Consistent

Back at the end of August, I asked Google Images about a shrub being grown down the side of the Screwfix shed in Blenheim Road, the side one passes coming out of the railway underpass, the one recently decorated with Epsom Downs flavoured spray-on art work.

This morning, I snapped it again, with the berries being a lot more prominent than they were two months ago, and I am pleased to be able to say that Google Images came up with the same answer, Symphoricarpos Chenaultii. Or at the very least, very nearly the same answer, as some of the sites it finds talk of snowberries rather than coralberries, which last name seem a better fit for the colour. Amazon offers both.

In their defence, I imagine that correctly identifying from a snap all the hybrids that nurseries come up with is quite difficult - not least because you are dependent on people labelling their snaps correctly. In this case, I dare say that snowberry was a clerical error at the snapper or nursery end: the images concerned were red rather than white.

But the proper business of this particular outing was buying two wings of skate. I had noticed skate when I last bought cod from the Lowestoft fish van who attends our market and thought I would give them a go next time around, not having had them for a while. This time I noticed a new to me flat fish called Brill and thought I would give them a go next time around.

Handed the wings over to BH for her attention. Poached in the fish kettle, probably in shifts, the cooked fish being kept warm in the oven. Dusted with parsley and served with something called black butter caper sauce, a confection which also involved vinegar. Knowing that I was a bit funny about vinegar, BH thought it best not to pour it onto the fish on the serving dish, although, in the event, I did take some.

On the plate, before the capers. Very good it was too, much better than the foreign skate noticed at reference 4. A chunk of fish was left over, which BH took cold with salad later on. I had a chunk of warmed-up, left-over potato pie instead.

PS 1: finding the spray-on art work is left as an exercise for the reader.

PS 2: following the post at reference 2, I am getting lots of  shaving kit advertisements from Microsoft Start, presumably triggered by the modest amount of Edge/Bing search activity involved.

PS 3: rather to my surprise, there was quite a lot of skate in the archive, and I dare say some of it is about skate boarding. But the first search hit I looked at was the fishy sort of skate, to be found at reference 3. Seventeen years ago. Didn't make anything like as much palaver about food then as I do now. The next two were indeed skate boards and the one after that was cheap skate. The spelling of which should have been cheapskate. A long entry for cheap in OED, seemingly a very old word, where I found cheapjack but not cheapskate. But it is to be found in both Longmans and Websters - without any indication of where it came from. Presumably a relatively new usage, but frustrating all the same.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/sumac-revisited.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/new-heads.html.

Reference 3: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2007/09/fishy-days.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/cheese.html.

Trolley 739

A lightly damaged, large trolley from Waitrose in a quiet corner of the market square. Slightly damaged and had probably been there for a day or two given the leaves. At least dry dead leaves are not unpleasant handling.

Home via the Screwfix tunnel to beat BH by a satisfactory margin at Scrabble, having been on a losing streak for the past few days. The tabletop dictionary noticed at reference 2 had not brought me luck. Or perhaps I was missing all the obscure words to be found in the outer reaches of OED, less likely to be known & used by BH. I ought to add that browsing during the game is strictly forbidden.

And then to sample the volcano'd loaf of Batch No.32. Which despite appearance, was rather good, with good texture and taste. But it remains true that the problems with second rises seem to have returned, despite the trick of putting the oven on a little earlier, so as to better avoid an overlong second rise. Just as well that BH likes the crispy bits.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/trolley-737-and-738.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/hammond.html.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Trolleys 737 and 738

A pair of medium sized trolleys from the M&S food hall captured yesterday afternoon in the Kokoro Passage. Scored as one.

A rare small trolley from somewhere in the M&S empire, with the food hall the other side of the market not making much use of them. But still in demand from older ladies. A stray from their Ashtead store? Captured in the Kokoro Passage again, just behind the Kokoro operation itself. Verging on private land. Slightly damaged.

Joined by a medium sized friend on its way across to the food hall. Easy enough to push the two of them, hanging on to the chain of the one in front. Actually captured outside the Puregym of reference 2, behind T.K.Maxx. Not for the first time, their publicity shots made me wonder about the business model. What if interest rates go up and the repayments on all their equipment go up with them?

