The journey home

This being notice of the journey home from the turning point of the expedition noticed at reference 1.

What sounded very like the Epsom police helicopter. I could not see it, but from the sound it appeared to be hovering over St. George's Hospital.

The next event was the former police station at No.522, snapped above. A building which does not appear from the outside to have changed much, if at all, from its days as a police station and there is still police activity in Weybourne Street adjacent (left in the snap above), probably connected with what was once the back yard.

Regular search today (Tuesday) does not turn up much, just the old snap above, lifted from reference 2. So I turn to Gemini, who is quite convinced that the building has been converted into flats while cleverly preserving its external appearance, no doubt at the behest of the heritage people. He also claims linkage, at least from a planning point of view with the rather smaller, newish development called Waldron Hall, on the other side of Waldron Street.

I try the Wandworth planning search which turns up a couple of very old applications.

A bit more interaction with Gemini and I push my way through to the map version of the planning explorer. I find the building easily enough, but fail to find how to find any old planning applications that might have been made for it.

At which point I gave up. The main building has probably been converted to residential use and the police have probably retained use of the secure back yard. But maybe, Gemini, not finding anything specific about this particular police station, has generalised quite imaginatively about what happened to it from what usually happens to such buildings. With Waldron being a red-herring. And then there is the matter of the front door which does not look like the front door of a block of flats. And then there is the awkward shape and interior layout of the old building. Maybe, actually, the police have retained it for some back-room, back-stairs activity not apt for the full light of day. Maybe I shall have another go at some point.

Various lunch possibilities as I made my way back to Earlsfield Station, but I eventually settled for the Halfway House next to the station, a place I have used from time to time over the years. Another Young's house, as it happens.

And a perfectly respectable burger, chips and pint of special. The burger came with remarkably little goo (good) and the pint came a bit short (bad), but the bar man, quite possibly the manager, cunningly absented himself while I wondered whether to ask for a top up - which I probably would have done when I was younger and poorer.

Regarding the tomatoes of reference 4, the burger included a slice of tomato which was getting on for three inches across and appeared to have five chambers - or locules in the language of reference 4.

A stop-over at Raynes Park, where the only botanical in the platform library was too peripheral and too large, even for me. But I did notice that they looked to be attempting to turn the flower beds back into flower beds. I wish them well.

A bit of trolley action on return to Epsom, in the course of which I stopped some cyclists in the approach to the Ashley Centre, more or less by the side entrance to Wetherspoon's. I got a fair bit of coarse abuse from the school age youths for my trouble. Who knows whether it has done any good - but it seems a bit feeble to do nothing when I am pushing a good sized trolley with which to block them.

Another short pint from Wetherspoon's - but a good deal cheaper than the one from Earlsfield and it was warm enough to sit outside, which was good. 

Rather a sticky hand rail to the stairs leading to the first floor - something which I have noticed before, so clearly not part of the cleaners' duties.

Home to find this crop of very small mushrooms.

And the candytuft was still going strong, as it has been more or less all through the year.

The day's haul. Including a cleaning gadget for BH found on a wall and a couple of small loaves from M&S to go with the cold beef. Cleaning gadget yet to be tested.

With the magazine top right resulting in reference 3 below.

All very satisfactory, short pints notwithstanding.

PS 1: in the margins of all this, I remembered about the parcel that we had tried to send to Canada, back at the beginning of October and noticed at reference 5. It turned that the very day I ask Google about this, the dispute looks to have been resolved, with strike action suspended. We will leave it a few weeks for the system to return to normal and then we can have another go.

PS 2: the planning map has lots of layers, listed down the left-hand side, something that I come across from time to time in other people's maps, for example the map of docking stations for hire bikes - Bullingdons in these pages - provided by TFL. Layers which I have previously come across in software used to describe buildings, the likes of AutoCAD. Layers which I have suggested might be a way to describe the way the brain delivers consciousness, organises conscious content.

PS 3: another problem. My understanding is that a good sized fraction of what is called 'secret intelligence' is assembled by careful reading of publicly available information, by combing the media - and the result of all this reading only gets made secret after the event. When one is at war, for example, there is plenty of stuff that one does not want to become more accessible after having been less accessible - except to those bad actors who are very busy. But where are we left when Gemini and his colleagues are indeed very busy? Hoovering up and collating all kinds of stuff in a way that would be well beyond human capability. And more or less freely available to all.

PS 4: rather later: a correspondent has just reminded me that Gemini already blocks questions about things which it thinks are tricky or actionable, like politics or the health of the person asking the question. Although in the case of health, I think it does allow questions about health in general. I think the jargon for this is guardrails and no doubt it can be trained to test both questions and answers against guardrails. Not quite the same as the previous problem, but clearly related.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/11/memory-lane.html.

