Literary matters

Now about half way into my 12 week promotional offer for lapsed subscribers from the TLS. Some issues have had interest but the last couple have not.

So this week kicked off with a couple of books about women in the world of work. No interest. Onto a couple of books about the age of the flappers. No interest. A minor Tolkien. Of minor interest to learn about Tolkien floundering before finding his literary niche. A book about the treasure of Richard II, again of minor interest, at the major price of £95. A book about the carvings on Roman coffins, often erotic; more minor interest at major price, this time £150. Uninteresting articles about books about North Korea and elephants. Literature academe, cultural events, modern fiction (from which I sometimes pick a plum) and poetry (from which I never pick a plum) making up most of the balance. All in all, not a good use of time. More interest in one of the growing number of unread new-to-me books lurking in the pile in the study. Direct debit stopped again, pending working down said pile of the great unread.

And, while on holiday recently, had my first foray into the written world of Morse, with what appears to be the penultimate outing with Morse catching diabetes big time in 'Death is now my neighbour'. Readable, in that I did get to the end, but a fairly careless read and I had trouble keeping track of all the shenanigans, despite having seen the television adaptation several times (this last much enlivened by the late Richard Briars as a masterly if improbable baddie). Rather put off by the steady drip feed of mentions of legs, strippers and pornography and the steady refrain of Morse in the boozer. I much preferred Agatha Christie and I don't suppose I shall be having another crack at Colin Dexter any time soon. Similar looking pedigree to the otherwise rather posher John le Carré. I wonder which of the two ended up the richer? Did they share or declare a banal hobby like train sets or jigsaws?

PS: took me a while to work out that blogger was querying 'neighbour' in the foregoing because of the unamerican 'u'. Usually a bit quicker on the uptake.

Mystery Wall

We came across this substantial field wall just to the west of Brandy Head (named, on supposes, for the nocturnal activities of yesteryear) on the Otterton peninsular.

A wall which appeared to be made of blocks or some such and then rendered. Nicely finished top of wall and with reinforcing columns every twelve feet or so. A sort of lower grade park wall, the only catch being that there was not a stately home in sight, just the rather grand South Farm.

But why would you spend all that money in the middle of nowhere? Was it a job creation scheme for restless squaddies waiting for the off on D-Day?

What a nerve!

Someone in east Devon has had the nerve to recycle the name of the road where I was brought up.

Not only that, they have tried to upstage the original by making it a private road. And this new road is graced by a public house, the 'Salterton Arms', of which more in due course. This would not, of course, have been permitted in the rather more respectable original, with trading being restricted on the deeds to doctors and dentists. One wonders whether these restrictions ever made it to the Land Registry. Will I wonder enough to check?

As it happens, while there was at least one medical resident, I don't think that there was any trading. A further plus being that as trading was a possibility, the regulations rationing house building in those post-war days allowed the medicos extra rations so that they could include trading facilities in their houses. In other words, they got a bigger house than they might have got otherwise.

Two dream fragments

The first involved a bull in a tea shop. A large, pale brown bull; placid, rather than bulling in a china shop. A dream which I must have had more than once, as I recognised both bull and tea shop second time around, although second time around is the only time remembered. No further information available. No ideas on where such as there is might have come from.

The second is only slightly less slight and is in two parts, rather tenuously connected by an injection. The first part involved a bunch of older amateurs, including me, sailing a three masted square rigger somewhere in the South Atlantic, the sort of thing that might feature in a jigsaw, under the supervision of a lone professional. Some hard sailing, well heeled over, lots of taut & vibrant ropes and with spray flying. The second part involved a blonde lady, tall and fairly heavily built, but detailed. No idea who she was or who she was derived from, but I would recognise her again - detailed faces of this sort being very unusual in my dreams. She was trying to inject herself with a tranquilizer in her upper left arm, only a small injection to judge by the syringe, but a proceeding which she was finding hard, not because she disliked needles (which would be the case with me) but because she found it awkward. The point of all this was that she was showing us how to do it so that we could then tranquilize ourselves and she could then see how we got on sailing the square rigger in a tranquilised state. Some sort of experiment. No ideas on where all this might have come from either. The second visit to the 'Invincible' at Topsham (see 5th April) seems a bit off-beam. but is, I suppose, a possible.

A new hobby?

Some weeks ago I came across a couple of stamp albums in a charity shop or a car boot sale and bought them for a few pounds each. I forget exactly where or exactly how much, but the thought was that maybe I ought to insure against getting fed up with jigsaws by taking a peek at some other sedentary hobbies. So why not stamps?

Not something I knew much about, other than being rather struck by Poirot planning to spend Christmas rearranging his stamp collection, an activity which looked to involve much poring over album with a delicate pair of tweezers poised for action. But now I know rather more.

The first album, a four ring binder with non-standard rings to which one can add supplementary pages to be had from the publisher on application, looks to date from the early seventies and according to the illustration is intended for the slightly serious collector of UK stamps. The very serious would need a rather more sophisticated album. What had not occurred to me was that the album would also serve as a catalogue with all the UK stamps there ever were (subject to the qualifications in the illustration) being illustrated life size in black & white and with the idea being that you stuck the actual stamp,when acquired, on top of the illustration. I am not sure that I would care to be marshalled and organised in quite this way: I would want blank pages on which I could organise my stamps in whatever way took my fancy on the day, so that I could, following Poirot, spend happy days rearranging my collection. I also find that every stamp has a unique NETTO reference number, presumably allocated by some shadowy committee with powers of life and death in the stamp world. This stamp is in, that stamp, the product of some excommunicate issuing authority, is out.

The first stamp possibility in this album is from 6th May 1840, this presumably being that glorious day when the British Empire gave postage stamps to the world. The first actual stamp, NETTO 149, dates from somewhere between 1912 and 1922, but they do not get thick on the ground until we get to the mid thirties. A little later we have an intriguing stamp issued for the 1948 Olympics, featuring a rather plump and semi naked lady angel, NETTO obscured by careless pasting. A little later still, I learn that there are regional stamps. And so it goes on.

The second album, comb bound, looks to date from the mid fifties and was published in the USA, 'The Majestic Stamp Album', featuring all the countries of the world and supported by both map and directory; in fact with rather more support apparatus than the limey album altogether. As befits an album published in the USA, the USA pages come first, followed by everywhere else in alphabetic order, an arrangement which should have assigned the United Kingdom to the back where it could be easily found. But what they have actually done is file our single page under 'Great Britain' where it is lost in the middle of the album.

Inspection reveals about a dozen stamps for Great Britain (a place said to be 'In Atlantic Ocean off North Europe, Area 89,041.'), one of which is actually an 8 shilling contract note which looks like a stamp. Is is a primitive form of stamp duty, payable on some class of lawyer paper? The British equivalent of the French 'papier timbré'?

Inspection also reveals a host of countries which either no longer exist or which I have never heard of, so stamp collecting could be justified on the grounds of political & geographical education. Cilicia. The Gilbert & Ellice Islands. German Offices in China. German new Guinea. Fernando Po. Western Ukraine. Zuzuland. Also a very busty & hairy naked lady on a stamp from Sweden. The very last actual stamp in the album is a half center from the British Virgin Islands (why do we allow this UK dependency, this fine tax haven, to issue stamps denominated in US dollars?), featuring a rather odd looking white cove, presumably a pirate, an entirely appropriate person to stand for such a place. Presumably also there is an even more shadowy committee worrying about all this and one wonders whether it is incorporated under the UNESCO banner. Would Professor Google know?

This album also goes in for illustrations of stamps, but presumably the illustrations are representative rather than exhaustive, an arrangement which my tidy minds finds quite unsatisfactory.

I think for the moment that I pass. But I can see why and how one might get into it.

Shower heads

I have been pursuing shower heads for some while now, our previous shower head having been taken out of service, after many years good service, the hard water & accompanying vinegar washings having taken their toll. A pursuit which was last noticed here on the 7th June.

