Cheese

Last week to London to stock up with cheese, that is to say Lincolnshire Poacher from the Neal's Yard Dairy in Shorts Gardens.

For the first time in a while, a new lady at the ticket window at Epsom. She did say, but I did not catch, where she came from. Was she a transient, never to be seen again?

From which I moved on to ponder about the dreadful goings on at trade shows for the gambling industry, in the news that day and where, it seems, young ladies were paid to stand around, scantily dressed, for the amusement of male delegates. What struck me as the most dreadful part of these going on was the low pay of the young ladies concerned, reported to be as little as £100 a day. No self-respecting builder from TB would get out of bed for that. Not to mention a self-respecting sex worker. Not like the ladies above, turned up by Bing for 'gambling trade show', or some such, at all.

Pulled a Bullingdon from the ramp at Waterloo, to make it to the Drury Lane stand in 11 minutes and 7 seconds. I notice in passing that my use of the Bullingdon system is slipping, with TFL telling me the other day that my usage in December was zero and in January low. Surprised about December, but checking the blog record suggests that their computer has probably got it right.

Onto Shorts Garden, where I mentioned that the last Poacher (from their shop in Borough) was a little dry, at which point they tried to sell me some even more expensive cheddar instead - cheddar which was no doubt good of its kind, but not to my taste, so I stuck with Poacher. I also learned that their fine plastic bags, which we use for our pre-concert picnics and which they now charge 5p for, actually cost 6p. In any event, I avoid the 5p charge by remembering to take the bag from a previous occasion, usually good for an attempt at witticism from the shop assistant.

Onto a crowded Crown, where the barmaid with tattoos was missing. Reduced to using the back bar for once, where I had terrible trouble telling my telephone about my favourite picture, favourites being a good way to keep one's prize needles out of the haystack which is the camera roll. In my innocence, I thought that tapping the heart icon would do the trick, but it only seemed to work very erratically. I clearly need to sit down to the task and work out how to do it properly.

Down Monmouth Street, to notice my first Rossopomodoro restauramt, outside of a John Lewis, for which see reference 4. Isn't that new as it already features on Google Street View with the date of September 2017. Perhaps I just walked past A. N. Other Covent Garden restaurant before.

Onto a crowded Terroirs, where we were reduced to sitting at the bar until they decided that they had a no show. Interesting to see their small kitchen from close quarters, it not really being visible from the tables. Interesting that the barman, who did not seem to know about the wine - a 2015 Zellberg Sylvaner which I have had at least a couple of times before - that I had selected, took a swig to see, without asking, before handing it over to me. The wine was as good as ever, so I did not really mind, although I might well have done. Perhaps it is the custom in France.

Main course shoulder of lamb, well cooked and served on a bed of some kind of white beans, moistened with a brown gravy of some sort. Not quite what I was expecting - not that I had much idea what I was expecting, which words look a bit silly on the screen, but also seem to describe what happened well enough. Dessert the chocolate mousse which I had mistaken for coffee the first time that I had it. Washed down with double rations of their mid-range Calvados, a Dupont Hors D’âge, which I rather like.

Back across Hungerford Bridge in what seemed like a very cold, blue light. With the numbers of tourists making me think that London was being hollowed out, after the way of Venice. All the real life, all the real business is floating away, or perhaps evaporating, leaving the past glories of the town to be savoured by millions of tourists. One day, they will be pretty much all that is left of the place. Tourists from rich parts of Europe being serviced by workers from poor parts of Europe.

Then at Waterloo, not best pleased to find that the Economist has slipped up from £5 to £5.99. Partly because of the price rise, partly because the Economist is not showing respect for its august readership by thinking (and showing) that they can be cozened by £6 masquerading as a little more than £5. A well attested psychological fact, an odd quirk of the price effect, but, as far as this customer is concerned, it would have been more tactful not have reminded me of it.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=tb. As can be seen, TB was once an important source of refreshment, entertainment and useful knowledge. Not usually tuberculosis.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/rossopomodoro.html.

