Nature notes reprised

There has been a modest investigation since the lunar querying posting of 29th December.

In the first instance, on the internet, which failed to produce the information I wanted. Lots and lots of stuff about eclipses and lots and lots of pictures, but not the stuff I wanted. No cunning visualisations; or at least I could not find one.

In the second instance, turned up the article on eclipses in my ancient Chambers Encyclopedia, from the mid fifties of the last century. In amongst a wealth of historical material about Sumerian and other astronomers, I found what I wanted to know - this in an article written in the Queen's English with support from a couple of simple line diagrams - but with no pictures. Which all goes to show that there is still some life in the old way of doing things, at least for those of us who were alive and taught to read in said mid fifties.

For the record, the moon does not rotate about the earth in quite the same plane as that in which the earth rotates about the sun, and while this is nothing much to do with the fact of our having eclipses, neither lunar nor solar, it is everything to do with their timing.

PS: from all of which I am now quite clear that ellipse and eclipse are quite different words, even if they are separated by just one letter and are both astronomically flavoured, which considerations had conspired to confuse me.

Winter wonder land

As well as having the biggest Lemax village in the southern home counties (see December 17th last year in the other place), Chessington Garden Centre also has the finest Santa's Grotto in Surrey, located in the heart of its Winter Wonderland.

For the first time ever I made it there myself, there being a special seniors' charity day after the main event. Rather an impressive affair which must have been quite something when full of happy & excited children. The illustration, which does not do the place justice, is of one of the dozen or so chambers, each chamber being themed with 'Alice in Wonderland', 'Wind in the Willows' or some such.

The staff explained that while the display is different each year, most of the materials are recycled - which implies packing it up and having somewhere to store it all until next year. All in all a substantial operation, the account books of which would make an interesting read. The garden centre is still a family operation so it is possible that they do it largely for fun, for charity and for the community, rather than for narrowly commercial reasons. But they do charge children to get in and to get to see Santa and I dare say the parents spend a bit on all the Christmas fayre laid out in the vicinity. There is also a large café which does a large range of cake - and which I have heard is an important division of the centre as a whole with the executive chef getting to sit on the main board (see http://www.chefsworld.net/ for definition).

Most of the fayre was still there today, half price. Again, the cost of packing and storing such stuff must be considerable so sale at a discount is going to attract. But all the unsold Christmas trees had gone, presumably to some eco-friendly composting facility. Maybe their own? Maybe defaulting staff get to do it by hand to work off their hang-overs. And then a garden centre is clearly just the place to sell the compost.

PS: the only alien element was penguins. Santa is generally believed to live in or near the Arctic where there are no penguins, global warming notwithstanding.

Nature notes

Saw a wren down the bottom of the garden the other day, the first one for a while, maybe a winter visitor. Don't think I have ever seen one near the house, but given that I see one very often, that may not be significant.

The same day heard a great noise in the sky. Which appeared to be a flock of pigeons and a flock of crows working together to see off a flock of ring necked parakeets, these last making all the noise. Maybe at this time of year grub a bit short, so the large green aliens are not popular with the aboriginals.

On the vegetable front, the jelly lichen has not seen fit to sprout, despite the wet mild weather. One can see that it is there on the crumbly patch of back patio, but it is not doing anything much. For thriving times, see July 15th in the other place.

On the astronomical front, we have had a full moon during the week just past, during which we learned that, unlike the winter sun which rises well to the south of east, the winter moon rises well to the north of east. The night that it was fullest - happening to be awake around 0200 - it must have set off some loonies as the Surrey Police helicopter was swinging around our area for an hour or so. Very bright at that time when house and street lights were mainly off; not light enough to read indoors but it may well have been outdoors - although I was not energetic enough to investigate. In any case, the police helicopter may have mistaken me for one of the loonies, which might have been unfortunate.

But I did get to thinking about eclipses of the moon. First thought was that such things depended on the plane of the moon's orbit around the earth not quite coinciding with the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun, but then decided against. But mental three dimensional geometry not quite up to sorting it out properly at that time of night and I must have fallen back asleep. Maybe one of those astronomical websites offers a nice visualisation.

Sleeping Murder

From time to time I make approving mention of the fact that Trollope thickens his mix with discussion of serious topics, in contrast to Christie who does not.

However, in the margins of seeing some of 'Sleeping Murder' and in then skimming our newly ebayed copy of the originating novel, I find that this is not altogether true, in that in this story we have the issue of whether it is appropriate to stir up a twenty year old murder which no-one knows about. That is to say that the victim has indeed vanished, but in circumstances which led people to believe that she had simply done a bunk, rather than done a deader.

There is not much discussion, beyond a sense that Christie herself was not sure about the merits of stirring, although that sense may not survive reading the novel as a whole.

Now it seems fairly clear that if the murder was a hundred years ago, there is going to be little point in stirring, although I suppose it is possible that there might still be property interests even after an interval of that sort. We suppose for the purposes of this discussion that there are no property interests. And also fairly clear that if the murder was yesterday, there is every point in stirring. No-one must be seen to get away with murder. But what happens between these two extremes is much less clear.

Point 1: if knowledge of the murder is confined to a very small number of people, the argument about being seen to get away with murder is much weakened.

Point 2: if the murderer is known and known to be dead, arguments about setting the record straight are much weakened. Murderer certainly dead after a hundred years, probably alive after twenty.

Point 3: the murderee might have been a thoroughly evil person, better out of the way. One should not allow or condone a murder, but maybe after twenty years no great harm is done by letting things lie.

Point 4: it is hard to get a conviction for an old murder because evidence, bio or otherwise, degrades with time. This is relevant to the decision about whether to stir or not because the incidental damage usually caused by stirring is not justified if one is unlikely to proceed to a trial.

All of which seems a bit thin. Maybe I will be able to do better when I have finished the book.

Visit report (Jigsaw)

Some while ago we paid a visit to a rather odd village called Thorpe, tucked away behind the M3/M4 junction and some gravel pits. It turned out to be rather an old place and blessed with what we thought was some kind of a large religious establishment but which, on closer inspection was probably an outfit called TASIS (see http://england.tasis.com/).

So yesterday, happening to notice that Jigsaw 5 was not very far away, we decided that we would pay it a visit. It turned out to be another rather old place tucked away behind junction 5 of the M20, just across and above the Medway, just before it bends off north and heads through a gap in the North Downs on its way to the Thames; the Kent equivalent of the Mole Gap. The illustration from south of the river clearly is The Jigsaw, but I think Waddingtons must have either taken their picture with a rather fancier camera than mine (which would not be difficult) or from a boat on the river.

The church of St. Peter & St. Paul looked as if it contained old parts and might have been interesting but for the porch door being severely chained up. There was a notice saying that one could call at the vicarage for a key but this seemed a bit mean the day after Christmas, with the vicar probably still in bed after his exertions of the days before. Instead, we headed off to the disused church of St. Mary the Virgin at Burham, which before the black death carried most of them off, had done rather well from the pilgrims for Canterbury coming across the ferry from Snodland to Burham. The church was in the care of a conservation trust but was rather damp nonetheless, with some sinister looking patches on one of the main roof beams, and it was not clear that it would be practical to keep the place up for many more centuries, despite having two Norman fonts, one of a square design which was new to me. Just down the lane from the church one had the Medway itself, largely meandering through reed beds, these last looking to be the property of some bird trust. All very untouched, looking pretty much as the Vikings would have seen it as they rowed up river looking for a nunnery worth the stop, although one did have much industrial activity in the middle distance.

Quite a lot of old housing, including one red brick house from around 1750 with height of ceiling being nicely graduated from the ground floor up to the fourth floor. According to BH, the idea was ground floor for impressing visitors, first floor owners, second floor children and third floor servants, these last either stooping or short.

Between the two churches touched by a sturdy beggar for £2.37p, the change that I happened to have about me at the time, the only person that we spoke to during our visit, having decided not to lunch at 'The Chequers'.

On the way out we paid a short visit to the car park at The Friars, which really was a large religious establishment, with something of the flavour of Walsingham about it, apart from the large numbers of assorted ducks and geese, not present at Walsingham. Certainly geared up for lots of faithful visitors in just the same way. See http://www.thefriars.org.uk/.

PS: I rather envy the inhabitants of Snodland. Splendid sub-Tolkienish sort of name to have in one's address, if not quite up to the 'Soddy Daisy' near Chattanooga. See http://www.soddydaisytn.gov/. A city which we were contemptuously told by a young waitress of Chattanooga ran to only two Wal-Marts. What a dump.

