JDW

Following the successful warm-up outing with my new Rollator noticed at reference 1, my second was a visit to Wetherspoon's in the margins of a visit to the hospital.

A visit during which I learned that I had completely forgotten that I had visited St. George's for an MRI scan back in December. Also that the systems available to NHS staff fell well short of the whole person file for justice which we were aiming for in CJIT, then part of the Home Office, getting on for twenty years ago. Simply put, the idea was that any suitably accredited person would type in the name or number of a criminal person and get the whole story, a whole story drawn together from the various elements of the criminal justice system. I left before this came to fruition, if it ever did. At the time, it all seemed terribly difficult, this despite the large sums of money and large numbers of consultants thrown at it. I got the impression during this hospital visit, that the NHS had not made it either. Huge strides have been made in drawing data together, but not to the point of just typing in the name or number of a unhealthy person and so on and so forth.

On exit, plenty of trolleys about in town, but not really practical when I already had my own trolley. Perhaps when the museum seat intended to replace the trolley in due course turns up from Germany, something called a Stockholm II, possibly as offered at the British Museum.

Into Wetherspoon's to take refreshment, where I learned something of the skills needed to get a trolley and a drink down a short flight of steps at the same time. A first in that there was a chap at the bar putting an ice cube into his warm beer. When I noticed this, he turned out to be quite a talkative chap who claimed to know all about beer. He claimed to know, for example, of the Stag Brewery, late of Victoria, but he might just have been agreeing with me. And then there was a party which had probably been there for a few hours and which seemed to involve a lot of rather loose talk. The sort of people who would get very cross if they thought they were being short-changed by the NHS, but would not see anything very wrong in pinching stuff from Sainsbury's and then flogging it in some nearby pub. While I thought it might be amusing to compare the age distribution of clients with that of staff, and then perhaps to do the same thing with a care home. The place was pretty busy, but not with people who would, before the plague, wear shirt, tie and suit to work. 

About to leave, when a chap I thought I might once have known turned up and joined a nearby table. Not sure about him at all. But as soon as he opened his mouth, I knew it was him. Something which happens on telly quite a bit: I see a face which looks vaguely familiar, but as soon as he or she speaks, I know that I know the owner, and quite often from where. I associate today to the ease with which we recognise people that we know on the telephone, perhaps just from one or two words. And then, in the hunt for Tooting (see below), I came across reference 2 - which suggests that my confidence in these recognitions may be misplaced. Even though I am quite sure that it was not in this case.

I also learned that the place was due to shut for a month or so for a refurbishment, as per the letter snapped above. Hard to see why, as it all looked OK to me. Perhaps there had been some kitchen hygiene, plumbing or electrical disaster which meant they had to have the builders in, so brought the refurb cycle forward a bit while they were at it?

Not for the first time, I noticed the decorative motif underneath the eaves of the Wetherspoon's building, the Assembly Rooms of Epsom's days as a spa town, common enough in buildings of yesteryear. I have a theory that the motif is derived from the roof beams of the temples of ancient Greece, crossed roof beams which held the elaborately coffered ceilings togethers. In which case, the spacing is all wrong. Furthermore, it looks more like little white wooden bricks stuck up under the eaves than beam ends. One day I shall get around to making inquiries about whether or not my theory is true.

Chickened out to the extent of summoning BH to collect me from outside T J Maxx. A chickening out that I can excuse on the grounds that she needs the practise in keeping an eye on her mobile phone.

Lentils

Home to the second of two outings for a lentil stew. 7oz lentils to 2.5 pints of water. For some reason, much foaming when the (unwashed) lentils first came to the boil. Celery and later carrots with the lentils. Butter, garlic, onion and sausage (probably Bastides) cooked separately and added to the lentils shortly before serving. On the first occasion, served with rice and chou pointu. On the second, fortified with what was left of the sausage, thinned with a little water and microwaved. More rice and chou pointu.

Postscripts

PS 1: my visit to St. George's took place just after Christmas and does not appear to have been noticed at the time. However, my telephone can still reveal that during the scan, I wondered about the etymology of the word 'hypochondriac'. Why not hyperchondriac? After the scan, Honest Burger was not open and I declined Tooting Wetherspoon's, Earlsfield Gail's and the Halfway House. Back at Epsom, TB was closed. So settled for warmed up gravy at home. Probably a relic of a festivity.

