Function rich

More than forty years ago Microsoft invented the work processing product called Word. A successful package which has grown and grown over the years, with clever software engineers forever thinking of whizzy new features to add into the product. Which one might think a good thing, but one catch is that there is now a huge heritage of Word documents built using features introduced over the whole span of the product's life. Taking anything out is difficult because it is apt to stop those documents working, which is definitely a bad thing from the point of view of their owners and users. So the product is now huge, with far too many features for the average punter. From time to time, people think of building a cut down product which is a bit more average-user friendly, but somehow it never seems to catch on.

A similar disease afflicted microwave cookers, which got computing and kept on adding function after function. And buttons and knobs. Older users in particular found this tiresome and here there did seem to be room for a cut down product and the one that we use has just two knobs. One for power or temperature and one for the timer in minutes. The art student who designed it made a bit of a meal of it from the point of view of appearance, which he probably thought was pleasingly retro, but it is easy to use. He didn't mess that up. I suppose the difference is that tooling up to make a microwave is not hugely expensive: one does not have to sell that many for the numbers to add up.

Then yesterday, we had occasion to rent a car, a three year old VW T-ROC. Not as much luggage space as our own Ford C-Max, in dock with a leaking radiator, but comfortable, quiet and easy enough to drive. Except that the dashboard is awash with lights, dials, buttons and knobs. Very noisy visually - and I dare say that if you are not careful it will start talking to you or playing you music (of a sort). You are not expected to put your handbrake on in the ordinary way or to turn the lights on and off in the ordinary way. But the screen does tell you when you are in what it thinks is the wrong gear - easy enough when you have six of them. Automation rules!

One might have thought that there would be a market for a car without all this stuff, one that you  can just get in and drive without having to think about it or stop the car and get out the manual. Or ask YouTube on your telephone. Maybe when the dashboard becomes completely virtual, just a touch sensitive computer screen, they will include an oldie option and you will be able to go back to the car of your younger days at the flick of a switch. Or perhaps the tapping of an icon.

PS: what is old speak, is that if you want the Satnav to work, which I don't particularly, you have to feed it your plastic. That bit has not changed.

Sumac revisited

I visited the tree noticed at reference 1 again yesterday. Noting also that as well as the small, primary tree, there are a large number of vigorous suckers in the rough ground in front of the old telephone exchange.

This time noticing what look like a few remnants of flowers. And this time Google Images has changed its mind. Not a unanimous vote, but top of the heap is now the Chinese sumac (Ailanthus altissima) of reference 2 from a different family from the staghorn sumac.

I found the accompanying drawing convincing. As was the talk of it being considered a seriously invasive pest. Form of the flower remnants noticed last time, absence of fur on the stems and red flowers from the tree explained. All we need now is some seeds.

It was also the occasion for what might be the last picking of blackberries of the season, outside the Screwfix shed. Small but tasty.

While underneath was a spreading, flowering shrub of some sort, the small pink flowers of which were attracting a lot of bees. Google Images suggests Symphoricarpos x chenaultii Rehder and the short Wikipedia entry says that Symphoricarpos × chenaultii, the Chenault coralberry, is a nothospecies (hybrid) group of shrubs in the honeysuckle family. It was grown in France in 1912 as a hybrid S. microphyllus × S. orbiculatus. Which all looks very plausible. And which will have to do for now.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/plants.html.

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

Up to the downs

Via London Bridge that is to say. With the rollator snapped above in its first class accommodation. not that anyone seems to care or check any more. Minor irritation in the form of a middle aged lady who did not seem to draw breath: only minor though, despite her head being less than a metre from mine. She must have been softly spoken; a good thing in a lady according to the Bard, although, annoyingly, I cannot put my hand on the bit where he says so. Probably some elderly lord boasting of the amours of his youth; but not Gloucester in Lear as I had at first thought.

I got myself nicely ensconced at the top of a blocked off escalator, only to find that I was meeting the wrong train. There had been some disturbance to the schedules - but recovery was at hand in the nearby branch of Olle & Steen where I took coffee and bun, or perhaps orange juice and bun. Plenty of tourists milling about this Saturday morning to provide entertainment.

Picked up at Epsom Station and carried off to the Rubbing House up on the Downs. A fine day, so we took a few moments out on the downs before diving into the Rubbing House. Plenty of people outside under the umbrellas, but we opted for inside: cool, quiet and out of the sun, while we had a good view of all the goings on. 

