Zoom

Illustrating the power of zoom on a small coin found in some leafy sludge on the pavement on Manor Green Road and snapped on my telephone. According to my fairly new micrometer 18.10 ± 0.02mm, this on the basis of three measurements.

A bright new coin, so where had it been for sixty years? Part of a presentation set, sold to a collector?

But I had to resort to fudge to get the two images, both of which had been snipped with the Snipping Tool then rotated, to be approximately the same size.

Without looking as carefully as I might have done, I thought a French half franc, issued a few years after the invention of new francs in 1960. I noticed, but did not take proper account of the name of the lady on the right. According to Wikipedia - anticipated in part by Copilot:

'... In 1960, the new franc (nouveau franc) was introduced, worth 100 old francs. Stainless steel 1 and 5 centimes, aluminium-bronze 10, 20, and 50 centimes, nickel 1 franc and silver 5 francs were introduced. Silver 10-franc coins were introduced in 1965, followed by a new, smaller aluminium-bronze 5-centime and a smaller nickel 1⁄2-franc coin in 1966...'

But I then thought I would test Google Images on it and it turned out that I had been careless and that the coin in question was actually a Swiss half franc, possibly worth £20 at places like Etsy. 

Not to be found at reference 3 though. Perhaps I need to work a bit harder.

A new-to-me mobility scooter, done up to be something like real scooter, perhaps a Vespa or a Lambretta, outside M&S, captured on the same expedition. With a brick pillar blocking a more satisfactory camera angle.

A scooter called 'Unique 500' by Green Power at reference 1. Also at Portrack Grange Road, Portrack Lane, Stockton on Tees, TS18 2PH. Just the sort of place where they probably did bash metal, once upon a time.

But actually, the not very large shed on an industrial estate up north. Which rather confirms my suspicion that Green Power, described as 'Trading Co' on the signage, does not actually build motor vehicles. A suspicion which grew out of the seeming anonymity of the brand.

Plus a suggestion that you can buy the scooters from Amazon for a good deal less than Green Power charge. Although when I look, I only come up with something very similar, not identical.

I then talk to Gemini, who provides further confirmation. For example, the motor, from Zhozhut Motors, another anonymous brand, very probably something to do with a manufacturing hub in Zhuzhou in China.

Part of the conversation with Gemini. Complicated things, modern supply chains. Just as bad as the business at reference 2.

But I continue to worry about Gemini's seeming desire to please, to agree with one. Perhaps he would get on well with POTUS. Or putting it another way, on the weight he puts on user input. Maybe I should include some lies/mistakes in my input to see what it takes to get him to pull me up?

PS: a more decadent version of Helvetia, from 1891, from reference 4. I don't recall seeing Britannia in quite this pose.

References

Reference 1: https://www.mobilitypower.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/murky-business.html.

Reference 3: https://www.swissmint.ch/en.

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

My trolley

I have been thinking about getting myself a shopping trolley for some weeks now and, doing a bit of shopping in town, I thought again this morning. Maybe I would stroll along to Robert Dyas and see what they could do?

Except that I got half way there when I noticed a couple of trolleys in the window of the Cancer flavoured charity shop. Cheap and cheerful, but just £10.99. Sold to the man in the duffel coat.

The only catch being that a wheel fell off as I left the shop. I was able to push it back on OK, but clearly a stress test was indicated, so off to the library to load up.

Four books for BH and four book for me. I had to stump up a fiver for mine, but they did add a good bit of weight. I also learned that 'godiva' was library argot for a five pound note, one of which, as it happened, I happened to have on me.

It took a minute or two to load it all up, but it did amount to a reasonable stress test. Kippers right - with the fish counter at Waitrose being nicely decorated with lemons cut to look like miniature Halloween pumpkins - and very effective they were too. I wondered whether they had been sent out by HQ but the counter hand told me that this had been her first job of the morning.

I might also say that BH has done quite well out of the fiction section of recent months, which has supplied perhaps half her reading material. Simenon has, of course, been around for years now, but Gouge only crossed our path in July of this year, as noticed at reference 1.

Onto Waterloo Road where the newly cleared site at the end of the parade was busy with concrete pump and mixer wagon. To think that concrete pumps were hi-tech when I was young, only to be found on serious construction sites. Nothing domestic.