While I think the boxes in the snap above were full of plastic trays for the noodle operation behind. Not a very big place to look at, so one wonders where they are all the boxes are going to go. It seems unlikely that there would be a cellar.

Two walks, so two points.

PS: as it happened, the jacket I was wearing at the time came from T.K.Maxx, bought on the occasion noticed at reference 3. As it turned out, a good jacket for the mixed weather of spring and autumn.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/trolley-736.html.

Reference 2: https://www.puregym.com/gyms/epsom/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/shopping.html.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Heroes of bricks

I reported a few weeks ago, at reference 1, of the probably termination of my habit of walking bricks, supported by a very modest collecting habit.

So I was interested to read in yesterday's Metro of a retired policeman, one Mark Cranston, who has collected around 4,000 bricks. I failed to turn him up this morning at the Metro website, but Bing and the Daily Mail could oblige between them, turning up a rather longer piece and the snap above. I have not read the piece all the way through, but I did not find any mention of walking the bricks or counting the bricks, this last in the way that a miser might count his gold sovereigns in a strong box kept under his bed. Or perhaps under a special floor board. For which see reference 2.

Very impressive - not least because the 4,000 bricks occupy a fair amount of shelving, by the looks of things, in some kind of shed. Plus the wall in the snap above.

PS: the Metro might not have been able to turn Cranston up, but it was able to turn up another collector, one Neil Brittlebank, in a piece dating from 2013. He then had a modest 1,000 or so bricks, but he does make collecting a serious business, travelling up and down the country in search of new bricks to add to his collection. I hope he keeps a proper catalogue of them, on a spreadsheet, to make sure that he has not got too many duplicates. And are there swapping fora for brick collectors?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/bricks-off.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/church-two.html.

Morley College

Time for cheese again - and time to get back onto a Bullingdon, after a break of more than three months - what with holidays, back and one thing and another. The idea being to leave the rollator and the Stockholm, but to take a stick instead, just in case. Plus a visit to the Morley College gallery in a converted public house near Waterloo Station. A visit prompted by a number of their magazine found in the margins of the expedition noticed at reference 5.

Pleased to find that the telephone version of the docking station map from TFL was working well, much better than I remembered. To the point where one did not need to download bits of it from the laptop - or even take the paper map. Although, liking paper maps, I dare say I will carry on with this one for a bit yet, tatty though it has become. I don't suppose they dish them out any more.

Nice neat job on the new cover for the gas board hole at the top of Clay Hill Green. Some kind of gas flavoured valve or something? And the lid is quite tricky underneath, although that does not come across in the snap above, even on zoom.

It had been a bit misty earlier and there was still a low cloud hanging onto the top of the Shard when I got to London Bridge a little before noon. Got my cheese and then off to the Hop Exchange to pick up a Bullingdon. It had been a toss up between a luggage strap and a pair of boot laces for attaching the stick to the Bullingdon and, in the event, the boot laces worked very well. Helped along by a handy fixing point at the back of the saddle.

Made it to the Morley gallery after a couple of wrong turns. And plenty of cyclists, mostly young men, appearing to pay no attention at all to the traffic lights - although I dare say there was an element of bravado about it and that some of them were actually looking out quite carefully. Not good enough, even so. For what it is worth, I try to make a point of being quite pedantic about stopping at lights.

A gallery which had been a pub indeed, but which had been nicely repurposed and which was bigger inside than I had expected. Adding in the large cellar helped. An opening sample of the wares is snapped above - £4,000 for a photo print on mounted paper, whatever that might mean. Is one getting one of a thousand prints? Walking round, I was quite struck by the high prices being asked. But then, I have no idea of what the going rate is in the art world.

I liked this wall hanging, better in real life than it is here, but I don't know that I would pay the £8,000 being asked, even if I was in that sort of spending league.

From the studio of Tobias Laurent Belsen, but not for sale. The inventor of samplism, for which see reference 2.

