Screwfix

A couple of days ago, back to the Screwfix underpass, the first visit, for various reasons, for a few days, not to say several weeks.

Started by going over West Hill into town, where I noticed that the surround to the shiny new drain cover on the way up the hill, put in just a couple of weeks ago, and noticed at reference 1, is already looking a bit stressed, as if there are no - or inadequate - foundations. Is it Thames Water doing things on the cheap again or are surface drains down to the local authority?

On to Screwfix, to find the catkins snapped above at the town side entrance to the underpass. Spring is clearly coming! I associated to the time that I passed a whole track-side bank of catkins on a diesel train from Peterborough to Norwich, probably late afternoon. Very impressive in the late afternoon light they were too.

On to Ford, who appear to be be holding First Line Recovery at bay. Nothing from these last to be seen at all.

And then on to a couple of extrovert brick collectors, extrovert in the sense that while I also collect bricks in a modest way, I keep them in the back garden, out of sight.

I had thought that this chap collected soft yellow bricks, but not having kept proper records, I can't now be sure about that.

While this chap is more imaginative. I associate to the chap we were taken to see who makes piles of stones in the shallows of the Ottawa River, just to the west of the city. Back in 2014.

I had thought that there would be some record, but search, even blunt instrument search, has failed to find anything, which I find odd. Perhaps I shall have to resort to very blunt instrument. Bing turns up lots of stuff, including the snap above. Not quite what I remember, but it is said to be from the Remic Rapids on the Ottawa River. This may well have been where we were taken, but Street View fails to confirm, one way or the other.

I get the impression that there are lots of places around the world where a lot of this sort of thing goes on. But not the sort of thing which is going to survive as a record of Neanderthal life (on which there is about to be a post). Indeed, unlikely to survive the first rush or the first winter, whichever comes first.

Home to find that the latest consignment from Guildford (reference 2) had arrived. Dismantled jigsaw of reference 3 visible behind.

The bottle on the left was noticed at reference 6. The comment there stands - despite it being quite a dear wine by my standards. The second from the left is from the same place, reference 7, although I can find no record of having taken it before. The paradise at reference 8 is quite different, near Lake Geneva rather than the upper Loire.

Next along is a wine from Alexandre Bain, whose wine we have liked in the past. Strange, apt to go off quite quickly once the bottle is opened, but good. This one, Terre d'Obus, is not our favourite, but it is the only one which was on offer. I have puzzled about the name before, Tracy-sur-Loire not being a likely site for battles or shells - and, sadly, Gemini was not able to offer any specific suggestions today. Just background stuff about how such a name might have come about. 

The three on the right follow up the lucky dip noticed at reference 9.

What with the Vulcaia resupply, following the meal at reference 4, we should now be OK for a week or two. Resupply which involved, on this occasion, BH going down to the UPS depot at Waterloo Road. A first. I forget why I was unavailable.

PS: a little later, I thought I would ask Gemini about the piles of stones and he came straight up with: 'a man named John Felice Ceprano has been building rock sculptures at Remic Rapids Park on the Ottawa River for decades. He uses no adhesives or tools, simply balancing the stones using physics and gravity. His work is supported by the National Capital Commission. Ceprano's sculptures are ephemeral, as the weather and rising water levels eventually dismantle them. However, he rebuilds them daily, weather permitting'. Plus helpful references, one of which is reference 5 below. I think we have a match to my memory - and I guess the snap above is probably one of his after all.

The snap above is from 2014 but the ladies were nowhere to be seen at the time of our visit.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/jigsaw-19-series-3-report-no1.html.

Reference 2: https://shop.lescaves.co.uk/lescaves-shopfront.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/jigsaw-19-series-3-report-no4.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/pork-imperfect.html.

Reference 5: https://jfceprano.com/.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/beef-without-backbone.html.

Reference 7: https://www.lescaillouxduparadis.fr/.

Reference 8: https://www.les-vignes-de-paradis.fr/.

Reference 9: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/11/fake-184.html.

More pork soup

Despite the absence of frost, it is clearly wintry enough for us to be thinking of soup, as a few days ago we had another go at pork soup, maybe just a fortnight after the last occasion.

With one difference being that the pork was a lump which had been trimmed off the rolled shoulder of reference 2 and thrown in for good measure. Maybe 300 or 400g, between half a pound and a pound.

5oz of pearl barley. After that in order of addition to the brew, celery, onion, pork, a little left over potato, white cabbage, mushroom stalks, mushroom caps.

The other difference was supposed to be that I just did enough for the one meal, but as it turned out the saucepan was pretty much full again. Turned out rather well again, although looking at this snap it occurs to me that maybe I should take more trouble to remove the scum arising during the cooking process; it would certainly make for a prettier snap if nothing else. BH does when she does cooking of this sort.

I think we did something over half at the first sitting.

In the event, proceedings were interrupted and the second sitting was delayed. So by way of a change, over two days, I added a little water and passed the soup through the blender and took it in the form of a sort of porridge or gruel for breakfast. Very grey in colour and a little gritty with the chopped pork, not like porridge made with oats at all, but good all the same.

Notwithstanding, BH not tempted. Meat for breakfast, other than bacon, has no place in her scheme of things.

PS 1: the blender had been bought in the course of the expedition noticed at reference 3, just about a year ago now. I remember that at the time we were a bit put out because we were unable to buy a blender which was anything like the one that was being retired, with a large clear plastic just sitting on top. Fashions in such things had moved on. To France. And then, when we got it home, it took us a while to work out how to drive it. But all sweetness & light now, having more or got the hang of the thing.

From the people at reference 4, very like although not identical to the one snapped above. Perhaps we have last year's model. Cuisinart Mini Prep Pro (ECH4U).

