Trolley 779

A Sainsbury's trolley, unusually, captured in the Kokoro Passage. Assuming that it had come from Kiln Lane, someone had walked it a fair way. And I was to walk it back again.

On the way, I got the idea that the gas works at the foot of Station Approach had turned the corner, it looking that they were starting to stuff new yellow pipes down the old cast iron ones. Given the big loss of diameter, I presume that one needs less natural gas than town gas of old. Then do the stopcocks visible left just get buried, or do they wind up in some cavity, inspectable or otherwise?

Moving on onto the market place, pleased to find that I was not the only person in town with Karrimor carriers. I had thought that I had seen these very panniers before, but search of the archive has failed to turn then up, with the best I could do being reference 3, from more than a decade ago.

Passing along the High Street, I spotted a No.42 and a No.44 - but No.39 remains missing.

From thence along East Street, where the site once occupied by the building part occupied by the Epsom branch of Majestic Wine, is now into ground work, with a good sized pile driver in action. With a new to me outfit called Curo in the chair. Their website, at reference 4, is pretty but not particularly complicated. Some kind of niche operation?

Notice the old way of rhyming from the front to make the tagline underneath more memorable. Having forgotten what this wheeze was called, I asked Bing who did not understand the question. Google did much better, leading me to 'alliterative verse', which led me in turn to reference 6. Didn't need to resort to Gemini on this occasion.

Checking, I find that Majestic Epsom, which I used to use reasonably regularly, has been shut now for more than six months, with closure recorded at reference 8. In that time, we have not felt the need to visit one of the other Majestic branches in the vicinity - nor have I been making much use of the supermarkets instead. I think that at the time of the closure, I thought that there would have been such visits.

Signs of life along the path leading to the footbridge behind Sainsbury's. All sorts of stuff on the move - including celandines which were just about in flower, but not quite enough sun to tempt them out on this morning.

More signs of life coming down the footbridge. After which there were plenty of catkins.

Google Images suggests shining cranesbill, aka shining geranium (Geranium lucidum), which from reference 5 looks right. Vigorous looking plant.

To close nearer home, some of the small daffodils that BH calls tête-à-tête. Maybe six inches high.

While to close this morning, I tried to contact the DWP (PIP division), by telephone, as email did not seem to be an option. After a couple of minutes of soothing computer talk about how much they cared about absolutely everything, 10-15 waiting in their call stack before I responded to the more important call for lunch. At least I could prop the Samsung on the desk and get on with something else, at least up to a point, trusting to my noticing that the musak had stopped in the unlikely event of an operator - human or otherwise - turning up.

They did not offer the call back option of some call centres. Perhaps they tried that and had other problems.

While from over in France, I got news of the fusion guys taking another step along the road to useful fusion: 'World record fusion plasma in Europe: 1,337 seconds or more than 22 minutes: that was how long WEST, a tokamak run from the CEA Cadarache site in southern France and one of the EUROfusion consortium medium size Tokamak facilities, was able to maintain a plasma for on 12 February'. Cadarache being on the Durance, a tributary of the Rhone, to the northeast of Marseilles. Confluence at Avignon. The EAST team operates from China. See reference 7.

[Final inspection of the lower divertor before starting a WEST tokamak plasma campaign, Credit: CEA]

Good job that we were not all so entranced by cheap gas that we paused work on nuclear.

PS: the phrase 'call back' above reminds me that the British Museum have not replied to my query in connection with reference 9 about access to their carved balls. But then it is only a week and the ball man there may be on leave - or on a dig somewhere. Watch this space.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/trolleys-776-777-and-778.html.

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

Reference 3: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/11/kingston.html.

Reference 4: https://www.curoconstruction.com/. 'Curo Construction is owned and managed by Darren Pettitt and Steve Conlin'.

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

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/more-trivia.html.

Reference 7: https://euro-fusion.org/member-news/cea/world-record-fusion-plasma-in-europe/.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/out-and-about.html.

Reference 9: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-carved-stone-balls-of-aberdeen.html.

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