With our presence up there having been clinched by their offering a decent menu for veggies: other establishments in the area which I looked at tolerated veggies rather than catered for them.

With the harissa of the first row being another culinary fad which has passed us by. We came across it for the first occasion just the other day as a flavouring for the otherwise rather bland butternut squash soup, subsequently finding that our supermarkets sold a whole range of the stuff. We are now owners of a small bottle from Waitrose. While from reference 5, I learn that it is a world heritage fad from Tunisia.

First off, the wine, without cooler, naturally. A 2023 'Sea Pearl' Picpoul de Pinet from the house of Ormarine of reference 2. An appellation which has been making steady progress into pub grub menus. Oddly, not to be found (by me anyway) at reference 2, so perhaps it is especially bottled for export to MWW of Watford, quite possibly a moniker of the Majestic Wine Warehouse. Certainly shares their postcode in Watford. Perhaps they service public houses as well as the public. The wine tasted OK, which was the main thing.

Followed up with flat bread and dips. Rather to my surprise, the standard at this house being generally good, the flat bread was not very good at all. Neither fresh nor properly warmed up. So as far as bread goes, they do things much better down at the Cappadocia in town, where they make their own.

I went for a crustacean linguine, which, not having read the menu very carefully, surprised me when it turned up red. The waitress suggested a spot of cheese. I was not sure about this and asked for it on the side, but she turned out to be quite right, with the cheese making a useful addition to the mix. Much more filling than it looks. I think the ladies took veggie and fish, all very satisfactory.

A bit full for dessert, so I probably settled for a Jameson.

Bentwood chairs. Solid, decent and comfortable and - to my mind - very 1950s, 1960s. And none the worse for that.

A bit of flash in the car park. According to carcheck, a Vauxhall VX220 Turbo with a top speed of around 150mph. Didn't know that Vauxhall made this sort of thing. But not sure that I see much fun in tearing around a race track, the only place where one could put it through its paces legally. I associate to the motorcyclist in the Organ Inn of old once telling me that doing 100mph on the A3 was quite scary, it seeming that everyone else was heading straight for you - but backwards - at 30 or 40mph.

Hopefully for Vauxhall things have moved on a bit since 2007 when we had: '... The Vauxhall VX220 may well be remembered as the greatest car that nobody bought. That might be something of an exaggeration, but after a year's manufacture, Vauxhall had managed to shift a mere 458 units, many of these dealer demonstrators and press vehicles. Although the public was aware that the VX220 was ostensibly a Lotus Elise with a nicer engine, it still ignored the roadster - due in no small part to that Griffin badge worn on its beaky nose. After all, what would you rather own, a Lotus or a Vauxhall. For those who are immune to such badge snobbery, a used VX220 is a cut price way to get your high performance jollies...'.

All followed by another short excursion onto the downs, where there were birds but no skylarks.

Onto the viewpoint by the golf course, where one has a fine view of the flight path down into Heathrow but, oddly, not an aeroplane to be seen in the quarter an hour or so that we were there. Maybe they have a spot of down time on Saturday afternoons.

Had I bothered to look to my right, I would have seen the viewpoint, which probably came with compass directions. Satellite view suggests that it faces roughly NNW. While Heathrow is somewhere around NW.

As it is, I can make out the arch at Wembley on the left hand horizon, roughly half way between the edge of the snap and the two black towers, framing the little white rectangle. Roughly north from Epsom.

But without any overlap, that does not help with this one, round to the right a bit, and I can't parse the twin cities at all, although one might think City and Canary Wharf. Must be better prepared next time and take both monocular and compass. Maybe even a map, rather than scrambling about on my telephone.

Later that day, we wandered down to the Marquis to see the young people at play, taking in this fine display of blackberries on the way, somewhere on Meadway.

Always a puzzle to me that people sitting in a million quid's worth or so of house can't be bothered to cut the brambles out of the ornamental bushes growing in the verge outside. I dare say most of them employ gardeners and you might think they would ask them to do the necessary from time to time, rather than waiting for the hard-pressed council to get around to it.

And the heritage wall still awaits the attentions of a builder. Or permission from the planners to knock it all down and build some much needed housing.

PS 1: and while we are on builders, the Google ad server has cottoned onto my recent interest in drains, with the advertisement above appearing in my email today. Unfortunately, reference 4 suggests that both sizes and patterns are wrong.