Reference 2: https://www.layersoflondon.org/map/records/police-station.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/11/marble-lady.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/tomatoes-and-other-matters.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/fake-191.html.

Reference 6: https://www.autodesk.com/. The people that give us AutoCAD.

Reference 7: https://www.drawbase.com/. The product with which I once had a nodding acquaintance. Not as prominent as AutoCAD, but it has survived.

Persian grub

We have now paid two visits to the new Persian restaurant in South Street, the fourth member of a family also to be found at Marylebone, Chelsea and Wimbledon. And reference 1.

Lunchtime on the first occasion, starting at the nearby Marquis, with a pint of something straightforward and a half pint of something complicated involving concentrate of elderflower. House near empty inside at around 13:00. Beer fine though.

Moved onto Diba to find that Lebanese red was off, but we could do something from Spain instead. 'Don Jacobo, Rioja, Crianza, 2018'. From the people at reference 8 and complete, on this occasion, with Persian flavoured glasses. I think we were told that the head was that of a famous Persian king of a couple of hundred years ago or so.

They had a bread oven, not unlike the one in West Croydon, noticed at reference 4, which I had thought Kurdish. Rather bigger though and gas fired. I was told that if one was quick one could do several breads at once. Also that they sometimes left the dough to rise overnight - so a good deal longer than I leave my bread dough for its first rise, which if left that long would probably rise, fall and then maybe rise again when the yeast got into its second cycle. I have not tried.

I started with some lentils which proved to be green and very good, with a generous portion. We were told that every Persian chef had his own secret recipe for green lentils - rather in the way that Indian chefs - or matriarchs - are said to have their own secret, family curry recipe. This despite a correspondent explaining to me recently that people from the Indian sub-continent do not have collective nouns for curries in the way that we have in English. Not a category that they recognise.

And moved onto some kind of grilled lamb, also very good. BH contented herself with the salmon version. The pomegranate added a nice bit of crunch to the salad.

We got into discussion with the waiter and another nearby couple about boozing in Iran. I maintained, on the basis of reference 5 below, that there was plenty of it. The waiter told us that Iran was a Muslim country which did not permit alcohol. While the gent of the couple, lately something in oil or gas in Azerbaijan and who had been to Shiraz, assured us that they still had vines there and they did use them to make wine. And that the Iranians were indeed into boozing. While looking at reference 2, I find that while the Shiraz region was indeed famous for its wine two or three hundred years ago, the modern Shiraz grape (aka Syrah grape) has nothing to do with the place and was invented in France, particularly for use in Australia. So further ahead to the extent that there was boozing in what was Persia. With comparable complications in Egypt, Turkey and Indonesia, all large countries with predominantly Muslim populations and - unlike Iran - lots of tourists.

On exit, I convinced myself that the fabric right was very like a table covering we had at home. Which, once we were home, turned out to be wrong, although I do have a sheet of vaguely similar fabric in the study, printed in roughly the same colour scheme on what is probably the the same cotton base. Possibly something called batiq (of reference 9) from the Far East - perhaps India or Indonesia. Certainly sold at a Hook Road car boot sale for a fiver or so by what I took to be a couple of nurses selling up on completion of their training. And I feel sure that it has been illustrated somewhere in these pages, but search has failed to turn it up. Memory playing tricks again.

Meat wagon just packing up in the market as we went through. I am reminded today that 'meat wagon' was slang for a quite different kind of vehicle when I was young. Mr. Perry does not seem to think that Epsom is worthy of his big meat wagon anymore, although he may park it on the market square overnight Friday-Saturday. Perhaps its Saturday destination does not allow that kind of thing.

Candytuft in our front verge still doing well.

While the elephants' ears, usually pretty robust, looked a bit sad and I gave it a few gallons to perk them up.

Evening on the second occasion, less than a week later. Much the same format, and the same meal for me, but we took our aperitif in Wetherspoon's rather than the Marquis and we took our (white) wine from the Lebanon rather than Spain. 'Ksara, Cuvée de Pape, Chardonnay, 2017'. Also very good. See reference 6.

After dinner conversation this time around moved on from booze to pink ice cream, which we now know was not on offer. White or cream or complicated, but not pink.

All in all we were well pleased with Diba and I dare say we shall be back. A variation on the theme set by the nearby Cappadocia.

PS 1: the Corral Premium Gastro from reference 8 looks rather like our own pub grub to me. And at €80 including what is probably a modest amount of wine, rather like our prices too. But then, why would it not be so?

