A new sweater

A sweater has been draped over a bench on Clay Hill Green for some days now, so on return from an early morning flu-mission to Epsom this morning, we decided to gather it up. Having first waited for passers-by to pass and ascertained that it was XXL and so might well fit me. Now in the washing machine.

In the meantime, I am having some trouble working out where it came from or what it is made of. There are at least a couple of mission clothing outfits in the US, references 1 and 2, but neither of them look right for this sweater. 

While 'on dirait le Sud' is a widely used brand name in France, not just for clothes. It is, for example, the title of the French translation of the graphic novel at reference 3. But while I can find some shops and nearly new outfits which sell clothing carrying the brand, I cannot find its owner or a website. All very puzzling.

At least later today I should know whether it fits.

PS: later today: it does fit and seems quite warm. On closer inspection, quite worn in places, with the odd small hole and the odd patch of paint. But perfectly decent enough for wear around Epsom. But how on earth did it get onto the park bench? A druggie removing his sweater in the middle of the night so that he could shoot up? Then forgetting it as he took off down the hill in ecstasy?

References

Reference 1: https://www.mission.com/. The Serena Williams venture.

Reference 2: https://www.mission-clothing.com/. Gender benders.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuck_Rubber_Baby. A book about the US south.

Red tops

Having collected a copy of the free Metro from Epsom Station yesterday, I took a look at it yesterday afternoon, having got home from my travels.

And a piece about the plotting of Prince Andrew made me very cross. Why is a newspaper which, while free, pretends not to be a red-top, peddling garbage like this? Just the sort of stuff which stirs up so much trouble on social media.

Checking up this morning, I find that the garbage in question is fairly old news. Perhaps the Prince did indulge in some loose talk in his cups years and years ago, but does he deserve to have it all dragged up again now? Who cares, anyway? 

It seems that the trigger for all this is the book at reference 1, due to be published on my birthday. To be serialised by the Telegraph. A book written by a journalistic celebrity, one Angela Levin, who despite dishing the dirt on everyone else, is very coy about her own private life. We have reference 2, but she has somehow blocked a Wikipedia entry being created for herself. Perhaps the Wikipedia people allow the living to do that?

Is she some relative of that other journalistic celebrity, the late Bernard Levin? Once pundit to chattering classes.

Turning to the Metro itself, I had thought that it was from the same oligarchical stable as the Evening Standard, now owned by the son of a former KGB agent, a son who is now naturalised in this country and a sitting member of our House of Lords. Big mates with the late fat leader. For which see reference 6 and for whom see reference 7. The same stable to the extent of being printed on the same printing presses and being served by the same distributive and creative resources.

But this seems to be quite wrong. The Metro is owned by the Daily Mail Group of reference 5, a group which appears to corral the Daily Mail family, the Metro and, curiously, the New Scientist. A must read for aspiring scientists in my schooldays. Perhaps no longer. While the online version of the Daily Mail gets lots of space, along with the Daily Express, in the trashy Microsoft News feed.

All in all, a non-event. But a non-event which was also, for me, a learning-event.

PS 1: there is still a lurking doubt. I must have got the idea that the Metro and the Evening Standard were joined at the hip from somewhere. More checking indicated...

PS 2: Tuesday afternoon: The Standard was owned by Associated Newspapers until 2009. Associated Newspapers is part of DMG Media, which has retained a 5% stake in the Standard. So quite possible that the Standard is still printed on their presses. I may have got into a muddle about Rothermeres and Harmsworths, forgetting that Harmsworths took the lordly title of Rothermere and so are actually the same people.

References

Reference 1: Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall: From outcast to future Queen Consort - Angela Levin - 2022. To be published 29 Sept. 2022.

Reference 2: https://www.angelalevin.co.uk/.

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

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_(British_newspaper).

