On Wednesday to the National to see their Othello.
Previous outings being to the Rose at Kingston (with Lenny Henry) on or about April 23rd 2009 and to the Globe on or about August 15th 2007. Reports from both occasions at the other place (http://www.pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/).
After I had bought the tickets, and having seen a not very kind review, a bit alarmed by the prospect of modern dress, which can be tiresome. In the event it worked well with a nice evocation of a portable office filled army base and with soldiers running around in sand coloured camouflage - maybe battledress is the technical term. The staging was elaborate, rather clever and rather fetching, but by the end I felt it had become a distraction; the producer had forgotten he was producing drama for the stage rather than a costume drama for television.
But the production was believable and accessible. One had a real sense of both the possibility and the foolishness of a young girl from a posh family being captivated by the tales of a rough and ready - but successful - soldier. Desdemona was nicely weak and flirtatious; good body language. Othello was good. Emelia satisfactory but not as good as either of those of the other two productions. Roderigo, as is the current and tiresome fashion, played for laughs. Rory Kinnear grappled manfully with the problem of being a good non-com., rather ordinary and very evil all at the same time, without quite pulling it off. But, to be fair, I don't think I have ever seen it quite pulled off.
Audience tittered at some of the wrong places, sometimes because Othello's decent & honourable trust in Iago, a man with whom he had stood in the line of battle many a time and oft, seemed ridiculous to them. Perhaps because honour is a quality no longer much in evidence among those who used to be called the great and the good.
Another part of the audience appeared to come from some mixed race London comprehensive, with the only comment that I heard being boredom. We wondered how much preparation would have gone into their visit - my mother would have built a term's English lessons around any such visit which she organised - and whether the play would have got lost in virtuous breast beating about race relations.
And then wondered how many plays in the oeuvre deal with the proper relations of daughters to their fathers after their marriage. See Act I, Sc. III, line 180.
Running time seemed OK at around 3 hours, exclusive of interval. This despite quite a lot of cutting and despite omitting all the song and dance which the Globe likes to inject into the proceedings. The drinking song, for example, was dealt with very briskly.
I note in passing that the National put up a black on the feeding front. Perhaps it was because it was a mid week, early matinée, the catering arrangements failed. We had allowed about half an hour for feeding, but the National was unable to provide a sandwich, or at least we failed to find one, so we had to hoof it over to the BFI where they did sell sandwiches, rather fat and soft affairs which were intended to be livened up by toasting. But in view of the time we took them at room temperature, learning along the way that a sandwich described as Parisian involved both Brie and chutney. I had not known that the Parisians ate chutney at all - although I did know that I did not, the strong flavours of chutney being destructive for me of those of whatever you have plastered the stuff onto. But they were elaborately wrapped and they did keep us going until the tea time mince, which was a stronger attraction than anything offered in the vicinity of Waterloo Station, at least on this occasion.
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Affair with Brahms concluded
On the 9th May I went to Cambridge to hear an Endellion flavoured version of the Brahms Piano Quartet No. 1.
On Sunday to St. John's Smith Square to hear the London Soloists Ensemble do it, together with a Mozart trio for clarinet, viola & piano (K498) and a Vaughan Willams piano quartet in C minor. Mozart good, Vaughan Williams interesting. Memory faulty in that I thought that the ceiling of this baroque church, restored in the sixties after bomb damage in the forties, had been picked out in blue and gold paint. In the event, a handsome church, but no blue or gold paint whatsoever, and the church seemed oddly dated compared with the much more recently converted St. Luke's, although the two places function in much the same way, complete with restaurants in both crypts.
Brahms good, with the Ensemble giving it a different flavour than that of the Endellions. A more relaxed rendering, loose even, perhaps reflecting their being more used to ensemble playing in varying ensembles than to quartet playing. An up side was that the piano fitted in rather than dominated, although this may have been more to do with sitting in the middle of the hall rather than right at the front than with the piano playing. A down side was that the triumph of the opening of the fourth movement was still missing.