PS 2: having crashed around a bit, I was reduced to asking Gemini about softly spoken women with the prompt: 'Somewhere in Shakespeare, probably in one of the history plays, a lord talks of a wife or mistress who always spoke softly, a quality the lord valued. Have you any idea where there might be'. His first effort was a speech from Henry VIII, which I was fairly sure was wrong. His second was from a speech by Lear, after the death of Cordelia, which I am pretty sure is where my memory was grounded, if conflated with other stuff, possibly Gloucester, aforementioned. Gemini gets the right answer and I am able to check it! I also remember about the good biting falchion which follows.

References

Reference 1: https://www.rubbinghouse.com/. Possibly one of that rare breed these days, an independent. Maybe just until the present proprietor retires from the fray.

Reference 2: https://www.cave-ormarine.com/en/wines/picpoul-de-pinet.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/12/cappadocia.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/drains.html.

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

Church one

Richard Church (1893-1972) was a literary gent from slightly before my parents’ time, but one whose life and times they would have recognised from their own backgrounds. I dare say they knew of him. I came across him by chance, as related at reference 1.

The back of the present book, reference 2, from towards the end of his career, lists 16 books of poetry, 12 of fiction and 12 of non-fiction. Including, it seems, a fictional trilogy based on his time in the Civil Service, which I might well find interesting.

He, by his own account, came from a lower middle class background and spent the first two thirds of his childhood in Battersea, probably in one of the streets still there, bounded by Surrey Lane to the north and the railway to the south.

Poking around these old maps, I was also struck by the large amount of land taken up by the railway, with this area seeming to run to lots of engineering shops, goods yards, marshalling yards and coal depots, in addition to the tracks proper.

His first school may well be that snapped above from Street View, then in Surrey Lane South, now called Bridge Lane. The yellow plaque at the end probably carries the logo of the London School Board – BH remembers something similar from the school she once taught at in Kentish Town. Some of the houses around look very much older.

A very mixed area, rough enough to include gangs of children roaming the streets at odd hours looking for trouble, but also including the poor relatives of a surprisingly large number of famous people, including, for example, the brother of the historian Froude. Which just about fits, but he must have been very old. I may even have once owned a book by the historian.

His father was content to be a sorter at the Post Office, but had, in effect, a second life which revolved around bicycles and the open road. One of his ideas of fun, much indulged, was family outings on a pair of tandems; one for the parents and the other for the boys. His mother was a teacher, seemingly a good one, at a board school next to what used to be the Battersea Polytechnic in Battersea Park Road. There was, as was common in those days, a lot of music in the family, and his brother was a talented pianist. Less common, the family ran to two pianos, the father not liking one and the brother not liking the other.

He was a short-sighted child, with this being corrected by spectacles at the turn of the century when he was seven. He was also subject to mysterious and serious stomach pains which took him out of school a good deal, and to a convalescent home in Broadstairs for a few months. It seems that these pains – reliably triggered, inter alia, by a north wind – continued into adult life, although there was never a satisfactory explanation, either medical or psychiatric. His father had no interest in things of the mind, but he formed a very close – and reciprocal – relationship with his mother. Which extended to intimate care during her last illness. She suffered from asthma, exacerbated by overwork and the fogs of low-lying Battersea.

As soon as his eyes were fixed, he lived very much in a world of books. A small number of more or less mystic experiences, including discovering Jesus, with whom he appears to have had another close relationship. The second such in as many weeks, with the first being noticed at reference 14. He also learned to fly, another virtual ability which he maintained for some years.

A sharp observer of life, with one such (from page 120) being about the strange mix of adversarial, aggressive and cooperative play in the (single sex) playground. From where I associate to the closing of ranks in the presence of children from another school. Or sailors from another ship with the temerity to come into your bar.

And then there was the water melon (from page 176), something that a post office sorter could afford in 1904. Taken for consumption as the men of the family cycled down to Hampshire. With father making a hat out of his share of the rind to keep off the sun, tied on with a handkerchief. Not something brought to us by the Cypriots more than fifty years later. The catch being that the helmet is described as being golden, which is not water melon, at least not from the outside.

Various remarks along the way about the interfering ways of the state and its bureaucracy, which suggested to me that he became solidly conservative as an adult, living in the Kent countryside and hobnobbing with what was left of the gentry. Socialism, I imagine, was even worse. 