Christmas special

Special arrangements for the puzzling half of the family, for the remainder of the holiday period, for the deluxe heritage old master 1,000 piece puzzle procured from 'The Works'.

Rather good having a proper size table for the purpose, with space to spread out a bit, even if it knocks out the room for anything much else.

With 'The Works' being a joint I visit from time to time ever since I snapped up a couple of remainders for a snip at Taunton, not long after they had been reviewed in the TLS. Both rather good books as it turned out, one about the Household Cavalry since inception and one about the Union of India since independence. Never done anything like as well at the place, in any of the various branches visited, since. But the manager at the Epsom branch tells me that he will have more heritage in in the New Year.

Note the thumb drum hanging at the right. And the Hook Road Arena Car Booter sourced mug (originally from IKEA) at the back right of the table. Good size and shape for the morning cup that cheers.

Jigsaw 5, series 2

Tried taking this picture under the artificial light of the dining room, rather than in the natural light of the extension door. Maybe natural light is the answer. Note festive table cloth, from the famous Discount Dave, possibly in the far off days when he still operated from the Epsom indoor market.

The bridge is that over the Medway at Aylesford in Kent, a very ancient place with the first battle being recorded in 455. And at some point Horsa was killed by Hengist. The place subsequently fell into the hands of the Conquering Bastard.

A Waddingtons regular, rather than deluxe. A relatively easy puzzle, completed in almost exactly 5 days, to the hour. The 99p Oxfam sticker is just about legible top right.

Started with the edge, then the skyline. Then the bridge parapet which was not as easy as I had expected as the parapet fell along a cut - evidence perhaps that jigsaws are cut for each image, with the cutter having a bit of fun, rather in the way of a crossword compiler, rather than using the same cut for lots of images. Solution was to do the upper parts of the masonry, with the ties, at the same time. Took in the larger hydrangea at the same same time. Then the edge to the riverbank, again falling along a cut.

By the third day the puzzle was down to 5 ponds. Two sky, two river and a large pond across the middle of the image. Onto the river ponds, made easier by the slight irregularities which had been included in some of the pieces, irregularities which made picking a piece out of the heap much easier than it would otherwise be.

Drove through the buildings - church then white then balance - in good order - with the large pond steadily silting up and I was eventually left with a couple of small ponds of tree which were quickly knocked off, leaving just the two thin ponds of sky which had been more or less untouched since they had formed early in the solution.

Completed to the strains - of every sort - of the Kirov Ballet.

A warning

On Sunday evening we attended the carol service at our local church - Christchurch - a church which as it happens has a handsome Victorian gothic revival interior well suited to the purpose. At the carol service we received the seasonal message of hope consequent upon the anniversary of the arrival of the only begotten son.

On leaving however, the Lord chose to remind us of his other side, at least in a small way. The recent rain had washed a very nasty looking pothole out of one of the drains on Christchurch Road, a pot hole which might easily seen off an unlucky cyclist. A reminder of what the Lord could really do if he really got going with the rain.

But as it happened, help was at hand. A young lady with connections made a call from her mobile and by 1100 Monday morning Surrey Roads, or their representatives, had been and gone leaving the pot hole patched as illustrated. Only a patch, which might get washed away by the next rain, but at least our cyclists will be safe in the meanwhile.

Monday was also a day of departure from culinary tradition. Instead of the traditional lentil soup we had broth confected from the gravy left from a beef stew, the gravy left from a lamb stew (hot pot variety) and sundry left over vegetables. Pass through a blender and warm, taking care not to burn it while the fat melts. Very good it was too. Have we started a new tradition?

And then with FIL gone, I was able to resume the tradition of sewing up the stuffed fowl, in our case a woodland reared vegetarian chicken. A tradition started by my dental father who had been known to use both the special pliers and and near circular needle of his trade. We never had the needle and the special pliers - grooved to hold the needle steady - have gone AWOL - so I had to use some other kind of dental pliers, but I managed and the stuffed fowl is now neatly sewn up with green linen thread from the base of the breast bone to the tying off at the parson's nose. I used blanket stitch although I dare say there are other stitches which would do.

We will see if the use of walnuts rather than cobnuts in the stuffing works. I was quite unable to buy cobnuts in any form or to buy walnuts in their shells and so had to resort to the rather unsatisfactory expedient of ready mades. Not the same at all if one has not had the fag of shelling the things. Bit like being dropped on the top of the mountain rather than walking up the thing.

Visit report (Ely cathedral)

While in the area we paid our approximately annual visit to Ely cathedral, in full, according to Wikipedia, 'The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Ely'.

The thing that struck me most on this visit was the damage to the Lady Chapel. A chapel full of the most exuberant carving - complete with an interesting menagerie - fantastic & otherwise - but carving which had been badly damaged during the reformation. Someone had gone around knocking all the heads off all the human figures. Not smashing the whole place up, just knocking the heads off. Nevertheless. I was reminded of all the media horror when the Taliban blew up a large Buddhist statue in Afganistan - a statue which might well have been impressive & remarkable - but did not look particularly beautiful: I do not suppose the people generating the media horror remembered - or ever knew - that we were up to much the same sort of thing ourselves not that long ago. As it happens, about the same number of years after the birth of our Lord as it is now after the birth of theirs: large scale religious vandalism is clearly a feature of religious adolescence.

There was also a strong echo, so when there were no other people about - it was a quiet day - I indulged myself by testing it with my once decent tenor. Range and strength not what it used to be, but I could certainly get the echo going. I wonder what it would do to the sound of a choir?

The exuberant carving of the Lady Chapel was fully matched by the exuberant mouldings inside and outside of the various towers and transepts. Including some arches which were rectilinearly trangular rather than curvily gothic; maybe something from the traditions of the Saxon masons, an outgrowth of the pilaster strip patterning of the tower at Earls Barton. We were, after all, in the land of Hereward the Wake.

For the first time, took proper notice of the quite large amounts of coloured marble on the floors. Not sure if it was quite coloured enough to be called polychrome and the patterning was certainly not in the same league as that on the faces of buildings in Florence, never mind that under the crossing of Westminster Abbey, but striking none the less. I dare say at least some of it was quite old. I am pointed to 'Historic Floors' by Jane Fawcett, but this is unavailable, even from the redoubtable Amazon, with or without tax. An unusual name: I wonder if she is any relation of the famous faucet?

And not for the first time, reminded that churches are some of the few public places where one can sit and be quiet. And possibly warm: down and outs certainly know this last. Even to the point where we were once told that Muslims use them for their private prayers if they happen to be stuck in some mosque light part of London.

All in all, a remarkable place. Maybe we will get another visit out of our annual ticket.

Visit report (hotel)

Short stay at the Gonville Hotel in Cambridge earlier in the week, a member of the Best Western family and recently promoted to Plus. See http://www.gonvillehotel.co.uk/. All things considered, a good place to stay and we shall, no doubt, stay there again.

Good points

For a modest supplement you could have a kipper, which, as advertised, came with all of  head, backbone and tail. No boil in the bag here. Or smoked haddock. And you were allowed to have the haddock without poached eggs, a combination of which I do not approve.

Bacon had a good flavour although it was a little dry, reflecting the fact I guess that most clients are into low-fat these days.

Large, comfortable room. Plus, unusually, we were not overheated at night and, in any event, one could open the window. Plus, even more unusually, there was a huge range of pillow fillings on offer. Maybe as many as a dozen. Presumably catering for every imaginable pillow allergy. Perhaps Mr. Best Western has a problem in that department himself?

Free (sense one) computer in the foyer, which was free (sense two) when I wanted it. System software could have done with a wash and brush-up, but system fit for purpose nonetheless.

Car park right outside the front entrance.

Location on the edge of town centre. Easy to get to. Plenty of restaurants in the vicinity if you did not fancy the decent looking but rather quiet restaurant on the spot. We had a good meal in the nearby http://www.delucacucina.co.uk/ - our second visit to the place.

Staff mainly foreign and young - but very pleasant and lots of them.

Not so good points

The kipper had been grilled, which was not so hot as I have got used to the much milder taste you get by simmering them in water.

The haddock had rather an odd texture, possibly the result of cooking the thing direct from frozen. Also a bit soggy and not very warm - which last was all the more noticeable with all the sog.

Despite the focus on local fish and meat, not much focus on the humble local bread. White rolls were available, but were not up to much, not much good for either bacon or sausage sandwiches. Presumably defrosted fresh each morning. Presumably most people don't care.

