Jigsaw 4, Series 3

A reprise of Jigsaw 2, Series 2 of on or about the 16th November 2012, that is to say getting on for 18 months ago. Picture itself seen at least once in the interval, most recently on 2nd March.

I enjoyed doing this jigsaw, but on this occasion rather than writing my notes blind, I have read those from the last occasion first.

I find that most of what I said then stands today, the main variation being the order, in that this time I did clothes (does one spell the plural of a piece of cloth this way?), then bodies, then townscape then landscape. Last time the bodies came after the undifferentiated landscape.

New camera does a much better job on the illustration than the old, although some of this may be down to the lighting conditions. Interesting the way that the camera picks up the pieces of the jigsaw and their joins much more strongly than the naked eye.

Having enjoyed the reprise, I shall experiment by doing the jigsaw again, forthwith. How does proximity affect the experience? The jigsaw is now all ready to go again, all the pieces face up and sorted into edge, irregular and other - where by irregular I mean the twenty or so pieces (out of the 500 or so) which do not conform to the usual rectangular format, that is to say something which is essentially rectangular with exactly one prong or one hole on each of the four sides - but nothing is joined up yet. We shall see how it goes.

PS: click to enlarge the picture and you should be able to find an irregular piece. For example, half way between the flying lump of red cloth and the top, just to the right of the white tuft sticking out of the rock face. Happy viewing! The improbability of the flying lump presumably bothered neither artist nor customer, this despite the overall realistic tone of the thing.

New front

The compost bin got very full and compacted last year and although it had sunk some inches of late with all the rain we have been having, I thought it was time to dig it out again. As far as I can recall, I last dug it out properly in early March 2012, banking up the compost dug out behind the new daffodil bed, which provided many smells of interest to the neighbouring Jack Russell. Which recollection does not quite tally with the observation of March 13th 2011 in the other place that clearance is a biennial event.

All the lonicera pileata (see 17th March 2013) make this a bit awkward so the drill is to do it in two halves. First, remove the front and dig out the lower half, digging maybe a foot into the compost. Replace front. Second, doing about a third of the heap at a time, push aside the top layer of rotting compost, dig out the rotted compost from above.

On this occasion, it was clear that the melamine covered chipboard front had had it, not surviving removal in very good shape. I can't find any record of when I installed it, but I suspect between two and three years ago, so not really the long life that I had thought the melamine covering would have given it. To replace it, I have recycled some of the garden shed dismantled last year, rather soft and old now, but at least it has been cuprinolled at some point in its life. We will see how long it lasts in its new home. I observe in passing that in reusing the shed, one throws away about half as much as one uses. Just like reusing curtains, where the new window never seems to be in any very convenient relation of size to the old.

The compost at the front of the bin was very wet, as wet as I have ever found it, but it got drier as one got further into it. Lots of red worms in the wet compost, far fewer in the drier, but I was not sure whether the worms liked the wet or whether they were trying to escape it before they drowned. Quite a lot of fibrous roots had pushed into the compost, seeking an easy feed, perhaps from the lonicera pileata.

Half the compost has gone behind the new daffodil bed, the other half will go behind the two rose bushes at the end of the back lawn, two places I can get at without messing up the waterlogged and fragile lawns.

Rounded out the day's horticultural activities by checking on the state of the bramleys (from the next door standard) in four trays at the back of the garage, two of them the trays used for storage & transport of eating apples, complete with the moulded black plastic linings which provide individual resting places for each individual apple, recovered from Epsom market. The bramleys were in reasonable condition; a bit spotty now, but generally sound: individual resting places seem to work. Three of them were cored, dated and baked for dessert for lunch and were entirely satisfactory. But, together with the bramleys which were already in the ready store at the front of the garage, we must still have a couple of hundred apples left and it is not clear how many of them we are going to get through before the balance gets fed to the compost heap: they can't go on for ever. What we really need is a pig.

Hot meat sandwiches

On Friday to London Town in search of a hot meat sandwich, an item last consumed in the café in the old market in Florence, surrounded by a rather odd crew of market folk, down and outs and tourists.

Weather not too promising but took a chance and decided to pick up a Bullingdon at Grant Road Central, where, for the first time, I had some difficulty in getting started; the stand did not appear to have been interfered with, but maybe the locals have found a way. One does wonder about the wisdom of supplying such facilities to such an area. Also for the first time headed off to London up the Wandsworth Road, rather than taking my regular route through Battersea Park.