Third attempt

Batch 1, Phase 1

It being pancake day, aka Shrove Tuesday, it seemed appropriate to have another go at crumpets, with the recipes of crumpets and pancakes being very similar.

Nominally the same recipe as on the previous occasion with eight ounces of flour, as noticed at reference 1, but things turned out rather differently, with the yeast failing to perform at either the 15 minute milk stage or the 45 minute dough stage - even with this last stretched to 60 minutes, with the last 10 minutes in the airing cupboard, rather warmer than the top of the cooker. So none of the interesting frothy business when I dipped the ladle in.

Half filled two of the rings and unlike last time, no rising up in the rings, although plenty of fat bubbling up around the edges, as can be seen if you click to enlarge on Batch 1. Cooking at mark 3 seemed to be about right and the cooked crumpets were brown rather than black, with much the same difference between first and second side as one gets with a pancake. More or less cooked all the way through, with rather more tubular bubbles (after the fashion of shop crumpets) than I thought likely, given the absence of yeast action.

Batch 3, Phase 2

By the end of the proceedings, I had graduated to three rings at a time, which seemed to work better than four. I had also turned the heat down to mark 2 on the grounds that the pan had heated up enough. Rings continuing to slip off the half cooked crumpets OK, dental forceps continuing to be just the thing for doing the slipping - trying not to touch them as they do get very hot (in the rape seed oil).

The last crumpet, the ninth, was about a quarter of an inch thick and was one of the best. So it seems that so much the thinner, so much the better.

One taken with Marmite.

Next step, allow more time and use the airing cupboard to get the yeast action back.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/second-attempt.html.

Cold and wet

I happened to notice this striking damage to the surface of the road walking in East Street yesterday, in cold bright weather. With it so happening that I cycled over it this morning, in cold wet weather. As it turned out, the road surface was badly damaged over quite a stretch, with some of the holes being quite a hazard for the careless or unlucky cyclist. And this on a main road from London to the south coast, signposted from important junctions like the Elephant & Castle.

Furthermore, I had quite forgotten what it was like to cycle in bad weather in a yellow oil-cloth cycling cape, spectacles fogging up and all. An experience which not many people can be familiar with, as thinking about it now I cannot remember when I last saw anyone wearing one. Not something the spandex brigade go in for.

The occasion being the mortise lock on our back door more or less giving out this morning after twenty years or more service. We were fearful that this was going to be rather a pain, as this particular lock package - a mortise lock with cylinder and door furniture for one door plus with what Yale now call a traditional night latch for another - with both locks working on the same key - does not seem to be available any more.

However, I thought of the people on the by-pass from whom I had bought our entirely satisfactory key box and pedalled off there, it being a bit far to walk by then. Rather to my surprise they were able to supply a replacement cylinder for the mortice lock and cut three additional keys in what seemed like seconds. Replacement cylinder fitted and back door furniture reassembled in minutes. A lot fewer minutes than it had taken to take it apart in the first place, it having been a while since I had had occasion to do such a thing.

Bonuses to all this being that we now have top and bottom bolts to the back door, we have sorted out our spare key container and we have sorted out my box of miscellaneous ironmongery in the garage. Some of which last has been sitting in this very box for more than thirty years, just in case. The very box which used to hold the shoe cleaning equipment when I was a child. That is to say the olden days, before trainers were invented, and respectable people polished their shoes every morning before they set off for work.

PS 1: also a box which appeared to have been home or stash to a mouse at some stage, with rather a lot of husks of sunflower seeds turning up in the bottom of one of its three compartments.

PS 2: at some point during the night following, that is to say last night, I remembered, rather vaguely, about having taken the back door off its hinges, a rather more serious operation than fiddling with the lock. This taking off has now been run to ground at reference 4. I wonder whether I would attempt such a thing now, four years later? Or would I phone up our builder, who, as it happens, is carpentry trained? And then, looking again at the picture of the door off its hinges, I remember that the bench in front of it was made with timber discarded by the shuttering carpenters working on what was to be the new Croydon Art College, somewhere near East Croydon railway station, and where I worked the second summer holiday of my time at university, maybe half a century ago now.