In 1905, they somehow raised the funds to move from Battersea to Herne Hill, to a much bigger house, a house which is still there and which I ran down to the snap above, complete with blue plaque.

A house rather grander than our own, running to five bedrooms and a cellar, sold in 2013 for £1.3m. So this modest couple could then afford such a house, which would be well beyond their means now. Rather, I suppose, as FIL once owned a house in East Sheen which he could never have aspired to on his nurse tutor’s salary now. Not unless his wife inherited half of it, as was in fact the case.

 Some evidence of the once grand interior still visible in the estate agent’s snap above.

The area, at the time, was still being developed and there was still a fair bit of open space. I think the house in question is the grey square, on the slant, immediately above the orange spot. While what he knew as Ruskin’s Walk, then about to be developed, was, at the time this map was prepared, known as Simpson’s Valley. Lined with aspen trees of which he and his mother were fond, chopped down by the council as she lay dying.

It was also the line of something called the Union & Parliamentary boundary, which puzzled me until I got the right search key and landed at reference 11, from which I learned that the Unions in question were the Poor Law Unions, then the organ of local government responsible for the needy. These unions were abolished in 1929 or so and their functions taken on by local government. 

One of the author’s mystical experiences was reading the Keat’s poem of 1817 or so, part of which is reproduced above from Project Gutenburg. Not much of a poetry man myself, and reading it the other day for the first time did not result in much experience, mystical or otherwise.

The book ends in something of a muddle. The author has put in some good years at a school in Dulwich. Then, rather against his will, he has joined the Civil service, following his father, rather than going to Camberwell Art College. His father is to remarry. He sets up in rooms with his brother, then at Goldsmith’s and set to be a teacher – with a wife. Rooms which contain no less than two pianos, one a concert grand. Luckily, they have indulgent landlords – the couple below. I await the second volume, reference 3, with interest.

In the meantime, a little digging around, turning up references 5 thru 11 – from which I have not learned how he avoided service in the first war. Eyes, stomach or reserved occupation? But I have learned that one’s end as a minor celebrity might be a stout brown box of papers in the library of a university somewhere in the middle of the United States.

PS 1: did his father work at or out of this building, 220 Wandsworth Road, which I used to pass regularly in the days when I used to walk or cycle from Clapham Junction, up Lavender Hill and along Wandsworth Road to Vauxhall? Possibly not as his beat was the bit of Chelsea opposite Battersea Park. Turned up on this occasion both at reference 13 and on Street View. I was always intrigued by the name of the building, then and now, seemingly, something called a delivery office.

 PS 2: at one point, the author visits the Shakespeare Theatre, then right next to Battersea Town Hall, getting there via Pig Hill, which last appears to have vanished under the Shaftesbury Estate, although the steep run up to Lavender Hill can be clearly seen from the railway line to Waterloo. I was interested to find that while there were no public houses shown in the residential streets to the north of Lavender Hill, the Hill itself was lined with them, with one to be found every other block or so. Running lower left to upper right. With Lavender Sweep, where I sometimes park Bullingdons, to be found off snap to the left.

PS 3: maps, as ever, from the fine collection at the Scottish National Library.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/raynes-park-on-sea.html.   

Reference 2: Over the bridge – Richard Church – 1955.

Reference 3: The golden sovereign – Richard Church – 1957.

Reference 4: The voyage home – Richard Church – 1964.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Church_(poet).

Reference 6: https://www.goudhurstlocalhistorysociety.org/richard-church-cbe-1893-1972-author-and-poet/. 

Reference 7: https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/vita-sackville-west-and-richard-church-neighbours-gardeners-and-poets/. 

Reference 8: https://winstongraham.yolasite.com/resources/Church.pdf. 

Reference 9: https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/999774408902121. Born at about the same time as Aldous Huxley – who came, however, from a rather different background. But connected, at least to this extent

Reference 10: https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=00882. 

Reference 11: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ordnance-survey/#6-parish-county-and-other-public-boundaries. 

Reference 12: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_law_union. 

Reference 13: https://britishpostofficearchitects.weebly.com/south-lambeth1.html. 

Reference 14: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/crossroads.html. 

Plants

At reference 1, I noticed some staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) in East Street, wondering vaguely about what happened to the flowers and the subsequent stags' horns. Returned to the fray a day or so later to notice what I took to be the relics of flowers past, orange spotted at their bases in the snap above.