PS 2: I have now looked up hypochondriac in OED and it seems my naive parsing of it as 'below fear' was quite wrong. Certainly hypo was beneath or below, but chondria was not fear or any relation thereof, rather gristle, particularly the gristle associated with the breast bone, and the hypochondria were various organs below the breast bone, on either side of the trunk, thought to be the seat of various humors, including melancholy and depression. By extension, someone who was rather prone to same. From where it is but a short step to the modern usage.

PS 3: in the course of posting this, I came across the piece at reference 3. And I thought, what on earth is the point? As far as Thames Water is concerned, it is all part of the cost of doing business and will be factored into their computation of the price they charge for water and related services. No effect on dividends or executive pay or anything of that sort. Also all part of the great British Government - along with plenty of other governments - trying to pull off the trick of providing decent public services without levying the taxes needed to pay for them. And to think that we slagged off Johnson for cakeism. Late thought: it is really just a complicated way for the government to levy taxes. Every little helps, as they say at Tesco's.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/out-and-about.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/12/spoofing-voices.html.

Reference 3: Thames Water fined £104mn over sewage discharges: Yorkshire Water and Northumbrian Water also sanctioned by regulator - Gill Plimmer, Financial Times - 2024.

Export grade

This afternoon saw the packing of a batch of export grade blackberries. A careful blend of local roadside, streamside and flatside varieties, put together by our third generation ruboriste.

Sadly packing was interrupted by industrial injury, that is to say thorn attack to a calf, before we had filled our second tub, and we had to return to base for treatment.

The blackberries, however, looked very well.

Flatside, there were also some damsons, something I have not picked for a while - a while which checking today reveals to be just about three years, for which see reference 6, but more than a month later in the season. However, a lot had already fallen, most of those left needed a ladder and I was unsure about taking plums from the front hedge of a private property. Blackberries, OK - but plums seemed to be pushing it bit somehow. In any event, we didn't. Maybe I will be back to take another look.

PS 1: as well as the traditional beef mince (without onions, tomatoes or mushrooms, but with regular boiled vegetables on the side), lunch had also included a blackberry and apple crumble, made with blackberries nominally picked by the same team on a previous occasion.

PS 2: I did make it to the damsons on Tuesday afternoon. Heavy cropping things.

Two small tubs. Must be near the end of the season, with lots falling before I could pick them and some of them soft and overripe. BH now pondering what to do with them. Damson fool? Damson pudding? Damson crumble? Probably a bit too strong to eat simply stewed.

References

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

Reference 2: https://www.agmrc.org/commodities-products/fruits/blackberries. From which I learn that the leaves are drinkable and the canes are edible. Something else to try.

Reference 3: https://www.raspberryblackberry.com/. The US includes raspberries.

Reference 4: https://britishberrygrowers.org.uk/home. The UK includes strawberries.

Reference 5: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/122892/pdf/. Problems!

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/iberico.html.

Haseley Manor

The middle Sunday of our stay on the Isle of Wight was open garden day at Arreton, a village in the middle of the island, an event involving four houses put together by the local scouts, represented on the day by ladies and gents in uniform, of much the same age as ourselves. The star attraction was a place called Haseley Manor, to be found at reference 1.

We started off in what I think was described as the herb garden, complete with a couple of herb wheels, one of which is snapped above. Complete with a medlar tree, otherwise Mespilus germanica. Google Images got in a bit of a muddle with the image above, but was clear enough when I zoomed in on a single cluster of fruits. Long description at reference 3, something a little more accessible at reference 4 - from which last I learn that you do not use the fruit rotten, as I had thought, rather bletted. It needs to be calmed down with frost and time to make it fit for consumption.

Not mentioned in the Boston Cook Book, but I had high hopes of Dorothy Hartley - but she, it turns out, gives them just a short paragraph. Some people, she tells us, like them for dessert, perhaps mashed up with cream and brown sugar, but she does not give the impression of being among them. I don't suppose we shall ever find out.