The concrete was being used for the footings, trenches maybe two feet deep and a foot wide, lined with cunning sheets of black plastic and filled with rebars. Black plastic a new to me technique: in my time you just cut a neat trench in the clay and filled it up, or failing that, some timber shuttering. And I don't recall seeing such serious looking rebars in footings before either.

The mixer wagon went home via Manor Green Road, a residential road through the middle of the Chase Estate not intended for such traffic - but I suppose the driver was just following the instructions on his satnav. And he would have been caught out by the water works blocking Christchurch Road had it been a few days earlier. For which see reference 2.

The one-time special needs house in Manor Green Road was looking a bit forlorn, now empty for several years. Presumably the back garden is a sea of brambles, providing accommodation for all kinds of livestock. Bit of a pain for the houses on either side.

Back home, I was reminded by 'Accounting: An introduction' how much easier it is, when starting out on a new subject, to have a textbook to work from. And this particular one seemed to have been quite well put together. While the three volumes about the IFRS standards were rather less accessible.

But they pulled their weight. Or rather, I had pulled their weight. Mulling over as I went, the energy saving which resulted from transferring most of their weight from my skeleton, particularly my back and hips, to the wheels. After a while, you did notice that you were pulling something reasonably heavy and you had to watch your feet a bit, but it was a whole lot easier than carrying the same weight.

And the trolley got home in one piece. Both the wheels stayed on. To be fair, I had been quite careful about kerbs and potholes.

PS: perhaps not. Not really my sort of thing, and £150 a head is a bit fierce. Plus I had my own visit, back in 2019, as noticed at reference 3. This one turned up as an advertisement in my mail box, possibly an indirect result of my being  a mail order customer during the plague.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/07/padded-beef.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/return-of-pumpkinmen.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-far-eastern-cheese-hunt.html.

Back to Long Grove

Following the trip to Long Grove Park noticed at reference 1, a follow-up to check on a few points of difficulty. This following an efficient COVID booster at the Horton pharmacy. Which meant that I went in at the bottom of the park and finished the circuit anti-clockwise, rather than my usual clockwise.

So starting rather than ending with the supposed willow-leaved sea buckthorn, aka Hippophae salicifolia. With it being quite clear now that the berries were nothing like the size of olives, whatever I may have said first time around, at least not the ones that you get in restaurants - olives not being something that we buy to eat at home very often.

On a snip from the snap above, Google Images, this time, offers Elaeagnus angustifolia, commonly called Russian olive, silver berry, oleaster or wild olive as an alternative to the buckthorn. Not an olive proper and not to be confused with the sort of oleaster which I cut out of our hedge. See references 2 and 3 respectively.

Both Hippophae salicifolia and Elaeagnus angustifolia are in the oleaster family (Elaeagnaceae), to be found at reference 4.

A close-up, with keys to give an idea of scale. On which, Google Images is back with one of the buckthorns, but opting for Hippophae rhamnoides rather than Hippophae salicifolia.

All these plants are described as thorny, while I can see so no thorns. To which Google Images responds that some cultivars have few thorns and some have none.

If it is a buckthorn, there must be a male somewhere to hand for there to be berries on this tree.

No thorns.

Reference 6 talks of small leaves, up to 3cm long which seems to rule the present plant out. While reference 5 says: '... The leaves are alternate, narrow and lanceolate, with silvery-green upper faces...'. Which last might explain the white speckling visible under magnification that I noticed last time around and which is snapped again above.

There has been medicinal interest in Hippophae rhamnoides for a very long time, and there is plenty of interest in the chemical makeup of its leaves and twigs, for example, reference 7, but this does not help with identification.

Using the image above. Maybe I shall stop here for now. Next step, can I find a male?

Avenue of sweet chestnuts coming on.

The wilding at the top of the hill. Not too much life to be seen in the plastic tubes: maybe they were caught by the long, dry summer.

An oak which appears to be on the way out. It does not look particularly old and is certainly not one of the ancient pollards which are dotted about the place.

About here I came across a chap exercising his dog, which was hunting squirrels. I was able to admire the speed of the reactions of the dog when it spotted one - not that that was enough for success. His owner told me that, despite having been in the area for years, and used most of the parks roundabout, he had not come across any rabbits. Squirrels yes, rabbits no. Which was curious, as I would not have expected them here, but I would have expected them on the Common. To the point of remembered long-ago talk from older men of snaring same for the pot. While BH talks of dogs on the Common putting up deer.

