Today's bet

Today's bet is that it will turn out that while I might call what you see as blue, blue, I might actually be seeing red. A problem which has been vexing colour vision scientists in public houses for almost as long as there have been colour vision scientists.

A simple way to do this would be to simply rotate the colour wheel by 120 or 240 degrees and let brain plasticity do the rest. This would preserve primary colours, in the sense that each primary colour would be mapped onto another, and both black & white would stay as they are - which I believe to be helpful - and would preserve addition, subtraction and proximity of colours - which I believe to be necessary.

A quick peek at google suggests that, maybe, technology is starting to let some light in on this one. Maybe we really will find out in the next few years - and so my bet is in. Or at least it will be when I have had a chance to chat to our local Paddy Power people.

Illustration possibly lightly adapted from http://www.bluelobsterart.co.uk/. The place I thought it had come from - www.bluelobsterart.com - does not seem to exist.

Johnson

For some reason that I cannot now recover, Dr. Johnson came to mind when I was composing the post at reference 1.

But I have now read the one book of his that turned out to be sitting on the top shelf, Rasselas, a book which wikipedia tells me was knocked out by the good doctor in a week or so in 1759 to help pay for his mother's funeral. My own copy is a bit newer than that, perhaps from around 1900, but in any event from before the time when publishers were obliged to put dates in books, an old but otherwise handsome small book from Routledge & Sons of London, one of their new universal library, and once the property of a T. W. Beuke, possibly a German. A book of just under 300 pages arranged with some odd pages at the front and some more odd pages at the back sandwiching 18 signatures of 16 pages each. Labelled from A to S, with something odd happening around the J-K mark, clearly some secret of the printers' craft. With another secret being the business of the odd pages front and back.

Another odd feature of the book is the large amount of white space, mainly between the 49 short chapters, usually of two or three pages each, with pages being approximately 150mm by 100mm, which does not seem to fit any of the standard sizes for books offered by google, with the nearest I came being something called B6. Another secret of the trade. But in any event the book must have been produced at a time when paper was relatively cheap.

The book is the story of an Abyssinian prince, Rasselas, and his sister Nekayah, who start off sequestered in a palatial prison, ringed in by mountains and which no-one, once in, is allowed to leave. We spend the first fifteen chapters learning that being sequestered in a palace is not that great and then escaping. The next thirty five chapters learning about all the things that can go wrong with people and their lives in the wide world. Just short of 50 short tales in all, each replete with pithy observation - and a moral. For example, just because shepherds work in pretty surroundings with pretty animals, does not make them into nice or happy people. Or just because a chap can give a nicely judged talk about how to live, don't assume that his own life is particularly edifying or happy. The sort of thing that might have done quite well to power improving drawing room conversation: you get one of your number to read one of the chapters, which might take five or ten minutes, and you then build a conversation on it. Inter alia, economical on candles.

I get the impression that Johnson was very conscious of the fragility of life and its pleasures. People could very easily do bad things to you, you might very easily get ill or worse and if you managed to avoid that lot, you would certainly get old and decrepit. Sans eyes, sans teeth and so on; see Jacques on the subject in Act II, Scene VII of 'As You Like It' - and see reference 2 for a picture of same. Perhaps a sensible approach to the uncertain world of his time, uncertain even for the rich. Perhaps this is the link to reference 1 - you might think you are doing great, but you never know whether or when dementia is going to grab you.

Johnson was clearly a very able chap. Perhaps I shall see what else I can find.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/still-alice.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/rosalind.html.

Morning moan

This triggered by a story in one of yesterday's free papers - Standard or Metro - about how the Secretary of State for Health is telling us how awful this or that widget in the health service is, a health service of which has charge, and how he is going to fix it. More guidance, more savings, more inspections or something. Maybe more court cases. Anything but more money for more people.

This annoyed me because the Secretary is, in effect, suggesting that we can have a world class health service, where accidents never happen, at third world rates. The government of which he is part has been squeezing the health service for years and still has the nerve to bang on about how awful it is that there has been an accident.

New Labour took a different line, throwing a great deal of money at the health service, probably more money than it could usefully absorb in the time (think of all those fine new computer systems which soaked up all those billions) and certainly more money than we could sustain.

But neither party seems to be in the least bit interested in trying to explain to the electorate that they get the health service that they are prepared to pay for. They can't have all the booze they can drink, all the consumer toys from China that they can play with - and health. If they pay more taxes, then they can have a better health service. And it is this that I find really annoying, this abject failure to put the public debate on a realistic financial footing.

Blaming it all on inefficient public servants doesn't wash with me. By the standards of the western world we get quite a good bang for our buck - perhaps twice as much bang for our buck as they manage in the land of trump and free enterprise.

PS 1: I observe in passing than spending money on people to work in the health service would be much better for our dire balance of payments than spending money on consumer goods from China. Much more sustainable, even if lots of the people involved do come from elsewhere.

PS 2: and I noticed yesterday that the line of ambulances outside Epsom Hospital was provided by G4S, rather than by the South East Coast Ambulance Trust which, I think, used to do the job. I suppose it is not that different from using ordinary taxis for a lot a patient movements, but one does wonder about the attitudes and style that G4S operatives will bring to this sometimes difficult work. I wonder even more whether it will prove any cheaper in the long run.

A swing through Fitzrovia

A rare visit to Fitzrovia earlier in the week.

Kicked off with tea, coffee and cake at the handy sub-ground café at Debenhams. Which was fine, but, despite the smart décor, I did notice the odd flaw in and around the escalator well, which all goes to show that it is very hard to completely obliterate the fact that one is working with quite an old building. The old will poke through in one way or another.

Then into the Wigmore for a bit of lunchtime recital, given on this occasion by the Armida Quartet from Germany, not heard by us before. Interesting seating arrangements. For the Mozart K80 quartet, from left to right 1st violin, cello, viola, 2nd violin (on the piano stool), while for the Beethoven Op.59, we had 1st violin, 2nd violin, viola, cello (on the piano stool), that is to say the usual arrangement, apart from the stool, usually the seat of honour for the 1st violin. Presumably the quartet felt that there was something about the Mozart which suggested a different seating plan. That apart, a young performance with plenty of brio. So much so that at several points I thought brass. I found the Mozart a little fast, perhaps I should have revised, but the Beethoven was excellent, packing a formidable punch. And we had Contrapunctus 4 for an encore, for which it did very well. Rounded off and rounded down nicely. Audience enthusiastic.

BH explained that the flowers flanking the stage were green (once again, see reference 3), because they were dyed green, not natural, let alone organic. I think she said by standing them in a suitable green dye, but thinking about it now, I would have thought that this would take a very long time to result in green flowers. Why not just dip the flowers in the green dye direct?

To Ponti's for an entirely satisfactory lunch, slightly let down by their bread being very salty. And to think that Mediterranean diets are supposed to be so healthy. See reference 1.

From there we decided to head across to Eastcastle Street and then hang left up to Warren Street, to find the whole area awash with dinky little eateries, dinky little galleries and even the odd pub. What looked like some kind of upstairs HQ for Baslers, a relic of the days when the whole area was awash with the clothing trade rather than the eating and arting trades. See reference 2. I vaguely recall using one of the eateries, having just missed an exhibition of cartoons to do with Russian ballet, but, irritatingly, cannot now find the relevant post. Nor could we find the site of the famous Schmidt's in Charlotte Street, probably because we got into the street half way along and turned north rather than south.