The previous shower head was, I think, something called a traditional rose, the business part of it being a circular plate, maybe 15cm in diameter and with lots of holes in it. Just the thing for our gravity feed shower, despite it being plumbed in all wrong with the cold feed off the mains rather than off the cold water tank in the roof, this plumbing problem having been well sorted by the insertion (by one Mr. Gary Mills of http://www.glmillsbuildingcontractors.com/) of a pressure regulator on the cold feed - taking the cold feed up to the cold water tank being a rather major operation, an operation which should have been carried out when the shower was first installed, maybe forty years ago in a fit of sixties DIY by one or other or our predecessors. Nothing wrong with the Mira mixer unit though - although it does fur up and we are now on the second or third. Nothing wrong with the gravity feed either, with the shower being downstairs and the cold water tank being in the roof. Plenty of head for everyone.

None of the usual suspects could offer the same shower head as was being retired so we first settled for one which was rather smaller at 12cm diameter plus a rather hefty swivel fitting. Branded 'Bristan'. Failed to gush in the approved manner and the swivel fitting cost one over an inch of height while serving no purpose as the rose was mounted directly over the head, rather than on the wall.

Shopped around a bit more and came up with a rather different sort of rose, out of some plumbing emporium on the Richmond Road out of Kingston, handily open on a Sunday afternoon. Bigger and we thought better at 15cm diameter plus a rather lighter swivel fitting. In fact, the whole thing was much lighter being chrome finished plastic rather than metal all the way through. Branded 'Bristan' again. The salesman explained that while there might be fewer holes they were greatly superior holes with the little plastic nozzles fitted to each deterring the build up of the scale which destroyed the original rose. But the gush factor turned out to be inferior to that of the first attempt.

Tried the plumbing place opposite Travis Perkins on the Longmead estate and their Wolseley catalogue did not have anything which looked any better. Onto the Bathroom Centre on East Street (http://www.epsombathrooms.co.uk/) and they had a rather superior catalogue offering a 20cm traditional rose, chrome finished brass if you please. Branded 'Tre Mercati' - see http://www.tremercati.co.uk/ for the 'finest quality brassware in the whole entire world since 1977'. Rather heavy with the swivel, but there were lots of holes. Also rather dear, but got a substantial discount by gentle poking - which rather irritates - they should put a proper price on the thing in the first place - but I was far too pleased to find a better looking rose to walk out. Splendid gush, just the job for the presently sultry weather.

So, in sum, might be a hundred pounds or so out of pocket, but I now have a shower head which I like. Plus two in reserve. Also open to offers.

PS: the winning shower head arrived in a box, as is usual, but also wrapped in a natty drawstring bag made of some very soft white material, thus ensuring that this luxury product arrived at one's shower cubicle in absolutely perfect condition. Very thoughtful of them.

Tit bits

There seemed to be more than the usual amount of nonsense in yesterday's Telegraph. Or maybe I just fell out of bed on the wrong side.

So we have Lenny Henry complaining that there are not enough black people in the media world, including here, I suppose, black people on the box and black people on the boards. I've not done a count, but I would have thought that they were doing quite well, with rather more of them out there than their numbers would suggest. And lots of them in advertisements. Perhaps I shall have to take a peek at the site of some gang of equal opportunities bean counters to be sure. Perhaps another day.

And then we have the full panoply of the law coming down on a rather silly mathematics teacher who had an affair with a rather silly pupil. The chap has done wrong and it does not look as if school management was on the ball, but do we really need to send him to prison? The young lady in question appears to have been nubile and fully up for whatever went on.

On to knocking the NHS, which the Telegraph seems to have been full of for the last few weeks. Maybe their agenda is to convince us that the NHS is rubbish, so we might as well let Cameron flog it off to his buddies - who presumably think that it is rather unfair that such a large slice of business is not subject to corporate taxation. How on earth do we think they can afford their houses, horses and yachts if they are denied access to this sort of thing?

That said, the goings on at the Care Quality Commission do not look too clever, at least in the Telegraph story. Destroying records which tell a story you would rather bury? Doesn't sound as if their senior team (or whatever else they may care to call their top layer of management) is too clever either.

Snow on Trollope

Picked up a picture book about Trollope by Snow at the charity book stall attached to the Bourne Hall Museum the other day. I am usually a bit sniffy about books of this sort, but on this occasion I thought that Snow, as a writer of novels himself, might have had something interesting to say, and as it turned out, he did. £1.50 for a book in good if not new condition, which on first checking seemed an entirely reasonable price for something available from Amazon at around £15 plus postage and packing. But going further and checking with Abebooks, I find that they have quite a lot of copies, both the original hardback which I now have and paperback, at around £3 plus postage and packing. It appears to have been a successful book, which must reflect a continuing interest in Trollope. And in the television adaptations if not in the books. We do both.

Searching the other place (http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/) I find a steady trickle of references to Trollope, with the suggestion that I returned to him in 2007 after abstinence for around 35 years. Quite a lot of references to the 'Eustace Diamonds', an interest first triggered by this being BH's maiden name. The original Eustace is illustrated above, in his glory days, at the Battle of Hastings.

Snow clearly holds Trollope in high regard, a sort of semi-detached member of the Premier League. Part of this is, I think, his admiration for someone who could maintain a more or less decent and straightforward exterior, containing all the nastiness and complications without which a novelist could not function to the interior. He also believes that Tolstoy held him in high regard, a belief not shared by all the references that Professor Google turns up - but Tolstoy does appear to have been well read in the English novels of his time. I forget whether his English was good enough to read them in the original. Was there enough money in them for translation to be worthwhile?

I had not realised that Trollope came from a very respectable but rather odd family and had a rather unpleasant childhood. I had known that his mother and brother were both writers and I have the feeling that this is not the first book about Trollope that I have read, but I cannot, as yet, find any trace of another. Perhaps it was a biographical article in some magazine or other. Interesting to compare and contrast with Hardy, about whom I am presently reading in Tomalin (of which more in due course): like Hardy he was married for a long time and also like Hardy he liked to flirt with young women when he was famous but no longer young himself. Both wives had a lot of secretarial duties until displaced by younger models. I would think that they made about the same amount of money, enough to live in reasonable style but not enough to buy a place like Polesden Lacey; the real money being in brewing, not in writing. Despite their rather different backgrounds, Hardy respectable poor and Trollope poor posh, they both had to struggle a bit to get started as writers, not becoming well known until relatively late in life, say around 40. But unlike Hardy, Trollope did not live to old age - stroke brought on by high blood pressure - and predeceased his wife, with whom he remained on good terms for the whole of their long marriage.

Snow is interesting on what he regards as Trollope's special gifts of realism. Also on different ways of representing a person's interior in a novel - and he includes a short excursus on Joyce's rather different technique in Ulysses.

An easy and interesting read, not unlike that of the books of the man himself, nicely illustrated with pictures from places and times which he would have known, pictures of him and his contemporaries, pictures from his books and pictures which might have come from his books but didn't. I wonder how many of them served as Christmas gifts in the mid seventies when it was published and when picture books were more of a luxury than they are now?

PS: also interesting how I am starting to take more interest in the lives of the authors of books which I read. When younger I was a firm believer in the line that the book was the thing, which should stand or fall on its own, without regard to the circumstances of its author or production. Whereas in recent weeks I have spent a lot more time reading about Hardy than reading (or indeed, watching) Hardy. And a visit to his house, now more or less on top of the ring road, rather than out in the country, in Dorchester, may be imminent.

Black hooved pigs

Thought to visit the new wine bar in Mitcham Road again yesterday (see 12th June) to see how they were getting on.

The ham was two thirds consumed; there was enough left for me but I think I must have had too much lunch and so did not fancy it. Plus there was no sign of any bread to go with it. On the other hand there were what looked like packets of dark brown cigars, maybe cheroots, in a cupboard below the bar, wrapped in clear plastic in the way of Tenerife cigars and it was just as well that they turned out to be sausages, as by the time we left I might have been tempted to take one into their cosy smokers' den. A reasonable number of punters, proper fodder for wine bars, not the sort of person one associates with the Mitcham Road end of Tooting at all. We joined them with a bottle of something Portuguese. All very pleasant.

