A bit of heritage

A couple of engravings which fell out of our copy of a 100 year old book about Westminster Abbey, in which the abbey is historically described by one Henry John Feasey, a book which is illustrated with 75 rather handsome black and white photographs. Binding rotted, so we have a loose leaf book, albeit still in the original stout green boards. Said to be one of just 360 printed, but not numbered. So who knows where all this leaves it from a collectibles point of view.

The engravings turn out to come from Harrison's edition of Rapin's ten volume Histoire d'Angleterre, published around 1725. With Rapin being an expatriate Frenchman and with Harrison's English edition coming out around 1786, some sixty years later. At least 1786 is the date on the bottom of one of the engravings, so maybe these two engravings, cut out of some copy of said book, are over 200 years old.

Google suggests copperplate engravings and I presume that it is plate marks which are just about visible on both right hand margins. Drawn by Gravelot (of reference 1) and engraved by Goldar (of reference 2). To my mind of antiquarian, rather than artistic interest. But I also wondered at the amount of time which would be needed to produce work of this sort: perhaps the two artists earned a good deal less than the rich dilletantes who would have bought it. Or perhaps rich libertines who needed some etchings with which to entice the ladies in. Chaps who would probably not know the difference between an engraving and an etching. And with this last being left as an exercise for the reader.

PS: efforts to rotate and trim the original (Lumia) photograph to something neat defeated by scroll arrows.

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert-Fran%C3%A7ois_Gravelot.

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

Something else a bit different

We hear renaissance and baroque  music from the Ripieno Choir (see reference 1) and we hear art songs (as they call them in the US) at the Wigmore Hall, but this concert was rather different from both, with a team of perhaps ten - mainly men but including one soprano and one lute - singing music from the time of the Tudor Queen Mary's phantom pregnancy. See reference 2.

Started off by being irritated by a station announcement along the lines of 'see it, say it, sorted' in connection with suspicious items on platform or train. Always a pain when officials, clergy and other bureaucrats try to ape what they think is the lingo of the young.

Continued with a discussion of the right of bad people to send messages so well encrypted that the guardians of the peace could not read them. With the upshot being that we agreed that they had no such right and that our legitimate concerns would be entirely and adequately addressed by the sort of regime which applies in television dramas to search warrants. Furthermore, we found it hard to see why anyone who was not doing anything bad would care if some computer in the depths of Gloucestershire was reading their emails. Certainly anyone who did not live in Gloucestershire.

Arrived at Oxford Circus to find a Fire and Rescue Service Command Vehicle - a large red, single storey lorry - trying to blue light it through the heavy traffic. It would have managed much better had someone got down out of the cab and did a bit of work with his or her arms but no-one appeared and I resisted the temptation to do anything of the sort myself. Eventually it worked its way into the southern leg of Regent Street.

All Bar One open, with hot water and not too crowded so we popped in there for elevenses. Coffee and smarties for one, not my grandma's riesling for the other. Quite impressed at the range of wine they had available by the glass.

Gallicantus were very good indeed, with their team including two countertenors, a high voice I had not come across before, at least not recently, which was both effective and interesting, and with the whole being powerful and moving, perhaps the more so because it was not showy - although it may well have been difficult to do well. Altogether much more my sort of thing than opera. I puzzled a bit as to why the Puritans (like some Muslims now) were so keen to get rid of sacred music of this sort; not clear to me at all why it should be judged to be sinful.

Out to a fine lunch at the nearly next door 2 Veneti, first tried in 2013 (see reference 4) and used once or twice since. Excellent lunch (although not quite what I was expecting) with a fine white wine, new to us and called 'Conte della Vipera' from the Castello della Sala. Literally 'the count of viper', whatever one of those might be - with conte not being story, as I had expected. Seemingly from a Florentine rather than a Venetian outfit. But they certainly did not do Greco di tufo, from the badlands to the south. Which sparked a discussion about tufo, with my claiming a variety of limestone, BH claiming something volcanic. I was right about the tufo but wrong about the wine, it turning out that is was grown in areas with clay mixed up with volcanic ash. With the soft stone made from this last being tuff, neither tufa nor tufo.

Further discussion on the way home about the height of the rebuilt chimneys of Battersea Power Station, with BH claiming that they had got shorter, while I argued that the slightly different finish made them look shorter. I was completely right on this one, with the elaborate web site being very firm that the replacement chimneys were replicas. The heritage gang had insisted. While I still think it would have been a much better use of resources just to have knocked the whole thing down. Rebuilding chimneys almost as crackpot as rebuilding Clandon.

Home to investigate the different voices for men and women to find it was all terribly complicated, with much more involved than just the range of pitch available. But it does seem that Tudor choirs singing sacred music had to be all men, thus giving rise to demand for countertenors and castrati.

PS: not too keen on the program's title - Queen Mary's Big Belly - although that may have been the phrase of her time. We would have preferred something a little gentler to the modern ear.

Reference 1: http://ripienochoir.org.uk/.

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

Reference 3: http://www.2veneti.com/.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/gavrylyuk.html.

Reference 5: http://www.antinori.it/en/.

Identity theft

Identity theft or sloppy programming?

As it happens, I had thought to go to the Barbican yesterday, but the intended visit was nothing to do with any members' event and, in the event, I didn't make it anyway. To busy spending more time with my family. I am fairly sure that I mentioned this thought to neither Google nor Cortana - so can the Barbican be reading my thoughts through the ether - and  not making a very good job of it?

PS: maybe just sloppy. I have now had at least two requests for feedback on my recent HP experience, over and above the original request. Big data running out of control! More on the experience itself in due course.

Management speak

I was amused to read in yesterday's DT, in the course of a piece about the parting of the Globe Theatre from an artistic director who knows little of and cares less about the works of the bard (unlike the chaps noticed at reference 1), that the Globe are to 'review the dynamics of the current executive and senior management leadership structure'.

So it is clear that the civil service is not the only outfit paying management consultants vast amounts of dosh to get told such stuff. Or at least the service seemed to be rife with such people at the time that I left it.

Perhaps the ghost of Sam Wanamaker will take a leaf from the book of Hamlet père and take to treading the boards of the Globe (when it is closed to the public) until they get things sorted out.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/the-clash-of-titans.html.

The Borgias

Some weeks ago now, seeking a change of diet from Marple, I came across a box of Borgias in the Epsom Branch of the outfit at reference 1, known in Epsom as 'Entertainment Exchange'. Which turned out to be a prequel for 'Game of Thrones': fancy dress, violence and sex in that order. Not quite as classy as its more successful successor, to the point of it being a bit of an effort to work our way through to the end. Maybe that is why the box was cheap - being nothing like that of an equivalent amount of Marple, or even Poirot.

After which I wondered what the relation of the series was to the truth and turned to amazon for help. From where it seems that while the Borgias of Rome are a well known family, there is not all that much in the way of popular history and I settled on a book called 'The Borgias and their enemies' by Christopher Hibbert, whom I had thought was a respectable popular historian. Thought, that is, without really knowing anything about him. And my particular copy was printed in the American style, with an irritating line in chapter headings and complete with ragged page cut. But not complete with either maps or pictures: some maps, in particular, would have been helpful.

