Rather an odd dream about jigsaws last night, quite incoherent on waking.
I was doing a jigsaw when I suddenly came across a sort of trap, in the form of a choice between placing one piece in the position under consideration and placing another. The pieces very much of the rather odd, and yet to be reported, flavour of jigsaw 12. Chose the wrong piece and the whole jigsaw goes terribly wrong in some way, some way which I am no longer able to elaborate beyond a strong association to the face of the late Richard Briers, the bad parson of last night's 'Midsomer Murders'. The loop is closed by his murder weapon - an Indian, sabre like sword - being very similar in shape to shapes found in many of the pieces of the jigsaw, an important aspect of its oddness.
There is also a brain failing which I forgot to mention in the context of jigsaw 11. The sky being difficult, I resorted to sorting by colour - either blue or white - and then by prong configuration. The idea is then that one soaks up the salient details of the position under consideration into the brain, then scans the pieces in the relevant heap or heaps for a match, without needing to actually try many candidates. The brain is supposed to be able to pick out, if not the right piece, at least just a small number of possibles. An example of salient details might be hole, then long section, then short section at an obtuse angle to the long section, then prong.
But it was not working very well. I found that the scan only worked if I orientated the pieces in the heap to match that of the position under consideration. The brain was unable to do the rotation for itself - something that I am sure it used to be able to manage. As a result it was questionable whether the technique was helpful at all - in the sense that just trying all the pieces in the relevant heaps might be quicker than trying to be clever about it.
Friday, 5 April 2013
Thursday, 4 April 2013
Atlas cedar
I mentioned the atlas cedar in Hook Road in the other place as long ago as April 8th 2011 and we finally got around yesterday to going to Wisley to see if they had one, Wisley being rather easier to get to than Kew. Our first visit, as it happens, to Wisley since October 17th last year. Every time we go there I am slightly surprised at how long it is since we have been: is it the huge car park which puts me off?
Anyway, off to the library where the assistant gets onto her computer to find out about atlas cedars to find that they have three specimens, two in the pinetum nearby and one on the other side of the garden. Common name Atlas Cedar, proper name Atlantic Cedar, mainly to be found in North Africa. However, the Wisley computer system is not quite Google and the database can only give us the two bed numbers, things like W2035, rather than a map with directions. But all is not lost as the assistant can mark the beds on our handy leaflet map and in no time at all we have found a large Atlantic Cedar in the pinetum. But clearly not a weeping cedar so we look round a bit more to find a Atlantic Cedar (variety weeping) (size small), a lot smaller than the specimen in Hook Road.
Having got that under out belts, off to see the spring bulbs to find that most of the daffodils are yet to come, but there are plenty of blue crocuses and some spring cyclamen. We noticed in passing that the people at Wisley pot their water lilies in the same sort of container as we use as our water lily pond, thus nicely exemplifying the difference in scale between their garden and ours.
Then onto the new hot house to look at the orchid display, starting with the single specimens arranged in a series of show cases, an arrangement which encouraged a proper look. Fascinating plants they are too, with one of the labels explaining that the flowers of some orchids mimic the appearance of the sex organs of female insects so as to attract the male insects, with any one sort of orchid only attracting one sort of insect. A very specialised operation which would seem rather gross if the parties involved were much larger. Moved onto the orchids which were displayed in a more natural setting among the other hot house plants, with the orchids being potted up in special plastic pots which were then attached to the stem or truck of some much larger plant, an arrangement which I did not find terribly successful, although some of the orchids involved were very fetching.
Much taken with the cacti, as usual. I remain keen on the large agaves.
From the new hot house we made our way to the alpine section which included another glass house, this one not hot. Lots of interest, not least because most of the alpines were very small. So, for example, we had some very small cyclamen, smaller than I had ever seen before. The whole business of alpine gardening looked to have much interest; a sort of hybrid between stamp collecting and gardening proper. I shan't go in for it, but I can see why I might. Only spoiled by two or three children using the section as a venue for a rather noisy game of hide and seek or perhaps chase he, parents standing by, oblivious to the annoyance being caused. Don't think such a thing would happen in France where I am told that children are kept under proper control. And it is not as if there was not plenty of open space in which they could have charged around in without annoying anyone.
