Gutting fish in Dublin

Canterbury sports a flashy new theatre, the Marlowe Theatre. See reference 1. On the middle day of our stay there it was offering the full monty in the big theatre and a new play called 'Gutted' in the small theatre, aka the studio.

The outside of the theatre was rather nicely illuminated with bold stripes of various shades of blue and purple. Stripes which were cunningly adjusted to the geometry of the building.

The audience for the full monty appeared to be almost exclusively women while that for gutted was more comfortably mixed, both by sex and by age.

The play was the work of a lady called Sharon Byrne, who started life in Dublin, and is set in a fish processing plant in the same city.

Good start in that the set was mainly composed of small piles of blue plastic boxes, identical in all but colour to that snapped left. With this last having been acquired from the beach at somewhere like Birling Gap in Sussex or Seatown in Dorset, and has served BH for years as a garden rubbish receptacle. My job being to empty it into the compost bin at the end of the day.

The cast consisted of three ladies gutting fish, say two in their twenties and one in her thirties, and the story consisted of rather muddled insights into their complicated private lives.

The budding author did not seem to understand that having her actresses (attempting to) speak in very thick Dublin accents, while adding a touch of authenticity, did not help comprehension. Nor that having every other word an expletive or every other phrase something rather coarse, while again adding a touch of authenticity, ended up by irritating more than it informed or entertained.

One came away with the impression that the working class Dublin of the 1980's was a pretty grim place, plenty of black humour notwithstanding. To the point where one wondered how the play would go down in Dublin.

The three actresses knew their business, two of them particularly, and did well with their material. Even so, the play, at a little over an hour, was a bit too long. They should have cut or pruned the rather naff ending and got it down to a little under an hour.

Much the same tone as, say, the Bretécher cartoons which used to go the rounds of femmy circles in the same years. A play more for women than men. But interesting to see a bit of fringe for a change.

PS: seats very uncomfortable for someone of my height. Knees in the seat in front and nowhere to put the toes.

Reference 1: http://www.marlowetheatre.com/.

Reference 2: http://www.clairebretecher.com/. Last mentioned at the address given below.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/lawrences.html.

Group search key: cta.

Saint Gregory

Quite by chance, around the back of Canterbury Cathedral, we came across what had been the church of St. Gregory, now used by the music department of Christ Church University and fitted out like a small theatre. Raked seats occupying the west end, stage at the east end and with a space in the middle, on this occasion filled with more seats.

Presumably, from the location, the Gregory who sent Augustine to Canterbury to bring the Frankish queen of Kent to heel, back into the Roman fold, the Franks of that time already having pretensions to ecclesiastical independence, pretensions which they have held onto ever since, despite the Gregorian initiative.

We saw various soldiers coming out of the church for a smoke, seemingly dressed in desert fatigues, but pressed on regardless, to be greeted inside the door by a very pleasant young man from the university who explained that there would shortly be a concert given by the band of the Royal Engineers. With the result that we got lost for half an hour or so, and came back to find the place fairly full, but still with a couple of seats there for us. Mainly, we thought, musical people from the university, some wives and girl friends, a few regular locals and some odd strays like ourselves.

The concert lasted about an hour and went from chamber through small band to big band, and I was most taken with the chamber - having forgotten that I like band music of this sort - our having turned up an opportunity to hear a military band at Bognor Regis last year, specifically a concert given by the Royal Marines Association Concert Band on the 6th September last. I think the main reason for turning up was that most of the audience looked to be both old and military - older than us, that is. And a lot of the ladies had very old fashioned hair do's. And this despite the fact that years ago we used to go to hear bands in the royal parks from time to time - while I don't even know now whether the army bands still perform in such places.

But the band master, a staff sergeant in a dress uniform which was completed with natty little spurs, did tell us that his band kept its roots in the ground, as it were, and could still do proper marching music, as well as the receptions, parties and weddings which were a large part of the diet.

The concert was followed by a rather more serious teach in for students from the Christchurch music department who were interested in bands, in the army or in both. We passed on this and proceeded to the Pilgrim Hotel for lunch, via Wetherspoons, as mentioned in a previous post.

PS: the programme included a lot of talk of sappers. Checking with the helpful army web site, I now know that the Royal Engineers is not the same as the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and that the two engineering bands are actually run from within the Corps of Army Music, with the RE band being sixth in the pecking order and the REME band being last. Maybe I am missing something. The sappers of the Royal Engineers were presumably the people who dug the siege works, the saps, for sieges from the 18th century on, but who went on to build an outpost up the road at Ewell. To quote: 'the 135 Geographic Squadron ... provides a range of capabilities ... ranging from raw data collection (including geodetic surveys) and information management; through information exploitation, terrain analysis and visualisation; to geospatial information dissemination (electronically across networks, by bulk reproduction and supply of hard copy mapping, or on a digital media)'. Which doesn't sound much like digging saps to me.

Group search key: cta.

Canterbury cooking

Eating in Canterbury involved a lot of hot cheese, mainly reflecting the dominant position of Italian flavoured restaurants. No Indians in sight and the Chinese were only represented by a few noodle parlors. No chip shops of the old sort. And although there was some penetration by foreigners, a fair proportion of the waiting staff were British, English even. A much higher proportion than we have got used to in London.

We also noticed a lot of Deliveroo people cycling about with large boxes on their backs, something I am not aware of at home, although I dare say they exist.

First stop, Prezzo which disappointed. Maybe this is a chain which has expanded too fast. Maybe we will not now be in a hurry to visit the newly opened Epsom branch.

Second stop, the Côte Brasserie which was much better. Perhaps it helped that it was new to us.

We passed on Wetherspoons itself, busy and democratic on the day that we looked in. But we did go to a more respectable version called the Pilgrim Hotel. Offering a slimmed down, smartened up version of the Wetherspoons menu, but in quiet and decent surroundings.

Behind the castle we came across the Secret Kitchen, a small independent in a back street, where I had a fine toasted cheese sandwich, involving several cheeses. Served in one of those white enamel pie dishes which are all the thing in fashionable parts of London.

Behind the cathedral we came across the Longport Café, probably occupying the premises of what had been a pub of the same name - and it certainly looked as if it might well have been a very comfortable pub in its day. Cheerful young staff. Cute baby. Clientele probably mainly school and college people, although it was quiet when we were there. Interesting take on apple pie with the apple wrapped in a yellow spongy stuff instead of the more usual pastry. Entirely edible for all that.

While in the student quarter we came across the Thomas Tallis Alehouse, a place managed by a chap who would probably do very well in pub quizzes, a chap who told us that his trade was a bit posher than students. Telephones frowned upon, no television, no music and no fruit machines. No bar either, with drinks being fetched from a room out the back. So not clear how he would managed if he was busy, or how he managed to keep the dozen or more real ales on offer in decent nick. However, I opted for a half of Tonbridge IPA which was very good - my first beer for several months and certainly reminding me why I used to like the stuff.

PS: the heritage people seem to have gone to sleep on the castle, despite it being a genuine Norman Keep, snapped above. It seemed to be more a place for dubious looking young people to hide behind than a destination for heritage hungry pensioners like ourselves. No trusties, no resting luvvies dressed up as the Battle of Hastings, nothing.

Reference 1: https://www.cote-restaurants.co.uk/cote/.

Group search key: cta.

Maigret

I was struck this morning by a passage of explanation of the Maigret method, in the midst of his visit to New York.

First, you get a firm grip on the two or three hard facts which are available to you.

Second, you wander about, wander to and fro, soaking up the people and the atmosphere. Maybe do a bit of data collection. Maybe travel records, maybe births, deaths and marriages. Important at this stage not to think too much and not to hurry.