The regular breakfast room seemed to have been knocked out by building works, so for the first couple of days we had breakfast in a room the size of which reminded one of the underground breakfast rooms in the sort of hotels that middle of the range civil servants used to stay in when visiting London. One of the points of a proper hotel is that it has a proper breakfast room.

You could not work the bath taps with your toes. Plus the bath was fibreglass which I do not approve of - but I guess one has to put up with that unless you want to pay a lot more for your hotel than we do. Plus it took us a while to work out how to work the taps: easy enough when you got the hang of it but a pain that every hotel seems to have different taps. Can't the chaps at Brussels get onto the case?

You  could not work the bedside light with your hands. That is to say that the bed head with the lighting system dated from an earlier refurbishment than the bed, with the result that you had to get out of the right hand position - my position that is - to work your bedside light. Left hand position OK.

The sink started more or less blocked. This was fixed shortly after we mentioned it, but then we had sink stink for a bit because the plumber had not thought to flush the sink drain out with bleach or something - so we had stink of whatever it was that had been blocking the sink.

There were no stairs, so although we were only on the first floor, we had to use the lift the whole time. Both slow and unhealthy. An irritating feature of a lot of hotels these days - which might have stairs but they are often out of the way and hard to find. Plus, on the last morning the lift stank of fags. Shock horror. Presumably off of someone's coat and entirely detectable with my finely tuned ex-smoker nose; a nose which can detect a decent cigar in the street at 100 yards.

Water water everywhere

With all the recent rain, our three ponds became one again and then overflowed. This can be seen as the diagonal damp patch on the lawn to the left of the angle of the paving stone, running down to the bottom right of the illustration. And from thence down the path, onto the rough cast part of the patio, down the drain and into the soak away under the part of the back lawn below that illustrated.

One side effect of all this is that the pests and weeds in one pond can migrate to the other two, in our case the weed being duck weed, thoughtfully presented by a friend of ours along with a more ornamental pond plant. Not that it really matters; more or less impossible to eradicate the stuff without clearing the ponds out and starting again. And even then it only takes some bird with dirty feet to kick it all off again. On which subject, careful inspection will reveal an erect bird facing forward just behind and to the right of the green plant which is not supposed to be a pond plant, although I suspect it quite likes damp.

When the rain really gets going this soak away fills up and then the patio starts to fill up, not too clever as the levels and water bar arrangements for our back extension are not too hot. We have been pushed in the past to bucketing the water over the water bar presented by the garage floor onto the front drive from where it can get down to the main drain easily enough. So whoever did all the extending to our house back in the 60's should have given a bit more thought to waterworks. (According to some of the old hands at TB, many young architects are hopeless in the water department. Don't really understand that the first requirement of a building is to keep water out, never mind architect that result. Far too full of colour supplement design fads to bother about basics. Probably from some creative arts school. Bring back those far off days when architects had to do their time on the tools & in the trenches before they were let loose on a drawing board).

All this water was much more common when we first moved into the house, say 20 years ago. The bottom of the garden used to get very soggy most winters, so soggy that I was driven to install council slabs (on top of coarse sand) on the path to the compost heap at the very bottom of the garden - otherwise too much grief about mud on the kitchen floor after attending to the compost bucket. Slabs on sand have done well, not moving at all - perhaps because we then had 20 years without severe sog. Even so, better safe than sorry. Plus I had already banked the DIY brownie points.

PS: rain in Epsom slightly odd in that we seem to be in the rain shadow of the North Downs, blocking the rain from the south west. This often seems to mean that while there is rain in our general area, we don't get it in our particular area. Maybe with global warming, rain is now coming in from other directions...

Secrets

A few weeks ago (20th October) a piece in the DT by Charles Moore caught my eye, a piece wailing about the destructive effect on the permanent record of the Freedom of Information Act. A piece which irritated me at the time because it did not appear to recognise the complementary evil of excessive secrecy which brought on the act, quite possibly badly flawed, in the first place.

Excessive secrecy which I once read was brought on by the habits of empire learned in India. There might have been a few thousand whites ruling a few hundred million browns but the general idea was that the browns were not fit people to know about the machinery of government. Everything written down by government whites was to be kept secret from the browns, whether government browns or the common or garden sort. These habits then percolated back to the home country, habits which were reinforced by returning whites being used to staff up the various agencies which look after our security. Amongst other nonsenses this resulted in the one that meant, for example, that government X would energetically deny that it was even thinking about proposal Y, a proposal being forcefully promoted by Clan Murdoch, in the context of the upcoming budget. Which always seemed a bit silly to me: governments were paid to think about options and proposal Y was clearly one of them, even if government X happened to prefer (without actually saying at this point) proposal Z. Part of the whole budget secrecy nonsense: I grant that the the announcement of some decisions has to be carefully controlled, but that is nowhere near enough to justify to huge paraphernalia of budget secrecy - at least it was huge in the days when I had distant sight of such things. I think they are slowly getting more sensible. In the meantime, reinforcement is provided by document classification machismo: my document has a higher classification (that is to say that it is more secret) than yours. Which results in a strong tendency to over classify things. In which connection I remember the chap who wrote a document which was so machismo that he was not allowed to put his own name on the circulation list at the head of the document, circulation lists which, I might say, are strictly in descending order of rank. None of this ladies first or alphabetical stuff here thank you. An arrangement which might sound a bit silly but which I think is actually quite sensible. Again, going back to the point in hand, one can dream up bizarre circumstances where not putting one's own name to one's own document is sensible, but I do not think that this particular circumstance was one of them.

Reading Moore again, I am much less irritated. I recognise his concerns about the permanent record - which used to be expressed in the files - even if I think he puts more blame on freedom of information than I would. Files used to be controlled and carefully maintained objects. They were manilla folders containing all the papers about this or that subject, tied together by that important contribution to office efficiency in the world at large known as a Treasury tag (and sold in Rymans to this day, albeit in plastic), manilla folders which were numbered and tracked. One knew where the thing was at any point in time, knowledge which was important in the era before photocopiers and computers when these arrangements were developed. Important files had an index at the front. Important officials wrote manuscript notes in them using expensive fountain pens. Ministers were allowed to use green ink; practically treason for a mere official to use such stuff. The point of all this being that if you were the lead official for this or that subject you made sure that the file told the story. You did not include every twist and turn of the conversation, but you did try to construct a true and useful record so that if you - or anybody else for that matter - went back to it in years to come you would get back a true sense of how and why something was done. The file really did tell the story. It was also true that keeping all these files in decent shape absorbed a huge amount of energy and as photocopying and computers came in, the point of the file as the one central record of what was going on went out. With the result that the quality of files fell off - whether in paper form or the electronic form we have now. And in the present climate of efficiency and cuts I can't see them ever falling on again. We will just have huge computer files containing huge amounts of raw information with no-one being given the time to turn all this stuff into a coherent story. But at least that will keep researchers of the future out of mischief while they sort it all out. And they won't be able to find too many embarrassing needles in the haystack - so all this freedom of information will have been of no avail.

Freedom of information has also added the further twist that people are getting nervous about appearing in the record. And if one adds emails to the mix, you have lots of important people saying unguarded or slipshod things about important matters. Sayings which are fine at the time but which do not look always too clever after the event. And these sayings are very easy to file; indeed it is quite hard to remove all trace of an email from a computer system and it might well be illegal in certain circumstances: tampering with the record very serious matter... So Moore has a point to this extent: important people might stop committing themselves to email and to that extent there would be no record. At least in the olden days you got a digest of what they said - if only under the anonymizing rubric of  'the following points were made in discussion'. With the foregoing 'at least' not really being appropriate: a digest is usually a lot more useful than a transcript.

But you do have to trust the digester. So we are back once again to 'quis custodiet custodes ipsos' (see Juvenal, Satire VI, lines 347-8).

Prizes for trivia

Does all the fuss and bother about what some politician did or didn't say to the policeman near a gate one dark night take this year's prize for a response completely out of proportion to an event? I read this morning that 30 police officers are now beavering away on it. What a bunch of plonkers we are to be spending our cut-to-the-bone government spending money on such stuff: one expects the media to be a bit daft, but it shouldn't be necessary for the rest of us to play copy-cat.

Lost property

There was moaning in Tooting last Friday about the fact that if you lost something between, say, Tooting and the Shard, you had to contact every police stations on or near the route to ask about it. Lost property is a matter for police stations and information is not shared. The general tone of the conversation was that this was pretty awful in this day and age and one might have thought that some sort of shared spreadsheet over the splendid, secure & expensive police network might be an easy enough solution which they ought to have thought of.