Thought to try the cake shop (the former burlesque house) somewhere near Glasshouse Street in Vauxhall but found that the cake shop was full of the mayor in full fig and the whole area full of gay picnic. Tried the Madeira Café round the corner and that was full of people in traditional costume. So settled for getting the train home.
I think I can say that the affair with this particular piece of music is concluded, although I dare say I will go again if I should happen to notice one.
And this morning concluded my touching base with Evelyn Waugh, an author I have not read for many years. Not even watched an adaptation on telly. The occasion was BH reading about a travel book called 'Labels' in a travel book by Paul Theroux, a travel writer of whom she is fond. I read once that Evelyn was so disliked by the other ranks when he was in the army that he had to have a guard posted outside his tent and reading this book I think I can see why. That said, the chap must have been able to be good company when he chose as he seems to be able to pick up with people on his travels readily enough. And that said, I dare say a writer could fake well enough to pad out his solo wanderings for the purposes of his travelogue.
I suspect that whoever does the stage management for the Poirot adaptations involving cruise ships must have read it and I offer one snippet. That there was a giant exhibition in the early part of the 20th century in Seville, complete with fun fair, the buildings for which were destined to be a university and almost deserted on the day that Evelyn visited. Still there and looks well worth a visit to judge from Wikipedia.
On Sunday to St. John's Smith Square to hear the London Soloists Ensemble do it, together with a Mozart trio for clarinet, viola & piano (K498) and a Vaughan Willams piano quartet in C minor. Mozart good, Vaughan Williams interesting. Memory faulty in that I thought that the ceiling of this baroque church, restored in the sixties after bomb damage in the forties, had been picked out in blue and gold paint. In the event, a handsome church, but no blue or gold paint whatsoever, and the church seemed oddly dated compared with the much more recently converted St. Luke's, although the two places function in much the same way, complete with restaurants in both crypts.
Brahms good, with the Ensemble giving it a different flavour than that of the Endellions. A more relaxed rendering, loose even, perhaps reflecting their being more used to ensemble playing in varying ensembles than to quartet playing. An up side was that the piano fitted in rather than dominated, although this may have been more to do with sitting in the middle of the hall rather than right at the front than with the piano playing. A down side was that the triumph of the opening of the fourth movement was still missing.
Thought to try the cake shop (the former burlesque house) somewhere near Glasshouse Street in Vauxhall but found that the cake shop was full of the mayor in full fig and the whole area full of gay picnic. Tried the Madeira Café round the corner and that was full of people in traditional costume. So settled for getting the train home.
I think I can say that the affair with this particular piece of music is concluded, although I dare say I will go again if I should happen to notice one.
And this morning concluded my touching base with Evelyn Waugh, an author I have not read for many years. Not even watched an adaptation on telly. The occasion was BH reading about a travel book called 'Labels' in a travel book by Paul Theroux, a travel writer of whom she is fond. I read once that Evelyn was so disliked by the other ranks when he was in the army that he had to have a guard posted outside his tent and reading this book I think I can see why. That said, the chap must have been able to be good company when he chose as he seems to be able to pick up with people on his travels readily enough. And that said, I dare say a writer could fake well enough to pad out his solo wanderings for the purposes of his travelogue.
I suspect that whoever does the stage management for the Poirot adaptations involving cruise ships must have read it and I offer one snippet. That there was a giant exhibition in the early part of the 20th century in Seville, complete with fun fair, the buildings for which were destined to be a university and almost deserted on the day that Evelyn visited. Still there and looks well worth a visit to judge from Wikipedia.
Bicton reprised
Good view of the new braces if you click to enlarge.
Embankment for the train - my snoozing spot being in a loop in the track - can be seen running behind me.
Wednesday, 3 July 2013
Dead fly alert!