Altogether a rather breathless and tiresome book, but there was enough there for it to be clear that the television series was only very loosely based on what is known about these people. Most of the incidents around which episodes were built had some basis in the record, but that was about it. I dare say the people responsible would say that their mission was first to entertain and second to get across the savour & flavour of the times - late fifteenth century Rome - with getting any facts right coming in third, some way down the track. Which, as I have explained on several occasions in the past, I think wrong, as, to my mind, if you are going to put real people centre stage in a work of fiction, you should get the main facts right.

But, apart from the Borgia family being nothing like as bad as their reputation would have it, at least by the standards of the (church of the) time, there were two points of interest.

First, the Borgia papal enterprise was funded by the discovery of an alum mountain near Rome, stuff which was needed in the important business of manufacturing textiles but which would otherwise have had to come from the Ottomans, at the time a rather important and threatening power, local sources having expired. I tried to check but completely failed to find out why the Italians could not simply have shipped the stuff over from Alum Bay on the Isle of Wight, a place where one might have thought one just had to shovel it into boats. No need for expensive mines at all.

Second, Lucrezia Borgia made a very virtuous end as the Duchess of Ferrara, where she was a noted patron and connoisseur of the arts of the time. She also had lots of children, although I have not been able to find out whether she was responsible for the third pope of Borgia descent, Innocent X.

While yesterday, I found that the most likely, proper picture of the lady, from the early sixteenth century turned up, not so long ago, in Australia. See reference 2 and ask for Lucrezia. Or above, and discard all the more salacious offerings turned up by google.

Reference 1: https://uk.webuy.com/.

Reference 2: https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/.

A new start

Having written and posted a fair bit of material about our layered data structure under the ‘sra’ flag (see reference 1), we now move onto ‘srb’, prompted in part by the need to build better links between layer objects, getting rid of column objects in favour of the more parsimonious notions of adjacency and extended objects on the way.

Basics

As before, we italicise words which have a special meaning the first time that they are used.

We still have our base data structure of a small number, say around 10, of layers defined on a large square array, some thousands of points in each direction. Following Excel, we call an individual point a cell, a cell which takes a small non-negative integer value, say less than 20.

We consider the set R of rectangles on a layer. We exclude the trivial rectangles, made up of just one cell, on the grounds that they are apt to be confused with noise. But some of our rectangles will have one row and several columns, and some will have several rows and one column. While most will have several rows and several columns.

A rectangle has a perimeter. In the case of small rectangles, the perimeter is the rectangle, but large rectangles have an interior. The value of the interior is the sum of the constituent values, the average is the nearest integer of the average value and the product is the product of the non-zero values. We will make some use of the same three functions on the values of the cells of the perimeters.

Patterns

We have a relation P defined on the set R, where P(r) is true if and only if r is a pattern. Amongst others, this relation has the property that if c is a cell there is at most one rectangle r containing c such that P(r) is true. We use the device of having this relation because we suspect that patterns are not well defined by the rules which follow and we have to allow some compilation process to make a choice, to build the relation P which can support subsequent processing.

If a and b are members of R, we say that a is adjacent to b if and only if a and b have no cells in common but they do have perimeter cells which are next to each other. Next to each other in the sense that the cell a=(x,y) is next to (x+1,y) and to (x,y+1) but not to the diagonal cell (x+1,y+1), and certainly not to cells even further away. This relation is symmetric in that if a is adjacent to b, then b is adjacent to a, but it is neither reflexive nor transitive. A rectangle is not adjacent to itself (reflexive), and it does not follow from the facts that rectangle X is adjacent to Y and that Y is adjacent to Z, that X is adjacent to Z (transitive). It might or might not be.

If a is a member of R then we say that a has a pattern if there is a member b of R such that a is adjacent to b; a is the same size, shape and orientation as b; and, takes the same values as b in its perimeter. This device allows us to put structure on our layer without needing external definition. And it is fairly unlikely that repetition of this sort will arise from noise.

If the rectangle a has a pattern, then the layer object A on a is defined by starting with a and adding adjacent rectangles with the same pattern. Collectively the rectangles of a layer object are known as its elements. Layer objects may include holes. See illustration 1 below.

Note that while the perimeters of al the elements of a layer object are the same, the interiors need not be. The interiors may contain plenty of signal, over and above that carried by the choice of pattern and the arrangement of the elements of the object in space.

Any one cell can only participate in one pattern and so the layer objects on any one layer are disjoint.

But, by extension, we say that two layer objects are adjacent if there is at least one element of one which is adjacent to an element of the other.

The failure of definition alluded to above can be illustrated by the extreme example of every cell on a layer takes the same value. On the rules given above, one could put patterns all over the place. See illustration 3 below.

The onesize of A is the number of cells in A and is always greater than or equal to 4, usually more.

The twosize of A is the number of its elements and is always greater than or equal to 2.

It may turn out that a pattern functions, in some sense, like a common noun, such as colour, ear or bridge. All the layer objects built on any given pattern would then have something in common, if not a common noun. Alternatively, patterns might local, just a device to delineate layer objects without, in themselves, carrying any more information. Dynamic allocation of pattern to object to suit the needs of the moment. That said, it would probably be helpful if all the objects of any one sort in any one frame of consciousness were defined using the same pattern and we suppose this, at least, to be the case in what follows.

Linking objects on the same layer

Where one layer object is adjacent to another, those two objects are deemed to be parts of some larger whole. Note that, by definition, two such objects cannot be defined on the same pattern – although we do not exclude pattern A then pattern B then pattern A. Such an object might turn out to be useful for something. So we might have a body made up of arms, legs, trunk and head. Perhaps four patterns – or six if we distinguish right and left. Part of the idea here is that activation can easily slide from one part to another.

Where two layer objects A and B are defined on the same pattern in the same layer, they are said to be layer peers. Two examples of the same sort of thing in roughly the same time and space.

Straying outside our single layer, A and B are global peers or just peers if they are layer objects defined on the same pattern, without regard as to which layer.

Linking objects on different layers

In what follows we mainly consider objects on adjacent layers. But most of it does extend further.

Suppose that A is a layer object on one layer and B is an object on the other, defined on the same pattern and sharing at least one cell position with A. Then A and B are in some sense the same object, with the two layers providing different views of it, different views which might be active at more or less the same time. It is quite possible for objects on more than two layers to be linked in this way.

Slightly more complicated is the case that A is in two parts, a big A1 and a little A2. Then B on another layer might link to A2, with B perhaps providing non-visual information about A1 – with the point being that B does not have to be defined on the same pattern as the big part A1 of A.

We call the result of extending a layer object to any other parts there may be and to other layers an extended object.

Different again is the case that A is a layer object on one layer and B is an object on the other, defined on different patterns and sharing at least one cell position. Then A and B are not the same object but they do share time and space.