It might be a new estate, but there appeared to be plenty of community. We shall probably be making it to the 'Stabat Mater', lower right, which comes complete with neighbourly participation.

First sighting this time of the Wellingtonia of last time. Second right.

Digression to a handsome tree which, in this shot, appears to be badly infested with ivy. Google Images quite clear about this one: 'The image shows the leaves and spiky seed pods of a London plane tree (Platanus × hispanica), also known as a London plane tree'.

Which fits well enough with reference 8 and what I can remember of the (handsome) tree itself.

With attendant monkey puzzle, missing last time around.

So there is just the one conspicuous Wellingtonia by the old hospital administration building.

Nearer home, I associated from these alternate lobes to alternate leaves. Is it the same mechanism?

Gemini seems to be having indigestion again. He had troubles at times yesterday, so maybe there is some big upgrade in progress, which for some geeky reason I know not of disturbs what can be seen by its users. Not just a clean cutover from the pre-production to the production system.

The day closed with the scones already noticed at reference 9.

PS 1: interested to read the civilised piece about privatisation of public utilities and services by an eminence at reference 10. The eminence himself at reference 11. Long on problems but short on solutions. But that is, I guess, why there are problems in the first place: there are very few magic bullets about, whatever we might have thought when we were very young.

PS 2: Gemini now back on form, offering me a little essay about the arrangement of leaves on a stem and another about the arrangement of lobes on a leaf. It seems that there are two quite different kinds of machinery here - which will take me a little time to digest.

PS 3: I have just learned that Tata Consultancy Services, a big Indian technology company, who get themselves into the news from time to time, have taken over the administration of teachers' pensions. I wonder this morning whether teachers still have a national pension scheme, in these days of deregulation and corporate endeavour. Are these pensions just a hangover from the bad old days? Then what about the oft-promoted line about the importance to UK PLC of our world-class financial and legal services sector if we are losing this bit of business to the Indians? Are we pricing ourselves out of this one too?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/long-grove.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaeagnus_angustifolia.

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

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

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

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippophae_salicifolia.

Reference 7: Hippophae rhamnoides L. leaf and twig extracts as rich sources of nutrients and bioactive compounds with antioxidant activity - Małgorzata Kubczak, Ainur B. Khassenova, Bartosz Skalski, Sylwia Michlewska, Marzena Wielanek, Maria Skłodowska, Araylim N. Aralbayeva, Zhanar S. Nabiyeva, Maira K. Murzakhmetova, Maria Zamaraeva, Maria Bryszewska, Maksim Ionov - 2022.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_plane.

Reference 9: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/a-snack-for-thursday.html.

Reference 10: What exactly are we paying for? The legacy of privatising utilities: All-round expertise is lacking, but urgently needed to run key public services efficiently - John Kay, Financial Times - 2025.

Reference 11: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kay_(economist). Just about the same age as myself.

Reference 12: https://www.tcs.com/.

Group search key: 20251016.

Impromptu outing

A rather impromptu solo outing to the Wigmore Hall, the pull being Brahms' 1st piano quartet, Op.25 from the new-to-me Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective. We had missed the lunchtime concert the day before on account of the festivity on the day before that, but I am at something of a loss as to how I missed out on this one in the first place.

Plus an arrangement of Clara Schumann Op.13, No.1. Plus Holloway Op.143 (of which snippets are available on places like YouTube). Plus the Rogers and Hart Blue Room of reference 2 for an encore. With the beginning fiddled with in an amusing way.

Rail journey planner down at 06:00, but up and running a bit later, and I opted for the 11:18. Starting with this rather tired detailing to an entrance to the flats next to the station.

Failed to spot any figs on the large fig tree across the rails from platform 1. Maybe it does not get enough sun, what with the station superstructure and the flats behind that.

The cantilever support to all the seats on our new (grey) trains - meaning that there is rather less to get in the way of feet than there is in the old (red) trains.

For once in a while, there was a ticket inspector on the train and my ticket was inspected twice. The inspector was very polite about it.

The tube was busy. And there was a small saxophone for our entertainment on the way out of Oxford Circus. And for once, I was entertained. Quite a decent musician and not too loud.