Noticing a lot of roses up about - for example in the front garden of one of the newer houses on the left when coming into West Ewell from Chessington - thought we had better go to Hampton Court to catch the roses there. They were indeed in very fine fettle and I particularly liked one of the species roses, of which they had several, maybe three feet high and spreading, with a lot of pink and white flowers something less than two inches across. There were also some very good, florid & floppy floribundas, perhaps a little past their best, but they must have been spiffing a few days ago.
Onto the formal gardens beyond the first checkpoint, where the beds were all up and running for the forthcoming flower show: the gardeners had put on their consistently good show. Nice variety of design with some bright and formal, others more subdued and with a sort of studied informality. Informality peaking beyond the second checkpoint in the small knot garden of which BH did not approve. Contrary, I rather liked it. We wondered how many of the plants were bought in from the Netherlands; I dare say in the olden days they used to grow their own but I would be surprised if the accountants would wear that these days. There was also quite a herd of volunteer gardeners dead-heading the roses, something else which would not have happened in the olden days: a job for the apprentices (the lack of which is held by the Guardian to account to our poor performance relative to the Germans).
Back home to an interesting article in NYRB about guns in the US. Point 1: a great many people own guns in the US and most of them are normal. It is probably unhelpful for liberal papers to talk about them all of them, without much distinction, as gun nuts. They need to show a bit of respect and to engage, not confront. Point 2: a great many guns are already in circulation and driving their number down is going to be a long haul. Point 3: all the blather about assault rifles is a bit off target. The great majority of guns in the US are handguns, the ownership of which has recently been confirmed to be a constitutional right. This is not going to change any time soon. Point 4: the great majority of gun deaths are in rough inner city suburbs, many of them involving black people. Numbers pushed up by poverty in general and by the illegality of recreational drugs in particular. And this is not going to change any time soon either. But there are some things that one can do at the margin, for example tightening up the checks on people buying guns. A bit of education about responsible gun ownership. All a bit depressing really; they have got themselves into a bad hole without a ladder in sight.
Onto to the dead flies, not seen for some months, maybe not since the post of 21st September 2012 in the other place. Making chicken soup as usual, from the remains of a coppice reared and beetle fed chicken from Waitrose. About half way through the proceedings added a couple of ounces of red lentils to the stock. Probably been in the jar for a while and no idea no which of the big three they came from - but at least that jar is now empty. Simmer stock for a while then move onto the white cabbage, the soft noodles, the chicken and the mushrooms. Serve and notice a modest number of dead flies floating on the surface, luckily not so many as to put us off our strokes.
I have tried raising this with customer service points at least twice without getting any response beyond the 'thank you so much for your enquiry, your views are really important to us and we will get back to you just as soon as we can' sort of thing. Nothing helpful or honest, like 'yes you are going to get bugs in grains and pulses if you store them too long. Nothing much to be done about it other than turn them over. Quite harmless when cooked'. Don't think I can be bothered to try them again.
Foyles used to carry books about this sort of thing but no longer, so maybe I shall just have to wait until I bump into a food storage specialist. . Or maybe I will have to work on Google: there is, for example, a good if unsuccessful effort at http://www.daff.qld.gov.au/26_5990.htm.
Onto the formal gardens beyond the first checkpoint, where the beds were all up and running for the forthcoming flower show: the gardeners had put on their consistently good show. Nice variety of design with some bright and formal, others more subdued and with a sort of studied informality. Informality peaking beyond the second checkpoint in the small knot garden of which BH did not approve. Contrary, I rather liked it. We wondered how many of the plants were bought in from the Netherlands; I dare say in the olden days they used to grow their own but I would be surprised if the accountants would wear that these days. There was also quite a herd of volunteer gardeners dead-heading the roses, something else which would not have happened in the olden days: a job for the apprentices (the lack of which is held by the Guardian to account to our poor performance relative to the Germans).