And so to lunch in the standard class rather than the first class canteen. We both had something described as spring lamb pie which consisted of quite a decent dollop of stew served in an individual enamel bowl, white with blue trim, the sort of thing which I believe the Poles used to specialise in, a topped with biscuit of puff pastry. Not really a pie, but not bad for the money. Filled myself up with a substantial hot cross bun, served cold without butter. Perhaps it would have been toasted and served with butter in the first class canteen.
And lastly we have yet another memory failure to report. We had noticed that one of the orchids was in a flower pot embossed with the name 'Sankey' which I associated with the sort of sanitary ware you used to get in public houses, and so I assumed that the two Sankeys were one and the same, it all being ceramic of one sort or another. But checking later it seems that Sankey is nothing to do with sanitary ware, the only substantial company of that name in this country having been involved in steel rather than ceramic products, while there is a smaller company called R. Sankey which does garden products, including rather fancy plant pots. Have I conflated 'Sankey' with 'Shanks'?
Anyway, off to the library where the assistant gets onto her computer to find out about atlas cedars to find that they have three specimens, two in the pinetum nearby and one on the other side of the garden. Common name Atlas Cedar, proper name Atlantic Cedar, mainly to be found in North Africa. However, the Wisley computer system is not quite Google and the database can only give us the two bed numbers, things like W2035, rather than a map with directions. But all is not lost as the assistant can mark the beds on our handy leaflet map and in no time at all we have found a large Atlantic Cedar in the pinetum. But clearly not a weeping cedar so we look round a bit more to find a Atlantic Cedar (variety weeping) (size small), a lot smaller than the specimen in Hook Road.
Having got that under out belts, off to see the spring bulbs to find that most of the daffodils are yet to come, but there are plenty of blue crocuses and some spring cyclamen. We noticed in passing that the people at Wisley pot their water lilies in the same sort of container as we use as our water lily pond, thus nicely exemplifying the difference in scale between their garden and ours.
Then onto the new hot house to look at the orchid display, starting with the single specimens arranged in a series of show cases, an arrangement which encouraged a proper look. Fascinating plants they are too, with one of the labels explaining that the flowers of some orchids mimic the appearance of the sex organs of female insects so as to attract the male insects, with any one sort of orchid only attracting one sort of insect. A very specialised operation which would seem rather gross if the parties involved were much larger. Moved onto the orchids which were displayed in a more natural setting among the other hot house plants, with the orchids being potted up in special plastic pots which were then attached to the stem or truck of some much larger plant, an arrangement which I did not find terribly successful, although some of the orchids involved were very fetching.
Much taken with the cacti, as usual. I remain keen on the large agaves.
From the new hot house we made our way to the alpine section which included another glass house, this one not hot. Lots of interest, not least because most of the alpines were very small. So, for example, we had some very small cyclamen, smaller than I had ever seen before. The whole business of alpine gardening looked to have much interest; a sort of hybrid between stamp collecting and gardening proper. I shan't go in for it, but I can see why I might. Only spoiled by two or three children using the section as a venue for a rather noisy game of hide and seek or perhaps chase he, parents standing by, oblivious to the annoyance being caused. Don't think such a thing would happen in France where I am told that children are kept under proper control. And it is not as if there was not plenty of open space in which they could have charged around in without annoying anyone.
And so to lunch in the standard class rather than the first class canteen. We both had something described as spring lamb pie which consisted of quite a decent dollop of stew served in an individual enamel bowl, white with blue trim, the sort of thing which I believe the Poles used to specialise in, a topped with biscuit of puff pastry. Not really a pie, but not bad for the money. Filled myself up with a substantial hot cross bun, served cold without butter. Perhaps it would have been toasted and served with butter in the first class canteen.