Reference 1: PES (Southern) Ltd – Epsom Locksmiths - 4 Castle Parade, Ewell By Pass, KT17 2PR, Epsom.

Reference 2: http://pessouthern.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://www.yale.co.uk/en/yale/couk/.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/who-dares-wins.html.

Cabbage soup

The first cabbage soup for a while today. Something we used to have fairly often, with search revealing lots of mentions of pearl barley and with an early version being reported at reference 1, a version in which Knorr stood in for meat.

At 0900, put six ounces of pearl barley (including a fair amount of powder, but, as far as we could see, no livestock) into 3 pints of cold water to soak.

At 1130, bring to the boil. Chop one and a half onions and add them. Chop a couple of sticks of celery and add them. Cut a pork tenderloin in half lengthwise, then into 1cm slices crosswise and add that. Bring back to the boil and simmer.

At 1250, thinly slice a 4 inch diameter white cabbage and add that. Simmer for a further five minutes. Serve with brown bread.

All very satisfactory, with the two of us doing about three quarters of it.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=pearl+knorr.

Trolley 123

Someone has cleared the stash of trolleys outside the creationists' hall of residence in East Street, first noticed at reference 1. All bar one, that is. Despite the fact that Wickes is next to Sainsbury's, whoever cleared all the Sainsbury's trolleys away did not see fit to take the Wickes trolley while he or she was about it.

So I, who had never got beyond eying a large Wickes trolley outside the Marquis, far too far from Kiln Lane to push a large, heavy trolley intended for stacks of plasterboard, bags of cement and such, finished the job. A first!

Was clearance a Sainsbury's or a creationists' effort? Did the warden of the hall think that his hall was being brought into disrepute and bring his official van into action?

See reference 2 for the large trolley.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/a-stash.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/trolley-82.html.

Majoritarianism

I have long admired the fading black notice, to be found on the ramp, on the northern wall of the main station building at Waterloo. Sadly, someone has seen fit to add another notice below it, attempting to further restrict the areas in which smokers are allowed to take a puff. As if out on the ramp were not fresh air enough.

I associate to the people who get exercised about fox hunting, a sport I do not particularly care for, but see no need for prohibition.

While the Economist, perhaps in two successive issues, has carried articles about what might be called majoritarianism.

In the first article, we had depressing stories about religious and racial intolerance in parts east. One lot of Muslims hates another lot of Muslims. Hindus hate Muslims. Muslims hate Hindus. Buddhists hate Muslims. Tamils hate Sinhalese. Hates which seem to be especially virulent where one has, say, a 80-20 split in a country, with the 80's in a big majority but with the 20's being quite thick enough on the ground to be a good target for hate. Hates which are often left over from the minority having once ruled the majority. And in most electoral systems - including our own - majorities have the power to be unpleasant to minorities, power which they will exercise when hate comes into play.

In the second article, we had depressing stories about the relatively new countries in central Europe, new countries built from a mess of old peoples, new countries which, in an understandable search for heritage and legitimacy, are all too likely to build national myths around the dominant group or race, to the exclusion of the others. Exclusion which is all too likely to be translated into discrimination and worse. The Economist quotes a cynical Czech who defines a country as a group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and hatred of their neighbours.

Perhaps we in the UK ought to look across the water and learn from the bad examples of others to be more tolerant of our own minorities.

Confusion all round

I feel sure that I have posted about my confusion of coal tits with long tailed tits before, but search only turns up references 1 and 2. With the birds described at reference 2 now looking suspiciously like long tailed tits, despite having been tweeted as coal tits.

Today some tits turned up in the back garden with long tails, longer than their bodies, with some golden ochre on the lower parts and with some black on the upper parts. Today's choice is long tailed tits, rather than coal tits, which have a blacker head and a shorter tail.

Will there be no end to this particular confusion?

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/tweet.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/tweet-tweet.html.