Ponti's all boarded up. What may have been our last visit before it closed being noticed at reference 1. A place we had used quite a bit over the years.

A fine salami sandwich, without any trimmings, toasted or otherwise, from the Mustard Café in Margaret Street. I was entertained by a young man explaining to the young lady accompanying him all about his approach to relationship management. She got to chip in occasionally. Not the sort of thing that I remember doing.

Plenty of fancy cars outside, most of them with fancy number plates, but none of them anywhere near the elusive No.39.

Some casualties in Cavendish Square. No idea where they might have come from.

Onto the hall, where I put my cycling accessories into the cloakroom, noticing an older lady usher whom I recognised from before the plague. Most of the other ushers were very young. With the two floral arrangements being white flowers on a green background. Unusual for this florist, who usually goes for more colour. But they did work.

Three ladies - just one with a computer - and a gent on the keyboard. A lady turning the pages, properly inconspicuous. The cellist seemed to enjoy herself with a lot of face action, including the occasional flash of a bit of nasal furniture.

A good concert, with the Brahms fully up to scratch. I even enjoyed the Holloway, which surprised me, not knowing anything about the man except that he had composed a short piece for my younger bother's funeral and that he was in the audience, somewhere to my right. But he did not stand up to be acknowledged, so I still don't know what he looks like.

Pulled a Bullingdon at Hinde Street and pedalled off to the cheese shop in Shorts Gardens. A quick enough run, despite getting lost, not for the first time, in the Covent Garden one way system. I dare say there was the odd traffic infringement. Bicycle locked up across the road from the cheese shop; perhaps a bit OTT, but taking the lock is not a lot of bother and having the bicycle pinched would be.

Cheese plus a few apples from Blagdon, people who have come up before. At least that it what I thought, but checking the archive draws a blank. And the website at reference 4 is fairly basic. Perhaps I misheard and misremembered. In any event, the apples were good rather than great. Nothing wrong with them, just not a variety I warmed to.

Thames Water at it again, just past the cheese shop. Does not seem that long since this road was comprehensively dug up for some reason or other. But if reference 4 is to be believed, maybe two years ago.

It took me a while to get through all the traffic lights at the bottom of Kingsway.

But I get there, to take the fourth position on what is left of the stand on the ramp at Waterloo. Pole position out of service.

A goo-free cheese and tomato baguette from Upper Crust. Cheese a bit feeble and baguette a bit undercooked, but not bad for the money. And good to be able to dispense with goo.

Advance warning of Zog arriving at Kew Gardens in time for our projected visit there. A fun-filled trail for budding dragons. And I thought that it was supposed to be a botanical garden.

After which I spent part of the journey wondering about how the carriage knows how many passengers there are.

According to Gemini today, there are several technologies available which do this sort of thing but: '... The main way the Arterio trains know their capacity is through a system that uses onboard CCTV cameras and Artificial Intelligence (AI) software ... The AI constantly monitors the images from the internal CCTV cameras to anonymously 'count' and track the number of passengers in each carriage in real-time. This provides a live picture of the train's occupancy...'. Which sounds like a lot of processing to me - processing which Gemini tells me is all done locally, rather than being sent off to some data centre.

Apparently SWR use this stuff for all kinds of purposes, both engineering and operational, with the in-carriage display being almost an extra.

By way of a check, Bing turns up reference 6 at the top of its hit list. So Gemini was almost certainly right and added a fair bit of value around the edges. Plus I did not have to bother to think up a suitable query - at least not until afterwards.

PS: two of the apples, snapped a day or so after purchase. Texture very good, flavour not so good.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/11/schumann.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Room_(1926_song).

Reference 3: https://youtu.be/kMYqLffrKm0. An Ella Fitzgerald recording of same.

Reference 4: https://blagdonfruitfarm.wordpress.com/pick-your-own/.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/01/pie-and-wain.html

Reference 6: https://www.retailsensing.com/automated-passenger-counting.html.

Murky business

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been circling around animals which eat acorns, in particular pigs, and I hope that this will all come to the boil in the form of a substantive post shortly. In the meantime, a look at a curious corner of the Internet.

I should perhaps say at the outset that animals attract a lot of coverage on the Internet. There are plenty of people out there who want to write about animals, read about animals or both. Lots of clicks to be generated, lots of good homes for advertisements.