On leaving, came across a small building plot, and sight of a number of pile heads (the things with short brown steels sticking out in the illustration) prompted me to think about how you price such a plot. In this case one could see the pile heads, but what else might there be lurking there that one could not see? Maybe lots of utility pipes and cables still connected to their respective networks. Maybe an old cellar which had be filled up and screeded over. Maybe all kinds of old footings and whatnot, concrete and otherwise. How could one price the plot without making a start and digging it up to see what was there?

I met a chap once who made a good living out of researching chunks of building land. He would tell you about tricky covenants, old bottle pits, nasty contamination and any other perils to prospective builders that there might be. But I imagine that his services were quite expensive and would not really suit a small plot such as this one. Maybe the answer is the vendor should do the preliminary work to sort all of this out and make the results available to prospective purchasers. Along the lines of the not terribly successful attempts to make the sellers of private houses come clean about what they are selling.

Made up for missing the ham by buying three little spicy cakes from 'Mixed Blessings', more or less opposite the wine bar, for the large sum of £1. BH thought they were rather good. I am not keen on their bread as they specialise in sour dough bread, which I have tried but did not like all that much. Friendly crew though.

Sweet Bird of Youth

Back the Old Vic last Saturday afternoon to do their version of this play by Tennessee Williams.

Started off at the stalls underneath the Festival Hall and made the main course of our lunch two more of the Moroccan rolls first mentioned on 14th June. Desert was a pierogi containing what was described as apple but which also contained the odd orange lump, possibly tinned peach. It appeared to have been deep fried with the wrapper made of some sort of sponge. The interior of the sponge was light enough but the exterior was quite chewy. Overall, not unlike the sort of apple sponge pudding that BH might make on a larger scale at home but rather unlike the sort of pierogi illustrated in Wikipedia. Perhaps pierogi is a broad church, containing great variety, like our own Church of England. The pierogi seller also sold sausage and we took four thin & dry looking cabanos, certified both chicken meat and cheese free. It then came on to rain, so we arrived rather wet at the Old Vic, luckily sufficiently early to dry out a bit before sitting.

The Guardian had told us that 'Sweet Bird of Youth' was a second rate play which had been given the benefit of first rate production. Further preparation in the form of a DVD of the 1962 Paul Newman version (Paul Newman also having been the star of the original, smash hit play in 1959).

The staging was indeed first rate, with a clever and handsome set. But at three hours including interval the show was rather too long, with the result that I nodded a bit during the long first half, perhaps nodded on a bit by the glass of pre-show wine that I had taken. But the second half was much better, rising to a powerful crescendo. So despite having liked the DVD, I thought that Seth Numrich was better suited to the male lead than Paul Newman, Newman not caring to act or exhibit the various weaknesses which make the part believable. I liked Michael Begley as the heckler. I was also struck by the crudity of the boss and his assistants and by the rather humiliating uniforms that adult males working in hotels were made to wear (which reminded me of the skimpy outfits that mature ladies have to wear in Las Vegas casinos, humiliating in a rather different way. Maybe they don't see it that way). For the crudity, which I dare say was true enough to life, it is a wonder that Williams did not get lynched himself.

Good programme, with a good balance between advertisements, stuff about the Old Vic generally and stuff about this particular play. But not where the title came from: it sounds like a quote, perhaps because it reminds me of 'Bird of Dawning' which is (see December 22nd 2010 in the other place).

Next stop was the Carluccio's on the handsome new mezzanine at Waterloo Station. Quite noisy, but a lot more cheerful and interesting than anything we can manage in Epsom, a place curiously dull in the eating and drinking out department. Good bruschetta, moist rather than hard and dry with tendencies to do in one's fillings. Adequate pasta and wine, rounded off with a nice Amaretto. Entertained during our meal by conversation with another Sweet Birder who happened to be sitting next to us.

Finished the evening with bread and cabanos at home. Cabanos turned out to be rather good, although it has to be said that I prefer them moister. We shall visit the stall again, but in the meantime there is always http://thepolishdelilondon.com/.

PS: how do you get to have a first name like Tennessee? It sounds better in full than Thames Williams or Severn Williams, but what do you shorten it to for day-to-day practical purposes? Tenny? Tunny? Nessy?

Depressed of Epsom

I was sent this cartoon the other day which I found rather depressing.

Depressing in that one infers that a large number of people in the US, maybe as many as half given the complexion of the House of Representatives, think that this is funny. Respond positively to the ideas government is morally equivalent to crime and that government is about extracting taxes out of decent citizens with which to line its own pockets/feather its own nest and in return to provide a few crummy services that the private sector would do a much better job on if only they were given the chance.

That all those decent citizens would rather pay a stonking great tax in the form of excess charges to the private sector for its health services than a rather more modest tax to the government for rather better services. Curiously blind to the fact that the US pays about twice as much per person as most of the rest of us to get a similar, and very uneven, health outcome.

And never mind the insult to all those public servants, like my own parents, who believed in and devoted their working lives to the public service, for modest remuneration.

Not that we can crow that much, as the Guardian pointed out yesterday, with our public debate cast in terms of who can cut the most waste out of public service delivery. Not in the more grown up terms that if you want Nordic levels of public service you have to pay Nordic levels of tax. No amount of fancy accounting and fancy footwork with efficiency savings and public private partnerships can get around the simple arithmetic.

Depressing also because whoever labelled the cartoon could not be bothered to get the labels to align with the cartoon. A very poor piece of layout, the correcting of which would take me rather too long for it to happen.

PS: also interested in the idea, also reported in yesterday's Guardian, that taxing companies is not the way forward, if only because it is too difficult. Much simpler to stick with taxing income (in all its cunning forms) and with taxing consumption, both of which are relatively easy to get hold of. With a little bit of adjustment of the rates so that the share owning rich continue to pay at a high enough rate to help out the deserving poor. An idea which would not be popular with the tax men, I don't suppose, as I believe that they believe in having as big a tax base as possible.

Casualty

A reminder that even in the best kept park, in this case Queen Mary's Garden (see 14th June), you get the odd casualty from time to time, with the branches of this once substantial tree being just about visible top middle left of the illustration. Root ball occupying most of the rest.

I wonder if the plan is to leave the tree where it lies, only very lightly tidied up, to serve as a reserve and reservoir for the various beetles et cetera which make a living out of dead trees.

Jigsaw 17, Series 2

A Wentworth puzzle, originally bought for me, well before the current phase of jigsaw life, around the time of the millennium celebrations. Presumably a little after, as in the image the London Eye appears to be complete, up and running, which it was not at the time of the turn of the millennium. An Eye which had, however, provided much interest & entertainment as I followed its progress on my morning & afternoon walks across Westminster Bridge, this being before I moved up-river to Lambeth Bridge.

A serious puzzle, made from sustainable yield plywood using the traditional Victorian style of cut which is only made feasible in these days of high labour costs by the deployment of the latest computer driven, laser fueled technology. And to think that when I was doing O level physics, lasers were a curiosity for which no-one could think of an application. Traditional Victorian style means that the pieces are not cut on a regular grid in the manner, for example, of a puzzle from Falcon. They are completely irregular, including here the prong configuration, are not fully interlocking and include a lot of whimsies, for example the millennium numerals and various small animals. The large zeroes are just about visible in the enlarged version of the illustration (click on it).

Don't know how many pieces there are, beyond it being a lot less than my usual 500.

The lack of interlocking makes the puzzle rather fragile, even when fully assembled. Poke it and it is apt to come apart, a feature which made it very hard for FIL in his last years, with his elderly fingers and elderly eyes, and before retiring from this particular fray, he had become convinced that various pieces were missing, a conviction which I have to admit to sharing at various times during my solution.

Starting with the edge did not work with this puzzle as one could not be sure which pieces were the edge pieces; having a bit of straight was neither a necessary nor sufficient condition in the way that it is in more up to date puzzle. So started with the wheel then moved onto Hungerford Bridge, the strong horizontal across the bottom of the image. Then the buildings running along the banks of the Thames. Then the other two bridges, then the water in between. Then the water down stream of Hungerford Bridge and lastly the sky. The edge evolved along the way, but was complete shortly before the sky was complete.

