Trolley 475

The creationists (or perhaps their janitor) had cleared out the accumulation of Sainsbury's trolleys since I last visited, leaving just two from M&S. One a regular large one, the other an irregular small one. Irregular in the sense that it did not look to me to be the same as a regular small one from the Epsom Food Hall. But I guess I should carry a tape measure if I want to be sure: it may just have been proximity to the large trolley making it look small.

In any event, contrary to usual practise of doing a U-turn at the first turning into Ewell Village and then retracing my steps to the trolley, I simply returned the large trolley to M&S, and then came back up East Street. With the doubling up perhaps adding a kilometre to my circuit.

Market very quiet, with just the lorry mounted butcher and a couple of street food vans. Both green grocers missing, the plant stall missing and all the odds and ends missing. Can't see the butcher sticking if for long if they don't all come back.

While the Fatface outlet next to HSBC has shut up shop. Must be fairly recent.

PS: the only tree down on this leg was a middle sized tree on Fair Green. Otherwise, plenty of twigs, the odd branch and some fencing panels. Plus a large bush falling out of the upper banking to the railway bridge at the East Street end of the High Street, just before you get to the Rifleman. Still up and running although it must be some years now since my last visit.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/trolley-474.html.

A Wigmore

A fortnight ago now we made into London for a Sunday morning concert at the Wigmore Hall, having cried off a modest number of evening concerts. So we had the new-to-us Merel Quartet giving us Haydn Op.20 No.2 and Dvořák Op.106. Which made me wonder this morning how many saleable paintings a painter produces in his or her working life? It would not take many a month to get to 106 over a twenty year career. Which then made me think that the way that quartets work up their season's offering and then hawk it around the concert halls of the world, is much the same as a painter of old, before the days of mechanical reproduction, knocking out lots of versions of a successful painting. The Breughel operation comes to mind, for which see reference 2.

Back at Epsom, it was wet enough when we set off to carry folding umbrellas, but we had them furled again by the time we got to the station. But cold to be standing about, which was unfortunate as the Waterloo services had been stood down for some reason and we had to settle for Victoria, some minutes later. Something I usually check for on the day, the Network Rail Journey Planner usually being very reliable on such matters, but forgot on this occasion. Not doing so well first thing this morning I might say, with the emergency timetables not making it through from the Southwestern Trains website to the Planner. I suppose they have a reasonable excuse.

Oxford Circus curiously empty when we arrived at around 10:30. About from the sounds of a brass band drifting in from somewhere. Luckily, All Bar One in Regent Street was open, so we got our fix of tea, coffee and smarties (for her). Once again thought about the merits of taking lunch there later, once again did not, in the event, make it. Wondered about how much tips had suffered in our now more or less no-cash environment. So the restaurant gets their 10 or 12% service charge more or less automatically, but I don't suppose many people top that up with cash or otherwise. I sometimes get a bit more added in, but that usually seems to cause more confusion with the money collecting machine than it is worth. So does it all leave them behind or ahead?

Not impressed by this dress in Margaret Howell, the fancy fashion house just before the Hall, last noticed at reference 5 on our last visit, more than two months previously, since when we had been plagued out. I thought it might do rather well in a costume drama involving lady prison officers, but BH assured me that it was all the thing. No doubt with a price to match. Not displayed though, as that would be in poor taste.

Onto a fairly full Wigmore Hall, where mask wearing was much improved and the flowers were as good as ever. Wondering who does them, I asked Bing this morning, who turned up the bit of the Wigmore Hall website which says 'Additional flowers and bouquets can be supplied by Wigmore Hall’s florist, The Flower Shop by email or by telephone on 07739 371282'. Searching for 'the flower shop london' turns up reference 3, which looks possible, probable even, but which has the wrong telephone number. Searching for the telephone number doesn't work at all, in either Bing or Google. No substitute for a telephone directory. But I dare say they would have a better chance if it were not a mobile number, in this case one of a block originally allocated to O2.