But we did come across Carr-Saunders Hall, which looked strangely small viewed from Fitzroy Street, not having seen it for some years now, but which nevertheless refused to fit into the telephone's view finder, with the truncated results illustrated. I was slightly surprised not to find the place picketed by students with placards. given that Carr-Saunders was an old Etonian who had a lot to do with setting up colleges and universities in what were then our colonies, colour bars and all, right after the second war. Is it right that a hall of residence for the LSE should be named for such a person, that person's service in the first war and long time directorship of LSE notwithstanding? I might say that I am mildly embarrassed now to have known so little about the chap, despite having been a student at LSE just ten years after he left - a studentship which included sundry visits to this very hall.

Closely followed by the nearby theatre book shop, of which more in due course. Then down the hole at Warren Street, two long escalators down to the Victoria Line, and so to Vauxhall and home. Walked up the escalator at Vauxhall, but I think I would have chickened out of the longer of the two escalators at Warren Street, should we have happened to be going up rather than down. Drew a blank at Raynes Park on this occasion.

PS: later, I eventually find that memory is defective once again. The cartoons were not in Eastcastle Street at all, rather the nearby Little Portland Street. See reference 4.

Reference 1: http://www.pontisitaliankitchen.co.uk/.

Reference 2: http://www.basler-fashion.com/en/. To be found in what used, in racing days, to be the Spread Eagle pub in Epsom.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/debussy.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/big-fugue.html.

Trolley 39

Barely a month since the last one, this one turned up at the junction of Kiln Lane and East Street. Once again, rather an odd place to leave such a thing, so I shall spend the next tea break working up a scenario or two.

Unlike trolley 38, this one did have the contraption on the front nearside wheel. No beeping when I crossed the boundary from public to Sainsbury's land, so if the sign about detectors is not just for show, the detector must be able to distinguish trolleys going in from trolleys going out. That is to say it can detect movement as well as presence. Does this seem likely?

Perhaps I ought to experiment with taking a trolley back and forth across the boundary and seeing whether burly security men come charging out of their dugout at the back of the car park?

The dismal science

As young people living in North London, we used occasionally to stroll down Bishop's Avenue to gaze in adoration at all the fancy houses there, fancy houses which we were never going to be able to afford. So I was amused to read over breakfast today that in 2014 there were 16 derelict properties there, of which that illustrated in one. Not that dereliction seems to affect price all that much. Bizarre, but no more bizarre, I suppose, than Centre Point (at the top of Charing Cross Road) standing empty for years after its construction, while its owner waited for the rent to be right. A build to let merchant rather than a buy to let one.

And then there was a short piece about how EDF (in full, Électricité de France) is worrying whether the power station deal at Hinkley Point is going to bankrupt them, while us lefties are wondering whether us promising to pay them twice the going rate for electricity for ever is a good deal for England. Bring critical national infrastructure back into national ownership say I! And bring on the nuclear!

And lastly, the long running story in the serious newspapers about how cheap oil is going to be the ruin of us all. I can see that oil producers like the Russians and the Nigerians might be a lot happier if oil were a bit dearer, but surely oil consumers like the UK and China ought to be delighted? Cheap oil ought to be kick-starting a splendid bit of recovery with the Saudi's picking up the tab for once?

So, with the dismal science producing three jokes of this sort, it can't be as dismal as all that.

PS: I imagine that Corby the Crow is all for nationalising critical national infrastructure but is completely opposed to anything nuclear. Anything nuclear down to and including the radioactive bits and bobs which are important in various medical gadgets. So he won't be much help.

Life among the anacondas

Don't Sleep, There are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle - Daniel Everett – 2008. With the illustration left being what google returns at the top of the list for anaconda. I wonder what the jungle dwellers concerned would have made of it.

An interesting but rather odd book, drawing on long experience in the Amazonian jungle with the Pirahã, a very small people living on the banks of a tributary of the Amazon – a tributary which can be 40 feet deep in the rainy season. At the time Everett was there, they appeared to have numbered less than 500 people, scattered in a number of small villages – so it is hard to see how they are going to survive as a people, even supposing that was what they wanted. Odd in that we are given no clear narrative of how Everett spent the thirty or more years during which he was associated with the Pirahã, and we have to try and pick that up from a rather fragmented narrative, broken up by long stretches of material about the Pirahã language. With the reason for my having arrived at the book in the first place being that it is a very odd language.

But before language, just a few words about the thirty or more years. Everett starts out as a missionary from SIL (reference 3), this despite the fact that the Brazilians had forbidden missionary work among the tribes. A born again Christian with a lot of evangelical experience, topped up with training in linguistics. And he probably started out with Spanish rather than Portuguese. After a spell by himself in the deepest jungle, he takes his wife and young family there – and lived there for years. Eventually in the face of Pirahã refusal to take any serious interest in Jesus, he loses Jesus himself, and in consequence loses his family and his funding. At which point I lose the thread; perhaps that is when he became a university teacher.

I am doubtful about the wisdom of inflicting such a life on one’s young children. They were certainly doing something unusual and it was no doubt rewarding in its way. But it was scarcely much of a preparation for life back in the United States. After spending their formative years in a real jungle, how are they going to survive in the urban jungle? I have similar doubts about sending children to very small schools – like our Cornerstone School here in Epsom (reference 4) – or, worse still, home education. Unless, of course, there are special needs.

The language was built on a very small number of sounds, with one of those that they did have being for men only. By way of compensation, they made a lot of use of tone and stress, to the point that one could drop the sounds and hum the language. This was a form of communication used by nursing mothers and lovers. The men could also whistle it and both sexes went in for yelling it and singing it. Or they could use their sounds and speak it in the ordinary way of western folk.

There were no articles – words like ‘a’ and ‘the’ – and no quantifiers – words like ‘any’, ‘all’ and ‘most’. As far as could be ascertained there were no words for numbers and the Pirahã could not even count on their fingers and toes – leading them wide open to exploitation from the river traders to whom they sold jungle products – like Brazil nuts.

The sentences were simple, with a low limit on permitted complexity, and no subordinate clauses. So there had to be work arounds for sentences like ‘the man in the punt was smoking’.

On the other hand, verbs were very complicated with a number of sets of particles for tagging on the end. Particles which I assume were mostly, in English, accommodated by free standing particles. A different parceling up of the world of language into words than ours.

Everett makes a lot of the interaction between language and culture, taking time out to join in the Chomsky hunt – with it seeming to be open season for Chomsky bashing these days. Perhaps he is paying the price for having been such a huge force in linguistics in the second half of the last century. That aside, it seems to me that there is an interaction between language, culture and the inner world; the language one ends up with, for whatever reason, does shape one’s inner world. One’s inner world, in part, is a vision of the outer world seen through the lens of language. And one lens is not the same as another.

One aspect of this is that the Pirahã live very much in the present. They are not interested in stuff which cannot reported by someone who has seen it for themselves. Stories about someone who lived two thousand years ago being out of it altogether – although they do allow reports about conversation with spirits, deemed to be as real as you or I.

Language apart, the Pirahã appear to have been a happy people, with a lot of smiling and laughing. They did well on the various indices of happiness brandished by sociologists and anthropologists. On the other hand, there was a high rate of sudden death, not least in child birth. Some person-on-person violence, including some rape. Some drunkenness, when they got hold of drink. Don’t know about tobacco. Very little property of any sort. And while happy to take in some conveniences from the outside, like picture books, they showed no great interest, at that time, in joining the wide world, never mind the world wide web.

So, as I started out by saying, interesting if odd. Very pleased that I happened upon it.