But as an ex-bureaucrat, not that far removed from the people dozing away in the lower reaches of police stations - and one has to remember that most people like dozing and do not want to spend their day promoting themselves or anything else - I got to thinking.

As things stand, this is an unimportant activity. Not worth a senior officer's time, let alone a management consultant. When stuff is handed in they probably write out a label with some basic information on it - like date and place of finding - attach the label to the item and chuck the whole lot into the lost property cupboard. Then when someone comes in asking for something one just takes a quick gander at the cupboard and the job is done. From time to time, or when the cupboard gets a bit full, the older stuff is disposed of. I remember that when young I once found a five pound note in the road and handed it into the police station. After six months I was invited to come and collect it, it not having been claimed in the meanwhile; a serious sum to one such as myself at that time. But I think this part of the lost property operation has been discontinued: too much bother to be writing down names and addresses of finders. Doubles the time it takes to write out the label. There is also the question of how much stuff is claimed? 5%, 50% or what? Should one have key performance indicators for police stations rewarding high percentages of returns? If the figure is 5%, is there much point in bothering to do anything at all about the lost property operation?

So supposing there is much point, what does one need to do to smarten the operation up? Maybe each police station keeps a spreadsheet containing a row for each item of lost property, a spreadsheet which is kept on the network with all other police stations having read access. For the system to work, all the spreadsheets had better be organised in the same way.

We then write a bit of Visual Basic to interrogate these spreadsheets. One search term might be the police stations to be interrogated. This might be done by organisation, area, or distance from some specified point. Another might be date of loss, which should be a good approximation to date of handing in. Another might be sort of item. The catch here being that someone has to devise a workable classification. I guess a preliminary study of lost property in hand across the Metropolitan Police area is indicated to inform such devising. The sort of thing an apprentice statistician ought to be able to help with - and such a person might even be able to economise a bit by doing a bit of sampling. Might also be helpful to get a handle on volumes along the way.

Then find some luckless officer - presumably some civilian - to own the application on behalf of the force as a whole. To show people how to use it, to monitor activity. All that good service provider stuff. Spend a lot of time and effort persuading every police station to use it, probably by simply delegating the task of logging stuff into the spreadsheet to some other luckless civilians. Job will probably just pile up when they are sick or on holiday. Not worth making alternative arrangements. And, unfortunately, delegation does not work when it comes to dealing with enquiries about lost property, the front office people need to learn how to used the shiny new application. They need to have a suitable computer terminal to hand. All so much more complicated than taking a gander in the cupboard.

So the bottom line is that there needs to be some central will to do this thing, enough will to hire some consultant to build the thing and drive it through. Presumably central will which is presently lacking with plenty of other things to worry about which are far higher up the agenda. Perhaps something that one might take up with one shiny new Police Commissioner, a man or women who ought to be well placed - or at least better placed that most of us customers - to make a fair assessment of need?

Important instructions

The back wall of the church (of the previous post) yard is on top of the River Ouse and might well, in the absence of the illustrated instruction, be a handy spot to fish from. One wonders why the church wardens saw fit to forbid it: one can understand that one would not want a line of heavily tooled up fishermen along the wall at the time of a divine service, but not clear what the objection would be at other times.

One also wonders how they got away with building a church so close to a river which regularly floods. The ground is presumably nothing more substantial than relatively recent alluvium, so what is holding the church up when the river gets going in a big way? Maybe not much and that is where the rest of the steeple went?

Memory Lane

On the spur of the moment, without having done any homework, we decided the other day to visit my father's natal village, Hemingford Grey, on the River Ouse near Huntingdon.

First stop was the church which turned out to be entirely suitably dedicated to St. James, my own first name and that of my father and my grandfather before him. A church with old beginnings and the tower of which is topped with an unusual sort of truncated steeple, the subject of at least one picture hanging on our walls to this day. No graves of interest, perhaps because 20th century graves were in a different yard.

Next stop was the recreation ground which lay between the lane called 'The Thorpe' where my father was born and lived as a child and the river, a recreation ground which as a child I used to pass through on Sunday summer evenings on the way to the river. Strong association to the sound of church bells on a country evening, far softer and milder than the same thing in a town. The last time that I visited this recreation ground, maybe thirty years ago, it seemed very small. This time, it seemed to have grown to me and shrunk to BH. It had certainly acquired a large new sports pavilion, conveniently open quite late on a Sunday afternoon. River looked somewhat swollen after the recent rain and was flowing far to fast for boating to be much fun - a sport which my parents used to indulge in there when my father was on leave from the army during the war.

Then onto 'The Thorpe' itself, where the house where my father was born was present and correct, as was the cottage where his younger brother (Uncle John) lived when I knew him. I remember him as being the champion mower of the village but mowing with a scythe must have been an anachronism then, so perhaps he was just the winner of some heritage sporting event at the village fête. Perhaps they reserved some meadow - and there would have been real meadows on this land - for the purpose.

But the bungalow which we used to visit for extended family teas on Sunday afternoons was not present and correct. We knew that most of the land which had been attached to the bungalow had been sold for housing - and that was present and correct. And there were two bungalows at about the right place - 6 (illustrated) and 6A - but neither looking anything like the bungalow I remembered. We decided that No. 6 must have been the place, massively rebuilt, and 6A must have been built in its back garden some time after I knew it, more than 50 years ago. Both the ladies we asked turned out to be very recent immigrants and were not able to help.

In sum, the village which my father had known as what he called a rural slum had become the home for well heeled refugees from Cambridge and beyond. Not a cow pat to be seen anywhere.

PS1: I note two items of interest  to a small child at the bungalow. First, an old treadle lathe used to stand in the garden, once used in the construction & maintenance of false teeth. Second, a glass contraption the size and general shape of a goldfish bowl used to stand in the back porch, used to catch wasps in the summer, with the aid of jam. Very good at it it was too.

PS2: I also note that we once saw many black eels swimming along both sides of the river from the bridge over the Ouse at Huntingdon. Could not have been much rain beforehand as the water was very clear. Must have been thousands of them. A sight not see before or since.

Family announcement

To whom it may concern: the Edward Toller mentioned in this clipping is neither ascendant, descendant, uncle, nephew nor first cousin (removed or otherwise), although if a fellow member of the East Midlands cluster of Tollers, may well be some more distant relation. Third cousin four times removed?

Jigsaw 4, series 2

This one a Waddingtons De Luxe 500, once again 99p from the Ewell Village Oxfam charity shop. 'The Bayswater Omnibus' from the painting by G. W. Joy, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1895. I wonder if the scene is at all realistic? This promiscuous mixing of age, sex and class? A whole new playing field for dirty old men? At least trains had classes. On the other hand, I dare say there were plenty of people who welcomed this uncompromising opportunity to mix with people with whom they did not, or could not, in the usual way of things.

That said, I think I like old-school paintings with this sort of business (business as in busy, not as incorporation) best for puzzles. And the texture of a such a painting seems to suit me better than that of a photograph. Not that photographic puzzles don't work for me: I just like this sort better.

See http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/ (but beware unsolicited pop ups from one of those online loan sharks. Have they hacked into the museum site? Or me? What do they know that I don''t?) for further details. Including, for example, that the artist's wife and daughter posed for the mother and daughter on the left, a fact which does not necessarily compromise the realism of the scene. Note also that their image is a lot brighter than my puzzle: why do puzzle makers always seem to go for the uncleaned version of a painted image? A small complaint about the web site: searching for artist=joy does not work while searching for keyword=bayswater does.

My telephonic image of the completed puzzle pretty useless; all reflection. So this image of the puzzle box, taken from the same position, and which makes the puzzle look lighter than it actually is, will have to do instead. There is clearly something about the surface of puzzles which does not agree with the telephone.

28/11: do the edge. Notice a small number of very large pieces, spanning the space of two. Also that the puzzle is 20 by 26 pieces, rather than the usual 20 by 25 (which gives the required 500 exactly). Either the count is wrong or there were more of the very large pieces than I had realised. Perhaps, given that there turned out to be an alien piece, the former, which would have confused any attempt at counting the pieces by the good ladies at Ewell Village.

30/11 0815: started the umbrella.

2/12: more umbrella. Roses. Horse & cart and the contents of the windows more generally.

3/12 1715: completed a horizontal with the windows.