Third, if you are lucky, the whole business suddenly clicks into focus, the people in it suddenly come to life. And, lo and behold, you have the solution to the problem, usually in Simenon a murder.

Which seems plausible as a method, but I was reminded of stuff I have been recently about how the brain works. One chunk of brain is busy, say, looking at something out in the street. Another chunk of brain is busy on something else altogether. While a third chunk of brain is puzzling about what there might be there, out in the street, given all the circumstances. Then suddenly, the whole business clicks into focus and the vague chap with a beard in the middle of the street turns out to be Jeremy 'The Crow' Corbyn. A process which requires a mixture of bottom-up and top-down processing. And a process which is sometimes disturbed, in a more or less random way, by what is going on in the second chunk of brain. See, for example, reference 2 (an open access paper which google will turn up for you).

My point being that sometimes the top-down processing gets it wrong and you are actually seeing Rolf Harris, a quite different chap with a beard. But having got it wrong, the brain goes onto to correct and tidy up what is being delivered from the eyes by the bottom-up processing.

Rather in the same way that detectival hunches are often wrong. Maybe better to work away at collecting facts than relying on hunches?

From where I associate, one again, to reference 1. Clearly something of a favourite.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/abstract-expressionism.html.

Reference 2: perceptual restoration of masked speech in human cortex - Matthew K. Leonard and others - 2016.

Debutante

Last Sunday to the Wigmore Hall for Lara Melda's debut there. Nocturnes and mazurkas, winding up with the Op.20 scherzo.

On this occasion, the nearby All-Bar-One was not busy and we got served our drinks and smarties fast enough. But not so fast that I did not notice the dozen or more security cameras dotted around the walls, much the same model as is used on trains. the same little black glass hemispheres full of camera.

Melda was very good. Nocturnes up to expectations and mazurkas exceeded expectations - with the four all being very different in tone and style. Somehow, without instruction, we got the clapping right, only clapping at the end of each set. Rewarded with an étude by way of an encore.

Out to the Caffé Caldesi of Marylebone Lane for an excellent lunch. Washed down with some greco di tufo for a treat, this not being a wine which is served that widely. But here they seemed pleased to be asked. A rather good combination of 'Benito Ferrara' and 'Terra D'Uva'; with reference 3 seeming to be nearly, but not quite right. They also did an excellent tiramisu which, being served in a cocktail glass, may well have been assembled on the premises rather than bought it.

After which we strolled up Marylebone High Street, taking in the various sights.

First stop, Daylesford in Blandford Street, an establishment which was not quite sure whether it was a café or an expensive grocer, masquerading as a farm shop. But very friendly staff and we left around £10 poorer but clutching some organic & vegetarian cheese and a brown loaf. The cheese being named for a very small village in Gloucestershire, Adlestrop. Not bad when you get the taste of it, but I expect I shall revert to cheddar going forward.

Second stop, we finally got into the Catholic church at Spanish Place, passed in the past but hitherto having failed to find an entrance. Very impressive inside, 19th century gothic revival and much bigger than you would expect from the outside. On reflection, what you might expect when the architect has to do the best he can with a small urban site. Can't spare any space for a yard or for outside graves.

Third stop, Daunts, where I was pleased to find some handsome Penguin Maigret, on which I shall report in due course. But rather dearer per story than my French collection, bought in bulk.

Fourth and last stop, St. Marylebone Parish church, perhaps our second visit. Built early in the nineteenth century and made over (rather well) late in the nineteenth century. Another very handsome church, but for some reason I felt a lot more comfortable in it than I had in the Catholic church earlier. Odd, given that I am an atheist and rarely attend Divine Service, that I should care at all. Perhaps this church was more suited to a northern European, with the Catholics still ruling the roost in the rather hotter southern Europe. Maybe it was the soothing tones of the organ.

Passed through but did not stop at the Wetherspoons which had been the Metropolitan Palace Hotel, a place I think I remember from its days as a hotel. Got as far as taking a little something at Earlsfield, having changed there for the train which would take us to Epsom rather than Strawberry Hill. No aeroplanes.

Reference 1: https://twitter.com/LaraMelda?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor. Melda does not yet run to her own web site, but she, along with potus, does do twitter. I suppose it has to be expected in one so young.

Reference 2: http://caldesi.com/caffe-caldesi/.

Reference 3: http://www.benitoferrara.it/vini/greco.htm.

Perfect storm 2

Another view of the tree down the Longmead Road more or less chopped in half by the recent high winds, luckily falling on the grass rather than on road or walkway.

Winds which were described by one weather forecast that BH saw as a weather bomb. From where I associate to the olden days when forecasts were not very good, visual aids were basic and the presenters were serving RAF officers with a bit of decorum and restraint. Now things have been loosened up, both forecasts and visual aids are very good, while presentation has become a race to the bottom. Who can grab audience share with the raciest, most exciting presentation of the drab & dull business of British weather? Will the television companies be putting pressure on the Met Office to sex things up a bit, rather in the way of Blair with the Gulf War?

PS: I should add that I very rarely watch weather forecasts and am much more concerned about the race to the bottom with other sorts of news.

Group search key: psa.

Perfect storm 1

A close up of where a branch ripped away in the recent perfect storm - with the large discoloured patch down the middle suggesting that there has not been a lot holding up the branch in question for a while. It must be one of those sorts of trees where water can seep into the joins between trunk and bough, eventually causing rot. Beeches, I believe, are rather prone to it, although this is no beech tree.

Group search key: psa

Tweet

Our only tweet from Kent, in the form of a singing, not to say a tweeting, tree, near the Marlowe Theatre. A tree which was alive with unseen but singing birds. I thought perhaps sparrows, mindful of the last time I had seen such a thing, forty years ago in a rather shabby area round the back of Finsbury Park railway station. There, some of the birds came out to be inspected and were definitely sparrows.

Note also the bit of high Victorian art. Maybe a bit tacky, but, as far as I am concerned, much better than the sort of stuff that gets put up in London these days, not least because of its modest dimensions - although I do wonder what the local residents would have made of it at the time it was put up. Was there an undercurrent of dissenting opinion (in the ecclesiastical sense of the word) which did not care for such stuff?

PS: as it happens, on another day, at around 2200, we passed a pub in the same street, quite busy, with a party of young people sitting with their backs to a large front window. One of the young ladies, for some reason that was not apparent, was stripped down to her bra and pants. Rather pretty she was too - so perhaps it is all a long established custom of the town.

Group search key: cta.

A duke's progress

At Canterbury Cathedral the other day, we were interested to come across the tomb of King Henry IV and his second & last queen, Joan of Navarre. A lady who had had nine children by her first husband, the Duke of Brittany, and who was imprisoned for a while after Henry's death on charges of witchcraft and poisoning. Subsequently freed and restored to lands and reputation by the then dying Henry V, son of Henry IV by his first marriage.

I was struck by the appearance and presentation of the pair (complete with recumbent stone versions of the canopies sometimes included over wooden thrones), to all appearances a successful merchant and his wife.

Presumably the paint job is relatively new, but we were not sure about the stone work. Has it been touched up by restorers at some point?

All a far cry from the Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, to whom the following words are attributed:

First, heaven be the record to my speech!

In the devotion of a subject's love,

Tendering the precious safety of my prince,

And free from other misbegotten hate,

Come I appellant to this princely presence.

Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,

And mark my greeting well; for what I speak

My body shall make good upon this earth,

Or my divine soul answer it in heaven.

Thou art a traitor and a miscreant,

...