Between us, we might do a fair amount of cooking, but BH does not feel the need for one of those big jobs, costing hundreds of pounds. And I knead my own bread with my own bare hands.

PS 2: not French at all, but from the US. From a company which is owned by Conair of reference 6 which is owned by the money men of reference 7. This knowledge from Wikipedia at reference 5: I did not work it out from either reference 4 or reference 6. But at least the people at reference 7 are not coy about the great old miscellany of brands which they own. Which includes, for example, North American Partners in Anesthesia, the leading single-specialty anesthesia and perioperative management company in the United States.

PS 3: interested to read over breakfast, in the context of a piece in yesterday's Guardian about disaffected youth by Marina Hyde, of our Prime Minister staying for free in a fancy flat in Covent Garden last year, a freebie declared as £20,000 when a more likely rent would have been £100,000. And then that an enormously rich oligarch was not above fiddling the VAT on the running costs of his fleet of fancy yachts. Is it any wonder that said youth think that they are missing out? That all that moralising by their ever-so-woke leaders is just so much guff. They are just in it for themselves. I worry that such leaders are just paving the way for the likes of Farage and Trump - not to mention the far right in large chunks of Europe or our very own fat leader of not so long ago. Or, indeed, past master Blair, who has done very well out of unsavoury regimes in central Asia.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/pork-soup.html. Last time around.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/pork-imperfect.html. The source of the pork this time around.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/valentines.html.

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

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

Reference 6: https://www.conair.com/. More into hair dryers and grooming than food.

Reference 7: https://www.american-securities.com/.

Thames Water again

This to record another half hour or so on the phone to Thames Water. A half hour enlivened by some particularly irritating music-while-you-wait. Whatever happened to the much less irritating occasional beep just to confirm that the line was still open?

The last such exchange was noticed a couple of weeks ago at reference 1, after which BH declined to spend her quality time getting cross on the phone. We decided instead to wait and see what happened.

What happened on this occasion with another email from Thames Water telling me something was wrong. Something which now appears to include a bill for more than £3,000. But nothing very helpful to be seen online, so I try ringing the number offered, 0800 980 8800. First stop, takes my details and tells me that I want billing. Second stop, takes more details and tells me that I want operations. Third stop, a helpful young lady who tells me along the way that she is sitting in Reading, just up the road. Not in Glasgow or Sunderland or somewhere exotic at all. I tell her all about our leaking water meter - knowledge of which does not seem to have percolated to the part of the Thames Water IT empire that she can see.

She assures me that leak-fixing-people, rather than leak-inspection-people, will be on the case in days.

We shall see!

We shall, no doubt, also have to fix the bill at some point.

PS 1: given the apparent size of the leak, I have been wondering where all the water is going. Is it washing away a large cavern underneath the pavement, a large cavern which might one day collapse? I have heard of such things in the past, from a Thames Water man who used to spend time at TB.

PS 2: BH asked about my birthday, which came up last time around, but not this time. I had forgotten all about it and she had to explain.

PS 3: Friday evening: three further communications. First, a text yesterday evening telling me that they would be here to investigate by 20:24pm (?) on Saturday, that is to say tomorrow. Second, a phone call this evening about making an appointment for them to come and investigate. After a short conversation, the operator thought that she had better go away and look into the matter. Third, a second text message giving me a link on which I can make an appointment. And yet another reference number. After a little while, I got this to work, and I now have a fitting booked for the middle of March, on the first day available. We will see what, if anything, happens tomorrow. In the meantime, the loud hissing from the water intake in our downstairs toilet continues.

PS 4: still later, I find a rather stroppy email headed 'Final Reminder: Trying to get in touch 3' telling me to make an appointment about my water meter. Sent about the same time as the third text message. And as an IT person, I thought they had cracked customer management systems years ago. Maybe I should turn up at 'Clearwater Court, Vastern Road, Reading RG1 8DB' and start waving a stroppy banner outside. Maybe start a Facebook group (or whatever people do now) and take a small herd on a beano to Reading...

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/thames-water-progress.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/04/i-give-up.html. Something rather different, from April Fools' Day last year.

Jigsaw 19, Series 3, Report No.4

Duly completed yesterday.

There had been a panic, with a flowery piece from the lower right hand quadrant having gone missing, with no trace on the carpet below. And the odd piece has been missing from these jigsaws in the past: maybe the quality control on these specials is not what it is on the mass-produced puzzles, even though they come from the same, very respectable, manufacturer?

However, on this occasion, the missing piece turned up, blue back up, which made it more visible, on the carpet, the next day. Perhaps something had turned it over or otherwise disturbed it.

PS 1: interested to read about the troubles at Starbucks over freeloaders. Starbucks being a chain which I have rarely if ever used, but it would clearly have been a good pick twenty years ago. However, I have occasionally been irritated where 'community' spaces have been invaded by rather too many people who are clearly just there for the warmth and/or the free wifi. For example, Olle & Steen or the Royal Festival Hall. Hard to strike the right balance between community spirit and making money. Hard for a not very well paid barista to show a quiet & decent homeless person the door when it is cold outside. And I see from reference 3 that there was a bit of trouble on this same front back in 2018. Not to mention all the other vicissitudes that I guess are more or less inevitable in a large and successful company - with a growth rate that puts even Wetherspoon's to shame. But I don't think that Wetherspoon's is yet into franchises. While Starbucks has given up on Australia.