3/12/2100: the dividers between the posters above the windows largely completed, having been easy to pick out of the heap.

4/12: pushing out a bit. Start at the white at the right. Not much progress.

6/12: white hands. Pushed down the right hand side of the white at the right.

7/12: some of the fitting of the pieces needs to be forced. Rather more than usual. Perhaps the puzzle got a little damp somewhere along the way, subtly changing the shape of the pieces. More right hand white, completing five columns of it.

8/12: more white dress. Push out onto the newspaper.

10/12 0830: start on the right hand faces.

10/12 2115: top five rows complete.

11/12 1415: top seven rows complete.

11/12 1530: top nine rows complete.

11/12 2130: top twelve rows complete. Now leaving the bottom left. This brown being, in effect, the sky of this puzzle.

12/12 0915: do the dress to the right of the umbrella.

13/12 1045: drive the brown down to two halves, separated by the umbrella. As with the landscape of puzzle 2 (16th November), interesting how the eye slowly adapts to subtle changes of tone, initially invisible.

13/12 1330: down to three thirds.

13/12 1720: completed, having taken some two and a half weeks. One piece from another puzzle left over.

A good puzzle, and one which prompted an unusual desire to complete rows from the top.

Chain saw volunteers

Round the Epsom Common all weather path a couple of days ago and I am pleased to report that there were no signs of recent chain saw activity.

Perhaps the chain saw volunteers feel that any further deforestation at the present time might actually stir the rather torpid Epsom tree lovers into action and have settled for a spell of detached duty in Brazil, where they can chop down aboriginal forest in favor of giant eucalyptus trees (see 21st November). Bit of an expense getting there - as volunteers they have to pay their own way - but there is the compensation that the aboriginal trees make a much more satisfying thud when they come down than the relatively puny trees to be found on Epsom Common.

Back home to read about how the four pillars of our accounting world - PwC, KPMG, E&Y and Deloitte - when they are not doing very careful audits on banks which are too big to fail and not doing lots of lovely well paid and not too demanding work as consultants to government, make quite a good thing out of the tax havens (see 26th November). According to Polly Toynbee of the Guardian, it is perfectly alright for a big business to do its level best not to pay any tax in the countries where it does its business, but such businesses do like to have one of said four pillars draw a cloak of respectability over said level best. So all the big four run stonking great offices in all the tax havens so that they can provide on-the-spot aid and comfort to businesses as they go about not paying any tax.

And all those oh so respectable, wannabee county types who live in places like Jersey, do not need to actually get their hands dirty, but they do do quite nicely out of it all thank you, hands free & indirectly.

So, as with (illegal) drugs, plenty of vested interest in the rather unsatisfactory status quo.

Apology

Intrigued to read in Sunday's Guardian about another apology initiative. It seems that a remnant of the Saxon royal house has been holding out, keeping their peace, in a manor house in a village called The Pludds on the northern edge of the Forest of Dean. (A strange area with some strange people, and some of them, when in their cups, sometimes forget themselves and refer to the remnant as the Lords of the Plauds). But now, clearing out some old papers in their attic, they have found important new evidence implicating an important member of the civil service in the disaster at Hastings. It now seems that Harold's groom of the stole, despite having sworn fealty and loyalty in the presence of a member of the regular clergy, was actually an agent in the pay of the Bishop of Bec (the chap who got Tooting Bec as part of his plunder), and was providing the Normans with important operational intelligence during the run up to the Battle of Hastings. It seems entirely likely that without this contribution the Normans would never have made good their landing. Harold's shield wall would never have been so brutally slaughtered on Senlac Hill, a slaughter which nowadays would almost certainly qualify as ethnic cleansing. A war crime.

The senior member of the remnant, Lionel Winfreoth III, recognises that it is not now going to be possible to put things right, but nevertheless feels that a public apology for this so treacherous behaviour of so very senior a civil servant by the head of the current civil service, if not the Prime Minister, would go some way towards healing  the wound. Some monetary compensation would also help with the rather leaky roof of the manor house. Possibly also with a new charcoal burner for his charcoal business. He has engaged the services of Max Clifford and is quietly confident that an apology will be forthcoming.

Winter journeys

More or less by chance, when at the Wigmore Hall earlier this week, I acquired a couple of tickets for a rendering of the 'Winterreise' offered by Messrs. Boesch and Vignoles. At row five a bit nearer the front than I usually care to be, but in a case such as this when one is down to the odd returns, one cannot be fussy.

It turned out to be a very good concert indeed. It was perhaps the third time I have heard the Winterreise live, but the first time that I went in for the words in a serious way, prompted in part by the discovery that the music was built around a sequence of poems which may have been written for just such a purpose. I took some pages from the booklet which came with my Pears & Britten recording, artfully folded for the purpose, to find that the Wigmore Hall, unlike the QEH (see 6th December), did believe in printing the words, German & English in parallel, in the programme. Complete with little notes asking one to take care about turning the pages. There was a slight extra charge with the programme being £4 rather than the usual £2.50 or £3.

The singer had a very pleasing & expressive style, far more so than I remember from previous performances, really getting into the rôle, rather than just singing someone else's words, which made one want to watch, but which did not sit well with trying to follow the words, and which may have meant that my head was bobbing up and down in a way which might have been rather irritating for the person sitting behind me had I not, luckily, been sitting in an aisle seat, the aisle seat meaning that I was not in anyone's line of sight. There have been experiments with electronic displays for drama and opera, but I think that this would be a bit intrusive in this context and I guess the answer is to get to know the songs well enough that a prompt for the name of the song would suffice. One could then concentrate on the performers and their performance, without the distraction of bobbing up and down.

One can also discuss the merits of interval or not. I think the fashion at present is not to have an interval, which apart from not breaking the mood or the flow, means that one gets away a little quicker, which is a consideration these days. (We had no interval yesterday). On the other hand, one can overdo the arguments about the integrity of the 24 song cycle as the music if not the poems was certainly written in two 12 song chunks. And even if the poems were first published as a single cycle, that does not tell one all that much. Who knows what the circumstances of creation were? Who knows whether the grouping into 24 poems was any more than a marketing device by the publisher? There is also the point that an interval provides a comfort break for us older members of the audience.

As ever, I was very taken with the piano half of this recital, with Vignoles bringing an unexpected warmth to the accompaniment, nicely contrasting with the bleakness of the poems.

And, despite initial doubts, I was very taken with sitting fairly near the front. I am sure that I would have missed a lot sitting my usual 15-20 rows back. But I am still not sure that the same would be true with, for example, a string quartet. For that one needs a bit of space for the music to blend in.

The journey home unaffected by frost or snow, despite SWT's performance a few weeks' ago, and was only marred by my sitting too close to three jolly middle aged drunks who had clearly been having a very good time in the big town. The catch was that while they were not becoming difficult, their humour had become tiresomely infantile - and I was too tired or too lazy to move at that point.

PS: I was even moved to think that it would be nice to be able to read the poems in the original German, where the possibilities for expression looked rather different to those in our own English. But it is not going to be. Can't afford the quality time which would be needed to make such an endeavour worth while.

Stop press: unhealthy living

For many years the youth of Epsom used to top up their fill of lager with a late night dose of mutton fat or beef dripping at an establishment called Roosters, in premises which are now the home of the rather posher Canopy restaurant. In between, they may, if memory serves me, have been the home of one of the many bathroom and kitchen shops you get around here.

Today's youth may be pleased at the reincarnation of Roosters at the other end of town, near one of our many railway bridges. Mutton fat and beef dripping not so prominent on the new menu which seems rather to be into a variety of grilled chicken. See http://www.roosterspiripiri.com/ where they rather puff the healthiness of their various options.

We await reports on whether it cuts the mustard for topping up after taking on lager.

Stop press: more healthy living

Just started the 147th batch of bread since records began. Wholemeal with flour from Waitrose. All you could possibly want to know about it at https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8152054/Bread-20110120.xls.

Healthy living

My count of health foods, having been zero for most of my life, has now crept up to two. First from the blocks was manuka honey which I have been consuming by mouth but which I perhaps ought to be applying externally. Smeared on wounds sort of stuff? The first pot tasted more or less like honey, so one could have it on toast and that sort of thing - so got through that pot in reasonably good order. But the honey has a number, a bit like sun tan potions, and with the honey in the second pot having moved onto a higher number (and a correspondingly higher price), the honey taste seems to have retreated to a lower number. Might take a bit longer to get through this second pot. See http://www.manukahoney.co.uk/ or http://manukahealth.co.nz/ for more than you are likely to want to know about the stuff.