In the hopefully unusual case that A and B are defined on the same pattern, occupy much the same position but are different objects, we simply make sure there is a spare layer between them which will stop any link being made by default.

From the point of view of visual field of the conscious host, at least one anything like ourselves, there will be a point of view and one of these objects will be in front of the other. So, noting that the layers are ordered by their frequency band, we have a natural order of the layers from high to low. Our convention here is that high layer objects may occlude low layer objects. Note also that we will deal with the question of the modality of layer objects in posts to come. In particular, which layer objects, subject to consideration of occlusion, get into the visual field.

Two and a half dimensions

We have started our definition of objects within a single two dimensional layer, with the layer being the strong organisational feature in our world.

An alternative would have been to treat our data structure more like an ordinary three dimensional array and allow adjacency in three rather than two dimensions, with our basic objects being blobs in three dimensions rather than in two dimensions. We have chosen not to do this, believing our world to be essentially two dimensional, with a few third dimension add-ins. One relevant feature of this third dimension being that it is a very small dimension, with just 10 or so cells, unlike the thousands of cells of the other two.

A minus point for layers is that they are a limited resource, limiting, for example, the depth of occlusion and data hierarchies.

A small plus point for the alternative would have been that an object could exist as a single pattern, a single element on a layer, not allowed by the rules we have set out above.

Special patterns

We have two special categories of pattern. In the first, the perimeter is all low values and we have the low pattern, used to describe a background. In the second, the perimeter is all high values and we have the high pattern, used to describe edges and pain.

Other patterns are in between and might be ordered either by their total value or their average value, both vaguely intensity or salience.

In any one layer, some of the cells will be space, not occupied by patterns at all. The only information available is the value of the cells. Almost the void.

While some of the layer will be background, occupied by objects defined on low patterns. This gives us a bit more structure, a bit more signal.

Large layer objects defined on high patterns with high valued interiors will be pain.

Both edges and pain will be further described in posts to come.

Illustration 1

In the illustrations that follow, click to enlarge as necessary.

The illustration shows the contents of a single layer.

All the rectangles have interiors, albeit a lot of these interiors being just a single cell.

It uses three patterns: the blue, five by five; the brown, three by three; and, the yellow, also three by three. Elements of these patterns are arranged into 11 layer objects, 2 of which are, for example, built on the blue pattern, and the larger of which is made up of 25 elements. Layer objects may contain holes, or more picturesquely, lakes and fiords.

As noted above, where one layer object is adjacent to another, meets another on a edge rather than at a point, those two objects are deemed to be part of some larger whole. The top three yellow objects are adjacent to the large blue object, and so make a larger whole in this sense.

While the top two brown objects are not adjacent to the large blue object and so not part of it; rather, they are independent objects in their own right.

Nor is the yellow object, second left, around row 130, adjacent to the large blue object.

It is quite possible that some of the small objects are representatives of extended objects. They are small and not very informative in this view, but might be quite different in another.

But as far as this layer is concerned, there is just one extended object, made up of the large blue object and the top three yellow objects.

Illustration 2

In the illustration above we plot the number of elements, as a percentage of the total, by layer, of a number of rather extravagantly extended objects, one extended object to each plot. For these purposes we have supposed there to be ten layers.

Except that A is a layer object which has not been extended and F is invalid as it has become disconnected. B exists on two adjacent layers, the first layer being a little larger than the second. C through E start to stretch things out, ending up with the invalid F.

Illustration 3

Here we have imposed some of the patterns from illustration 1 onto a field of sevens. The patterns break none of our rules, but they are not, nevertheless really there.

And a reminder that the task we have set ourselves is to conjure meaning out of the void. Our data structure needs to be interesting of itself, to be self contained and we should not need to go any elsewhere else in order to create that interest. Indeed, we are not able to go elsewhere, there is nowhere else to go. See reference 1 and, more particularly, reference 2.

We associate to the way in which can impose structure onto things like floor coverings involving lots of random dots of various sizes and colour, or like clouds. As far as the first is concerned, it is often pairings of dots which are like eyes which appear first, testimony to the interest us far-seeing vertebrates have to take in each other if we are to survive and prosper.

Illustrations 4 and 5

Here we have a blue object on top of a black lined yellow object behind, on the layer below. We suppose that the patterns on which both objects are defined, the elements of both objects are the cells of the Excel worksheet from which the illustration has been taken.

One option would be to extend the yellow part of the black lined object to the upper layer, thus having the visible parts of the yellow object on the same layer as the blue object, which would simplify activation of the visible part of the scene.

One problem is that in order to do this at all, the visible yellow needs to amount to proper patterns. It would not do if the isolated pair of yellow elements middle right was actually a singleton: singletons are not the stuff of layer objects, although we could probably relax the rules on that point, given that there is a proper object underneath.

Another, more serious problem is that in order to do this neatly, all the objects need to be defined on the same rectangular grid, so that yellow elements are either entirely visible or entirely invisible.

Otherwise we get the problems illustrated below, where the patterns on which the three objects – the green, the blue and the yellow – are defined are not neatly aligned. This is not necessarily fatal if the elements, the outlined rectangles, are small relative to the objects they are defining, but certainly messier than we would have liked.

Other issues

We might decide to restrict our world of rectangles to small, square rectangles, all defined on the same grid. Substantially reducing the number of possibilities in this way has both advantages – for example in dealing with illustration 5 – and disadvantages.

We want to treat several objects as a collective. So we see all the members of the darts team and we are conscious of both some or all of the members and the team as a whole.

This object is member of that category. We might have a number of objects in the visual field and we are conscious of them all being in some category. Perhaps they are all defined using the eskimo pattern, with data about eskimos in general being stored in some object which is not visualised, does not make it to the visual field.

This object describes that object in a non-sensory way.

This object describes that object in a sensory but non-visual way.

Spatial distortions of the visual field in layers. We refer here to the distortions in the various brain mappings of the visual – and other sensory fields.

Thinking of the large amount of noise in amongst the electrical activity of the brain, it might be appropriate to allow soft pattern matching, where while we retain the insistence that two instances of a pattern must have the same shape, we might be more flexible about matching the values.

Thinking of our organisation of the world of consciousness into frames, takes and scenes (see reference 3), there might be a role for a function like ‘pop the top layer’ to move our data structure from one take to the next.

Conclusions

We have made a fresh start to the business of seeing red, hopefully putting it on a slightly firmer foundation.

References

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/seeing-red-rectangles.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/restatement-of-hypothesis.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/describing-consciousness.html.

Group search key: srb.

Another one that got away

I thought I was going to capture another trolley while returning trolley 70, but the Trolley Warden marching purposefully towards the telephone took both it and trolley 70 in charge. It would not have counted anyway, being in sight of the security camera which is not visible behind the Warden, but which may have generated the image which alerted the Trolley Controller in the control room, who then alerted the Trolley Warden.

The Rules Committee have ruled that I can still score trolley 70 as I had got onto Sainsbury's premises before it was confiscated.

Trolley 70

Trolley 70, captured on the Sainsbury's side of the foot bridge over the railway line connecting West Street to the Blenheim Road tip and the housing beyond.