PS: given that Everett used to be a professor at Illinois State University, I thought there might be a tie in with the Illinois flavoured funding of ‘The Key’, noticed at reference 2. Maybe in the minds of the Illinois arty folk, gaelic was another quaint language from deep in the jungle, worthy of a grant from the anthropology department. Digging a bit, I find that the Illinois Arts Council seems to be all about promoting the arts by the Illinois people for the Illinois people. Now the Dalkey Archive people do claim connections to two places in Illinois, Champaign and McLean, of which two the latter is only a village - and that is as close as I can get. No connection with the Amazon at all, after all.

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

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/the-paperkeepers-tale.html.

Reference 3: http://www.sil.org/. They look there like an outfit for studying small languages around the world, but Wikipedia says ‘SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) is a U.S. based, worldwide, Christian non-profit organization, whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to expand linguistic knowledge, promote literacy, translate the Christian Bible into local languages, and aid minority language development’. Certainly Everett talks of them as a missionary outfit. Nevertheless, a centre of excellence in the matter of small languages. Maybe world class.

Reference 4: http://www.cornerstoneschool.org.uk/.

House

There is something of a glut of 'House' DVDs in Epsom, so knowing next to nothing about it, beyond it being a medical soap featuring Bertie Wooster (whom we had liked when he appeared on ITV3), thought to give it a go and so became the temporary owner of series 5 and 6. We have seen two episodes and have now returned the two boxes to the pool.

It all seemed rather noisy, manic, frantic and rectal to us. This last because of a seeming fascination with rectal examinations. Also rather medical in general, with lots of hypodermics (which I am still a bit touchy about) and other medical apparatus on view. Lots of cod-psychiatry, particularly as regards the medical staff. Furthermore, we were sufficiently out of touch with US taste in medical soap for it to take some time for us to realise that this one was really a spoof.

The DVDs came with a fair amount of advertisement filled packaging, all rather irritating, and although the episodes themselves had no advertisement breaks, the gaps where they had been were clearly visible. We wondered how much the need to work in six minute takes and the need to compete with the very expensively crafted advertisements screened between takes disturbed things.

We also wondered about the way that the structure of this medical soap paralleled that of a murder soap, for example, Inspector Morse, or perhaps Sherlock Holmes. The way, for example, that life threatening situations licensed all kinds of prying, prying which is not normally allowed. Then there are all the red-herrings. Perhaps a fit topic for a dissertation for a student at our University of Creation - although that said I am not sure that they do this sort of creation. More a fashion place. See reference 2.

We thought perhaps that the idea was that Wooster took this show on because he did not want to go down in history as the chap who did a great job of portraying a rich prat from England - but in the end just settled for the money - the show having done very well indeed in the ratings. Maybe, even more episodes than our own 'Midsomer Murders'. Wikipedia tells me that he was on £250,000 or so an episode.

It also tells me that he was a product of Eton, Cambridge and Cambridge Footlights. A champion rower, talented musician and even dabbles a bit in writing. So clearly a very talented chap. But sadly, 'House' was not for us. At least Tadworth Children's Trust is near £10 better off.

Reference 1: https://www.thechildrenstrust.org.uk/.

Reference 2: http://www.uca.ac.uk/life-at-uca/locations/epsom/.
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Judgement

I was rather irritated this morning to read stories alleging that Cameron wants to rush into a referendum on Europe this June, stories which, if true, suggest to me a serious error of judgement.

Western Europe is facing two related and serious problems: the various conflicts and problems in the Middle East and the millions of refugees arising therefrom. While they are not exactly our problems, we are rich and powerful and they are more or less on our doorstep. We have a history of meddling, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not for such good reasons, and we cannot stand aside now. We need, we have to work with the others involved or interested to deal with these problems.

Against this background, the UK whining about more or less parochial concerns seems to me to strike the wrong note. Mainland Europeans might just say "we have got more important problems to worry about than you at the moment, so shut up or get out. We don't got time to bother with you. PS: and stop being so selfish.

And collectively we really don't have the management bandwidth to cope with both the external problems and the relatively unimportant, internal problems. Cameron, his team, and the country at large, should put their shoulders to the collective wheel of sorting out the external problems. It is even possible that if a few major powers get serious about this, some of the big backsliders - like Poland, Russia and Saudi Arabia - might be shamed into constructive action. Pigs might even fly.

PS: and we might say the same to the Scots. Pipe down for the moment and we will get to you in due course. It is not as if they have anything like the grievance that the Irish had in their time, a hundred years ago, when we stood their independence down for the duration of the first war.

Carex pendula

The carex pendula and euphorbia mentioned in the last post. Pond in the background at the top of the snap.

Group search key: bpa

Chelsea chatter

Last week we went to the the winter number of Battersea Park's decorative fair. Objects and stuff rather than paint and wallpaper. Somebody or something had sent us a ticket so off we went, along with lots of other people. They did check at the door but nobody we saw actually paid.

Started out well with a tweeting of three coal tits in one of the small trees in the verges of our road.

Then to the café run with special needs people, handily outside Clapham Junction railway station. Pleasant atmosphere, pleasantly quiet. Tea fine, bacon sandwiches adequate - that is to say the bacon was fine but the white bread had not been out of the freezer long enough and was rather cold on the tongue.

Thus fortified up past the Islamic centre under a much needed reconstruction to the 'Asparagus' for a right turn into Battersea Park Road to inspect the creeping gentrification there. From whence to the south west corner of the Park, also known as the Sun Gate.

The playground which was under reconstruction on our last visit (reference 2, more than six months ago) was now complete (and illustrated above), but being a week day largely without customers. Just the one family having a go at the crazy golf under the trees. with children just about old enough to get the idea.

The invitation had been a little coy about exactly where the fair was to be held, but eventually we found a large tent, in shape a bit like a small office block, complete with a fancy entrance and a car park. Luckily someone had left a side gate to the car park open so we did not have to walk the entire perimeter to get in, get in to find a rather crowded variation on the theme of car boot sale crossed with second hand (or even antiquarian) book fair. There was considerable variation among the accents of the vendors, but those of the visitors mainly sounded money, as did most of their clothes. More women than men, mostly middle aged, perhaps a little younger than ourselves. Some loud. The stuff was mostly the sort of thing that an interior designer on a commission to furnish a restaurant or an expensive town flat would buy, rather than our good selves. In part because the prices were a bit steep, in part because the objects were mostly rather big.

About an hour of that was enough, after which we left by the same gate that we had come in by to take tea at a rather sad looking Gondola Café - not enough business during the week to make it worth their putting much food on or to cover up the shabbiness. But a good cuppa outside on the terrace, watching the birds fooling around on the ice on the pond. Seagulls practising their landings on the ice and coots practising getting out of the holes in the ice that they kept falling into.

From there around the south of the pond to inspect the herons, some of which had made nests in the trees on the big island. Another large bird sitting in one of the same trees which we were unable to identify; very frustrating - with a tourist passing with a camera with a zoom lens not understanding me well enough to help - and his best offer was fat chicken. The zoom on my telephone not being anywhere near powerful enough for the purpose. A first in that we saw a heron joining in a feeding of the seagulls - a heron which didn't like the bread on offer but couldn't bear to leave the action.

Past a fine bed of carex pendula and euphorbias. Spotted a chinook to the west. One assumes some sort of military but we wondered whether they were allowed to tank up at the Battersea heliport, saving them the journey back to base proper, perhaps giving the special forces therein more air time over important targets. See reference 2.

Passing an estate agent after we had left the Park we pondered the merits of having a flat in the area. Without resident children and being less keen these days on gardening, one could certainly see the point. But there was quite a big catch in that our house in Epsom would not buy much flat in Battersea, at least not on the right side of the railway line.