PS 2: for reasons too longwinded to be rehearsed here, I am presently revisiting projective geometry, a subject to which I was first introduced near sixty years ago and I am finding reference 4 to be pitched at just about the right level, despite being a translation from the German. First point, the first pages of reference 4 seem a very long way from the first pages of reference 5, a book which I have owned, largely unread, for a very long time. Both contain the principle of duality, that is to say the symmetrical and reciprocal relationship between points and lines in the plane - but what has happened to all the fans of lines from points, all the projectivities to be found in reference 4? Inspiration for which came from the (re)discovery of perspective during the European Renaissance - which last was very much the starting point for the Gallivan essay noticed at reference 6. I look forward to revelation. Second point, I have been very impressed how great complexity emerges from a small number - four - of very innocuous looking axioms. There are people, for example, who take a great interest in the number of points contained in a finite projective plane. It seems that this number cannot be 92, 93 or 110 - amongst others. Another example of this sort of thing which comes to mind is/are the Mandelbrot sets, one of which is snapped above, derived from only moderately complicated rules. One might say a tribute to the generative power of human language - while some might say a tribute to the power of the divinity, some aspects of which are revealed by human language. I prefer to keep the divinity out of it - but I think I had better let this matter rest for now.

PS 3: Wednesday morning: I have just come across the term 'structural deficit' in the FT and wondered what exactly it might be. Bing turned up all sorts of stuff from places I have never heard of - but also the helpful reference 8 - both accessible and coming from a respectable source. So I now know what a structural deficit is - and have been reminded that UK government borrowing is indeed on the high side. We do need to bear down on it - with how fast being a matter for nice judgement - if you want to stay in power.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/jigsaw-19-series-3-report-no3.html.

Reference 2: Starbucks cracks down on freeloaders to reverse sales decline: Coffee chain launches plan to get more paying customers back in stores as it reports fewer transactions - Gregory Meyer, Financial Times - 2025.

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

Reference 4: Projective Geometry: From Foundations to Applications – Albrecht Beutelspacher, Ute Rosenbaum – 1998.

Reference 5: Axiomatic projective geometry - Goodstein, Primrose - 1953.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/weaver-two.html.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set. '... The Mandelbrot set has become popular outside mathematics both for its aesthetic appeal and as an example of a complex structure arising from the application of simple rules. It is one of the best-known examples of mathematical visualization, mathematical beauty, and motif....'.

Reference 8: The budget deficit: a short guide - Matthew Kemp, House of Commons Library - 2025. To be found at https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06167/SN06167.pdf.

Group search key: jigsawsk.

Weaver two

A couple of weeks ago back to Drury Lane for a second helping of 'The Tempest'. A solo expedition as BH had declined. The first helping was noticed at reference 1.

Opted for the full performance: stick, trolley, duffel coat, woolly hat etc. On the grounds that a big posh theatre like the Theatre Royal was bound to have a proper cloakroom. A lift to the station, no lift at the station, but, as luck would have it, one of the new style, trolley friendly red trains to Waterloo.

For the first time, noticed the veranda in front of the flats to the left of the station, probably because there was someone there. Closer inspection subsequently, suggested that there was communal access. But clearly not taken much advantage of. Never, for example, seen drink being taken in mixed company of an evening.

On the way to Waterloo, I noticed that what had been the Wetherspoon's at Raynes Park, a place where we had taken fish and chips from time to time in the past, empty for some time, was now a gym. Seemingly right next door to another gym. Street View has not quite caught up and can only confirm the Anytime Fitness gym next door.

Bus'd to the Aldwych and then strolled about looking for a snack. It turned out that the area around the theatre was well stocked with eateries of various sorts, from lowly cafés to smart restaurants. I settled for quite a decent ham and cheese roll from Orée, taken outside among the pigeons. While today I find that it is well over a year ago that I first tried this chain, noticed at reference 3; another instance of the memory problems alluded to in the second postscript to reference 4.

Into the theatre, where there were lots of front-of-house people, lots of attention paid to my trolley. But no cloakroom which could take it in. The answer being to take it into the auditorium with me, where after a while someone took it in charge and put it to one side. I was pleased to be in row M rather than row R, which as well as being closer was clear of the dress circle and one got a much better view of the grand auditorium.

On the way, I took in one of the Maria Kreyn's large paintings which decorate front of house. Perhaps if I had tried harder, I would have found the one lifted from reference 5 included above. Very topical.

One of a pair of what I took to be loudspeakers hanging to the side of the stage. They have something of the same sort at Milton Court, and I am sure that I have noticed them, but failed to turn them up to today. Lower down there were much larger hanging contraptions, more like half a dozen flat screens strung together than loudspeakers. Something else to inquire about.

The Tempest itself wore its second outing pretty well, although I still thought that Miranda was a bit weak and I did not like Ferdinand. But then today, I realised that not liking Ferdinand might all be part of it, a covert commentary on the probability that someone makes a poor choice for their partner for life - with concerned family and friends not able to do much more than watch. The subject for many a tale over the years.

And somehow, I thought that Gonzalo came across as feeble in the wrong way. Feeble now perhaps, but somebody who had once been a somebody. I had expected more from Selina Cadell who has turned in very serviceable performances in police dramas - for example the first ever episode of 'Midsomer Murders' - on television.

I continued to enjoy the set, mainly stage effects rather than furniture, and this morning my mind turned to reference 6 where much space is given to the unfortunate side effects of the drive for realism on the stage, realism which had perhaps peaked by the end of the 19th century, but the effects of which are still with us; realism which is all too likely (on this account) to squeeze out a proper interest in the words, either on the part of the actors or the audience. Whilst here we had a set which is all magic, not realistic at all. But maybe distracting in something of the same way?

It also happens that yesterday we watched the first half of a 1977 adaptation by BBC2 of the Henry James novel 'The Ambassadors', as advertised at reference 7. Here, being used to (visual) realism in the sort of television dramas I usually watch, I found the rather stagey adaptation rather tiresome at first. But I think it is growing on me, it is giving space for character to show through. Which is perhaps part of what Gallivan was getting at. We will see how I get on with the second half. More work in progress. And I have turned up my copy of the originally episodic novel on my Kindle.