This one, from Armet Francis grew on me. Helped along by the thoughtful provision of seats in the cellar. But, once again, too strong for me at £4,000. 

Prices notwithstanding, an interesting place to have visited. I had seen no red spots and I did not think to ask whether they used them to mark sales.

Onto St. George's cathedral, handsomely rebuilt after war damage in 1958. BH is sure than we have visited in the past, but it must have been a while ago as it did not seem at all familiar to me.

A grand looking grand piano, but with a locked keyboard and I failed to find anyone to ask. So not scorable.

The handsome baptistery. 

And the stations of the cross. A sort of very cut price version of the Gill stations in Westminster Cathedral, the ones that got him out of serving in the First World War. Plus some higher grade joinery to the double doors.

There were some community facilities, but there did not seem to be a café, at least not one which was open, so pulled another Bullingdon and headed for Waterloo, where I remembered a café which did bacon sandwiches underneath Elizabeth House. 

Past what used to be the Bar Kitchen at the back of the Old Vic (reference 3), and for a short while a bar restaurant featuring provocatively dressed young waitresses (reference 4), being redeveloped as a venue to be called Backstage - which last does not seem to have made it to Bing-visibility yet.

Arrived to find that all the retail outlets underneath Elizabeth House boarded up, pending redevelopment, so over the road to the All Bar One there.

For, guess what, a paella. Which seemed slightly wetter than the Regent Street version, but I dare say they all come from the same central supplier drawing on the same central kitchen where entry-level chefs do it by numbers - rather like the curiously lifeless bunches of flowers they sell in supermarkets. At least there was more of the paella than might appear from the snap above; quite enough for a lunchtime snack, given that a proper meal was scheduled for later.

Quiet when I arrived at around 14:00, but it picked up. Pensioners and tourists, not all foreign. Plus quite a number of mums and babies. Clearly some sort of regular gathering.

Still not got a proper grip on these fascinating displays, to be found at Waterloo and elsewhere. But I did catch my train to Epsom.

References

Reference 1: https://www.morleycollege.ac.uk/.

Reference 2: https://smplsm.com/.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/03/r.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/a-pub-crawl.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/trios.html.

New heads

Some confusion yesterday over who kept the records for my shaver, eventually running them to ground in the evening. More recent ones in cardboard form, earlier ones in digital form, that is to say references 1 and 2. From which I work out that I bought my current razor 13 years ago and replaced the heads 7 years ago. While the cardboard records tell me that I replaced the heads again in 2020 and again in 2022. Furthermore, that what I need are multi-precision blades, series 5000/6000, SH50.

Records which were wanted because, despite BH cleaning the heads a few weeks ago, shaver performance is poor and I think new heads are in order. But, if memory serves, there are lots of different sorts of Phillips heads and I need to know which sort. Hence the need for records.

I ask Bing about shopping and get completely lost in a world of deals, discounts, series numbers and part numbers. As bad as telephones or cruises. I expect I shall just go to Boots again and collect the bonus points that BH has been waiting for.

References

Reference 1: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2011/09/argos.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/12/incompetence.html.

Trolley 736

Captured when I took a wrong turning behind Sainsbury's at Kiln Lane. A long time since I had been around the back. Odd place to leave a trolley: cul-de-sacs full of businesses and no residential at all - at least as far as I knew. Perhaps it was a left over from some Sainsbury's alcohol fuelled office party, remarks about same at the end of reference 2 notwithstanding.

Returned to the stacks by the front entrance to the store, with that area all being rather cluttered up by the refurbishment.

The day (Tuesday) had started with the disposal of the mushrooms gathered from a small patch on the back of the back lawn the day before. There were a lot of them, and I had only gathered a small fraction. No idea what prompted them, although there is a fair amount of dead wood in the young but tall ash tree just beyond.

In the field - that is to say on the lawn - I had thought three sorts: mostly pale brown, a few dark brown and a few white. Of which the dark browns seems to have got lost in the snap above. Still have two whites. I associate this morning to the 2021 vintage, noticed at references 3 and 4.

I had thought to dry them in the oven and see what happened - not to eat them - but in the end did not get around to it.