Back home to an interesting article in NYRB about guns in the US. Point 1: a great many people own guns in the US and most of them are normal. It is probably unhelpful for liberal papers to talk about them all of them, without much distinction, as gun nuts. They need to show a bit of respect and to engage, not confront. Point 2: a great many guns are already in circulation and driving their number down is going to be a long haul. Point 3: all the blather about assault rifles is a bit off target. The great majority of guns in the US are handguns, the ownership of which has recently been confirmed to be a constitutional right. This is not going to change any time soon. Point 4: the great majority of gun deaths are in rough inner city suburbs, many of them involving black people. Numbers pushed up by poverty in general and by the illegality of recreational drugs in particular. And this is not going to change any time soon either. But there are some things that one can do at the margin, for example tightening up the checks on people buying guns. A bit of education about responsible gun ownership. All a bit depressing really; they have got themselves into a bad hole without a ladder in sight.
Onto to the dead flies, not seen for some months, maybe not since the post of 21st September 2012 in the other place. Making chicken soup as usual, from the remains of a coppice reared and beetle fed chicken from Waitrose. About half way through the proceedings added a couple of ounces of red lentils to the stock. Probably been in the jar for a while and no idea no which of the big three they came from - but at least that jar is now empty. Simmer stock for a while then move onto the white cabbage, the soft noodles, the chicken and the mushrooms. Serve and notice a modest number of dead flies floating on the surface, luckily not so many as to put us off our strokes.
I have tried raising this with customer service points at least twice without getting any response beyond the 'thank you so much for your enquiry, your views are really important to us and we will get back to you just as soon as we can' sort of thing. Nothing helpful or honest, like 'yes you are going to get bugs in grains and pulses if you store them too long. Nothing much to be done about it other than turn them over. Quite harmless when cooked'. Don't think I can be bothered to try them again.
Foyles used to carry books about this sort of thing but no longer, so maybe I shall just have to wait until I bump into a food storage specialist. . Or maybe I will have to work on Google: there is, for example, a good if unsuccessful effort at http://www.daff.qld.gov.au/26_5990.htm.
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
A botanical gem
The gardens have been made out of the orangery and half the gardens of Bicton House, this last now being Bicton College, an establishment with a predominantly countryside and agricultural bent but with trimmings. One can, for example, do an 'Edexcel BTEC Extended Certificate in Uniformed Public Services', presumably the result of the proximity of Lympstone Barracks - which we thought also explained the various helicopters gracing our visit.
The orangery and its terrace have been made into a fine place for taking tea, with views down the lawn, across the (rectangular & apparently fish free) lake and into the trees beyond. While taking my tea with some rather odd soup, spotted a crow buzzing a buzzard overhead - having previously seen one crow buzzing a heron and another buzzing a seagull in Epsom. Crows must be very aggressive birds. And while I am in tweet mode, I should also record two sightings of gold finches in urban hedges near Bicton. Not a bird I recall seeing at all in Epsom.
Gardens were really good, in a slightly low-key sort of way. It was a botanical garden, but did not make too much of a parade of it. Some interesting peonies, the like of which we had never seen before.
Fine collection of trees, mature and not so mature, including a lot of pines and including a number of record holders. Tallest four leaved red cypress in the west of England sort of thing. There was also a clump of araucaria araucana, such a thing last having been seen maybe fifty miles to the north at Arlington Court (see August 26th 2012 in the other place). Perhaps the western climate suits.
Interesting glass houses, including a record holding palm house, this time for the oldest palm house in England. Not a large palm house by the standards of the RHS or Kew gardens, but a handsome specimen, inside and out, for all that. We admired the work and workmanship that had gone into the thing with, for example, its very large number of rather small panes of glass, puttied into place onto a light iron frame, a rather more delicate design than that of the much larger Crystal Palace thirty years later and which would cost a fortune to replicate. We wondered how the curved doors were made - and how did they stay the right shape for so long? Did the apparently wooden frames conceal a heart of steel?