At the end of the show, I puzzled about the round of forgiveness all round - except perhaps for the unredeemable Caliban. While today, I read that maybe forgiveness all round was a very proper ending for a masque, very much in fashion at the time of writing at the beginning of the 17th century. And this play does include a fair amount of masque (and antimasque, another word I have learned today).

Out to stroll across the river, and to take cod and chips at Fishcoteque, my second visit in not so many more weeks. Very good it was too.

Old style red train to complete the day, complete with a gentleman who jabbered loudly into his phone more or less the whole way, while the rest of us went in for silence after the ardours of a day in town. As they used to say, there's always one.

PS 1: the programme still stinks of ink, despite being a few weeks old now. Perhaps we have not been turning the pages enough to let whatever it is burn off.

PS 2: it remains a bit of a puzzle why there were parsnip peelings in one of the bins on Clay Hill Green, snapped a couple of days earlier. One would have thought that the sort of person who bothered with parsnips probably ran to their own dustbins. BH thought that a fox was probably responsible for the mess, but that does not solve the principal puzzle.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/weaver-one.html.

Reference 2: https://oree.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/11/cheese.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/veggie-thursday.html.

Reference 5: https://mariakreyn.com/.

Reference 6: Shakespeare and perspective - Colum Gallivan - 2012 (draft).

Reference 7: https://forgottentelevisiondrama.wordpress.com/2024/03/06/adaptations-of-henry-james-on-british-television-1948-2009-a-chronology/.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/fishcotheque.html.

Jigsaw 19, Series 3, Report No.3

This being the state of affairs on Friday just past, the fifth day, just before I set off to visit Ben the Butcher in Upper High Street on a spot of sheep shoulder business. Some of the equipment for which is visible lower left. The folding umbrella was, in the event, not needed.

One quadrant of the jigsaw complete, the other three quadrants down to the background filling. Another day or so should see the job done. Perhaps with just a modest amount of trial and error.

BH has suggested that, after a day or so, I should dismantle it and have another go. It ought to go quite quickly while the memory of first time around is still fresh. We shall see.

Back from town along Hook Road, the western side of which I might say is not at all trolley friendly - a pavement that slopes does not make for a comfortable trolley, certainly not if you are putting any weight on it. I was reduced to crossing over to the eastern side, for some reason much better.

But I was pleased to see that the weeping Atlas cedar was all present and correct. Probably still a much better specimen than they can manage at Wisley. First noticed more than a decade ago at reference 2 - where, although I say it myself, I thought the second post has stood the test of time reasonably well.

Bing knows all about the weeping cedar, even if it only rates one line at reference 3. Reference 4, for example, offers one in a pot.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/jigsaw-19-series-3-report-no2.html.

Reference 2: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=atlas+cedar.

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

Reference 4: https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/133008/i-cedrus-atlantica-i-(glauca-group)-glauca-pendula/details.

Group search key: jigsawsk.

Veggie Thursday

Some months ago now we instituted a veggie Wednesday, a day on which we were also to avoid alcohol, chocolates and credit cards. This went on for a while, but has now rather languished.

However, last week, BH, who is not exactly a power user of her smart telephone, lifted a veggie recipe from YouTube. We were all rather surprised about this, but it turns out the recipe was pushed at her when she switched the thing on in the morning, along with the weather and dubious titbits of news, and did not involve her actually calling up YouTube.

As I recall, the recipe involved a lot of white cabbage, plus eggs and cheese. A  modest amount of grated carrot. Not that unlike a cabbage version of the potato pie which is a family staple. Finished off with a quick turn in a hot oven to brown the top a bit.

It did us very well, with the modest amount of carrot delivering a surprising amount of flavour. No idea how many it was supposed to feed, but we did most of it at the one sitting, leaving just a modest slice to be snacked on some other occasion.

A couple of days previously, it had been my turn with sausage stew, that is to say saucisson sec from Bastides via Waitrose. Getting a dose of e-numbers and so forth in before the veggie to come.

Oil (on this occasion, rather than butter), garlic, onion, celery, tomatoes. Simmer for an hour or so, longer if there is time. Water not usually necessary, there is enough in the vegetables - including a surprising amount in the mushrooms at the end. One needs to take care. Add in the sausage and the sliced mushroom stalks. Add in the mushrooms less than five minutes before the off.

Greens from Sainsbury's.

It did very well too, with enough left for a meal for one - when BH was out - the following day.

The only serious error being adding too much water before warming the left overs up in the microwave. I would do better to stick with a saucepan, which does not seem to be any slower and where one can see what one is doing. Not all guesswork.

PS 1: a slight niggle: when BH's phone was on mute, I had thought that was it. No sounds at all. But if you click on a YouTube video, we now find that that seems to override the mute and give you the tiresome 'music' which decorates a large proportion of such videos. Maybe there is some system setting which will enable us to stop this.

PS 2: the archive suggests at reference 1 that veggie Wednesdays were invented more than two years ago. I did not attempt to guess how long ago, but I was still surprised to find that it was as long as that. So while I can still remember stuff, my memory of when it happened is decidedly shaky. I wonder what will happen to the power memory of the lady - Jill Price - at reference 2 as she gets older? Presumably, it will start to degrade eventually, just like with the rest of us.

[WHSmith has focused on its outlets at airports and train stations in recent years © Anna Gordon/FT]

PS 3: it looks from reference 3, as if WH Smith is gearing up to pull out of the High Street to concentrate on its much bigger travel flavoured business, with a management buyout not seeming to be on the table. Rather a private equity, asset stripping job. One supposes that this will lead to a massive thinning out in fairly short order, if not outright closure of the chain and the sale of (presently) valuable leases. Outsource the messy business of getting rid of large numbers of people - some of whom might have been working for you for many years.