Bing also turned up the place at reference 4, from Wigmore in Kent, although it seems a bit unlikely to have anything to do with the hall. They did, however, supply the snap above, even if a little florid for musical types.

The audience sported a noticeable number of women with what looked like expensive and recent hairdos. And a noticeable number of rather scruffy, older men. Perhaps they were bachelors from nearby luxury flats. Or the not so luxury ones nearer Euston Road.

The quartet sat in the unusual order of violin one, cello, viola, violin two and they all used computers rather than paper scores. And did us very well. Haydn as reliable as ever and Dvořák entirely satisfactory. Running time about 75 minutes.

Out to the 'Place to Eat' at the top of John Lewis, a place with fine views of the roofscape. Quite a decent ham and cheese baguette, taken previously, but only a fair lemon meringue pie. Slightly irritated when we left to notice that they they did have the savoury lentils which I had liked on a previous occasion, but didn't think to look for on this one. Probably put off by the modest queue. Staff very pleasant, as ever.

Took the opportunity to take a quick look at televisions, with our still mulling over whether or not to get rid of our ancient but entirely functional 26 incher from Panasonic in favour of something that talks to the Internet. Plenty of giant tellies, far too big for our needs, but also some more modest ones. Mostly equipped with sound bars, which were not compulsory, but we were told that we should have one if we cared about our music... We were also told that we might want someone to do the installation. And that it would be unwise to jettison our DVD's on day one. The Internet offering was not as good as Spotify is for music and anything even a touch exotic might be absent. Information filed, and replacement project put away again. This despite my worrying that if we left it much longer we might find that we could not (which should be translated as BH could not) be bothered to learn how to drive it properly. Maybe one day we will make it to the slightly nearer people at reference 6. Be an excuse for lunch out in a town we do not know very well, with it being more than two years since the last visit. A visit which, before I took a look at reference 7, was mainly remembered for nearly buying a pile of heritage tableware.

Didn't get close enough to find out why Microsoft thought it was a good plan to fill up a large chunk of their Oxford Circus showroom with an armoured car. But there were a few more people about than earlier.

The tree on the line at Ewell East was cleared just as we reached the Victoria Station concourse, which was good. Scoring two aeroplanes at Balham, a first for what seems like years, was also good. Had the train lingered a few seconds longer, I might have bagged a second two.

Noticed the promotional signage for Subsea7 at Sutton Station and thought to look them up today. Lots of flashy pictures for those who like to look at marine engineering. Originally a Norwegian company, now grown up enough to want to avoid regulation and tax in the Duchy of Luxembourg. But still, according to Wikipedia, headquartered in Sutton.

Slept well that night. Clearly tired out after our first outing to the big town for weeks and weeks.

References

Reference 1: https://www.merelquartet.com/.

Reference 2: Breughel Enterprises - Peter van den Brink - 2002.

Reference 3: https://theflowershop.london/.

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

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/12/trios.html.

Reference 6: https://www.richersounds.com/.

Reference 7: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/09/another-important-place.html.

Reference 8: https://www.subsea7.com/en/index.html.

The Jersey Lily

This being a hare started by a chance purchase of the Lillie Langtry TV series of reference 1 in CEx for a tenner or so. A series from the late 1970’s running to 13 episodes with three or four parts to the episode. BH had a certain amount of bother keeping track.

A costume drama about a lady who was new-to-me but famous in the last 10 years of the 19th century and who lasted another 30 years after that. A costume drama without all the blood, sweat, tears and expletives of ‘Deadwood’. A costume drama which sagged a bit in the middle, probably not helped by watching it in larger chunks than was originally intended, but things picked up and we got through it. And we are very pleased to have chanced upon it.