And lastly we have yet another memory failure to report. We had noticed that one of the orchids was in a flower pot embossed with the name 'Sankey' which I associated with the sort of sanitary ware you used to get in public houses, and so I assumed that the two Sankeys were one and the same, it all being ceramic of one sort or another. But checking later it seems that Sankey is nothing to do with sanitary ware, the only substantial company of that name in this country having been involved in steel rather than ceramic products, while there is a smaller company called R. Sankey which does garden products, including rather fancy plant pots. Have I conflated 'Sankey' with 'Shanks'?
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
Brighton Mick
Attended the funeral of a long term customer of TB last week (he went back to the time when TB had both public and saloon bars and used to be crowded with people, mostly with jackets and ties, on a Sunday lunchtime. So well before my time), so this by way of a memorial.
Despite his name, he was actually born in Shoreham-by-Sea and was brought up in Portslade. And while he had plenty of stories about his time there, I think he had lived for near 50 years in the Epsom area, where he had found his wife and made his family. Furthermore, he hated his birth - not sure about baptismal - name of Arthur, preferrng to be known as Mick. Arthur only got out for hospitals, funerals and such like.
I offer an anecdote from the TB itself, rather than one from Brighton. I think it dates from before the smoking ban, mid to late evening. The bar was reasonably busy with maybe a dozen or more of us in the immediate vicinity of his far right hand end of the bar, next to the till, including one person who was something of an expert on pop and came, as it happened, only two states away from Tupelo itself. Something of an expert on the whole subject.
The conversation drifted, for some reason which I forget, onto Elvis the King, and then into one of those foolish, alcohol fueled disputes about the year in which he was born, this being before the time when you could ask your telephone about such things. The dispute got quite lively with Tupelo holding out firmly for date A and with Brighton (as he was sometimes known) holding out equally firmly for date B, a few years adrift of date A. The dispute raged backwards and forwards, there were arguments for and arguments against, and money was staked.
I am not quite sure now how it happened, but we all, including Brighton, came to realise that date A was the right answer. But Brighton still held his corner, still kept his flag flying. He kept it going until he we had all lost interest, although it has to be said that his protests had weakened by the end. But he never conceded defeat and he never bought Tupelo a drink, never mind paid up.
Great fun all round.
PS: for those not much interested in the King, Tupelo is also an important stop on the Natchez Trace, the New World equivalent of our much shorter Icknield Way.
Despite his name, he was actually born in Shoreham-by-Sea and was brought up in Portslade. And while he had plenty of stories about his time there, I think he had lived for near 50 years in the Epsom area, where he had found his wife and made his family. Furthermore, he hated his birth - not sure about baptismal - name of Arthur, preferrng to be known as Mick. Arthur only got out for hospitals, funerals and such like.
I offer an anecdote from the TB itself, rather than one from Brighton. I think it dates from before the smoking ban, mid to late evening. The bar was reasonably busy with maybe a dozen or more of us in the immediate vicinity of his far right hand end of the bar, next to the till, including one person who was something of an expert on pop and came, as it happened, only two states away from Tupelo itself. Something of an expert on the whole subject.
The conversation drifted, for some reason which I forget, onto Elvis the King, and then into one of those foolish, alcohol fueled disputes about the year in which he was born, this being before the time when you could ask your telephone about such things. The dispute got quite lively with Tupelo holding out firmly for date A and with Brighton (as he was sometimes known) holding out equally firmly for date B, a few years adrift of date A. The dispute raged backwards and forwards, there were arguments for and arguments against, and money was staked.
I am not quite sure now how it happened, but we all, including Brighton, came to realise that date A was the right answer. But Brighton still held his corner, still kept his flag flying. He kept it going until he we had all lost interest, although it has to be said that his protests had weakened by the end. But he never conceded defeat and he never bought Tupelo a drink, never mind paid up.
Great fun all round.
PS: for those not much interested in the King, Tupelo is also an important stop on the Natchez Trace, the New World equivalent of our much shorter Icknield Way.
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
Jigsaw 11, Series 2
There was a more important difference in that this jigsaw was an 850 piecer and I almost logged it out of series. It may be a coincidence but it took a lot longer to solve this puzzle than usual, the usual being 500 piecers. A lot longer than the ratio of 850 to 500 would suggest. But still 99p; no extra charge for the extra pieces.