He had clearly moved on from the dashing days of his youth. 

We also wondered, given that the Puritans generally took a dim view of decorative sculpture in churches, unless it was decorating their own tombs, what the line was on this sort of thing. Did patriotism trump puritanism?

Group search key: cta.

Dean's chair

BH thought to take over the dean's throne in the large but rather odd chapter house of Canterbury Cathedral. Not octagonal or circular which is often the case, perhaps with echoes of the round table, with an unusual wagon vault and reminding me of the similarly stark lady chapel at Ely.

We can only suppose that the deans of Canterbury of old - probably not the proper title for the CEO of the priory or abbey that the cathedral then was - were very large men, or at least very wide men.

Digressing, the lady chapel at Ely was badly knocked about during the Commonwealth. There, arcades of elaborately carved niches, far more elaborate than those left, go around the walls and once contained lots of small statues: these have nearly all either been ripped out or (literally) defaced, although beasts domestic and fantastic were largely left alone. While at Canterbury, the carving is much less florid and while a lot of statues are missing, we only came across two which had been defaced. On the other hand, there was a story that the Commonwealth authorities invited bids from builders' merchants to recycle the stone and the timber of the cathedral, an invitation which, in the event, attracted no bids and the cathedral was not recycled. Unlike the abbey next door which, in large part, was. An abbey, on the same scale as the cathedral and which co-existed with it for some hundreds of years - this being new to me. I had known about the abbey but not about the co-existence - co-existence which must have resulted in some tension and in some competition for the purses of the faithful.

PS: note the canopy, on roughly the same lines at those mentioned in the post that follows.

Group search key: cta.

Rook's Book

Spotted in an Oxfam shop near the Wigmore Hall, quite possibly Marylebone High Street. Snapped because I thought it odd that anyone who really wanted or needed such a book would want to buy an old one from Oxfam, even one that does not look as if it has been used all that much. Or, in the age of computers, would want it in print format at all.

Then, I happened to spot the word Rook at the top of the spine, the name, as it happens, of a doctor I consulted from time to time during my childhood. Back in the olden days when children trotted across town to outpatient appointments without any kind of escort...

So I check with google to come across reference 1, which makes it quite clear that this Rook is the same as my Rook. I had never realised that he was quite as eminent in his profession as he clearly was. He wrote, it seems, around one third of the first edition of this textbook, perhaps a bit thinner then than the ninth edition is now. See reference 2.

And I certainly never knew that he had been an RAF squadron leader during the second world war, probably as a doctor rather than as a pilot. Rather, I imagine, as my own father had been an army dentist.

Reference 1: http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/3849.

Reference 2: http://www.rooksdermatology.com/.

Talking about physics

Last week to the Royal Institution to hear Helen Czerski tell us why physics was good - in senses both of being useful and of being fun.

To get the bad stuff out of the way first, it took me a while to settle to her, having found her very irritating in the first instance. All a bit too manic and tiggerish for me. Then, like other RI lady speakers before her, she made a bit of a thing about being a lady in what was, when she started out, very much a man's world. And, lastly, she was irritatingly glib in her answers to questions, unfair questions really, which strayed into science politics. And sometimes I thought that she was just wrong. Perhaps some of this comes from being a clever and attractive young woman who get fêted by and then gets a taste for the media. She may also have been tired, just back from a week of giving much the same talk in a number of different towns in the US.

On the way we were able to view a new display of art in the gallery in Albemarle Street, the one that manages to palm off tastefully presented nothings for a great deal of money. Boring in one's home where one looks at the things every day, just about fit to decorate one of those show-off three-storey atriums of which the city is full these days. Or perhaps the board room of Virgin Money.

A rather more entertaining form of interior decoration in the RI itself where a who lot of optical stuff had been made into a sort of ceiling entertainment, a candelabra without candles or lights. And other stuff on shelves, decorating the walls. Rather in the way that  lot of middlebrow restaurants in said city decorate their walls with groceries and kitchenware. Then next door there was a large room which had its walls lined with bookshelves holding back numbers of once prestigious and important journals. Journals which might well still be prestigious and important but it is hard to see much interest being displayed in numbers from a hundred and more years ago. But quite nice to have them to flick through in odd moments, if one can spare the space.

More or less a full house, with half-term not producing more children than usual.

Ms. Czerski started with a helpful diagram, with the vertical scale being size and the horizontal scale being time, with most physics being on line sloping up from the origin. Particle physics bottom left, cosmology top right. Both fields of endeavour where equations were beautiful and most parts of the world could be left out of account, could be ignored. Whereas her sort of physics occupied the messy middle ground where interesting problems were apt to pull in equations from all kinds of places and which got terribly complicated in consequence. All kinds of homely but interesting problems which were very hard indeed to solve.

For example, she told us that no-one knew how to predict the angle of the slope of repose of a granular material or a powder from its description alone. One had to try it out. The angle of repose being the angle that you get when you dribble the stuff down to make a cone, as when sand dribbles down into the lower bulb of an egg-timer. I associate to the business of chucking a cloth over a pile of miscellaneous stuff, or perhaps a person, and trying to predict how it will fall. See reference 2.

But there was hope. The basic laws, mostly hammered out in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, laws for example about the pressure and volume of gases, really were basic, really did work in the middle part of her diagram, even if they could get a bit tricky in combination.

She spent some time on earthquakes. It seems that the thick layer of alluvium on which Mexico City sits acts as a very effective filter, so that when there was an earthquake on the fault running down the eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean, the shock wave was filtered by said alluvium down to a near perfect sine wave of a single frequency. Which sine wave resonated with buildings of a certain height, I think between 10 and 30 stories high, and took them down. Other buildings were OK.

She went on to tell us of some engineers who trusted the aforementioned basic laws and installed a giant spherical ball, hanging freely inside a wide shaft running up the middle of a very tall building. A spherical ball which damped the waves from earthquakes to the point of safety. A ball which was gold plated and came with a viewing platform so that you could watch it swing. Apparently some people watched, while some people headed for the basement to pray. The ball worked.

A digression into chemistry, with some stories about wise women, aka witches, who were able to do tricky stuff with bodies and bodily fluids, able, for example, to identify people with early diabetes, identification which might be evidence for commerce with the devil. Either on the part of the identifier or the identified, au choix.

An expert on bubbles, but she did not tell us much about them, beyond that fact that the inclusion of bubbles in water made the water compressible, which it normally is not.

In sum, a good talk, despite my opening remarks. The talk rose well above the occasionally irritating delivery.

On the way home we inspected, but passed on the traditional goat, and, having just caught a train to Dorking at Vauxhall, we did not manage the half way house at Earlsfield either. Had to settle for little something at home.

Reference 1: http://www.helenczerski.net/.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/abstract-expressionism.html.

Creative writing

A task for the creative writing class at the university of creation at reference 1.

The bits and bobs illustrated were picked up from the gutter along a two hundred yard stretch of Chessington Road in West Ewell. The task is to construct a story about how they got there. A semi-literary version of the sort of thing that Maigret does with the facts available to him. Or a scientist for that matter.

The best that I could do, and it is not very good, was that a jobbing builder had stuffed a whole lot of such stuff into a plastic bag, which he put in the back of his small lorry. Taking a roundabout too fast, the bag burst and the contents scattered along the floor of the back of the lorry. Tailgate damaged, leaving a small, nearside hole. Through which the bits and bobs slowly leaked into the gutter of Chessington Road.

The usual small prize is offered for more imagination, more creation.

Reference 1: http://www.uca.ac.uk/.

How do you know?

We recently had occasion to do business with a company which was found for us by google.

