A tale of two books

Started out at South London Library in South Lambeth Road where they were selling off a very small selection from their stock. I opted for 'Saving Stan' by Alan Combes at 25p; an interesting little book which appeared to be aimed at young adults learning to read, from what looks like a serious educational publisher at http://www.barringtonstoke.co.uk/. Sticker price of £5.99, large relative to the size of the book and the number of words in it, presumably reflecting low volumes.

Off towards Stockwell to find the vegetable garden illustrated in the front garden of one of the large town houses fronting South Lambeth Road. I wish the unlikely gardener well! Nearly opposite there was a van from Rippon Cheese in Pimlico, parked up as if it lived there. Perhaps I have lighted upon the domicile of the Rippon Cheesers, a shop which I have not used for some little while now, preferring to settle for the Lincolnshire Poacher offered by our local Waitrose (at £17 or so a kilo. Dear stuff, but I like it).

Pushed onto Tooting to try the Oxfam Library there to make a change from the Wetherspoon's Library and lighted upon a biography of an Archbishop of York, the splendidly named Cosmo Gordon Lang. The child of a reasonably modest manse in Lanarkshire, but who had the benefit of a good schooling in Glasgow and went on to Oxford. While the more or less contemporary artisans of 'Jude the Obscure' (on which more in due course) did not manage to claw their way out of their class at all, artisans who might well have been earning much the same money as the man of the manse.

Did not abandon Wetherspoons altogether, but found that they were having another of their micro beer festivals which meant that one had not heard of any of the dozen or so warm beers on offer and that selection was, in consequence, pretty much pot luck. I plumped for something with a Bohemiam flavoured name (which I forget) which turned out to be fine; a light, bitter like beer, not very pilsener at all. I check the Wetherspoons web site this morning and the nearest that it came up with was something called 'Purkmistr Bohemian Schwarzbier'. This is not the right one as it is a dark beer and despite the foreign sounding name it is brewed by Marston's at Burton upon Trent especially for the Wetherspoon's fest.. Complicated old world isn't it?

I also learnt about a fine old bourbon from http://www.buffalotrace.com/ which I had never before heard of, but which Wetherspoons stock and which the congoscenti of booze (in all its forms) present knew all about. I suspect that this trace, being from Kentucky, may well be a relative of the trace noticed on 3rd April.