Now supplemented by the two books that Surrey Libraries could offer, references 3 and 4. The thin reference 4 has more pictures than words, including quite a lot of theatre programmes and publicity shots, which were interesting. While reference 3 at 300 pages is rather fatter, and rounds the television series out nicely, even though I get the feeling that the lady author does not like her subject very much. Whereas, contrariwise, the gentleman author of reference 5 which I am reading presently, does not seem to like the prince, also known as Bertie, very much. More evidence that we tend to be more forgiving of the opposite sex than our own: ‘What on earth do you expect? Can’t help themselves you know. Children really’.

I ended up by being very impressed with her. From a standing start, with not much more than her looks, she fought her way into society and when that flagged, fought her way into the theatre – and made a lot of money there – a lot of it in the US. She was also very lucky – or good – with her race horses. All helped along by her being healthy, intelligent, sociable and having an enormous amount of energy. She also had a good head for business, not making that many mistakes.

It seems that she first flapped her wings in London at just about the time when photographers were selling large numbers of picture postcards of what were called professional beauties, more or less all of whom who would have counted as courtesans or demi-mondaines in the Paris of the day. And she managed to tap into this business, which made her a feature of the London scene and brought her a succession of rich admirers. Not all of whom were just munificent geriatrics – this being a splendid phrase I picked up more than forty years ago. And one of whom was the Prince of Wales.

Curiously, I find most of the pictures of her rather unattractive. I suppose tastes may have changed in the intervening century.

She also tapped into the painting scene of the day, and had her portrait painted by several eminences, including Millais, above. Brough of reference 5 has it that the props department at the Millais studio made a serious error, in that the flower is a Guernsey lily, not the same thing as a Jersey lily at all.

The Poynter version.

And one of her long-time associates was the publicity hungry Oscar Wilde; with each rather feeding off the other. An association which did not end very well with Langtry not caring to play the aging lead, which appeared to be modelled on her own rather complicated life, in ‘Lady Windermere’s Fan’ and with Wilde embarking on his foolish libel case, which ended up with him in Reading jail.

An impressive lady, but whose rather Faustian bargain with life ended rather sadly, more or less by herself, in Monaco; rich but rather lonely. More or less estranged from her only daughter, whom she had treated rather carelessly as a child, although she got on well enough with her son-in-law and her grandchildren.

Oddments

You might get your board when riding the country house circuit, but you needed a lot of expensive clothes – which was tricky for the early Langtry with no income to speak of.

Her husband got a bit of a rough deal. So he was not what she wanted: he was dull, he liked boating and fishing and became a tiresome drunk - before eventually expiring in a mental asylum up north. But he was what she signed up for - and then more or less dumped him once he had got her to London. She used him and expected him to play to her tune.

She could be rough, not to say cruel, with other people too. So apart from her daughter, whom she dragged about with her on the repertory and vaudeville circuits for years, there was, for example, the cabinet maker who spent weeks lovingly polishing some expanse of expensive walnut veneer – then when he had finished, telling him to cover it with white enamel – seemingly the latest thing. Which struck me as gratuitously unthinking and cruel. It was as if she had to flaunt her power and money because that was all she had left.

She was quite old when she made her career change to the stage, certainly quite old for a change of that sort, travelling by way of tableaux vivants a popular form of entertainment at the time, sometimes a form of soft-porn, this being possible due to some quirk in the censorship laws, although Langtry did not go in for that end of the business. But I did learn about one Olga Desmond who did. For which see references 7 and 8.

A slightly shabby period towards the end of her working life when she was attracted to young men at tea dances. Where the lady paid the man for a dance, rather than the other way around.

A walk on part for the slightly younger Elinor Glynn, a successful author of romantic fiction in her day, fiction mostly drawn from her own social life, which necessitated a certain amount of moving on. Probably little read now. Another product of Jersey, with a life not so far removed, if rather less flamboyant, than that of Langtry. I first learned about her from a book picked up on a table outside a lifeboat station on the Isle of Wight.

I have learned that you no longer reserve a book at the library. You put a hold on it.

Conclusions

A lucky find. Will we manage to get through the series again one day?

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillie_(TV_series).

Reference 2: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077042/. More on the series.