The miniature train was complemented by a Pugin arranged ruin of the original church and a Hayward designed replacement (1850, listed grade II*), a bit austere but which included some good stained glass, not by Pugin. But he did do the stained glass in the ruin, part of which still serves as the family mausoleum and which we were not able to see, about which he writes 'I found Lady Rolle a very cheerful happy sort of woman but with dreadful ideas on architecture. She actually suggested a sort of Turkish morgue ... however I managed so well that in half an hour she consented to my plan ...'. Clearly knew a thing or two about client management. We will do the steam museum next time, not being at all averse to a bit of traction engine. Not to mention the Rollin' Clones (http://www.rollin-clones.com/) who will appear on the 8th August next.
For once, the place is neither RHS, RSPB, National Trust nor English Heritage, so presumably a bit of enterprise with much the same standing in the world as the Chessington World of Adventures, although I did not spot anything on http://www.bictongardens.co.uk/ about ownership. Surely the place is not still run by Mr. & Mrs. Bicton?
Monday, 1 July 2013
The revolution continued
The bread revolution first noticed on 2nd May continues.
First step was to explore our local Lakeland where I was able to buy two ceramic dishes for baking pizzas. A rather coarser and lighter material than that of which the BH pizza baking stone was made and with rims. I thought that these last might be a good thing, the dough otherwise having a tendency to flow over the edge of the stone, which could be a bit messy. The other good thing was that they were £10 or so a pop, which is a lot less than BH paid for her stone.
Second step was to try them out. All went well until it came to getting the hot loaves out of the hot dishes, which resulted in rather a mess. The bread looked OK, with a Greek rather than an English shape, but the hot, fragile bread was rather broken up getting it out of the dishes and dried out rather more quickly than was desirable.
So what to do? Third step was to try oiling the dishes. This went rather better, although with the dough rising outwards rather than upwards, there was still a tendency to stick to the insides of the rims. But at least this could be dealt with with a palette knife without doing serious damage.
Fourth step was introduced by BH, who bought me some sort of teflon coated baking sheet, the idea being to cut it into the bottom of the dishes. This I promptly did and the teflon worked, at the cost of giving the bottom of the bread a rather different texture, rather in the way that frying an egg in oil rather than lard does something unpleasant to the appearance and texture of their bottoms; all crackle and crunch vanishing from around the edges.
Fifth step, was to continue to oil the rims of the dishes. This seems to work OK and we now have rather good, low rise wholemeal bread. Usually, but not always, best eaten three or four hours out of the oven. Freshest is not bestest.
And today I take the sixth step, substituting some rye flour from the windmill at Swaffham Prior for some of the Waitrose organic wholemeal. Flour which has everything: stone ground by renewable energy. We await the results as I type.
For all the gory details see, as ever, https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8152054/Bread-20110120.xls.
PS: and while we are on the flat, an honourable mention for a flat pork pie from BH. A sausage meat pie, sausage meat cut with a little onion and a few herbs, pastry top and bottom. Tasted good, and surprisingly like a proper pork pie. With eyes shut and mouth full, the only give away would have been the lack of the spices and other stuff put into the pork of a pork pie.
First step was to explore our local Lakeland where I was able to buy two ceramic dishes for baking pizzas. A rather coarser and lighter material than that of which the BH pizza baking stone was made and with rims. I thought that these last might be a good thing, the dough otherwise having a tendency to flow over the edge of the stone, which could be a bit messy. The other good thing was that they were £10 or so a pop, which is a lot less than BH paid for her stone.
Second step was to try them out. All went well until it came to getting the hot loaves out of the hot dishes, which resulted in rather a mess. The bread looked OK, with a Greek rather than an English shape, but the hot, fragile bread was rather broken up getting it out of the dishes and dried out rather more quickly than was desirable.
So what to do? Third step was to try oiling the dishes. This went rather better, although with the dough rising outwards rather than upwards, there was still a tendency to stick to the insides of the rims. But at least this could be dealt with with a palette knife without doing serious damage.