Second from the blocks was peppermint tea, said to be helpful for a certain abdominal complaint. Comes in the form of tea bags and is entirely drinkable, although not perhaps the sort of thing that one would want on waking up in the morning. We shall see how I get on.

To provide a bit of balance, knocked up a bit of pork soup yesterday. 5 ounces of pearl barley, 0.5 of a tenderloin (coarsely chopped), 1.5 onions (coarsely chopped) and 5 ounces of white cabbage (finely slivered). Bring barley to the boil in around 3.5 pints of water and stand for a bit. Add the pork and onion and simmer for about an hour. Add the cabbage and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Button mushrooms are entirely addable if available, which they were not on this occasion. 4 good portions, good gear for cold and frosty weather.

Cold and frosty weather which has brought lots of derelict and not so derelict spiders' webs out of hiding, particularly on the sort of railings made from plastic coated tubular steel. Maybe the spiders like living inside the tubes. It also resulted in very pretty holly the the bottom of the garden with all the holly leaves being edged with frost. Which didn't seem to happen on such other leaves as still happen to be about.

I close with some factoids about avocado pears, having being moved yesterday to a tea-time debate about whether they are really apples, pears, plums or cherries. Now sometimes google disappoints at this particular sort of slightly specialised thing, but on this occasion the second or third hit was a helpful paper about the taxonomy of avocado pears from the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences of the University of California, Riverside Outlet. It turns out that avocados are a member of the large laurel family which also includes things like cinnamon and camphor and that one sort of avocado is one of the many fruits and vegetables which we owe to Mexico. Lots of laurels go in for interesting smells, smells which have been designed by the great architect in the sky to deter various kinds of attack by various organic agents. It also turns out that the laurels are quite an old family, originally from Gondwana, with the result that there are all sorts of fossil populations on odd islands dotted around the southern hemisphere. So now you know.

Douglas

To the Wigmore Hall yesterday to hear Barry Douglas again, the venue for Radio 3 lunch time concerts having shifted from St. Luke's (where we last heard him) to the Wigmore. Took a bit of a chance in that neither of us had heard any of it before - Three Intermezzi Op. 117 and Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor Op. 5, all Brahms. The former being a very late work and the latter being a very early work. But it was all very good and at times I was sucked into the music in a way that is fairly unusual for me. Usually more aloof. Pleased for the breaking out of my rather small box to have been so successful.

There seemed to be a huge amount of material in the sonata, perhaps the product of a young and fertile imagination. There was also a huge variation between quiet and loud, huge enough to make the thing sound a bit silly on the home hifi. Or at least, so I should think.

Audience virtually all people of our own age, with the merest sprinkling of people of working age. Chap in front of me probably played as he was doing a bit of visible fingering. Also a bit of a fidget with his programme. And there was one old lady who indulged in some rather loud whispering at the back of the hall at the start of both pieces. First time I have heard such a thing in the generally very well behaved and musical audiences at the Wigmore.

Took a decent and reasonable lunch afterwards at Ponti's Italian Kitchen where I had an Italian style hamburger made with Scotch style beef. Very nice is was too. Chips served in one of those miniature chip frying baskets but probably oven chips warmed up in the microwave - the best that one can do in the sort of restaurants that we can afford - and are comfortable in.

Quick peek at the Christmas lights around Oxford Circus which were not that great as there was still a fair bit of light. Regent Street rather too big for the amount of lights up. BH did not approve of the advertisement for Marmite appearing in the Oxford Street lights and the generally secular tone of the Carnaby Street lights. Neither of us much cared for the huge red lips and tongues; all a bit coarse. But I did think of Boris with approval as we traversed Oxford Circus on the diagonal, even if we were given barely enough time so to do. His new arrangements are a huge improvement on all the cattle pens we used to have before.

Home via Clapham Junction where we observed a fairly spectacular sunset - more or less south west to judge by the flight path into Heathrow - which accords well with the south east sunrise observed in Lyme Regis (see 3rd December).

PS: continue to be rather puzzled about the connection between the two meanings for secular. On the one hand the secular clergy of the Roman Church and on the other the secular games of the Roman Republic. Maybe one day the penny will drop.

Memory tricks

We went shopping in Epsom the other day, taking my dark brown, bent wood walking stick, as is my custom presently. Don't actually need the thing, more in the way of the props one used to use to boost one's confidence when making presentations - making presentations not being something that I was much good at, despite having had to do them from the age of 12 or so on.

Anyway, we went into various shops, the last of them being Waitrose. On the way home, trudging up West Hill, we realised that I no longer had the walking stick. Instant post-mortem on where exactly we had been and where I might have left the thing. Fairly early on I decided that I had left it at Waitrose. This decision was then bolstered by various bits of memory. I remembered clicking it on the floor there. I remembered hanging it off my now empty basket on the input side of one of their self check out stations (self check out stations which are now starting to catch on and are not quite the wheeze to avoid queuing that they used to be. It has taken several months). I clearly had the thing when we were in Waitrose, which is where, therefore, it must still be.

Got home, activated Google, got the Epsom Waitrose number and phoned them up. Helpful young lady answered and popped across to the self check outs to check. No walking stick. At which point I was puzzled.

But about half an hour later one of the other shops we had been in phoned us up - they happened to have our phone number - to tell me that I had left the walking stick with them.

So the good part of the story is that I got my favourite walking stick back. The bad part is that I think I decided that I had left the thing in Waitrose for reasons unknown then built the memories - presumably from past visits - to substantiate the decision. The sort of thing that bad detectives used to do: make the decision on gut feeling then get the evidence - by hook or by crook. But the memories seemed very real and I was completely convinced.

But then again, maybe there is a simpler explanation. Perhaps the decision was made subconsciously using the confused evidence available about visits to Waitrose with walking stick, visits which had certainly happened before. And I had left the stick there - and recovered it - at least once before. Confused evidence then tidied up a bit and presented to consciousness.

Phantom smasher

Horton Lane anti-clockwise for the third morning running this morning. Very little of interest to report apart from a chaffinch and renewed activity of the part of the phantom smasher, with what looked like a white pottery mug smashed at the same spot at which I was finding smashed plates back in September (see September 14th in the other place). There were also some empty soft drink tinnies in the general area, some stuck in the hedge. Is it a nocturnal gathering point for apprentice gang members?

Some of the more affordable houses in the vicinity are said to have been bought up by a Tooting Housing Association, into exporting its clients before such activity got as much into the news as it is now, with the likes of Wandsworth choosing to export its less deserving clients far greater distances. Always been a tricky point ever since Camden Council tried to defy the laws of gravity by popping council blocks into the middle of posh areas in order to try and preserve some social balance. Not a risible objective, but certainly an expensive one and I doubt if they are still at it. But perhaps my apprentice gang members have brought their youth culture with them from Tooting? Certainly the inhabitants of the less affordable housing in the vicinity were very vocal about this possibility when the Tooting scheme first saw the light of day.

The loaf gets illustrated because of the strange bulge, front left. Not particularly striking in this image, but striking enough in real life. Was it the effect of some failure to mix the dough properly or was it some failing of the fan in the fan oven. Maybe cold eddies at the back left - which is where this bulge grew. Tastes fine despite the bulge, perhaps even finer for using Waitrose Canadian Red Wholemeal instead of Waitrose Organic Stoneground Wholemeal. Easily distinguished on the shelf as the one comes in a reddish and the other in the bluish bag.

Broken mugs and brown bulges apart I have been browsing 'Borzoi' by one Igor Schwezoff, recently purchased from the Sanctuary Second Hand Bookshop at the bottom of Broad Street in Lyme Regis. A splendid emporium from which one rarely emerges empty handed. There was even a small stash of green Berylware, but sadly a stash which did not include the particular soup bowls that BH was after. But he did have two copies of 'Borzoi', so I gallantly selected the dearer one, pre-owned by Hermione Rea, whom we understood to have been some sort of a local celebrity, but not so much so that I can find a reference to her in Google, other than in the catalogue of this very same establishment.

It turns out to be the autobiography of said Igor Schwezoff, at least until he heads out from China on the way to France at the age of 30 or so. He was born into an archetypal, old regime bourgeois family of St. Petersburg, where the family was ruled by the long service cook, Olga Martinovna, who, amongst other things, made the most wonderful pascha (or paska. Presumably a relative of the Paschal Lamb) which I have now learned is a sort of bread with a cream filling made at Easter. Igor was clearly very fond of the stuff which he used to eat to the point of bursting. He was also, on his own report, a rather difficult child. But a child who reformed through the discovery that he wanted to be a ballet dancer.