An entertaining diversion from the usual run of puzzles from the Oxfam Shop. And pleased to find from the Wentworth web site (http://www.wentworthpuzzles.com/) that I now have a source for arty jig saws - jigsaws of proper pictures being my favourite, and Wentworth do lots of them, albeit at a price. It may well be that their computer driven, laser fueled technology enables them to make puzzles to order: feed the bit map of the desired image in at one end and plywood pops out of the other, closely followed by the box. Just the thing for a lover of arty jigsaws.

Will it be 'The Hunters in the Snow', a favourite of my father's, or will it be 'Sheep Reposing, Dalby Bay, Isle of Man', which appears to be a contemporary crib from 'Strayed Sheep', a reproduction of which hangs above this very keyboard?

New patio, phases II and III (part 2)

Phase II sits on top of phase Ia, the bit under the cloth in the illustration of 27th May and the bit to the left of the olde shed base in that of 16th June. By way of a shutter, I reused the by now rather split plank which had served for phase Ia, with some cunning additions underneath to make a snug fit and held in place by a sturdy piece of 8 by 2 at each end.

But not sturdy enough as as I started to fill the shutter with concrete, the top of the front plank moved up, the bottom moved out and I did not notice until it was too late to push it back into place and secure it there. I did not fancy digging out the wet concrete and starting again, so I secured it as best I could with lumps of masonry which happened to be lying about and finished the thing off. More or less OK but the front of the sill was well off vertical (although at least it was sloping away, towards the fence) and there were some voids at the bottom where the concrete had not been properly compacted into the void left by the moving shutter, partly because I was scared of it moving even more. Furthermore, when the front of the shutter moved, it came adrift from the chipboard divider, the front of which is now covered by a thin skim of concrete. I suppose I ought to hack it off but I'm scared of making a bit of a mess. We will see how things look when I have filled the voids. Will I pass muster as a concrete finisher, a trade all to itself during my days as a concrete tester?

In any event, the phase II beam was finished off nicely with a layer of pea gravel between it and the fence. All very smart. A wheeze which will not, sadly, do to cover up the olde shed base.

Phase III runs along the base of the west wall of the garage, where the tools are stood up in the illustration of 27th May and the bit to the back of the olde shed base in that of 16th June.

After the mishap with Phase II, I was determined to make this shutter sturdy, with a couple of planks of tongue & groove from the demolished shed, various bits of 2 by 2 and various lumps of masonry serving the purpose. But for this phase (or perhaps lift would be the more correct term, even though lift is the term more usually applied to the successive pours to make a column, rather than a beam which is more usually made in one pour) I fell into the error of haste, thinking that I could get the job done before lunch. As a result the concrete mixing was a bit erratic, with the first few batches being rather dry - and I did not work hard enough at the tamping to clear all the voids at the bottom of the shutter. More concrete finishing needed in due course. Furthermore, the concrete being a bit stiff, did not settle flat and while the two ends are right, the middle is slightly high, maybe half an inch. It shows now, but perhaps when the concrete weathers down a bit and the garage wall is repainted it will not show so much.

Illustration in due course when the concrete finishing has taken its course.

In the meantime, I am pleased to report, that as things have turned out 0.6m of aggregate and five bags of cement was about right. There will be a bit left over, but not much and it will be easy enough to lose the bit of aggregate in the garden and the the bit of cement in the tip up the road. But I do not pass muster as a quantity surveyor, partly because I was changing the design as I went along, without any proper change control; the Young Turks from Pcubed (see http://www.pcubed.com/) with whom I used to work at the Home Office would not have been impressed at all.

PS: it would be interesting to know how things turned out there in the end: was their high end solution right for our mid range problem? Were the techniques used to manage the construction of oily facilities in the wilds of Kazakhstan the right thing for IT in Horseferry Road? What percentage of the budget did they manage to collar before they moved off onto their next punter?

Two portraits

Two portraits from emerging artists from Kent, captured with a more up to date telephone than my elderly Nokia and delivered through Google Sky (rather than the Dropbox favoured here in Epsom). More details to follow.

Two mysteries

The first mystery concerns the adaptation of Agatha Christie's 'The mirror cracked from side to side', most of which we saw for the third or fourth time last night. How did it come about that the photographer's studio contained what appeared to be a reproduction of Millais' portrait of Mrs Jopling leaned up against a bit of furniture? An entirely suitable portrait for the lady photographer in trousers and of generally modern appearance portrayed, but how did it find its way to the props department?

No clues to be had from checking the original text which says little beyond the studio being rather cluttered with photographic gear.

The second mystery concerns the missing car booter at the Hook Road Arena today. That is to say that it was not altogether missing, but it was the thinnest car booter I have ever seen there. Less than maybe 50 vendors and not many more buyers. What was wrong with this Sunday? The weather was fine enough.

On the up side, two pluses from the garden. We have the first water lily flower, albeit rather a small one, and we have the first sighting for a while of a nut hatch. Used to get them quite often, but not any more.

New patio, phases II and III (part 1)

Time for a follow up to the patio post of 27th May as I have not been idle in the meantime.

Full report to follow, but in the meantime I thought a sketch of the proceedings might be clearer than a photograph. Think how many of the pictures in scientific text books are sketches rather than photographs: the camera may never lie but it may not be very information rich either.

So up I get to produce a sketch with pencil and paper, something I can manage on a good day. But today, after two attempts, I thought that I might do better with Powerpoint, with the results illustrated. For me, an essentially new media which, while it has its strengths, seemed rather clumsy in my hands. It probably took rather longer than the production of an equivalent sketch would have taken, had I persisted, and the result is rather lifeless, despite the assistance of a font called 'Bradley Hand ITC' and some imaginative spelling. Furthermore the brain seems to flip-flop between the various spatial interpretations of the scene which are available, rather as it does with those pictures which are intended to trick one. What is the orientation of the various planes and shapes? But I think one might get better with a little practice.

I also need to work on the mechanics of importing a powerpoint into a blog. This one came via Paint and seems to have lost a fair bit of resolution in the process, as can be seen by clicking on the thing. Or was it not there in the first place?

I remember that once upon a time I had a presentation copy of CorelDraw with which I fiddled with a bit, but I do not remember it being any less clumsy than Powerpoint seems now. There was also a glossy picture book that came with it containing the results of an annual contest to produce an orginal art work, most of which were elaborate and colorful but as lifeless as the above. I wonder what packages there are about now? Something that can usefully combine the life of pencil and paper with the power of the computer to draw straight lines, to fill in shapes, to copy, cut & paste? To save and to print?

A short while ago there were some pictures in the 'Telegraph' done by Mr. D. Hockney on his tablet which did not impress. Maybe he did not bother to do a proper market search before kicking off. Maybe he did not have the benefit of access to a small boy with wisdom about such matters. But then, I have never been very keen on his stuff.

PS: see January 14th 2012 in the other place (http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/) for a previous outing of this subject.

Splice the mainbrace

Decided that the braces from Lester Bowden were not really the thing anymore, elastic gone soggy and the dorsal arrangements unsatisfactory, with the straps forever slipping off the shoulders. Saville Row was clearly the place to go to sort this out.

So picked up a Bullingdon at Eccleston Place and head off of Mayfair. One hairy moment coming around Hyde Park Corner, coming into it from Grosvenor Place and looking to leave it at Piccadilly. The catch, made worse by not knowing the junction very well, is that you head east out of Duke of Wellington Place in a lot of lanes of traffic, among which you think you ought to be in the middle, with traffic whizzing past on both sides. Signalling intentions not on as I want to go straight ahead and while I think there is a hand signal for this purpose I don't know what it is and I don't suppose many drivers do either. So I am pulling away from the lights opposite Apsley House and this chap behind me in a small black car gets really impatient and being uncertain of my intentions overtakes on the right, then cuts me up by veering left ahead of me to head up Park Lane. He also honked, always bad news for this cyclist as it startles one and can precipitate a wobble. Luckily not on this occasion and I found myself unscathed in Piccadilly, and shortly afterwards got mixed up in the one way system in Sackville Street. Two full stands later, I take the last slot in that at Bruton Street.