Fourth step was introduced by BH, who bought me some sort of teflon coated baking sheet, the idea being to cut it into the bottom of the dishes. This I promptly did and the teflon worked, at the cost of giving the bottom of the bread a rather different texture, rather in the way that frying an egg in oil rather than lard does something unpleasant to the appearance and texture of their bottoms; all crackle and crunch vanishing from around the edges.
Fifth step, was to continue to oil the rims of the dishes. This seems to work OK and we now have rather good, low rise wholemeal bread. Usually, but not always, best eaten three or four hours out of the oven. Freshest is not bestest.
And today I take the sixth step, substituting some rye flour from the windmill at Swaffham Prior for some of the Waitrose organic wholemeal. Flour which has everything: stone ground by renewable energy. We await the results as I type.
For all the gory details see, as ever, https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8152054/Bread-20110120.xls.
PS: and while we are on the flat, an honourable mention for a flat pork pie from BH. A sausage meat pie, sausage meat cut with a little onion and a few herbs, pastry top and bottom. Tasted good, and surprisingly like a proper pork pie. With eyes shut and mouth full, the only give away would have been the lack of the spices and other stuff put into the pork of a pork pie.
Mystery text messages
I am not a big user of the text messages part of my mobile phone, although it is undeniably useful on occasion. So I have been a touch surprised to receive one junk message and one interesting message.
The junk message is from someone whom neither I nor my telephone know, but who appears to know my name and number and who is enquiring about his honda password, whatever that might be, a password which looks to look rather like the user names used by the Halifax online service. How did this person acquire my name and number? What is the honda in question? The last honda that I had anything much to do with was the excellent Honda 90 once owned by my late brother; sneered at by real motorcyclists, but excellent value nonetheless. But I don't think that that can be the connection, so what is? Is my memory even more defective than I had realised?
So, option 1 is a memory defect. Option 2 is an attempt by someone in their cups, who knows someone who has a reason to know my name and number, to be funny. Option 3 is the work of some shadowy organ of GCHQ, perhaps trying to raise a crust in these austere times by flogging the details so carefully gathered from the ether to some marketing type.
The interesting message is, I think, from the people at Dignity in Dying (http://www.dignityindying.org.uk/), an organisation which I strongly, if rather passively, support. They introduce me to the world of e-petitions at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/, which, on the basis of a few minutes browsing, looks to be a decent attempt to provide a route into the making of government policy. Collect enough e-signatures for your hobby horse and you will get a sympathetic and intelligent hearing.
There seem to be hundreds of e-petitions in this system, most of them attracting a very modest number of signatures. Clearly getting people to sign e-petitions is not so very different from getting them to sign paper ones: it takes hard work once you get get beyond friends and relations.
However the text message included the clue '48628', so I tack that to the end of a suitable looking address to find myself looking at an e-petition about not cutting back quite so hard on the legal aid bill, an e-petition which has attracted a lot of e-signatures. But what is the connection with Dignity in Dying? I try searching the petition system using the keyword 'dying' and come up with lots and lots of petitions, one of which catches my eye, being about having a referendum on the subject. Catching my eye because it reminds me of how many shades of opinion there are (shades of the internecine, acrimonious & arcane disputes between old fashioned lefties): I do agree with the writer of the petition in wanting there to be decent end life facilities for those without decent life, but I do not think that promoting a referendum is the way forward. But do I compromise and climb aboard his wagon as the best fit available? I decide against, trying instead the keyword 'euthanasia' which comes up with the much more likely, but lightly signed, petition which seeks to 'Legalise Moderated Euthanasia'. Sober and sensible wording, no connection that I can see with 48628, but I can sign up for this one and am suitably impressed with the signing facilities, enough details being taken for the signature to be checkable and including the simple check of having to respond to their email before your vote is counted.
A rather different sort of mystery concerns the rather good Montgomery Cheddar cheese which I bought recently in Budleigh Salterton. What sort of a name for a cheese is compounded out of the names of two places? To qualify, do you have to be made using the cheddar process in the former county of Montgomery?