So much of the book is a tale of becoming a dancer at the end of the old regime and then moving on into rep. with the new regime, eventually being worn down by said new regime (partly because of the taint of being from the old regime bourgeoisie) and making a rather hair raising escape via Vladivostok and Harbin. I had not realised what hard work it was to be a (classical) ballet dancer with even established, famous even, dancers still doing hours of lessons every day, with microscopic attention being paid to important moves. Over and over again. All rather exhausting. And on top of that one might well have one's own lessons to give. Along the way he takes a few lines to be rather rude about Isadora Duncan, whom he saw dance rather past her prime. Semi naked, overweight and with a body into which she was quite unable to impart any kind of expression. Not classically trained you know, just pratting about pretending to be Grecian. Interestingly, he also takes time to appreciate the way in which the new regime was trying to take ballet to the masses, ballet not being something that they had gone in for much before. To educate the masses about ballet - even though that meant adding tutorials in factory canteens to an already crowded schedule. I dare say that in later life, despite being established in the west, there must have been mixed feelings about abandoning what became one of the showcase activities of the Soviets.

Sweaty ballet rep. did not sound that different to the theatre rep. which we used to have in this country. Lots of big egos, bad digs and staying up all hours discussing the shows and scandals of the day. Lots of fags and booze. Lots of travel from one dusty provincial town to another. Lots of the time without enough money to live decently. Lots of bad managers and lots of people getting jobs for the wrong reasons.

All in all a good read. Well worth the £3.50.

PS: relevant green Berylware now been sourced in ebay. But no auction involved, just a purchase which is slightly puzzling. I did not know that ebay were into straight shopping. As they say, one buys and learns.

Literary matters

Part of the fall out from the massive dose of Trollope reported on 12th November, was a boxed set of Pallisers, about 25 hours of ancient costume drama from BBC for about £25. A little dated but the set has served us well during the continuing dearth of proper evening fodder on ITV3. A significant drawback is that I do not care much for Susan Hampshire in the rather large role of Lady Glen. Another example of the difficulty of portraying someone who is a bit of a pain without making the portrait one too.

But, as noted in November, I like the way that Trollope manages to work some serious points into his light entertainment. So, for example, after the trial of P. Finn for murder collapses, he is rather shocked to think that his once so solid and substantial life had hung on the slender thread of a bit of evidence which had been turned up more or less by luck and very much at the last minute. A bit of evidence which was, as an object, entirely insignificant; nothing grand about it at all. Not an imposing cavalry saber or anything like that. His once so solid and substantial life suddenly seems a lot less solid and substantial; drifting on the edge of the abyss even, and it takes a while for him to recover his poise.

And then he starts to moan about how even his close friends had started to doubt his innocence in the face of the circumstantial evidence (there was none of the other sort). But the duke explains to him that one can never be absolutely sure of how one would behave oneself under extreme provocation, never mind be absolutely sure about the behavior of someone else. One might be innocent of the charge, but one just has to accept that there may well be doubt among one's friends - who, hopefully, will remain one's friends notwithstanding. At which point Finn starts to pull himself together.

I have not checked but I doubt whether these serious points have been invented by the BBC adaptor. But they were got across.

The other literary matter is a review of a book about narrative art and historical truth in 'War and Peace' from Cornell University, the review being by no less a person than the professor of Russian and Georgian (rather an odd pairing?) at Queen Mary College. He alleges that Tolstoy modeled 'War and Peace', at least the bits which are not about war, on Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair'. So the foul Hélène Kuragin does service for Becky Sharpe, Prince Andrei does service for the foul Captain Osborne and Natasha does service for drippy Amelia. What a load of old twaddle. How long is it since the reviewer read either book? They are both good books, long books, books with lots of characters. But one is warm and loving while the other is comic and comparatively superficial. Is the reviewer really a scholar of Georgian who had to tack Russian onto his handle for some obscure reason of universital bureaucracy?

Follow up visit

Following our return to the QEH reported on 22nd November, back yesterday for another dose of Schubert, in the slightly odd form of the Octet followed by a selection of songs for soprano.

I was first introduced to the Octet about thirty years ago in the form of the Melos (vinyl) recording, a work which captivated me at the time. Eventually got around to hearing it live in Dorking in 2010 (see April 11th in the other place) which was great, the only catch being that it left the Melos recording sounding a bit dull. Then a little disappointed by a performance in the QEH (see March 28th 2011 in the other place), after which the whole thing seemed to have gone off the boil. Put into the shade by the Beethoven Septet.

But last night's performance by Spira Mirabilis put some of the magic back. I have not quite recovered my initial enthusiasm, or that of the 2010 performance, but I am getting there. Maybe we were sitting a bit nearer (row K), although being on the right hand side of the hall meant that for me, the wind was a bit more dominant than it should have been until the ears adjusted. And I had forgotten that the clarinetist has to change clarinets several times, a proceeding which involves changing the business end, holding the reed, from one clarinet to the other and she also changed the reed itself at least once. All looked a bit risky to me, but it came off OK.

After the interval was all a bit new. I have only very rarely, if ever, heard a female singer. Which meant for me that while the gross format of the songs with their substantial piano accompaniment was the same as that of the songs for a male singer, with which I am at least a bit familiar, the experience was completely different. Including the rather more serious approach to dressing for the occasion taken by the female. It would have helped had the programme included parallel text of the words, my having decided that knowing what it being sung about does, after all, have some bearing on the experience. The price of these programmes seems to be out of all proportion to the cost of printing the things as it is, so I can't see that including a few pages of words needed to affect the price much. Let SBC absorb the increase like the rest of us have to in other contexts.

All in all a good evening, helped along by some luck on the transport front. The light dusting of snow in the Southwest Trains area seemed to have thrown the whole network into confusion, so we thought it prudent to catch the train to Chessington South which left shortly after we got to Waterloo. And a pleasant young lady thought to offer me her seat. I like to think that I was looking very grand & vippish and thus deserving of a seat but it may have been that I was looking a touch decrepit: either way, a far cry from the days when old gentlemen used to offer pleasant young ladies a seat in order to get a smile and maybe a bit of banter. I declined on the grounds that I had already been sitting down for a good part of the evening.

But then what to do? Change at Wimbledon where there might be some information? Change at Motspur Park which is the dividing of the ways? Take a chance on there being a taxi at Chessington North, Chessington South being believed to be a bit of a wash out in the taxi department? After much sucking of teeth, we settled on this last option and were rewarded by there being a taxi for us at Chessington North. It's only something over an hour's walk but it was a bit late and it was a bit cold for us pensioners. Long time since I have hoofed it from either Chessington North or Surbiton.

PS1: not impressed to read of Balls banging on about how awful the Autumn Statement was, Balls being, as far as I can make out, entirely unapologetic for having been a leading member of the team on the bridge when we got ourselves into the mess we are in now. Nor is it clear to me anyway what he would do different to get us out of the mess. What the Labour Party think they are at by retaining him I cannot imagine; it certainly does not increase their small chance of getting my old lefty vote.

PS2: not impressed either to read of the lack of maganimity in victory of the fag haters in Australia. They have kicked the smokers into touch (a proceeding the propriety of which is at least worth a discussion) but cannot let go (no new cause perhaps?) and now propose that the die hard faggers are going to have the packets of their favoured fag decorated with pictures of decaying hearts and lungs. All seems a bit mean to me: they have won the point of substance, let it go there. There are more important things to get in a lather about - like the presently miserable fate of many of our fellow citizens afflicted with dementia.

I wonder who the 'they' are. Who is it that can't let go? Presumably various committees of medical and other people charged with eradicating the menace. Can't see too many regular citizens thinking it a cause still worth pushing on with.

Hoist by our own petards

Trust the French. I have just checked and this p-word for a sort of artillery does indeed have the same root as the French word for breaking wind. Not inappropriate but very French.

The point being that we have at least two cases of being hoist by our own colonial petards.

Firstly, all those people in darkest Africa whom we taught to manage with just one wife and to fear God are coming back to the mother ship to push us back onto the straight and narrow. I believe quite a number of our pastors are of this variety, while noting that the Archbishop of York does not really count as he was a lawyer back home and only got ordained when he jumped ship for England.