A trolley abandoned in a sensible place. Probably by someone living in said housing - with the performance of getting a loaded trolley over the bridge not being worthwhile for the short distances involved. Possibly by someone who vaguely intended to return the trolley on their next trip.

Trolley 69

Trolley 69, captured at the Ewell end of East Street, not far up from the Kiln Lane entrance to the Tier 1 Sainsbury's outlet there, the owner of this trolley.

Fritillary

The fritillaries planted in the margins of the new daffodil bed are still there, unlike the snowdrops and winter aconites which seem to have completely vanished.

Spring flower

A flower we get at the back of the garden in the spring. A bit like a nettle in habit, with a very pretty yellow flower. I am rather fond of it.

Unfortunately not very photogenic, with the telephone not coping at all well with the strong contrasts of light and shade in the back garden yesterday morning. I didn't seem to be able to get into a good position which did not involve my shadow.

Double Bee

Wednesday past to the Wigmore Hall to hear Steven Osborne give us three intermezzi from Brahms and the last three sonatas from Beethoven (Op.109, Op.110 and Op.111).

As it happened, it was the day of the mayhem at Westminster, which we learned about along the way. As far as we could tell this did not directly affect the Victoria line from Vauxhall to Oxford Circus, but the train, the tube and Oxford Circus were all unusually crowded for an early weekday evening. As was All Bar One in Regent Street, so once again no smarties, settling for cake & monkey in the bar in the basement of Wigmore Hall.

The Hall was near but not quite full. Perhaps some of those intending to come had been caught up in the mayhem. But not the Hall Director, as he was sighted meeting and greeting in the basement. Unusually, the colour scheme of the two monumental pots of flowers flanking the stage was not quite right. Usually they are very good, being from a much grander flower shop than we could afford to patronize.

Then while waiting for the off, I had the odd illusion that the central wall painting at the top of the apse over the stage was an eye, with the picture of muses and what-have-you being what the eye could see. Granted, the painting was eye shaped from where we were sitting, but it was all very odd. Never happened before. Not the same as being there, but google will turn up the painting in question on presentation of the search term 'wigmore hall decorations'.

Osborne, in the main, was very good. The Brahms intermezzi, played in reverse order, made an interesting contrast to the sonatas, but I was not convinced that the concert would not have gone better without them. Too much changing of gear for me. Not helped by there only being a short pause between each intermezzo and the sonata with which it was paired, and with our having been instructed not to clap. Not clapping good, but short pause bad.

The Guardian review of an earlier concert had complained a bit of thumping, giving it only three stars, while the review of this one went up to four. For myself, I thought that there was thumping, perhaps the playing of a young man (Osborne being nearly 50) rather than an old man, with, to my taste, there being too much contrast between the quiet bits and the loud bits. Nevertheless, some of the loud bits, particularly in the last sonata, were very good indeed.

Very little feedback from the (eight) microphones on this occasion. At least what I have taken to be feedback in the past.

Afterwards to the Cock & Lion for a couple of beverages. Rather a good pub, more or less in the old style, although it has to be said that they do serve food during the day.

The net result of all of which was that I drank a little more than is usual these days. Then the first cup of tea of the following morning tasted as if the milk was a little off, which BH told me was the result of the substance abuse of the evening before. Something she claims to have logged consistently over the years. I was not too sure, but as it happens I had a few glasses of wine a few days later and the same thing happened that following morning, so perhaps she is right. Another quirk of the same sort is that when a cold is looming, I start to smell fish everywhere - and prompt action can sometimes head the cold off.

PS: I have heard Osborne at least once before, getting on for two years ago. See reference 1.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/luko.html.

All done

All done for another year or so. Plus ceremonial emptying of the first half dustbin's worth of new season's compost, just visible bottom right. Primeurs as they say across the water. Also the clippings from the first grass cut of the year.

New retaining bar now installed. Made last year, but I never got around to either emptying the bin or installing the new bar. Been at the back of the garage ever since.

PS: in among the half dustbin's worth there was some very important paperwork, only cut one way rather than the more serious cross cut, but it will be a very keen spook who manages reconstitution from its new home.

Group search key: chb.

Slugs

Compost heap nearly empty, with the improved access resulting in the second half going much faster than the first. And certainly much easier taking it out from the front, rather than from the top.

Construction continues to be a puzzle. Why weaken the thing with a concrete post at the corner? Why is there a sort of concrete sill underneath the right hand wall? The bricks are probably what are known in the trade as Dorking Reds.

Quite a lot of roots had made their way in from the back hedge.

Quite a lot of slugs to be seen on the back wall, having thought they had opted for a quiet life. Pale green, up to an inch and a half long. The telephone struggled with light contrasts this snap, but you can just about make them out if you click to enlarge.

PS:  I used to know a chap who had worked at the Dorking brick kilns, an amateur boxer who told me that the heat and fumes from the newly opened kilns did very bad things to the lungs. No idea if they are still there.

Group search key: chb.

Friday's fact

In the course of wondering whether it was still OK to use the word 'eskimo', I took a look at a couple of wikipedia articles about same, a good part of which was given over to consideration of their various languages, following the long tradition of under-employed British army officers of old in the Indian sub-continent - where I understand that some hard-core Hindus are a bit cross that a lot of the serious books about their languages and culture were written by such people.

But I also learned that while the numbers may have been smaller, the Russian treatment of their original peoples in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries was every bit as bad, if not worse, as that meted out to the original peoples of what is now the USA, over much the same period. It seems that the Cossacks, traditionally used for the Tsars' dirty work, had a particularly bad reputation.

There are also some pictures of some rather unusual body armour.

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

Maigret et son Mort

From which I have learned about a whole new sport 'courses cyclists derrière moto'.

It took a minute or so to track down what this meant, with the usually helpful linguee site not being helpful at all on this occasion. But from 'races cycles motorcycles france', google took me to reference 1, from where I quickly got to reference 2, where I learned that racing cycles right behind a motorcycle, both to provide pacing and to provide slipstream, used to be a popular sport, particularly in Germany between the wars, but also in France and the US. Maybe six pairs to a race, with the amount of rules varying from place to place, from race to race.

Big spectator sport in vélodromes, maybe because it was both fast and dangerous.

Still goes on, as can be seen from reference 3, but I have never heard of it before, so maybe not such a big sport these days. Stopped for the duration of the first world war, but carried on through the second.

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

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor-paced_racing.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_National_Stayers_Championships.

Scots

Maybe the farmers up in Scotland are starting to get nervous about what happens when they bust up the union after we leave the EU and we have a nice big wall stretching from the mouth of the Tweed to the Solway Firth.

Who is going to buy all their beef when we have done a deal with the Argies for some of theirs? Will they be reduced to feeding it, free of charge, to all the refugees settling down on their side of the wall?

The evidence being a large hoarding advertising Scotch Beef (the badge of same just visible, top right) appearing last week on the southbound platform at Earlsfield Station.