Reference 3: Lillie Langtry : manners, masks and morals – Beatty, Laura – 1999. 

Reference 4: Lillie Langtry : Her Life In Words & Pictures – Jeremy Birkett, John Richardson – 1979. 

Reference 5: The Prince and the Lily: The story of Edward VII and Lillie Langtry – James Brough – 1975. 

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Windermere%27s_Fan. 

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tableau_vivant. 

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

A refresh on elementary programming

In the course of reading Damasio's book at reference 1, of which more in due course, I have been prompted to wonder about the distinction between data and process, a distinction which seems to break down in neural networks, biological or otherwise. Then, reading about some of the workings of DNA, I have been prompted to wonder about the extent to which biological or chemical reactions can be exploited to do the sort of stuff more usually associated with computer programs.

Which has taken me back to the foundations, that is to say, what sort of repertoire of instructions does one need to build a decent computer?

To which end, I start with the 24 bit instruction used by ICL 1900 computers when I started out in the early 1970’s. A time when some large computers were water cooled in the way of the engine of a car – and maybe super computers still are – maybe the one snapped at reference 4.

Refresh on ICL 1900 instruction layout

In the snap above of an instruction for an ICL 1900 computer, taken from reference 2 below, the F field says what instruction is to be executed and the X field gives the number of the accumulator to be used. The two fields M and N between them usually define the address of the memory data item required by the instruction. So the operation might be to load the specified accumulator with the contents of that address. If the M field is zero, the 12-bit N field is the address of the operand – with 12 bits or 4,096 giving a very low limit on size, compared with a modern computer. If the M field is non-zero, the address consists of the contents of the modifier added to the N field. A tweak which I imagine is there for the convenience of the compiler, that is to say the thing that converts what you type into something that the computer can understand, can execute.

Part of the point here being that there is only a small number of accumulators (on the processing chip) but lots of addresses (of data items, of places in memory, usually a short distance from the chip). Most of the heavy lifting is done with accumulators, which means that a lot of code and processing time goes into moving stuff in to and out of them.

And while one might think that an instruction is process rather than data, that simple picture is confused by more than half the instruction being data about where data is to be found.

A program is a finite sequence of such instructions, usually stored in a file, but loaded into memory for execution.

Computers like this one can only do one thing at a time, and while several programs can be interlaced in time, appearing to be running at the same time, each one can be considered to running by itself, in complete privacy, executing one instruction after another, by default in the order in which those instructions have been written to file.

A completely centralised operation with the programs existing inside a management and control environment, here called the supervisor. Which is a long remove from the completely decentralised operation of a tank (or body) full of chemicals. In this case, programs, if they can be called such, work of their own accord. They do not need a supervisor to breathe them into organised life.

Refresh on Jackson SDM diagrams

The idea here, again from the early 1970’s, was that (the design of) any program could be built out of the elementary building blocks of sequence, repetition and choice. Where the ‘goto’ instruction was rather frowned upon. While the ‘call’ (subroutine) instruction was desirable but not strictly essential. Where each block was a chunk of processing which was either sufficiently small and simple for the code to be self explanatory or which could be further broken down in a subordinate diagram. 

An important part of this was the breaking of a large problem down into a number of small problems. Each small problem was implemented as a block of code, quite possibly as a subroutine, which could be written, worked up and tested independently of all the other blocks. Then, hopefully, not all that much would go wrong when the blocks were all stitched together.

With some further introduction being provided at reference 3.

Programs and instruction sets

We suppose our computer has a small number of accumulators and a large number of data addresses. As above, the values that these accumulators and data addresses can take are 24 bit integers; positive, zero or negative. Data is usually about some real world entity, perhaps a person or a driving license. But a data item can also be the address of some other bit of data or the address of some particular line of the program using that data.

Program addresses are derived by numbering the instructions from zero. 

The program lives inside our computer and is activated and generally looked after by the supervisor. Programs need supervision to bring them to life; without supervision they are just a chunk of text, dead to the world.