Into the first tailors that I come across which happens to be Crombies, where I am picked up by an attentive sales assistant. Yes sir, Crombies certainly do sell braces, just the one brand, just as Lester Bowden, but a rather better brand, their own brand in fact. Banker bright, wide front straps not elasticated at all, dorsal arrangements satisfactory. So I buy them and put them on on the spot, the assistant supplying a plastic bag into which to consign the old ones. Just one pair for now to see how we get on but, anticipating, so far so good. Much more positive fit and trousers near clear of shoes, as they should be.

Next stop Queen Mary's Gardens in Regents Park to see the roses, to which I had been alerted by the trusty Bullingdon map (now sadly rather tatty. Don't think that they do them any more). Parked up at the tennis courts, which seemed all very clubby and Hampstead like but I declined to either play or eat, both options being available, and headed onto into the gardens. Roses only just coming out but a very fine place indeed. More floribundas than the rose beds at Hampton Court, so they should be quite flashy in a week or so. Other bits of the gardens also good. All in all, a good find. Must go back when the roses have got going a bit more.

Next stop National Gallery, so off to St Martin's Street (not the Lane) where I take one of the last slots on the stand, and on into the gallery to take a peek at the Cézanne's where I am very taken with a very nice Gauguin copy of a Cézanne still life of fruit, another copy of which I picked up recently from the Oxfam shop in Ewell. Rather crowded but in this corner I was quiet enough.

Next stop South Bank for a late lunch to which end I take one of the last slots on the stand at Concert Hall Approach No. 1, to buy a couple of Moroccan style rolls from one of the stalls there. Wrapping of thin flat bread, filling of chick pea, cous-cous (I think) and spinach. Very good and very filling.

And so home, via W. H. Smith and their not terribly effective self service machinery. A good try, but they have yet to really crack the technology for this sort of purchase in this sort of context. Bring back the bucket of trust!

DSM-5

Prompted by adverse coverage greeting the publication something called DSM-5, the fifth version of a diagnostic and statistical manual for mental illness, thought to get a copy and take a peek myself. But, as it turned out, DSM-5 was a hefty tome clocking in at around £80, a bit strong for a passing interest, so I thought I might do better to get a book about DSM-5 rather than the thing itself and, luckily as it turned out, lit upon 'Saving Normal' by one Allen Frances, not previously heard of. An example of the value-add of the Amazon offering, over and above the book shop which I would not have got to for this particular purpose.

'Saving Normal' turns out to be a decent bit of popular medicine, explaining the background to diagnosis and classification of mental illness and going on to explain what is wrong with DSM in particular and psychiatry US style in general, this from the chap who led the team which gave us DSM-4. His genial and easy going style makes for a mostly easy read, although I found it jarred a bit at times and I expect that he has not been too careful about checking some of the details. But a story which will be interesting to those with an interest in shrinkery - and a useful learning experience for those who think that the American way of health is the right way. Cameron & Co. should take note - although one rather despairs of their ever doing so.

He identifies various things which have gone badly wrong and which could be quite easily put right if the political will was there. He also goes so far as to say that there is a bigger problem with legal drugs than there is with illegal drugs although not quite so far as to say that illegal drugs should be made legal.

One: stop drug companies from advertising their products direct to the public, thereby prompting them to think that they have this or that disease and to ask their hard pressed doctor for this or that medicine. Something which is not allowed pretty much anywhere else other than in God's own country, that is to say in the US. Going further, loosen the grip that drug companies have on the medical profession.

Two: change the health insurance company rule which says that they will  not pay out for a visit to the doctor unless the visit results in a prescription. A rule which had the good intention of discouraging unnecessary visits to the doctor but which probably does more harm than good. Going further, encourage doctors in general to take more time over diagnosis and general practitioners in particular to refer rather than prescribe. Psychiatry is difficult and best left to specialists.

Three: tighten up the classification criteria in DSM which presently encourage the classification of people who are well as well as that of people who are ill. Try and get fashions in diagnosis - like that, for example, for autism - under better control. Going further, find a proper home for the DSM. The APA (American Psychiatric Association, see http://www.psych.org/) is clearly not up to producing a manual which is carrying so much weight. And stop using a DSM diagnosis (or lack of one) as such a big driver in decisions about education, support and care.

Various other snippets along the way.

For example, it has been ruled unconstitutional (in the US) to execute people who are dim, with some kind of an IQ test being the test for dimness. So we have the slightly unsavory spectacle of IQ testers determining the final fate of someone who has murdered someone or worse. A determination which might hang on a result falling a point or so either side of a necessarily arbitrary threshold on a 200 point scale. Not sure how you get around the strong incentive to fail such a test.

Interested to learn that DSM started life with the US military, concerned with mental health aspects of combat in the second world war. And full of appropriately trained expatriates from Central Europe.

Frances is a big believer in process and his DSM-4 was very process driven. Interesting to me as the IT industry fell in love with process at about the same time, in the eighties and nineties of the last century. We really believed that it was possible to replace skill and flair by tick boxes - which to some extent it really is. The trick is not to try to push it too far.

Frances is also reasonably pro-Freud. A stance with which I agree because I think that his style, if not his detail, will have its day again when the neurologists have run their course with their neuron models on their big computers.

And he is very pro-psychiatry. He might spend a lot of time in his book knocking present goings on, but he also spends some quality time at the end reminding us that psychiatrists also do a lot of good, mending a lot of lives which might otherwise remain badly damaged.

PS: appropriately, a psychiatric fragment in an otherwise routine office dream. As I woke this morning I had this revelation, blinding light even, that in the course of psychoanalytic work one could work away on some fascinating facet of someone's personality, only to discover that it was a dead end. Cute but without consequence; an appendix of the mind as it were, a relic of evolution. Large computer programs are often full of such things. In the cold light of day, the light is not quite so blinding, but I still think the guts of the revelation might be true. Interesting even.

Disgusted of Epsom

Disgusted, or at least rather irritated, to find over breakfast this morning that yesterday's Guardian saw fit to give half a page's free fame to a 90 year old career criminal said to have made pin money in his younger days by slashing people to order, with payment by the stitch. In my younger days such people did not get given air time in obituaries or anywhere else. One might have thought that the Guardian would know better, but I suppose that they are as short of news as everyone else who has to look for news on a tight budget - and at least they did not give him the front page like today's Sun.

Jigsaw 16, Series 2

Nearly a month since completion of jigsaw 15 (see 19th May), having taken a good while to get moving on this one. Reaching the tipping point at around the two fifths mark, after which the thing was completed in a couple of days. Quite startling in this case how abrupt the tipping point was; the point at which one can more or less pull any non sky piece from the heap and place it.

The same brand, Falcon de luxe, as jigsaw 15, but this one fine art by Alan Maley rather than a photograph. It seems that there are two people by this name in the internet world, one a prolific painter of paintings more or less like this one and the other a prolific educationalist. Amazon is full of his stuff. But I assume that you are unlikely to be so prolific in two so different trades and that the two Alans are indeed two different people, rather than facets of a single person with undiagnosed MPD, by which I do not mean myeloproliferative disorder. More on this point in due course.

Not only was this puzzle the second Falcon de luxe on the run, it was the second incomplete puzzle on the run, with this 18 by 28 puzzle only having 502 pieces rather than the requisite 504 (this despite it saying 500 on the box in clear white numerals). And it was from the very same Oxfam shop (for 99p) which is so firm that it does not want incomplete puzzles. Clearly the good ladies were having an off day and this puzzle will have to hit our black wheelie bin rather than theirs, a shame as I rather enjoyed it, despite the slow start and despite MPPD (missing piece paranoia disorder, see DSM-5, forthcoming) kicking in big-time for the middle period of the solution, it having become fairly clear that two edge pieces were indeed missing and were not hiding in unexpected colours or unexpected places. Unexpected colours being the point that failure to find a particular piece is usually the result of looking for the wrong piece: you think you are looking for a predominantly red piece (for example), when you should be looking for a predominantly blue piece. The moral of this point being that one should always take care to look at the image supplied with care; it is so easy with lack of care to jump to the wrong conclusion.