With the hoarding mainly containing a large piece of cooked fore rib, with some bone but not very much and with virtually no fat blanket at all. But not bad and it did look quite eatable,

While the stuff I used to get from Cheam had plenty of bone, as dug up and noticed at reference 1, although it was a bit low on fat too. From where I associate to the picture of a fore rib in a Devon newspaper, noticed some years ago, being offered by a butcher to a Frenchman who had flown in to a North Devon hotel for the purpose. Proper blanket of fat there, maybe half an inch or more, so he clearly had enough money to have his beef the way he wanted it.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/breakfast-for-worker.html.

Jacobean secrets

Back to Weston Green, to the church on the lake, Saturday past, to hear some Jacobean secrets from the Ripieno Choir, including some pieces by one Orlando Gibbons whose memorial we had come across when we visited Canterbury Cathedral back in February - and who wikipedia now tells me died of a stroke at the early age of 41, back in 1625. A death so sudden that the poor chap was opened up for a confirmation of death of what was then called apoplexy.

A church built in 1939 and which is far more handsome, inside and out, than the pictures at reference 1 would suggest. The same chap who did Guildford Cathedral, another handsome place but one which, we read, is in trouble because the council won't let them flog off some of their land for houses in order to pay the bills - which seems a curious attitude when we are so short of houses. In the interval we discovered a chapel in the southeastern aisle, just beyond the bell pull for what we supposed was just the one bell. There was an impressive amount of industrial bore copper piping, but couldn't get a proper look as someone was praying there. However, we did get a proper look at some of the wooden furnishings in the chancel and we wondered whether they had been brought in from somewhere else, not looking quite of the same time as the building.

Music very serene and rather good, if a bit samey; maybe because it was written before the time when dance music got taken into the classical mix and loosened things up a bit. Latin motets and English anthems, all, I think, ecclesiastical in tone and/or subject matter.

We were sitting near enough the front to be able to see the faces of the members of the choir and I was struck by the way that a couple of dozen of quite different people - although there may have been at least one mother and daughter combination - came together to make music as a team, with everybody singing from the same song sheet. A phrase from the world of work which suddenly acquired a bit of tangible, not to say, audible meaning.

PS: the church cleaners were not so thorough that the chair in front of me did not contain a program from the choir's last outing, back in early January. One which we missed ourselves on account of some prior engagement.

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

Reference 2: http://ripienochoir.org.uk/.

The clash of the titans

The titans in questions being titans of bardology: Stephen Greenblatt, Peter Blayney, Holger Syme, and a knight of our own realm, Sir Brian Vickers. With Sir Brian being sufficiently titanic that I even own a book of his myself, slightly read. But he is also rather old and may have overreached himself.

The story starts with the text of King Lear, with their being two candidates: a Quarto with 300 extra lines and a Folio with 100 extra lines. For a long time the story was that the Folio was a later, improved version got up by the bard himself. But this left the problem of the missing 300 lines, deemed by many to be important.

Sir Brian has now published a rather bad tempered book in which he claims to have finally, once and for all established the intended text of the bard - bad tempered because he includes plenty of intemperate swipes at other bardologists. Holger Syme then went on a marathon, not to say memorable, twitter fest and in more than 500 tweets dismantled much of the Vickers edifice. Peter Blayney was the author of a ground breaking study of text of the Quarto version. While Stephen Greenblatt is the author of a three page, good tempered review in a recent edition of NYRB.

His view seems to be, and one that I happen to agree with, that there can be no such thing as a definitive text, an intended text of such a play. The theatrical culture in bardic times does not admit of such a thing. Any more than you can have a definitive text of some of Proust's work. It was and will remain work in progress.

Not impressed that Harvard should have aided and abetted the whole sorry business by not letting its editors loose on Sir Brian's book; they should not given way to an old man, however eminent. Ironic that the text in question should be the tragic foolishness of another old man!

With thanks to google, wikipedia and Julia Cameron for the image. An image which, to my mind, does a fine job of capturing Lear and his three daughters; two bad and one good, perhaps foolish.

Reference 1: The One King Lear - Sir Brian Vickers - 2016.

Breakfast for the worker

For some reason I did not empty the brick compost bin last year, perhaps because I thought we would get away with it. Which we have, with the bin have only just filled up.

But yesterday, a little late in the new season, I made a start and the bin is now half empty, with the yet-to-rot stuff bottom left having been scraped off top right, leaving the right hand side ready for removal to the back of flower beds.

Along the way I came across quite a lot of bones from fore ribs of beef and rather fewer from necks of lamb, both favourite dishes in days gone by - and a relic of the days when we allowed animal waste in the compost bin - which made for good compost and a lot more worms than we have now, but which attracted the attentions of foxes and rats. And one of our teaspoons, taking the count of teaspoons back up to nine, from the dozen bought from Heals forty years ago. Being stainless steel, no damage at all and now lost in the drawer of same. Plus a more recent plastic bag fastener, a small contraption about the size of a small clothes peg. Rather more bother to clean that one.

It was also an opportunity to bury some old books, once family treasures, now surplus to requirements, and which I prefer to bury rather than have sculling around some charity shop. Buried in decent privacy and after about a year underground there is not much left. From where I associate to the frequent thought that it must be odd for a model who poses half naked for the Sun to come across her ragged image rotting in some gutter. I don't think I would like it at all - but I suppose that if you want to do that sort of modeling you just have to put up with it.

Last but not least, also a rare opportunity to take a real worker's breakfast. That is to say cup of tea on rising, couple of hours' work on a more or less empty stomach, then breakfast proper. A time known to the farm of my youth as docky time. A memory confirmed at reference 1.

Note the trusty army flavoured clasp knife, spike exposed. A spike which we used to be told was to do with taking stones out of horses' hooves, but which I find much for useful for undoing knots in rope, for example that visible just to its left.

PS: interestingly, I had been worried about my back, which has been playing up a bit. But as it turned out, the change of diet seems to have done it some good, rather than making things worse, as I had feared. I have noticed something of the sort before, when the actions involved in picking blackberries from the Horton Lane hedgerows achieved the same end.

Reference 1: http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/d.htm.

Group search key: chb.

Security

It is my practice, more from habit than from necessity, to destroy computing CD's - the sort with things like Windows on them - when I throw them away. I don't usually go so far as to break them up, which can be a bit messy as they are apt to shatter rather than to snap cleanly, but I do score them from the label side with a sharp implement, making sure that the scorings are coming through loud and clear when one turns the thing over.

So I am pleased to be able to report that the knives reported at reference 1 are just the thing. Short sturdy blade with a point and a comfortable handle on which one can get a good grip. With which I have just made short work of the half dozen or so CD's which came with my late lamented Evesham laptop, having only just come across its collateral, this last having been carefully tucked away in a place both safe and obscure.

PS: knives which are still in near daily use for the preparation of breakfast oranges.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/autumn-cutlery-2.html.

The one that got away

A large trolley abandoned on West Hill, by the alley leading down the back of what used to be the Eclipse public house, now flats. A trolley from Morrisons, so probably from the store in Sutton. Possibly arrived by train, with the store being near Sutton Station and the trolley being perhaps a quarter of an hour's push from Epsom Station. But, as ever, one wants the missing back story. How did this particular trolley come to end up here, in this particular place?