There is a special bit of state data called the cursor, a non negative integer, which keeps track of, tells the supervisor which instruction is currently being executed. By default, the instruction immediately following is the next one to be executed, that is to say that the instructions in the program are executed one after the other. One exception being the case that a branch instruction has been executed, and execution jumps to somewhere else. Another exception is the case that the program has executed a stop instruction.  And the last is the case that execution has reached the end of the program and there is no next instruction, in which case again, it stops. 

The program will also stop if there is some kind of error, for example trying to use an inappropriate address.

When the supervisor starts the program, this cursor is set to zero.

The supervisor recognises a number of different instructions, possibly as many as 100 or them, otherwise the instruction set. A great deal of work has gone into devising instruction sets, into striking the right balance between the convenience of the processor chip and the convenience of the humans writing programs. While some logicians delight in inventing instruction sets which are both minimal and sufficient – although perhaps inconvenient. And others went in for exotic high level languages, for example the Algol 68-R, fashionable in defence circles in the mid 1970’s. High level in the sense that they are many layers above the sort of thing that a processor chip might understand, and much compilation is required to take one down from the high level to the chip-ready, low level. Generally speaking, programs in high level languages are much shorter and much more legible than the equivalent programs in low level languages.

An instruction set

It can be shown that a program consisting of instructions of one of the following forms can do a great deal, particularly in the way of doing sums. And by adding ever more tricky instructions, a program can do even more, including processing text rather than numbers.

PULLA. Put the contents of data address X into accumulator Y. Here and in what follows the values of X and Y have been computed as part of the preparation of the program, before it is executed and in the instruction, in the program that has been loaded into the computer, we have actual numbers, not pointers to numbers. Note that the program itself is inviolate; it is executed but not amended during that execution. What changes during execution is the data in the accumulators – which might be called state data – and the data in memory.

PULLB. Put the data addressed by accumulator X into accumulator Y. This sort of indirection is the key to much that is important in computing: the transition zone between data and process. Supervisors are supposed to fail instructions which reference addresses which are out of bounds.

ADD1. Add the contents of data address X to the contents of accumulator Y, putting the answer into Y.

ADD2. Add the contents of data location addressed by accumulator X to the contents of accumulator Y, putting the answer into Y.

ADD3. Add constant A to the contents of accumulator Y, putting the answer into Y.

SUB1. Subtract the contents of data address X from the contents of accumulator Y, putting the answer into Y. 

SUB2. Subtract the contents of data location addressed by accumulator X from the contents of accumulator Y, putting the answer into Y.

SUB3. Subtract constant A from the contents of accumulator Y, putting the answer into Y. 

These three add and three subtract instructions are the foundation on which our computer does sums. The subject matter of this particular computer. All the rest is moving stuff about and control.

SET1. Put the constant A into accumulator Y.

PUT1. Put the contents of accumulator Y into data address X.

PUT2. Put the contents of accumulator Y into the data location addressed by accumulator X.

PUT3. Put the current program address into accumulator Y. More trickery of the sort started at PULLB above. Needed if we are to be able to return from a call to a subroutine, as, for example, in Basic. Actual use needs to take account of the need to return to a point a few instructions after the one that gets into the accumulator. With subroutines being an important part of the modularity needed if large programs are to be manageable – a modularity which is not, as noted at reference 3, very visible in a human brain.

IF. If the contents of accumulator Y is zero or negative, then transfer control to the program address given by accumulator X. A conditional branch. One or more of these instructions are used to implement the Jackson choice.

GOTO1. Transfer control to program address A. An unconditional branch. Used when the target address is known at the time of writing the program. Paired with IF, used to implement the Jackson repetition.

GOTO2. Transfer control to the program address given by accumulator X. Another unconditional branch, useful when the target address is not known at the time of writing the program. It may, for example, depend on circumstances. Teamed with PUT3 and GOTO1, used to implement calling and subsequently returning from a subroutine.