Started with the edge which I was unable to complete because of the missing pieces but which was otherwise OK. I was reasonably confident, which is not always the case, that the edge pieces which I did have were assembled correctly. But then the problems really kicked in with the brush style of the painting meaning that there were no clear edges to move onto, for example, no easy skyline. I thought the leading lady ought to be easy enough with her splash of distinctively striped colour, but this proved not to be the case and her dress was not finished until I was well through the solution. Rather I dotted about, doing a bit here and a bit there, with chunks of puzzle only slowly being joined up. Pieces did not fit until you had fitted them; their features did not match the image until they were in context. Excellently camouflaged. But eventually I completed the near scene, leaving the town at the back, middle left on the image, the smoke and the sky.

Finishing this part was as much a matter of size as shape or colour. If you look at the sky of jigsaw 15 you can see that the horizontal lines are indeed horizontal, straight across from left to right (or from right to left if you prefer). But those on this puzzle wave about and in this part of the puzzle there was a strong alternation between tall rows and short rows with it being easy to pick out the pieces belonging to the tall rows. The result of all this was that this two fifths of the puzzle by area was solved in perhaps a twentieth by time.

Just a few mistakes in the course of the solution, none of them causing significant bother.

Another absolutely regular puzzle with exactly four pieces meeting at every interior vertex and another puzzle without the prong-prong-hole-hole configuration. Perhaps if I do enough Falcon puzzles I will get to recognise the fists of their various die makers.

PS: just found an interesting piece about the artist who is clearly not the educator at all, after all, at http://www.davincisartandcoffee.com/victorian/about_alan_maley.htm.

Canadian things to try

Poutine is already on the list, having been discovered some years ago in a police thriller by Fred Vargas (a lady despite her name). Chips flavoured with curd and goo.

Yesterday I discovered, or at least was told about in an about to be open wine bar in Mitcham Road, not far from Amen Corner, something called Montreal Meat, which seems to be a form of spicy salt beef which is air dried and smoked rather than salt cured. In Wikipedia it looks a lot more crumbly than the salt beef which used to be sold in Great Windmill Street (see, for example, June 29th 2012 in the other place). Interesting, nonetheless.

The bar did not seem to be proposing to offer the stuff itself, rather some fancy ham from semi-wild pigs with black hooves from Portugal. Should you ever have any doubts about such ham, the idea is to scratch the hooves to make sure they are black all the way through, not just the black paint used by some unscrupulous suppliers.

PS: I misspelled the 'Great' in the above 'Grate' first time around. Presumably evidence of subconscious rumblings following the early morning visit of the chimney sweep (Mr. Toast of Tadworth).

Part of the deal

I imagine that part of the deal when the development of Epsom Station got the go ahead was the planting of a suitable number of trees and shrubs to green the thing up a bit. This has now been duly done and large number of small box bushes and a smaller number of much larger trees have been planted, this in the late spring, rather late in the season for planting such things, at least by the standards of domestic, rather than public, gardening.

The ground around the box bushes looks very dry although the bushes remain green, at least for the moment.

The ground around the trees looks very dry too, although in this case there appear to be plastic pipes sticking out into which water might be introduced, if anyone could be bothered. Most of the trees have now come into leaf although there is, even if things now go well, going to be a certain amount of die back. But this one, the one illustrated that is, has not and something has happened to the ground around it. Not clear if the subsidence is the result of rain or of spade, but either way there look to be plenty of voids around the root ball which came with the tree. This, I would think is a bad thing, the result of sloppy and/or hurried planting.

I am reminded of a general irritation with municipal tree planting, the way that lots of money gets spent on planting trees but there is no money available for the occasional watering while they get established. I can see that councils do not want to be planting trees that need to be watered every week, but a bit of a helping hand at the outset would not go amiss. The planting of some even larger trees, some years ago, on the Albert Embankment between Vauxhall and Lambeth bridges was a case in point.

There maybe a handover problem: the developer has been paid to plant the plants but their contract says nothing about watering. That is down to the maintenance contractor who has not yet come on stream.

And then there is the general irritation with householders who won't or at least don't water the rather smaller trees that get planted in the verges outside their houses. Either they are lazy or they refuse on principle to water council trees on the grounds that that is down to the council. I pay taxes to get that sort of thing done for me. Are they the sort of people who read the 'Daily Mail'? Probably not the 'Sun' as the sort of people who admit to reading this newspaper do not generally live in roads which have grass verges in which to plant trees and I would hope that readers of the 'Guardian' did the decent thing and got their watering can out when they got back from work, despite their panting for their pre-prandial cocktail after an hour on a  crowded & smelly train.

PS: I assume that cast iron grids (or their modern, plastic equivalent) to place in the neat square holes left in the brick paving are in the post. Minor failing in project management.

Solstice Stone

I took the opportunity afforded by recent concrete activities to cast a solstice stone this year, having missed last year (see March 13 2011 in the other place).

The same method as was used for the last one, that is to say black plastic bucket, visible at the top left of the illustration. Cast day 1, top up bucket with cold water day 2, knock stone out of bucket day 5. Water curing is supposed to add 22% to the 28 day compressive strength, not particularly important in this particular application.

This second stone was placed at 283 degrees from the first, a little off west by north, the direction of the setting sun on 20th June this year, as viewed from the new patio behind the garage, the excuse for the concrete activities in the first place. English Heritage says that the sun will set on Salisbury Plain at 2126 BST on that day, so failing any further information on the point, we shall allow 4 minutes gain from Wiltshire and be ready at our stone at 2122 precisely. Secrets of the craft forbid that I should say what happens next.

Suffice it to say that this morning I spat in the Tupperware ® box which serves as my cigar box.

I worry whether the stone will not end up facing a little away from the path once the hole settles down, but hopefully the ivy roots will push it back again over time. Picture a little deceptive as the ground slopes slightly up, northeast across the illustration.

PS: not impressed with new windows on this occasion. Having gone to the bother of trademarking the Tupperware box in the above, I find that what was the right character in Word has become a circle with a dot in it on the blog. I suppose I should have done something geekish about pixels during the copy and paste. Does windows know something about the Tupperware Corporation that I don't?

The city of Hickory

The Hickory Daily Record was recently drawn to my attention, an interesting variant on our own Epsom Guardian (the free, not the grauniad one) which is sometimes delivered to our door. All kinds of fascinating insights into one day in the life of a US citizen there. There was, for example, a body found at a vacant Harris Teeter in Newton yesterday. Had you ever heard of Harris Teeter or Newton before? Or at least this one? And then there was the family which said that the victim in Motel 6 death was in a bad relationship. Who or what is a 'Motel 6'? And last but not least, for the fit and faithful, there was the 'Faithful Steps Run for God', including tailor made bible study, just for you. Contact faithfulstepsic@yahoo.com.

Hickory is a town - maybe a city in US speak - in North Carolina, located just south of Granite Falls on the Catawba River which rises in the Blue Ridge mountains and falls some hundreds of miles later in the Atlantic, just north of Charleston, the town which invented the dance which sometimes appears with Jeeves & Wooster. The river looks to be quite a big deal local issue with lots of dams & lakes along its course and lots of water users & environmentalists locking horns. But I was unable to find any pictures of the falls at Granite Falls, despite the suggestion at http://www.ncwaterfalls.com/ that there were lots of them. The whole subject being one which has caught my eye ever since I came across a water wars book by one Marc Reisner in the charity shop in Whitecross Street (on 1st October 2011 in the other place. Or search for dam).

They may not do Wakehurst Place in the US, but they do have a lot of open space and they do do country club, with the place described at http://www.catawbacc.org/ looking pretty flashy and which 'provides high quality, value oriented facilities and services to meet the social and recreational needs of the families in the area'. At first blush it looks as if anyone can join, but I do wonder whether one has to be the right sort of person. Maybe not quite so exclusive as our RAC club at Epsom used to be (when the R in RAC really did stand for Royal), but maybe they like to see a confirmation certificate and a recent picture before they process your application. Some such places used to be quite fussy about such things.