Then beyond the main entrance to Sainsbury's, a miscellaneous pile of flatpack shelving out in the weather. Shopfitters have to cope with the stuff too.

Then on the banks of the stream running down Longmead Road, some white dead nettles having a second go. Nothing like as prominent as they had been the day before.

And the telephone failed on the close-up test. Perhaps it thought I was more into leaves than flowers. Maybe I should have tapped the relevant part of the screen before snapping. But why are the colours quite different? Clearly quite unreliable.

And then, if you click to enlarge, short white hairs around the periphery of the flowers. Real hairs or imaging artefact? Are the flowers of dead nettles really hairy? Turning to Bentham & Hooker, I read that the flower of Lamium album does indeed have a ring of  hairs inside, but it says nothing about hairs on the outside. Evidence of a sort for artefact.

Out again in the afternoon, getting on for dusk now that the clocks have moved. A clump of bushes and small trees that was full of chirping and cheeping, presumably a flock of sparrows. They sometimes seem to exhibit this kind of flocking behaviour, with hundreds of them in the flocks. And while sparrows are quite rare in our garden, I have seen more sparrows this year than I have seen for a while. Perhaps it is a good year for them.

I associate to the first time we came across such a tree, in an unsavoury part of Wood Green, next to a yard containing a tethered and unfed dog. Not an animal one would want to mess with - without some suitable weapon that is.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/trolley-735.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/denham-one.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/10/livestock.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/07/monster-mushrooms.html.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Market failure?

Market failure or a bonanza for the lawyers?

I came across the piece in the FT at reference 1 this afternoon, all about how the Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of the consumer in three cases up from the County Court. All concerning failure to properly disclose the commission payable on car purchase loans bought through intermediaries like brokers and car dealers - these last being the people selling the car in question - who thus get paid twice, once for the car and again for arranging the necessary loan to pay for it. I have not yet been able to find out when the three loans concerned were made.

It seems that this could have a fairly drastic effect on the car loan business, quite possibly on the consumer goods loans business more generally. Quite possibly opening the door to lots of claims for redress. Close Brothers - one of the companies who do a lot of motor finance - not happy at all, and nor is their share price (above). Much destruction of value. See reference 4 (below).

More background is to be found at reference 2, but I have not attempted to burrow down to the ruling itself - which may not yet be available online.

My first thought was that if you didn't like what your car dealer was offering in the way of a loan you could always go elsewhere. But the Financial Conduct Authority clearly thought otherwise, that car dealers and others were taking unfair or undue advantage of the consumers' weak position and published new rules in 2020, to be found at reference 3. Presumably these rules now have legal standing, that you break them at peril of being taken to law.

My second thought was that why don't market forces sort this out. If dealers are being greedy, why are other intermediaries not stepping forward?

But I suppose, as a leftie, I ought to side with the much put-upon consumers.

Maybe a fact finding mission to China is indicated. Maybe they have some better way of dealing with all this. Or maybe India or Brazil. Lots of cars in all these places.

PS 1: I couldn't get rid of the black splodge on the snap above. A quirk of Microsoft's Snipping Tool?

PS 2: just received an email in German from Edmondo at reference 5. A group of three restaurants in Germany of which I have never previously heard. In fact, I haven't heard of very many restaurants in Germany at all, with my only knowledge of same being a short (work) visit to Berlin maybe twenty years ago. If the snap above is anything to go by, rather lush establishments. Makes Circolo Popolare of Rathbone place look staid indeed. How on earth did Edmondo get my email address?

References

Reference 1: Court of Appeal sides with UK consumers over ‘secret’ car loan commissions: Close Brothers shares plummet after landmark ruling that puts sector at risk of redress - Alistair Gray, Martin Arnold, Akila Quinio, Financial Times - 2024.

Reference 2: https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/coa-opens-way-to-claims-over-hidden-car-finance-commissions/5121348.article.

Reference 3a: Motor finance discretionary commission models and consumer credit commission disclosure – feedback on CP19/28 and final rules: Policy Statement  PS20/8 - Financial Conduct Authority - 2020. To be found at https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/policy/ps20-8.pdf.