Not a tree much given to shooting from the trunk, but it has here for some reason. Rather to my surprise, Google Images had no trouble with this snap, containing little of the surrounding tree, identifying it as the New Zealand cabbage tree of reference 5.

A snack described as a cream tea, taken in an old shed which was clearly dressed for a wedding. We wondered how the place made a living - a great rambling old place, not open to the public any more, which must just soak up money - more money than one imagines one makes from weddings on Saturdays.

The booklet BH is holding in the snap above explains that the estate belonged to Quarr Abbey, more or less from the Conquest to the Dissolution, so a grange rather than a manor. Wound up with the Flemings at the beginning of the 17th century who had it until 1952, although they had stopped living in it for quite a long time before that, when it became part of a large farming operation. The house was more or less derelict when it went back into private hands in 1976, for massive restoration and subsequent opening to the public. A good fit with the nearby Arreton Barns operation, for which see below.

Presently owned by one Antony Roberts, a chap who has had an interesting life, but is best know for his work on burns. Indeed, a chap who used TB, badly burned in a car smash in his youth, may have been one of his customers. However, I thought £40 was a bit rich for the full story, particularly a story penned by someone who was not a writer by trade.

Looking down towards the Yar.

The large chimney at one corner of the house.

[top spot for medlar, right spot (I think) for wedding shed, left spot just to the left of the snogging shed, for which see below]

At some point, a picnic, taken on some convenient steps behind a shed somewhere in the grounds. Which led me on the hunt for self heal, as already noticed at reference 6. But before that, a young couple appeared, the gent making some cheerful but very coarse remark to his young lady. Neither of them seemed to mind a bit that we had seen and heard this little episode. Nor when I invited them to repair to the nearby snogging shed, snapped below. At that point I did not know that it was locked.

The next garden consisted of a fairly wild lake, at least that was the only part that was open, and we did not manage it all the way round. And decided that we had done enough open gardens for one day,

Then, heading for home, somehow or other we found ourselves heading north through Newchurch, and spotting the church up on a raised bank to the side of the road, pulled in to take a look. Quite near the fine bit of beech wood called Queen's Bower, which we have visited several times in the past. Named for the church which was newly built in 1087. There was a connection to Lyre Abbey in Normandy, and possibly to its founder William FitzOsbern, one of the Companions of the Conqueror. Presumably the term for the lords who put skin into the game, as it were, rather than the hired help from Flanders and Brittany.

The sounding board of the pulpit, repurposed. Looks quite heavy to be heaved up over the reading desk.

The pulpit itself. Rather darker brown than the lid. Different generation? Then the piano, noticed at reference 9.

A big, handsome space, if a little cold. Presumably far too big for the number of customers. BH bought some gooseberry jam off a table, just before we left.

Outside, the view down to the road below.

And a bit further along, a bit of a shubbery. A pleasant looking spot.

What had probably been the graveyard behind the church had been cleared, with just the one tomb (left) for one William Rutherford of Wacklands, who died in 1921. Our car right. All I have been able to find out about him so far is that he and his wife sent flowers to the funeral of Miss. Downer of Ryde in 1913. Hopefully I will do better later.

Home to mince from Tesco. Which I think rather better than the Sainsbury's equivalent, not least because it does not come in a tightly compressed and unsightly brick. Presence of a small amount of pasta suggests to me this afternoon, that this was the second outing, rather than the first.

PS 1: the gooseberry jam was finished today, in circumstances to be noticed in due course.

PS 2: Arreton is perhaps better known for its barns. A place which we have visited a couple of times and which, to me, seems rather old-fashioned. A hangover from the 1960s, when the island was a bigger holiday destination than it is now. See reference 2.

PS 3: later: some confusion between Wacklands, Wackland farm and the Wackland estate. Just the one Wackland on the map snapped above, on or near the lane of the same name. But there is a William Rutherford listed as a farmer in a commercial directory for 1904. Was he a gentleman farmer who occupied what is now a listed building? How did he have so much pull to get such a grand gravestone, all by itself? Did he pay for a new roof?

References

Reference 1: http://www.haseleymanor.com/.

Reference 2: https://arretonbarns.co.uk/. 

Reference 3: https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/mespilus/mespilus-germanica/.