At one point I came across a list of animals which eat acorns at reference 2 and noted down the address for a proper look later. When I came to take a proper look, the address no longer worked and using the search button provided failed to turn it up. Plenty of advertisements though.

I then branched out with a new search, and that led to references 3 and 4. Reference 3 looked OK from a content point of view, apart from an oddly recent posting date. But there was no author. The start of the article is snapped above. And turning to reference 4, there seemed to be nothing about the site either. Just a lot of otherwise decent short articles on science and animals. And no advertisements. So what was going on here?

I turn to Gemini for help and have an interesting discussion with with him.

One possibility that this is a rather large chunk of vanity publishing, by person or persons who for some reason or another choose not to identify themselves. People who want to write about stuff who can't be bothered to wrap it up properly.

Another possibility is that this is some kind of loss leader. Generate a bank of committed readers, then start feeding in the advertisements to generate some revenue, hoping that you do not lose too much of your readership in the process.

Advertisements which may overt or covert. I associate to the women's magazines which used to include advertisements for stuff in material which was ostensibly an just article about something of interest, written by a journalist without an axe to grind.

I learn of a whole new technology called SEO or search engine optimisation (not the Senior Executive Officers which I used to know about), which is all about fiddling with your content or your website to get you higher up the search engine rankings without having to pay the search engine provider. This last being what a lot of perfectly respectable businesses out to sell their services settle for.

Fiddling with the dates is one wheeze to fool search algorithms, which apparently like fresh meat. So you tweak the dates, maybe tweak the content slightly. Which accounts for some of these sites having a lot of material with oddly recent dates.

Towards the end of the conversation - remembering that a large language model does not do irony - Gemini observes: '... The issues we've discussed—opaque authors, content optimized purely for SEO, and the intentional clustering of dates—all contribute to an environment where information quality is often secondary to visibility and profit...'.

I also came across reference 5, an acorn related post on another busy, natural history website. But here things are done properly with readily accessible information provided about the website and its author, a former student of elasmobranch (shark and ray) natural history.

Which is all well and good, but I have failed to find anything else about him and Gemini, for once, seems to have got indigestion.

But it does all go to show that one needs to have a care when using stuff you have got hold of by casual browsing. Ideally, one should have authors, affiliations, track record and references to supporting to related material.

Which makes me think a little of my own efforts, where much of this is missing. But I do have a name and an email address and I do supply references. I do have track record in the sense that the material is too varied and too bulky for it to be likely to be anything other than what it says it is; that is to say a bit of harmless vanity publishing - hopefully diverting or interesting.

Another murky business

A correspondent has drawn my attention to the piece in the New York Times at reference 6, which suggests that the whole crypto business is a wheeze dreamed up by more or less unsavoury characters to make money, to hide money or to to move hot money about. All mixed up with the long running libertarian, hate-all-things-government streak in the US. Some of this being the people who live off acorns and such like in the woods in case they catch COVID - or perhaps anthrax - from a burger from McDonald's. A business into which POTUS has climbed with enthusiasm. Regular people are right to be both sceptical and concerned.

Will I get around to reference 7?

Regarding unsavoury, Brunton writes: '... In 2013, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s analysis estimated that up to 90 percent of Bitcoin transactions that year were primarily used to facilitate illicit activity, including drug sales, blackmail, ransomware and illegal pornography...'.

While at a site called coinindex turned up by Bing I read that: '[in 2018] ... DEA (United States Drug Enforcement Administration) official Lilita Infante told Bloomberg that the use of Bitcoin for illicit activities has seen a steep decline relative to its other use cases and now represents less than 10% of its transactions. Bitcoin activity, she says, is now mostly driven by price speculation. In terms of absolute volume, however, Infante says the amount of BTC and other cryptocurrencies used for illicit activity has increased...'.

Tricky things statistics.

Ms Infante appears to have moved on to a company called CAT Labs, to be found at reference 9.

A rather different image, seemingly of the same person, from a Miami newspaper.

PS 1: a bit later: Gemini recovered to the extent of telling me a bit more about Mr. Baldwin, including quite a lot of material about the history of his website. But apart from a mention in an annual report from the British Deer Society, I have not been able to find out anything more about him. More or less non-existent outside of his own website. Which remains a little murky, which is a pity, as he appears to be well informed. While Gemini may have lost most of his record of our conversations about acorns, or at least withdrawn access, which would be more seriously tiresome as I have not kept one myself. Not a transcript anyway.