Finished up at the Battersea Food & Wine store in Falcon Road (a little south of gmaps 51.4666467,-0.1697279), where we were able to stock up on dried figs and Turkish Delight. Both very good; figs quite dear, delight quite cheap. There was also the best display of dried vegetables we had ever seen. Mental note to give it some serious attention on our next visit.

Well not quite finished up, as we also managed a quick visit to the platform library at Raynes Park where I was able to pick up a vintage edition of the National Trust guide to Ben Lawers, even older than the one we already had from maybe twenty years ago when we went up the thing. I had not realised, or perhaps not remembered, what an interesting place it was from both a geological and botanical point of view. But I shall return to that in due course.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/aeroplanes-2.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/a-touch-of-pepys.html.

Group search key: bpa

Poor detailing

A snap from the West Hill cycleway project, noticed more than once before.

A snap which illustrates the way in which the tactile lino tiles (noticed at reference 1) have been cut in around drain covers, a matter which neither the detailing architect nor the workmen doing the work gave enough attention to, resulting in the mess shown.

It makes one nostalgic for those far off days when the Mayor of Epsom could buy the borough drain covers with the name of the borough cast into the steel and when public workmanship of this order would never have been tolerated.

PS: assuming that is, that the 'Epsom' on this drain cover signifies the customer, not where the thing was made. I am not aware that we ever had any steel foundries in the area, but you never know - after all, we did have gunpowder mills. Pity I didn't take the picture the right way up. Pity the telephone has translated yellow ochre into something close to white.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/golf-bores.html.

Debussy

Wigmore again last Monday, picked, I should imagine in spite of Debussy, rather than for him, his being a composer I think of as fast, complicated and modern, adjectives with a negative rather than positive valence in this context.

As it turned, out the Debussy was both familiar and good, familiar on the strength of a single hearing about nine months ago. So the brain remembered the music, but I did not remember its name or the fact that I had heard it before. Clearly keep the different bits of that hearing in different compartments, with different keys. See reference 1.

But to start at the beginning, it was a cold night, despite being quite hazy overhead. Quite cold enough for me to be glad of my gloves but not cold enough to stop lots of young people working their telephones gloves-off. I blame the warfarin. And at Oxford Circus there was even a family of tourists buying ice-creams, clearly an essential part of a holiday as far as they were concerned.

On the way, what seemed to be a succession of young ladies talking to their telephones about having fun. Perhaps it is just because I am not young, but it all seemed a bit forced to me - with my limited experience being that the harder you go after fun, the harder it is to find it, with a more relaxed approach usually being more productive. Or is it more a matter of personality than age? But the diet of fun was varied by a story about an avalanche while out skiing - or to be more precise, I got to hear the various responses to such a story. But responses of a kind that was one able to have a fair crack at reconstruction. No real damage, so the two concerned could enter into the whole business with cheerful gusto, without feeling any impropriety.

Arrived at the Wigmore to find that their flowers had moved into red and green, to the extent of including what appeared to be green flowers, of a daisy variety. The lead flowers were red anthuriums, as last seen - in the white on that occasion - at reference 2 - so perhaps the lady that did that arrangement was back on watch.

Started with the Schubert D703 which was fine, but it made an odd prelude to the Haydn which followed (Op.20 No.6). Too much of a change of gear for me, a change which seemed to throw what followed a bit out of kilter. Serioso (Op.95) good, but would perhaps have been better had I done a bit of revision beforehand. Enough to remind me of how it went, not so much as to take the gloss off. But back at the change of gear, I think the problem there was that the three pieces making up the programme proper did not amount to a concert of what was thought to be of sufficient length, so the Schubert was tacked on front as a make weight. And a slow movement from Haydn (Op.54 No.1) was tacked on behind as an encore. At least this last worked fine, making a good closure to the very different Debussy.

I felt rather sorry for the cello at one point, obliged by the sponsor, Lark Insurance, to put in an advert for them - and he looked most uncomfortable about doing it. A chap who usually has much more aplomb when it comes to talking to the audience, something the Endellions are rather partial to. I wonder what Mr. Lark made of it; he can at least take comfort from my remembering all about it, which might be enough for him.

The programme was done under the Endellion flag, making it a bright orange on this occasion. The chap on the door would say no more than that they liked to do their own programme, so they did. One result being a more cantabrian flavour than a normal Wigmore produced programme. I wondered this morning about the business arrangement. Does the Wigmore hire the quartet and take all the risk? Does the agent for the Endellions hire the hall and take all the risk? Or is there some profit share agreement? Or do the they hire in it their own name - taking all the risk but also taking all the profits, should there be any. And printing their own programmes. Hall pretty much full on this occasion, so I suppose there would have been some profits. For the terms and conditions for hiring the hall, interested readers can follow the lead given at reference 4. I wondered also whether the Wigmore do better at providing their artists & artistes with refreshments than the Dorking Halls - a place which does not seem to be able to manage this basic civility, despite my poking them twice on the matter. Possibly the result of the catering there being sub-contracted out, with most of the staff being young, transient and zero-hours.

Home via the Jubilee Line, something I do not recall doing before, having been put off by the notion that it was a long way down and a long way back up again at Waterloo. In the event, one lost the walk to Oxford Circus, good for the circulation after sitting down for a while, but gained some minutes on the journey time, useful at what is, these days, late at night for me.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/its-those-dantes-again.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/borodin.html.

Reference 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2i6pX5kLBg. A rendering of the encore from the Conway Hall. I had not realised that they do concerts there.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/trios.html.

2015-2016 puncture campaign

This to record that this year's lawn puncture campaign started at 1500 on Saturday 23rd January 2016, with one row completed during the (successful) second rise of the 345th batch of bread.

Prompted by the observation that the half of the back lawn nearest the house, that is to say the half punctured so far, seemed to be doing better in the damp mild weather we have been having than the other half. Although I should say that the evidence is a bit confused in detail; no nice sharp line along the end of the punctures separating the good from the bad. There must be some other factors at work here.

See reference 1 for the end of the last campaign.

PS 1: so damp and mild that I caught one lady mowing her front lawn last week.

PS 2: it is a pity that references take you to the post indicated in single post mode. Continuous mode would be better, allowing the context of the post referenced to be more readily taken on, but presumably more tricky to arrange. Further thought needed.

Reference 1: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/punctures.html.

YouGov

Another YouGov day today. Once again they wanted to know what I knew and what I thought about all kinds of financial services outfits, with about two thirds of those being offered being outfits which I had heard of.

However, the questions asked presupposed a high level of interest in such matters. They expected me, for example, to remember with whom I insured our car. Which, given that the days of sitting with the same reputable insurer for ever are over, is quite unrealistic. Even more unrealistic was the idea that I had heard anything positive or negative about, say, Hiscox. But I could do the one about whether I would be embarrassed if a family member worked for Hiscox because, as it happens, I find their advertisements on railway platforms rather offensive and I would, in consequence, be so embarrassed. See reference 1.

YouGov then branched off onto my equally non-existent use of air travel and my near non-existent use of hotels. Perhaps as a government pensioner (I am fairly sure that that sort of thing was covered in the start up questions when I first joined their panel), I am expected to be more into that sort of thing.

But I was spared the excursion into coffee shops & fast food, another favourite with the YouGov people and another sector of which I have little knowledge and almost no experience.

Perhaps my failure to meet all these expectations accounts for my continuing failure to win anything in the prize draws offered as a reward for my participation.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/tooting-trivia.html.

More suspicions

BH has become convinced that somebody has touched up the spook marks noticed at reference 1. The allegation being that someone is going around touching up all the marks, as opposed to getting on and doing whatever it is that the marks are supposed to mark.