Reference 3b: A whole lot more of their stuff is to be found at https://www.fca.org.uk/search-results?search_term=discretionary%20commission%20car%20finance. 

Reference 4a: https://www.closebrothers.com/. 

Reference 4b: https://otp.tools.investis.com/clients/uk/close_brothers/rns/regulatory-story.aspx?cid=61&newsid=1878722.

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

Trolley 735

A middle sized trolley from the M&S food hall, captured at the top of the Kokoro Passage, just off Station Approach. The front entrance to the hall was shut, but I was in time to return the trolley to the chap guarding the Ashley Centre entrance, still open while they swept out the few remaining shoppers.

A curious advertisement from Network Rail on Waterloo Road, some miles from the nearest level crossing that I know of. And I don't know of any of the more informal crossings you get in places like the Isle of Wight around here. Perhaps Network Rail, as the owner of the wall, get a cheap rate from Global?

In the margins, I find that Global have some sort of a tie-up with Becky Hill, a new-to-me singer who seems to like to show a bit of leg. Although the snap offered at reference 2 is slightly more demure than the one above offered at reference 3.

PS 1: while this afternoon, more news on the cheese heist noticed at the end of reference 4 to be found at reference 5. Seemingly, the fraudsters posed as a French wholesale cheese distributor.

PS 2: more depressingly, I read the piece in the NYRB at reference 6 about the need for regulation of AI. The chances of getting such regulation in place look slim, more or less zero if Trump gets in. The impression given is that the big cheeses in AI - the bosses of Microsoft, Google, Meta and so on and so forth - are behaving in much the same way as the bosses of the big tobacco companies who came before them: a combination of denial with cash in while you can. And to think that most of the people who invented IT, back in the middle decades of the last century, probably did not give a toss for fame or fortune. They were in it for the science. And maybe just a little academic kudos.

PS 3: and by way of a new departure yesterday, I found Google's Gemini surprisingly good at telling me about the timetables of cruise liners. Not perfect, but certainly helpful. Not the sort of thing that I have asked it about before. Not so good on the timetables of airlines - but then I suppose that there a lot more flights than cruises and it is all a lot more complicated.

PS 4: not very optimistic this afternoon about hitting 800 trolleys before year end, although I suppose I can still double my bet and go for 1,000 trolleys by next year end. I am not getting the pace needed to make up for the two missing months while I wheeled my own trolley about. See reference 7.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/trolley-734.html.

Reference 2: https://global.com/outdoor/.

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

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/suburban-greenery.html.

Reference 5: Dairy farmer fears stolen cheese may be sold in Russia or Middle East - Barney Davis, The Independent, Microsoft Start - 2024. 

Reference 6: The coming tech autocracy - Sue Halpern, New York Review of Books - 2024.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/trolleys.html.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Fake 183

A West Hill, Middle Lane, Screwfix Passage circuit. No trolleys captured but various odds and ends instead - and closing with a fake.

The Marquis refurbishment continues, following those at Wetherspoon's and Faraday's. Unlike the first of these last which was the Assembly Rooms and the second which was the Electricity Showroom, the Marquis was a proper public house, a purpose built establishment sporting mine host (and his wife). Where the sizeable space out front is now being more seriously colonised with a giant umbrella stand and very substantial planters. Once the plants are in, it will be pretty much an enclosed space. Will they still allow smoking?

The utilities have always liked digging up the junction of East Street, Hook Road and the High Street, with the spot outside the strip club being a favourite. I had thought that Powergen were having another go, but it turns out that it is just their vans parked there, while the action is a little way along East Street. A high vis jacket is just about visible above the car at the left.

A serious three van job, involving at least three working men (quite possibly of foreign extraction, but not the sort about to be bashed in the upcoming Labour Budget).

The house at the corner of Kiln Lane, long slated for redevelopment as flats and once sporting a plain black sign for Reichmann, has finally come down, some months after the site was enclosed and utilities sealed off. I never looked into which Reichmann this was, and so don't know whether there was any connection to the Canary Wharf  brothers of Toronto. Nor am I aware of any tussle with the heritage people about the number of flats and the number of floors. Perhaps this is not a part of Epsom they trouble themselves with.