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

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

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

Trolley 533

On the Kiln Lane circuit yesterday, I had thought to take two trolleys from the creationists in East Street, but on my way out the mighty janitorial man of reference 2 invited me to take a third. His English was more or less non-existent but I think we agreed that students can be very messy. Which took me back to my own (rather unwashed) student days.

I suppose from his point of view, my taking three saved him a job, while my taking just the two did not. But from my point of view, I was reminded that wheeling three trolleys on an uneven pavement is a great deal harder than wheeling just two. Not a linear relationship at all. Not an issue in the car park at Kiln Lane which is flat and smooth, and where it is possible to wheel long strings of trolleys.

Once again, the small trolley line was empty when I arrived, although a string did arrive just as I was depositing my three - less the one that an old gentleman who did not want a large trolley had confiscated en-route.

Over the footbridge out back, to find the story from Burgh Heath Travis Perkins confirmed. The RAPT bus garage, formerly Epsom Coaches, had indeed closed and so it was entirely possible that Travis Perkins were going to take over the site, far bigger than their current premises a few hundred yards down Blenheim Road. I wondered how many times I had walked past the (side of the) garage without realising that it had closed. See reference 3 for a fairly recent notice of the place.

The sign outside the butcher still claims that it is going to open today. But it was hard to see how that might be midday yesterday. No action to be seen at all. Let's hope the case is not terminal.

One large black rubbery washer added to my collection. About an inch across and probably intended to help join up some plastic pipework.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/09/trolley-532.html.

Reference 2: https://www.mitie.com/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/06/trolley-518.html.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Heritage Dorking

Heritage time of year again in Surrey, so last week we made a start of sorts by visiting Dorking. A visit which has already produced a number of posts under the group search key 'dka'.

Visits to the interior of Pippbrook House, first noticed at reference 1, had sold out, so we had to make do with driving around it. Rather smaller than I had expected, Victorian Gothic, but not as ugly as the big house in Nonsuch Park. Probably not helped by having had its pleasure gardens ripped away.

Next stop the large church with its tall spire, another Victorian gothic rebuild. Handsome enough inside, in a rather austere sort of way. Probably far too big for today's parochial needs, but I think that they do what they can to make use of the space - which will be very expensive to heat in the winter to come. Will they have to close it down?

A sample of the decorative work, and a reminder of the days when the big men in provincial towns raised their own regiments. The days when regiments had a hometown, in the way they probably have not since the downsizing and consolidation after the second world war. I remember FIL telling us that when he joined the Medical Corps in 1940 or so, he was assigned to a unit which had been mainly raised in Leeds and it took him some little while to understand much of what they were saying.

A view of the interior.

The memorial to one of the tenants of Deepdene, once Dorking's big house. A lady of the middling sort, from the US, but one who had a knack for marrying well. Presumably good looking, good company or something. See reference 2.

I think tastes in these matters must have changed.

Onto the house once occupied by Mullins the bootmaker, a chap who carried his family off to the New World in the Mayflower. He perished, along with most of his family, in the course of the first winter. His house is now a tea shop where they were able to do us very decent toasted teacakes, much better than average. It is even possible that they were not toasted fresh out of the freezer.

Dorking is something of an antiques town, presumably reflecting both the loss of regular trade and the high density of rich people, and opposite the tea shop we had a shop with a substantial display of silver. We wondered who on earth would buy such stuff? Who would bother to use it? And it they did, who would clean it? 

My own parents bought a canteen of silverplated cutlery when they married, somewhere out of Piccadilly. Contemporary cutlery of the 1940's, not cod-Georgian at all. Cutlery which lived in a canteen in the dining room and which was used for everyday purposes. There was nothing else. I suppose someone polished it from time to time. And polishing silver was the sort of job dumped on boys in the days of bob-a-job - which I might say I loathed. But using anything other than stainless steel these days would strike me as odd. A rather silly and vulgar display.