Secondly, once upon a time the 7th Light Dorsets were stationed in Banglalore, where they introduced the locals to the delights of scotch eggs - which like many apparently traditionally Scottish items were eaten in most of the peripheral, poorer parts of the Three Kingdoms. They have now come back full circle and are served in Lal Qilla in Lyme Regis (http://www.lalqillalyme.co.uk/). Said to be a traditional dish from Rajasthan with a taste which is deliciously sensational and which defies description. I thought it was pretty good: gently spicy and moistened with a gently spicy brown sauce; a definite improvement on the original. So good in fact that there is a whole web site devoted to variations on the theme: http://www.nargiskebab.co.uk/.

PS: I discarded the slice of lemon in its natty little squeezing contraption. Might be natty but I am not keen on lemon juice on my food. Don't understand it at all.

Asbestos again

Following the report of 26th August 2010 in the other place, we now have another asbestos problem.

It seems that when FIL was a young man, just after the war, he acquired an asbestos lined metal box, once used to hold the tea making equipment for a neurosurgery unit near Oxford, a unit to which he was attached for a while after returning from India after the end of the second war. This box then did service for more than 60 years as a deed box, a service for which, given the asbestos lining, it might originally have been destined. Tea making equipment being an aberration. I don't know how much protection the asbestos gives the contents in the event of fire, but presumably some and maybe if we were to carry on using it as a deed box, the reduced risk of fire damage would be worth the increased risk of  asbestosis. Clearly a family conference about the matter is indicated.

In the meantime, three culinary events to record.

First, a novel way to dispose of leftovers. Take a small bowl of left over corned beef hash and a larger bowl of left over macaroni. This last plain boiled with celery, no tomato or other flavourings. Stir together and add a tablespoon of green label milk. Warm very gently in a thick bottomed saucepan for an hour or so, stirring occasionally. The idea being that the finished product is savoury but not damp. On this occasion, a vary satisfactory supper dish.

Second, a novel way to buy tiramisu, a desert of which I am rather fond, despite the wide variation, with everyone having their own way of doing it. This way of doing it came from an Italian outfit called Balconi, an outfit which does not have a web presence of its own, at least not one that I can find and with http://www.balconi.it having been hijacked by a bunch of engineers, but which does have http://www.balconishop.com, described as a service provided by Amazon, whatever that might mean. The people that used to just sell books that is.

Balconi produce a very cheap version of tiramisu, with ten chocolate sponge snacks, wrapped up rather after the fashion of choc ices, 10 for £1.59 in a distinctive yellow wrapper from Costcutter. Intrigued, we gave the things a go yesterday and they turned out to taste very like out own miniature swiss rolls, chocolate variety. Plus a touch of mascarpone - which according to Wikipedia is a prodotto agroalimentare tradizionale. Presumably a wheeze to stop the brand going the way of our own cheddar.

Ingredients listed in 18 languages, including Italian. Despite the clue of things like 'E' for Spain, we were still unable to work out what 3 of the 18 languages were. 'SK' for example, a language of which we could only say that it looked a bit central European. Slovakian? One supposes that this wealth of languages reflects a wide distribution for the product, so plenty of people out there must like it. But I am not sure that we will by buying any more.

Third, having bothered to buy some plain (none of this apple or leek nonsense thank you) sausages from Manor Green Road (check out the shiny new web site at http://www.masterbutchersepsom.co.uk), we decided that it was also worth the bother of frying them (in lard, naturally. Some advice from some celebrity chef about frying in butter notwithstanding). Which as it turned out it was. OK, so you have to stand and watch the things for the 45 minutes or so during which they are cooking, but a much better result than baking, covered or not. Proper control over the amount of cooking. Mottled brown rather than a uniform and often rather dried out dark brown.

PS: FIL did tell us something of the work of the neurosurgery unit. Some of it was some particular operation done on otherwise healthy looking young men, an operation which only worked around half (or some proportion of that sort) the time - with the outcome being fatal when it did not. One can understand that he found that part of the work rather hard.

Visit report

Various musings consequent upon our recent visit to the Royal Lion Hotel in Lyme Regis (http://www.royallionhotel.com/).

In common with most other hotels of this sort, what had been the stable yard out the back had been colonised by a range of other buildings, including that including our bedroom (left hand window, above the shed. Viewed from public car park just to the east of the hotel. Note shadows heading north). Advertised sea view was very much present and correct with viewing through a picture window which must have been of the order of 8 feet square. Fine view of Golden Cap and away down to Portland. Sun rose just clear of the tip of Portland Bill in an approximately south easterly direction - and this a few days short of the winter solstice. And we were maybe 75 feet above sea level, which must have pulled sun rise over the sea a few notches to the east. So nowhere near the traditional east. The only thing wrong with the room, again in common with many other hotels, was the difficulty of controlling the temperature which was far too high for a good part of our stay. Problem resolved by turning off the radiators and opening a window - although it still took some hours to cool down. Heat must have been oozing in from neighbouring rooms.

Hotel management was clearly into games, so we had a full sized snooker table and a decent looking ping-pong table, both unused as far as we could see. But we also had various nests of jigsaws. Quite decent jigsaws set out on tables which were a bit small for the purpose but which were nevertheless there. With the result that twoparticularly intrepid ladies seemed to be working away at one of them every time we passed. They were rather concerned that someone should continue the good work after their departure, so we were pleased to find that someone did. A someone who explained to me that one really needed 1,000 piece jigsaws (which is what these were) rather than the 500 piece that I favour, so that you can really get lost in the thing. An interesting point of view.

Hotel management seemed to be rather proud of its food and they did indeed have a rather handsome dining room in one of the colonial buildings, perhaps 30 or 40 years old. But breakfast not so hot. There were midget croissants which were OK but a bit insubstantial (and in which I seemed to be the only person indulging). There was toast on request. But there were no rolls and no proper bread - so I was reduced to converting my breakfast to sandwiches using toast which is not very satisfactory at all. Furthermore, the breakfast was adequate rather than good. Bacon not great, sausages palid, black pudding cold and the eggs fried in oil or some such. Not proper fried eggs at all - but then, to be fair, very few hotels these days manage to fry their eggs in lard. BH much happier than me having opted for smoked haddock with a poached egg perched on top. I would not have been very happy with either the cut or the size of the haddock portion. All in all, rather hard to please in this department.

Otter red in the bar was very good and, after five months abstinence, I managed two halves and one pint over the two days.

All in all, not a bad place at all. I would certainly stay there again.

PS: pluses not mentioned above include car park and very central Lyme Regis location.

Southern passage

Taking the southern route home from the west country for once in a while, we had two events of interest.

First, somewhere to the west of Ringwood, we drove alongside a very long and shabby brick wall, about 5 feet high and looking like it was maybe 100 years or more old. From time to time there were elaborate gates suggesting stately home. However, no signs whatsoever of trusty activity; no invitations to cream teas or anything like that. Take a peek at Google when we got home to find that the place is Charborough Park, once the property of King Harold (the chap who fought and lost at the Battle of Hastings) and now the property of a conservative MP. Sufficiently old speak that the gardens are open just one or two days a year, on which occasion villagers are allowed to erect stalls from which to sell cakes. All in all rather an odd place, as can be seen from http://www.charborough.co.uk. How on earth do they manage to keep death duties at bay? How do they manage without turning their house and garden into an amusement park like all the rest of such people?

Second, somewhere to the east of Ringwood, we pulled into an Esso garage to take on coffee and petrol. While waiting, I noticed a bunch of rather striking birds in the neighbouring field. Very erect posture, dark on the back and light on the front. Birds with which I was not familiar but which looked a bit thrush like and for some reason I guessed fieldfare, a guess which the (rather naff) RSPB bird identifier confirmed. The first time I have had a confirmed tweet of one such.

PS: shall I write to what must be the very rich RSPB and tell them it is time that they upgraded their bird identifier? Funnel some of all those bequests from old ladies into their web site? Have a web site which is proportionate to all those marshes which they have bought up.

Messages

Foxes leave their messages on our lawns. A bit of a pain but they are dumb animals and one puts up with it. Not much choice really.

While Hirst has left his rather larger message at the end of Ilfracombe pier. He is not a dumb animal in quite the same way, so now we avoid Ilfracombe.

Then today we find that Dame Trace has left her message in the magazine bit of the Observer, so now we will avoid the Observer. Have to make do with the Guardian during the week instead.

I really do try hard to avoid putting any more pennies into these peoples' pockets. They do quite well enough as it is, without any contribution from me.

PS: see May 12th 2010 in the other place for the sort of thing which fuels this post.