From where I sit, a rather odd shop, but one which does have it uses, and I will miss it if it goes from Epsom. When I was young, a place where you could buy decent but cheap classical LPs. I probably still have some. 

I wonder what will happen to their wholesale newspaper business - one of the bêtes noires of the chap who runs our fine Costcutter in Manor Green Road.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/11/embassy.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/04/remainder-shelf.html.

Reference 3: WHSmith in talks to sell its UK high street shops: Company is exploring strategic options and may concentrate on its travel business - Laura Onita, Ivan Levingston, Financial Times - 2025.

Reference 4: https://www.annagordon.co.uk/about. For the photographer who does shops. And prime ministers - but these are copy protected - up to a point.

Pork imperfect

A fortnight ago it was time for rolled shoulder of pork. The story was, no need to order that sort of thing. Just turn up and take it away, which is what I did.

The pork appeared to have been delivered to the shop in two plastic bags, one for the skin and one for the piece of shoulder. So much for butchers taking in whole pigs and doing the job themselves. And even in this butcher, in the past, he has got the best part of a fore quarter out of the cold store and cut my piece out of that. Reckoning a head, four quarters and two sides to the pig. In this case, one did not even know if the skin and the meat came from the same animal, which seemed oddly improper, if probably unimportant.

Sold as 2.2kg or so, weighed in the next day at 5lbs 13oz. Doesn't look too bad in the snap above, even if the skin was very thin and very white. And as it turned out, the bristles had not been scraped off properly - leaving it a little unsightly cooked - it had not been very scored very well. Maybe the skin was so thin that the butcher had to go easy in that department.

Started the vegetable stock first, bringing it to the boil at 09:40. Onions, celery, a little carrot, a bit of greens. Potato peelings later.

Checking the precedents for the pork, it seems that the last such pork, looking very much the same as this one at the off, was taken in March last year, as noticed at reference 1. A little overcooked was the story there.

So I settled on 170 minutes at 160°C. Salted the skin thoroughly, a wheeze which has usually worked in the past. Plan: oven on at 10:30, meat in at 10:40, aiming for 13:30. The salted meat actually got in at 11:05 and was looking quite pale at 13:00, so I turned it up to 175°C. Greased and added the parsnips around 13:!5.

Oven off, meat plated at 13:45 and then put back in the oven for 15 minutes. Strained off the stock and used it to wash out the roasting tin. Roux'd up some of the fat and made the gravy in the usual way, less my principal assistant.

In the event the parsnips were overcooked, the pork rather less so. But it was still nice and moist inside, which was good, improving as one got further in.

But the crackling was not right at all: wrong colour, too thin and no succulent brown fat. Plus the bristles and the scoring already mentioned. We did not eat very much of it.

Fortunately, the other vegetables, the gravy and the wine (the last of the Vulcaia) were spot on.

Pineapple for dessert. From the man in the market, who has interesting stuff, but who is not terribly reliable. Del Monte Honeyglow, so probably from Costa Rica and for which see reference 2.

We took it sliced crosswise, just the one slice each, despite some mutterings about how the proper way to do it was lengthwise. We also opted to chew the flesh off entire segments, rather than attempting to cut out the sort of clean lumps you get in a tin. Very good it was too - so it must have been absolutely full of sugar of some kind.

The day following, cold pork, microwaved old potato, new white cabbage and swede, warmed up gravy. All good.

Polished off the pineapple: still good but it was pretty ripe and needed eating up.

The day following, instead of gravy again, I knocked up some sauce with butter, garlic, onion and tomatoes (rather pale, from Morocco). Plus some chou pointu (which was a bit feeble and limp, even lightly cooked). Plus rice. But good overall.

The day following that, down to last knockings, so augmented the pork with some (butternut) squash soup, livened up with the harissa we had bought some weeks previously. Which I now find from reference 3 to have been some months previously. But date of purchase aside, the harissa did very well at geeing up a type of soup which I often find a little bland, even for my salt-and-sauce-lite palette.

What was left of the pork visible top right. What was left of the blackberry apple in the stainless steel bowl to the left of that.

And then, at what we call tea-time, later that same day, the remains of the gravy were poured hot onto my thick slice of brown and topped up with the last few bits of pork. Closing the proceedings with a few brick dates from Cullompton, via Grape Tree. Consumption of which has fallen right off, perhaps because I am not getting the exercise I used to.

PS 1: given my previous foray into the world of pineapples from Costa Rica, which closed with the post at reference 4, I have been interested to start reading at reference 5 of the troubles in neighbouring Guatemala. Maybe I will get to the bottom of why the one place seems to be doing quite well, and the other not so well.

PS 2: a spot of heritage on a postcard, sent in by a correspondent. My thought was that it would have been hard work pushing the barrow around all day. Wouldn't want too many hills - either up to down.

PS 3: while another correspondent is keeping me posted with the doings of the bent crane, last noticed, with a slightly different snap, at reference 6.

It seems that a chunk of it has been sold off to interests in Abu Dhabi. In effect, another chunk of our green and pleasant land sold off to the petrocrats to help balance the books, to help us carry on living beyond our means. But I suppose flogging them peregrine falcons and golden eagles only goes so far - and our new government has bottled out of the overt tax rises we need to pay for our hospitals and so forth, settling for more modest covert tax rises. And debt. And the gentry from the financial & legal services department have no doubt taken commission.

In due course, before they start cladding the lift shaft, I must go and have a go at counting the floors. Before, as I suspect that counting well-spaced holes in the lift shaft will prove a lot easier than counting the floors in the finished building.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/03/pork.html.

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

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/up-to-downs.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/12/o-henry.html.

Reference 5: Guatemala: Democracy Imperiled: Bernardo Arévalo’s inauguration last year as president of Guatemala symbolized the revival of democracy in a notoriously corrupt country. A concerted effort by obstructionist elites now threatens to oust him on specious grounds—and bring repression back - Aryeh Neier, Amrit Singh, NYRB - 2025.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/kensington-journey-home.html.