With that above being taken from reference 2, according to which 'Flowers occur from May through July and fruit ripens from June through September in this species' native range', which does not accord with what we have in East Street. Maybe the relics are from last year? In which case, where are this year's flowers? Maybe I have got it all wrong.

Earlier in the year, I was noticing hedge mustard everywhere, for example at reference 3. I thought the dried up plant snapped above might have been one of its relics. Subsequently noticing it all over the place. More bean-like seed pods.

Last up a very striking shoot off a blackberry growing by the side of what is now the Travis Perkins shed across the path from the gas depot. The telephone had some trouble focussing over the whole of its considerable length. Very striking both because of its length and for its straightness, straight as an arrow as they say, not really visible in the snap above.

A closer shot of the left hand end in the first snap. A fine example of alternating laterals off the primary - also very straight. One supposes that the angle is somehow genetically organised. With the leader disappearing underneath the air conditioning unit on the left.

I shall try to keep an eye on it.

PS: there is an extensive caption to the snap from Wikipedia, originally in Russian, originally from Moscow. I learn, inter alia, that '... In both French and German, the common name of the species (Sumac vinaigrier, Essigbaum) means 'vinegar tree'. The name 'sumac' comes from the fact that its acidic fruit were added to vinegar to intensify its acidity ... The fruits (drupes) of the genus Rhus are ground into a reddish-purple powder used as a spice in Middle Eastern cuisine to add a lemony taste to salads or meat....'. Where are the fruits?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/around-epsom.html.

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

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/nil-trolley.html.

Chops

Further to the stick beans of reference 1, some arboreal beans. Google Images is keen on the Indian bean tree of the southeastern United States, with its specimen being from the Wrocław University Botanical Garden, Wrocław, Poland. The city formerly known as Breslau. But are we sure it is not some other catalpa? See references 2 and 3.

They are supposed to have showy flowers, but I do not remember that, despite passing this tree quite often, being in Victoria Place, just off East Street.

Not much else to report, other than reporting to the kitchen at 12:45 to attend to the lamb chops, bought on the same occasion as the fake beans. Would sir like his chops with or without goo? Yellow goo, brown goo or red goo? I settled for without goo. There is clearly a strong market for goo, possibly something to do with barbecues.

The chops looked as if they had been frozen at some point, and were possibly cut frozen, although I am pleased to say there were few if any splinters. And they had been trimmed more than I like. But it was what the Manor Green Road butcher had.

Looked a lot better once I started grilling them.

And they looked well enough on the plate. BH's custom of peeling the carrots, rather than just cutting out the dodgy bits, clearly visible. As is the trusty pill pot, upper right. 80mg of furosemide, as used, so Bing tells me, in the treatment and management of heart failure in cats and dogs. The pot being recycled from its childhood function as a table pot for mustard. It once had a special spoon, a small flat affair, but that has vanished from my sight. Maybe BH knows where it is to be found.

Taken with a spot of white from Majestic. When will we next see the inside of one of their sheds?

All in all, given that we do not chop it very often, a pleasant change.

PS 1: it turns out that I have noticed the showy flowers before, but not on this specimen. Rather one on the Jubilee Way run, back in 2021. See reference 4.

PS 2: I also record the astounding price-performance of today's data sticks, today buying one branded Kingston from a store in the Ashley Centre, containing 64Gb for £20. On USB 3, which means that I can shift 5Gb off my laptop in less than 15 minutes. A product made in Taiwan from a company founded in 1987 in California of which I had not heard of before. But I do remember one of the hardware nerds at the Treasury banging on about what a big deal USB was, back in the 1990s when it was first invented. I did not pay much attention at the time, being soft nerd rather than a hard nerd.

PS 3: the Poles seem to be quite into botany. I have come across a number of them in the past few weeks - more or less to the exclusion of other foreigners.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/fake-181.html.

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

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

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/07/indian-bean-tree.html.

Reference 5: https://www.kingston.com/.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0.

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

Munich on Thames

A couple of weeks ago to Victoria to see what is left of the street between Victoria and Westminster that I once used to walk twice a day - until I discovered that Waterloo was slightly nearer GOGGS than Victoria. Plus I rather liked the stonework detailing of County Hall; an agreeable visual adjunct to one's morning stroll into the office.