STOP. Stop.

In this we have more or less followed the layout used by ICL, as illustrated above: do something or other, using contents of this accumulator and of that data address.

As noted above, there is no one such set of instructions and much time has been spent on devising sets suitable for various computing environments and circumstances. While the high level languages actually used by most computer programmers are layered on top of low level languages of this sort.

The business of moving data between memory and peripheral devices such as discs, tapes and humans has been omitted. A substantial complication, but one which does not bear on the matter in hand.

A simple example to add up some numbers held in memory

In what follows, ‘[‘ is used to mark comments, which are not part of the instruction. Most programming languages allow comments.

0: SET1 1, 100 [the code that follows the ‘IF’ below is to be executed 100 times

1: SET1 2, 0 [set the value of the accumulator which will be use to accumulate the sum to zero

2: SET1 3, 1000 [the address of the first of the 100 items – which taken together occupy a block of 100 data locations

3: IF 1, 8 [stop the loop when we have done 100 executions

4: ADD2 2, 3 [add the first or the next data item, addressed by accumulator 3, into accumulator 2

5: ADD3 3, 1 [move the data address pointer to the next position

6: SUB3 1, 1 [subtract 1 from accumulator 1. This new value is tested at 3 above, after the goto which follows

7: GOTO1 3 [go back to the start of the loop

8: we now have the sum of 100 data values in accumulator 2. The program winds up and stops

Note that there are lots of slightly different ways to code up even this simple example. Some of these differences may be to do with style: in a large program it is helpful if the programmer has a style and sticks to it.

Also that it would be possible to avoid the use of the loop by writing out 100 short blocks of code, which would be clumsy and prone to error. But not possible at all in cases where the number of repetitions is not known in advance and may be large.

Conclusions

We have set the scene for comparison with more exotic forms of program. How much of this sort of thing we can we get a bath full of chemicals to do?

References

Reference 1: Feeling and knowing: making minds conscious – Antonio Damasio – 2021.

Reference 2: http://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/acl/literature/manuals/icl1906a/p001.htm. The source for ICL 1900’s. For present purposes, the best of the various offerings turned up by Bing or Google.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-does-brain-do-sort-of-things-that.html. 

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/06/oak-ridge.html. 

Eunice

For what might be the first time ever, I have decided to reschedule to accommodate the storm warnings for the middle of Friday coming out of the Met Office, now located in far away Exeter.

Having had a near serious fall while cycling on ice something more than ten years ago, I decided this morning to actually heed the warnings and not pedal around London in the middle of the red alert. Not least because in the event of mishap, I might be mistaken for a prat! That said, bicycles do much better than you might expect on ice, perhaps because the high pressure of modern tyres means that the area of contact is small, with local melting giving the ridges of the tyre something to grip on. Contrariwise, the local melting underneath an ice skating blade is what provides the lubrication. For some of which see reference 2.

I also remember that on the last occasion, I was able to get home OK, with pain only kicking in when I was safe indoors. Somehow, the body seemed to know that, in the short term, getting to safety, getting home was important. Worry about the back later. Since then, I have come across similar anecdotes, although I cannot presently call one of them to mind.

References

Reference 1: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/. Which might be an official site, but one which, this morning, is putting out advertisements for holiday cottages and for Waitrose. A bit poor that a rich country like ours needs to do such stuff. But that's the Tories for you, ever so patriotic that they might claim to be.

Reference 2: https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1593.

Cappadocia

A couple of weeks or so ago, we got around to trying out the new Epsom branch of the Cappadocia restaurant of Kingston, noticed at references 1 and 2. While more recently I summarised Cappadocia as 'a region in the north east of Turkey, a more or less independent kingdom at the time of Alexander the Great, say 300BC. Christian until about the time that the Turks arrived, that is to say at roughly the same time as the Normans arrived here in England to take part in the Battle of Hastings. Lots of history and now lots of tourists'. To which I might add that it was once the seat of the Hittite empire and once part of the Persian empire. Then came the Armenians and the Turks, but with some of the population hanging onto a Greek version of Christianity. They got tidied up when modern Turkey was invented in the 1920's.