Checking the picture at reference 1 against the marks now in the road myself, I am not so sure, but just to be on the safe side we have given some thought to what might be going on, and have come to the conclusion that we have learned nothing new about the ownership of the marks. Given the paucity of the data available to us, one owner is just as likely to embark on a round of touching up as another. Dr Bayes, on this occasion, is of no help at all.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/suspicions.html.

Clandon redux

I read in the Guardian that the National Trust have settled for a compromise on the burnt out Clandon: rebuild downstairs, recycle upstairs. My last visit to which was noticed at reference 1 and my last thoughts on which were noticed at reference 2.

For what it is worth, I still think that the Trust have come to the wrong answer, despite the pull of the picture left, suggesting that much of the load bearing structure, apart from the timber, is more or less intact.

While there has clearly been some kind of announcement - see the Guardian of Tuesday 19th January - I have not been able - in a few minutes anyway - to turn up the report - perhaps written by a bunch of expensive consultants - perhaps written by a bunch of retired civil servants (such luminati as the Director General of the the National Trust and, indeed, your truly) - which must have been written about the whole business. A report containing lots of chapters, hierarchically numbered paragraphs, graphics and appendices. At least one management summary. At least three options, not counting the null option. A contents page spanning two pages at the very least. Perhaps a forward signed off with the facsimile signature of the almighty. So what I write here does not have the benefit of the wisdom no doubt contained therein. But here goes...

I suppose my biggest thought is that it is very odd to be spending serious money to recreate this treasure of inequality. This treasure, the construction of which was made possible by exploitation of the working classes, the construction of which was intended to symbolise, to advertise the power, presence & permanence of the oligarchy which ran the country at the time. A world in which servants moved around in a parallel world so as not to disturb the goings on of the house's real inhabitants - although to be fair, I don't think that Clandon went as far in that department as some other similar buildings in the neigbbourhood, for example Cleremont.

But perhaps appropriate in the sense that the distribution of wealth in this country is as skewed presently as it has been for a long time. Perhaps even - I have not checked - approaching the level of inequality around at the time Clandon was built.

There is also the consideration that there is a huge appetite for shows of this kind, shows which taken together clock up millions of visits a year. We all swoon with pleasure at the sight of the glories that we were never intended to share by the people who once lived in them. We gobble up the period soaps on television which cater for the same appetites. Not to mention the documentaries lovingly dwelling on the recreation of the very roof tiles used by the original builders. Camel hair reinforcement and all.

Perhaps there has been a huge fight inside the National Trust, and Ghosh is just fronting the collective - not to say unanimous - view which has emerged from that fight - with it not being the custom in this country for the governing classes to exhibit the interior workings of their governance. What does that other ex civil servant, this one with a spell at the Treasury to his credit, Chairman Parker think? A chairman who does not seem to be anything like as much in the public eye as his predecessor, Simon Jenkins - but then he doesn't have a column, a pulpit in a national newspaper to advertise his wares.

My suggestion, for what is worth, is that they should knock the place down and build a shiny new mental hospital on the footprint. A shiny new mental hospital in beautiful grounds (complete, I seem to recall, with its own church on the perimeter) to provide asylum for some at least of the many casualties of our (collective) dash for wealth. A grand opportunity to emulate Victorian philanthropic endeavour, an opportunity which is not going to be repeated very often.

A move which would probably require the trust deeds of the National Trust to be be amended, but I am sure that where there was a will there would be a way.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/parasites.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/to-clandon-or-not-to-clandon.html.

Butterflies 5

There were quite a lot of very fancy cameras in the hot house, working out on the butterflies. So I kept my telephone's powder dry for the trees.

Group search key: wsa.

Butterflies 4

Group search key: wsa.

Butterflies 3

The stolen Brussels sprouts, shortly before they were taken with a fine scrambled eggs on brown bread.

Perhaps I should add in my defense, that a lot of the sprouts appeared to have been left to rot on the plants and that it was hard to see any outstanding horticultural purpose for them to be there. But then, I suppose they all say that.

PS: In passing I might say that, to Falstaff, I think that scrambled eggs were known either as buttered eggs or eggs and butter. No mention of milk. Furthermore in these healthy times of ours, I dare say there are people who use vegetable oil rather than butter, although, not having tried it, I am a bit sceptical how that might turn out. See reference 1. Also MWW, this last to be seen shortly at the Rose. Hopefully the relevant lines will not be cut.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/henry-iv-part-i-part-ii.html

Group search key: wsa.

Butterflies 2

Spiffing leeks, a little way up from the Brussels sprouts. They put anything that I have managed to grow completely in the shade.

Group search key: wsa.

Butterflies 1

I was once told that if one has a farm, one has two options. You can either take the low road, use very little bought in fertilizer, take things gently and raise a few crops and a few animals, perhaps making a living on the way. Or you can take the high road, use lots of bought in fertilizer, lots of equipment and raise rather more crops and animals. By deploying more capital you make more money - but with it come more worries and greater exposure to the vicissitudes of the markets.

Wisley, on this account are taking the high road. They offer lots of splendid gardens, lots of splendid trees and one very large hot house. Plus other attractions too numerous to enumerate here. But all this costs of lot of money, even if a lot of your gardeners were students or volunteers - which might be the case, but I don't know to be the case. So Wisley does lots of catering, a shop, a garden centre (some of the plants in which come from the same wholesaler as is used by the rather nearer Chessington Garden Centre) and attractions. Various attractions put on in the course of the Wisley year. So in late January the very large hot house is turned over to a lot of exotic butterflies, most of which are hatched on the premises. No idea where the eggs come from, and their web site seems to be more interested in selling me tickets than telling me about eggs.

So on Saturday to Wisley with butterflies in mind, to find that lots of other people have had the same idea, complete with lots of children, a fair proportion of whom were far too young to take much interest. There were also signs that over the next year or so they might move to charging extra (entry to Wisley is presently free to members, with membership being good value for us as we live quite nearby) and to timed tickets, for all the world like one of those shows at the National Gallery. The net result was that one did not get to see all that much of the splendid plants on offer - but, to be fair, the butterflies were pretty splendid too. With the bigger ones having oddly drooping wings with a flight to match. It was also very hot, all the more so as it had just turned cold outside.

Out and off to the main café for tea and cake, my cake being a rather fine,mainly yellow confection of polenta with almonds and apricots on top.

From there to inspect Battleston Hill, to find magnolias well in bud and quite a lot of camelias in flower. But the star of this part of the visit was the stand of eucalyptus trees, with their patterned bark looking really special in the winter light. From their down to the trial beds of Brussels Sprouts from which I abstracted three sprouts, it being too late by the time that I found the notice about thieves being prosecuted. Another bed, not looking particularly special, but clearly special to someone, came with a fairly serious looking electric fence, perhaps serving to deter both humans and rabbits.

The trial beds field was ringed with some fine trees, including some sequoia, sequoia which are visible but not really shown off to good effect in the snap above.

Quite a lot of snowdrops, some winter aconites and a few small daffodils, maybe the sort called narcissii. Whereas my winter aconites, in the new daffodil bed, seem to have more or less vanished.

One good tweet in the form of a pair of chaffinches, the first sighting of such around here for a while, with the last notices being from January 2014 and December 2012. With a similarly thin record at the other place, that is to say reference 1.

One very strange sedum on the way out. I remember 'sedum monstrous' or something like that but the best that google can do with that is something called 'stapelia leendertziae cristata', the wrong plant but with some of the more droopy offerings having vaguely the same shape and habit. Must remember to snap its ticket next time.