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

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

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/self-heal.html.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haseley_Manor_(Isle_of_Wight).

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

Reference 9: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/piano-89.html.

Reference 10: https://rshg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/DOWNERMary.29.9.1913.pdf.

Botanics

About three weeks ago we paid our near annual visit to Ventnor Botanic Gardens of reference 1. With last year's visit being noticed almost exactly a year ago at reference 2.

This year's visit being complicated by landslips somewhere in the vicinity, cutting the direct route from Brading. Cross country indicated, which suited BH fine as she is usually good for a bit of off-piste.

Day started with a visit to the donkey in the rather untidy field behind out cottage who had been having a good bray some mornings. Just to the right of the oil drum.

Took a break in the upper cafeteria on the way and then headed north into the Australian section, with this epiphyte (?) being the first plant which prompted a snap. Google Image Search seems pretty clear that it is the Elkhorn Fern of reference 3, otherwise Platycerium bifurcatum. I think I agree with him. Doesn't look as it I have noticed it before.

A neat bit of palm tree pruning.

A pile on the hill behind the gardens. A little digging, and it turns out to have started life as the nursing home attached to the TB sanatorium which was once on the site now occupied by the botanic gardens. At some point it became a home for those with learning difficulties, possibly under the management of Somerset Care (reference 5). Difficulties with the Care Quality Commission (reference 6), closure and reversion to regular residential use, possibly as a prestige house, possibly as a bunch of flats. Not clear what happened to those with learning difficulties who lived there at the time of closure.

Street View looks a bit out of date, despite being described as 2021. Boarded up below and with what looks like recent chain saw action to a neglected garden in front. Just before conversion kicked in? To my mind, a conversion which has resulted in a very ugly building, rather an eyesore, and the original building was much better. My money is on flats, for which see reference 7.

Interesting, that the sanatorium itself was more or less completely demolished, with just a few outbuildings left. I associate now to a big one that used to be somewhere south of Epsom, but by the time we got there, a few years ago, it was just a field. Nothing left of it at all. Perhaps they were thrown up quickly and cheaply, not worth keeping once their original purpose was gone.

Our attention was next caught by a chunk of play equipment from Wicksteed, the people who used to have a stranglehold on the playgrounds of my childhood. Swings, climbing frames, roundabout and seesaws. Lots of tubular steel. See references 8, 9 and 10. It seems that Wicksteed Park is now a full-on children's attraction, but I still think it is a spin-off from their Kettering factory. I also think that we once came close to visiting.

Sadly, the downstairs Eulis restaurant, where we have had some good meals in the past, was closed, and we had to take a long lunch is the upstairs cafeteria. We were sat by a bookcase, which gave me the opportunity to have a look at the Rackham book snapped above. A prolific chap, with this book probably covering a lot of the same ground as that noticed back at reference 11. Quite good for dipping, a bit of a pain cover to cover.

Lunch, when it eventually turned up did well enough, although if it was called a ploughman's it was stretching the historical truth a bit. Rather too fussy for me, with rather too many flavours - although we were spared the crisps - and rather mean with the bread. I might have done better with double soup, spicy though it was.

Outside to hunt down the echiums, sometimes quite a sight here, but not this year. Not many of them at all. For a better show, see reference 13.

The hot house is very hot and is allowed to more or less run wild, making, I believe, some ecological point or other. Which included a carpet of duckweed on the giant water lily pond. I was not at all convinced that good use was being made of all the heat being poured into the building and I think I would have been more impressed with a more conventional display, along the lines of that, say, in the (much bigger) hot house at Wisley.

There were some of the handsome aloes left, although current management seen to prefer low palm trees.

And a bit of colour. Lots of Agapanthus, although, sad to say, I had to resort to Google Images this (Sunday) morning to remind me of its name. A little early in the morning perhaps.

In the wildlife department, one buzzard and a selection of lizards, these last up to around six inches long.

Back though the back lanes to Brading, where we partook of the broad beans already noticed at reference 14.