The Epsom branch has taken over what was Café Rouge - which we probably used a dozen or so times over the years - and before that Mamma something, an Italian flavoured restaurant. There is still a substantial mahogany bar, so the place might once have been a public house, back in the glory days of the Derby.

The layout of the public part of the restaurant has not changed much, although the fittings, furnishing and décor are all new. Reasonably busy for a Thursday lunchtime, maybe 10-15 of us altogether, mostly ladies. So they would not have shifted that much booze.

The menu was only partly Turkish, with plenty of dishes which one might find in many pubs. Although that said, the menu given at reference 4 looks more Turkish than I remember. Which could be a memory problem, but my note was made at the time, so clearly another visit is indicated for verification of this point.

Humus and bread to start, this last very good and not the flat bread to be seen in the snap above.

BH went for salmon, with which she was well pleased, while I went for lamb chunks - a large portion served on a very large plate. Flat bread underneath probably not intended for eating, although I did, rather as blotting paper. Meat slightly under done to my mind and I would have preferred smaller chunks. Yellow wheaten mound visible left very good. Something Bulgar. Salad fresh enough, but with rather a lot of oil and vinegar - bearing in mind that salads at home are served with neither. So I will take it again, but I won't eat the flat bread and I will ask for the meat to be a bit more cooked.

Remembering the rather good figs I once had in the Turkish restaurant next to the Globe Theatre, I went for figs on this occasion. Which came in a large and interesting bowl, involving both some kind of syrup and ice cream. Which went down well enough, but not as good as by the Globe, where the figs did not come with syrup but were stuffed with some kind of light, white paste. Probably mostly cream.

All eased down with Picpoul and a spot of Jameson, with token mask visible below. Passed on Turkish coffee on this occasion.

All in all a pleasant addition to the stock of restaurants in Epsom. I am sure we will be back at some point.

References

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2009/06/derby-pickings.html. Probably our first visit to the Kingston branch.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/08/shopping-in-kingston.html. Another visit.

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

Reference 4: https://www.cappadociaepsom.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_tFSWZXKN0. A dissident film about Putin, retweeted from the Financial Times. Dubbed into English. There is rather a lot of it, but it also tells us a lot about Putin, his cronies and his very large amount of money. From the days when he was a humble KGB operative in Dresden. Where we are not talking James Bond, whatever story he might now be peddling back at home. Where some of the story we are told has been culled from the very thorough East German police archives, now opened up.

Greed at the top

To my mind, there is something vaguely indecent about the boss - the boss that is, not the owner - of a large company paying himself of the order of $100m a year. What on earth can anyone - let alone someone near the normal retiring age - do with so much money? What on earth is the point? 

There is also an element of nonsense about it. Such bosses are apt to be the sort of people who work all the time, more or less all their waking hours. The nearest they get to leisure is strutting about the executive floor of their tower block and feeling very important. Perhaps screaming at their secretaries and aides. So no time to actually spend any of this money.

One wheeze that occurs to me is that such bosses should go in for competitive donations to charitable causes. Or perhaps competitive donations to the taxman? Or to the Bill & Melinda foundation?

From where I jump to the ancient Californians who were very into amassing money and showing it off - in the form of large numbers of flawless, identical shells. Amassing and showing off was the point, rather than spending it and when you died it was buried with you. Or perhaps destroyed. Competitive destruction of money being an important element of a high status funeral. For a slightly more prosaic take on all this, see reference 2.

Which brings me to another wheeze. Money is all dated and expires after so many months or years. So you don't just have X pounds in your bank account anymore, it is all organised by date of issue. With expiry making it much harder to accumulate lots of it.

References

Reference 1: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/. Bill and Melinda.

Reference 2: The origin and use of shell bead money in California - Lynn H. Gamble - 2020.