Yesterday I felt that the supply of jigsaws was getting a touch low, so off to Ewell Village Oxfam shop to buy some more - as might have been deduced from yesterday's post. But before we got to the Oxfam Shop paid a visit to the Bourne Hall museum, a small but cunningly stocked local history museum which repays a visit once in a while. I share two factlets from this visit.
First, that Stoneleigh is named, indirectly anyway, for the Stone family, a prosperous family from hereabouts who used, amongst other things, to farm the land on which Stoneleigh is now built, with 'Stoneleigh' being the name of the house which had once housed some of the clan.
Second, that if you live in a timber framed and finished house and feel the need for the solid appearance of bricks to make sure that no-one thinks you are only one generation away from being a traveller, you can achieve this with very little disturbance by the use of what are called mathematical tiles. Why mathematical I have no idea, but in shape they are a hybrid between a tile and a brick, being hung like a tile but pointed like a brick, with the finished job being a brick wall which a layman would have a job distinguishing from the real thing. I dare say that the iron clouts holding the tiles to their outsize battens would rot eventually but they would be good enough for fifty years, which is apt to see out any adult caring to do such a thing.
Having bought a DVD and a higher grade Waddington's De Luxe jigsaw from the Oxfam shop off to the ever satisfactory Neopolitan Kitchen (http://www.theneapolitankitchen.co.uk/) for a light lunch. Long may they last! There is also a fine summer smoking den out the back should I ever get back on the brandy & cigars.
The DVD was a retread of the 1930 film of 'All Quiet on the Western Front' which we found to have worn very well, to the point that we were shocked by the carnage - and this without the dubious benefit of high tech. flesh and blood in the face. So not a happy film but a good one. Also quite long at something more than 2 hours. Slightly frustrated in that I recall there being something not quite right about the author, Erich Maria Remarque, but all that Wikipedia reveals is that he only spent about a month at the front proper. Maybe he passed himself off as more of a veteran but got caught out, not that that really takes away from the achievement of the book. Our own copy of which is from the 4th impression of the first English edition published in 1929, once the property of my father's brother in law, who, as it happened, died around 1960 of the long term consequences of being buried alive in a western front dugout.
Late to bed and woke up to find BH reading about the mother of Edward Benson and from there we branched to Frederick Rolfe, the one time lover of one of Benson's brothers. As a young man I must have read 'Hadrian the Seventh' several times, but this book, bought at a time when Penguin Modern Classics were very chic, at least at my school, has not survived. So I turn to Surrey Libraries to find that the whole of the Surrey Library system is without a copy. They can only manage a couple of copies of the play of the book. This is, I think, the second time, that I have come across a book once considered important which Surrey has culled: either an accident or a serious policy of use it or lose it. Gutenburg don't have it either, despite the fact that it must be out of copyright by now, so they don't rate it any higher than Surrey. Amazon could do me a second hand Penguin at 1p but I was put off by the £2.67 postage.
Shook off Rolfe as I marched around the Horton Circuit (clockwise) to wonder about why referees attracted the 'ee' suffix appropriate to people having things done to them. Like murderees or employees. Decided eventually that the suffix arose from the idea that one refers to a referee for a reference. The referee is the object of refer and the fact that the referee is subsequently the agent in the consequent activity is put aside. At which point I came across further activity of the phantom smasher (see 9th December). Luckily there was a fast food container near at hand and I was able to collect up the debris, large and small, and dump it in the litter bin, also near at hand. Although not so near to hand that the container was in it. BH tells me that she recently came across some broken crockery outside the Barnardo's shop opposite the Tesco Local (or is it Metro?), quite possibly the work of the same moron (not the mormonic angel that is).
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