On the way, an elderly Romahome at Lake, which I failed to snap when I could - with the one above being turned up by Bing. A small camper van, about the size of an Escort van of old. I remember the distinguishing feature being that the front of the van detached from the back, which meant that you could drive about in something more like an ordinary car once you had parked the back end at the campsite. Which I may have come across at a campsite in France. Search today gives mixed results: the Romahome factory may have been at Cowes and it may have been taken over by the people at reference 15. Perhaps the detaching business was a gimmick which did not last that long - although the chap I talked to at the campsite was very pleased with his. But odd that I cannot find this gimmick this morning.

So I tried Gemini with: 'A long time ago, I came across a camper van called a Romahome. The big thing was that the front detached from the back. This morning, while I can find Romahome, I can't find any detaching. Can you help' and he came right up with the goods. A demountable D20, plus references 17 and 18. Which must be a lot newer than the campervan I remember as we have not camped for thirty years. So maybe not such a niche product?

There was also the question of the lost sun hat. Which after much fuss and bother, turned out to be in the pocket of my jacket, exactly where it should have been. Too much sun? Too much ploughman's?

References

Reference 1:  https://www.botanic.co.uk/. They must have been quick to grab this address!

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/ventnor.html.

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

Reference 4: https://www.botanic.co.uk/eat-drink/. The grub.

Reference 5: https://www.somersetcare.co.uk/.

Reference 6: https://www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-386213104/contact.

Reference 7: https://www.countypress.co.uk/news/18653896.former-steephill-residential-home-back-property-market/.

Reference 8: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/02/wicksteed.html.

Reference 9: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/05/sculpture-victorious.html.

Reference 10: https://wicksteedpark.org/.

Reference 11: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/06/tree-nuts.html.

Reference 12: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Rackham.

Reference 13: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/07/echium-pininana.html.

Reference 14: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/broad-beans.html.

Reference 15: https://www.northstarconversions.com/.

Reference 16: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/motorhomes/used-motorhomes/romahome?msockid=04a66d86d139648a03007ef9d05a65b3.

Reference 17: https://www.smallmotorhome.co.uk/the-romahome-demountable-d20.html.

Reference 18: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=V00kNNPp1Rs. Just a bit irritating and you don't get any demounting. But you do get to go inside.

John Woodcock

This evening, in a piece about right-wing rioting in the FT, I came across one John Woodcock, Baron Walney. I wondered whether there was any connection with George Woodcock, late general secretary of the TUC, at a time when that office was a good deal more important than it is now, who wound up in the same road in Epsom that we now live in.

John Woodcock comes from a Labour family from Sheffield, in Yorkshire. A politician whose recent career has been complicated.

George Woodcock came from another Labour family, but this one from Bamber Bridge. just south of Preston, in Lancashire. Top left in the snap above while Sheffield is bottom right, on the other side of the Pennines.

Gemini declined to answer the question on the grounds that it does not do politics at this time: 'I can't help with responses on elections and political figures right now. While I would never deliberately share something that's inaccurate, I can make mistakes. So, while I work on improving, you can try Google Search'. All a bit of a jumble.

Copilot was not so squeamish, and was happy to deny that there was any family connection, although it is hard to see how he could be so sure about this. When prompted, he explains that what he meant was that there was no connection to be found in that part of the public record that he had been trained on. And he did provide handy summaries of the lives and careers of both men.

Maybe I need to talk to a family history buff.

PS: a quick foray this morning suggests that family history is a paying business. There is lots of stuff out there, but you don't have to get in very deep before you are invited to flash the plastic. That said, the page snapped above is offered, gratis, by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aka the Mormons, to be found at reference 3 (where there are no Woodcocks). I also learn from some part of the Oxford publishing empire that there are around 10,000 Woodcocks in the GB. Also that a lot of family names are patronymic in origin, often ending up with a suffix of 'son', or just 's', presumably as in 'Edwards'. Not much further forward.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Woodcock,_Baron_Walney.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Woodcock_(trade_unionist).

Reference 3: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Surname_Frequency_and_Geography_-_International_Institute.

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

Blackberries four

Yesterday saw the first serious blackberry pick of the season, a two handed affair at Hook Road Arena. We came across a really good spot, just to the right as you go in the main entrance, and must have done close to a gallon in well under an hour. The fastest picking that I recall. BH presently at packing stations.

The scene to the left as you go in, where the blackberry bushes are well on the way to being strangled by convolvulus.