The refurbished Wetherspoon's at Victoria looked to have the same open work plastic chairs as I have glimpsed behind the hoardings at the Epsom branch. The sort of chairs that they have been using outside at the Regent Street All-Bar-One for a year or so now, so perhaps Wetherspoon's are into buying odd lots of furniture in the same way as they were said, back in their beginnings, to buying odd lots of beer going cheap. Thus enabling them to hold to a pound a pint (at Tooting anyway) for at least one of their warm beers, for a good many years.

And talking of All Bar One, there was a flashy looking branch in Victoria Street, on the side opposite the Cathedral, and I almost fell for one of their paellas, which would have made just the sort of lighter lunch that I was looking for.

The branch of Coco di Mama looked rather flashier than the one at Southwark Street noticed at reference 2 too.

And yet another large slab of Victoria Steet had been taken out. And what had been the flashy offices of Department of Trade & Industry - the place where one Mr. Heseltine liked to style himself the President (of the Board of Trade), with grand office and outer offices to match - looked as if it was in the throes of a major refurbishment. Not the first, I dare say - this after something more than half a century of existence. A period during which a suburban house might expect to go through several such. Maybe three or four kitchens?

Then round the corner and down the stairs - with rollator - to the spacious but near empty Munich Cricket Club of reference 1.

Opened proceedings with a carafe of Weissburgunder - which I had confused with Spätbegunder, which I used to buy occasionally from the off-license in Bridge Road, opposite Hampton Court Palace. Once a wine shop, now more of a wine bar. Name of Vineking. Maybe I will remember next time that 'Weiss' is foreign for white. Tasted fine.

Opted for a lightly smoked sausage, Bockwurst, which came with a dab of potato salad and another of sauerkraut. presentation good, sausage good, the whole only let down by the potato salad which was made with mayonnaise rather than the salad cream which I much prefer. While BH told me later that Finns make their potato salad with all kinds of strange stuff.

Much deep thought, then opted for a second, just asking them to hold the potato salad. Which they managed to do, while swapping in some extra sauerkraut, which was fine as I like the stuff. No problem with the modest amount of brown goo.

Full enough after my light lunch, I fell to thinking about whether barrel hoops - presumably steel - started life in cylindrical form or whether they had been cunningly cut on the bias, as it were, so that they fitted nice and snug, without strain, onto a barrel which was not cylindrical at all. I try asking Gemini this evening, and he says that the hoops start out their life cylindrical and are driven home hot, which gives them the flexibility needed to adjust to the shape of the barrel. When probed, he descends into unconvincing waffle. But he may be right for all that. Not sure who I might ask next: YouTube video of barrel making for beginners?

Diverted from barrels by the waitress, possibly German, who knew her business. Cheerful and chatty without overdoing it. Not in uniform - while her colleague, who was English, had to go the whole lederhosen thing to make up. It was a good formula, so I hope they did more business in the evening than they appeared to be doing at lunchtime.

Out, and elected to return via Westminster Bridge and Waterloo. I thought Westminster Abbey was looking very well from the north, with the bays of the nave and the transept all looking very much the same. Were they all built in the one campaign? Wikipedia talks of Henry III's work being interrupted for a century and not being completed until the time of Henry V.

Pity that they are taking so long to dispense with the decorated hoarding at the bottom; it seems to have been there for years.

Round into Parliament Square where I was pleased to find that there was still room for the eccentric protester in our world of heavily tooled-up policemen.

Onto the bridge, where I noticed a very handsomely and expensively dressed lady, young and beautiful, somewhat Islamic. A few paces behind a much older man, with full white beard and rather more Islamic. I thought she looked very sad, but that might have been projection on my part.

A little further on, two groups working the find the lady stunt, played on the floor with little metal cups. I thought middle eastern. Organised to the extent of one of their number being a lady who appeared to be winning. Much noise and bustle. I bustled past.

Having my own chair worked well at Waterloo, as I could sit in comfortable range of the indicator board while I waited for my train, passing on the Raynes Park option on this occasion. I don't think it even occurred to me.

Home to a craving for lemon squash, which was odd as is it not something I drink from one year to the next. But I did get some good lemons from the market the next day, taking my squash without sugar on that first occasion. Two more lemons today, taken with sugar.