A curious building on the edge of the town centre, one that Pevsner manages, even for him, to be impressively rude about. I rather liked it. The chap behind the pet shop counter explained that it had been built as a public service building and had done time in the past as a fire station, a library and as a theatre. Pevsner notwithstanding, now a listed building, so I guess the pet shop people got it on the cheap. Just like the pet shop people in East Street who took on what had been our Ford dealer's showrooms.

A reminder of the havoc wrought by the Great War. And being an honourable was no protection. Even being the sons of an ennobled builder.

After the diversion to catch the Wellingtonia on Westcott Street, a visit to the Dorking Museum, which I thought dull - apart from the coffin carriage already noticed. Furthermore, the male trusty was wittering on to the female trusty the whole time we were there.

A blast from the past. Or, at the least, a puff. I could not bring myself to ask the trusty what it was all about.

Thoughts turned to lunch at this point and we though that something in the sandwich department was what we needed. But all the places which we came across were offering things that were far too complicated and far too expensive. We ended up buying something in the M&S food hall, in my case a small loaf of white bread and some Italian charcuterie - for which they may well have their own word. In her case, a readymade. The white bread was described as a boule and was adequate, but rather badly undercooked. Charcuterie fine - and also taking the prize from Sainsbury's for the grocer who can cut cooked meat the thinnest.

The view from our bench is snapped above. We thought that, just as in Epsom, the Dorking town worthies have not yet grasped that there is far too much retail space in most towns and it needs to be shrunk, or at least given over to some new purpose, yet to be identified. Hard to see a future for add-ons like this one. I suppose the worthies cannot see past all the business rates that they would like to collect when we turn the corner.

After lunch, an attempt to visit the site of the demolished Deepdene House, taking in on the way the rather splendid oleaster snapped above. We also came across a proper Post Office, red brick with lots of stone trim. How is that Dorking still has one while Epsom is reduced to a counter at the back of a convenience store? In fairness, I should say that the convenience store people are both pleasant and efficient.

While the once grand Deepdene House fell into the hands of British Rail before being demolished in favour of offices in the 1960's. See reference 3. Tragic according to Pevsner.

All we were able to find on this occasion was some rather flashy looking flats, in two blocks, plus a view of gardens, ending in what looked like the entrance to a tunnel, snapped above.

A bit grander, away from the dustbins.

But an interesting old town. We shall be back to try and find the various heritage trails on offer, some of them through the grounds of what was Deepdene House.

PS: the Blogger spell checker does not like words like 'readymade' to be spelt with a space between the two halves. I have been pulled up several times in the course of this post. No idea what the official, UK line is in such matters.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/08/wellingtonia-91.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_Spencer-Churchill,_Duchess_of_Marlborough.

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

Group search key: dka.

Wellington

Chancing to open my biography of Wellington the other day (reference 1), at Chapter XI covering the campaign of Salamanca (see reference 2 for a more up to date version), I came across three striking facts.

First, the prodigious volume of Wellington's dispatches. I believe the custom was to keep copies of all dispatches, even those written in the heat of battle: it was important to keep a record, not least to provide a bit of cover in the event of a witch-hunt. With the result that we have 12 volumes of military dispatches proper; 15 volumes of supplementary dispatches, correspondence and memoranda; and, 8 volumes of civil dispatches, correspondence and memoranda.

Second, the rate of sickness. Wellington had around 75,000 men under his command, British, Spanish and Portuguese - and of these, around 20,000 were sick, leaving him 55,000 effectives. It would be interesting to know what sort of sick, but I guess that a lot of this was to do with lack of proper sanitation and hygiene. Noting that the French totals were much larger, although spread across a number of more or less independent armies.

Third, the plan had been for one Lord Bentinck to create a diversion to the northeast by landing a considerable force - some 10,000 men - in Catalonia. In the event he decided to effect a landing in Italy. Not clear whether Bentinck got into any kind of trouble over this: perhaps he was within his rights with his independent command. Perhaps he had good friends at court. A cursory read of reference 3 leaves me none the wiser on this particular point, although there was clearly lots going on to the east of Spain.