Reflexive

[what I call the Meadway roundabout, snapped from Street View. A place I visit quite often, quite often presently when it has just got dark. A place I nearly always visit on my way to London. In what follows, it is not made clear whether it is light or dark. The path to the right is in poor condition and, in parts, quite bumpy with roots, not very trolley friendly in the dark. Easy enough to stumble or even fall. The grass to the left used to contain four rose beds, but neither the council nor the householders around could be bothered with them and they were eventually grassed over, maybe ten or fifteen years ago now. You can still see where the beds used to be when they cut the grass. A regrettable loss of community spirit to my mind]

I suppose, given that I spend time on this blog and that I dream a fair bit, remembering my dream (on waking at least) maybe one night in two, one would expect the two things to meet up occasionally. Which does indeed seem to be the case, with a very clear example last night. It now being Saturday morning.

There seemed to be a journey to London, which I would normally blog about, but it was all slightly anomalous, although I was oddly clear about when this happened, either the 6th or 7th of January. There were three telephone snaps, probably involving the trolley, from the Meadway roundabout (above), but there was something not quite right about them and there did not seem to be anything else. Perhaps I had gone to London on some mission or other, got to Waterloo, changed my mind and then came home again without having done anything much at all? 

Still inside the dream, I thought that it should be easy enough to check: if I had travelled there would be a trace on one of my two credit card accounts (of which I actually have just one), the statements for which were just in (which was half true). That would put the matter to bed, and if the journey did take place, I could blog about it in the now usual way. It took rather a long time to wake up out of all this and work out that it was just a dream. I didn't look at the clock until later, but maybe 5 or 10 minutes worth?

I guess an advantage of being wired up in a sleep laboratory (which figure in television dramas like 'Lewis' and which I assume really do exist), would be that proper times would be available for the whole thing.

Having woken up, for the avoidance of doubt, I checked that activity was already recorded on the blog for the 6th, 7th and 8th of January. I checked the pictures on my telephone, conveniently organised by date. The time was accounted for without bringing the Meadway roundabout into the picture. I also checked my credit card statement and there were no unexpected or otherwise forgotten journeys there. All just a dream.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/fishcotheque.html. 8th.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/pork-soup.html. 7th.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/lidl-calling.html.6th.

Jigsaw 19, Series 3, Report No.2

This being the state of play mid-morning on the third day, that is to say Wednesday.

I have advanced well into the interior, particularly in the lower two quadrants, with my seat being at the bottom of the snap. Too lazy to move the chair or turn the table round to give another side a bit more of a go.

As jigsaws go, relatively easy. A regular jigsaw conforming to a rectangular grid. Lots of patches with distinctive features & colours and with the quadrant boundaries being almost as easy to pick out as edge pieces. No large, plain patches of sky or anything else.

Furthermore, the table was a good size for this particular jigsaw: the trestle, which has been used in the past for 1,000 piece jigsaws - not something I have ever done in a regular way - would have been OTT.

PS: I have just the seen the piece at reference 2. It does seem extraordinary that, between us, we have so little control over grossly inappropriate material being aired and viewed on social media platforms, in this case the one called X. Has our government got the bottle to threaten to close it down in the UK if it does not clean up its act? As far as I am aware, we do not depend on Musk for anything essential and he has not got the grip on us that Putin has on Hungary. But I don't suppose that we will do anything very effective, notwithstanding.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/jigsaw-19-series-3-report-no1.html.

Reference 2: X refuses to remove stabbing video watched by Southport killer: Axel Rudakubana was able to view Australian clip before murdering three young children despite pleas from authorities - Anna Gross, Jennifer Williams, Jim Pickard, Nic Fildes, Financial Times  2024.

Group search key: jigsawsk.

Fishcotheque

To London a fortnight or so ago to buy cheese. Bullingdons not being a option at the moment, this meant a trip to London Bridge and Borough Market.

Weather not great, which perhaps explained why, on this midwinter, midweek visit, the market was unusually quiet. I even took the time to look around for dried figs and smokies but failed to find either. In the case of this last, because the smoked fish section of the fish stall seemed to have vanished. Plenty of other exotica to be had though; things like an entire octopus or an entire cod fish.

Despite the challenge which seemed to be involved in extracting two pieces of Poacher weighing about a kilo in all from a piece which perhaps weighed a kilo and a half, I bought my Poacher and then started to think about lunch.

Didn't fancy an outdoor paella, although the paella itself looked fine. About a tenner a portion as I recall. And I didn't fancy anything else which I passed on the way back to Waterloo, where I ended up in Fishcoteque, a place we have visited occasionally in the past, with the only recorded visit in the archive being that noticed at reference 1.

With the snap above being taken just around the corner, at the top of Exton Street, just visible far left in the snap below. I had to leave the trolley, a retro trolley from John Lewis/Waitrose, nothing like those deployed in the Epsom Waitrose store, for someone else. Maybe not even made by Wanzl. Maybe the dangling rags signal that it had been appropriated by some street person for some street purpose, and so was not eligible for capture anyway.

A bit bigger inside than the snap from Street View above would suggest, with a steady trickle of customers, some of them looking to be students from the Far East taking a gap year at King's College.

Perhaps in the building which I remember as being called Cornwall House and occupied by the records department of the Foreign Office. People who were not having any of it when I flashed my Treasury pass and asked if I could used their cloakroom. Investigation today only revealed in the first instance that it was built for HMSO, converted to a hospital during WW1, then used as government offices generally until fairly recently, say the turn of the century. For which see reference 2. But digging deeper, I get to reference 3, which denies all knowledge of Cornwall House. Perhaps whatever it did was not grand enough compared with the main building in Whitehall. But then to reference 4, which does know about the place, sometime home of parts of the Library and of the Research Department. Including, at least for a time, the Polar Regions Section. Perhaps they knew all about Greenland.