I thought about taking it back to Sutton, perhaps this morning if was still there, but decided that it would take too big a chunk out of the day, possibly interfering with luncheon, despite the interesting conversations that might be provoked by the spectacle of me taking the thing on the train.

A pity in the sense that it would have been very nearly exactly a year since the only previous occasion that I have taken a trolley on a train. See reference 1.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/trolley-41.html.

Butterburs

Some time ago, I noticed lots of odd flowers in the banks of the stream down Longmead Road, noticed for the record at reference 1. A notice in which I give no credit to FIL, who was, I think, responsible for tracking down the name of the plant in question, butterbur, from a flower I had brought home for his inspection, using a book from his small stash of handy reference, brought down from Exminster.

This morning they are back again, with dozens of them in the banks. The two illustrated are on the small side, but have the virtue of being on the verge, rather than down the banks, where I could get at them with no danger of getting wet or worse.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=flower+longmead+chapman.

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

Misery

Last week we scored a lifetime first by attending a comedy of Molière, 'The Miser', put on in what was described as a free adaptation to English at the Garrick. Heavily and badly reviewed in the days before we went, to the point that if we had not already had tickets, I doubt that we would have gone at all. The gist of the reviews was destruction of comedy of genius by slapstick and custard pie. Reduction of immortal classic to end of the pier fare.

Started off in with a little something in the Salisbury, little changed from the days when I used the place reasonably regularly, say once every couple of months or so. A fine establishment.

Garrick Theatre looking very smart with lashings of smart new gold leaf in the upper regions. Stalls maybe three quarters full, audience enthusiastic. And being an evening performance, a more theatrical looking lot than we get at our usual matinées. Even a fair sprinkling of people of working age, less than fifty even. At least one celebrity (B list).

The reviews were right in that there were a lot of coarse gags and that a lot of political gags had been inserted, perhaps replacing originally topical gags from the days of the Sun King. Quite a lot of interaction with the audience, but the chap doing it - Maître Jacques - seemed to know his business, only selecting people from the front few rows who looked as if they could manage. We were safe, 10 rows back or so, in any case the sort of distance that I like, not being keen on the very front rows, not least because of the risk of spittle.

But I thought that they were wrong in that translating a comedy, not to say farce, which has been written in rhyming French verse was a tall order, and it was probably inevitable that a large proportion of the original was going to get lost in the process. Probably inevitable that end of the pier stuff was going to fill up the gap. All this probably being why Molière does not appear in London very often.

A bit disappointed in the two leads, Griff Rhys Jones and Lee Mack. But the ensemble as a whole was fine. Costumes a bit overdone. Stage (as nearly always seems to be the case these days) good. Got to the end happily enough, but I would have trouble telling you what the story was now, apart from it being about a miser with a couple of children to marry off on the cheap.

Interested to read in the programme about Molière's strong links to the commedia dell'arte, noticed after a fashion at references 1 and 2.

Wondered about the relationship, if any, between 'miser' and 'misery'. Checking, I find that they are indeed related. Furthermore, there is a drink called miser made from the washings of beehives and a well boring tool called a miser. That apart, the more usual meanings.

With thanks to C. and J. Goodfriend for the illustration. Entitled 'Allons vite, des commissaires' and described as 'Lithograph, 1833-34, 233 x 275 mm., Bibliothèque National Inventaire 9, pl. 270. A very fine impression on white wove paper with good margins. The image shows a scene from Molière’s comedy, usually called in English 'The Miser', but the figure on stage here is clearly Louis Philippe and the print is a satire on the avarice of the citizen king. Desperet, a contemporary of Daumier and one of many great caricaturists of the time, was born in Lyon and worked frequently in conjunction with Grandville'. Not clear how freely the print has translated from the production concerned.

A rather expensive evening, but we were glad to have sampled the French master at last, a near contemporary of our own Shakespeare and as famous in his country as the latter is in ours. Not sure what Twiggy would have made of it all, said to have graced the opening night.

Now the proud owner of a parallel text on the kindle, arranged one paragraph/speech in French, then repeated down the page in English. Probably better for reference than for reading, so I shall look out for a school edition with footnotes and paraphernalia, from Bute Street (South Kensington), next time I am down that way.

Raynes Park platform library inaccessible on the way home. Looked reasonably well stocked.

PS: I read today in the French wikipedia that Maître Jacques carries baggage as 'un personnage symbolique du Compagnonnage', whatever that might mean.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=commedia.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=commedia.

Pudding

Sunday lunch wrapped up today with a rather spectacular sponge pudding, completed with a strained blackberry sauce, blackberries from Horton Lane, vintage 2016. Not to say a coulis.

Given our very real problems with making a reasonable fist of Brexit, which last we do seem to be stuck with, we are getting rather irritated by the amount of unnecessary noise coming from north of the border, so we accompanied the pudding with trying to enumerate all the proper countries of the world, taking it in turns, in which the peace and tranquility was or had been disturbed by the barbarians from the hills, barbarians who, on the whole, were not very good at making their own countries, but who were very good at disturbing those of other people. And who usually fiercely resented attempts to tidy them up. There are certainly plenty of them, and more if you allow deserts and other inhospitable fringes as well as hills.

With some good examples to be found on the western fringes of China, the northern fringes of India and Pakistan. Not to mention the big hills of the Caucasus. Or the Bedouin of the Middle East. And then, nearer home, we have the fictional example of the Doones from the wilds of Exmoor.

Falling tree

A keeling over sapling in the western hedge of Horton Lane, coming up to the golf club on the left.

I thought to try tying it back up with a couple of feet of fan belt or some such lying nearby.

I dare say that once upright it would not have needed that much to hold it there and that in time it would have stayed of its own accord, but it was going to take a fair push to get the sapling upright again and I was not sure that I could both push it and tie it back single handed without damage (to me), so desisted. Would probably have managed with a proper rope, so perhaps tomorrow I will take a length out.

Not clear why it had keeled over, although the council tree tenders have been down the lane fairly recently, with their rather rough and ready methods. But no flail on this occasion, which was something - unlike coming up to the newly refurbished crossroads at Malden Rushett, from Epsom, where the council flail (or perhaps the TFL flail) has made a right mess of the northern hedge.

Woodworm scare

The new audio kit first noticed at reference 1 has served well, for more than five years now. For some of which time I have been thinking about doing something about the spike problem.

If you click to enlarge, a short spike, one of four, can be seen front left, under the loudspeaker stand base. Spikes which I imagine are designed to give the loudspeaker assembly firm and level standing on a fitted carpet. While standing on softwood flooring is apt to result in punctures, leaving holes which looks rather like woodworm holes. Even with a modest amount of moving about, over the years one gets quite a lot of woodworm holes.

