

A Turkish flavoured restaurant called the Koza Bar Kitchen has taken up residence in the building which once used to house the Magpie, a house which once did a good trade with single men in their thirties on the lager or on the pull. A restaurant which, as noticed at reference 1, I had decided was the destination for our celebration of trolley No.700.

Sadly, our only toyshop in Epsom failed to offer a toy trolley to grace the occasion, to complement that offered by Waitrose, some years ago now.

According to their website at reference 2, there has been a public house on the site since at least the mid-eighteenth century, mostly the Magpie, sometimes Symons Well. Most recently I think the Acorn, intended for the very young, during which time a large old oak tree growing between the house and a sub-station blew over. The space so made no doubt went to beer garden and/or smoking den.

Sadly, the Ordnance Survey does not mark public houses in towns, so my visit to the Scottish National Libraries left me little the wiser - the little being that the road that I know as West Hill was once called Clay Hill, a name now confined to the green space at the top.

We thought a successful conversion. They had made an attractive restaurant out of the ground floor, without disturbing the structure in a serious way. I think the bar was still where it always used to be.

We also thought it proper to take a Turkish wine, the only one on the menu. A little odd, as I believe quite a lot of wine is grown in Turkey, a grown up Muslim country as far as that goes. The waiter seemed quite pleased that we had taken it, interested even when I explained that we had first bought Turkish wine in Green Lanes, in Harringay, half a century previously.

I failed to track down the maker, but there is plenty of stuff about it out there, of which the snap above is a sample, from Turton Wines. We liked the wine well enough, in any event.

Humus for me to start, whitebait for her. Humus rather good, a bit blander than some places do it, which I liked. Whitebait apparently fine, although I thought its neat factory packaging into small brown cigars, pointed at both ends, took away from the experience. Memo to Bidfood.

Followed for me with a sort of lamb stew, with rice as I forgot to ask for the Bulgar wheat which I rather like. But all rather good, and I took a second portion of the rice. Irritating how I have never managed to learn how restaurants do their rice.

Sea bass for her, which was fine.

The dessert menu was very much the same as you might get anywhere else on the High Street, with the addition of Baklava, which I quite like, but I was too full for after bread and double rice. So brandy for him and Earl Grey for her.

All very satisfactory. Good ambience, with enough people there to give it a bit of life. Some of which reminded me that being attractive was not only a function of bodily & facial appearance. There was more to it. Or as Agatha C sometimes points out, some people just seem to have SA and some just don't. But there doesn't to be all that much rhyme or reason about it.

Same place for No.800? By which time we might have pulled the second toy trolley?

PS 1: curiously, Street View has blocked off this bit of South Street, as if it were one-way in both directions, with panning around in Street View generally constrained to respect one-way and no-entry signs. Now it is true that it was a one way street until fairly recently, but the bits of street you can see have the current markings. So who knows what is going on. In the meantime, no snap of the current exterior.

PS 2: search has so far failed to find notice of the toy trolley from Waitrose, although I can lay my hand on the trolley itself. Must try harder.

PS 3: much later: I get there in the end. Recognition by Waitrose of my work came in 2017, as noticed at reference 3. It also occurs to me that I could always recognise myself with a visit to Etsy. Or perhaps persuade BH to buy me one on the occasion of trolley No.800? With something rather grander for No.1000?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/trolleys-709-and-710.html.

Reference 2: https://kozabarkitchen.uk/.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/08/recognition.html.

Trolley 715

Various errands in town this morning, the heaviest of them being dropping off most of the books recovered from a litter bin at reference 2 off at the local Oxfam shop where they do a good trade in secondhand books. It already being hot at 11:00 or so, I was glad to pass them on.

Back to check out the Kokoro passage, where there were two B&M trolleys (chained together) plus a basket. Not having the release coin, I strolled back to B&M with the basket, by which time I thought the answer was to buy a bottle of water from the convenience store hard by what is now the Post Office, having forgotten to bring one with me. Bag to put it in, but no bottle. Armed with change, back to the market square to pick up some more cherries from M&S, this time sweethearts rather than the rabbits of yesterday - but the product of the same research station in British Columbia. Perhaps they are UN lead on dessert cherries. See reference 3.

A little trouble checking the cherries out of the food hall as I got into a muddle about on which side to put the stuff you had scanned. The chap of middle years next to me got a bit unpleasant when I failed to understand that he was trying to put me right, but a comfortable M&S lady of middle years came over and dealt with him, returning to deal with me. I dare say she has lots of bother with older customers who can't do the technology. In mitigation, I argued that in Waitrose it was all the other way around, but I am not so sure now. She, a sensible lady, just agreed with me.

Strolled back to the Kokoro Passage with my cherries, where I was able to liberate the trolleys and return them to B&M. And I got my investment back. Noting in passing that the dent in the front of the left hand trolley in the snap above appeared to match the column against which it was resting.

Decided that it was too hot, even for a Screwfix circuit, so settled for Court Recreation Ground, passing an older gent. in a smart bowler hat, shorts and braces on the way. He knew all about the days when bowler hats were almost uniform for the general foremen and clerks of works on building sites in London. Cheese-cutters for the tradesmen. Knotted handkerchiefs for the rest. Odd how the other bastion of the bowler was the city gent.

Part of Court Recreation Ground, quiet and peaceful in the hot, late morning sun. You would not think from this snap that you have the Surrey helicopter circling overhead at night on a regular basis. Quite a pain for us as the circuit seems to include flying right over our bedroom.

A walnut coming on on the small tree on the edge of the vets' car park.

PS: cherries doing very well. Maybe 200 of the 650g left. No duds so far. The final score with yesterday's cherries was one dud.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/trolley-714.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/grilled-chop-ends.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetheart_cherry.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Trolley 714

Trolley 714, from the M&S food hall, was captured outside Epsom Station yesterday morning.

I took the opportunity to check the cherries in the food hall, ending up taking 650g for a fiver or so. The label says variety rabbits from Spain. Plus a Guardian, despite it mainly being twaddle about the election. Standard of electoral debate: poor. It this in itself a plot of the media, dominated as they are by those of the right, those who do not want proper debate, which might disturb the status-quo?

Carried the cherries around the Screwfix circuit, to find them rather better than expected, with no duds. At the time of writing, just a dozen or so of them left.

PS 1: checking this morning, the cherry is not rabbits at all. Rather a rather recent invention, named for the Latvian who did the ground work before the Canadians brought it too market. See references 2 and 3.

PS 2: the Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre of Summerland, British Columbia appears to be an agricultural research institute without a website. Almost non-existent. There is also something odd about the way that the web address at reference 3 works. Not what I wanted at all.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/trolley-713.html.

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

Reference 3: https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2016/aac-aafc/A52-81-1-2014-eng.pdf.

Group search key: trolleysk.