That apart, Fishcotheque did me a fine haddock and chips, washed down with a couple of teas. Lots of chips, so no need for the customary two slices.

Onto Waterloo Station where my ticket failed to open a gate for me. Luckily, my trolley quickly attracted the attention of a member of the platform team.

Onto Raynes Park, where there was nothing for me, but there was a Alan Bennet collection which BH was pleased to have. A veteran of the days when a good sprinkling of people from humble backgrounds made it to the upper reaches, often via scholarships to Oxford or Cambridge. See reference 5.

There was also a very shabby chap, in clothes which had probably once been respectable, treating everybody and nobody to a quiet, well-spoken monologue about nothing much at all. Presumably a chap with issues, but not serious enough to warrant incarceration.

Home to finish off the fine pork soup already noticed at reference 6.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/01/gyorgy-kurtag.html.

Reference 2: https://archive.org/details/surveyoflondon23londuoft/surveyoflondon23londuoft/page/18/mode/2up.

Reference 3: History Notes 2: The FCO: People and place 1782-2000 - FCO - 1991. To be found at https://issuu.com/fcohistorians/docs/history_notes_cover_hphn_2.

Reference 4: Herald of a noisy world - Interpreting the news  of all nations: The Research and Analysis Department of the  Foreign and Commonwealth Office:  A History - Robert A Longmire, Kenneth C Walker - 1995. To be found at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7e0e2ae5274a2e8ab458d6/Herald_of_a_Noisy_World.pdf. 

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

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/pork-soup.html.

Kippered

Back in December, I had been told about heat-in-the tin kippers from John West and had bought three of the tins - at around £2 a pop. A few days ago, we finally got around to trying them, my not having found the idea very attractive.

It so happens that BH takes quite a lot of fish from tins, but I do not. Other, that is, than the sardines, tuna or salmon which we both do. With the first two being mashed up in salad cream (not mayonnaise). Tinned crab remains elusive. I have a special aversion to the tinned pilchards in tomato sauce which the naval aunt used to serve up from time to time, served up more or less entire on thickly margarine'd white factory bread. Ughh.

On this occasion, BH was in the chair and elected to heat the tins up by pouring boiling water over the them and then leaving them to stand for ten minutes or so. After which they were warm enough, but not really hot. I think that next time, if there is a next time, we will go for simmering for ten minutes, as per the instructions on the tin.

The tins opened, each was found to contain four or five very small fillets in a good quantity of sunflower oil. I thought that they were indeed rather unattractive looking.

However, I persisted, taking mine on lightly toasted brown bread. BH took hers in a small salad with white orgo toast on the side. I might say that they tasted a good deal better than they looked - and they look well enough in the snap above. Very mild, and I ate the lot, skin, brown flesh and all, which I do not do with real kippers. A whole tin each made for a substantial but manageable snack. Described as 145g - about 5 ounces - which I take to exclude the oil. I think it would be fair to say that BH was keener than I was.

We shall see how long it takes to get around to the third tin and whether I am moved to buy any more. 

We have already had some real kippers since: much better, even if they are a lot more bother and involve a lot more washing up. Much better value too at around a fiver for three of them.

PS: the brown flesh having been the lateral lines of the fish in life, a sort of devolved part of the brain which tells the fish what is going on in the water around and for which see reference 4. Presumably made of much the same stuff as brains - which I do not think I have ever eaten. It might be a delicacy over the water in Belgium, but not here in Epsom. Would Ben the Butcher be able to sell me any?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/12/no-score.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/12/a-tale-of-two-taverns.html.

Reference 3: https://www.john-west.co.uk/products/fish-type/kippers/.

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

Jigsaw 19, Series 3, Report No.1

In the event, the jigsaw reported about a year ago did not spark off a new round of jigsawing. However, I am now hard at work on this year's version. To be surprised, once again, at how much time jigsaws can soak up. Hard to stop once you get going.

This year, I reverted to what I think is my usual pattern of doing the edge first, getting stuck with one edge piece missing. It resisted serious search, although I did stop short of searching the carpet and nearby gaps under furniture. And then, some jigsaw hours later, it turned up in plain sight when I was looking for something else. Click to enlarge and it can be seen a little below the lower right hand corner.

I often find, by the time I have finished a jigsaw, that I have tuned into what I call its palette, by which I mean that I can quite often place a piece on roughly the right place on the board on the basis of the colour mix, a mix which one can take in at a glance and which one can often pick out of the heap at a glance. Speeds things up greatly. Perhaps I had not got to that point, as the piece in question certainly qualifies in that department.

Noting in passing, that the jigsaw is being done on what started life, with my parents, probably in the 1950s, as a card table, at that time and until fairly recently covered in green felt. A nicely made thing, with cunningly hinged legs. A time when I imagine that people played card games in foursomes at home more than they do now. I dare say such tables were once common and I come across cheap versions from time to time. And, as it happens, a neighbour has one which is more or less identical to this one, I think complete with green felt.

Out to find that the pothole on West Hill has now been repaired, complete with a new drain cover. First noticed back in December at reference 1. And there was at least one inspection visit before the action visit. Very water board. Water could be seen about a metre down, so perhaps that is where the storm drain is.

On the grounds that Waitrose did not do me very well on tomatoes last time I tried, I opted for M&S on this occasion. Round tomatoes from Morocco, Santina cherries from Chile and IFG Sweet Celebration red grapes from Peru. A variety from International Fruit Genetics, so neither the grape nor the conglomerate noticed the other day at reference 3. But their website is not available, ruled by Edge to be unsafe, perhaps because they have failed to renew some security certificate. Equally unsafe whether I use Bing or Google, which I suppose is what one should expect. The grapes, however, were fine, just as good as the Allison. Gone by close of play.