PS 1: Bing says the illustration above comes from reference 4, but I can't find it there, although there are plenty like it. So none the wiser about what is going on. Did the artist know, or did he compose the scene in the comfort of his own studio?

PS 2: but I did read of the death of General Le Marchant, according to Wikipedia at reference 5, one of the finest cavalry commanders of his generation. A name familiar to me from having passed the Le Marchant barracks at Devizes on various occasions, at the back end of the last century.

PS 3: it also struck me this morning, my eye lighting on my copy of Dr. Zhivago, that the war in the Ukraine is a rather dismal way to mark the centenary of the civil war in Russia after the 1917 revolution. A civil war involving much barbarity on both sides, barbarity which perhaps fed what followed in the 1920's and 1930's.

References

Reference 1: The life of Wellington: The restoration of the martial power of Great Britain - Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart., M.P., F.R.S - 1900. Volume 1, second edition. Originally owned by a parson whose name I can't make out from his book plate. Defeated by the ornate script.

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

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

Reference 4: https://www.britishbattles.com/peninsular-war/battle-of-salamanca/.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Le_Marchant_(British_Army_officer,_born_1766).

New sausage

I have not been able to buy what I regard as good kabanosi for years now, not since the days when expatriate eastern and central Europeans used to run delicatessens all over London. There used, for example, to be one next to the Odeon in Streatham High Street in south London and possibly more than one in or around Queensway in Bayswater.

This at a time, as I recall, when the Poles used to export all kinds of quality grub to western Europe for western European currency, but had trouble buying things like oranges at home - and had to rely on visiting expatriate relatives bringing them in in their suitcases.

But happening by the Morrison's at Sutton yesterday, I thought I would take a look at their cooked meat department, to find a chunk of shelf space given over to shrink wraps from Sokołów. I spurned their kabanosi, but instead took what they are pleased to call a country sausage, half of which I took with brown bread today lunchtime.

Not bad at all, perhaps a higher grade version of the French garlic sausage. But it would have been even better with white bread. I should have gone to Costcutter for some of their batch rolls.

PS: you need a sharp knife to get the shrink wrap off. Or perhaps I did not get the knack of it.

References

Reference 1: https://sokolow.pl/en.

Reference 2: https://www.costcutter.co.uk/.

Wellingtonia 94

A low grade capture on the southern outskirts of Dorking, off the A24 to Horsham. Low grade in that the Wellingtonia did not look very healthy and in that we failed to get up close and personal, a requirement on a strict interpretation of the rules.

We did drive down Deepdene Avenue, aka A24, top left in the snap below, but it was not a good place for viewing and we did not think to park up and explore on foot.

In the rather secure grounds of something called the Unified Academy, which I took to be some kind of Army training facility, possibly closed, but on closer inspection turns out to be a school for those with special needs, as detailed at reference 2.

'Welcome to Unified Academy. We are a special school for boys aged 9 to 16 years who have social, emotional and mental health needs. All of our students have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).

Students are at the heart of everything we do. We want our students to become well-rounded, confident adults with high aspirations for their future. 

We deliver a highly personalised approach to education with an emphasis on meeting the different needs, abilities and interests of our students in order to secure the best possible outcomes for them. 

Class sizes are small with no more than 10 students in each teaching group. Lessons are tailored, carefully planned and as a result, learning is more purposeful and engaging. As well as teaching staff, classroom assistants provide additional support for students helping to build their confidence and self-esteem whilst supporting their academic, social and developmental needs...'.

The first of the snaps above was taken from outside the entrance in Chart Lane, lower right in the second snap above.

PS: a slightly irritating post in that it was done in Chrome, where the blogger experience is not quite the same as that in Edge, which is where I usually post from. In fact, rather better in Edge, which is odd, given that Blogger is a Google rather than a Microsoft product.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/09/wellingtonia-93.html.

Reference 2: https://www.unifiedacademy.org/.

Group search keys: wgc, dka.