This in the course of an expedition to see if I could find a book to feed my present interest in Bayesian statistics, something I have been tripping & puzzling over quite a lot recently.
Entertained on the train by a middle aged lady who appeared to be talking her daughter through the business of putting a key into the hole in the front door of her house, turning it clockwise and so getting in. A talk which included the middle aged lady sending a video of herself miming the necessary action to her telephone while she talked to the same telephone. I think mission was accomplished by the time we got to Waterloo. Not sure that the Lumia would be up for such a trick.
So picked up the first of the three Bullingdons of the day at Waterloo 2, where about half the stock was in the new Santander colours (including the maintenance van which was in attendance at the time) and headed off to Soho Square, through what remains of the disturbance in the vicinity of the tunnel from Waterloo Bridge to Kingsway. I was impressed that the Waterloo Bridge north bound street furniture was sophisticated enough that at a flick of the switch it could tell us that the tunnel was closed. No need for temporary signage, not for that reason anyway.
I had armed myself with a list of possible books from Amazon and Foyles had about half of those, plus about as many again. Tempted by two, but decided that perhaps I had better check at the Waterstones in what used to be Dillon's of Malet Street. Thinking that a bus would be quicker than a Bullingdon, hopped on one to find myself sitting next to a discarded iPhone, a phone which seemed to be fully charged and unlocked. However, I could not make it do anything, apart from get to the place from which you took pictures - but not actually take a picture. Hopped off the bus and went in the EE shop at the bottom of Tottenham Court Road to see what they could do. Which did not seem to be much, but as luck would have it, the owner phoned his phone at that point and was able to arrange to collect it later in the day. For once, phone connected with its owner without either fuss or delay. I wondered whether the owner had been able to log into some web site which told him when his phone had been turned on and maybe where it was so that he could do something.
What used to be Dillons was disappointing, not the shop it used to be, not for text books anyway, with rather fewer statistics books than Foyles. But they did have one of the books which tempted at Foyles, but at £45 or so I decided too much - although an entirely comparable price to the £5 or so that I used to pay for text books in around 1970.
So, mission unaccomplished, Bullingdoned back from Malet Street to Vauxhall Walk, just slipping in under the 30 minute bar. Nipped into the tea shop at Vauxhall Walk where I was assured that I could have tea and Chelsea Bun but was actually served with tea and three toasted hot cross buns. They hadn't thought to ask, but as it turned out the buns were a lot more suitable and probably a lot better than the Chelsea Bun would have been. The tea shop came equipped with all sorts of community stuff, various groups of articulate middle class types talking of this and that and a guitarist strumming gently in a corner. All a far cry from what had once been the famous Queen Anne, the former owner of which, Denise D'Courtenay de Chard, I learn today was murdered while on holiday in the Dominican Republic. Perhaps that accounts for the change of use.
From there to South Lambeth Road to take in the tree care with which I started.
Also an inconclusive debate as to which would be more criminal of the government - to dock public service pensions by 10% or to hike capital gains tax by 20%. Thinking now, there does not seem to be that much difference, with in both cases the government taking money which one had thought was one's own. And government does need the money if it is to maintain what I regard as a decent level of public, in particular health, service. Perhaps the difference lies in the perception that public service pension holders are more deserving characters than the sort of fat cats who pay capital gains tax. And I think there is something in this. It is also true that there are plenty of public pension holders of the middling sort like myself who could afford a 10% haircut. But what about the senior public servants collecting their pensions of £50,000 and more and the junior public servants collecting maybe £10,000. Just about double the state pension. Not an issue I expect to see debated with any maturity in the media any time soon.
And this probably concludes this particular sequence of tree-centric posts.
Reference 1: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/tree-buffs.html.
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