PS 2: a bit later still. Bother. Keeping my own record just in case is entirely possible, but it is a bit of a fiddle. A chore one could do without.

[a bubble waiting to burst?]

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/epsom-acorns.html.

Reference 2: https://animalofthings.com/.

Reference 3: https://scienceinsights.org/what-animals-eat-acorns-besides-squirrels/.

Reference 4: https://scienceinsights.org/.

Reference 5: https://www.wildlifeonline.me.uk/blog/post/pigging-out-in-the-forest-the-common-of-mast-in-britain.

Reference 6: How a Fringe Movement of Gun Nuts, Backwoodsmen and Free Marketers Paved the Way for Autocracy - Finn Brunton, New York Times - 2025.

Reference 7: Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency - Finn Brunton - 2019.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin. A long running bit of crypto.

Reference 9: https://www.catlabs.io/. '... As former US Department of Justice crypto and cyber investigators, and US Department of Defense cybersecurity researchers, we know firsthand the challenges faced by our public service men and women when responding to technology-enabled crime.  Global crime syndicates, drug trafficking organizations, terrorist groups, cyber criminals and malicious nation state actors are now increasingly using new tools like digital assets and AI to further their illicit activities...'. Sounds just like all those people who jump ship from our own GCHQ to run security consultancies. Possibly selling their value-added services back to government...

Group search key: acornsk.

Return of the pumpkinmen

When we lived in Cambridge, near fifty years ago now, pumpkinmen used to arrive on the back lawn at about this time of year, usually staying for a few weeks. The pumpkins having previously been grown further down the garden, ranging in size up to something more than a foot in diameter, depending on growing and ground conditions.

They were the subject of elaborate stories in the darkening evenings. It seems that when it was dark they left their stands and went on excursions to the neighbouring villages. As I recall, they were rather fond of the fish and chip shop in Histon and they were chimney competent in the way of Father Christmas. It was very bad form if they were caught off their stands in the morning, but I forget what sanctions might have been involved. Maybe more will come back to me as the day unfolds.

They have now made a tentative visit to us here in Epsom. Albeit just one of them and a rather small pumpkin sourced from the local Sainsbury's, rather than from further down the garden - if for no other reason than it being far too shaded to be any good for growing anything much, let alone pumpkins.

Foxes may be a problem, which they were not in Cambridge, despite being much nearer real countryside than we are here. Although we did get rats underneath the compost heap and neighbouring garden sheds.

In any event, this pumpkinman has survived his first night.

A bit later on in the day, a fine Thames Water hole just by the end of Manor Green Road, with Christchurch Road, one of the main roads into Epsom, otherwise the B280, being completely closed. The spot marks the spot.

The hole itself, not particularly impressive. Some kind of leaking, ancient main nonetheless? But no sign of flooding, past or present. Man in an unmarked car in attendance, but no action.

Pushed on into town to find a fine nest of trolleys in the Kokoro Passage, two from M&S and one from B&M.

One of them was fit for return and further use. Another, the one to the left, had had the basket ripped off the undercarriage, the first time I have seen such a thing. And the third, the one at the back, had had the swivel flap ripped off the back of the basket. Presumably the work of bored young men hanging about town at night, perhaps under the influence of some substance or other. The devil makes work for idle hands. No doubt the Daily Mail would suggest bringing back conscription, aka National Service.

Google's AI offering on the subject. The second and third references offered do not add much, but the first does, tracing the basic idea back to Chaucer. The work of someone who writes under the name of  'whymzycal'. I have not attempted to check him, but there is no reason to doubt him either.

PS 1: one of Bing's various offerings on the clue 'pumpkinmen'. Clearly, not that original.

PS 2: a little later: how many more typos are going to surface during the day to come? Proof reading not a strength. Need secretarial assistance.

PS 3: so what is this? I think there are enough clues to make a few guesses, but I would be impressed if Google Images got there. 

References

Reference 1: https://fandom-grammar.livejournal.com/87421.html.

Tomatoes and other matters

Having had rather a large lunch the other day, I went for grilled tomatoes for tea, some of which are snapped above. Towards the end of this snack, it occurred to me that the number of seed compartments - compartments which are variously called locules, placentae and carpels - varied from tomato to tomato, unlike, for example, the number of petals which is fairly stable across the flowers of a given species.