The picking ground to the right, snapped here after we had taken out the low hanging fruit. One only had to have a care down below, where some of the berries carried a bloom from the dust, presumably raised by the car boot traffic on Sundays.

The reward came in two parts. First, a rare foray to the excellent fish and chip shop - Kingfish - at Horton Retail. Best fried cod I have had for a while. While we waited - fish being cooked to order - I was able to inspect the money plant for signs of phyllotaxis.

The verdict was that the leaves came in whorls of two, rotating 90° at each step up the stem. A simple system, only slightly complicated by the occasional error in execution.

Second, another water melon from the international convenience store next to the dentist in Waterloo Road. Probably quite close to the 5kg weight limit for the shopping bag in question. But I got home OK, browsing on a couple of patches of blackberries on the way. Just the thing on a hot afternoon, much better than tepid water.

The damaged label on the melon said 'agrofrut', for which Bing turned up references 2 and 3. Reference 2 a Columbian company doing the wrong sort of stuff. While reference 3, a Greek company, looks right. Maybe not across the Atlantic, but still quite a long way to be moving naturally packaged water!

On the way, pleased to find that chain saw action in the vicinity of the large pine tree at the end of our road had not resulted in serious damage. Indeed, I was hard put to see what had been done. 

Perhaps they had just taken out some of the lower branches killed off by one of the recent hot, dry summers. Most of the real action must have involved some other tree or trees.

PS: in the margins I read of the support being given to Kamala Harris by someone with work-name Megan Thee Stallion. I dare say it all helps and the stallion will go down well with young voters, but without knowing anything at all about her, I have always found rapping a rather violent business, with an unsettling amount of anger being vented. Or at the very least simulated, which is almost as bad.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/blackberries-three.html.

Reference 2: https://www.agrofrut.com/en/about-us/.

Reference 3: https://www.agrofrut.gr/en/. 'Agrofrut Hellas Vassilis Pantazis S.A is the biggest Greek company in exporting watermelons. We export yearly 50.000 tons of watermelons to most European countries. / We deal with all shapes, sizes and varieties of watermelon available to us; from round to long and from mini to large'.

Copilot again

Following my brush with Copilot as geek noticed back at reference 1, I had occasion to give him another go this afternoon, on what looked to be a much less challenging problem than fixing an obscure chunk of Visual Basic code. I might say that I did not revisit that code, although I did post something about its output, such as it was, at reference 2.

The new problem concerned the behaviour of the Photos app, that is to say the Microsoft Photos app that comes with Windows 11 and Office 365. This last being the thing that I allow to be continually updating my laptop, on the grounds that just letting it get on and do its thing seems like a good idea and does not cause many problems - apart from the continual drip-feed of change irritating rather than helping me.

Now for the past few weeks, a lot of the time, when I open an image from File Explorer, Photos comes up with a middle sized panel locked into the middle of the screen of my Windows 11 HP Zbook laptop. With the top right portion of such a screen being snapped above. If I click on the maximise option top right on the Photos panel, I get a whole lot of options about clever organisation of panels on my screen which I do not want. And I can't move the panel: left click and drag with the mouse does not seem to work - although it works fine with, for example File Explorer and Word panels.

Then rather than just ask Bing, which usually turns up some advertisement infested geek, sometimes helpful, I thought I would ask Copilot. 

I got the impression that he did not have privileged access to my laptop, not even knowing, for example, that I was on Windows 11 rather than Windows 10. And his advice was fairly broad brush, not really focussed on my particular problem. But I plod through this stuff and first try a Photos repair, which helped, and then a Photos reset, which went a long way to fixing the problem. All that was left was the unreliability of mouse left click on a Photos panel. Copilot did not seem to think that this was odd and gave me another raft of things to try, including updating the drivers. But all this seemed terribly complicated, particularly as Copilot only seemed to have a sketchy knowledge of the options that I would need to click through to get to mouse driver update. Would Gemini have just got on and done it?

All this has burned up a couple of hours and I am not terribly impressed. But as I noted at reference 1, fixing someone else's computer remotely is a tricky business.

References 

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/limitations.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/a-word-frequency-analysis-from-dream.html.