However, a few minutes with the Epsom planning website yields 'Demolition of the existing buildings and construction of a two-storey building with part basement/lower ground floor, with roof accommodation, comprising 16 self-contained dwellings (Use Class C3), together with associated car and cycle parking, refuse storage, hard and soft landscaping and associated works'. 23/00110/FUL. Approved in February of this year.

Looks like a cunning use of the space - assuming that is that I have pulled the right plan.

Five flats on the ground floor, the rest up above. Two and a half floors altogether.

A nearly new note found on Middle Lane. A change from my usual small change and washers.

A van which I have seen in Blenheim Road a couple of times now. Website at reference 2 - not particularly elaborate, but I do learn that I can buy an annual service plan, in the way of the plan I do get for my teeth. Not sure if it is worth it for my bicycle now - if indeed it ever was. Still up for basic maintenance and I almost never get punctures these days - except when changing tyres which have worn out - when I usually manage to pinch at least one tube.

The fake for which this post is named. A fine display of plastic flower in the undertakers at Pound Lane. Which is a bit rich given that there is rather a good real florist opposite. Furthermore, one wonders what the future holds, with the flat - the presumably once tied house for the resident undertaker - being sold off.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Reichmann.

Reference 2: https://www.thepedalers.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/fake.html.

Group search key: fakesk.

Misprint

Reading reference 1 this (Monday) morning, I caught the FT out with a misprint, the first time I remember noticing such a thing. In the second paragraph, we have £15mn when we should have £15bn. Furthermore, I have no idea how Caoimhe Archibald's (a lady) first name should be pronounced. I can't be the first person to ask Bing, because he comes straight back with 'kee + va'. I wonder how the pronunciation came to be so unstuck from the spelling?

Partly because it is all mixed up with the consequentials business noticed at reference 2, I was prompted to take a short excursion into government finances, in particular those of Northern Ireland.

The FT story is that on a budget of £15bn the Northern Irish managed an overspend of £559mn last year, which will be clawed back from this year's allocation unless the executive manage to balance their books. The current story is that they are £769mn short, £500mn of which will be covered by the (consequentials) uplift from the Treasury, leaving £269mn of cuts to planned spending in Northern Ireland if they are to avoid the Treasury axe. Government accounting! That aside, it does not look very clever when the overspend is such a large fraction of the total. A system which is not working.

And just think, if Northern Ireland were part of Ireland proper, all that money the Irish have just got in back (corporation) taxes from Apple, would do nicely to sort out Northern Ireland. Instead of draining money out of the UK pot.

I then turned to the March budget of the Tories (reference 3), to find a couple of helpful charts.

Reminding me, if nothing else, first that government is spending around 10% of its take on debt repayments. Not a very good place to be. And second that if you promise not to raise taxes on working people, that is to say income tax and national insurance contributions, perhaps VAT as well, you do not leave yourself enough room to manoeuvre.

PS: I think capital spending is included in the figures above. But I have not checked that point.

References

Reference 1: Northern Ireland on track for £769mn budget overspend: Stormont executive expects little largesse from UK chancellor as it struggles to balance its books - Jude Webber, Financial Times - 2024.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/consequentials.html.

Reference 3: Spring Budget - H M Treasury - 2024. HC560.

Kronberg

A fortnight ago, off to town to hear soloists from the Kronberg Academy give us some sonatas. Cello from Debussy, violin from Mozart (K305) and cello from Beethoven (Op.102 No.2).

Something like one of our colleges of music, seemingly scattered across Kronberg, a modest town a little to the northwest of Frankfurt and to the east of Luxembourg. Street View seems a little creaky in Kronberg and I was unable to run down one of their buildings just off the suburban looking Station Road (aka Bahnhofstraße), which zigzags up from a railway station. Maybe what I am doing wrong will come to me. But see reference 1 for a better story.

A day for the Stockholm rather than the rollator. Half way back to the stick!