Last visit more than a couple of months ago. See reference 2. Notice also the lamentable failure to settle to a standard protocol for search keys.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=chaffinch.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/wisley-1.html.

Group search key: wsa.

Those power people again

Following the activity reported on a couple of weeks ago (see reference 1), there has been different activity in Longmead Road. On two days running last week I passed the three Power Networks vans illustrated, parked up next to holes in the road, but with no-one in sight. Perhaps on both occasions the workmen had taken a walk to the caravan on the green just up the road, the dispensary of bacon sandwiches and other necessities of working life. See reference 2.

They must have been quite serious holes in the road because there were more holes in the road outside Pound Lane School, perhaps a hundred yards away. Still no workmen, but there were two impressive looking machines humming away in the playground, possibly generators, certainly something to do with back-up supply.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/workmanship.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/longmead-fall.html.

Lost and found

An item found on SouthWest Trains, with the bowl of the foreshortened teaspoon giving some idea of actual size.

We spent some moments wondering what exactly it was, coming down on ornament for the younger lady, perhaps something to be worn from the ear. There was writing but no hall mark (at least we thought not), so perhaps a couple of pounds for two from a stall in the market.

There was then debate about how it attached to the ear, with me opting for pushing the clip at one o'clock through the hole in the ear lobe, while BH, who has pierced ears, thought that perhaps the idea was to hang this ring off some more delicate ring, with this last being pushed through said hole.

Thinking further this morning, I think that the small knob on the very end of the clip suggests intended for pushing through. So no additional ring. In any event, now headed for metal recycling along with various other odds and ends, having decided against placing it on our front wall and seeing how long it would have taken to go. See reference 1.

PS: quite impressed with the close-up job done by the telephone here, without my doing more than tapping the camera spot on the screen a few times. Perhaps it liked the bright morning light in our west facing kitchen. Click to enlarge to get it in all its once Nokia now MS glory

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/the-wall-test.html.

Marylebone Lane

Being in Marylebone Lane the other day, on the way to the Wigmore Hall, quite near Bond Street Tube Station, I was surprised to see through some plate glass some pictures of very lightly clad young ladies, without succeeding, as I passed by, in working out what they might be doing there.

Checking with google this afternoon, I find that the place is a higher grade girlie bar, the lower grade cousins of which have been largely swept away from Soho, a little to the south and rather more to the east. See reference 1.

The whole area used to be, and perhaps still is, owned by the Dukes of Portland, a lot who, according to google, came across with William of Orange and went on to make some very successful marriages, with money that is. Do they know what one of their buildings is being used for? Would it bother them?

Consulting my copy of the sixth duke's memoirs - a fascinating book picked up from I now know not where - with the duke seeming to have quite an eye for the ladies - I find nothing about Marylebone Lane, but am reminded that he also liked a good shoot, once entertaining the arch duke who was later assassinated at Sarajevo for some of the same. Also keen on horses. Clearly time that I read them again - a counterpoise to the Sitwell memoirs I have noticed in the past, with the Sitwells being near neighbours by county, not to say ducal, standards. See reference 2.

PS: punters seeking Bond Street Tube Station in gmaps should take care that they do not take directions to the one in Blackpool, actually an electrical goods shop, but handy for South Pier, a favourite spot for visiting sea anglers.

Reference 1: http://www.socats.co.uk/index.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/osbert.html.

Preludes

Back to Smith Square on Friday past for our next installation of Chopin from Mailley-Smith, maybe six weeks since the last. See reference 1. The main draw for me was the 24 preludes, not heard since we hear Pollini back in 2011, and with two or three outings before that - including the Australian Piers Lane, described as a showman. Not seen or heard of him since. See reference 2.

It was rather cold by 1800 or so when we set off, so brain not really up and running. Evidence for this being the purchase of the wrong train tickets and getting into a tangle with a pole which I thought was blocking an aisle seat on the train. However, as it turned out, getting the wrong tickets moved us to explore getting a bus from Vauxhall, rather than getting the tube to Pimlico, with the result that we caught an 88 bus which got us to Smith Square in record time, plenty of time to take refreshment in the basement, not too hot and crowded for once. We passed on the pre-concert concert.

Up to the hall to find our young lady enthusiast to the right and another lady, not so young to the left. This last was something in shipping insurance with Newfoundland connections and seemed to know Canada pretty well. I was slightly miffed to find that, from her shipping connections, she was able to wangle rides on cargo boats to Canada, partly because her aversion to flying was a lot stronger than mine. A lot less than the cost of taking a cruise ship to New York - which was the only vaguely viable alternative that I had been able to turn up. But she reacted with some horror to my suggestion - founded on recollection of some weekend magazine article - that Newfies ate whales and seals and stuff like that; perhaps she was a veggie.

The concert was very good, once again, including one piece from when Chopin was 12 (a high proportion of the famous seem to have been precociously very good at at least something, if not what they subsequently became famous for) and another which was only published posthumously. Mazurkas continued good, and the preludes pleased as ever.

After the concert a little talk with the enthusiast about how, in such a programme played without notes or score, one did not come to lose one's place from time to time. Either play the wrong piece or jump into the wrong piece from the right piece - not that I would be likely to notice either accident. I think that the enthusiast said that such things happened to her quite often. A computer score, such as I have seen twice now (see reference 3), would, when it was working, get around this problem. It could also pop up chatty introductory notes to share with the audience, should you be that sort of performer.

After the show, thought to try an 88 bus again, at least if one of those turned up before a taxi. As it happened, the street containing the relevant bus stop, possibly John Islip Street, was very quiet and where, tired of waiting, we just caught the first bus that came along, a C10, which took an interesting route to Victoria, swinging through the back of Pimlico, on the way passing an elaborately dressed grocer's shop, lights blazing in the wilderness. It being past ten by then we got to wondering whether he had to take his display down at the close of business each day, or whether he had some tent like contraption he could draw down over it. Did he have any trouble with drunks?

Then, entrained from Victoria, we were prompted to wonder why George Clooney is so much in the news. I think I have only knowingly seen one film with him in it, but the chap seems to pop up everywhere, often with his new young wife. Maybe he has a good touch when it comes to opening shops and fetes - or maybe he just has a very good publicity agent. Checking wikipedia this morning, I find that he is busy with various good causes and he gets to chat with Obama about world problems. Never ceases to amaze me the standing we accord successful luvvies; we have moved on since they were told to use the back entrance lest they dirty the guests.

We also picked up a Red Bull bulletin, a magazine which claimed that one could pay £2.50 for it. A bit like the country house magazines read by ladies, that is to say a magazine full of show-off stuff that your man in the street could dream about, maybe aspire to. So a lot of rugged holidays and a lot of bronzed young ladies. Leavened with the odd posh watch and some instructions about how to deal with a grizzly bear, should one get up close and personal.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/by-appointment.html.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=preludes+chopin.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/dorking-time-again.html.

A snip

I came across this fine set of books from Wiley in the course of trying to find something completely different, a set which costs approximately ten times more than the other offerings that I came across - not that I can afford them either. Presumably targeted at the libraries of various organs of government. Perhaps those of consultancies in this line of work. But how many individuals?

The pdf of the table of contents runs to six pages, pages which suggest a large family of contributors. I don't suppose that even they get free copies of the whole thing, just a couple of reprints of their own contributions, on the grounds that it is nice for contributors to see how their contribution looks when set up in real type.

From where, for some reason, I associate to the document that was so secret that the chap who wrote it was excluded from the circulation list. A small prize is offered to the reader who comes up with the best explanation of why one might do such a thing.