PS 2: I make it to the Hook Road fabric in the end. See reference 10.

References

Reference 1: https://www.dibarestaurant.co.uk/epsom/.

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

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

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/05/mayday.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/07/boozing-in-iran.html.

Reference 6: https://shop.chateauksara.com/product/chardonnay-cuvee-du-pape/. 'A classic Chardonnay, grown at altitude, fermented and aged sur lie and in new oak. Full-bodied, complex, fresh and creamy with citrus, stone fruit and savoury notes, the wine is the highest example of the Château Ksara’s white wine making expertise. Ready to drink now or can be laid down for aging. Serve slightly chilled'.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beqaa_Valley. A valley which was once important in the drug trade, not so much nowadays.

Reference 8: https://www.bodegascorral.com/.

Reference 9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batik.

Reference 10: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2012/07/car-booter.html.

Ben's beef

Beef time came around again ten days ago.

Ordered a few days prior to that, being careful to specify that I wanted all the bones left in the fore-rib and that I did not want it chined, which can result in the finished joint sagging in an unsightly way. In the event, I got three bones weighing in at 4.244kg plus around a kilo of someone else's rib bones to make gravy with.

From there proceeded into the Co-op at the bottom of the High Street, which turned out to be very trolley friendly, with a quality ramp over the threshold and space to move inside. Where I found a very grumpy middle aged lady holding forth about the absence of attendance. I think she was having trouble with the self-checkout.

Followed by a very tame wagtail outside the butcher in Manor Green Road. 

First action was to boil up the bones with some carrots and onions, straining off the liquor after about four hours. There had been good smells upstairs while this was going on.

Nibbled at the bones later: not for the squeamish, let alone veggies. The sort of thing that FIL would have enjoyed, livening up the proceedings by naming all the parts.

The liquor set overnight, underneath maybe an eighth of an inch of fat, lifted off to roux up in due course.

Too big a joint for our scales, so settled for the online convertor which said 9lbs 7oz. I consulted the various precedents and settled for three hours at 190°C, not far of Radiation Cookbook slow roast at 20 minutes to the pound. 10:00 for 13:00, but allowing a bit of flexibility at the far end. No need for the tie of ownership on this occasion: Ben (or one of his colleagues) had done enough.

In the event, oiled and into the pre-heated oven at 10:05.

At which point, BH moved into gear, knocking up something called an Apple Charlotte, which turned out rather well. She did not attempt to remove it from its tin. Something one might possibly attempt with a loose bottomed tin, perhaps just before the off, but not with this one.

A confection assembled from slices of bread and cooking apples, I thought from a Mary Berry recipe, but the dessert we had did not look much like that at reference 1. Nor did we bother with cream, which was not necessary. Not to my taste, anyway. But we did bother with custard for some.

I attended to the brick compost heap, dominated by ancient pineapple heads and banana skins. The various pineapple heads are still there, but not, for some reason, visible.

Back in the kitchen, preparations continue. This being about the point that my assistant turned up to help me with the gravy. Very well she did too, earning a modest amount of gravy dipping, with brown bread on this occasion, rather than the usual white. It was fine.

Plus mash, swede and greens.

Shortly after start of carving operations (on the blind side).

And the blind side.

On the plate. Plus the odd bottle of the red wine previously noticed at reference 2.

In due course, the Charlotte did us very well, even if I should have snapped it before getting stuck in.

Time to crack out the sealing gadget promoted by the Half Way House, as noticed at reference 3. It did very well. Not drinking in multiples of bottles sounds like a very good plan - but we have yet to see if the idea catches on in a regular way.

Proceedings livened up at this point by a lost fingernail drama. It did not turn up then, despite our best efforts on the floor, and has not turned up since. Hopefully forgotten about, rather than held against us for years and years.

As it was, the plan for non-lethal Cluedo had to be suspended.

I may have taken a little meat with my supper that same day, but otherwise there was a pause for a couple of days. The scene after the second outing being snapped above.

The cold meat was taken with potato & parsnip mash, beans and gravy. I did not notice the parsnips at the time, but they did make for an improved mash. Just the thing for the gravy. The remains being polished off on bread a few hours later.

The beef finally expired a couple of days after that.

Or at least, down to a bit of poking around with small sharp knives and gnawing. More FIL action. So all in all, eight adult portions, two children's portions and some snacking - out of the 9kg or so we started with.

Ben had, once again, done us proud.

PS 1: It helps that we actually rather like cold roast meat with boiled vegetables.