PS: the next morning, I followed up on the barrel hoop business. What could Gemini have said that would have satisfied me? A summary plus references to what looked like authoritative barrel making sources? Poking around for myself, Google fairly quickly turned up reference 5, which was an interesting general account. I then poked hooperage more specifically (rather than cooperage, maybe from coops for chickens, a possibility explicitly rejected by OED), and turn up lots of advertisement infested material, a lot of it on YouTube. It seems that making barrels is a big craft activity in the US. Now while I failed to find an answer to my specific question about making the iron blanks for hoops, it seems reasonably clear that Gemini was right. They are just flat strips, bent into a circle and closed with rivets or bolts. The wooden staves and the iron hoops accommodate to each other during the driving of the hoops - a business which may involve gentle firing of the barrel from the inside - but which does not seem to involve heating the hoops, in the way of the iron tyre of a wooden cart wheel. A business which may involve temporary hoops. Some perspective is given by the fact that during most of the 19th century, the hoops were made of wood rather than iron.

References

Reference 1: https://munichcricketclub.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/borough.html.

Reference 3: https://thevineking.com/.

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

Reference 5: The cask age: the technology and history of wooden barrels - Diana Twede - 2005. Michigan State University, School of Packaging, East Lansing, MI 48823-1224, USA. For which see below.

Reference 6: https://www.canr.msu.edu/packaging/. 

Around Epsom

The other day, I took my usual Screwfix circuit, with the first item of interest being the road maintenance work on the southern end of Manor Green Road, snapped above from the street plan offered by the Ordnance Survey. With Manor Green Road starting just above the pond and with my one-time allotments at the very top left, just below the fence around the school field.

The Google version is rather more detailed, but not so detailed that I can work out whether the fruit trees I left (about where the orange spot is) are still there, near twenty years later. Seems a but unlikely. The strong yellow path is on the school side, unnoticed by the Ordnance Survey, with the boundary hedge running just to the left of the white square.

Back with Manor Green Road, the water flows from the pond at the bottom, up towards Longmead Road, well off snap. But it also comes down West Hill Avenue, from right to left, tending make large puddles and to block the drains on the western side of its junction with Manor Green Road, the subject of some annoyance to pedestrian users of that stretch.

For some road maintenance reason, this maintenance consisted of attending to that part of the drives which ran across the pavement, past the grass verges and up to the road. Some kerbs were reset, but the balance of the pavements was left, giving the whole a rather striped appearance. While above, more or less opposite the junction with West Hill Avenue, maintenance stopped at the concrete strips, which I had never noticed before, running along parts of the verge side of the pavement.

I carried on over the hill and through town, to be brought up by this infestation of public art at the Hook Road exit to the path under the railway embankment running behind this stretch of the High Street. Executed with spray paint and running a good way back along the path, to the left in the snap above. Very ugly to my mind, and I don't suppose it will wear very well. Nothing like the verve of the invited panels of graffiti which once decorated the surfaces across the rails from the Epsom platform at Vauxhall - now faded to the point of oblivion. It was also the case that the invited graffiti was not as good as the best of the real thing.

What is it about the managers of public spaces that they feel the need for this sort of thing? That they fall for the blandishments of the long-hairs? The art college does bring in a lot of business to our many hospitality outlets, but is hardly likely to pack up and move just because they were not allowed to decorate the town.

Decorations which are not much of an advertisement for their wares to my mind.

A fine showing by the sumac suckers outside the old telephone exchange on East street. I was impressed by the amount of growth put on in just a few months. 

Google Images seems very clear that it is indeed staghorn sumac, although I have still to notice the autumnal horns. See references 2 and 3.

One flower from a fine showing on the way to the Screwfix passage. Google Images says common hibiscus, and there do seem to be plenty of varieties with this general appearance. I would not care to say which one; perhaps a serious gardener would be less coy.

Back at home, just the one flower on the water hawthorn, badly infested with duckweed and silkweed. I don't remember it being infested in the wild, when we first came across it at Newbridge on the Dart - but the snap from Street View at reference 3 suggests that it might have to take its turn too.

Google Image gets into a complete muddle when I give it the whole of the image above, focussing on the middle third of the flower, but gets it right when I crop it down. Aponogeton distachyos - or water hawthorn. Interestingly, several of the shots it offers are infested with duckweed, one badly.

Seen from a bit further off, after an attempt to clear away some of the duckweed and silkweed. Oddly, the telephone picks all kinds of details in the reflection of the oak tree above which were unnoticed by the naked eye. Flower more or less right in the middle.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/06/paused.html.

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

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/05/batch-no719.html.