PS: the table of contents does not tell us when the various chapters were written. How many years was construction of this magnificent book spread over? How much use is a book put to bed over five years ago in this fast moving world of ours? Why don't they do it online with regular updates, all included in the price, in the way of the more modern lawyers?

Kitchen life 2

The scone cutters of the previous post. Cookie cutters to our friends over the water. The one on the left is that usually used for scones.

Kitchen life 1

Over the past months we have been wrestling with a couple of kitchen problems.

First tea. From time to time my tea, particularly first thing in the morning, has been having a most unpleasant taste. We decided that there were a number of possibilities. The hardness of the south London water. The water taking up an unpleasant flavour from the kettle - evidence in favour of this one being that we once had a holy-rolling neighbour who was convinced that plastic electric kettles, at that time only recently invented, did this. The brand of tea bags. Something wrong with the (semi-skimmed) milk. Failure to rinse the soap out of the tea cup (actually a mug) properly when washing it up. One might think that a concerted programme of experiments would have rapidly got to the bottom of the matter, but that did not seem to happen. However, the present theory, not disproved for a couple of weeks now, is that leaving boiled water in the kettle and then reheating it, some time later, is to blame.

We also think that the unpleasant brown film which often develops on the surface of the tea and is then apt to stick to the side of the cup is probably down to the hard water and nothing to do with the unpleasant taste - despite the unpleasant appearance. Doesn't happen when we are in Devon, where the tea, incidentally, has a quite different flavour.

Second scones. From time to time the tea time (cheese) scones do not rise properly. Again, there were a number of possibilities. Dough handled too much or rolled too much. Too much or too little liquid. Wrong sort of liquid, that is to say too high or too low a proportion of water in the milk. Scones rolled out too thin. Too many scones to the tray, thus slowing down their cooking, which might affect the rise. Wrong sort of cutter, crimping the edges too tightly. Was it the wrong sort of cheese? Was the real problem the fact that either the cheese, or the milk, or both had taken passage through the freezer in the garage? All sorts of possibilities, and in this case, as we do not make scones that often, we have not yet got the bottom of the problem.

In fact, we drifted onto a quite different problem, the problem of the provenance of our scone cutters, old enough to be made out of regular steel rather than stainless steel or plastic. Did they date from our marriage or did we take them over from one or other set of parents? Then there was the complication of which cutters had handles. I certainly remember using a cutter of the sort we have now when I was a child. But dredging around in other fading memories, we think the answer is a mixture. Most of our present set of cutters date from our marriage, but one of them came from my mother's kitchen. Then, as now, 85% of the use is cheese scones, 10% is mince pies and 3% is other. For example, jam tarts. The balance of 2% is a margin for error.

From where it occurred to me that maybe we had stumbled on the origin of some of our odd craft customs. Once one has got something, for example making a date and walnut cake or planting broad beans, to work, you get your apprentice to do exactly as you do. With no attempt to be clever and work out which of the many and varied steps are actually necessary and which are not. With the result that, with drift over time and over the generations, some large part of what is done might come to be quite irrelevant to the outcome, but quite essential to the ceremony. The apprentices must never get the idea that they can play fast and loose with the protocols handed down to them or who knows where things will go. They must stick with what is handed down.

From where I associate to a story about pumpkins, brought to my attention a couple of weeks ago. A certain sort of pumpkin decided that it needed its seeds to be dispersed a long way and that large herbivores were the way forward. So the pumpkin added a poison to the mix, enough to deter small herbivores, like mice, but not enough to bother large herbivores. And all was fine and dandy. But then there was a mass extinction or something - perhaps it was the Yucatan hit (see reference 1) - and all the large herbivores in area in question disappeared, and with them the vehicles for long way dispersion. The pumpkins have struggled on, are still producing the poison and are still deterring the mice. But presumably without the success that they once had. Not helped either, I suppose, by the arrival of humans who have messed around with the ecosystem in other ways.

A nice example of evolution not always getting it right. Or, if you are of that persuasion, the divinity not always getting it right. Or at least not bothering with non-essential maintenance. For the full story ask bing - or google - about 'gourds and squashes cucurbita spp adapted to megafaunal extinction and ecological anachronism through domestication'.

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

The paperkeeper's tale

At one time when I was in the world of work, I knew about paperkeepers. And at another time, I knew about paper records. I even have dim memories of rack after rack of ancient files in the basement of what was then the Treasury building, running along Great George Street. Some had important markings like 'Secret' and some had great wax seals hanging out of them. But mostly they were just old, dusty and unlikely ever to be looked at again.

So I was pleased to come across the short story illustrated left, a story about the death of a junior paperkeeper by one Máirtín Ó Cadhain, perhaps one of the very last serious writers to write in Gaelic, the last gasp of a thousand year old tradition. A story which evokes the lost world of registered files in their file rooms, before those files were, for most practical purposes, swept away by the photocopier; a story which many old civil servants like myself will relate to.

Published by the Dalkey Archive Press (see reference 1), the name being a nod to another famous Irishman, Flann O'Brien (see reference 2), with the support of the Illinois Arts Council, of all people. I have not investigated the connection.

Published in a parallel text, from which one learns that there is plenty of vocabularic overlap between the Gaelic of Ireland and the English of England. So 'páipéar' is paper and 'Stáitsheirbhís' is civil service. Perhaps I will even get around to learning something about Gaelic, a language of the same vintage as ancient Greek. See reference 3.

A wonderfully entertaining story, even in translation. From which I only share the snippet that the Irish civil service, at that time anyway, was almost a caricature of our own, from which, of course, it had been cut away. Perhaps, having been cut away, it sort of froze in time, froze until its new masters had the time & energy to attend to such back-office stuff. I imagine that the Indian civil service of the same time would also have so seemed.

The book should be made required reading for all departmental records officers.

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

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/a-tale-of-two-conveniences.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/aryans.html.

Mainly Schubert 2

The all-important bag from Cording's, graced with a pick-me-up from the Raynes Park platform library. Notice that, for some reason, they affect to omit the apostrophe, despite the name on the brass plate being Cording, not Cordings.

The book is probably rather out of date, but it is, nevertheless, an interesting aperçu into how senior professional soldiers, this one once a general in the Indian army, think about things both tactical and strategical. With a bit of added interest on account of Graves and Sassoon. Vide supra.

Mainly Schubert 1

Last week to the Wigmore for one of their lunch time concerts, on this occasion to hear (for the first time) Daniel-Ben Pienaar give us three Chopin études, a ballade, some warming up Schubert (from D780 and D935 No.2), then the main course, a late piano sonata. D959.

On the way we had the continuing puzzle of the wire mesh barriers, the sort often used to fence off building sites, underneath the canopy of Epsom Station. Were bits falling off? Was it just left over from some operation of some weeks ago?

Then, having got to Wigmore Street, we had the crush of fashionistas leaving some event which was something to do with London Fashion Week. Hordes of bright young things in fancy dress.

And so into the full Wigmore. The concert started innocuously enough, but for some reason, the D959 really got to me and I had really got going by the start of the second movement, illustrated. It was not as if it was the first time that I had heard the piece and we will have to wait to see if it has the same effect when we next hear it, probably from Richard Goode in the RFH. On which occasion we are going for all three late sonatas in one sitting. I dare say Goode will last the course but we shall see whether we do - a bit doubtful if I get as worked up as I did on this occasion. I have tried the gramophone but only a pale imitation. I sample YouTube with headphones - the same performer - Kempff - as I type. Later: better, but not right to listen to such stuff while doing something else.

Out to a light lunch at the Debenham's sub-ground bistro, a pleasant a place as ever. Not too busy, plenty of cheerful and young efficient staff.