One complication of the extra size was that I needed to deploy the parental card table (less green felt) to hold the completing jigsaw, the usual table being far too small to hold both the pieces and the jigsaw. BH got a bit grumpy about the additional clutter but she did, luckily, manage to contain it and I was allowed the extra clutter until completion.
Another complication was the large amount of sky, a lot more both relatively and absolutely than is usual. A sky with little in the way of cloud to break it up, only rather subtle variations of colour. But I get ahead of myself.
I started with the edge, as usual, then the skyline. Then the dome and the building below it (Saint Piccolo), then the building on the extreme right. Then worked down into the buildings generally, slowly spreading into the canal, and so to the completion of the bottom half of the image, so leaving the large amount of sky, which I have to say was rather daunting.
So daunting that progress for the first week or so was very slow, and only possible at all because of the generous variation in piece shape, making up in some part for the lack of image or colour to bite on. Regular prong-hole-prong-hole pieces very much in the minority. In the course of all this I was able to observe the same interaction between conscious and unconscious processing as last time around (see 11th March). Also, while on that occasion the brain slowly tuned in to the subtle variations of prong shape, here the brain slowly tuned into the subtle variations of sky colour, only visible in the right sorts of light, not necessarily day light. Do chunks of brain get rewired in such a short time? Or is it rather that one is activating chunks which are ready and waiting in some dusty corner?
However that may be, there was a sudden and large acceleration at about the one third point. The second two thirds took a couple of days where the first third had taken a week, possibly two weeks.
Is there any significance in that I worked pretty steadily from left to right? With the only perturbation being that at the very end I was left with a vertical strip, two or three pieces wide and maybe ten pieces deep, a few inches to the left of the right hand edge of the image.
Although the card was quite thin, the joining of the pieces was very positive. One was always confident of a fit, once obtained. There was just one mistake on the way, this arising from over confidence, thinking that I could fit a piece on the basis of one side, rather than the usual two. I paid for the over confidence with a fruitless ten minutes searching for a piece in the heap, before finally realising that the piece wanted had been the subject of a mistake.
Next stop, National Gallery to inspect the original. Not for the first time, I don't suppose, but possibly the first time that I will have looked at it properly for a while.
Monday, 1 April 2013
Roast beef of Olde England
For the first time for well over a year we had a substantial roast beef yesterday, a fore rib from the butcher in Manor Green Road. In the opinion of the butcher, the beef was too young and should have been hung for longer before sale, but I disregarded his opinion on the grounds that I do not like my beef well hung, certainly not as well hung as the stuff Sainsbury's describe as heritage beef.
I went for just the one rib, which the butcher managed to make come in between two and two and a half inches thick and weigh 7lbs 2oz. Maybe twice the size expected, so rather large for the originally intended purpose, but spot on for the eventual purpose.
Cooking time arrived at by 20 minutes to the pound plus 30 minutes resting (a concept, despite the amount of beef that I have cooked, which I have only recently come around to. How could I have waited so long?) minus 20 minutes deduction for high surface area (relative to that, say, of a sphere of beef), making 2 hours 30 minutes at 175C. Fan oven started maybe 10 minutes before the beef.
Took the beef out of the oven towards the end of the cooking time to baste it. Took the beef out of the oven at the end of the cooking time to plate it for its rest. This also liberated the roasting dish for confection of gravy.
Meat turned out brown (rather than pink) and reasonably moist. A little overcooked to my mind, but quite eatable with the four of us doing more than half of it. Accompanied by separately boiled white rice, green cabbage and yellow swede. Various puddings and wines, some flat, some with bubbles.
Later on, suitably replete, turned the pages of the NYRB to come across something called the IAT, the implicit association test, devised to winkle one's unconscious prejudices out of one, about blacks, olds or whatever. Sufficiently interested to visit the site (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ ) this morning to take one of the more anodyne tests and was pleased to get an anodyne result. No horrors lurking under those particular covers.