The amount was not large, but afterwards, we wondered how one could be sure that such a company really existed and was not just a wheeze to milk one's credit card account. A perfectly respectable, victim free crime as the insurance companies are the only people to lose out - or so the story has been known to run at TB.

The site in question looked perfectly plausible and included the address of somewhere which we had never heard of in Devon. But further inquiries of google only resulted in our being taken to the site which had taken our money in the first place. There seemed to be no third party verification, no listing from a third party which one could trust.

Then, this morning, I think of Companies House. Who turn out to offer a good service for these purposes, with a decent search facility and, in the case that you find what you are looking for, free sight of quite a lot of documentation, including the various regular returns required by company law. Made easier in this case as, when going back to the site to look for some details with which to refine my search, I found a companies house registration number.

With the result that we now know that this company has been around for a while. We know the names and addresses of their directors. We know the names of their accountants, with whom one might check if the amounts involved were large. Google already tells me that the accountant in question is a chartered accountant with a degree in something called applied statistics and accountancy. Ownership is a bit of a mystery, as is the involvement of the Charity Commissioners, but for present purposes we decided that we could let that go.

And thinking as I type, if Companies House had not delivered, I dare say I could have got google to come up with other stuff. Perhaps the Land Registry entry for the premises from which they operate. Or the VAT people. Or an entry in some business directory.

So we can be sure that the company of the web site turned up by google does exist.

The next worry could be whether somebody has managed to infiltrate the legitimate web site with illegitimate demands for money. Or whether someone is spoofing the legitimate web site...

Clearly far too much time on my hands.

PS: we also now know that someone produces model articles of association for small companies, rather as someone else produces model contracts of sale for houses. And that said articles tell you nothing about what the company does, rather being the rules by which is is governed. Points of order, voting rights, notice of meetings and all that sort of thing.

Power cut

Record of the second power cut of the season a couple of nights ago, this time without even the flimsy excuse of a spot of snow. Are our privatised power companies bearing down on maintenance, maintenance which does bad things to this year's bottom line?

About two hours on this occasion, affecting a very odd sprinkling of houses in our road. All to do with losing one of the three phases of the mains supply according to an electrical neighbour, while I prefer the story about electricity sub-stations areas having the complexity of congressional districts in the USA. All down to the twists and turns of speculative building operations on the day.

The lens in my telephone is clearly having the same trouble as those in my eyes with flames.

We learned a bit later on that one can read to candles quite comfortably, provided one is quite near them and the book is angled right. Must have been a prodigious fire-risk in the olden days.

PS: the top lifts off the base of the candelabra, which would then make a very nasty blunt instrument, of a variety which regularly turns up in murder mysteries on ITV3. Note the substantial slice of home made wholemeal, bottom right - while BH sticks with sliced.

Trial beds

A view over the trial beds, capturing something of the haze of this winter morning. From where we once stole three Brussels sprouts from under the very nose, as it were, of a notice saying that thieves would be prosecuted. My story was that these particular sprouts were never going to be picked and would otherwise have ended up rotting.

Bags lower left covering up some succulents (I think) from somewhere in South America, perhaps Chile.

Group search key: wsd.

Camelias

One of the camellias of Battleston Hill.

Group search key: wsd.

Metasequoia

A display of cyclamen around the base of an oddly short metasequoia glyptostroboides, a tree from China which we first came across some years ago now at Hampton Court, where they have two fine specimens near their Tilt Yard Café. One of the few relatives of the sequoias of the west coast of the USA, sequoiadendron giganteum and sequoia sempervirens.

Somewhere around the back of Battleston Hill, quite near the A3.

PS: I continued to wonder about the sempervirens bit, literally always living, which one comes across from time to time in the names of plants. Wikipedia soon puts me right, not always living but always green, or evergreen. Further evidence that a little knowledge can be dangerous.

Group search key: wsd.

Big aloe

Last Monday it was a fine clear morning and we thought to go to Wisley to see how the giant aloe inflorescence noticed at reference 1 was getting on - the one at home having been cut off, once the flowers were finished - without seed.

This turned out to be hopeless. We arrived at the car park at around 1015 and the place was already heaving with children and parents come to see the butterflies (from Central America). The car park management Gurkhas were up and running and we were directed to what had been the staff car park, between the rapidly filling Car Park No.1 and Car park No.2. Long queue to get into the hot wet part of the hot house, where the butterflies were, completely blocking access to the hot dry part of the hot house, where the aloes were. We tried peering in at the aloe in question from the outside and as far as we could tell it had not much changed from our last visit, although attempts to photograph it through the glass were a failure, the telephone not being able to cope with the sun on the glass.

So off to the 'Honest Sausage' for tea, which was quiet and sported an example of the all-terrain mobility devices offered by the garden for the convenience of customers. Perhaps I shall get to try one at some point. In the meantime I wonder about the nonsense that Wisley is getting into, with all its catering subbed out to some catering contractor who sees fit to dress up one of the tea shops as an honest sausage. Perhaps they are trying to keep up with the adventures at Chessington, a place which may get as many visitors as Wisley and probably takes a good deal more money. See reference 2. The RHS has come a long way since it was a society for learned botanists and horticulturalists, mostly chaps with tweeds and pipes. Quite a lot of them country parsons with time on their hands.

After taking tea, I was mistaken for a trusty. Making some conversational remark to a passing couple, the husband thought I was some pushy trusty and was very curt, almost rude. Eventually he softened to the extent of asking me the way to the bonsai. I think he was some kind of self-made business man - a theory which fitted the wife rather well - but I had a sneaking regard for his dislike of trusties, some of which can be garrulous and a real pain. As far as I am concerned the first rule of a trusty should be only speak when spoken to - a rule which did not, of course, apply to me as a member of the general public.

Shortly after that we passed what appeared to be a group of wannabee trusty's on an induction course, be inducted to the mysteries of herbaceous borders and rose beds. People of middle and later years, all kitted out in green RHS anoraks, names badges, wellies and so forth.

Lots of snowdrops. Some cyclamen, camellias and rhododendrons. Rather better witch hazel than we can manage on our brown clay.

A tweet in the form of a robin displaying a fanned tail as it landed, maybe 120 degrees of it. Something that I have never seen before, but obvious enough now that I have seen it. Fanning for landing, just like an aeroplane.

Then, just as we were leaving and I was thinking about how rarely one seems anyone with a fag on at Wisley, although I don't think it can be forbidden out in the gardens, I passed three people at it.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/aloe-four.html.

Reference 2: https://www.chessington.com/.

Group search key: wsd.

Restatement of hypothesis

I thought it might be an idea to set down again where I am trying to go with these ‘sra’ posts.

The quest is for the secret of consciousness, a facility enjoyed by most humans and by some animals.

The first part of the hypothesis is that consciousness comes in discrete units which, borrowing from the world of film, I call frames. Frames, which might endure for a second or so, are grouped into takes, which might endure for several seconds. Takes, in turn, are grouped into scenes. The frames of a take share a lot of content, the takes of a scene rather less. Scenes are more-or-less freestanding and successive scenes may share very little content at all – frames, takes and scenes all drawing on the same underlying knowledge and memories notwithstanding. We also allow the decomposition of frames into threads. See, for example, reference 4.

The second part is that consciousness arises from the activity of the neurons in a small patch of cortical sheet, somewhere in the brain, an essentially two dimensional structure occupying a couple of square centimetres or so. In crude terms, with an information content equivalent to one of the pictures which I can take on my telephone, perhaps 10 million bytes.