A few weeks ago, we had a bit of a panic and thought that some of the holes really were woodworm holes. Perhaps the mature woodworms thought the spike holes were a fine place to lay eggs? So off to buy some woodworm destruction fluid. Robert Dyas, Travis Perkins and Wickes all fail. Perhaps the demise of brown-wood furniture has meant the demise of most woodworms. Finally run down a litre of something suitable in Homebase, soon to be Bunnings (a member of the Wesfarmer family). Couple of coats liberally applied to the two patches of holes, being careful to keep the windows open. The stuff smelt entirely carcinogenic and goodness what else ogenic.

Then moved onto the construction of a couple of low stands to take any further damage from the spikes. Stained and sadolinned they did not look too bad, although the sadolin took an age to dry. I then thought that it might be an idea to fix three pads or prongs to the underside of each stand, giving the stand a non-rock tripod finish, as opposed to the wobbling, not to say rocking finish one might otherwise have had.

Screwfix had some screw caps, but not quite what I wanted, so off to Homebase again, which I found to have the best selection of nails, screws, bolts, fittings and fixtures that I know around here. Just the thing for the amateur who does not know exactly what he wants, but is open to suggestions arising from extensive stock. Settled for some substantial bolts, brace and bitted the necessary holes and then seated the bolts with a wood adhesive, adhesive which won't stop me getting the bolts out, should need arise, but which will stop them working themselves out.

All in all, a rather rough bit of carpentry, but it will serve. And Homebase is now the DIY emporium of choice. Let's hope that the upcoming Bunnerisation does not do too much damage. See reference 2.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=reisner+sevenoaks.

Reference 2: https://www.bunnings.com.au/.

Rodney Graham

To London on Monday, for what turned out to be an introduction to the work of Rodney Graham, featured, as it happens, in today's Guardian.

But first off to the All Bar One in Regent Street, to find it very quiet and without hot water, so we repaired to the Langham Hotel, an establishment with hot water, which is as it should be, with the place claiming to be a London icon, defining the art of the stay since 1865. The place had had a catering refresh since we were last there which meant a different brand of biscuits and no Riesling, at least not by the glass, but the white wine they could provide was perfectly acceptable.

From there to the Wigmore for a lunchtime concert given by the Kungsbacka Piano Trio, with the Schumann Op.80 trio followed by the Ravel A minor. I rather liked the platform manners of the violinist, and her smart red trousers, a style which in a man I might call dungarees, but I dare say that was not what she called them. Along the way we had one loud clank of bow against instrument, the cello falling off its perch on the floor and an Apple electrical score to support the piano part of the encore. An encore which no-one near us was able to pin down, despite various learned suggestions. All very good, a reminder that trios are good.

The only down point being, apart from a head blocking part of my view, that having seats about ten rows back in the right hand aisle meant that the cello was facing away from us, in fact more or less at right angles, which seemed to result in its contribution sometimes getting a bit lost.

Out to Ponti's for lunch in John Prince's Street. All perfectly fine, but we find that they have had a catering refresh too. The tiramisu, for example, was in cocktail glass format rather than in brick format on a plate. We wondered whether the couple who founded the place back in the 60's of the last century have now handed over to offspring, offspring who, like most of us when newly in the chair, want to flex their muscles a bit.

And so down Regent Street where we failed to find any watches of the sort noticed at reference 1, only being able to spend around £10,000 or so. Down to Pall Mall, to mourn the passing of Davidoff, only to realise that we were in the wrong street. Hopefully they are still up and running, should I ever fall for a cigar again.

Inspected the fashion art work (noticed at reference 2) outside Canada House and then pushed on inside to see a small exhibition of work by Rodney Graham, billed as a Canadian Impressionist. Quirky stuff, not high art, but clean, decent and sometimes funny. No dead animals, no blood and guts, no litter or other rubbish. Then today the Guardian features the picture illustrated, apparently showing the closure of a branch of Woolworths in 1947, complete with a portrait of himself reading the news pasted on the windows and his wife walking past.

139 bus back to Waterloo, a rather quicker journey than we expected as the bus was allowed to turn right out of the Strand onto Waterloo Bridge.

The outing closed with our wondering how on earth pilots land their jumbos into the setting sun, which seemed to be what was required towards the end of this March afternoon. Do they just shut their eyes and let the computers do their work?

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/conspicuous-consumption.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/cheese.html.

Trolley 68

The first trolley for more than a month, with this one being captured in East Street, opposite what used to be the King's Arms public house before Youngs pushed the rent up above what the place could carry. Maybe a hundred yards short of the Kiln Lane turning into Sainsbury's. A smart, clean trolley,

For once a passing gent., almost certainly a fellow pensioner, took an interest in the matter, admitting to collecting the odd trolley himself. I was able to explain something of the mysteries of the security device on the front wheel to him, which we agreed was clearly not working properly.

Nor did the securitised wheel work properly as a wheel, having a marked tendency to spin round and round in a horizontal plane, rather than turn in a vertical plane, when pushed along the admittedly rough pavement.

After dropping the trolley off at the big stack outside the front entrance, I was pleased to find that the alley up the side of the Sainsbury's building which leads to the footbridge over the railway, had been swept for litter quite recently, maybe earlier this morning. Much better than it had been, for example, a couple of Christmases ago. See reference 1.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/litter.html.

Coding for red and other stuff

We have talked elsewhere about the objective of defining a patch of data and process which amount to the experience of consciousness. See reference 1.

Here we talk about how a unit of that data, a layer object, might be coded up to represent something which is mainly red – with things like the uniform patch of red top left in the illustration being relatively unusual in the natural world in which we evolved.

We have a division of labour here between the various layer objects making up our data structure and the various elements making up an individual layer object. Here we look at what might be done within an individual layer object, an object defined by a collection of contiguous soft centred patterns, the elements of our object.

The sizes, shapes and perimeters of all the elements of our layer object are identical, by definition. While the interiors, or soft centres, will usually vary.

We suppose that our layer object has extent rather than length, is space like rather than line like. But we want to allow a bit of structure within that extent. We want to allow variation of colour and we want to allow lines to highlight transition from one part of the object to another. This might, for example, help us represent all or part of the folded red cloth, middle left in the illustration. Or we might, of course, just settle for patches of slightly different colour, with any lines being implicit rather than explicit. But the present thought is that explicit will help the activation process trace out and make conscious the structure before us.

We suggest below one way of using soft centres to do this, to define colours and lines, one way among many, with the target being the sort of red pictures illustrated. We note in passing that we are probably some way off, some years off, knowing how the brain actually does this. And we wonder in passing whether it would help to look at the machinery which some cephalopods – octopuses, squids, cuttlefish and such like – use to change the colour of their skin, machinery which can take input from their two eyes, very much like our own, process it, and pump it back out to the skin as camouflage. Although judging from a quick google, that does not seem to be the way that flexible fashion is going, where the technology seems to be common or garden LED arrays mounted on a flexible substrate. But, for cephalopods, see reference 2.