PS: Windows 8 still doing OK, maybe running faster, even if I have still failed to crack the password on wake problem. And despite interesting messages saying that the PC will reboot in 2 days to complete the update process, which I read to mean that the PC will somehow spontaneously reboot itself for this purpose, whereas the meaning presumably intended is that should I happen to reboot on that day, the PC will take the opportunity to complete the update etc. Maybe they don't do English in Seattle any more.
I went for just the one rib, which the butcher managed to make come in between two and two and a half inches thick and weigh 7lbs 2oz. Maybe twice the size expected, so rather large for the originally intended purpose, but spot on for the eventual purpose.
Cooking time arrived at by 20 minutes to the pound plus 30 minutes resting (a concept, despite the amount of beef that I have cooked, which I have only recently come around to. How could I have waited so long?) minus 20 minutes deduction for high surface area (relative to that, say, of a sphere of beef), making 2 hours 30 minutes at 175C. Fan oven started maybe 10 minutes before the beef.
Took the beef out of the oven towards the end of the cooking time to baste it. Took the beef out of the oven at the end of the cooking time to plate it for its rest. This also liberated the roasting dish for confection of gravy.
Meat turned out brown (rather than pink) and reasonably moist. A little overcooked to my mind, but quite eatable with the four of us doing more than half of it. Accompanied by separately boiled white rice, green cabbage and yellow swede. Various puddings and wines, some flat, some with bubbles.
Later on, suitably replete, turned the pages of the NYRB to come across something called the IAT, the implicit association test, devised to winkle one's unconscious prejudices out of one, about blacks, olds or whatever. Sufficiently interested to visit the site (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ ) this morning to take one of the more anodyne tests and was pleased to get an anodyne result. No horrors lurking under those particular covers.
PS: Windows 8 still doing OK, maybe running faster, even if I have still failed to crack the password on wake problem. And despite interesting messages saying that the PC will reboot in 2 days to complete the update process, which I read to mean that the PC will somehow spontaneously reboot itself for this purpose, whereas the meaning presumably intended is that should I happen to reboot on that day, the PC will take the opportunity to complete the update etc. Maybe they don't do English in Seattle any more.
Sunday, 31 March 2013
Facts on the ground
Brain was waving good and proper when I woke up this morning. Why don't the Argies take a leaf out of the Zionist book and create some facts on the ground? Simply buy up whatever chunks of land that they can get their hands on. The value of land must be fairly low out in the Malvinas, being only good for penguin farming and such like, and, as the Zionists found in the thirties of the last century, you can always find people willing to sell out, even if they didn't like to tell their neighbours about it.
Then, once you have a toehold, being a catholic people, breeding will do the rest. In not very many generations they will be in the majority and in a position to vote for union with the mother country. Job done without fuss.
But then, waking up a bit more, I started to wonder about the land tenure arrangements in the Malvinas. Maybe all the land is held on leases from the Crown? Are there rules about alien leases?
A quick google suggests that while until fairly recently, say until the 1970's, most of the land was held by absentee landlords with a firm grip on the poor peasants who actually lived in the place and worked the penguin farms, with far and away the biggest landlord being the Falkland Islands Company, there are now rather more middle sized farms, although currently poor prices for penguin pelts (too much competition from fakes from China) mean that most of them are struggling. Probably subsidy junkies like so many of the farmers in the motherland. There was also a suggestion that land tenure in the Malvinas was a bit odd: maybe there were no proper surveys or land registries or that sort of thing.
Digging a bit deeper we get to http://www.the-falkland-islands-co.com where it says that 'The Falkland Islands Company still retains its Royal Charter, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Falkland Islands Holdings PLC, a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange'. So maybe the Argies don't need to bother with actually going to the Malvinas - after all, why on earth would one want to? - they can just get their agent in London to buy up all the shares and they will be almost home and dry.
But that may not suit their real agenda. What they really want is a great old fuss, not a solution; very latin of them.
Then, once you have a toehold, being a catholic people, breeding will do the rest. In not very many generations they will be in the majority and in a position to vote for union with the mother country. Job done without fuss.