The third and last part is that, for present purposes, the activity of all the millions of neurons in this patch can be integrated, summarised into a signal which can then be analysed in the two-dimensional space of our patch, and, over the interval of a frame, into frequency bands. One might say a three-dimensional grid with two long sides – a thousand elements or so - and one short side – ten or so elements, taking non-negative real values for each of the resultant cells, values which might be binned into suitable integer ranges. This is described in a little more detail at the beginning of reference 2, which goes on to make some guesses, some suggestions about how this signal might be organised. We talk of  data occupying the lower frequency elements of the short dimension and process occupying the higher frequency elements. Future posts will say more about this.

A corollary is that while we suppose that for the duration of a frame this population of some millions of neurons can be considered as fixed and that their synaptic interconnections, many more millions of synapses, can also be considered as fixed, we do not need this fixing because it is the aggregate signal from the firing of neurons which is of interest, not the details about individuals. We do not say anything about the life-support, the chemical soup in which these neurons and synapses live – fluctuations in the content of which have been shown to have important consequences for the activity of nearby neurons.

We suppose that there is a compilation process – comparable to that whereby a program written in the Fortran of the 1970’s was readied for action – which builds the data part of this structure, pulling in stuff from all over the brain. A pulling in which may become difficult if the brain has been damaged or if supplies of energy and other consumables have been compromised, but which is not itself consciousness. Compilation also puts in place the connections which will support the activation process running in the process part of this structure (see below).

Compilation is revisited, updated for each successive frame and is renewed completely at the start of each successive scene.

Consciousness itself arises from the much smaller and simpler activation process, a process which pulses across the neurons which express our data structure, a structure which is self-contained and more or less unchanged for the duration of the frame. Everything that consciousness needs has been put there by the compilation process and there is no need to go anywhere else in order to generate the phenomenon that we seek, to bring the data to life. Whatever it is that makes red look red is there and there is no need to go scurrying off to some other part of the brain. Future posts will say more about this activation process.

A corollary is that we are not much interested in all the goings on between the brain and the periphery, in particular the sense organs, the eyes and the ears amongst others. In all the goings on between the input/afferent side of things and the output/efferent side of things. In all the large scale networks being uncovered at, for example, reference 8. The idea is that we are able to split the core business of consciousness away from all that, just leaving a compilation process to provide liaison, a process which we hypothesise but do not consider in any detail. The classic device of divide and rule.

Other people

Turning to what others think about all this, some people think that the answer to the problem of consciousness lies in the field generated by the electrical activity of the brain, that consciousness arises from a fancy field, the sort of field, that is, described at reference 3. This hypothesis leans in this direction to the extent that it supposes that the activity of the neurons on our patch of cortex can be integrated, summarised into a signal which can be analysed in two-dimensional space, and, over the interval of a frame, into frequencies.

Rather more people think that the answer lies in large scale integration across the brain, taking in parts of both the cerebral cortex and the brain stem, with plenty of discussion among them about how large is large. With plenty of both feed-forward and feedback. With plenty of re-entrance, that is to say circuits looping back on themselves. With damage to the wrong part of the brain stem being fatal to consciousness. The present hypothesis is very different, at least to the extent that it isolates and localises the very end of the chain of processing, of the neural activation which results in consciousness.

I should add, that I am not suggesting here that consciousness is for anything or even at the top of the pyramid. But it is there, and it does seem to be associated, if not more, with important human-only functions like choice and program execution. See reference 5.

Other matters

There are many way of extracting information from, of describing the noisy firing of large numbers – millions – of neurons. The wikipedia entry at reference 6 gives the idea. But I think it is fair to say that, moving away from relatively straightforward firing rates, a lot of people have become interested in the information carried by the timing and the relative timing of spikes. Here, however, as indicated above, I have opted for integrating and then analysing those spikes over space and time to give us numerically coded frequency bands.

I am still thinking about why one cannot have more than one patch of conscious at any one time. This being a more or less observable fact, but not popping out of the foregoing. Somewhere along the line there must be a process, a thread, of which there can only be one – unlike a lot of neural processes which can take place in the left hand side of the brain, the right hand side or both. An example of such a thread, about which I have posted in the past is the business of thinking in words, a business which requires access to parts of the vocal apparatus. See reference 7.

As an aside, I note that in this context it does not matter whether consciousness is right or wrong, a sensible reflection of the outer or inner world or not. Here we are just interested in the fact that it is and how that might come to be. Deranged or diseased, consciousness is usually still there.

Then there is the question of frame refresh. In the case of a film, it might be that a frame endures for about a second while the business of advancing the roll of film from one frame to the next takes about a tenth of a second, with the whole blurring into a seamless whole of moving picture. Now the part of compilation which is drawing in data from all over the brain can go on all the time, in the background as it were. But, on our frame hypothesis, at some point we need to build the network of neurons which delivers the data and processes which together do consciousness. One scenario is that our patch, our population of neurons is divided into two, with one being compiled while the other is being displayed. The switch from one to the other could be very fast. Another scenario would be to compile between displays, between frames. But this sounds too slow, involving as it does tinkering with large numbers of synapses – because while the population of neurons might be fixed, that of synapses is not – at least the population of synapses might be fixed, but their strengths, their weights are not.

Unlike a film, we do not have the frames to come ready and waiting. At the most, the next frame might be in preparation during the life of the current frame. While past frames is another matter, it being probable that they get written to or consolidated into permanent memory in some form or another. Which is not to say that they are accessible, but they are there, at least for a while.

With, in the foregoing, the distinction between takes and frames having been blurred over.

References

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/from-grids-to-objects.html. Introducing patterns on a grid. A grid which contains millions of points and which is based on a patch of cortex. Patterns which are based on repetition of some sort of the patterns of values on rectangles, rectangles which provide, as it were, a window onto the grid.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/layers-and-columns.html. A post which develops the structure of layers and columns which we are proposing to host the experience of consciousness. A rather long post with no less than six diagrams and ten references.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_(physics).

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/an-assembly-for-consciousness.html.

Reference 5: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/what-is-consciousness-for.html.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_coding.

Reference 7: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/on-saying-cat.html.

Reference 8: https://www.alleninstitute.org/.

Group search key: sra.

Dorking one

The Dorking season opened last weekend with a Sunday afternoon concert from the Piatti String Quartet. Haydn Op.76 No.3, Mozart Clarinet Quintet (with Anna Hashimoto) and Brahms Quartet No.1, Op.51 No.1. We get the other two Brahms quartets in the two concerts to come.

While waiting we wondered about of the chairs, a tubular steel affair with the two back legs propped up a couple of inches with neat wooden blocks, holes cut in the top to take the legs. Wondering in particular whether such blocks were something that concert halls carried for the convenience of performers, perhaps in a range of sizes, or whether performers carried such things about with them. The performer in question turned out to be the viola, a stand in for the damaged regular.

I usually like Haydn string quartets, but I was not very keen on this one, perhaps best known for its invention of the Deutschlandlied, the German national anthem. See reference 1. Haydn, it seems, had been impressed in a London theatre by the audience standing to sing our national anthem and thought that it would be a good idea if the Germans had one too.

Mozart as good as ever, given to us with a very long clarinet by a very short clarinetist. I had quite forgotten about the length of the A clarinet.

Brahms good - also quite noisy & bouncy - which served to muffle the air conditioning which had been a bit intrusive for the first two pieces. And also provided a better home for a quite noisy & bouncy cellist.

Following the wood blocks, I also puzzled about the grain of the wood from which the viola was made. The sides were strongly striped in the short direction, which I imagine corresponded with the grain. But these stripes were matched with stripes on the back, which I imagine crossed the grain; certainly the grain on the front went the long way, not the short way. Were these back stripes painted on, under the varnish? Seemed like a lot of bother to go to. Then there were muted stripes on the neck which were certainly across the grain. Looking around I could see short direction stripes on the sides of some of the others, but I was not close enough to see more. Clearly something to keep an eye on.