Where I found that the Plough, a quiet and decent boozer once associated with the adjacent Plough Brewery and more recently associated with Youngs, had been turned into a gastro pub. Also that the giant Sainsbury's, once the rival for flagship with our own Kiln Lane is well on the way to being demolished. But the dodgy looking solicitor offering criminal services was all present and correct; he (probably not she) survives.

Took a break at Vauxhall Bridge, resuming the ride at Millbank House, to park up at Pall Mall East, known to me as Cockspur Street. And so to the National Gallery to take another look at the current jigsaw (a reprise. See 16th November 2012 and 4th February 2013) . I get there to find that I had forgotten to remind myself of title and name and thinking that I was looking for the 'An Antique Love Scene' by Foppa. Not surprisingly this confused the trusties and having discovered that it was not Foppa that I was after, I had to have recourse to the information desk, who after a bit of faffng about came up with 'An Allegory of Love' by Garafalo, now consigned to Room E of the the basement, there being work going on in the main galleries. Room E did very well for a basement, with quite decent lighting. Pictures nicely spaced out and the room was quiet so I was able to enjoy the picture in peace. A rather better and more interesting picture than I had remembered, despite the lighting highlighting a vertical join just to the right of the middle of the picture. The chap was clearly interesting in painting cloth, flesh, townscapes and landscapes - and was good at it. But I also felt that the composition was a little weak, with him doing rather better in that department in the adjacent and even more fanciful picture of St. Augustine. I also continue to wonder whether cleaning old pictures does not overdo the contrast between background and foreground.

Back to Pall Mall East to pick up another Bullingdon to take me to Grosvenor Square, from where I hoofed it to Hedonism Wine (see 29th December 2013 and http://hedonism.co.uk/). This turned out to be a fine shop. There was a great deal of very expensive booze there, but there was also a great deal of less expensive booze, and from the few that I knew, no dearer than at Waitrose. A good selection of German and Austrian whites, if they could not manage Greco di Tufo from Italy, having sold out of the one line that they had carried. A good selection of half bottles, although sadly dented by an enthusiastic customer of the day before. And an Irish whisky coming in at around £3,000 a bottle. The shop was quiet and spacious with plenty of pleasant staff who knew how to help without being too pushy; so they got a sale. The young oriental lady - Chinese I think - who served me was very concerned that I was going to carry off my purchases on a bicycle - she had clocked the helmet - particularly when I explained that the technique was to hang the bag around one's neck using one's scarf. But she did manage to wrap the bottles up very nicely before putting them in a couple of what she described as 'deceptively sturdy' brown paper bags, one inside the other.

And so onto Brown Hart Gardens for the hot meat sandwich in the Benugo perched up on the terrace of the strange building there. I have never found out what it was although we did once glimpse some very serious, multi-storey electrical gear underneath (see October 27th 2010). Sandwich and tea for £5. The hot meat in question was a sort of grated pork, with quite a lot of vegetable and other flavouring, so one did not get a terribly strong taste of pork; not bad for all that. And the chairs were very similar to those first seen in a dining room in Tunbridge Wells, striking for their unusual and complicated tubular undercarriages. There were also some rather expensive looking fake trestles, fake in the sense that they were an arty bit of furniture rather than rough and readies for use at fêtes and such like.

I was concerned that the Ukrainian Catholic Church across the road was firmly locked and bolted (see back left of illustration). Where were the exiled faithful going to pray for the succour of their beleaguered nation on this important day?

Mission accomplished, tubed it back to Tooting for a fruit cake from Mixed Blessings, then bused it back to Earlsfield. By this time it was wet and the bus was crowded, mostly with brown people, but also with yellow, white and shades in between. I was pleased with how good humoured it all was; mixed race in the good sense of the word. One was pleased with and valued the diversity.

No aeroplane game at Earlsfield as nothing was to be seen and no snifter at TB as that was still being refurbished. Had to settle for the Cricketers where the house white was both cheap and drinkable.

PS: I had previously noticed a very odd smell in the morning in the glass which had held Jameson of the night before. I learned at Tooting that the Irish Gaelic for this odd smell is glaur, this despite it being the Scottish Gaelic for slime or mud.

Der Tod und das Mädchen

Some weeks ago I picked up a book called 'The Northern Renaissance' at a sale of art books from Surrey Libraries, an interesting and well illustrated book, if using rather an odd typeface. The typeface being the odder for the book being published by Phaidon, usually quite good at book design.