But then, waking up a bit more, I started to wonder about the land tenure arrangements in the Malvinas. Maybe all the land is held on leases from the Crown? Are there rules about alien leases?
A quick google suggests that while until fairly recently, say until the 1970's, most of the land was held by absentee landlords with a firm grip on the poor peasants who actually lived in the place and worked the penguin farms, with far and away the biggest landlord being the Falkland Islands Company, there are now rather more middle sized farms, although currently poor prices for penguin pelts (too much competition from fakes from China) mean that most of them are struggling. Probably subsidy junkies like so many of the farmers in the motherland. There was also a suggestion that land tenure in the Malvinas was a bit odd: maybe there were no proper surveys or land registries or that sort of thing.
Digging a bit deeper we get to http://www.the-falkland-islands-co.com where it says that 'The Falkland Islands Company still retains its Royal Charter, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Falkland Islands Holdings PLC, a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange'. So maybe the Argies don't need to bother with actually going to the Malvinas - after all, why on earth would one want to? - they can just get their agent in London to buy up all the shares and they will be almost home and dry.
But that may not suit their real agenda. What they really want is a great old fuss, not a solution; very latin of them.
Saturday, 30 March 2013
More travel variations
But being Good Friday, a day on which the Christian world used to slow to a halt, big time Sunday observance on a Friday, I thought I would check with the Network Rail journey planner which assured me that all was well and suggesting a change at Euston rather than the change at Stockwell that I had been thinking of. So not too pleased to get to Kings Cross to be told that the Northern Line (City Branch) had been turned off for planned maintenance and that maybe passengers would like to catch the replacement bus service. I am fairly sure that Network Rail didn't say anything about that. Anyway, took the long march out to the front of the station where we caught a bus to Old Street, a bus which dropped us very near the Istanbul Supermarket where we were able to top up our supplies of flat bread. On the other hand 'The Shepherdess' next to the Eagle was closed so we were not able to tick that box.
Onto St. Luke's where we were able to listen to the gent. in the seat behind us extolling the acoustics of the hall, particularly the bit of it where we were sitting. And he was quite right: the Octet sounded much better in St. Luke's than it had done in the QEH on the two previous occasions. Partly because one is nearer the players and partly because the smaller hall suits the music better: it really is chamber music not a symphony. Only marred by the couple in front of us, probably pensioners like ourselves, chewing gum throughout the proceedings and one had to angle one's head so as not to be distracted by the chomping jaws. And then by a couple of delinquents behind us who opened up some very noisy sweets. Clearly not everybody our age was brought up proper.
Lunch at the local Wetherspoons, 'The Masque Haunt', named for an Elizabethan official who was billeted nearby. How did their publicity people light on this particular name: there are plenty of better known characters tombed up in the nearby Bunhill Fields for whom the place might have been more conventionally named? But a very reasonable lunch at just over £10 for two meals and two drinks: café prices in more comfort than in the average café, not to mention the availability of alcohol if not fags.
Strolled back down to Bank through all the flashy new buildings in that part of the city. And building sites promising more of the same. Who said we were in a triple dip recession, a phrase which is clearly an abuse of language in this context. Rather puzzled to find a semi serious police checkpoint (illustrated) guarding what looked like a south entrance to the Barbican Centre, presumably a hang over from the bad old days of the Irish troubles, but what is there in the Barbican Centre that we don't know about that needs the special treatment?
Inside we find that the Waterloo & City Line is working, presumably to make up for the absence of the City Branch of the Northern Line. The Network Rail people have clearly missed a few beats here.
PS: in the course of the day came across a number of small Tescos, of which I read this morning there are around 2,000, leading one to think that it will be a shame when all the Istanbul Supermarkets have been swept away by the chain stores. And a shame that big companies like Tescos can't stand still; they have, it seems, to be forever on the grab for another slice of business. Can't rest until they own the whole world, just like Napoleon. Even more like him if I could think of a retail analogy for exile to St. Helena. Condemn Tescos to build a 100 checkout store in the Falkland islands and then to run a shopping airbus service from nearby Argentina so that the Argies can do a bit of decent shopping for once?
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