Home in under half an hour. So maybe not quite west end quality, but not west end traveling time either.

PS: quality more a function of the space rather than the performers, usually people we subsequently come across in the west end. While Dorking Halls shows its age a bit.

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandlied.

Concrete 2017 - second pour

With the additional triangle of concrete covering the cracked joint. Some of the earthware pipe is still exposed, just below the soil bottom right. Odd, for a generally well-built house from the 1930's, that this pipe should be so close to the surface.

I am considering benching up the corner between the new concrete and the old housing, in the way of that down the bottom of manholes, with some mortar. Which as well as improving the shape would cover up minor flaws in the work so far. But would such benching bond?

Concrete 2017 - first pour

For this year's concrete project, I selected the reinforcement of the housing of the stink vent for the last manhole in the front drive, the last one before our drain joins the main drain. A housing which the work last year on the drive itself revealed to be in rather a bad way.

First task was the purchase of a sensible amount of cement, with the standard 25kg being far too much, a sensitive topic now that I have learned that the manufacture and consumption of cement accounts for 5% of the green house gas total. Wickes no good. Travis Perkins no good. Screwfix no good - but not complete nonsense in that they did sell suitable sized tubs of cement based screeding mixtures intended for flattening floors. So the next day I cycled over to Homebase, to find that they did sell 5kg bags of cement, just the ticket.

Second task was to dig out some of the earth around the housing, the thing with the square, cast iron grid on top of it, a digging out which revealed that the earthenware soil pipe leading from the housing to the manhole (to the right of the snap above) was itself cracked, presumably the result of either last year's or some other year's drive operations.

Third task was to make the shutter and secure it into place using a couple of small paving slabs.

Fourth task was to mix the concrete and pour it. With pour, the usual word on a building site, being entirely appropriate in this case as I had made the concrete rather wetter than I should. Notwithstanding, a reasonable job. I even went as far as trying to wipe the smears of new concrete off the old concrete, that is to say the concrete laid last year, with the end result rather neater looking than you might think from the snap.

Fifth task was to cover the whole lot with a sturdy plastic bag against rain and frost. Bag and retaining bricks just about visible left.

PS: checking, I find that the last concrete operation was more than two years ago - but it was a good deal more serious than this one. See reference 1. I think I really must be keen on the stuff as a simple query asking for 'concrete' produces an awful lot of hits, mostly to do with other peoples' concrete, rather than my own.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/yard-retaining-wall-phases-4a-4b.html.

Wooden flowers

Last summer I noticed some spectacular flowers on a tree which turned out to be a liriodendron tulipifera, subsequently spotted in various other places, not least Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, where the tree in question had been planted by a royal duke.

Now, some months after the leaves dropped, I get around to noticing that the shells of the flowers, now a lignified brown, are still there. And a lot more of them than I would have thought.

Couldn't see anything fruit-like, but I shall take another look next time I am down.

PS: idly checking in wikipedia, I find to my surprise that this is a big tree, not a little ornamental tree, as one might have thought from the location of this one, at all. See reference 2, which, as it happens, includes more pictures of the seed cones of present interest.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/plant-life_59.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liriodendron_tulipifera.

St. Luke's

I had not been that impressed with this term's programme at St. Luke's, but last week we made it to what was the first time this year and which may well be the last time until the autumn, which looks a bit more promising - with the odd feature that one can book tickets for concerts for which we have an artist but for which we do not have any art, that is to say any programme. Not keen on booking blind so that will have to wait.

Learned on the way that the Southern ticket office staff in Sutton were looking at redundancy, their jobs having being taken by Oyster, while those in Epsom were still OK, at least for now.

Also that instead of black stuff you can now put white stuff on flat roofs. White sheets which you cut to size and slap down with liberal application of some white liquid, presumably some kind of adhesive. Must find a roof person to ask what this might have been. Never seen before.

I had decided that I did not want, on this occasion, to be carrying a cycle helmet about so opted for walking to Old Street rather than my more usual Bullingdon. When, towards the end of Stamford Street, I came across what at first sight seemed to be a heap of something covered in large beetles crawling about - but which turned out to be a demolition site. I felt a twinge of loss for the building, a hundred years or more old and full of old style workmanship, probably plenty of fine oak and mahogany work, this despite it being a steel reinforced, concrete framed building, with the ornate exterior just cladding. At least that was what I took it for.

On through Smithfield Market, which much of that looking destined for the same fate.

Failed to find anything theatrical of interest at the Barbican, but did visit Chimes, as noticed at reference 5.

Onto the bacon sandwiches of Whitecross Street. I must say that they did me very well, despite my absence of some months. The manager even recognised me.

Into St. Luke's to hear Alexei Volodin do Rachmaninov, with a touch of Prokofiev and Medtner for warming up. Pleased to be able to say that Fiona  T. did not get too carried away with her introductions. We sat right at the front which made the piano sound rather different, but I have to say that the music was not to my taste, it did not seem to be doing anything other than rushing about. Good to push out the boundaries from time to time, but I guess one has to expect the odd dud. The boundaries are there for a reason after all, like comfort zones. However, some people clearly thought different, with the lady to our right knowing what the encore was. And with the gentleman to our left being a teacher from Ontario, long domiciled in north London. Who, unlike my mother, had almost no accent after forty or so years here, his story being that he had worked to get rid of it to stop his accent being an issue in class, rather than whatever it was he taught.

For lunch back to Jane Roe's kitchen, with our previous visit being noticed at references 2 and 3. And this afternoon, the famous cupboard is featured on the restaurant's front page. Maybe it is still there, as you read this, far right. See reference 1. Lunch still spot on - hummus, pizza and a drop of New Zealand white - and we learned while paying the bill that the couple who run it come from an island somewhere between Sicily and Africa. Climate mostly benign, not too hot. But I imagine there is little work, hence the restaurant in Old Street.

Next stop, St. Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, somehow not quite as impressive as on previous occasions. But I was struck once again by one the the chaps under stones let into the floor being put down as a hair merchant, a stone we had noticed five years ago on the occasion of our first visit back in 2012. See reference 4. And I was a bit annoyed with myself about a defective memory. I had remembered a memorial tablet in the wall with the stone sill below, worn away in the middle by the miraculous tears of the sculptured head set into the tablet. Or the tears of pilgrims. Or something like that. But it turns out that there was no sill below and that the unremarkable condensation on the wall was something to do with late Victorian central heating, it just being a coincidence that the tablet had some words about tears.

A bonus was finding out that they do lots of lunch time music, mostly Fridays and mostly given by people from the nearby Guildhall School of Music. Maybe an alternative to St. Luke's if they don't do something about their programmes. In which case I could take to using the nearby Hand & Shears, scene of my second attempt at being a barman, an attempt which lasted around six months. At that time a house which catered in the saloon bar to hospital types and in the public bar to market types. Plus freemasons who seemed to straddle the two. Sometimes, when they felt the need for a bit of privacy, they used to meet in an upper room. Strange knockings and thumpings to be heard.

Got a bit lost in the city, reduced in the end to catching a bus to Waterloo, where we had thought to wind up the proceedings with a little something at the Green Room next to the National Theatre, but that was either empty or closed so we tried the theatre, full of people making full use of the free heating, electricity, tables and chairs. But with a shut bar, we were reduced to the Festival Hall across the way instead.