PS 2: signs of spring in the verge after the second outing. Last noticed, rather less than a year ago, at reference 5. I think it has been in flower, more or less continuously, ever since. So maybe not a sign of spring at all!

PS 3: further to the tail end of reference 6, a snap of the real thing, from a correspondent.

References

Reference 1: https://britishbakingrecipes.co.uk/mary-berry-apple-charlotte/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/shoulder.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/sonatas.html.

Reference 4: https://bensbutchery.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/04/candytuft.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/a-good-programme.html.

Group search keys: Delft, Mauritshuis. 

Some precedents

Beef without backbone: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/beef-without-backbone.html. Two ribs. Half the bone had been removed. Part of the celebrations around trolley No.500.

Sirloin: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/08/sirloin.html. Two ribs. Just managed to stop the butcher taking the bones out.

New beef: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/09/new-beef.html. Two ribs. A first visit to Ben the Butcher. Some ties of ownership on this occasion.

Festal beef: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/09/festal-beef.html. Three ribs, much trimmed, from Waitrose. Despite which, it turned out rather well.

Beef: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/beef.html. Three ribs from Ben, somewhat trimmed. Also chined, despite instruction. But a good looking piece of meat with a good blanket of fat.

Trimmed beef: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/trimmed-beef.html. Three ribs, much trimmed, from Ginger Pig, Borough Market. Turned out pretty well.

Beef: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/beef.html. Three ribs, pretty much bone free. Ginger Pig, staffed for the occasion by ladies. Taken with curly kale.

On the bone: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/on-bone.html. Two ribs from Ben. Lots of bone, almost up to Florentine standards. But with all the bone, not as much meat as I was expecting. Point to watch.

Candytuft

A new-to-me plant appeared in our front verge this afternoon, that is to say I noticed it for the first time when walking my afternoon bricks, although it must have been around for a while, unnoticed. Rather carelessly, I decided that the feathery fronds - of which there were quite a lot round about - belonged to the large white flower, so when Google Images, focussing just on the white flower head top centre, announced that it was candytuft, probably perennial candytuft (Iberis sempervirens), I was not convinced: probably neither evergreen nor perennial and leaves all wrong. But then BH explained that there was lots of 'Love in the mist' (Nigella damascena) in this bed and I went to take a closer look. Feathery fronds did not belong to the white flowers at all, which I might have worked out before had I looked more carefully.

But took another snap anyway. Google Images continued to restrict its attention to the flower head and did not change its opinion. But were the flowers all the same? Were the three rings - white with purple inside, white with yellow inside and purple - just three stages of development? Were we talking about the rocket candytuft of references 3 and 4? With the picture of the flower head at reference 4 looking closer than anything else on offer. And there was a good deal on offer, plenty of subspecies and varieties on offer from various garden websites.

Perhaps yet another area where precise identification is a bit tricky. Where the taxonomy is a bit confused. However my money is on Google Images first choice, perennial candytuft. Having now examined the right leaves, perennial looks like a viable option.

Interesting that Google Images concentrated on the flower head and appeared to be paying no attention to the leaves. Maybe flowers are a better guide to identification than leaves - which is not case with our big native trees - where leaves are good - but then there are very few of those.

Once again, I dare say I have enough to go on already, but I am going to wait and see. Do it the easy way.

PS 1: Friday morning,: some six days late, the Microsoft advertisement generator has got onto the case, with Microsoft's Start sticking an advertisement from eBay right in front of me when I fire up Edge. I might add that I think Microsoft is rather abusing its ownership of my desktop and is getting more and more intrusive. Some of this is dressed up as trying to be helpful, as Copilot trying to be helpful. But I much prefer Google's approach with Gemini in that it waits to be asked and stays contained within its own window. Perhaps Google would be just as bad if it owned the desktop, in which case the lesson is not to give any one corporation too much power: they will only abuse it. Worse than most governments as far as that goes.

PS 2: I notice too that Google has just started paying dividends. While Microsoft has been paying steady if modest dividends for years. Amazon was not last time I looked, with most of the profits going to fund the various Bezos hobbies. Don't know about Meta of Facebook fame.

PS 3: I occurs to me now that were I a proper geek, I could probably keep Microsoft in check by tuning my copy of Windows. The sort of thing we used to do in the world of work, when we had proper IT departments with enough muscle to control the corporate desktop. Out in the wide world, I have elected to just let Microsoft get on with it, updating my desktop whenever they feel like it, rather than attempting to interfere or fiddle with settings. But I am, I might say, reasonably wary about allowing anyone else in, anyone other than Microsoft.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberis.

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

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

Reference 4: https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:324660-2.