Browsing yesterday, I came across the picture left, by one Hans Baldung Grien, painted just about 500 years ago for a banker in Basel, where it is still to be found. It seems that Grien, along with others, was fond of this theme, pre-dating the well-known works of Schubert of the same name by some 300 years. It also seems that the banker had a taste for ladies with thick necks.

Note the gravestone on which the lady stands. Is it to be her own?

I think I have http://artfcity.com/ to thank for the image as well as Google.

Derelict 2

And not far from the derelict old peoples' home we have a large derelict house, complete with an annex and what looks like some kind of derelict workshop (to the right of the picture).

Once again, not impressed that the council cannot come to some sensible arrangement with the owner of the land, presumably a commercial developer, about what to do with it. Glad we do not live any nearer than we do.

Derelict 1

Rather surprised this morning by this derelict old peoples' home on the edge of our so desirable estate. Overgrown pond on the left. Now, it seems, the property of the Rosebery Housing Association, whose website explains that they want to redevelop the site, known as West Hill Court, but are in negotiation with the council about development restrictions. Which, I believe, has been the situation for some years.

I am not impressed that they and the council cannot come to some better arrangement than letting this not very old building go to rack and ruin.

Important updates

Following the dead fly report of 7th February, I have now had two communications from Waitrose. The first, hand addressed and hand stamped , was the pro-forma acknowledgement that my complaint had arrived at customer support and that I might expect a further letter within 28 working days. The second, arriving almost exactly 14 working days later, with different quality paper, different letterhead but the same postcode, admitted that there were sometimes problems with black flies in red lentils, despite their best efforts. As a gesture of goodwill they made me a present of some vouchers, adding up to enough to buy quite a lot more lentils. A  much better effort than either Sainsbury's or Tesco's: I actually got a reply which acknowledged that dead flies could happen. But what I did not get was any words of wisdom about how the flies get there. The sort of thing that the old Foyles might have carried expensive textbooks about and which I am fairly sure they carry no longer; such books make little sense in the age of the Internet, sales are just not big enough. And Professor Google does indeed pull up lots of stuff, including both recent research into lentil infestations in ancient Egypt and the observation that: 'this is an important branch of forensic entomology because consumers who find contaminated products may choose to take legal action against the producers'. So maybe it is more or less impossible to eradicate the black flies and the big shops are wary of energetic pensioners like myself taking them to court, or at least to the trading standards people. But they can rest assured that I have no such intention; I am just curious about the entomology.

Following the visit to the empty skatepark on 10th February, we thought to take another look this morning and were pleased to find activity: various youngsters were doing improbable things on small bicycles, demonstrating considerable application and skill, while a couple of older chaps were carefully drying the skating surface before getting going with their boards. They said that they had been going for about an hour having brought a hot air blower, or perhaps just a leaf blower, from home for the purpose. It seems that while one might cycle over wet patches OK, they were not OK for boards; perhaps the harder and smaller wheels are what make the difference. Overall, their view was that that council had employed a cheapskate contractor who, amongst other offences, had not finished the skating surface to the standard that they expected and they gave the whole a grudging 4 out of 10. Serious people will always find something to moan about!

Following the Hampton Court post of 16th February, we have now tried one of the two bottles of gewürztraminer bought on that occasion, the one with date 2011, title 'Steinert' and subtitle 'Les Roches Calcaires. It cost about the same as the stuff I have been buying from Waitrose and tasted, to our uneducated palettes, much the same. Maybe this particular sort of grape has a strong flavour which masks the noses, finishes, bouquets and so forth for all but the cognoscenti.

Following the post of 17th February, I can now report that there is indeed a pair of goldfinches in and around the back garden, getting a clear and present view of one of them this morning before breakfast. There were also a couple of redwings and a lady blackbird.

And lastly, following the post of 28th February, I have now finished the Gutenburg version of the Mérimée story. To find that the Carmen story is embedded in a rather larger story about searching for the true battlefield of Munda, the origins and languages of gypsies and other matters and is rather darker than the Russian production of the derived opera would suggest. Much darker and bloodier and no spurned village maiden either. Perhaps an ENO production would pick up the bit about the several hundred cigar rollers stripping down to their petticoats, the rolling hall getting rather hot in the summer. Men forbidden without the express permission of the town magistrate. But impressed enough to take a quick look at Seville and Córdoba (not the one in Alaska) on Google Streetview. No need to actually visit the places any more!

I also find that the Gutenburg kindlisation does not work very well in this instance, making a bit of a mess of the extensive footnotes in the version of the text from which they worked. I now await a paid-for version from Amazon France.