Reference 1: http://janeroekitchen.london/.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/cupboard-love.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/a-touch-of-pepys.html.

Reference 4: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=hair+merchant.

Reference 5: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/wednesdays-girl.html.

Cotswolds

Trainer time again, and pleased that Cotswold can still sell me the same trainers as last time: same brand, size, colour and price. So a better result than that noticed at reference 2.

With the old ones not lasting quite as long as the ones before them, seven months to their eight. Heels well worn, but it was the tired and scruffy appearance which triggered purchase, with the insides of both heels crumbling and big toes starting to poke through the uppers.

Once again, I failed to find the last purchase by blog search and had to resort to searching my email, which turned up the previous purchase in short order. The confirming email from Cotswolds gave me the date, from which I was able to get to reference 1 in not very many more seconds. The problem turned out to be that I had spelled Cotswolds without the first 's', that is to say 'Cotwolds': blog search not clever enough to work around that one.

PS: trainer wearing started in 2010 (see reference 3) after a false start in 2009. Moab Ventilator wearing started about two years later in 2011 (see reference 4) and I have worn the same trainers ever since, apart from one lapse into their high sided cousins, sold on the grounds that they gave the foot more support, but with the down side that they looked a lot more like boots and so did not meet the family dress code for cultural outings.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/trainer-time-again.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/clever-old-google.html.

Reference 3: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=dose+of+Michelangelo.

Reference 4: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=boil+nike+niketown.

Sharp practice

About a month ago I had a moan about how the people at Scientific American had done me for second year's subscription when I thought that they should not have.

Around the end of January, I poked them again. Nothing.

Around the beginning of February, I found a new address to poke with a third email. Response within a day or so, with a polite and careful explanation that I had bought a renewal light subscription. Renewal on a hair trigger as it were, and although there was an email reminder that this was going to happen the default action was renew anyway, for the greater convenience of the customer you understand, the customer who might be very upset about any interruption of service. I imagine that I missed the reminder in the welter of other stuff which they send me about offers and forthcoming articles.

They also explained that if I cared to cancel, they would return the unspent balance of the renewal, with the eventual result that a few days ago £39.17 arrived arrived in credit card account, followed by a deduction of £1.17 for a non-sterling transaction. So not such a bad result, if a little expensive in brain time.

All of which crossed with an unhelpful reply from someone else to my second email of the end of January.

Then, this morning, I remembered that there is nothing new about sharp practice in matters retail. So I remember being told by a pub keeper that he trained his barmaids to give short measure, judged so that most punters did not complain and with glasses being topped up with a smile when they did. Worth 10% on his bottom line as I recall. While BH reminds me of greengrocers and such like pulling similar stunts with short measure and short change. And, before our time, of bakers who cut their flour with chalk and butchers who did something similar with their sausages. So we should not get too nostalgic about the olden days when moaning about the sharp practices of people who sell things over the internet.

From where I associate to the markets of medieval times where offenders of this sort were dealt with in summary fashion. Being tied to the tail of a cart and exhibited to the town while being pelted with rotten vegetables sort of thing. Perhaps a custom which we should revive in respect of all those sellers of insurance policies, for things like cars and houses, who drift their premiums up, hoping that you either won't notice or couldn't be bothered to do anything about it.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/scientific-american.html.

Barriers

Part of the huge forest of red plastic barriers which had been erected around the roundabout between the Security Service and Lambeth Bridge. Plus a bit of road closing. Was something going down which they had not told us about?

Emergency rewiring to thwart hackers from parts east?

Group search key: bsa.

Wednesday's girl

Last Wednesday to hear Alisa Weilerstein do all six of the Bach Cello Suites at St. John's Smith Square. A former child prodigy, from Rochester in New York State, not so far from Watertown which we visited ourselves not so long ago.

A cold dark evening, which looked set to rain or worse, but I got to the station without needing to unfurl the umbrella. Got to Vauxhall to find, for the first time for a long time, that the eastern exit was open so I was able to stroll up Goding Street before turning left onto the Embankment; the route I used to take to the Home Office and perhaps the first time I have used it since leaving.

A little early, so I took a glass in the basement, where I was able to take stock of the audience. Which included what I thought was a very pushy trio who parked themselves around a table for four, already occupied by two people who were not together. Oddly pushy for people who looked and sounded entirely middle class and whom one might have thought would have known better. Two of the three did not even have the excuse of being young. Which all goes to show that people who go to hear Bach can have bad manners too.

For once in a while, the hall was full. Plus an interesting trick of the lighting which made the shadows on the handsome Corinthian pillars around what used to be the altar seem very green.

I was in row G, about right for me for this sort of thing, only marred by the moving head of a lady in front of me. Although, to be fair, it could have been worse, as more than half the time she was tilted to the left, which left me a reasonably clear view.

I was surprised at how familiar it all sounded, repeats within the suites notwithstanding. Are motifs carried from one suite to another? Did I know the suites better than I had realised? I had, after all, bought Tortelier's version many years ago as a student, at which time I think he was all the thing. The discs were quite battered by the time they were retired, perhaps ten years ago now, so perhaps I had played them a lot.

Doing all six made for quite a long concert, maybe two and a half hours playing time plus half an hour for the two intervals. For both of which the neighbouring Marquis was unusually full - although in the course of the second interval the harassed bar man managed to summon four more pairs of hands, so perhaps the kitchen staff are expected to multi-task. Certainly made sense on this occasion.

But a fine concert. No problems with medleys or having to keep getting to grips with something new. It just rolls on and on. And I thought that Weilerstein did rather well - even managing to look happy some of the time. The rest of the audience thought so too.

I thought the taxi to Vauxhall was rather dear at more than £10 and I also learned what an awkward place Vauxhall is to be dropped off. I should have settled for the end of the bridge rather than trying to get nearer.

Broke the journey at Earlsfield where there was no airstock at all at 2230.

Followed up on the Thursday by getting myself a copy of the score from the Chimes shop at the Barbican, where they had at least three versions: thin, regular and fat. I went for regular, the red Wiener Urtext Edition, which comes with an explanatory booklet. In which I was interested to read that the sixth suite - the start of which is illustrated above - was clearly written for an instrument with five strings - as opposed to the cello's four. Haven't got to the bottom of that one yet. Otherwise it has served to show up my lack of practice at reading scores, with this score not looking like the music at all. At least not yet, but I dare say I will get the hang of it.

Further follow up in the form of a booking to hear it all again at St. Luke's next June, that is to say June 2018, from a chap from Montreal called Jean-Guihen Queyras and who was born about the time that I was a student buying Tortelier (see above). Rather a long range booking, even for me, but booking had opened that day and someone sent me an email about it.

Rather a sniffy review in the Guardian on the Friday, where the opening remark was that just because there are six, doesn't mean that you have to do all six at a sitting. Which is a point, but then there are lots of people who climb Everest for no better reason than that it is there.

PS: note the fold out business in the illustration, for the convenience of the busy cellist. Which the lady in the shop seemed to think that I was - and I have to admit that I failed to put her right.

Reference 1: http://alisaweilerstein.com/.

Reference 2: https://www.jeanguihenqueyras.com/.

Group search key: bsa.

Tuesday's trivia

In the form of two C-words from Maigret - with my now having got to story 13 out of 39 and Maigret is in retirement. Apparently from around story 15 he is back in harness as if nothing has happened and the series proceeds to story 39, holding Maigret frozen in his middle years, with a flat and wife in Rue Richard Lenoir. No more aging. I think Sherlock Holmes had a similar resuscitation problem, but I forget what the Conan-Doyle solution was. I also forget what the Poirot solution to aging was - apart from the recent closing episodes making a bit of a mess of it on television.

