Ham sandwiches

A day which started out as a cheese day, that is a trip to London Bridge and the Neal's Yard Dairy cheese outlet just by Borough Market.

A day which was set to be warm and humid and it was a bit of an effort to get going at 10:45. To think that I would have been at work for a couple of hours, rain or shine, by then, back in the days of work.

And while I remembered most of my stuff, I forgot my sunglasses. Potentially a nuisance later on, but I was too far along the road to go back by the time I thought of it.

A fine display of trackside buddhleia across the rails at Platform 1.

Onto one of the new trains which have appeared at Epsom, this one sporting higher grade in-carriage indicator boards. Which made one wonder why we still have to have all those irritating announcements over the PA system. It is not as if there are that many blind people on the trains and I bet most of them know where they are without needing to be told: maybe one could have one or two carriages dedicated to their special needs, leaving the rest of us in peace? Maybe this is something that I ought to write about to some rail users' organisation. I am sure there is such a thing, or at least there used to be back in the days of British Rail. Which I understand is now coming back in new clothes. The wheel of fashion has turned again.

On the train a spot of day dreaming, in which I managed to confuse a bit of country road with a serious fence running along one side, which I had inspected in gmaps - in connection with trolleys - with the real world. I must have spent some seconds, perhaps even a minute or so, trying to work out where I was when I had seen this fence. It eventually dawning on my that I was in my study, peering at my laptop.

Picked up my kilo of cheese - in two pieces of roughly equal size, separately wrapped - and pulled a Bullingdon in Southwark Street, by the old hop exchange. Pedalled off to Clapham Junction along the super highway, doubling as the A3.

It was getting warm, and I was pleased to be in the shade of the big trees lining the north side of Clapham Common. Plenty of joggers out, probably more young women than young men.

Someone in a flashy & sporty looking car, briefly stuck behind me, saw fit to honk. This despite it being a narrow road where travelling at more than 20mph was probably neither legal nor sensible. To be fair, I don't suppose I was doing 10mph.

Thought about one of the fine bacon and egg baps which they served at the Northcote, to find that they had been struck off the menu. Nothing else attracting, I pushed on to the Spanish ham place, more or less opposite TK Maxx in St. John's Road, to be found at reference 1.

I wound up taking two of their ham sandwiches, pleasingly sold without salad, dressing, crisps or any of the other stuff that our own public houses find it necessary to dress up sandwiches with. But then, to be fair, one is only paying for very cheap ham.

The first of the sandwiches is snapped above. It might look a bit fatty and greasy, but it was very good, as was the beer, from Mahou of reference 2. Like most foreign lagers, without the unpleasantly sharp taste in the mouth of the stuff that we make.

One of the entertaining posters at the Mahou site is snapped above. In the live version, you can play with the slider. All very arty. Noisy videos available too.

There were a lot of legs of ham hanging up in the window, and they explained to me that because it was proper ham, properly dried and cured, probably with lots of salt and other preservatives, you did not need to keep the stuff in the refrigerator. Much the same principle, I suppose, as the presently fashionable jerky. Their hams came in at about £400 the leg, but it seems that in Spain you could easily pay up to £1,000. Outdoor reared, organic, vegetarian and so on and so forth?

Back on the platform at Clapham Junction I manage quite a few rolling twos, but could not quite make a three. Very frustrating. One older train spotter at the very (town) end of the platform.

Out at Epsom to capture the trolley already noticed at reference 3.

Home to take a first look at the security book noticed at reference 4. I have not made any progress since, but there was the slightly heretical thought not recorded there, which I record here. The book talks about all the problems in the world driving migration from bad parts to good parts. Driving migration to levels which receiving countries are having trouble coping with, levels which look to rise rather than fall for the foreseeable future. We need to rework the old agreement on refugees and we need to come up with some better way of managing the flows and sharing the burdens. And staffing our hospitals and care homes. Otherwise we will be stuck with the Trumps and Farages, as well as all our other problems.

I associate once again to the remark of the military policeman included at reference 5. Loosely translated as 'when lots of people want very much to do something it is likely that they will find a way'. Which applies just as much to migration as to recreational drugs.

References

Reference 1: https://casamanoloshop.com/.

Reference 2: https://www.mahou.com/en/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/07/trolley-896.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/demo-one.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/it-cant-happen-here.html.