They also do health insurance with an advertisement quickly putting me in touch with a world where I could live fearless, courtesy of Blue Cross. Lots of pictures of healthy looking outdoor types getting muddied up to encourage me. All of which made me very grateful that we do not yet do the American way of health, although if we leave Cameron and his Eton friends in place for much longer we may get there. They know lots of people who are keen to make lots of wedge out of the health insurance business. Got to meet all those fees at Eton. On the upside, OrthoCarolina Hickory looks a bit more flashy than the comparable facility on the Epsom Hospital site. But is it all flash and fresh flowers, never mind about the health, a charge sometimes levied at BUPA establishments?

All in all an entertaining read. To be found at http://www.hickoryrecord.com/. I wonder if we have anything like it here in the UK.

Bang 'em up!

Quietly walking down the shared path - shared, that is, between pedestrians and cyclists, without segregation - down Longmead Road this morning. For some reason I wobbled slightly to the left as an unheard cyclist passed me at speed on the same side, missing me by not that many inches. Why don't these people have the elementary manners and safety consciousness to use their bells when they creep up behind one? Or even to have bells for that matter? Absence of these last could easily be made a license endorsing offence, which would usefully raise their profile.

They whine enough when one of their comrades gets hit by a lorry after creeping up behind, so I think I will have a whine while they have not hit me at the same game. They should pick on things their own size.

PS: somewhat in their defence, I should perhaps add that I often find that I do not react fast enough to be able ring the bell on a bullingdon when a tourist steps out in front of me, the slightly awkward bell being not all that conveniently placed on the left hand side. But I do usually manage to shout which does nearly as well. And a tourist stepping out in front of me is not the same as me creeping up behind them - when I do manage the bullingdon bell.

Wakehurst

Back to Wakehurst Place yesterday for what for us is a rare visit to a rare place. We have been before, while the other place (http://www.pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/) was up and running, but I cannot find any record either here or there.

Started off well with the car park making a much better impression than the rather tatty car park at Wisley.

Wonderful gardens, not in the flowery way like Hampton Court, but more park like with lots of splendid trees (some unusual), ornamental trees and shrubs (lots in florid flower on this visit), less formal gardens and vistas. Interesting ponds and lakes. Some nice patches of grass, just coming into flower and with lots of buttercups. The whole place seemed terribly well kept and I only spotted a single convolvulus in the course of the day. Not bothered by other people despite the number of cars in the car park; the place was plenty big enough to soak us all up.

Following the vein of drooping trees (see 4th April) interested to come across a specimen of sequoia pendula, although nowhere near as flash as those offered by Professor Google, who also turned up a nature picture site which I have not come across before, http://www.arkive.org. I am pondering about whether I approve of this addition to literature and whether it is worth a donation. In the meantime, the oddity of the expedition award went to the giant ivy climbing up an oak tree, illustrated above. A bit of an oddity in such a well kept garden, but maybe it was a special ivy providing the special habitat required by an even more special beetle. There was also http://www.toscabella.it which included a picture of the finest cedrus (atlantica glauca) pendula that I have ever seen, making Hook Road look very infantile.

Perhaps next time we will take a peek at the seed bank - which is presumably trying to do something about the diversity which was the subject of the post on 6th June.

Coincidentally, we had just previously been asked twice by the National Trust to fill in an online questionnaire about the place and I have now done it. It seems that despite being the Trust's best seller at 500,000 visitors a year (our far more frequently visited Polesden Lacey at number 8 with 300,000 visitors), the place makes an unsustainable loss for Kew who run the place - National Trust just owning it - and the questionnaire was mainly about what one thought about the various options for making more money.

The impression given was that each National Trust site has to break even and that cross subsidisation between sites is not allowed. A reasonable stance which, while a little inflexible, avoids a lot of acrimonious disputes about which national treasures are worth a bit extra from central funds.

I voted for the option which simply charged National Trust members - who normally get free access to all national Trust sites as part of the membership package - to get in but without introducing a lot of complications like hourly car parking charges. The excuse would be that this was not a proper National Trust site at all.

I forgot to suggest that maybe they should sell off the house for flats. A bit isolated, but one could think of worse places to down size to. Maybe use the bigger rooms for conferences or training courses. They have the catering facilities and I would not have thought that the extra traffic would show much, in among the 500,000 visitors they have already.

Another failure?

We took a gentle stroll across the common yesterday, past the attempts of the eco-warriers to restore the Ashstead river, which once used to trickle across the common, to the 'Woodman' at Lower Ashstead. At least the efforts of the eco-warriers are less irritating than those of the chain saw volunteers. We also passed some unsightly white ribbons of electric fence strung around the place, although, thankfully, no cows spewing methane into the upper atmosphere. But there were a lot of shiny new oaken signposts, so perhaps the chain saw volunteers have been given new duties with hand saws.

The Woodman is, I believe, a public house on the second of the three tiers of food offered by its owners, on the middle ground between pub grub and fine dining. We got an entirely acceptable lunch of fish and chips, with a good sized portion of beer battered cod, although the flesh was a trifle soggy. Rounded off by something described as a twice baked vanilla cheesecake, less the butterscotch sauce, chocolate shavings and whipped cream which were on offer with it, the twice baked suggesting something more like a cheesecake that BH might make rather than the biscuit topped with sweet cheese jelly that one is usually offered in such places. The cheesecake turned out to be quite good, probably a hybrid of the jelly and BH cultivars, earning its twice baked descriptor with a thin layer of meringue on the top. The base seemed to be biscuit rather than pastry so it was not entirely clear where the first baking came in. Perhaps just a light baking to dry out the crushed soggy biscuit base before adding the still liquid jelly, thus turning the biscuit into fourscuit.

Washed down with a bottle of Chablis, the remains of which we were allowed to carry home, discretely wrapped in a small black dustbin bag provided by the kitchen. However, it had by then started to rain so we legged it to the shiny new Ashstead Station, now near complete, where we found another charity book recycling operation (see 15th May for the last such), from which I lifted a copy of 'As If By Magic' by Angus Wilson, holding over my donation until our next visit as I had done all my change in the pub.

I attempted to read the book that afternoon, the Chablis meaning that I was not too much good for anything else. I do not think that I have read anything by this Wilson before, but this book starts off very heavy going. A 60 year old author, more or less from another age, desperately trying to prove that he has kept up with the times, the swinging sixties and worse seventies (if the continuing drip feed of celebrity abuse stories is a fair commentary on those times). Plus the conceit of a sub plot about a part time author trying to pump out his next book. I shall keep going for a bit but I think it likely that the book will join the short but growing list of failures (see 20th May for the last such). In which event, would it be more proper to destroy it, perhaps by burial in the compost heap, or to return it whence it came, together with the missing contribution to charity?

Time will tell whether the cheesecake violated the bar noted on 21st May. Not exactly cream but not exactly cheese either.

Bullingdons

Five legs over three recent outings, none attracting surcharge for time.

First outing commenced with hunt the plumbers' merchant in Battersea High Street, where there used to be a plumbers' merchant which had a range of shower roses of the sort which we like and which I have had trouble getting - our current rose being a paltry 12cm in diameter - to find that the merchant had gone and what had been his shop about to be repurposed. I suppose the proprietor had retired and his rather old-fashioned if attractive business had retired with him. So on to Flood Street to pick up a bullingdon to get me to Rampayne Street to see what Warwick Way could do - where, as it turned out, there was quite a well stocked hardware store, but not very strong on shower heads, never mind roses. Instead, got a baguette from the baker in Tachbrook Street from where I used, before deserting for Strutton Ground, to buy my luncheon loaf and consumed it next to the stand at Tachbrook Strret. Baguette finished, took a second bullingdon down to Vauxhall Bridge from where I legged it to the Tate to inspect their chronological and label lite rehang, which I thought rather good, although it took a while to get the hang of the layout. Interesting side light in the form of 'Flatford Mill'  together with various precursors and other inputs. Not altogether clear what the selecting principles were; fame did not seem to ensure good representation, although John Martin and his apocalypses did rather well out of it all. And the picture of Belsize Park when it was a park made the cut (see April 3rd 2011 in the other place). But being label lite I was not able to find any little essay about the rehang, although I suppose there must be one somewhere.