The first C-word is 'chenil', a sort of rough shed in the park or (more modestly) garden of one's house where one keeps one's dogs, their feed and associated paraphernalia. A rich person might have two such, one for the guard dogs and one for the hunting dogs. From which, I eventually realised, comes our word 'kennel'.

The second C-word is 'carrière', a place where one digs for stone, perhaps marble or limestone. Lots of it going on on the upper Seine, to feed the buildings of Paris. Not to be confused with 'carrière', originally an enclosed race track for horses, now more usually a career, the sort of thing that a civil servant might have. Rather appropriate really. And from the first of which, I eventually realised, comes our word 'quarry'.

And thinking of the upper Seine, I note in passing Simenon's fondness for canals, their locks, boats, bars and people; for fishing ports, their locks etc; and, for watery matters generally. A large proportion of the Maigret stories so far being so set.

Monday's factlet

This factlet being taken from an email from the New Scientist which appeared in my in-box this morning. I think it is quite old news, but it passed me by first time around.

The news being that the China and the US disagree about the best way to measure the height of mountains. China goes for measuring height above the sea level off Taiwan, which means that Mount Everest, in its sphere of influence, is highest at around 9,000 metres. While the US goes in for measuring heights above the rather more stable & sensible centre of gravity of the earth as a whole, which means that Mount Chimborazo, in its sphere of influence, is highest, despite only being around 6,000 metres above the average sea level at high tide at Dublin docks, when the moon is full and the wind is from the west, this last being the sort of sea level favoured by us Anglo-Saxons. Why we went for Dublin rather than the what one might have thought of as the much more suitable Greenwich I have no idea.

But at least this is a more or less friendly dispute. Not something serious like man-made islands being turned into fortresses.

And following my mention of google at reference 1, I can report that their image search facility was able to confirm that the picture above, supplied by the email from New Scientist, was indeed Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador, in no time at all.

PS: it may be that this will be the final straw, in the sense that it pushes the new US administration from being climate change deniers to being true believers. Climate change means rising sea levels, which makes measuring important heights above sea level a very dodgy business indeed. A clinching point in the dispute recorded here.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/clever-old-google.html.

Mencap moan

An advertisement for Mencap, on a bus stop in Hook Road, one of a number scattered around Epsom, an advertisement which I find oddly irritating.

Unhelpful, to my mind, to present a handicapped youth as if he was one of the rough sort of youth of my day who liked a bit of a fight after pub of a Friday. Nothing dirty involving knives or bottles, but a fight just the same.

Furthermore, while you might not be a learning disability, you certainly do have one. In my primary school days the jargon was ESN, and that school had three or four of them. No idea what happened to them afterwards.

Oddly, BH, with a stronger background in mental health than I and having seen versions of the same advertisement on television, is not bothered by it at all. She also tells me the disability in this particular case is Down's syndrome, not, I imagine, ever included among the ESN.

Notwithstanding, if I had been a monthly donor to Mencap, I might still have been moved to stop the standing order.

Reference 1: https://www.mencap.org.uk/.

Powerpoint moan

A new irritation in Powerpoint this morning, testimony to the difficulty of getting spell checkers to get things right, even when said checker is in the charge of the spelling team from the mighty Microsoft.

I have a text slide, of the sort called 'title and content', a title followed by half a dozen or so bullet points. In the first bullet point there are a few words which are detected as being French, which indeed they were. The Powerpoint spell checker then decides that everything that follows must be French too, and underlines in squiggly red nearly all the English words which follow. Very unsightly and somewhat distracting.

Maybe there is some geek out there who know how to deal with this, short of turning the spell checker off altogether, which would be a loss, as my spelling is not that good and I can just about put up with the checker querying the many words in English English which are spelt otherwise in US English. Not that I know how to turn it off altogether - although I might manage in Word.

PS: I remember now that Microsoft used to sell a service which meant that you could phone up one of their geeks with questions of this sort, but I am sure it would be far too expensive for the average private punter; designed for corporations with money to burn. Then there are the online forums which are cheap and effective, if rather tiresome, but I can't see me going to the bother of that one either.

Locked in

I have spent part of today reading about communicating with people who are locked in, that is to say people who are presumed to be conscious and to be aware of their surroundings when awake, but who are completely paralysed and cannot even communicate by flicking an eyelid or twitching the mouth, with the first of these often being the last motor action to go in situations of this sort. This in the open access paper at reference 1, brought to my attention in last week's edition of the newsletter from the Kurzweil organisation.

I should say that I did not understand a large part of this paper, partly because of the technicalities of the machinery involved and partly (to my shame) because of the statistics.

However, the authors while doing the best they can to restore communications of a sort between these patients, their carers and family, also appear to be wondering about what exactly consciousness might mean in this context - which also interests me. And which context, more precisely, is an unpleasant variety of the motor neurone disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis which results in a progressive loss of motor function and eventual dependence on medical machinery to stay alive. Most patients die within 5 years of disease onset, having been locked in for the last portion of this time. It is this last portion which is of present interest.

The good news is that patients can hear, which opens various possibilities, including EEG (brain waves) and fNIRS (functional near infrared spectroscopy). Both these techniques involve fitting a sensor filled cap to the head and connecting the cap to a computer. The idea is to conduct a conversation by asking the patient questions which require 'yes' or 'no' answers, having trained the computer to be able to distinguish the patient thinking 'yes' from thinking 'no' on a battery of test questions. Questions can be as simple as 'is Paris the capital of France' or as complicated as 'are you in pain'.

What I gather from the paper is that the patient and the computer between them get the right answer about 70% of the time. A run of yes's or no's over a period of days is considered to be conclusive - but falls well short of what one would normally think of as a conversation.

My first thought was to wonder whether it was right to inflict this sort of thing on the patients. But my second thought was that the patients had had choice; they could have declined to be connected to the life support systems. By going for life support, you might reasonably be supposed to up for this sort of thing. Furthermore, it seemed that carers and family were very keen; some communication was a lot better than none.

But then I started to wonder exactly what one might be conscious of in this predicament, confined to a bed with no action and with very little other stimulation. Probably not terribly awake a lot of the time. Not even clear than showing television would be a good plan, at least in the absence of any feedback - although maybe instructions could be collected in the transition to the locked in state. Maybe one could try to sort out the patient's wishes while he or she could still express them, and just hope that he or she had made the right calls.

There seemed to be the suggestion that, with no vocal apparatus, inner verbal thought might be compromised, on which see reference 4. But that seems to be contradicted by the existence of reference 2 - to which reference 3 provides a short introduction - to which I shall now turn. Maybe worth turning up Simenon's 'Les Anneaux de Bicêtre' again: a work of informed speculation about what it might be like to be a recovering stroke patient. See reference 6.

In any event, more thought needed about all this.

The illustration is of the headset needed for fNIRS, a headset apparently mainly directed at athletes and sports scientists. See reference 5.

PS: somewhere along the way, there was the suggestion that one such patient had been asked to contribute to an important family decision. I must say that, to me, this seemed unwise. One is asking for more than can be sensibly delivered and that one is storing up anger and guilt in the case that one goes against the patient's expressed view.

Reference 1: Brain Computer Interface Based Communication in the Completely Locked-In State - Ujwal Chaudhary and others – 2017.

Reference 2: Le scaphandre et le papillon  - Jean Dominique Bauby – 1997.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Dominique_Bauby.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/on-saying-cat.html.

Reference 5: http://nirx.net/nirsport/.

Reference 6: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Les+Anneaux+de+Bic%C3%AAtre.