So in the snap above, maybe three locules left and two top. Best seen by cutting the tomatoes across the middle, as here, but before they are cooked.

I realised this morning, rather too late, that these tomatoes had come from two batches, with one from one and four from the other. In any event, I would try to get to the bottom of the matter.

After various preliminaries, including the helpful diagram above, in which line b looks rather tomato-like to me, I got to references 1 and 2. 

I learn that, perhaps because tomatoes are an important crop in many parts of the world, perhaps because they are good experimental subjects, they have been extensively studied. There is lots of stuff about them out there. I was also reminded of reference 3.

I had thought that reference 2 was going to offer some statistics about locules and we were told that one counted the locules on twenty tomatoes on a plant and took the average. So there must be plenty of variation. But it turned out that while the paper was open access, the supplementary material which might have included more statistics was behind a paywall. Which is unusual, with my experience being that it is more likely to be the other way around.

After a bit, I was able to try Gemini with the summary snapped above. He agreed and elaborated. I think I had got it near enough right for present purposes. With the basic, wild-type number being two, but ranging up to ten and more.

I remember asking him about the number of segments on an orange and whether this had any relation to the number of petals. He was firm that it did not, which I found puzzling at the time. Today, between us, we are unable to recover this conversation, perhaps it did not get saved for some reason, but he now tells me that the segments of an orange are analogues to the locules of a tomato and I am getting used to the idea of their being more than one genetic numbering system operating on the meristem where all this stuff is laid down.

That said, it seems to be the case that locule number varies a lot more than petal number. Maybe something to look into one day...

The lost conversation was noticed at reference 4, so memory correct as far as that goes.

Will I start to keep count of my grilled tomatoes?

Apples

Starting to read the Mauriac book noticed at reference 5, I came across the phrase 'comme les prunelles de ses yeux', more or less our 'it was the apple of his eye'. Except that a prunelle is a sloe rather than an apple, and I imagine that the French phrase is tied up with the fact that prunelle is also a pupil, as in eye. One does not want to become separated from one's pupils, one looks after them, one treasures them. I think that there is a technical term for this sort of mistranslation of an idiomatic expression, but I have not bothered to look it up - possibly arising with me from the interaction of Yiddish with Hebrew.

There is also the point that a blue iris might well remind one of a sloe with a stone in the middle.

Also known as the blackthorn or Prunus spinosa, for which see reference 6.

There is also the matter of Maigret, whose sister-in-law from Alsace regularly sends the Maigrets a bottle of home-brew prunelle, which he keeps in the sideboard for special occasions. Presumably the proper liqueur, rather than our sloe gin. Something which we did once and did not bother with again. Bing knows all about the stuff.

Pork lite

Yesterday, despite having had a substantial lunch, I needed something warming for tea, and decided on a vegetarian lentil.

Stream 1: 6oz of lentils in maybe two and a half pints of water. Washed a couple of times. Boiled for a bit, added some celery, simmered. Towards the end, added some left over mashed potato and a stump of chou pointu.

Stream 2: in order of presentation: butter, black pepper, garlic, onions, coarsely diced potato (raw).

Combined just before the off. Not much like soup, but warm, wet and satisfying. No dead flies to be seen. Which was what I was looking for.

A newly manufactured loom band visible right. Bing knows all about them too.

PS: I noticed just today that the organisation of courgettes is rather similar to that of tomatoes, albeit more strongly axial. There also appear to be what look like growth rings in the outermost pale layer before the dark skin, perhaps the pericarp. I have not pursued this one.

References

Reference 1: Tomato fruit development and metabolism - Quinet, M.; Angosto, T.; Yuste-Lisbona, F.J.; Blanchard-Gros, R.; Bigot, S.; Martinez, J.P.; Lutts, S. – 2019. 

Reference 2: Increase in tomato locule number is controlled by two single-nucleotide polymorphisms located near WUSCHEL – Muños, S., Ranc, N., Botton, E., Bérard, A., Rolland, S., Duffé, P., et al. – 2011. 

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/an-extra-wisley.html. Another recent outing for a member of the solanum familty: the prickly solanum at Wisley.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/05/outgroups.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/french-affairs.html.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_spinosa.

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