Cherries not so clever. Their skins were slightly pitted and dull, to me the sign of having been in store too long. Eatable, but not good. Then, even though cooking bad cherries does not usually improve things, I thought I would give it a go, simmering them for five minutes or so in a little sugar and water. Not good at all at that point, but then, for some reason, I thought to add most of the juice of a small lemon - which greatly improved the cherries. 

Another cherry from the Summerland people in British Columbia with a strong puff at reference 4, snipped above. Perhaps a site to be wary of.

In any event, perhaps it is time to lay off the cherries for a bit.

Report on the tomatoes in due course.

In the meantime, I wonder whether leaving the EU has meant that we source more fruit and vegetables from outside Europe. I certainly seem to be noticing more such. I don't suppose that Gemini would be much help here, declining to answer on the grounds that it is a political matter, which he does not do.

PS: pleased to see that, following the vote in the Commons last year, the assisted dying bill is on the move in committee. I also see that one Danny Kruger, MP - the son of a prominent supporter of the bill - Prue Leith - looks to be set to do his best to get the bill watered down as much as he possibly can. An old Etonian Christian in a safe Conservative seat, who goes in for what he calls Christian values, does not much like masks or lockdowns and who appears to be on the right of his party. Kruger as in South Africa. See reference 5.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/01/jigsaw-18-series-3.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/12/pot-hole.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/pork-soup.html.

Reference 4: https://www.cherries.global/cherryvarieties.html.

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

Group search key: jigsawsk.

Pork soup

The day in question started with a visit to the health centre for an RSV jab. Which, despite my being bad with injections, was fine, with the nurse so arranging things that I barely knew that she was doing it. Back into town for a spot of shopping at Waitrose: grapes from Peru, white cabbage from Lincolnshire and mushrooms from the UK, not further specified.

The grapes were large and red, Allison from Peru. They may have been invented by the SNFL people at reference 1, from where the snap above is taken. With grapes described in the following terms: 'very late season red variety with large crisp flavoured berries allowing extending the red grapes season. Large size bunch with high productivity. Very good condition after 6 weeks in storage trial'. They were, as it happened, very good grapes, and maybe they have been especially bred to survive six weeks storage in good condition, which would, I suppose give them time to get from a Peruvian farm to a Waitrose storage facility in England. Maybe even by ship if they step on it and the Panama canal is still open - but my money is on air freight.

According to the fact sheet, available nearly all year round, with just a two month holiday for (our) summer. Maybe we can make do with other stuff then. Maybe, even, English cherries.

SNFL appears to be a subsidiary of the Amfresh of reference 2, a Spanish fruit conglomerate which started out with citrus and remains strong in the world of fruit juice.

AM Fresh UK Ltd - No.04526463 - is probably a relation. It is certainly in the fruit business and the upper echelons are very Spanish flavored. The snap above is taken from a forty page company account for the year ending end August 2023. A private limited company with annual revenue of £300m. Which seems rather a lot, so maybe they do rather more than just red grapes from Peru.

But I have failed to find a corporate website which gets beyond the marketing gush of reference 2. Perhaps, as a private company, they don't have to bother with any such thing.

The good news is that both Bing and Google take one straight to the company when I use '04526463' as a search key. But are they cheating with prior knowledge of my recent search history? Perhaps not, as Google seems to be able to perform the same trick on my Samsung telephone - which I don't suppose is linked in a relevant way to my laptop. But you can't really be sure these days, not unless you work for Google.

Anyway, back home with my shopping, got cracking with the pork soup, putting 6oz of pearl barley in three pints of water at 16:00. Brought it to the boil and then turned it back to simmer. Added celery and onion a little later. A bit more than half a pint of extra water (two small Beryl tea cups' worth) and 400g of pork tenderloin at 16:45. White cabbage and a small amount of left over potato at 17:20. Mushrooms at 17:28.

Odd how black the grapes look in the snap above, but I am sure that they were actually red. The scissors next to the grapes were inherited from MIL and FIL; much better quality than the tools that FIL usually bought, so I don't know how he came by them. Jumble sale? Hospital disposal? Maybe BH will remember.

And, although I say it myself, the soup was really very good, going down as well as any pork soup that I could remember. We did about two thirds of it at this first sitting.

PS 1: in the margins of this post, I find that Schiehallion, a mountain in Scotland that I climbed perhaps thirty years ago, in the the middle of the summer, is made of quartzite, a metamorphic form of sandstone. A hard rock, but not as good as flint for knapping. And not a volcano, rather shaped by glaciation, and famous for its participation in the second measurement of the weight of the earth in 1774. Sadly, the French beat us to it in 1738 - but at least their measurement was not very accurate.

A little to my surprise, I find that the original paper is readily available at the Royal Society, with the first page being included above. Call at reference 6 for your own copy.

A paper of some 43 (quite short) pages, which ends, appropriately for a Royal Society, with a royal puff. I don't suppose they bother with that any more.

What I have not yet found is the the value for the weight (or perhaps density) of the earth that he came to.

PS 2: I was pleased to find that Google is not yet all knowing. Image search on the snap above only turned up images of the same sort. He was not able to trace it to source. That said, he gave a lot of space to snaps from Johnson's dictionary of 1773, which I thought was a pretty good guess. And he does even better on the first page.

References

Reference 1: https://snflgroup.com/.

Reference 2: https://amfresh.com/.

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

Reference 4: https://www.scottishgeologytrust.org/geology/51-best-places/schiehallion/.

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

Reference 6: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstl.1775.0050. An Account of Observations Made on the Mountain Schiehallion for Finding Its Attraction - Maskelyne, N. - 1775.