From where we went on a swing through the fancier part of the west end in a hunt for a new rain coat - something regular clothes shops don't seem to understand about any more - on the way taking in the Fine Arts Society winter sale - with the Society failing to draw blood, that it to say, failing to draw my credit card out of its Mulberry. But there was a small watercolour by one Inchbold, featured in an episode of Morse, in which he was doing quite different stuff.

Tried downstairs at Burberry's but that was pretty hopeless - as well as being outrageously expensive. But then we chanced upon Cording's, which did still raincoats, albeit a little shorter than I would have really liked. I could also have bought a riding coat, a contraption made out of a fabric involving an internal rubber sheet, undoubtedly waterproof but a rather heavy coat. I had owned one in the past - from Pinder & Tuckwell, lately of Exeter, but I was not tempted to try again, partly because the shop man, who owned one himself, explained that they needed to be looked after. Something that I don't do with clothes.

The deal was that if you bought one of their very grand carrier bags, you got a free garment with it. And so we were sold, with a quick visit to the National Gallery to run down the musical madonna to wind up the proceedings. See reference 3. Apart, that is, from the 88 bus to carry us off, for a change, to Vauxhall Cross.

Reference 1: http://www.cordings.co.uk/. Slightly put out to find a puff from Damien Hirst there.

Reference 2: http://danielbenpienaar.com/.

Reference 3: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/goya-not.html.

Amaryllis

Our festive amaryllis is now about half out. The telephone did a reasonable job on it, if one is not bothered by the yellow tone added to the background by the flash - which I have still not learned to control.

I thought that I might have taken its picture before, on previous years, but search failed to turn anything up, beyond the couple of references given below. Maybe my spelling is a bit irregular.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/father-christmas-came-early.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/grave-error.html.

Restraint

There were two cases of death while or around restraint in yesterday's papers, one involving policemen who were called to deal with someone with mental health problems, the other involving security guards at a nightclub dealing with someone else of the same sort. Both cases have progressed to manslaughter charges.

My first thought, in the police case, was that it seemed a bit heavy handed to deal with the matter with the full weight of the criminal law. The policemen involved were presumably doing the best they could - but got it badly wrong, or at least it went badly wrong. So my second thought was should this not be a matter for internal investigation & action, certainly in the first instance? Third thought, perhaps it had been and the internal inquirers thought there were serious charges to be answered and passed the matter to the CPS. Are the police very sensitive to accusations of cover up, and so, when in doubt, they pass the buck and leave those involved to sink or swim as best they can? Although, that said, I imagine their trade union will be helping.

The security guard case is different, with the security guards probably having no established internal procedures of their own. Presumably the police and then the CPS decided that there was a case to answer.

So the bottom line is, not enough information and one can only hope that the courts come to a sensible decision.

But I am still left with a nagging worry that we, as a society, are getting far too ready to pull the gun of legal, in this case, criminal action, forgetting that the law can be both a very blunt and a very expensive instrument. Good for the lawyers though.

Stop tweet

Just tweeted a gold finch in the back of the garden next door, courtesy of my Christmas monocular, kept handily to hand. Had at first thought, without optical assistance, that it was a redwing, as seen in more or less the same spot in previous years. See reference 1. But it was a goldfinch and a very handsome bird it was too, not often seen (by me anyway) around here - or for that matter, anywhere else. See reference 2 for the last recorded sighting.

PS: as it happens, today's Guardian carries a picture of a goldfinch on its letters' page, opposite an article about the strange love affair between our governing classes and trident submarines - something which the corby the crow has got right. Along with sundry other, much more respectable people. Surely the governing classes can't all be on kick-backs from the contractors that build the things?

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/tweet.html. And other posts nearby.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/spring.html.

McPanto

Otherwise known as the Young Vic version of Macbeth. The Young Vic likes to be different, sometimes mistaking change for flair, so while the Globe made a gore fest of Macbeth, the Young Vic added a lot of rather pretentious music & movement interludes. At least I made it all the way through, unlike the Globe effort a few years back, which saw my second life-time, half-time exit from a theatrical production. See reference 1.

The train from Epsom included a young female cruncher-muncher sitting opposite me and a young male with a full head tattoo a bit further away - so full head that I wondered how you could safely do a needle job behind the ears, where the skull comes very close to the surface. Not for me, thank you very much.

The theatre and its associated facilities were very full of bright, mostly young things when I arrived so I repaired to the nearby and new-to-me pub called the Ring, just by Borough tube station. Busy and rather good, perhaps helped along by undergraduates from the nearby outpost of Lewisham University, aka LESOCO. Lots of boxing pictures - there was, I think, a real connection - and they were even able to manage a very decent Piquepoul blanc, something I had not come across before.

On the way back from the pub I came across Calder Books, a shop I had not visited or thought of for a very long time. But in their window they had the same volume three of the handsome yellow, soft back edition of the selected works of Mao Tse-tung (as he was spelt in my younger days) as I had owned in my younger days. All very nostalgic, despite the reputation Mao has since - deservedly - acquired.

The full Young Vic, for a change, was arranged as a proscenium arch theatre, with a cunning set which made one think underground bunker - which was, I think, the idea, and starting out as a field dressing station. This modern dress production also contained a rather ridiculous, spivvy Duncan. Middle aged and crass, not a hint of the angelic about him. See Act I, Scene VII, Line 19.

The witches took the form of three young women, stripped to their small-clothes and probably ballet trained. They provided, or at the least provided the balletic core of, a number of more or less irrelevant ballet numbers through the course of the show.

The cast had been instructed to speak their important lines slow so that we could understand them, with the down side noticed at Henry IV that a lot of their poetic force was lost. Others were gabbled. Plus, a lot of the lines had been cut, to get the whole thing, including ballet, down to two hours without an interval. So we lost, for example, most of the porter scene and the speech in the murderers scene which starts 'Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men'.

The 'But I must also feel it as a man' scene fell a bit flat and I dare say most of it was cut. But Macduff's abandonment of his wife and children did come across. While Macbeth's despair when he lost his wife did not. He had lost the will to live and chose not to stand the siege - which he could well have - choosing to die with harness on his back. The importance of this last to an early modern audience being lost, as was Siward's concern that his son's death wound should be front rather than back.

Rather than refer back to the bloody deeds of Mao, the production referred to the present, to the mistreatment of the prisoners on both sides in Iraq and elsewhere. Lots of hoods and beheadings. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to refer back to the equally bloody time of religious strife in Scotland, not many decades after the play was written, in the late seventeenth century, and which, as it happens, I have just read about in a stray copy of the TLS. Ask google about the killing times in Scotland to read all about it.

Despite all this, both Macbeth (John Heffernan) and his wife (Anna Maxwell Martin) appeared to have real talent, badly directed. They both had, inter alia, admirably mobile faces. A real sense of raw ambition and throne-greed getting the better of them. Notwithstanding, Macbeth did not project the power of a fighting man - which Banquo did manage. More the ambivalence of a Hamlet.

And thinking of throne-greed, I associate now to the one-time director of LSE, also one-time principal of the College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, who reported that his students, in what is now Zimbabwe, knew all about throne-greed. Macbeth was a play that they related to. A remark which would count as racist now?

PS: the occasion was graced by the presence of her Grace the Dame of Barnaby, lately the wife of John Nettles in Midsomer Murders. Very tall, middle of the second row, complete with courtiers. At least I think it was her. And there were a few other luvvy-looking types in the otherwise very young audience.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=globbeth.

Reference 2: http://theringbarlondon.co.uk/.