On the train, we were entertained by four men of middle years on their way to the F1 exhibition at Excel. They may have been train drivers, but one of them had a carrying voice which was deployed more or less continuously. Tiresome.

Then at Olle & Steen we took the deal of the day, an almond flake pastry. Some of which flakes went down the wrong passage and caused a fair amount of spluttering. I associate to those who suffer from more serious problems with peanuts. Some compensation in the form of a very pretty barista, demurely dressed in the Muslim way - with demure not excluding nose furniture. She had a very nice smile too.

Onto the Wigmore, where among our near neighbours we had one large man chewing the cud, one lady wearing smelly perfume and one man who liked to whisper to his lady friend, more or less during the proceedings. Also tiresome.

The musicians were in dark, smart casual. Which in the case of one of the cellists ran to a fancy shirt and a medallion. Two of them used computers rather than sheet music. With the music being rather more lively than I expected. And with the Mozart being unfamiliar - while I had thought I knew his violin sonatas pretty well, ever since we did the whole lot in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, getting on for fifty years ago now. Radu Lupu and Syzmon Goldberg. I remember a member of the audience from the US remarking that they were an unlikely pair and that it would interesting to see how they got on. Too deep for me: I just liked - and still like - the sonatas.

And I still own the very disc.

Out to All Bar One, where we repeated our food order from last time. (Stone baked garlic pesto) flatbread and paella for him. Better than two paellas which can be a bit much. Maki bowl with chicken for her. Just switching to Corona in place of the wine I had usually taken in the past.

The place had been quiet when we arrived, which meant that we got very good service. But busy enough by the time we left. Perhaps 13:45 on a Sunday afternoon. We were told that it had been very busy the day before and that staffing had been cranked up a notch in anticipation of a repeat. The ups and down of business!

A visit to St. Anne's in Margaret Street for a sit in the peace and quiet. And to soak up the rather splendid atmosphere.

And so to Tottenham Court Road, Waterloo and Raynes Park. Where we continued in the botanical vein by scoring the heaviest book yet. A well made book published in 1976 running to 1,290 pages.

Red stamped inside for 'RAINBIRD Natural History' - which I thought would be the name of some library or collection - but search has so far failed to reveal what this might be or have been. There is an archive of this name at Oxford Brookes, but that seems to be more picture books - which this book does not really qualify as with its modest number of black-and-white line drawing of plants. And then there is an irrigation company of this name in the US, a company with a training operation, but not the sort of training which would carry a book of this sort. 

Abebooks offers quite a few copies, nearly all from North America, mostly around £20 including postage. Which, given that it must once have cost a good deal more, at least in real terms, suggests that the market for a book of this sort is quite limited now.

I have yet to spend quality time with it, but an innovation (for me anyway) is that it is not pedantic about the taxonomic status of the entries: they do not have to be genera or families, although a lot of them are. There is, for example, a useful article on the cultivation of apples.

And the green alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens) of reference 2 gets just a column inch on page 843. More or less dismissed as European. Maybe it can't cope with the heat and cold of North America. Likes such things in moderation. Maybe the word cultivated is the problem.

Two species of liriodendrum, noticed in these pages from time to time, for example at reference 3, get about three column inches on page 669. Not much considering that one of them, the tulip tree, grows up to 200 feet and the timber is widely used. Presumably cultivated. See reference 4.

While asters get nearly four pages.

Taxi home, from which it looked as if the new grocer in Waterloo Road had gone down. Walking round later, I found this rather stroppy notice stuck to the window. Presumably the landlord had sent in the heavies in response to non-payment of rent. I suppose the existing grocer up the road, the chap I buy water melons and walnuts from, will be relieved. He does not do meat, but there must have been quite an overlap in other respects.

Seat from Stockholm not much used, but it did serve to prompt young people to give up their seats on tubes and trains. Faith in human nature restored.

PS: at least I had thought it was a repeat order at All Bar One. But inspection of the archive suggests not. Memory error.

References

Reference 1: https://www.kronbergacademy.de/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/trolley-733.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/06/trolley-572.html.

Reference 4: https://www.wood-database.com/yellow-poplar/.