I had always thought so and have found the cheese flying under this banner to be good. But a few moments with Professor Google suggest that Montgomery is probably the name of someone who lives a lot nearer Cheddar than mid Wales. See http://www.montgomerycheese.co.uk/. Odd that I had assumed that the M word was a place rather than a person, even though I know one. A place associated for me with a very old fashioned hardware store which sold me an excellent felling axe. Beautifully balanced thing, not too heavy, quite unlike the ugly weapons you might get in HomeBase or Travis Perkins. I even get to use it once in a while. See the end of the post of 2nd February for a further axey factlet.
The junk message is from someone whom neither I nor my telephone know, but who appears to know my name and number and who is enquiring about his honda password, whatever that might be, a password which looks to look rather like the user names used by the Halifax online service. How did this person acquire my name and number? What is the honda in question? The last honda that I had anything much to do with was the excellent Honda 90 once owned by my late brother; sneered at by real motorcyclists, but excellent value nonetheless. But I don't think that that can be the connection, so what is? Is my memory even more defective than I had realised?
So, option 1 is a memory defect. Option 2 is an attempt by someone in their cups, who knows someone who has a reason to know my name and number, to be funny. Option 3 is the work of some shadowy organ of GCHQ, perhaps trying to raise a crust in these austere times by flogging the details so carefully gathered from the ether to some marketing type.
The interesting message is, I think, from the people at Dignity in Dying (http://www.dignityindying.org.uk/), an organisation which I strongly, if rather passively, support. They introduce me to the world of e-petitions at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/, which, on the basis of a few minutes browsing, looks to be a decent attempt to provide a route into the making of government policy. Collect enough e-signatures for your hobby horse and you will get a sympathetic and intelligent hearing.
There seem to be hundreds of e-petitions in this system, most of them attracting a very modest number of signatures. Clearly getting people to sign e-petitions is not so very different from getting them to sign paper ones: it takes hard work once you get get beyond friends and relations.
However the text message included the clue '48628', so I tack that to the end of a suitable looking address to find myself looking at an e-petition about not cutting back quite so hard on the legal aid bill, an e-petition which has attracted a lot of e-signatures. But what is the connection with Dignity in Dying? I try searching the petition system using the keyword 'dying' and come up with lots and lots of petitions, one of which catches my eye, being about having a referendum on the subject. Catching my eye because it reminds me of how many shades of opinion there are (shades of the internecine, acrimonious & arcane disputes between old fashioned lefties): I do agree with the writer of the petition in wanting there to be decent end life facilities for those without decent life, but I do not think that promoting a referendum is the way forward. But do I compromise and climb aboard his wagon as the best fit available? I decide against, trying instead the keyword 'euthanasia' which comes up with the much more likely, but lightly signed, petition which seeks to 'Legalise Moderated Euthanasia'. Sober and sensible wording, no connection that I can see with 48628, but I can sign up for this one and am suitably impressed with the signing facilities, enough details being taken for the signature to be checkable and including the simple check of having to respond to their email before your vote is counted.
A rather different sort of mystery concerns the rather good Montgomery Cheddar cheese which I bought recently in Budleigh Salterton. What sort of a name for a cheese is compounded out of the names of two places? To qualify, do you have to be made using the cheddar process in the former county of Montgomery?
I had always thought so and have found the cheese flying under this banner to be good. But a few moments with Professor Google suggest that Montgomery is probably the name of someone who lives a lot nearer Cheddar than mid Wales. See http://www.montgomerycheese.co.uk/. Odd that I had assumed that the M word was a place rather than a person, even though I know one. A place associated for me with a very old fashioned hardware store which sold me an excellent felling axe. Beautifully balanced thing, not too heavy, quite unlike the ugly weapons you might get in HomeBase or Travis Perkins. I even get to use it once in a while. See the end of the post of 2nd February for a further axey factlet.
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