Warning!

A short spin through town on Friday afternoon, taking in the odd trolley and the Ashley centre. Where I found that what I take to be Santa's grotto was coming along nicely. One of the many on offer in and around Epsom. Hopefully the children who are young enough to enjoy such things are too young to be able to scan the free papers for advertisements for same.

A shed, partially obscuring the sign which tells us the Primark really is coming to town. Perhaps like Wetherspoon's and the Assembly Rooms, which hung fire for quite some time, they were holding out for a good deal from the landlord here, LSH.

I couldn't remember the name of the rather grander store I first knew in this space, but it came back to me for some reason while browsing at reference 2: Dickens & Jones, as confirmed by reference 3. I even bought the odd suit from them.

Into the not very big booze section in the M&S food hall, to be impressed by their range of half bottles, not something I come across very often - but a size which is sometimes convenient. The Estrela in Vauxhall certainly used to offer a few half bottles, with rather more at Hedonism in Davies Street. Or at least there were, last time I was there, which must be quite a while ago now, complete with Bullingdon. I remember hanging their bag around my neck and under my duffel coat, using some sisal garden twine which I happened to be carrying in my own bag, and then cycling off down to Trafalgar Square. Or is memory embroidering things a bit?

Maybe something to fit in before Christmas?

And so round to the Screwfix whitebeam, back lit by a street light, cunningly obscured behind one of the fatter branches. I thought the telephone did rather well in the circumstances.

While all this was going on, BH was buying a gadget from Ryobi so that she could wash floors without having to get down on her knees, presently inconvenient.

Very pleased when this turned up this morning, only to find that there was not much in the way of instructions on how to charge up the battery (made in Vietnam). A cable was supplied which gave a USB input, but what was one supposed to do with that? Plug it into my laptop?

I started off at the Ryobi website and that was not very helpful, so I thought I would try Gemini, with the result snapped above. Which was all rather alarming. And I was getting a bit irritated with Ryobi. Back to their website, to find that all the talk their was of 18V devices, while closer inspection of the battery in hand suggested that it was 5V.

I asked Gemini again, and this time he said it was fine to use the USB-13 amp socket adaptor which I had bought from Amazon for a couple of quid some years ago in connection with my Kindle. All now plugged in a flashing green, which Gemini assures me is what it should be doing. It is certainly what our rather larger Bosch batteries do when they are charging - but then they do have a separate charging contraption. Work in progress.

While I amuse myself with the article about beef at reference 6, where POTUS is working hard to square the circle that is cheap beef made in the US. The circle made up of cheap foreign labour on the one hand and the expensive home grown sort on the other. The same problem that we need to fix here in the UK - perhaps a bigger problem for us, as we are much more dependent on trade than the US.

I then moved onto the screw-worms, a major parasite and pest in cattle, largely eradicated in the US, but still to be found in South and Central America. A variety of blow fly, which last I remember reading about in connection with shooting migrating caribou in the far north of Canada, apt to be infested with them. Fascinating stuff. For which see references 7 and 8. No doubt there is plenty more out there if you want it.

And a footnote regarding Thames Water. Blaming it on ancient Victoria infrastructure never was a very good excuse, but it seems that not much of the infrastructure we now have is Victorian anyway. Most of it is much newer. See references 9 and 10.

PS: further inquiry has, so far, turned up two federal outfits in the US with an interest in pest control, to be found at references 11 and 12. The first of these looks to be quite interested in screw-worms with 107 hits, the first one only a few days ago, while the second, which looks to be more a suit outfit than on overall outfit, could only manage 1. But I did learn from that one about Brooke L. Rollins, Trump's pick for Secretary for Agriculture, and, slightly to my surprise, she did learn something about agriculture before switching to law and politics. So maybe she is not trying to shut APHIS (reference 11) down.

Combat talk from Secretary Rollins from that first hit:

“This is a national security priority. We have given Mexico every opportunity and every resource necessary to counter NWS since announcing the NWS Bold Plan in June 2025. Nevertheless, American ranchers and families should know that we will not rely on Mexico to defend our industry, our food supply, or our way of life. We are firmly executing our five-pronged plan and will take decisive action to protect our borders, even in the absence of cooperation. Furthermore, we will pursue aggressive measures against anyone who harms American livestock.”

Perhaps, following best practise here in the UK, she will designate screw-worms as terrorists. 

References

Reference 1: https://www.primark.com/en-gb.

Reference 2: https://eehe.org.uk/29572/ashleycentre/.

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

Reference 4: https://hedonism.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://uk.ryobitools.eu/.

Reference 6: The soaring price of a steak: Beef costs have risen sharply in many countries, adding to the pressure on living standards and bringing Donald Trump into conflict with ranchers - Susannah Savage, Financial Time - 2025.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochliomyia_hominivorax. The screw-worm in particular.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calliphoridae. Blow flies in general.

Reference 9: Victorian sewers not to blame for England’s pollution, research shows: Water company excuses for spills debunked by findings that most infrastructure was built in 20th century - Gill Plimmer, Ella Hollowood, Financial Times - 2023.

Reference 10: Two UK water companies lack complete maps of sewage networks: Shortage of data raises questions over condition of infrastructure as groups seek sharp increases in bills - Gill Plimmer, Financial Times - 2024. Plimmer is clearly the water lady for the FT.

Reference 11: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/.

Reference 12: https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/general-information/staff-offices/office-chief-economist/office-pest-management-policy-opmp/integrated-pest-management.

Reference 13: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooke_Rollins.