Trolleys 793, 794 and 795

A clutch from Monday afternoon, Monday morning having been given over to Ewell, as has already been noticed, at least in part.

The first was a smaller trolley from the M&S food hall, captured outside the station. With the snap including a handy close-up of the white bricks which have been puzzling me from the platform above.

Neither Google nor Bing could offer me the sort of image of a simple stretch of brickwork that I wanted, so I settled for this one. The thought being that maybe the puzzle is to do with the white bricks being a non-standard size. I might also say that a lot of the images on offer were either computer generated or of slips, which is I think the thin brick faces used for decor in Mediterranean themed restaurants.

For the record, a standard brick. Nearly half as wide as it is long - which is why the running bond work top left works. Maybe my eyes and brain have got used to the sort of bonding you get with real bricks and have not yet adjusted to these fashion bricks.

My second was a B&M trolley, across the road from the entrance to the station.

Down the Station Passage with it, to find that the Rio Grill, not long since the quite decent chipper called 'Plaice to Eat', is being refurbed again, with the new improved offering including proper fish and chips again. I wondered whether there has not actually been any change of ownership and the move to burger land was an attempt to boost flagging sales.

The first notice of our eating there turned out to be as long ago as 2017, as noticed at reference 2. But I suppose we never did use the place very often.

My third was a second smaller trolley from M&S, captured in Station Passage.

On my way back across the market place, I noticed that the food vans left themselves plugged into the electricity supply overnight, that is to say into the stumpy black pillars. I suppose it saves them a job the next day, but I did wonder about health and safety: maybe all the pillars get turned off from some central point at 18:00 sharp or something?

Back over Clay Hill.

To read at home that the Kuwaitis, despite being awash with money, are no keener on immigrants than lots of other peoples. It's OK to have them in to do the work you don't want to do yourselves - perhaps knocking up tower blocks when it is very hot outside - but they must not get the idea that they are welcome, that they could stay. At least, for example, when we had a lot of Mauritians over to work our mental hospitals, back in the days when we still had such places, my understanding is that once they had put in their three or four years they got their ticket. They had worked their passage. But see reference 3.

While at reference 4, I read that while it is true that we have already spent of the order of 10% of the currently projected total for the proposed Lower Thames Crossing, last noticed at reference 5, without sticking a spade in the ground, some of the money has gone on buying the necessary ground. Not all swallowed up by lawyers, heritage people and planning types.

Looks like the proposed route cunningly misses built up areas, but what about 'King Charles III England Coast Path'? What about the unique sand eels of Shorne Marshes? How many of the construction crew will have been born in this country?

But, I suppose that if we want growth, we are going to have to build roads so that stuff can rush around the country even faster than it does already. Lots of growth to be had from speeding up the velocity of money.

While this morning, news about Wikipedia consumption, to be found at reference 6. So lots of people into obits. Then politics, true crime, sport and film. With ChatGPT coming in at No.10 and Elon not making the cut. Maybe he will do better this year.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/03/trolley-792.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-philanthropist.html.

Reference 3: The Gulf state purging tens of thousands of its citizens: Kuwait has stripped nationality from 42,000 people after suspending the region’s only parliament last year - Chloe Cornish, Ahmed Al Omran, Financial Times - 2025.

Reference 4: Lower Thames Crossing has cost £1.2bn even before construction starts: Outlay on items including consultants, planning and legal fees jumps from £800mn two years ago - Gill Plimmer, Financial Times - 2025.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/circulo-populare.html. The crossing to be found in a postscript at the end.

Reference 6: https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2024/12/03/announcing-english-wikipedias-most-popular-articles-of-2024/.

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