Second outing failed in that I did not make it to the intended destination of Red Indians at the National Portrait gallery. But I did get held up by the Queen as she left Westminster Abbey and was reduced to going down Millbank rather than Victoria Street as per intentions.

First leg of third outing ran from Vauxhall Cross, where I got the last bullingdon on the stand, to Walworth Road. On the way I noticed that Mr. Tate was not the only player in the philanthropic library stakes, with rather a handsome specimen from another player in Kennington Lane called the Durning Library and illustrated above. Must pay a proper visit in due course; an interesting relic of the days when local authorities could show off, unconstrained by the dead hand of central government. Would never be allowed by the Treasury in our rich but utilitarian era.

On spec., onto the Cuming Museum which happened to be marked on my bullingdon map to find it enclosed with builders' hoardings as a result (as I now know) of a recent fire. But I was very taken with the liveliness of Walworth Road which I had never visited before, including here one very flashy lady of traditional African shape - and proud of it. And all kinds of other interesting stuff round the back as I made my way back to Elephant & Castle. Tube to Oval where I found I was a little early, so continued the tour with a second leg from the Oval - still the south pole of the bullingdon world (see December 9th 2011 in the other place) - back to Waterloo from where I picked up the Northern Line again.

Laburnum

To Hampton Court for a picnic the day after the Derby, to find the laburnum arcade next to the maze as we have never found it before. In full flood, with the yellow of the laburnum nicely contrasted with the blue of the aliums planted down the sides below.

Plus quite a lot of other blossom of one sort or another out in the wilderness.

Rest of the gardens a little betwixt and between with the spring flowers over and the summer flowers only coming on. But there were a few foxgloves.

We also noticed that one of the rose beds in the rose garden had been dug up for renovation, mainly I think to get rid of perennial weeds. It all goes to show that even in gardens as carefully looked after as those at Hampton Court, you still have major maintenance work to do from time to time.

Diversity

Finally got around this morning to finishing the book on diversity by E. O. Wilson - an expert on ants not race relations - picked up in Topsham for £1 and first mentioned here back on 12th March.

Wilson is an eminent scientist, best known for his work on ants, one product of which caught my eye in the TLS quite a few years ago; the word sociobiology comes to mind, but I cannot now identify the book in Amazon or anywhere else. At the time I could not afford it and by the time I could, I had moved on. So I have never read Wilson on ants, but I have now read him on diversity.

A paperback from Belknap, an outfit whose hardbacks I usually like, a very good standard of book production, but this paperback is not so hot. I do not much care for the way the first pages of each chapter have been highlighted and I do not much care for the illustrations: the book designer has clearly focused on the fact that this is a bit of popular science and needs to be lightened up with some light illustrations - which do not work very well for me.

That apart, what we have is an essay on biological diversity, how it came about and how we are now in the middle of a massive extermination, the sixth such event in the history of the earth. How, massive exterminations and massive turnover of species aside, diversity has steadily grown, ever since it all kicked off a few billion years ago. Along the way we learn about all kinds of intriguing plants and animals, these last mainly quite small. Just the sort of thing needed to fire up lay interest in natural history, the sort of interest which is important for the securing of the funding needed to preserve some of this diversity in nature parks of one sort or another, nature parks which largely pay for themselves by getting us pay to visit at weekends. Perhaps I should stop being so sniffy about nature programs on the television.

A very species orientated book, the selfish gene notwithstanding. An approach with which I agree; the species is a perfectly respectable level at which to organise our thoughts about and models of nature. Genes are both terribly abstract and invisible to the naked eye. Not very photo or telly genic.

Lots of odd facts. There are, for example, a lot more kinds of animal than there are kinds of plant. And an awful lot of the animals are insects. And an awful lot of the insects are ants. Then there are are a lot more species out there which we do not know anything about than there are species which we have got around to naming, never mind learning much about. And snakes have been a major, often fatal, pain ever since we were monkeys and that our common aversion to them, if not phobia, may be genetic rather than learned.

Last but not least, the already well known facts that there are far too many humans around from a diversity point of view already and that our numbers are unlikely to stabilise for another half century, assuming that is that we do not do ourselves all in beforehand.

He closes with what I found to be a rather weak appeal for the preservation what we can of diversity, part of the appeal being pointing to some obscure plants and animals which have yielded important new chemicals, some of which have had a  startling effect on previously intractable cancers. Perhaps we need to get that bit rewritten by someone with a better grip on politics and economics, maybe one of those bossy sounding types who write for the 'Economist'.

Puzzle

Continue to puzzle about the location and number of versions of the illustrated picture. Surely somebody out there out of all the billions and billions of them has bothered to tell the internet?

I have got a bit further this morning in that http://www.paintingmania.com/ says that it is indeed in the Fitzwilliam and that they will send me a hand painted original copy at more or less the original size for something under $200, although there is some doubt about preservation of aspect ratio, hardly an issue one would associate with a hand painted original copy etc.

Furthermore, $200 is not a great deal of money, particularly when one takes away the cost of paint, canvas, frame, packing and shipping. I am guessing, but my guess is that a competent artist could knock out a respectable copy in a small number of days which suggests that the hourly rate is less than that of a plumber here in Epsom. Perhaps the artist in question lives somewhere in China.

But the Fitzwilliam continues not to own up to the Manet, but then it does not own up to the new Poussin either, at least not to me, although it does admit to knowing about both painters. It also admits to 378 objects from one George Mackley, quite a number of which also hang on our own walls, so their print cataloguers are clearly up and running, even in the paint ones have got a little behind.

Continuing to poke around, I decide that what I need is a catalogue raisonné, which looks to be something one has to pay for. Google Books knows about such things but does not offer one. While Amazon offer me a second hand one for £2,990 plus £2.80 postage and packing. Is there some municifent foundation in the US which has gone public with one online? Do I need a visit to Foyles to take a peek at one of theirs? Does the fancy art book shop which used to be nearby still exist? I have a nasty feeling that it has been taken over, moved, downsized or worse.

But this is, I think the way forward. Bullingdon to Soho Square and take it from there.

Fitzwilliam

Paid a rare visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum while in Cambridge, foodie aspects of which have already been reported on.

For a museum in a small provincial town, fairly outrageous, making, for example, the otherwise excellent museum in Exeter look very provincial. One supposes that Mr. Fitzwilliam was very rich indeed. Wikipedia suggests Irish peerage and a fortune made by speculative building in Georgian Dublin; not settlers but probably ascendancy and squeezers of the starving peasants at at most one remove. One wonders how long it will be before the Dáil Éireann wakes up to the iniquity of it all and insists on the results of the plunder being moved back to the ancestral seat at Merrion, now a suburb of Dublin.

We spent most of our time on the pictures of which there were lots, lots of them good. So, for example, a good Crivelli (see, for example, 5th May). But we failed to find 'The Roadmenders' by Manet, the parental reproduction of which now hangs in our extension, despite having thought that one of the two versions of this painting lived there. (I find subsequently that Professor Google is not very good at telling you where pictures are. He knows all about the picture and the many places which will sell me a copy but not where I can see the thing for real). On the other hand there was a nice Renoir landscape and the original of the painting of Hardy on the cover of the Tomalin biography (borrowed following the post of 20th April and of which more in due course).

Plus a fine new Poussin, 'The Last Sacrament', one of the two series of paintings of the seven (note the magic number popping up again) sacraments. No doubt we will go on a hunt to find the others at some point. In the meantime I was reminded of details in the same painter's 'Dance to the Music of Time' and in the National Gallery version of Cézanne's 'Les Grandes Baigneuses'. Small prize for readers who spot what in this last was the connection.

We noticed in passing a pot by the chap of the hare with the amber eyes, looking better in the flesh than I had thought likely from a picture of a relative (see May 28th 2012 in the other place).

We could not fail to notice the extravagant and outrageously fancy entrance hall, probably cleaned since my childhood, from which I remember it as much more dingy. Main picture gallery moderately fancy and I was pleased to find that I could walk around the gallery hung half way up it without the vertigo kicking in. The point of the gallery being to show a lot of small pictures, some very good, but which one could not get far enough away from to see properly.