Our soft centre is a small rectangular array of integers, from low value to high value, perhaps 0 to 10, or [0,10], where this last notation means 0, 10 and all the integers between. Although, as will be seen in what follows, there may be advantage in the upper bound, the high value, being a prime number, say 7 or 11. Small rectangle in the sense of not usually more than, say, ten columns or ten rows. And remembering that the perimeter will take two of each from each element of the layer object. We call the individual elements of such an array its cells.

We suppose that any colour can be represented, at least after a fashion, by a soft centre of any size, although (for the moment anyway) the soft centres of any one layer object will all be the same size. But more size, then more information, more detail.

We further suppose that the colour of an element as a whole is not changed by permuting the values of its cells, which two suppositions taken together suggest that subjective colours are a function of the values of the cells taken together, rather than separately. As far as colour is concerned, it is their statistical properties which count, not their geometrical properties.

And given that we use just a small number of integer bins for the values of the cells, we think that there should not be that much noise, although our arrangements will need to allow for some.

And lastly, we suppose that the representation of colour in our element is self contained. It and its associated activation process have to amount to the experience of seeing red, without reference to anything else in our data structure, and certainly not to anything else outside. However, if this particular experience of seeing red was to do with or was associated with, for example, some fire engine, then that fire engine would need to be included in our data structure,  inclusion which would be likely to include other properties and emotional colour. But for present purposes we suppose that our seeing of red does not come with baggage of that sort. We suppose that we can be conscious of seeing red without it coming with baggage of that sort. We suppose that a baby experiences red before it attaches red to other stuff in its world.

We imagine that it is this property of being self contained which accounts for the brain’s profligate use of bits and bytes, compared with a computer, where the data is not self contained at all, is meaningless in the absence of all the other data and information which is needed to give it context and meaning. Location 512,673 might well contain an integer of four bytes, but that is of no help at all unless you are told what that location is all about – and that telling might amount to a lot more than four bytes.

All that given, we then take the nearest integer of the average value over the interior of an element. In the case that this is high value, the element is declared to be a marker. Such a marker might mark part of a line between two patches of different colour, a bend in such a line, a junction or a crossing of two or more such lines. Contiguous markers build up into a network of lines, not necessarily connected.

In the case that this is low value, we have nothing. Null.

Otherwise the element is declared to be a colour. The present notion is that colour is coded by powers of 2, 3, 5, for red, green, and blue respectively, with it being quite possible that we need to do something more for black and white. And given that high value is some prime number bigger than 5, there is no confusion there. We take the product of the values of the cells in our rectangle, with the combined power of 2 divided by the maximum possible giving the red value in the range [0,1], that of three the green value and that of five the blue value. All along the lines of the RGB values that can be used for colours in MS Office. Any other small primes – we are not allowing big values – are spare and could be used to code other stuff, other stuff appropriate to extents in the way that colour is.

And large elements will be able to capture finer distinctions than small elements. Suppose, for example that our cells can take integer values in the range [0,7], so the maximum value for the power of 2 at a cell is 2. If we have an interior with two rows and two columns, the maximum possible value of the power of 2 for an element as a whole is 8. So we will be able to code for red on a scale of [0,8]. While if we have a three by three interior we will be able to code for red on a scale of [0,18], giving us more than twice as many shades. In this way, it can be seen that large elements will give greater discrimination between colours than small elements.

The product of the values of the interior cells of an element – with the uniqueness of prime decomposition - seems less destructive of detailed information than addition of values.

There is a lack of symmetry here in that, in this context, 2, 3 and 5 are significantly different. Maybe in some obscure way reflecting the distribution of the numbers of colour cones on the retina, approximately and respectively 20:10:1. With the finer detail afforded by the small 2 being reflected by the greater  number of corresponding cones. But a plus is that it is an example of the sort of thing that might become a bit of evidence that we all see the colour red in the same way. If red is always based on 2, then the coding and the activation will be the same for everybody. My red is the same as your red.

We still have to work the much larger number of rods into our story.

Remembering in this that we have compilation, which could be used to tidy things up a bit. Remove what appears to be noise from the interior of soft centred patterns.

Conclusions

We have suggested one way in which patches of colours might be coded in our consciousness generating patch of cortex, modelled as a layered data structure associated with compiled activation processes.

The next step is to have a go with this in Excel, where there is enough cell colouring machinery to try some of all this out.

References

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/seeing-red-rectangles.html.

Reference 2: Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life - Godfrey-Smith, Peter – 2017.

Fallen tree two

The same tree as in the previous post, this time looking up and west, from just by the fat end of the fallen bough. Next time I go by, I will have to remind myself how the fallen bough can look so different from the two different angles.

Group search key: hlb.

Fallen tree one

The trees continue to fall in Horton Lane, a lot of them the turkey oaks commented on at reference 1. In the recent case illustrated looking roughly east, a large bough rather than the tree, but with brown rot clearly visible.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/round-and-about-in-epsom-2.html.

Group search key: hlb.

FCH Celebrity Constellation

There was supplement about cruising with last week's Saturday DT, a supplement from some people called Imagine Cruising (also to be found at reference 3), in amongst the stuff about motoring, money, property and so on. We could, for example go for a cruise around the Indian Ocean, in the company of several thousand other punters, on the FCH Celebrity Constellation. A snip at between £100 and £200 per day per person, very much the same sort of rates as a hotel or care home on dry land. And with a doctor, nurse and well stocked pharmacy being thrown in. And you might get to have a ride on one of those 400 person bottles which passes for a life boat. See reference 2.

Then the thought struck me that maybe this was the way to get across the Atlantic, without having to be stuck in an aeroplane for six hours or more - with being stuck in a cramped position for that length of time being a bit of a pain these days. A quick gander at the schedules suggests that such a thing might well be possible - and not too time consuming as there are not too many World Heritage sites to stop off at in the North Atlantic. At 20 knots one should be able to do it in 4 or 5 days. For the two crossings, maybe ten days out of one's holiday.

However, I then find that the world of cruising is as tiresome as that of the insurance noticed a couple of posts ago. A world awash with haggling, long phone calls to computers & call centres, deals and special offers. A sort of car boot sale for the elderly. And while one could just pay the rack rate and have done with, I am sure that I would find it very annoying to find that we had paid twice as much as the people in the next cubicle. No where near rich enough not to care about such trivia.

I then thought that perhaps the answer is, rather than throwing thousands at cruise companies, to throw them at buying first class travel on an aeroplane, thus reducing the cramping factor a bit. With the catch there being that at first glance it is quite a lot more thousands and at second glance there is a car boot sale here too. Another world awash with haggling, long phone calls and so on and so forth.

So that is not going to do after all and I expect that we shall wind up sticking with the Isle of Wight. A couple of hours in our own car is much more manageable from every point of view.

PS: perhaps the long term answer is to reactivate insurance agents and travel agents, and just to pay them their 10% commission to do the car boot bit for you. Agents that are real people to whom you can talk to in person, face to face. Provided, of course, that it is just 10%.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/a-windy-day.html. For an example of a previous discussion of FCH.

Reference 2: https://www.rina.org.uk/mega-lifeboat.html.

Reference 3: https://www.imaginecruising.co.uk/.